UC-NRLF 
 

 %*! 
 
 I 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 GEORGE MOREY RICHARDSON. 
 
 Received, ^August, 1898. 
 v ^Accession No. 7.J?.y. 7 y Class No. 
 
 lfeKJS2^?KSZKSZS2S2S2iZM:^ 
 
 
/ 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 BY 
 
 AUGUSTA LARNED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1887 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1887, 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 Press W. L. Mershon & Co 
 Rahway, N. J. 
 
M/HA/ 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The sketches composing this volume first appeared in 
 the Evening Post of New York, and were designed to 
 depict the varying scenes and changes of nature and 
 some of the aspects of country life. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 iPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. A GREEN NEW YEAR i 
 
 II. SOME VILLAGE CHARACTERS, 9 
 
 III. PARADISE FARM AND AUNT DIDO, .... 16 
 
 IV. HUGH THE DRUID, ROSE MADDER THE IMPRES 
 
 SIONIST, 28 
 
 V. RASTUS THINKS OF GETTING MA RRIED, . . 36 
 
 VI. THE WRENS NEST, 46 
 
 VII. A MORMON SETTLEMENT. STEPHEN LOSES His 
 
 MONEY, 54 
 
 VIII. THE HON. HIGHFLYER VISITS THE VILLAGE, . . 64 
 
 IX. THE VILLAGE CLUBS. ST. PATTY AND HER JUBILEE, 73 
 
 X. THE POOR-HOUSE CHILDREN. OLD PETER S GIRLS, 85 
 
 XI. THE VILLAGE POST-MISTRESS, 94 
 
 XII. SAYINGS AND DOINGS OF Miss CANDACE, . . 103 
 
 XIII. THE BUSY BEES, 112 
 
 XIV. THE DOCTOR S TROUBLE, 121 
 
 XV. THE BOY ALMIRA ADOPTED, 130 
 
 XVI. ONE SPRING DAY IN HUGH S LIFE, . . . 139 
 
 XVII. THE HELP QUESTION AT ERASER S, . . . .149 
 
 XVIII. THE DELIGHTFUL MAJOR 159 
 
 XIX. A ROSE-BUD GARDEN OF GIRLS 169 
 
 XX. THE COLORED BROWNS 179 
 
 XXI. THE MINISTERS GLEBE AND HOPE S LOVE STORY, 186 
 
 XXII. FASCINATING MRS. BRIDGENORTH, . . . 198 
 
 XXIII. A STAGE-STRUCK GIRL, 209 
 
 XXIV. SHIFTLESS JABEZ, 219 
 
 XXV. CUPID AMONG JUNE ROSES. THE LITTLE MAIDEN 
 
 SISTERS, 229 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 XXVI. MRS. LEGALITY AT THE WILDERNESS LODGE, . 238 
 
 XXVII. THE "Dies" BOARDING-HOUSE, .... 248 
 
 XXVIII. THE OLD SWEETHEART ....... 257 
 
 XXIX. THE STORY OF JOB BIRD, ..... 269 
 
 XXX. THE OLD TAVERN STAND, ...... 280 
 
 XXXI. ZIP COON A DOG STORY, ..... 291 
 
 XXXII. A DOMESTIC TYRANT, . . . . . .301 
 
 XXXIII. THE HOLWORTHY GIRLS, ..... 311 
 
 XXXIV. THE MOST POPULAR GIRL IN THE VILLAGE, . . 321 
 XXXV. THE MYSTERY OF STYLES GARTH, . . . 332 
 
 XXXVI. JOHN DEAN AND ORIANA, ...... 343 
 
 XXXVII. HUGH GETS A LADY IN HIS EYE, .... 354 
 
 XXXVIII. A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, ..... 363 
 
 XXXIX. How BILL FULLER WAS INDEMNIFIED, ... 374 
 
 XL. JELLY CICERO OLDHAM FALLS INTO ERROR, . . 384 
 
 XLI. STRANGE DISTURBANCES AT STILLWELLP, . . 396 
 
 XLII. BROTHER GEORGE, ....... 408 
 
 XLI II. THE UNEARNED INCREMENT, ..... 419 
 
 XLIV. JOE ELMORE AND BOB SMARTWEED AT HOME . . 432 
 
 XLV. A BUNDLE OF LOVE-LETTERS. .... 444 
 
 XLVI. LOOSE ENDS AND DROPPED STITCHES OF VILLAGE 
 
 LIFE, ......... 453 
 
 XLVII. CHRISTMAS IN THE VILLAGE ...... 466 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A GREEN NEW YEAR. 
 
 I^HE first snow flurry has sifted its white powder from 
 a gray cloud only to be followed by a burst of sun 
 light chasing the winter gloom from hill and valley until 
 they glitter again in warm browns, gold, and blue, and 
 violet. High winds have whipped the trees naked, and 
 they must go unclad through the cold season owing to 
 the singular inhumanity of nature. But in their naked 
 ness they will contrive to protect the waxy leaf-buds at 
 every point and axis of their being. These buds are 
 babies they dandle and sing to when the wind blows and 
 the snow falls. 
 
 The village is too small to have a name familiar to 
 many, but it stands well planted on a small piece of soil 
 which helps to hold the earth together. The grass is 
 faded, but the evergreens are lusty and of a splendid 
 strength. I think I have heard them shout on cold days 
 when all the other trees looked miserable from the 
 whipping of the wind. They were not only born to 
 endure hardness, but to love it. We talk of heart of oak, 
 but give me the heart of a pine or hemlock wherewith 
 to defy misfortune. 
 
 Of all the lovely tribes that so lately adorned our 
 woods and fields, we must now content ourselves with a 
 handful of bitter-sweet, and a few ivy leaves, or a branch 
 
2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of cedar and a cluster of the ground-pine. Still the 
 swamp grass is pretty, and the stubble takes on a pale 
 gold like sunshine, and the clean brown fields are good 
 to walk in, yielding a companionship which is very sweet 
 if a little sad. 
 
 The long village street is raftered over with the inter 
 laced branches of the elms, and at either end the arcade 
 opens to a pleasant vista such as an artist would love. 
 Eastward lies the old burying-ground, with gently swell 
 ing hills behind it, and at the western end is a sharp 
 spire of Saddleback Mountain, and the glade of a wild 
 brook it has sent down into the valley. 
 
 The little pools have acquired a crust of ice pellucid 
 and thin like a sheet of window glass, through which one 
 can see the roots of plants at the bottom. By-and-by 
 the ice will thicken on the pond to a blue translucency 
 and get etched in fine lines as the boys try the runners 
 of their skates. The robin sitting on a stake in the 
 orchard fence feels his feathers blown aside showing the 
 beauty of the pale red-breast, while the clinging pink 
 toes look half frozen. The clouds look cold with dark 
 scuds moving fiercely, still letting down sudden gleams 
 of splendor, until at sunset they are blown all away. 
 The heavens then are open and serene, with a fervid 
 glow in the west, against which every object looks black. 
 The earth is a charcoal sketch, lying banked *up against 
 that great western blaze, and here and there a mellow 
 lamp throws out its ray from some low window. 
 
 The village houses look lower and smaller than they 
 did in the warm days, as if they had shrunk inwardly and 
 had gathered themselves up to resist the winter cold. 
 The front doors are rather forbidding now, whereas they 
 used to stand wide open. You must seek the back way 
 if you would find the housewife and the stove. Still 
 every house feels the dignity of its parlor, if it is cold and 
 cheerless. Many of the houses are well banked with 
 
THE SHOEMAKER. 3 
 
 tanbark, and make one think of beaver dams and rabbit 
 burrows. Man s habitation in winter is only an improve 
 ment on the fox s hole. He hibernates like the bear, 
 gradually withdrawing his interest from the outer world 
 as the cold advances, and concentrating it on the fireside, 
 the cellar, the cattle-shed, and the barn. It is only in 
 cities where an artificial heat is made by stone and brick 
 walls and the united breath of a great population that 
 people do not go into the winter drowse. 
 
 Now the woodshed begins to be a matter of great 
 importance. The village " forehanded " man is known 
 by the neatness of his piles of split hickory heaped up in 
 the sacred repository of fuel. But coal is used in many 
 houses, and the sound of the grimy shoveler is heard as 
 the winter store goes into cellar and bin. The good 
 little maiden sisters in their birds -nest cottage where the 
 flaming Virginia creeper has lost all its leaves, have been 
 made very happy by two loads of wood, which a kind- 
 hearted farmer drew for them, and the village lads have 
 split it into lengths for the tiny stove and piled it close 
 within the sisters reach, and they are as snug for the 
 winter as two dormice. Their wise cat looks out of the 
 bright little window, and follows them to church still, 
 although she loves not wet or frosty ways. 
 
 The shoemaker hugs his stove, and now works in an 
 overheated atmosphere, such as all shoemakers seem to 
 delight in. He is a crooked old man, with head and 
 beard as white as snow, and a fine pale skin and delicate 
 features, for too much indoor work has spoiled his ruddy 
 complexion. He knows almost every pair of shoes in 
 the village, for his cure of soles is a large one. A curious 
 heap of foot-casings lies in one corner of his shop. 
 They all have a character of their own, from the " stub 
 bed " copper toes of Widow Blair s son to Farmer Grime s 
 great square-soled boots. There are women s shoes, 
 some slender and worn discreetly on the side, some coarse 
 
4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 and run down at the heel, some of dainty kid, " store- 
 kept," for which the old man has supreme contempt. 
 The lasts upon the shelf are all ticketed : " Old Lady 
 Holt." Yes, he has made for her these past thirty years. 
 Young " Widow Holt," the son s wife, came from the city, 
 and has " notions." How he has stood before that young 
 woman and lectured her in his slow way on the wicked 
 ness of French heels ! A book lies open turned down 
 on the bench, and there are moments when the old man 
 stops sewing John Dean s " Oxford tie " and takes it up, 
 adjusting the spectacles on his nose and leaning forward 
 with his chin protruding. It is not the Bible. The old 
 man seldom reads that now. It is a book of science, 
 treating of the evolution of the human race. Often the 
 young parson comes in and sits beside him there on the 
 bench, and the two hold weighty arguments together of 
 righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, but 
 the old man is not convinced. On Sunday the shoe 
 maker goes not to church. All day he is deep in science 
 and philosophy, while his old wife trudges off alone to the 
 meeting, and, coming home again, says, " Oh, father, if 
 you only could have heard that sermon ! " But the shoe 
 maker laughs, with a slight touch of contempt, at the 
 idea that the young minister can teach him any thing. 
 He may come and learn of him, if he will, sitting on the 
 workman s bench, but the old man will not sit in the pew 
 .to return the compliment. The neighbors think, accord 
 ing to the eternal fitness of things, this obstinate, con 
 ceited old man should not be happy, but I am fain to 
 confess that he is, as he sings to his lapstone, in a des 
 perately cracked voice, those old psalm tunes he learned 
 at his mother s knee ; not from pious fervor does the old 
 man sing them, but because these have stuck to his 
 memory like burrs, and he knows no others. 
 
 Not far from the low shoemaker s shop, where the 
 smoke is pouring in a black stream from the stove-pipe 
 
THE VILLAGE DOCTOR. 5 
 
 which crowns the chimney, is the doctor s office, with his 
 house adjoining. A square, plain house it is, solid and 
 home-looking, with a great comfortable garden at the 
 back filled with every variety of vegetables, interspersed 
 in the old-fashioned way with such common and hardy 
 flowers as bloom with little care. Hollyhocks, sun 
 flowers, larkspurs, marigolds, tiger lilies, bachelor buttons, 
 and clove pinks grow in pleasant profusion along the 
 borders in summer time, but now the garden is a broken 
 and withered waste. The little drug-shop stands next to 
 the house, and is the doctor s office. The green curtain 
 is drawn, showing the good doctor is at home engaged 
 with a stray patient, who has come in to talk about 
 " rheumaticks," the common village complaint. The old 
 white horse and much-bespattered chaise, still uncleaned 
 from his last round of country visits, stands in the stable 
 ready to be " tackled " and put in motion on short notice. 
 Small peace and quiet has this rough, wise, humorous 
 country doctor, with his gray tousled head, his shaggy 
 eye-brows lowering over the kindest eyes, and his blunt 
 speech giving forth nuggets of sarcastic wisdom for the 
 benefit of his neighbors. Blunt he indeed is, and not too 
 choice in his language when awakened from his first nap 
 after a heavy day s work by a call to go three miles 
 through the dark and cold over miry roads, perhaps 
 through rain and snow, to some hysterical woman. 
 
 But who could guess of the deep true vein of poetry in 
 that rough bit of human nature ! Often as he bowls 
 along on these errands at night, gently touching up his 
 old nag, who has served him faithfully these many years, 
 he repeats aloud long passages from Shakespeare s plays, 
 or verses from the book of Job, his two favorite poets. 
 He half shouts out the lines sometimes as he looks up at 
 the bright stars through the naked tree branches, or sets 
 the music of those immortal bards to the great sad sough 
 of the wind in pine branches. So he splashes and rum- 
 
6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 bles away on his visit of mercy, beating his breast with his 
 disengaged arm to keep off the cold, and raising his voice 
 in the highest flights of poetry to warm his soul. How 
 much that old man knows of human weakness, human 
 vanity, human depravity ! How much he knows of the 
 sin and sorrow which have entered into so many of the 
 gray, lonely farm-houses scattered over the hills and 
 through the valleys ! How often he has acted the con 
 soler and friend with tears of sympathy filling those 
 kindly eyes ! How often he has shown himself the stern 
 reprover of vice, even to using his stick upon some de 
 linquent youth who was ushered into the world through 
 his skill, and has lived to disgrace the mother who bore 
 him ! I am fain to confess the testy doctor has appeared 
 more than once in court to answer for such breaches of 
 the peace, but a good case has always been made out for 
 him even when he has been forced to pay a small fine. 
 A terror to evil-doers, to profligate, idle, useless peo 
 ple is the old doctor. And have peace, and love, and 
 joy always abode in his dwelling ? Alas, no. He had 
 one fair daughter, a wild willful girl who married 
 against his wishes and is lying now in her grave. I 
 hear her child, a flaxen-haired girl of fourteen, just 
 touching the keys of the old piano in the parlor, where 
 her mother used to play and sing in a heavenly sweet 
 voice. The child has brought a great compensation to 
 the doctor and his patient, pale-faced wife. She has 
 reconciled the old man to the world, for he was once 
 cynical and hard, all gone wrong with bitterness of spirit. 
 Now he goes and sits under the preaching of the young 
 parson, his grandchild s hand in his, and says softly 
 under his breath, " God be merciful to me a sinner." 
 
 That child of his loves the wild flowers, and the birds, 
 and the clouds, and every sight and form of nature. So 
 in the bleak weather he takes her, well wrapped up, ori 
 those long drives to lonely places in the hills. There 
 
SADDLEBACK. 7 
 
 they go down the road under the big elms, across the 
 bridge by the mill, where the ruby-colored water is still 
 foaming over the great idle wheel. If the north wind 
 still continues to send forth its blasts, the wrinkled, 
 opaque mirror of the pond will grow smooth as glass, 
 and the wheel will adorn itself with thousands of jagged 
 icicles and much fantastic lace-work in crystal pendants. 
 The boys and girls of yonder school will soon be skating 
 and sliding, and sprawling like frogs all over the pretty 
 place where geese and ducks paddled in summer time, 
 while they reared their broods under the pollards. The 
 grists are almost ground for this year. They have made 
 Christmas bread and pies and cake. The earth hath 
 yielded her generous increase. Now she girds herself to 
 endure the cold. Now she lies patient under the flail of 
 the blast and waits for the chastening of the snow. 
 
 The road mounts and mounts from hill to hill, as if, 
 like the tower of Babel, it would build itself into heaven. 
 And on the right grows the vision of Saddleback, a long 
 mountain with a hump covered all over with a thick shag 
 of forest. Many little brooks come down from Saddle 
 back and run through the lowlands with refreshing cool 
 ness and the earth gurgle of laughter. It is the office of 
 old Saddleback to offer a cup of cool water in the name 
 of his Creator. He is our barometer and our ther 
 mometer. When the clouds gather in a certain way on 
 Saddleback it always rains. When he grows dim and 
 ghostly and withdraws into his cloudy tent and shuts the 
 door, it is a certain sign of heat. I wonder the people 
 out on the prairies do not build themselves mountains as 
 landmarks and objects of affection. A mountain need 
 not be very high nor very beautiful to be so intimately 
 inwoven with life that one would miss it like a household 
 companion. It is a good thing to tie up to. It renders 
 the planet stable. It accents the lowlands and gives 
 them emphasis. 
 
8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 The old doctor dearly loves Saddleback. He has 
 wandered all over it with his grandchild in pursuit of 
 nuts, and ferns, and mosses, and autumn leaves ; its top 
 is clothed with pines, and a small spring gushes out near 
 the summit from under the shelter of a great gray 
 bowlder, all embroidered with golden moss and little 
 evergreen ferns, and in spring with wild flowers. Now 
 there is nothing under foot but the red pine needles, and 
 overhead a cloud of dark foliage supported by columnar 
 stems. These serried ranks make a fine contrast on 
 bright mornings to the living blue of the sky. The mount 
 ain gathers a deep cerulean, and the purple tree-boughs 
 work themselves out in far vistas with exquisite intricacy. 
 The doctor is quoting poetry aloud as he gently strokes 
 his old nag with the tingling end of his whip, and the 
 solid satisfaction of a day like this beams from his eyes 
 and irradiates his rugged countenance. It is a good 
 open mild day the first of the New Year. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME VILLAGE CHARACTERS. 
 
 THE village has no manufacturing interests. It is a 
 mere ganglion of inhabitants and houses knotted 
 together, why or wherefore one can hardly tell. Nature 
 holds the little place in its snug hollow like a bird s nest, 
 as if it loved it, as it never can love a smoke-begrimed 
 neighborhood, or one resounding with the discordant 
 noises of much industry. It is pure and spotless these 
 winter days, with the elm trunks and boughs making 
 delicate tracery on the snow, and the sunlight glittering 
 on the clean window-panes in old houses. The snow has 
 not destroyed the charm of little winding footpaths over 
 hills and through bits of evergreen coppice and oak 
 groves, where the leaves still hang, and rattle in the 
 winter wind as if made of stiff paper. Everywhere peeps 
 out the still, white world to the blue of the sky, and the 
 warm gray of rocks, and living green of mosses, with the 
 endless poem of tree trunks, and boughs spotted with 
 white bits of lichen, and colored variously for just this 
 season of the year. 
 
 The famous village ramble is Burying-Ground Walk 
 leading to the old graveyard, with its new smart portion 
 called the cemetery for even the smallest country places 
 have advanced of late years in mortuary architecture, and 
 the idea of what a burial place should be. This path is 
 the favorite in summer, and it is very beautiful in the 
 cold season, owing to the great number of cedars, spruces, 
 and hemlocks, that for a mile and a half line it with their 
 warm fur, while the vista opens to the slope of Saddle- 
 
io VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 back, and the old red farm-houses corne so near in view, 
 that you can almost shake hands with the inhabitants. 
 It is skirted on one side by a noisy brawling trout-brook, 
 that runs like a perpetual life current out of the breast of 
 Saddleback, and gurgles under the ice of early winter, 
 making a choice music around its big stones. The fields 
 lie in peace just beyond, their russet brownness showing 
 through the glaze of ice or where the snow has worn 
 away in patches. This rustic aspect is delightful around 
 the graves of the dead. It still holds them in fealty to 
 the soil. The sights and sounds they knew best when in 
 the world are near at hand. The plowman whistles to 
 his team, cows low in the pasture, and idle, truant boys 
 angle along the stream in closest neighborhood to that 
 silent village which is bound by so many invisible fibres 
 to the homes of the living. The brook is lined with 
 violets and anemones in April, and in June the air is 
 loaded with the scent of new-mown hay. In autumn 
 asters and golden-rod make a splendid carpet under the 
 trees, and in certain select spots the fringed gentian 
 opens its blue eyes very late in the year. 
 
 This winding path up a piece of gently-rising ground 
 to Burying-Ground Hill has been the scene of more 
 marriage proposals than any other place in the village. 
 An amusing story is told of a village maiden who married 
 and went away to live in that indefinite region known as 
 "out West." Years later, when the husband died, she 
 brought his remains back to the old home, and buried 
 him in the family plot in the graveyard. She could not 
 tear herself away from the sacred spot, and again took 
 up her abode in the village, and spent much time in 
 visiting and laying fresh flowers on the grave. A year 
 or two earlier an afflicted widower had brought the 
 " casket " of his wife back to her native town, and had 
 laid her not far from where the husband was afterward 
 put to rest. This poor man constantly haunted Burying- 
 
BURYING-GROUND WALK. n 
 
 Ground Walk to muse on the departed, and, as chance 
 would have it, one golden autumn day he met the widow 
 in her weeds, which, by the way, were very becoming. 
 The village gossips say the match was made that after 
 noon struck up in a hurry through sympathy and fellow 
 feeling. But doubtless several interviews did take place 
 in the " walk " or in contiguous parts among the tomb 
 stones before matters were settled. Now the happy pair 
 dwell in the village and are sometimes seen going hand 
 in hand, with an artless babes-in-the-wood expression, to 
 visit the resting places of their former partners. As they 
 have a leaning toward spiritism, it is believed they look 
 upon the departed as guardian angels who view their 
 present felicity with extreme satisfaction. 
 
 Every week, summer and winter, rain or shine, Miss 
 Milly, the village milliner, walks briskly along the burying- 
 ground path to the old part of the graveyard where the 
 head-stones are decrepit and mossy, and a little cluster 
 of pine trees watches over the country from the highest 
 part of the hill. Miss Milly is brisk and trim and 
 neat ; the print of her shoe on the snow seems a 
 work of art. Her father was once thought to be the 
 genius of the village, a young man of brightest promise, 
 but he turned out a spendthrift and profligate, and lies 
 now buried in the graveyard. In spite of his squan 
 dered life, his only daughter weeps over him, idealizes 
 him, and adores his memory until the neighbors, who 
 think Miss Milly a bit of a genius herself, are half pro 
 voked. In the snowiest days she will go wading to the 
 hill-top to leave some green token on her father s grave, 
 if nothing more, a few twigs of arbor vitse with a cluster 
 of holly berries from the squire s garden. The earliest 
 wild flowers in spring go up there, and the very last 
 gentians and colored leaves and golden rod. If the path 
 is not cut to the hill, Milly opens it herself, or hires Jake 
 Small to do the work for her. 
 
12 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 At home she lives alone (in the little stone house that 
 was once a lawyer s office, and has been enlarged to suit 
 her needs), unless some neat-handed apprentice should 
 find a place by her hearth, with the understanding that 
 she is to do " chores " in return for instruction in the 
 mysteries of millinery. Milly s work-room is so peculiar 
 there is probably not another like it anywhere. It has a 
 case of books, a cabinet of old family china, and the 
 portraits of her ancestors the wreckage which she 
 managed to preserve when the family fortunes went 
 down. Milly read Latin and Greek a little with her 
 father when she was young. Her school-books are in 
 the case, and a manuscript volume of her father s poems. 
 Spinoza and Plato are Milly s idols, but she reads them 
 now in translations. The young parson sometimes comes 
 in and takes a cup of tea with her, and they talk learned 
 talk, so the village folk say, who have the greatest respect 
 for the milliner s attainments, though, in fact, they do not 
 go very far. Her secret lies in knowing one or two 
 books by heart. Are you surprised that one small village 
 can furnish a shoemaker who reads Huxley and Spencer 
 and a milliner who knows Plato ? Such people nowadays 
 are only found in corners. There is no leisure for these 
 things among the masses in great cities, but certain 
 people in the village do still find time to hive up sweet 
 ness. 
 
 Milly chose to be a milliner when she might have 
 taught^school, and the village folk have never done won 
 dering why. But a bleak school-room gave too little 
 scope for individual expression. The learned side in 
 Milly is not her broadest. She is a human creature, a 
 woman to the tips of her fingers. Look at the little shop, 
 adorned as a parlor with etchings and small oil sketches 
 upon the wall and bits of embroidery, such as a woman 
 loves, arranged with an accurate eye to color harmonies. 
 The bonnets are only a part of the decoration, 
 
THE VILLAGE MILLIXER. 13 
 
 The little milliner says she is fond of folks. She looks 
 out and sees things in the turn of an eye-lash. In every 
 thing except about " poor papa," she is careful of over 
 statement, and this makes her pungent little flavoring of 
 dry wit very telling. She is pleasant to the eye, arid yet 
 not young, and so plain that every body wonders where 
 her " knack " is. 
 
 The judge or "square," as he is commonly called, 
 extends his gracious patronage to Miss Milly or Melissa, 
 the village milliner. It is a rule at the great house that 
 Miss Milly is always to be invited to the Thanksgiving 
 and Christmas dinner. When political dignitaries or 
 literary lights come from a distance Milly is overlooked. 
 But these are not really the nice occasions, like the cozy 
 home meals, when the judge unbends and laughs at 
 Melissa s dry little speeches, of a subacid quality, and 
 she on her part laughs inwardly at his pretensions and 
 corrects his Latin. She has remembered enough for 
 that. But she forgives him in her heart, for he recalls 
 old stories of her father s college life when they were 
 "chums," and speaks gently, very gently, of the dead. 
 
 No one knows exactly how the village came to be, but 
 the judge thinks it was made for him. When he walks 
 abroad he has the air of owning the place. He and the 
 clergyman and a few others habitually wear store clothes, 
 which means a certain luster and polish of attire to which 
 the ordinary farmer and mechanic can not attain except 
 on Sunday. The judge would like to be a village auto 
 crat, but his neighbors utterly repudiate his pretensions. 
 " It s a free kentry," says Jake Small, " and I guess 
 human motives is pretty well mixed. The jedge may 
 think he s clean public-sperited all through, but I guess 
 there s some selfishness at the bottom." 
 
 Jake can afford to criticise the judge. He is a man of 
 property as solid as a rock. Jake owns a little queer 
 ridiculous gore of land that lies in just between two of 
 
14 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 the judge s best fields, and cuts off the right of way to a 
 handsome pasture. The village magnate is therefore 
 obliged to drive his cows half a mile round. He has 
 offered Jake a large price for his scrap of soil, and has 
 even condescended to call him Mr. Small ; but the old 
 man holds on to his ancestral half-acre with the grim 
 clutch of fate. If he parted with that precious gore of 
 land, all his importance in the village would ooze away. 
 He would be only a shiftless old codger, without power 
 to put in his word anywhere, or to make himself felt in 
 discussions about national politics. The little piece of 
 land came to him from his grandfather through a dis 
 puted title. Jake would rather go on one poor meal a 
 day than think of parting with this miserable strip of soil. 
 When the weather is not good for fishing, or blackberry- 
 ing, or going to camp-meetin (Jake is very pious), he 
 often digs and potters about a little in the gore. It puts 
 fat on his bones to know that the " jedge " is looking on 
 from his back window and metaphorically gritting his 
 teeth. 
 
 Several times Jake has impounded the judge s cattle 
 for trespass. What makes the situation extremely awk 
 ward is the fact that a stream of living water, Willow 
 Brook, flows through one of the judge s pastures, while 
 the other is quite arid. In a dry time there is always 
 trouble, the battle being waged across the gore with ter 
 rible pertinacity on both sides. Jake s part of the fence 
 is a ramshackle, ruinous affair, and the judge declares 
 that most of the boards which compose it were stolen 
 from his premises, but he never has been able to bring 
 proof of the fact, for the neighbors refuse to testify 
 against Jake. 
 
 Jake lives in a wretched old tenement on the outskirts 
 of the village, that was moved off the Widow Grimes s 
 place, and doomed to destruction. But Jake coaxed the 
 widow to let him have it in return for gathering her gar- 
 
JAKE SMALLS ABODE. 15 
 
 den " sass " and splitting her winter s wood. Then he 
 set to work to patch it up with every old board and 
 piece of tin and bit of rusty iron he could find about the 
 roads and back yards. When the prohibition act was 
 passed, and the tavern had to be closed for want of cus 
 tom, Jake got hold of the old sign and tacked it over his 
 front door, where it now displays a badly fore-shortened 
 horse and a gig in an advanced stage of dissolution. 
 This he looks upon as the art gem of the place. His 
 unique mansion was crowned with glory by a young 
 painter who came to board in the village last summer. 
 This misguided young person admired Jake s singular 
 abode more than any of the new Queen Annes that are 
 cropping up here and there in the neighborhood, and 
 made a sketch of its picturesque confusion, with children, 
 pigs, and chickens running about in the foreground. 
 Jake says he got five hundred dollars for it down in 
 " York." But nobody believes Jake, and it is one of 
 his good points that he never expects belief in any 
 thing he affirms and is ready to take his Bible oath on. 
 
 Jake s wife, unlike the usual type of such unfortunates, 
 is round and fat, and very easy in temper. She is in 
 clined to think that her husband is a pretty smart man, 
 because he manages to keep the " gore," and to get 
 along without any visible means of subsistence. Indeed, 
 she rather admires Jake, and herself, and the children, 
 because they appear to be under the special protection of 
 Heaven. She takes in washing when she can get it, and 
 at other times, the neighbors say, sits right down in the 
 dirt as if she expected Elijah s ravens to come and feed 
 her. Jake says he intends to live to the age of ninety, 
 for if he were to die before Sally, she would surely let the 
 land slip right through her fingers, and then he would 
 "jest turn in his coffin." 
 
 Jake Small is a happy man. It is a blessed and envi 
 able thing to be able to hector the judge, to be his gad- 
 
1 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 fly, the thorn in his side, the crumpled rose leaf in the 
 rich man s bed, who, when he walks the street, seems to 
 say, " I am the man who planted the common, who built 
 the library, who repaired the church and put in the new 
 organ," as plainly as if he carried so many placards 
 about his person announcing these interesting facts. 
 Then, Jake Small, from time immemorial has been in the 
 love secrets of all the girls and boys in the village. There 
 is nothing he enjoys so much as what he calls a first-class 
 love case, where the old folks are opposed and the young 
 folks " have taken the bit between their teeth." A 
 qveerer Cupid s postman was never seen, but all the bil 
 lets intrusted to his care are delivered with the utmost 
 secrecy and dispatch. This business, besides being very 
 congenial to Jake s mind, is lucrative. The girls are 
 always ready to bestow a quarter on him for secret ser 
 vice, and the young men of course pay much more liber 
 ally. 
 
 Although not as instructive as the new library, nor as 
 refreshing as the common, nor as clean and holy as the 
 church, Jake Small is an institution the village could ill 
 afford to spare. There are set, obstinate old folks who 
 uphold him about the land, because they know if they 
 had a gore lying so advantageously for the torment of a 
 rich neighbor, they could not forego the pleasure it would 
 give them. As Jake says, " human motives is mixed." 
 There is a diffused feeling of kindness toward Jake in 
 the village, rather sneaking, but genuine. Even the 
 judge, when all the Small children came down with the 
 scarlet fever, paid surreptitiously out of his own pocket 
 for the needful medicine. The Small children have a 
 characteristic way of getting ill simultaneously, with any 
 infant disease that happens to be about ; then the neigh 
 bors go in and scrub up every nook and corner of the 
 house. Good, pious women take in clothing and furni 
 ture, and fill the larder to overflowing, so that the poor- 
 
JUDGE MAGNUS. i? 
 
 spirited " Miss Small " has reason to look upon measles, 
 or diphtheria, or whatever the complaint may be, as a 
 blessing in disguise ; and she placidly waits until the 
 next dispensation of childish ailments comes along to 
 help her out of her chronic hobble. 
 
 There is always a full-blown odor of patronage about 
 the judge which corresponds to his Doric-pillared house, 
 his fine stable, and handsome garden. If there were not 
 people about him to condescend to, life would not be 
 worth the living. For this reason he vegetates in a ham 
 let instead of living eclipsed and shorn of his beams in a 
 city. Here he is the richest man, the top of the heap. 
 But his vanity is so transparent it passes for a decoration, 
 and his neighbors could not get on without the judge any 
 more than without Jake Small. Both of them are essen 
 tial to the village. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 PARADISE FARM AND AUNT DIDO. 
 
 THIS clear, cold winter afternoon the village walks 
 are scraped clean of snow, the roads are packed 
 hard as iron. White barricades rise in all the yards and 
 along the street. The snow crunches and grinds to 
 marble-powder under foot, and overhead it shakes down 
 from the elm boughs in showers as sharp as steel filings. 
 There is a sparkle from the solid blue sky diffused 
 through all the air, and one must adjust the breathing 
 apparatus to new conditions. The mere act of inspira 
 tion is a species of excitement ; and a great tide of 
 fresh blood brings a bloom like that of youth to old 
 faces. 
 
 The ice on the river and pond to-day has that dull 
 semi-translucency, with long reaches of glitter and shine 
 in the distance, that make one s feet ache for runners. 
 Come down the road for a quarter of a mile where it dips 
 and winds so prettily, to the old bridge spanning the 
 river. It was once a toll-bridge, but tolls are taken there 
 no longer ; and even the injunction not to drive your 
 horse faster than a walk, under penalty of the law, is 
 disregarded by every old hack and broken-winded jade 
 in the township. The bridge was covered, originally, but 
 the crazy old top blew off in a gale of wind, and it is now 
 the roosting and angling place of all the children and 
 idlers in the village. 
 
 The small river curves away through low meadows 
 and gently swelling breasts of hills in the laziest man 
 ner. It is like a long narrow scarf of dull blue some 
 
SKATING. 19 
 
 gadding nymph has dropped and trailed with her bus- 
 kined foot. With the thin lines of fences and young 
 trees making small shadows, the world all white, and the 
 sky all blue, one thinks of Luca Delia Robbia s altar- 
 pieces, the perfection of blue and white glaze. It would 
 be monotonous without the lovely outlines of hills cast 
 ing such pure shadows on their sunless slopes. 
 
 The sluggish river winds about in great serpentine 
 curves through very low grassy banks and groups of 
 trees that in summer time look as if they were made for 
 the poet and artist. But now all the ferns and grasses 
 and wild things are frosted over, and the river s secrets 
 are as open to the eye as a gossip s heart, save where a 
 clump of evergreens, lusty and full of life, breaks in 
 with a soul-warming cheer. The ice is in a perfect state 
 to-day, and half the village folk are on the river. There 
 is the doctor s girl, in her scarlet-trimmed costume, with 
 the light locks floating behind her as she deftly cuts the 
 figure-8 on the ice. And the old doctor has actually 
 mounted skates and is skimming away with his girl s 
 mittened hand in his and his coat tails standing out 
 stiffly in the breeze. With his fur cap and frosty glitter 
 ing beard, he looks like the Santa Glaus of the picture- 
 books. As usual he is spouting poetry at the top of his 
 voice, but at this distance I can hardly make out the 
 lines. They have gone under the bridge, and the laugh 
 ter of his granddaughter comes up like the twitter of 
 young birds in June. The young clergyman is also out 
 on skates, and he has brought his oldest child, a mere 
 tot of three, and is riding her on his shoulder as he spins 
 along, to her infinite delight. It is just over this part of 
 the river where the doctor, and parson, and Hugh, that 
 young scapegrace of a lawyer, race in their boats in sum 
 mer, each pulling a mighty oar. Hugh is a back-handed, 
 unregenerate friend of the parson was in college with 
 him, I believe. The village has as much need of Hugh 
 
20 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 as a coach has of a fifth wheel, and yet he has a kind of 
 use in keeping things stirred up and getting himself 
 talked about. Milly, the milliner, seeing him stride off 
 on excursions with the clergyman, has slyly named them 
 the Law and the Gospel. Hugh, the lawyer, with his 
 briefless pockets and his Homeric laugh, is a character 
 not to be ignored. 
 
 All the village boys are out on the ice either sliding or 
 skating. Their shrill voices echo along the banks as 
 they skylark and indulge in every species of horse-play. 
 The skating-boy comes nearer a tadpole in his awkward 
 sprawl than anything that navigates. But the little girls 
 are all charmingly rhythmical in their exquisite grace of 
 motion. The swish of their skirts has music in it, as 
 they skim over the icy floor, and make a delicate etch 
 ing on its smooth surface. They follow the curves 
 and windings of the stream to the upper bridge, with 
 arms interlocked and hands hidden in little muffs, moving 
 to the beat of some melody heard only by their ears. 
 Their eyes shine and their cheeks glow with exer 
 cise, and when the red sunset shines out from under a 
 low purple cloud it flashes down the river and diffuses a 
 rosy bloom around these happy children, while the snow 
 fields take on the softest blush, like the lining of a sea 
 shell, and the shadow side of their knolls are pure ultra 
 marine, or palpitating violet, or even a delicate shade of 
 green. The evening red strikes boldly on the side of 
 Saddleback and flames among the higher cedars and hem 
 locks, while the lower ranges of the mountain are plunged 
 in splendid gloom, a kind of blood-shot black melting 
 into a band of blue quite indescribable, for there is noth 
 ing else like it in nature or art, unless it be that azure 
 zone of the earth on which the glorified Virgin sits in the 
 imagination of old painters. A fringe of flame runs 
 crinkling along the serrated skeleton trees on top of the 
 mountain, where they stand out so dark in places against 
 
VIEW FROM PUDDING KNOLL. 21 
 
 the perfect rose of the heavens. But look ! the village 
 windows are all ablaze, and the library looms up like a 
 huge castle illumined for a festival ; and the top of the 
 church spire sparkles as if it had impaled the evening 
 star. 
 
 There is only a quarter of an hour left before dark for 
 a run to the top of Pudding Knoll and a peep down into 
 the little valley below. It is the choicest spot about the 
 village and has been appropriately named Paradise Farm. 
 The house stands at exactly the right angle facing the 
 east, and is a most picturesque jumble of pale, silvery, 
 unpainted buildings. Before it rise two tall Lombardy 
 poplars, like sons of Anak. They are admirably pic 
 turesque in the winter landscape, and are so placed they 
 can be seen for miles up and down the river. The barns 
 to the north are sheltered by a sugar camp, where the 
 maple trees grow straight and clean as columns in a 
 temple. This grove is a splendid patch of color in 
 October when it is changed by the finger of the frost. 
 There are snug orchards and gardens and poultry-yards 
 about this farm-house, and the fields slope down to the 
 river in a manner truly Arcadian. Its view opens gently 
 to the principal valley of the local mountain like a deco 
 rated side chapel looking into the nave of some stately 
 cathedral, while all around are cheerful little hills per 
 fectly well wooded and watered, and in summer full of 
 flowery nooks and singing birds. 
 
 This farm ought to belong to a poet, but it is owned 
 by Rastus, and the mother of Rastus, who is the egg 
 and butter woman of the village. Any fine day you may 
 see the old lady mounted in a high-backed wagon driv 
 ing into the village a spavined horse, blind of one eye, 
 her baskets and firkins comfortably stowed away beside 
 her. She is still strong and ruddy-looking, like a late 
 Baldwin apple, which, though seamed and shriveled a 
 little by frost, retains its high color. The old dame 
 
22 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 seems happy enough with Rastus, but still she regrets 
 her late husband, now lying in the burying-ground, who 
 was known to the neighbors as a very handy man. A 
 handy man has no significance in a city household. 
 There is always a workman on the next block, or round 
 the corner, who can fasten a screw, or tighten a bolt, or 
 mend a lock ; but it is very different in a small village 
 or on a farm. There the man, the head of the house, is 
 twice as valuable if he can mend a pump when it gives 
 out, or correct a smoky chimney, or put up a shelf for the 
 women folk. What wonder a village man is esteemed in 
 direct ratio with his handiness ! The father of Rastus 
 was eminently a handy man. His jack-knife was a mys 
 tic tool, with which he performed admirable works in 
 kitchen and pantry. Every cupboard door had its but 
 ton, every lock was well oiled before the poor man took 
 that inscrutable disease, located in the pit of his stomach, 
 and extending to the small of his back, until it finally 
 went to his head and baffled the skill of all the doctors, 
 besides furnishing a fruitful subject of conversation to 
 his apple-cheeked widow for the remainder of her life. 
 
 Sadly enough, Rastus has not inherited his father s 
 handiness. Rastus is in fact remarkably slow and 
 " pokey," with a moderation of ideas and movements, 
 and a blundering way of doing things eminently original. 
 He is tall and rather shambling in his gait, while his nose 
 describes a very strange angle not set down in any of the 
 geometries, and his mouth has a tendency to stand slightly 
 ajar. Oddly enough, Rastus, though in no sense a comic 
 character, always excites mirth. The whole village bursts 
 into an unrestrained roar of laughter when Rastus begins 
 to narrate his adventures while at the war. He was taken 
 prisoner by the enemy, and shut up over night in a hen 
 house, with nothing to eat. In the morning the " rebs " 
 were obliged to beat a hasty retreat, and they forgot all 
 about Rastus, and left him in the henhouse, from which 
 
RASTUS. 23 
 
 he escaped by a series of thrilling adventures. There is 
 nothing really funny connected with this story, and 
 Rastus is very fond of telling it. He likes in his slow 
 way to " wave the bloody shirt," but now for a good 
 many years he has been greeted with such unseemly signs 
 of mirth when he has tried to narrate his hairbreadth 
 scapes connected with the late unpleasantness, that 
 he has grown very shy of drawing the long-bow in 
 the company of an irreverent villager. He gener 
 ally reserves his war stories for the ear of some patient 
 stranger who happens to be staying in the neighborhood. 
 Last year he found a summer boarder who was remark 
 ably long suffering in this regard, but it turned out that 
 he wanted to buy Paradise Farm. Rastus took a week 
 to think over the proposal, which was an excellent one, 
 and after a great deal of chewing of straw in the barn he 
 repaired to his new friend : 
 
 " I low I can t sell the old place anyhow," said Ras 
 tus ; " mother won t part with her thirds, and without the 
 thirds the land wouldn t vally much. And then, you see," 
 scratching his head, " dad, he lived here, and granddad, 
 and great-granddad afore him, and if I live long enough 
 I expect to leave the old place to my son." 
 
 " Oh, you do," said the stranger, dryly looking at the 
 incorrigible old bachelor with a twinkle of his eye. 
 
 " Yes, I do. Mother s getting stiff in the j ints, and I 
 shall have to provide for the future." 
 
 The stranger did not renew his proposal, but the idea 
 which had taken root in the mind of Rastus worked like 
 a very slow process of fermentation. Rastus is a very 
 forehanded farmer, and secures some of that kind of con 
 sideration which money always brings. 
 
 On the road to the " Hollow," quite at the other end 
 of the village, is a little brown house that seems to cling 
 to the earth like a ground-bird s nest. It is the home of 
 Aunt Dido (an absurd abbreviation of Diadema), the 
 
24 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 sister of Rastus s mother. She differs materially from 
 her close-fisted relatives, and is, in fact, a survival of a 
 vanishing village species the good-natural cook, the old- 
 fashioned housekeeper, a person who before the days of 
 cooking schools was supposed to take as naturally to all 
 the mysteries of the culinary art as a duck takes to water. 
 Such a person enjoys heartily the pleasures of the table, 
 and herein, perhaps, lies the secret of her genius. No 
 nervous, thin-blooded, narrow-chested woman who lives 
 by the week on tea and toast ever became a great cook, 
 with local fame resounding far and wide, for flap-jacks, 
 crullers, spice-cakes, pumpkin and mince pies, and all the 
 endless variety of New England concoctions. Aunt Dido 
 especially prides herself on her exquisite bread and 
 biscuits. Any fool, she says, can make a good cake after 
 a recipe, but only a woman of genius knows how to turn 
 out a fine domestic loaf of bread. 
 
 Aunt Dido is large and broad and glowing with vital 
 ity. When she walks she makes a breeze, and when she 
 runs, as she sometimes does, just to work off her super 
 fluous vigor, she creates a whirlwind. Her throne is her 
 kitchen rocker, and her scepter is a great iron spoon 
 which she flourishes in the most artistic manner while 
 engaged at one and the same moment in conversation 
 and cookery. She is more than a cook she is a woman 
 of ideas. She threw herself into the abolition cause, into 
 the temperance reform, and a few years ago she became 
 a religious free light. There is generally some very 
 " advanced " book, rather shocking to the ideas of her 
 more conservative neighbors, turned down on the corner 
 of her kitchen table, to be picked up and read at odd 
 moments. You should see her kitchen, more beautiful 
 than any parlor in its spotless, immaculate niceness. No 
 one ever intrudes there irreverently, not even her small, 
 meek husband, who sometimes asks the privilege of wip 
 ing his hands on the jack-towel. The odors that proceed 
 
AUNT DIDO. 25 
 
 from that kitchen are enough to warm the cockles of the 
 heart. It is said that you can smell Aunt Dido s coffee 
 way down in Saw Mill Hollow, half a mile from the 
 brown cottage. 
 
 Aunt Dido is by no means forehanded. She is far too 
 generous and large-hearted to lay up an excess of goods 
 anywhere but in heaven. Her penurious relations say 
 that she might fatten two pigs and keep a cow on what 
 she gives away every year to tramps and children. She 
 does fine baking for the richer neighbors, there being no 
 bake-shop in the village, and Mrs. Judge Magnus often 
 bespeaks bread, and cakes, and pies, and even cooked 
 meats which are to furnish forth the feast for some dig 
 nitary at the great house. She is childless, but she de 
 serves to be called the mother of the village, for all the 
 idle, vagrant, ill-conditioned urchins that hang about the 
 place get a vast amount of coddling, petting, and feeding 
 from her hands. The mother of Rastus has solemnly 
 warned her sister that if she should ever come to pov 
 erty, she must not look to her for help. But Aunt 
 Dido goes on spoiling the rising generation to her 
 heart s content. She has an amount of sympathy for 
 the so-called bad boy that is perfectly disreputable in a 
 person of her years, and by people of grave and severe 
 virtue is looked upon as a demoralizing influence in the 
 community. For years she has constantly kept on hand 
 in her buttery a large jar of caraway-seed cakes of a 
 most delicious and toothsome variety, which she gives 
 to the village children when by mere accident they hap 
 pen to pass her door on the way to school. When her 
 prudent sister suggested that she might turn a pretty 
 penny by selling her cakes to the ever- hungry urchins, 
 she was scandalized by the mere suggestion she who 
 had always been the village almoner. 
 
 Last summer she noticed a small black-eyed urchin, 
 with several varieties of soil on his face and hands, who 
 
26 VILLA (//- t 110 I OC.KA / /AS . 
 
 more regularly for the dole than any of the other 
 Kuls. I U- would st-t up a most piteous wail just at the 
 moment <>t ivarhing her gate, and exhibit wounds which 
 seemed to have been made by barking his little brown 
 stuns on a stone wall, or scratching " hisself," as he said, 
 in a bramble-bush, much to the detriment of a very 
 ras^fd pair of trowsers. He was a cunning little rascal, 
 and Aunt Dido knew in a general way that he waK one of 
 Jake Small s numerous brood. She could never forbear 
 taking him in and comforting him with goodies. But 
 the same appeal to her feelings was made so often by 
 this pertinacious youngster, as he exhibited the gory 
 stains on his feet and legs where he had " hurted " him 
 self, that Aunt Dido began to suspect he was playing on 
 her very tender heart by staining those nut-brown feet 
 and ankles with pokeberry juife or something else of a 
 vegetable nature. The wounds certainly did look sus 
 picious ; so one day she seized the boy with her firm, 
 large hand, and hurrying him into her woodshed cham 
 ber stripped off his poor little duds of things and buried 
 him in a great tub of warm water, while she administered 
 a plentiful lathering of strong soap in perfect silence. 
 Bill, when he described the operation later, said : " First 
 it was kerswish, and then it was kerswash," and then he 
 had to "holler" because he was " drownded." But the 
 old lady wouldn t " let up on him " until she had scrub 
 bed every inch of his skin. Later she placed him on a 
 chair, done up like a mummy in a blanket and proceeded 
 to cut and comb his gipsy locks. She even scrubbed out 
 his mouth, and then put him to bed until she had mended 
 his clothes. 
 
 When Bill again went forth into the light of things, he 
 was a changed boy. His own father and mother scarcely 
 knew him. The nearest neighbors had always supposed 
 that Bill was dark " complected," but after that vigorous 
 scrubbing he came out exceptionally fair. The boys 
 
BILL SM ALL S ADVENTURE. 27 
 
 teased Bill unmercifully over this adventure, and for 
 three days he was strongly inclined to take to the woods 
 and hunt wild Indians the remainder of his life. He will 
 never make sham wounds and scratches on his legs again 
 with pokeberry juice, and he now fights very shy of the 
 little brown cottage. Since this occurrence Aunt Dido s 
 " stock " has risen among the boys of the vicinage. They 
 now know she keeps her weather eye open, and respect 
 her accordingly. Aunt Dido did get a great deal of sat 
 isfaction out of her bout with little Bill, and she is ready 
 to own it any day as she laughs over the story until the 
 tears fill her eyes. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HUGH THE DRUID, ROSE MADDER THE IMPRESSIONIST. 
 
 AUNT DIDO has one regular boarder the young 
 lawyer known as Hugh a tall, easy, unconventional 
 young man, a local antiquary, an excellent oarsman, and 
 a great walker. He is always ready to attend to any 
 body s business but his own indeed, his own personal 
 business is an unknown quantity. His mouth is generally 
 seen stretched from ear to ear in a huge laugh over his 
 own joke, or at the expense of somebody else. The fun 
 bubbles up in him from a consciousness of the latent 
 comic elements lying all about in the neighborhood which 
 nobody sees but himself. It must be confessed that 
 Hugh sometimes carries his jokes too far and makes 
 enemies for the time being ; but it is impossible to remain 
 long angry with a humorist who perpetually feels the 
 laugh tickling his midriff and rising in him as little jets 
 of gas dance about in an effervescing mineral water. 
 
 He lounges in all the village parlors comes in and 
 goes out like a cat, without ceremony, and takes liberties 
 which in any one else might seem offensive, but with 
 Hugh are rather graceful. The villagers say that Hugh 
 is " a case." The pretty girls say it with a little smirk 
 and blush ; the old maids say it with a certain bridling 
 touch of self-consciousness, as if they had now and then 
 encountered the young man s impertinence ; the nice 
 old ladies say it with a half-smile of relenting, indicative 
 of a soft spot in their hearts for the scapegrace. He 
 pretends that he is busily engaged looking up a law busi 
 ness more difficult to find than the traditional needle in 
 
ANTIQUARIAN TASTES. 29 
 
 a bale of hay. He has in vain tried to excite a little 
 legal irritation by rubbing the neighbors the wrong way, 
 and artfully stirring up lucrative discord. But he can 
 not show even one cow case for his pains. Most of the 
 village folk are too shrewd and close-fisted to be drawn 
 into what they call " Jawing," with its concomitant bill 
 of expenses. They generally " fix things up " by arbi 
 tration. The doctor has probably done more arbitrating 
 without pay than any other man in the United States. 
 
 Hugh, having no active business in the legal line, 
 interests himself in the titles to estates, in old deeds and 
 wills, and the bits of local history bedded in such musty 
 parchments. This useless kind of erudition is very much 
 to his mind. He has up in his queer attic chamber at 
 Aunt Dido s a collection of old seals impressions in 
 wax and plaster that is very curious. He is deeply 
 engrossed, too, in black-letter literature, and seldom cares 
 to read any thing less than 150 years old. His room is 
 an interesting museum of old books in various languages. 
 He has discovered that several of the farms in the 
 neighborhood are held under the original grants from 
 English sovereigns in colonial times. Although he reads 
 almost nothing that is modern, he writes for some news 
 papers and magazines, and has been heard to say that 
 he intends to produce the great American novel in an 
 autobiographic work v/ith himself for the hero. But 
 Hugh could never be as effective in print as he is in 
 person. When he takes pen in hand he becomes rather 
 heavy and solemn. His fun must froth out at the 
 moment of production, and it is impossible to preserve 
 it in printer s ink. 
 
 The old maids, as I have hinted, regard him rather 
 kindly, his taste in women being somewhat omnivorous. 
 He keeps an eye out for all the pretty girls, and will run 
 half-a-mile to peep under a smart hat at a blooming 
 face, but his impudence is only the unquenchable vivac- 
 
3 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 city of young spirits, and really means nothing ; if the 
 girls take him too seriously, that is their lookout. He is 
 always on a " lark," and instead of finding the after-effects 
 vapid, his appetite seems to grow with what it feeds on. 
 It is pleasant and surprising to discover a human being 
 who has such an insatiable interest in the mere act of 
 living. Some people say Aunt Dido has spoiled Hugh 
 with her good cooking and her much coddling, and that 
 if he never amounts to a " row of pins," it will be entirely 
 her fault. But this is doing Aunt Dido great injustice, 
 who gives Hugh the best of advice, which he takes great 
 pains never to follow. 
 
 He is intimate with Milly, and often appears in her 
 little parlor of an evening with a black-letter folio under 
 his arm. In summer he comes in his slippers, though 
 the road be damp, wearing his big-flowered dressing- 
 gown, without a hat, and smoking a long-stemmed brier- 
 wood pipe. He is the only human being who would 
 dare to smoke in Milly s sitting-room ; he has never 
 asked her permission, and she tacitly allows it. At one 
 time it was thought by the villagers that things were 
 looking rather serious between the two, although Milly 
 has a few years the advantage of Hugh in age, but 
 within a year a young lady artist has come to the village 
 and set up a studio, who is considered the most inexplica 
 ble young person ever seen in the neighborhood. 
 
 Rose Madder lives over Peckham s grocery store, and 
 has hung out a little sign which says that there pupils are 
 taught crayon and water-color drawing and china-paint 
 ing. Rose wears little artistic skimpy gowns, a high- 
 crowned Tyrolean hat, and a bag like a pilgrim s scrip 
 slung over her shoulder by a long strap. The small 
 sleeves of her gown have queer little puffs about the 
 elbows, and the embroidery on her skirt looks like a dis 
 tracted landscape. Under her hat she is all hair and eyes 
 with a white moon face gleaming out in dreamy melan^ 
 
ROSE LV HEK STCD/O. 31 
 
 choly. The villagers know not what to make of her, 
 while she only looks at them with a view as to whether 
 they will " compose." I am sorry to say most of them 
 will not ; they are too angular, weather-beaten, crooked, 
 and hard-visaged. It is suspected that she has taken up 
 her abode in the village because she can live here on next 
 to nothing. 
 
 Hugh made no end of fun of the Madder phenomenon 
 when she first appeared, but one day he lounged into her 
 studio over Peckham s grocery store, as he lounges in 
 everywhere, and caught her making her solitary luncheon 
 on bread and jam and a Japanese pot of tea, eating the 
 jam spread on the bread, in child fashion. The picture 
 of Rose, backed by a sage-green Canton flannel curtain 
 topped by a bunch of peacock plumes, touched the sensi 
 bilities of Hugh. He became slightly " spooney," and has 
 since maintained relations with Rose very different from 
 those he keeps up with Milly. 
 
 Rose has not the remotest conception of the meaning 
 of his jokes, but she thinks if he would only be serious, 
 and cultivate a certain cut of beard, he would do very 
 well in a sketch as Launcelot to her Guinevere. The 
 neighbors speak of her as if she were an exotic bird that 
 has lit by accident under the village elms. Deacon Hil- 
 dreth s wife says she " s poses she hasn t got any folks, 
 and she don t seem to possess a conscience any more than 
 a katydid, for she goes off sketching on Sunday when the 
 rest of the people are in church." Rose is always looking 
 out for " effects," and she dabs away industriously at 
 little bits of wayside weeds, thistles, and mullein-stalks, 
 and pins them up against the sage-green Canton flannel 
 curtain, and waits for somebody to buy them. Her con 
 tempt for the inartistic world about her is so profound 
 that it seems to frame her off in a perpetual frozen calm. 
 She talks very little, and Mrs. Judge Magnus has not 
 found her a success when she has tried to introduce her 
 
32 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 at her evenings. She has posed a little in a languid way 
 at the village tea parties, but as there is no one to know 
 when she gets in a good light and becomes effective, it is 
 time thrown away. 
 
 Milly has bought one or two of her sketches, which she 
 has hung very high that they may be properly viewed 
 from across the room. This is the way Hugh described 
 one of Rose Madder s most celebrated pictures, before he 
 became, as I said, slightly " spooney ": " Sky : a splash of 
 white and a larger splash of blue. Middle distance : a 
 streak of intermediate dirty yellow. Foreground : a pretty 
 large daub of lightish green, with several black serpents 
 wriggling on end intended for trees standing about in a 
 field. Then a spot of brown to indicate a pond with five 
 vague daubs of white for geese, and under all, the legend : 
 " Oh, what is so rare as a day in June. " 
 
 Hugh is a tremendous walker. He makes nothing of 
 a tramp of twenty-five or thirty miles a day. His legs 
 are long, and he naturally falls into a kind of Indian 
 " lope " which carries him over the ground with great 
 ease. The parson often joins him on these rambles, and 
 then Hugh is apt to take himself seriously, and they fall 
 into those close and confidential talks which sincere and 
 sensitive minds seldom indulge in except in the open air, 
 when sitting to rest on stumps or mossy stones or the 
 sharp angle of a rail fence. Nature is so confiding to her 
 lovers she leads even the reticent to breathe their inmost 
 convictions out in her confessional. Hugh calls himself 
 a Druid. Stretched under some great pine or oak, with 
 the sweet air caressing him, he will often indulge in an 
 exposition of his religious views, which are of a curious 
 nature and lead to heated discussions with his friend the 
 theologian. Hugh believes the sentiment of worship is 
 best excited out of doors, under trees, in view of hills or 
 mountains, or beside running or still waters. He thinks 
 the face of a flower or the call of a bird can awaken 
 
THE DRUIDICAL FAITH, 33 
 
 deeper religious sentiments than any temple service ever 
 excited. This is a simple spontaneous offering of the 
 heart to its maker, unpolluted by turbid systems of theol 
 ogy the clear crystal through which we see eye to eye 
 with Him who made us. Nowadays, since the old creeds 
 are so much shaken, he thinks this out-of-door worship is 
 almost the only pure religious sentiment left in many 
 callous, worldly, or faithless souls. In view of the exquisite 
 beauty of the universe, the confirmed skeptic even must feel 
 a thrill of childlike trust and love toward the Author of the 
 day, the night, the stars, the firmament, the wonderful and 
 supreme order that reigns around us. Out of this species 
 of modern nature worship he thinks will come the founda 
 tions of a new faith, more simple, direct and unclouded, 
 than those that have gone before. It will be the natural 
 hymn of the creature to the Creator in this exquisite 
 world, thrilling with the profound revelations of loveli 
 ness and beneficence. Beauty, he holds, is the stumbling- 
 block of the materialist. He can not account for this 
 spirit-bloom spread over the face of nature. Jaded, over 
 wrought minds, burned out with excitement, nauseated 
 with folly, and the pursuit of unreason, or blinded and 
 dazed by vain ambitions even these can come still to 
 the old service under the sky, and like Faust can weep 
 again to find the world so sound at the core. 
 
 The minister, of course, can not accept this queer kind 
 of Druidical worship as sufficient for the needs of sin 
 ners. Hugh s faith is entirely too easy-going to secure 
 safety for the imperiled soul of man. But the influence of 
 his friend has been stimulating in many ways. It has 
 modified his preaching more than he would be willing to 
 admit. Hugh never goes to church, for he says he fears 
 he would be obliged to get out an attachment to recover 
 his stolen ideas. So they tramp about, these two rather 
 interesting young men, and preach to each other in many 
 wild and lovely places. 
 
34 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Their walks almost always tend due east to the large 
 tract of woodland which lies about the foot of Saddle 
 back and climbs the slope of the mountain, with here 
 and there a small rent made in its verdant garment by 
 rough clearings for pasture land. In an old settlement 
 like the village there are myths of that extensive tract of 
 woods. The children delight in the story of a bear living 
 on Saddleback within the past twenty years. One very 
 cold winter night he trotted down to a lonely farm-house 
 on the hillside, crept into the store-room and ate up the 
 Christmas turkey nicely trussed and stuffed for roasting. 
 That bear has given rise to a great many charming 
 stories, and has produced a large family of cubs. 
 
 There are foxes in this piece of woods, and many rab 
 bit burrows. The local ornithologist, says we have over 
 twenty-five species of birds which live here and in the 
 adjacent farm lands, among them the splendid red oriole. 
 Squirrels, gray and red, abound, and the drum of the 
 partridge is often heard in October. The brook coming 
 down from Saddleback makes numerous shady pools, 
 where the shy woodland creatures resort to drink. These 
 pools in winter are mirrors of frosted silver set in brown 
 carven frames. Paths, made by boys and cattle, run in 
 all directions. When the snow is on the ground, Hugh 
 makes his own path, guiding himself, as the Indians do, 
 by the moss on the trees. He has the genius of wood 
 craft in his blood, and his eye and ear are as delicate 
 and sensitive as a wild creature s. He often strikes a 
 bee line for the top of Saddleback, where in winter the 
 view is very extended. It looks into a series of pocket 
 valleys, with its congeries of villages, its checker-work of 
 farms, and boundary lines of fences and stone-walls. 
 You can trace the windings of the river for miles and 
 miles, and many smaller streams running into it, and 
 many belts of woodland wedged into home fields or de 
 scending the hill-slopes like platoons of soldiers. All 
 
WINTER SCENES. 
 
 35 
 
 this is a story to Hugh, for he knows more about the 
 farms and their titles and history than any body else. 
 Every blue smoke wreath curling up in the still winter 
 air becomes garrulous to him touching what has gone on 
 under the roof. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RASTUS THINKS OF GETTING MARRIED. 
 
 /CERTAIN matters of importance have been going on 
 V_y in the village, which if related in a novel would 
 probably not be believed. I only ask credence for them 
 on the ground that truth is stranger than fiction. 
 
 One winter day, just at the beginning of a thaw, when 
 all the elm boughs dripped, and little pools of ice-water 
 stood collected in the snowy road, Milly sat in her work 
 room trimming a new hat for Rose Madder. It was one 
 of the high-crowned affairs ; and Rose had sent her a 
 sketch to show just how she wished it to look when fin 
 ished. It was placed on a block in front of Milly while 
 she bowed up a large quantity of parti-colored ribbon 
 for its adornment. Enter Jake Small in an overcoat two 
 sizes two large for him, which Grandfather Andrews had 
 given him out of his store of old clothes for a Christmas 
 present. The collar of this garment was turned up 
 above his ears so that he seemed buried alive. Milly 
 often employed Jake to carry bundles and band-boxes to 
 distant farm-houses and the more remote village homes : 
 " I haven t any jobs to-day," she called out without turn 
 ing round. 
 
 But Jake didn t go. He hemmed and hawed, and 
 stood first on one foot and then on the other. " But I ve 
 a leetle job of my own," said Jake at last mysteriously 
 behind her back. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" quoth Milly, still intent on pin 
 ning snips of ribbon on the hat before her, and cocking 
 her head this way and that to study the effect. 
 
RASTUS THINKS OF GETTING ZfARRIED. 37 
 
 " What du you think of Rastus B.? M Jake hitched a 
 little nearer, and emitted the words in a loud whisper 
 that they might not reach the ears of the small apprentice 
 at the other end of the room. 
 
 " I don t think any thing of him," Milly replied calmly, 
 but now she did look round. 
 
 " Wa l he thinks a sight of you." 
 
 " Does he ? " said Milly, with a touch of surprise in 
 her voice. " I m very much obliged to Rastus." 
 
 Jake drew near by another hitch or two, twirling his old 
 hat between his hands. " I told him he d better write. 
 I advised it strongly ; but he said he wa n t no fist at 
 writin , and as he knew I d had exper ence he put the 
 case in my hands." 
 
 Milly had now suspended her work, and her lips be 
 gan to quiver slightly. " Oh, I see, you have come to 
 make a bargain between me and Rastus a delicate ne 
 gotiation." 
 
 "Jess so," broke in Jake, eagerly forgetting to whis 
 per. " You know Rastus is a rich man ; has money in 
 bank, and twenty head of fine stock on the place, the 
 very best critters in the town." 
 
 " I am very fond of critters," interposed Milly, whose 
 back was shaking a little. 
 
 " I knew you was," put in Jake eagerly, <4 because your 
 head is level. Then you know all about the farm a 
 sightly place and so well watered. Got in ten acres of 
 winter wheat in the fall." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know all about Paradise Farm. You need 
 not go into an inventory of crops and stock. I am just 
 in love with the farm." 
 
 " Glad to hear you say so," returned Jake judicially. 
 " You know the old lady can t last long, and if any thing 
 should happen sudden-like to Rastus, you might be left 
 a widdy with a snug place." 
 
 Milly did not try to repress her laughter, and her face 
 
3 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 was full of attractive little dimples. " There is nothing 
 in the world that would suit me better than to be left a 
 widdy with Paradise Farm." 
 
 " I thought you would view it in that ere light. 1 
 felt sure on it from the start. So I s pose I have your 
 leave to chirk up Rastus a bit." 
 
 " You haven t my leave to do any thing of the kind." 
 
 " Then I shall tell him to come and speak up for his- 
 self. I shall report what you ve said verboatim." This 
 was a word Jake had picked up at public meetings, and 
 of which he was very proud. He hung about Milly s 
 shop sometime longer, but as he could gather no more 
 crumbs of comfort for Rastus, he finally disappeared. 
 
 The interview he had held with the village milliner 
 was the result of a great many interviews with Rastus 
 in the barn, and behind the hay stack, and down by the 
 creek, due to the fermentation of ideas set up in Rastus s 
 brain the previous summer. Rastus had confided in 
 Jake, because he knew he was experienced in affairs of 
 the heart, and in this regard Rastus felt himself more 
 out of his element than when he had been a captive to 
 the Confederates in the hen-house. He knew Millyonly 
 in a general way, as all villagers know each other, and 
 had often heard it said that she was as " smart as chain 
 lightnin ." His only conception of smartness in a woman 
 was of the kind that washes, mends, and bakes for the 
 stronger sex. He had perhaps been slyly egged on 
 by Hugh (who divined what was brewing) to make this 
 perilous venture. 
 
 Rastus allowed a day or two to elapse after hearing 
 Jake s report of Milly s sweet reasonableness before 
 making trial of his own powers as a lover. She had been 
 on the lookout for him, and when he came was rather 
 grimly pleased at the idea of a bit of fun. Rastus had 
 put on his best clothes, as he understood courting busi 
 ness always demanded this kind of homage. He was 
 
X AST US THINKS Of GETTING MARRIED. 39 
 
 rather high-colored, and his mouth had more of a tenden 
 cy to stand ajar than usual. Milly s perfect self-possession 
 was very upsetting to Rastus, who proceeded to forget 
 every thing in which Jake had carefully " coached " him. 
 She looked like a Sunday-school teacher who is receiving 
 a new pupil, and is prepared to give him a wholesome les 
 son. Rastus fumbled in the crown of his hat, and a pe 
 culiar embarrassed grin overspread his features : " I 
 suppose Jake has told you what I ve been thinkin on." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Milly promptly. " Whatever put it 
 into your head, Rastus ? " 
 
 Here was a chance for a pretty speech, one of those he 
 had thought over, but had forgotten, and he lapsed into 
 a shocking literalness. " You see mother ain t what she 
 was ; she has gone deaf and her hands are growin out of 
 j int with rumatiz." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Milly briskly. " You will have to 
 hire help in the house unless you make other arrange 
 ments." 
 
 " It s natural to suppose," nodded Rastus, who was 
 getting more at his ease as the conversation took a strictly 
 business turn. 
 
 " What work did your mother do when she was well 
 and strong ? " 
 
 " Well, she allus milked the cows and made butter, but 
 now her hands " 
 
 " Oh, of course ; and I suppose besides, she swept, and 
 washed, and made beds, and cooked, and mended your 
 clothes ? " 
 
 "Yes, mother has allus kept things pretty snug. She s 
 one to look out for all that s goin on." 
 
 " Then she raises chickens and turkeys, and sells eggs, 
 and poultry, and butter to the village people. You would 
 expect your wife to do that too ? " 
 
 " Natural to suppose, ".assented Rastus ; and then he 
 bethought him, and pulled himself up with a jerk " not 
 
40 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 unless you liked it. Some folks like to drive round in 
 the fresh air. It s real healthy. If you lived up at the 
 farm you might live to be ninety. You never will, here, 
 shut up in a shop good air and water on the farm, the 
 very best." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know all that," murmured Milly, musing 
 deeply, " but I was thinking what I should get for all 
 my work. It would be your society, wouldn t it, as you 
 would never think of paying wages to your wife ? " 
 
 " Natural to suppose," muttered Rastus, quite losing 
 his head again. 
 
 Milly got up and faced him with perfect candor and 
 sweetness. " Well, I should love to live to be ninety, and 
 I don t mind the work a bit, not even peddling truck 
 .around the village ; but I couldn t endure your society 
 all those years. I m afraid I should get tired of your 
 conversation, especially the war stories. Therefore I 
 must respectfully decline, with thanks." 
 
 " But," stammered Rastus, " you encouraged Jake 
 Small." 
 
 " May be I did encourage Jake, but I haven t encour 
 aged you. But I shall deal with your mother," she added, 
 "just the same. Don t be afraid of losing my custom." 
 She made him a little courtesy, and then she moved to 
 the door, opened it, and shut it again softly behind her. 
 
 Rastus stumbled out into the open air, and Jake was 
 obliged to fight quite shy of him for several weeks. Milly 
 never told the story, but somehow the little stone house 
 leaked, and it was presently known all over the village. 
 
 The story of the village is a story without an end. It 
 deals with the homely facts of life, and, unlike the novel, 
 has no ulterior aims and no great respect for the literary 
 unities. There is never a pretense made of bringing 
 fascinating people together solely that they may fall in 
 love, marry, and live forever after in a state of bliss. 
 Love is an episode, always, of course, the most interest* 
 
LIFE IN THE VILLAGE. 4 J 
 
 ing and exciting that can occur. But marriage is not 
 the be-all and end-all of a considerable section of village 
 life. There are several of both sexes who do not marry, 
 and who appear to get along about as well as their mated 
 neighbors. They have fewer cares, and they are not a 
 bit more given to gossip than other people ; indeed the 
 greatest gossip in the village is a blind man who has 
 reared a family of twelve children. 
 
 The story of the village does not attempt to finish all 
 lives with a round turn. It recognizes the fact that most 
 lives remain unfinished and are deplorably raveled and 
 ragged at the edges. Many people show fine romantic 
 possibilities which never come to any thing, and yet they 
 are not blighted beings. They visit and amuse them 
 selves, and read books and magazines, and eat and sleep, 
 just as if they never had been nipped by an untimely 
 frost. Village life is hard, like all life, but it is amelior 
 ated by those touches of humanity which make us all 
 akin ; it is lubricated by that divine humor which plays 
 like lambent flame over the surface of existence. The 
 people enjoy the privilege of social criticism in select cir 
 cles. They enjoy each other far more, I think, than they 
 would if they were all perfect characters. For it must 
 be confessed that although they understand the value of 
 friendship, they also tacitly prize their spites and ani 
 mosities. There is nothing that will keep a tough old 
 person so long alive as avarice and a neighborhood 
 enmity. The asperities come in to help as well as the 
 amenities, with that blessed feeling that one is superior 
 in virtue to some other folk. If you get to the point 
 where you can not pay your debts, then you are accursed. 
 Any thing else of a venal nature may in time perhaps be 
 forgiven. Married experience is not altogether a ro 
 mance in a little hamlet. It has its large, sober, practical 
 aspects and its absorbing economic side. It is the best 
 way devised of getting on in a difficult world, but by no 
 
42 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 means ideal. The old maids talk a good deal about the 
 aesthetic side of married life, and the true way to bring 
 up children, but the married people do not moralize so 
 much. They know the hard facts of the case. They try 
 to slip along between uncompromising conditions with 
 as little friction and heartache as possible. Their wis 
 dom is embodied in trmt excellent practical maxim, 
 " Make the best of things." 
 
 There are not many of the purely ornamental kind of 
 women in the village, and those are criticised rather 
 severely. The practical feminine virtues are still held to 
 be very important. Even Mrs. Judge Magnus, who has 
 figured in Washington society, puts up her own jelly and 
 jam, and is a notable housekeeper. To be sure she 
 keeps two or three maid-servants and a man, but she is a 
 bustling, busy kind of person, with sufficient good sense 
 to make her neighbors feel that she is one of them, and 
 not an alien. In all small villages there is a certain dis 
 trust of strangers and strange ways. When new persons 
 come in the approaches may be a little slow unless there 
 is a good introduction, but if your great-great-grand 
 father ever lived in these parts, you are of the elect. 
 
 The village man most honored and beloved is the man 
 very good to his " women folks," which means that the 
 women run over him and have their own unbridled way. 
 He is a man regular at his meals, who doesn t complain 
 of the food, and talk of the dishes his mother used to 
 cook when he was a boy, even if the steak is burned and 
 the coffee a trifle muddy. If he would be truly popular, 
 he must be easy about money with his wife and his girls, 
 and not keep the purse-strings too tightly drawn. He 
 does not make any unnecessary work about the house, 
 but is nice and catlike in his customs. He will go in his 
 stocking feet to prevent waking his wife when she has a 
 headache, and he thinks of the extra washing when he 
 takes out a clean handkerchief. He must above all things 
 
THE DOMESTIC IDEAL. 
 
 \ 
 
 43 
 
 be a good provider, with not the smallest taint of slack 
 ness or shiftlessness clinging to his skirts. He must 
 have a nice square pile of wood all split and seasoned, 
 and a fine bin of coal provided against the cold weather. 
 His ten commandments are written all around on his 
 fence, his garden-patch, his roof and chimneys. He 
 must get in provisions freely by the bag and barrel, and 
 see that every thing is done that can be done to make 
 the life of women less laborious. Then if he is willing to 
 arise at night and walk the floor several hours with a 
 fretful teething child, he is considered truly angelic. 
 
 In the household where there is no servant employed, 
 the man who will allow his wife to get up in the morning 
 and build the kitchen fire is not looked upon as much of 
 a Christian. He may write fine poetry and entertain the 
 most beautiful moral sentiments, he may even pray well 
 in the weekly meetings, but this thing is always spoken 
 of disparagingly at the tea " fights " and in the Dorcas 
 Society, where \vomen put their heads close together, and 
 talk low and confidentially. m A selfish man can never 
 hide himself from censure in the village. He is known 
 and marked for condemnation. A shiftless or unprac 
 tical woman, who neglects her family, is also open to 
 severe criticism. But I do not know that I have ever 
 heard a woman called selfish who made her husband wait 
 on her and the children to an unreasonable degree. It 
 would be dangerous to admit the possibility of that form 
 of feminine selfishness, and it never has been admitted. 
 
 One of the former village saints was a little, slim, pale 
 minister who preached here at one time, and who had a 
 bed-ridden wife. He was always seen when out of the 
 pulpit carrying an air-pillow, two shawls, and a hot- 
 water bottle. It was well known that his constant care 
 of his wife, who suffered from an inexplicable nervous 
 complaint, had made him quite bald before the age of 
 thirty-two. Yet, although it was shrewdly suspected that 
 
44 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 this complaint was at least partly imaginary, never was a 
 word spoken concerning the selfishness of the minister s 
 wife. I may add that some years later, while he was 
 preaching in a neighboring town, the parsonage took fire 
 on a cold winter night, and the invalid lady, who had 
 been unable to do more than walk across the room in five 
 years, arose in her fright, and, in a pair of slippers and 
 very thin garments, ran through the snow for half-a-mile. 
 Since that time she has been a perfectly well woman, 
 doing her own housework, and the minister has grown a 
 new and fine head of hair. But I am afraid his prestige 
 as a moral hero is somewhat dimmed. 
 
 The doctor, who has been such a power for good in 
 the community, and withal so open-handed and public- 
 spirited according to his means, is a masterful person 
 with a strong will, and a natural tendency to domineer. 
 The neighbors know his value, but they suspect that his 
 wife is a little too meek, a little too much given to that 
 perfect feminine submissiveness which, though enjoined 
 by Scripture, is not the village ideal. She has a saintly 
 face, as pure as a snowflake, and almost as pale. The 
 silvery hair has still a golden sheen and is puffed at the 
 border of a white lace cap of the old fashioned variety. 
 Her dress of worn black silk seems never renewed, but 
 has an indescribable refinement about it like all her deli 
 cate belongings. Her voice, with its soft, low intonation, 
 and her rare smile, repel all undue familiarity. She 
 finishes the pretty tea-table like some very rare family 
 portrait a Sir Joshua or a Van Dyck. I like to look at 
 her in church, she is such a perfect picture of a time 
 when manners were more ceremonious and courtly than 
 they now are. The neighbors say that she has never 
 dared to say her soul is her own in the household. But 
 she is intimate with only a few of them, and it is perhaps 
 her superiority to them all which leads them to try and 
 pick a flaw in her character. She is a great student of 
 
THE DOCTOR S }\ r IFE. 45 
 
 the old Bible, and has found much comfort in the most 
 consoling Psalms and the beautiful portions of Isaiah. 
 She holds with perfect simplicity and true-heartedness to 
 the religious doctrines of her youth ; and even Hugh, 
 with his farrago of fantastic notions, is alway deferential 
 in her presence. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE W R E N S* NEST. 
 
 THE range of farms lying in close order form a rustic 
 fringe to the snugness of village life. The place is 
 in part made up of retired farmers, too old to labor, who 
 have left the homesteads to their sons. Thus the village 
 tendrils run out into the country in all directions. Mill 
 Farm lies south, and is one of the most picturesque 
 places anywhere about. The old mill, with its flume and 
 water-wheel, its floury interior, its humming grinding- 
 stones, and revolving hopper, is joined to a farm-house, 
 with a flower garden in the half-inclosed court, and at 
 the back commands a view of the wild mill-brook glen, 
 where picnic parties come in summer. The brook feeds 
 the mill-wheel and falls into a rocky ravine down a few 
 gigantic stone steps. In the freshets of spring and 
 autumn it becomes a charming waterfall. The rocks 
 below the fall are cushioned with brilliant green moss, 
 kept continually fresh by the spray of the cascade. The 
 young birches, and maples, and witch-hazels which lean 
 over the water, take the most graceful forms in the deli 
 cate tracery of their boughs. There are two or three 
 lower pools, where the trout blink in lazy motion in the 
 sunlight as it slants down the dewy wooded bank, and 
 lights up the very heart of the glen, flickering on the 
 moss and wet stones, and the purple tree trunks. Now 
 that the season of frost has come the mill-wheel is still and 
 the fall is bearded with icicles the most beautiful frost 
 work is gathered on stone and bush and tufted moss, 
 
THE GREAT SYCAMORE. 47 
 
 where the spray has frozen, making miniature caves with 
 fairy work of ferns, and grasses, and weeas all covered 
 with powdered silver, glittering in the sun. 
 
 On the road to the flume, as this ravine is called, is a 
 stone cottage, low-browed, with broad porches, and a 
 huge outside chimney. It has the oldest sycamore tree 
 in the town standing before its door a patriarch among 
 the tribe of trees ; a Methuselah that seems to have lived 
 a thousand years ; it shades the whole house and the 
 front yard, and throws its nourishing summer dews over 
 the roof into the kitchen garden. Every body in the 
 village and neighborhood is proud of this tree. It is one 
 of the curiosities of the place, to be pointed out to 
 strangers. I will not attempt to give its measurements. 
 A party of twelve young girls once tried to span its girth 
 with their united outstretched hands, and it is suspected 
 that the old tree was as joyful over* this embrace as was 
 Tennyson s Talking Oak over having love secrets poured 
 into its ears. For several years the largest limb of the 
 old sycamore had been weak and decaying. It was 
 bandaged with iron, and carefully staid with a kind of 
 framework which served the double purpose of support 
 and rustic summer-house. The three maiden sisters who 
 lived in the cottage, if they heard a noise in the night, 
 would get out of bed to see if any thing had happened 
 to the tree. They were excellent women, who had 
 received, I suspect from Milly, the name of the Three 
 Wrens ; and the cottage under the sycamore was known 
 as the Wrens Nest. 
 
 There was also a male wren, known as Brother, who 
 lived in this snug and tidy establishment with his women- 
 kind. Morning, noon, and night the conversation of the 
 three Wrens turned upon Brother. You would have sup 
 posed to hear them talk of the way he slept and ate, 
 and from the account of his habits, that he was a weak 
 ling, and chronic invalid. But, on the contrary, Brother 
 
4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 was a large, well-colored, rather fine-looking man who 
 went away regularly to his business by the morning train 
 and who never seemed the least in need of being taken 
 care of ; still he was taken care of by his doting sisters 
 as if he had been a helpless paralytic. I do not know 
 whether he liked so much attention from those adoring 
 females, but it was bliss to them to adore ; and if they all 
 could have been taken in a picture kneeling at his feet, 
 it would have fitly expressed the way in which he was 
 regarded by these good little Wrens. 
 
 His room at the Wrens Nest was a perfect museum of 
 masculine comforts and luxuries. It was reported in the 
 village that he slept in worked bed-slippers and that 
 certain of his under garments were ruffled and fluted. 
 That room was the shrine of the house, a place the 
 sisters never entered irreverently. They took turns, 
 as a great privilege, in doing it up and airing the mat 
 tress. The bachelor shrine was probably the prettiest 
 bedroom in the village, for the Wrens would have gone 
 without tea rather than deprived Brother of any little 
 charm their purses could buy or skillful hands devise. It 
 was never known how Brother liked it. Hugh threatened 
 to ask him whether he did not sometimes kick off the 
 crazy-quilt, and throw the worked foot-stools and tidies 
 out of the window, but even Hugh s impudence would 
 not carry him quite so far. Brother presumably did like 
 it, for he treated his good sisters with great respect, and 
 was always most kind and attentive. 
 
 One night in spring there happened to be a terrible 
 blow from the north-east. Brother was away from home 
 on business, and the Wrens scarcely closed an eye all 
 night, thinking of the weak limb of the mighty sycamore, 
 which was groaning and laboring so piteously in the blast. 
 There they were in their night-caps peering out of the 
 chamber window, and suffering with that poor dumb 
 thing which had thrown its protecting shade over their 
 
THE 77FAVX 49 
 
 whole lives. Before morning the great limb came down 
 with a crash, burying the front yard under its ruins and 
 just missing the roof, which would certainly have been 
 crushed beneath its massive weight. The Wrens wept as 
 they thought of the sad welcome Brother would receive, 
 and looked at the dismantled old tree, which, now shorn 
 of its chief ornament, stoxl up gaunt and black and 
 wounded in the morning light. Moreover, they regarded 
 the catastrophe as an omen of trouble to come to their 
 house. They set down the day and hour of the fall in 
 their little note-books ; and the story goes that on that 
 day the widow and her six children moved into the vil 
 lage. But this important event did actually happen a 
 month later. 
 
 The widow was the niece of somebody who formerly 
 had lived in the village, and in her girlhood she was in 
 the habit of visiting her relative. But she had been lost 
 to view for many years, now appearing on the scene with 
 six small children, the youngest two girl-twins of tender 
 age. She had married a good-looking young man who 
 turned out to be dishonest and bad in every way ; and 
 now he had departed to another world, leaving her with 
 naught to thank him for but a very flourishing, healthy, 
 handsome family of little ones. As she sat in her poor 
 home after the funeral, dressed in her scanty mourning 
 gown, she wept bitterly, not because of the demise of one 
 who had caused her great pain and humiliation, but from 
 the consciousness that there was scarce a dollar in her 
 purse and but small store of food in the house to feed the 
 children. The loving little twins crept into her lap, and 
 clasped their arms about her and pressed their soft 
 cheeks to hers, and administered the love and conso 
 lation that come from baby hands. Neighbors were 
 kind, and within a few weeks remittances began to 
 come from some rich relatives at a distance ; and finally 
 the widow moved to the village, as a few others had 
 
5 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 done, because it was cheap living there and because of 
 the library and the high school. 
 
 The advent of such a troop of bright-faced children 
 was of moment, for the best village people do not have 
 large families now. The time grandames tell of. when 
 the old district school was in existence, and the eldest 
 child of a family was expected to shout out the number 
 of his brothers and sisters present at roll-call, has passed 
 away. Then one of the Stockton tribe often sang out 
 " Thirteen " ; but the Stocktons are no longer found in 
 the village. Many houses have no children ; some, like 
 the doctor s, have a grandchild, or a nephew, or a niece ; 
 a few quite poor people, like Jake Small, are blessed 
 with a quiver full. The pair of twins, called respectively 
 Goody Twoshoes and Baby No One why, I am sure I 
 do not know became very popular. They were lovely 
 little Kate Greenaway creatures, so exactly alike that no 
 one but the mother could tell them apart when they slept. 
 Their frocks and sun-bonnets and worn shoes had a 
 touch of something idyllic. They were much given to 
 running away, when they would fall captive to some 
 childless woman and be carried into her house and fed 
 and entertained with playthings for hours. The mother, 
 with six to feed and clothe, and only one pair of hands 
 to do every thing, was often obliged to let the twins run 
 wild. Goody Twoshoes was the most enterprising and 
 adventurous, but Baby No One always followed where 
 Goody led, and copied her sister in every thing. Hand 
 in hand, chuckling in their dear little hearts, and ripe for 
 mischief, they slipped out of the back door and were off 
 down the road as fast as their winged feet could carry 
 them. Several times they had been picked up a consid 
 erable distance from home by the butcher who distributes 
 meat to the villagers daily, and once, to their infinite de 
 light, they came home in the band wagon of a circus. 
 But no harm ever came to the twins. They were in a 
 
A PLA V GARDEN. 51 
 
 measure adopted by the whole village. The doctor often 
 took them in his wagon when he went on his round of 
 visits, and young men and boys swung them on gates and 
 carried them off on the most delightful excursions, and 
 altogether they had a jolly good time and were veritable 
 sovereigns of the place. 
 
 The mother, I should have said, was a remarkably 
 pretty woman, in spite of her many cares and troubles, 
 and now that the little sums came quite regularly from 
 her rich relations, the roses began to blossom in her 
 cheeks. She was at work at the sewing machine from 
 morning till night, making and mending for those six lit 
 tle ones, but still the roses would begin to blossom again. 
 It was a long time before Brother made her acquaint 
 ance ; indeed, he hardly knew of her existence until one 
 lovely June day he encountered the twins in a shady lane 
 not far from his own house. They had gone in a very 
 naughty way and pulled Marcella Hildreth s finest roses, 
 superb Jacqueminots and Marechal Neils she was saving 
 for the flower show, and had gathered a great quantity 
 of ox-eyed daisies and buttercups by the wayside, and 
 were planting them all out together in a little garden 
 made of soft brown dirt just in the middle of the road. 
 They had brought water in plantain leaves from a 
 brooklet close at hand, a few drops at a time, mostly 
 spilled upon their pinafores, already much soiled with the 
 soft earth. They had stuck in all the roses and the 
 weeds together, and were patting down the ground with 
 their four little hands, and looking like very industrious 
 golden-headed chicks. They were quite fluffy and 
 heated, with locks of hair hanging in their eyes and their 
 sun-bonnets bobbing sociably together. 
 
 It was thus that Brother found them, naughty and 
 soiled, but O, so lovely. He came upon the scene just 
 in time to save them from the dreadful consequences of 
 the wrath of Miss Marcella, who, discovering her loss, 
 
5 2 I 7 ILL AGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 had come forth to seek the culprits in the spirit of an 
 avenging Nemesis. I know not what would have hap 
 pened had not Brother arrived on the scene to shelter 
 the two little miscreants in his arms. He carried them 
 all the way home, and handed them to the grateful widow 
 over the front gate. He must have noticed then and 
 there that the widow s pretty forehead was corrugated 
 just in the middle by three little anxious lines. Being a 
 benevolent man, the desire may have arisen in him to 
 smooth away those tiny wrinkles. At any rate it appeared 
 soon after this encounter that Brother had less urgent 
 business abroad, or his summer vacation may have fallen 
 at this time, for he was often seen in the neighborhood 
 of the widow s cottage. He sometimes invited the twins, 
 with whom he had fallen in love, to drive out with him, 
 and of course the mother was obliged to accompany her 
 darlings. It dawned upon him at last that in order to 
 possess the twins he must marry the widow and the other 
 four, and in spite of the prayers and remonstrances of 
 the Wrens, his sisters, who had devoted their lives to 
 making him selfish, and gloried in their work, the inev 
 itable was accomplished. 
 
 The poor Wrens have always attributed their misfor 
 tune to the broken limb of the great sycamore. If this 
 had not happened the widow would never have had 
 power to cast her spell about Brother. They have done 
 just what they always said they would do if Brother ever 
 married. They have moved out of the cottage, taking 
 their personal belongings with them, and have departed 
 on the railway, with veils down and handkerchiefs pressed 
 to their eyes. The thought of giving up Brother to one 
 was intolerable ; but now that he has married a family of 
 seven, the case is one of unparalleled atrocity. 
 
 Brother, though he looks a little older, seems to take 
 kindly to family cares. He drives a smart little bay 
 horse harnessed to a two-seated buggy, which he had 
 
BROTHER S SHRINE. 53 
 
 
 
 made on purpose to accommodate himself and the three 
 Wrens. You may see him almost any day driving about, 
 with the twins on the front seat, and the other four 
 packed indiscriminately in the back of the wagon. As 
 to Brother s shrine, 1 leave you to imagine what has 
 happened to the crazy-quilts and the foot-warmers, and 
 the embroidered stools and cushions. A certain pathos 
 clings to their memory. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A MORMON SETTLEMENT. STEPHEN LOSES HIS MONEY. 
 
 I^HE shortest days have come, and the darkest, 
 those days when it requires some active faith 
 to believe the world will ever emerge from its own 
 shadow. If ghosts ever walk, it must be now, when 
 " chaos and old night " seem to have things all their own 
 way, and the belated sun comes laggingly over the 
 frozen shoulders of Saddleback at an unseemly hour in 
 the morning, and with a faint, pale gleam, as if half in 
 clined to turn in again to his warm bed in those blessed 
 islands where his steeds are stabled over night. The new 
 daylight lies bleak along the village highways, and makes 
 the old houses look more gray and gaunt than ever, and 
 lights the piles of snow with a hopeless kind of glimmer, 
 as if the task of dissolving them were entirely out of its 
 power. The scene is desolate in spite of the snugness of 
 many trees, and the effort made by door-yard evergreens 
 to keep a spark of hope alive in the numb breast of the 
 vegetable world. Sad winds blow at night, bringing 
 bodeful creakings out of the old elms, which whistle, and 
 whine, and sob as if living creatures were whipped by 
 the blast. The huntsman of the German forests clatters 
 with his troop over our Puritan village roofs. Old doors 
 and windows are dismally rheumatic on such nights, and 
 groan piteously in all their joints. Spirits jabber, and 
 mutter, and laugh down the big chimneys, and bang the 
 window-shutters. Sick people lie and listen with vague 
 foreboding, and children tuck their heads under the cov 
 erlid. * 
 
COASTING. 55 
 
 No healthy person here suffers from the cold. Fuel is 
 cheap, and people would be horrified at the thought of 
 actual need. Even old Betty Speer and Jake Small are 
 perfectly snug in their poor houses, and there are people 
 who save cats meat for Betty s two felines, Arnica and 
 Malaria, to whom Betty gave these titles because " they 
 are real pretty soundin and she don t care what they 
 mean." Several of the village homes are luxuriously 
 warm. They have double sashes, and portieres and thick 
 rugs and big open fires, as well as furnaces and heaters. 
 Mrs. Judge Magnus preserves a summer warmth through 
 out her large mansion. The conservatory is full of bloom 
 ing plants, and the rooms wear a delightful aspect of wel 
 come and good will. Houses have faces like people, and 
 this house is always smiling out of its large windows 
 which glow with crimson curtains. 
 
 The boys collect with their sleds on Pudding Knoll 
 with perfect indifference to the cold. If the mercury 
 drops 20 below zero, so much the better for them. 
 Some of the little fellows have their ears bound up in 
 mufflers and handkerchiefs. They stamp their feet and 
 clap their mittened hands, and try to talk big as if their 
 voices had already changed. Their trowsers are tied at 
 the bottom with string, which indicates that they are 
 prepared for serious business. The slide on Pudding 
 Knoll is almost ideally perfect, starting from a small 
 clump of trees on top of the knoll, and running down the 
 smooth side of the hill free from snags, until at the foot 
 it strikes a little duck pond of smooth glare ice. Across 
 this the sleds glide until they touch the opposite shore 
 and the momentum is spent. The boys grow red to 
 the tips of their ears as the fun waxes fast and 
 furious. They tug uphill their own sleds, and perhaps 
 a girl s besides, for there are plenty of girls on hand, 
 though sometimes they are not wanted, and are 
 simply endured as a necessary evil in a difficult world. 
 
5 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 The larger boys have to tolerate the girls, to take 
 a kind of grudging care of them, and to give them bits 
 of rides. After all, they are not as exasperating as the 
 smallest boys, little tots all done up like round dumplings 
 by the hands of careful mammas. They have all brought 
 something to eat in their pockets, which gives them a 
 peculiarly bulgy and amorphous appearance. These ambi 
 tious infants are apt to cry and get babyish when they 
 hurt themselves, and they often have to be dragged up 
 hill. They have also a " nasty " fashion of tying their 
 miserable little sleds, named " Blue Bird " or " Robin 
 Redbreast," in a sly way to the tail of a big bob-sled, 
 thus adding a samll boy accompaniment to the more ex 
 clusive fun of their elders and betters. Besides, these 
 small boys are apt to tell tales at home of the way they 
 have been abused on Pudding Knoll, at the same time 
 showing their wounds, and then there is what the big 
 fellows call a " row." But in spite of persecution and 
 hindrance of this nature, owing to the absurd need there 
 seems to be for the existence of girls and small brothers 
 who will " tag," the big boys still do have a glorious 
 time on that beautiful little knoll. Of course they never 
 look at the far-stretching landscape, with Saddleback in 
 the distance, shading to a soft blue and purple, and the 
 whole valley ready to tell its story to a seeing eye, if there 
 should chance to be one. But the air is delicious, and 
 exercise even in these bitter days in a nipping wind sets 
 the blood dancing in the veins and the heart beating to 
 a merry tune. 
 
 Unfortunately youth and its tastes and pleasures last 
 but a short time. There are not many in the village who 
 care greatly for outdoor exercise or for the beauties of 
 nature. The lovely setting of the little town has its 
 effect on them. They are proud to hear strangers praise 
 it ; but most elderly people live indoors, and know not 
 that winter has its charms. The hard, grim facts of our 
 
A MORMON SETTLEMENT. 57 
 
 New England life produced a stern type Of Puritanism, 
 which, though much effaced about the edges, still has an 
 undissolved core. When people endure much hardness 
 they naturally come to believe in an inexorable and 
 limited God and a pitiless fate. With better circum 
 stances God grows more loving, and the doctrines of 
 election and predestination loosen their grip. This pro 
 cess has been going on a good many years, and has led 
 to interesting results. Here in the village you may study 
 in small the whole religious history of the land, and 
 mark how " isms " and strange doctrines have arisen and 
 faded. Even in times when people found comfort in an 
 angry God and a lurid background of condemnation, the 
 crotchety eccentric spirit lived here, and brought forth 
 ideas which have shocked or softened the religious sensi 
 bilities of the place. 
 
 The village is not more prolific of these new lights than 
 other places, yet we have had a number of Second Ad- 
 ventists, Spiritualists, Mind and Faith Healers, and other 
 independent thinkers. Many years ago a small company 
 of Mormons lived in some detached tenements about a 
 mile from the place, on the old plank road. No one 
 knew whence they came or why they did not at once 
 move on to Utah. They were always talking of their 
 land of Canaan, but still they lingered, and in spite of 
 their faith were respected as peaceable and upright citi 
 zens. They were forever on the point of departure, with 
 their loins girt about and their lamps trimmed and burn 
 ing, but the money to transport them to Brigham Young s 
 paradise seemed a long time on the road. Occasionally an 
 apostle came among them, and then a great preaching and 
 exhorting was held. Some of the village children would 
 steal into the conventicle in the hope of hearing or seeing 
 something extraordinary. It was rumored that " Mis " 
 Hys-ope, one of the Mormon women of the neighborhood, 
 could speak with tongues ; and she was looked upon 
 
5 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 with a certain awe by the children, though in fact she 
 was a rather untidy, red-haired woman, always carrying 
 about a heavy baby in her arms. One day little Harry 
 Holt, who had run away from home to the Mormon 
 meeting, came back with his eyes very large and in a 
 high state of excitement. 
 
 " Oh, mother," he exclaimed, " the vials is going to be 
 poured out." 
 
 " The what ?" asked his mother, naturally thinking of 
 her medicine bottles. 
 
 " The vials of wrath is all going to be poured out on 
 the heads of us Gentiles. Mis Hyslope says so ; and 
 she danced right up and down in the middle of the 
 floor." 
 
 The vials were poured out on the head of poor Harry, 
 for running away and disobeying orders, but that was all 
 that came of Mis Hyslope s dreadful prophecy. The 
 Hyslope family had one beautiful child, a little girl named 
 Jane, very gentle and lovely to look upon, with large 
 blue eyes and the most perfect curling golden hair. 
 Jenny was a great favorite with the neighbors, and just 
 before all the Mormons in the village received the word 
 of command to march to Utah she sickened and died. 
 Her little grave was made close to the roadside in an 
 open field, as the bigoted father did not wish to lay her 
 body among the bones of the unbelieving. When her 
 people marched away there was nothing left to speak of 
 them but the little grass-grown grave with its rude head 
 stone. But the tradition of Jenny Hyslope s loveliness 
 has lingered in the neighborhood, and up to this time, 
 though her very name is forgotten, the school children 
 are accustomed in spring-time to lay flowers on the 
 " Mormon girl s " grave. 
 
 Even in these days of relaxed discipline there are vil 
 lage lines dividing the goats from the sheep. Every 
 family takes a religious newspaper, and nowadays all 
 
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAP o 
 
 shades of theology are taught by the reTt^ous. press. 
 Some of the more attractive papers, well filled with pic 
 tures, stories, and secular items, meet with a good deal 
 of favor, but they are not looked upon as quite sound. 
 To be both safe and sound a paper must be rather dull 
 and absolutely untainted in its doctrine. As Deacon 
 Hildreth s wife says : " You want something to tie to in 
 a newspaper, and a good many that look attractive are 
 theologically as slippery as eels." The village families 
 who take the Watch Tower and who swear by it are con 
 sidered a little more respectable than some others who 
 have run off on to side tracks in regard to their Sunday 
 reading. The Watch Tower has gone on in one straight 
 groove for fifty or sixty years, never veering to the right 
 or left. All its little stories and its editorials are of one 
 piece. Some of the old families have in their garrets files 
 of the Watch Tower going back to the first number issued. 
 They are like so much good doctrine stacked and corded 
 for winter use. When a village boy goes wrong it is very 
 apt to be said that he was brought up on the Brazen 
 Trumpet or the Religious Chromo, and then every thing is 
 explained. Laxity of doctrine, it is thought, has crept 
 in with ihe.C/irvmo to an alarming degree ; but it is so 
 bright, newsy, and sparkling it gains the largest number 
 of subscribers, and there is a painful rumor that Mrs. 
 Deacon Hildreth has been caught reading it in the back 
 kitchen when she thought " folks " were not round. 
 
 I am fain to confess that many of the best people in the 
 village were educated by the Watch Tower, but of course 
 there are exceptions to every rule. Stephen imbibed its 
 doctrines with his mother s milk. His parents were very 
 careful to exclude all kinds of doubtful literature from 
 their only son. But Stephen soon took matters in his 
 own hands ; and has been more or less perturbed in his 
 orbit by the motions of other heavenly bodies. Stephen 
 is eccentric, but there is no danger of his ever going 
 
60 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 wrong unless spite and malice should overcome his pru 
 dence. Did such danger exist, there would be more hope 
 of him. He is so shut up in conceit of himself and his 
 own virtue that I do not suppose any least little sin will 
 ever penetrate his coat of mail to bring him to a better 
 frame of mind. He goes about preaching abstinence 
 to people who are already too abstinent, and have never 
 in their lives taken any thing stronger than a glass of old 
 cider. He has opinions on all subjects, and he thrusts 
 them in with his raucous voice where old and wise people 
 would fain be silent. He is an extreme example of the 
 ill-effects of a small neighborhood on a narrow, sharp, and 
 acute mind. 
 
 Stephen is very clever. He has studied the birds of 
 the vicinity, and made a collection, which you may see in 
 a large glass cabinet in his mother s parlor, worthy of a 
 skilled taxidermist. He has corresponded with learned 
 societies, and written articles for scientific papers ; and 
 probably the only two men in the village you would ever 
 hear spoken of at a distance are Judge Magnus and 
 Stephen. But some people dwindle perceptibly as you 
 draw near their homes. The judge s good opinion of 
 himself is an exuberant, interior satisfaction, and an ami 
 able desire to patronize all the world. It can be endured, 
 and almost liked. But people wish to run away from 
 Stephen as from a pest. His irritable mind stirs up the 
 most peaceable to an indignant protest. He tackles most 
 indecently quiet folks who just wish to be let alone to 
 serve God, and do their duty in the walk in life to which 
 they have been called. 
 
 The weekly prayer-meeting is open to every body, and 
 it is considered an excellent sign of spiritual awakening 
 when a young man or maiden is willing to take a part. 
 At one time Stephen invaded the prayer-meeting regu 
 larly every Wednesday night, and if he had carried a 
 hornets nest into its subdued atmosphere, he could not 
 
STEPHEN S THEOLOGY. 61 
 
 have created a greater commotion. He holds literally to 
 the doctrines of the burning lake of Gehenna, and of 
 election and predestination, tenets which some of the best 
 Christian people have blinked for a long time, feeling 
 that it is well to play the part of the ostrich and hide one s 
 head in the sand when such disagreeable questions are 
 uppermost. But Stephen never blinks any thing ; he 
 comes out with a sharply defined literalism quite shock 
 ing to sensitive minds, and yet not all of his doctrines are 
 of the most strict sect. Mixed up with extreme " ortho 
 dox " views are notions he has picked up or evolved from 
 his own consciousness, such as the idea that all souls are 
 not immortal that through extremity of sin some may 
 perish utterly. These things he proclaimed in a brazen 
 manner at the meetings until the old people, who mainly 
 resort there for an hour of spiritual repose and medita 
 tion, were driven nearly wild by his fluent, rasping 
 talk, which came under the head of " giving experience." 
 Old Miss Withers, who in her way is almost as eccentric 
 as Stephen, rose from her seat very angry one evening, 
 and with her face quite scarlet, said in a shrill, piping 
 voice : " Ef you think you can teach folks twice your 
 age, and cram things offered to idols right down their 
 throats, why don t you move to a bigger place ? " Then 
 she sat down fanni-ng herself hysterically, and Stephen 
 answered with solemn sententiousness : " Because I think 
 the village needs me." There was a ripple of laughter 
 all over the room, and Deacon Hildreth was obliged to 
 dismiss the meeting. 
 
 At one time Stephen took up violently against banks. 
 Consequently he took to hoarding his money at home. 
 By trade he is a cabinetmaker, and one of the best. His 
 manual dexterity is such if he had the poetic feeling he 
 would be an artist. The summer boarders have bought 
 a great many of the little writing-desks which he makes 
 of native woods, and at the time of which I speak 
 
62 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Stephen had hoarded two hundred and fifty dollars. As 
 he would not patronize a bank, he looked about anxiously 
 at home to see where he could place his funds in safe 
 keeping, and finally he hid the money in the watch- 
 pocket of an old pair of trowsers, which he hung behind 
 some lumber in the garret. Stephen did not mention the 
 matter to his mother, but kept the secret locked in his 
 own heart. To tell the truth, his mother is afraid of him. 
 Naturally, she would be a gossiping, lively, kind-hearted 
 old lady, but her child has forced her into a home-stay 
 ing, brooding sort of person, who is .always on the look 
 out in a furtive way for the opportunity to do little deeds 
 of kindness without being detected. Stephen does not 
 believe in feeding the hungry or clothing the naked. He 
 is one of those horrid economists who carry out their 
 principles to the letter, and can not be made to feel that 
 any form of human misery is undeserved. But his mother 
 is made up quite differently. It would pain her dear old 
 heart to have any being, however unworthy, gnawed by 
 the pangs of hunger. She has, I fear, helped to fill the 
 alms-houses and inebriate asylums by giving away part 
 of her slender income to tramps. 
 
 Stephen having the smallest opinion of his mother s 
 mental capacity, had refrained from telling her where he 
 had hidden his cash. One day a poor man with his 
 draggled wife came begging to the back door. He was 
 suspiciously red in the nose and watery about the eyes, 
 but his clothes were miserably poor and thin, and the 
 day was cold, and the woman told a piteous tale. Ste 
 phen s mother, therefore, actually with tears in her eyes, 
 trotted up to the garret and pulled out an old gown of 
 her own, and then rummaged about until she laid hands 
 on that identical pair of old trowsers under the lumber- 
 pile which her son had so carefully concealed. Well, the 
 result, though fearful, was unexpected. Stephen treated 
 his mother so abominably that she roused herself to con- 
 
STEPHEN LOSES HfS MOVEY. 63 
 
 front him, and for a time was far less meek and timid 
 than before the event occurred. The villagers, I must 
 confess, were all secretly glad. The sheriff got out a 
 posse and raised a hue and cry, but the two tramps had 
 utterly disappeared before the loss was discovered. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HON. HIGHFLYER VISITS THE VILLAGE. 
 
 HUGH has now concluded to write a history of the 
 town an employment for which his talents and 
 attainments are admirably fitted and to leave the com 
 position of the great American novel to a future day. 
 He has made local research the excuse for invading most 
 of the village homes and prying into old trunks, escri 
 toires, and bureaus where yellow documents lie concealed. 
 He is more troublesome than the book-agent or the 
 lightning-rod man, but then he is far more insinuating 
 and persuasive ; and it is quite a picture to see him at 
 the village tea-tables, discoursing about the ancestors of 
 the family. There is scarce an old love-letter in the 
 place into which he has not taken a peep, and he has 
 gathered up odd bits of domestic history sufficient to 
 make a volume, a vast amount of rubbish out of which 
 he hopes to extract a few grains of gold. 
 
 His antiquarian research has been the pretext for hob 
 nobbing with all the old maids and flattering all the old 
 ladies in the town. He has brought each one round to 
 the belief that she is descended from a famous old En 
 glish family, with nothing less than a baronial seat, dating 
 back to the Crusades, or possibly as far as the Norman 
 Conquest. He has even hinted at sums of money in chan 
 cery to which some of them may be entitled ; and has 
 thoroughly stirred up that pride in descent from a long- 
 lived and distinguished race and that greed of inherit 
 ance which is latent in us all. You should see Hugh in 
 confidential confab with some ancient dame who has 
 
HUGH S RESEARCHES. 65 
 
 little left to her but family pretensions and cracked 
 china, going over all her bits of things with solemn seri 
 ousness, and delivering a lecture on ceramics, to which 
 she listens as if it were law and gospel. There is not an 
 old cabinet, or spinning-wheel, or chest of drawers, or 
 colonial clock, or brass warming-pan, which Hugh has 
 not taken in hand and descanted on profoundly to the 
 delight of the owner. 
 
 All this rummaging and tea-drinking is in the interest 
 of the town history which is to place a halo of light about 
 our hamlet, and let the world know the great number of 
 distinguished families it contains. The town has no par 
 ticular history, being of that Arcadian sort that nothing 
 of note has ever happened in it. The great people have 
 all been greater in their own estimation than in the 
 opinion of the world at large. But Hugh is bent on 
 inventing a history of the town if one can not otherwise 
 be obtained. He thinks he can create a batch of revo 
 lutionary heroes with the pen as easily as the queen 
 makes knights with the flat of the sword. 
 
 Hugh is not at present on favorable terms with Milly. 
 She has accused him most unfairly, as he declares, of 
 taking a hand in the Rastus adventure. That painful 
 affair has, however, brought its compensation. The 
 mother of Rastus, now, when she halts her old horse 
 before the little stone house, and Milly comes out bare 
 headed to do her " trading," smiles on Milly benignly, 
 and gives a peculiar cluck far down in her throat. She 
 deals her out now invariably thirteen eggs to the dozen, 
 which, considering her penurious disposition, is a very 
 high mark of approval. The old lady is still spry and 
 vigorous, and does not care to be " sat upon " by a 
 daughter-in-law. 
 
 A more unfortunate alienation exists between Hugh 
 and Judge Magnus. When the judge is over attending 
 court at the county town Mrs. Magnus sometimes lets 
 
66 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 him slip in to dinner or tea, as she can not wholly deprive 
 herself of his society. But the judge has taken a severe 
 cold in his shoulder and now turns it invariably on 
 Hugh. The trouble all arose last fall when a very excit 
 ing political campaign was opened in the state, in which 
 Judge Magnus took a leading part. Most of the villa 
 gers are opposed to the judge in politics. Jake Small 
 came out very strong against the Judge s candidate for 
 governor, the Hon. Mr. Highflyer. As one of the landed 
 proprietors of the town, he thought he had a right to be 
 heard. Perhaps the judge did not exactly try to corrupt 
 his neighbors and to win votes by favors, and what Jake 
 called " inflooence," but he was determined Highflyer 
 should be heard in the village where he lived, and should 
 receive such a rousing " ovation " as was never given to 
 any other man in that vicinity. Consequently a flaming 
 poster appeared on all the fences, trees, and dead walls 
 announcing the near advent of the candidate. There was 
 to be a dinner at the judge s, to which all the principal men 
 of the village were invited, including the parson, Hugh, 
 and Stephen. A meeting was arranged at Library Hall, 
 where the Hon. Highflyer would speak, and the judge 
 had engaged a brass band to come from the nearest large 
 place, that there might be a parade with music, and later 
 in the evening a serenade to his candidate. The judge 
 also procured some torches and waterproof capes to array 
 the loyal rabble of boys for a fitting turnout, and it was 
 rumored in the village that he had laid in a considerable 
 store of pinwheels, rockets, and Roman candles to illu 
 mine the line of march. 
 
 Every thing was in order for Highflyer ; Aunt Dinah 
 had been commissioned to prepare the fatted calf. The 
 judge was in his glory. He went swelling up and down 
 Main Street, and stopped every body he met to talk of 
 Highflyer : 
 
 " A big man, sir ; the biggest man in the country. 
 
THE HOX. HIGHFLYER S VISIT. 67 
 
 And you will see, sir, we shall roll up an overwhelming 
 majority yes, sir, an overwhelming majority, on election 
 day. Take a cigar, sir, and when you can, call and see 
 Mrs. Magnus. You know you are to be on hand for the 
 reception and dinner." 
 
 And thus with immense expansiveness he paraded the 
 little place, filling its smallness oppressively full of his 
 self-importance and the reflected glory of Highflyer. 
 The morning of the great day had arrived, and all was 
 in perfect order for the ceremonies to follow. Highflyer 
 was to be welcomed at the station as he never had been 
 welcomed in all the days of his life. But at three o clock 
 in the afternoon the judge received news from Highflyer 
 which gave him a stunning blow. The great man was at 
 home ill of a sore throat, and the reception must perforce 
 be postponed indefinitely. It was pitiable to see the 
 collapse of the judge, and Mrs. Magnus, with that 
 great dinner on her hands, was not less to be commis 
 erated. 
 
 There was no time to lose, as the band would soon get 
 
 on board the train at R , on its way to the village. 
 
 Hugh, who happened to be lounging about in the judge s 
 library, was commissioned to go and dispatch a telegram 
 which would keep it at home. He was also asked to 
 affix a hasty notice to the door of Library Hall convey 
 ing the heavy news of Highflyer s sore throat. The 
 small boys of the village were about to receive a crushing 
 blow, and Hugh naturally felt for them. However, he 
 says he did notify the band not to come, by means of 
 Mr. Diggs " ticker " and private wire. By this means 
 Mr. Diggs transacts business in stocks in a secret man 
 ner with a distant city, and the general opinion in the 
 village is that his business is not respectable. Mr. Diggs 
 ticker, it seems, did not work well on this particular 
 occasion, and within an hour some one who in size and 
 figure much resembled Hugh, well wrapped in an ulster, 
 
68 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 and with bag in hand, .boarded the four o clock western 
 train. 
 
 The judge shut himself in doors, and Mrs. Magnus 
 pulled down the front parlor shades, which always indi 
 cated that she was not at home to visitors. The notice 
 on the door of Library Hall, if such existed, was not 
 visible to the naked eye. Apparently, the fact of the 
 Hon. Mr. Highflyer s sore throat had not leaked out in 
 the village. At six o clock a little sputter of yellow and 
 red fireworks was observed about the station. The east 
 and west trains came in almost at the same moment. 
 Suddenly there was a clash of brass instruments, and the 
 boys began to hurrah and throw up their caps for High 
 flyer. Oddly enough, the judge was not on hand at the 
 moment to welcome the great man in person. But the 
 sheriff of the county, a very active, even offensive parti 
 san, scheming for re-election, was present on the platform 
 with several of his henchmen. He had seen Highflyer 
 at a state convention some years before, and thought he 
 knew him well. Therefore, when a tall stranger well 
 muffled about the ears and mouth, with his hat some 
 what drawn down over his brows, stepped from the 
 western train, the sheriff pressed forward, seized him by 
 the hand, and welcomed him in as neat a little impromptu 
 speech as had ever been heard in the village. 
 
 The Hon. Highflyer, who was suffering from a hoarse 
 cold and a sore throat, answered briefly, but much to the 
 point, and was at once escorted to the best livery hack in 
 the village. The sheriff immediately formed the proces 
 sion in line ; the band struck up " Hail to the Chief." 
 The lads with torches and capes ranged themselves 
 behind the band. The rabble fell in at the tag end, and 
 all moved onward to Main Street amid a fizzing and 
 sputtering of fireworks, shouts for Highflyer, hisses and 
 groans for Lowlander, the opposition candidate, cat-calls, 
 cheers, and other outbursts of enthusiasm. The villagers 
 
THE HO W. HIGHFLYER S VISIT. 69 
 
 all rushed into the street. A few had prepared to illumi 
 nate in a modest way, and some of the house-fronts 
 began to blaze with tallow clips. The judge in the 
 retirement of his library heard that fatal blare of brass 
 and the cheers of the crowd. He rushed bewildered out 
 of doors regardless of his hat. On came the procession, 
 the band now tooting forth, " See, the Conquering Hero 
 Comes." The judge waved his arms wildly and ran to 
 the front gate crying, " Stop ! stop ! " But that triumphal 
 procession had neither eye nor ear for any thing but the 
 matter in hand. It marched on past the house with the 
 dreadful effigy of Highflyer streaming to the breeze on a 
 broad banner carried by the vanguard the din of brass 
 and shouts of the multitude. It marched to the extreme 
 end of the village, as far as the old bridge, and back 
 again to the judge s door. And on its arrival the hack 
 was thoroughly examined. But the Hon. Mr. Highflyer 
 had evaporated, and refused to materialize again. 
 
 The judge was in danger of apoplexy from the terrible 
 state of wrath and mortification into which he was thrown, 
 and Hugh, when discovered, was found in his dressing- 
 gown and slippers quietly sitting at home in Aunt Dido s 
 chamber, inditing a page of his history. Aunt Dido, 
 though torture screws have been applied to make her con 
 fess, will say nothing except that Hugh was home at 
 supper-time on that fatal night ; but as to the exact hour 
 of the supper her memory fails her. The judge was 
 obliged to pay the band full price for time and trouble, 
 which was but the smallest part of his humiliation. Mrs. 
 Magnus, who is always practical, gave the dinner which 
 had been prepared for the next governor of the state to 
 the men of brass, who were very hungry. But the worst 
 feature of the case is the fact that Highflyer was most 
 shamefully defeated by Lowlander in the near election 
 so cut up, horse, foot, and artillery, in fact, that he 
 now says he shall never again run for any office, but 
 
7 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 intends to devote the remainder of his life to the compo 
 sition of his great work, " What I Know About Politics." 
 A coldness quite down to zero still continues between 
 Hugh and the judge ; and that nicest, most hospitable 
 house in the village is unfortunately closed to the young 
 historian on all public occasions. The sheriff lost his 
 re-election, and this sad fact is attributed to the handsome 
 little speech he made on the station platform the even 
 ing of the Highflyer ovation, scraps of which have been 
 used to his disadvantage in the miserable little opposi 
 tion sheet published at the county town. 
 
 Accounts of this election incident flew far and wide, 
 and for weeks the village was quite famous. Hugh 
 looked upon it as valuable material for history. It is 
 not to be supposed that he has ever " given himself 
 away " and confessed he personated Highflyer on that 
 memorable evening. The sheriff declares that the per 
 son he addressed was a taller and stouter man than 
 Hugh, and wore a dark mustache, and there are other 
 credible witnesses ready to swear to the same facts. 
 
 The boys, however, have pitched upon Hugh as their 
 benefactor. They feel grateful to him for the good time 
 they enjoyed swinging about the judge s torches and 
 shouting themselves hoarse for Highflyer. They have 
 named their snow redoubt on Sampson s Hill, near the 
 school-house, Fort Hugh, and the opposing parties are 
 known as Highflyers and Lowlanders. The battles 
 fought there during the noon recess are of a terrible 
 ferocity. They have even placed Quaker guns on the 
 top of the fortification, and bodies of infantry can be 
 seen rolling downhill pursued by a shower of balls. 
 
 Sampson s Hill is on the road to Mill Farm, a charm 
 ing wallc in summer. The path runs over a stile and 
 trickles along through meadow-grasses, and under tall 
 trees, and finally strikes the road to the ravine. The 
 fields thereabout are speckled with ripe strawberries in 
 
OLD BETTY SPEER. 71 
 
 June, and the village children resort to them in their by- 
 hours. Here, too, young lovers come to walk under the 
 trees at sundown and listen to the song of the evening 
 thrush. 
 
 Old Betty Speer lives on this road, in a picturesque 
 hovel half covered with vines and creepers. She receives 
 out-door relief from the poor guardians of the town, and 
 there is a tradition that she has money hidden away in 
 old tea-pots and tomato-cans all over the premises. But 
 these tales are entirely unfounded. Betty has tried 
 hard to cultivate a good paying reputation as a witch 
 and fortune-teller, but has made a dismal failure. As 
 every well-regulated village should have an old woman 
 seeress to act in this capacity, it is disappointing that 
 Betty Speer should be quite unable to inspire awe in the 
 smallest child. She occasionally wheedles a dime out of 
 the pocket of some country bumpkin who resorts to her 
 to find out where lost or stolen articles are concealed. 
 For this purpose she pretends to look in a rather curious 
 pebble picked up somewhere about the fields. She also 
 keeps a pack of greasy cards to reveal to young girls 
 the very important fact as to whether they are to marry 
 a light or dark " complected " man. Beyond this her 
 simple magic can not go. She has picked up the art of 
 distilling simples, and now makes a slight addition to 
 her income by the sale of a quack decoction put up in 
 small black bottles, which she affirms " is good for 
 rheumatiz if rubbed on at the change of the moon." 
 
 Her two cats, Arnica and Malaria, are not even black. 
 Arnica is a pretty Maltese and Malaria is white, with 
 black nose and boots. Sometimes the boys in the fort 
 on Sampson s Hill turn their missiles against Betty s queer 
 little habitation, from which the smoke of the chimney 
 always streams forth in a long vaporous feather. But 
 nothing ever disturbs the old woman s equanimity save 
 the need of eating a poor dinner. She is short and sturdy, 
 
7 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 with a black wary eye set deep in her head. She is 
 generally done up in an old serge cloak, and over her 
 shoes when the weather is snowy she draws on a pair of 
 heavy woolen stockings. In this guise she trudges all 
 over the town. Betty has an unerring nose as to what 
 may be cooking in the neighbors houses. Each fair day 
 she elects to dine at some favorite place, and regardless 
 of an invitation, ensconces herself in the easiest chair in 
 the kitchen. Her eyes follow all the operations of the 
 housewife with anxious scrutiny. She has a weakness 
 for dumplings, and can scent them quite a distance off. 
 For what is known as " boiled dish " she has as great an 
 aversion. When her favorite viands are preparing she 
 is always glued to her seat like a dumb thing, watching 
 with wistful eyes for her portion of the feast to be placed 
 on the corner of the kitchen table. But if " b iled vic 
 tuals " is the order of the day old Betty steals out sor 
 rowfully, shaking the dust of that kitchen from her shoes. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE VILLAGE CLUBS. ST. PATTY AND HER JUBILEE. 
 
 THE days of quilting-bees, apple-parings, and spelling- 
 schools appear to have vanished. A new order of 
 entertainment has sprung up in the village, which, if not 
 more enjoyable, is more select. The mania for clubs has 
 reached our quiet precinct, and a number have been 
 organized both for profit and pleasure. Of course, we 
 have lectures and concerts during the winter in Library 
 Hall. We have also symposia, a kind of parlor discourse, 
 established by a philosopher who was raised in this 
 town, and who returns to his native haunts for a few 
 days or weeks during the year. The symposia are only 
 held among the cultivated few. By the uninitiated 
 crowd they are sneered at and unmercifully ridiculed. 
 Still the advent of the philosopher makes a decided 
 ripple in the rather sluggish currents of village society, 
 and creates an appetite for reading and speculative 
 thought which, on the whole, is profitable. When he is 
 with us we all try to appear as learned and profound as 
 we can. The men, as a rule, keep clear of him with the 
 exception of one or two, but there are a number of 
 women who sit devoutly at his feet. Some of these very 
 women, who have heretofore enjoyed a dish of gossip 
 over their tea, and have been so little regardful of the 
 improvement of their minds as to compare notes on 
 bonnets and gowns, as soon as the philosopher appears, 
 put away the vanities of life and take to serious studies. 
 The library is ransacked for the works of German phi 
 losophers, of Locke, Mill, Descartes, and a variety of 
 
74 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 other profound authors. It is always impressive to have 
 these books lying around on the parlor table even if one 
 does not read them ; and the philosopher feels the com 
 pliment to himself, as he should. He is perfectly happy 
 when, as Deacon Hildreth s wife says, he can get in the 
 midst of a " passle " of women and have them all listen 
 to him in open-eyed wonder as they try in their inmost 
 souls to understand the philosophical terms, such as 
 "cognize," " concept," "percept," " self-conscious per 
 sonality," and a great variety of other well-sounding 
 words and phrases. 
 
 As I have hinted, the men of the village generally 
 turn up their noses at the philosopher, because they are 
 incapable of understanding him, and are jealous of his 
 influence over a certain clique of women. The young 
 parson meets him on that happy neutral ground which he 
 has chosen for friendly controversy, where he gleans 
 new ideas and gathers fresh inspiration. He is cordial 
 to all who bring grist to his mill, let them call themselves 
 what they may. Hugh, on the contrary, looks askance 
 at the invader for poaching on ground which he feels 
 belongs of right to himself the domain of female influ 
 ence and consequently, as he has no special bent toward 
 speculative thought, he generally goes on a long tramp 
 when the philosopher is around. The old shoemaker, 
 with his long white hair and complexion like old ivory, 
 is the only man in the village who thoroughly under 
 stands the history of philosophy, but he, faithful to his 
 lapstone, is never lured away to any of the parlor sym 
 posia. When the philosopher lectures in Library Hall, 
 as he sometimes does, to a select few of his admirers, the 
 shoemaker, much to the speaker s annoyance, stations 
 himself on the front bench with a smile childlike and 
 bland wreathing his countenance. Milly, who has always 
 been a devotee of Plato and Spinoza, because of their 
 affirmative spiritual side, is no general student, still she 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER. 75 
 
 has a strong leaning toward speculative studies, and has 
 been known to lock her shop when it was full of spring 
 work to go and sit at the philosopher s feet in Miss 
 Drusilla s parlor. 
 
 The philosopher is a short man with a very large head, 
 covered with bushy hair. He wears spectacles of course, 
 and a great beard and mustache give him a leonine 
 aspect. But he is the most approachable, gentle, kindly- 
 mannered little man in the world when he is not lost in 
 abstractions. Then the light seems to go out behind his 
 spectacles, and he will sit in one position for hours 
 together. But he is a human creature with a heart which 
 vibrates to the awed attention and the homage of his 
 coterie. It has been queried whether he ever looks at a 
 woman s face, or knows whether she is young or old, 
 well-favored or ugly. But I suspect that the beautiful 
 face draws even him, and that barred up somewhere in 
 the " Ego " is a living man. 
 
 Of course, it is quite a strain on our intellectual \vomen 
 to have the philosopher with us for a fortnight or three 
 weeks, the usual length of his stay. It is very taxing to 
 the brain to try to appear profound all that length of 
 time, to abandon one s usual low altitude of thought and 
 feeling and mount of a sudden into the clear, bracing 
 but rather chilly realm of abstract ideas. For a week 
 after the philosopher has taken his departure little is 
 heard in some of our parlors, but the reverberations and 
 echoes of his lectures on the philosophy of religion. 
 Such words and phases as " Socinian," " Arminian," the 
 " sensational school," "the spiritual school," " the soul 
 entity," seem to roll and mutter in all the corners like 
 half-spent thunder. But presently we give a long sigh 
 of relief ; we recognize the fact that we have been under 
 great cerebral pressure and need a little wholesome 
 recreation to let us down with safety to the ordinary flats 
 and shallows of real life. 
 
76 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 A fortnight after the philosopher s departure the 
 village is a scene of wild dissipation. " Tea fights," whist 
 parties, club meetings, crowd upon each other s heels. 
 The heavy tomes which have weighed down our tables 
 are sent back to the library shelves where they belong, 
 and out of corners come creeping the despised fancy 
 work which was shoved aside to make room for them. 
 The crochet bag, the knitting basket, the Kensington 
 art work, of which we should have been ashamed in the 
 philosopher s presence, again resume their sway. Women 
 enjoy themselves immensely talking over family diseases 
 and the gossip of the neighborhood. It is as if they had 
 been away on a long journey and had come together for 
 the first time to hear the home news. Even Drusilla is 
 more active and energetic in town affairs than ever. 
 Being intensely practical, Drusilla is not of the philo 
 sophic cast of mind, but she has taken to patronizing 
 philosophy because it is neither frivolous nor petty. 
 Drusilla wishes to emancipate herself from feminine 
 limitations. She rejoices in not being troubled with any 
 of the weaknesses of her sex. As I said, there are 
 several clubs in the village embracing all ages and con 
 ditions. The high-school girls have one in which they 
 talk of archaic Greek art and early Assyrian pottery ; 
 but exactly, in proportion as you recede from the high- 
 school age you will find the clubs growing lighter in 
 character, until with the old ladies nothing but pure 
 amusement and recreation is intended. They call them 
 selves the Wintergreens, and their insignia is a little 
 sprig of that plant pinned into a kerchief or adorning a 
 dress-cap. The Wintergreens meet semi-occasionally, 
 when the old men are engaged at town-meeting or have 
 a monthly session of their Saturday-Night Club. Part 
 of the regular programme is an old-fashioned supper 
 where tea-cup fortunes are told. The frisky perform 
 ances of the Wintergreens and their inextinguishable fun 
 
THE WINTERGREENS. 77 
 
 and laughter are the delight of the town. Very comical 
 stories leak out in regard to their secret sessions, for the 
 greater part of their meetings are held with closed doors. 
 Occasionally the old men are invited to be present, and 
 once or twice a general town invitation has been given 
 out. But the private meetings are the most enjoyable. 
 As the Wintergreens are particularly secret and silent 
 about their doings, public curiosity is whetted to a keen 
 edge. It is known that they sometimes play old-fashioned 
 games, and tell ancient love stories, and rehearse the 
 triumphs of their girlhood. A prize has even been offered 
 for the best love tale, and to judge from the peals of 
 laughter which ring out when this pastime is going for 
 ward, it is one of the most enjoyable. 
 
 No old woman can become a Wintergreen until she is 
 willing to tell her age and take her Bible oath thereon. 
 Sixty is about the limit for admissions, and several have 
 not gone in until past their seventieth year. Drusilla, 
 who is only a few years past fifty, proposed herself for 
 membership, but she was blackballed on other grounds. 
 The old ladies were afraid of her genius for manage 
 ment ; and, as Mrs. Deacon Hildreth said, they wished 
 to " boss " their own affairs. Drusilla would speedily 
 have transformed them into something else. When the 
 weather is unfavorable, a carriage or sleigh goes out as 
 far as Mill Farm and picks up the Wintergreens ; and 
 the secret conclave invariably breaks up at ten. It is 
 thought this club has had something to do in preserving 
 in the beauty of age a number of our bright-eyed, fresh- 
 complextoned, cheerful old women, who continue useful 
 in their own sphere, and give a certain dignity and grace 
 to village life. Aunt Dido is a leading spirit among the 
 Wintergreens. 
 
 The young parson encourages wholesome, innocent 
 amusement among all classes of people. He has joined 
 an athletic club, and is one of the best wheelmen and 
 
7 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 oarsmen of the town. He has of late given a sermon on 
 dancing which has offended a few of the tender con 
 sciences. It was thought at one critical moment there 
 might be a division in the church on this burning ques 
 tion, and the young parson stood to his guns and con 
 fessed himself ready to resign. His pretty wife was in 
 tears, and the women of the neighborhood came in and 
 put their arms about her and declared they could never 
 love another clergyman s wife so well. Then they went 
 home, and decided if the breach was not healed and the 
 poor thing was obliged to go from them, they would pre 
 sent her, as a parting gift, with a handsome black silk 
 gown, which, I am fain to confess, the poor thing needs. 
 But the breach was healed through the diplomacy of 
 Deacon Hildreth, who is known in the village as the 
 Town Clock. He always walks on the same side of the 
 street, rises and goes to bed at the same hours, and offers 
 the same stereotyped blessing at table, and the same 
 prayer in the weekly prayer-meeting. Some of the 
 children, hearing him called the Town Clock, have 
 actually believed that he possesses wheel-work inside 
 his plethoric body which can be wound up and made 
 to tick. Happily the deacon knew nothing of the mod 
 ern theory that our games and pastimes are the survivals 
 of old heathenish religious festivals. But he knew his 
 Bible ; and, like the famous man who said it was a pity 
 the devil should have all the good tunes, the deacon was 
 ready to do battle with the same potentate for some of 
 the good amusements. It was a great surprise, there 
 fore, when at the next stated meeting he rose slowly 
 from his seat and gave his testimony in favor of the par 
 son. It was an incontrovertible fact, he said, that David 
 danced before the ark ; dancing was not therefore per se 
 a wicked act. The fate of the young woman who 
 mocked David out of the window was also judiciously 
 touched upon, and the fine lesson educed that even our 
 
>R U SILL A . 1 " W I V^rT 7 9 
 
 amusements may be holy and worshipful if indulged in 
 the right spirit. As the deacon, the central* piHar of the 
 church, had gone over to the enemy, the case against the 
 clergyman broke down, but the ladies, I am sorry to say, 
 forgot to present that black silk gown to his pretty wife. 
 Drusilla also supported the parson, and she is a power 
 in the parish. There are women doomed to rule a petty 
 hamlet who only need a wider sphere to make them 
 selves famous. Drusilla is one of this variety. Form 
 ally she was known all over the village and surrounding 
 parts as Miss Drusey, but she abhors the name and re 
 fuses to turn the light of her favor on any one who in 
 dulges in its easy colloquialism. Drusilla has the Ro 
 man matron in its sound, and she has the Roman in her 
 blood. Ordinary women she looks upon with contempt 
 uous pity, and is half ashamed that the fates have denied 
 her that manhood she might so nobly have honored. 
 But Drusilla is politic, and knows how to conciliate. 
 She has gradually drawn into her hands all the work of 
 the parish a woman can do, and some that no woman 
 has ever aspired to do before her time. She has re-or 
 ganized the Sunday-school and straightened out the 
 choir. She attends to all the festivals, fairs, Lady 
 Washington teas, Christmas trees, and ministers conven 
 tions. She could do it single-handed, but that is not al 
 lowable, and her coadjutors have become mere clay and 
 putty in her strong grasp. It is said that the young 
 parson is afraid to fall ill of a Sunday, for fear that 
 Drusilla would mount into the pulpit and preach in his 
 stead. He knows her worth, and values it justly, even 
 while he is struggling to keep her out of his place. The 
 only rival she has to dread is Mrs. Judge Magnus, who 
 is of an energetic and unquenchable spirit. But the 
 judge s wife is absent in Washington during part of 
 the year, and she never regains during the summer and 
 autumn what she loses in the winter. 
 
8o VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 I have always suspected that Drusilla was born with 
 her bonnet on, the strings untied and thrown over her 
 shoulders. She is large and fair, and could easily be 
 handsome if she paid attention to dress. But her 
 clothes are always of the same plain cut and pattern, and 
 are known as Drusilla s business suit. Though neat, she 
 would scorn to condescend to any of the fripperies of 
 fashion. Her hair has a pretty ripple and gleam upon 
 it, like sunlight on running water, but it is always 
 brushed behind her ears with severe simplicity. She 
 wears no ring nor jewel of any kind, and when she is in 
 vited out to dinner or to an evening party she invariably 
 appears in a stuff gown. Of course she has no wish to 
 conceal her age, since she tried to get into the Winter- 
 green Club, that she might reform it from the inside. 
 
 We have, as I have said, a number of nice old people 
 among us, but Drusilla s mother is the gem of the collec 
 tion. She lives in a real old colonial house which has 
 come down to her through several generations. The 
 sword of a brave ancestor is suspended in the wide, 
 spacious hall against a tattered set of colors carried, it is 
 said, at the battle of Saratoga. Her presses, and 
 drawers, and cupboards are full of relics and mementoes 
 of other days, and her memory of things that occurred 
 half a century or more ago is vividly bright. Hugh in 
 tends to work up several chapters of his history from the 
 old lady s reminiscences. All her own boys, now stal 
 wart men, are away in the far West, where they have 
 made their fortunes. One of them, a great ranchman, 
 has been governor of his territory. When he comes 
 home to see "mother" he always brings a bandbox 
 containing a new dress-cap which he ties about the dear 
 old face with his own hands, and tells her she is the belle 
 of the village. 
 
 Drusilla s mother is unlike her capable daughter. She 
 is fond of dress and takes a great deal of pride in her 
 
ST. PATTY S JUBILEE. Si 
 
 appearance. And indeed she is beautiful, with soft 
 chirpy ways, like an aged canary. A touch of gratified 
 red flutters into her cheek over a compliment ; her eye 
 brightens, and she straightens up and quavers a merry 
 laugh exceedingly pleasant to hear. The children and 
 young people are in the way of bringing her small pres 
 ents, wild-flowers, the first strawberries, roses from the 
 early bush, small works they have wrought and embroid 
 ered a kerchief for the neck, a bag to hold the snuff 
 box. I am fain to confess she does snuff just the least 
 bit, but she is so neat the white muslin on her neck never 
 bears the least stain, and her delicate old hands, with the 
 wedding ring, grown so small, are like faded lilies. 
 
 An intense rivalry has sprung up among the small 
 towns in our vicinity as to their very old people. The 
 local papers are constantly inserting paragraphs about 
 aged women over one hundred, who rise in the small 
 hours, pick up a basket of chips, build the fire, and milk 
 a few cows before breakfast. They can all see to thread 
 a cambric needle without glasses, and several of them 
 have cut new sets of teeth in their second childhood. 
 Of course the laudable desire to possess the oldest and 
 smartest person of this kind has developed in our village. 
 We do not in this respect wish to kootoo to River Junc 
 tion, Slabville, Smith Forks, or the Barrens. Now a. very 
 singular thing happened to Drusilla s mother. Her 
 family archives were accidentally burned a long time ago, 
 and for many years she seemed to have forgotten the 
 exact year of her birth ; and there was no one in the 
 neighborhood who could remember so far back. Dru 
 silla s mother has always been accustomed to dress up 
 things with those pretty touches which lend themselves 
 so readily to an imaginative mind. Not that she deliber 
 ately falsifies. Such a suspicion would shock the sen 
 sibilities of her neighbors, who have always felt that they 
 must take her narratives with a pinch of skeptical salt. 
 
82 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 Years ago Brasilia, who is entirely devoid of imagination, 
 whose clear dry-light intellect is marked off like a checker 
 board into accurate squares, was constantly in the habit 
 of correcting her mother, but now that she is so very old, 
 much to the relief of the family friends, Drusilla lets her 
 twitter along without interruption. We have known for 
 a number of years that Drusilla s mother was past ninety, 
 and some few seasons since we celebrated what was given 
 out in an indirect way by the old lady herself, to be her 
 ninety-fifth birthday. Since so much has been said in 
 the newspapers about centenarians, and the luster they 
 shed on a small town, Drusilla s mother has been fired 
 with the laudable ambition to become the oldest inhabitant 
 of the whole country-side. She has received a kind of 
 canonization while still alive because she has been so 
 very good-natured as to live to be almost a hundred. 
 She is called St. Patty, a name which exactly suits her, 
 although the idea of St. Patty being the mother of Dru 
 silla is supremely ridiculous. Well, we did intend to 
 have St. Patty s portrait painted by subscription at the 
 time of her centenary and hung among the pictures of 
 our local worthies in the library bookroom. We already 
 have a bust and two large photographs of the judge 
 which he has presented to the town. Of course, as St. 
 Patty celebrated some years ago her ninety-fifth birth- 
 day, we have of late been planning what we would do on 
 the great anniversary close at hand. The old lady 
 entered into our scheme with enthusiasm. The young 
 clergyman was to deliver an address on the honor she 
 had done the town. Hugh was to give an historical 
 survey of St. Patty s ancestors and their deeds, bringing 
 the narrative of the family down to date. Our literary 
 young lady, who contributes to the magazines, had 
 promised an ode, and the local glee club had been prac 
 ticing some time for the great occasion. 
 
 It was noticeable that when the jubilee was talked of 
 
ST. PATTY S CONFESSION. 83 
 
 Drusilla immediately left the room. We all set it down 
 to family modesty, and felt that Drusilla had acquired a 
 notion of good taste quite new and surprising. Happily, 
 the anniversary would fall in May, at a time when there 
 was abundance of flowers to trim the house and adorn our 
 St. Patty. But as the time approached we noticed the 
 old lady began to languish and droop. She lost her 
 appetite, her eyes grew dim, her hand shook, and she 
 would sit and brood an hour together so unlikely a thing 
 for St. Patty to do that the whole village became alarmed, 
 and the doctor was called in. He found the old lady 
 wiping away a furtive tear-drop, but he could discover 
 no marked symptoms of bodily ailment. Something was 
 weighing on her mind. Her memory was a little con 
 fused, and she mixed up people s names, and brought in 
 some of neighbors long dead. The doctor prescribed a 
 soothing mixture and went away. A week passed in this 
 unsatisfactory manner, the whole village dreading to hear 
 that St. Patty had taken to her bed. But at the end of 
 that time her spirits did not seem to improve, and one 
 day she sent for the young clergyman, which we all took 
 for a bad sign. When the parson entered her room, she 
 was holding a cambric handkerchief to her eyes, and there 
 was a half audible sob in her throat. 
 
 " I wanted to see you to make a confession," she began 
 brokenly. " I m afraid I am a foolish, vain, wicked old 
 woman. You know the family Bible was burned in the 
 Hadley fire twenty-five years ago. Well, Drusilla was 
 my youngest, and she says she s going on fifty-three, and 
 of course she knows. I must be a few years younger 
 than I thought, just a few years, you know ; I can t make 
 out how many, more or less. I wanted to oblige the 
 folks, they were so set on celebrating, but I ve been 
 going over it in my mind, and allow it wouldn t be 
 right." 
 
 And then St. Patty broke down and shed all the tears 
 
84 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 which had been pent up in her heart. We had the cele 
 bration just the same, but our village on the score of the 
 oldest inhabitant has been obliged to bow its head to 
 Slabville, which is very humiliating. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE POOR-HOUSE CHILDREN AND OLD PETER*S GIRLS. 
 
 ONE of the prettiest drives out from the village leads 
 to the poor-house. The road runs through a tangle 
 of wildering lanes and old farm roads, skirted by stone 
 fences and abundant trees. In early spring, when the 
 grass is of a uniform tender green, an Arcadian sense of 
 quiet hangs over these lanes. Once or twice you come 
 to an old cellar-place, or broken chimney, with a circle of 
 straggling bushes, indicating an extinct family life. Stray 
 sheep nibble about in these places and crop the wild 
 herbage. The lanes are bordered with cherry and plum 
 trees. Early in the season, before they have put forth a 
 single shoot, the grass grows tufted around the old roots, 
 and blue-birds flit through the empty branches and make 
 the scene softer with their notes. 
 
 The poor-house is a long, low, unpainted building, 
 with a faculty of looking ugly which institutions of the 
 kind always possess, even when planted in the most en 
 chanting landscape. During the summer it is rather 
 thinly tenanted. The clean rooms, with their poor-house 
 odor, a smell of some kind of strong soap, their high 
 beds covered with old-fashioned blue spreads, their 
 meager little wash-stands and board presses, are often 
 empty, swept and garnished. The place fills up in the 
 fall when the tramping season is over, but there are a 
 few decayed old people, regular boarders, as Mrs. Tripp, 
 the matron, calls them, who remain the year round. 
 They are too old to go tramping in summer, and their 
 greatest change is a move from the stove-heated rooms 
 of cold weather to the summer porch. 
 
86 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 They are gray, shadowy, crooked old folk, who look 
 rather discontented, though they are treated with great 
 kindness. Mrs. Tripp is a round, jolly woman with a 
 good face. She knits perpetually, even while she is walking 
 about the house overseeing and giving directions. She 
 says they have little to complain of, but it is a necessity 
 with them to grumble, if of nothing else, on the size of 
 the dole of tea and " baccy " they receive every week. 
 We have a society in the village to furnish them with 
 flowers and little delicacies and reading matter. The 
 oldest of them like children s story books, with bright 
 colored pictures. There are young girls who come out 
 once a week to read to them, or write letters, but very 
 few have friends or kindred they remember as living. 
 They have forgotten most of their joys, hopes, and affec 
 tions, and retain only voracious appetite and other en 
 during bodily sensations. 
 
 The parson goes out occasionally to give them a Bible 
 reading and a talk, but the ungrateful, pampered old 
 creatures are not much edified. Thaddeus, the oldest of 
 the inmates, generally grunts and says he "hain t no 
 stummick for parson preachifying ; what he wants is 
 suthin to wet his whistle," meaning whisky, which now 
 he never gets. The old creature has been preserved in 
 spirits. His toughness and tenacity of life sheds a kind 
 of luster on the poor-house. His much enduring wife 
 bore many a cruel beating from his hand. Thad, who is 
 a humorist, said it was because she was " so poor spirited ; 
 if she had once showed fight he never could have found 
 the heart to strike her." Well, the poor sodden creature 
 went out like a smoky candle, and Thad in his old age 
 came heavily upon the town. Now he is forced to be 
 sober and virtuous. He hates the authorities who built 
 the poor-house, and have converted him against his will 
 into a harmless old person. His chronic growl " ag in 
 government " and the laws of the land is a constant sup- 
 
POOR-HOUSE IXMATES. 87 
 
 port to his declining years. Mrs. Tripp calls Thad her 
 pet lamb. She is rather proud of him as a show-person 
 who may be induced to get up his growl for visitors, as 
 a dog is taught to bark for a reward. 
 
 There are generally one or two mildly insane people 
 confined in other portions of the building. One of them 
 imagines herself the Virgin Mary, and sits veiled most of 
 the time. Another thinks he is a quart bottle and gur 
 gles in his throat when he speaks like a full flask. There 
 are also a few weak-minded children who have come 
 upon the town by the death or poverty of their parents. 
 These children are the pets of the establishment, and, in 
 their way, form an interesting little group. In pleasant 
 weather they spend most of their time in an open court 
 yard where there is a grass-plot and a few trees. A shed 
 in one corner gives them shelter from the sun and rain. 
 Here they keep such little possessions as have been given 
 them or they can gather for themselves. One possesses 
 a tame chicken that pecks about on the gravel ; another 
 is the happy owner of a rabbit and a little hutch. One 
 or two possess hideous rag-babies, mere bundles of straw 
 or sticks covered with old cloth, which they tenderly cher 
 ish and take to bed with them every night. 
 
 A kind lady has given these children some of the colored 
 figures, globes, and disks now used in the instruction of 
 the weak-minded, and they have been taught a little, so 
 that it is plain to see that with care their rudimentary 
 intelligence ought to be considerably developed. All of 
 them are bodily infirm. The strongest can scarcely walk 
 alone. Some have learned to walk several times, and 
 have forgotten how in the end, or lost all control of their 
 paralyzed limbs for months together. Still they manage 
 to move a little either by means of hands or feet, or both, 
 with ingenuity quite surprising. Watch them when they 
 think themselves unobserved, and you will see there 
 is a certain method in their pathetic little attempts at 
 
88 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 play a shadowing forth of the instincts of healthy child 
 life. 
 
 Mick, who is perhaps twelve years old, though stunted 
 and withered about the legs, is not feeble-minded in the 
 ordinary sense of the term. His defects came from an 
 injury to his head received in early infancy. Mick is a 
 feeble-minded child of genius, if you can imagine such a 
 being. His face is that of an old man, and his eyes have 
 a shrewd twinkle, showing how much he knows. 
 Though he can talk very imperfectly, Mick readily under 
 stands every thing that is said, and picks tip even unfa 
 miliar ideas with marvelous quickness. He is invaluable 
 to Mrs. Tripp, for she gives him the general charge of 
 the other children during the day, and he is so excellent 
 a disciplinarian that she seldom finds fault with his rule 
 unless to scold him for over-severity. Mick has a keen 
 sense of justice. When the bread for the eleven o clock 
 luncheon is given out, not one of the little creatures dares 
 take more than his share, knowing that the eye of the 
 tyrant is upon him. 
 
 He has an intense love of color. He would perhaps 
 have been an artist had he attained a normal develop 
 ment. He has covered his clothes with patches, tags 
 and ends of bright cloth which he has picked up, and he 
 worships his clothes as devoutly as an Indian his totem. 
 In summer, when the fields about are full of daisies 
 and buttercups, the other feeble little creatures will man 
 age to pick a few only to drop them from their nerveless 
 fingers, but Mick trims himself all over with the posies, 
 and is as proud as Punch. You should see Mick exer 
 cising authority over the others when, as he tries to say, 
 he keeps school. School is held on a long bench under 
 the shed, where Mick ranges the scholars with an accurate 
 eye to size. Then he mounts a little stool in front of 
 the row, and with a long stick and a vigilant outlook 
 keeps the most tyrannous order. If any child ventures 
 
MICK S MOURNING BADGE. 89 
 
 to wink or yawn while school is in, down comes the 
 switch with a sharp tingle. Mick possesses a large glass 
 marble, which he sometimes allows a very good scholar 
 to hold in its feeble hand as a reward of merit for a few 
 minutes. If it has not been given out during the session, 
 it is certain the class has been unruly, and has suffered 
 more than usual from the switch. 
 
 When one of the old people dies it is an event of great 
 interest in the poor-house. Those who are left of about 
 the same age congratulate themselves on their greatei 
 tenacity of life. The good rule, Speak no ill of the dead, 
 is not strictly observed. Bill or Jimmy, or whoever the 
 departed may have been, is generally criticised as a 
 " dretful meechin , no-account kind of creeter thus to 
 give up so long as the poor-house exists as a home for 
 onfortunits." Mick by some means or other gathers, 
 through his imperfect senses, the whole significance of 
 the event. Before the funeral he keeps even a more 
 strict rule than usual among the little ones, and cuffs any 
 child disposed to make a noise. Around the wrist of 
 each he ties a shred of black rag as a proper token of 
 respect to the departed, and wears the same himself. 
 No one ever told Mick that black is the symbol of 
 death. It is a notion he has picked up of himself, and 
 woe to the unfortunate little one who dares pull off the 
 mourning badge before the funeral. But after that event 
 has taken place Mick forgets all about it and turns to 
 some new idea. 
 
 On the road to the poor-house stands a picturesque 
 but rather dilapidated stone dwelling with an upper 
 gallery reached by an outside flight of steps. In sum 
 mer the place attracts the eye because of the ragged 
 wildness of its garden, overgrown as it is with bushes 
 and weeds and tall grass. Old Peter lived for many 
 years in this house with his two hoydenish girls, whose 
 pranks were the talk of the town, He was a. well-to-do 
 
9 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 miserly old curmudgeon, who allowed his aged mother 
 to die in the poor-house. She was a notorious scold and 
 backbiter, but the whole village reprobated the conduct 
 of old Peter, and has never found a good word to fling 
 after him. His wife died when the girls had just entered 
 their teens, and he dispensed with hired help and strove 
 to make them do the work of the house. But the old 
 man found his hands full in trying to tame these irrepressi 
 ble tomboys. If he tied them up in the barn and whipped 
 them cruelly, it did no good. Their spirits triumphed over 
 every obstacle. There were hours when he stood over 
 them switch in hand to make them sweep and wash ; but 
 the greater part of the day, when he was necessarily 
 absent about his affairs, they devoted to the pure un 
 bridled spirit of mischief. Like Lady Teazle, they rode 
 the old dock-tailed plow-horse around the pasture bare 
 backed and boy fashion, one behind the other, making 
 the poor brute gallop furiously, until one day she stum 
 bled, and the youngest girl fell off and broke her arm. 
 Old Peter set the bone himself, being what is called in 
 the country a natural bone-setter. He did all the doctor 
 ing in his family with roots and herbs which he gathered 
 in the fields and brewed in his own way. He had never 
 been known to call in a physician, except at the last 
 moment of his wife s existence, when some of his neigh 
 bors insisted on his securing medical advice, and then it 
 was too late, and he had the best of reasons for not pay 
 ing the bill. 
 
 When Vinnie was laid up with her arm, Betsy, or Peg, 
 as she was called, used the interval of unwonted quiet in 
 making over one of her mother s old gowns. Dire neces 
 sity drove poor Peg to this effort, for she was literally in 
 rags. It was almost the first time in her life that she 
 had seriously tried to wield the needle. She had grown 
 all out of such tattered things as she possessed, and was 
 urged to diligence by an aching desire to get into long 
 
PEGGY S GOWN. 91 
 
 dresses skirts sweeping the ground and trailing off 
 like a queen s. The gown was only basted together, and 
 was probably the most remarkable piece of sewing and 
 fitting ever seen. But Peg was delighted with it. She 
 put it on her back the earliest moment possible, and then 
 went through all kinds of strides, attitudes, woven paces 
 and measures, to show off the long-tailed gown to 
 Vinnie, who lay envious and helpless in bed. But, being 
 so lightly put together, the garment had a way of burst 
 ing out in the most unfortunate places, and was soon 
 reduced to tatters*. Every nail, and bush, and bramble 
 about the place had some token of Peggy s long-tailed 
 but short-lived glory. A relative of the mother, who 
 came at intervals to set the house to rights and look a 
 little after the girls, found Peg clothed, not in sack-cloth 
 and ashes, but the next thing to it in one of old Peter s 
 linen dusters. 
 
 Peter tolerated the presence of this woman because 
 she worked without wages or hope of reward. She was 
 a patient creature, and the girls could do with her as they 
 chose. They had not passed entirely out of the doll 
 period when their mother died. They still kept a closet 
 full of rag infants, mostly boys, and one night, while 
 playing in this closet with a lighted candle, they contrived 
 to set fire to the house, and came near burning it to 
 ashes. After this prank old Peter tied them up in the 
 garret, and kept them a day or two on bread and water. 
 But they managed to escape through a little skylight to 
 the roof of the main building, and by making signals of 
 distress to a neighbor s boy he let them down on a ladder, 
 and they escaped to the woods and wandered about and 
 lived on blackberries sleeping one night in an old barn 
 until hunger drove them home. 
 
 But the girls had the best impulses, and might have 
 been tamed but for their father s intolerable harshness. 
 They gathered into their poor, starved affections, all the 
 
9 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 stray, hungry, homeless cats they could find, and kept 
 them in a room in the barn until old Peter discovered 
 the cat hospital, and sent all the felines flying from his 
 premises by means of a savage dog. They were naturally 
 fond of flowers, as all women-kind are ; and one summer 
 a neighbor gave them seeds and they planted a little 
 garden, taking great delight in the labor. The flowers 
 were mainly hollyhocks ; and they came up in great 
 profusion and blossomed heartily after their kind. But 
 old Peter did not believe in rubbishy flowers, which have 
 no money value and are not good to eat. He desired to 
 use the space where the little garden bloomed so pathet 
 ically in a wilderness of weeds, for a bed of late peas, so 
 he pulled the hollyhocks up by the roots and threw them 
 over the fence into the road, where they sowed their 
 seeds, and the next season, to revenge his grudging 
 stinginess, the road was like a path through paradise a 
 waste of rose and white bloom. The young artist who 
 summers in these parts made a pretty sketch of the road 
 and the house and the neglected garden, which I have 
 seen in a city exhibition. The girls cried over their 
 flowers so ruthlessly torn up and thrown out into the sun 
 to die. It was a symbol of the good impulses and 
 instincts in their own natures uprooted, nipped off, and 
 ruined by a brutal, ignorant old man. 
 
 But a great change was coming to Peter s wild girls. 
 One night he had been violently angry with them over 
 some small waste he had detected in the kitchen, and 
 going to bed in a passion, died before morning from a 
 sudden stroke. It had long been surmised that the old 
 man was possessed of considerable property, but the 
 extent of his riches had not been suspected. On search 
 being made by the public officers, bonds, stocks, and 
 gold were found hidden in the bed-tick and in odd cor 
 ners. Suddenly it was discovered that Vinnie and Peg 
 were likely to be accounted heiresses, and kind friends 
 
TOM HOYS TRANSFORMED. 93 
 
 soon came forward to take them in hand. They were 
 speedily dressed in civilized black garments, their elf 
 locks brushed out and neatly braided, and their gipsy 
 skins washed to perfect cleanliness. They were both 
 pretty girls, and "pretty behaved " they became in time 
 when they had been sent to school for three years in a 
 distant city. We now learn they have turned out fine 
 young women. Vinnie is a belle, much admired for her 
 beauty, and Peg, of all things in the world, has become 
 literary. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE VILLAGE POST-MISTRESS. 
 
 village is an exceptionally good place for the 
 1 few workmen it can support. Living is cheap, 
 rents are low, the people are friendly. The library and 
 public school and lyceum course are open to every body. 
 It is the pride of the village that it has an excellent small 
 class of Irish citizens who live in comparative comfort, 
 possess a degree of self-respect, and are not too much 
 given to bad politics and worse whisky. Politically they 
 are all of one complexion, but as yet there are no rings, 
 no bosses, no corruption fund. The whisky, if ob 
 tained at all, is taken surreptitiously, and though some 
 is undoubtedly consumed in the town, the Irish are not 
 the only thirsty souls who break the laws and fall into 
 the deep disgrace of "jim-jams." The younger genera 
 tion of Irish boys and girls have had great influence 
 over their parents. Many of them have been educated 
 in the public schools. Some of the girls have learned 
 trades, some have gone into the best families as house- 
 servants, have been helped and tapught by kind mis 
 tresses, and have proved valuable factors in the political 
 economy of the village. One or two of the prettiest and 
 smartest have married young farmers and gone west. 
 
 Tim McCoy was a soldier in the war of the rebellion. 
 A red-haired, freckle-faced lad of eighteen, he shoul 
 dered a gun and marched away south, where he was 
 wounded in the battle of Antietam, and sent home on a 
 furlough. Tim married and reared a large family. He 
 could earn about four hundred dollars a year as a 
 stone-mason, and the little pension swelled his in- 
 
TIM S ESTABLISHMENT. 95 
 
 come to near five hundred dollars. Tim bought 
 and managed partly to pay for the small bare house 
 and garden-plot where he lives down near the rail 
 way. There was still a small mortgage on the place, 
 and with his strong shoulder to the wheel, and his good 
 wife s help, he expected season after season to lift it off. 
 But that last rise of ground was always too much for 
 him. Sickness or slack work came repeatedly to bowl 
 him down. But Tim always kept a light heart in his 
 bosom and a whistle on his lips, on his homely face a ray 
 of Irish sunshine, and his speech well larded with the 
 mother wit of his nation. Tim never drank whisky. 
 He was always content after his day s work to sit in his 
 shirt sleeves on the small porch of his house, minding 
 the baby (there was always a baby) and smoking his 
 clay pipe. The " childers " played in the dirt, and his 
 wife bustled about among the pots and pans in the 
 kitchen. Mrs. McCoy took in washing when there were 
 summer boarders in the village, and with the little sum 
 thus gained she could subscribe for a newspaper and 
 dress the children better on a Sunday than some other 
 folks dressed theirs. 
 
 Mary McCoy, the eldest girl, was very pretty tall, 
 with rosy cheeks, free from freckles or sunburn, and dark 
 hair curling in small close rings about her temples. 
 Mary s clothes, though of cheap material, fitted well, and 
 they had a certain style some richer girls might have 
 envied. But, more than all, at fourteen, Mary proved to 
 be the best scholar in the public school. She was quite 
 a mathematical prodigy, and had gone ahead of a large 
 class of boys in algebra. The village always took an 
 interest in the best scholar ; and when it was known that 
 Tim McCoy s girl was going to carry off all the prizes 
 that year, there was quite a little stir even among the 
 most refined and aristocratic families. On exhibition 
 day the school-room was crowded to overflowing. Tim 
 
9 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 McCoy was there with a great spread of cotton shirt- 
 collar up about his big ears, sitting quite on the front bench, 
 his elbows well squared, feeling he had a pretty tough 
 job of work to get through with in spite of the pride in 
 his heart. His wife was sitting beside him in her best 
 shawl and bonnet, quite nervous for a woman who never 
 knew she had nerves, and all the little McCoys were 
 ranged along in a row, just ready to burst their buttons 
 to think of the honor their family had attained. Mary 
 appeared in a white cambric gown with a blue sash, and 
 was so pretty, and discreet, and modest, and wise withal, 
 every body was loud in her praises. She was undeniably 
 the best scholar of the school, one of the best the village 
 had ever turned out. The parson noticed pretty little Mary 
 most affably. The judge, who was one of the school ex 
 aminers, condescended to beam upon her. But the doc 
 tor, as usual, was the one who bestirred himself to render 
 efficient help. 
 
 He obtained a place for Mary in the State Normal 
 School, first as a kind of servant and pupil, and later as 
 under-teacher ; and Mary in a few years was educated 
 far away from the little house on the railroad, with the 
 hennery and the pig-sty. Poor Mary ! she found her life 
 at home terribly dislocated and incongruous when she 
 had acquired seeing eyes and a new consciousness of her 
 family and surroundings. There were times when in her 
 bitterness of spirit she felt that it would have been kinder 
 to have left her in that sphere of life in which she was 
 born left her just to drudge along with her mother and 
 the children in that stuffy little house, until she had mar 
 ried a mechanic or farm hand, and begun the ceaseless, 
 hopeless round of toil in her own poor home. 
 
 But she was now completely out of that sphere. The 
 only thing left for the best scholar in the high-school was 
 to go away as far as possible from the village and the hum 
 ble relations whom she loved, and strike out for herself. 
 
FAMILY MISFORTUNES. 97 
 
 So she accepted a position as teacher in another State, 
 and for a time we saw her but seldom. Tim McCoy was 
 a modest fellow. He was never heard to boast of his 
 achievements in the war, where he got an ugly wound. 
 But he did brag a little about his clever girl, who was to 
 pay off the mortgage on the house, and educate the chil 
 dren, and lift the family of McCoy to a high notch on 
 the social scale. Mary had ceased to be a Roman Cath 
 olic, and that was a grievance to her mother. There is 
 a small chapel in the village, but no resident priest. 
 Mass is celebrated once a month, by a priest from a 
 neighboring town. Tim and his wife Bridget were 
 devout worshipers in this humble place, where they 
 kneeled on the floor before the altar, crossed themselves, 
 counted their beads, and said their prayers in meekness 
 and lowliness of heart. Poor old Bridget, in her dim way, 
 thought education like playing with fire delightful but 
 dangerous ; if it upset the worship of the Holy Virgin and 
 the blessed saints in the soul, it ought to have great com 
 pensating advantages in the way of worldly prosperity. 
 She believed as firmly as Tim did that Mary was to make 
 the fortunes of the family. 
 
 And so she might perhaps if ill-luck had not struck the 
 little house on the railroad a staggering blow. Bridget 
 caught a bad fall and broke one or two ribs, and she 
 finally died of internal injuries. Tim was seized with in 
 flammatory rheumatism and could not turn over in bed, 
 and the oldest boy Dennis had run wild and was in 
 danger of taking to bad courses ; so Mary was sent for 
 to come home and take charge of her deeply-afflicted 
 family, and one day there stepped out of the train at the 
 station a tall, trim, handsome girl dressed all in black. 
 Aside from the natural grief which Mary felt for her 
 mother s death, it was sad for so nice a girl, who had 
 imbibed all the refined and delicate feelings of cultivated 
 life, to be doomed to surfer imprisonment in that house 
 
9 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 on the railroad, with the children and the pig ; but she 
 behaved nobly, and took the tenderest care of her sick 
 father, and reformed the domestic economy of the whole 
 place. The village admired and pitied her, and, more 
 than all, our doctor felt that something must be done 
 for her. Mary s social position was very equivocal, not 
 to say painful. The girls she had known in school could 
 not meet her now on equal terms, and therefore shunned 
 her. The best families had never taken up Irish me 
 chanics daughters for pets and intimates ; it was against 
 all the traditions. Mary might have taught in the high- 
 school, but the school children knew her little Irish broth 
 ers and sisters, and might not have the grace to respect 
 her authority. So the best scholar the village had turned 
 out and the most unfortunate person in its bounds was 
 left pretty much to herself and her crushing troubles. 
 
 About this time a new administration had taken the reins 
 of government at Washington. There had been a great 
 political revolution quietly wrought, and a new-old party 
 had again come into power. Petty officials who had been 
 warm and snug in their berths a great many years now 
 began to tremble and shake in their shoes. Tim McCoy, 
 both by birth and tradition, belonged to the party now in 
 the ascendant. A few of his friends, seeing the straits to 
 which he was reduced, began to agitate for a change in 
 the village post-office, and the name of Mary McCoy was 
 brought prominently forward for the place. She was a 
 soldier s daughter, an excellent accountant, and a worthy 
 woman with a large family of helpless relatives on her 
 hands. The doctor, though ranged on the other side in 
 his political affiliations, was supposed to have given Mary 
 McCoy all his influence. A petition was numerously 
 signed in the village begging that she might be made 
 post-mistress. 
 
 There was nothing to be said against Ferdinand Wil- 
 kins, the incumbent, except that he was an offensive par- 
 
" AY MEMORIAM:* 99 
 
 tisan. If that means any thing, it did not weigh with the 
 villagers. He was well-to-do, had a nice place free from 
 debt, and had held the office for ten years. It was felt 
 that he ought to make way for a soldier s daughter, a 
 much burdened, needy woman. But Wilkins had no idea 
 of yielding without a struggle. He had grown to the 
 place, so to speak, and felt he had a sacred, inborn right 
 to retain it for the rest of his life. Wilkins was a poet 
 aster and somewhat of a dandy. He kept growing plants 
 and a canary bird in the post-office, and was an authority 
 on gloves and perfumes. When St. Patty celebrated her 
 birthday Ferdinand composed an ode for the occasion, 
 which increased his local fame. His wife had died a year 
 previous to the time of which I write, and Ferdinand, 
 urged by the pressure of grief, composed an elegy called 
 " In Memoriam," which, however, did not in the remotest 
 way suggest the great work of the Laureate. It is prob 
 able that Ferdinand, carried away by poetic frenzy joined 
 to great grief, did breathe out vows of eternal fidelity to 
 one dead idol, but few men are capable of fulfilling. Fer 
 dinand published the poem at his own cost in a neat 
 pamphlet, and handed it out of the little window in the 
 post-office with the mails to all the villagers. 
 
 There was a person living in the village, an opinionated, 
 pragmatical, well-to do old gentleman named Spengler, 
 who was very much affected by " In Memorian." We all 
 have our hobbies, and Spengler s hobby was that it is 
 irreligious, immoral, and wicked to marry twice. He was 
 so bitterly opposed to second marriages that the village 
 had a standing joke that if Spengler could find a nice 
 widow as much opposed to them as he was, he would 
 probably propose to her. We named him the perpetual 
 widower. A man of this kind, who has hugged his lone 
 liness and solitude for twenty years, and gloried in it as 
 a work of supererogation, by which he is laying up treas 
 ure in heaven, is of very little account for romantic and 
 
loo VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 exhilarating purposes in a small village, and the women 
 voted him a hopeless old fogy. When the burning ques 
 tion of the post-office came up, Spengler espoused Ferdi 
 nand s cause with ardor. Although he had always stood 
 on the side of the Irish contingent, he now headed a 
 petition in favor of the incumbent, and actually set off to 
 Washington carrying the petition in one pocket and " In 
 Memoriam " in the other, to bore the representatives of 
 his district on the subject of the local post-office. 
 
 I suppose there was no name on earth Ferdinand Wil- 
 kins hated as he did that of Mary McCoy. He had not 
 seen her since her early girlhood, and had forgotten all 
 about her, but he hated her on general principles. Mary, 
 on the other hand, knew him very well by sight, and one 
 day she chanced to meet him exactly in the middle of the 
 walk in front of Drusilla s old house. He saw only a 
 pretty girl in a very neatly fitting black gown, and with 
 such a figure and face as scarcely could be matched in 
 the village, and not dreaming of Mary McCoy, he half 
 stopped from curiosity and admiration. She stopped 
 wholly, blushing and half afraid, but longing to tell him 
 how sorry she was that any trouble had come up concern 
 ing the post-office how she would withdraw if her friends 
 would let her. Then, in an instant, when she began her 
 timid little speech, he knew it was Mary McCoy. He 
 probably did not hate her a bit the less for being pretty, 
 but he did seize the opportunity to reason with her, to 
 show her how wicked and wrong it was of her to wish to 
 oust him from the post-office, which he had reorganized 
 on a strictly civil-service principle, the principle that a 
 good man once in should stay in until he dies. He even 
 walked with her a half mile or more out of the village as 
 he went on in his tonguey, fluent way to show her the 
 enormity of her position. Poor Mary had little to say 
 for herself, but the next day she wrote Ferdinand a few 
 lines, saying she had about made up her mind to with- 
 
THE COMPROMISE. IOI 
 
 draw from the contest, to which he replied that on think 
 ing of it over night he had concluded to get out of the 
 office before he was thrust out by the ingratitude of a cold 
 world in general and of the villagers in particular. He 
 also conveyed a hint of the fact that he was an unappre 
 ciated genius. 
 
 So the two enemies rested for a time, but they met on 
 several occasions, and took long walks on Burying- 
 Ground Hill and out toward Saddleback, that Ferdinand, 
 who had now assumed the pose of the generous, self- 
 devoted martyr, might instruct Mary in the duties of the 
 office. A great deal of instruction seemed requisite, 
 and, strange to say, no one in the village gained an ink 
 ling of what was going on. Ferdinand never entered 
 Mary s home, but they both needefl long rambles to work 
 off the suspense and excitement of the situation. 
 
 One night they were walking under an umbrella just 
 at dusk. It was a soft-dropping spring rain that brings 
 the odors forth from the grass and swells the buds 
 moment by moment. They had not yet heard from the 
 capital, but a great reconciling idea had come into Fer 
 dinand s head, striking well through the pomade and the 
 glossy locks. He proposed a compromise. He said, 
 although he had once disliked the idea of her very much, 
 he now hated to look on Mary as an enemy. It was an 
 anomalous and strained position. Naturally they ought 
 to be allies and the dearest of friends. If she had been 
 in the wrong, he was willing to forgive. If Mary felt she 
 had a grievance, he hoped some ground of amity and 
 mutual good will might be reached. After awhile he 
 proposed a plan. 
 
 Mary did not answer directly. She gently turned 
 into another road, and going down to the poor Irish 
 quarter of the town, they stopped under the flare of an 
 oil lamp, where, through the soft shadows, could be seen 
 the open door of Tim McCoy s house. Tim was still 
 
102 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 feeble and bent, but he had crept out to breathe the 
 fresh air, with his youngest boy on his knee. His head 
 had dropped on his breast, and the fire had gone out in 
 his pipe. He was thinking of Bridget, and he looked 
 broken and old. 
 
 Mary s voice was very husky and sounded strangely in 
 her own ears. " No one can take me who does not take 
 him and the children. You would be ashamed of them. 
 Good-by." 
 
 He caught her hand and kept it. " I will be good to 
 them, Mary. They shall be like my own." For once 
 Ferdinand rose to the height of a moral hero. 
 
 They had been married a few days when old Mr. 
 Spengler came back from Washington. Mary was in 
 the back office with the plants and the canary bird 
 making up the quarterly account. Old Spengler looked 
 weary and travel-stained, and he said, softening his 
 voice to a touch of sympathy, when he met Ferdinand : 
 " We have lost the battle, my boy, and I am very sorry. 
 The president, you know, has sent in her name for con 
 firmation. Come and stay awhile with me, and I will try 
 to brace you up." 
 
 Ferdinand blushed to the roots of his pretty hair, 
 feeling himself to be an awful fraud. He said faintly : 
 " We that is, Miss McCoy and I we have gone into a 
 kind of partnership and I shall keep the office after all." 
 
 Old Spengler shut himself up in his house for several 
 days and made an auto-de-fe oi "In Memonam," and 
 now there is a rumor abroad that he is looking out for a 
 wife. The village women generally pity poor Mary. 
 They say she has thrown herself away on a milksop. 
 But is it not in accordance with a great law of nature that 
 clever women do generally throw themselves away on 
 milksops ? 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SAYINGS AND DOINGS OF MISS CANDACE. 
 
 I^HE growing light brings a new sense of breadth and 
 largeness out of doors. The sky stretches to an 
 unexpected size and finer constellations seem to burn in 
 the evening heavens. The elm trees sway in the dry 
 wind tempest, and great shadow giants flicker over the 
 tops of the houses, and climb the steeple and mount the 
 sky. The sunrises are red behind the fir-trees on our 
 solemn eastern slopes ; and at evening the fading light 
 draws a long sanguinary finger and splashes warm on the 
 dullest gray wall. A thought of spring, inchoate and 
 vague, tingles in the twigs of the lowland willows until 
 you seem to see their yellow and brown stems through a 
 quivering mist of green. At noon, for a single relenting 
 hour, the earth stretches itself like a yawning Titan. 
 The crusted snow, dwindled to belts and patches, breaks 
 loose from the clay banks, and little rivulets begin to 
 trickle down, making hieroglyphs older than those of 
 Rameses. 
 
 The cackling of hens is now an original sound, sug 
 gestive of budding hopes and the early resumption of 
 business. The house sparrows at work in our elms begin 
 to cheep out the information very early in the morning 
 that spring has taken the air line for the village. At 
 night it still freezes hard, but not as vindictively as of 
 old. A fresh, frosty tingle nips fingers and ears, and 
 makes you think of getting down the sap-buckets and tap 
 ping the sugar maples. The winds still caper wildly 
 around old chimneys and casements, but they seem to 
 pipe in quite another key. 
 
104 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 We wait many weeks in the bleak North for the first 
 wild-flower and the first bluebird. But they are getting 
 ready in the great workshop. Long before they come the 
 essences of flowers seem free and floating in the sweet, 
 cold air ; and there is a prophecy of song in the empty 
 woods that is worth more than the song itself. 
 
 There is a small holding of land, not more than ten or 
 fifteen acres, just outside the village, where the spring- 
 seems to come first. The few old peach trees in the gar 
 den get up a show of blossoms before any other spot has 
 thought of a bud ; the grass breaks out into a sudden 
 glow of crocuses and lilies of the valley, when scarce a 
 dandelion has put forth elsewhere. The early sun seems 
 to exhaust itself in nourishing the cherry trees along the 
 stone wall until they are all a flutter with white flowers, 
 and only brings to us its later guerdon. This warm 
 slope of land, with the little brown house attached, by 
 several small industries, such as the raising of early 
 vegetables, small fruits, eggs and honey, has supported a 
 large family for several years. The father and grand 
 father is a microscopic economist, such as can only be 
 found in New England and among the French peasantry. 
 Not a stick or straw ever goes to waste on his domain, 
 consequently he is as forehanded as any of his neighbors 
 always ready to pay his doctor s bill and his pew-rent 
 when due signs of special grace in a small neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 His wife died years ago, and he has been ably seconded 
 in all his efforts by his daughter, Candace, his house 
 keeper and general manager. The old man has reared 
 two families, his own and the children of his daughter 
 Rachel, who died young, a widow, leaving five small 
 children. Every one in the village knows Miss Candace, 
 and every one likes to welcome her ample person and 
 homely, honest face so kind and open it has been many 
 times said she would be properly named Candor. Every 
 
CANDACE AXD HER HENS. 105 
 
 \vrinkle and crow s foot and hollow and line, even to the 
 mole on her left cheek, is filled with wisdom, goodness 
 and benevolence. She is so wholesomely plain she is 
 positively attractive, and may well be likened to mign 
 onette or lavender, unobtrusive but loved products of our 
 gardens. Miss Candace by birth belongs to the Society 
 of Friends, but she does not speak the " plain " language 
 nor wear the dress. She was not educated after the 
 manner of the schools. She reads very slowly and 
 peruses the same books year by year. These are the 
 Bible, "John Woolman s Journal," " Pilgrim s Progress," 
 and a few others to which very late in life she has added 
 " Emerson s Essays." Miss Candace is a great author 
 ity on the rearing of children, the raising and care of 
 fowls and the cultivation of flowers. No one in the town 
 has ever had half her success in the mysteries of egg 
 production. When people try to discover the secret, they 
 find that she has only an ordinary hen-house, with no 
 patent laying-boxes or special arrangements for coaxing 
 the wary, unwilling fowl to lay out of season. Neither 
 does she pride herself on rare breeds or costly varieties. 
 The barn-yard hen, clucking in comfort and security, is 
 good enough for her. She shows every process of feed 
 ing in winter tells you to keep your fowls warm, to give 
 them plenty of fresh water, gravel and lime, and that is 
 all. You go home and do just as she directs, but her 
 eggs are always the first in the market ; they are larger 
 and of a more exquisite pearly tint than yours. Her 
 spring chickens are the best, and will command a higher 
 price even than those raised by Rastus and his mother. 
 
 Go in when Miss Candace has done up her morning s 
 work, and is resting in her favorite rocking-chair, knitting 
 in hand, and sit down cozily with your knees close to hers, 
 and she may let you a little deeper into the secret 
 " Folks don t think hens have feelings," she begins, " but 
 they have, and they talk together a good deal, and I 
 
104 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 We wait many weeks in the bleak North for the first 
 wild-flower and the first bluebird. But they are getting 
 ready in the great workshop. Long before they come the 
 essences of flowers seem free and floating in the sweet, 
 cold air ; and there is a prophecy of song in the empty 
 woods that is worth more than the song itself. 
 
 There is a small holding of land, not more than ten or 
 fifteen acres, just outside the village, where the spring- 
 seems to come first. The few old peach trees in the gar 
 den get up a show of blossoms before any other spot has 
 thought of a bud ; the grass breaks out into a sudden 
 glow of crocuses and lilies of the valley, when scarce a 
 dandelion has put forth elsewhere. The early sun seems 
 to exhaust itself in nourishing the cherry trees along the 
 stone wall until they are all a flutter with white flowers, 
 and only brings to us its later guerdon. This warm 
 slope of land, with the little brown house attached, by 
 several small industries, such as the raising of early 
 vegetables, small fruits, eggs and honey, has supported a 
 large family for several years. The father and grand 
 father is a microscopic economist, such as can only be 
 found in New England and among the French peasantry. 
 Not a stick or straw ever goes to waste on his domain, 
 consequently he is as forehanded as any of his neighbors 
 always ready to pay his doctor s bill and his pew-rent 
 when due signs of special grace in a small neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 His wife died years ago, and he has been ably seconded 
 in all his efforts by his daughter, Candace, his house 
 keeper and general manager. The old man has reared 
 two families, his own and the children of his daughter 
 Rachel, who died young, a widow, leaving five small 
 children. Everyone in the village knows Miss Candace, 
 and every one likes to welcome her ample person and 
 homely, honest face so kind and open it has been many 
 times said she would be properly named Candor. Every 
 
S CAXDACE AXD HER HENS. 105 
 
 wrinkle and crow s foot and hollow and line, even to the 
 mole on her left cheek, is filled with wisdom, goodness 
 and benevolence. She is so wholesomely plain she is 
 positively attractive, and may well be likened to mign 
 onette or lavender, unobtrusive but loved products of our 
 gardens. Miss Candace by birth belongs to the Society 
 of Friends, but she does not speak the " plain " language 
 nor wear the dress. She was not educated after the 
 manner of the schools. She reads very slowly and 
 peruses the same books year by year. These are the 
 Bible, "John Woolman s Journal," "Pilgrim s Progress," 
 and a few others to which very late in life she has added 
 " Emerson s Essays." Miss Candace is a great author 
 ity on the rearing of children, the raising and care of 
 fowls and the cultivation of flowers. No one in the town 
 has ever had half her success in the mysteries of egg 
 production. When people try to discover the secret, they 
 find that she has only an ordinary hen-house, with no 
 patent laying-boxes or special arrangements for coaxing 
 the wary, unwilling fowl to lay out of season. Neither 
 does she pride herself on rare breeds or costly varieties. 
 The barn-yard hen, clucking in comfort and security, is 
 good enough for her. She shows every process of feed 
 ing in winter tells you to keep your fowls warm, to give 
 them plenty of fresh water, gravel and lime, and that is 
 all. You go home and do just as she directs, but her 
 eggs are always the first in the market ; they are larger 
 and of a more exquisite pearly tint than yours. Her 
 spring chickens are the best, and will command a higher 
 price even than those raised by Rastus and his mother. 
 
 Go in when Miss Candace has done up her morning s 
 work, and is resting in her favorite rocking-chair, knitting 
 in hand, and sit down cozily with your knees close to hers, 
 and she may let you a little deeper into the secret 
 " Folks don t think hens have feelings," she begins, " but 
 they have, and they talk together a good deal, and I 
 
io8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 children. Look at my plants there filling the windows 
 with their great stocky shoots and healthy leaves. I ve 
 a notion they wouldn t grow where there s envy, hatred, 
 and malice, and all uncharitableness. I guess back 
 biting and evil speaking would kill em as soon as coal 
 gas ; but they ain t half as sensitive as the mind of a 
 child. We must get into the nature of roses and gera 
 niums and try to learn the best conditions for them, 
 and that s about all there is in raising hens or children. 
 The method requires a deal of patience, a kind of divine 
 unselfishness strained and clarified like the best honey. 
 If you ve got a weakly plant, nurse it and give it richer 
 earth, more air and sun. It may in time bear blossoms 
 that will take the prize at the flower-show. Don t ever 
 be discouraged with an unlikely boy or girl, but study 
 out what it needs, and try, and keep trying, and by and 
 by you will hit on the right thing to bring that weakly 
 one along where he can begin to grow. If you love him 
 enough, he may some day stand at the head of the life 
 class. I always say folks are like pitchers : there is a 
 handle to every disposition if we only knew how to 
 take hold of it. Plenty of folks fail to influence their 
 children because they get tired searching for that 
 handle." 
 
 I have gathered up a few of Miss Candace s miscella 
 neous sayings which are scattered among the neighbors, 
 and these not the best : 
 
 " There are some folks like a hill of potatoes : all the 
 green part and the blows must die away or get killed by 
 frost-bite before you find there is any thing worth digging 
 for underneath." 
 
 " There are folks like the scrub oak : they never know 
 when to shed their leaves. I hate to see dried-up youth 
 ful follies and vanities hanging on to old people." 
 
 " There s some sugar in a corn-stalk, and I expect 
 there s about as much sweetness in the dryest stick of a 
 
HOW MISS C AND ACE BEAKS TESTIMONY. 109 
 
 human being. It s our loss if we don t know how to ex 
 tract it." 
 
 " I hear a good deal said about living with the saints 
 and angels, but when I go to the other world I want to 
 go to my own folks. I can feel with humanity, but I don t 
 know nothing at all about angelmanity." 
 
 " If you believe in your work, your work will believe 
 in you. If you are a sham, your work will kick like an 
 old rusty gun." 
 
 Miss Candace believes in the licensed order of women 
 preachers and in the custom among the Friends 
 of bearing testimony against certain things which 
 call for reformation. Her testimony, borne vigor 
 ously against intemperance, has had a great deal to do 
 with driving the gin-shops from the town. She is never 
 exigent ; her voice is placid and pleasantly modulated. 
 She never has been insulted or rebuffed even by rough 
 men under the influence of drink. She is always guided 
 by high motives, and her words go directly to the point. 
 It is her conviction that we must not let " folks " alone ; 
 that we have no right to ignore the spiritual and tempo 
 ral needs of our neighbors, or to shut ourselves up in a 
 cold sense of isolation and superior virtue, when we may 
 have a message hidden in the heart that is needed by 
 some fellow-being. 
 
 From time immemorial there has been a class of exhort 
 ing women in the village, who at certain seasons have felt 
 called upon gratuitously to attend to the spiritual inter 
 ests of their neighbors. They have grown less in the 
 course of years, but there is always some one left to assume 
 the mantle of prophetess and itinerant religious preacher. 
 Mother Embery is an old, bent woman of vinegar aspect, 
 who for a great many years has believed herself in a 
 state of sanctification and incapable of committing sin. 
 This happy immunity from personal guilt has left her 
 free to sit pretty heavily in judgment on her neighbors. 
 
no VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 She lives in a lonely little hollow outside the town, and 
 long ago, before she was " sanctified," she believed she 
 saw the Evil One, horns and all, looking in at her sitting- 
 room window. In recent times the anthropomorphic 
 Satan has grown rather unpopular among us, and Mother 
 Embery is shy of talking about this remarkable expe 
 rience. But she occasionally makes house-to-house 
 visitations of personal inquiry as to the spiritual condi 
 tion of the family, talking with each one of the inmates, 
 and offering prayer if it is allowed. Some resent her in 
 terference and shut their doors against her, others toler 
 ate her presence though it be unwelcome, and a few 
 receive her as a chosen vessel of grace and an inspired 
 ministrant. On one occasion, immediately following a 
 revival in the village, when Mother Embery s brain was a 
 good deal exalted, she went into Aunt Dido s to inquire 
 after the state of her soul. That invincible optimist re 
 plied pleasantly that she hadn t heard from her soul 
 for some time, she was sorry to say ; she had been so 
 busy taking care of the bodies of other people. She 
 presumed, however, it was all right. Mother Embery 
 was not well pleased with this practical answer from a 
 person whom she felt to be in the very gall of bitterness. 
 She therefore poured forth warning and admonition in an 
 impetuous stream of words, delivered in a high key, and 
 finally wound up by asking Aunt Dido what she would 
 say when she came into a dreadful place where the fire 
 is never quenched. Aunt Dido was busy making mince 
 pies, weighing and portioning out the fruit and meat, the 
 raisins and citron, and spices, and did not wish to be 
 bothered. So, standing at her kitchen table, she turned 
 her head over her shoulder and said good-humoredly : 
 
 " Don t know what I should say, Mother Embery, 
 under those circumstances. Guess I should warm my 
 hands and remark, as an old lady did I once heard of, 
 What a particularly nice fire to broil a steak ! 
 
MOTHER EM BERTS WRATH. ll1 
 
 Mother Embery flung out of the house, shocked by 
 such unpardonable levity, and since that day she has had 
 the utmost satisfaction in consigning Aunt Dido to the 
 place where Dante bestowed all his political enemies. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BUSY BEES. 
 
 OUR spring high water and freshets are always periods 
 of great interest and excitement, especially to the 
 children. The river is sure to rise at about the same 
 time every year. There comes a warm, impetuous rain 
 storm and then an ice-break. The snow melts rapidly on 
 the mountains. The brooks rush down and pour into 
 the larger streams. A rush and roar and trampling of 
 waters fill the world with a new spirit. For a few days 
 there is great anxiety lest the dams should break and the 
 bridges be carried off. People are set to watch day and 
 night at different points while the crisis lasts, for fear the 
 village, which lies on a low plateau, should be invaded by 
 a mountain torrent. But this has never happened within 
 memory. In a short time the river ceases to rage and 
 boil, and spreads out peacefully in lake-like expanses 
 over the meadows, where fresh-water birds come promptly 
 to feed. 
 
 Mill Farm is always a point of attraction in freshet time. 
 Then the wine-colored and golden-brown water rushes 
 over the wheel and through the race, and churns along 
 the stony brook in foam until it finally makes a leap 
 down the three giant steps of rock, clearing them at a 
 bound with a shout. The fall throws off spray in clouds, 
 which cling like lace webs to the rocky slopes of the glen, 
 and when the sun shines are shot full of rainbows. Mill 
 Farm, with the old gray stacks of buildings, the busy 
 wheel, the water-course and the cascade, is the most pic 
 turesque place about the village. The miller and his wife 
 
THE BEES AT MILL FARM. 113 
 
 are both round, jolly, homespun people of the true miller 
 type. When the miller emerges from the dust raised by 
 his wheel, his rosy face beams like a full moon. His wife 
 is of the same build, short and cherubic, and is noted for 
 being dressy and wearing the gayest old-lady caps in the 
 village. The little court between the mill and the house 
 in summer is filled with the brightest flowers that blow, 
 such as fish-geraniums, nasturtiums, scarlet beans and 
 poppies. Even now the sitting-room windows make a 
 fine display of hyacinth glasses. 
 
 But there are other flowers looking out from the win 
 dows and smiling into the bland spring air. They are 
 the bright eyes and blooming faces of the " Busy Bees," 
 three young girls, nieces of the miller s wife, who come 
 frequently from a neighboring town to visit their aunt. 
 The old miller is uncommonly fond of these pretty girls. 
 He has no children of his own ; and it is shrewdly sus 
 pected that if they marry to please him, he will make 
 them his heirs. They are orphan girls, and already well 
 endowed for the country with this world s goods. Indeed 
 among the simple minded inhabitants of the village they 
 are looked upon as great matrimonial prizes. They bring 
 with them Saratoga trunks full of bewitching clothes in 
 which they array themselves ; and all about the glen, and 
 the fields, and the mill they pose to be admired. Each 
 of the " Busy Bees " has her fad, which she pursues with 
 ardor. The eldest is practical and active, ready to do 
 any thing in the house or on the farm, from concocting a 
 pudding to riding on the mowing machine, provided some 
 one of the male kind is by to admire her vigor. The 
 second is decorative. She brought old china and art work 
 into fashion in the village before Rose Madder opened 
 her studio above Peckham s grocery store. She first 
 showed the villagers how to compose nocturnes and sym 
 phonies in plush and satin, Berlin wool and floss silk. 
 
 The youngest Busy Bee is an entomologist, to the extent 
 
H4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of catching butterflies in a green silk net and looking 
 very pretty while she pursues science out in the daisy- 
 decked fields in a bewildering little Mother Hubbard and 
 a big straw hat. It is very instructive to her young ad 
 mirers to see how deftly she jabs these poor winged creat 
 ures, arid puts them up as specimens with a lovely smile 
 on her innocent, rosy face. The " Busy Bees " all unite 
 in adoring and patronizing the country. They dote on 
 sunrises and moonlight nights in the glen, on horseback 
 excursions to Saddleback, and walks to the wildest parts 
 of the neighborhood. They have a gipsy camp down by 
 the waterfall, where they spend whole days in picnic ex 
 istence and give audience to the most favored of their 
 male friends. They are rustic in a way very surprising 
 to the country girls. In their best gowns they hunt hens 
 nests in the barn, or ride on the hay load, or go out, hold 
 ing up their dainty skirts from the reek of the farm-yard, 
 to pet the horses and cows and calves. They are affable 
 and pleasant to every body. There is not a creature 
 living they would not like to make happy if they could do 
 it in a picturesque and effective manner. 
 
 When the Bees appear there is constant stir and 
 bustle, accompanied with cackling, and laughter, and fun. 
 Of course, the advent of these rich, attractive, and desir 
 able damsels creates a commotion in the village. The 
 atmosphere changes, and all winds blow toward Mill 
 Farm. The young men, old bachelors, and widowers 
 " spruce up," and turn their longing eyes in the direction 
 of the glen. In some quarters, hair dye is in brisk 
 demand. The tailor notes quite a perceptible increase 
 of orders. The bootmaker laughs and says he never sells 
 any patent leathers unless the " Busy Bees " are in town. 
 As a spur to trade and a quickening impulse in dull times 
 the Bees are always welcomed with open arms. When 
 they go chattering through the village, showing their fine 
 feathers, and tripping along on the toes of their French 
 
AU.VT DIDO S ADVICE TO HUGH. 115 
 
 boots, with a following of attentive gallants, window- 
 shades fly up, old people hobble to the door, and excel 
 lent girls who bave been allowed to hang upon the bush 
 unsought many a year gaze with mild asperity, feeling in 
 their inmost souls that the Bees "ain t such a great sight 
 better looking than other folks ! " 
 
 Hugh has flirted impartially with all three of the Bees, 
 as he has found himself in perfect accord with all their 
 tastes. He might possibly like to marry one of them if 
 the other two were not just as nice and just as alluring as 
 any given member of the trio. Aunt Dido has advised 
 him seriously to pay attention to the eldest, who she 
 thinks has more sense and is less volatile than her sisters. 
 She has set forth the advantages of matrimony to her 
 boarder while wielding her large iron spoon over the 
 kitchen stove, while changing his plate at his solitary 
 dinner, and even while tidying the house in her whirlwind 
 fashion with broom and duster. It is strange Aunt Dido 
 should think so much of the married state, when her own 
 husband is such a small, insignificant man, it almost takes 
 a microscope to discover him. But she has the weakness 
 of her sex, which judges a man married a man made, and 
 tells Hugh with commendable frankness that if he settles 
 down into the well-worn groove of domestic life he may 
 turn out a steady man ; otherwise she very much fears he 
 never will amount to any certain sum. Hugh objected very 
 much to having, as he said, a bee put in his bonnet, but 
 once there he could not help its buzzing. He has tried 
 to look upon the eldest Bee as a possible Mrs. Hugh, 
 but for the life of him he can not help regarding all 
 three in an impersonal affectionate manner. To quiet 
 the importunities of Aunt Dido, about a year ago he 
 planned to give the sisters a serenade at the mill on a 
 lovely moonlight night. The serenade was charming, 
 but it did not turn out just as it was planned, as I shall 
 show later. 
 
Il6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 There is one old bachelor among us who lives in per 
 haps the snuggest, tidiest place we have, just below the 
 grand mansion established by Judge Magnus. This man 
 has furnished more food for harmless gossip and matri 
 monial speculation than any other man ever "raised " in 
 the town. He is a very shrewd business man, and has 
 amassed a large fortune, which it is his ambition to 
 increase. His thin, keen visage appears to have been 
 ground fine on hard bargains and doubtful transactions. 
 All the village spinsters know that he dyes his hair and 
 whiskers, which are of a splendid sable, glossy and rich 
 beyond the power of nature to produce. When the Bees 
 are in the village his locks take on an added luster beau 
 tiful to behold. He is mathematically exact in dress and 
 deportment. His silk hat shines as if just taken from the 
 counter, and his gloves fit to perfection. Impossible is 
 it to describe the glitter of his linen. He has been 
 called Mr. Worldly Wiseman, though some who know 
 the smoothness of his tongue and the grip of his hard 
 bargains think Mr. Facing-both-ways would be quite as 
 appropriate. His house always appears to have just 
 received a coat of new paint. Every thing about it is 
 kept in perfect order. The most voracious insects never 
 dare to attack his trees and vines. His roses are all 
 full-blown ones with just so many leaves to the corolla. 
 His grapes form in the most absolute perfection, resemb 
 ling those mouth-watering clusters you see in agricultural 
 papers. The walks in his garden and door-yard are 
 accurately cemented, and no weed, be it dock or pusley, 
 dare show its impudent head along his borders. His 
 trees grow according to a pattern. The elms bend with 
 precision, forming the same regular curve on both sides, 
 and his maples shoot up into thick pyramids. If any one 
 tree on his premises should venture to lean or crook it 
 would probably be removed, as nothing but mathematical 
 symmetry can satisfy the soul of Mr. Worldly Wiseman. 
 
HUGH ARRANGES A SERENADE. 117 
 
 It was at one time thought he might marry his house 
 keeper, who keeps his house in the perfect order of the 
 multiplication table getting out her " wash" by the rule 
 of three, and serving up every thing on the beautiful prin 
 ciple of vulgar fractions. But within the last year or two 
 he has cast his eyes on the middle Bee, who is as decora 
 tive as she is pretty, and the question has been busily 
 canvassed in the village as to whether Miss Bee will have 
 Mr. Worldly Wiseman. There are some who think that, 
 although she has such a gushing fondness for nature, this 
 young lady will take an urban man, and never seriously 
 think of bestowing her charms and her fortune on a vil 
 lage magnate. There are others who think she might go 
 further and fare worse ; as that perfect place on Main 
 Street is a lure to feminine eyes. 
 
 The bachelor s attentions had been going on for some 
 time when Hugh, prompted by Aunt Dido, devised the 
 idea of a serenade to the three charming sisters at Mill 
 Farm. Mr. Worldly Wiseman plays the violin in a 
 sufficiently feeble manner to accompany some of our vil 
 lage girls on the piano. Hugh invited him to join the 
 serenaders, and although much older than the young fel 
 lows who compose the glee club, he consented to be of 
 the party. Stephen has a fine command of the flute and 
 is a skilled performer. When Hugh approached Stephen 
 and opened the little affair of the serenade with all the 
 inducements he could throw around it you should have 
 seen that young man s face. At the moment he hap 
 pened to be preparing for the stuffing process old Mrs. 
 Holt s pet canary, which had died of the pip. As he held 
 the bird in his hand he just turned short about to shout 
 a terrific " no " to Hugh s request, and then resumed his 
 work, the hair bristling straight up on the top of his pug 
 nacious head. Stephen has become a dreadful misogynist 
 since the loss of his cash. His mother has now gone 
 away to visit her sister for an indefinite length of time, 
 
1* VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 and Stephen does his own cooking, makes his bed, and, 
 for aught I know, washes his own clothes. He puts his 
 tin can outside his door very early, and locks it with a 
 vicious snap that he may not be forced to speak to the 
 old milk-woman when she comes round of a morning. 
 Hugh was obliged to dispense with Stephen s flute ; but 
 the Glee Club boys were all willing, and after a great 
 many rehearsals in private, a beautiful moonlight night 
 in spring was chosen for the serenade. The " Busy 
 Bees " were, of course, fully informed of what was going 
 forward, and were in a flutter of pleasurable anticipa 
 tion. The mill was stopped, the bulldog was chained up 
 in the barn behind the house as a necessary precaution, 
 and the miller warned not to get up in the night and point 
 his old rusty musket out of the window if he happened 
 to be aroused by unusual sounds. The young ladies had 
 prepared beautiful bouquets wherewith to pelt their 
 admirers, and these were all ranged along the old-fash 
 ioned bureau under the dressing-glass which often 
 reflected the three charming faces. 
 
 A moonlight night at the mill is a bit of paradise 
 regained. The old irregular pile of buildings, with the 
 race and the great wheel and the many trees grouped at 
 the entrance of the mossy gleri, make a witching picture. 
 In furtive fashion the moonbeams steal about the court, 
 glimpsing upon the windows of the chambers where the 
 " Busy Bees " repose, and quivering down in sparkles 
 on the many-hued flower beds. It was here in this court 
 under the windows that the Glee Club was ranged, with 
 Mr. Worldly Wiseman a little withdrawn, shrouded in his 
 inky cloak, and suffering some sharp rheumatic twinges 
 from the night air. It was past one in the morning, and 
 all nature was deliciously still and dewy, when the spell 
 was broken by the melodious sound of voices with a vio 
 lin accompaniment. Hugh let out the full volume of his 
 rich tenor. The bachelor as first suitor bowed away 
 
MK. WISEMAN S ACCIDENT. 119 
 
 with commendable energy. They heard the casement 
 softly open. They could catch faintest glimpses of those 
 lovely Bees in light raiment, and the sound of suppressed 
 laughter. The " Glees " had sung in their best style 
 " Come into the Garden, Maud," and had given a bird 
 song with prolonged trills and cadences, when from 
 behind the muslin curtains came a soft sound of hand- 
 clapping. A shower of nosegays flew out of the window, 
 which the happy serenaders managed to secure as they 
 pattered down in the flower-beds. But Mr. Wiseman 
 sank to the ground with a suppressed groan which 
 sounded like a muffled imprecation. Something much 
 heavier than a bunch of flowers had struck him on the 
 side of the head and demolished his violin. For a 
 moment he believed he had been shot with murderous 
 intent. The windows of the girls chamber were hastily 
 closed. Hugh ran to the assistance of Mr. Worldly 
 Wiseman, and the other boys, with consternation painted 
 on their faces, gathered around and helped him out into 
 the road, where he continued to groan, while they ex 
 amined him all over for injuries ; but no wounds or 
 abrasions could be discovered. Hugh was bent on 
 rousing the house to demand an explanation of this 
 mysterious assault. But the bachelor sullenly restrained 
 him, and after giving himself a shake, said he could 
 walk home. His personal pride and self-love had been 
 terribly wounded, but otherwise he appeared to be sound. 
 His hat and violin, however, were both badly damaged. 
 
 In somber mood the young men took their way back 
 to the village. There was but little said, but they all 
 kept up a desperate thinking. Mr. Worldly Wiseman in 
 his battered state was sulky to the point of ru-deness ; 
 and as soon as possible sought the repose of his own 
 immaculate abode, where he nursed his wrongs in silence. 
 \Vhy the pretty Bees should have peppered their sere 
 naders with missiles harder than bouquets or billetdoux. 
 
120 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 remained a profound mystery for some time. The 
 offended Glee Club would not go near them to demand 
 an explanation. The old miller when taxed with having 
 fired his gun out of the window could remember nothing 
 of the kind. He had slept soundly during the whole 
 fracas, and now took counsel with his equally befogged 
 wife. The girls were very reticent, at first, and when 
 any thing was said of this nocturnal adventure, blushed 
 and hung their heads, while stories went through the 
 village to the effect that the "Busy Bees" had of late 
 been practicing with a pislol for their own amusement, 
 and had fired on the whole pack of their lovers assembled 
 under their windows from pure wantonness. Mr. Worldly 
 Wiseman had been dangerously wounded, according to 
 their account, and was lying in a critical condition. But 
 Mr. Wiseman in order to check the tongues of the myth- 
 makers soon appeared on the street in his usual health. 
 
 Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. After 
 a few days it came out just how Mr. Worldly Wiseman 
 happened to be assaulted at Mill Farm, to the damage 
 of his hat and violin. The youngest Miss Bee, that 
 volatile butterfly girl, had been suddenly awakened from 
 a profound sleep by the music of the serenaders under 
 her window. Her nosegays were all ready, tied with 
 celestial blue ribbon, but in a half-waking somnambulic 
 state she arose, fumbled about to find her flowers, and 
 seizing instead, by accident, a cut-class scent bottle, 
 hurled it from the window with fatal aim, because she 
 took no aim at all. She and her sisters have tried to 
 appease the wrath of Mr. Worldly Wiseman by many 
 unobtrusive attentions, but the village Achilles still 
 nurses his offended dignity in his tent. Thus many a 
 budding and incipient romance is spoiled by a ridiculous 
 little accident for which no one is really to blame. 
 
 Hugh has made it up with the Bees, and goes on flirt 
 ing with all of them just as usual, 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE DOCTOR S TROUBLE. 
 
 THE ties which bind a small community together are 
 many and subtile. You may dislike your neighbor 
 in the village ; you may envy or distrust him, or feel con 
 tempt for his ability or his pretensions, but when he is ill 
 or in trouble, or when death comes knocking at his door, 
 you can not ignore him. Human fellowship is still found 
 to be strong and active. The trained nurse has not yet 
 come in to prevent neighborly offices performed by the 
 gentle hands of good women. Housewives still cook 
 little delicacies to tempt the appetite of the invalid across 
 the way or in the next street. Bonny girls and children 
 carry flowers to sick chambers. When death comes, the 
 undertaker does not do all that is required. Experienced 
 women enter the house of mourning with a kind of au 
 thority and perform the last kind offices for the dead. 
 
 Many a poor creature has passed away with a certain 
 sense of comfort in her heart from the thought of kind 
 neighbors who would not let the family suffer, who would 
 see all things done decently and in order at the funeral. 
 These customs are good and humanizing. In prosperity 
 the people may bicker and backbite, they may nurse their 
 jealousies and piques and divisions, but when trouble 
 comes they are united. They see the solemn fate bring 
 ing all to equality of lot, and they stand together in a 
 closer sense of brotherhood. 
 
 The doctor, as we know, has had poignant experience 
 of other people s sorrows. He has experienced living 
 and dying troubles by the score, and taken a multitude 
 of human griefs into his own breast. He has felt for his 
 
122 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 fellow man and woman in a humble sphere with the ten 
 derness, charity, and compassion which might have made 
 a saint, and yet how far is he from being a saint. Into 
 his ear have been poured the troubles of lowly lives, the 
 discouragements of poor farmers and mechanics, the 
 griefs of over-worked, dispirited women, the heartaches 
 of maidens and young men whose aspirations have been 
 crushed out, the struggles of lonely and saintly souls of 
 whom some still remain in the foldings of our blue hills. 
 
 The doctor has never betrayed a secret in his life. He 
 does not talk about his bad cases at home, thus to find 
 relief from mental strain. When he has a very sick 
 patient on his hands, he betrays his anxiety by swallowing 
 a great many cups of strong tea, which his wife knows to 
 be bad for him. If things are getting desperate, he some 
 times braces up on a small glass of brandy, which he takes 
 from a side cupboard in his office stocked with some 
 choice old liquors kept for medicinal purposes. The 
 doctor is so strictly temperate in all his habits that when 
 his grandchild sees him take a drink of clear spirits from 
 the decanter, she always knows there is something disas 
 trous in the wind and watches him with wistful eyes, 
 though even she has learned it is never safe to question 
 him about his cases. 
 
 The doctor has a hot, passionate temper. His growl 
 is something terrific, and not to be encountered with 
 temerity. Miss Candace laughs, and says she rather 
 likes it, it is such an honest and sincere sound. There 
 is no cant in the doctor s growl, nor is there any conces 
 sion to false conventionalities. He has a lightning-like 
 directness of speech and action, and it is never safe to 
 beard him in the wrong mood. But like such violently 
 contrasted natures, when he is genial nothing can exceed 
 the warmth and brightness that rays out of his being. 
 Like a central sun he seems to light the world, and the 
 amount of beautiful poetry he recites gives evidence of 
 
EF TIE S LITTLE INHERITANCE. 123 
 
 his prodigious memory. To his poor patients who can pay 
 nothing but thanks, and to whom he often gives the 
 medicine he prescribes, the doctor frequently shows this 
 beautiful side of his character. He is worshiped by 
 crippled children and wretched women, as if he had been 
 canonized and held a place in the calendar. 
 
 When any thing happens to the doctor, a tocsin 
 rings through the village, and people are aroused. Even 
 the people who have fought with him, and have de 
 nounced his violence, stand aghast at the thought of any 
 calamity overtaking the principal institution of the town. 
 The thunderbolt has struck his roof more than once, as 
 you can read in the pale, saintly face of his wife, whom 
 the neighbors are apt to think is altogether too submis 
 sive to her lord and master. 
 
 It is known to but few that the doctor s grandchild 
 will inherit a small fortune from a distant relative when 
 she comes of age. This legacy was much exaggerated 
 by public rumor and before the end of two years the 
 larger part of it was lost by bad investments. The girl 
 herself was unaware of the fact, as the doctor and his wife 
 have carefully sought to conceal it from Effie until she is 
 older and has received a thorough education. But the 
 villagers do well remember all the painful, harrowing 
 circumstances of Effie s birth and early childhood ; how 
 the father absconded to Europe with a degraded woman, 
 and the broken-hearted mother and little child were 
 taken into the doctor s household. Effie s mother faded 
 away in two years, and the child, though still very 
 young, was deeply impressed by the wrongs and suffer 
 ings she had endured from a dissolute father. It was 
 this trouble which aged the doctor and whitened the 
 brown locks of his wife. But years passed on. The 
 child was growing up to take the place of the daughter 
 they had lost. The doctor recovered his firmness and 
 poise. His eyes grew keen and bright again. In a year 
 
124 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 or two now Effie could go before the court and choose 
 her own guardian, and all danger from the renegade 
 father s claim would be at an end. Secret terrors lest 
 Philip should come back to try and get possession of the 
 girl, now that she had inherited property, were always 
 afflicting the soul of the doctor s wife. At times she 
 would not let Effie go out alone through the village 
 streets. The doctor knew just what it meant when he 
 saw one of these nervous tremors taking possession of 
 his wife ; I believe she dreaded the blandishments of 
 the handsome unprincipled Philip and the power he 
 might gain over the mind of the child more than any 
 thing else. 
 
 But as they saw Effie growing taller and more womanly 
 each day, their fears were quieted, and their vigilance 
 fell asleep. One afternoon in April or early May, I know 
 the tulip beds were all ablaze in the Squire s garden, 
 Effie rushed quite pale and disheveled into her grand 
 father s office, and threw herself sobbing into his arms. 
 In broken words, when she could command her voice, 
 she told him of a dreadful fright she had received com 
 ing home from school. Two men on the old turnpike 
 had tried to force her into a carriage. But she screamed 
 loudly, and resisted with all her might, and was heard 
 by an old man, Eben Tripp, who was driving along in 
 his " democrat " wagon. The men seeing him so near 
 let her go, and whipped up their horses. Her books 
 had fallen into the dirt in the road, and she was tremb 
 ling so she could hardly stand, but old man Tripp gath 
 ered up the books, and put her into the wagon, and 
 brought her home. And then Effie asked under her 
 breath, her large eyes strained wide with fright : " Was 
 it that man that used my mother so ? Oh, grandpa, don t 
 let him get me." The doctor grew rigid as stone. He 
 clinched his hands until the nails were driven into the 
 flesh, but he tried to soothe the child, and finally he put 
 
THE WIFE S SUSPICIONS. 12$ 
 
 her to bed and gave her a sleeping potion, and then he 
 told his wife the evil days had come upon them. Thje 
 next day very early Effie was sent away to a safe place. 
 
 In a day or two it began to be whispered about the 
 place that strangers were abiding at Saw Mill Hollow, a 
 little hamlet two miles away. Who they probably were 
 and the purport of their visit filled the air with conjec 
 tures and vague disquiet. The old doctor s face was a 
 study at this time, and many watched it, though none 
 dared to question him. He went doggedly about his 
 business, but all his leisure he was locked up in his office 
 busy with secret matters, while his wife sat anxious and 
 alone in her own room, or moved about the house with her 
 soft, still tread. One day, the week after Effie was sent 
 off, she slipped into the office ; the doctor, as she sup 
 posed, had gone into the country to visit a very sick 
 man. After searching a long time in various corners she 
 came upon a pair of old pistols newly polished and care 
 fully oiled. But the doctor had not gone to the coun 
 try, it seemed, for he surprised his wife with one of the 
 weapons in her hand. As he stopped at the door and 
 looked in : " Judith," he cried, sternly ; " what are you 
 about ? " 
 
 " John, John Rivington, you are going to murder 
 him." It was all the answer she could make, for her 
 heart was constricted and her tongue parched. 
 
 " I am going to have it out with him, that s a fact. 
 And mind what I say, Judith ; you must keep still and 
 not try to interfere." 
 
 She was still as a statue of despair, and as she slipped 
 down in his old office chair he thought she would faint. 
 Seeing that great anguish in her tearless face, the 
 doctor by a sudden impulse took the pistols out of the 
 drawer and laid them in her lap. 
 
 " Here, you may take these things away. I won t do 
 it with firearms, I ll use my fists. But I must have it out 
 
126 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 with that man, for life is not worth a brass farthing to 
 me while he skulks around here with his cursed detec 
 tive, and goes unpunished." 
 
 That was all that passed between them, and a few days 
 later the doctor met Philip on the road to Saw Mill Hol 
 low. It was just at dusk, when soft brown velvet shadows 
 filled the spring twilight. He had not seen his son-in-law 
 for twelve years, but he knew him at a glance of his old 
 eagle eye, and instantly he leaped from his wagon and 
 grappled with his enemy. The doctor being a more 
 powerful man than Philip, with the heavy horsewhip he 
 carried gave him a terrible punishing. There in the 
 brown shadows, where the birds were softly calling to 
 their mates, the two men clinched and fought, rolled over 
 on the grass, or rising to their feet took a new life-and- 
 death grip. The struggle went on until some laborers in 
 the fields, hearing groans and stifled cries, ran to the place 
 and found Philip lying deathly white by the roadside, 
 with the old man, his clothes torn and muddy, standing 
 over him like a lion at bay. 
 
 No one molested the doctor. He got into his wagon 
 and drove home. In spite of the terrible condition of his 
 clothes, he looked excited and almost young as he burst 
 into his wife s sitting-room. The lamp had just been 
 brought in. She sat there still and apprehensive, listen 
 ing to every sound. " Well, Judith, you see I ve done it," 
 looking down at his coat. 
 
 "You haven t killed him, John?" "Pretty nigh," he 
 said curtly. " Not many whole bones left in his body, I 
 guess. It was a long score, Judith, and it had to be 
 cleared off. You must make haste and put up a few 
 things in a bag, for as soon as I have cleaned myself and 
 
 changed my clothes I am going to drive over to 
 
 (naming the county town) to give myself up to Sheriff 
 Dawson." She stood up to obey him silently, but her 
 limbs refused their office, and the doctor put his arm 
 
THE DOCTOR GIVES HIMSELF UP. 127 
 
 around her and drew her close to him. It was not an 
 habitual thing with these two. Perhaps he kissed her. 
 " Judith," he said, " I haven t been a very good husband 
 to you. I have been too obstinate and self-willed to make 
 you very happy ; but if any thing should happen to sepa 
 rate us, I want you to believe this thing had to be done." 
 
 That night the doctor gave himself up to Sheriff Daw- 
 g0 n routing that functionary out of bed in the small 
 hours to tell his story and to put himself in the power of 
 the law. The sheriff was an old and tried friend, and 
 much troubled by the necessity. He gave the doctor a 
 room in his own house, and turned the key upon him. It 
 would be impossible to describe the excitement that sim 
 mered, and bubbled, and boiled in the village when the 
 fact was made known that the doctor had thrashed 
 Philip Hadley within an inch of his life on Saw Mill Hol 
 low road. The little town seemed hung in black, for 
 now he was in trouble the people were to a man, woman, 
 and child loyal to the old man. He had great faults, 
 of course, but who was there like him for grand virtues? 
 
 In the morning reports came that Philip was dying. 
 He had been carried to his lodging in Saw Mill Hollow, 
 and the local doctor had been called in. Some of his ribs 
 were broken, but the worst feature of his case was con 
 cussion of the brain. His antagonist had given him a 
 heavy fall on stony ground. The people were feverishly 
 anxious that Philip should live. A messenger came 
 every hour from Saw Mill Hollow to report. It would 
 be impossible to get a jury together in the county to con 
 vict the doctor of murder, for the story of Philip Had- 
 ley s rascality was too well known, but the anxiety lest 
 Philip should die was none the less agonizing. In a day 
 or two, when a slightly favorable turn had taken place in 
 Philip s state, it was known that the doctor would be 
 released on bail, and half the men in the village crowded 
 the first train down to the county town to offer to go on 
 
128 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 his bond. There was the judge, and the minister, and 
 the old shoemaker, and Hugh, and Peckham, and Mr. 
 Worldly Wiseman, and the postmaster, and even Jake 
 Small and Tim McCoy, whom the doctor had brought 
 through that bad illness. 
 
 When the village delegation squeezed into the sheriff s 
 office it was a remarkable sight. The doctor had been 
 very cheerful, indeed, in the best of spirits since he gave 
 himself up, but this demonstration almost unmanned him, 
 and he could only grasp the hands of his old neighbors, 
 for his voice was entirely too husky to attempt a word. 
 All the property in the village might have been pledged 
 for his prompt appearance at this trial, but the signature 
 of Judge Magnus was all-sufficient. 
 
 When he found himself a free man once more the first 
 thing the doctor did was to inquire particularly after 
 the condition of Philip and the mode of his treatment. 
 When told the latest news, that Philip was wandering in 
 his mind and in a high fever, the old man muttered to 
 himself: " It s that ass of a Dodds." Well, 1 know not 
 how it happened: when the neighbors reached the village 
 escorting the old man, they found the flags flying from 
 all the houses that possessed flags and the big banner 
 from the liberty-pole. By a spontaneous movement of 
 sympathy every body crowded into the street to welcome 
 him, and some of the lads got into the belfry of the church 
 and rang the bell as they always do on Fourth of July 
 morning, and somebody fired the old cannon on the com 
 mon. Philip Hadley was still in danger of death, but he 
 was two miles away, and the people did not care to 
 think of him, or if they did think of him, it was with the 
 feeling that he richly deserved his punishment. He had 
 ruined the life and broken the heart of the doctor s only 
 daughter, and he had tried to steal his grand child to 
 get possession of her little fortune. 
 
 The doctor was serene as a May morning. He had 
 
HOW PHILIP S WQCNflS WERE HEALED. 129 
 
 performed an ugly task, but it had been laid upon him, 
 and he had not flinched. Now that he was at home 
 again, however, his professional conscience began to 
 work. He felt almost sure that Dodds by his blunder 
 ing would let the fellow die ; and now that justice had 
 been meted out to him he did not wish him to die ; in 
 deed, he desired to save him. So one dark night, he stole 
 down the Saw Mill Hollow road, and paid a clandestine 
 visit to his precious son-in-law, whose bones he had so 
 recently broken. Philip was still wandering in delirium 
 and did not know him. The doctor of course decided 
 that the treatment was all wrong, and in a day or two he 
 arranged with Dodds, and openly took charge of the 
 case ; and so rapidly did he heal the wounds he had made 
 that in two weeks Philip Hadley was on the road to 
 health. 
 
 This thing was so characteristic of the doctor that it 
 caused a great deal of laughter in the village. But there 
 were other important consequences which grew out of 
 this anomalous position of affairs. Philip Hadley, dur 
 ing his convalescence, professed great penitence, and 
 made the doctor believe he was a changed man that 
 the drubbing he had received had been to him a means 
 of spiritual grace and renewal. And when the doctor 
 saw him off on the railway train he actually gave him a 
 considerable sum of money to set himself up in morality 
 and good behavior. The case against the doctor is 
 what Jake Small calls " squashed." No one thinks less 
 of him for what he did, and I am afraid he has risen in 
 the estimation of many. " Taint Christian doctrine, is 
 it ? " asked Mother Embery of the parson. " Scriptur 
 says, if you are smote on the right cheek you must turn 
 the left." " Perhaps he isn t a Christian," returned the 
 young clergyman thoughtfully, " but we must all admit 
 that he is a fine old pagan." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BOY ALMIRA ADOPTED. 
 
 THESE spring evenings, when the light begins to linger 
 on the growing grass pied with dandelions, and the 
 buds to pout on the lilac bushes, the children play in the 
 streets with unwonted vigor, and their sports take on an 
 epic "beauty and grace I never remark at any other time 
 of year. Their choric dances are like pictures on old 
 classic vases, and unconsciously they assume the most 
 beautiful and unstudied attitudes, especially the little 
 girls, when they throw off their hats and let the tresses 
 float free on the wind. From all lanes and by-places 
 come those sounds of children shouting, as much a part 
 of the opening season as the cheep of nestlings or the 
 great bum-boom of the bullfrog s bass-viol in the pond. 
 
 Now come into the fields, where the farmer s boy in 
 the early plowing turns the rich brown furrow with a 
 pair of red oxen. The sky is so soft and vaporous with 
 broken lights and large luminous clouds, the humble 
 scene appears to breathe the poetry of one of Millet s 
 pictures. A black skurry of clouds comes over to drop 
 a sudden sharp shower into the newly turned clod. Then 
 it moves frowningly off, and the sky comes out in such 
 dazzling bursts of splendor the king-birds and thrushes 
 shake the drops from their wings and trill forth in sud 
 den ecstasy, until you deplore your own dumbness, and 
 long to join in that chorus of nature : " Praise the 
 Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His 
 holy name." A flash darts across the sky, and thunder 
 cracks over the woods, and goes rumbling along Saddle- 
 
ANCESTRAL FARMS. 131 
 
 back in a grand surly growl. It seems to shake the forest 
 trees to their deepest roots, and to open the lids of the 
 flowers with a start of surprise. The furrow is good and 
 fructuous, and sheds abroad that terrene smell we notice 
 on warm spring days, when the earth seems to purr with 
 content. 
 
 In many parts of the country the farms are practically 
 abandoned or leased to the Irish or to French Cana 
 dians. But it is not so here, where the land has come 
 down through generations in unbroken lines of inheri 
 tance. The farmers are not all hurrying and eager to 
 get rich. Some of them are content just to live along in 
 comfort, making both ends meet as their fathers did. 
 There is generally one son who is willing to stay on the 
 old place, and sometimes it falls to a daughter s share to 
 take the laboring oar and keep the ancestral farm in the 
 family. There is a pretty walk to just such a farm 
 through a piece of woods that lies not far from the town. 
 These woods begin to look social again on a pleasant 
 spring day. Their elegant openness gives one a new 
 sense of light and space. They remind one of royal 
 saloons in the grand old Italian palaces frescoed with 
 the sky and heavenly bodies. No columns of porphyry 
 or marble can exceed the beauty of the tree trunks spotted 
 with moss and lichen and so richly colored and carved. 
 It is good to get among them after a winter spent in the 
 village streets. You feel as if you were moving into 
 nature. The hepatica and wind-flower, and the trailing 
 arbutus, betray themselves in spite of the brown leaves 
 where they are hidden. Scrape away the rubbish and 
 you will see where they are pushing upbuds in knots and 
 clusters. The waxy leaf buds that tip the twigs of forest 
 trees are as yet very backward-looking. Cold spring 
 storms come to repress all the aspirations of the growing 
 world. But a delicate beauty clings to the first move 
 ments of spring, and lights familiar fields and hillsides 
 
I3 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 with a gleam out of some new source of beneficence. 
 The soft brown landscape mellows into smiles of greet 
 ing where it touches the blue of the sky. There is a 
 clean, wholesome look about the world. Its face has been 
 thoroughly washed, and all things are ready for a new 
 revelation of beauty. 
 
 The old farm-house I mentioned stands near this wood 
 land, where the villagers come in spring to search for 
 arbutus. It stands close to the road, with a horse-trough 
 a little way beyond under a wide-spreading balm of 
 Gilead. The house is nearly a hundred years old. A 
 long shed is attached to its southern side, and the gable 
 is ornamented with an angel trumpeter surmounted by a 
 vane, which has steadily pointed north-east for the last 
 ten years. The ancient rooms are furnished much as 
 they were at the beginning of this century. The old 
 chairs, and tables, and presses, and chests of drawers are 
 still intact. Braided mats and strips of rag carpet cover 
 the floor. The high clock ticks in the corner of the 
 sitting-room. The loom holds its place in the garret. 
 A spinning-wheel and two little flax wheels are nicely 
 kept in a chamber up stairs. All the bedrooms are 
 furnished with high-post testered beds and dimity cur 
 tains trimmed with knotted fringe. The old brasses of 
 the fireplace, the warming-pan, and the quaint bellows 
 are all in place. The outer door still has those quaint 
 holes furnished with flaps a large one for the cat and a 
 small one for the kitten. The ancient book-shelf is 
 furnished with its pictorial Bible, its New England primer, 
 Cotton Mather s " Magnalia," Michael Wigglesworth s 
 " Day of Doom," the works of Jonathan Edwards^ 
 Baxter s " Saints Rest," and the " Holy Living and 
 Dying." The keeping-room has a few modern additions 
 in the way of rugs and curtains to make it comfortable, 
 but it is mainly unaltered. The front door, with its worn 
 granite step, opens directly on a smooth unfenced bit of 
 
ALMIRA. 133 
 
 Almira turf, with a little footpath trickling down to the 
 wagon-track. A pleasing prospect lies before it of the 
 lazy little river, the intervale, and distant hiils. 
 
 This old house has come by direct inheritance into the 
 possession of a fashionable city woman, who was married 
 in the keeping-room on the very spot where her mother 
 stood up to be married some twenty-five or thirty years 
 earlier. It is the story of the mother chiefly which is 
 interesting, for though the daughter is brilliant and 
 attractive, she is not, so the old people in the village say, 
 endowed with more than a tithe of her mother s talent. 
 
 Almira, as I will call her, was one of those maiden 
 farmers who hereabouts occasionally take charge of the 
 old place when there are no men folk left, or when, if 
 there are, they prefer some other occupation. She had 
 been brought up on the farm, and a few years away at 
 school was all the change she had ever known. Almira 
 was intensely, absorbingly pious, and at an early age, as 
 she recorded in her journal, she determined that she 
 would never marry, but would devote herself to the ser 
 vice of God and the education of the young. She let 
 most of the land on shares, and then she took in a pair 
 of decrepit relatives and kept them in comfort till they 
 died. But this and the general management of the house 
 hold did not interfere at all with the great object of her 
 life, what she had called in her journal the education of 
 the young. Teaching was Almira s absorbing love. It 
 is acknowledged that she laid the foundation of the 
 excellent school system of the town, and her name is 
 still mentioned as that of the most remarkable woman 
 this part of the country has produced. But her fame is 
 purely local. It does not extend beyond the shadow of 
 Saddleback. 
 
 Almira s studies went on with all her varied interests 
 and occupations. She took a deep interest in the 
 religious controversies of the day, and was listened to 
 
134 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 with much deference and respect by clergymen, many of 
 whom were her friends. One winter, it is said, while 
 studying Bible exegesis, she knit a large number of 
 woolen stockings for the poor of the town, as she could 
 contrive to turn the heels and toes by instinct without 
 giving much heed to work. The little stone school- 
 house, resembling a juvenile penitentiary, where she 
 began her teaching, was preserved for many years as a 
 kind of relic of Almira. She opened and closed her 
 school invariably with fervent prayer, and labored in 
 season and out of season for the conversion of her pupils. 
 She taught for some time in this jail-like building, until 
 the fame of her great ability and acquirements caused 
 her to be elected preceptress of the village academy. 
 She fitted many youths for college, and her mathematical 
 and Latin instruction, in those days, was considered 
 second to none. Almira s pale, serious face was bordered 
 by brown hair, brushed behind the ears with Puritan 
 simplicity. Her dress was always severely plain in cut 
 and make, her forehead high, expanded, and broad, was 
 the home of a royal intellect. The girl had never been 
 young. From her tenderest years she had been weighted 
 with a sense of the awfulness of sin and the burdens of 
 the moral law. In her eightieth year, for she lived to be 
 a very old woman, she was really young, gentle, sportive, 
 and possessed of a pleasant humor. 
 
 It was while Almira was still teaching in the stone 
 school-house, that she chanced one day to meet a little 
 lad of ten who was looking for some lost cows on the 
 hill-side. He was a bright-faced, handsome boy, as she 
 discovered in spite of his bare feet, patched trowsers, 
 and torn straw hat. In his perplexity he had caught a 
 "daddy long-legs," and with a country boy s formula 
 was invoking its aid to discover the strayed cattle. He 
 held the insect in his hand and said aloud, " Daddy, 
 daddy, which way have the cows gone ?" Thereupon 
 
THE CHARITY BOY. 135 
 
 daddy pointed with his feelers in the right direction, or 
 was expected so to do. 
 
 Almira was pleased with the lad. When she ques 
 tioned him he looked straight in her eyes, and answered 
 with promptness. She found he was a charity boy 
 " bound " to a neighboring farmer for five years. He had 
 never received any schooling, indeed, was as ignorant as 
 a little savage, both of science and the Westminster Cat 
 echism. This was a state of things Almira could not 
 abide. She tried to induce his master to send him to 
 school, but failing in this, she finally offered him a sum 
 of money to break the indenture, that the boy Eben 
 might be given up to her. In time she carried her point, 
 and Eben was transferred to the old farm-house, where 
 he became Almira s pupil and helper, indeed, her adopted 
 child. She took hold of him with the joy such a woman 
 feels in having a human being all her own to try her the 
 ories upon. At night, after school hours, he did " chores," 
 drove the old horse, split the fire-wood, or with a femi 
 nine apron tied about his neck churned the butter. She 
 brought him up in the strictest creed, instilling into him 
 all the rigors of the Old Testament law, while she taught 
 him all the profane learning she herself had mastered. 
 She did her utmost to educate the boy as a model of 
 learning and Christian character, and to consecrate him 
 a chosen vessel to the service of the Lord. And if Eben 
 did not take as kindly to theology as she wished, it was 
 soon evident that he was the brightest boy in Almira s 
 school. She fitted him for college at sixteen, and en 
 tered him at old Harvard. At a time when the college 
 course was not as expensive as it is now it was no light 
 task to pay all her boy s bills with the result of her school- 
 keeping. Her colony of old people and poor relations 
 at the farm had grown somewhat of late years, and the 
 farm itself hardly paid expenses, having no energetic 
 man at the fore. 
 
I3 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 But Almira worked on incessantly, taking no rest, 
 glad to sacrifice health and strength for the boy Eben, 
 and rejoicing in his brilliant progress. All his bills were 
 promptly paid when he was graduated with flying colors 
 at the end of four years ; but Almira was older and more 
 careworn than she ought to have been for a woman but 
 a few years past the first corner of old maidenhood. 
 Indeed, she looked upon herself then as an old woman. 
 Eben had developed into a stalwart, handsome man, of 
 great stature. He spent his vacations at home, and 
 could mow in the hay-field, or break a wild colt, equal to 
 any young farmer in the country. There was a profes 
 sion to be thought of, and in spite of all Almira could 
 say he decided against the ministry and chose the law. 
 He worked his way through the law school by tutoring 
 and the usual grind of student life. 
 
 It was during this period that Almira thought con 
 stantly of Eben s future and prayed over it not a little. 
 With his brilliant parts and great promise, she saw the 
 prizes of life ready to drop into his hand. He would 
 live in a large town, mix with men of talent, and marry 
 some charming gii f and rear a family of children ; and 
 she would necessarily grow to be less and less to him, 
 and at last drop out of his life. So she prayed for pure 
 self-abnegation. Some of the most interesting human 
 relations are like the delicate vapor of water, so unstable 
 there is always danger of their turning to rain, or frost, 
 or snow. They can not remain long in suspense, and it 
 is while in suspense, like the rose-cloud of heaven turned 
 toward the evening sun, that they are most beautiful. 
 The thought that Eben was going from her was exceed 
 ingly painful to Almira in spite of her religion, which 
 came in as a prop and stay, and she secretly formed the 
 plan of looking out for another smart boy to educate. 
 No girl could ever prove as satisfactory as Eben ; she 
 must take another boy. 
 
ALMIRA S FEEBLE EXCUSE, 137 
 
 It is said that the very day Eben left the law school 
 with his parchment in his pocket he came straight home, 
 and the very first thing he did was to offer his heart, hand, 
 and prospective fortune to his benefactress. It seems he 
 had been thinking of this for some years, while Almira 
 had been praying for the strength to give him up. If the 
 heavens had fallen, her consternation could not have been 
 greater. She thought the boy had gone mad, and when 
 he convinced her he was perfectly sane, and had long 
 cherished the purpose of making her his wife, it is said 
 that she boxed his ears roundly and turned him out of 
 the house. But Eben came back, not once, but many 
 times, determined to win her. There is a deeply-rooted 
 belief in the human mind that any woman can be won by 
 persistent effort, and, of course, Almira did yield in the 
 end, although that boy Eben was twelve years her junior. 
 
 Nothing has ever made a stir in the village to be com 
 pared with the marriage of Almira and Eben. The only 
 explanation she could give her friends was that she could 
 not live without Eben because she had brought him up, 
 and Eben vowed he would never see her again unless she 
 would have him. It was a feeble excuse, every body felt, 
 from a woman who had written solemnly in her journal 
 at the age of sixteen that she should never marry, but 
 devote her whole life to God and the education of youth. 
 Almira would have despised any body else who might 
 have made it. They were married at a certain spot in 
 the keeping-room, just in front of the old fire-place, with 
 its brass andirons, which on that day was full of apple- 
 blossoms. 
 
 The village tried to adjust itself to a sense of its loss, 
 the loss of its invaluable school-mistress, the cleverest 
 woman ever " raised " in that part of the country. But 
 they always felt she had taken a foolish step, and lowered 
 herself from the high pinnacle of a perfect school ma am, 
 until Eben began to shine forth in the councils of the 
 
I3 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 state and nation, and then a new theory was formed, 
 which has lasted to this day *". <?., that Eben s wife had 
 made him ; that she wrote all his speeches, and without 
 her he never could have become a distinguished man. 
 
 To the imagination, of course, this marriage was not 
 ideally perfect, but it turned out an ideal marriage all 
 the same. The judge and senator revered his wife to 
 the last day of his existence, and treated her with a min 
 gled respect, deference, and affection beautiful to behold. 
 Their home life was pointed out as a star-like example 
 among the homes of the world. Almira began to grow 
 young from the day she was wedded. Her children 
 thought her the most delightful of beings. She softened 
 her creed and added to the fullness and richness of her 
 gowns. It was true she did make her husband. He was 
 her creation, and he knew it. 
 
 Well, it was pretty in the daughter to come back to the 
 old farm-house and be married on the exact spot in the 
 keeping-room, the same day of the month, and the same 
 hour, when her mother had stood up to marry Eben. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ONE SPRING DAY IN HUGH S LIFE. 
 
 HUGH has made up all his quarrels and differences 
 with his neighbors, and as a result of this closing 
 of the temple of Janus he is a little melancholy and low- 
 spirited. Perhaps, however, it is nothing more than a 
 disordered liver or a touch of spring fever. He has 
 worked quite steadily most of the winter on his local 
 history, which is now approaching completion, and will 
 be published by subscirption during the year. With the 
 opening of spring a restless wandering fit has seized the 
 young man, and he starts off on what he calls round 
 about journeys, interminable rambles to the distant hills 
 to find the first catkins and tree blossoms and listen to 
 the earliest note of the wood thrush. In those deep 
 solitudes he indulges in his Druidical worship of nature, 
 and does not even care to have the young parson along. 
 Once or twice this spring he has taken Milly on a long 
 mountain tramp, and Milly has carried with her the MS. 
 volume of her father s poems and has read to Hugh the 
 verses, " To a Lone Tree on Saddleback," sitting on a 
 mossy log near where a spring trickles out just beneath 
 the roots of an aged oak. The landscape lay soft as a 
 dream below them in the blue and violet haze of early 
 spring. They could hear the patter of sheep among the 
 rocks and the cries of young lambs. I think Milly made 
 up her difference with Hugh after the Rastus affair, 
 when she found he had inserted a handsome notice of her 
 father in the local history, blinking all the specks upon 
 the man s character and making him shine as a poet and 
 a gentleman. 
 
140 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 He has also reconciled himself to Judge Magnus by 
 stopping a runaway horse attached to the phaeton of the 
 judge s wife ; and the judge, in his gratitude to the 
 young man for saving that excellent woman from injury, 
 has forgotten all about the little unpleasantness which 
 had separated them for over a year. Now Hugh again 
 has the run of the house, and can make himself pleasant 
 to the young lady visitors, can carry off books of refer 
 ence from the library, and drop in any time to dinner 
 or tea. 
 
 Now that almost every body has tried a hand at settling 
 Hugh and making a man of him, the judge thinks of 
 taking hold of the job, and setting him up in a law 
 office in the county town, where he can throw a great 
 deal of business in his way. Poor Hugh has received 
 the proposal almost like a warrant for his execution ; 
 and in order to indemnify himself for future privations, 
 he now spends most of his time in those roundabout 
 rambles of which I have spoken. He loiters about old 
 fields and cow lanes in the mild urbanity of spring sun 
 shine, hangs over bars and gates, sits and whittles on 
 old stone walls, watches the frisky calves as they con 
 sort with their staid mothers, talks to the men who are 
 mending the road, or goes and smokes with the quarry- 
 men in Saw Mill Hollow. One of his favorite tramps is 
 to Cedar Glen, where a little red school-house is situated, 
 of which Hugh is uncommonly fond. It is a genuine 
 country school, not graded, or degraded, by modern 
 fashions, furnished with hacked benches and with walls 
 defaced by successive generations of bad spellers. About 
 a score of country urchins are gathered here during six 
 months of the year three months in the spring and three 
 months in the fall. The school-mistress is not at all 
 pretty, nor is she young. She has an acidulous voice 
 and talks through her nose. Her hair is Titian-red, but 
 the scholars do not admire it ; they take it for just what 
 
CEDAR GLEX SCHOOL. 141 
 
 it meant in the old days. Hugh likes her because she is 
 a remnant of a past age. She keeps a bundle of birch 
 switches hung upon the wall over her desk, and makes 
 the urchins empty their pockets regularly every morning 
 before the classes open. This juvenile omnium gatherum 
 is almost as great a delight to Hugh as a collection of 
 flint flakes and hatchets from the stone age. 
 
 He is sometimes allowed to sit on the visitors bench 
 and listen to the recitations, and he has picked up a lot 
 of boys compositions which he prizes highly. But 
 Hugh disgraced himself the other day by laughing out 
 in school at the wrong time, and there is danger of his 
 corrupting the scholars by slyly giving them various 
 small tips. The occasion of the disgrace was at a 
 moment when the teacher happened to ask the history 
 class, " Who was Xerxes ? " and a boy s hand went up 
 quick as lightning. He happened to be an inveterate 
 stammerer, but his mind was so congested with accurate 
 knowledge the words came tumbling out of his mouth 
 pell-mell all together : " He was a gen-er-al a very 
 gre-gre-at gen-gen-er-al, but I d-d-don t member 
 whether he f-f-fit for the Union or the fe-fe-federates." 
 
 The teacher gave Hugh a severe look, and he 
 stumbled out of the school-house and allowed his laugh 
 ter to explode in the soft spring air. Cedar Glen was so 
 still no sound came to his ears, save the drone of chil 
 dren s voices through an open window of the school 
 house and the caw of a solitary crow, hanging like a 
 little black speck over a newly plowed field. Hugh made 
 up his mind the next time he visited that school he would 
 slyly reward the urchin who knew so much about Xerxes 
 with a twenty-five-cent piece. He had secured a compo 
 sition from Tim Long, the best composer in school, which 
 he was reserving for a treat when he sat down to rest in 
 some shady nook by the way. 
 
 Cutting across the hills that day, Hugh made a great 
 
I4 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 detour, and came out far below Burying-Ground Hill. 
 But by sturdy walking, as the sun declined westward, he 
 reached a little evergreen bower on the far side of the 
 brook, where, through loopholes in the boughs, though 
 himself well hidden, he fully commanded Lovers Walk, 
 and could see and hear all that passed on the other side 
 of the stream. Hugh often resorted to this place ; and 
 he had made for himself a seat of stones, backed by the 
 sturdy stem of an old oak. It had occurred to him that 
 here, undiscovered, he could take a sly peep into the 
 little romances of the village, but up to this moment 
 nothing but the most prosy commonplace facts had ever 
 leaked through the crevices of his bower. 
 
 Now Hugh, when he had comfortably stretched him 
 self out to rest, drew forth Tim Long s composition. It 
 was written in a terribly cramped hand, the worst school 
 boy pot-hooks and hangers, on a soiled half-sheet of 
 paper. Here it is : 
 
 " ON MY BROTHER TOM. 
 
 " I thot I would -chose to rite about Tom cause they 
 say he is a blood relation of mine on my father s side. 
 Mothers as I ve ben tole ain t no blood relations, but 
 they is suthin nearer they is kin. Tom is a small boy a 
 good sight smaller n I be but he feels awful big and 
 sassy. When he got his new boots on he was jest ready 
 to bust with innerd pride. You ort to see Tom when he 
 is choke full of importance. It would make you sick. 
 There ain t no more disgustin sight than a small one 
 horse boy as don t respeckit older folks. Tom don t 
 respeckit me as he ort. He don t look up to me wuth a 
 cent. When I want to put my chores off on Tom, as is 
 proper, so as I can play ball with the older fellers, Tom 
 he don t see as how he ort to look up to me and mind 
 bedient, but he runs to tell mother and she bein no 
 
A BOY S COMPOSITION. 143 
 
 blood relation only nearest of kin ginerally takes his part. 
 I think there is no more disgustin sight than a small boy 
 as runs to his ma or his pa to tell on a big feller like me. 
 I never did it cause how I was the oldest brother of the 
 fambly. They say in the Sunday-school as how brothers 
 ort to love each other. I should love Tom a great sight 
 more if he respeckit me as he ort. This is all I can 
 think of to say about my brother Tom only he had 
 mumps and measles one winter and had to take nasty- 
 tasted stuff. I didn t ketch mumps and measles. When 
 I do ketch em an have to take nasty doctor s stuff 
 Tom won t be very sorry. He won t go round all day 
 with his finger in his eye. He s a hard-hearted little 
 chap is Tom. This is all about Tom except as he has 
 got a bull-pup as can siccum jest like an old dorg." 
 
 Hugh had been enjoying this composition in the shade 
 of the cedars, when who should stray down " Lovers 
 Walk " that delicious spring afternoon, actually hand-in- 
 hand, like a pair of babes in the woods, but Rose Madder 
 and the young artist, Mr. Hubert Milletseed, who won 
 so much glory last season by drawing Jake Small s eccen 
 tric domicile. He carried Rose s hat on his arm half- 
 filled with ferns and spring flowers, and his eyes were 
 turned on the down-cast orbs of the young lady impres 
 sionist in a way to show how true it is that 
 
 " In the spring a young man s fancy lightly turns to thoughts 
 of love." 
 
 He has come back to the village and taken up his abode 
 for another season, and it is now known that Mr. Millet- 
 seed recommended Rose Madder to Peckham when she 
 secured the studio over the grocery store. He has turned 
 out to be an old friend. Milletseed is poor but cour 
 ageous. He has worn thesame artist s coat and slouched 
 hat which gives him the air of a retired bandit for 
 several years. Rose is also very poor. But two pover- 
 
J44 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ties when united make only one. Thus there is a dis 
 tinct mathematical gain in getting married. Between 
 them they can save the hire of one studio. He will 
 always have some one to pose for him without paying a 
 model by the hour. He will also secure a life-long 
 admirer of his pictures, who will enter into all his artist s 
 quarrels, condole with him when his works are badly 
 hung in the exhibitions, and sympathize with the most 
 secret sentiment of his breast, the belief that he is unap 
 preciated. 
 
 Rose, on her part, will always now have some one at 
 hand to know at once when she makes a good pose, and 
 gets into a proper light, and becomes effective about the 
 hair and eyes. Moreover, he likes those puffed elbow- 
 sleeves, and big hats, and skimpy skirts embroidered with 
 distracted landscapes and flights of birds. He sees a 
 great deal, too, in those pathetic bits of mullein stalk and 
 thistle-head stuck up on the sage-green Canton flannel 
 curtain in Rose s studio. He thinks she has improved 
 since she began to sketch the wayside weeds of the vil 
 lage under a white cotton umbrella. Milletseed can see the 
 divine in a thistle-head as easily as in a whole Yosemite 
 Valley. And oh, what sketching excursions they will 
 take together in the blissful time to be, when one white 
 umbrella, if large enough, can be made to answer for 
 two ! They were talking softly of even more blissful 
 things than these as they passed down Lovers Walk. 
 
 Hugh was the first to discover the pretty secret, and it 
 made him rather blue there in his little tent of closely 
 woven evergreen branches. Rose had gone from him. 
 All the nice, desirable girls, to whom he had been impar 
 tially attentive, would be taken from him. Like Ko-Ko, 
 he would at last be forced to wed 
 
 " A most unattractive old thing 
 With a caricature of a face" 
 perhaps the Titian-red-headed school-mistress at Cedar 
 
WORLDLY WISEMAN WINS THE DAY. 145 
 
 Glen. He felt savage toward Milletseed for taking Rose 
 away from him, yet never for a single moment had he 
 thought seriously of wedding Rose Madder. 
 
 The unexpected always happens, and as Mrs. Deacon 
 Hildreth says, " Things happen in a bunch." Hugh had 
 scarcely roused himself from his somber mood, as he 
 watched the birds carrying sticks and straws to their 
 nests, conscious that he had too long neglected to build 
 his own nest, when his attention was attracted by the 
 sound of a man s step crunching the little stones of 
 Lovers Walk, and the heels of a light womanly pair of 
 boots clicking in unison. Suddenly at a little turn in 
 the path appeared Mr. Worldly Wiseman in spotless 
 dress, looking down with a happy air of ownership on 
 the eldest Miss Bee, that nice, practical, utilitarian girl, 
 who had been especially selected for his (Hugh s) wife. 
 She was clad in a new spring costume, and wore a large 
 bunch of yellow flowers in her hat, while her hands were 
 filled with hot-house roses, the gift of Mr. Wiseman. 
 Great heavens ! it was now plain Mr. Worldly Wiseman 
 had not been after the middle Bee, that decorative 
 maiden assigned to him by common rumor, but had cast 
 his eyes upon the eldest sister, set off and apportioned 
 to Hugh if he cared to put forth his hand and take her. 
 In regard to the unfortunate affair of the serenade, a rec 
 onciliation had been brought about through the kindly 
 offices of the old miller. Mr. Worldly Wiseman lost no 
 time in bringing the affair to a business-like conclusion. 
 It has turned out that Miss Bee always admired that fine 
 place on Main Street, and has had an ambition to light a 
 candle in our social world that shall outshine the wax 
 taper of Mrs. Judge Magnus. As to Mr. Worldly Wise 
 man himself, she says girls can t be quite so particular 
 when they have passed the age of twenty-five. 
 
 This new revelation left Hugh quite stunned and 
 dazed. Two of his old flames had been taken from 
 
*4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 him, and in the case of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, he felt 
 like at once sending that gentleman a challenge. To be 
 sure, two other delightful Bees remained unappropriated, 
 and there were many other uncaught fish in the sea, but 
 the sense of injury still remained and rankled in his 
 breast. The climax of the afternoon, however, was yet 
 to be reached, and it brought Hugh back to his usual 
 exuberance of spirits. It was the most delicious little 
 mystery, and the clew was thrown into his hands like a 
 ball tossed accidentally over the fence. 
 
 For, coming down Lovers Walk, in the soft spring 
 checker-work of light and shade, he saw no other than 
 Drusilla, the village s only and own Drusilla, dressed 
 in her usual brown stuff gown, with the strings of her 
 bonnet untied and floating on the breeze. She looked 
 quite flushed and handsome in spite of her avoirdupois 
 and the strictly business air she carried into all the af 
 fairs of life. Beside her walked a tall, black-habited 
 thin-chested clerical pefson, with long hair combed 
 very sleek behind his ears, and a prominent pair of 
 eye-glasses. He appeared weak about the lungs, and 
 stooped slightly as he peered into his companion s face, 
 with an anxious, deferential, beseeching look. He had 
 put his hand under Drusilla s elbow, although she in her 
 abounding vigor could easily have picked him up from 
 off the ground. They were in deep and earnest confab, 
 and Hugh, hidden behind the clump of evergreens, 
 could not help hearing a few words that passed between 
 them : 
 
 " I can not desert my mother while she lives, and she 
 is now too old to leave her home." 
 
 " I would not ask it, dearest Drusilla ; we will both 
 stay beside her and soothe her declining years." 
 
 These were the words Hugh heard : " Dearest Dru 
 silla ! " He rolled over on the moss and dead leaves, and 
 nearly choked in the effort to suppress his laughter ; and 
 
DR U SILL A S DISCIPLINE. 1 4 7 
 
 as the evening shadows gathered, he crept out of his 
 bower and took his way home with his old spirit of mis 
 chief all in arms. In a few days Hugh had gathered as 
 much information about Drusilla s little romance as she 
 herself possessed. For a long time the village looked 
 upon it as an impossible joke. Drusilla being a rich 
 woman, of course malicious things are said. The con 
 sumptive-looking thin-chested parson is now out of a 
 parish, and is much in need of a nurse. To Drusilla a 
 husband will be only another bond slave and subject 
 menial. She is already regulating the diet, in fact, the 
 whole course of her fiance s existence, on her own theory 
 of hygiene. He will henceforth only be allowed to eat 
 each day so many ounces of highly nutritious brain food. 
 Drusilla has ordered in dumb-bells and a lifting-machine. 
 She intends that he shall lift so many pounds morning 
 and evening until he can heave a thousandweight. The 
 mild cigar he was want to smoke in the evening, rather 
 under the rose, has been sternly prohibited. The tea 
 and coffee which, as a man of studious habits, he has 
 always taken in considerable quantities, have been inter 
 dicted. He is not to drink any thing but hot water, 
 quarts of hot water, deadly hot hot enough in fact to 
 scald his midriff. His meat is weighed out to him, just 
 so much a meal, and no attention is paid to his sensations 
 of hunger or thirst. He is obliged to eat gluten bread, 
 a dreadful compound which Drusilla sends for to a neigh 
 boring town. Saint Patty is rather glad Drusilla has 
 taken up a new reform in the shape of a prospective hus 
 band, as it leaves the dear old lady more freedom to in 
 dulge her own individual weaknesses. She likes the Rev. 
 Arthur Meeker, and calls him, with a sly little laugh, 
 " Drusilla s tame cat." She rather hopes that after they 
 are married and Meeker gets plump and well on Drusilla s 
 system of training, he may assert himself and put down 
 his domestic tyrant. 
 
H 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Of course Drusilla will not abdicate as village man 
 ageress when she marries. Her great mind is equal to 
 half-a-dozen villages, and shall I venture to say it ? 
 several husbands. Our young clergyman now hopes that, 
 as Drusilla has a parson of her own, she will let him alone. 
 But he hopes against all probability. As soon as the pres 
 ence of Mr. Meeker was accounted for, and Drusilla s 
 romance made known, every body was saying, "Where did 
 Drusilla pick him up ? " Hugh alone has ferreted out the 
 whole story, and he chuckles over it, and keeps it to him 
 self to tantalize the neighbors. 
 
 It seems that some months ago Drusilla was taking a 
 night journey alone on a river steamboat, when a collision 
 occurred in the darkness of the early morning, and a large 
 hole was stove in the steamer s side. The wildest con 
 fusion ensued at once among the distracted passengers, 
 but Drusilla was up and fully dressed, bag and bundle in 
 hand. In the dark saloon where the lamps had gone out 
 a man ran against her crying piteously, " Who will show 
 me how to put on my life preserver ? " "I will," said 
 Drusilla, with promptness and dispatch, although in the 
 dim light she could scarcely see his face. She buckled 
 on his life preserver, helped him to gather his things, and 
 finally assisted him into the boat which took them off 
 from the sinking steamer. He confessed to Drusilla that 
 he was nearly scared to death, but she was perfectly cool 
 and collected, and showed no nervous tremors on the oc 
 casion. Rev. Arthur Meeker someway believed Drusilla 
 had saved his life. She was just the prop and support 
 he had long been seeking ; and Drusilla well, Drusilla 
 after all is a woman. 
 
. CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE HELP QUESTION AT FRASER FARM. 
 
 PEACE over the farm lands, peace in the deep valleys, 
 peace in the forest, where scarce an opening leaf 
 stirs in the wind. The pale spring dawn is breaking over 
 the still world, and the light spreads faint and tremulous 
 on the trunks of the trees and blanches the sky to a pure 
 white pallor. Th e young blossoms coming out in the 
 orchards and gardens seem a part of the pearly, dew- 
 bespangled whiteness of the dawn. The stars glide back 
 into infinite depths. The walking ghosts, if there be 
 any, flee to the graveyard. The village houses look into 
 each other s curtained eyes like strangers. The farms 
 on the distant hillsides come out in luminous patches. 
 The mist rolls up from the river, making a long, milky 
 serpent, as it winds through the valley, solid like marble. 
 The flowers open their cups, and the grass glistens 
 faintly. Still it is a silvery world, strangely denuded of 
 color, though clear and solemn. Hark ! there is a bird 
 singing a solo. It is a catbird ; it balances itself on the 
 top of a young maple and sings until all the place about 
 seems flooded with delicious melody. 
 
 Now the sun is fairly up, and has dipped its beam as 
 low as Eraser s Farm on the intervale, where the white 
 veranda shines eastward with a pleasant invitation to 
 enter. Eraser s is one of the best farms hereabouts, and 
 Eraser himself is very forehanded. To be sure, he is 
 somewhat bent, and looks older than he ought to for a 
 man of his years. But the soil in our part of the world 
 takes toll of youth and good looks in return for the gift 
 
15 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of good harvests and independence. Fraser has much 
 fine imported stock in his pastures. He went into choice 
 cattle-raising before it became the fashion, and his 
 stock-barns and yards have long been a show for the 
 village. Fraser went to California during the gold fever, 
 but he found there was more money in farming than in 
 gold digging, and he came home and invested what he 
 had saved in his parental acres on the intervale, to which 
 he has largely added in the course of years. 
 
 He did not marry young, and when he chose a wife 
 he took a town-bred woman, who has proved more prac 
 tical and efficient than most country girls. She is 
 buxom, cheerful, and merry, a real lover of country life, 
 and not averse to the management and work of the farm. 
 She loves flowers, books, and music, and has aimed to 
 blend the enjoyments of her early girlhood with the inev 
 itable cares of her married state. Her children are still 
 young. The boys can not yet be of any service to their 
 father, and the little girls are only just beyond baby 
 hood. The labor problem is the vexed question in this 
 prosperous household, as in so many others. Farm life 
 is somewhat easier for the farmer s wife than of old, for 
 the milk is now sent to the creamery. There is no mak 
 ing of butter or cheese save for the family. But with 
 the heats of summer come haying and harvesting and a 
 great increase to the household. The farmer can obtain 
 his extra hands when he wants them, -but the farmer s 
 wife finds herself overburdened with a multitude of new 
 cares, and often no helper can be obtained for love or 
 money. 
 
 The American-born country girl seldom goes out to 
 service now, or if she does she is comparatively worth 
 less. She is generally a frail creature, with a weak chest, 
 who can do no heavy work. She must sit at the family 
 table and " eat with the rest of the folks," and she not 
 unfrequently addresses the head of the house, with easy 
 
AMERICAN-BORN HELP. 151 
 
 familiarity, as " John " or " Henry." She has a beau 
 who comes to take her out riding in a smart new buggy 
 once or twice a week, and she dresses a great deal better 
 than her mistress. Camp-meetings, picnics, and plat 
 form dances come in to disturb the mind of the rustic 
 American maid. She stipulates that she is not to milk 
 or wash, or do any heavy lifting. Besides, she expects 
 to get married soon and has gone out to service mainly 
 for the purpose of making up her wedding clothes on the 
 family sewing machine. She is unhealthy and eats little 
 but pie and pickles. She wears a rose in her hair, and a 
 hole in her stocking, and when she goes out to pick peas 
 she puts on a small hat and a nose veil. She reads the 
 Ledger and the Family Newspaper up in her bedroom by 
 a smoky kerosene lamp, and she principally dotes on 
 pop-corn balls, prize packages of candy, soda water, and 
 one plate of ice-cream with two spoons. Her biscuits 
 are speckled, like Cairngorm pebbles ; her bread is of a 
 grayish white, solid as lead and warranted to keep in all 
 climates. Her fried steak and boiled coffee are enough 
 to make St. Jerome get up and use mildly profane lan 
 guage to his old toothless lion. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser knows all about American " help " in sev 
 eral of her moods and most of her tenses. When the 
 American " help " has done her best to imbitter Mrs. 
 Eraser s sunny temper, and to spoil her sweet reasonable 
 ness, and when she has summarily got rid of the latest 
 specimen, she tells her husband that she is going to do 
 the work alone for a time, or with Uncle Hiram s help, 
 and her eyes sparkle and her cheeks are quite rosy with 
 excitement. She is so happy to have done with the 
 " help " she goes singing all over the house, and the way 
 the windows fly open, and the beds are shaken, and the 
 rooms swept and dusted, is quite delightful to behold. 
 Mrs. Fraser renews her youth. She forgets that she pos 
 sesses a back or ever had a touch of neuralgia in the 
 
152 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 head. Uncle Hi, too, shares in the excitement of what 
 he calls " the great clearing out sale of American help." 
 Uncle Hi is perhaps a distant relative of John Fraser. 
 At any rate, he has lived with him a great many years, 
 refusing wages, and letting Fraser and his wife buy his 
 clothes for him, and even provide him with tobacco. 
 Uncle Hi is such a delightful oddity, the farm people 
 think if he had not been born it would have been neces 
 sary to invent him. He is a plain little man, with a queer 
 face full of puckers that slowly fill with sunshine wh 
 laughs ; and a humorous quip comes as naturally to the 
 end of his tongue as a rose to the tip of its stalk. Uncle \ 
 Hi seldom wears a " boiled " shirt except on Sunday. 
 Other days he appears in flannel, with a bright blue ging 
 ham necktie, which exactly matches the color of his eyes. 
 He is scrupulously, charmingly clean, like a marigold or 
 a hollyhock. His hands are big, knotty, malformed by 
 labor, exaggerated at the joints, brown as a berry, with a 
 little white hairiness about them, but they are the best 
 and kindest hands in the world. Children love the feel 
 of them. Uncle Hi has brought up all the Fraser chil 
 dren thus far has rocked them to sleep many a night in 
 his arms, when the mother was ailing and the father tired 
 out with a hard day s work ; has even taken them all 
 away to his own chamber, which is just as odd and just as 
 scrupulously clean as Uncle Hi himself is, where he tells 
 the children those marvelous, impossible tales that make 
 the eyes bulge out of their heads, while they suck in their 
 breath with a sound of awesome delight. He has a world 
 of sentiment in his soul. Up in that queer chamber, as 
 in a museum, he has preserved mementoes of the chil 
 dren s babyhood little shoes and broken playthings. 
 He has so many things of the little one who died Mary 
 can scarcely ever bring herself to go in there. 
 
 Such is Uncle Hiram, the farm stand-by. Mrs. Fraser 
 says if every thing else fails, she knows Uncle Hi and the 
 
UNCLE /// AS A HELPER. 153 
 
 ice crop can be depended upon. As soon as the last 
 * help " moves out Uncle Hi moves in. Fraser has only 
 to say to him, " Mary wants you," and he drops his hoe 
 or his scythe and starts for the house. They begin by 
 shoveling the debris of the last domestic out of the 
 kitchen. Then they sweep and scrub and finally put on 
 the fine touches. Mary is happy, and Uncle Hi is full 
 of his odd sayings. He sticks that last help s character 
 as full of jokes as a toilet cushion is full of pins. Mrs. 
 Fraser has been wonderfully helped over the rough places 
 of life by Uncle Hi s fun, and he almost enjoys having 
 the " help clear out " so that he can cheer up Mary. 
 
 When the house has been cleaned from top to bottom 
 Hiram brings in blossoms, cherry and apple blossoms in 
 the spring, and Mary embowers the chimney-pieces, and 
 every thing looks so bright and charming she is in love 
 with her home, feeling that once more it is her own. 
 She brews delicious tea and coffee, and the warm bread 
 and feathery cakes come sweet and fragrant out of the 
 oven. All the cookery smells good, and is so appetizing 
 the men and children eat more than they otherwise would. 
 So it goes on for a time until Mary breaks down with one 
 of her neuralgic headaches, and Uncle Hi " goes off his 
 head." Without her he can do nothing. He is only high 
 private ; never was born to be captain, so he says. He 
 must always be under somebody, and as he loves Fraser 
 and his wife and the children, he is glad to be under 
 them. So when Mary is ill the web flies out of the frame, 
 as it did with the Lady of Shalott, and Fraser is quite 
 lost. Of course, help must be got into the house. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser has tried the Irish in all their phases. 
 Uncle Hi says if Gladstone had as much practical expe 
 rience of the Irish home rule as they have had on their 
 farm, he would know a thing or two. A raw Irish maid 
 on a farm is rather a queer animal. Although Ireland 
 has always been an agricultural country, she has but the 
 
J54 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 slightest conception of the use of implements and the 
 meaning of rustic processes and procedure. Her pro 
 pensity to blunder causes her to put the cart before the 
 horse until she has painfully been taught better. There 
 is a certain good humor about her which makes it pleas- 
 anter to have her in the house than the hysterical gum- 
 chewing American " help." But she is always " kilt 
 entirely " by the deadly loneliness of the place. She 
 sees nothing companionable in nature. The sound of the 
 bull-frogs and the cheep of the birds at sunset bring no 
 hallowed associations with the bogs and the bog-trotters 
 of her native Erin. If there is an Irish hired hand on the 
 place, she may console herself a little chaffing him in the 
 stable or in the garden. She does not spend as much 
 time as her American sister crimping her hair or reading 
 the Ledger in bed, but she must attend the Roman Catho 
 lic church, distant three miles, at least once every Sun 
 day. The man is obliged to drive her over, while the 
 master stays at home from church and does his chores, 
 and the mistress works hard all the morning to cook the 
 Sunday dinner and have it nice and hot by the time 
 Bridget and Patrick return. 
 
 The graces, especially the goddess of handiness did 
 not stand by and bless the cradle when the average Irish 
 maid was born. Her work lacks finish, and has that 
 raggedness, which sets the teeth of a nice housekeeeper on 
 edge. Her bedclothes are pitchforked on to the bed, 
 her tablecloth is awry. The glass and the knife stand 
 on the wrong side of the plate. The soup plates are 
 brought on when dessert plates should be handed. The 
 clothes are ironed wrong side out. The night-shirts are 
 starched and the day shirts left limp. All the photo 
 graphs are put upside down on the chimney-piece. The 
 best vase is fractured and the cracked side put to the wall, 
 in hope the mistress may not see it. The crockery soon 
 begins to look as if it had been along with the bull in the 
 
THE GERMAN FRAULEhV. 155 
 
 china shop. Every thing in the house feels the heavy 
 hand of the fair maid of Erin. She breaks the stove- 
 covers and smashes the flat-irons. She wrenches the 
 clothes-horse apart opening it the wrong way. The dog 
 is given his dinner in the best glass preserve dish. There 
 isn t a sound chair left to sit on. Her lovely counte 
 nance cracked the looking-glass before she had been in 
 the house a week. But she is a good-natured creature, 
 and there is much in her to like, only, as Uncle Hi says, 
 it is necessary to turn her adrift or the house would be 
 hopelessly wrecked. It takes a year to replace what he 
 calls her " tare and tret." 
 
 Well, Mrs. Fraser has tried the German maiden, that 
 slow, flaxen-haired, ox-eyed fraulein. She came one 
 summer day in a woolen cap and a thick jacket fastened 
 with clumsy metal buttons, and carrying an old country 
 carpetsack of immense weight. She was the most peace 
 able and the most quietly obstinate person in the world. 
 She loved animals and would have been happy to spend 
 all her time among the calves, and pigs, and cows. She 
 had no objection to a lonely situation, and being a Prot 
 estant, was quite indifferent to church services. Her 
 plodding, quiet, patient nature would have been inval 
 uable on the farm but for an ineradicable tendency to 
 greasy cooking and the onion flavor. Her baked beans 
 swam in oil ; even her fruit-pies bore the effluvia of gar 
 lic. Uncle Hiram, who is a mystic worshiper of the 
 New England national dish, has adapted a sentimental 
 stanza to describe the fragrance of Gretchen s culin 
 ary art : 
 
 " You may break, you may shatter the dish if you will, 
 But the scent of the onion will cling round it still." 
 
 So Gretchen, with all her stolid virtues and negative 
 excellences, had to go, and Mrs. Fraser and Uncle Hiram, 
 having cleaned the house as usual, and made themselves 
 
I5 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 happy with the blessed consciousness that they owned 
 the premises, and were free for the moment from the 
 plague of hired servants, began to look in the newspapers 
 for one of those companionable, nice, educated women 
 who advertise their grateful services in return for a home 
 and a modest stipend. Such a reduced lady they thought 
 would at least have nice refined ways. She would never 
 leave kitchen and cellar in the condition of a pigsty, and 
 her cooking, if she did any, would be dainty and delicate. 
 It would be pleasant to take in a companionable person, 
 who loved the country for its own sake, and could find 
 something social in nature when human society was not 
 at hand. They would make her quite at home. Mary 
 Fraser, who is rather imaginative, pleased herself pictur 
 ing a decayed gentlewoman whom she could make her 
 friend ; how pleasant to do the work together, and then 
 to sit down and read some congenial book in company. 
 
 So, after looking over a great many advertisements of 
 ladies in search of a country home, who would be glad 
 to take a position as housekeeper, Mrs. Fraser entered 
 into correspondence with some of them, and the result 
 was that on a beautiful May day Uncle Hiram drove the 
 lady help and her trunk over from the village. This 
 decayed gentlewoman was of an uncertain age, occupy 
 ing the debatable ground somewhere between thirty and 
 fifty. But as she was well made up, with false hair and 
 teeth, and a suspicion of rouge on her cheek-bones, time s 
 ravages did not count for so much. She wore a large 
 bustle and quite a gay hat, and appeared to be supplied 
 with considerable jewelry for a person in distressed cir 
 cumstances. She was painfully ungrammatical, as Mary 
 noticed at once, and her little dream of self-culture in 
 company with the new assistant tumbled into dust. 
 
 The next morning she came down with her bustle and 
 her jewelry on, as if she were a guest in the house. Mrs. 
 Frazer, in her clean gingham gown and freedom from 
 
A DECAYED GENrLE WOMAN. 157 
 
 jewelry, cosmetics, and cheap perfumery, began to feel 
 herself quite put in the shade by the new-comer. Mary 
 watched the effect she produced on the other members 
 of the family. They all called her Miss Pinchback, and 
 Uncle Hiram, she could see, brushed his hair up a little 
 more on top of his head, and even John Fraser thought 
 he must be more particular about his dress-when he came 
 in to meals. Miss Pinchback, in her rings and bangs, 
 offered to work the day after her arrival, and the mistress 
 of the house set her to dusting rooms and making beds. 
 But in the middle of the forenoon Mary found the beds 
 unmade. Miss Pinchback was lonely, and had gone out 
 to talk with the men. In less than two days she knew 
 every male creature for quite a circuit round ; and in her 
 frank devotion to the other sex she soon began to ignore 
 the mistress of the house. She waved her handkerchief 
 out of window to the butcher, and blew kisses to the 
 peddler, and kept the hired man from his work, hanging 
 over the gate to talk to him. She followed Uncle Hi all 
 about the place, and insisted on driving off with him in 
 the farm-wagon when he went to the store or the mill. 
 Uncle Hi, modest old bachelor that he was, said he didn t 
 like Pinchback s free ways, but it was evident to Mary 
 Fraser that the simple soul was rather flattered by her 
 attentions. 
 
 One day the mistress of the house had occasion to step 
 out into the barn, and there she saw Pinchback, in all her 
 finery, sitting on an overturned bushel basket, and talk 
 ing very amicably to John Fraser ; as she said, making 
 great eyes at him. John was leaning on his pitchfork, 
 looking at the woman with some curiosity, and it must 
 be confessed not without a certain air of interest. Still, 
 like Uncle Hi, he has always said he could not bear the 
 sight of her. Well, Mrs. Fraser did a very unreasonable 
 thing for a woman who declares she never has felt a 
 twinge of jealousy in her life. She stole back home and 
 
I5 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 sat down in the rocking-chair and shed a few bitter tears. 
 She resolved that Pinchback should leave the house that 
 day, but how to get rid of her was the question. She 
 resolved to search her room for a clew to those nice, lady 
 like letters she had received from town signed with her 
 name, for she had discovered that Miss Pinchback wrote 
 a villainous hand and spelled like a Hottentot. It was 
 while searching her chamber that Mrs. Fraser discovered 
 quite unexpectedly a few of her own possessions her 
 mother s wedding ring, a locket with the picture of her 
 little boy who died, and various pieces of wearing 
 apparel marked with her name. Miss Pinchback went 
 away quite suddenly that afternoon, and since that time 
 Mrs. Fraser has been a strong advocate for the intro 
 duction of Chinese cheap labor. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE DELIGHTFUL MAJOR. 
 
 PHE cherry trees are already casting down little show- 
 1 ers of white petals every time the wind sways them. 
 They sno ,v down into the grass and drift in the ruts of 
 the road. The gnarled apple trees in some neglected 
 orchards of natural fruit are bossed all over their warty 
 arms with bright nosegays. If you search in the grass 
 beneath you will find clusters of deep blue violets mixed 
 with buttercups and dandelions. 
 
 Every hour brings out something to admire along the 
 village street. The maples are casting down their pale 
 green and bright red keys. The poplars are shedding 
 fringy blossoms. In every flower-bed something is 
 abloom ; here the lily of the valley ; there the hyacinth 
 and bright tulip ; over the wall daffodils, jonquils, and 
 snow-drops. The past few days have spread a tent of 
 gauzy green over the street, and brought the delicious 
 sense of virginal freshness, peaceful growth, and expan 
 sion conveyed in the odors of plants, and the cooing of 
 doves in the sun, the clucking of hens, the peep of young 
 birds, the skimming of swallows as they wheel about old 
 barns and make slim shadows on the sunny ground. 
 
 I think of dear Major B. now, when the trees are in 
 blossom and the door-yard shrubs are out in their glory. 
 He was as fresh and breezy as the lilacs, as full bloom as 
 the peonies, as innocent as the snow-balls, and as welcome 
 as the new-mown grass. You ought to have seen him 
 in his white waistcoat he always preferred a white waist 
 coat when the day was the least warm twirling his 
 
160 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 little cane and dangling his eye-glass. He nearly 
 ruined himself in gold eye-glasses and white waist 
 coats, but they were his only vices. He did not drink, 
 or smoke, or use profane language, except in moderation, 
 and yet the major had seen much rough service on the 
 frontier. He was almost as expansive as the judge not 
 quite, perhaps, in the way of omniscience and his self- 
 conceit was less aggressive. He loved so artlessly to be 
 admired, his vanity was like that of a young, kittenish 
 woman. 
 
 You should have seen him engaged in controversy with 
 the judge as they strolled together down the village 
 street, taking up all the sidewalk. The judge s right 
 hand grasped his gold-headed cane in the middle and per 
 formed all kinds of figures and flourishes in the air. The 
 major s hand clutched the hook of his little cane and 
 performed an equal variety of extraordinary antics. 
 Their voices were both loud and penetrating, and as they 
 strolled along much of their talk flew into open doors and 
 windows. Except for a great hearty laugh which burst 
 forth now and then, the people would have thought they 
 were quarreling. 
 
 The major was strenuous on the increase of the United 
 States Army. That a great and glorious country like 
 ours should be represented by a mere handful of regulars 
 seemed to him the result of the most shameful cheese 
 paring policy. The judge, on the other hand, contended 
 that large standing armies are a menace to a free govern 
 ment, and backed his opinion by quoting familiarly from 
 Senator This and Governor That. He even cited the 
 head of the government on this subject, intimating that 
 the great man had, in a moment of confidence, said things 
 to him he never would have spoken to any other human 
 being. The major, on the other hand, had seen service, 
 had smelt gunpowder, sir, and heard the bombs and can 
 non balls whizzing about his head. He had the proper 
 
AM ADORER OF FEMALE CHARMS. l6l 
 
 military contempt for the opinion of any civilian, however 
 high in place and power. 
 
 Hotly as the contest might rage over this moot point, 
 the major never failed to see the pretty face of village 
 maid or matron if one chanced to appear at a window or 
 on the street ; and he would dart away from the side of 
 the judge or whoever he happened to be engaged with at 
 the moment, to investigate the phenomenon a little nearer. 
 " You know," he would say apologetically, and with the 
 most perfect candor and naivete, " I have been so long 
 away on the frontier among the Indians, where the women 
 are all hideous, I am starved for the sight of female love 
 liness. It isn t my fault that I was made a devotee of 
 beauty. I do not drink drams or smoke expensive cigars, 
 but I must occasionally indulge my penchant for the 
 sight of a pretty woman." 
 
 The fact that the major was starving for the sight of 
 female loveliness, because he had been so long on the 
 frontier among the Indians, went all over the village, and 
 was commented on by the gossips with varying degrees 
 of spite, acrimony and uncharitableness. A few saw its 
 humorous side, and judged that the major was perfectly 
 simple and guileless. Others remarked that having no 
 female beauty at home, he was forced to enjoy the sight 
 of it where he could. The poor major contended that 
 he was just what God had made him, and not personally 
 responsible. Some men are fond of music, others have 
 a passion for painting and sculpture ; for his part he 
 worshiped the living art that lies in the ruby lip, the 
 rosy cheek, the sunny locks of adorable womankind. 
 Most of the pretty girls and handsome matrons came in 
 time to take the major s part. They judged rightly that 
 there was no harm in the creature, and certainly he was 
 very amusing. No wonder he was a little weak in the 
 upper story, having lived so long among the Indians, 
 poor thing. They voted not to mind his monkey-shines, 
 
1 62 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 but to get as much enjoyment out of him as they 
 could. 
 
 The major s wife was a tiny woman, coming just up to 
 his shoulder, not, in fact, a bit higher than his heart. 
 She was undeniably pale and plain, except for a pair of 
 soft brown eyes and a trim little figure, which was itself a 
 kind of beauty. She always dressed in dark shades of 
 gray or slate, in a little straight skirt and a small tight- 
 fitting jacket. Her hats were devoid of the least orna 
 ment. No touch of brightness came to their monotonous 
 mouse-color not a bud or flower even in the spring, 
 when all nature is so exuberant. It was certain the 
 major could not find local color in his menage save what 
 he provided in his own florid person. And yet how he 
 loved it ! No man ever adored beauty as he did. Why 
 had he chosen this little gray mate, who beside him looked 
 like a tiny ground-bird beside some tropical songster ? 
 
 There were always three little care lines in the middle 
 of her forehead, and she commonly looked as if she were 
 mentally calculating the amount of the week s washing, 
 or doing some other little domestic economy sum in her 
 head. The major s white waistcoats, and gloves, and 
 canes had to be paid for out of rather a small income, 
 and this was no doubt one reason why the major s wife 
 dressed in slate-color. She was soon known all over the 
 village as "Hetty," for thus the major habitually spoke 
 of her, and when he was not talking of his great depri 
 vations among the Indians, and the criminally absurd 
 condition of the United States Army, he generally did 
 talk of Hetty. Sometimes he met the little woman face to 
 face, when he was escorting a whole bevy of pretty girls on 
 a walk, and was up in the seventh heaven of bliss. It is 
 rather trying to be confronted by one s lawful better-half 
 at such a moment, but the unembarrassed major was 
 always equal to the situation. " My dearest Hetty," he 
 would cry out, " where are going in the heat (or the damp, 
 
HETTY S FRIEND. 163 
 
 as the case might be) ? You ought to be at home this min 
 ute, taking care of your sciatica." Mrs. Hetty s sciatica 
 became another village joke. She did not at all take 
 good care of it. When she met her husband and the 
 girls in this manner she was generally going with some 
 little comfort in her hands to visit a sick child or a poor, 
 tired woman. Probably because she had a fancy for 
 paying these little visits to humble folks and leaving a 
 thin wake of light behind her, was another reason why 
 Hetty always dressed in that old slate-colored gown. 
 
 The major s wife had one great friend and advocate in 
 the village. There was at least one person who believed 
 in her wholly, and sounded her praises among the neigh 
 bors who seldom saw any thing in her to admire. This 
 discerner of spirits was old Dr. Rivington. He became 
 almost as fond of Hetty as if she had been his own 
 child. But in proportion as he admired her he disliked 
 the poor major. The aesthetic side of the doctor s nature 
 not having been well developed, he could not appreciate 
 the cruel privations the major had suffered among the 
 Indians, nor the necessity for indemnifying himself which 
 the major so keenly felt. When he would pass some vil 
 lage house where the major s loud frank voice came 
 through the open window, mingled with the laughter of 
 girls, the doctor would grasp his knotted stick, and look 
 tremendously fierce and pugilistic. He wanted to make 
 the fellow who neglected such a gem of a wife feel the 
 weight of that bit of oak, he said to himself, as he strode 
 on his way. 
 
 Of course every body talks in a small village, and soon 
 there came to be floating specks and wisps of gossip all 
 through the air about the major and Sibyl Pringle. Miss 
 Pringlewas one of those handsome, rather wild and fear 
 less maidens, who have a faculty for getting themselves 
 talked about in country society. She had been engaged 
 to a young man who V.MS obnoxious to Pringle, appar- 
 
1 64 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ently for no other reason but because old Pringle was an 
 obstinate, hard-bitted old man, who had contrived to 
 make the most of his large family of children quite mis 
 erable while they remained at home. Sibyl, at her father s 
 command, had broken the engagement, but on good 
 ground it was supposed that she was still secretly at 
 tached to the man she had sent away. Owing to her dis 
 appointment, perhaps, Sibyl had grown rather reckless, 
 and unmindful of appearances, and did things the staid 
 village matrons who had outgrown all their young im 
 pulses and errant fancies, looked upon askance. Miss 
 Sibyl was decidedly handsome, with large black flashing 
 eyes and a damask rose complexion. She was a style of 
 beauty the major particularly admired, although being a 
 distinguished connoisseur of female loveliness, he enjoyed 
 any thing good of its kind a golden blonde almost as 
 much as a sparkling brunette. Old man Pringle took an 
 unaccountable fancy to the major. He liked his bold 
 martial air, and felt his house honored by the visits of a 
 military man. Miss Sibyl, too, was evidently pleased to 
 receive him, and the major s hearty voice was heard issuing 
 from the cracks of the Pringle mansion more frequently 
 than from any other, and the major s martial form was 
 seen escorting Sibyl Pringle up and down the street in 
 open daylight, quite without shame, as the people said 
 who peeped from their windows in hope of catching their 
 neighbors in the commission of sin. 
 
 Of course the major s wife could see a great deal for 
 herself if she kept her eyes open. But there were kind 
 people who felt it their duty to inform her of what was 
 said in certain houses in the village, and one day on com 
 ing home from a delightful stroll with Sibyl through 
 Burying-Ground Walk, the major found his wife pros 
 trate on the sofa, suffering from sciatica or something 
 worse. She may have been crying ; at any rate, her eyes 
 looked suspiciously red. She was a gentle little woman, 
 
HETTY S CRUDENESS. 165 
 
 and long suffering, as we know, but now she opened her 
 batteries upon the major without giving him time to look 
 to his ammunition. She laid the terrible charge directly 
 at his door of paying entirely too much attention to Sibyl 
 Pringle. He had set the neighbors talking and destroyed 
 his wife s peace of mind. The poor major was terribly 
 scandalized. He felt his honor as an officer and a gentle 
 man impugned, and his first impulse was to go out and 
 shoot somebody ; some one of those gossiping people who 
 had allowed their tongues to wag to the injury of Hetty s 
 peace. " Haven t I told you," he exclaimed, " that a 
 beautiful woman is no longer a person to me ? She is a 
 cult, a worship. Think of Dante and his blessed Bea 
 trice. In certain moods of the mind she becomes an ab 
 straction," he went on, waving his hand as he stood over 
 Hetty, prostrate there on the sofa. " I have convinced 
 you, Hetty, how crude it is to cherish a feeling of 
 jealousy." 
 
 " Then I am crude," moaned the major s little wife, 
 " and I don t believe that Pringle girl is one bit more of 
 an abstraction than I am." 
 
 " Hetty, Hetty, you are as suspicious as these back 
 biting neighbors ; and you know very well how long I 
 was obliged to endure the sight of those hideous Ind " 
 
 " Oh, don t mention them" choked Hetty. " I wish 
 we were out there now, away from this dreadful Pringle 
 girl with all the village folk tattling. I wish you had to 
 look at squaws for the remainder of your life." 
 
 The major picked up his little wife from the state of 
 moral and physical collapse into which she had fallen, and 
 he contrived to make it up with her, and to convince her 
 that she had been very much in the wrong, while he on 
 his part promised to observe a little more discretion in 
 the pursuit of his devotions at the shrine of female 
 beauty. 
 
 But things went on much the same as ever. The exu- 
 
1 66 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 berant major escorted the ladies with strict impartiality, 
 but he did not entirely discontinue his visits to Sibyl 
 Pringle, because it would look too marked after all that 
 had been said ; and besides old Pringle kept inviting him 
 to come to his house. The people watched Hetty, and 
 they were at a loss to know whether to admire or to de 
 spise her, when they saw that she went about her little 
 affairs quite unconcerned. 
 
 However, one morning in mid-May, when the trees were 
 out nearly in full leaf, there was a great commotion in 
 the village. Sibyl Pringle had disappeared on the pre 
 vious day. She had taken a ticket on the railroad to the 
 county town to do some shopping, promising to return 
 at night, and the discovery had been made later that all 
 her clothes had disappeared. The major, it turned out, 
 also was missing. He had hired a horse at the village 
 livery-stable, and leaving it at the next station to be sent 
 back, had also taken the train. In a few hours news 
 was brought to Hetty that the major had eloped with 
 Sibyl Pringle. The depot stage was passing at the 
 moment, and Hetty hailed it, and hastily tying on her 
 bonnet with cold, trembling fingers, she put herself in 
 the vehicle, and rode over to the station. There she found 
 old Pringle telegraphing for news of his lost girl in all 
 directions and swearing most horribly. The doctor was 
 also there, as he happened to be attending the station- 
 master s wife ; and when Hetty stole into the waiting- 
 room, where a number of villagers were talking excitedly, 
 he went up to where she sat pale and calm in her corner, 
 and stood before her to partially screen the poor little 
 thing from observation, and to give her a chance to re 
 lieve her feelings if she should wish to cry. He tried to 
 get hold of some appropriate word of consolation, but 
 his tongue blundered, and he merely muttered to him 
 self, " The scoundrel ! He isn t fit to live ! " 
 
 " What what do you mean ? " and Hetty s clear eyes 
 
A WIFE S FAITH. 167 
 
 looked up out of her pale face in a way that staggered 
 the doctor. 
 
 <l What do you mean ? You don t wish to say you still 
 believe ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I do," cried Hetty, her eyes ablaze with 
 righteous indignation. u It is all a ridiculous mistake. 
 He has never dreamed of running away with that Pringle 
 girl. I tell you he can not live without me. I am as 
 necessary to my husband as the air he breathes. These 
 people with their spiteful tongues have tried to make 
 mischief. They are always thinking evil of others," and 
 she waved her hand in an inclusive way hard for the doc 
 tor to bear. " I tell you," she went on, getting quite 
 angry, " he will come back to me on the next train, and 
 all will be explained." 
 
 The old doctor looked at her with mingled awe and rev 
 erence and pity. If she were not demented, she was cer 
 tainly worthy of worship. The next train would not ar 
 rive from anywhere for an hour and a half, and the 
 waiting-room gradually emptied. The people cast curi 
 ous glances at Hetty as they went out, but she sat quite 
 composed, without heeding any of them. Presently there 
 was no one left except old Pringle, who was watching 
 the clicking telegraph instrument, the major s wife, and 
 the doctor. Hetty ignored them both, and as for old 
 Pringle, she hated the very sight of him, without the 
 least touch of sympathy for him a a fellow-sufferer. 
 The doctor paced up and down the platform, keeping his 
 eye on the motionless little woman in the corner. She 
 might need his services before all was over. It was a 
 long, tedious time, but it did end at last. The train 
 rushed down the track, slowed, then stopped, with many 
 a snort and whistle. Only a few people alighted, and 
 the last to step out was a stoutish, beaming gentleman in 
 a light overcoat, with a rose in the buttonhole. Well, 
 Hetty fell sobbing and laughing into the major s arms, 
 
1 68 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 as she gave the doctor a terrible look of reproach. Old 
 Pringle rushed up to the major, brandishing his clinched 
 fist, and crying out excitedly : 
 
 " What have you done with my girl ? " 
 
 The major paid no heed to any one but his wife. 
 " My dear, why are you so agitated ? Have the neigh 
 bors been filling your head with foolish stories ? I had 
 to go away on a little private business nothing less than 
 seeing two worthy young people who love each other 
 dearly united in the bonds of matrimony. I promised 
 my old friend, Frank Drummond, I would help him in 
 this business, and pledged myself, on my honor as an 
 officer and a gentleman, not even to tell my wife. Miss 
 Pringle is no longer Miss Pringle ; she is Mrs. 
 Frank " 
 
 Old man Pringle would not let the major finish the sen 
 tence. He danced up and down with rage, and would 
 have assaulted him if the doctor had not restrained his 
 violence and taken him home by main force. 
 
 In a few days Hetty called at the doctor s office to say 
 good-by, looking bright and happy. The doctor took 
 her hand and gazed with paternal kindness into her good 
 little face. 
 
 " And are we to lose you, my dear ? I am sorry, very 
 sorry. Where are you going ? " 
 
 u Oh, the major has been ordered back to the frontier 
 among the Indians. Of course it is very hard for him, 
 poor fellow, but I rather like that kind of life." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A ROSEBUD GARDEN OF GIRLS. 
 
 THE wistaria is hanging its purple clusters high on 
 the chimneys of the old Myers house, which stands 
 on the turnpike just outside the village limits. The 
 garden and grounds look neglected ; of late years the 
 old house has not been occupied. But great bushes of 
 the spirea trail their white wreaths through the grass, 
 and the syringa and althea hedge has overgrown the 
 palings, and the snowball is now in full perfection. 
 Great clusters of the blue iris and striped grass struggle 
 through the wild growth. The climbing roses are getting 
 ready to push out pink buds. There is a corner given 
 up to the delightful barberry, with its sprays gemmed 
 with tiny yellow flowers, and near it stands a large dog- 
 wood tree, brought thither from the woods, covered 
 thickly with white flowers. 
 
 All things look celestial now, and yet how fleeting 
 is the delicate tracery and flutter of young leaves, the 
 exquisite unspoiled green, so tender and fresh it seems 
 to have been made for better and happier beings than 
 any this workaday world produces. The delicious bloom 
 and fragrance, the beauty of blossoms so delicate, spirit 
 ual, and affecting, is very short-lived. We seem always 
 to miss the best of it, because we do not get out in time 
 to catch nature at her prettiest revels. It belongs to the 
 youngest and fairest creatures happy children, merry 
 maidens, nestlings and lambs, and to the few old and 
 middle-aged people whose hearts are entirely innocent 
 and uncorrupted. 
 
I 7 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 This freshness of the spring-time brings back that 
 quintette of charming girls who lived once at the old 
 Myers place, when the doors and windows stood wide 
 open all day long, and the old garden, with its tall shade 
 trees and bright flower beds, was like Armida s enchanted 
 grounds. The professor s five daughters, with their 
 sunny heads and fluttering skirts, seemed always flitting 
 about under the maples and elms and buttonballs. The 
 sun glanced lovingly down on them as they picked vivid 
 handfuls of petunias and nasturtiums and morning- 
 glories, and the trees threw soft shadows on their white 
 gowns. They lifted the edges of their petticoats out of 
 the dew and showed delightful little slippers and clocked 
 stockings. The place, so silent now, was then always 
 full of a subdued murmur of sweet voices, of chat and 
 laughter and snatches of old songs and little airs played 
 impromptu on the ancient piano which had been their 
 mother s. 
 
 The father of these charming girls, companions of the 
 spring, had been for many years in a theological semi 
 nary in one of the staid New England towns, where 
 every house was as prim and orthodox as the West 
 minster Catechism. When some years past middle life 
 the professor retired from his post, and bought the old 
 Myers place, a property which had once been in his wife s 
 family, and where he had courted her twenty-five years 
 earlier. He brought with him this bevy of five daughters- 
 Only one of them was at all plain, and she was the house 
 keeper, good little Lois, named for her mother. The 
 others were charmingly, irresistibly pretty. How such 
 rare blossoms came to flower on the professor s rather 
 dry family tree it is impossible to say. But there they 
 were, indubitable facts, delightful, unaccounted-for phe 
 nomena, like tropical birds singing in the cell of an 
 anchorite, or little love poems inserted between firstly 
 and fifteenthly of an old yellow sermon. 
 
THE FOUR BEAUTIES. \1\ 
 
 The mother had been dead only a few years when the 
 professor moved back to the village with his family of 
 girls. On the mother s side there were wealthy relatives, 
 who lived in nice, lively towns, where there were plenty of 
 eligible, or, as Mrs. Deacon Hildreth would say, " legi 
 ble " young men. These relatives were always inviting 
 their cousins and nieces to stay with them weeks and 
 months at a time. They were fashionably clothed by 
 this loving bounty, and taken off on delightful trips to 
 the mountains and the seashore in summer, and to Florida 
 in winter. The result of all this was that the four young 
 beauties were all engaged when they first came to live in 
 the village, three of them to town men, and the fourth 
 and youngest a little blonde, with curly hair and gray 
 eyes, with dark eyebrows to a young theological student 
 at the seminary where her father had taught for nearly a 
 quarter of a century. 
 
 Lois was still heart-free, and it happened that though 
 nice-looking and such a good girl, she was not a decided 
 beauty. Therefore, however illogical it may seem, she 
 was expected to be practical and to take to housekeeping. 
 The question, such a burning one in New England, 
 " what shall I do with my girls ? " had been easily an 
 swered for the professor. They were all, or nearly all, 
 soon to enter that holy estate of matrimony which was 
 the primal solution of the problem, and in spite of modern 
 improvements, is still by the majority of mankind con 
 sidered the best. It is a terrible piece of work having 
 four engaged girls in the house at one time, as poor Lois 
 found to her cost. It is not necessary to mention that 
 engaged girls are good for little or nothing in a practical 
 way. They are always writing and receiving intermin 
 able letters. The day s mail puts them in the seventh 
 heaven of bliss, or sends them to bed with a headache. 
 Nothing can be done but to count the hours before he 
 will come (in this case it was t/iey), to curl hair, and try 
 
J? 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 on becoming gowns and sashes, and gather nosegays in 
 the garden to improvise sentimental strains on the old 
 piano, to cry over a novel, or to dream in the hammock, 
 utterly distraught as to the every-day things of this life. 
 
 Poor Lois had experience of all kinds of lovers moods. 
 She had so many confidences poured into her ear she 
 forgot sometimes whether it was Frank who had last 
 quarreled with Jane, and then kissed and made up, or 
 Paul with Grace. She took to wearing her rings on 
 different fingers in order to keep the secrets separate and 
 distinct in her mind. She was expected to sympathize 
 with every body, and to enter into every body s feelings, 
 because she was not supposed to have any feelings of her 
 own. If she was ever a little slow or obtuse in unravel 
 ing the webs of love s diplomacy, the remark was made 
 with rasping emphasis, " you would know just how it is if 
 you had ever been engaged." The poor girl was nearly 
 distracted, for the economic problem was of even greater 
 difficulty than the entanglements of the heart. There 
 were always one or two lovers on hand to be lodged and 
 fed, and others might arrive at any moment. Lois dis 
 covered to her cost that being in love does not injure the 
 male appetite ; however much engaged young men may 
 disregard an unengaged prospective sister-in-law, or look 
 upon her as an object of covert pity, they fully appreci 
 ate her batter-cakes and waffles, her tender steak and fra 
 grant coffee. 
 
 The case of the old professor seemed even more 
 pathetic than that of his eldest daughter. He moved 
 about in a cool remoteness, feeling at times terribly alien 
 to love s young dreams, and then again, catching the 
 infection of the house, his old heart would begin to beat 
 with a strange flutter. The girls were all very fond of 
 papa. They petted him a great deal, and called him an 
 old darling, and sat on his lap, and curled his gray locks 
 over their pretty fingers while they coaxed out of him all 
 
THE PROFESSOR S HOBBY. 173 
 
 manner of little favors. Still he could never quite over 
 come the feeling that these lovely bright beings ought 
 to belong to some one else. It was simply ridiculous that 
 he, an old seminary professor, who had made a great deal 
 of dry wood in the long years he had taught theology in 
 an ugly little town, mainly to young rustics, and with one 
 sole and only hobby, the freedom of the will, should be 
 the father of such a group of sirens. The professor was 
 spare in flesh, and wore his gray locks rather long. He 
 was excessively short-sighted, and had a way of peering 
 at things common to persons thus afflicted. He was 
 rather absent-minded, and now that he found himself 
 away from the routine of seminary life, with no college 
 bell to guide him, he would have forgotten to eat if his 
 daughter Lois had not recalled him to the necessity. He 
 was gentle and slow of speech, and no great talker, but 
 with that habit of iteration and reiteration to the point of 
 tediousness so common to life-long instructors. 
 
 The professor had formerly made for himself a study 
 in the old seminary building, and here, abstracted and 
 apart from all family cares, he had written his various 
 books on the freedom of the will, which gave him a very 
 solid, substantial reputation in clerical circles. Though 
 I have never chanced to meet any one who had read them, 
 the professor was considered a most sound authority, and 
 was spoken of with great respect in learned treatises and 
 theological conventions. He had not been shelved ; he 
 had simply retired from the professorship, that he might 
 have unlimited leisure to shed ink upon his great theme, 
 which looked as beautiful to his eyes as the principles of 
 perspective to that old Italian painter who would stand 
 musing for hours, and then exclaim, " How beautiful is 
 perspective ! " So when they all moved to the old Myers 
 place that spring, the question at once arose among the 
 girls as to where papa would have his study. The house, 
 with its quaint gables and outside chimneys, looked large 
 
174 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 on the exteiror, but within it was badly cut up into little 
 odd rooms, opening upon blind passages. Steps led up 
 here and down there, and bedrooms communicated with 
 each other like a nest of boxes. The windows were put 
 into corners and placed too high, and there was not a 
 private nook for a scholar in the whole house. The old 
 man went dreamily over the house with his girls, living 
 over again in some dim way the hours he had spent there 
 in his youth when he, too, was a lover. But it all seemed 
 very vague and shadowy. There were only two rooms in 
 the badly contrived place that were at all adapted to his 
 needs, and these the girls had previously appropriated for 
 spare chambers. For of course they must have some 
 place to stow away Frank, and Harold, and Paul, and 
 Edward when they came. And they would always be 
 coming ; some lived near and some at a distance, but the 
 house could count on at least one resident lover in per 
 petuity. 
 
 The girls of course could not tell dear papa there was 
 no place for his study, but he understood it well enough, 
 and yielded tacitly in his own gentle, uncomplaining way. 
 He wandered out in the garden under the tall trees, where 
 he had walked with his young bride so many years ago ; 
 it seemed all to have happened in a pre-existent state, and 
 he tried to recall those vivid emotions and the flush of 
 happiness when the birds sang in Paradise. Then he 
 stepped on into the barn. It was a clean, water-tight, 
 sweet-smelling barn, with that homely cheer and pleasant 
 ness that belongs to such places. It was empty, swept 
 and garnished. The professor felt himself too poor to 
 keep a horse, and the barn was practically useless. He 
 climbed up a ladder into the mow, and looked out of a 
 high window. The view was glorious over Saddleback, 
 the intervale, and the winding river, all dressed in the 
 living green of May. His dim eyes, accustomed to the 
 close quarters of an ugly paved town, devoid of scenery, 
 
THE BARV STUDY. I?5 
 
 beheld this lovely prospect as something new and sur 
 prising. It was a revelation of the beauty of the world, 
 and seemed to blend with those vague visions of his 
 old self, of the time when he was not a professor^ 
 absorbed in the freedom of the will, but a young man 
 pleading ardently for a fair girl s love. He determined 
 then and there to build a study for himself in the vacant 
 barn. A roughly plastered room, warm and light, was 
 all he wanted. Here he could insure perfect quiet in 
 which to pursue his great theme. So the room was 
 built, and all the professor s books and papers were 
 carried in, as well as his desk and study chair. He was 
 furnished with a student lamp for night work, and Lois 
 laid down a carpet and rugs, and hung some old prints 
 on the wall. The window stook in that exquisite mount 
 ain and valley and river view in the first flush of spring, 
 and the old man felt as if scales had fallen from his eyes 
 as he sat watching the changes of the landscape the 
 play of light and shadow over the sky, storms gathering 
 and moving off the mountain, bursts of sunlight on dis 
 tant fields and woods, the dart of lightning, and the flush 
 of sunrise upon the hills. For a quarter of a century he 
 had been immured in brick and stone, and there had 
 written a great deal about God s universe. Now the 
 universe was before him, and new aspects of the great 
 free-will problem presented themselves to his mind. He 
 felt himself in primitive and child-like relation to God, 
 and a fresh, original scheme of doctrine and argument 
 warmed his heart and animated his intellect. When he 
 wrote now it was with a kind of inspiration that surprised 
 and delighted him. He became reverent and religious 
 in a new and unexpected way. 
 
 Of course, no one knew of the wonderful hours the 
 professor was spending in his barn study. He was reti 
 cent of all that went on within him, and his own girls 
 were as ignorant as his neighbors. One of the windows 
 
1 76 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of his study commanded a corner of the old garden, just 
 a little hidden nook with a green bench set in the shade. 
 Here one or other of the engaged couples came sometimes 
 for a quiet talk, and the old professor would have felt 
 guilty in watching them if they had not seemed to him 
 so like a picture or a vision a help in that odd psy 
 chological process by which he was getting back his lost 
 youth and revivifying his heart and brain. The neigh 
 bors pitied him because his large family of giddy girls 
 had pushed him out into the cold. A few spinsters and 
 widows who were looking for husbands tried to let him 
 know how well prepared they were to sympathize with a 
 lonely gentleman unappreciated by his own daughters, 
 and obliged to live with the bats and owls. But it was 
 all lost on him. He was too happy to think of changing 
 his state. He spent more and more of his time in the 
 repose and solitude of his new study, and when he failed 
 to come to his meals they were carried out to him by one 
 of his girls, who, it must be confessed, saw but little of 
 their father at any other time. 
 
 The summer holidays had come, and the lovers were all 
 there. The windows were wide open, and roses and 
 honeysuckles bloomed around the old porches, and the 
 trees threw thick, cool shadows. Every corner of the 
 yard and garden was consecrated to love and romance, 
 and the house, too, was appropriated in every part by 
 these happy young people. If the professor entered un 
 expectedly, he was apt to find Frank and Jane installed 
 in the parlor, Harold and Hatty in the library, while Lily 
 and Ned pervaded the reception-room and Grace and 
 Paul held possession of the veranda. There hardly 
 seemed a place inside the house where he could sit down 
 without intruding on lovers rights, so he fell into the 
 habit of asking his friends to come and see him in the 
 barn. His old clerical companions and fellow-professors 
 were always asked out there to see the view when 
 
AN INDIAN SUMMER POEM. 177 
 
 they called. The professor, in his simple-mindedness, 
 thought nothing of it. The repose and quiet of the 
 barn had been so much in his spiritual experience, of 
 course it must be pleasant to his friends. 
 
 The villagers made jokes about the professor s hobby 
 on the freedom of the will, he who had no freedom in 
 his own house, and had been driven out by a pack of 
 selfish girls to seek refuge in a stable. Poor Lois heard 
 it all, but so long as papa seemed happy and contented 
 she would not let the gossip come to his ears. Her sis 
 ters would all be married in a few months, and then she 
 would devote her life to making papa comfortable. 
 Meantime the professor was writing a book that was 
 destined to be very popular among all classes of relig 
 ious people, though he did not know it. It was an 
 Indian-summer poem, called out by the aspiration and 
 the new life he had found in the summer solitude. His 
 cramped thoughts expanded and became winged and 
 caught the motion of the swallows as they skimmed 
 round his windows. His mind, he felt, had always been 
 in a straight-jacket, and now he was free, and the ideas 
 came like spring torrents. So the days went on, those 
 idyllic barn days, when the old man s one popular book 
 was getting written all the dry arguments transfusing 
 themselves with a glow of new life when one morning 
 Grace, his youngest daughter, came into the study. 
 
 " Well, what is it, my dear ? " putting out his fatherly 
 hand, without looking at her, as his head remained bent 
 over the writing-table. " Papa, I want to speak to you 
 if you do not mind." " Of course, my dear, I am always 
 ready to attend to you." He turned about at once, and 
 she perched herself on his knee, looking like a depressed 
 canary bird with its feathers a little rumpled by mental 
 agitation. There were two or three diamond drops 
 twinkling on the long lashes of her gray eyes. 
 
 " Well, my dear ; well, what is it ? " and the hand 
 
I? 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 kept on smoothing her hair half-abstractedly. " Oh, 
 papa," and her head suddenly buried itself on his 
 shoulder. " I have qua-a-r-reled with Paul. He is go 
 ing away." 
 
 " Quarreled with Paul ? " 
 
 " Yes, papa," she sobbed, " and about you. You 
 know he was in your classes in the seminary, and he al 
 ways looked up to you ; and now he says we girls don t 
 treat you with respect our own dear father. We don t 
 honor you as we should, and the village people know it. 
 We have thrust you out in the barn ; we neglect you 
 shamefully, and you such a great, and learned, and dis 
 tinguished man." 
 
 The professor drew his little weeping girl closer in the 
 bend of his arm, and tried to soothe her as best he 
 could. " My child, how your heart beats ! You are ill. 
 I have been engrossed with my own thoughts. I have 
 neglected you, and it is all my fault. You must go and 
 send Paul to me." 
 
 Well, Paul went to his old professor and had a long 
 talk with him, and of course it was all made up with 
 Grace. But the old man would not leave his barn study. 
 In the autumn the four sisters were married, and the 
 beauty and charm of those weddings are still talked of 
 in the village as something to date from. But the old 
 Myers place looked deserted after the lovely quartette of 
 sisters had departed. The professor came back to the 
 house to live with his good home-staying Lois. But the 
 wonderful inspiration of the summer never returned, 
 though he tried to woo it. It was his brief Indian- 
 summer, and it left him broken and old. His book made 
 a noise in the world, and brought him the pleasure of an 
 afternoon success, but the rare mood which produced it 
 was gone forever. One day, with a gentle, placid smile 
 on his worn face, the old man was found lying dead 
 on his couch, where he was taking his midday rest. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE COLORED BROWNS. 
 
 WE have only one family of colored people in the vil 
 lage, and we are rather proud of the possession. 
 It was by a mere accident that Mandy and Sambo Brown 
 came to live with us. They were both born into slavery, 
 and were taken by their parents to Canada by means of 
 the underground railroad. Having grown up in the bleak 
 North, they met and married in the Queen s dominions, 
 and started back toward the old home a few years after 
 the close of the war. They stopped one day at our vil 
 lage with the thought of resting for a time, but as they 
 were made welcome by Aunt Dido, the great friend of their 
 race, and work was procured for them, and a place to 
 live, they finally settled down into citizens of the town, 
 and have become by their sobriety and industry as much 
 respected as "white folks," and more than some. As 
 Aunt Dido was the first to take the Browns under her 
 wing, she has always been rather proud of them as speci- 
 imens of "likely" black people, prophecies and hints of 
 what the race may become with proper culture and fav 
 oring circumstances. 
 
 But the merits of Black Sambo and Mandy shine brighter 
 than they probably would in a community where negroes 
 abound. Here they shine alone black diamonds, among 
 the contrasting jewels of the village. Sam, with the 
 peculiar genius of his people for jobbing, gets plenty of 
 work to do, but it is not what may be called regular, 
 steady employment. He makes gardens for the single 
 women and widows, helps in house-cleaning, whitewashes, 
 paints, and "paper-hangs" a little, runs errands, chops 
 
l8o VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 wood, doctors sick dogs, and " teams it " to the next 
 town. He knows, too, a little plumbing and carpenter 
 ing, and can tinker at several trades. There is always 
 something to keep Sam going ; and he is so faithful, 
 pleasant, and happy-tempered that people like to have 
 him around. 
 
 Sam is up with the dawn in spring, and you will hear 
 him singing snatches of old plantation song, as he digs 
 and hoes in his little garden. That garden is the pride 
 of his life. The dew is sweet as it falls into his beds and 
 nourishes the tomato plants and the succulent sweet 
 corn. Sambo has what many a poor man might have by 
 taking a little pains, a bed of asparagus and a patch of 
 fine strawberries. He grows a little okra to give the 
 children a taste of it in their broth, and is careful to put 
 in plenty of crookneck squashes, cucumbers and melons. 
 He kills the potato bugs and roots out the vermin, and 
 waters his plants in a dry time, so that, whether the sea 
 son be wet or droughty, warm or cold, Sam Brown s 
 garden is a beautiful example to his poor neighbors. 
 
 There were but two children in the Brown family when 
 they came to the village some years ago ; now there are 
 five of them, pretty, bright-eyed and neat. You would 
 not ask for a kink the less in their frizzled black heads. 
 But Mandy Brown is of an entirely different temper from 
 Sam. There is but little of the happy-go-lucky about 
 her. She seldom sings the old plantation and camp- 
 meeting songs Sam is always whistling. The iron of 
 slavery seems to have entered into Mandy s soul when 
 she was very young, intensified by her experience of the 
 cold Canada winters, and the hardships of exile she ex 
 perienced when her mother died from privation. But 
 Mandy has a far better intellect than Sam. She is the 
 elect head of the family, keeps all the money they jointly 
 earn, buys all the supplies, plans every thing, and gives 
 Sambo just so much change to spend each week for fish- 
 
MANDY S WORK-ROOM. 181 
 
 hooks and tobacco. She is a high-class laundress, and 
 is regularly employed by three or four families in the 
 village, who know what nice work is and are willing to 
 pay a good price for it. Mrs. Judge Magnus employs 
 Mandy to do up all her fine bed and table linen, her 
 damask of the best, her lace-trimmed and embroidered 
 pillow-shams, also her own dainty gowns and dressing- 
 sacks and petticoats, frilled and fluted to perfection. 
 You should see these beautiful things drifted like snow 
 banks into Mandy s exquisitely neat sitting-room where 
 she irons. The clothes smell as fragrant as a field of 
 clover or sweet grass, and shine with the gloss of a 
 strong elbow, and on the window-sill stands a mug or 
 pitcher full of flowers the children have brought in. It 
 is a picture to see the black face at the spotless ironing- 
 table bending over the snowy linen, while the deft hands 
 crimp, and flute, and shape, with a real love for the work. 
 You would know a good deal about Mandy by looking 
 at her clothes when they lie heaped in the great basket, 
 or are hung for the last drying on the horse. She is tall, 
 and trim, and neat, in her dark calico gown, with a grace 
 ful turn of the waist and shoulders not uncommon to her 
 race. Mandy never wears bright kerchiefs or head-gear, 
 but she shows her tropical nature in her love of red pop 
 pies and scarlet geraniums and vivid salvias, which she 
 cultivates by the door of her little house. 
 
 The house stands on the edge of a small field and 
 garden, with a few pear and plum trees at one corner, 
 and all the bright flowers Mandy can crowd into the 
 narrow space between the door-step and the front gate. 
 A tiny stable made of slabs and cast-off boards shelters 
 the cow in winter. Chicks, and hens, and kittens run 
 about at will in the grass, and a lean-to shed with a rope 
 swing makes an outdoor nursery for the children. Sam 
 and Mandy own this snug little place. They have been 
 able to pay for it in small installments, and there are no 
 
1 82 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 people in the town more independent, and, I may say, 
 more self-respecting. 
 
 But Mandy, in spite of her love for the scarlet flowers, 
 still has something of the Puritan sternness of temper. 
 The old sense of wrong rankles at times in her soul. 
 Her conscience is uneasy and inclined to be morbid. 
 She goes over and over the old slave days and her early 
 sufferings, and dwells upon them contrasts them with 
 these piping times of peace and prosperity. She reads 
 the old Bible for she can read and write, too with all 
 its ancient curses, and wonders in her soul whether she 
 and Sam and the children are vessels of wrath too worth 
 less and unfit for salvation. She feels her own heart to 
 be rather hard and cold, when there is no living being 
 who ought to be more tender and thankful. She teases 
 herself with the idea that as a family they are not as 
 grateful as they should be for the mercies of the Lord, 
 that perhaps some day they may be punished because 
 they don t have enough thankfulness in their souls. She 
 can not enjoy with careless light-heartedness, like Sambo, 
 the goods the gods provide, but must be digging up her 
 blessings to see how they grow before she has tasted the 
 sweets thereof. 
 
 It must be confessed, Mandy, with all her good quali 
 ties, is at times rather saturnine and ill-tempered, with 
 something of the old African seeress in her blood. Sam^ 
 so easy-going and sunny, attributes her bad temper to the 
 fact that she is " powerful smart." All smart folks, in 
 Sam s estimation, are high-strung, quick, and touchy. It 
 is a penalty that smartness pays for the privileges it 
 enjoys ; therefore Sambo reveres even his wife s temper 
 and looks up to her as a superior being. The children 
 are all like Sam, easy-going, careless, light-hearted little 
 types of their own race. Sam secretly regrets that 
 Mandy s high qualities have not been transmitted to 
 some of the " pickaninnies." He says, " They re peart 
 
SAMBO AND THE " PICKAX1XXIES." 183 
 
 enough, the Lord knows, but not so peart as Mandy, fo 
 sho." Mandy keeps them as neat as wax and they go to 
 school and sit on benches with the white children, and 
 study out of the same books. But the rollicking nature 
 of the Southron gleams out of their bright black eyes, 
 white teeth, ebon faces, and knotty curls. Even the 
 little dances and plays they improvise together all carry 
 Mandy back to the old hated plantation days, and she 
 sees them with pain. She wishes her children to get 
 " shet" of all that, to be like northern folks good little 
 Sunday-school children, learning their text-cards and 
 minding just " beautiful." 
 
 But Sam delights in the children just as they are. He 
 "totes" the little ones when they " play possum," and 
 pretend they can t walk, until his back aches. The 
 moment he comes home they are swarming all over him 
 taking liberties with his pockets, climbing up on his 
 shoulders, and begging for stories. So Sambo " nurses" 
 the children, gathering as many of them as he can into 
 his arms, while the others hang on anyhow, and tells them 
 interminable yarns while he smokes his pipe. Sambo 
 always goes back " Souf " for those marvelous tales, and 
 shows the little ones in his rude, figurative speech, between 
 pulls at the pipe, the cane-brake, and the cotton-patch, 
 and the solemn pine forest and cypress swamps, and 
 the great red oaks clad in long gray moss. He shows 
 them " ole mas r" and " little mas r and miss" riding on 
 their ponies or in the " kerridge." He shows them the 
 fine old plantation-house, and the negro-quarter as he 
 remembers it before the " wah," and describes the banjo 
 playing, the dances and songs and break-downs, the 
 revivals and love feasts, and how the darkies pray and 
 shout. He shows them the strange flowers, the magnolia, 
 and jasmine, and myrtle tree, the creepers and wonderful 
 blossoms hidden in " de swamp," which he knew in his 
 boyhood, and the fascinating serpents and wild animals, 
 
184 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 alligators, catamounts, coons, and possums. He imi 
 tates the call of the mocking-bird in a long, low whistle 
 until the kinky hair kinks a little tighter, and the eyes 
 roll up and show the whites, and the absorbed look is 
 most charming in that dusky group of little ones, who 
 have never seen the wonderful, fascinating " Souf," with 
 all its mirthfulness and wealth of color. 
 
 Sambo never threw any dark shades into his pictures. 
 Mandy, when she caught snatches of his stories as she 
 went to and fro about her work, wondered if he had for 
 gotten all the oppression and wrong of the old slave 
 days, and remembered only those sunny pictures, that 
 careless life of dance and song when the long day s work 
 was done. It must be confessed Mandy had a kind of 
 contempt for light-hearted Sambo, who had endured so 
 much unscathed in soul, and now felt no touch of bitter 
 ness, rebellion, or revenge for the past. Perhaps now in 
 these blessed days of freedom he hardly remembered 
 there had been any wrong. 
 
 The children did not love her as they loved the father. 
 Her high temper brought a word and a blow. She often 
 instructed them about old slave times, showing how they 
 had no sense of gratitude for what they enjoyed, only a 
 powerful all-dominating love of play and mischief. They 
 were idle ne er-do-wells, unworthy of the liberty so dearly 
 bought. It almost seemed a grievance that her children 
 had not known the sufferings of the old life, the escape 
 from bondage, the underground railroad, the Arctic exile 
 in Canada. It was at such moments, when administer 
 ing correction for little trespasses and idle ways, errands 
 left undone, and lessons shirked, that Mandy recounted 
 these things. 
 
 " Yo se no account, you is (cuff). Yo don t know nof- 
 fin bout what it is to be a slave, to have some bad man 
 crack de whip over you and make you work when yo is 
 fallin in your tracks (slap). Yo never tinks of de bless- 
 
MANDT S LECTURE. 185 
 
 in s of born freedom, nor what y r moder endured in de 
 ole days. Yo se dat no account, you fuses to learn your 
 lesson when your moder had no schoolin wasn t let to 
 learn any t ing was kep in ignerance (slap), had to steal 
 away in de night time to get a little instruction in de 
 Bible and de hymn-book. Yo se don t care much bout 
 de word ob God, nor de wraf of God, nor how de bars 
 come and eat up de bad children as mocked. Yo se don t 
 want to learn about Abram, and Isaac, and Jacob, dem 
 just men, and de land ob promise, and all dem pious 
 t ings. You se no account dont know what it means to 
 be livin in a land of liberty don t know nothing tall 
 about de oppression of ole slave times, don t care to hear 
 bout dem t ings, when yo se fader tells ob de cake-walks 
 and de break-downs on de Miss ippi. I se ashamed of 
 my chilluns as don t preciate der blessings, and ain t 
 t ankin de Lord every bref dey draw for bein free." 
 (Here a sharp series of slaps.) 
 
 "Yo se just spilin dem pickaninnies," Mandy would 
 say to Sambo, " teachin of em to be plantation darkies 
 stead of merican citizens as read de newspapers, and 
 votes to shut up de rum shops, and goes to meetin Sun 
 day neat and respectable. You is puttin all kinds of 
 fool notions in dere heads, and settin em ag in me." 
 
 Sambo laughed in his easy way at the notion of setting 
 the children against their mother, who was probably the 
 " peartest " woman that ever lived, while he was only an 
 or nary darky, without any thing specially bright about 
 him. But still the fact remained that the children loved 
 him best, and liked better to be with him and listen to 
 his desultory talk, given forth with unctuous, easy voice, 
 than to hang about their mother at the risk of getting 
 their ears boxed for every little misdemeanor. It was 
 also true that Mandy knew while she sat up nights to 
 make them nice clothes, and denied herself much that 
 they might go as well dressed as the children of her 
 
1 86 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 white neighbors, they loved their father best, and was 
 jealous of his influence. 
 
 Sambo had put up a swing for the children out near 
 the shed, and there they built their play-houses and held 
 their little revels. One day Mandy heard a great groan 
 ing and shouting out in the shed where the children were 
 at play. So she slipped unobserved into the stable, and 
 peeped through a crack in the board wall to see what was 
 going on. Most of the children were holding a " speri- 
 ence meeting " such as their father had often described. 
 They were down on their knees in the straw, clasping 
 their stomachs, and waving back and forth in great dis 
 tress of mind as they groaned over their sins. Now and 
 then they broke out into snatches of negro hymns, or fell 
 down in the straw with the " power." When seemingly 
 quite stiff and stark, one would cry out, " I se dead fo 
 sho ," and another would answer, "I se deader," and 
 then they would leap to their feet with shouts of laugh 
 ter, and begin a plantation clog dance or a cake-walk. 
 They had improvised a banjo with some string wound 
 over a wooden box. The banjo accompaniment was given 
 with all the dances, and even with the prayers and hymns. 
 
 One little girl sat nursing her colored rag-baby in a 
 corner of the shed, where a log table was set out with 
 bits of broken crockery. She wished the child, who was 
 afflicted with rag-baby colic, to take paregoric peaceably 
 out of a teaspoon, and without any resistance to mater 
 nal authority. But as the infant was rebellious, she gave 
 it several sharp cuffs and shakes, thus apostrophizing it 
 while the process went on : " You se a low-down no-ac 
 count little nig. I se ashamed of you in dis land of 
 liberty ; you don t sense what it is to be free and to 
 enjoy de pribliges ob schoolin and churches. Yo se dat 
 worthless yo o ut to be a slabe all yo se bo n days," and 
 then after another quick series of slaps she threw the 
 luckless infant down into the straw, and gave it a hearty 
 kick. " Let s all be slaves," cried the children simul- 
 
SELF- RE VELA TION. 1 8 7 
 
 taneously, and then they tied their hands and feet loosely 
 together with string, and went hobbling around the shed 
 singing an improvised ditty suitable to the occasion : 
 
 " I se gwine to ole mas r, 
 I se gwine to de Souf, 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujum, 
 I s gwine to ole Virginny, 
 Cos I se a pickaninny, 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujum. 
 
 " I se gwine to ole mas r, 
 To dance in de cane-brake, 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujum, 
 I se gwine to ole mas r, 
 A walkin for de cake, 
 
 Glory, glory, hallelujum." 
 
 Mandy stole back to her bright, clean kitchen, and for 
 the rest of the day she was very quiet and thoughtful. 
 She had seen a picture of herself, and such self-revelation 
 is always profoundly instructive. She was suffering from 
 that reaction in her children which accompanies the 
 violent, harsh teaching of all good doctrine. She had 
 tried by blows and strong language and sarcastic appeals 
 to make them devotees of liberty and above all things 
 " spectable," and now, God help them, they were sighing 
 for the flesh-pots of the Egyptians " ole mas r and de 
 Souf," that land of easy jollity and careless pleasure. 
 
 When Sambo came home he found Mandy quite meek 
 and subdued, dressed in a new blue gingham, with a 
 spotless white necktie. He thought he had never seen 
 her so nice or so kind. That night when the children were 
 all in bed and she sat patching little Jim s breeches by 
 the lamp, she even allowed Sam to smoke in the sitting- 
 room, a privilege not often accorded. She had been 
 snipping away with her shears a long time in silence, com 
 muning with her own thoughts, when she broke forth : 
 
 " Sam, I se goin to try and be a Christian after this. I 
 reckon I se been a big heathen all my life." 
 
 " Dat s the one t ing needful for us all, I reckon, 
 Mandy," said Sam, as he shook the ashes from his pipe. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE MINISTER S GLEBE AND HOPE S LOVE STORY. 
 
 I REMEMBER with the greatest pleasure some walks 
 through the " minister s glebe " on the old post- 
 road, about a mile and a half from the village. The path 
 winds through the farm and home fields, to the stone par 
 sonage or manse, which has long been disused as a par 
 ish house, and is now turned into a boys school. The 
 land is a high plateau framed in blue hills, with vistas of 
 valley and river gleaming through chance gaps in the 
 woodland.* On such land one has almost the same sense 
 of being launched off in the sky as on a mountain-top. 
 Clouds assume the grandest forms in such open spaces, 
 and the chasing effects of light and shade bring back 
 those inimitable Flemish landscapes where the nimble 
 play of the sun fills the mind with that sense of expan 
 sion which I can imagine is the first and most immediate 
 effect of death. 
 
 The little twisted path through the glebe takes you 
 close beside fields of wheat, oats, and rye, and other 
 growing crops, and through the grass and clover fields, 
 which are now lusty and of splendid promise. The sheen 
 of those young, glossy crops bending under the morning 
 wind, and spotted with sunlight, is not soon to be for 
 gotten. What wonder the bobolink loves these places 
 with all his passionate little heart, and pours out a series 
 of trills that seem to run all round the still leafy world, 
 mounting at last into the very sky ? 
 
 The oldest people of the village remember the Rev. 
 Dr. Abijah Manners, the last of our old Puritan minis 
 ters of a former generation, who lived on the minister s 
 
DR. ABIJAH PRAYS FOR RAIN. 189 
 
 glebe and occupied the old manse, and they talk of him 
 still almost as if he were alive and moving about among 
 us. The old clergyman was such an upright, down 
 right, positive man, he made an indelible impression on 
 his generation, and even the children fancy they have 
 seen the swing of his strong, active figure down the vil 
 lage street as he strode along, taking great steps, dressed 
 in the single-breasted coat and shovel hat of his order. 
 He carried with him everywhere a kind of paternal 
 authority. Brusque, quick, and active, the doctor was 
 not given to long harangues on the state of the soul, but 
 he often spoke the word of admonition and warning 
 which went directly to the point, hitting the nail on the 
 head with marvelous accuracy and precision. He car 
 ried the same prompt, clear manner into his religious 
 ministrations. He never shirked a duty, nor did he 
 allow any of the old dogmas to waver and grow weak in 
 his mind, thus invalidating the potency of his instruc 
 tions. He took his doctrine as straight as the swath he 
 mowed in the nine-acre lot. The edges were not blurred 
 by modern doubt or critical inquiry. All was clean, and 
 direct, and true in the doctor s mind. Indeed, it was a 
 much simpler age than ours. When he prayed for rain, 
 the people trusted implicitly in his power to change the 
 laws of nature. All up and down the valley Doctor 
 Abijah was depended upon in a dry time. 
 
 Once after a great drought Dr. Abe, as he was called 
 by the profane, prayed powerfully for the windows of 
 heaven to open, and that night a heavy storm of wind 
 and rain set in, which lasted three weeks and nearly 
 spoiled the corn crop. The village tavern-keeper of 
 those days, who was inclined to Universalism, called infi 
 delity by the neighbors, met the doctor one morning on 
 the road driving his old white nag in the clerical 
 "shay." 
 
 " Don t you think you overdid it just a leetle this time, 
 
I 9 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 doctor ? " he asked, with the rain streaming down from 
 his garments. 
 
 " Manifestly I did so as far as you are concerned," re 
 turned the doctor testily, " for you need fire more than 
 water." 
 
 Dr. Abijah was an excellent theologian, sound as a nut 
 on all the doctrines, and he was moreover an admirable 
 farmer. His sturdy figure, with the clerical hat laid 
 aside, and his big orthodox head cased in an old straw 
 tile, could be seen taking the lead in the haying-field, 
 where he cut a broader and cleaner swath than any of 
 his men, and always led them by several rods. It was 
 the same in the wood-lot and the plowing and harvest 
 ing ; Dr. Abijah could hold his own against the best 
 farmer in the county, nor did he think it at all derogatory 
 to his cloth to be seen thus mixing spiritual and tem 
 poral interests. The earth is the. Lord s and the full 
 ness thereof, and the doctor thought it perfectly right 
 that he should have a good portion of that fullness 
 stowed away in his barns and stacks. His energies 
 demanded something more than a little sermon-writ 
 ing each week, and it was often remarked that the 
 harder he worked on the six days the more powerful 
 he was in prayer and exhortation on the seventh. 
 
 To be sure, when the weather was very "ketching," as 
 it often is in these hills, the doctor had been known to 
 wander a little in his discourse as his thoughts strayed off 
 to his exposed crop. He had even on occasion rushed 
 directly from the pulpit to the haying-field without 
 changing his coat, hurrying his men to get out the 
 wagons, and with his own strong arm pitching great 
 cocks upon the mountainous load, while the heavens 
 grew black and the thunder growled overhead. With all 
 his strenuous orthodoxy he was a firm believer in the 
 truth of the words of Jesus, that the Sabbath was made 
 for man. Indeed, all practical farmers, whether priests 
 
USE AND ABUSE OF TPIE "CREATURE." IQ 1 
 
 or laymen, are obliged to accept in their most literal 
 interpretation the words of the Master. If any of the 
 old women of the congregation, whose duty it is to watch 
 the pastor, complained of this laxity of practice in keep 
 ing the Lord s Day, the doctor quoted the parable of the 
 sheep fallen into the pit, and drew the conclusion that a 
 field of good grass is as well worth saving as a sheep. 
 As in those days most of the inembers of the First Parish 
 Church were farmers, with hay and grain of their own to 
 look to, this was accepted as a comfortable doctrine, 
 worthy of all honor. 
 
 Doctor Abijah kept a dining-room sideboard well 
 stocked with good liquor. All the well-to-do people in 
 the parish did the same, and as the parson was more 
 forehanded than any one else, he w#s of course justified in 
 laying in a stock of good old fourth-proof brandy and 
 venerable port. When he wished to incite his men to 
 unusual activity in the field, he sometimes dealt out to 
 them portions of old rye with his own hands ; it was well 
 known all over the parish that the doctor s liquor was of 
 the very best quality. This was before the days of the 
 Father Mathew and Washingtonian societies, and the doc 
 tor died before cold water, the sparkling and bright, came 
 much into fashion. He was a man who carefully guarded 
 himself against every excess. The " creature," as he 
 called it, was for use, not abuse, and he preached that 
 doctrine, hammering the pulpit cushion with his strong 
 fist until the dust flew out in a cloud. 
 
 In the old stone manse the doctor kept open house for 
 all his clerical brethren who came that way, and they did 
 manage to come in a pretty steady stream all the year 
 round. There was good eating and drinking in the 
 manse ; ministers have always been known to have a 
 cultivated taste in the culinary line. The doctor s oldest 
 daughter, Ruth, was the housekeeper. She had " put 
 up " a great number of the clergy, and she was wont to 
 
I9 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 say that she liked to see the poor brethren go away from 
 the manse door looking a little less gaunt and thin than 
 when they came. The manse kitchen was a reservoir of 
 bounty to the whole neighborhood. All the tramps and 
 itinerant beggars, all those who plied wandering trades, 
 the essence-man, the pack-peddler, the clock-mender, 
 the poor tinker, knew their way to that door where free 
 grace flowed out in the shape of liberal meals of good, 
 plain, wholesome food. For years a table was always 
 duly spread in that vast kitchen, with its great fireplace 
 and brick oven, for these chance guests, and not one day 
 in the year were they wanting. He who giveth to the 
 poor lendeth to the Lord ; Doctor Abijah s landings 
 were very large in this way, and seemed to bring in a 
 good interest, judging from his productive fields, and 
 bursting barns, and the fat cattle in his pastures. 
 
 This kitchen, in its way a special New England insti 
 tution, was well ruled by Ruth Manners, the Martha of 
 that family. The doctor s invalid wife occupied a large 
 upper chamber, where she was moved daily from the bed 
 to the couch, but never passed the door. Ruth, though 
 she was tall and stout, had incisive ways and a certain 
 subacid in her temper, which reminded one of the flavor 
 of her favorite summer pippins. There was also a 
 twinkle of humor which recalled the old man, and she 
 could give a hard thrust and administer a needed lesson 
 in a joke. Ruth said if she could not jest sometimes 
 between the ministers and the beggars, she would get the 
 " hypo," and the " hypo " above all things was the malady 
 she abhorred. She was endowed with all her father s 
 indomitable energy and took her theology in the same 
 strong unadulterated way. She was accounted a house 
 keeper of unrivaled excellence. Her worldliness and 
 other-worldliness were mixed in equal parts exactly like 
 Dr. Abijah s. She always took the lead in the female 
 prayer-meetings, and was considered to have a gift in 
 
MARTHA A. YD MARY OF SCRIPTl Rl:. 193 
 
 petitioning the throne of grace second to none. Ruth 
 kept an eye on all female delinquents in the parish, and 
 prodded their sins, great and small, in a way the customs 
 of our time would consider intrusive, if not indecent. 
 She made inquisition into consciences, and let the giddy 
 girls and foolish young matrons know that her sleepless 
 eye was upon them. She was, of ^course, disliked by 
 some, but the admirable way in which she seconded all 
 her father s endeavors to further the material and spiritual 
 interests of the community were gratefully acknowledged. 
 
 The Mary of Scripture was not wanting in the doctor s 
 family, although her name happened to be Hope. She 
 was the youngest child, the flower of the flock. Several 
 little ones had died between Hope and Ruth, and there 
 fore, even in her grown and matured state, she always 
 seemed a child to her energetic elder sister. Hope was 
 slender and fair, mild of speech, and with a still tongue. 
 Her life, much of it, had been spent in her mother s sick 
 room, where she read aloud books of an exclusively pious 
 tone. Though devoutedly religion^ Hope had none of 
 that taste for leadership, the public display of piety, 
 for which her sister was so well fitted. A touch of 
 sadness and dreamy melancholy clung to Hope from 
 having grown-up in that shaded sick-chamber and imbib 
 ing large doses of low-spirited religious literature, such 
 as Hervey s " Meditations Among the Tombs," a favorite 
 book with her invalid mother. Her active sister mean 
 time faced all the difficulties of the farm, and kitchen, 
 and dairy, and kept her weather eye out on the parish 
 with salutary results. 
 
 Hope perhaps had hardly dreamed of a lover. The 
 heavy hand of duty pressed down all the impulses of her 
 young nature, and she yielded without complaint. But 
 one season there came to the manse a young minister 
 who had just completed his course of study, and being 
 slightly run down in health, had been invited by Dr. 
 
194 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Abijah to spend a few weeks on the farm, and breathe 
 the pure air of the mountains. This young man was 
 entirely unknown to the family, but he soon became 
 domesticated in the great spare chamber where Ruth put 
 him to lodge. He had the run of the old doctor s library 
 and study, and the family found him a pleasant inmate. 
 He preached a few times in the parish meeting-house, 
 and some of the long-headed people even then predicted 
 for him a great career. To the old doctor, who plowed, 
 and harrowed, and top-dressed, and sub-soiled his ser 
 mons much as he did his land, this young man s enthusi 
 asm and strong convictions seemed a little too fervid and 
 high-colored. Still he liked him, and in time came to 
 look upon him almost in the light of a son. 
 
 The young man saw less of Hope than of other mem 
 bers of the household, but the glimpses he caught of her 
 pure young face and slender form tantalized him, and 
 made him desire to know her better. It was a little 
 strange that Hope, in that distant shaded chamber, so 
 unearthly in its quiet, always knew when he entered or 
 left the house, and learned to distinguish his step from 
 all others. It was before the days of muscular Christi 
 anity and athletic training, but the young minister did 
 occasionally take a turn in the field along with his father 
 in Israel, and manifestly to the improvement of his 
 health, and it was then he began to preach to Hope 
 about fresh air and the necessity of out-door exercise to 
 bring roses into her cheeks. The pale blush roses were 
 already there while she listened. Then began those 
 walks in a far-off old-fashioned summer time, when the 
 birds sang as sweetly as they do now walks through 
 the woods, along the river, and over Saddleback to the 
 cascade and the glen. He taught her a beautiful theo 
 logy spelled out of the flowers, and clouds, and sunbeams, 
 and one day in a pretty avenue of old trees, still known 
 as " Hope s Walk," he asked her to be his wife. 
 
HOPE S STRUGGLE. 195 
 
 But a terrible struggle had arisen in Hope s breast. 
 She was skilled in the morbid anatomy which belongs to 
 her peculiar phase of pietism and has always prevailed 
 in the Puritan land. Self-dissection had been for years 
 a favorite religious exercise with her nervous invalid 
 mother, and Hope knew all its torments. Could she 
 erect a mere mortal in the place of her God, when he 
 had heretofore ruled alone in her heart, and if so was it 
 right or possible to leave the ailing mother who had 
 lived on her affection and sapped her vitality from child 
 hood ? Poor Hope said no, said it with tears and trem 
 blings and unutterable pain. But after the young man 
 had gone away the futile passion of grief which swept 
 over her for weeks and months came near shattering her 
 life. It was after the physician had declared that he 
 could do nothing more for her that Hope, thinking she 
 was about to die, told all the sad little story to her father, 
 how she had learned to know her own heart, and how 
 she loved his young friend with all the intensity of 
 her nature. 
 
 Dr. Abijah, with his usual promptness, cut the Gordian 
 knot by sitting down and writing frankly and freely to 
 his young friend. He recounted the whole case up to 
 fifteenthly, and bade him come back. The mother, too, 
 sent him her blessing from her sick couch. It had been 
 borne in upon her. soul that she must give up Hope to 
 the chosen servant of the Lord, and she, though a poor 
 broken reed, was ready to obey. It was all couched in 
 rather stiff old-fashioned phrase, but it had a true heart 
 beat in it. The letter was sent off, and it was a long, 
 very long, time before the answer came the young 
 minister had been traveling about, preaching in different 
 places as " candidate " and poor Hope s sufferings were 
 hard to bear. At last it came. Dr. Abijah, a strong 
 man, with no knowledge of such a thing as a nerve in 
 his body, was visibly shaken when he took the letter from 
 
*9 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 the post-office, and carrying it out into the field with him 
 sat down on the stone-wall under a wide-spreading wal 
 nut tree, and opened its ample sheet of foolscap, sealed 
 with a great splash of red wax, and read. 
 
 His young friend had been placed in a terrible position. 
 His letter was kind, brotherly, Christian. It bore all the 
 marks of pain and deep feeling, but the truth must be 
 told : Before the doctor s letter had reached him he had 
 engaged himself to a dear friend of his sister, an early 
 playmate of his own. The doctor had done many a hard 
 stint of work, both in the home acre and in the pulpit, 
 but the hardest he ever had to do came to him that day 
 when he was forced to carry the news to his girl But 
 Hope, after a sharp attack of nervous prostration, was 
 apparently resigned. She grew more active in her habits 
 from that day, and went and prayed in the female prayer- 
 meeting, and paid visits to neighbors she had seldom 
 called upon. She even offered her assistance to Ruth in 
 the kitchen and dairy, and took some interest in the 
 animals on the farm. 
 
 Well, the old minister died, then Ruth, and finally the 
 weakly mother, and the " glebe " and the old manse were 
 left to Hope. She was a comparatively rich woman now. 
 There was no need of exertion, and she rented most of 
 the farm, reserving only the home-fields and " Hope s 
 Walk." Sitting in the shady old manse in those days, 
 Hope Manners heard echoes of the fame of the man 
 whom she had loved. The long-headed farmers had 
 been right. He had turned out a great preacher. She 
 sat and wondered in her gentle heart if she could not 
 secretly, in some humble way, help forward his cherished 
 aims. She longed to strike hands and keep step with 
 him, though he knew it not, in his life work. Stealthily 
 she poured out her bounty for that work, for she had 
 striven to find out all that he was doing, thinking, and 
 planning in the city where he lived. At last, when she 
 
HOPE S GOLD EX AFTERNOON. 19? 
 
 died and her will was opened, it was found she had left 
 him her fortune to further, as she put it, " some great 
 and good object of humanity on which his heart was set." 
 The villagers knew Hope had had one great chance in 
 life, and had lost it. They knew she was what the world 
 calls " disappointed." A tender romance clung about 
 her as the first love of a distinguished man. But she 
 was more than calm as she grew old, she was merry and 
 bright in her own gentle way. Always beautiful, she 
 grew more so as life advanced. Love had brought her 
 great suffering, but it had developed and ennobled her 
 nature. She had drunk of the wine of sacrifice, but she 
 had also tasted the bread of life, and her afternoon was 
 golden. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FASCINATING MRS. BRIDGENORTH. 
 
 WE are all very sensitive about the standing of our 
 village, and despise nearly every other town within 
 a radius of fifty miles. We have a great deal of public 
 spirit, and when a proposal was made to organize a fire 
 department and provide the village with a small engine 
 and hook and ladder company there was great enthusiasm 
 among the young men and boys. They soon formed a 
 fine company, with a pretty bright blue and white uniform 
 and shiny helmets. A fire very seldom occurs in the vil 
 lage, not more than once or twice a year. But the boys, 
 with their new and exciting toy of an engine, naturally 
 loved to see it work, and desired to run to a fire at least 
 once a week. The result was that hay-stacks, old sheds, 
 and some tumble-down barns and outhouses on the bor 
 ders of the town mysteriously burst into flames every few 
 nights, and the rush and hurrah boys of a fire alarm be 
 came so frequent that delicate women were thrown into 
 hysterics, and a few people with heart disease went off 
 with frightful suddenness. The magistrate was at last 
 obliged to lock the engine, hook and ladder and all, in 
 the engine-house and put the key in his pocket, in order 
 to save the village from utter destruction by fire, and to 
 prevent the people from going mad. 
 
 But this was all owing to the exuberance of youth. We 
 wisely shut our eyes to such boyish scrapes, and still 
 cherish the belief that we are a very moral, good sort of 
 people. But the sad fact remains that now when a real 
 fire breaks out in the village our engine refuses to spout 
 water, our hooks and ladders are practically useless, and 
 
EVILS THAT COME BY RAIL. 199 
 
 we are obliged to send off to a neighboring town for aid. 
 Still, as Providence loves to protect the innocent, and 
 virtue, as we know, is always rewarded in this world, fires 
 very rarely occur, and we have come to feel in our un 
 protected condition that we are special favorites of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Outwardly we are a very decent people. No gin-shops, 
 no disorder manifest, and if an intoxicated man appears 
 on the street we always know he came in on the railroad. 
 This is an idea cherished fondly by the old people of the 
 town. Every thing evil small-pox, diphtheria, measles, 
 extravagance, vanity, impiety, even the seven-year locusts 
 came in on the railroad. So, Heaven be thanked, most 
 of our intoxicated and disreputable persons, like stray 
 gipsies, organ-grinders, beggars, and tramps, do come in 
 on the railroad, and are * jugged by the watchful se 
 lectmen, who put them in a kind of human pound on the 
 confines of the village, where they are made to saw wood 
 in payment for a night s lodging and a meal or two, and 
 then are sent packing about their business or no business, 
 as the case may be. Did you ever think of it what an 
 admirable invention this is of getting rid of the evils of 
 life, just to send them packing, with a devil-may-care 
 indifference, until all the roads and lanes of the country 
 side are filled with irresponsible tramps, and lonely women 
 and feeble old people quake inwardly with the fear of 
 being murdered in their beds ? In spite of the " no 
 license" vote in our village and the closing of the rum- 
 shops, there are more than ten places known to the in 
 itiated where liquor can be obtained. This knowledge 
 has crystallized into a kind of secret society, whose 
 members give and take the grip and countersign. They 
 nod, wink, smile, and it all means one thing. Yet every 
 thing is outwardly quiet and orderly. People speak of 
 these little blemishes under the breath in a half 
 whisper. 
 
200 VILLAGE PJWl OGKAPHS. 
 
 With other evils which came in on the railroad must 
 be classed our summer boarders. The villagers have a 
 slight distrust of city people, and they think New Yorkers 
 a little more "dubious," than other tribes of urban folk. 
 I hardly know why, for a few persons from the metropo 
 lis have brought a good deal of money into the town, and 
 have been generous in contributing to the repair of the 
 church, to the library, and other public objects, and are 
 personally much respected. It is a vague feeling not 
 easy to define, and has been somewhat intensified of late 
 by a circumstance I am about to relate. The summer 
 people, in spite of our heavenly-minded innocence and 
 purity of manners, have their own complaint to make. 
 They say that when a stranger comes to the village with 
 a reputation for riches and all city folk are supposed to 
 be rich he is set upon by the neighboring Bedouins 
 exactly as if he were in the Arabian desert. Two prices 
 are charged for every thing he buys in the town. Every 
 bunch of asparagus, head of lettuce, and box of straw 
 berries, raised under his very eyes, is shamelessly put up 
 far above what they would cost in the city. The butcher 
 and fishman raise their wares fifty per cent. The livery- 
 stable keeper merrily elevates his charges to a fancy 
 figure for the worst old "plugs" ever seen. He would 
 be called a bloated monopolist, perhaps, as he is the only 
 liveryman we have, and, poor soul, his season is short. 
 But the blinded city man says he can get no idea of what 
 the natives pay for any thing. He is supposed to have a 
 gold mine in his pocket, and is a miserable object of 
 prey, and must betake himself to less primitive, pure- 
 minded, and bucolic neighborhoods in order to preserve 
 a shred of his faith in human nature. But these stories* 
 are mainly exaggerations. We are an extremely good 
 and honest people ; and if the New Yorker does not 
 know how to take us, it is his own fault. 
 
 Mrs. Martin is our best known boarding-house lady. 
 
./ BOARDING-HOUSE, LADY. 201 
 
 Her house, though comfortable, has not been much mod 
 ernized. She clings with faithful affection to her peniten 
 tial hair-cloth sofas and chairs, her big-patterned ingrain 
 carpets and slippery oil cloth. The most trying thing 
 about her Lares and Penates, which Mrs. Deacon Hil- 
 dreth calls " lairs and peanuts," are the photographs of 
 her dyspeptic, aggressive, low-spirited looking relatives 
 which in their black frames break out all over the walls, 
 and give a kind of measly look to the ugly wall paper. 
 Mrs. Martin is very bland. She has a slightly stuffed 
 look, from being puffy, and short of breath, and wearing 
 her dresses too much girt in at the waist. She dresses 
 her hair in the old-fashioned way brushed smoothly 
 over her ears as if glued to her skull, and fastened with 
 side-combs. The good woman talks about her boarders 
 as if she had boarded them as infants in arms, and had 
 brought them up by hand. She calls the ladies " my 
 dear," and pats the men on the back in a truly maternal 
 and encouraging manner. Though not the superior cook 
 that Aunt Dido is, she keeps her house in better order, 
 and is not troubled with any of the eccentricities of 
 genius which do sometimes perturb Aunt Dido s orbit. 
 
 Mr. Allibone, the cashier of the village bank, is Mrs. 
 Martin s pet boarder. She shows his room to new 
 comers as a model of all that a boarder s room should 
 be. The walls are decorated with numerous chromos. 
 It is, in fact, a chromo paradise. Mr. Allibone also has 
 a fancy for clocks, and he has six in different parts of the 
 room, all ticking away for dear life. The little gifts of 
 his sisters, nieces, cousins, and aunts are all ranged 
 around his bureau, and dusted daily by his own careful 
 hands. There are pen-wipers, shaving-paper cases, pin 
 cushions painted, frilled, and embroidered scent bot 
 tles tied up in ribbons, handkerchief-cases, and glove- 
 boxes, all dear to the good little "man s heart. He is an 
 excellent bank officer, and would be trusted with untold 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 sums of money, but he is mildly laughed at by the girls, and 
 as he has, until of late, for a good many years evinced no 
 intention to marry, little romantic or sentimental interest 
 has attached to his small, neat person. His little feet 
 and nice hands are as pretty- as a fine lady s. His hair 
 sets up brusquely from his head in front, and there is 
 something clerkly and exact in all his movements. A 
 self-importance attaches to his walk and gestures. He 
 feels the bank to be the center of the village, and he, as 
 the cashier of said bank, is the hub toward which all the 
 spokes of the wheel converge. He carries the bank 
 around with a certain dignity, and does not like big, 
 loud-voiced men who have no respect for under-sized 
 people ; for there is always the present fear that these 
 rough persons may jostle the bank from off his shoulders, 
 and leave him in his own native insignificance. He is 
 painfully methodical and always uses his white handker 
 chief with a certain explosion, called by the village 
 people " trumpeting," just as he reaches Mrs. Martin s 
 gate. 
 
 I think Mr. Ailibone had always been a good deal 
 afraid of the lady boarders until Mrs. Bridgenorth came 
 early one spring, and she was so seductive in her manner, 
 poor Mr. Ailibone succumbed to the charm almost with 
 out a struggle. No one knew just who Mrs. Bridge- 
 north was, although on her arrival early in March she 
 had mentioned a certain Hon. Mr. Farrington, member 
 of Congress from another state, as her brother-in-law. 
 Farrington was pretty well known by reputation, and Mrs. 
 Martin was very glad to let her best room to so distin 
 guished a " party " long before the opening of the regu 
 lar season. Mrs. Bridgenorth dressed in deep black, 
 with a good deal of heavy crepe on her gown and a long 
 sweeping veil pinned to a little close bonnet, within 
 which she wore a very becoming widow s cap. She often 
 tied a large quantity of crisp white illusion under her 
 
SNARES AXD PITFALLS. 203 
 
 chin, and placed a large bunch of violets in the beautifully 
 fitting bodice of her gown. As Mrs. Bridgenorth s 
 complexion was fine, this mode of dress attracted more 
 attention than brilliant colors. Without being strictly 
 handsome she had many of the elements of beauty an 
 elegant small figure, fine eyes, and perfect teeth. Her 
 nose, however, was somewhat sharp, and her light hair 
 under the widow s cap had a lifeless, towy look, with a 
 suspicion of the bleaching process. She was much 
 younger at a little distance than close at hand, and 
 though our villagers are so simple-minded, some of them 
 thought they detected traces of rouge about the lady s 
 cheek-bones. 
 
 The widow had the purring, caressing, kittenish ways 
 of a small woman, who has enjoyed no end of admira 
 tion and petting. Her dear Rolf, as she called her 
 departed husband, had spoiled her, and made her shame 
 fully dependent. She ingratiated herself with good Mrs. 
 Martin, fashioned for her a new cap from lace and rib 
 bon, and fairly bewitched the old lady out of all ordinary 
 prudence. At that early season there were no other 
 boarders. Mrs. Martin set out a charming little round 
 dinner and tea-table for two, and across this small board 
 Mrs. Bridgenorth made eyes at good little Mr. Allibone. 
 She told him how she had lost a fine fortune by the 
 speculations of a rascally trustee, having saved out of 
 the wreck only a paltry hundred thousand ; how her two 
 children, Paul and May, were at boarding-school, and 
 what sweet creatures they were. She had come to the 
 village, she said, because she needed rest and quiet. She 
 was an ardent lover of nature, and her hope was to hide 
 herself and her troubles far away from people, among 
 these restful hills, and here she had found such charm 
 ing society " Oh, so charming," and she clasped her 
 hands impulsively, as she gazed into poor little Allibone s 
 face. He was near-sighted, and wore spectacles, and 
 
204 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 although he was considered an excellent judge of doubt 
 ful currency, how could he tell that Mrs. Bridgenorth 
 was not all pure gold as she sat there weaving her little 
 spell, and every now and then throwing in a word or two 
 about the Hon. Farrington and her other distinguished 
 connections ? She looked young and charming when 
 her eyes sparkled, and the sinister lines in her face and 
 the meaning curl of her lip were not as easy for an 
 experienced cashier to detect as the false ring in a coun 
 terfeit dollar. 
 
 Mrs. Bridgenorth pervaded the whole house. She 
 arranged flowers in the clumsy old-fashioned vases ; she 
 taught Mrs. Martin how to make salads and sauces ; she 
 re-arranged the furniture in the sitting-room and parlor, 
 and skipped and chirped and rustled up stairs and down. 
 Poor Mr. Allibone was living an enchanted life in those 
 days. The rows of figures in his bank books danced 
 before his eyes, and seemed to be set to music, while 
 they tied themselves up into true lover s knots. Mrs. 
 Bridgenorth was so assured and self-possessed, so much 
 the mistress of the situation, she always knew just what 
 to do, while he grew ever more timid and backward. 
 She took him out walking at times as if he had been a 
 lap-dog tied to a chain, and when they came back she 
 always wore the wild flowers he had gathered for her in 
 a great breast-knot on her black gown. Being the most 
 methodical of men, when he mislaid a paper one day a 
 clerk asked him if he were ill. He had not lost many 
 hours sleep at night for twenty years, but now he was 
 often tossing about in the darkness, with broken visions 
 floating before his eyes, in which he saw the widow in all 
 her attitudes and expressions, the glance of her eye, the 
 way she used her hands, and the glitter of her rings ; her 
 voice and accent came back, and those charming confi 
 dences, when she told him of her loneliness, her need of 
 sympathy, her dependence, and how ill-fitted she was to 
 
"A FAV WO MAX, BY JOVE" 205 
 
 go through life without a protector. For so staid and 
 orderly a man his dreams and visions were of the 
 wildest. 
 
 Mrs. Bridgenorth went to church every Sunday, and 
 when the plate was passed she always folded a crisp new 
 greenback with her beautifully gloved ringers, and dropped 
 it deftly within. In time all the best people called upon 
 her, and she was freely invited to the mild dissipations of 
 the village. If she yawned a little behind her fan over 
 these rather diluted excitements, she was still gracious. 
 She was not " bookish," and she had not much conver 
 sation certainly with women, but it was a study to see 
 how she dressed and moved. Judge Magnus pronounced 
 her a fine woman, by Jove, and passed one or two even 
 ings with her talking over Washington life, where it 
 seemed she spent a part of each season. He thought it 
 very odd he had never met the delightful widow, but 
 then you know she had been in deep mourning for a few 
 years past. Mrs. Magnus patronized her, took her out 
 driving in her carriage, and made a dinner-party espe 
 cially for her benefit. Mrs. Magnus prided herself on her 
 penetration. The feeling was pretty general that Mrs. 
 Bridgenorth had come excellently well recommended. 
 It was one of those social myths which, though founda- 
 tionless, are easily spread abroad. 
 
 The widow occasionally dropped into the bank, and 
 offered checks drawn on a city bank where she kept an 
 account. Her checks, though generally small, were 
 always duly honored. 
 
 It was about the middle of April, and Mrs. Martin had 
 gone to spend the day with a sick relative, and had left 
 the house entirely at her lady boarder s disposal. It 
 was just at this time that poor Mr. Allibone had decided 
 to take a great step in life. He had slept but little for 
 the past week. Mr. Allibone said to himself that it was 
 his duty to take this step, for had she not told him she 
 
206 r ILL AGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 was alone in the world, that she needed a protector ? 
 Had she not asked his advice, in the sweetest way, about 
 the education of her children and the management of her 
 estate ? Allibone felt it would be unmanly not to come 
 to this charming woman s aid, even at the sacrifice of all 
 his bachelor habits. On this particular morning she rose 
 early, and when she had kissed Mrs. Martin good-by with 
 effusion, she went to her room, and stealing about on tip 
 toe packed her trunk swiftly and carefully. This busi 
 ness completed, she put on her bonnet, locked the door 
 of her chamber, and walked down to the bank, where, with 
 an easy and confident air, she offered the paying teller 
 a check for one thousand dollars, drawn by the Hon. Mr. 
 Farrington to her order. The clerk looked at it with some 
 curiosity. It was a different kind of check and for a 
 much larger amount than any she had ever offered before. 
 He scrutinized it a moment, and then handed it to the 
 cashier. " I suppose, of course, this is all right." Alli 
 bone, with his heart in his mouth, came to the window. 
 The widow smiled on him enchantingly. " You know," 
 she said lightly, " Mr. Farrington is the guardian of my 
 children. He has sent me this quarterly check to pay 
 for their education." She was wearing the flowers he 
 had given her the night before. It did not occur to him 
 to show the least doubt, or to make an inquiry even, and 
 with his own hands he counted out the money in bills of 
 a large denomination. She thanked him and said ex 
 pressively : 
 
 " Mrs. Martin is absent to-day. Come home early, and 
 we shall have a tete-a-tete dinner." His heart gave a 
 leap ; it was then he meant to take the step. 
 
 Mrs. Bridgenorth strolled out of the bank and crossed 
 the street to the livery-stable. She engaged one of 
 Haines s easiest carnages for a morning drive. Haines 
 promised to have the carriage at the house inside of ten 
 minutes. She went home and sat down by the parlor 
 
THE WIDOWS DRIVE. 2Q^ 
 
 window waiting with her things on. Haines was late as 
 usual, and her hands closed with a nervous effort at self- 
 control, and her face grew pinched and old and sharp 
 with anxiety. The carriage came at last, but Mike the 
 Irishman was not driving ; young Haines had taken his 
 place. However, she went out to the gate and said in 
 her easiest way: "I am sending off a small trurk by 
 express. Won t you be kind enough to bring it down 
 from my room, and then drive me over to the station ? " 
 The cook in the kitchen with some surprise caught a 
 glimpse of Mrs. Bridgenorth just as she was shutting the 
 hack door. Mrs. Bridgenorth had intended to bribe 
 Irish Mike to drive her at double-quick to the station. 
 She dared not attempt such a thing with young Haines, 
 so she sat in a state of cold, benumbed dread until the 
 station was reached. Then she leaped out of the car 
 riage and rushed forward. The twelve o clock train was 
 just on the point of moving out. An instant more, and 
 she would have lost it. To his utter bewilderment young 
 Haines saw the conductor and brakeman lift Mrs. Bridge- 
 north on to the platform of the car, while two baggage 
 men ran and seized her trunk and dashed it on board. 
 
 In less than three hours poor Mr. Allibone was going 
 wildly about with his hands to his head, dazed and lost. 
 The teller, who had had his suspicions, applied to the 
 telegraph, and it sent back the dreadful news that the 
 one thousand dollar check was a skillful forgery. There 
 were no funds in the bank belonging to the Hon. R. Far- 
 rington. " Well," said Judge Magnus when the excitement 
 was seething, " we are all in the same boat." She had left 
 an unpaid board-bill of six weeks with Mrs. Martin, she 
 had run up an account with Haines, and had neglected 
 to pay her washer-woman. 
 
 But they were not all in the same boat. Poor Mr. 
 Allibone was in a little boat of his own. He was hit 
 very hard, and was obliged to go away on a six months 
 
208 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 leave of absence to recruit. When he came back he was 
 but the shadow of his former self. It did not affect him 
 much, at a later day, to learn that Mrs. Bridgenorth had 
 been arrested as a notorious confidence woman. His 
 little world of illusion and dreams had been rudely 
 shattered to pieces, and to a middle-aged man of steady 
 habits that means disaster. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A STAGE-STRUCK GIRL. 
 
 THERE are days, though we know not where the 
 mysterious influences come from, that restring every 
 nerve and fiber in the body ; and we tingle all over with 
 pleasurable excitement and energy. The west wind 
 blows and our mountain breezes join merrily in the 
 fray, bringing the scent of fir woods, the perfume of 
 meadows, and the honied sweetness of clover fields. 
 Small violet clouds float high in the air and melt into 
 ether, as soap-bubbles vanish before the eyes of a happy 
 child. All the trees rustle like innumerable fine ladies 
 in stiff brocade, turning up the white edges of their 
 leaves, while the light is thrown off in sparkles from the 
 green surface, and the shadows lie cool and long on the 
 dewy grass shaven by the lawn-mower. The village 
 street is a beautiful arched bower woven close with 
 leaves and boughs, and through gaps in the covered roof 
 birds fly in and out. The brown road is dappled with 
 great patches of light and shade, and some of the denser 
 trees look black in the sunshine. Saddleback and the 
 lesser hills have come out of the spring haze, and glow 
 with resplendent azure and rose, that breathing color 
 that appears to envelop a living form, and seems to wave 
 and change under the movements of a soul. 
 
 On such a morning, when the honeysuckle and white 
 cluster roses are just ready to bloom around the low 
 windows and brown porches of her little house, Mrs. 
 Maria Dalrymple loves to work in her garden early in 
 the day before the sun gets round to the great horse- 
 
210 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 chestnut that shades the rear of her house, and throws 
 its protecting coolness over the garden and flower-beds. 
 Mrs. Mariar, as her friends call her, has a great taste 
 for roses, and cultivates with success some of the im 
 proved fashionable varieties, with which she has made 
 acquaintance through the newspapers and florists cata 
 logues. You should hear her talk learnedly of her 
 "Catherine Mermaids," and "Marshal O Neals," and 
 " Jack Motts." For Mrs. Mariar has not the remotest 
 idea how these names are pronounced nor what they 
 mean. 
 
 Her old garden is a charming place, turfy and cool, 
 with straight rows of currant and gooseberry bushes, and 
 a delightful mixture of new-time and old-time flowers. 
 It has clumps of trees in the corners, and the bushes are 
 picturesque in contrast with the neatly-kept vegetable 
 beds and the brilliant flowers. Mrs. Mariar, when she is 
 working in the garden, looks singularly tall and gaunt. 
 Her cotton dress-skirt falls in straight parallel folds, and 
 she appears to have a patent hinge in her back, about the 
 lower part of her spine, very convenient for digging with 
 trowel or garden-hoe. At church and tea-parties, and 
 even at home, when dressed for company, she is quite a 
 different looking person. Then she puts on what she 
 calls her " vanities and falsities," consisting of a " front" 
 and " switch " of false hair, stays, a bustle, starched 
 petticoats, and other inventions by which a gaunt female 
 form is ingeniously padded and shaped into the approved 
 ideal of feminine comeliness. There is a fiction in the 
 mind of Mrs. Mariar that no one ever sees her without 
 her " vanities and falsities," except her own folks and her 
 nearest neighbors, who, of course, don t count, while the 
 fact is she is hardly ever seen by any one except as that 
 vision of long, meager, unpadded womanhood in a 
 straight calico gown, and with skimpy gray locks brushed 
 behind her large ears. She keeps up the same illusion 
 
SSSS Y. 211 
 
 about her mourning for her last husband (she has had 
 two, neither of them good for much). When she goes to 
 meeting or abroad on visiting duty, she wears her crepe 
 and bombazine. But during the greater part of her 
 work-a-day life her widow s weeds are laid aside in her 
 bedroom along with her other " falsities and vanities." 
 
 Mrs. Mariar keeps a cow on her little place and sells 
 milk to some of her neighbors. The milk is carried 
 about by her nephew Alick, the boy of her dead sister 
 whom she has raised. Alick s sister, known to every 
 body in the village as Sissy, has also lived with her aunt 
 from childhood. Sissy needs none of those vanities and 
 falsities which Mrs. Mariar uses to produce a youthful 
 appearance. She has a charmingly plump little figure, 
 well filled out in every respect, and a pretty face, framed 
 in curly hair, which she wears boy-fashion. It must be 
 confessed Sissy has always been something of a trial to 
 her aunt, for she has as much spirit and independence as 
 most American girls, and is rather pert from being over 
 praised and petted. Moreover, her head was turned a 
 year ago by what Mrs. Mariar calls the play-acting 
 mania. Sissy once, on a visit to some relatives in a dis 
 tant city, was taken to the theater a few times, and being 
 young and very impressionable imbibed a passion for the 
 stage. She also read of Mary Anderson and other 
 " stars," who have come up from small beginnings to be 
 the darlings of the footlights. So on her return home the 
 old pleasures and duties of life had lost their charm. Sissy 
 dreamed waking and sleeping of those enchanting scenes 
 in the theater, and the idea for the time took possession 
 of her soul that she was destined to become a great tragic 
 actress. Poor Mrs. Mariar, moving in her narrow do 
 mestic world with treadmill steadiness, thought the girl 
 was bewitched. For Sissy put on grand airs, walked with 
 a stage strut, and, like Mrs. Siddons speared an innocent 
 potato as if she were stabbing a perjured villain, and 
 
L 
 
 212 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 spoke in deep chest-tones. She also took to practicing 
 elocution in the barn, to the surprise of the hens and 
 chickens, and the disapprobation of Betty, the cow. 
 Moreover, she had persuaded Alick to learn parts and 
 practice with her in tragic pieces, and had almost upset 
 the poor lad and made his school studies seem perfectly 
 flat and distasteful. They sat together in the barn-swing 
 at moments when Sissy deigned to put off her high 
 tragic buskin, and with arms intertwined, and taking 
 alternate bites out of the same apple, while the light stole 
 in dimly through the high barn window, they talked of 
 " starring " it together all over the country, of making 
 heaps of money and crowning themselves with deathless 
 fame. Poor Mrs. Mariar, when she found out what was 
 going on, scolded and stormed terribly. She boxed 
 Alick s ears and sent him to bed without his supper ; but 
 she could not do the same with Sissy, who was stronger 
 than she was, with wrists like steel, and who openly 
 defied her. Finally, after shedding floods of tears, she 
 sent for her brother Silas. 
 
 For a girl like Sissy, blessed with an ardent, devoted, 
 constant lover, such conduct was certainly reprehensible. 
 Her bond slave, Rufus Clover, was a young farmer, inde 
 pendent in maens, and belonging to the old farm aristoc 
 racy of the country side. He was very good-looking, and 
 had received a fine education. His sisters could see noth 
 ing at all admirable in Sissy, and could not understand his 
 infatuation. But then, brothers do not marry to please 
 their sisters. Sissy played with Rufus as a frisky kitten 
 plays with a mouse. At times she threw him off with a 
 cuff of her velvet paw, and then she drew him quite close 
 to her with gentle and captivating coyness. But one in 
 watching her maneuvers could hardly help believing 
 that in the end she would scratch his eyes out. 
 
 Brother Silas lived in a neighboring town, but he did 
 most of his trading, bartering, and dickering in the vil- 
 
HOMERIC SWAGGER. 213 
 
 lage. Horse-dealing was his main vocation, and he might 
 often be seen speeding through Main Street, a new colt 
 attached to a sulky wherein he sat with his feet braced 
 wide apart, his whole being, to the rakish set of his old 
 slouched hat, redolent of the horse-jockey. His nags 
 always kicked up a terrible dust as they rushed past, and 
 the clatter of the sulky wheels warned every one to keep 
 out of the way. This speeding of a new colt at a two- 
 forty pace was a pieee of swagger, a direct challenge to 
 timid buyers, like the brag of old Homeric heroes when 
 they came out in front of the lines and defied the cow 
 ardly foe with endless self-vauntings. It was a method 
 very exciting to rash people who wished to "swap " or 
 purchase a horse, and before night Silas was almost 
 always able to sell his new animal at a pretty large 
 advance on what he had paid for it. Sometimes he took 
 another horse with good " boot." He had a way of cast 
 ing a glamour about horse-flesh peculiarly his own. It 
 was even said he could make an old rackabones look 
 plump and youthful by some sort of magic known only 
 to himself. A spavined, halt, wind-broken creature 
 would under his manipulations come out for the time 
 being as sound as a roach. Kickers, shyers, and balky 
 nags beneath his hands were like lambs. When people 
 had been bitten by Silas in a bargain they generally said 
 nothing about it, for we all know misery loves company. 
 And in this way he continued to drive a flourishing trade 
 in the village long after his character was perfectly well 
 understood. 
 
 Aside from the tricks of his own trade, Brother Silas 
 was a very exemplary man, a " -professor " and church 
 member in good and regular standing, and a thorough 
 teetotaler. His word could be trusted about almost any 
 thing except a horse. He knew no more of vain and 
 worldly amusements than an infant in arms. He was 
 red-haired, and his two eyes never seemed to focus prop- 
 
2 *4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 erly ; due, I suppose, to squinting around all kinds of 
 horses in his double-dealings. When he came to visit 
 Sister Mariar he always tilted his chair back against the 
 side of the kitchen, and rested his head upon the spot it 
 had made on the wall-paper on former occasions. After 
 a few minutes he stealthily took out his jack-knife, a 
 huge, murderous-looking instrument with a horn handle, 
 and on the sly began to cut notches in the edge of 
 Mariar s old wooden kitchen chair" upon which he was 
 seated. The edge of the chair-bottom looked like a fine- 
 toothed saw, owing to the little bits he had furtively taken 
 out of it when Mariar was not looking. She never ap 
 peared to notice the way Silas carved up her furniture, 
 but she seldom allowed him to sit in the parlor, for fear 
 that in a fit of absent-mindednes he might begin to work 
 on the mahogany. 
 
 Silas was a good brother and an affectionate uncle, if 
 he did leave his mark on the chairs. Now, when Sissy was 
 brought in to receive his admonitions he sat tilted back 
 as usual, with his sanguinary-looking jack-knife in his 
 hand. " Why, Sissy," he began, in a soft, coaxing voice, 
 as he gazed fondly at the pretty delinquent before him, 
 " I ve knowed you ever sense you were knee-high to a 
 grasshopper. I ve knowed you like a book, Sissy, and I 
 can t believe what I ve heard tell, that you want to take to 
 play-actin , Sissy. It s out of all natur , and it s ag in 
 Scriptur . The ministers preach ag in play-actin regular 
 as they do ag in intemperance. There s always been 
 horsemen in our family as far back as we ve knowed, 
 but there never was a play-actor. We take as natural to 
 the horse business as a fish takes to water ; but as to this 
 play-actin , Sissy, it beats all, it beats all ; " and Silas, 
 unable to express the enormity of his niece s turpitude, 
 shut his eyes and leaned back against the wall, with 
 his red head exactly in the middle of the spot he had 
 made on the paper. 
 
LADY MACBETH. 215 
 
 Sissy looked defiant and just ready to cry. She was 
 undeniably pretty, and pouting did not detract from her 
 charms. Silas in his soft heart felt the penetrating fem 
 inine influence. He could not be harsh with Sissy. He 
 had named his best roan colt after her ; how could he ? 
 
 " It all comes from Aunt Mariar," cried Sissy, breaking 
 into sobs. " She s been making a time because I want to 
 to im-p-rove myself in el-el-ocution." 
 
 Mariar was already in tears, with her apron to her 
 eyes, quite oblivious of her "vanities and falsities." 
 " You don t know how she s carried on, Silas ; you can t 
 ever imagine ; and she has bewitched Alick with this 
 fool business. I caught her twice in the barn, dressed up 
 in a pair of my best sheets, acting Lady Macbeth. She 
 was telling Alick to stab somebody, and I thought there 
 would be bloody murder." 
 
 Silas opened his eyes. " Lady Macbeth ? Who is she, 
 Mariar ? " 
 
 " Why, don t you know, Silas ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course," Silas replied ; though he had not 
 the smallest conception. He remembered reading of a 
 Kentucky horse named Lady Macbeth, but this only 
 served to muddle his brain worse than ever. 
 
 " And there s that Hamlet" resumed the lamenting 
 Mariar, as if the melancholy Dane were an obnoxious 
 neighbor. " She s filled Alick s head with him, and he 
 goes spouting verses all over the house." 
 
 Silas was terribly befogged in regard to Hamlet, but 
 he thought it best not to say any thing before Sissy, only 
 he opened one eye and shook his head dismally, at the 
 same time taking a furtive notch out of the chair and 
 then clicking the blade of his knife with a sharp explosive 
 noise. " Don t give way, Mariar ; brace up," he did 
 venture to remark soothingly, as if " giving way " re 
 ferred to her stays or possibly to some part of her bony 
 structure, 
 
2l VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 But Mariar did give way, and quite in a new place. 
 Seeing Sissy look obdurate and hard, she broke forth 
 with a touch of spitefulness Silas could not approve. 
 
 " And there s Rufe Clover as forehanded, good-prin 
 cipled a young man as there is in the country. She has 
 treated Rufe like a dog ; beckonin him on, then shovin 
 him off at her pleasure smilin and frownin for a whole 
 year ; and Rufe is sich a soft-hearted fool he keeps a fol 
 lowing her, whether she gives him a cuff or a pat on the 
 head." 
 
 " Most of us are durned fools some time in our lives, 
 Mariar. Jest so with horses. The stiddiest of them will 
 have a flounce now and then. I wouldn t give a red con 
 tinental for a man who hadn t made a fool of himself once 
 or twice in his life. Wasn t it old Solomon as said there s 
 a time for every man to make a fool of himself ? " 
 
 " I don t take no stock in Solomon," remarked Mrs. 
 Mariar gloomily. 
 
 Sissy, though sulky and in a semi-showery April-like 
 condition, looked more charming than ever, and Silas 
 felt his heart giving way under the influence of her 
 beauty. He puckered his lips to whistle, though he 
 made no sound, and occasionally he clicked the blade of 
 his jack-knife to keep himself up to the right pitch as a 
 moral monitor. 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Mariar, breaking silence, "the first 
 thing we know she will run off on a play-actin spree, and 
 like as not she will take Alick with her. I think I shall 
 have to lock her up for a few days in the store chamber, 
 until she gets some of this nonsense out of her head." 
 
 " No, no," said Uncle Silas deprecatingly. " Don t do 
 that. Come here, Sissy," and he took the little, soft, 
 plump hand in his own big brown one, while his heart 
 felt ridiculously weak. " Now, Sissy, you ain t agoin to do 
 any thing rash, and your Aunt Mariar she ain t agoin to 
 do any thing ha sh, I ain t agoin to do any thing ha sh 
 
MRS. MARIAR IN HOT WATER. 217 
 
 either. I m opposed to ha shness. I always say you can 
 do more with a fractious pony by rubbing its nose and 
 ears than you can by pounding its back." 
 
 A smile began to peep out of Sissy s bright eyes, and 
 Silas winked back, as much as to say, "We know how to 
 manage that old filly Mariar, excellent old creature that 
 she is." 
 
 " We ain t going to tie you up in the stall," Silas re 
 sumed, " or hopple you with a log of wood, or any thing 
 of the kind. We are jest going to treat you kind and 
 give you your six quarts of oats regular, until you get 
 over this play-actin nonsense, and treat Rufe Clover as 
 you should." 
 
 " I guess Rufe won t suffer," said Sissy, with a pretty 
 toss of her head, and she went out of the room. 
 
 In less than three weeks Mariar, who, as Silas said, 
 was by nature always in hot water, sent over in great dis 
 tress for her brother. He found her, like a female Jere 
 miah, in the midst of lamentations. Sissy had run off 
 sure enough, and had taken Alick with her, and the 
 house was in a terrible state. The breakfast things were 
 standing on the table in the middle of the floor, and it 
 was past three in the afternoon. Mrs. Mariar had missed 
 them both very early in the morning, and since that time 
 she had enlisted the neighbors aid, and had done what 
 she could to get on the track of the fugitives and have 
 them brought back. Her fears of late had been much al 
 layed by the constant visits of young Clover, whose affair 
 with Sissy seemed at the time to be progressing to a 
 happy conclusion. All this Silas learned between floods 
 of tears and the outpouring of a torrent of reproaches on 
 his own head. Poor Silas had counseled moderation and 
 gentleness, and now see what had come of it. He forgot 
 even to take his accustomed place by the wall or to get 
 out his soothing and companionable jack-knife. 
 
 But just at dark a neighbor riding by brought a tele- 
 
2i8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 gram over from the station. It read thus : " Mr. and 
 Mrs. Rufus Clover will be home by the eight o clock 
 train." 
 
 " I vum," cried Uncle Silas, starting up joyfully, " if 
 she ain t gone and married him on the sly. She jest did 
 it to give you a turn, Mariar ; and she took Alick with 
 her as a blind. The plaguey little jade ! She s a smart 
 one, Mariar. Chain lightnin ain t nothin to Sissy. A 
 colt with that there cunning disposition would be worth a 
 thousand dollars. Come on, Mariar, let s cut a pigeon- 
 wing. Were both of us * professors and church mem 
 bers, but the folks will never know it." 
 
 When the newly-married couple arrived the first 
 words Rufus Clover said were : " Well, Mrs. Dalrymple, 
 Sissy made me run away with her and get married. She 
 said she would not have me otherwise." 
 
 And yet I don t suppose Sissy had ever heard of Miss 
 Lydia Languish. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SHIFTLESS JABEZ. 
 
 BURNT PIGEON is a semi-deserted hamlet a few 
 miles from the village, at the termination of one of 
 the most beautiful drives in the country. The road ends 
 there. Civilization ends there. It is the jumping-off place 
 of life, enterprise, and good living. The hamlet clusters 
 like an aggregation of cells in a wasps nest round an old 
 abandoned iron mine. At one time, some twenty-five or 
 thirty years ago, it was thought we were to become a vast 
 iron-producing region, and visions of suddenly-acquired 
 wealth rose before the minds of the quiet villagers. Land 
 rose to fabulous prices and village real estate was quoted 
 at a large advance. Misguided people dreamed of a min 
 iature dingy, smoky Pittsburg on the borders of our lazy 
 little river. But, thank heaven, there was no available 
 water-power for smelting-furnaces and rolling-mills ; the 
 ore proved very stubborn and hard to work ; and the dis 
 tance from a large market rendered its transportation too 
 expensive to make the working profitable. So, after some 
 years of experimenting, after digging shafts, and throwing 
 a great deal of money into them, the Burnt Pigeon mine 
 and Burnt Pigeon mining village were abandoned by the 
 owners, and we shrank back into our native blissful state 
 of insignificance, with only five or six lines in the ga 
 zetteer. 
 
 Why the mine was called Burnt Pigeon nobody knew. 
 The name has now been degraded to Pidgin. After the 
 miners went away their miserable houses were taken in 
 possession of vagrants and tramps, those loose elements 
 
220 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of gipsydom, which gather about such places like crows 
 in a newly- planted corn-field. Occasionally the sheriff 
 makes a raid upon Pidgin to look for a stolen horse, or a 
 petty thief, but though the hamlet bears rather a hard 
 name, being lawless, godless and schoolless, like all such 
 nests of wandering folk, the truth is, that the Pidginites 
 are far better than could be expected, considering the 
 communal freedom they enjoy. Now and then the doc 
 tor or minister is called up there the one to heal the 
 living, the other to bury the dead. Some religious young 
 men in the village tried to establish a Sunday-school in 
 Pidgin, but it failed, partly because the population is 
 always shifting, and partly because the place is difficult 
 of access in bad weather. 
 
 The road which runs curving about the mountain-flank 
 washes easily in heavy storms, owing to the friable nature 
 of the soil mixed with loose stones. There are several 
 water-courses and small cataracts on the mountain-side, 
 and an impetuous thunder-shower in the spring or autumn 
 sets them foaming and tearing down into the valley, up 
 rooting trees and moving large bowlders in their course. 
 Occasionally in the winter, Pidgin has been literally dug 
 out of snow banks like sheep buried in the Scotch High 
 lands. The wretched handful of people would certainly 
 suffer for food at times if some of the men were not skill 
 ful hunters, very successful in snaring small animals, and 
 in fishing in the remotest brooks, the secret of whose 
 wild deep trout-pools is known only to themselves. The 
 road to Pidgin gradually lifts you up to a higher plane, 
 the air becomes sweeter, the sunlight more joyous and 
 youthful. You smell the sweet-fern mingled with the per 
 fume of balsam, and up and up you go until you feel like 
 a fly on the ceiling. Great hemlock boughs sweep abruptly 
 down and brush across the wagon top. Giant pines arise 
 with their columnar stems over yellow earth carpets, 
 framing in long galleries of pictures. YOU hear the tink- 
 
ODD NAMES OF PIDGINITES. 22t 
 
 ling of cow-bells just below you. The grass meadows are 
 so close to the base of the hill their perfume comes floating 
 up the wall of rocks. Large bowlders beautifully colored 
 and moss-grown, lie close to the steep descent, and be 
 tween them grow juniper bushes, sassafras trees, arbor 
 vitae, bunches of feather-fern, wild raspberry and black 
 berry bushes, the wild honeysuckle and azalea, and great 
 colonies of hedge-roses. The whole road, all the way up, 
 to Pidgin, is bordered by a natural garden, with here and 
 there a gadding grape-vine, which clambers into a tree to 
 make the picture more like the Italian Apennines. 
 
 Probably the doctor knows more about the ways of life 
 at Pidgin than any one else. Children are born up there 
 occasionally, and several of them have been named John 
 Rivington, much to the amusement of the doctor s friends. 
 The name is generally sandwiched in between others 
 more or less high-sounding and absurd. The so-called 
 Christian names of the Pidginites are among the stock 
 stories the village people always tell to strangers. One 
 of the girls up there is simply called Queen Victoria 
 Columbia Alleluia the last name not given from irrever 
 ence, but from sheer ignorance. Another child is doomed 
 to bear about with her the heavy weight of Guy Fawkes 
 Dunleath Howard Sarsaparilla Jones. Where Guy 
 Fawkes was picked up it is impossible to say. A boy, 
 in the fervor of patriotism, is entitled Brave Gen. Grant, 
 William T. Sherman Fish. To each one of his name 
 sakes the doctor presents a Bible, with name inscribed 
 on the fly-leaf, and a small sum of money. It is known 
 that he buys the Bibles by the dozen of the American 
 Bible Society, and of late he has taken to giving out the 
 new version, as he wishes the little John Rivingtons to 
 be brought up on the pure milk of the Word. 
 
 Last year the doctor was selectman, and he had his 
 eye severely on all tramps, beggars, disreputable and 
 lawless persons. The mixture of hardness and tender- 
 
 
fee* right, cv allow aaj miscreant to go 
 
 ::t, : _: it .. ri^:t ii- .^. ;r_r: .:: 
 
 i.~ i: i :n- r^ rut 
 
 j. " j. I ~" ^ 
 
 cad, sat a lean, 
 
 -i. i-i -i : x 
 
 7 rf 
 
 iblcd with a hoUov coogii. .A. haodkcfciiicf 
 
 : :r: r.t.ii. iri ::;- :^e -17 it: ;::: : 
 i: _: it: ft-t: .: ~^ r~.iti: ::i: sir ri 
 
 itii :: i 
 
 Br the wtman s side 
 
" THE FOLKS TOOK A PREJUDICE" -^5 
 
 dies of sticks. Her bare feet made splashes in the soft 
 dirt of the road, with ten little depressions for the toes. 
 She carried a black and white kitten, held with a nervous 
 grasp in her bony arms. 
 
 The doctor jumped out of his wagon, at the risk of 
 hurting his rheumatic knee. The sight of this family on 
 the road, moving with the whole of their earthly posses 
 sions, gave him a sensation like nostalgia. He wanted to 
 pull that man off the load and thrash him within an inch 
 of his life for allowing the sick woman to walk and carry 
 her baby. But the doctor restrained himself, and the 
 man at sight of him began to duck as if with .the intent 
 of putting up an umbrella to screen himself from the 
 storm of wrath he felt was about to descend on his devoted 
 head. 
 
 " What are you about ? " said the doctor sternly, as he 
 stood in the road, his long carriage whip in his hand, 
 while the woman looked up in his face with her wear} 7 
 lack-luster eyes. 
 
 " Wai, you see, we had ter move. The folks up thar 
 kinder took a prejudice, and they lent me a hoss and 
 wagon to move my stuff." 
 
 " Oh, they made you clear out, did they ? " returned 
 the doctor, while a grim smile spread over his face. It 
 tickled him to think there was some righteous wrath up 
 in Pidgin, and almost restored him to good humor. 
 
 " Yes, I b l eve they did. I don t know why. I was 
 allus peaceable, me and my folks. I hain t no idea why 
 they took a prejudice," he went on in a whining tone. 
 " But they did, and they hinted at tar and feathers." 
 
 The sunshine of laughter spread over the doctor s 
 face. Really there is balm in Gilead, there is hope for 
 Pidgin, he thought. " Do you think the village folks 
 will like to have you quartered on them any better than 
 they liked it up in Pidgin ? Do you expect to go to the 
 poor-house ? " 
 
224 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 The man lifted the edge of his rimless hat, and 
 scratched his head. " I low not. There s that old 
 house off the turnpike in the woods they call haunted. 
 I ain t afeared of ghosts, and I thought I d move my 
 folks in there until I could get in better shape. Hayin 
 is coming along, and I low I can get a job of work then ; 
 and there s my wife and the girl, they can pick berries at 
 odd times." 
 
 " We don t propose to harbor vagrants," said the 
 doctor sternly. " I know you won t work. You are 
 a perfectly hopeless case. If I had my way, there would 
 be a whipping-post set up for just such louts as you 
 are." 
 
 The man looked down and wiped his face on the 
 sleeve of his ragged shirt. " I ain t no vagrom, and I 
 don t propose to beg. And I know you can t jug me 
 unless I do suthin ag in the law." 
 
 The doctor knew it too, and at that moment he caught 
 sight of the woman s white face, the baby that had gone 
 to sleep on her shoulder, and the great eyes of the child 
 fixed on his face. 
 
 " Here." said he, half jerking the man out of the 
 wagon. " Now put your wife and baby in there, and do 
 you take those reins and walk alongside, and guide the 
 horse." He helped the poor woman up to the seat on 
 the bottom of the wash-tub, and lifted in the little girl, 
 who was painfully light like a bundle of hollow bird s 
 bones and then he stood and watched as the load 
 moved down the road, swaying from side to side, the 
 man shuffling along in his old slippers. 
 
 The haunted house in the woods off the turnpike had 
 long been an object of intense awe and curiosity to the 
 village children. It had lost its doors and windows and 
 part of its walls, and was in a ruinous condition. The 
 plaster had dropped from the ceilings, and a rickety 
 stairway led to a dilapidated chamber, where, it was said, 
 
A V OPEN- WORK HO USE . 225 
 
 spots of blood could be seen on the floor. As the legend 
 of the house ran, a peddler had been murdered in that 
 room, and nightly came back in search of his pack and a 
 bag of gold. When the nomad Jabez and his family 
 took up their abode in this old shell of a house, the chil 
 dren all rushed over to see how a family looked living 
 without any front door or glass windows. Their do 
 mestic life certainly had a very open expression, and for 
 a time the fascination of watching what went on in the 
 very inside of the Jabez household, where a ghost was 
 supposed to be one of the inmates, kept the children 
 glued to the spot. 
 
 Jabez meantime would stand in the doorless doorway, 
 his ragged nether garment held up by a tow string, and 
 monotonously reprobate their presence. Mrs. Jabez, 
 poor soul, did what she could in that dreadful open-work 
 house by pinning up newspapers and hanging the only 
 pair of sheets she possessed at some of the orifices to 
 secure a little privacy. In a few days Jabez put out a 
 shingle sign : " Ginger Pop and Spruce Gum sold here. 
 Also Ginseng and Pepper root." He gave it out that he 
 was busily engaged in searching the woods for roots and 
 herbs, and intended to invent a patent medicine and call 
 it the Jabez Elixir of Life. But his wares were all frauds. 
 The boys who invested a portion of their pocket money 
 in his ginger pop found it was nothing but colored water, 
 and the spruce gum was in no way chewable. They 
 threatened to mob him if he did not take down his shingle, 
 and Jabez, the victim of circumstances, was forced to 
 withdraw from mercantile life. But the boys did not 
 cease their persecutions. They crept round to the rear 
 of the ruinous cottage where Mrs. Jabez had left things 
 all open to the universe, and there they made remarks on 
 what the Jabez family had for dinner and supper, and 
 watched the whole of the internal domestic economy as if 
 it had been an absorbing play. This continued until the 
 
226 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 village schoolmaster came out, clothed with authority, 
 and drove the boys home at the point of a sharp 
 stick. 
 
 Meanwhile the burden of feeding the family in a man 
 ner, however inadequate, fell almost entirely on the little 
 ten-year-old girl. She was known in the village as the 
 chippie bird, because she was so slender and light ; she 
 could creep through the smallest opening in a hedge, and 
 almost seemed to fly over stone walls and fences. Chip 
 pie had that indefatigable energy possessed by some 
 nervous children, and a most patient, angelic temper. 
 She performed the labor of a girl twice her years, and 
 never complained of being tired. She collected sticks in 
 the woods and carried great bundles to furnish fuel for 
 the fire. She pulled greens in the meadows and gath 
 ered wild berries for miles around to sell in the village 
 from door to door. It seemed as if the little creature 
 never rested day or night, and her brown legs, and feet, 
 and hands were cruelly torn by the brambles. When the 
 mother was ill, and she was always ailing, Chippie took 
 care of her nights, tended the baby, and cooked such 
 food as she could procure. 
 
 The village people soon came to recognize the rare 
 spirit of the child. Her wonderful old eyes troubled 
 them and touched their hearts. They gave her more 
 than conscience warranted, knowing it would go to feed 
 lazy Jabez. They took her into their houses and fed and 
 dressed her, but in a few days she appeared again in the 
 old rags. Where the good clothes went to they never 
 knew, but it was conjectured that Jabez sold them to pro 
 cure tobacco and whisky. He was known to have taken 
 his wife s strengthening medicine for the sake of the spir 
 its it was put up in. The doctor would have given a 
 considerable sum of money to rid the neighborhood of 
 Jabez, in such a humane and perfectly satisfactory man 
 ner that he need never think of him again. He offered to 
 
COMP UL SILATORY" ED UCA TION. 227 
 
 take the little girl and find her a good home, and have 
 her taught, but the father refused. 
 
 " What s the use of bringin up children," said Jabez 
 argumentatively, " and havin all the worry, and fret, and 
 bother, if they don t help their payrents when they are 
 weakly and unable to help themselves ? You folks can t 
 have that little gal nohow. I m an affectionate father, 
 and I should be pinin for her society. No use talkin , 
 you can t have my gal." 
 
 When the cold autumn weather began to pinch the 
 inmates of the doorless and windowless house, and there 
 were no berries or wild fruits to gather, and the grain 
 fields and apple orchards had been pretty thoroughly 
 gleaned, Jabez grew very fretful and morose. He raised 
 his hand against his miserable consumptive wife, and the 
 village officials warned him that they would lock him up 
 in jail if he did not behave better. He was worse than a 
 pest in the neighborhood, and pity for his wretched family 
 made it all the harder for charitable folks who could not 
 in conscience feed and comfort this miserable shiftless 
 being. One day Chippie came home from a foraging ex 
 pedition looking quite blue down to the tips of her 
 pathetic little toes. " The doctor says I must go to 
 school," she began in her piping, childish treble. " He 
 says its compulsilatory, that s just the word he used ; and 
 I must have a new frock and a pair of shoes." 
 
 " Compulsilatory ! " repeated Jabez, as he lay half 
 stretched out on a truckle-bed in one corner of the room. 
 " I don t approve of this community at all. It s the 
 meanest place I ever got into. There ain t no fishin and 
 there ain t no huntin ," he went on bitterly, as if nature 
 had contrived the deficiency especially to spite him. 
 " Leastways if there was huntin , I couldn t hunt, cos I 
 hain t no gun. There ain t no whisky .to be had nuther. 
 When a man feels weak and all gone, a thimbleful of 
 whisky sets him up amazing. W r ife, we shall have to 
 
228 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 move on to the pine barrens, where there ain t no talk 
 about this compulsilatory eddication takin a man s chil 
 dren away from him and shuttin of em up in a school- 
 hus when he needs them as a prop and a stay in time of 
 trouble. We will pack up to-murrur and be off, and then 
 where will their compulsilatory eddication be ? Farmer 
 White said he d let me take his wagon to move any time 
 and glad to do it." 
 
 The next day, when all the wretched Jabez household 
 was packed into Farmer White s wagon, some one asked 
 Jabez what there was to live on in the barrens and what 
 he expected to do there. 
 
 " Dunno," said he, scratching his head, " what I shall 
 do, and dunno what there is to live on in the barrens un 
 less it is turpentine. And turpentine for a stiddy thing 
 is better than nothin ." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CUPID AMONG JUNE ROSES. THE LITTLE MAIDEN SISTERS. 
 
 THE rose season brings with it every thing beautiful. 
 To Italy it brings the nightingale, to Persia the 
 bulbul. But as we can have neither nightingale nor bul- 
 bul, we must content ourselves with the bobolink, the 
 robin, the cat-bird, the song-sparro\v, and the evening 
 thrush. The meadows are in their glory. Some hillsides 
 have a milky froth of ox-eye daisies which the farmers 
 behold with displeasure, while young girls gather them in 
 great clusters to deck the bodice. The timothy and 
 herdsgrass have gathered a delicate pinkish dust of flow 
 ers. The clover is rounded to a crimson globe, inviting 
 the bee. It is a time of enchantment, when young hearts 
 and simple unworldly old hearts think of love, the adjust 
 ment of the inner world to the outer vision. 
 
 Roses, new-mown hay, honeysuckle, and strawberries 
 are associated in one s thoughts with wedding bells, wed 
 ding favors, bride-cake, and happy pairs whirled off into 
 the blissful honeymoon. We have had our village wed 
 dings. They have been rather frequent this year for a 
 community not much given to matrimony, and now that 
 they are all over we regret that we must settle down to 
 the prosaic hum-drum of ordinary life. The wedding of 
 Mr. Worldly Wiseman and Miss Busy Bee was of the 
 purely conventional sort. The village church was hand 
 somely trimmed with palms and exotics, and there was a 
 great abundance of white satin, tulle, and orange blos 
 soms. The town was filled with the bustle of visitors 
 who came from a distance ; and our village paper devoted 
 two or three columns of its valuable space to a descrip- 
 
230 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 tion of the trousseau and the wedding gifts. Hugh 
 cheerfully acted as best man to show that he had no 
 grudge against the lady for taking a richer lover and 
 slighting him. Mr. Wiseman s house would now be one 
 of the most agreeable in the village. He could not afford 
 to be on bad terms with the pretty young mistress. The 
 groom slipped a wedding fee of a hundred dollars into 
 the parson s hand, and, soon after, our young clergyman s 
 wife appeared in a new black silk gown, which became 
 her amazingly. Mr. Wiseman s old housekeeper sat in a 
 back pew crying and sobbing during the entire ceremony, 
 but when the happy pair drove off amid a shower of rice 
 and old slippers, she sent a pair of her old shoes (number 
 tens) flying after them for luck, and raised a shout of 
 laughter. 
 
 But Mr. Milletseed and Miss Rose Madder could not 
 think of being married in that style, which they consid 
 ered horribly ugly and inartistic. They were wedded 
 under a blooming apple tree, which made a pretty bower 
 for their young heads. Rose was clad in artless Swiss 
 muslin made rather scant, and tied about the waist with 
 a white satin sash. She wore a high shepherdess hat, 
 trimmed with a great deal of fluffy white lace, and she 
 hoped she looked sufficiently like a W T histler or a Burne- 
 Jones to be aesthetically interesting. Milletseed had pro 
 cured a new velvet coat for the occasion, and was married 
 in knee breeches and buckled shoes. He was a Walter 
 Crane all over. The artists and students who had come 
 up from the city danced about the apple tree, and poured 
 libations to Hymen and sang French love songs. When 
 the young couple went away so poor and so happy, with 
 the future an unknown x or y in their reckoning, a great 
 many tender good wishes, like a flock of doves, flew after 
 them, and a few sentimental old maids shed tears because 
 they looked so young and so little able to cope with the 
 hard facts of life. 
 
DRUSILLA S NUPTIALS. 231 
 
 The nuptials of Drusilla took place at home, in the 
 great drawing-room, where a wealthy ancestor had form 
 erly given fine banquets. It is one of those handsome 
 old colonial rooms, white and gold, with a great tiled fire 
 place and high chimney-piece, which modern decorative 
 taste has again brought into vogue. There are two white 
 and gold pillars at the east end of the room framing a 
 mullioned window. Drusilla s friends wished to adorn 
 these pillars with vines and flowers, to make a kind of 
 bower where she and the Rev. Arthur Meeker were to 
 stand. But Drusilla would not hear to such nonsense. 
 She allowed only two large clusters of red and white roses 
 to be placed in the tall blue china jars on the hearth by 
 the great chimney-piece. Neither would she have the 
 new-fangled marriage ceremony with a ring taken from 
 the Episcopal Service-Book. She insisted on being mar 
 ried in the plainest way. There was not even a bride 
 cake. Her idea was just to stand up and have it over 
 with as quickly as possible. But a few friends would 
 come in, and our old St. Patty was brought down in her 
 invalid chair and ensconced in the place of honor. She 
 was dressed by her friends and lovers in her tabbinet 
 gown, and those dainty laces and clear-starched muslins 
 which became her so well. She allowed the girls to pin 
 white flowers in her cap and in the breast of her gown, 
 and though nearly a hundred years old, she looked much 
 more like a bride than her matter-of-fact, strong-minded 
 daughter. 
 
 Drusilla was married in a good stout serviceable travel 
 ing dress of a color that would not show dust. She wore 
 a bonnet and gloves of the same hue, and her air was 
 prompt and business-like. It had taken considerable 
 energy to get the Rev. Arthur Meeker in trim for the 
 wedding journey. It was necessary to brace him up with 
 two eggs beaten in half-a-tumbler of sherry. He was 
 obliged to wear a mustard paste on his chest during the 
 
232 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ceremony, and was well padded all over with new and 
 thick red flannels, which Drusillahad selected for his use. 
 It seemed cruel to pelt so frail a person even with rice, 
 and this ceremony was omitted by request. When the 
 newly married pair went to the carriage, which was in 
 waiting to take them to the station, the Rev. Arthur car 
 ried a light summer shawl for his wife s use over his left 
 arm. But she came loaded down with his two coats, a 
 pair of umbrellas, a walking-stick, a hot-water bottle, and 
 a flask of new milk. It was a significant symbol of the 
 respective burdens they would bear through life. The 
 people tried to hide their smiles while they whispered to 
 each other that Drusilla had at last got her hands full. 
 But it was what she had married for. She had taken 
 him up as a vocation a home-mission enterprise and 
 although he was a smaller one than her natural ambition 
 would have chosen, he was better than nothing. 
 
 In a small community weddings leave a ripple of 
 excited feeling behind them, and stir up the feminine 
 fancy with new and pleasing hopes. After Drusilla went 
 off, " at her age," all the single sisters looked in the glass 
 with a certain feeling of encouragement. It might not 
 be too late after all, and small flutteringsof pleased antic 
 ipation lent a vague charm to the summer days. As for 
 the young girls, their innocent hearts were filled with the 
 cooing and soft twitterings of the dove of promise ; and 
 the young men s eyes sought theirs with new meanings, 
 and blushes came more readily than their wont. Even 
 the most wooden of the old bachelors felt growing pains 
 and slight twinges of romantic impulse, as if their sober 
 affections might yet put forth new shoots, and the Indian 
 summer bring a blessing they had missed in the spring. 
 
 The two maiden sisters, who live in the cottage nearly 
 opposite the great gate of Judge Magnus s mansion, 
 under one of the largest elm trees in the village street, 
 belong to those tender souls who, though unwed, never 
 
MfSS HENRIETTE AND MISS SOPHIE. 233 
 
 pass the prime of romantic sentiment, sacred to love s 
 illusions. They are small women, who have gone off a 
 good deal in figure with the advance in years, and they 
 both have the same curious little stoop of the shoulders 
 and the same way of wearing the hair, with feeble 
 attempts at girlish curls and frizzes straying out from 
 under their black head-dresses. Miss Henriette is sup 
 posed to be very lively and waggish, while Miss Sophie 
 is more serious in her cast of mind, and occasionally 
 writes poetry as a pastime. They are both as innocent 
 as babes, though they imagine they know a great deal 
 about the wickedness of the world. They are apt to 
 think the same thoughts, and speak the same words 
 simultaneously ; and when the lively Henriette leads the 
 conversation Sophie nods and smiles approval, and 
 repeats after her the end of each sentence. 
 
 The little sisters take great care of their health, and 
 have a number of pet diseases, of which they are as 
 proud as if they were rare plants or vines. They are 
 homoeopaths on principle ; but when they are seriously 
 ill the doctor comes in unbidden, throws the little pills 
 and mixtures with which they are continually dosing 
 themselves out of the window, and treats them as he 
 pleases. Strange to say, the little sisters are hardly ever 
 ill one at a time. If one takes to her bed, the other is 
 sure to follow very soon. They have lived so long 
 together, they have the same motions, the same sensa 
 tions. If one feels a twinge in her right thumb, the 
 other feels it in exactly the same place. The only differ 
 ence is that Henriette sometimes sees a joke when 
 Sophie does" not see it, and then she has to make an 
 elaborate dissection of the joke for Sophie, which is very 
 trying to a humorist. 
 
 When they go to church on fine Sundays their old fat 
 tabby cat always follows them like an enchanted maid, 
 and waits outside the sanctuary until they emerge. 
 
234 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Every boy in the village knows this old tabby, and a 
 youngster who should venture to shy a stone at her 
 would be considered hopelessly depraved by the whole 
 community. They have two canary birds which make a 
 music-box of their little cottage ; and as seems perfectly 
 right and natural, Henriette s is a livelier and sprightlier 
 bird than Sophie s. The little sisters are certainly poor, 
 and for many years their frugal housekeeping has been 
 helped out by the gifts of kind friends. All sorts of fic 
 tions are devised to make the delicate, refined old 
 women believe they are not objects of charity, but, as 
 some one has well said, objects of amity. It would hurt 
 their sensibilities to discover that their small economies 
 are known to the neighbors the fact that the old gowns 
 are turned and turned, and dyed with their own hands, 
 to look perfectly ladylike and respectable. When the 
 judge s wife comes home from Washington, she brings 
 them little gifts ; and at Christmas, of course, presents 
 are allowable. The kind farmers are always asking them 
 to taste their vegetables and fruits, their butter and eggs ; 
 their wood is mysteriously laid in for them when they go 
 away on visits. Some one for ten years past has regu 
 larly paid their tax bill, and although it is an open secret 
 in the village, they have never been able to discover their 
 benefactor. Thus they are kept in perfect comfort, 
 while the fiction of their independence is maintained. 
 
 They take the most innocent lively interest in the 
 affairs of the neighborhood. They are fond of gossip, 
 especially the love stories, but they are free from malice 
 and most ingenious in finding out the good points of 
 people generally considered immoral and worthless. 
 When a villager is caught in any overt act of wickedness 
 which appears to admit of no excuse, the neighbors are 
 always eager to hear what the little sisters will say about 
 him, in what good quality their charitable souls will take 
 refuge from the general turpitude of the delinquent. The 
 
HAXK HA YRICK. 235 
 
 country-side has its myths and legends, and one of the 
 most frightful of these clings to a notorious character, 
 Hank Hayrick by name, who over twenty years ago kept 
 a low tavern on the side of Saddleback. Hank was a 
 hard drinker and very quarrelsome and profane in his 
 cups. During the war of the Rebellion he was a blatant, 
 shameless secessionist and copperhead ; and in the midst 
 of a most loyal community was considered a standing 
 disgrace and infamy. At the time of President Lincoln s 
 assassination, so the story runs, Hank openly rejoiced, 
 loudly declaring his gladness. For three days he held 
 an orgie with his boon companions on the mountain, 
 drinking and carousing, and uttering horrible blasphem 
 ies. The road from Hank s house leading down the 
 mountain, is steep and dangerous, as for more than a 
 mile it flanks an abrupt precipice, along which some 
 brush and trunks of trees have been thrown as a slight 
 guard. In the spring the danger is much increased by 
 ice and washouts. Hank, in the afternoon of the third 
 day, while still under the influence of drink, started with 
 a pair of half-broken colts to drive down the mountain, 
 the road being in very bad condition. As he Was 
 alone, it was never known just how the accident occurred, 
 but at night he was found at the bottom of a gorge a 
 hundred feet deep, he and his horses stark dead. 
 
 When this dreadful story was told to the little sisters 
 they sat in pained silence for some time. They had been 
 crying over the death of the good president, and their 
 eyes were red and swollen. " Well," said Sophie at last, 
 with a great sigh, " I often and often saw Hank Hayrick 
 drive past here. He may have been a dreadful wicked 
 bad man, but I never saw him no ways intoxicated. He 
 always sat up straight in his wagon and managed his 
 horses well. And once when sister Henriette was trying 
 to pick her way across the street in a muddy time he 
 stopped to let her get past without spattering of her," 
 
236 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 "So he did," said Henrietta, brightening up wonderfully. 
 " I am so glad you remembered that, sister." 
 
 The little sisters cherish the harmless fiction that if 
 they had not been so devoted to each other, they might 
 have married. But they never could bear the idea of 
 living separated. Perhaps no one ever asked them in 
 marriage, but that makes no difference. The small speck 
 of possible romance keeps their hearts soft and young. 
 Of course, they know it is too late to think of such things 
 for themselves now. But they can enter into other lives 
 and sympathize with all lovers most truly. Within a year 
 a distant relative has come to pass some time with them. 
 She is considerably younger than either Henriette or 
 Sophie, but still she is a spinster pretty well advanced in 
 years. The little sisters regard her as a great deal 
 younger than themselves, indeed, quite a young person, 
 and on the score of her youth would excuse any folly or 
 indiscretion she might commit. 
 
 The sisters have woven a little romance about their 
 friend from the fact of her once having been partly in 
 love with a young man who paid her a great deal of atten 
 tion and then went off and married her most intimate 
 friend. It would appear that the young man had been so 
 very attentive because he wished to talk about her friend, 
 the lady with whom he was in love ; but in the eyes of 
 the little sisters his conduct is none the less reprehensible. 
 They could find excuses for Hank Hayrick sooner than 
 for " that man," as they always call him. Miss Crayshaw 
 dresses nicely and does not in the least despise those arts 
 of the toilet by which the ravages of years are repaired. 
 She has quite a pretty income for a single woman, and 
 has brought a large increase of comfort into the house 
 hold. But the little sisters never think of what they 
 would lose in her marriage. Their tender souls are only 
 alive to her felicity. They are sure that in the scheme 
 of divine goodness the transgressions of " that man " to- 
 
THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE HE. 237 
 
 ward the comfortable well-to-do Crayshaw will be repaired. 
 They have formed in their fancy the very image of 
 the man who is coming to make her happy. 
 
 " I am sure he is coming soon," says Miss Sophie, as 
 she looks out of the window, gazing up and down the 
 village street in search of this not impossible he. " And 
 then when he comes we shall have a wedding here. How 
 delightful that will be ! We have never had a wedding 
 in the family ; for you know sister and me are so bound 
 up it wasn t possible. But it will be so pleasant for you 
 to say we, my dear. I is such a chilly, cold, dismal little 
 word. Sister and me never say /. If we had been obliged 
 to say /, possibly we might have married long ago. I 
 feel in my bones, Mary Crayshaw, that he is coming soon 
 to make it all up to you for what that man has made you 
 suffer. We shall have to lose you one day, sister and me. 
 But then if we know you are happy with him, it will con 
 sole us. We should hate to be selfish, sister and me." 
 
 He has not come yet, nor are there any imminent 
 signs of him on the horizon. But if faith can move 
 mountains, he will certainly appear. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MRS. LEGALITY AT THE WILDERNESS LODGE. 
 
 TWO or three enthusiastic devotees of the rod and 
 gun have built small shooting-boxes within a few 
 miles of the village, and have been in the habit of coming 
 out to them from the city at any and every season when 
 they felt the need of rest or recreation. 
 
 One of these, known as the Lodge, is charmingly situ 
 ated among the oak timber in the upper valley. An 
 extensive pine forest stretches away on the hillside behind 
 the house. The river purls peacefully along within a 
 stone s throw, and here spreads out to a greater width, 
 and clears itself from the water-weed in broad silver 
 expanses. The place is as solitary and sylvan as the 
 forest of Arden. One wanders about in the open glades 
 carpeted with soft turf and spotted with sunshine, 
 expecting to come upon Touchstone and Audrey, or even 
 fair Rosalind in her boyish disguise. A little clearing 
 and garden-patch for the sake of those savory herbs a 
 sportsman loves with his game and fish dinners invite the 
 wild bee and the song-bird. 
 
 The Lodge is a quaint little affair, planned by an old 
 bachelor to his liking, with half-a-dozen rooms, each 
 furnished with a fire-place to burn logs of some size, on 
 cold days. It is shingled nearly all over with yellow 
 cedar shingles, and the veranda is broad and pleasant, 
 looking westward. The lower rooms are ceiled and wain 
 scoted with Georgia pine, and the chambers have 
 received one rough scratch-coat of plaster. The Lodge is 
 owned by a celebrated city lawyer, who, at home an 
 
A BACHELOR PARADISE. 
 
 elegant man of society, with a just estimate of the con 
 venances which lie in dress-coats, crush-hats, gloves, white 
 neck-cloths, and other tokens of the humanities, as soon 
 as he arrived at the Lodge put on a dreadful old hat and 
 a whole suit of flannel both within and without, allowed 
 his beard to grow untrimmed, and appeared in old boots 
 and shoes, of which he kept a large collection at the 
 Lodge for country use. 
 
 He was more alert and springy in his motions than a 
 countryman, and it was only by these tokens you could 
 distinguish him from a native. He generally brought a 
 friend with him, Jack Hildreth by name, who behaved in 
 the same way. When business brought them to the vil 
 lage they tried to slip about incognito to escape the 
 judge and the parson, and the inevitable invitations to 
 dinner and tea. Their mail was carried to and fro by 
 an old man who, with his wife, kept the Lodge in per 
 petuity, on the tacit understanding that they had secured 
 a life berth. An old horse and wagon belonging to the 
 establishment was used by the gentlemen to carry them 
 to distant parts of their preserve. They spent the day 
 wading up brooks in great india-rubber boots like trunk- 
 hose, often in the drenching rain. The old horse was 
 always there at the rendezvous, by a pair of bars with 
 his head down too low-spirited even to eat post-meat 
 when they wished to be taken home, where they entered 
 like the blustering west wind, hearty, hungry, and happy, 
 to find a roaring fire of light wood in the living-room, 
 which Mrs. Burns had kindled. Soon the appetizing 
 odors of broiling fish began to diffuse themselves all over 
 the house. There is nothing a sportsman enjoys more 
 than eating his own " catch " brown, and cooked to a 
 turn, with the appropriate sauces. And Mrs. Burns was 
 very good at sauces, which Mr. Legality had taught her 
 to make after recipes secured at his New York club. 
 
 The interior of the Lodge was a little bare. A pair of 
 
24 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 large hunting dogs went all over it at will, and made 
 themselves perfectly at home at all hours. The living- 
 room was mainly furnished with guns and fishing-tackle, 
 artificial flies, and cartridges, and various trophies of the 
 chase. A pair of immense hawks wings were nailed 
 against the wall, and the brush of a red fox. What is 
 the use of curtains or shutters when you have no neigh 
 bors but the rabbits and squirrels and wild birds, and are 
 very fond of sunshine flooding your rooms ? Mr. Legality 
 had purchased a few rocking-chairs, which struck his 
 fancy, from the old women among the mountains, and 
 these, with half-a-dozen braided hand-made rugs, picked 
 up in the same way, were the main furnishings of the 
 sitting-room. On the walls were photographs of one or 
 two of the extra large trout he had caught. A few books 
 lay about on the table or were crowded upon a little shelf 
 over the chimney-piece. There was a file of a sporting 
 magazine, an old copy of Isaak Walton, an odd volume 
 of Horace, a few French novels, and one or two works 
 on the best mode of making artificial flies. On the 
 chimney-piece was ranged an assortment of pipes, cigar- 
 boxes, and bottles. The corners of the room were taken 
 up with old boots and miscellaneous " traps." 
 
 This was the bachelor s castle, the complete epitome of 
 his idea of rest and recreation, free from bother and 
 nonsense. Mrs. Burns could cook a capital fish or game 
 supper, and he had the pleasure of furnishing the ele 
 ments of his simple cuisine. The air was delicious, the 
 scenery beautiful ; with no one to trouble or annoy, no 
 near neighbors, no social duties, none of the flummery of 
 fashion. For a few weeks each year he was a free man. 
 Every one about the establishment, both human and 
 canine, did exactly as he or she pleased. Jack Hildreth, 
 when he was staying at the Lodge, went regularly to 
 sleep after supper, and slept the entire evening. Mr. 
 Legality loved him more than a more brilliant companion, 
 
M1SSMUSA BECOMES MRS. LEGALITY. 24! 
 
 for he exacted nothing, fell readily into his old friend s 
 ways, and took life on the easiest terms. 
 
 But of course when Mr. Legality emerged from his 
 country shell and returned to town he was another being. 
 The eager, sharp-witted, cultivated town man forgot the 
 smell of spruce, pine, and hemlock, and rushed into the 
 arena of the world clad in the habiliments of the most 
 advanced civilization. If he had consulted his country 
 self when he found such unalloyed enjoyment with his 
 pipe, and his old boots, and his faithful and rather stupid 
 friend, he never would have married. Mrs. Burns, 
 smoothing her apron and squinting both ways for Sunday 
 with her crossed eyes, would always have remained his 
 ideal of domestic felicity. But it was while masquerad 
 ing as his city self, enacting the fine gentleman in the 
 intervals of absorbing "cases," that he fell in with a 
 charming woman, who, if not in the first bloom of youth, 
 was sufficiently beautiful, and possessed of a fine fortune 
 and an enviable literary reputation. She shared all the 
 lawyer s tastes and fancies. While sitting on a satin sofa 
 in a handsome drawing-room she adored the woods. 
 She had never angled for any thing in a mountain lake, 
 but she was certain she should like it. She wrote an 
 exquisite sonnet from Mr. Legality s description of the 
 Lodge and the wild birds singing around the windows, 
 and it was published in the Pacific Monthly. This was 
 only a few weeks before Miss Musa became Mrs. Legal 
 ity. A very pretty wedding it was, with a half-column 
 notice in the daily papers, and a mention of all the dis 
 tinguished people present. 
 
 It was arranged that after a few weeks of travel they 
 were to spend the summer at the Lodge. The solitude 
 would be so sweet to a happy pair newly wedded, exempt 
 from prying neighbors, city visitors, and fuss and feathers. 
 It was the cream of rural simplicity, a return to nature. 
 Mr. Legality had always been so happy at the Lodge 
 
2 4 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 that in his fancy it was surrounded by a halo of light. 
 He thought of his old boots and his fishing-tackle with 
 sentimental fondness. All his days had been good there, 
 and all his nights serene. The flavor of Mrs. Burns s 
 coffee and broiled fish was sweet in his thoughts. How 
 many delicious meals he and old Jack Hildreth had 
 enjoyed under the rafters? How many blessed hours 
 had been given to smoke and reverie, and the healthy 
 rest that comes after vigorous exercise in the open air. 
 His wife, with her poetic temperament, would be sure to 
 appreciate the Lodge at its true value. 
 
 It was raining when they reached the village station, 
 and old Burns met them with the ancient horse and 
 wagon. Mrs. Legality had declared with enthusiasm 
 that she loved to rough it, but her face fell when she 
 beheld this rustic establishment, and her husband felt the 
 little chill which ran down to the tips of her fingers as he 
 helped her into the vehicle. All the woods and ways 
 were damp and sweet with summer rain. The boughs 
 dripped, and a mild incense came up from the earth, and 
 mingled with the breath of verdure and wild-flowers. 
 The mountain roads were crossed by brawling brooks, 
 and the low-hung clouds opened to show the distant 
 hills. Mrs. Legality said it was perfectly lovely, but a 
 kind of homesickness crept over her as they went 
 deeper into the forest, and her husband thought she was 
 tired with the journey. Man-like, he had given her no 
 particular description of the Lodge. He had told her it 
 was plain and unpretending, but perfectly comfortable, 
 and she had imagined something of quite Arcadian pret- 
 tiness set down in the woods. 
 
 Her habits were very nice. She had always been pet 
 ted, admired, and praised. The little house when she 
 entered it, with Mrs. Burns ducking and courtesying at 
 the door, gave her quite a new idea of savage rudeness. 
 There were neither curtains at the windows nor carpets 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 243 
 
 on the floors nothing but scenery and bare walls. And 
 she, a bride of only a few weeks duration, not so young 
 as she had once been, to be sure, but still with a high 
 sense of personal distinction and value, had been brought 
 to this place to pass the summer ! Her husband tried to 
 whistle as he always did when he put off the old man at 
 the Lodge. He divested himself of his nice clothes, and 
 got into that easy rig, the old coat and shocking bad hat. 
 His wife did not like him in it. She secretly felt that if 
 she had first seen him in this guise, she never would have 
 married him. Although it had been tacitly agreed that 
 Legality was to have it all his own way at the Lodge, and 
 go on with his old life there, while Mrs. Legality ruled 
 supreme in the city house, she could not help saying as 
 she lifted her dainty skirts to keep them off the bare 
 floor : 
 
 " Don t you think, my dear, it would be well to 
 clean ? " 
 
 " Oh, I let old Burns and his wife manage all that. 
 They sweep and scrub the house out now and then, I 
 suppose. Why, my dear, do you find any thing amiss ?" 
 
 " Oh, no," she responded at once. " The situation is 
 perfectly charming." 
 
 Mrs. Burns cooked as nice a supper as she could for 
 the bride, but the table-service was not very elegant, and 
 Mrs. Legality, whose tastes were fastidious in such 
 matters, could not at once find an appetite. Her hus 
 band had always been in the habit of pouring out his own 
 tea and coffee, and now, when his wife took her place at 
 the tray, he had an odd sense of not being at home. 
 Their first meal was certainly not a success, although 
 each tried to hide from the other how little it was enjoyed. 
 In the evening the dogs came in shaking the wet from- 
 their thick coats. They lay down before the fire and 
 soon the room was filled with damp steam. Strange to 
 say, Mr. Legality did not seem to mind it. He spent the 
 
244 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 time in cleaning his old guns and putting his fishing-tackle 
 in order. Mrs. Legality tried to interest herself in what 
 seemed of such absorbing interest to him, but she dis 
 covered with some dismay that she had no taste for such 
 things, and an incipient sentiment of jealousy arose 
 within her toward this love of sport which had pushed 
 her, for the time being, from the first place in her hus 
 band s affections. She could not endure the smell of 
 the dogs ; and the odor of old Burns s pipe came in from 
 the kitchen, where he was smoking very vile tobacco. 
 
 She excused herself early on the plea of being tired, 
 and went to bed. The silence of the forest around the 
 Lodge was portentous. A whippoorwill came close to 
 the windows and gave forth his mournful cadence. The 
 tree-toads added to the Dantean chorus. Though not 
 so very young, poor Mrs. Legality went to sleep sobbing 
 into her embroidered handkerchief. What a bower for a 
 bride ! She had already come to the conclusion that 
 she hated a lodge in a vast wilderness, although she had 
 sentimentalized so much in her writings over this life 
 with nature, this happy seclusion far from the madding 
 crowd. 
 
 The next morning was warm and sunny ; the forest 
 glowed resplendent from the rain. A merry breeze blew 
 the rain-drops like diamond spray from the leaves. Mr. 
 Legality was up early to enjoy the birds and to wash 
 some of the city dust, as he said, out of his mind. He 
 invited his wife to go fishing, and they packed themselves 
 into the wagon merrily enough with old Burns to drive. 
 The old man was in his shirt-sleeves smoking a pipe of 
 that same vile tobacco. The wind blew the smoke back 
 into the lady s eyes, and almost spoiled the pleasure 
 of locomotion over rough but lovely roads. The day 
 was too bright for good sport. Mrs. Legality caught 
 nothing, and she looked upon the patience with which 
 her husband waited for a rise as quite phenomenal. The 
 
MS. LEGALITY S DISCOVERY. 245 
 
 hours seemed long and dull. The black flies and midges 
 troubled her not a little, and she saw a large black-snake 
 near the lake-side, which made her feel that she could 
 never go back to that place with any comfort. 
 
 After that day she excused herself from fishing, and re 
 mained at home with Mrs. Burns, who showed her the 
 chickens she had reared that the master might have a 
 new-laid egg for his breakfast ; and a litter of young 
 puppies in which he took delight. But these things had 
 their limits in the way of diversion. She had often felt 
 lonely even when the center of a brilliant circle, and 
 she had found relief in breathing out her longings in 
 verse : but she had never felt as lonely as now that she 
 was united to the man of her choice, and trying vainly to 
 enter into the joys of his life. Yet it would be ridicu 
 lous to publish her heart-pangs to the world. Her hus 
 band came home too tired from his day s sport to engage 
 in literary conversation. Her writing gift seemed to 
 have left her. She had no neighbors or friends no one 
 but Mrs. Miggs, who brought them milk and butter. 
 Her fine clothes were of no avail. When she dressed for 
 dinner, her husband did not seem to know it, so she took 
 to wearing a flannel gown all day, and she wept as she 
 awoke to the reality of things. She hated roughing it in 
 the woods. She was sophisticated and conventional to a 
 degree, and, worse than all, she was worldly. She could 
 not blame Mr. Legality, but she discovered that she had 
 been shamming and posing about something of which 
 she was ignorant. 
 
 Mr. Legality, finding that his wife, though a charming 
 woman, had no taste for sport, and could not sympathize 
 with him about flies, and bait, and fish-hooks, and did 
 not even treasure up in her memory the exact weight of 
 the big trout he caught on Thursday, turned with affec 
 tionate longing toward the thought of Jack Hildreth, 
 who for so many years had been his faithful comrade. But 
 
246 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 when he proposed that Jack Hildreth be invited for a 
 six-weeks visit to the Lodge he found his wife adverse 
 to the plan. She disliked Jack Hildreth, that big, burly, 
 red-faced man, with no conversation, who cared for 
 nothing but eating and drinking hot toddy, and went 
 regularly to sleep in his chair of an evening and snored 
 in all the notes of the gamut. Mr. Legality, with a good 
 deal of inward resistance, gave up. the idea of inviting 
 his old friend Jack. 
 
 But it happened just at this time that he was called to 
 a distant city to attend to a law case involving a great 
 sum of money. As his absence might extend to two or 
 three weeks, he suggested that his wife invite her friend 
 Miss Leeds to pay her a visit. Mary Leeds had a pet 
 mania for architecture and house decoration. And 
 almost the first word she said after entering the Lodge 
 was : " How can you live in this barrack ? Not a car 
 pet, nor a rug, nor curtain to the window. But it has 
 possibilities, my dear," she continued, half closing her 
 eyes and taking it all in. Her fingers itched to get hold 
 of the little bare place and transform it into something 
 habitable and inviting. In two days she had persuaded 
 her friend to do over the Lodge on her plan, which was 
 simple and practicable, and to give Mr. Legality a charm 
 ing surprise on his return. It was with some fear of 
 judgment to come that Mrs. Legality took the house in 
 hand. But once in the thick of carpenters and decora 
 tors, she forgot all about the consequences. Her own 
 artistic furniture was sent up from the city, and she and 
 Mary Leeds worked like nailers to get every thing in 
 order. New servants were hired and drilled, and poor 
 old Mrs. Burns, in a tearful state, was degraded to the 
 position of head scullion or general kitchen assistant. 
 
 " Master won t like the doin s I know he won t," she 
 said, as she saw all the guns and fishing-tackle translated 
 to an upper room. u He ll be like a cat in a strange garret. 
 
 The Lodge certainly came out a thing of beauty under 
 
THE LODGE RETURNS TO ITS OLD STATE. 247 
 
 the skillful hands of the ladies, and there was much 
 heart-trembling to see how Mr. Legality would take it 
 when a telegram arrived announcing his speedy return. 
 He took it, all things considered, better than could have 
 been expected, although he seemed a little dazed at first, 
 and could hardly put two words together. Mrs. Burns 
 dethroned, the guns and traps all put away, the dogs 
 kept out of the house ! Where was he ? He rubbed his 
 eyes. The old happy bachelor days had vanished for 
 ever. But how could any one, even his own wife, know 
 what this place had been to him in the past ? Mrs. 
 Legality watched him closely. There were no outbursts, 
 no reproaches, only compliments, a little satirical, for her 
 and her friend. 
 
 In the evening he took a walk in the woods, and sat 
 for some time smoking and musing on a log, and when 
 he came into his transformed cottage he sat down at the 
 new Chippendale desk, and wrote several letters. His 
 cheerfulness and serenity had entirely returned. In two 
 or three days he announced to Mrs. Legality that he had 
 purchased her a house at Newport " Tom Bly s, you 
 know, my dear. I bought it at a great bargain. It is 
 beautifully situated, and I think you will enjoy it." 
 
 Mrs. Legality has spent several summers in her New 
 port cottage, and Mr. Legality is occasionally seen there, 
 but part of every season he spends at the Lodge with old 
 Jack Hildreth. The place has lapsed into its former 
 aspect, as the artistic furniture has all been removed to 
 the Newport house. Mrs. Burns again reigns supreme 
 in the kitchen. The mistake Legality made was in mar 
 rying the town man and neglecting to marry his country 
 self. The mistake that charming woman, Mrs. Legality, 
 made was in supposing she could live up to her own 
 poems. Mr. Legality most unreasonably hates Mary 
 Leeds. When we have made a mistake it is natural to 
 hate some one else in order to draw the lightning away 
 from home, 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE "DIGS" BOARDING-HOUSE. 
 
 I^HE arid heat which changed all things to a lifeless 
 semblance has moved off, who can tell where ? Now 
 the fresh southwest is blowing, and the baked foliage 
 opens and expands its leaves like lungs. The sky fills 
 up with loose white clouds that drift idly or pile them 
 selves up into thunder-heads, with pale-fire gleams and 
 Vulcan forges glowing in their breasts. The light breezes 
 skip about like young nymphs sipping honeydew, and 
 inhaling the best of the perfumes. These are hammock 
 days, when the sky with the tree-tops resting against it is 
 sufficient for happiness. The birds seem like music- 
 boxes as their notes steal out of the shade, and the full 
 ness of nature s life is so perfectly content with itself, 
 you fall into the same mood ; you lose the sense of 
 responsibility for the miseries of the human race, and the 
 eating edge of your own cares is turned aside. 
 
 The large walnut and butternut trees stand quiet in 
 the home fields in their dark branchiness, and cast down 
 rings of shade upon the sun-splashed grass. The cows 
 huddle about them, or wade into the shallow streams and 
 cool their legs as they idly switch off flies with their long 
 tails. To lie in the hammock while the scent of mign 
 onette and sweet peas steals upon you from the garden, 
 to rest in the shade against a hay-cock while other mis 
 taken and ambitious people do the work of spreading, 
 cocking, pitching, and loading, is to make a good use of 
 life. 
 
 The country invades every village nook, steals in on 
 every breath of air because it is haying-time. The gar- 
 
HAYING-TIME. 249 
 
 dens are at the height of their beauty, but without this 
 sense of union with woods and field they would not be 
 half so charming. Every body looks rustic, and carries 
 an out-of-door atmosphere. The doctor has put on an 
 old straw hat, and looks like a respectable farmer. The 
 judge, even, is caught raking in his shirt sleeves, and 
 says it makes him sleep well. Women when they drive 
 out with their slow, gentle nags, come home with the 
 buggy full of swamp flowers. The children string berries 
 on straws and dangle them along, while hands and faces 
 gather a purple stain. Young lovers walk in the fields 
 to taste the sweetness of the haying. Merry boys and 
 girls romp in the barn, and chase each other up and 
 down, while the old folks remember how they did just 
 the same when they were young. They talk of the many 
 years their aged trees have borne good fruit, and how 
 they hold out yet old trees, old men and women in the 
 kind care of heaven. 
 
 Most of our young collegians are at home now for the 
 vacation. Several of them keep boats on the river, and 
 there are improvised races between them and the town- 
 boys, in which the girls take a lively interest. Some of 
 the students work a little in the haying field, or ride their 
 fathers old hacks, or drive the women folk about on 
 social errands. Others, clad in the picturesque knee- 
 breeches of the period, with canvas-topped shoes and 
 rakish little caps, devote themselves to lawn-tennis and 
 base-ball. A few reading-men come here to work for 
 honors and shut themselves away from temptation in the 
 form of fascinating sports and beguiling young women. 
 They take their exercise early in the morning or late in 
 the evening, and devote all the day to study. They are 
 known as " digs," and are greatly despised by the active 
 young fellows, who think that colleges were mainly de 
 vised to foster noble sports and " bleed governors." For 
 several years past nearly all the " digs " have boarded 
 
25 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 during the summer vacation with a peculiar old couple 
 known in the village as Wormwood and Gall. This old 
 man and wife own a gloomy, stuffy old house much shut 
 in by dense foliage trees. They live entirely in - the 
 kitchen part, and the front of the house has a funereal 
 look except when reckless boarders insist on throwing 
 wide the shutters and letting in the sun and flies. The 
 two old people do all their own work. It would be im 
 possible for them to get on with " help " of any descrip 
 tion. They are not on speaking terms with many of 
 their neighbors, owing to their violent tempers and the 
 great ease with which they take offense. They are not 
 often on speaking terms with each other, and have been 
 known by ingenious devices to pass three months together 
 without exchanging a word. Their power of " getting 
 mad and staying mad " is considered quiet phenomenal 
 even in a community where oddities abound. 
 
 It was owing to the absolute silence which so often 
 reigns in *:hat house, due to the fact that the old folks 
 can t or won t speak to each other, that it was chosen as 
 a vacation boarding-place by a mathematical " dig " of 
 high standing in his college. As one " dig " attracts 
 another, Wormwood and Gall have filled up pretty 
 regularly ever since with this class of boarders, and are 
 now doing well with their rooms. When the old couple, 
 through pride or obduracy, are unable to speak, they 
 write to each other on a slate which hangs conveniently 
 against the kitchen wall, somewhat in this style : 
 
 She " I want you to get in some wood, to pick a mess 
 of peas, and to go to Peckham s and get ten pound of 
 granulated sugar, a bar of soap, and a codfish." 
 
 He " I want you to sew" a buckle on my galluses ; to 
 look after them currants you are going to make into jel, 
 and to give Hinckley s boy that shovel I borrered if he 
 comes when I am out."- 
 
 Sometimes, when a neighbor calls on business, they 
 
NEW BOARDERS. 25 1 
 
 break through their self-imposed silence and begin to 
 talk at each other through him, and then, forgetting 
 themselves, get accidentally on speaking terms. The 
 boarders are always glad when these conversational 
 episodes come to a close and silence again reigns in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 This year, by an unlooked-for innovation, not at all 
 popular at first with the " digs," one of the chambers of 
 the house was let to two young girls from the city, 
 daughters of a small jeweler on an unfashionable avenue. 
 These girls had lived all their days in the noisy street 
 over their father s shop, and had never enjoyed at one 
 time more than a week or fortnight of seaside or country 
 life. They would not now have come to the village for an 
 entire season but for the fact that the younger girl, Amy, 
 had developed a certain weakness of the chest. The 
 doctor prescribed mountain air, a whole summer of the 
 purest and best, and so they came to the village, and 
 took the cheapest room they could find fi * two, which 
 happened to be at Wormwood and Gall s with the " digs." 
 
 These unsocial young men almost refused at first to 
 speak to them, even to look at them at meal-time, but at 
 length, as Amy was very pretty and Hannah was hardly 
 less interesting in her way, the ice was broken, and there 
 came to be a little subdued talk, even laughter about the 
 board. Their influence was felt in the kitchen, and old 
 Wormwood and Gall had not been so amiable in years ; 
 they were almost as good to each other as when suffering 
 from an influenza or sore throat, for in sickness they are 
 good; like so many quarrelsome people, they are necessary 
 to each other s comfort. Hannah and Amy were not like 
 the over-dressed, underbred young women one so often 
 sees coming out of the tenements on city avenues. The 
 mother died when they were both young, and after Han 
 nah was graduated from the public school her whole life 
 was absorbed in taking care of her father and sister. 
 
252 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 She only regretted now that she could not cut herself in 
 two, the one half to remain in town with her father, while 
 the other half took care of Amy in the country. Her 
 letters to her father were mainly filled with items like 
 these : 
 
 " The weather up here has grown much cooler, and if 
 the change has reached the city, I do hope you will put 
 on your medium flannels the soft red ones in the right- 
 hand corner of the upper bureau drawer." 
 
 On coming to the country she had brought a bag of all 
 the possible remedies and medicaments Amy might need, 
 each bottle neatly tied up and labeled. The collection 
 also contained a flask of liquid blacking with which she 
 polished up Amy s rather shabby old shoes and her own. 
 Pretty Amy, lying on the bed at night, would see Han 
 nah working away at the shoes as she placed them along 
 the wall in a row standing upright upon their heels. 
 
 " They look as if they were praying," said Amy lan 
 guidly " like black priests, you know." 
 
 " So they are," responded Hannah " praying for new 
 soles." 
 
 There wasn t a thing any body wanted, from a shirt- 
 button to a clothes-brush, that Hannah did not seem to 
 have it about her. Her work-basket was the very epitome 
 of herself, stocked with a dainty needle case, the needles 
 all stuck in one way in precise rows, with neat parti 
 colored balls for darning Amy s stockings, and varied 
 spools of silk and cotton for mending Amy s gowns. Her 
 own never seemed to need any repairs. Nothing was 
 ever amiss with her small trim figure, and the old boots 
 she said were praying for new soles looked better than 
 new ones on any body else. But Amy was naturally 
 careless and scatter-brained, and now in her languid, 
 semi-invalid state she was sometimes a little perverse 
 about taking the remedies or attending to the precautions 
 her slave of a sister urged upon her. 
 
HANNAH MAKES FRIENDS. 253 
 
 Though Hannah was a slave to Amy, she found time 
 to make friends with all the cats, and dogs, and birds, 
 and babies in the village. She knew the Alderney calf 
 down in the judge s back lot, and petted the long-legged, 
 mouse-colored colt in the deacon s paddock. The 
 country babies were so much cleaner and sweeter than 
 any she had known in the city avenue, they were quite 
 irresistible to Hannah ; and yet she had often taken in 
 those poor grimy city toddlers, bathed them, fed them, 
 given them a nap and taken them home to their mammas, 
 like tarnished little coins, rubbed bright, and showing a 
 pretty image and superscription. So Hannah and Amy, 
 who also was very fond of the little ones, gathered the 
 babies and children all up and down the street. They came 
 rushing into the front-door yard ; they invaded the stoop 
 of Wormwood and Gall, a most unheard-of liberty, for 
 the village children had never dared to enter the premises, 
 even when ripe plums and cherries hung temptingly 
 within the garden fence. But now Hannah and Amy had 
 the children about them under the trees. They dressed 
 their dolls, and mended their toys, and taught them fas 
 cinating new games. They even induced old Wormwood 
 to bake cookies for them, to the wonder of the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 Amy could not sit up the entire day when she first 
 came to the village, and the doctor soon discovered her, 
 as he discovers every stranger within the gates. He 
 walked up on to the piazza one day, and took Amy s 
 hand, and perhaps he felt of her pulse. But he did not 
 prescribe any thing. That afternoon he came round with 
 his granddaughter in the old wagon. A pillow had been 
 placed on the back seat, and he lifted Amy in there, 
 almost without saying by your leave, and then they all 
 trundled off on a round of visits to country patients. 
 The doctor allowed Amy to go to sleep while they trotted 
 along, but he never allowed her to talk much. They 
 
254 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 stopped sometimes at farm-houses and obtained a drink 
 of buttermilk, and chatted with the old farmers about 
 the crops. Every two or three days this country drive 
 was repeated, and Amy grew so much better that when 
 the father came out to pay his first visit to his girls, he 
 went to the doctor and asked for his bill, and was as 
 effusive in his gratitude as such a dry, undemonstrative 
 man could be. But the doctor took offense. He hated 
 gratitude put into words, and he had no bill. 
 
 The city jeweler was the dearest of all objects to his 
 two girls. Amy hung upon him with affection, and 
 Hannah watched over his comforts and sought to provide 
 every thing unasked. It was a source of mortification to 
 Hannah when her father was forced to suggest any thing 
 he wished to have done. He was one of those neutral- 
 colored men, who, though sturdy in constitution and phy 
 sically strong, seem to have been stunted by shop life. 
 He always walked and spoke and coughed in a certain 
 way. Spontaneity seemed totally lacking to his nature. 
 He soaked up all the care and affection of his daughters 
 like a sponge, and made no sign. And yet he was an 
 excellent father. When the girls led him to the woods 
 and fields and showed him birds and flowers, all the things 
 young creatures love, he took it like a dose of something 
 he had bought for five cents at the apothecary s, which 
 might possibly do good to his interior. 
 
 Of course all these things could not go on at Worm 
 wood and Gall s without affecting the boarding " digs " 
 more or less. Life had certainly changed there, and was 
 far less tomb-like and silent. There may have been 
 some open grumbling and more suppressed wrath. But 
 when the father came, that great mathematical " dig," 
 who had always lived the existence of an owl, working 
 daytimes and going out for exercise at night, astonished 
 every body by inviting him and his girls to a boating 
 excursion on the river in pursuit of water-lilies. The 
 
THE DEPTH OF A DIMPLE. 255 
 
 afternoon was delightfully cool, and the river reaches 
 smoothed themselves like polished silver, sensitive to the 
 reflection of every leaf, and bough, of every spear of 
 grass and gleam of daisy and cardinal-flower on the 
 bank, until the under world grew into a magic scene, and 
 the boat often seemed to slip through air above a garden 
 of the gods, paved with clouds and spaces of the sky 
 more beautiful than the real heavens. So they passed 
 into little bights and coves where the water-lilies lay in 
 tranquil fleets, and the happy girls pulled up the buds by 
 their long, flexible stems, in anticipation of their open 
 ing in the morning. 
 
 Papa, though he never changed his expression, 
 seemed to show a glimmer of enjoyment, as he sat in the 
 end of the boat and talked with " Mathematics," as he 
 was called, about the new standard time. The latter, as 
 he hurled the boat along with the university stroke, sit 
 ting firmly braced, was trying to calculate the exact depth 
 of a dimple in Hannah s cheek, a dimple which showed 
 itself only when she was perfectly happy. Considering the 
 very retired, solitary, owlish nature of Mathematics, that 
 problem about the dimple seemed an exceedingly diffi 
 cult one, and the other "digs," who had made less of a 
 merit of their devotion to work, began mildly to chaff 
 him. Even after the jeweler went back to town, Math 
 ematics asked Hannah a few times to go out with him 
 in the boat, in those long magical twilights of July, when 
 the river blushes in sympathy with the sunset rose, which 
 you must explore with sharp eyes to find a thread of 
 crescent moon swimming in the pink vapors. Then the 
 trees plunge darkly down into the depths and the 
 vague purple lights of the zenith bring the first stars, 
 with cool, delicious winds, and odors of new-mown hay 
 from the low meadows skirting the banks. It is an hour 
 made for the young, whether they be " digs " or pleasure- 
 loving spendthrifts of time. 
 
256 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 It is generally too late for Amy to go out in the boat, 
 owing to the damp, and a classical "dig" has taken to 
 sacrificing himself somewhat to her amusement. Were 
 she entirely well and strong, he probably would ignore 
 her. But he knows that a benevolent mind should be 
 willing to divert a semi-invalid, let it cost what it may. 
 So he sings her college songs, shows her some curious 
 tricks at cards, and plays a good many games of back 
 gammon with her. " Double-sixes, by Jove ! I shall 
 beat this time." Whoever beats, little Amy is likely to 
 come out ahead. 
 
 Of course these things are observed. Old Wormwood 
 and Gall have even been forced to talk about them a lit 
 tle with each other mainly by grunts and exclamations. 
 Wormwood has such a bad opinion of husbands, she may 
 solemnly warn the girls against them before they go 
 home. I can not affirm that Mathemtaics will ever 
 marry Hannah. But it is certain that abstracted minds 
 need just such motherly, care-taking wives as she, and if 
 they do wed, the match, every body will say, was made in 
 heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE OLD SWEETHEART. 
 
 ON Railroad Street stands a row of small tenements 
 that, like a number of breakfast-rolls in a pan, seem 
 to have run together and combined their shabby ugliness 
 without aim, for there is land enough and to spare for 
 detached dwellings with yards and gardens. Most of 
 these houses are occupied by laborers families, but at 
 the north end of the row live the Widow Bowen and her 
 daughter, Susan. You will know the place, because it is 
 free from old hats stuck into broken window panes, and 
 the scrap of yard in front is neatly swept. " The Widow 
 Bowen, she that was Jane Hinman." It is thus the 
 neighbors always speak of her. In old times the Hin- 
 mans were of the village elect, and held their heads as 
 high as any body. Jane was a handsome girl and had 
 many good offers, but she chose in the end to marry 
 Bowen, who was of no particular account, and finally 
 faded out of life leaving his wife poor, with one little 
 girl. She had buried four children on the hill, and had 
 known troublous times all through her married life, and 
 struggle and poverty and hard work had attended the 
 widow s steps ever since. The fortunes of the Hinmans 
 had run to seed. They had died out or left the place, and a 
 generation arose which knew them not. Only the Widow 
 Bowen and her daughter Susan remained in that poor 
 corner tenement, where they toiled from morning till 
 night at sewing-machine work, finishing off coats and 
 trowsers at so much the dozen for a ready-made clothing 
 house in a neighboring town. 
 
258 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Huge parcels came for them by the train, and were 
 left in the care of the baggage-master and carried to the 
 widow s door by Sambo Brown. Year in and year out 
 the mother and daughter labored at this work, Mrs. 
 Bowen doing the lighter portions, while Susan, who was 
 vigorous, bore the brunt of toil. They often worked 
 fourteen hours a day, beginning in summer at five o clock. 
 The hum of their machine was heard by the Irish 
 laborers as, dinner-pail in hand, they trudged past the 
 window at six. Sometimes a female neighbor with a 
 gentle horse she could drive herself came and took Mrs. 
 Bowen for an hour s airing in her buggy. But these 
 were rare occasions. The widow could not spare the 
 time on week days, and Sunday driving is not fashiona 
 ble in the village. But Sunday being the only leisure 
 time they had, Susan and her mother in fine weather 
 often locked the house and went to the woods for the 
 entire day, carrying their dinner with them. They sel 
 dom attended church. Some of the neighbors talked, as 
 they will in a small place, and the sympathies of a certain 
 strict class of villagers were alienated. But the young 
 clergyman always remained friendly ; and he often 
 brought them the latest magazines and reviews, which 
 Susan read to her mother in their Sunday outings. Be 
 ing a modest man, he thought the new literature would 
 do them as much good as his sermons ; and he liked to 
 talk over with Susan what she had read. 
 
 Susan Bowen was very plain. People said she did not 
 "feature" the Hinmans, and as for the Bowens, they 
 were of too little importance for any one to remember 
 their characteristics. Susan s upper teeth projected, 
 and she could not easily close her lips over them. Her 
 hair was rather harsh and wiry, and her complexion dark 
 and without bloom. But she was wonderfully strong in 
 body and had never known a day s illness in her life. 
 She wore large calf-skin shoes, a short gown of some cheap 
 
SUSAtf. 259 
 
 stuff, cotton gloves, and a little round hat which kept its 
 place on her head season after season, regardless of the 
 changes of fashion. Susan spoke out what she had in 
 her mind without fear or favor. At sixteen she had said 
 openly that she would never marry, because no one would 
 think of marrying her whom she could accept. She talked 
 of her plainness, her large hands and feet, and even made 
 a joke of them. She never disguised her poverty or 
 made the least pretense of hiding the family misfortunes, 
 but on the contrary she made no appeal for sympathy. 
 She was an unusually large, strong, vigorous girl at an 
 early age, and it behooved her to maintain constant 
 cheerfulness of demeanor, and to sustain her mother, who 
 certainly was the weaker vessel. Genuine folk are rec 
 ognized sooner or later even in spiteful little commu 
 nities. People would bear a great deal of truth- 
 telling from Susan just because she was Susan. 
 Her word was as good as a bond ; and she had the 
 kind of manly honor that never breaks a contract or dis 
 regards a promise. Milly Grant, the village milliner, 
 with whom she maintained the closest intimacy, had a 
 great admiration for her because she felt that no one but 
 herself had ever sounded the height and depth and full 
 ness of Susan s genuine excellence. She regretted that 
 Susan was not a man, so that she might marry her. 
 
 But Susan, with all her mannish virtues, was very 
 womanly. She was strong to sustain, and she was tender 
 to comfort and help. Her heart was capacious, and 
 balanced her excellent head. The position of mother 
 and daughter had been changed. Susan was the wheel- 
 horse, as she said, and she felt a protecting fondness for 
 her mother s foibles that made up to that poor woman for 
 a great deal she had suffered. They drew together into 
 a united life. Susan knew she could never have a 
 romance, and her mother s young career was of the 
 greatest interest to her. They lived it all over again in 
 
260 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 their leisure hours, retouching the faded colors, that 
 Susan might realize what it is to be young, to win admira 
 tion, and to have lovers she who had known no youth 
 and could never enter personally into that magic realm. 
 Mrs. Bowen possessed certain remnants of her old vanity, 
 although so much had been beaten out of her by a hard 
 fate. She was a little weak about dress, as so many by 
 gone beauties are, and she liked to adorn herself, with 
 the vague feeling that somebody might still come to 
 admire her, although, in fact, nobody ever did come, at 
 least not for a long time. Nearly all the small sums that 
 could be spent on clothes were laid out for her benefit, 
 Susan contenting herself with a style of costume in which 
 she always looked the same winter and summer, spring 
 and fall. But she dressed her mother s still unfaded 
 hair, and put on the becoming ribbons and bits of lace 
 much as a fond mamma adorns her little girl. She 
 admired her mother more than any one, and wished to 
 keep her young and pretty a long time. 
 
 The widow still possesred a few small trinkets which 
 had not yet been parted with to pay the rent or to fur 
 nish necessaries. By far the most interesting of these, 
 as a memento of her girlhood, was a gold locket contain 
 ing two strands of hair, one auburn and the other brown, 
 intvvined together, with a curious cipher beneath them 
 engraved on the gold. The auburn lock had belonged 
 to Jane Hinman when she was a girl of eighteen. The 
 brown lock had never grown on Bowen s head. It dated 
 back to an earlier romance in Jane Hinman s life, the 
 episode which now most deeply engrossed both Susan 
 and her mother, the period they most frequently talked 
 over in confidential moments. In Mrs. Bowen s work- 
 table drawer there was a packet of yellow letters, con 
 nected with the locket and braided strands of hair, and a 
 little story of broken vows and disappointed hopes. 
 Jane Hinman had been engaged before she met Bowen. 
 
SENATOR FIELDING. 261 
 
 There had been a misunderstanding, a quarrel, perhaps, 
 and the ring was given back, and that was all. But it 
 was a great deal to Susan, indeed the central point of 
 interest in her mother s unfortunate life. Holding the 
 letters loose in her lap, and with that locket open before 
 her, she would try to realize the whole situation. 
 
 " And to think, Jane " (she called her mother Jane in 
 her playful or sentimental moods) " to think that Ben 
 Fielding is now a United States Senator, a great man in 
 his own State, likely to be governor soon, and possibly 
 president. Just try to imagine how it would be with you 
 if you had married him. Who would ever suspect that 
 the possible Mrs. Senator Fielding has been finishing off 
 slop-shop coats and trowsers all these years at starvation 
 prices ? Oh, Jane, that was a sad day for you when you 
 quarreled with the future senator. But where would I 
 have been had you married Ben Fielding ? I could never 
 have been born a senator s daughter. I presume I should 
 not have come into existence at all. And I am so large 
 and strong, such a positive character there is so much 
 of me it is impossible to think calmly of the narrow 
 escape I made of not getting born." 
 
 Mrs. Bowen had no great amount of humor. She 
 generally let Susan s nonsense go by her like the wind, 
 but it was a very serious matter to her that she had just 
 missed being Mrs. Senator Fielding. It invested her 
 with an amount of romantic interest in her own eyes 
 which enabled her to despise the benighted people who 
 knew not the Hinmans. It helped to keep her young 
 and good-looking, with a certain elegance of manner that 
 Susan admired because she had never been able to attain 
 to manners. She was irrevocably barred out from that 
 mysterious and fascinating region. Mrs. Bowen would 
 sigh an answer to Susan s remark as she turned a seam 
 or sewed on a button. 
 
 " He was very high-tempered and overbearing, Susan, 
 
262 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 and always would get his own way. He made mountains 
 out of molehills, and took his religion very hard (as if it 
 had been some sort of contagious disease). He inclined 
 to the Methodists, and dancing and light amusements 
 were abominations in his eyes. He tried to make me 
 promise I would not go to balls. But the Hinmans had 
 always belonged to the Church. My grandfather built 
 the little chapel at the Hollow mainly for his own family, 
 and used to read prayers himself. He put up a cross in 
 front, and some of the folks blamed him for it and said 
 it was papistical. But being of the Church, we were 
 always allowed to dance and amuse ourselves innocently, 
 and when Ben tried to make me promise, there was 
 trouble." 
 
 Susan, although she secretly hated the domineering 
 person her mother drew, always took his part. " He had 
 character anyway," snipping her thread. " There was 
 something to him. If I had been there, Jane, I suspect 
 I should have been on his side. I couldn t dance if I 
 tried, any more than a cow ; and folks are very apt to 
 condemn the follies they can t indulge in. But I guess 
 the senator has changed a good deal. I presume now he 
 is as worldly as a Hinman. They say Washington is a 
 pretty hard place." 
 
 " He never would go wrong, Susan. You ought not 
 to suspect such a thing. His principles were just like 
 iron. If he had been a little more yielding, or I had been 
 a little less pleasure-loving, things might have come out 
 different. Pass me that spool of black twist, Susan." 
 
 " I am sorry he took the wrong side on the pig-iron 
 and whisky question," remarked Susan. " If he hadn t, 
 I should have respected him more." Susan was a fervent 
 politician, and watched the senator s course in Congress 
 with a lynx eye. Once or twice she had thought of writ 
 ing to him vigorously to protest against some of his 
 measures which she did not approve. But she contented 
 
"JANE HINMAN IS DEAD." 263 
 
 herself composing letters to him in her head, and putting 
 in just as many forcible words as she could, while she 
 shunned all fine phrases. 
 
 So these two poor women toiled on for their daily 
 bread down there on Railroad Street, while they cherished 
 an interest in the large affairs of the nation their neigh 
 bors knew not of. Senator Ben Fielding and his growing 
 fame certainly did enlarge their horizon. 
 
 One Saturday night Susan had gone to call upon Milly 
 on Main Street, and on her return she burst into the room 
 and found her mother half asleep dozing in her chair in 
 the soft brown twilight of a midsummer evening. Mrs. 
 Bowen rubbed her eyes, with the dim consciousness that 
 Susan was excited. " What is the matter ? " said she 
 drowsily, sitting up straight in her chair. " Matter ! why, 
 mother, he is here, visiting Judge Magnus. He came 
 last night." Susan uttered the words as if she had been 
 a Delphic priestess giving forth the oracle. 
 
 " He, Susan ; whom do you mean ? " 
 
 " He, of course ; Senator Ben Fielding." 
 
 " You don t say Ben Fielding has come back to the vil 
 lage ! Well, I dare presume he has forgotten me. He 
 must think I am dead." 
 
 " You know that is a piece of affectation, mother. It 
 is probable he has made particular inquiries after Jane 
 Hinman." 
 
 " Jane Hinman is dead anyhow. He knows nothing 
 about the Widow Bowen ; and I don t see that his visit 
 concerns us. Susan, won t you light the lamp ? " 
 
 While Susan was lighting the lamp, and the darkness 
 still lingered, she brought out her last great piece of 
 news : " Mother, he is a widower ; has been one two 
 years." 
 
 " I dare presume, Susan. His wife, I heard, was a 
 sickly woman. They had three children." 
 
 " One dead," put in Susan laconically, as she turned 
 
264 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 up the wick, " and the other two grown, and doing for 
 themselves." 
 
 " I don t see how it concerns us, Susan. I am a faded 
 old woman." But her eyes looked singularly bright, and 
 her voice quavered with a new emotion. Susan would 
 not give in to her mother s artifices. She knew that 
 somehow it did concern them that Senator Ben Fielding 
 was in town. They did not talk much together, and 
 though both pretended to rest well, there was but little 
 sleep for them that night. The next morning they 
 debated as to whether they should go to church, and 
 finally decided in the negative. It would look too marked 
 just to go to see him, though they did not say so. Neither 
 did they speak of going to the woods or down by the 
 river on their usual Sunday ramble. They sat at home 
 all the morning, the sewing all put by. 
 
 Susan dressed her mother with great care. She 
 even put an extra touch to her own appearance, 
 she could hardly have told why. She was glad of 
 the housework, which kept her busy. But the widow 
 sat silent with her hands clasped and that bright ex 
 pectancy in her eyes. Judge Magnus was to give 
 the senator a grand dinner on Monday. How would 
 he find time to think of poor Jane Hinman and her 
 broken fortunes ? But he did find time to think of 
 her. It was just four o clock when a stranger clicked the 
 little gate. He was tall and rather imposing, with a 
 square forehead, a square chin, and a powerful jaw. He 
 wore square-toed boots, and even his watch chain was 
 composed of little cubes of gold. The iron-gray side- 
 whiskers gave him an air of distinction he had not pos 
 sessed in his younger years, but his eyes were of a steely 
 benevolence, without humor. Humor was the one thing 
 Ben Fielding had always lacked. 
 
 Susan hastily kissed her mother when she saw what 
 was impending, and then dashed out the back way. 
 
WIDOWERS INTENTIONS. 265 
 
 She slipped through a broken picket in the door- 
 yard fence, and crossed Mrs. Hodge s garden, and 
 by winding ways reached a back street and made 
 for a shady spot by the river. She sat down on the 
 ground among the ferns and let her hat fall back, and 
 with her hands clasped about her knees lost sight of 
 every thing before her eyes in her intense sympathy for 
 her mother. He had come to make a friendly call, of 
 course, but Susan did not believe it. She knew that 
 widowers, when their hearts have healed by the first in 
 tention, always have intentions. They are the least 
 ingenuous members of the human race. See was think 
 ing of Jane Hinman and the Widow Bowen, and the dark 
 ways they had traveled as mother and daughter, when 
 she had borne the laboring oar ; and a tide of pity and 
 love seemed to sweep her away, mingled with the excite 
 ment of this strange romance which was touching her 
 mother again in the afternoon of her days. 
 
 Susan never knew how long she sat there on the river- 
 bank among the ferns. She found it growing dark when 
 she took her way home. Her mother met her at the 
 door with her eyes half full of tears, and quivering with 
 suppressed emotion. She put her arms round her daugh 
 ter, and like Ruth and Naomi they clung together in 
 silence for a time. 
 
 " Oh, you can t think what he said. It s all the same 
 as if I hadn t grown old. He wants me to be his wife. 
 He came here on purpose, Susan, to ask me. He says 
 he has money enough, and every thing, and he don t care 
 if I am ever so poor and don t know how to appear," she 
 went on a little incoherently. 
 
 Susan put her mother down in the rocker and smoothed 
 her hair. " You must quiet yourself, or you will have 
 one of your bad headaches. But just tell me if you have 
 promised to be Mrs. Senator Fielding." 
 
 " How could I promise," she returned reproachfully, 
 
266 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 " without talking with you ? It all depends on you, 
 Susan, and the very thought of it makes me dizzy." 
 
 " I shan t stand in the way, mother ; I shall never 
 trouble him." 
 
 " Susan Bowen, what do you mean ? " 
 
 " He can t be expected to marry the whole family. 
 He has come for his old sweetheart, Jane Hinman, and 
 not for Susan Bowen, clumsy old Susan." 
 
 " You want to make me sick," breaking out into sobs ; 
 " that is just what you want to do." 
 
 " No, I don t, mother ; but I can t deceive you. We 
 have always been one, you and I, but it can be so no 
 longer. Jane Hinman was born for another fate. And 
 now she is coming into her kingdom. But Susan Bowen 
 was made to endure hardness, to live alone, and eat the 
 bread of labor. He would not like my influence over 
 you. He must rule alone ; I can see it in the square set 
 of his jaw." 
 
 "That s just it, Susan ; he ain t changed a bit. Such 
 men never do change. I can feel the iron Ben Fielding 
 under all this new velvet. He didn t have his way with 
 me when he was young, and he wants to get it now he is 
 old. He let it drop that his God must be my God ; and 
 it was so like old times it made me shiver." 
 
 " I guess his God is made in the likeness of the sen 
 ator," said Susan bitterly, but this was all she would say 
 to influence her mother, who kept insisting that he was 
 generous and kind, and wondrous condescending to the 
 poor Widow Bowen. She felt it a grievance that Susan 
 would not join in these eulogiums, but maintained a 
 dogged silence. Her sturdy strong soul felt a sorrow 
 tugging at her heart-strings, such as she had not known 
 in all her years of toil and privation. The splendid prospect 
 opened by the visit of the great man, though it dazzled 
 the widow s eyes, brought no real joy to that poor house. 
 Before going to bed Susan told her mother she would 
 
MRS. BO WEN S MORAL SUBLIMITY. 267 
 
 depart early the next morning by the train to take home 
 the finished bundle of work, and leave the coast clear. 
 The senator was to receive his answer that day. She 
 did not sleep until near morning, and then it seemed 
 that she had just fallen into her first uneasy nap when a 
 nervous grasp was laid on her shoulder. 
 
 " I can t, I can t," sobbed poor Mrs. Bowen brokenly. 
 " I ve made up my mind I won t have Ben Fielding if he 
 is to separate us. What do I care for his money, and his 
 position, and his honors, compared with my child ? And 
 just as like as not he would despise me if I didn t bow 
 down to him. I won t see him again. You must stay 
 and tell him the whole truth. There never was such a 
 one to speak the truth as you are. And I will go to 
 town with the bundle of work." 
 
 Susan felt that her mother had risen to the height of 
 the moral sublime. She took her in her arms and gave 
 her a tremendous hugging as she laughed and cried. 
 Mrs. Bowen did go to town, and Susan saw the senator, 
 and they had rather a bad half-hour. Fielding lost his 
 temper, and accused Susan of influencing her mother 
 against him to her great injury. And Susan lost her 
 temper and maintained her right to her mother with per 
 tinacity. And when the senator went away he congratu 
 lated himself on having escaped such a dragon of a 
 daughter-in-law. And Susan for her part hated the 
 overbearing man worse than any one she had ever seen. 
 
 Many can rise once in a lifetime to the height of the 
 moral sublime, but few can maintain themselves long at 
 such a level. When the two poor women took up life 
 again in that shabby tenement, things were changed. 
 Perhaps Mrs. Bowen, as is the way with dependent, 
 impulsive minds, secretly regretted at moments all she 
 had given up for Susan, while Susan for her part saw 
 these feelings at work in her mother and was wretched. 
 But one day there came to Susan Bowen (it was while 
 
268 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 the spoils system still reigned triumphant in Washington) 
 an official document which announced her appointment 
 to a twelve hundred dollar clerkship in the treasury. 
 Though she hated Fielding, he had done her this great 
 good turn because that generous streak in his nature was 
 marked. 
 
 When Susan and her mother went away happy and 
 triumphant, Milly declared that strange old fairy, Truth, 
 had left the village bag and baggage. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE STORY OF JOB BIRD. 
 
 THE chestnut trees are in blossom. The hillsides 
 show a rich tawny shade amid the darker and lighter 
 verdure. It is a happy time, for one thinks instinctively 
 of the bucolics and pastorals of the early poets, of the 
 shepherds and Arcadians of Claude Lorraine, and the 
 mountain slopes of Spain and Italy. It is the harvest 
 time, when the tanned hay and the golden grain go down 
 before the reaper. Earth takes a richer tone, like some 
 rare porcelain in the potter s oven. It is colored all 
 through with the life and energy of the sun. The thick 
 trees seem to hold something of night in their branches 
 all day long. 
 
 There is one farm on a lonely by-road under the mount 
 ain that seems always to wear a melancholy look of 
 decay, even in early spring. The place is damp, and the 
 neglected fruit trees are covered with a kind of mold. 
 The red farm-house looks weary of standing so long on 
 its foundations, and a row of gloomy poplars of the Lom- 
 bardy variety, once very common in this vicinity, leads 
 down to an unused gate, sagging away from its hinges. 
 A fine view of the valley and opposite hills is entirely 
 shut off by the barn, and the bam itself is now hidden 
 by a rank growth of melancholy verdure. This is Pop 
 lar or " Popple " Farm. The house for several years has 
 been unoccupied, and is said by the credulous to be 
 haunted by the ghost of Job Bird, who was killed in a 
 rather mysterious way in the hill pasture about a mile dis 
 tant. There were no very near neighbors in Job Bird s 
 
27 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 time, and are not now ; and a sinister look of desertion 
 and neglect has taken complete possession of the place. 
 A few hardy flowers which Mrs. Bird planted in her door- 
 yard have crept out to the side of the road, as if they 
 would rather be crushed by wagon-wheels or browsed by 
 cattle than remain in that desolate place. The currants 
 redden unplucked on the bushes, the cherries and apples 
 are left to wayfarers or wild birds. Some spell seems to 
 hover around the old house, though its ghosts are only 
 the swallows in the chimney, which cause the belated 
 teamster to hurry past at night with a loud clatter of 
 wheels to keep up his courage, and send the urchin round 
 on a side-road rather than pass the door. 
 
 And yet there was no stain of crime on Job Bird ; 
 nothing worse than slight aberration of intellect and set 
 tled melancholy, which he seems to have left as a legacy 
 to his farm. He had rather a fair start in life for the 
 country. When young he was considered a fortunate 
 man. He inherited Popple farm free and clear of debt 
 with all the improvements. There seemed nothing for 
 him to do but go on in the tracks of his father and grand 
 father. It was not a first-class farm. There was a piece 
 of swamp in the valley, with a tract of scrub-oak and 
 pine covering a rocky ridge which ran through the cen 
 ter of the land. The strip of arable and meadow along 
 the river was narrow, but with self-denial and labor it 
 was possible to work the farm and keep out of debt. His 
 father, Stephen Bird, was a terrible, relentless worker, 
 who had crooked his back while still young, kneaded his 
 muscles into whip-cord, and tanned his skin the color of 
 mahogany. When he died the farm was free from mort 
 gage or lien, and the Bird credit was good at all the 
 village " stores." 
 
 But Job was a different sort of man. He was imag 
 inative, dreamy, notional, given to visions and prophetic 
 moods, and with a fatal weakness of the will. There was 
 
A NATURAL PROCRAST1NATOR. 271 
 
 little of the stern stuff in his blood and bones which 
 wrests a competence from the sand and granite of a poor 
 farm. He dropped behind a little each year, and before 
 many seasons had passed there was a mortgage on the 
 land, and no neighbor would sell him any thing except 
 for cash. He could not co-ordinate his headwork and 
 handwork. He knew not when to loiter and when to 
 hurry, when to rest and when to take up the hoe and 
 spade. He had no method in his work, a common and 
 fatal defect among poor farmers. His tools and farm 
 implements were scattered, and the needed thing 
 was seldom at hand. He was a natural procrasti- 
 nator, and could not catch up with the seasons. His 
 plowing, sowing, and planting were generally behind 
 hand, and the snow sometimes flew before he had dug 
 his potatoes or harvested his apples. He knew, per 
 haps, as well as the most successful of his neighbors, all 
 the theories of agriculture. He was a reading man, and 
 somewhat more intelligent than the average, but he could 
 not apply his wisdom, nor make good maxims tell upon 
 life. Bird bewailed fate, and felt himself marked out for 
 misfortune. The hail fell on his fields of young grain, 
 the lightning struck his barn, the drought burned up his 
 crops, the weavil got into his wheat, the potato-bugs did 
 not spare him when other people managed to escape 
 without serious damage. His name Job was considered 
 too singularly appropriate to be due to accident. 
 
 On the other hand, Job Bird had been blessed with 
 chances which if they had come to any other man would 
 have made him an object of envy. He had not only in 
 herited a fairly good farm free from debt, but he had 
 married a worthy woman with a little property of her 
 own. Every body knew that Prissy Stowe came to Job 
 Bird with money in the bank. A cool, sequestered, re 
 served woman was Mrs. Bird, much addicted to keeping 
 her troubles to herself. Her long, pale face, with the 
 
27 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 faded blue eyes, was crowned by a high polished forehead 
 and thin hair of colorless blonde brushed neatly behind 
 the ears and twisted in a close knot at the back of the 
 head. Her person was large and clean and bony, and 
 the large hands showed signs either of excessive labor or 
 of rheumatism at the enlarged joints. She managed well 
 in the house and with that " faculty " always admired in 
 country housekeeping. The wheels of her domestic ma 
 chine were well oiled and moved without jar or noise. 
 She used correct, rather elegant language, choosing by 
 preference well sounding words. She was careful of 
 appearances, taking pains to keep the best side out, and 
 not to show the seamy surface of life. That decent pride 
 with which she strove to hide the heartache in her breast 
 was of course misunderstood. Some people said, " Miss 
 Bird was stuck up," about the worst accusation that can 
 be brought against such a woman in -the rural districts. 
 Still it was set down to her credit that she taught her 
 children to respect Job Bird, and even treat his defects 
 with a kind of tender reverence. 
 
 She always spoke of Job as Mr. Bird, although the 
 neighbors had begun to speak of him as " old Bird " while 
 he was still young. She scarcely ever made from choice 
 a visit to any acquaintance, for she was a very retiring, 
 home-keeping woman ; but the secret desire to excuse 
 her husband s shortcoming and set him right in the eyes 
 of the world sometimes drove her abroad. He was suf 
 fering from lumbago, and the work had got behind ; he 
 had failed to secure help, and that long rainy spell had 
 nearly spoiled the hay. In her low, precise voice, every 
 word grammatically correct, she generally wound up by 
 saying she was so glad Mr. Bird was a steady man, a 
 home-keeper, with no bad habits. If Mr. Bird were a 
 drinking man, like some she. knew, she would consider 
 herself a most unhappy woman. And then she would 
 take her way home with the hope in her heart that she had 
 
DO NOT GRIND YOUR SEED-CORN. 273 
 
 made folks believe Job was not to blame for his bad 
 management, but a victim of the conspiracy of nature. 
 But the country people have very sharp eyes for the Job 
 Bird class of men, and their judgments are often hard and 
 pitiless. They wondered if " Miss " Bird was making 
 believe, pretending that she did not know all about the 
 man she had married, and thought she could pull the 
 wool over their eyes. 
 
 If she knew, she also loved and pitied, and the deceits 
 of such a heart are indeed pious frauds. She strove to 
 keep Job tidy and respectable in appearance, with his 
 clothes well mended and brushed. But he was a slouch 
 about his person as he was about his land. There is an 
 old adage which says you must not grind your seed-corn. 
 Job Bird was always grinding away at his seed-corn. He 
 worked prodigiously at the wrong time, and then idled 
 away important days in the woods. He had always been 
 a great dreamer, and sometimes he endeavored to fore 
 tell future events from dreams or from other signs ; 
 but his predictions never came out right, and even his wife 
 refused to treat them seriously. He had thoughts of set 
 ting up for a weather prophet and making an almanac 
 with startling weather predictions, but all it ever came to 
 was the construction of a queer, meaningless diagram on 
 a piece of board, which for many years went knocking 
 about the barn. About harvest-time he was always 
 troubled with a vision of the Apocalyptic beast, which he 
 tried to draw with a bit of chalk on the rocks and fences. 
 This diagram, composed mainly of tail and nippers, was 
 called by the boys of the neighborhood the Apoplexy 
 beast, and a superstitious feeling grew up about it. The 
 boys did not dare rub it out, and in their fancy it soon 
 took on the horns, hoofs and tail of Burns s " Auld Nickie- 
 ben." 
 
 It was about the time the " Apoplexy beast" first ap 
 peared that folks, going back in memory, called to mind 
 
274 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 that Job s great-aunt, Hepsy Fairbairn, had been insane 
 and died in a hospital. They predicted that he would go 
 the same way. He was often under the influence of hal 
 lucinations and imagined the whole of nature in an 
 attitude of unfriendliness. The trees mocked him, the 
 clouds made faces, things stole out of the woods after 
 him at night, and mewed and barked like cats and dogs. 
 The whole farm seemed haunted, and an emanation of 
 this feeling spread to the neighbors. He might be seen 
 swinging his arms as he walked over the land and talked 
 to himself. His only reading now was the Book of Daniel, 
 which he carried with him in his pocket. His mind was 
 always at work on the problem of the end of the world, 
 and it was rumored he had made his own ascension robe 
 out of unbleached cotton, and hidden it in the shed-loft 
 in readiness for the great and awful day, quite indiffer 
 ent as to the ascension robes of other people. It was 
 even said that Job believed he was the only one to be 
 caught up to heaven in that vicinity when Gabriel s 
 trump should blow, wherefore the great significance of 
 the unbleached cotton robe. In those first years, when 
 the Second-Advent mania had taken possession of Job, 
 the end of the world seemed so near it was manifestly 
 useless to do much planting or sowing, plowing or 
 hoeing on the farm, and gradually he gave up work 
 of every kind, and left the management of the land to 
 his wife and a hired man. 
 
 There was a shadow over the old house, naturally 
 gloomy enough, and as the children grew up they escaped 
 at an early age to where they could have a little more 
 sunlight, and freer expression for their young lives. 
 The boys sought their fortunes in the West. The girls 
 married or taught school at a distance. Job Bird and 
 his wife were growing old before their time. He was a 
 harmless monomaniac, having gone, just as people pre 
 dicted he would, the way of his Great-aunt Hepsy. 
 
THE WHITE MYSTIC STONE. 275 
 
 Still Mrs. Bird insisted on keeping him at home and let 
 ting him roam about the farm at his own will Thin and 
 bloodless, with his clothes hanging loosely upon his 
 shrunken limbs, he slipped through the daylight like a 
 shadow. She, though erect still and keeping her cor 
 rect forms of speech, was very pale, with hair like the 
 snow. She did not now go about among the neighbors 
 to excuse Mr. Bird s shortcomings. 
 
 But the old man grew dearer to her in proportion as 
 he grew more dependent and helpless. His insanity was 
 of so mild a form she was never afraid he would harm 
 any human creature or even a bird. Her little money 
 in the bank had long been exhausted, and now she let 
 part of the land on shares, and part she worked with the 
 aid of hired help, and her children supplied means by 
 which the old place was kept in the family. Job roamed 
 and roamed all over the farm, with that tyrannous rest 
 lessness symptomatic of the diseased brain. He watched 
 the birds and small creatures for hours, and talked to 
 them in -a kind of gibberish which he thought they could 
 understand. 
 
 About two years before his death he read in Reve 
 lations of a clear, white, mystic stone, and a thought 
 came to him that perhaps by diligent search a piece 
 of this stone might be found on the old farm to re 
 veal to him those things he had vainly sought in dreams, 
 in the shapes of clouds, and all manner of foolish auguries. 
 This notion coming to his poor confused brain seemed to 
 give him a new purpose in life. He confided it to his 
 wife in great secrecy, and seemed to ask her sympathy 
 and her faith with dumb signs, mainly through the eager, 
 pathetic look of the eyes. This return to something like 
 the old affection and trust of their youth was to her like 
 the opening of a well of sweet water. Her children were 
 all out in the world struggling as they best might, and 
 she, a reserved woman by nature and much tried, was 
 
276 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 very lonely. But now her weak-minded husband, after 
 stumbling on dark mountains for a long time, had come 
 back to lean upon her in a trustful second childhood. 
 She would often watch him from the door or window, 
 going over the fields, his head bent, feeling neither rain 
 nor sun, wind nor cold, nor burning heat, in quest of that 
 stone which was to let him into the secret of life. The 
 delusion, crazy as it might be, was appealing and pathetic, 
 and sometimes she almost believed there might be some 
 thing in his fancies. With the craft of the insane, he 
 watched her narrowly, to detect the first glimmer of doubt 
 in her mind. He gathered a great number of little stones, 
 of all sizes and shapes and colors, which he sorted and 
 laid away on the shelf in the barn. Some of these he tried 
 to polish with rags and bits of newspaper, but they always 
 disappointed him in the end. None were of the perfect 
 form, or of that crystalline clearness through which Job 
 imagined his eye could pierce the future. 
 
 His wife humored him ; she let him think she believed 
 in the possibility of finding the stone, that he might con 
 fide in her more and more. When tired out with his quest, 
 he would occasionally come into the sitting-room and rest 
 on the lounge near where she sat at work in the long 
 summer afternoons. Thus lying on his back, with the tips 
 of the fingers of the two hands put lightly together over 
 his breast, his eyes fixed on vacancy, his lips moved in- 
 audibly, while his forehead was corrugated under his white 
 hair with the intensity of his thought. " He is always 
 studying," said the old wife to herself; and she wondered 
 what he had in his mind. She recalled stories she had 
 read of the philosopher s stone, which turns every thing 
 it touches to gold, of strange talismanic stones that reveal 
 the true nature of all things, and of those mystic stones, 
 urim and thummim, the Jewish high priest wore on his 
 garment. 
 
 " What good will the stone do you, father, if you 
 
THE GREAT BOWLDER. 277 
 
 should happen to find it ? " she would ask. " It will 
 reveal what is hidden," was his invariable answer. 
 Whether this hidden thing were the secret of happiness 
 or knowledge of future events, he would never say ; but 
 he was positive that the stone existed somewhere on the 
 old farm, and might probably be found with diligent 
 search. He never strayed out of the bounds, or gave 
 trouble to any one, but thus wandered and sought and 
 picked up stones and talked endlessly to himself. Near 
 the center of the farm a ridge of granite rock crops out 
 in a low hill crowned with a few young firs and birches 
 thinly scattered along its top. A huge bowlder, one of 
 those great traveled masses which had come down in the 
 glacial period, lay bedded in soil on the western slope of 
 this ridge. In its crannies had gathered a crop of ever 
 green ferns, mosses, and lichens, and a stalwart young 
 ash had rooted itself in one of the deeper clefts. Old 
 Job Bird had gone over the stony ground all about the 
 bowlder again and again, when it occurred to him to try 
 and move the half-detached mass of rock through which 
 the roots of the ash tree had worked their way. He did 
 not let Prissy know what he was about. His cunning 
 told him she would not approve this herculean labor. So 
 he dug and dug about that side of the bowlder where it 
 was weakest, trusting that some heavy rain-storm would 
 give him the help he required to set it in motion down 
 the hill. For two or three weeks he worked faithfully at 
 dislodging the bowlder in that distant pasture, where the 
 silence was only broken by birds, and by the gambols of 
 young heifers that looked at him with shy, wild eyes. 
 
 One warm July day Job did not come home to the 
 mid-day meal. His wife thought little of it at the time, 
 for the old man s habits were always irregular. But 
 when a severe storm came up in the course of the after 
 noon, and the lightning flashed, and the thunder cracked 
 bodefully among the hills, Mrs. Bird fella prey to intense 
 
278 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 anxiety. She could hardly tell why, for Job did not 
 mind cold or wet, and often was abroad in snow and rain 
 with seeming enjoyment in the wildest weather. But 
 this was an exceptional storm and almost tropical in the 
 volume of its rainfall. Great sheets of water poured 
 down from the clouds for two hours, and built a solid 
 wall between the lonely woman and the outer world. 
 When it cleared away with sudden relenting, the low sun 
 looked out from diffused gold under a heavy eyebrow of 
 blue-black cloud, and the roads and paths ran with 
 gurgling brown brooks ; the trees and bushes glittered 
 with untold splendor, and the corn was lodged and some 
 of the fences blown down, and the river in places had 
 overrun its banks and washed the cocked hay of low 
 meadows down stream. 
 
 Mrs. Bird took her way through the bars of the cattle- 
 yard and across the wet fields, unmindful of the destruc 
 tion of her crops. She was worried about her husband, 
 and when she got beyond the home acre and reached the 
 mowing lot she stopped and called, but only the cawing 
 of a crow that flapped its wings lazily in the strange yel 
 low light over the west wood answered her cry. On she 
 went, striking into the rocky pasture, where the soil was 
 poor and in spots red with sorrel. She cast her eyes on 
 the great bowlder half-way down the slope ; something 
 had happened to it ; had the storm broken off a large 
 fragment and carried it down in a sudden flood from the 
 hills ? Her heart grew sick, and suddenly she felt her 
 limbs giving way, and she fell with a moan, and then got 
 upon her knees and crept forward. The cleft bowlder 
 had rolled from its foundation, and in some mysterious 
 way had fallen upon Job Bird and carried him partly 
 down the slope, where it left him crushed and quite dead. 
 They never knew just how the bowlder fell upon the old 
 man, who possibly had taken shelter under it from the 
 storm. But when they gathered him up a little smooth 
 
HIDDEN THINGS REVEALED. 279 
 
 white pebble, round and shining, such as David chose 
 from the brook wherewith to smite Goliath, was closely 
 clasped in his hand. Perhaps at the very moment the 
 bowlder fell upon him he believed he had found the mys 
 tic talisman. And, strangely enough, at that moment 
 death came, and hidden things were revealed to the old 
 man s eyes. That infinite of being which we call death 
 opened before him, and perhaps perfect sanity and sweet 
 reason came to wash away the confusion of the distracted 
 brain. 
 
 People wondered that " Miss " Bird seemed to mourn 
 for a crazy man a man who, when in his right mind had 
 been of so little use to the world. But who can measure 
 the height and depth of such a woman s nature, that 
 loves the more the more the object of her love is poor, 
 despised, helpless, and dependent ? 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE OLD TAVERN-STAND. 
 
 crickets are singing in the stubble and the grass- 
 1 hoppers leaping in the hot noon. It is the time 
 when scarlet and white poppies blow in the village gar 
 dens, those mystic oriental flowers with satin petals, 
 moved by the slightest breeze. The August noons seem 
 poppy-drugged, so silent are all the dusty roadsides. 
 
 At this season the little finch of the common yellow 
 variety flutters about the edges of fields and along the 
 road to pick up the seeds that fall from fruits and flowers. 
 They have their romances those pretty creatures, their 
 little coquetries and flirtations. Their flight is a bird 
 play set to music, and I have often thought the motion 
 of their wings inscribed on the air the stanzas of a poem. 
 
 The shorn fields, with their grouped elms, look very 
 peaceful lying about the old tavern-stand close to the 
 road on the south side of the town, some mile or more 
 from the center of the village. It is still called the old 
 tavern, though there has not been a tavern kept there for 
 half a century. 
 
 This silvery pile of ancient building constitutes a com 
 posite dwelling, with shed, milk-house, and carriage-house 
 under the roof. Fifty or sixty years ago it was the most 
 celebrated house of call on the turnpike. It stands at a 
 fork of the road that place where man and beast are 
 supposed invariably to need refreshment and a genial 
 innkeeper s hearty welcome. Two gigantic elms rise in 
 front of the door, and throw a broad shade over the 
 porch where teamsters, peddlers, commercial travelers, 
 
THE OLD SIGN PULLED DOWN. 281 
 
 and tourists journeying in their own conveyances from 
 town to town, formerly sat to rest and gossip, and sip a 
 glass of something strengthening from the neighboring 
 bar. The shade of those great towering elms, and the 
 good cheer for which the house was long famous, were 
 lures to the weary traveler along the turnpike. The 
 tavern-keeper was both host and farmer, and made as 
 much from his broad acres as from the profits of his 
 house. 
 
 But there came a time when the last tavern-keeper 
 died childless, and the farm was sold to a new-comer, 
 who pulled down the creaking old sign fastened to 
 a limb of one of the elm trees, and began a whole series 
 of innovations, both within and without. The low-stud 
 ded main part was raised. The tap-room was turned into 
 a parlor. The old ball-room, with its " spring floor," was 
 cut up into a range of bedrooms. Part of the horse-sheds 
 were torn down, and other changes ensued, until the 
 whole was fitted for an extensive dairy farm. For two 
 or three years, it was said, all the peddlers carts, team 
 sters , and itinerants horses and dogs turned of themselves 
 up to the old stand, and with difficulty could be convinced 
 that it was no longer a house of entertainment. Old 
 guests of the place, who had not been that way for years, 
 would halt at the door in expectation of welcome, and 
 seeing no smiling publican, and no sign hung under the 
 elm boughs, would depart sadly, shaking their heads over 
 changed times and the decay of good old customs. But 
 in my time,, when I first remember the place, only the 
 tradition of the tavern remained. 
 
 The place was then owned by Josiah Belknap, and there 
 was no Mrs. Josiah. To the children he seemed even 
 then an old man, for he had grown gray very young. But 
 Josiah was serene and smiling, always lifted up in an at 
 mosphere of calm above the chatter of the women. It 
 was a saying of Josiah s that he never minded the talk 
 
282 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 of women. Geese must cackle, and women must talk. 
 They would die if they were deprived of this vent for the 
 nerves, but it is the duty of the wise man to go his way 
 and leave them to settle all questions among themselves ; 
 but it was said in such a gentle, placid voice, and with such 
 a benevolent countenance, no one ever thought of taking 
 offense. Although Josiah had never married, protesting 
 he had no genius for matrimony, he had a great deal to 
 do with women all his life, and must have been deeply 
 versed in feminine lore. His mother and grandmother 
 on the father s side lived with him until they both died of 
 extreme old age. These were Granny Barnes, as she was 
 always called, and Mother Belknap. Granny Barnes was 
 also known among the sect of Quakers to which she be 
 longed as plain Betsey Barnes. And Granny would not 
 condescend to put a handle to any body s name, not even 
 to the president s ; she would have called the Father of his 
 Country George, with a dignity all her own. She used 
 the plain language, which is so sweet and winsome on the 
 lips of the old. In spite of thequietistic doctrines which 
 absorbed into the nature make a heavenly serenity around 
 many Friends, Betsey Barnes still showed, even in her 
 extreme old age, the rigid, severe, and rather unyielding 
 temper which had been her inheritance. Grace had 
 worked upon the craggy outlines, producing the effect of 
 strength, dignity, and calm self-poise. She was very tall 
 and spare, with a joint somewhere about the middle of 
 her person, which gave way when she sat down, and left 
 her as rigid and erect as before. She had been a preacher 
 in her sect, and a person of authority, and she always 
 carried the preacher about with her. 
 
 Her muslin and dove-color were of the neatest and 
 most particular shade and fiber. Her thin, gaunt head 
 was covered with a close semi-transparent cap that 
 showed the scant gray hair. She sat a great deal in her 
 old age in a high-backed chair with her hands folded 
 
THE DEBATABLE LAND. 283 
 
 over her drab gown, saying she was waiting for the sum 
 mons. Still, though Granny Barnes thought she had got 
 mainly through with life, she did take a keen interest in 
 temporal affairs, especially in the affairs of her grandson, 
 Josiah, whom she hoped to save from falling too much 
 under the influence of Celindy Belknap. We are all of 
 us at times in danger of mistaking the voice of our own 
 prejudices for that still small voice which the prophet 
 celebrates, and which the good Friends claim to hear 
 sounding in the depths of the soul. Granny Barnes had 
 a passionate, intense nature, and though she strove to 
 subdue it to the pattern of her sect, the imperious will 
 sometimes spoke out. 
 
 Mother Belknap, on the other hand, though she held 
 firmly to those "blessed " doctrines of election and total 
 depravity, was a trim, blithe little person, not decayed so 
 much as well dried, with a stereotyped bloom on her 
 cheek, and a quick, light step. Each of the old women 
 occupied one of those large apartments which had been 
 made out of the ancient ball-room. A middle apart 
 ment lay between them, their common sitting-room, 
 where they daily met to make polite inquiries after each 
 other s health, and how each had passed the night. 
 Here, too, they sometimes engaged in religious discus 
 sion on controverted points, and the debatable land wit 
 nessed many a little word-battle when they cast Bible 
 texts at each other s heads, and each withdrew to her 
 own room with ruffled feathers, but the triumphant sense 
 of victory. 
 
 Granny Barnes s room was the outward expression of 
 her faith calm, shady, spotlessly neat, with polished 
 bits of ancient furniture, a few drab-looking books piled 
 up in solemn iciness, strips of carpet before the bed and 
 bureau, immaculate dimity window curtains, and bed 
 curtains of the same, edged with knotted fringe ; but no 
 picture, no flower-pot, nothing but prim starched neat- 
 
284 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ness and quietude. Children seldom strayed into Granny 
 Barnes s room, although they sometimes peeped slyly in 
 at the door. But Mother Belknap, though she held such 
 portentous doctrines as to the ultimate fate of the human 
 race, loved children, especially babies, knew all about 
 their ailments, and was perfectly instructed in baby talk, 
 in how to trot, and dandle, and croon nursery-songs, so 
 that young mothers instinctively brought their little ones 
 to her, to lie on her great bed and be cradled in her 
 maternal arms. 
 
 Mother Belknap loved brightness, and cheeriness, and 
 bustle. Her room, I well remember, was done up with 
 much high-colored chintz representing wreaths of red 
 roses and yellow and blue birds. A string of gold beads 
 encircled her neck, and she snuffed judiciously out of a 
 pretty tortoise-shell box. It was the fashion in her time 
 to wear a large bow on the front of the mob cap called a 
 windmill. Mother Belknap s windmill was always made 
 of bright colors, and her gowns and aprons partook of 
 the same cheery glow. Long after Granny Barnes had 
 taken to walking with a cane, Mother Belknap was quite 
 active, and she thanked God that she preserved her sight 
 and hearing, as any one who believed so implicitly in the 
 doctrine of election should. She could thread a cam 
 bric needle without " specs " long after Granny Barnes 
 had ceased to sew or even knit. But it was a secret 
 scandal to Granny Barnes, this unmannerly display of 
 cheerful worldliness on the part of Celinda Belknap, who 
 held with such stubbornness to the doom of the greater 
 part of mankind, and seemed to enjoy the idea. Celinda 
 Belknap had added the enormity of saying, in so many 
 words, that she did not believe in drab angels and saints, 
 and very much doubted whether they spoke the plain 
 language in heaven. 
 
 It was for the soul of Josiah, the son and grandson, 
 that these two ancient dames contended. Josiah, though 
 
JO SI Airs RELIGION. 285 
 
 he had passed through a religious experience at a certain 
 period of his life, strange to say, had never joined a 
 church. He owned to his conversion with a kind of 
 childlike simplicity, but he would never state his exact 
 theological views, or make any explicit confession on 
 doctrinal points, especially that one so dear to his 
 mother s heart, foreordination and election. Still, Josiah 
 never blinked the fact that he was a religious man, deeply 
 interested in spiritual concerns. The music of the parish 
 received great help from Josiah, who had a natural gift 
 in that direction, and could play quite sweetly on several 
 instruments by ear, never having taken a lesson in his 
 life. He confessed that his best seasons of prayer and 
 meditation were in the morning alone in the fields, when 
 the catbird and song sparrow made the air tremble with 
 melody, and the dew lay white on the grass. Then things 
 unutterable stole into Josiah s heart, and since, like 
 Burns, he could not go into the little square chamber 
 with the wooden table and pour his feelings all out in 
 immortal verse, he would sometimes drop his hoe and 
 come directly in from the fields, and seat himself at an 
 old reed organ in his own vast chamber, and pour out an 
 improvisation which seemed to express every thing. I 
 can see him now, the beautiful old bachelor, so unworldly 
 and gentle, so oblivious to his own good deeds, his self- 
 sacrificing life, and untiring patience with those old 
 dependent people, and all about him, as he sat at the 
 organ, his healthful, calm face with a slight bloom upon 
 it, delicate as a woman s in feature, with the long sil 
 very hair almost touching his shoulder. 
 
 Granny Barnes had been partially deaf for many years, 
 but Mother Belknap prided herself on her good hearing, 
 a fact which Granny Barnes always ignored in speaking 
 to her. " You needn t scream so," Mother Belknap 
 would say, with as much asperity as is conformable with 
 perfect politeness. " I have my hearing, thank heaven, 
 
286 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 good as ever. Folks as haven t their hearing think 
 every body else deef as posts. I am sorry to see you 
 don t hear nigh as quick as you did last year." 
 
 Granny Barnes generally shut her eyes and remained 
 rigid under this infliction, and as it is very difficult to 
 talk to a person who insists on keeping her eyes closed, 
 and who is as you know deaf as a stone-wall when she does 
 not choose to hear, Mother Belknap generally gave up, 
 tacitly defeated. In a day or two Granny Barnes would 
 hold a secret interview with Josiah : " I think I ought to 
 tell thee, Josiah, that thy mother is failing. It is borne 
 in on my mind that she is growing childish. Thee may 
 have noticed that she wears a pink lutestring windmill 
 on her cap. I must bear my testimony against such 
 worldliness. I tell thee I am forced to shut my eyes 
 when I see those pink lutestrings." 
 
 " Mother always was fond of bright colors," Josiah 
 would answer, " and that kind of weakness grows on 
 folks as they get old ; but it is more harmless, ain t it, 
 granny, than harsh judgments and uncharitabieness ? " 
 
 " Thee is right, Josiah, and I am rebuked." 
 
 " No, granny ; but we must bear and forbear with one 
 another, having patience, and long-suffering, and broth 
 erly love." Thus he poured oil on the troubled waters, 
 only to be waylaid by his mother. " Have you noticed, 
 Josiah, how granny is breaking up ? She s harder of 
 hearing than she was, and she don t seem to sense things 
 quick, but still she is pretty techy. The old lady is all 
 going to pieces. I thought you ought to know it, Josiah, 
 so it shouldn t come upon you unbeknownst. But it is 
 strange how obstinate she is. She holds to free grace in 
 the face of all reason and of Scriptur . I hate to see her 
 so sot in her own delusion." 
 
 " Don t worry about that, mother. There may be 
 more ways than one." 
 
 " There ain t but one way, Josiah. It s an awful and 
 
MOTHER BELKNAP" S SHEPHERD. 287 
 
 solemn fact. You can t climb up the sheepfold on the 
 wrong side. Straight is the road and narrer is the way, 
 and few there be that find it. Many are called, but few 
 are chosen, Josiah," laying the fore-finger of one hand in 
 the palm of the other. 
 
 " Well, if it gives you any comfort to think so, mother, 
 I am glad, but I don t quite see how you can be so 
 cheerful under the circumstances. As for granny, you 
 couldn t get along without her, mother, she makes you 
 feel so safe and comfortable." 
 
 The old lady looked at him half-puzzled, half-resent 
 ful. " Josiah," she would say, warningly, " I do hope you 
 are not going to let her get the upper hand. You have 
 been converted, and you know you have got grace in 
 your soul." 
 
 " Yes, I think I have, mother, at least sometimes, 
 though it is a conceited thing to say." 
 
 Mother Belknap had her favorite spiritual shepherd, a 
 rank Calvinist, whom she always entertained in her own 
 room, coddling him with seed-cakes and a favorite drink 
 of her decoction called metheglin. Granny Barnes was 
 excluded from these conferences and seasons of soul- 
 refreshing as being heretical. On one of these visits 
 Josiah was at work binding grain behind the barn. The 
 parson thought it might be a fit moment to try and get a 
 doctrinal statement from him, and Mother Belknap 
 trotted out into the field to hold a religious talk with her 
 son. " Josiah," she began, as if speaking of the state of 
 the crops, u when was you converted ? Brother Brewster 
 here would like to know." 
 
 Josiah was always respectful to his mother and very 
 patient. He was one who honored the ministry and was 
 much given to entertaining the saints. But now the 
 spirit of a man rebelled within him against this effort to 
 pry into the most sacred part of his experience. 
 
 " Go and ask God, Brother Brewster," said Josiah, 
 
288 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 without stopping his work. " He knows all about it 
 and you are very intimate with Him, judging from the way 
 you preach and pray. Go and ask Him." 
 
 The parson went home much offended, and might 
 never have taken Josiah back into his good graces but 
 for the comfortable beds and excellent cheer at the old 
 tavern house. Granny Barnes, of course, heard of the 
 rebuke Josiah had administered to the parson " the hire 
 ling priest, who preached in a steeple-house " for it 
 was a peculiarity of her deafness that she always heard 
 every thing she wished to hear. 
 
 " Thee sees," she said calmly to his discomfited 
 mother, " Josiah after all belongs to my side of the 
 family. His father strayed off and married out of the 
 meeting, much to the grief of all who had his good at 
 heart ; but Josiah is one of us. Thee can see it in his 
 life. He is a natural peacemaker, but he won t be im 
 posed on. His music is all peace. It is nearer quiet 
 ness than any sound I ever heard. Thee knows we bear 
 testimony against worldly music, and all that goes with 
 it, but I call Josiah s music heavenly." 
 
 Such praise of Josiah could not placate Mother ^el- 
 knap. " You mean that Josiah belongs to his father s 
 side, and that I haven t any part in my own son." 
 
 " I wouldn t say that, Celinda Belknap, for thee knows 
 that though Josiah is such a peaceable man, with such 
 quietness of nature, he is an obstinate man. And thee 
 can tell where his obstinacy comes from." 
 
 Josiah s sister, Mrs. Phoebe Elderkin, had been 
 widowed young, and had come to live with him, bring 
 ing her three children. Josiah never complained of the 
 added burden of this family. He brought up the Elderkin 
 children, and saw them well started in life. It was just 
 at this point, when his mother became too infirm to at 
 tend to the house, and both the old people needed much 
 waiting upon, that a near neighbor, who had lost his wife 
 
"WHAT LUCK YOU HAVE MARRYING." 289 
 
 the previous year, began to come frequently to the house. 
 Sometimes an inquiry after hoop-poles, at other times 
 after sap-buckets, and once or twice for a stone-boat 
 brought him there. It turned out in the end that the 
 hoop-holes, sap-buckets, and stone-boat all meant Phcebe 
 Elderkin. One day Phoebe went out in the great mow 
 ing lot, a noble meadow on the intervale, to tell Josiah 
 that she was going to marry Simon Strong. Josiah was 
 utterly amazed. Such a thought had never entered his 
 mind. 
 
 " Sakes alive, Phoebe," he exclaimed, " what luck you 
 do have marrying ! I could never get one wife, and you 
 are going to take a second husband. And there is 
 Deacon Spender s wife living with her fourth. It beats 
 all, it beats all ! " 
 
 This was all he ever said not a word of reproach to 
 Phcebe for leaving him at a critical time after he had 
 tided her over the difficult years of her life. But at that 
 time Josiah began to play rather gloomy psalm-tunes on 
 the old reed organ, and he was a little depressed and 
 discomfited until he had secured a distant cousin, Miss 
 Jane Farrar, to keep house for him. Jane when she 
 came was rather a spiteful, snappish old spinster, with a 
 mania for neatness sufficient to drive a less placid man 
 than Josiah out of his mind. There seemed to be no 
 chair he could sit down on in his own house, no object he 
 could handle. One day Jane was sweeping the room 
 with that peculiar snap of the petticoats which marks the 
 overzeal of such a nature. Josiah kept moving his chair 
 so as to get directly in the path of her broom. At last, 
 out of all patience, she exclaimed, " Josiah Belknap, 
 what do you mean ? " 
 
 " Why, Jane," he answered mildly, " I thought I d see 
 if you wouldn t sweep me right out-of-doors, and never 
 know I was any thing better than floor litter. I expect 
 you think it s an awful trial to have men folks tracking 
 
290 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 around and making dirt, and if you should sweep me out 
 you would get rid of me in an easy way." 
 
 Jane never forgot the lesson. She could not quite 
 change her nature, but she came to reverence Josiah as 
 every one did who knew him. She took the best of care 
 of the old people, who both became bedridden before 
 they died, and in the last years, when Josiah was an old 
 man, she would listen at the door to hear him playing on 
 the organ. She always knew by the tones whether he 
 was sad or cheerful, and sometimes she felt that he had 
 escaped to regions where she could not follow. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 ZIP COON, A DOG STORY. 
 
 THESE days, so persistently breathed upon by the 
 moist, languid South, have a supplement, or hour of 
 cooling on the river. A vague mystic light reflects from 
 its mirror long after the sun has set. The placid waters 
 dissolve the real world and recreate it in wonderful 
 form. Another sweep of the oar, and you may break 
 into strange silent seas, a million miles from any thing 
 you have ever known. Late haycocks dot the low banks 
 and send forth pungent sweetness. Dim gleams from 
 the sunset, which has left a glowing red crater like a coal 
 in a heap of ashes, plunge far down to where the water- 
 nixies live. The banks, and houses, and distant hills, 
 and clumps of trees have melted like dissolved diamonds 
 into the sky, or have taken on a velvet brown as soft as 
 the plumage of a raven. The shadows plunge down into 
 the crystal, like ebony columns, and the spaces in be 
 tween seem too pure for water. We imagine our boat 
 has glided upon air, or even floated forth to interstellar 
 ether. 
 
 There is a young moon to-night, a mere silver sickle, 
 but it begins to make its waxing tell. Its tricksy beams 
 glide deftly in among the boughs of the black trees as if 
 in search of elves and fays. All plants breathe out the 
 best they have. No noxious thing grows here ; henbane, 
 nightshade, poisonous ivy, the nymphs will have none of 
 you. They choose cool sedge, and whispering reeds, and 
 fresh-smelling grasses, sweet clover from the water- 
 meadows, and mint from where the brooks come down. 
 Far off in the east a cloud hovers invisible, except when 
 
292 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 it sends out broad sheets or twisted serpents of pale red 
 heat-lightning. Then you see the cloud is composite, an 
 air palace, having walls, and pinnacles, and towers, and 
 domes, with strange gleams as of Oriental cities flashing 
 out from an unknown strand. 
 
 This goes on in the sky while the shadows creep and 
 broaden. A light mist begins to rise from the river 
 banks, and a great frog has had the temerity to sound his 
 bass note in a silence the breezes respect as they go 
 whispering, feat-footed, amid the boughs and over the 
 meadow grass. 
 
 The village gardens are lovely at twilight ; dim lights 
 gleam through the shrubberies when the star of love 
 rises, and ladies in white gowns go flitting about among 
 the flowers, young girls fly across the street bareheaded, 
 children romp in and out. There is a little reception in 
 nearly every garden, where people have come to glean 
 the odors of the sweet pea and the verbena, the mignon 
 ette, and carnation. Old-fashioned blossoms, common 
 flowers as they are called, are much cultivated in the vil 
 lage. They grow in accord with their own fancy, spring 
 ing up beside grassy paths in bright knots and clusters 
 without the stiff order of beds. 
 
 The doctor s garden is a perfect specimen of what 
 such a lawless village garden should be. One side of it 
 is shaded by tall plum and cherry trees, and there are 
 other places devoted to great branchy trees bearing 
 delicious bough apples. In the center is a little rustic 
 arbor, covered with a mass of blooming clematis and 
 madeira vine. The arbor is sheltered by the boughs of a 
 large catalpa, one of the few catalpa trees in this part of 
 the country, with a circular bench running about it. 
 Growing in among the tall corn and the other vegetables 
 are immense sunflowers, while the hardiest common 
 blooms edge every path. There is one nook by the 
 wicket gate made by a great mass of sunflower, scarlet 
 
IN THE GARDEN. 293 
 
 and white climbing beans, and hollyhocks of all shades. 
 It is such a bower as Arachne must have lived in when 
 she excited the fury of Minerva by her exquisite embroid 
 ery and the envious goddess turned her into a spider. 
 The doctor has great pleasure in watching the humming 
 birds when they visit this huge bouquet, and dive their 
 bills into the cups of the flowers. 
 
 One evening the doctor and his wife and grandchild 
 were all out under the shade of the catalpa tree just at 
 that witching time when the brown night-moth goes 
 droning on his heavy wing. The doctor s wife looked 
 almost young in her light gown, with soft lace at the 
 throat. The young girl was frolicking with a string and 
 a white kitten. They could hear Hugh playing tennis 
 with the Spencer girls behind the hedge next door and 
 giving forth his Homeric laugh. The village is a whis 
 pering gallery on a warm evening when the windows are 
 all open. It is even said that when Mr. Johns proposed 
 to rich old Miss Merkland, who is deaf, he was heard 
 quite a way down the street. 
 
 As the doctor and his family sat thus in peace, 
 enjoying the coolness of the summer evening, a light 
 tap, tap was heard on the gravel walk, and a yellow 
 dog appeared before them, a gaunt, hungry, mangy 
 creature, with tail tucked between his legs in protest, 
 as if he expected to go yelping away the next 
 moment from the kick of a sturdy foot. One ragged 
 ear hung down dejectedly, while the other perked itself 
 up in the air with a ludicrous attempt at smartness. The 
 dog had been around to nearly every house in the village, 
 running through the gate and in at the door if it hap 
 pened to be open. Some had given it hard words, some 
 had kicked it, or shoved it out with a broom, and others 
 had thrown stones at it. A company of bad boys 
 had even tied a tin kettle to its tail and sent it crying 
 with pain and fright down a cow-lane toward the river. 
 
294 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Not one human being had given it a kind word or a 
 crumb of any thing to eat. The poor creature rid itself 
 as best it could of the tin kettle and crept back into the 
 village, slinking along to avoid observation and blows as 
 much as possible. It was unmistakably hungry, and the 
 pathos of its eyes said so. It continued its doggish 
 quest until it came into the doctor s garden and to where 
 the good man sat in the arbor. It came close to his feet 
 and whined and wagged its ragged tail, and looked up 
 appealingly into his face, with an assurance of comfort 
 that it had found a friend. The doctor ordered the girl 
 in the kitchen to feed the dog, although Mrs. Rivington 
 protested. She was a charitable woman, but she felt that 
 the line must be drawn somewhere, and vagrant dogs, 
 especially of that common yellow breed, had always been 
 her aversion. 
 
 The doctor s household went to bed, the whole village 
 went to bed. The stars looked down through the elms, 
 and stray moonbeams from the setting orb winked here 
 and there upon the projection of a roof or threw their 
 light along the dewy grass. Every body had forgotten 
 the vagrant dog. In the morning, however, when the 
 doctor awoke and went out to the stable to order his 
 horse for a round of country visits, there lay that yellow, 
 mangy, lop-eared, ill-conditioned cur directly in his path. 
 The poor creature showed all his ribs, as the doctor could 
 see in the morning light, and there were upon him the 
 scars and sores of many a battle with stronger and 
 better-fed dogs. The doctor s professional eye saw that 
 he had a gaping wound on one of his hind legs, where the 
 flesh had been laid open to the bone, and was raw and 
 bleeding. The human heart in him could not leave the 
 leg of a stray dog in that condition. He hurried again 
 into his office and brought out a flask of ointment. He 
 cleaned the wound and applied the ointment, and the 
 dog s eyes looked as if they were filled with grateful tears, 
 
THE VAGRANT DOG. 295 
 
 while he fairly whimpered with gratitude. He had slunk 
 away, expecting a kick from the doctor s heavy boot, but 
 the doctor never kicked any thing weaker than him 
 self. It was only meanness and selfishness and utter in 
 gratitude the old man felt the impulse to chastise. Now, 
 as he again looked at the dog, a gleam of recognition 
 came into his mind. Surely he had seen those eyes, that 
 one lop- and one prick-ear, but his memory failed him ; 
 he could not place the dog. But he had him fed again 
 .at the kitchen door, and then he drove him out of the 
 yard and told him to go home. But he was no sooner 
 seated in his wagon and trotting along the road than he 
 was conscious of the fact that that common " yaller " dog 
 was trotting along by his side, accurately adapting his 
 steps to the pace of the old mare. 
 
 The doctor spoke crossly to him and again told him to 
 go home. But the ill-conditioned creature only looked 
 around under his lop-ear, as much as to say : " I m going 
 home and you are going with me." Finally the dog 
 edged along and took the lead, first on one side of the road 
 and then on the other, keeping a certain distance from 
 the mare s heels, and occasionally looking round at the 
 doctor to see if he was observing his motions. The 
 doctor, who was a close observer of the habits of animals, 
 could hardly help becoming interested in this creature s 
 maneuvers. He had expected him to dart away at every 
 lane and turning, but the persistent dog-trot he kept up 
 in front of the wagon finally produced the impression 
 that the dog must have some set purpose in his mind. 
 
 When they came to a fork of the road branching off to 
 Windham one way, the doctor took the left hand turning 
 to go on a visit to Felix Brown, who had been dying of 
 lung consumption for fifteen years, and would yet per 
 haps outlive some healthy folk. But the dog wished him 
 to take the Windham road for reasons known only to 
 himself. He squatted down in the dust, lying flat on his 
 
2 9 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 stomach, and whined, and howled, and scratched with 
 every sign of distress. The doctor, who was slightly su 
 perstitious perhaps, as we all are, watched the dog s be 
 havior with surprise and interest, and after debating a 
 time with himself, half ashamed at his own weakness, he 
 decided to let the creature have his way, and turned his 
 mare s head down the Windham road. Fortunately there 
 were no very pressing cases on his calendar that morning. 
 
 When the dog saw that the doctor had yielded to him, he 
 went quite wild with delight, barking, and yapping, and 
 nearly leaping into the wagon in the delirium of his joy. 
 The doctor was a firm believer in the instincts of the 
 lower orders of creation. He had a theory of his own as 
 to the dim border-land between the limits of instinct and 
 the domain of human intelligence, and it was this which 
 led him to try and discover what the dog meant by his 
 strange actions. 
 
 A long way the dog led the bewildered doctor, keeping 
 on and on with a persistent trot in spite of his lame leg. 
 He did not wish to go to Windham, that was clear, but 
 struck off on a stony by-road leading quite away from the 
 hills and the river valley, until they came to a miserably 
 poor country, and into the edge of an extensive piece of 
 pine timber. This the doctor at once knew was the pine 
 barrens, a region he had not visited for several years. 
 All cultivation soon ceased, and every sign of life disap 
 peared except such as clustered here and there about the 
 slab shanty of a turpentine-maker. In a cluster of these 
 three or four standing together the doctor caught 
 sight of the vagabond Jabez sitting sunning himself in 
 the door of one of the slab shanties, with his knees drawn 
 up until they nearly touched his chin. The unkempt hair 
 was hanging in tangled wisps on his shoulders, and he 
 looked sickly and haggard. His feet were bare, and his 
 lean person was scarcely covered by rags. He nodded 
 to the doctor as if not in the least surprised to see him 
 
GKA VES MADE IN THE SAND. 297 
 
 there, and now the doctor at once knew where he had 
 seen the dog, for the animal had attached itself to the 
 wandering fortunes of the child called " Chippie " even 
 while Jabez and his miserable family lived in the doorless 
 house in the woods. It was several months since Jabez 
 had been moved by Farmer White down to the barrens. 
 The doctor looked at Jabez, who did not rise or change 
 his position. He le aned forward in the wagon and 
 grasped his whip firmly. " What s wrong here ? " he said 
 sternly. " Purty considerable," drawled Jabez, lifting his 
 lack-luster, leaden eyes. " She (referring to his wife) and 
 that there boy baby she called John Rivington both died 
 of dipthery nigh goin on two week ago. And the folks 
 here at work in the turpentine made their graves down 
 yender in the sand. They was took and died suddent 
 like before we could call a doctor ; and I was took the 
 next week. And I hain t got around any to speak of yet. 
 And the gal she s laying sick there inside." 
 
 He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, but had 
 not the energy to turn his head. The doctor sprang out 
 of the wagon with something that sounded like an impre 
 cation, and stumbled over Jabez into the hut. The dog 
 was already there beside Chippie. Her poor little wasted 
 hand lay on the ragged coverlet, and the creature was 
 licking it all over and extending his caresses to the sick 
 child s face. She lay on a truckle-bed with an old straw 
 tick under her, and had no covering but the ragged quilt. 
 A woman s cotton skirt, one of the dead mother s, 
 was bundled up to serve as a pillow. One of the 
 pitch-boilers in the barrens, a kind hearted, rough young 
 fellow, whose every other word was an oath, had brought 
 the sick child part of his breakfast. It stood untouched 
 on a broken chair salt pork, leathery flap-jacks, and 
 thick muddy coffee. The child was very feverish. Her 
 lips were baked and dry, and the great eyes seemed to 
 have burned their way into the sallow, pinched face, 
 
29 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 making circles of darkness. The cabin was such a pic 
 ture of poverty, wretchedness, and filth as the doctor had 
 never beheld. He felt a great rising in his throat, and 
 could not speak to the child for some moments, though 
 she was perfectly conscious, and had her wistful eyes 
 fixed on his face. 
 
 Her mother and the baby were gone, that baby she had 
 tended nights, and toiled for days, and loved so dearly ; 
 that poor, nerveless, sick, discouraged mother she had 
 taken care of as if nature had changed their relations 
 and made her the parent. But deliverance had come to 
 her. The good man who looked to her so like a savior 
 laid his fatherly, kind hand on her hot forehead and 
 touched her so gently poor little Chippie thought there 
 was healing in his touch. He gave her a dose of some 
 thing from his medicine case, which he mixed with a little 
 water in a tea-cup, and she dropped asleep and slept and 
 slept whole days and weeks and months, it seemed. 
 
 When she partly awoke, Chippie fancied she was slowly 
 moving out in the fresh air she loved. She heard the 
 birds singing and her dog Zip Coon barking and yapping 
 joyfully ; but she could not tell where she was, so she 
 fell asleep again, and when she awoke she found herself 
 in a clean chamber with windows opening to the east, in 
 a white bed, dressed in a little fresh-ironed gown, and 
 lying so sweetly at rest, with a sense of new life and 
 strength coming slowly into her limbs, she thought at first 
 she was dead. She looked at her wasted hands and lean 
 arms and wondered if she had gone to the same place 
 where her mother and the baby were. She tried to stick 
 her foot out from under the sheet, to see if it were really 
 hers, and finally she gave it up, as costing too much effort. 
 She might be somebody else, but she was very happy. 
 
 She was lying in a chamber in the doctor s house. He 
 had brought her home under the influence of an anodyne, 
 and had her warm-bathed, and dres-sed clean in one of 
 
WHA T TO DO WITH JABEZ. 299 
 
 his granddaughter s gowns which she had outgrown, and 
 put to bed. The neighbors all remembered Chippie 
 kindly, and they came to see her and coddle her in her 
 convalescence with fruits and flowers, and jellies and 
 custards, and dozens of dainties the poor child had never 
 tasted before in her life. Every body talked over the 
 remarkable sagacity and affection manifested by the dog. 
 Some even went the length of saying they believed dogs 
 have souls. They were the very people who had flung 
 stones and broken crockery and brickbats after Zip Coon 
 when he made his tour of the village as an itinerant cur. 
 The doctor has never explained the dog s behavior quite 
 satisfactorily to himself ; he is inclined to think that 
 some dogs may have long memories, and may even go 
 through a mental process which is akin to the association 
 of ideas. The young girls of the village, headed by the 
 doctor s granddaughter, formed themselves into a soci 
 ety to provide Chippie a wardrobe ; and with the zeal of 
 young girls every thing must be tucked, and frilled, and 
 prettily trimmed. 
 
 The neighbors were fully impressed by the tragic end 
 of Mrs. Jabez and the infant John Rivington, but they 
 could not help laughing at the fate which had brought 
 Jabez back upon the doctor s hands. What to do with 
 Jabez had again become a burning question. He had 
 agreed to give up control of Chippie if some provision 
 were made for him. When asked what he thought 
 he could do, Jabez scratched his head and after 
 meditating said he would like some place under govern 
 ment. He guessed there were some as " poor cusses" 
 as he was who got pretty good fat offices if they only had 
 " inflooence." The doctor keenly appreciated this satire 
 on office-holders, but as it was not feasible to try and 
 gratify the ambition of Jabez for political preferment, he 
 thought of trying to get him a place as flagman on the 
 railroad. This raised such an outcry in the town among 
 
3 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 people who declared they would never trust their necks 
 on the road if he were flagman, because they were sure he 
 would always be asleep in his little house when the trains 
 came along, that the idea had to be abandoned. 
 
 At last Jabez reverted to his one idea of" pop." He 
 felt sure he could make a " pop," if he had the small capi 
 tal to start on, that would seduce the very elect. The 
 doctor furnished the capital, and having dressed Jabez 
 in a suit of his old clothes several sizes too large for him, 
 sent him to Windham to set up the " pop " business, where 
 he bottles a kind of stuff which he calls ginger-ale, and 
 sells to the turpentine and pitch-workers. The doctor 
 would have taken Zip Coon, the faithful yellow cur, 
 for his own watchdog, but Zip never would live apart 
 from Chippie. If he were tied up in a strange place for 
 days, as soon as he found himself free he would make his 
 way back to the child, lying by the path where she had 
 walked, or scratching at the door she had entered. Chip 
 pie has been partially adopted by an eccentric old lady 
 who quarreled with all her relations, and lived alone, but 
 still needed a young girl to run errands and do light work 
 about the house. The old lady has been obliged to 
 adopt Zip Coon also, and now he is fatter in the ribs than 
 he was. You would never know Chippie in her new 
 clothes dear, patient, unwearied little Chippie, so willing 
 to run her feet off to please her mistress, so eager to learn 
 in the village school. Who can help loving Chippie, 
 whose life s dawn was so sad and clouded when she lived 
 like a bird in the hedge ? Dear to God is such a wild 
 blossom, and He will guard her. The doctor has had 
 the mother and baby brought from their sandy graves 
 in the pine barrens and buried on the hill, where Chippie 
 can go sometimes to sit beside them. And then her 
 face seems older and more thoughtful than it should 
 seem for one so young. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A DOMESTIC TYRANT. 
 
 ^PHERE is a drive called the Roundabout Road, which 
 1 makes a circuit of exactly seven miles, and takes in 
 some of the pleasantest bits of scenery in this region. 
 The hills are nowhere very steep, and there are many old 
 horses in the village that know the Roundabout Road as 
 well as their own stalls. It crosses several brawling trout 
 streams and rustic bridges, and passes the prettiest 
 watering-troughs, where the gushing mountain springs, 
 bright and mobile as quicksilver, run through channels 
 made in mossy logs. Near one of these grows a bed of 
 the wild forget-me-not with its eyes of heavenly blue. 
 The arethusa is now to be found on the river meadows. 
 It is of a purple such as is only seen in evening and 
 morning clouds. Before many weeks have passed the 
 fringed gentian will open along the drive, in such places 
 as it has chosen for its habitat. 
 
 At Dexter s chair factory the Roundabout enters a 
 little glen fringed to the very top of its walls with the 
 light foliage of young birches, beeches, chestnuts, and 
 ash trees. Late in the season this place wears the aspect 
 of early spring ; and in the cool crevices of its rocks ice 
 is found until July. The hermit thrush builds and sings 
 here, and may be heard at some moment of rare good 
 fortune. Autumn comes first to this spot and runs like 
 fire in the low undergrowth. The sumac bushes turn the 
 most brilliant dyes. The young maple-shoots are red 
 like blood. The ash shrubs seem to drip with gold. 
 
 Many people drive over the Roundabout Road every 
 fair day. It is a road that never wearies, for the hills 
 
3 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 are continually changing under the varying influences of 
 light and shade, heat and cold, wind and fair weather. 
 Several retired clergymen and college professors live in the 
 village, having come here to pass their last years. Nearly 
 all of them keep slow, ambling, sure-footed nags, who 
 possess all the equine virtues except speed and the power 
 to raise their noses more than three or four inches above 
 the dust. They amble along, never varying their gait 
 except to stop stock still. In the retired clerical set it is 
 considered a sin to use a check-rein or a whip. They 
 are mostly mild, quiet, old ladies and gentlemen who 
 belong to the past, but have lingered along into the 
 present with the understanding that they are practically 
 laid upon the shelf. Though they have once doubtless 
 been important and celebrated, it is conceded that their 
 day is over, and they are just biding their time and try 
 ing to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances 
 and small incomes may permit. 
 
 Chief among the superannuated clericals is the Rev. 
 Elkanah Stackpole. He occasionally preaches in the 
 village church, when most of the congregation scatters, 
 some to visit their friends in the country, others to go 
 blueberrying or nutting on the sly. The few who do 
 attend church from conscientious motives generally fall 
 asleep in the pews. It is thought that if Mr. Stackpole 
 were to preach three consecutive Sundays, every soul 
 would desert the church except old Amen Anderson, 
 who is as deaf as a post and who says he always goes to 
 meeting, whoever preaches, for " innerd edification." 
 You will know Amen by his standing up in his corner 
 and singing the hymns on a plan of his own. He pays 
 no heed to any body or any thing except long and short 
 meter. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Stackpole halts in his walk from chronic 
 rheumatism, and Mrs. Stackpole is a nervous invalid. 
 They live in an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house,where 
 
SPICER S MOODS. 33 
 
 perpetual quietude and twilight formerly reigned, a green 
 twilight thrown from the thick trees growing close to the 
 windows, and from the prevailing tone of the furnishing. 
 Every body in the village knew the Stackpole s maid, 
 Araminta Sophronia, called Minty for short, and the 
 Stackpole s horse, Spicer. Spicer used to trot over 
 Roundabout Road every fine day in summer. He came 
 to the door about nine in the morning from the stable 
 where he was kept. Minty bustled out with two air- 
 cushions for the excellent couple to sit on. She was also 
 provided with an armful of wraps and umbrellas and a 
 hassock for Mrs. Stackpole s feet. The operation of 
 loading the Stackpoles into the chaise was a difficult one, 
 but Minty was always equal to it. When she had once 
 tucked them in under the lap-blanket, and the Rev. 
 Elkanah had feebly grasped the reins, she then turned 
 her attention to Spicer. 
 
 If Spicer was in the mood, he would start off promptly, 
 and keep up a slow trot for a certain length of time. If 
 Spicer was not in the mood, he would lay back his ears, 
 and shake his head positively. Then began a coaxing 
 process on the part of Minty. She patted him, whispered 
 in his ear, and generally administered one or two lumps 
 of white sugar, when Spicer, being placated, would dart 
 off so suddenly as to throw Mr. and Mrs. Stackpole 
 against the back of the chaise. But Minty knew that if 
 she once succeeded in starting Spicer, he might be trusted 
 to bring the old couple home in perfect safety. There 
 were places on the road where he persisted in walking, 
 and he had even been known to stop in shady spots, spite 
 of all the Rev. Elkanah could do, to crop a little tender 
 herbage. When he had swung partly round the circle, he 
 began to smell the stable, and generally came home in fine 
 style. 
 
 Minty ruled for many years in the Stackpole house. 
 She was an admirable housekeeper, but having usurped 
 
34 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 supreme power, the vice of power, a tyrannical and 
 overbearing spirit, grew upon her. Few great minds 
 can resist the temptation of power, and Minty was not a 
 great mind. The old people came to feel that Minty was 
 indispensable to their comfort and well-being, and the 
 ability to govern themselves gradually slipped through 
 their fingers. No one in that house attempted to oppose 
 Minty except Fielding Stackpole, the only son, who was 
 a civil engineer, living in another state. When Fielding 
 came home on a visit, as he did several times a year, he 
 brushed aside all Minty s rules and regulations. He 
 smoked where he pleased, carried the parlor chairs out 
 on the lawn and left them there, tumbled the book-cases, 
 came down late to breakfast and ordered fresh coffee and 
 hot buttered toast, exactly as if he were the master in his 
 father s house and not at all subject to the rule of Queen 
 Araminta Sophronia. 
 
 The conflict of wills between Fielding and the maid 
 put a very sharp edge on Minty s temper, while Fielding 
 always came up more and more bland and smiling, with 
 the conviction that he should win in the end. Minty 
 had carried it so far as once or twice to refuse Fielding 
 admission to his father s house when he arrived unexpect 
 edly late at night, on the ground that she was house-clean 
 ing and the rooms were all in disorder. But Fielding 
 calmly climbed in at a pantry window and established 
 himself without ceremony in his own room. After Field 
 ing s visits the old people were always more insubordi 
 nate, and it gave her a little trouble to break them in 
 again to rules and regulations. 
 
 Minty, in spite of her name, did not come from Burnt 
 Pigeon, but from a place down the river, called Salt 
 Lick. She was always talking about the Lick in a most 
 misleading way, as if it were something to eat. The 
 Lick hung like the sword of Damocles over the head of 
 poor Mrs. Stackpole, especially after the old people came 
 
ARAM2NTA SOPHRONIA. 35 
 
 to feel that in their helpless state they could live neither 
 with nor without their domestic tyrant, for Minty often 
 threatened to leave her at a moment s notice, and return 
 to the home of her infancy. 
 
 It was understood that Minty had married a Salt Lick 
 man in her girlhood who had not proved a brilliant or 
 nament to society. She soon rid herself of the encum 
 brance. She never mentioned this part of her experi 
 ence, but the asperity with which she spoke of mankind 
 in general, and of Fielding Stackpole in particular, was 
 supposed to have sprung from a thorough acquaintance 
 with the sex. She was of a thin, wiry type, not very large, 
 but with muscles of steel. Her face came to a sharp, 
 hatchet edge, and her gray eyes, mottled with yellow, 
 saw every thing. She was confessedly the smartest serv 
 ant in the village, and she had a standing of her own. 
 
 Her neatness, of the inflexible, cast-iron kind, was a 
 terror to the neighborhood. Even particular house 
 keepers trembled under her dreadful cat s eyes. Her 
 house-cleaning was thought to be as bad as the concen 
 trated three movings which equal a fire. But the excel 
 lences of Minty were as pronounced as her foibles. A 
 tea invitation to the Stackpoles was something to date 
 from. The ladies seldom took much dinner on those 
 days, in order to save their appetites for Minty s dainties. 
 If the invaluable servant did not sit down in the parlor 
 with the guests, or preside at the tea-table, she still car 
 ried off the honors of the occasion. Every body praised 
 her cookery to the skies, and it was a great point to ask 
 for Minty s receipts, which she gave or not, just as the 
 whim seized her. 
 
 Her tea-table was a work of art, and she adorned it 
 with a tasteful arrangement of flowers from the garden. 
 The old-fashioned Stackpole china, glass, and silver, were 
 burnished to exquisite brightness. The napery was 
 ironed only as Minty knew how to iron. Her tea- 
 
3 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 biscuits melted in the mouth. Her cake was always 
 something new and original. She knew all about potted 
 tongue, veal loaf, boned turkey, and brandied peaches. 
 Such coffee, whipped cream and sherbet as she made 
 was never found elsewhere. So it was in every depart 
 ment of housekeeping. A favorite subject of debate 
 among the village ladies was whether it would be pos 
 sible to endure Minty s tyranny for the sake of her 
 culinary virtues. The shameful subjection of the old 
 clergyman and his wife to this strong-willed domestic 
 was a standing topic of discussion among the village 
 gossips. Every fresh usurpation on the part of Minty 
 was commented on with exclamation points. She knew 
 she was talked about, and it made her proud. She fully 
 expected to be buried in the Stackpole family lot, and to 
 have a coffin-plate equal to her master and mistress. It 
 was reported that poor Mrs. Stackpole said one day to 
 Minty : " I have asked my sister Jane and her daughter 
 to come and pass the day with me on Thursday next." 
 
 To which Minty immediately replied : " I can t think 
 of having them on Thursday, ma am. There s the sweet 
 pickles to make, and I must clean out the cellar. I never 
 can have company days when I am cleaning out the cel 
 lar. It s unreasonable to think of it." Minty always 
 planned to clean out the cellar when the idea of com 
 pany was obnoxious to her. Mrs. Stackpole was there 
 fore obliged to telegraph to " Sister Jane " that she must 
 not come. And she found herself more and more the 
 bond-slave of her incomparable domestic. 
 
 The ex-professor had made a brave effort to secure 
 some portion of his own house for his exclusive use and 
 benefit, which should not be too ruthlessly invaded by 
 the broom and duster. He wished to set apart a small 
 closet where he might think his own thoughts, and doubt 
 less pray, where he might occasionally indite a sermon or 
 a report of the missionary society for carrying the Gospel 
 
MINTY S PIOUS FERVOR. 37 
 
 to the Zulus, of which he was secretary. But all in vain. 
 Araminta Sophronia did not believe the best of men 
 could think holy thoughts in any place from which her 
 cleaning hand was excluded. If she could have taken 
 out the conscience of poor old Stackpole from his bosom, 
 she would doubtless have washed and scoured it. For 
 years he was forced to see his desk, his pens, his papers 
 arranged in an order foreign to his soul. But no one had 
 ever done up his fine shirts and white neck-cloths like 
 Minty ; and when he was ill her broths and gruels were 
 delicious. Minty always attended family prayers and 
 sometimes read devotional books, not because she had a 
 taste for them, but for the reason that she lived in a 
 minister s family, and was bound to keep up the character 
 of the household. It looked well to have a volume of 
 dry sermons on the kitchen shelf and illuminated Bible 
 texts hung about on the wall. 
 
 When Minty first went to live with the Stackpoles, she 
 made up her mind that she would not allow them to har 
 bor poor ministers, religious book-peddlers, or itinerant 
 missionaries. They were accordingly sent on to Deacon 
 Hildreth s, to the old Tavern House, or to the doctor s. 
 And the old couple, as they could not help themselves, were 
 rather grateful for the protection they enjoyed. Occasion 
 ally guests from a distance came to stay at the house unan 
 nounced and before Minty s fiat could reach them. As 
 there was no hotel in the village at that time, Minty could 
 not turn them out of doors. But she always discriminated 
 against city visitors. She forced them to unpack their 
 trunks in the barn. She thought country folk much the 
 cleaner. Minty knew how to make herself very dis 
 agreeable to guests without letting the old people know 
 any thing about it. She had been sometimes approached 
 with " tips " in the hope of placating her dragonship, but 
 she repelled all attempts at bribery and corruption with 
 seorn. No one except Fielding Stackpole ever staid 
 
3 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 more than five days in the old minister s house. The 
 neighbors kept close watch to see if the rule were 
 infringed. 
 
 There cornes a day of reckoning for all tyrants. The 
 standing quarrel between Minty and Fielding had never 
 been healed. The best they could do was to proclaim a 
 truce. Though the warfare often broke out afresh, still 
 they could manage to exist together under the same roof 
 a few weeks each year. It was a terrible blow to Minty, 
 therefore, when the marriage of Fielding Stackpole was 
 announced, and of all things to one of those " hity-tity, 
 good-for-nothing city jades." Another great blow was 
 the fact that Fielding and his bride were coming home 
 to pass the summer. Old Mrs. Stackpole did not even 
 ask Minty s permission to have them come. Re-enforced 
 by a strong letter from Fielding, she simply said it 
 would be a great pity if her children could not come to 
 their father s house whenever it suited their convenience. 
 This sounded like the tocsin of open rebellion, and Min 
 ty s soul was troubled within her. She saw that the old 
 lady had already taken the bride into her heart. But that 
 night Mrs. Stackpole had a nervous attack, and Minty 
 rubbed her and worked over her for several hours. She 
 was always good in illness ; and the old woman tacitly 
 asked her pardon. Things were in this unsatisfactory 
 state when Mr. and Mrs. Fielding Stackpole arrived. As 
 a first act of resistance, Fielding refused to have his wife s 
 trousseau inspected and fumigated in the barn by the 
 domestic customs officer. Minty, though she had to yield 
 this point, felt strong in her intrenched position, for she 
 was certain the Stackpoles could not live without her. 
 Fielding felt strong in his position of son, especially when 
 supported by a young, bright-eyed woman who looked 
 upon him as a great moral hero, although he had never 
 done any thing to merit hero-worship. He, however, felt 
 it would be a noteworthy thing to deliver his aged parents 
 
THE RETURN TO SALT LICK. 309 
 
 from domestic servitude. The bride was now the great 
 center of attraction. The old people petted her and re 
 ceived her pettings in a way Minty thought perfectly silly. 
 Every body admired her pretty costumes, her piano-play 
 ing, and the fact that she spoke French like a native. 
 The neighbors were running in at all hours. Meals were 
 irregular. The lights were no longer put out in the house 
 exactly at half-past nine. The window screens were left 
 out, and flies buzzed through the rooms. 
 
 Minty endured it as long as she could, until, like Spicer, 
 she felt that her time had come to balk. Mrs. Fielding 
 Stackpole s star was in the ascendant ; hers was on the 
 wane. Her main hope lay in the old lady s nervous at 
 tacks, which no one could allay but herself. The time 
 had come to try her strength with Fielding. It was at a 
 moment when the minister was absent from home, and 
 Mrs. Stackpole was in her own room with her daughter- 
 in-law. There was a terrible scene, but in the end Minty 
 packed her trunk, took an angry leave of the household, 
 and departed for Salt Lick departed expecting perfect 
 submission on the part of the old people as soon as the 
 loss was felt, and to return in triumph at the end of a few 
 days, to the total routing of Fielding and his wife. 
 
 She found herself ill at ease at Salt Lick. She was a 
 person of not the least moment to the Salt Lickers. Day 
 by day she expected her recall to the Stackpole kitchen, 
 and when a week, a fortnight, a month passed without the 
 summons, she could restrain her anxious curiosity no 
 longer. Old Mrs. Stackpole might have died, any thing 
 might have happened in the absence of the grand vizier. 
 She therefore took the train one morning and unsum- 
 moned returned to the village. The old people were 
 going out for a drive on the Roundabout. Spicer stood 
 at the door. Presently they came forth, attended by the 
 daughter-in-law in a charming white morning costume. 
 They mounted the chaise without assistance, and Minty 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 remarked that they seemed unusually young and spry. 
 Even Spicer moved off briskly with nothing more than a 
 pat from Mrs. Fielding s fair hand. Minty reconnoitred 
 the house in a state of mental collapse. All looked calm 
 and peaceful. No domestic earthquake had shaken the 
 foundations because of her absence. She stole round to 
 the kitchen. Phemy Jones, a young thing she knew quite 
 well, was standing in the door. Phemy Jones to come 
 after her ! The thought of the course of bad cooking the 
 Stackpoles had gone through gave Araminta Sophronia a 
 feeling of exultation. Phemy met her with no outward 
 sign of deference, and she walked into the kitchen and 
 looked about with lynx eyes. 
 
 " And do you do the cooking for the family, Phemy 
 Jones ? " she asked sotto voce. " I m a learner," responded 
 Phemy, evasively. "And pray, who is teaching you, Phemy 
 Jones ?" " Young Mrs. Stackpole. She is a splendid 
 cook, and the old people are just in love with her. Every 
 body says they are growing young again." Minty arose 
 in a dazed way, shook her skirts, and went out of the 
 door. The first person she encountered on the garden 
 path was Fielding Stackpole with a satirical smile on his 
 face, as he looked into the eyes of his old enemy. 
 
 " I hope you are satisfied now," she blurted out, with 
 a feeling of hot tears in her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes," returned Fielding, " perfectly satisfied, 
 Minty. I married the head scholar in the Boston Cook 
 ing School ; and I knew I was safe." 
 
 Minty has taken another situation in the village, but 
 her glory has departed. She no longer hopes to be buried 
 in the Stackpole lot and to have a coffin-plate equal to 
 that of her old master. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE HOL WORTHY GIRLS. 
 
 sound of the wind in the thick-leaved trees is a 
 J. perpetual inspiration this month, when most of the 
 birds are silent, and only shrill-voiced insects cicada, 
 grasshopper, and cricket make a strident chorus. The 
 wind symphony lasts sometimes a whole day and part of 
 a night, and comes between those great calm pauses of 
 silent weather when the sunlight falls unclouded for 
 hours, and the hills steep in richness of color. Then the 
 sun departs like ruddy metal dropped suddenly behind 
 the hills, and the still moon steps in and fills the dew- 
 dripping night full of mysterious light and black 
 shadows. 
 
 But in these dry wind-storms there is a great swaying 
 of trees and skurrying of clouds. The bustle among the 
 airy-tongued leaves is contagious. You lie on your bed 
 at night and seem to rock in the branches. Your spirit 
 goes forth to partake of the excitement, the wild glee, 
 the sad wailing of nature. The moon looks out at inter 
 vals through the rack like some lone goddess a Psyche 
 who has lost her love. You feel that a great change 
 must have come over the world with all this business 
 progressing through the night, but when you rise there 
 are the splendid blue hills firm on their foundations, 
 with the clouds dazzling in glory, as the sun peeps from 
 behind them, and the shadows flee across the slopes. 
 
 The earth must soon feel those first twinges of rheumatic 
 pains that come after the long summer of bliss. She 
 will ripen now like an apple or a plum. She will have a 
 
3 12 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 dressy autumn and a calm golden old age before the 
 snow flies. The first tree in our region to turn from 
 crown to base is the tall rock-maple that stands on a 
 high plateau to the north of the village. As soon as the 
 Holworthy maple has reddened like a dome of fire the 
 other trees seem to light their torches by its flame, and 
 one can day by day watch the tides of color rising and 
 advancing, catching and flickering, and sparkling all 
 through the valley and on the hillsides. For this reason 
 it has become an autumn beacon to the country. That 
 red-and-yellow signal means apple-gathering and cider- 
 making, nutting, and potato-digging and corn-husking 
 in the fields, and the dragging of cord-wood, much of 
 which is used in our primitive kitchens, and the lighting 
 of fall fires. 
 
 The old Holworthy place is surrounded by an excel 
 lent stone wall, but the land is rather poor. It lies spread 
 out on the hillside like an old-fashioned bed-quilt, the 
 fields accurately marked off by light and dark grain and 
 differing shades of brown and yellow, indicative of 
 plowed ground, fallow, and stubble. In the south-west 
 corner just now there is a lovely patch, of the blossomed 
 buckwheat, snow-white, like a bleaching napkin. The 
 pasture is all up the mountain, where you hear the cow 
 bell tinkling in the sweet fern ; and there are but one or 
 two river meadows where the hay is gathered late. Old 
 Amos Holworthy s grandfather cleared that mountain 
 farm, and old Amos thought it the best place in the 
 world. He was always bragging about the good air and 
 the excellent mountain spring that supplied the kitchen 
 pump, as other people boast of their riches and grandeur. 
 The view from the place, far down the valley with the 
 flanking hills, and vista upon vista of blue air, until the 
 Wilton Mountains close the distance like cloudy gates to 
 some grand city, is one of the most perfect in this region. 
 It seems to satisfy that craving for a vast horizon, an 
 
THE THREE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 3*3 
 
 outlook toward the unknown, of which Mr. Ruskin 
 speaks, and is perhaps one of the secrets of the strong 
 attachment which all the Holworthys have ever felt for 
 their mountain farm. 
 
 The three Holworthy girls loved it as the Bronte sis 
 ters loved their lonely house on the moor. Their love 
 differed from that of the old man, their father, for with 
 the educated consciousness they entered into all the 
 beauty and charm of the place, while he loved the soil, 
 the stones, the scrub-pines, the water and air, but never 
 descanted on the view, except to say it was a sightly 
 place, and that " his gals were mighty took up with 
 sketchin the scenery and botanizing, and the Lordy 
 knew what." Next to his rugged bit of a farm old Hoi- 
 worthy was proud of his " gals," although with great 
 simplicity he confessed he did not understand them. He 
 had never crossed them in his life, neither he nor his old 
 woman, and according to his account the " gals " always 
 had their noses buried in books even from their tenderest 
 years. Old Holworthy had not much knowledge, neither 
 had his wife, but they both reverenced the love of it in 
 their three daughters, Faith, Hope and Charity, as they 
 were called, after the three Christian graces. 
 
 As the girls desired " schoolin ," the old folks worked 
 hard to give it them, and after they had got it it was a 
 pain to the excellent Holworthys that they could not 
 always keep their " gals to hum." No, they would go off 
 West and South instructing the freedmen and teaching 
 in academies, and only once or twice a year did they 
 then gather under the Holworthy roof-tree. They always 
 came at Thanksgiving, these girls who were such para 
 gons of learning in the eyes of the old folks. The 
 mother was what is called in the country a " driving 
 woman." She dressed in a short skirt and sacque, and 
 wore a broad-brimmed hat. It was said that she some 
 times smoked a short black pipe up the chimney. Her 
 
3 J 4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 face was broad, kindly, and brown as a berry, with keen 
 dark eyes set deep in her head. She made the garden, 
 attended to the farm animals and the poultry, milked the 
 cows, harnessed the horses, and often drove a pair to the 
 village to do her " trading," or to the mill to get a bag 
 of flour. She had a strong frame and corresponding 
 strength of sense. The old man looked up to her for 
 her practical wisdom, while he revered that remote ideal 
 bookish realm where dwelt his family of remarkable 
 girls. Though the three theological virtues, as they 
 were called in the village, had read and studied a good 
 deal in certain directions, they retained the simplicity 
 and unworldliness of children of nature. Two of them 
 were plain and red-haired, but the youngest, Charity, or 
 Love, as her friends often called her, was a beautiful 
 woman, even in her maturity. 
 
 The sisters had taken possession of the roomy garret 
 and transformed it into a general study, which they par 
 titioned off by cheap curtains for use when they wished 
 to be alone. The views from all the garret windows 
 were of perfect beauty. Visitors were always taken up 
 there to be entertained, and then the three sections were 
 thrown into one. Charity botanized and had arranged 
 her herbarium and dried plants in her own part of the 
 garret. When she was at home this section was adorned 
 with an exquisite arrangement of wild grasses, bright 
 berries, ferns, lichens, toad-stools, and rare wild-flowers 
 she had gathered in her favorite haunts in the woods. 
 Hope sketched somewhat. The window of her rustic 
 atelier looked far down the valley. She pinned her 
 sketches against the rafters and backed them with bright 
 bits of stuff, giving the artist touch to all she did. 
 Along the chimney and side walls she had painted a vine 
 which seemed to come through the scuttle and meander 
 with splashes of sunlight. 
 
 Faith was always writing a little book of reflections 
 
FAITH S BOOK-ROOM. 315 
 
 and meditations (not for publication), but resembling the 
 French pense es, and her little study end of the garret was 
 the book-room, fitted up with braided rugs, patchwork 
 cushions, comfortable seats, and bits of old furniture 
 which had been put away as too antiquated and rickety 
 for the lower rooms. All the girls were handy with tools. 
 By their united wit they had contrived to transform an 
 old bedstead into a lounge, and with hammer, saw, and 
 nails had devised a handy set of shelves for their little 
 library. Here were all their small treasures, the few 
 choice editions of the classics they had skimped on their 
 plain dress to buy, the gift-books of their scholars, and 
 those well-thumbed favorites among the older poets, 
 especially Spenser and George Herbert, they almost 
 knew by heart. They brought all their united treasures 
 to make Faith s den particularly attractive. For Faith 
 was supposed to be weakly ; at least, there was some 
 constitutional trouble which showed itself at times. At 
 home Faith was always well. It was only when absent 
 from her native air that she drooped and seemed 
 fragile nature. 
 
 Though in no way very remarkable, the Ho 
 girls had their individual modes and manners, 
 dered them interesting. When they sent invitations 
 their friends in the village to come up to the farm to tea, 
 they generally fastened the note with a chicken feather. 
 Charity, the naturalist, had a signature of her own, a zig 
 zag blurred line, supposed to resemble the track made by 
 the foot of an ant in wet sand. The billets were gener 
 ally in rhyme, and were often addressed in some peculiar 
 and fantastic manner. The old man, who delivered his 
 daughter s missives, though he was immensely proud of 
 them, sometimes felt it necessary to apologize for their 
 queerness. 
 
 " Lordy, now," he would say, with his old face 
 screwed into a puzzled look, " I don t know what them 
 
3 l6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 gals are up to. They have so many notions in their 
 heads, I don t pretend to keep track of em." 
 
 But there was really no rupture between the daughters 
 and the old people such as is so often seen between edu 
 cated children and their hard-working, rough-handed old 
 parents. Though Amos Holworthy was always assert 
 ing that he did not understand his " gals," that they 
 were miracles of learning way out of sight of him and 
 the old woman, there was a perfect understanding, a 
 devoted bond of amity binding the whole family to 
 gether. The girls had never lost their taste for a simple, 
 primitive mode of life or their passion for nature. They 
 loved the old home so well it was hard to induce them to 
 come down the mountain to " visit " in the village. 
 Their friends must come to them. They hung out sig 
 nals from their station on the hill as soon as they arrived. 
 Red and blue, yellow and white signals, all had their 
 special meaning to various friends below. An excursion 
 to the farm, with a moonlight drive homeward in the 
 evening, was always a much enjoyed event. The old 
 people were so hearty and kindly, the girls were so 
 original and interesting ; such a visit offered a new ex 
 perience. 
 
 The Holworthys had ways of their own for doing 
 every thing. Their hospitality was boundless, but of the 
 simplest kind. The girls from a very early age had set 
 their faces like flint against the diseased New England 
 appetite for pie and sweet-cake. They never offered 
 either to their guests. In the village not to have pie of 
 every variety at Thanksgiving, and not to offer cake on 
 the company tea-table, was as unorthodox and perhaps 
 as wicked as to deny the doctrine of original sin. At the 
 Holworthys there was always an abundance of nice 
 bread, fruit, custards, and cheese, milk, cream, eggs, and 
 honey. They set the fashion of putting fresh fruit on 
 the table at a time when people thought uncooked fruit 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS. 317 
 
 unwholesome, fit only to be canned or preserved with 
 pound for pound of sugar. The girls had brought old 
 Mrs. Holworthy over to their notions, and she allowed it 
 did save a " sight of trouble." Their revolt against pie 
 and cake was set down as one of their least excusable 
 eccentricities. But a day at the Holworthy farm, when 
 the girls were at home, was a happy event. They had a 
 small microscope to show the structure of plants and the 
 wonders of insect life. They displayed new and beauti 
 ful flowers that had always grown in your home fields, 
 but which you never had observed. They talked over 
 their favorite books with the enthusiasm of students, and 
 with the keen appreciation of nature which only born 
 lovers can feel, they led you to the different beautiful 
 points of view the lookout, sunset rock, the little ice 
 glen, and through the wood-path to their fernery. 
 
 These simple girls in their loose comfortable gowns of 
 plain stuff lived literally on the heights. When they 
 came home it was always tacitly understood among them 
 that they were to relieve mother with the housework, and 
 give her a chance to go away and visit Aunt Gill, who 
 lived about fifty miles distant on the railroad. The old 
 lady had never been in a rail-car. The wonders of the 
 steam-engine had been explained to her by the girls. 
 She had often gazed upon the engine and the train at a 
 safe distance from the village station, when she had 
 driven her team into the town. Her going to see Sister 
 Gill on the railroad was really a fiction, a dream, some 
 thing she cherished in her fancy without ever attempting 
 to carry it out. So the strong brown-faced old woman 
 continued to work hard until she died quite suddenly 
 and was buried in the little family burying-ground on 
 the mountain. 
 
 It was a hard blow to the old man. He could not 
 understand his " gals," that he admitted ; but he knew 
 every .fold and involution of his wife s mind, and he 
 
318 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 missed her sadly. His " gals " were the pride of his 
 soul, but the industrious, strong old wife was a necessity, 
 like the air and water of the mountain. Just at this time 
 Abel Holworthy, his rich brother in California, died and 
 left him five thousand dollars. At once the whole aspect 
 of his life was changed. He was a rich man for the 
 mountain, and he summoned his girls to come and live at 
 home permanently. It cost Faith a pang to give up her 
 colored school in North Carolina, but, like her sisters, she 
 obeyed the mandate to come home no more to roam 
 abroad to live with the solitary old man, and to make 
 him forget his loss if possible. 
 
 The only thing he ever said about his wealth was, " I 
 wish mother could have lived to see it. I wish she had 
 taken that there journey to Sister Gill s. That s a thing 
 that hangs round my neck and hectors me. She never 
 rode on them cars, and I kind of think if I had in 
 sisted she would have trusted herself to steam naviga 
 tion. My gals don t think as I do about steam naviga 
 tion, that it s one of the wonders of the airth. I ve heard 
 them say for their part they d jest as soon there wasn t 
 any. But I guess they were joking." " Steam naviga 
 tion " and the thermometer were the two great scien 
 tific delights of old Amos. He kept a thermometer 
 on the back porch, consulted it several times a 
 day, and tried faithfully to regulate his sensations by it. 
 
 Every Sunday the old man harnessed his team and 
 brought his family down to the village church, where he 
 fastened his horses under the long shed attached to the 
 sanctuary. Invariably he fell asleep in a corner of the 
 pew, and emitted so much nasal melody it took some 
 thing more than a strong nudge to bring him to the con 
 sciousness that he was, as one of the neighbors expressed 
 it, " running an opposition to the minister." His con 
 stant labors in the open air on the mountain top, so much 
 more invigorating than in our own valley, produced 
 
CHARITY HAD " OFFERS" 319 
 
 somnolence at once when he came in-doors. On a cer 
 tain Sunday, only two or three years before he died, a 
 somewhat celebrated clergyman of a metaphysical cast 
 of mind exchanged with the village parson. Good old 
 Father Holworthy slept the sleep of the just throughout 
 the sermon, which certainly was somewhat abstruse for a 
 plain country congregation. On coming out of meeting 
 one of his friends tapped him on the shoulder and 
 inquired how he liked the sermon. " It was a splendid 
 discourse," said the old man enthusiastically, " but, 
 Lordy, I didn t understand a word on t ; my gals did 
 though. They took it all in, and we shall have it laid up 
 in the family." 
 
 Now that the Holworthy girls were at home, with the 
 design of spending the remainder of their lives on the 
 mountain farm, and with a small increase of fortune, they 
 gradually re-arranged the house to suit their tastes. The 
 rag carpets were not banished, nor any of the quaint old 
 furniture, but the florid, high-colored Scripture prints 
 their mother had delighted in were removed, and some 
 engravings of a higher order substituted. Hope indulged 
 her fancy in painting the quaint old wooden chimney- 
 pieces with the vines and berries and wild flowers her 
 sister brought from the woods. Books spread all over 
 the lower part of the house, and the old man was seen to 
 be a little better clad and brushed than of old. 
 
 The daughters led a simple life of enjoyment of nature, 
 contemplation, and study combined with homely house 
 hold duties such a combination as is scarcely to be 
 found out of New England. Charity, the beautiful 
 sister, with her dark eyes, abundant curling brown hair, 
 and lithe figure, certainly had " offers." Two at least 
 were known to the villagers, but the banner of matrimony 
 was never flung from the farm-house along with the red, 
 blue, white and yellow signals with which they tele 
 graphed to their friends below. The prosperous mer- 
 
3 20 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 chant widower, or well-to-do farmer who came up the 
 mountain in the hope of winning Charity found that 
 Charity was bent on remaining at home, and the journey 
 had been made in vain. It was wise for those maidens 
 to refuse to be transplanted. They never could any 
 where have been so happy or so charming as on their 
 native soil. They were rooted in the mountain earth 
 like those delicate growths, the arbutus, the harebell, the 
 gentian, and the fragile, lovely ferns. 
 
 The old man died peacefully one day on the place 
 where he had lived, convinced to his last hour there was 
 no such air and water anywhere as could be found on the 
 mountain, except, perhaps, in the New Jerusalem. They 
 had a simple funeral on a beautiful June morning, and 
 for a long time the girls kept the old man s grave in the 
 family plot covered with blooming laurel and other wild 
 flowers. Hope, the middle sister, also has passed on by 
 some mild and painless disease. She died sitting in her 
 chair, making some little gift for Charity, and her needle 
 remains sticking in her work, just as she left it when 
 death knocked at the door. Her Testament was turned 
 down at the passage, " To die is gain." 
 
 Now there are but two Holworthys left, white-haired 
 women living in their sheltered nook, cheerful and happy. 
 I have had the privilege of looking into Faith s unpub 
 lished book of meditations, and I recall one passage : 
 " If the flower is perfect the fruit will be sound and 
 good. If the fruit mature it will produce a healthy seed. 
 Each succeeding period of life is one of progress. Death 
 belongs to the series, but we must take a step in the 
 dark to behold the new blossom. Death is the mold in 
 which the ripe seed is buried. Let us await joyfully the 
 springing of that immortal germ." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE MOST POPULAR GIRL IN THE VILLAGE. 
 
 LIKE all other properly constituted communities we 
 have our great men, who, living or dead, we cherish 
 with commendable pride. 
 
 We have produced a showman, a great patent-medi 
 cine man, the editor of a daily paper, the inventor of a 
 pump, a story- writer of the school of Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., 
 a funny man who is thought to have gone ahead of all 
 others in the art of distorted spelling, and a sensational 
 preacher. Our slow, bovine virtues are far less exciting 
 to the mind of youth than the merits of the patent-medi 
 cine man, for instance, who is supposed to have made 
 from a common weed and some poor spirits a nostrum 
 warranted to cure consumption and cancer. This man 
 has amassed an enormous fortune. He does not live in 
 an ordinary plutocrat s mansion, but in a palace where he 
 draws his hot and cold water from solid silver faucets. 
 The story of his great riches and the luxury of his bath 
 room is almost as alluring to the young mind of our vil 
 lage as the tale of the great defaulter who managed to 
 escape to Canada with nearly a million of dollars. 
 
 Besides those among us who have already achieved 
 greatness and come to happy fame and the immortality of 
 the newspaper, are those rising people who we expect may 
 yet achieve something considerable the promising young 
 men, the ambitious maidens of native growth who are 
 yet to illustrate our annals and add luster to the village 
 name. Among these is a young professional man, the 
 son of an old resident, who was graduated with some 
 tclat at his college, and is now connected with an excel- 
 
322 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 lent law firm in one of our larger cities. Why great 
 hopes have been placed on the future of Ned Buckner it 
 is not easy to discover. He is good looking, has easy 
 manners, is tonguey, with great readiness in displaying 
 all he knows. He has corresponded for a newspaper, 
 and even written leading articles ; and the old people say 
 he can lie in print like a lightning-rod man or a book- 
 agent. All Ned Buckner possesses is readily made 
 available ; and it is firmly believed in the village that he 
 is endowed with the great American virtue of getting on. 
 When in college he never had the slightest modesty in 
 approaching the wisest and most venerated men of the 
 day with familiar ease. As a stripling he could ruffle it 
 with the best, and now he talks of celebrities as if he were 
 hand in glove with them. 
 
 Ned Buckner was always very successful with the fair 
 sex the girls of his village. Though for several years 
 he was considered as good as engaged to Sylvia Macy, 
 still he was a prize the other maidens were not willing to 
 abandon without a struggle. In a community where 
 every other place is owned and occupied by an unmarried 
 woman or a widow tax-payer, a man like Ned Buckner is 
 sure to stumble into pit-falls unless he is extremely wary. 
 Ned has never been wary. He has given all the prettiest 
 girls in the village those with whom he was brought up 
 and whom he called by their Christian names reason to 
 think he was fond of them. And I have no doubt he 
 was. Seven or eight of them wore his college colors, 
 and were intensely excited over the boat races and other 
 contests in which he took part. How it came at length 
 to be understood that he was engaged to Sylvia I hardly 
 know. She was one of the most modest, quiet girls in the 
 village ; still of tongue and unobtrusive in every way. 
 Ned had played with her when they were children 
 together ; had dragged her to school on his sled ; had 
 given her bites out of his apple behind the desk, and had 
 
SYLVIA AND FREDDIE. 323 
 
 done her sums for her on the sly. For Sylvia was singu 
 larly unmathematical. I am not sure that she ever fully 
 mastered the multiplication tabbs. But she grew into a 
 young woman whom every one loved and trusted. 
 
 Some time after the engagement of Ned Buckner and 
 Sylvia was tacitly accepted in the village, most of the 
 wearers of Ned s colors gave up hope. Some married 
 and others settled into the calm of single blessedness, 
 devoting themselves to the Bible-class and the Sunday- 
 school, or to foreign missions. Nearly all discontentedly 
 relinquished the rising young man to a girl whom they 
 unanimously considered plain. There was one excep 
 tion. Fredonia Haven was ironically called the most 
 popular girl in the village popular among the men, 
 while the women, with their usual maliciousness, could 
 see nothing attractive in her. Miss Freddie was consid 
 ered in the village just a little fast. Cautious matrons 
 said she actually made eyes at their husbands ; but I 
 don t believe it. Her iniquity chiefly consisted in hav- 
 ^g smoked cigarettes with one of her admirers, which 
 made her rather ill. She liked fast horses and rather 
 showy costumes. She was skillful at all kinds of games, 
 and had won various prizes in archery and tennis. Her 
 clothes always fitted her to perfection, for she had great 
 skill in dressmaking, and it was her habit to spring 
 something entirely new and original upon the neighbors 
 which could not readily be copied. The most severe 
 charge brought against Freddie Haven was that she did 
 not care for women, a woman s love for her own sex be 
 ing the touchstone always applied to aspirants for female 
 favor. Freddie frankly declared that she liked men 
 better. And they liked her, old and young, grand 
 fathers, fathers of families, the middle-aged, and boys 
 in their salad days. At one time she had had great 
 success with the clergy. Freddie had spent part of her 
 girlhood in a college town, where large numbers of 
 
3 2 4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 the youth of the land were victims of her bow and 
 spear. Such a collection of boy trophies as Freddie 
 possessed was not held b.y any other girl in the village. 
 
 But these were only tokens of her pastime. The seri 
 ous affairs of Miss Freddie s varied life had been enacted 
 with Ned Buckner and a few others. Her boy friends 
 were wont to complain that first she used them, then 
 amused them, and at last abused them. So many boys 
 had offered her undying affection, it was one of her di 
 versions to read over their love-letters with her maturer 
 lovers. No pent-up Utica like one small village could 
 afford a fitting sphere for a person of Freddie s genius. 
 She carried her conquests into neighboring towns and 
 cities, and often spent whole months in the place where 
 Ned Buckner was practicing his profession. Then 
 every body pitied Sylvia Macy, though the village 
 breathed freer when she was out of it. On her return 
 the matrons ruffled their feathers, or looked sharply after 
 their lords. The marriage of Freddie Haven, it was 
 conceded, would be a public benefaction ; but while she 
 was still free and able to roam at large, there was no 
 telling where the lightning might strike. No one in 
 Freddie s family was able to control her. She lived with 
 a married sister who was buried up in a large family of 
 children ; and her brother-in-law, it was thought, was a lit 
 tle too indulgent toward her. Freddie had independent 
 means of her own, and could do as she pleased. No wonder 
 she kept the village stirred up ! Of course many things 
 were said of her by malicious tongues that had no found 
 ation in fact. It is to be taken for granted that a per 
 son of the Freddie type, in a small village, is never so 
 black as she is painted. 
 
 Freddie s sister s house stood, as we say in the coun 
 try, catacornering to the house where Sylvia Macy lived 
 with her widowed mother in that calm, still air of refine 
 ment and respectability which surrounds the best peo- 
 
FREDDIE S HOUR OF TRIUMPH. 325 
 
 pie, the elect of the village. From the windows ot one 
 house it was easy to see whoever entered the door of the 
 other. Freddie had tried to train a screen of vines over 
 her porch on the Macy side, but it " winter killed " so 
 often she finally abandoned the effort. Her deeds must 
 stand uncovered before the eyes of the Macys, and she 
 was not ashamed. There were many hours of triumph 
 for Freddie, though she was not quite young now. In 
 deed, it was necessary to begin to study the art of 
 " making up." But, although Ned Buckner was engaged 
 to Sylvia, he always spent, when he came to town, con 
 siderable time with Freddie Haven. He never meant to 
 spend any time with the most popular girl in the village, 
 but when you have a certain intimacy with a girl of that 
 kind how are you to help yourself ? 
 
 If he passed Freddie s house early in the morn 
 ing there she was, gathering flowers in the garden, 
 or singing his favorite song at the piano in the par 
 lor, or sitting on the shady porch in a perfect cos 
 tume, engaged on a large rich piece of embroidery 
 which represented a spider s web in a blackberry bush, 
 with the spider at home, and a fly sending in his card. 
 The whole thing was very quaint conceit, but it was 
 wonderfully suggestive. Freddie beckoned him in the 
 most natural way, and then he lost his will-power, and 
 during his stay at home he boated, and walked, and 
 dawdled a certain amount with Freddie, while Sylvia 
 was supposed to be watching in jealous rage through the 
 blinds of an upper window. But this was false. Sylvia 
 would scorn to spy on any one. When Ned was in the 
 village she and her polite, high-bred old mother never 
 mentioned Freddie Haven s name. They shut their ears 
 to all gossip, though of course they did keep up a con 
 stant thinking. 
 
 But things could not go on always in this fashion. 
 Ned would have liked to let them slide. It was flatter- 
 
3 26 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ing to his vanity to be the center of talk, the person on 
 whom all eyes turned, the object of intense interest to 
 two such women as Sylvia and Freddie. But the crisis 
 came one sunset hour, when the fields were brown, the 
 roads dusty, the mountains hazy with amethystine mists. 
 A great wing of dove-colored cloud rested over Saddle 
 back, and beneath it the vivid beams darted forth like a 
 sheaf of thunder-bolts held in Jove s strong hand. Then 
 came a sudden sunburst, and the calm fields, the river, 
 the woods, touched with the afterglow, turned to fire. 
 The river ran crimson between black banks. The fields 
 were ensanguined to their deepest clods. Every bush 
 and stone and bit of crooked fence turned to ebony out 
 of the light. The gleam strayed down the country road. 
 It caught the under leaves, where the boughs were trans 
 parent, and they seemed to break into flame ; then the 
 glow faded, except in the west. Shadows climbed the 
 sky. The river still ran crimson in the coal-black land, 
 and in the very heart of the red stream glided a little boat. 
 Two people were in the boat. You , could just see 
 their outlines by the fading light. A young man and 
 a maiden rowed on that glowing stream, while the 
 evening breeze began to ruffle the trees up the bank, 
 and brought the odors of the fields. The young man 
 was tall, and he bent to the oar. The maiden sat 
 like a statue in the stern of the boat. Not a word seemed 
 to pass between them. They came to the landing-place 
 on the little pebbly beach under the water willow. Silently 
 the rower leaped to shore, drew in the boat, and handed 
 the lady out. They walked up the bank in the soft, 
 creeping shadows, just as lights began to twinkle in the 
 village houses, and shone with a mysterious charm 
 through the dusky elm trees. They had not spoken a word 
 as they turned into Main Street, and he opened the gate 
 of a pretty cottage ; then she turned her face toward him, 
 rather to look goodnight than with the intention of speech. 
 
SHALL SHE SACRIFICE HERSELF? 3 2 7 
 
 Freddie had crept down to the boat-landing by the 
 bridge in the middle of the afternoon, when most of the 
 village gossips were napping. There had been no 
 definite appointment made with Ned Buckner, but she 
 knew he would be there. She was dressed in a white 
 flannel boating-gown, with a large bunch of brilliant red 
 flowers in her bodice, and a hat of the most stylish trim. 
 Ned was lounging about the river bank when she arrived 
 in the most natural way, and they stepped into the boat 
 and pushed off to a woody part of the river, where several 
 aged hemlocks hung low over the stream. It was only 
 in the black velvety and crimson gloaming that Freddie 
 sprang her secret upon Ned. Before that hour she had 
 been pensive at moments, at others rather wildly gay. 
 But now she told him with solemn almost tragic 
 earnestness that he must decide her fate. She had been 
 importuned to marry a Polish count, who was then meta 
 phorically on his knees before her. With a tremor in 
 her voice and tears in her fine eyes she confessed she did 
 not love the count ; but if Ned advised her to marry him 
 she would meekly sacrifice herself. She would go like a 
 victim to the altar, and bestow her hand, though her 
 heart was not in it. She did not wish Ned to give pre 
 cipitate counsel. He was to come to her house the next 
 afternoon, and they would talk the matter over calmly 
 and dispassionately. 
 
 Ned Buckner felt dazed when he suddenly found him 
 self in a trap. He had been sailing along gayly with 
 these two girls both in love with him, and now there was 
 to be a sharp game played upon him, from which it 
 would require all his lawyer wit to extricate himself. 
 This was the situation when he and Freddie walked in 
 perfect silence up the bank to the village street, and 
 parted without a word at the gate. Ned wandered about 
 awhile in the dusk smoking a cigar. He felt sulky and 
 injured in his most sacred affections. He could see no 
 
3 28 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 way out of his present scrape but to give up one of his 
 girls. And this he particularly disliked to do, for at that 
 moment he was almost equally fond of both. Suddenly 
 he remembered that he had an engagement to take tea 
 that very evening with his other girl, Sylvia Macy. He 
 went home and dressed himself with great care in even 
 ing toilet. 
 
 The Macy house is one of the pleasantest in the vil 
 lage. Now the lamps were lighted and the tea-table was 
 set out with a choice array of flowers. Such a refined 
 tea-table is a mirror of the mind of the mistress. On 
 that table there was never too much, nothing so exquisite 
 as to detract from the pleasures of good conversation, 
 yet the food had an aroma of its own. Ned was a little 
 late, but Sylvia met him in the wide old-fashioned hall in 
 the sweetest temper. She, too, was in white a diapha 
 nous robe with a few sprays of the fragrant honeysuckle 
 at her belt. Ned had never seen her look so charming 
 in her choice simplicity. The whole atmosphere of the 
 house affected his impressionable nature like some deli 
 cate perfumed wine. The old lady, so dignified, benevo 
 lent, and wise, sitting at the head of the table, was all his 
 aesthetic instinct desired. Ned felt himself to be almost 
 as much in love with her as he had ever been with either 
 Sylvia or Freddie. It was partly the desire to be son-in- 
 law to old Madam Macy that had won him over to an 
 engagement. In her presence he felt virtuous, noble, 
 almost religious. The fact that she believed in him was 
 like a back-stay to his character. 
 
 Sylvia had never looked so well as on this particular 
 night. There was a slight flush on her cheek, her eyes 
 were of a deep, still brightness, and her blonde hair shone 
 golden. Ned was a captivating talker when he chose to 
 be, and now he exerted himself to fascinate those two 
 women. It was only when he found himself alone in the 
 parlor with Sylvia that some consciousness of what he was 
 
SYLVIA S OFFER. 3 2 9 
 
 swept over him. Old Mrs. Macy in saying good-night 
 had put her hand affectionately on his shoulder. He 
 knew she trusted him, and for a minute he was ashamed. 
 He looked shyly at Sylvia. How natural, pure, and good 
 she was in her easy gown, free and untortured. She 
 wore no false locks ; she knew nothing of cosmetics and 
 " making up "; she was as natural and true as a mountain 
 brook. Ned half suspected he was a scoundrel. Now 
 Sylvia sang and played for him on the old piano without 
 any of the foreign airs and graces of execution which 
 Freddie possessed. They sat together and talked of in 
 different things. But at last Ned, though he was half 
 afraid of this simple girl to whom he had been engaged 
 two years, drew a little nearer, seated himself on the sofa 
 beside her, and ventured to take her hand. Sylvia blushed 
 deeply. There was a constrained silence. Then she said, 
 trying to steady her voice : 
 
 " Ned, dear, there has been something on my mind this 
 good while I wished to say to you, and yet I hardly know 
 how to say it. I have felt that that possibly you might 
 choose to take back your word and to be free again. 
 Perhaps that is you may not quite have known your 
 own mind when you asked me to marry you." 
 
 She was too delicate to mention Freddie Haven s name, 
 but, of course, Ned knew that she knew all about Freddie. 
 She slipped the engaged ring from her ringer and held it 
 out to him. What could a man with a spark of honor and 
 decency do but refuse to take the ring and try to comfort 
 and reassure the girl to whom he had plighted his troth ? 
 She gently put aside his caresses, though she did allow 
 him to slip the ring back on her finger. 
 
 " Remember," she said, as they parted at the door, 
 " you are to think it all over very seriously. Come to me 
 to-morrow afternoon, and we will have a long talk. Tell 
 me the exact truth. Tell me all there is in your heart." 
 
 As she stood there she looked into his eyes just one 
 
33 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 moment, and he could hardly bear her gaze, and then she 
 shut the door. Ned Buckner well knew what her words 
 implied ; he must give up Freddie Haven forever if he 
 would retain Sylvia. When he found himself in the vil 
 lage street, he remembered his appointment with Freddie 
 the next afternoon, to decide her fate. Sylvia had ap 
 pointed the same hour to give him back his troth if he so 
 wished. He had only to tell her that he loved Freddie 
 Haven, loved her in spite of his better self, and the solu 
 tion was easily reached. Sylvia was a calm, serene, 
 placid being. She would not break her heart over one 
 disappointment ; but now he remembered he had at times 
 noted a depth of constancy in her which had alarmed him. 
 He recalled her every attitude of the evening the white 
 clinging gown, the faint odor of the honeysuckle, her pure, 
 calm face and gentle tones. It was plain he would not 
 give her up without a struggle, to live under the ban of 
 the village and her mother s silent reproach. Then 
 Freddie s splendid dark eyes came flashing toward him, 
 claiming him for their own. 
 
 He took a long walk into the country and tried to 
 think the thing out. But there was no use in thinking. 
 It was hard to give up either girl. Both seemed neces 
 sary to different phases of his nature. At last he decided 
 to leave the issue to chance. The moon had now risen, 
 and bathed the dewy world in radiance. It was almost 
 as light as day. He plucked two pieces of grass of differ 
 ing lengths ; one was Sylvia, the other Fredonia. He 
 arranged them in his hand behind his back, trying not to 
 juggle with himself. Then he drew lots, and for a time 
 dared not look at the result. When he did he found that 
 Sylvia had won. He walked calmly home and went to 
 bed. A paltry character, you will say. Yes, but how few 
 of us seem otherwise than paltry when the inmost fiber of 
 motive is dissected ! How few of us are heroes and 
 heroines to ourselves ! 
 
SHE MUST SETTLE THE QUESTION. 331 
 
 The next day Ned Buckner did not call on Freddie 
 Haven. He decided to let her settle the question to 
 marry or not to marry for herself. But he went early to 
 visit Sylvia, and so effectually allayed all her doubts and 
 fears that the wedding-day was appointed for the follow 
 ing month. Every one in the village where he was raised 
 knows that Ned Buckner, though a brilliant young man, 
 is not good enough for Sylvia. But how few husbands 
 are good enough for their wives in the estimation of 
 friends ? 
 
 Freddie has not yet married the Polish count, and 
 some people think he is a pure invention of her brain. 
 There is talk of her going into the Romish Church. 
 She still works on that great piece of embroidery repre 
 senting the spider s v/eb in the blackberry bush ; but 
 most decidedly it would not do for an altar-cloth. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF STYLES GARTH. 
 
 THE civilized man who hides in the forest reverts to 
 half-savage instincts. He takes on the silence, the 
 stealthy step, the cunning of the Indian. He becomes 
 mysterious to people who live in the clearing and see 
 more daylight. A large tract of forest like that which 
 stretches away from the north end of the village called 
 Holman s Range is the natural link between civilization 
 and the wilder life of the mountains. A portion of it is 
 filled with winding paths made by cows, berry pickers, 
 grouse shooters, and picnic parties. An old abandoned 
 road runs through one part of it, which, though now 
 unused by wheeled vehicles, is much favored by eques 
 trians. It has grown up to the most beautiful form of 
 wild garden. Many of the oaks and nut-trees, having 
 room to spread their boughs, have attained to large size. 
 The old roadbed is clothed with fine grass and golden 
 moss, as soft as velvet to the foot-fall. The rarest spring- 
 flowers are found along this path that coquets equally 
 with sun and shade. It is spiced all through with the 
 trailing arbutus in May, and later come the columbine, 
 the laurel, the lady-slipper, and fox-glove, and in early 
 autumn a splendid array of the golden-rod, and bright 
 cornel berry, the mountain-ash, and brilliant colored 
 leaves. 
 
 Many years ago this old road through Holman s Range 
 had one inhabitant. To-day it has not one. The ruinous 
 house of this solitary resident is still seen there thickly 
 surrounded with bushes and the vigorous saplings of the 
 elm, maple, and chestnut. The roof has fallen, and the 
 
A MYTHICAL CHARACTER. 333 
 
 wall of logs has partly broken down. The stone chimney 
 still rises in the middle of the house, but it is like the 
 altar of a forgotten god that has long ceased to smoke. 
 A beautiful spring gushes up near the cabin and flows 
 through a broken conduit. In what was once a scrap of 
 door-yard, walled in with rude stones, two or three 
 stunted apple trees struggle through the wilder growths 
 and continue to blossom when May comes round, obedient 
 to the law of their being. 
 
 Many years ago a lone man lived in the log-cabin. If 
 you happened then to stray down the wood-road you 
 would see his scant linen fluttering on the line which he 
 had washed and hung out to dry, while the smoke from 
 his rude stone chimney curled softly up among the boughs 
 of a great white pine that shaded the roof of his dwelling. 
 This man s story while he lived here, though quiet and 
 entirely uneventful, had something pathetic, even tragic, 
 in its implications. As absolutely nothing was known of 
 his early history, he soon became a mythical character, 
 and many of the myths created in his lifetime have 
 gathered sharper outlines and more definite details since 
 his death. His career, so far as we know, is but a leaf 
 torn out of the book of his life a tale without a begin 
 ning, a mystery never unraveled. It is now too late to 
 hope it ever will be. 
 
 Once upon a time, as the children s story-books say, a 
 stranger, well clad and with the air of an educated man 
 a gentleman who had lived much in the world and knew 
 its ways presented himself to an aged clergyman in the 
 large town nearest the village. He had come in on the 
 stage one dark night from Hillsford. He at once pro 
 ceeded to the parsonage and requested a private inter 
 view with the clergyman. This was readily granted, and 
 was held with locked doors. It happened to be a stormy, 
 windy, blustering night, and the interview lasted so long 
 that Miss Mercy, the clergyman s daughter, went and 
 
334 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 spoke to her father through the door. He simply replied 
 by requesting her to go away. At midnight he let the 
 stranger out of the front door and carefully closed the 
 house. No one ever knew what passed between the two 
 men in those long hours. It was always believed, how 
 ever, that the stranger had confessed some hideous crime, 
 committed perhaps in a foreign land from which he had 
 fled, and had asked help and protection from the old 
 minister. On this point it was useless to try and interro 
 gate the clergyman. When the name of Styles Garth 
 was mentioned he looked blank, and declared he knew 
 no such man. But Garth, as he was called, did appear 
 among us bearing a line to Mrs. Abby Hastings in our 
 village. It was literally a line, for it only contained the 
 name and address of Mrs. Hastings in the old clergy 
 man s handwriting. Mrs. Hastings cherished that scrap 
 of paper for years, but she could never make any thing 
 more out of it than was patent on its face. 
 
 Mrs Hastings was an acquaintance of the clergyman, 
 a widow with three small children and an aged mother, 
 to maintain by her own efforts. She worked at dress 
 making, fine shirt making, went out occasionally to nurse 
 the sick, and took in boarders and lodgers when they 
 offered, which was but seldom in those days. The 
 stranger entered the village in an unassuming manner, 
 v/ith a little square trunk having a strong handle in the 
 middle, and no other luggage. He carried the trunk 
 himself and had walked all the way from the county 
 town, bearing it in his hand. He presented the minister s 
 line to Abby Hastings and asked for a lodging, and she 
 promptly gave him the best room in her house, which, 
 barring the noise of the children, was a goodly room, with 
 an old-fashioned fire-place, and an alcoved bed divided 
 off by chintz curtains. The stranger asked for meals in 
 his own apartment, and promised to pay a small stipend 
 in addition to the regular board for the privilege of 
 
A GREAT TALKER. 335 
 
 taking them alone. Mrs. Hastings granted the request, 
 not very willingly, to be sure, for from the moment of 
 his arrival at her door, with the little square trunk in his 
 hand, he excited her itching curiosity. Abby was the 
 greatest talker in the village, and had the Yankee genius 
 for asking questions in excess. She was not slow in 
 plying her new boarder with queries as to where he came 
 from, what was the object of his visit to the village, was 
 he a married man or a bachelor, and how long did he 
 intend to tarry. 
 
 But for once Mrs Abby had met her match. He made 
 no pretense of being deaf, and he certainly was not 
 dumb, but he parried all her attacks with stolid, imper 
 turbable silence, even turning his back to her and drum 
 ming on the window-pane, until at last she refused to 
 speak to him except when it was absolutely necessary, 
 and a kind of sign language grew up between them 
 which was but sparsely supplemented by uttered words. 
 The stranger had a slight accent which might have been 
 foreign or might have been acquired by an American by 
 long residence in foreign parts. His voice was singularly 
 mellifluous and agreeable to the ear. After he had 
 assumed the garb of a poor countryman and allowed his 
 beard to grow you would have known he was a cultivated 
 man by that delightful voice, had it been your privilege to 
 hear him speak. The stranger had given his name as 
 Styles Garth, of nowhere in particular ; but the one letter 
 he received during his twelve years residence in and near 
 the village, and which was forwarded by a New York 
 banker, had the original superscription carefully scratched 
 out, and Styles Garth, Esq., and the village address 
 scrawled in the only unoccupied portion of the letter 
 back, which was covered with foreign and American 
 postmarks and confused scribblings. The postmaster 
 and Mistress Hastings, who was his first cousin, spent a 
 whole evening scrutinizing the letter before they delivered 
 
33 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 it to the owner. They held it up to the light, examined 
 the seal, and picked a little at the same without venturing 
 to break it. But nothing at all was gleaned from this 
 letter. It only deepened the mystery which surrounded 
 the so-called Styles Garth. 
 
 During all the years he lived in the country he ceased 
 not to be the object of endless curiosity and gossip, and 
 yet he was by no means a marked or peculiar man in 
 his appearance, and his manners were not ungentle, save 
 that at times he shunned all intercourse with his kind 
 and spent whole days wandering about the wildest parts 
 of Holman s Range. Then again he would return and 
 mingle with the men of the village with a kind of avidity, 
 as if afraid to lose the use and wont of human inter 
 course, and to forget the sound of his own voice. A 
 singular charm distinguished these moments of converse. 
 Styles Garth was evidently a man who had traveled far 
 and thought deeply. 
 
 He was learned in men and affairs as well as in 
 books. The farmer, the mechanic, even the drover 
 and teamster on the road could learn something about 
 his own trade and calling from this man s talk. He 
 conversed only with men and children ; with women 
 he held absolutely no intercourse, never doing more than 
 to nod to the old dame who sat knitting in the house 
 porch. Soon after his arrival in the village he discarded 
 his more fashionable clothes, having had himself fitted by 
 a country tailor and shoemaker with the garments com 
 mon to the region. He donned a plain hat, and with a 
 thick, knotted stick in his hand^went about looking like 
 the most ordinary farmer. He also allowed his beard to 
 grow. 
 
 But these changes were made gradually, and it could 
 hardly be conjectured that he had made them for the 
 sake of disguising himself. It was apparent he had put 
 off the old man. His past was absolutely detached, cut 
 
A GRATUITOUS ASSUMPTION. 337 
 
 sheer off from what he now was. Every tie was sun 
 dered, every association left behind. He had no lack of 
 money, and sometimes paid out for the simple neces 
 sities of his life old gold coins which would have sold to 
 collectors in the market as rarities. I hardly know how 
 the floating conjectures about Garth s past came to 
 crystallize into the singular story that Garth was a 
 wealthy Englishman, and had committed a murder in 
 his own country ; in fact, had killed his wife in a fit of 
 jealous rage, thrown her body into a well, and then, 
 seizing such valuables as he had on hand, had fled from 
 the land under a disguised name. The gratuitous 
 assumption of the murdered wife and the body thrown 
 into the well was really amusing, as there was not a par 
 ticle of evidence whereon to build it. Still people felt 
 justified in inventing the wildest legen rather than con 
 fess thay knew nothing at all of the past of Styles Garth. 
 
 They pointed to the strange conduct of the Rev. Peter 
 Mifflin, that aged divine to whom Garth had first betaken 
 himself on his arrival in the country, and to whom he 
 owed 4 hi? introduction to the village and to the house of 
 Mrs. Abby Hastings. The Rev. Peter was a man much 
 revered for sancity and purity of life and soundness of 
 doctrine. All his family connections were known. His 
 whole career was open to the daylight. He was noted 
 for his gentleness and urbanity, and that persuasiveness 
 by which he lured sinners from their ways, instead of 
 thundering forth the terrors of the law. 
 
 Suddenly the old man drooped and sickened under 
 some peculiar malady to which no name was given, and 
 he was ordered away by his physician on a vacation jour 
 ney of six weeks. It* was remembered that the Rev. 
 Peter s illness began on the very night when he had been 
 closeted for several hours with the mysterious stranger. 
 But change of air and scene soon restored the hale old 
 man to perfect health. When any thing was said to him 
 
33 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 of Styles Garth he claimed never to have heard the name. 
 When he drove occasionally to the village in his chaise 
 to attend ministers meeting, or exchange with the local 
 clergyman, he sometimes met the stranger face to face, 
 but no glance or sign of recognition ever passed between 
 them. 
 
 If Garth ever heard the gossip about himself with 
 which the village teemed, he was perfectly indifferent to 
 it. At Mrs. Hastings he lived intrenched. One knock 
 on the wall of his room with his thick walking-stick indi 
 cated a desire for hot water to be left at his door ; two 
 sharp raps were a call for breakfast. His board money 
 he left wrapped in paper on his table, where he expected 
 the receipt for the same to be duly deposited. His soiled 
 linen was placed in the eastern corner of the room, and 
 returned mended and darned on a certain day in each 
 week. As Mrs. Abby expressed it, she had never 
 " mended, washed, and fed such another boarder." 
 
 This stranger had put a curb into the mouth of the most 
 inveterate talker the town had ever produced. Only one 
 peculiar fact was noted in regard to Styles Garth, and 
 this was gleaned after long and careful observation. He 
 was literally afraid of his own shadow. Of this there 
 came not to be the slightest doubt. When the sun was 
 east he would never walk west, so that his shadow was 
 east before him. When it was in the west he never would 
 turn his footsteps eastward. If he caught sight of his 
 shadow by chance on the road he stood transfixed with 
 an unspeakable dread. Superstitious people declared 
 that the shadow itself was of a sinister and menacing 
 form elongated beyond all proper shadow limits, bicker 
 ing, mocking, and mowing in pantomime, and taking 
 on queer shapes to the developing of a demon s hoofs 
 and tail. 
 
 But all this was the veriest nonsense. Garth s shadow 
 was perfectly normal, fantastic to be sure, as all shadows 
 
AFRAID OF HIS SHADOW. 339 
 
 are, but entirely without significance to an observer. 
 Why his face blanched and his eyes changed to an ex 
 pression of helpless terror when he caught sight of his 
 own spindled legs and distorted figure moving before 
 him gave rise to the wildest conjectures. Rivington was 
 then a young medical man just settled in the village. 
 With the sckpticism of his class, he pooh-poohed the 
 absurd stories about Styles Garth s being haunted by his 
 shadow. In his opinion he was a monomaniac on some 
 one point, and otherwise quite rational. He had proba 
 bly wandered away from home, said the doctor, under 
 some mild form of mental aberration, and was in fact one 
 of those mysterious disappearances of which we so often 
 read. Two or three years after Garth came to the vil 
 lage the railroad was built through the valley. This new 
 road seemed to terrify Garth, while it attracted his foot 
 steps. He would walk along the track for miles and 
 miles, with his head bent, tapping the rails with his stick 
 and listening intently to their ring. He would pass from 
 side to side in a long zigzag, as if trying to evade some 
 thing invisible to all eyes but his own. But after the 
 trains began running he never went near it again, except 
 at night, when he would sometimes follow the line as 
 far as Upton, fifteen miles away. 
 
 It was after this that Garth hired the log-cabin built 
 in the woods, on the old abandoned road, and took his 
 permanent leave of the lodging of Mrs. Hastings. It was 
 reported that he had gone to live in the woods because 
 his shadow troubled him less in a place where the sun 
 shone but fitfully. Was it the memory of a crime, of 
 disappointed ambition, of a cross in love, or was it some 
 fearful vision of a diseased brain which this strange man 
 was trying to elude ? No one was ever afraid of Garth 
 who came in contact with him. He did many helpful, kind 
 acts about the country, saving the farmers cattle from 
 pound, curing their diseases, and prescribing skillfully for 
 
34 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 all the complaints of horses. He never would take a penny 
 for any service. Once or twice he had carried a sick farm 
 hand into his cabin and nursed him through the typhus 
 fever. He doctored these people on a principle of his 
 own, giving no medicine, but attending strictly to clean 
 liness, bathing, ventilation, and a simple and abundant 
 diet. This he did when stifling and starving was con 
 sidered the proper treatment for fevers ; when people 
 were fed on blue pills for slight ailments, and when they 
 took a course of strong medicine and emetics in the 
 spring as regularly as they cleaned house. 
 
 When the village people came to spy out the land they 
 found absolutely nothing to satisfy their morbid curiosity. 
 His cabin door stood open day and night, and birds and 
 squirrels entered freely. He kept a drinking vessel at 
 the spring for those who wished to taste its pure, cool 
 water, and a bench under the pine was free to all. It 
 was known that such money as he possessed was depos 
 ited in the county bank. There was nothing worth steal 
 ing in his cabin. The wife of a poor man in the nearest 
 clearing did his baking, and he lived mainly on milk and 
 berries in summer. 
 
 One day a curly-pated lad of five or six ran away 
 from his home in the village and got lost in the 
 great wooded tract of Hinman s Range. The neigh 
 bors turned out in a large searching party. The poor 
 mother wrung her hands and wept in extreme anguish 
 of soul. She had buried four children, and this boy 
 was the only one left to her. At that time it was 
 believed that bears and catamounts roamed at large 
 in the wilder parts of the woods. The little lad s foot 
 steps were traced to a pond which lies deep hidden in the 
 very heart of the range, and there they disappeared. 
 He had stopped to build small play-houses with stones 
 and bushes in the path, and by these he was tracked to 
 the pond, and then the pathetic little tokens ceased, and 
 
THE LOST BOY. 34* 
 
 the footprints last seen went wandering about the 
 shore. 
 
 They were talking of dragging the pond for the child s 
 body on the second day of the search, when Styles 
 Garth suddenly appeared in the village bearing the little 
 lost boy in his arms. He had found him in the wildest, 
 most desolate part of the forest, at a place known as 
 Rattlesnake Ledge, where the little fellow was plucking 
 blackberries for his breakfast with the homesick tears 
 dripping down his cheeks. He was scratched and torn, 
 dirty and disheveled, but otherwise unharmed. He had 
 slept in the rattlesnakes den on a great bed of moss 
 among the rocks, but nothing had hurt the boy. He was 
 tired of his long wanderings and grieving much for home, 
 and he confided himself to Garth s care with childlike 
 faith. His shoes were all worn out and his feet had been 
 cut on the sharp stones, and Garth soon took him in his 
 arms and brought him, a heavy boy, nearly five miles to 
 his home. The mother s heart overflowed with gratitude 
 to this strange man for the rescue of her child. But he 
 would not listen to any demonstrations. He deposited 
 the boy in her arms and escaped as quickly as possible 
 to the forest. 
 
 This incident made an era in the hermit s life. An 
 unexplained tie of interest and affection bound him to 
 the boy he had found in the woods. It was the first 
 humanizing sentiment that had fallen on his heart since 
 he appeared in the village. He sometimes came about 
 to seek the boy, and as he grew older he spent whole clays 
 with Styles Garth in the woods, who gave him his first 
 lessons in the knowledge of plants and animals, and the 
 wonders of nature, and laid the foundations of a scien 
 tific curiosity in the boy s mind that ultimately shaped his 
 career. 
 
 The mother, though she was afraid of Styles Garth, 
 could not keep the child away from him wholly, and 
 
342 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 when she found that he taught the child nothing evil, 
 but awoke and stimulated all the powers of his intellect, 
 she allowed the intimacy to go on. Fanciful people 
 invented the story that when Ben Hoadly was with 
 Styles Garth he was not afraid of his shadow, the inno 
 cent nature of the boy acting as a shield against those 
 dark and mysterious influences that at times seemed to 
 haunt his life. 
 
 Ben was fifteen w r hen Styles Garth died. He had 
 taken a severe cold while on a visit to a sick laborer on 
 a winter day. Our doctor attended him in his last hours, 
 and Ben Hoadly was with him and held him in his arms 
 when he died, carrying his secret down to the grave. 
 When the small hand-trunk was examined which Garth 
 had brought with him to the village it was found to con 
 tain only a few pieces of money, sufficient to defray the 
 expenses of his simple funeral. The Rev. Peter Mifflin 
 died a few months later, at the age of eighty-five, but he 
 left no scrap of writing, nothing to indicate the nature of 
 the secret which had been confided to him by Styles 
 Garth. The curiosity-mongers were foiled all round, 
 but they had so often told the story of the murdered 
 wife, and the deposit of her body in the well, with full 
 and minute particulars, that in the end they came firmly 
 to believe it. 
 
 Years and years after the death of Styles Garth, Ben 
 Hoadly, the only being who had ever loved him in the 
 village, erected a plain stone at the head of his grave on 
 Burying-Ground Hill, and inscribed it with the words, 
 "To My Earliest Friend." The superstitions which 
 attached themselves to Garth during his life have in some 
 strange way been transferred to this stone. It is said 
 that at times it casts queer shadows, quite abnormal and 
 inexplicable, on any known principle attaching to face 
 tious tombstones. But you may safely set this down 
 among the number of village myths. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 JOHN DEAN AND ORIANA. 
 
 polite and refined ladies who belong to the best 
 1 village set would be shocked to have it said that 
 they are given to tattle. Their mode is only an extension 
 of the circulatory and respiratory and nervous systems of 
 the body by which each becomes a member of all, and 
 news is communicated one knows not how perhaps by 
 touch or some other sense perception. The best village 
 ladies have a wholesome horror of backbiting. It is not 
 only scandalous, it is vulgar. It has been so much 
 preached against and moralized over that the spinsters, 
 whoso special function gossip is supposed to be, are very 
 careful how they "talk." It is only about twenty years 
 ago that one of the most inveterate old-maid tattlers and 
 gossips ever known here was publicly expelled from a 
 benevolent society and reproved in the weekly prayer and 
 experience meeting. 
 
 Such a thing could not happen now. If there is an 
 occasional survival of the unfittest in the form of an 
 old-fashioned tattler, who makes trouble by the too free 
 use of her tongue, you may be sure she does not belong 
 to the best set. In that circle there is intercommunion of 
 thought and feeling, a subtle magnetism which puts every 
 body en rapport. If the ladies get together and talk 
 over neighborhood affairs in rather too free a spirit, with 
 an occasional verging toward something which might by 
 an uninitiated and blundering outsider be called tittle- 
 tattle, some one is sure to remark that this class of talk 
 comes under the head of social criticism. Of course, she 
 
344 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 says, persons who discriminate at all, must see things in 
 their friends and neighbors little peculiarities and foi 
 bles which it is not treasonable to mention in a kindly 
 way. The people who praise every body indiscriminately, 
 those unmitigated optimists who do not know that the 
 kettle is black, but call it a fine shade of brown or gray, 
 are insipid creatures with no niceness of perception, and 
 therefore, owing to their universal benevolence and 
 mushy good nature, not in the least interesting. 
 
 In the best set a wholesome equality is cultivated. It 
 is not considered in good taste for some people to dress 
 more expensively or wear finer jewels than others can 
 afford. Mrs. Judge Magnus, who is a woman of great 
 tact, always puts away her diamonds and her best gowns 
 when she comes home from Washington. She wishes 
 frankly to resume her place in the village sphere she so 
 much enjoys, and to incur the least possible amount of 
 social criticism. The judge himself always tries to come 
 down a few pegs on his return, and to play the equality 
 business with a wholly unconscious air ; but the knowl 
 edge that he is the great man of the town in other 
 words, the biggest toad in the puddle causes him in 
 time unconsciously to ignore his forced humility and to 
 put on his natural expression of owning the village, and, 
 indeed, the county. 
 
 The judge is not gifted with penetration, but his wife 
 has enough for two. She knows how to enter into all 
 the angles and sinuosities and crooks of village life, and 
 to make herself thoroughly popular. So that, although 
 the judge imagines himself endowed with headship and 
 swells around mightily in consequence, his wife never 
 swells, never boasts, never assumes any thing or puts on 
 airs, steps about in her neat, plain tailor suit, with her 
 keen eye out, and when the moment is ripe seizes any 
 advantage she covets. 
 
 " A fine woman," says Jake Small, spreading himself, 
 
A VIBRATORY CENTER. 345 
 
 " and the best of the team by a long shot. If gumption 
 and sense could get the gore out of me, she could, but 
 it ain t to be did." At that very moment Mrs. Magnus 
 was sending provisions and necessaries to Jake s wife, 
 who had just added her eighth to the illustrious family 
 of Small. 
 
 The judge s house was not the center of our best set. 
 It would have been inconvenient, for she often entertained 
 distinguished strangers from a distance, at which times 
 the village intimacies would have clashed. She was an 
 adept in knowing how to keep people in the right place, 
 to placate them, cherish them in good-humor, and make 
 them useful on occasion. The house where all the social 
 telephone wires came together was John Dean s. Mrs. 
 Dean s parlor was the great vibratory center, where was 
 gathered and distributed the peculiar village life of which 
 I have spoken. It was a very pretty parlor, for Mrs. 
 Dean had brought a nice snug fortune to her husband, 
 and if he had no other virtue he possessed fine taste irL 
 works of art. The charm of the house was not in 
 upholstery, but in rare etchings and beautiful editions of 
 old books, and in a case of replicas of some of the finest 
 engraved gems in the world. Mrs. Dean had early set 
 her face against Eastlake and all the tide of cheap art 
 decoration that came in with him, therefore her house 
 had a distinct character of its own. 
 
 It was known that Mrs. Dean had consented to become 
 the center of the best set in order to find some little 
 relief from John Dean as her sister, Oriana Freeborn, 
 said, " some outside life " was indispensable to poor Els- 
 peth. John Dean was jealous of feminine influence in 
 his home, but the women of the village despised his 
 selfishness, and had conspired to give his wife the change 
 she needed. Their influence was as pervasive as the 
 wind, and in time John Dean ceased to resist it, and set 
 tled down in a state of armed neutrality. Mr, Dean 
 
346 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 was a cultivated man, with a perfect appreciation of the 
 art treasures he had collected with his wife s money. He 
 was too cultivated. A book-worm from his earliest years 
 every thing he had ever learned in the line of his favorite 
 study, the philosophy of history, stuck to him like beg 
 gars lice in the field. He could not rub off a single fact 
 or date, nor for the life of him get rid of any of that tre 
 mendous store of information that made his specific gra 
 vity so overpowering. It was not the philosophy of 
 history alone that engrossed him. He had views and 
 theories on all subjects, which he poured out in a contin 
 uous, slow, sluggish stream that resembled very thick 
 treacle. 
 
 John Dean had tried to write, indeed, had written 
 books ; but the firm that published them broke down 
 from their weight, and the very truck which conveyed 
 them from place to place was hopelessly wrecked in the 
 street. He obtained a professorship in a small college 
 because of his vast learning, but one by one the boys 
 slunk out of the lecture-room, and he was left slowly 
 gesticulating to the empty benches. He had tried plat 
 form lecturing with the same result, and now he was 
 reduced to the home audience. 
 
 No one of her friends could understand why Miss 
 Freeborn, with all her advantages of fortune, good 
 looks, and general agreeableness, had ever consented 
 to marry John Dean. Her sister Oriana says it was 
 because she was in Europe that year, and Elspeth 
 was not very well, and was crushed by John Dean s 
 elephantine advances and the statistics of the Roman 
 Empire until she had no will of her own. Every 
 body pities Mrs. Dean, but being a heroic little woman 
 she never complains. The terrible fact of the busi 
 ness is that John Dean is always at home. There is 
 no escape from him save in that community of feeling 
 which pervades the best set ; and therefore Mrs. Dean 
 
A WIFE S MIND. 347 
 
 has given herself up more to the trivialities of village life 
 than her taste inclined. The public having decamped 
 from John Dean, and his books having fallen like lead 
 into the bottomless sea of oblivion, there is nothing left 
 to him but to tutor his wife. They have two boys, and 
 Mrs. Dean is rejoiced to see that they both take after 
 her family. The Freeborns are jocular; lively, sensitive 
 people, with a certain amount of indirection and subtlety 
 in their fun. John Dean has never in the whole course 
 of his life been able to comprehend a joke, and his wife 
 finds no relief in exercising upon him her natural weap 
 ons of irony and sarcasm. She is obliged to sit and 
 receive the leaden shower of instruction, while with the 
 rotary motion of his thick finger he seems to bore into 
 her mind like a gimlet. John Dean goes upon the prin 
 ciple that a wife s mind is or ought to be entirely emptied 
 of its contents, into which it is the duty of the husband 
 to pour his accumulated facts. He assumes that she 
 knows nothing, never has learned any thing, and that it 
 is absolutely necessary to start with first principles. 
 
 Mrs. Dean s mind is by no means an exhausted receiver. 
 She is a lively, independent personality. To be sure she 
 has been much crushed by Dean s accumulations of 
 knowledge, all of which he tries upon her with the heavy 
 theories he has formulated before using it in other shape. 
 But since she became the recognized center of the best 
 set it is remarked that she is much livelier, poor thing, 
 and more herself. In her parlor it has been decided 
 that Mrs. Worldly Wiseman dresses too much even for a 
 bride, and all the peculiarities of Drusilla and the Rev. 
 Arthur Meeker have been discussed in the spirit of an 
 enlightened social criticism. 
 
 Mrs. Dean looks with amused sympathy upon the 
 Rev. Arthur, who is certainly growing a little stouter. 
 Drusilla has ascertained that he now weighs five 
 pounds and eleven ounces more than he did at the 
 
34 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 time of his marriage. But it can not be said that his 
 manly spirit has yet reared its head in resistance to 
 Drusilla s tyranny. A funny thing in connection with 
 the Rev. Arthur is that St. Patty has furtively and cau 
 tiously taken his side, and tries in her own sly way to en 
 courage him to eat things upon the interdicted list of 
 edibles. But as yet he only looks frightened when she 
 suggests such a thing. Mrs. Dean in certain moods feels 
 that she and Arthur Meeker are in the same boat victims 
 of matrimonial oppression of a kind which ordinarily elicits 
 but little sympathy. It may be that she will yet enter 
 into a silent conspiracy with St. Patty to give him the 
 needed help in plucking up courage to throw off the 
 yoke. For herself she sees there is no hope, save through 
 those little loopholes of cheery life which come to her 
 from without. When she is permitted to be frivolous, 
 she feels quite happy and almost young. She must bear 
 her heavy fate as best she can and try to live for her boys, 
 in whom she will do her best to instill a proper hatred for 
 the philosophy of history and universal knowledge. She 
 rather hopes they may take to athletics, and she intends 
 to teach them early that a wife is not by nature to be 
 purely passive and receptive, in other words, to go to 
 school to her husband all the days of her life, without 
 breaking down under the strain. 
 
 But Mrs. Dean is much subdued infinitely more jaded 
 and spiritless than nature intended her to be. Her sister 
 Oriana, on the other hand, is entirely unsubdued. John 
 Dean does not particularly care to have Oriana make 
 them long visits, for, strengthened by Oriana s influence, 
 his wife acquires modes of thought and expression and 
 an out-door air of independence which considerably 
 weaken his hold upon her intellect. He thinks that if 
 Oriana had come early under his formative hand she 
 might have amounted to something, and probably secured 
 a husband for her own private instruction. But the fact 
 
JOHN TUTORS ORIANA. 349 
 
 is there was nothing Oriana long viewed with such horror 
 as coming under the bondage of matrimony. The sole 
 reason why she has not married long before is the sad 
 fate of her sister Elspeth. John Dean being a perfectly 
 reputable man with no redeeming vices, .Oriana, the 
 irreverent, thinks she would like him much better if he 
 had done something rather bad. His moral scrupulosity 
 is quite thrown away upon her, and confirms her in a 
 saucy mode of free thinking and acting particularly ob 
 noxious to her brother-in-law. There is nothing which 
 gives her such exquisite delight as to shock John 
 Dean. 
 
 Oriana has all the advantages of fortune which Elspeth 
 possessed. She lives with an aged aunt in a distant city, 
 and when she comes to the village she gives it distinction. 
 Her form is very elegant and her face is piquant and 
 sparkling. She has an abundance of golden-brown hair of 
 the loose, fluffy, wavy kind, and however she tosses it up it 
 looks only the more lovely. It is impossible to imitate 
 her style of dressing or behaving, for she never looks or 
 acts twice alike, so varied are her moods ; but all have a 
 certain brilliance. Oriana may be thirty or thirty-five, 
 but she is one of those women who never grow old. Age 
 can not wither nor custom change her infinite 
 variety. 
 
 When she is visiting in the village, she is in a con 
 stant state of inward irritation with John Dean, which, 
 for Elspeth s sake, she tries to cover with bland com 
 placency. When she is a member of his household, 
 John feels it is his duty to tutor Oriana, and his efforts 
 to improve her mind in his ponderous, slow, persistent 
 way nearly set her wild. It is extremely trying to a per 
 son of Oriana s disposition to have it taken for granted 
 that she has never read any thing, and is ignorant of the 
 commonest facts of experience, while all the time that 
 dreadful finger rotates quite near her face, and the op- 
 
35 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 pressiveness of his large, stout person is more than she 
 can bear. 
 
 Oriana gets so morbidly sensitive to John s presence 
 she hates the creak of his chair, the way he twitches his 
 light mustache and ruffles his leonine locks, the rustle 
 of his newspaper, and the manner he clears his throat 
 when he prepares to begin to instruct. The only relief 
 she finds is in saying very saucy things to John Dean, 
 things sufficiently caustic to bite into his thick conscious 
 ness ; and when John is aroused he retorts with a heavy 
 hand. Dean is a great purist about words, and is always 
 taking Oriana up as to the meaning and . derivation of 
 the terms she uses. 
 
 One afternoon just before dark, John and Oriana 
 had begun by fighting over some little insignificant 
 word of four letters, which he claimed she did not 
 use in its proper connection. They had begun in a 
 light vein, as light as John was capable of, but soon ran 
 into personalities, and began telling each other the plain 
 est truths. John had deprecated the influence of the 
 volatile, giddy Oriana on the mind of his wife, and Oriana 
 had twitted him most unhandsomely with living on his 
 wife s income and boring her to death. They had both 
 been very outspoken, and poor Oriana was more vexed 
 with herself even than she was with John, who provokingly 
 kept his temper while he told her what a very improper 
 person she was, and set forth her violence and irreverence 
 for her betters in glaring colors. 
 
 Poor distressed Elspeth could do nothing to sepa 
 rate them. But at last Oriana seized her bonnet 
 and rushed out into the street. She was too indig 
 nant to cry, but her face was flushed and mottled 
 with the excitement of the battle. As soon as she 
 was alone she fell into a state of abject self-abasement 
 for the words she had used to John Dean, and she was 
 so ashamed of herself that she sped rapidly along, with 
 
COLLISION. 35 1 
 
 her head down, not caring to see any thing or be 
 seen. 
 
 The sun was low, casting beautiful long beams the 
 whole length of the leafy arcade of Main Street, and the 
 tepid, soft wind of September brought down the pale 
 colored autumn leaves, and heaped them in drifts along 
 the walk, or scattered them over fences and into the ruts 
 of the road, covering the grass with bright patches. 
 The trees looked higher than usual, and a vague, sweet, 
 sad sentiment of the passing away of summer seemed to 
 linger in the air. Oriana saw nothing, for her head was 
 down and her cheeks were burning ; but she half ran 
 along theValk in the hope of getting to some open place 
 beyond the town, when at the junction of Main and Mar 
 ket Streets she came in sharp collision with some one 
 who was just rounding the corner. She fell back a step 
 or two from the shock, and for an instant could not dis 
 tinguish the person with whom she had collided. But it 
 happened to be the young man named Hugh, the village 
 historian and briefless lawyer, who boarded with Aunt 
 Dido. He had been -carrying an old family Bible under 
 his arm which Mother Vibard had lent him to copy some 
 dates an old book worth its weight in gold. But the 
 shock of meeting Oriana had thrown it into the dust. 
 
 " Hullo," said he, picking up the book and looking at 
 Oriana curiously. " Whither away so fast, Miss Freeborn, 
 that the lives of innocent, unprotected young men are en 
 dangered at every street corner." 
 
 Oriana, brought to her senses, was covered with con 
 fusion. She knew Hugh very well, but with her quick 
 tongue she could not find a word to say for herself, until 
 at last she did manage to stammer out : " I believe I was 
 running away." 
 
 " From whom, pray ? " 
 
 " Oh, from myself." 
 
 " Don t," said Hugh in a whimsically gentle voice. 
 
35 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 " If you will promise not to, I will give you one of the 
 arrow-heads I picked up this afternoon on Hoddon Hill, 
 where the old graves are." And he pulled out of his 
 pocket a queer little black stone almost exactly in the 
 shape of a worn heart. Oriana took it and stood looking 
 at it in the path, as Hugh went on whistling softly to him 
 self. That night at tea Hugh told the little incident to 
 Aunt Dido, who was dressed up unusually for her, as she 
 had been out calling, and now was pouring her boarder a 
 second cup. 
 
 " Hugh," said she meditatively, through the steam of 
 the teapot, after a moment s silence, " why don t you 
 shine up to Orianny ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 HUGH GETS A LADY IN HIS EYE. 
 
 HUGH went strolling about in the September weather, 
 with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly to 
 himself. He generally carried an old book or a review 
 under his arm. The woods were at their finest, just be 
 ginning to flicker with autumn s fires, although the great 
 body of shade was still green. Hugh did not seem to 
 care much for companionship. He seldom invited the 
 young minister to walk with him now, nor could he be 
 found in his accustomed haunts in the village parlors, 
 browsing among his neighbors small libraries, or spend 
 ing his spare time with his favorite old ladies, or devot 
 ing himself to the young ones, who knew him so well 
 they were content to be his friends without ulterior views, 
 or side-glances toward love-making. 
 
 People were at a loss to know where Hugh had hidden 
 himself. His local history was now complete, and was 
 selling well by subscription. His friends advised him to 
 devote himself to some new and larger work which would 
 furnish a respectable field for his talents and attain 
 ments. The parson had strongly urged that he should 
 write a book on the history and poetry of the great world 
 cathedrals, an undertaking which he felt would be pecu 
 liarly sympathetic to Hugh s genius ; it would force him 
 to shake himself together, pick up the loose ends of his 
 careless life, and go abroad for study. He would thus 
 get out of the deep ruts in which he had lived so long. 
 But Hugh shrank from the idea. He evidently needed 
 some new interest in his life, but he was like a cat in the 
 
354 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 tenacity of his close-clinging local affections. The 
 woods and fields and cow-lanes and byways of the vil 
 lage had grown to be a part of himself, and only some 
 fresh and overpowering influence could detach him from 
 the trellis where he clung like an unpruned vine. 
 
 It was curious the number of people who believed in 
 the possibilities of this young man, and busied them 
 selves in trying to find the exact thing he was good for. 
 And as the years glided away, they entirely forgot that 
 he was ceasing to be so very young, that he had in fact 
 entered upon his thirties. But the interest in him was 
 perennial. It showed a certain vein of genius in the man 
 that he could thus awaken expectancy and keep it fresh. 
 Mrs. Deacon Hildreth and the little sisters, and several 
 others thought he might make a fine preacher if he only 
 turned his attention to serious things. But first it would 
 be necessary to convert him, which, they imagined, 
 would be somewhat like dyeing him of a new color. 
 But he had shown no tendency toward this mystic and 
 wonderful process. Mr. Worldly Wiseman had even pro 
 posed to him to become a village real-estate agent, but 
 Aunt Dido still pinned all her hopes for Hugh on his 
 marriage to the right woman. She had a theory of her 
 own, which she could not put into words, that if he fell 
 desperately in love, it would bring together the ele 
 ments of his character until they combined into some 
 thing organic and noble. 
 
 Hugh felt in his soul that the celestial fire had been 
 but scantily dealt out to him. He had a profound sym 
 pathy with nature, and yet he was a poet only in feeling. 
 He loved harmonies, and felt their deepest meanings, 
 and yet he was not a musician. The past allured him 
 with power in all its picturesque aspects, and yet he could 
 not be a romancer. He was infected with the disease of 
 the premature youth of the age the belief that no form 
 of effort is very much worth while in the world constituted 
 
A SPECIAL PEEP AT OR 1 ANA. 355 
 
 as it now is. If he felt like a poet and a musician, he was 
 still afraid to spoil the spring of his enjoyment by ped 
 dling it out in the market-place. Hugh had run into a 
 great many imperfect relations, and had formed but a 
 few which would bear any serious strain. His keen 
 sense of humor let him into most of the shams of life, 
 and yet withal there was a kind of unspoiled freshness 
 about his nature, like the odor of birch bark and pine 
 cones. He loved to observe, and he thought a village as 
 good a field of observation as any. The very ease with 
 which he met all classes of people, joked with them, and 
 left them feeling brighter and cheerier, covered the 
 closely guarded center of his own life. 
 
 Dr. Holmes says that a man must get sight of the 
 woman he is to fall in love with through a pin-hole. She 
 is just like other beings, but he must get a special peep 
 at her in a moment of susceptibility, and then she fills 
 his eye and changes his life. Hugh took this special 
 peep at Oriana when she stood there in the low-glancing 
 light of the sun, under the changing trees, agitated and 
 flushed, with her eyes gleaming almost as if ready to 
 shed tears. He had never so completely taken this 
 peep at any other woman, however charming, that her 
 weaknesses, and her foibles, or affectations had not 
 spoiled the impression. But since he had given the lit 
 tle black arrow-head, shaped like a heart, to Oriana, it 
 seemed to Hugh that he was in love with some idea of 
 her, not with the woman herself. And it took a long 
 time for him to find out where he stood. The light halo 
 of her hair, which the sun shone through that afternoon, 
 was always before him. The expression of her face, 
 with the half-shadow of some trouble upon it, seemed 
 divine. When he thought of meeting her again in the 
 old, easy, familiar way he was covered with confusion. 
 Where was his well-established impudence, his persiflage 
 and raillery ? Oriana Freeborn had suddenly become a 
 
35 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 mystery to him. He went about secretly hoping yet dread 
 ing to meet her. He was afraid she would read his soul 
 and think him ridiculous. 
 
 Hugh emptied his mind of all its trash, every thing he 
 had cared about, had thought or read, to give it entirely 
 to this new guest. In a certain way he tried to purify 
 that inner chamber, to make it meet for such company 
 by humility and self-abasement. It was not Oriana, it 
 was the idea of her, that was so entrancing ; and of 
 course it would never come to any thing. He knew he 
 had entered on a new and beautiful experience, but for a 
 long time he did not know that he was in love. He re 
 visited all his old haunts on the mountains, in the woods, 
 even the most retired places by Fisher Brook and up the 
 Hilham Gorge, because the notion came to him that if 
 he were to think these new thoughts about Oriana in his 
 favorite places, they would all be changed and forever 
 associated with her image. 
 
 One day he lay under some tall pines on a knoll 
 in Holman s Range. It was a very retired part of 
 the woods, and he seemed to be buried in layer upon 
 layer of forest, with the hills rising over it in round 
 heads, or in long wavy blue lines. The forest was 
 parti-colored, melting into violet and azure haze, and 
 tangling the autumn colors in soft bright gauzy webs and 
 veils. As he sat there he could gaze over the great mo 
 saic for miles and miles, and hear nothing but the rustle 
 of a rabbit or squirrel in the fallen leaves, or the cawing 
 of a distant crow, save the wind that swept with a long 
 even swing over the forest like the swaying of a pendu 
 lum that wind of autumn which brings with it such 
 multitudes of thoughts and memories and emotions. As 
 he sat there at the foot of a great pine, with the lights 
 and shades flitting over him, wondering why this idea of 
 Oriana had taken such complete possession of him, the 
 true meaning of the experience flashed on his mind. He 
 
HE WAS IN LOVE. 357 
 
 was in love. Hugh took his head between his hands, and 
 such a rush of blissful feelings came over him I am not 
 sure his eyes were not suffused with tears. He had felt 
 so long he could never have this experience ; now it had 
 stolen upon him unawares, it seemed a miracle like 
 prophecy or the gift of tongues. Some glory and sweet 
 ness out of the unknown had come to him who was un 
 worthy of such a visitation. It humbled his pride, and 
 made him feel like a new man. And yet in that part of 
 his intellect not quite under the spell, Hugh, strange as it 
 may appear, knew even at that moment that probably he 
 was not in love with the real Oriana. She might be way 
 ward, perverse, or ill-tempered, even. But it made no 
 difference. She stood there in a gleam of sunlight on 
 the pine needles, the one woman in the world for him. 
 
 Now that Hugh had found out what ailed him, and was 
 very sure it was not malaria or liver complaint, as Aunt 
 Dido, seeing his pensiveness, had suggested, he wondered 
 what he would be expected to do next. The expectation 
 was of course confined to the calmer and more rational 
 part of his consciousness. She might never know of this 
 experience, which in his state of exaltation seemed so re 
 generating and transforming. He might never dare to 
 tell her. He had known her a year or two. Why had he 
 not felt this toward her at first ? It was all a mystery. 
 Perhaps it was a species of intoxication, like opium-eating 
 or dram-drinking, that would leave him with a headache 
 and a bad taste in his mouth. Hugh felt that he must 
 take some time to find out what was expected of him now 
 that he was in love, and especially as the lady of his love 
 was profoundly ignorant of the fact and would probably 
 scorn his proposals if he ever ventured to make any. 
 This new virtue of humility that had come to Hugh 
 seemed to sit rather awkwardly upon him, like a suit of 
 ill-fitting clothes. At all events he must try to see 
 Oriana. As he disliked John Dean, he would not go to 
 
35 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 the house, but he must watch and wait for her like a dog 
 for his master s footsteps. 
 
 Oriana had been staying on at John Dean s, doing 
 penance for her sins. She was trying, for Elspeth s sake, 
 to be very polite to her brother-in-law, and a glacial state 
 of courtesy had grown up between them. She talked 
 with Elspeth about the weather at table because Dean 
 would not converse in her presence now (he never talked), 
 and waited until he should emerge from the sulks. But 
 he tried to show her how he could heap coals of fire on 
 her head by invariably giving her the tenderloin portion 
 of the beefsteak. Had it not been for the two boys and 
 their boy-talk, the meals would have been unendurable. 
 When she encouraged them to chatter too loudly, Elspeth, 
 who was watching her husband s face, would softly press 
 Oriana s foot with her own under the table. The house 
 was uncomfortable, and Oriana kept as much on the out 
 side of it as possible in those beautiful blue September 
 days. Why she did not go home to her kind old aunt, 
 who was constantly writing for her to come, was, she said 
 to herself, because her penance had not been longer hard 
 enough. 
 
 She knew well that Elspeth would be more comfortable 
 when left to herself. Perhaps her imagination had been 
 slightly infected by the trifling incident which threw her 
 in Hugh s way. She had always liked Hugh. A mag 
 netic touch of sympathy seemed to flash out from his 
 laughing eyes, and even white teeth which he showed 
 when he smiled. She fancied he understood her little 
 caprices, her changeable moods and varied impulses 
 which made her original and unlike any body else. She 
 often looked at the little arrow head he had given her. 
 It was an ugly little bit of flint, worn almost like a pebble, 
 but she prized it and carried it about in her pocket. At 
 night she had once or twice put it under her pillow to 
 dream on. But the idea of being in love with Hugh was 
 
HER PLAN OF SPINSTERHOOD. 359 
 
 ridiculous. She gloried in the plan of spinsterhood and 
 perfect independence she had formed, seeing that hardly 
 one of her intimate friends had married, as she said, 
 happily. But to be sure her ideas of marital bliss were 
 rather exacting. She abhorred the squabbles and bick 
 erings, the fallings-out, and makings-up attendant on 
 matrimony as she had witnessed it in several families, and 
 more than all the stupid, commonplace, material life into 
 which married people settle when they have become thor 
 oughly accustomed to each other and have no new dis 
 coveries to make in that realm. Oriana was so pessimistic 
 about marriage, she had always said if she ever married 
 she would have to be captured ; but she did own to her 
 self that this might happen. 
 
 Moreover, she had vowed never to marry a man without 
 a settled business and some income of his own. Hugh 
 had neither, and was therefore out of the question. 
 Hugh had alsd vowed he would never live on a wife s 
 means. He despised John Dean for looking so fat, and 
 sleek, and well-fed on Elspeth s money. He loved inde 
 pendence like a wild bird in a bush. The thought had at 
 times come to him that he would go into the woods and 
 live alone a year or two, like Thoreau, to find out what 
 kind of creature a man is without padding and appurte 
 nances. But when you are in love, all is changed. 
 
 As the Dean house was not pleasant for Oriana, she 
 spent most of her waking time out of doors. The air was 
 crisp and delicious, and sent the blood tingling to the 
 extremities. The village gardens were full of rich fall 
 flowers salvias, gladioli, dahlias, and scarlet geraniums. 
 The air was perfumed with ripening fruit. The brown 
 nuts began to shake down from the trees. Apples lay in 
 heaps on the ground. Plums, and quinces, and grapes 
 filled the air with a delicate honey sweetness when it blew 
 in puffs from the south. The changing leaves added to 
 the pervasive sense of the ripe year which is more an 
 
360 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 influence than an odor. Oriana breathed it as she glided 
 lightly along toward the woods, bearing a little basket in 
 her hand to hold hazelnuts, beech drops, the Indian pipe, 
 colored leaves, and above all the blue fringed gentian, 
 should she be fortunate enough to find it. She also car 
 ried a small black satin bag on her arm, which con 
 tained a sketch book and a tiny volume of Michael 
 Angelo s sonnets. 
 
 But she never read, nor did she sketch. She went to 
 the woods to dream away the warm noons, when the sun 
 brought out the brilliancy of the changing year, and made 
 it drip with crimson and gold dyes as the leaves slowly 
 fluttered down in grassy spots still of a perfect solid green. 
 One day Hugh was coming home from a tramp along the 
 slopes of Saddleback, by way of Birch Brook, and was 
 just striking through the Cutter place, on the Roundabout 
 Road, when in a little open ferny covert, not far from the 
 brook and about a hundred rods from the road, he came 
 upon Oriana sitting in the shade of a wide- spreading 
 chestnut tree. She was dressed in gray and had put 
 some bright leaves in the bodice of her gown. He had 
 been so absorbed in the thought of her he was hardly 
 surprised to see her there before him. But he noticed 
 that she was slightly pale, and her lips were contracted as 
 if in pain. 
 
 " I have sprained my ankle," she said, as she turned 
 her head at the sound of his footsteps, " just a little, you 
 know, by stepping into a treacherous moss-covered hole. 
 How lucky it is you have come. I fear I can not rise 
 without help. If you can get me on my feet, I shall be 
 able, perhaps, to hobble home." 
 
 Hugh looked at her timidly, with a shyness that was 
 entirely new to him. He did not say he was sorry for her 
 accident, for he was too much absorbed, and the con 
 sciousness of all he felt for her came up into his eyes, 
 and she saw it. 
 
HE HELPED HER TO HER FEET. 36* 
 
 He helped her to her feet and she tried to walk, hold 
 ing his arm and limping badly at every step. He saw the 
 pain was severe. She grew pale even to her lips. 
 
 " Would you mind," said he, with the same timid, con 
 scious air, " if I were to put my arm around you and lift 
 you over the worst places ? I could easily carry you to 
 the road." 
 
 " Why do you ask ? " she said with some petulance. 
 " You must treat me as if I were a bag of potatoes." 
 
 " I asked because Hugh was getting miserably 
 
 confused, and could not find a way to shape his sen 
 tences ; " because I thought it unfair, at least, without 
 telling you how dearly I love you." He had blurted it 
 out because he could not help it, and they stood looking 
 at each other under the trees, Oriana s face reflecting all 
 the confusion that was manifest in his. 
 
 " I will leave you here until I can get assistance, unless 
 you say I can help you now." 
 
 " Don t you think this is taking a mean advantage ? " 
 and the tears welled up into her eyes. 
 
 " I did not intend to, but quite the contrary. You 
 have only to choose. If it is disagreeable to you to have 
 me help you, I will leave you now and go for a carriage. 
 Here is a dry place where you can sit." 
 
 Oriana had entirely forgotten the pain in her foot. 
 " If I let you help me," she answered iilogically, flying 
 away from the point, and now quite angry, " you will use 
 the permission against me by and by." 
 
 " No ; I shall use nothing against you, Miss Freeborn. 
 I had to tell you because I thought it manly. It told 
 itself. Shall I go for a carriage ? " 
 
 " But you have sprung the whole thing upon me so 
 suddenly without warning." She was almost sobbing 
 now. " I want time to think it over. I want a great deal 
 of time perhaps a year." 
 
 " Take all the time you want," said Hugh, putting his 
 
3 62 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 arm around her. He could not help letting a triumph 
 ant look peep out of his eyes. 
 
 " Well," said she, with a sigh, looking terribly per 
 plexed, " you had better get me out of the woods. I 
 don t want to be left here alone." 
 
 Hugh just tightened his hold about her waist a little, 
 and lifted her lightly until her small pretty feet in their 
 neat boots were free from the ground. When they 
 reached the highway she insisted on being set down. 
 
 " Did you ever," she said whimsically, with her eyes 
 still dewy " did you ever know any thing so ridiculous 
 as this ? I had made a promise to myself that I would 
 never, never that I would show the world what a noble 
 woman an old maid can be." 
 
 Hugh s face was suffused with happiness. 
 
 " And I too," he said, " had made a promise that I 
 would never, never. But w r hen we are very much in love 
 every thing is changed." 
 
 I am not quite sure, but I think Oriana and Hugh will 
 be married soon and will go to Italy to live for a few 
 years. It is possible the book on the " Poetry and His 
 tory of Cathedrals " may yet be written. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 A LTHOUGH opinions and ideas change but slowly 
 t\ in the country, it would now be impossible for Dr. 
 Abijah Manners to preach the sermons he once thun 
 dered forth in the village meeting-house, while beating 
 the dust from the pulpit cushion witrj his strong red fists. 
 The articles of faith are still subscribed, but in life many 
 of them are inoperative. The young minister, when he 
 was ordained, passed his examination on eternal punish 
 ment and foreordination more by quickness of wit and 
 subtle new interpretations than by general soundness of 
 doctrine. If he were now to preach the wrath of God 
 and the eternal burning, in the plain unvarnished style of 
 old Dr. Abijah, the people would rise up in fear and 
 trembling and depart from the church. Modern nerves 
 and the new sensitiveness to all kinds of suffering, in 
 cluding the pains of the lower animals, can not stand the 
 old style of preaching. 
 
 It will not do to take curse words out of the Old 
 Testament and fling them broad-cast among refined 
 modern people, as the old doctor did, thus cutting a 
 swath through sin and iniquity as clean as his mighty 
 row in the haying-field. Even the stanchest ortho 
 dox members, though they would not acknowledge it, 
 demand a diluted theology. The young minister con 
 fines himself mainly to the New Testament. It would 
 not matter so very much to him if he could preserve 
 the Book of Psalms, of Job and of Isaiah save as a mat 
 ter of history, if the remainder of that wonderful old 
 
3 6 4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 book were stricken out of existence. But Dr. Abijah 
 Manners drew from the Old Testament as from an 
 arsenal those mighty arms with which he attacked the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, there is a great 
 deal of implied doubt as to the existence of a personal 
 devil. Even the young parson has been heard to say 
 that our popular Satan owes his creation mainly to Mil 
 ton, and is not found in the Bible, and the influence of 
 Milton on the Calvinistic theology of a former age is 
 passing away. Such opinions, uttered in his own parish, 
 in his own pulpit, as one may say, ought to make old Dr. 
 Abijah turn in his coffin. But the people receive them 
 calmly, and a few have gone in Biblical criticism much 
 beyond any thing the young minister would dare to utter 
 from the sacred desk. 
 
 It is remarked that if he preaches a very liberal ser 
 mon on one Sunday, he is apt to tone down the im 
 pression on the next, by giving a doctrinal discourse 
 which seems partially to fill the gap between him and the 
 old-fashioned believer. So regularly do these changes 
 occur that a joke has gone forth in the village to the 
 effect that the minister has an orthodox and a heterodox 
 foot. When he is standing on his orthodox foot some 
 people do not particularly care to hear him. The judge, 
 the doctor, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and men of that class, 
 are generally on hand when there is any prospect of his 
 launching out and saying something to shake the old dry 
 bones. It has been feared at times that he might lose 
 his balance and go entirely over to advanced liberalism. 
 But he knows so well when to advance and when to re 
 treat that there is little danger of such a catastrophe. It 
 is not at all probable that he will ever lose the center of 
 gravity by standing too long on his heterodox leg ; by 
 shifting skillfully from one side to the other he enlivens 
 his discourses and keeps up the interest of the congrega 
 tion. 
 
THE OLD AND NEW CHURCH. 365 
 
 He is deeply interested in the new interpretations of 
 old doctrines which so much lessen their native force. 
 He feels an ardent enthusiasm for building the new 
 church just outside the old, using the ancient substruc 
 ture and such of the aged timbers as are not too rotten 
 and worm-eaten. One old farmer describes the parson s 
 plan of preserving all that is valuable in the past as sim 
 ilar to the history of a boy s jack-knife : First he lost the 
 blade, and had the old handle fitted to a new one. Then 
 the old handle wore out and was replaced by another. 
 Still it was the same old knife. Who can tell, when the 
 old church is thoroughly revamped, whether it will retain 
 any of the ancient material ? 
 
 Some of his parishioners keep step with him in all 
 his efforts. Others are still in doubt, as they wish 
 to see more clearly than they now do the direction 
 in which the new current is setting. They are mainly 
 hard-working fanners from the hills, and old people 
 who have been brought up on strong Gospel meat. 
 The tillers of a poor soil have but little consolation 
 in their daily round of toil save in religion. They 
 want it undiluted and positive. No doctrine shading off 
 at the edges into euphemisms and vague declarations of 
 the love of God can sustain them. They want to know if 
 there is any thing positive to lay hold of in the hour of 
 need. 
 
 To be sure, a number of the mountain farmers have 
 grown stolidly indifferent to religion. They never go to 
 meeting, and confine their acts of outward worship on a 
 Sunday to putting on a clean shirt and whittling a pine 
 stick as they sit on the stone wall, dull and ruminative. 
 They could give you a ready opinion about " beef crit 
 ters " and sheep raising, but none at all as to their 
 immaterial interests. They have lost the faith of their 
 fathers, and they do not speculate. There is little of the 
 blessing of the seventh day left to them but the 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 sensation of rest and vacancy. The women and children 
 of these people occasionally gather at a school-house 
 meeting where a traveling exhorter gives them a shout 
 ing discourse, and they pray and sing lively psalm tunes. 
 But most of the men have lost interest in this sort of 
 thing. These, however, are people who live in the lone 
 lier recesses of the hills. Religious farmers are still as a 
 body the mainstay and support of the village church 
 the old First Church, as it has always been called. They 
 come of a Sunday morning in their wagons and carriages 
 with their families, dressed in their best broadcloth suits, 
 which sit rather uneasily upon them well brushed, clean, 
 with tanned faces, and hands knotted and browned by 
 toil. 
 
 They have a sense of the divine ordering of nature 
 as they till their fields and endure the hard winters. 
 They are sober, solid men, who find the Bible a well- 
 spririg of consolation and comfort. Even in this trashy- 
 newspaper, cheap-book-making age they cling to it faith 
 fully as the rock of their faith a sober, serious type, 
 believers still, who, though they have relaxed the stern 
 family discipline of their Puritan fathers, and the awful 
 severity with which the Sabbath was formerly kept, still 
 live as in the light of the All-Seeing Eye, and acknowl 
 edge divine guidance and the terrors of the moral law. 
 These farmers, survivors of an elder generation who laid 
 the foundations of character in New England, are not so 
 numerous as formerly, but they do exist. 
 
 The men tie their teams under the long shed near the 
 First Church, and, in their Sunday boots, go creaking to 
 their pews. No other country can show such a body of 
 strong, earnest-thinking tillers of the soil, who talk over 
 the sermon as they go homeward from meeting, and look 
 up the authorities and ponder on the thoughts in the 
 fields. They, too, perceive that the world is moving, 
 that great tides of opinion and conviction are carrying 
 
LACK OF TRUE COMPANIONSHIP. 367 
 
 them on, they know not whither. The light of a new 
 day has slowly crept into their valleys, and modified all 
 the ancient life and practice. The old vexed questions 
 of the salvation of unbaptized infants and the redemption 
 of good heathen people who have not known the light of 
 Christ seem almost antiquated, now that such a strain 
 has come on so many of the more vital issues. The 
 young clergyman does not give this class of his hearers 
 an opportunity to go to sleep in their pews. He stirs 
 them up and keeps them alive to the questions of the 
 day. Only a few deaf men and old women occasionally 
 indulge in a comfortable nap during sermon time. 
 
 The young clergyman keeps his congregation well 
 together, which in these lax and degenerate days is a 
 great achievement. It is thought in a few years he may 
 be called to a city pulpit, and then, his friends say, when 
 the villagers are thrown back on some fossil of the 
 ancient unprogressive school, they will know how to 
 prize this live man. The young minister feels, as do the 
 most intellectual people in small communities, the lack 
 of sympathetic companionship. The most active-growing 
 mind in a narrow sphere, finds no one to keep step with 
 him. He feels like a lonely forester breaking paths for 
 his own feet, with no comrade to cry well done or give 
 him godspeed. He is hungry and thirsty for the com 
 munion of liberal souls. For this reason the young 
 clergyman seizes with avidity upon any stranger who 
 visits the village and has interests in his own line of 
 thought and inquiry. Then he finds relief in unpacking 
 his breast of all its burdens, and basks in the rest and 
 refreshment that comes from an hospitable soul. 
 
 Last summer a theological student, a young man of 
 great promise and considerable anticipatory fame, was 
 staying among us. His mother, a widow, lives in the 
 outskirts of the village and is distinguished as a mother 
 in Israel, a pious, praying woman, who by her ceaseless 
 
368 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 petitions had done much to influence her son s course. 
 This young man, although he had another year at the 
 theological seminary, was considered so remarkable it 
 was arranged that at his ordination he should at once 
 take charge of an important church. He had already 
 preached in various pulpits. His fame had gone abroad 
 in the congregation, and a brilliant future seemed assured. 
 When he came to the village on his last vacation the 
 young clergyman found him among the elect, foreor 
 dained to be his friend and brother. Hugh was pre 
 occupied and unsocial in those days, and the minister 
 felt himself to be exceedingly fortunate in discovering a 
 rich estate in the nature of this brilliant young man, to 
 whom he could preach all his sermons before he delivered 
 them in the pulpit. 
 
 Jerome, as I will call him, was a fine Greek and He 
 brew scholar. It was thou -ht if he were to go abroad 
 and take a colirse in a German university he might fill a 
 theological chair in one of our largest colleges. The 
 pious old ladies beamed upon him. The young lady 
 church members blushed as they thought how much he 
 would need a wife to help him fill his exalted position. 
 He was a child of many hopes ; a very Samuel, dedicated 
 to the temple service from his earliest years. But, with 
 all these shining prospects, our young minister noticed 
 that Jerome was not happy. He suspected the canker- 
 worm of modern doubt had begun thus early to burrow 
 in his mind. But with his optimistic view of things it 
 did not trouble him. Has not a great poet said an honest 
 doubt is worth half the creeds ? It might be well for 
 Jerome to pass through the ordeal. He would doubtless 
 come out stronger and braver for the trial. 
 
 But Jerome s trouble was deeper than our young min 
 ister suspected. It was laying the axe at the very root 
 of the tree. When he prayed he was often cold and 
 without any true feeling of supplication or worship. 
 
DOUBTS AXD QUESTIONINGS. 369 
 
 The thought that labor is prayer tormented him. He 
 was committed to a life of exhortation and lip service, 
 but the world requires just deeds that bear within them 
 the power and potency of the love of God. The talking 
 age is passing away, so he reasoned, as he thought of a 
 possible new church filled with a pentecostal life, and of 
 himself as a possible reformer, but, like the heavenly 
 vision of the prophet, there was no modern temple 
 therein. To preach to respectable, elegant, well-dressed, 
 well-fed people about sin, righteousness, and judgment 
 to come, while the great wretched, reckless, suffering 
 world stormed by the church door, indifferent to parson 
 and creed, loathing sermon, and prayer, and psalm, 
 seemed to him a service he could not perform, not even 
 for the ten thousand dollar salary it was thought that he 
 would soon be able to command. 
 
 He went abroad alone at night revolving these 
 things in his soul, wondering what the experience 
 was through which he was passing, and whither it 
 would lead him. If it proved to be the spirit of 
 truth and life, he was determined to follow wherever it 
 might beckon. This was reality. All else he had known 
 compared with it, even his preaching and life in the 
 divinity school, seemed like an illusion. He wandered 
 about late, when the nights were cloudy and the air good 
 for transmitting distant sounds. Sometimes by putting 
 his ear close to the ground he could hear a train come 
 into a station six miles off. He alone was awake ; his 
 ear was open to catch some message, some whisper of 
 truthfrom afar. He lay on a hill-top when the midnight 
 moon arose solemn and sad in its first glances at the 
 earth. A slight breeze rustled the grass and leaves like 
 the footstep of a timid wild creature. He felt alone in 
 the universe with his problem, and the stars in strips of 
 sky peering through the thinned boughs could give him 
 no answer. 
 
37 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 He looked down upon the dark, quiet roofs of the 
 village, and wondered how people could live without 
 moments of soul-stirring quest for new light live, in 
 a quiet vegetative way, winding their clock at the same 
 moment every night and going to bed exactly on the 
 stroke of ten. The young minister was so cock-sure he 
 was in the right line that Jerome could get no consola 
 tion thinking of him. 
 
 One night Jerome had gone home late, had crept into 
 the house and kindled his lamp without waking his 
 mother. He chanced to take up a volume that lay on 
 the table. It was not the Bible ; it was a modern novel, 
 and as he opened it his eye fell on the words, " He 
 descended into hell," in the context of part of the dis 
 course of one of the characters in the book. Suddenly a 
 new meaning of those mystic words flashed into his 
 mind. The descent into hell was here in this world. It 
 meant work in the earthly hells, among the masses in 
 prison-pens and noisome places, where the creeping pes 
 tilence of moral and physical corruption runs riot. How 
 could a spiritual teacher and guide of men know any 
 thing of life s realities without making this descent into 
 hell, and striving, not for the salvation of the rich, the re 
 spectable, the virtuous, but of the hopelessly wretched and 
 degraded, who rot, fester, and die for want of a Saviour ? 
 He bowed his head on his arms on the table before him and 
 sat thus the whole night through, revolving all the past and 
 all the future. 
 
 But when the dawn came, silvery, washed white, like 
 a face bathed in tears, he arose a new man. All 
 doubt had departed from his being, and the work be 
 fore him lay clearly mapped out like a long forward 
 road through a dense wilderness on which the sun is 
 shining. His brilliant prospects, his old dreams of use 
 fulness and honor faded away before his high calling to 
 labor for humanity, and he was calm and joyous. It was 
 
"/ FOLLOW THE LIGHT I SEE." 371 
 
 long before he could make his mother understand what 
 had happened. 
 
 " And do you mean, Jerome," she said, weeping, " that 
 you intend to give up the ministry ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother. I can not now belong to a separate 
 order. I do not wish to wear any badge or have any 
 handle to my name that distinguishes me from others. 
 I must work as a man among men." 
 
 " I can t understand it," she moaned. " I don t know 
 what it means." 
 
 " I know you don t," he answered gently ; " but can 
 you believe me, mother, when I tell you it is a new 
 birth " 
 
 " It ain t like any conversion I ever heard of," she 
 went on sobbing, " and you a child of prayer. Your 
 father prayed over you when you was little, and hoped 
 you would be a minister. He longed to see the day, but 
 died without the sight. And here am I, old and tottering 
 on the edge of the grave ; and when I thought you was 
 safe in the kingdom you come and tell me you have got 
 converted in some unheard-of way. How do you know 
 it ain t of the devil leading to perdition ? " 
 
 " I only follow the light I see, mother. I have never 
 known Satan to advise men to abandon the self-seeking 
 spirit, and take up a hard lot for the sake of others." 
 
 It was all he could say. The experience was as strange 
 to him as to the villagers, who wondered over it, and 
 would not believe its deep significance. The age of pro 
 found spiritual experience, leading to sacrifice, they 
 thought, had passed by, like miracles and speaking with 
 tongues. Any remarkable display of religious sincerity 
 seemed as strange as it would to see a bush on the 
 mountain side bursting out with the flame that Moses 
 beheld, or an angel stirring the waters of a river pool, 
 that the sick might be healed. Of course cranks, and 
 spiritualists, and visionaries, like Job Bird, pretend to 
 
37 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 have great experiences in these days, but Jerome was 
 none of these. He was a man abandoning a brilliant 
 career, the highest worldly advantages, because he thought 
 he heard the still small voice of the Lord, saying : " Follow 
 me, and serve where I show you work to do." 
 
 The young minister felt deep sympathy for Jerome. 
 He was touched in the depths of his soul when he saw 
 the new light of happiness that shone in the young man s 
 face, although he could not approve the course he had 
 taken, in yielding to what might prove a passing enthu 
 siasm, an impulse born in a moment of exaltation. He 
 was yielding to what seemed to him a dangerous individ 
 ualism in rejecting the church as an organized field of 
 labor the best perhaps that could be devised. 
 
 The day Jerome left the village to go and take up his 
 new career the young minister walked with him several 
 miles down the valley, and finally bade him farewell in a 
 little wooded dell beside the placid river. He almost 
 shed tears at parting with his friend, and as he saw 
 Jerome set off down the road toward the next town, with 
 the brilliant tints of autumn hung out on all the hillsides, 
 and the blue distance beckoning, and heard his cheery 
 voice calling back a last good-by, he thought verily he 
 would have gone with that new apostle of human brother 
 hood and worked by his side had it not been for the wife 
 and babies at home and those affections, knotted into the 
 heart-strings, which so often make cowards and reaction 
 aries of the world s would-be reformers and high priests 
 of progress. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 HOW BILL FULLER WAS INDEMNIFIED. 
 
 1 A HE village seems lapped in a golden reverie under a 
 hazy sky, languorous and warm. The canopy of 
 elm trees is bronzed with pale gleams, and the finely 
 divided foliage shines against the sky and imparts the 
 peacefulness of perfect repose. The flaming clumps of 
 trees here and there through the valley seem dissolved 
 like rich jewels in this Indian-summer haze, and melt 
 into the general tone of restfulness as music melts into 
 silence. The long placid reaches of the river do not 
 ripple, so still is the air, but find joy in reflecting all of 
 heaven and earth they can hold. Like satin sheen those 
 smooth reaches stretch out, darkening under the willows 
 and the white birches, reflecting the varied hues of the 
 trees on the bank, the scarlet of the maple, the russet 
 and crimson of the oak, the yellow of the ash and 
 chestnut, the parti-colored dogwood, and the ground 
 tints now so splendid from the colors of weeds, grasses, 
 and late flowers. 
 
 The winter apples are now gathering in the orchards, 
 and the cider-mills are at work sending puffs of odor out 
 into the road. Great activity prevails around barns 
 where the grain is threshed. They are digging potatoes 
 in the fields, and the late corn comes to the harvester s 
 hands with the full ear. Brown October, flecked with 
 glorious colors and bearing such ample fruitage, brings 
 these soft lights of memory and poetic feeling, as if 
 once a year she would make all labor look beautiful, and 
 transmute the troubles and sorrows of mankind into a 
 psalm of praise. The old unpainted houses seem changed 
 
374 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 as they stand in the magic Indian-summer light, and the 
 woodbine reddens on the gray wall. The silk of the 
 milkweed floats in the air, and gleams like a feather 
 dropped from the wing of some good angel. The air is 
 full of pleasant odors from ripening leaves and late 
 herbs, and the fallen foliage rustles crisp around one s 
 feet, singing a soft little good-by song to summer, and 
 saying, " As I have fallen so you shall fall, you who hang 
 so bravely now on the tree of life." The village looks 
 larger, more spacious, more hospitable than its wont. 
 House doors stand open still, and children play in the 
 yards and gardens at " tag " and " touch the goal." Old 
 people come out to breathe the air, glad that there is as 
 yet no necessity for hugging the winter fire to preserve a 
 spark of life in their old bones. 
 
 The housewives are out potting their choice plants, 
 taking up bulbs, and transferring the oleander, the lemon 
 tree, and the large stocky geraniums to their sunny 
 south windows. Who can reckon the courage this little 
 rescue from summer s green things has given to lonely, 
 sad women in cold dark days when faith and hope are 
 ready to fade out of the human heart ? 
 
 One day the doctor was driving his gray horse and 
 old mud-bespattered chaise (for it had rained in the 
 night) through the village street, when suddenly the 
 sun came out as warm as June, and sent a shimmer 
 of soft light down upon the earth, while the gray 
 mists rolled up into fleecy clouds, and the bright trees 
 smiled gently to each other, and all things looked very 
 fair. The doctor was in a happy mood. He had put 
 aside all thoughts of his patients and his uncollected 
 bills, and had forgotten the regret that sometimes gnawed 
 at his vitals because he had not lived in a larger sphere 
 and exercised a wider influence among men. He knew 
 himself to be a first-class man in a third-class village, 
 spending his life among obscure people, with few to 
 
OUGHT THERE TO BE A FUNERAL? 375 
 
 share his thoughts or understand his aims. If he had 
 gone early to a city and struggled mightily for a few 
 years, he might have taken his proper position among 
 those high up in his own profession. But here he was 
 rusting away year by year as he drove about in. his shabby 
 wagon growing older and by no means richer, fretting 
 his soul out over the wants and woes, the weaknesses 
 and wickednesses of his neighbors. But this morning a 
 delicate reconciling spirit seemed to shed balm on the 
 air. The doctor was all tuned up musically, and he felt 
 his heart glow with suppressed poetry. Many choice 
 and well-beloved lines came to his lips as he drove along 
 the country roads. 
 
 Just as he turned Peckham s corner into Main Street, 
 in this good frame of mind, feeling that he could leave 
 the care and the meaning of the universe to its Creator, 
 while he did his own nearest duty, he saw a tall, thin 
 woman, with no suggestion of tournure, in a faded calico 
 dress and sun-bonnet, beckoning to him from the side 
 walk. He drew up to the curb, half-provoked at being 
 forced out of his happy, tranquil mood by that old maid, 
 Melissa Tooler. 
 
 " I thought I would ask you," the woman began, in 
 the spiritless tone common to her, u whether you think 
 there ought to be a funeral ? " 
 
 " The devil," returned the doctor impulsively, thrust 
 ing his head out of the hood of the chaise and turning 
 very red in the face. 
 
 " Don t use profane language," the woman returned, 
 in a mildly rebuking snuffle. " Death is a dretful solemn 
 thing." 
 
 " Sometimes it is," returned the doctor rather brutally, 
 " and sometimes it is a great relief. I should think your 
 sister would feel glad to know he is out of the world." 
 
 "I don t know how Sist r Ann feels about that," re 
 turned the other, inclining to be lachrymose, " but she is 
 
37 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 a decent woman and a Christian, and she wants to do 
 every thing that s proper." 
 
 "Will it not be proper to have him buried where 
 he is?" 
 
 " She s had to dig him up to indemnify him," returned 
 the woman, putting her hand up to her eyes. 
 
 The doctor was suddenly half-choked with laughter at 
 the thought of digging up Bill Fuller to " indemnify 
 him," but he managed to say : "As soon as I had indem 
 nified him I should put him right back in the same place, 
 and cover him up with neatness and dispatch. Then if 
 he has left any money I think I would hire a brass-band 
 and give a party." 
 
 The woman looked at him, shocked and horrified. 
 " Doctor," she said, with solemn slowness, " I m afeared 
 you ain t a Christian. It s always right to speak as kind 
 as we can of the dead." 
 
 " If I am not a Christian, I am not a hypocrite," said 
 the doctor, hotly, " and I should never shed any crocodile 
 tears over a man like Bill Fuller." 
 
 Miss Tooler went slowly home, rustling the dead 
 leaves with her large shoes. She felt that the doctor 
 was hard, that life is hard, that every thing is hard for 
 most folks, and especially for lone women. She could 
 not have told why she should cry for her brother-in-law, 
 Bill Fuller, who had been a very bad and worthless man, 
 but there was a sense of the tragic in this sudden taking 
 off of the objectionable Bill that made her sad. She 
 thought it all over as she was walking home how he 
 had abused and maltreated " Sist r Ann," and had hurt 
 his only child, laming him for life, and then having com 
 mitted a petty crime, had abandoned his penniless 
 family, and had not been heard of for fourteen years. 
 She recalled that day, so memorable to both of them, 
 when word came through a newspaper adve;. iisement 
 that William Fuller had been found drowned in the East 
 
FOUND DROWNED. 377 
 
 River at New York, and that as soon as the coroner had 
 given his verdict of accidental drowning he was con 
 signed to Potter s Field. Furthermore, the said William, it 
 was discovered, had left a small property, valued at about 
 fifteen hundred dollars, and now awaiting the appearance 
 of the said Fuller s heirs. Of course, " Sist r Ann" and 
 her lame boy were the only possible heirs of Bill Fuller if 
 it should prove true " that he had gone and got drownded" 
 in a state of intoxication. The only inconceivable part 
 of it was that Fuller should have left a " hansel " of 
 property. It made the cold creeps run over Miss Tooler 
 for fear this might be thief s money, an unholy deposit 
 which was coming into the hands of unsuspecting Sist r 
 Ann. But she said nothing of this to Mrs. Fuller, who 
 was already very much bewildered by this strange news. 
 
 Judge Magnus assured Sist r Ann, if she could bring 
 proof of her marriage, and was able to identify the dead 
 man as her scapegrace husband, there would be no diffi 
 culty in securing the money. Abundant proof of the mar 
 riage was of course forthcoming, and the doctor, with his 
 usual forethought, advised her to start at once for New 
 York, and promised to consign her to a legal friend in the 
 metropolis who was to look after her interests. Mrs. 
 Fuller felt very much as if she had been struck by an 
 earthquake. She had taken but few journeys in her life, 
 and the strange dramatic errand on which she was going 
 and the excitement of the anticipated trip introduced 
 confusion into all her ideas. On the station platform 
 she clung to her son Spence and to Melissa, and they all 
 cried as if Sist r Ann had been going straight to the Can 
 nibal islands, to be made into rather tough steaks or 
 chops for the delectation of the king. 
 
 " I m all turned round," sobbed the poor woman, 
 " and I shan t never get straight and untangled again the 
 longest day I live. I am positive, Melissy, the sun rises 
 in the west," 
 
37 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 But the train came along, and they " boosted " Sist r 
 Ann into the car in her collapsed state, and handed up 
 her basket and bag, and in a moment she had disap 
 peared down the track. So Melissy went home to do the 
 housework, and to assist Spence, who was not very 
 bright, in the truck garden. She had years ago joined 
 forces with her sister, and they had set up a little busi 
 ness, principally for the raising of asparagus and toma 
 toes. They also canned fruit and vegetables for the 
 market in the season, and both women worked a good 
 deal out of doors. They were adepts in the art of New 
 England economy, and had been able to live independ 
 ent and above board. 
 
 Melissy could not help turning over in her mind this 
 strange event, the like of which had never happened 
 before in her family. They were all steady, poor folks, 
 away back as far as Gran ther Tooler s time. There had 
 never been a murder, or suicide, or sudden death among 
 them ; and, as far as she could recollect, money had never 
 come into the family. Bill Fuller s fifteen hundred dollars 
 would certainly come handy. It would pay off the mort 
 gage on their little place, and make life a great deal easier. 
 Melissy never thought of the years of hard self-sacrific 
 ing toil she had given to her sister s need. That tall, 
 plain, thin woman did not know she had done any thing 
 very heroic. She had no envy, hatred, or malice in her 
 nature, and be sure she did not " begrudge " Sist r Ann 
 any thing. She wondered what her sister would do if she 
 found out Bill s little pile was thief-money. The thought 
 made her shudder, and for her part, in such case, she 
 could wish to take it up gently with a pair of tongs and 
 lay it on the fire. This poor, drab-colored woman had 
 the old Puritan conscience. 
 
 Melissy s imagination worked so wildly about her 
 sister, and there was so much excited talk among the 
 visiting neighbors, she could not sleep, for the first time 
 
SHALL BRING HIM HOME. " 379 
 
 in her life, and was obliged to take a " night-cap " to get 
 any kind of rest. This gave her a racking headache the 
 next day, and she was fast breaking down in a fit of ill 
 ness, when a telegram came to allay some of her anxiety 
 about Sist r Ann. It ran thus : " Am obliged to have 
 him taken up. Shall bring him home. Ask doctor about 
 funeral." It was after this that Melissy spoke to the 
 doctor. She knew just how Sist r Ann would feel about 
 the funeral. All the villagers would turn out from nat 
 ural curiosity, and a big rousing funeral would be a real 
 comfort and consolation to the abused and forsaken 
 wife. It would partly take the stigma off his disreputable 
 character and rehabilitate him in public esteem, espe 
 cially as he had left property a god all villagers bow 
 down to at times. This would be a great satisfaction to 
 poor Sist r Ann. 
 
 They had never had a very large or imposing funeral 
 in the family, and she knew how much a certain 
 class of country folk count on such occasions. She 
 went over in her mind all the minutest details ; how 
 she must stop the clock, and pull down the shades, and 
 get in chairs from the neighbors, and have a cold colla 
 tion ready for the mourners and friends. She lived it all 
 over and began baking for the occasion before she heard 
 anything further from her sister. On the evening of the 
 sixth day that poor woman came into the house quite 
 unexpectedly, looking terribly jaded, and with black 
 rings round her eyes and great hollows in her sallow 
 cheeks. Melissy ran to her and helped her into the 
 rocking-chair, and untied her bonnet-strings and took 
 away her bag. Sist r Ann sank down and heaved a 
 great sigh. This was so different from the home 
 coming she expected that Melissy was dumbfounded, but 
 she did manage to say, " Sist r Ann, where is it ? " 
 
 " Where is what ? " returned Sist r Ann, snappishly, 
 closing her eyes as if she never cared to open them again, 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 " The remains." 
 
 "There ain t no remains." 
 
 Melissy gasped, and fell back against the door. She 
 thought her sister had gone daft, but Mrs. Fuller 
 opened her eyes, and looked at her with calm but weary 
 defiance. " I shan t tell you a word of any thing until I 
 have some tea. I m tired to death, and worrited and 
 fretted half sick," and with that her bonnet fell off, her 
 hair tumbled down, and she leaned back in the chair and 
 began to sob. 
 
 Melissy bestirred herself to comfort her sister. She 
 bathed her hands and face, put a pillow to her back, 
 smoothed her untidy hair, and soon had a steaming cup 
 of the fragrant herb in her hand. 
 
 " Oh, it s so good to get home," sighed the weary one. 
 " Though it s ever so humble, there s no place like home. 
 Set right down, Melissy, and you, Spence, and I will tell 
 you all I have been through, and how I have traipsed 
 and traipsed, and spent my money and my time, as you 
 may say, for nothing. You see, that lawyer-friend of the 
 doctor s, he met me at the cars, and was kind, and took 
 me to a very good place to eat and sleep, and then he 
 attended to having the body what they call exhumed. 
 So the morning we went over to the cemetery to take a 
 look I saw two women in deep black wandering around 
 among the graves. And the undertaker, who was a 
 likely, clever man, he gave me the wink. And, ses he to 
 me : Them two are claimants. They both say they are 
 wives of William Fuller. If I were you I wouldn t give 
 myself away. I guess you have as good a claim as any 
 of the rest of his wives. 
 
 " 4 Lord a-mercy, cried I, horrified and consternade. 
 4 What bad women them must be. I am his only true and 
 lawful wife, and Spence is his only true and lawful child. 
 The impudent brazen huzzies ! to come here and own to 
 their own shame! 
 
THE REMAINS. 3 Sl 
 
 " But the minute I cast my eyes on the remains, I seen 
 it wasn t Bill Fuller, but a much younger and heavier 
 man a stocky, short person with thick black hair and 
 beard, and a kind of a Roman nose. Before I could get 
 a chance to speak, the tallest woman in black, she swept 
 up to the place, and putting her hand on the breast of the 
 remains, she said in a mighty high tone : I am the only 
 true and lawful wife of this man, William Q. Fowler. I 
 was married to him in 1881, and I have here my marriage 
 certificate to prove the fact. That woman, pointing to 
 the other person in black, never was married to him, 
 and she has no kind of claim to the property. As to 
 that old imposter yonder, pointing to me, * you can see 
 for yourself what she is. She s old enough to be his 
 mother, and her claim is simply ridiculous. 
 
 " I m no imposture, mum, says I, firing up, and I d 
 have you to know it. I d no sooner set my eyes on the 
 remains than I knew it wasn t Bill Fuller, my husband 
 that was, or is, the Lord only knows ; and as to William Q. 
 Fowler, ses I, pointing to the high-strung one that had 
 spoken, you re welcome to him, mum, and all his goods 
 and gear. You can fight it out with t other woman. I 
 don t believe either of you is any thing better than you 
 should be, but I d have you to know that I am a pro 
 fessing Christian, and never had no blots on my fair 
 name. And with that I kind o staggered away, hardly 
 knowing what I was about. But the lawyer, he came 
 right behind, and I could see he was just dying to laugh. 
 And, ses I to him, I ll pay you your fee, and then I ll 
 be off home by the next train. And, ses I, in the bitter 
 ness of my spirit, if old Bill Fuller dies twenty times 
 after this, I won t take a step to look at his remains. 
 I ll let any body claim him as wants to. 
 
 " But that lawyer was very nice-spoken, and he per 
 suaded me to stay a day or two, and take a look at the 
 city, -so as I shouldn t lose my journey altogether.. An.d 
 
382 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 he gave me a list of places I ought to see, and then I 
 began my tramps. I traipsed and I traipsed till I was 
 nearly dead. Sometimes I rode on the elevated, as they 
 call it, a railroad set up in the air on stilts, sometimes 
 in the horse-cars, but most times I traipsed. I went 
 up to the top of Trinity Church steeple, three hundred 
 and twenty-five steps, for 1 counted em, and I thought 
 before I got there you would have your funeral after 
 all, Melissy. I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, and 
 I went to Central Park to see that stone thing they 
 call Cleopatry s Needle. I went to see pictures that 
 didn t look like any thing I was ever acquainted with 
 and statues as naked as the day they was born, Melissy> 
 and finally at last I traipsed up to Grant s tomb. I kept 
 it for the last, as I was in a funereal state of mind, and I 
 thought it would be kind of soothing. On my way to 
 the tomb, I noticed a man following me, a crook-backed, 
 old-codger kind of a man, and when I stopped he stopped, 
 and when I went on he went on. He was done up 
 atwixt two boards, a kind of advertisement called a 
 sandwich. On the front of him was a girl in a party 
 dress washing clothes, and on his back a baby in a wash 
 bowl blowing soap bubbles. 
 
 " While I was gazing on the tomb he stepped quite in 
 front and gazed at me most impudent, and finally he 
 took a step nearer, and ses he, The Lord help me, if this 
 ain t Ann. And I just give a screech, and ses I, For 
 all the world, is this you, Bill Fuller ? I was so over 
 come ! It was a great deal worse than not finding him 
 in the coffin, to see him looking like a regular old sot in 
 a bad hat, done up in boards like a living automedon. 
 
 " Well, he grinned, and, ses he, * Ann, I saw that notice 
 in the papers about my getting drownded and leaving a 
 pot of money, and I knew it would fetch you down to 
 the city. I have been on the outlook for you, and all 
 day yesterday I watched you talking to policemen on 
 
CONSOLATION TAKEN AWAY. 3 8 3 
 
 street corners, and I knew where you stopped. It was 
 an awful disappointment, now wasn t it, not to find me 
 dead and buried ? 
 
 " I was so flustered I didn t know what to do or say, 
 and, ses I : Bill, this is the worst turn you ever served 
 me. 
 
 " Sorry I couldn t oblige you by dying, Ann. But 
 how are all the folks at home, and what are you doing ? 
 
 " You d better ask about your boy as you lamed for 
 life, ses I, * and who would have starved if it hadn t 
 been for me and Melissy Tooler going into the sparrow- 
 grass business. 
 
 " * I m awful sorry about the boy, ses Bill, * but I was 
 in liquor when I did it, and now 1 don t drink a drop. 
 (I could smell hisbreath strong as any thing that minute.) 
 If you ll take me home with you, I ll try to do better. 
 
 " Take you home ! Furyation ! says I. ; I am quit 
 and clear of you long ago for abandonment, and if you 
 come near I ll have you arrested on that old thieving 
 business. 
 
 "Well, then he begged and whined for a little money." 
 
 " You weren t so simple as that," exclaimed Melissy 
 Tooler. 
 
 " Yes, I was. I couldn t bear to see him walking round 
 in them boards, and I gave him all the money I had, 
 over and above enough to pay my way back, and made 
 him take them right off. Yes," she sighed, " I had hoped 
 I could respect him a little the rest of my life. If we 
 had had a nice funeral, and he was lying up there on the 
 hill with a tombstone at the head of the grave, it would 
 be some consolation. And now that is took away from 
 me." 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 TULLY CICERO OLDHAM FALLS INTO ERROR. 
 
 IF you live in a village, you must neighbor it or live 
 outside the swim. If you have more tomatoes in 
 your garden than you can use, and little sweet corn, and 
 Frisbies folks next door have much sweet corn and few 
 tomatoes, why should you not exchange vegetables over 
 the garden fence ? And standing there while the bread 
 is rising in the pan, you may as like as not fall into a 
 little talk about the helps that are at hand to enable us 
 to bear life s burdens, or the immortality of the soul, and 
 gleams may be let in upon household cares that will keep 
 you thinking half the day. Old Miss Fermenter always 
 used to get to preaching when she ran into a neighbor s 
 back door on an errand with an apron over her head. 
 An errand in quest of a recipe for root beer, or the best 
 way to dye an old red shawl, would send her right off to 
 sanctification by faith and the inefficacy of works. 
 
 When the little sisters had a load of unexpected com 
 pany come in upon them the other day, Mrs. Judge 
 Magnus sent her dinner right over, all cooked and ready 
 to serve, with a frozen-fruit pudding and a pot of delicious 
 coffee with cream. The judge was obliged to dine on 
 bread and milk and cold pie. This is the kind of neigh 
 boring that whole-souled woman believes in. The little 
 sisters mainly live on what they call picked-up dinners, 
 especially when there is no one with them, and the pick- 
 upedness of the meal is manifest to any chance comer. 
 A real dinner of the other variety is a red-letter occasion 
 for them, so you can imagine how they felt when Mrs. 
 Magnus sent over that meal for Eben s folks, just as if 
 
ECONOMY A NOBLE ART, 385 
 
 it had come in the four-cornered sheet the apostle saw 
 let down from heaven. Mrs. Magnus is rich, but she 
 wishes to take part in all the hospitalities and liberalities 
 of village life, to feel the human current running right 
 through her house from garret to cellar, like a great 
 motor nerve. To see her in Washington society you 
 would never suspect it, but at home she is a different 
 person. 
 
 The young married women are let into the sisterhood 
 of good housekeepers, and made welcome to share in all 
 its sifted and clarified experience. The young mother 
 comes over with her first baby, the most remarkable 
 child ever born, and puts it cuddled to sleep on the 
 lounge, and then she and the initiated go into long talks : 
 how to turn every thing to the best account ; when you 
 have done up your quince sauce how to make a delicious 
 jelly out of the cores. This economy, which always gets 
 the sweetness out of the core, has a certain beauty of its 
 own. It is in the order of nature to let nothing go to 
 waste, but by cunning chemistry to turn its refuse into 
 flowers, its brackishness and soot into splendid colors 
 and sweet perfumes. The housewife s contrivance to 
 make the best use of every thing when she puts ashes on 
 the cucumber bed, and saves the smallest scraps for the 
 hens, is by no means an ignoble art. It is the very secret 
 of material life, the saving and gathering of the fragments 
 into the baskets of the parable, that nothing be lost. 
 
 There are great adepts in this art in the village, and 
 there is another class even more interesting, for they mix 
 something spiritual with all they do, not only with their 
 savings, but with their " riz biscuits " and waffles, their 
 cup-cake and whipped cream. They are ladylike house 
 keepers who transmute domestic drudgery into grace. 
 Though they know all about the lower processes, they 
 are never too busy for the higher. They come in cool and 
 neat from some serene kitchen depth to see the caller, with 
 
3 86 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 hair unruffled and collar and cuffs quite speckless. They 
 move around to some inward music, and every thing falls 
 into line. There are always fresh flowers in the parlor 
 vases, and their work-baskets look like fairy gifts. They 
 read a great deal more than most city women, and have 
 out all the newest books of poems and essays from the 
 library. There are two women who get along without 
 help, save for the washing and ironing and heavy scrub 
 bing. Most people do keep help now, but these two live 
 in such an exquisite little world of their own making, 
 they would rather do for themselves than have an Irish 
 girl messing about, irrupting into all the niceties like a 
 bull in a china shop. 
 
 Miss Elmore and her niece Margaret are true artists in 
 this flower-like housekeeping. They have a world of 
 comfort together in all their doings, and seem to fit each 
 other like the acorn cup and the acorn. Their life is a 
 kind of harmony into which sewing, sweeping, dusting, 
 garden-work, little house adornments, the care of flowers 
 and birds are twisted and twined. They read their books 
 aloud, taking turns, and enjoying the comfort and snug- 
 ness of perfect sympathy. Margaret paints and plays 
 the piano, alternating her idealities, as she says, with the 
 actualities of bed-making and keeping rooms. Every one 
 says, " What a fine girl Margaret Elmore is ! " Andjthe 
 next word follows of itself : " She ought to get a good 
 husband." There are so many fine girls in the world now 
 who ought to get good husbands. Miss Elmore is in all 
 things a lady, old-fashioned, delicate, a little shy and 
 timid, but with the purest, sweetest instincts, and the 
 finest feelings. Margaret is the stronger character of the 
 two, and has come to be the natural protector of her 
 aunt, a sort of head of the family in the form of a rosy- 
 cheeked, dark-eyed girl of twenty-three, whose every eye 
 lash speaks of truth, sincerity, and frankness. Both these 
 women worship one object Margaret s brother Joe, 
 
AN EX-COLLEGE TUTOR. 3 8 7 
 
 whom they are sending through college mainly by par 
 ings and savings from their own personal expenditure, 
 making the old gown and hat do another season, having 
 the old boots tapped and heeled rather than buy new, 
 and denying themselves in a thousand ways for Joe s 
 sake. 
 
 It was just when they were in this pinch of saving for 
 Joe that having a spare room at their disposal, it was 
 proposed to them to take a boarder for one season, a 
 thing they had never thought of doing before, and would 
 not now, perhaps, except for Miss Elmore s great respect 
 for science, her high ideal of men who pursue such call 
 ings, and the desire to turn a genteel penny for the stu 
 dent Joe s sake. The person who engaged her spare 
 chamber, with all its pretty little fripperies and lady-like 
 adornments, was a man who had been favorably recom 
 mended ; to wit, Tully Cicero Oldham. 
 
 Mr. Oldham was very deaf, and used an ear-trumpet 
 with a long flexible tube, which, when not in use, 
 he carried curled about his left arm. He had been 
 a college tutor until his increasing deafness made 
 it impossible to " coach " and " cram " students, and 
 then he turned scientific specialist and devoted most 
 of his time to the study of cryptogamic botany, and 
 the lowest forms of vegetable life, known as smut, 
 rust, mold, and mildew. When he set up his micro 
 scope in Miss Elmore s best room and prepared his 
 little slides and specimens, she felt her house to be greatly 
 honored, and mentally bowed down, not to Tully Old- 
 ham, who was by no means imposing, but to the great 
 kingdom of science which he represented, and which 
 looked so fascinating and beautiful to her gentle, 
 womanly eyes. 
 
 Oldham was a small man who went buzzing about with 
 a springy automatic fussiness. His nose and large ears 
 had a frost-bitten expression even in summer-time, and 
 
3 88 VILLAGE PHOTCGRAPHS. 
 
 his short, stubby beard made him look rather painfully 
 hirsute. The look of frost-bite perhaps came from the 
 fact that he had lived for years in bleak college rooms, 
 and to save fuel in cold weather had often sat and shiv 
 ered, working with his hat on, done up in two sets of 
 underwear, three pairs of socks, and a top coat over all 
 his other clothes. He wore his hat indoors to keep the 
 bald part of his head warm, and tore little square bits 
 out of his worn-out under linen for pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 As he could not hear the sound of his own voice, his con 
 versation was pitched in a very high key, and gave the 
 effect of a stridulous grasshopper. Living shut within a 
 world of his own, Tully Cicero made an excellent little 
 mole-eyed specialist. But in all practical matters he was 
 a mere baby. He was suspicious of the hearing world, 
 as very deaf people often are, and apt to take wild 
 notions into his head, which to him wore the sharp out 
 lines of reality, although they might be as impossible and 
 foundationless as a nightmare. Moreover, he was egre- 
 giously conceited, thinking himself a handsome, fascinat 
 ing person, for whom the fair sex had a special weak 
 ness. He knew, in fact, very little about women, having 
 had but infrequent opportunities for enjoying what the 
 old-fashioned novelists used to call female society, but 
 the less he knew the more he considered himself a poten 
 tial, if not an actual, charmer. 
 
 Tully C. Oldham was a great authority on smut, mold 
 rust, and mildew. Learned men corresponded with him, 
 and any thing he took hold of, no matter how difficult, 
 he bored into like a wood w r orm into heart of oak. Thus 
 he came with a glamour around him in the eyes of good 
 Miss Elmore. If he had been Huxley or Tyndall, or the 
 great Darwin himself, he could not have been more 
 gently entreated. 
 
 He was translated at once from the discomforts of 
 college lodgings of the poorer sort, where he had often 
 
A CLOVER PATCH. 3^9 
 
 lived on crackers and tea with only an occasional meat 
 dinner, into this soft, warm nest, dainty, delicate, full 
 of the breath of flowers and the sweet influence of two 
 refined women who had never taken boarders, and were 
 ready to get down on their knees to serve him for 
 seven dollars a week. Miss Elmore carried his hot water 
 up to him in the morning with her own hands, and set it 
 down outside his door as if it had been a bath for Bud 
 dha. Margaret prepared for him cream toast, dropped 
 eggs, and delicious coffee. Miss Elmore in her soft voice 
 conversed with him through the ear-trumpet about the 
 dignity of science how it expands the mind of the devo 
 tee, just as if smut, mold, etc., were a pursuit fit for the 
 gods. Delicately, coyly, these two women discovered 
 that Tally s wardrobe was sadly out of repair. It only 
 raised him in Miss Elmore s estimation, for when a man s 
 head is knocking about among the stars how can he think 
 of dropped shirt buttons or holes in his stockings ? Piously 
 did Miss Elmore darn those said holes, of large size and 
 numerous. Meekly did she sew on buttons and tapes. 
 She even went to the length of putting a new braid on 
 his black coat, and cleaning all the spots away from its 
 worn, shiny surface, with camphene and a flannel rag, 
 just as she would have done for her boy Joe. 
 
 Tully Cicero had fallen into a clover patch, and soon 
 he began to get stout and to feel certain shooting pains 
 of youthful impulse he had not felt for many years. He 
 filled his soul with vain imaginings, peculiar to his own 
 special kind of queerness. Instead of making him thank 
 ful and reverent, all this beneficence poured out upon 
 him by two charming women only tended to puff him up 
 and feed his self-conceit. 
 
 As he pondered on their unfailing care and kind 
 ness, their gentle unconscious petting, he came to the 
 conclusion that Miss Elmore was dead in love with 
 him, and that Margaret was pretty far gone on the 
 
39 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 same road. This notion was firmly fixed in his mind 
 after much watching of the elder lady s gentle placid face 
 out of the corner of his beady black eyes, as she helped 
 him to the best of every thing at the table, and the pa 
 tience with which she talked to him through the ear-trum 
 pet on abstruse scientific subjects. She would sometimes 
 slip a vase of flowers into his room when he was absent, 
 . thinking that a botanist must be fond of bloom and fra 
 grance, if he did devote his days and nights to smut and 
 mold. But Tully with this wild idea in his head read 
 the language of flowers, and believed that he saw in 
 these innocent little nosegays a declaration of her passion. 
 He was immensely flattered and went out and bought a 
 bottle of bears grease and loaded his hair with it until 
 it scented the whole house. He studied himself before 
 the glass by the half hour, trying on all his most killing 
 expressions, and getting more and more fascinated with 
 his own bewitching charms. But Miss Elmore would not 
 secure the prize no pressed wallflower for him : and 
 that she might find it out gradually without any sudden 
 rending shock, he began ogling Margaret at the table, 
 and smiling on her with a silliness that was irresistibly 
 comical. 
 
 Margaret looked on astonished. She had come entirely 
 out of the glamour of science which blinded her aunt, and 
 regarded Tully, apart from all love-making, as rather an 
 objectionable little person, but now, that he had begun 
 to ogle and make eyes, she at first suspected he had gone 
 mildly mad. Then she began to watch him with the frank 
 eyes of a wide-awake girl. She noticed that now he always 
 wore a white field Marguerite in the lapel of that coat her 
 aunt Susan had new-bound and cleaned with camphene. 
 When he thought margaret was observing him he would 
 slyly raise his hand to the flower, as much as to say : * I 
 am your adorer and bond-slave for life." 
 
 Miss Elmore, in her sweet calm and benignity, never 
 
"THE ODIOUS LITTLE CREATURE." 39 1 
 
 saw any of this telegraphing, and when Margaret, who 
 was amused, though hotly indignant at the little man s 
 impudence, broke out in revolt, she would not, for a 
 time, believe one word of the tale she had to tell. 
 One morning her niece refused to bake waffles for 
 Tully when he came down late to breakfast, and made 
 signals to her with his ear-trumpet to let the old lady 
 go away while they remained. Miss Elmore was very 
 much surprised at Margaret s behavior, but she went out 
 into the kitchen and baked the waffles herself, and came 
 in with her delicate cheek quite rosed from the heat of 
 the fire, and served him with the utmost politeness. 
 
 " Oh, the horrid, odious little creature," cried Margaret 
 about two hours later, rushing into the sitting-room 
 where her aunt sat placidly sewing. " He is making 
 love to me, auntie. He actually squeezed my hand 
 there in the passage, and when I snatched it away he 
 stuck out his ear-trumpet for me to say something. Oh, 
 if it had been an elephant s trunk, how gladly I would 
 have run a big pin into it." 
 
 Miss Elmore sat straight up in her chair, and looked 
 as shocked and humiliated as if she had heard that the 
 great Darwin had tried to kiss her niece in a dark corner. 
 It seemed immodest to entertain such a notion concern 
 ing a man of science. " Margaret, you must be mistaken. 
 You know he is so deaf he can not be expected to under 
 stand every thing. He is like a child in his devotion to 
 science." 
 
 " If he is deaf he understands well enough how to 
 squeeze hands. And as for his childlike character, he has 
 been making eyes at me behind your back for two or 
 three weeks. I was ashamed to say any thing about it. 
 I thought perhaps it was a sudden turn like crick in the 
 back, that might pass off. But I see we have innocently 
 been too kind to him, and have put the wildest notions 
 into his horrid little mind. I suspect he thinks we are 
 
39 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 both in love with him. We must get rid of him, auntie, 
 or else I shall telegraph to Joe to come home." 
 
 It was a long time before Margaret could open her 
 aunt s eyes to the fact that the little " scientific gent " 
 had something smutty in his nature. But when she 
 began to watch him, a thing her high-mindedness ren 
 dered very painful, she was convinced of the truth. 
 She had borne all his disagreeable little habits with divine 
 patience, and now she grieved to find that science does 
 not always ennoble its devotees. She tried to devise 
 measures for getting him quietly out of the house, but 
 before these could be perfected he had proposed to Mar 
 garet in the garden where she was watering her plants. 
 He had kneeled right down in a particularly damp place, 
 regardless of his trowsers, and had seized hold of her 
 dress and poured out a wild profession of love in his 
 high-pitched voice, and then he had reached her the ear- 
 trumpet. Oh, the horror of having to refuse a man 
 through an ear-trumpet, who is kneeling before you in 
 the garden, right in the face and eyes of all the world ! 
 " Get up," she cried, severely, " get right up off your 
 knees this minute." The ridiculous man arose rather 
 sheepishly. " Now go and pack your trunk right away, 
 and leave this house within an hour. You are utterly 
 and totally mistaken. You have got an entirely false 
 impression. Now don t be foolish anol absurd, but go 
 away quietly." 
 
 " I am not going away," returned Tully, his small eyes 
 glinting with defiance. " I have paid my board a week in 
 advance, and I am going to stay. I have been en 
 couraged here in this house in a way that gives me a legal 
 hold. Your aunt has made as good as open proposals 
 to me, and you have both tried to throw yourselves at 
 my head." 
 
 "You shameless, abandoned man !" cried Margaret, 
 seizing the tube. "You know you are telling -lies; -I; 
 
"I M AFRAID HE S GONE CRAZY." 393 
 
 shall go and pack your trunk myself, and put your board 
 money in it, and then you must leave this house. We 
 shall not give you another meal." 
 
 They were just in the midst of this excited colloquy, 
 Margaret pouring her strong words into the end of the 
 ear-trumpet, and Tully vociferating at the same time, 
 when Miss Elmore, hearing voices raised, came out on 
 the porch with a scared look. 
 
 " Auntie," cried her niece, half choked with wrath, 
 " he is a dreadful, bad man. He says he won t leave the 
 house. He says we both of us encouraged him to think 
 that one or both of us would marry him, and he is going 
 to sue for breach of promise. Oh, auntie, what shall we 
 do?" 
 
 Miss Elmore s face grew very white. " Margaret," 
 she whispered, forgetting he could not hear, " I am afraid 
 he s gone suddenly crazy. Let us try to slip into the 
 house and lock him out." 
 
 They both rushed upon the doorway, and in an instant 
 the key was grating in the lock. They flew all over the 
 house bolting, and barring, and fastening windows. And 
 when the angry Tully began to knock and shake the 
 door for admission he found the lockout complete. The 
 shades were all drawn down, and the house looked as if 
 a death had occurred in the family. After prowling 
 about the kitchen and back entrance for some time, Tully 
 took up his position opposite, where a vacant lot was 
 bounded by a stone wall. He seated himself on the wall 
 prepared to watch the house over the way with a view to 
 slipping in and barricading himself in his own room 
 should an opportunity occur. He had by no means 
 given up the fight, and if he could not win the day he 
 could at least annoy and torment two unprotected fe 
 males. Tully was as full of spite as an egg is of meat. 
 
 There he sat all the afternoon gazing at the closed 
 house. Occasionally. Margaret would peep out of some- 
 
394 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 crack in the blind to see if he were still visible, and 
 there he was perched up like an ugly little idol on the 
 wall. 
 
 " I can t stand it," cried Margaret, passionately ; " it 
 is worse than a boycott. We shall have to telegraph in 
 some way for Joe." 
 
 They had carefully packed Tully s trunk and cau 
 tiously shoved it out on the porch, instantly locking the 
 door again for fear of consequences. Miss Elmore car 
 ried the microscope down in its case and set it on the 
 trunk cover, while Margaret stood guard behind her with 
 a poker in her hand. 
 
 " We never can endure life," the girl cried, " with that 
 man watching us. Stop, I have a happy thought." She 
 ran to the writing-desk and scribbled a hasty note ; then 
 she beckoned to a neighbor s boy, who was flying his 
 kite in the next yard, and threw it to him out of the back 
 window. The lad took the note and disappeared on a 
 run down the street. In about an hour Dr. John Riv- 
 ington came striding down past the Elmore house with 
 his thick stick in his hand. He came up to the place 
 where Tully Cicero sat perched on the wall, and the little 
 man of rust and mold began to quail. The doctor 
 lifted him down from his roosting place not ungently. 
 Then taking him by the coat-collar much as a big dog 
 takes a little one by the scruff" of his neck, he gave 
 him a shake. 
 
 " You miserable little wretch," cried the doctor, " to 
 insult and terrify ladies who have been kind to you. 
 You are too small to kick or I would send you into the 
 middle of next week. Go on there, march before, and 
 get a man to come for your trunk yonder, and take 
 yourself out of this town in less than two hours." 
 
 Tully heard not a word the doctor said, but he under 
 stood him well enough, and the next train took him and 
 his belongings out of the village. He has written Miss 
 
A PENITENT LETTER. 
 
 395 
 
 Elmore an abject, penitent letter, begging her forgive 
 ness ; and now she can laugh about it a little, though 
 for a long time it looked to her very dreadful and com 
 promising. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 STRANGE DISTURBANCES AT STILLWELL s. 
 
 SNUG and cheery looks the home when the nights are 
 growing darker and longer. The piazza-chairs are 
 deserted, the hammock is put away in the attic. The 
 hens will no longer roost in the trees, they take up win 
 ter quarters in the barn. The cat comes purring in 
 around your feet as you sit in your favorite corner with 
 lamp and book, and the house-do^ is no longer content to 
 lie on the outside mat. This is the time when human beings 
 begin to draw closer together, when they tell old stories, 
 and recall the past around the evening fire ; when the 
 young girl touches the piano in the twilight, and sings 
 some snatch of ballad music that is running in her head. 
 The very street looks as if there was little to expect now 
 from gardens and trees, human interests having come 
 uppermost. 
 
 The few small shops wear a more, inviting air. People 
 begin to drop in again to chat with the old shoe 
 maker, who has just been reading Schopenhauer and the 
 translation of another German work called " Kraft und 
 Stoff." He shakes his head and says he don t think they 
 make as good philosophical waxed-ends as Aristotle and 
 some of those old fellows, who are still way out of sight 
 of the moderns. The post-office and the grocery store 
 have again become resorts, and the apothecary s shop 
 looks very pleasant, with its colored glasses, bright lamps, 
 and clean panes. It is a neat little place, shining with 
 new paint, and a neat little man presides over it. There 
 is a gloss on his linen, a minute attention to his clothes, 
 a delicate perfume about him, like some highly scented 
 
HE ADMIRED HIS WIFE. 397 
 
 expensive soap, that might lead you to think Andrew 
 Stiliwell a fussy, prim old bachelor. But in truth he is 
 very much of a family man. He glides around the shop 
 with unsqueaking shoes, and deals out hair-oil, tooth 
 brushes, bathing sponges and patent medicines. He puts 
 up his prescriptions, which are not very numerous unless 
 there happens to be an epidemic of scarlet fever or diph 
 theria, with a neatness which would do credit to a city 
 pharmacist. 
 
 Every thing was apparently very happy in his home at 
 the time those strange disturbances first began to be 
 talked of. The little druggist s ruling passion was ad 
 miration for his wife. He was so grateful to her for 
 marrying him, the sense of her great condescension kept 
 him humble-minded. He never concluded the smallest 
 business transaction without saying " I must first con 
 sult my wife. She has an excellent head for business 
 and has often given me points." As to the control of 
 his family of five children, that was all left to Mrs. Still- 
 well. It was her part to do the governing aud correct 
 ing, the spanking and admonishing. He played with his 
 children and indulged them in small ways, but he did 
 not think himself equal to the real bringing up. That 
 was left to the very superior woman who had stooped to 
 marry him. Mrs. Stiliwell was half a head taller than her 
 mate. The eldest boy, Theo, was now taller than his 
 father, whom the children looked on as about on their 
 level, and loved as one of themselves, a person they 
 could do with pretty much as they pleased, while the 
 mother, an intellectual woman, was too clear-sighted to 
 be deceived, and was therefore thoroughly respected and 
 even feared. 
 
 There is a thorn in every body s pillow, and the thorn 
 that pierced Andrew was the fact that Mrs. Andrew had 
 loved another man before she condescended to marry the 
 village druggist. She belonged to an excellent village 
 
39 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 family of some wealth, while Andrew had sprung kom 
 little tenant farmers of no consequence. Mary Spear s 
 early love story was pathetic and even beautiful, and was 
 laid up in lavender there in the village archives among 
 those odds and ends of actual romance that are always 
 stranger than fiction. She had been engaged, when a 
 tall, handsome, resolute young girl, to Mrs. Macy s 
 eldest son by her first husband, and soon after the war of 
 the rebellion broke out he, Ralph Freeman, had joined 
 the Union army and marched to the front. Just pre 
 vious to his departure the lovers had quarreled, and both 
 of them being proud and obstinate, no reconciliation had 
 taken place when Ralph left the village with his regi 
 ment. He was soon ordered away to join the army of 
 the Potomac. 
 
 It was more than two years later that Mary Spear 
 joined a corps of nurses to go and do duty in the 
 field hospitals after the battle of Antietam. She went 
 under the charge of a member of the sanitary commis 
 sion, who was placed at the head of the little expedi 
 tion, and they carried with them medical stores and a 
 great quantity of lint and bandages made by the village 
 women, besides several hundred flannel shirts and socks 
 which the First Church Sewing Society had contributed. 
 For a year these women went wherever they were ordered 
 in the field, to minister to the sick and dying ; they were 
 always, it seemed, in the immediate wake of battle, and 
 Mary Spear saw scenes of anguish and blood in those 
 days which have left an indelible mark on her life. 
 
 It was just before Gettysburg that a few men on 
 stretchers were brought into the tent hospital, terribly 
 wounded while on a reconnoissance, by a shell from a 
 masked battery. Ralph Freeman was among the mortally 
 hurt. A fragment of the shell had torn its way through 
 his body, and he was bleeding to death. But he was still 
 conscious. He knew Mary Spear. He could even speak 
 
SACRED KEEPSAKES. 399 
 
 a little in whispers, and at last he died in her arms. When 
 Mary came home from that hospital campaign, she had 
 grown into a woman, strong and serious, through a vari 
 ety of terrible experiences. Why did she a few years later 
 marry little Andrew Stillwell ? Why do thousands of such 
 women in narrow spheres marry men inferior to them 
 selves ? Dog-like devotion, the kind of worship such 
 humble, good, self-abnegating souls give to noblewomen, 
 often finds its recompense, and love makes all incongru 
 ity to drop away and disappear, especially if the devo 
 tion of the lesser one asks little for itself but kind 
 tolerance. 
 
 Mary Spear brought home with her a few sacred keep 
 sakes Ralph had given her at the last. She did not show 
 them even to his mother, and her husband, though he 
 knew she possessed such things, had never seen them. 
 They were kept with Ralph s picture and his old letters. 
 He knew Mary put flowers on Freeman s grave every 
 Memorial Day. Each time he passed from his little shop 
 to his own house his eye rested on the small and rather 
 ugly monument the towns-people had put up to the 
 memory of their dead soldiers. On the principal face of 
 
 it was written : " Ralph Freeman, Colonel of the 
 
 Regiment. Killed on the field of battle ! Oh, sweet is 
 it to die for one s country." People said that Mary re 
 fused Stillwell twelve times, but she became Mrs. Still- 
 well in the end, and the mother of a fine family of chil 
 dren. What will not lovers assiduity accomplish ? Sam 
 Blake proposed to Tilly Jones over a score of times, and 
 the story is told that after she had refused him repeatedly 
 she saw him open the front door one day while she was 
 at the top of the stairs, and she called out, " You needn t 
 come in, Sam ; I will not have you." But she did have 
 him, finally, and is now Mrs. Sam Blake, just as Mary 
 Spear is Mrs. Andrew Stillwell. 
 
 There was that skeleton in Stillwell s closet the sol- 
 
400 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 diers monument, the grave on the hill, the love-letters 
 and keepsakes his wife keeps locked away, reserving a 
 compartment in her heart for the dead Ralph. To be 
 sure he married her when she told him her heart was 
 buried in the grave, but all these years he has had an 
 aching and longing in his breast for the love of his wife, 
 something more than duty love ; and though he has tried 
 to ennoble himself and to rise above jealousy of the dead, 
 it is hard, nay, impossible of accomplishment. Mary 
 Stillwell s story was well known in the village, but of 
 course her children were entirely ignorant of it. The 
 name of Ralph Freeman was never heard in that house, 
 but the memory of him was always in the. mother s heart, 
 and it was like grit in the eyes of Andrew. The village 
 gossips sometimes raked up her pathetic little story out 
 of the ashes of the past and rubbed it bright again. 
 
 No one could say truthfully that Mary was not happy 
 in her family of three boys and two girls, all going to 
 school now. They are fine, noble-looking children. 
 People said there was not much Stillwell about them ; 
 they featured the Spears. Good little scholars they were, 
 eager and ambitious, and still with an insatiable appetite 
 for fun and play. 
 
 You should have seen them of an evening gathered 
 around the table in the dining-room, with the hanging- 
 lamp casting down its light on the brown-golden 
 heads : the oldest boy, a lad of sixteen, preparing for 
 college ; Mary, the mother with her dark keen eyes 
 and handsome face, the hair showing steely lines in the 
 brown braids helping him with his algebra and his Latin, 
 studying beside him that she might help him more effec 
 tually ; the younger boys with their grammars and phrase- 
 books spread out to parse with mother ; the two little 
 girls, eight and ten, the youngest golden-haired, with 
 great blue eyes, busy with their slates and pencils, to show 
 writing and summing and spelling all to mother. She 
 
THE NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. 4 I 
 
 had called her eldest boy Theodore, gift of God, and per 
 haps there was an implied sense of joy and consolation 
 in that name no one knew but herself. The frank-eyed 
 lad, so honest and true-hearted and manly, was Mary s 
 mainstay. If any thing should happen to Andrew before 
 the children were fully grown, there was Theo to take a 
 father s place. 
 
 The Stilhvells were not very well off. Mary had 
 brought a little money in her hand, which was spent in 
 buying and furnishing the house. This house was of the 
 basement-kitchen variety, built upon a gentle slope, with a 
 terraced side-hill garden and a small yard in front for 
 flowers. During the evening the kitchen part was gener 
 ally deserted, as the maid of all work often went home to 
 sleep. The entrance to the sitting-room was at the side, 
 up a steep bit of path from the village street, bordered 
 with rose-bushes and flowering shrubs. Next door to 
 the Stilhvells lived Stephen, the taxidermist. Only a low 
 picket-fence separated his garden from theirs. Stephen 
 had often thrown sticks and stones and brick-bats into 
 their yard on pretense that the Stillwell children were 
 trespassing on his ground. 
 
 Many months had passed since Mary had spoken 
 to her surly neighbor or paid the least attention 
 to his pranks. She had taken the side of Stephen s 
 mother in the trouble between them, when the son 
 was so unkind and cruel, after the loss of his money, 
 and he and the Stilhvells were now at daggers drawn. 
 Stephen had killed two of the little girls kittens, and 
 thrown them over the fence. If one of the boys tossed 
 a ball by accident on his ground, they did not dare to go 
 and look for it for fear of a stoning. The children were 
 remarkably good and obedient ; their mother saw that 
 they never interfered with the neighbors. But Stephen 
 had a special grudge against the druggist. He had 
 ordered from him a quantity of crude drugs and chemi- 
 
4 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 cals used in his craft, and then had refused to pay the 
 price agreed upon. Stillwell had brought suit against 
 him to recover the money, and the matter was as yet 
 unsettled. Stephen was away from home when the dis 
 turbances began at the Stillwells , and his house was 
 closed. His mother was living with her sister on suffer 
 ance because she dared not go to her own home, where 
 her son burrowed like a brigand in a cave. 
 
 Something was certainly going wrong at the Stillwells 
 and though the family were very close-mouthed about it, 
 and would not admit that it could not all be traced to 
 natural causes, it created an undercurrent of excitement 
 in the village. Rats in the cellar that had come up 
 through the drain, was the first explanation, but the 
 noises were not at all like those made by rats, and twice 
 there had been an alarm raised late in the evening that 
 the Stillwell house was on fire. A red glare had been 
 seen to burst out of one of the lower windows after the 
 family were in bed, but when the alarm was given and 
 search was made nothing could be found. The noises 
 were said to be like those made by hogsheads and fifty- 
 pound weights rolled about in the cellar. Shots had also 
 been fired, and occasionally the mournful sound of a 
 muffled drum filled every part of the house. Most of 
 these disturbances occurred in the middle of the night, 
 but two or three times in the daylight a shower of broken 
 glass and pebbles had fallen on the roof. 
 
 When the cause of these mysterious persecutions had 
 eluded discovery for a few days, Stillwell put the case 
 into the hands of the constable and other village author 
 ities, but he repelled all neighborly peeping and prying. 
 A great change had taken place in the neat, alert little 
 man. His cheeks looked flabby and livid. He was hag 
 gard and his jaw dropped every time the trouble in his 
 house was mentioned. He had grown careless about his 
 dress. His linen cuffs were spotted with the medicines 
 
"HE KNOCKS IN THE CHIMNEY." 43 
 
 he compounded with shaking hands. But he politely 
 requested the neighbors to keep cool and leave him to 
 deal with the mysteries which he did not attempt to deny 
 had broken out in his house. But the more silent and 
 reserved and nervous the family became the more the 
 people whispered together. 
 
 " What do you suppose they want at the Stillwells ? " 
 said Mrs. John Dean in an awed voice to Mrs. Deacon 
 Hildreth, as the two ladies happened to meet on First 
 Church corner. 
 
 " It ain t no they at all," returned stout Mrs. Hildreth, 
 puffing a little from exercise (she had never parsed Mil 
 ton s " Paradise Lost " all through). "It s a he, Mrs. 
 Dean no other than Ralph Freeman, him Mary Still- 
 well was engaged to years and years ago, and who you 
 know got killed in the war. They do say he knocks in 
 the chimney and all over the house and cries, * Mary, 
 Mary, waking her out of her sleep with a deep groan to 
 see his name, Ralph, in red, fiery letters on the wall. 
 They think Stillwell will go crazy, for he always has been 
 jealous of Ralph Freeman, though the poor fellow was 
 put under ground so long ago. But Mary gets angry if 
 any one pretends to say it really is Ralph. She says 
 malice is at the bottom of it, either malice of this world 
 or the other, and she presumes of this. It s an awful 
 cruel trick if it is a trick, but you know the spiritualists 
 in town are all up in arms. There s an old ice-house 
 made in the side-hill, and attached to the cellar. It was 
 built on by Aaron Holmes when he lived there, but the 
 Stillwells never have used it. They say the worst of the 
 noises come from that old house. And the other night 
 when the two oldest Stillwell boys tried to get in there, 
 the door was held against them, and green fire and a bad 
 smell of brimstone broke out all around the cracks. 
 Mary has sent the little girls and the youngest boy away 
 to her sisters. She savs she means to hold the fort. 
 
404 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 She s right down plucky, but Stillwell is all broken 
 up." 
 
 " Dear me, I should like to see it," said Mrs. Dean, in 
 a delightful state of goose-flesh and shivers. 
 
 " They won t let nobody come to the house, and the 
 constable has orders to arrest prowlers." 
 
 There was enough truth mixed up with the stories 
 floating all over the village to make the Stillwell family 
 miserable. The mother was more courageous than any 
 of the others. She had a theory that if the noises were 
 inexplicable they would soon die away of themselves ; if 
 not, the truth would sometime be discovered. Still her 
 heart was torn with old memories, and the cruel ordeal 
 seemed often too hard to bear. After the boys had been 
 frightened by green fire and brimstone, the old ice-house, 
 called in the family the Black Hole of Calcutta, was 
 thoroughly ransacked. The door was found ajar, and 
 the place was quite empty. Apparently there was no 
 communication between the Black Hole and the cellar. 
 A solid, rough stone-wall met the hand and the eye on 
 all sides. The knocks were of a deep subterranean 
 sound, and when tried by the alphabet invariably spelled 
 out " Ralph Free " and then stopped. One night Still- 
 well and his wife were alone together in the house, the 
 boys having gone off to sleep with a young friend, Abner 
 Smith, in order to get a little rest. Poor Stillwell had 
 lost appetite and color, and his flesh was fast falling off. 
 He had always deplored the influence of Ralph Freeman s 
 memory on the mind of his wife, and this trouble seemed 
 to have come as the realization of an ill-defined dread 
 that had lain in his mind for years. To have Ralph 
 haunting his house (for in his weakened state he had 
 come over to a belief in the miraculous) he felt would 
 kill him. 
 
 " Why do you think he comes back to torture us in 
 this way, Mary ? " he asked, taking his head in his hands. 
 
A SAD AND TENDER MEMORY. 45 
 
 " He does not come back thus," she answered indig 
 nantly, " if he comes at all. He was a good, generous, 
 whole-hearted man. Do you suppose he wishes to spoil 
 our lives ? It is most unkind to think it. There is some 
 devilish work going on here, but it does not proceed 
 from Ralph Freeman." 
 
 Andrew groaned. He had often longed to talk to his 
 wife about his jealousy of the dead, but he had never 
 found courage to speak Ralph s name. Now he 
 trembled as the daring words came to his lips. " Mary," 
 said he faintly, "did you not once tell me that your heart 
 was buried in his coffin ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I did years ago, when the grief and sense of 
 loss were fresh and keen, but to-day he is only a sad and 
 tender memory, I am heart-bound to my husband and 
 children. You have made my life so good and so sweet, 
 Andrew, I have no time now for vain regrets. I love you 
 just as a wife should love her faithful, devoted husband." 
 
 Andrew felt his wife s words fall like drops of dew on 
 his fever-parched heart. The real specter had been all 
 the time pent up in his breast, and he never had found 
 the strength to exorcise it by speaking frankly to his wife. 
 And here in a moment she had made all clear and shining 
 like the noonday. They had it all out that night the 
 perfect explanation of every thing the good talk, that 
 makes the heart feel light. Andrew discovered that 
 there is a soul of good in things evil. If Ralph Free 
 man was haunting his house to spite him for marrying 
 Mary, he had made an egregious blunder. Andrew slept 
 soundly for the first time in a week, and arose next 
 morning a new man. 
 
 The constable and his deputy, our one policeman, had 
 watched the house two or three nights without discover 
 ing the cause of the mysterious rappings and other 
 noises. Suddenly they all ceased, the officers went away 
 to their warm beds, the excitement in the village quieted 
 
4 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 down, and vigilance relaxed. The lad Abner Smith, 
 friend of the Stillwell boys, had a natural talent for what 
 is called in country phrase snooping. Abner had made 
 up his mind to do a little bit of amateur detective work 
 on his own account. About this time Stephen returned 
 from his journey, and was seen busy about his garden. 
 Abner took to haunting the old ice-house, and spent a 
 long time in examining the apparently dead wall. At 
 last to his joy and surprise he discovered two loosened 
 stones in the foundation, which could easily be displaced 
 and gave direct access to the Stillwell cellar. There was 
 a great air of mystery about the house after this, although 
 the noises and disturbances had entirely ceased. The 
 boys were always consulting together after dark, and 
 carried on some kind of work in the cellar which they 
 concealed from the household. 
 
 It happened to be All Hallow Eve. Mary spoke of it 
 to Andrew, and said laughingly that " the spooks would 
 be sure to visit them again on that witch-haunted night." 
 The boys had made their own plans, and with matches 
 and a dark lantern they had determined to watch in the 
 large coal-bin down cellar. It was the witching hour 
 after midnight, when darkness and silence brooded over 
 the whole village. A spectral white figure seemed to 
 rise up from the ground and then to sink away suddenly 
 beneath the earth. In a moment there came up out of 
 the Black Hole of Calcutta, not a groan, but a prolonged 
 ear-piercing yell. The boys put a match to the dark lan 
 tern, and ran to the hole in the wall, nearly falling over 
 each other in their haste and eagerness. Then such a 
 turmoil of shouts, such a babel of voices arose from the 
 lower regions, that Stillwell awoke in fright, donned a 
 hasty garment, and took a candle in his hand. Mary, 
 quite pale, followed in her night-cap and wrapper. She 
 had no belief in spooks or rapping spirits, but it was All 
 Hallow E en. They crept down the stairs, and soon 
 
THE NIP OF THE STEEL TRAP. 4 7 
 
 recognized Theodore s voice shouting and vocifer 
 ating. 
 
 " We ve got him, mother. The spook is bagged." On 
 the basement floor, where they had dragged him, lay a 
 long limp object, done up in a white sheet. " He s try 
 ing to play possum, to make out he s a sleep-walker," 
 remarked Ab Smith, with the coolness of an old hand ; 
 " the nip of that big steel-trap took him right through the 
 foot." 
 
 Andrew Stillwell bent down and allowed the light of 
 his candle to fall on the prostrate form. It was his 
 neighbor Stephen, who had hidden day-times in his own 
 house for a fortnight, and had spent his nights in the 
 unhallowed work of making life unendurable to the Still- 
 wells , out of pure spite. Stephen had got in by the 
 Black Hole, had displaced the stones in the cellar wall, 
 and played spook and spirit-rapper with phosphorus, 
 colored fire, sulphur, and an old bass drum purchased 
 from a member of a strolling band. He had also con 
 trived a sort of catapult to throw small stones from the 
 top of the hill. It was first proposed to dress Stephen in 
 a suit of tar and feathers, but Mary Stillwell intervened 
 and made him buy his safety by signing a paper promis 
 ing to do justice to his mother. The old lady has come 
 home, and Stephen is now away in the South for his 
 health. Indirectly those mysterious disturbances at the 
 Stillwells , which the village spiritualists so exaggerated, 
 have resulted in good to several people. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 BROTHER GEORGE. 
 
 A MONG the most deeply-rooted of all rural ideas is 
 /I the dislike of paying debts. Of course most coun 
 try folk do pay their debts first or last, but many of them 
 do it grudgingly. It almost requires a surgical operation 
 to get the old pocket-book pathetically lean out of the 
 long trowsers-pocket, and it seems an eternity before it 
 opens and the little money the poor farmer has scraped 
 up with hard toil is laid before the remorseless creditor. 
 
 All debts are divided into classes. They begrudge 
 less the paying out of money for what are called neces 
 saries what they eat and drink. Then come the taxes, 
 which must be paid, or the sacred soil will be seized and 
 sold. It is harder to meet the demand for the payment 
 of children s schooling, which to many seems hardly so 
 needful as children s shoes. Even at this late day there 
 are country folk who shrewdly suspect that, beyond the 
 three R s, schooling is a device foisted upon them by the 
 enemy, to make the boys and girls less willing to work in 
 the old groove their fathers have worn ; which gives 
 them high notions and separates them from humble but 
 worthy relatives who are not at all strong in grammar. 
 School money, therefore, stands in a category by itself, 
 and must from the very nature of the case come hard. 
 But it is paid with alacrity compared with the doctor s 
 bill, the pew rent, and the newspaper subscription. There 
 is something more intangible about the benefit conferred 
 by these than even about schooling. If the doctor, the 
 pastor, and the editor could be paid by a cord of wood 
 or a little " sass," it would come willingly. For cord- 
 
A POST-MERIDIAN VIEW. 409 
 
 wood and " sass " are far less mysterious and sacred in 
 the eyes of country folk than those counters of civiliza 
 tion, bank-notes and cart-wheel silver dollars. " Sass " 
 and cord-wood are often given away with a kindness 
 most good and gracious. But unfortunately the fashion 
 of paying with the fruits of the earth has gone out of 
 date. The parson, a notably long-suffering man, has re 
 fused to take any more barrels of apples and quarter- 
 loads of pumpkins in return for the spiritual pabulum he 
 deals out of a Sunday. 
 
 I must confess that I have a good deal of sympathy 
 with the farmer s reluctance to pay for medical advice 
 and old drugs which perhaps did no good to his inside, 
 but positive harm ; for old sermons now quite cold in the 
 memory, and which refuse to warm over ; and for old 
 newspapers, which it is conceded by every body, are the 
 stalest of all stale things. It is what one may call this 
 post-meridian view of physic, theology, and news that 
 makes the demand for payment look so preposterous in 
 the farmer s eyes. But still I perceive that the doctor, 
 the parson, and the editor have a certain value in a com 
 munity, and ought not to be allowed to starve outright, 
 though they often do, as we know, waste away in a slow 
 absorption of their substance, as bears live through the 
 winter, sucking their paws. 
 
 You know very well that a man who attends to every 
 body s business generally neglects his own. This to a 
 marked degree had been the case with Dr. John Riving- 
 ton. Inwardly he groaned over the confusion of his af 
 fairs, but outwardly he slipped along as he had done for 
 years, recording the amounts due him in his ledgers, but 
 making few vigorous efforts to collect long outstanding 
 debts. He could be kind to every body but himself. So 
 long as he was in the prime of life it did not matter much ; 
 he could always manage to scrape together enough to 
 live on. But now, though still vigorous, he was begin- 
 
410 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ning to feel in himself those subtle approaches of age he 
 knew so well slight touches of gout, nipping pains in 
 the joints, a coldness of the stomach in the morning that 
 needed warming up with a dose of bitters, a disinclina 
 tion to do night-work, slower motions, as if the old ma 
 chine were beginning to run down, and yet no visible 
 improvement of temper, but rather a tendency to look 
 upon the present condition of the world as very black 
 and hopeless, while all in the past lay steeped in the 
 aura of childish happiness, when he and his brother 
 George were lads together how long ago in the dim and 
 faded past ! 
 
 Much had come and gone to make the brothers for 
 getful and indifferent toward each other, but now pic 
 tures of the old days began to come back to the doctor 
 like sun-flashes, bright and" warm, and at times he almost 
 yearned with a woman s tenderness to see George again, 
 to live over the boyish times when they went to school 
 together, with arms thrown carelessly about each other s 
 shoulders. Those things came back with such vividness 
 that he lived over the sports and fun of far-away times ; 
 he heard the sound of George s careless whistle, the 
 very tones of his voice in the room even before he arose 
 in the morning. He was living in fancy in his mother s 
 house, and the present seemed to lose its grip and 
 reality. Then the doctor suspected he was getting 
 senile. For over thirty years he and George had not 
 met had only occasionally corresponded for part of the 
 time to make formal inquiries about each other s health 
 and fortunes. They wrote always in a stiff, old j fashioned 
 way now quite out of date. They sent these duty-letters 
 to each other once or twice a year, closing " Your well 
 wisher and ob d t servant." There was an ancient court 
 esy about this correspondence that made one think of 
 foolscap sheets and old seals. But the brothers had 
 really so little to say to each other that they often ran 
 
A BROTHER S WRONG. 4 11 
 
 aground in the first dozen lines, and eked out a sheet 
 with the condition of the crops and the state of the 
 weather in their respective neighborhoods. 
 
 All the years of separation until now Dr. Jack had felt 
 his heart burning with a sense of a brother s wrong. 
 George was less warm-hearted, hot-headed, impetuous, 
 and uncalculating than his brother. They had quarreled 
 about a girl, of course, and she had married George, as 
 the doctor believed, through an unfair advantage which 
 his brother had taken. But possibly he was wrong in all 
 this. The hard feeling and the inevitable separation 
 came all the same. George had gone far away to the 
 south-west and had become great in mining business, in 
 farming, and railroads. He was a rich and powerful 
 man, but scorned of his poor brother, the village doctor. 
 Dead silence between them for over twenty years. Then 
 she died, George s wife, and he wrote to Jack for the 
 first time. It was a kind of smothered heart-cry from a 
 desolate man, and the correspondence began with a touch 
 of sympathy, but soon lapsed into that formal, polite old 
 style that mocks the heart and feeds it with the east wind 
 when we long for a warm seat beside a brother s hearth. 
 She was gone, and the doctor could hardly remember 
 how she had looked. All the life and fire had gone out of 
 that old time when he had quivered with emotion and 
 suffered such burning heats and chilis for her sake. But 
 kinship has a longer and tougher root. It comes up in 
 green shoots, and puts forth little blossoms long after we 
 think it is quite dead. 
 
 Dr. Jack cared nothing about the rich man ; indeed, 
 was rather scornful and hostile toward him. The old 
 quarrel had left enough acerbity for purposes of 
 family criticism. Yet, unaccountably, he longed for the 
 brother he had lost so long ago. Oh, that he might get 
 the lad back again, and dog on behind him as he used to 
 do up the hilly lane, all aglow from swimming in the 
 
412 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 pond ! He lived over their boyish scrapes in the barn 
 and on fishing tours ; how they played truant from 
 school to dig out a muskrat ; how the old horse Deacon 
 ran away one Fourth of July when they were going to a 
 " celebration " in the next town, and threw George out 
 and stunned him and cut his head a little, so that the 
 blood flowed down his temple, and how scared he (Jack) 
 was. 
 
 He knew he was getting senile, because he contin 
 ually lived over the old boyish life of fifty years ago 
 when he was driving along country roads, and the 
 autumnal scents and sunshine warm on the dying leaves 
 touched some chord in his heart and made it vibrate. 
 He would laugh aloud to himself over George s tricks 
 and sharpness when a boy. He (Jack) always came out 
 at the little end of the horn with his brother in a trade, a 
 bargain, or a swap. George got all the best things in 
 the end, and there was nothing belonging to old blunder- 
 heels Jack, not even his sweetheart, which he coveted 
 that he did not contrive to win away. But the doctor 
 could think of it now with a kind of admiring indulgent 
 tenderness for George, making him only the fonder of 
 the lad. 
 
 Strange to say, in his letters to his brother he never 
 hinted at these feelings, which he would have been 
 ashamed to confess to any body. The rich railroad-man 
 and land-owner in the south-west, an oldish man now, 
 alone in the world, and somewhat broken by ill-health, 
 was not George, that sharp, wide-awake, cunning little 
 chap. But where was George ? he asked whimsically. 
 Somehow he had miserably perished out of the world. 
 The boy was non-existent. He could never even hope 
 to meet him in heaven, if there is such a place, and yet 
 the old doctor longed so for him his heart at times felt 
 actually sore ; he had a dim notion that old blunder- 
 heels Jack, who had allowed himself to be hoodwinked, 
 
AN INVETERATE DREAMER. 413 
 
 and cheated, and ridden over rough-shod, was somehow 
 intact in his own breast. Many and many a time he had 
 backed little George up the lane to show his superior 
 strength. Alas, he would never do it again. Soon they 
 would carry him out by the feet ; and there was no hope 
 of finding in the other world the lost lad that he had 
 loved. 
 
 So you see the doctor, with all his pathological insight 
 into his own case, was an inveterate dreamer. His dream 
 territory was much larger than his actual possessions. 
 It took only a line of poetry, a strain of some old song 
 his granddaughter sang at the piano, and which he 
 caught of an evening as he opened the door, to set him 
 tingling all over, every fiber quick with young feeling. 
 But now his granddaughter was growing up a tall, hand 
 some girl. She must be sent away to school. She must 
 be portioned some time in marriage. The little fortune left 
 her by her grand-aunt (greatly exaggerated by public 
 rumor) had now it was discovered dwindled away to a 
 mere nothing owing to its original investment in the 
 stock of a wild-cat mining company. These thoughts 
 came to him one day when he discovered Effie was no 
 longer a child, but had put on long dresses and wore her 
 hair " tucked up." Indeed, the top of her curly head 
 now came higher than his shoulder. The doctor put his 
 arm round her with the confused feeling that he was doing 
 something improper in embracing a strange young lady. 
 
 That evening, with a great deal of inward groaning 
 and many grimaces, he drew down from his office shelf 
 his old dusty ledgers, some of which dated as far back 
 as 1850. His wife had always been mildly urging him 
 to collect his bills. Now he had two lamps brought in, 
 and, locking the office door, he settled down to a long 
 spell of work, the hardest job of his whole life. After 
 long years of carelessness and neglect of his own interest, 
 he was resolved now to have a settlement with his debt- 
 
414 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ors, and to call in at least a portion of what was due him. 
 It is safe to say that he would gladly have endured much 
 physical torture rather than put his hand to this needful 
 business. He had lain awake the previous night and 
 planned to send the bills out through the post, thus 
 screening himself as far as possible from the well-merited 
 wrath of his neighbors. On looking the case over dis 
 passionately, he found himself taking their side in 
 advance. As he clapped the dust off the covers of those 
 old ledgers he hated them with a deadly hatred. A 
 thousand times he had been tempted to burn them, and 
 he bitterly regretted that he had not acted on his impulse, 
 for the futility of what he was about to do weighed him 
 down. But he owed this sacrifice of personal feeling to 
 the child. He would have given his heart s blood to her, 
 and now his gray head went down over the hateful page. 
 He squared his elbows, savagely dipped his pen in ink, 
 and began to run his eye down long rows of entries 
 names, dates, figures. He muttered, and mumbled, and 
 groaned to himself as he tried to make head or tail out 
 of this dreadful piece of work. " M-m-m, M-m-Fisher, 
 ten years medicines and attendance. M-m-m-Forbes, 
 eighty visits. Old man dead. M-m-m-m-m-Hicks, 
 paralytic. Jones, debt outlawed." 
 
 For a week, girding at the horrid task, ejaculating and 
 spluttering as if taking some of his own bitter stuff, the 
 doctor kept on intermittently with what he had in hand. 
 In spite of all the outlawed debts, the removals, and the 
 large sums he had given outright to the poor, and crossed 
 off finally, he was appalled by the amount justly due him 
 in the country. He thought the matter over for a few days, 
 and then decided to deduct twenty per cent, from all 
 the bills, and to inclose each in a little explanatory note 
 modestly setting forth his necessities. This he hoped 
 would partly take the curse off the whole proceeding. 
 He called in his granddaughter to copy all the bills, and 
 
THE PINCH COMES. 4*5 
 
 write the letters in her school-girl hand from a form which 
 he had prepared. Perhaps he secretly hoped that inno 
 cent chirography might make its appeal to the hearts of 
 his neighbors. 
 
 The bills were sent out on a Thursday afternoon. 
 Luckily it was a healthy time ; and for three days there 
 after the doctor kept as much as possible within doors. 
 He felt so ashamed and humiliated he knew not how to 
 face any body, and yet, as he fumbled about in his mind, 
 he could discover no just ground for the feeling, unless 
 it was that he had so long neglected his duty to himself, 
 his debtors might feel that they had a claim on his crim 
 inal carelessness which would offset all they owed him. 
 He knew the pinch would come, like turning a door on a 
 finger in the crack, and he felt for his neighbors quite 
 impersonally by aid of the sympathetic imagination with 
 which he was endowed. 
 
 For a few days the village was sullen and silent. Its 
 astonishment knew no bounds. But at length the clamor 
 broke forth. One old woman complained bitterly that 
 all the members of her family he had doctored were dead. 
 He could only answer that one was a cripple, and another 
 a very old person, and he had prolonged their lives for 
 years, often riding five miles on cold winter nights to 
 minister to them. It is peculiar to human nature, let the 
 disease be what it may, to believe that if a friend had 
 been differently treated he or she would have recovered. 
 Now all the old cases were raked up out of their graves, 
 and to hear the talk in the village you would suppose 
 that earthly immortality might have reigned there, and 
 Burying-Ground Hill be now untenanted, but for the doc 
 tor s drugs. Can people be expected to pay the doctor 
 for killing off their relatives, especially after the debts 
 have mostly outlawed ? The idea is preposterous. A 
 few friends, especially the little milliner and Mrs. Judge 
 Magnus, were hotly indignant at all this ungrateful, hard- 
 
41 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 hearted talk, but their heat did little good. Some peo 
 ple refused to pay the old bills because they had lost all 
 track of them, and did not believe they were owing any 
 thing. Others demanded large reductions, which the 
 doctor made with a sardonic smile on his face. He had 
 worked for these people year in and year out, and yet 
 they would stone him if they could, when he asked them 
 to pay only a small part of what was his due. One day 
 he came into his wife s sitting-room looking thoroughly 
 disgusted and out of tune. 
 
 "Well, well," he grunted, "you made me do it. You 
 got me into this scrape. You would keep at me about 
 the bills" (the doctor could be terribly unjust in such 
 moods), "and now I have turned all the folks against 
 me, and all for nothing. I have only been able to collect 
 less than a thousand dollars, when there are eight or ten 
 thousand due me, at the lowest figure. When I die there 
 will be nothing left for you and Effie except this house, 
 unless I insure my life and put a ball and chain on my 
 leg." 
 
 " No need of that," said Mrs. Rivington, in her low, 
 sad voice. " I shall go first, and Effie will marry a better 
 business man than you are, John, and she will keep you 
 when you are old." 
 
 The doctor gave a scornful laugh and flung out of the 
 room. When his wife wished to exasperate him she 
 always began to talk about "going first." He went to 
 his office and slammed and locked the door, and began 
 to smoke like a steam-engine. He was angry with his 
 wife, but he knew she was as innocent as a saint above. 
 In a few days, when he had nearly smoked himself to 
 death, he came out into peace of mind and sweet reason 
 ableness, sweeter than clarified honey. He went one 
 afternoon and picked some late artemisias in the old 
 garden, and came and pinned them gallantly in his wife s 
 kerchief. " Judith," said he, " let the old debts be d . 
 
THE BROTHER IS FOUND. 4*7 
 
 I know I am a dragon to live with, and I wonder you 
 have stood it so long." 
 
 She looked up with her lovely old eyes just slightly 
 suffused. Ah me, if we could only be a little kinder to 
 those we love ! 
 
 It was just as this scene was taking place within doors 
 that the best depot hack drove up to the door. That 
 hack charged fifty cents apiece for passengers, while the 
 second-best charged only twenty-five. When the best 
 hack drove up to the door people always felt that some 
 body had been rather recklessly extravagant. " Who is 
 it ? " said the doctor, as he looked out of the window. 
 " Are you expecting a visitor ? " And then he motioned 
 to his wife with his eyes. She shook her head, and went 
 and looked over the doctor s shoulder. The man who 
 alighted from the best hack was older in appearance than 
 the doctor, and quite white about the brow. He walked 
 a little lame, and leaned on a stick as he came slowly 
 through the front yard. He entered the house without 
 knocking, as if it had been his own. The doctor stood 
 riveted to his place, with something of wonder, almost 
 of fright, painted on his features. The stranger came in 
 and took off his hat to Mrs. Rivington, with a gesture 
 that would have been most urbane but for the tremor in 
 his hands. He never knew what he said. He drew near 
 to the doctor, and their hands felt for each other and 
 clasped. They looked into each other s eyes, and the 
 boy George must have come up some way into those 
 faded, pale-blue orbs, for the doctor fell on his neck, 
 half-choked and fairly sobbing, " My brother was lost, 
 but is found." 
 
 George Rivington sat down gasping a little. It was 
 evident his heart was not very strong. " I will get you a 
 draught," said the doctor, alarmed. 
 
 " No, no, I want you," returned George, faintly, reach 
 ing out his hand. Like so many poor creatures, he 
 
41 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS., 
 
 was ill for that vivifying affection that brings new 
 life. 
 
 It was enough to spoil our petted and pampered pess 
 imism to see those two old brothers going about the vil 
 lage together. It seemed to bring back the feeling of a 
 fount of sweet, pure goodness welling up in life a prin 
 ciple divine and incalculable, in spite of our arid doubts 
 or more arid beliefs. They lived their lives all over 
 again. They even came to the most perfect understand 
 ing about the long estrangement and its cause. They 
 laughed and slapped each other on the back as they 
 talked over their old boyish scrapes. They smoked to 
 gether, and sometimes sat hours in silence, feeling that 
 the luxury of unspoken intercourse brought them nearer 
 than words. 
 
 One morning the doctor came to seek his wife in her 
 own room : " My dear," said he he seldom called her 
 " my dear " " George is going to take charge of Erne s 
 education, and if I go first " this with a little malice 
 "he will see that you want for nothing. You know," he 
 added, straightening himself a little proudly, " I can take 
 it from a brother." 
 
 The good doctor knew how blessed it is to give ; he 
 now knows how blessed it is to receive for love s sake. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE UNEARNED INCREMENT. 
 
 A FTER the people had treated the doctor about as 
 1\ badly as they could, and had flung their hard words 
 at his head, .they began to feel ashamed of themselves. 
 It was rumored about town that the doctor had thought 
 of selling out to a young practitioner and going West 
 with his brother George. Then the village discovered 
 that he was the chief jewel in its crown, and that it could 
 not live without him. All the bitter, sarcastic remarks 
 bearing on his physic and treatment of cases were for 
 gotten, and the village felt desolated in advance by the 
 mere suggestion of his departure. Have you ever 
 remarked that singular trait in human nature that 
 people will try to make up by a needless spurt of gen 
 erosity for some essential failure in justice ? It is like 
 the man who beat his wife and then tried to soothe her 
 feelings by taking her to a circus. Now, the villagers 
 thought to salve over the sore place in the doctor s mind 
 by some such attempt. The whisper went round among 
 the frightened people that it would be well to do some 
 thing to show their gratitude to the doctor, to prove to 
 him how dear and valuable he was to them, and to bind 
 him to them by new and lasting ties. 
 
 Judge Magnus made it a point to see his friends, the 
 richest and most influential men in the neighborhood, 
 and to say, with beautiful expansiveness and manifold 
 gesticulation, that something must be done. " I tell 
 you, sir, we must celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday in 
 Library Hall, and we must do it in fine style hand 
 somely, sir, handsomely. I think we ought to present 
 
420 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 him with a piece of plate a pitcher or a salver. Yes, 
 sir ; we must do the thing in fine shape, and show the 
 doctor he is appreciated. A glorious old fellow, sir, if 
 there ever was one. Mrs. Magnus is devoted to him, 
 and so am I ; and if nobody helps buy the testimonial, I 
 will do it all, sir, out of my own pocket. It is a shame 
 the doctor has never received any token of regard from 
 his townsmen. I shall be proud to head a subscription 
 for this admirable purpose." 
 
 Milly, when she heard of it, remarked dryly that if the 
 judge bought the testimonial and presided at the meet 
 ing and made the speech of the evening, he would for 
 get all about the doctor and present the piece of plate to 
 himself in a perfect sun-burst of self-admiration. 
 
 But the judge began to fuss about, looking more portly 
 and imposing than ever, with a subscription paper in hand, 
 which he had headed with the sum of one hundred dollars. 
 The ladies consulted together and decided to trim the hall 
 with flowers, greens, and autumn leaves, and to give the 
 refreshments, which were to be of the choicest. By some 
 means or other, the doctor got wind of the affair. Donner 
 und blitzen ! You ought to have seen the storm of scorn 
 and rage raised in that good man s breast. Heavens ! 
 had he come to the ignominy of a subscription paper ? 
 " Go along with your testimonial," he growled, with other 
 expressions I should be sorry to write down in cold blood. 
 " I will have none of that nonsense. A piece of plate, 
 indeed ! What do I want of plate, beyond a door-plate 
 or a coffin-plate ? I tell you I will not give the thing 
 house-room. Nor will I have any hypocritical fuss made 
 over me. But I have learned a wrinkle or two from 
 brother George, and I give you fair warning, every six 
 months hereafter my bills will be sent out promptly, and 
 if they are not paid, they will be placed in a lawyer s 
 hands for collection." 
 
 Now the feeling in the village is that the doctor is of a 
 
SERMONS ON LIFE. 421 
 
 very bearish, uncertain temper ; that his peculiarities are 
 growing upon him, and poor Mrs. Rivington is very much 
 to be pitied ; and that this new rule about bills is a rea 
 son for keeping as well as possible and not calling in the 
 doctor nearly as often as in the old easy-going days. 
 
 The young clergyman is apt to preach two or three 
 startling sermons after he comes home, and the vacation 
 supply of ex-college professors and clericals ceases. He 
 knows his people deserve some compensation for sitting 
 under a preacher like Stackpole and listening to his long- 
 winded discourses about how Joshua blew down the city 
 wall with a ram s horn, and how the sun stood still upon 
 Gideon. Besides his orthodox and his heterodox foot 
 the young man has a third means of support as yet 
 unclassified. When standing on this he preaches practi 
 cal sermons on the conduct of life, sermons which, we 
 may say, relate to contemporaneous human interest, and 
 often open long reaches of thought and are as innovating 
 in certain ways as his free-thinking discourses. When 
 he brings in discussions about egoism and altruism, the 
 people feel not a little complimented. It is doing rever 
 ence to the village intellect to suppose it can understand 
 such things. 
 
 About a year ago the young parson preached a remarka 
 ble discourse on sacrifice, in which he attempted to show 
 that the commonly received opinion of sacrifice is wrong 
 and immoral. We have no right, he said, to demand the 
 abasement of a high, pure, beautiful nature to a low, selfish, 
 bestial character. We have no right to crucify the best 
 and noblest in us to pamper the evil passions and indulge 
 the coarse vices of degraded beings. Such an immolation 
 of the good, though it is often lauded by people calling 
 themselves Christians, can not be acceptable to God. 
 He illustrated his discourse by allusions to characters in 
 two well known novels a rather startling thing in itself 
 to show how virtue is often trampled under the hoofs of 
 
422 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 vice in obedience to a false standard of morality. Then 
 he dwelt on the duty to the individual soul, the effort to 
 wards self-perfection as an aim of life, the good done by 
 raising the level of character, and wound up with a long 
 and thrilling poetical quotation. 
 
 The seeds of that sermon fell here and there some 
 doubtless on poor soil, some an stony ground, but a few 
 were dropped and germinated in the most unlikely place. 
 Sitting in one of the front pews with Salmon A. Poindex- 
 ter s children and the governess who taught them French, 
 German, and music, was Miss Christina Poindexter, sister 
 to the said Salmon A. She was one of those round-faced, 
 placid, mild-looking New England women who never 
 crimp the front hair, or " bang " it, but brush it smooth 
 against an unlined brow, and look out upon the world 
 with thoughtful and intelligent eyes and no little sweetness 
 and charm of expression, long after they have passed 
 their first youth. The Poindexters are not exactly of the 
 village. They live upon the fringes of it, two or three 
 miles down the valley, on the slope of a green knoll, 
 which has been adorned with beautiful lawns and shrub 
 beries and a goodly number of rather poor statues, which 
 are to Mr. Poindexter s taste, though his wife more than 
 half objects to so many unclad composition nymphs shiv 
 ering about in the wet and cold. The house is new and 
 large, of staring red brick and terracotta, and it com 
 mands a lovely view of the valley and distant ranges of 
 hills. When it was first erected, it was so very red, the 
 joke went about the country that the scarlet fever had 
 broken out on Poindexter s place. 
 
 Salmon A. Poindexter has been a very prosperous busi 
 ness man ; moreover, he has had the good fortune to 
 marry a rich wife, whose thousands he has increased to 
 tens of thousands by shrewd investments, until now it is 
 said that he is verysolid, worth at least a million of dollars, 
 and perhaps more. Poindexter comes flashing through 
 
SALMON A. 423 
 
 the village with his high-stepping horses, his glittering 
 equipage, and jingling sun-bright harness. He looks 
 about him as if he owned every thing, and we, poor creat 
 ures, were only there on sufferance. His sense of own 
 ership and moneyed superiority is not at all like that of 
 Judge Magnus a simple, old-fashioned, local pride, as 
 transparent as window-glass. Salmon A. s has an element 
 of arrogance the people resent, while they love the judge 
 and laugh at him with right good will. Poindexter s 
 prosperity is new and shiny, and so full-blown it pervades 
 every thing like a too rank vegetable odor. Poor devils 
 who have not chanced to make a success in life, though 
 they have tried with the best intentions, find themselves 
 squeezed against the wall in his presence. Salmon A. 
 naturally likes to associate with millionaires. If he con 
 descends to men of low degree, there is something of 
 offense in his manner, as much as to say, " I could buy 
 and sell you twenty times over if I chose to put my hand 
 in my pocket." There is hardly any one in the village 
 with whom he feels he can associate except the judge, 
 and the latter always likes to play first fiddle in his own 
 district ; he does not, therefore, care much about mixing 
 up with Poindexter. 
 
 Salmon A. respects his wife because she is his wife, 
 and because her father had the good sense to accumulate 
 a large fortune for him to handle, enlarge and enjoy. But 
 it may be said that his sister Crissie, that plain, modest, 
 unassuming old maid, was nearer to him for years than 
 any body else. He thought he knew, about the time 
 I am writing of, every fold and crease in Crissie s na 
 ture, for she was a part of himself, and had never had 
 any other life than his life, or any other interests than his 
 interests. Before he married, Crissie had kept house for 
 her brother, and later, it may be said she still kept his 
 house. Though Mrs. Poindexter was the head of the 
 family, like many of the wealthy and pampered people of 
 
424 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 our time she was uneasy and restless in a beautiful home, 
 and liked to flit about to the South, and to Europe, to the 
 watering places in summer. She was perfectly well, but 
 she still felt that the state of her health demanded fre 
 quent change. 
 
 But Crissie was always at home as care-taker and gen 
 eral manager. The children could be left with her at 
 any time. Mrs. Poindexter was aware that Crissie knew 
 more about their diseases and dispositions than she her 
 self did. The middle girl, Beatrice, had slept with her 
 aunt until she was five or six, and the children certainly 
 minded Aunt Cris with as much alacrity as their mother, 
 and perhaps loved her more. But Mrs. Poindexter was 
 not jealous. Crissie was too great a godsend to her for 
 that. She wondered and speculated about her sister-in- 
 law a great deal. She tried to penetrate into her mind, 
 and learn the secret of her placidity. Why did she go on 
 with this life ? Why did she not break violently away ? 
 Not for worlds would she have been Cris. She contrasted 
 her own rich and rather flamboyant dress with Crissie s 
 plain, demure style. How could Cris stand it ? Always 
 at the bottom of her mind lay the dread that Cris would 
 some day discover she was not bound over hand and foot 
 for life, and would assert her independence. 
 
 When Mrs. Poindexter was at home, she liked to have 
 the house well filled with fashionable friends, and it some 
 times happened, at an over-crowded moment, that Cris 
 sie s room was required by a visitor. Then she went 
 quietly into the nursery and slept with one of the little 
 girls. Moreover, if the pastry cook departed at a moment s 
 notice, as pastry cooks are apt to do, Crissie could be de 
 pended upon to make delicious desserts, pastry, and ices, 
 and cake, and cream, all in a dainty fashion of her own. 
 And yet she was a highly cultivated woman, although Mrs. 
 Poindexter s guests were not often of a sort to discover 
 the fact. She had read much and enjoyed music, and 
 
A SISTER-IN-LA W S FICTION. 425 
 
 pictures, and all refined, good things. She was interested 
 in ideas, and had a great many of her own stowed away 
 under her smooth brown hair and back of those clear gray 
 eyes. She had not cultivated expression, for she feared 
 to be put down by the heavy hand of Salmon A., who 
 felt that he was quite able to do the thinking of the family. 
 He would not openly tolerate ideas in his women kind, 
 especially in Crissie. Mrs. Poindexter, having a large 
 fortune in her own right, was entitled to some freedom of 
 opinion, but Crissie, being his creature, was expected to 
 catch the reflection of his mind and live according to what 
 he deemed proper for a legal spinster. 
 
 Mrs. Poindexter, spite of the fear in the depths of her 
 mind, and though she desired not to be untrue to herself, 
 was in the habit of saying to her friends that Crissie was 
 the most domestic creature in the world. No existence 
 would suit her but the life she led in her brother s house. 
 She loved the children so dearly it was impossible to 
 separate her from them a single night. Nothing was so 
 delightful to Crissie as to give up her own bed and go in 
 and sleep with the little girls. Moreover, she enjoyed 
 the care of the place, and was very fond of breaking in 
 green, stupid servants. It was a pleasure for her to be 
 alone with them part of the year in that great house, for 
 no one cared so little for society as Cris. 
 
 This was Mrs. Poindexter s story, and she had repeated 
 it over so often that at moments she almost believed it. 
 She was a worldly woman, but not absolutely unfeeling. 
 In one corner of her heart she loved Crissie and pitied her. 
 She wondered at times to herself, as she dreamily slipped 
 the diamond rings round on her finger, sitting in luxurious 
 ease before the great open fire in the wide hall, how Cris 
 could have lived all these years unwedded a kind of 
 foot-ball in her brother s house and yet have kept her 
 sweetness and her good looks ; for she could not but 
 confess that at times Crissie, with all her plainness, was 
 
426 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 very attractive. Through a refined selfishness, which it 
 was impossible for her psychological analysis to separate 
 from pure good feeling, she tried to take her sister-in- 
 law s part with Salmon. 
 
 " You ought not to speak so to Cris," she would say in 
 these moments of wifely discipline. 4< You know she is 
 very sensitive. If you must bully somebody, bully me. 
 Wives, I suppose, were made to be bullied." 
 
 " Bullied sensitive ; what do you mean, Angeline ? 
 Don t I know Crissie just like a book ? She is my own 
 kin, and it s a pity if I don t understand her better than 
 any body else. Do you suppose she minds what I say to 
 her when I am vexed ? Poh ! Why, she expects I will 
 be a little rough sometimes. Father was before me, and 
 she knows where it comes from. Don t try to teach me, 
 Angeline, how I am to treat my own sister. Leave Cris 
 sie alone ; she is a level-headed woman if ever there was 
 one." 
 
 " Well, I know I should resent your roughness if I were 
 your sister," laughed his wife. " I often wonder how 
 Crissie can stand it." 
 
 " I am very glad you are not my sister. We should 
 always be fighting like cat and dog, but as my wife, with 
 all your whims indulged, we get along comfortably 
 enough." 
 
 " It don t cost you any thing to indulge my whims," 
 returned Angeline, with the asperity a rich wife knows 
 how to throw into a cutting little speech. 
 
 Crissie had thousands of thoughts she never told to any 
 body, and consequently she led a suppressed life. She 
 was one of the " shut-ins." In her own room at night, 
 while the others were entertaining company down stairs, 
 and the children were in bed, asleep, she read and re 
 flected. Somewhere in a work on political economy she 
 came upon the theory of the unearned increment of rent 
 which should be taxed for the general good, and the idea 
 
HER ONLY LOVE AFFAIR. 427 
 
 struck her in quite a new and original light. There, she 
 said to herself, that is just what I am, an unearned incre 
 ment, something that belongs to the proletariat, a kind 
 of common, to be beaten down and cropped by all the 
 herds a thing without individual life, a convenience, a 
 poor undivided remainder, left over for all the members 
 of a large family to use, but belonging to none of them. 
 The thought of just what she stood for in the realm of 
 exact definitions came upon Crissie at first with a sense 
 of the ludicrous, but later she began to cry for just noth 
 ing at all, as women do ; and old memories stirred in her, 
 and sobs broke up the depths of her placid exterior. She 
 recalled her only love affair with a new shock of pain 
 how Salmon had broken it off with his strong, heavy 
 hand, because Judson was poor, and he wanted Crissie to 
 minister to his comfort ; and now Judson was dead, and 
 she was an attachment in a rich man s house, serving on 
 to twice seven years. 
 
 It was a few days after Crissie s tempestuous night, 
 such a night as brings new weather in the soul, that 
 Crissie went to church in the village with the children 
 and the governess, and the young clergyman preached 
 that powerful but erratic sermon about our duty to our 
 selves and the perfection of being. The seed fell on 
 prepared ground and Crissie came home with her eyes 
 so feverishly bright that Mrs. Poindexter asked her at 
 the luncheon table if she were not well. Oh, yes, she was 
 quite well, never better. In fact there was so much 
 moral dynamite stored up in Crissie s brain at that 
 moment, it is a wonder it did not explode and blow the 
 roof off. Crissie was not absolutely dependent. Her 
 father had left her a small portion at his death, which 
 her brother Salmon, it must be said to his credit, had 
 managed with excellent judgment. He was always 
 joking her about her estate, telling her that some day it 
 might actually amount to ten thousand dollars, and per- 
 
VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 haps by his shrewd and skillful manipulations might yield 
 her an interest of ten per cent. 
 
 " Of course," he would say to his wife, " Cris will 
 never use a penny of it ; I give her all the money she 
 wants, and she is naturally economical. When she dies, 
 it will come to the children ; and it is a mere matter of 
 form, my keeping it separate, with an account-book of its 
 own. You see what a conscientious fellow I am." 
 
 But Mrs. Poindexter, who was always on the alert 
 about Crissie, with her sharp feminine eyes noticed that 
 a change had come over her sister-in-law. Her eye was 
 brighter, her very step more energetic and purposeful. 
 What could it mean ? Had leaven got into Crissie s 
 dough ? When not engaged with her household duties, 
 she was always busy in her own room writing out notes 
 from some book, and footing up little columns of figures 
 on scraps of paper. One of these fell into her sister-in- 
 law s hands, and she could make nothing of it, but she 
 kept it to show to Salmon, and then forgot all about it. 
 It happened one afternoon that Crissie had written an 
 important letter which she wished to post privately in 
 the village. She asked for the carriage ; of course she 
 could always have it when it was not in demand for some 
 other member of the household. But it so chanced this 
 afternoon that Mrs. Poindexter was going to the next town 
 for a drive, where she would meet her husband, just re 
 turned from the city. 
 
 Crissie withdrew to her own room, and with trembling, 
 eager hands, buttoned her street-jacket and tied on her 
 bonnet. It was the first step toward a new departure. 
 She slipped out of the side door, and through the grounds, 
 to evade the children. She set off along the village road 
 in a half-run, which settled into a dog-trot, and finally 
 lapsed into a quick, nervous walk. Crissie was natur 
 ally not much of a walker. Now the exercise became 
 delightful to her, and she suspected that she would 
 
THE MOMENT OF REVOLT. 429 
 
 have aged very young if something had not come to 
 stir her up. The sky was of a cool November blue, with 
 streaks and patches of purple cloud sailing high. The 
 dark hills had warm gleams upon them, and the air tin 
 gled in the nostrils and braced the system like a cordial. 
 The naked trees, rooted in mosses, looked friendly and 
 sympathetic ; and as she went along, scattering the fallen 
 leaves with the swish and flow of her skirts, her brain 
 seemed to be humming some old doggerel, keeping time 
 to the motion of her feet. First it went " Te-tum, te-tum, 
 te-tum. I am not, I am not." Then it changed a little, 
 " I will not be, I will not be an unearned increment." 
 
 As Crissie came back a few hours later she met the 
 carriage with Mrs. Poindexter and her husband beside 
 her on the back seat, looking fairly blossomed red in the 
 face with prosperity, and with his clothes all new as if 
 they had just come off the shop counter. They stopped 
 the carriage and took her in. " Why, Cris," said her 
 sister-in-law, " I thought you never walked. I thought 
 you disliked walking." 
 
 " I thought so to," said Cris, "but I find that I do 
 like it. I am discovering some new things about myself." 
 
 Mrs. Poindexter telegraphed with her eyes to her hus 
 band, and he returned the glance, quite puzzled. 
 
 " Well, I have made a pleasant discovery, too, Cris, 
 and in your interest," said Salmon. " Your little fortune 
 yields a whole thousand this year." 
 
 " I am glad of it," Cris returned demurely, though she 
 was quaking inside. " I shall need the money." 
 
 " Don t you have sufficient pocket-money, Cris ? " 
 
 " I don t mean that. I am going to live for a time on 
 my income." 
 
 Salmon gave a scornful, incredulous laugh, and Ange- 
 line turned quite pale. She saw the moment of revolt 
 had come. 
 
 " Bless my soul," cried Salmon, as if a musquito ha<4 
 
43 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. , 
 
 revolted against his big hand. u If our Cris isn t going 
 to be independent, and live all alone by herself, and have 
 nothing to do with nobody." 
 
 " That s about it," and Cris shut her mouth firmly, and 
 then opened it again, clinching her hands under the edge 
 of the carriage-robe to give her strength. " A woman, 
 though she is unmarried a dreadful old maid has a 
 right to some portion of her own life. She is an individ 
 ual, and not an un " She checked herself. It would 
 
 be too ridiculous to betray that secret. Cris said this 
 over with deliberate slowness, as if she had been coach 
 ing herself a long time, which, in fact, was the case. But 
 she was really so excited she hardly knew what she was 
 saying. 
 
 Salmon again laughed scornfully as the carriage moved 
 slowly forward, and he sat there just opposite his sister 
 that ungrateful sister-worm who at last had turned. He 
 refused to take her seriously, and yet he felt a strong im 
 pulse of rising passion. " I never knew, Cris, there was 
 any insanity in our family, but I begin to think you are 
 out of your mind. What do you propose to do, now you 
 are about to assert your brand-new independence and 
 have it all your own way ? " 
 
 Cris pulled one of those little slips of paper out of her 
 pocket she had been scribbling on so much of late and 
 began to read. " I am going to spend the winter in New 
 York and shall visit art galleries, listen to music, and go 
 to the theater. The Bruces have promised to take charge 
 of me. They have already found me a boarding-place. 
 I should not wonder if I began to crimp my hair. In the 
 spring I am going to Germany, living is so cheap and de 
 lightful there. I know just with whom I am going to 
 stay Frau Lippert, Alter Strasse, Wiesbaden. Oh, such 
 a homelike place and such good cooking ! You couldn t 
 hire an attic in New York for what I shall pay Frau Lip- 
 pert. I am enjoying it all in anticipation, You know I 
 
" YOU ARE CRAZY: 431 
 
 have never seen much of the world." The carriage now 
 stopped at the door and the master of it descended in a 
 rage : " You are crazy, crazy as a loon, to think of 
 streaking off over the world alone. It is not decent or 
 respectable, and I will never permit it. Besides, you are 
 horribly hard-hearted to wish to leave the children when 
 they are at such an interesting age and so attached to 
 you." 
 
 " There is a child in my own soul that has been crying 
 in the dark this many a year," said Cris : " and I know, 
 Salmon A. Poindexter, and so do you, that I belong ab 
 solutely to myself." She swept out of the room looking 
 a foot taller than usual. Salmon gazed after her with 
 stupid, lowering wonder, and then he fell into a state of 
 angry collapse, ^nd for several days almost refused to 
 speak to his sister. But his wife, in a sudden, unexpected 
 fit of generosity, took Crissie s side. 
 
 " I am glad you are going," said she. " I respect you 
 for it, Cris. Salmon has no business to behave as he 
 does ; and I know now that I have wronged you. Hund 
 reds of times I have told people that you liked to be a 
 second mother to the children to give up every thing 
 and stay at home, and bear my burdens. I made myself 
 half believe it, and now I am so sorry, Crissie. Say you 
 forgive me." Cris kissed her sister-in-law. It was just 
 before she entered the carriage to take the train for New 
 York. If Salmon A. had known just what part the young 
 minister had unwittingly played in his domestic affairs, I 
 believe he would have felt like thrashing him. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 JOE ELMORE AND BOB SMARTWEED AT HOME. 
 
 YOU may have heard of the literary housewife who 
 stewed her angels. Miss Candace has asked me for 
 a recipe to do up villagers. She thinks she would like to 
 can some for winter use. I can only say that villagers 
 must never be taken in a crude state. It is bad art, and 
 bad for the mental digestion. You must cook them a 
 long time, letting them simmer gently over a slow fire 
 so to speak, in their own sauce. You must not try to 
 make them look exactly like any body you have known, 
 but you must put the real essence of human nature into 
 them. You must have great regard to that invisible side 
 of villagers which, like the shadowed hemisphere of the 
 moon, we do not see with the naked eye. And when 
 they come out of your preserving-kettle done to a turn, 
 though they live just across the street or in your own 
 house, they will not know themselves ; they will believe 
 that, like malaria, they belong to the next town. I 
 should say that it is well to mix more of sugar than of 
 vinegar in the confection, and the product will be a kind 
 of sweet pickle which seems to hit the average of human 
 nature, neither good nor bad, but a little of both. 
 
 Now we are getting ready for Thanksgiving, and the 
 woods and hills stand so still and look so knowing these 
 gray days, I fancy they understand it all. The old 
 houses warm up slowly for the beloved festival, like the 
 great bake-ovens, where pies, and turkeys, and chicken 
 pasties all go in together. Did it ever strike you that the 
 world is very much like a Thanksgiving bake-oven ? We 
 are all put into the heat and stress of life, but the prod- 
 
JAKE SMALL S PA TRON. 433 
 
 uct is not as calculable as are the viands coming out of 
 the old oven. Some come out overdone, some under 
 done, some juicy and sweet, some all dried up and with 
 out substance, some with such a nice brown crust and 
 light as a feather, others heavy as lead and bad for the 
 digestion. Some are crisp, others are very tough. Some 
 get just the right burn on them, but nearly all are 
 scorched too much or not well done on the under-crust. 
 
 The mystic pre-Thanksgiving rites consist in cleaning, 
 and brushing a great deal. Windows must be washed, 
 rugs shaken, carpets swept with tea-leaves, and all the 
 table-service new burnished. We show our thankfulness 
 by trying to be very clean. The sons and daughters and 
 grandchildren and great-grandchildren are all coming 
 home. We seem to hear their voices afar off down the 
 railroad track and the blue hills open their arms to take 
 in the rovers, the world-weary exiles from the hearth 
 stone, and the flocks of little children who make the air 
 so sweet with their lispings. It is an autumn freshet of 
 kindred that floods the village and leaves a high-water 
 mark of good feeling. 
 
 Jake Small has been wondrously important and busy 
 of late. An air of mystery has hung round him amusing 
 to witness, and he has now absolutely no time to attend 
 to Mrs. Small and her eight children in the way of kind 
 lings, firewood, provisions, and the general comforts of 
 life. Jake believes in a special providence whose busi 
 ness it is to take care of his family and preside over the 
 domestic hearth, and as heaven thus far has been kind to 
 him in the shape of good neighbors who would think it a 
 scandal to let any one, however worthless, seriously suffer 
 within the town limits, he finds himself quite at ease to 
 attend to other people s affairs. 
 
 Jake has a patron to whom he is wholly subservient. 
 This is Joe Elmore, Margaret s brother, now in his sec 
 ond year at college, and very high in his secret fraternity. 
 
434 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Jake taught Joe all he knew when a boy about woodcraft, 
 fishing and gunning, and has always held him in the 
 greatest respect and affection, because Joe puts him down 
 in his place and assumes the mastery over him with a 
 perfectly unscrupulous hand. He is as fond of Joe 
 Elmore as he is of his ridiculous gore of land, and will 
 follow him about like a whipped dog that loves the hand 
 that beats it. In his high Sophomoric dignity Joe felt it 
 was absolutely necessary to look up some nice girl upon 
 whom he could fix his affections, some charmer to dream 
 about and scribble bad verses to, while he kept her pho 
 tograph stuck in his looking-glass and was joked about 
 her by his chum. It would be delightful to correspond 
 with this maiden on the sly, though there was no reason 
 for not doing so openly. Joe had looked around for an 
 eligible girl in the village to whom he could devote him 
 self, and he found a very nice one in the person of Stella 
 Withers, the eldest daughter of that Widow Withers who 
 married " Brother," and the sister of the twins. When 
 Joe selected his girl, much as he might have chosen the 
 finest pippin on an apple tree, he felt himself to be a con 
 noisseur in girls ; nothing but the best could pass muster 
 with him. What made the situation deliciously dramatic 
 was the fact that he had a rival, and must guard his girl 
 with Argus-eyes. 
 
 Joe had promised his sister Margaret and his aunt 
 solemnly not to go to wine-parties. He felt it a grievance, 
 for if there was any thing he coveted it was the reputa 
 tion of being very fast while he retained his pristine 
 innocence. He had been made very ill by smoking a few 
 cigarettes in the privacy of his own room, so that he 
 might tell the fellows that he did smoke sometimes. He 
 had been invited to drink tea twice at the houses of a 
 brace of old professors, and had been petted and praised 
 by their very mature sisters, cousins, and aunts. He had 
 a glorious time among those old ladies, and when he 
 
THE RIVALS. 435 
 
 went home at about ten at night he fairly danced across 
 the campus, hugging himself and saying inwardly : 
 "Whew! ain t I going it, though. This is life." He 
 told some tremendous " whoppers " to his chum as to the 
 age and general good looks of the faculty ladies, that 
 he might be envied of men. Joe s heart was so pure and 
 innocent that the smallest lapse from the college dis 
 cipline made him feel like a bandit from the plains. He 
 meant honestly to be a "dig," to justify all the sacrifices 
 Margaret and Miss Elmore were making for him. He 
 fully expected to turn out a very brilliant scholar, to 
 attain a high position in life, possibly to mount to the 
 presidency of these United States. But just now Joe 
 desired, like many another fine young fellow, to eat his 
 cake and have it too. It was perfectly comical to see 
 him assume the airs of a finished gentleman, copying the 
 manners of the president of his college, even to the mode 
 of using his handkerchief, and then lapse, in a moment 
 of forgetfulness, into a rather slangy college boy. He 
 never could bear the strain of fine manners very long, 
 but Margaret particularly enjoyed their assumption in 
 his noblest moods. 
 
 Now that Joe had set Jake Small Argus to watch his 
 lo in the form of Stella Withers, he felt so delightfully 
 villainous it seemed as though his rakish propensities 
 must be seen and known of all men. This beat making 
 mild love to the elderly ladies at professorial teas all 
 hollow. Joe s rival was an old friend and former com 
 rade, whom he had learned to distrust, if not to hate. 
 He was no other than Robert Smartweed, the very " cute " 
 young reporter on a small city paper, said daily being 
 possessed of an immense stock of brass, assurance, and 
 wicked inventions. 
 
 It published probably the worst-looking cuts of public 
 people that ever were devised. The very badness and 
 impossibleness of these cuts helped to sell the paper ; 
 
43^ VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 people bought it to see how far the pictorial art could 
 sink before it touched bottom. The stock of pictures 
 which did duty on all occasions got shuffled up like a 
 pack of playing-cards, and the editor forgot to whom 
 special ones belonged, and used them quite at random. 
 A saintly philanthropist or great divine was often repre 
 sented by some noted pugilist or murderer of extreme 
 ferocity. Bob Smartweed felt very proud of his profes 
 sion. There was nothing he cared to do but furnish 
 highly-spiced matter for his journal. He was naturally 
 of a chilly nature, and the cool impudence engendered 
 in him by his favorite vocation had congealed and 
 hardened until it was thought by his landlady hardly 
 necessary to keep a refrigerator in her basement, even in 
 summer. It hardly can be said that he never had been 
 young, but the semblance of youth he once may have 
 possessed was quite lost in the office of the illustrated 
 daily. At the time of which I am writing, the Sphinx of 
 Egypt was actually frisky compared with Bob. Tadmor 
 in the desert would seem juvenile beside him, and as for 
 the hills, we know the little ones sometimes skip like 
 lambs and the great ones like rams, so it would be 
 impossible to compare this nineteenth-century youth 
 even to them. He might possibly fraternize with " chaos 
 and old night," but nothing more nearly up to date. The 
 sarcastic expression and look of universal knowledge that 
 came over Bob when you tried to tell him any thing was 
 very amusing. He made every body feel as green as 
 grass, even his Grandfather Maydew, who lives in our 
 village ; and as to Grandma Maydew, she had a kind of 
 shuddering dread and delight in Bob, such as Gretchen 
 may have felt when she first encountered Faust. 
 
 " I feel kind of scared to have you on that paper," she 
 said timidly to Bob, who was at home for the autumn 
 holidays, looking up at him through her innocent old 
 glasses while paring a pan of rosy-cheeked apples for 
 
HE A D LINES DOUBL E-L OA DED. 437 
 
 Thanksgiving pies. " You know all them murders, and 
 suicides, and divorces, and babies smothered by whisky- 
 drinking mothers, or burned to crisp on red-hot stoves. 
 Oh, it is dretful," and she vaguely waved her hand as if 
 she had seen a vision of these noisome things like a flock 
 of carrion birds flying in at the windows of the editor s 
 sanctum. " Oh, it is dretful to have you there," and the 
 nice old lady heaved a deep, tremulous sigh. " What 
 have I got to do with the murders and suicides ? " 
 returned Bob, brushing himself off. He was always 
 brushing, being particularly nice about his person, even 
 to the tips of his well-kept finger-nails. 
 
 Grandma Maydew opened her mouth to answer his 
 question and then closed it again. She hated to betray 
 her ignorance to the sneer of her grandson Bob, but she 
 had always secretly felt that he was some way implicated 
 in the murders, and suicides, and other atrocities, and it 
 had been a subject of secret grief to her. 
 
 " I will tell you what, grandma," Bob resumed, with 
 condescending gentleness, " you must not be frightened 
 by head-lines double-leaded." " Head-lines double- 
 loaded," repeated the old dame, more mystified than ever. 
 Could he mean dynamite ? She meant to ask Marthy 
 when she came home that evening. Marthy was Bob s 
 sister, who taught school in the village. She was sharp 
 too, but in a different way from Bob, and she would 
 surely know what head-lines double-leaded meant. 
 
 "Well," she resumed, with another quivering sigh, 
 " the world is getting away from me. I can t pretend to 
 keep track of things. We never have had a murder here 
 in this town, though we have had most every thing else 
 in my time, and I do hope we never shall have one." 
 
 " It s entirely unnecessary to get one up for me to re 
 port in our paper," returned Bob, with one of his rare 
 laughs ; " and mind what I say, granny, don t be worried 
 by what you read. It s most of it " 
 
43 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 " You don t mean to say it s all a pack of lies ? " 
 
 " No, not quite that ; but it s cooked up doctored to 
 suit the public palate a little sage, and pepper, and 
 summer-savory, such as you put in your turkey stuffing, 
 granny." 
 
 " Well, mind what I tell you, Robert, it s devil s cook 
 ing." 
 
 Bob took his hat and went out for an afternoon stroll, 
 and his course lay in the direction of the big sycamore 
 tree and Stella Withers s home. Jake Small had been on 
 the look-out for him, and had written to Joe Elmore, who 
 was coming home for his vacation, and, indeed, did ar 
 rive the next evening, a cabalistic note which ran thus : 
 " The enemy have hove in sight. He is kind of laying 
 around loose just at present ; but I think he will put in 
 some fine work before long. You had better get home 
 immediate." This was written on a postal-card without 
 signature, in such a terrible hand it actually amounted to 
 a secret cipher, for it could only be made out by the one 
 to whom it was sent. 
 
 Jake saw Bob Smartweed go into the house, and en 
 sconcing himself in the shadow of the big tree, he watched 
 and listened. Presently a tune was struck up on the 
 piano, and then it stopped, and then it began again. Bob 
 was making a long call. Jake affectionately felt of a 
 thick stick he carried, and almost patted it in his desire 
 to exercise it on Smartweed s head. After a while Bob 
 came out and lingered a little at the door, with the rosy 
 face of Miss Stella just behind him. Jake sauntered 
 away, but not so far that he did not hear every thing that 
 was said : 
 
 " So you think you can t go ? I am very sorry." 
 " I m engaged," lisped Stella, sweetly, and then Bob 
 gave her a long, searching look, and turned and walked 
 slowly away. Bob had been asking Stella to take a buggy- 
 ride on Thanksgiving afternoon. Most of the young men 
 
STELLA SNUBS JAKE SMALL. 439 
 
 and maidens of this part of the country seem to think 
 Sundays and holidays were mainly invented to give them 
 an opportunity for buggy-riding. Joe Elmore had 
 engaged Stella in advance for this particular occasion, 
 having in his mind s eye his Uncle Hillman s new rig a 
 shining buggy and excellent fleet-footed horse, which he 
 had already arranged to borrow in order to cut as great 
 a dash as possible in town. There was at that time but 
 one rather poor livery-stable in the village, and Joe knew 
 well enough that Bob Smartweed could procure nothing 
 better than an old slouch of a horse and a very rusty rat 
 tletrap of a conveyance. 
 
 After Bob Smartweed had moved off from the door of 
 the cottage, Stella lingered a little on the porch to pick 
 some dead leaves from a few potted plants which stood 
 there under cover. She was humming a merry little air 
 which seemed to go to the words, " I will not be a re 
 porter s bride." Jack Small crept up to the steps and put 
 his hand to his ragged cap, and said in a loud whisper : 
 " If Mr. Joe knew as him was snoopin round here, 
 miss, he d give him a knock on the crown, and if you says 
 the word, miss, I ll do it myself." 
 
 Miss Stella s fancy was delightfully titillated by the 
 fact that she had two adorers that were at daggers drawn, 
 and might come to blows on her account, but she snubbed 
 Jake Small, as he deserved. 
 
 " Go along," said she, quite uppishly, " and let Mr. Joe 
 take charge of his own affairs." 
 
 " So I will, miss ; he s a-coming on the eight train to 
 morrow night, and him will look arter his own preserve 
 in his own way." 
 
 Joe arrived duly, so full of self-content and delightful 
 juvenility the village seemed to grow brighter merely by 
 his presence. It amused his sister Margaret not a little 
 to watch Joe s maneuvers and subterfuges in getting 
 away to see his girl. The excuses he made for his sud- 
 
44 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 den disappearances and long absences were sometimes of 
 the thinnest. He tried to meet Bob Smartweed and give 
 him a little touch of swagger and defiance, but for 
 a day or two without success. On the afternoon of 
 Thanksgiving Day Joe got his Uncle Hillman s horse and 
 buggy, as I have said, per contract, and drove round by 
 a back way to Stella s house. He had never felt so de 
 lightfully rakish in his life as on this occasion when 
 taking out his chosen girl with another man s horse, which 
 he did not intend by any means to spare. If the beast 
 just escaped laming and foundering, it was all that could 
 be expected, considering the occasion. Joe handed his 
 girl in with a flourish, and the young couple bowled down 
 the pike and along the Roundabout Road in the highest 
 glee. Stella wore a particularly becoming fall hat, and her 
 cheeks glowed like red roses. As they neared the glen 
 where the smoke from charcoal pits was ascending through 
 the naked trees and the still air, they saw before them 
 another buggy pursuing the same road. Joe knew it was 
 one of Haines s horses, and he guessed who was in the 
 vehicle. By speeding his very willing nag, much to the 
 delight of Stella, who was high-spirited and courageous, 
 he managed to come up abreast of the other buggy, and 
 get a peep at the occupants. The driver was, of course, 
 Bob Smartweed, and the girl beside him proved to be no 
 other than our old acquaintance, Freddie Haven, the 
 most popular girl in the village, who, since the marriage 
 of Ned Buckner to Sylvia Macy, had been quite subdued, 
 but was now again taking to the society of boys and 
 youths of Bob s age with fresh avidity. Seeing that his 
 old friend Joe intended to get past and give him his dust 
 on the road, Smartweed applied the lash to the back of 
 his lean nag with such vigor that he gave a great lurch 
 forward, and fairly got away from the Hillman horse to 
 the distance of some rods. 
 
 " Don t she look old and wrinkled ? " asked the bloom- 
 
THE ACCIDENT. 44* 
 
 ing Stella, after Bob s spurt on the road had carried them 
 beyond ear-shot. " I should think she would be ashamed 
 to fix herself up as she does." 
 
 Joseph was too much excited to answer Stella. He 
 was bound to run by Smartweed if it cost his Uncle Hill- 
 man his best horse. So he laid on the lash, and amid a 
 clatter of wheels and a great cloud of dust the nag 
 bounded forward, while Stella emitted a series of shrill 
 little shrieks indicative of her excitement and delight. 
 Bob s hired horse had not much staying power, and as 
 it turned out the livery buggy had less. Joe, with his 
 powerful horse, soon came alongside, and the two young 
 men glared at each other horribly. Again Bob bent for 
 ward and laid on the lash with all his might. The poor 
 rackabones gave a high desperate leap ; something 
 cracked about the forward wheels, and in a moment the 
 buggy-box had half slipped from the running gear, a 
 wheel was off, and Miss Freddie was sitting in the soft 
 part of the road quite unscratched, and Bob, equally un 
 harmed, had fallen his full length on the turf by the side 
 of the way. 
 
 It cost Smartweed half a month s salary to repair the 
 damage of that deadly encounter. The story got abroad 
 in the village, and there was a great roar of laughter. 
 Uncle Hillman enjoyed the little tale and pardoned Joe 
 for bringing his horse back quite wind-blown and knocked 
 up. Joe \vas more bumptious than ever. He felt that 
 he had achieved something in the fast, reckless, dissi 
 pated line worthy the hero of a penny dreadful. Smart- 
 weed had been discomfited, and poor Freddie had been 
 obliged to walk back four miles to the village. But 
 Bob had vengeance in his eye. He intended to do a 
 stroke of business before leaving the village. So after a 
 day or two he arrayed himself in his smoothest, most oily 
 fashion, and called on John Dean. He was received in 
 that great man s snuggery, where cigars were handed, 
 
44 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 and the two, with chairs drawn up before the open fire, 
 fell into easy, unrestrained chat without the least sug 
 gestion of note-book or pencil. 
 
 " Of course you won t publish any thing I say here in 
 my own house where you are received as a guest," re 
 marked Dean, who was perfectly delighted to have a 
 chance to unburden his mind to a reporter ; " you will 
 consider my remarks strictly confidential." 
 
 " Strictly," returned Bob with mild assurance. " We 
 have a theory in our office that men are never interviewed 
 unless they wish to be ; and I know, Mr. Dean, you don t 
 care to appear in print." 
 
 " Exactly," ! said Dean, exulting in his heart at the 
 thought that reporters are all egregious liars, and the 
 more they say they won t interview the more they mean 
 to. Consequently, in the blissful hope of seeing his 
 opinions reported in full under a vile cut, he opened the 
 whole of his mind to Smartweed, kept his finger rotating 
 by the half-hour together, and made even that hardened 
 young man gasp for breath. But Dean s cigars were 
 very good, and when Bob did escape into the open air he 
 indemnified himself by taking a number of them. 1 may 
 say here that John Dean subscribed at once for six 
 months to the illustrated daily, and scanned its columns 
 every morning to find the interview rehashed and dressed 
 up in the best sensational style. But he never did find 
 it, and no man was more disgusted with that rascally 
 reporter, who for once had told the truth. 
 
 Bob stepped across the street to the house of Judge 
 Magnus, and was received with much kindness by the 
 judge himself, who happened to be in a genial mood. 
 " I am afraid of you fellows," the judge remarked. 
 " Among you I feel as if I must protect my secrets much 
 as one guards one s pocket-book in a crowd of pick 
 pockets, Your paper has lied about me up hill and 
 
WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. 443 
 
 down. You have misconstrued my motives and de 
 famed my acts." 
 
 "All great men are lied about," returned Bob solemnly. 
 " That is the penalty you pay for greatness. Lies do a 
 man like you no harm, Judge Magnus. You are too well 
 braced in the affection, the esteem what shall I say ? 
 the reverence of the people." 
 
 The judge smiled at the young fellow s coolness, but 
 his vanity began to warm up, and as Bob wormed his way 
 into the judge s mind, all his political secrets, his dam 
 aging opinions of his friends and associates trickled out. 
 Bob protested entirely too much that he should never 
 betray the judge s confidence, and thinking it over later 
 the great man went about with an uneasy, half-nauseated 
 feeling in his mind, until, behold, one day there appeared 
 in the illustrated daily the whole interview, doctored, 
 dressed up, spiced with malignity, and peppered with 
 misconstruction, and at the head of it stood one of 
 those dreadful grinning cuts, labeled with the name of 
 the illustrious Judge Magnus. 
 
 I must draw the curtain. There was wailing and 
 gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair; and the judge 
 believes this interview has cost him the nomination for 
 governor of the state. 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 A BUNDLE OF LOVE-LETTERS. 
 
 I^HE young man named Hugh has reached a turning- 
 point in his destiny ; he is going to be married. 
 These last days and weeks of the year he has been tramp 
 ing about in wind and snow-flurries, rain and sunshine, 
 taking a mute farewell of the places where he has so 
 long practiced his druidical worship of nature, finding a 
 kind of compensation for all his failures in the sense of 
 a beautifully ordered universe solid beneath his feet, 
 sound in all its parts, governed by immutable laws, in 
 themselves highest and noblest harmonies. 
 
 His joy during the years he has lived in our village has 
 been in finding himself free his own master. If he is 
 proud at all, it is because he has never been bought and 
 sold for money, reputation, or any poor or trifling 
 ambition. If he has not added much to the bulk of the 
 world s good, he has made his little protest against the 
 ruling passions of men. He has injured no man, robbed 
 no fellow-being, combined to harm no widow or orphan 
 through legal means. He has broken no trust, never has 
 he fled to Canada to escape punishment for embezzling 
 other people s funds, never has he depleted a church 
 treasury or watered the stock of a railroad, or made a 
 corner in grain to raise the price of bread in poor men s 
 mouths. He has simply lived his own life, held to his 
 own inward convictions, laughed at his neighbor s weak 
 points, not unkindly, and cultivated his natural instincts. 
 
 While most of his college classmates have grown old, 
 turned gray, or worn their hair off in the pursuit of 
 money or position, he has retained every spear of his 
 
THE FINGER OF FA TE. 445 
 
 hair, with his good, natural color, his bright eyes, and 
 handsome teeth, and all the youthful spirits with which 
 he was endowed. Hugh has done this by keeping up 
 that nexus between himself and nature which belonged to 
 him at birth, and taking hold of simple enjoyments with 
 fresh idealism. Yes, Hugh is a bit of a genius, but it lies 
 as much in his heart as in his head. He knows how to 
 love the world unselfishly without rendering himself 
 miserable if he can not possess a large share of its dirt 
 and stones. His ideal ownership is immense. No one 
 has ever lived in this part of the country who has so 
 thoroughly possessed himself of the streams, woods, hills, 
 the river, the mountains, every thing that lies under the 
 sky. 
 
 Though village life is very narrowing to many minds, 
 it has not injured Hugh. He has known how to skim 
 the cream of existence where most folk let it mold on 
 the pan. So he might have gone on for years without 
 really fossilizing or becoming as crotchety as old Speng- 
 
 ler, as tedious as Rastus B , or as much of a piece of 
 
 bank mechanism as Allibone. But the finger of fate 
 seemed to point pretty conclusively to the fact that Hugh 
 needed a new and enlarged sphere of life or his natural 
 development would be arrested. He had pushed indi 
 vidualism to an extreme. The time had come to take up 
 the burdens of humanity, and live for others. At that 
 moment Oriana came, as I have told you, into the nar 
 rowed slit of the pupil of his eye, was photographed 
 upon the retina, and thence by some mysterious process 
 transmitted to his heart. 
 
 Hugh has not enjoyed the uninterrupted rapture of 
 love s young dream. He has been walking all over the 
 country in extreme agitation of mind. Now that he is 
 committed to something else, owing to the perversity of 
 his nature the old life seems to lie placid and serene 
 behind him as if lapped in the valley of the Lord, and 
 
44 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 the new looks often vexed, doubtful, and uncertain. Yet 
 do not for a moment suppose that he is not deeply in 
 love with Oriana. He has tried to get tuned up by the 
 company of bare trees great oaks with the stiff leaves 
 rattling on their branches, or pines making music with 
 their fingers on the air strings, or cedars, hemlocks, and 
 spruces, all so hearty, so unvexed by notions and crotch 
 ets and self-torments as they lift themselves after the 
 summer s decay into the cold crystal air with a great 
 sense of rejoicing at the core. The dead leaves upon 
 the moss have spoken to him, and the brave strong limbs 
 that in an access of new life have pushed them off to 
 secure enlarged conditions of growth. He has tramped 
 to all the hill-tops and looked at the clean-cut blue 
 mountains whose faces he knows so well, now like hard 
 gems graved with a sharp-edged tool. He has found his 
 way to Cedar Glen Hollow and the little red school- 
 house, but the school-money ran short this year before 
 the customary three-months term ended, and the school 
 is not in session. The scholars are dispersed, and the 
 red-haired, nasal-voiced teacher has not yet begun her 
 rule. 
 
 As the door was unlocked, Hugh entered and gazed 
 about at the empty, cold little place, with its hacked 
 benches and scribbled walls, the box-stove turned red 
 and rusty, the ceiling fallen in patches, and the black 
 board with its sums still remaining. Hugh peeped into 
 Tim Long s desk in the hope of finding a stray compo 
 sition left there by chance, but it was devoid of all 
 interest, though half filled with a litter of school-boy 
 rubbish. He sat down on one of the low benches as if 
 he too had come there to be a learner in the school of 
 life, and because of his shortsightedness, disobedience, 
 and folly could only gain admittance to the primary 
 grade. For almost the first time in his life he felt 
 the need of perfect humility and some extraneous aid 
 
REVIEWING HIS COURTSHIP, 447 
 
 to help put away pride and inward resistance. Though 
 he was very much in love with a charming young lady, 
 and but partially aware of the cause of his qualms 
 and reactionary fits, it was probably owing to the gipsy 
 vein in him that Hugh did hesitate to give up his manly 
 independence to take upon him the yoke of matrimony, 
 and settle down into the rather tame, subdued barn-yard 
 fowl, which to his vision symbolized the average domes 
 tic man. 
 
 Now that he sat in the cold little school-house, of all 
 places best suited to his mood, he began to think over 
 his courtship with Oriana, and its various ludicrous and 
 tragic phases its storms and calms, and wind-gusts, and 
 thunder-claps and flashes of lightning, followed by sweet 
 weather and inland quiet. It had probably been differ 
 ent from any other courtship on record, and necessarily 
 so, considering the very positive and strongly marked 
 characteristics of the two people engaged therein. I 
 fancy that real courtships are generally very different 
 from the novelists conception. They are more prosaic 
 and commonplace, or more original. Each one is a little 
 drama quite by itself, so that your own experience, if you 
 have had one, does not let you into that water-tight com 
 partment where other lovers sit as secure as if they alone 
 inhabited the planet. 
 
 Hugh s love-making had been difficult not so much 
 from any inherent stumbling-blocks in Oriana s nature 
 as from the need they both felt of being absolutely gen 
 erous and self-forgetful to the point of making each 
 other miserable for life. Hugh had scruples about living 
 on Oriana s fortune. Oriana had scruples about impos 
 ing a fetter on Hugh s free spirit. She feared he would 
 regret the step if once he should take it. He feared 
 she might covertly despise him in the end for his want 
 of positive success in life. So they stumbled about in 
 the dark, getting into deep bogs of misconception, and 
 
448 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 then floundering out the best they could. But after every 
 misunderstanding, which caused them both nameless 
 tortures, they felt that they were dearer to each other, 
 more necessary to each other than ever that life 
 would not be worth the living unless they could spend 
 it together. 
 
 Hugh sat in the cold school-house that November day, 
 done up in his great-coat, with the clouds skurrying 
 across the hills, and thought it all over. A grim kind of 
 facetiousness suffused his mind as he realized how two 
 intelligent, enlightened people not in the first flush of 
 youth could ingeniously contrive to torment each other, 
 while at the same time their whole prospect of earthly 
 happiness lay in sharing a common life united in the ten- 
 derest and most enduring bonds. The folly, nay, insanity, 
 of the whole proceeding presented itself to him, and he 
 tried to probe his own mind and find out whether he 
 were the guilty one. Surely Oriana was not to blame. 
 With all her moral whimsicality and superfine notions 
 Oriana was always noble, a creature of such infinite 
 charm, such capacity for happiness and making others 
 happy, he could only compare her to the earth and sky 
 he loved so well, to nature in all its varying and delightful 
 phases. Hugh felt positively ill when he recalled the 
 pain he had given this woman. He took out all her let 
 ters and telegrams from a little letter-case he carried in 
 his pocket and spread them out on Tim Long s desk, in 
 order to study them for a few hours and try and make up 
 his mind as to where the blame lay. I shall take the 
 privilege of looking over his shoulder to copy some 
 paragraphs from this singular correspondence. In 
 order to make the thing complete, it is necessary to 
 glean a part from Hugh s own memory of his wicked 
 little notes. 
 
 She " We can not live together, and we can not live 
 without each other ; what are we going to do ! You 
 
"/ WILL TAKE NOTHING BACK." 449 
 
 never gave me any thing but the little black arrow-head, 
 and I will send that by return mail, with all your letters 
 and telegrams." 
 
 He (telegram) " Wait I am coming by the next 
 train." 
 
 After three days, having thought better of the journey : 
 "You know your taunt is most ungenerous. I have 
 given you all I have that is of any value, and you scorn 
 it. I will take nothing back from you. I will shed my 
 heart s blood before I take any thing back." 
 
 She " I knew you would not come. It is silly to talk 
 about shedding your heart s blood. We are not acting 
 in a cheap play at a dime museum, and you would do the 
 Claude Melnotte business very badly. I do not believe 
 we shall ever understand each other. I am high-strung 
 and passionate ; so are you, with a great many old- 
 bachelor crotchets thrown in. I never knew so set a man 
 at your age. We had better repent at leisure before we 
 marry in haste. This is probably the last time I shall 
 tell you that I think the affair had better be considered 
 off. It is growing actually childish. I feel myself to be 
 getting imbecile. When we have finally settled this mat 
 ter, I shall try to return to a state of calm, but I fear my 
 life will have been hopelessly spoiled." 
 
 He " Oriana, I walked about in the woods all last 
 night trying to get over the smart of your terrible unkind- 
 ness. You are the cruelest girl in the world. You know 
 I love you with entire, absolute devotion, and yet you 
 will torture me like a child sticking pins into a helpless 
 fly. When, oh, when will this cease ? If it were not for 
 the last words of your heartless letter, I should wish to 
 shoot myself." 
 
 She (telegram) "You had better not walk around 
 in the woods all night, you will get malaria. Are you 
 ill ? " 
 
 He" I might as well be dead as to be in the condi- 
 
45 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 tion I am in. Will you marry me next month, as you 
 once promised ? A perfectly plain wedding at seven in 
 the morning. No friends, no bride-cake, no nothing 
 but our two selves and the parson. Answer by return 
 mail." 
 
 She " I do not remember ever making such an absurd 
 promise. You are really more provoking than John Dean. 
 He never has thrown it up to Elspeth about her money. 
 He has always used it as if it belonged to him. Why 
 can t you do the same with mine ? " 
 
 He " I appreciate the sarcasm of your last note, and 
 feel it to be decidedly unhandsome. Rather than be looked 
 upon with the contempt with which I regard J. D., I 
 would hang myself. Could you not give your money to 
 Mr. Bergh for the prevention of cruelty to animals ? 
 You ought to as a return for all you have inflicted on 
 one, / . e., myself. Then we might go out in the world 
 hand in hand, like the Babes in the Wood. Telegraph 
 me how this idea strikes you. I could get myself up as 
 an Italian padrone ; you could dance and sing to a tam 
 bourine. Do you accept my terms ? " 
 
 She " I would not telegraph an answer to any such 
 nonsense. What would the operator think ? You know 
 you refuse to take this matter seriously. You are tri 
 fling with me, and I am just breaking my heart for noth 
 ing. Elspeth suggests by letter marked private that I 
 had better get up a flirtation with somebody else. I send 
 you this proposal of Elspeth s because I will not do 
 anything underhand. What do you think of it ? " 
 
 He " I should probably, in the hypothetical case you 
 state, come immediately and break the other fellow s 
 head. I am half inclined to think you make the sugges 
 tion in order to throw me over. Have I ever done any 
 thing so despicable as to throw out the hint that I could 
 ever think of another woman ? Do I not adore the very 
 ground you tread on ? Am I not ready to devote my 
 
A GUSH OF SENTIMENT. 45* 
 
 whole life to your happiness every thought, feeling, 
 impulse, and aspiration ? When I fancy you are think 
 ing of me, it makes me dizzy with joy." 
 
 She " Rather late in the day for such a gush of senti 
 ment. One would think you had not yet emerged from 
 jackets. Please do not send me any more letters copied 
 out of the * Perfect Letter Writer. I know you dread 
 to give up your bachelor independence and roving habits. 
 You think I will turn out a whimsical, perverse, peevish, 
 neuralgic, headachy kind of woman, who will make a 
 bond-slave of you. and deprive you of all liberty of 
 thought and impulse. This is the real trouble between 
 us. You love your old ways, and old books, and old 
 pipes more than any thing else, and fear you may regret 
 the change. I have felt this to be true all along, and I 
 release you without submitting you to the humiliation of 
 asking for your freedom. Why did we ever meet ? Oh, I 
 am a very unhappy person." 
 
 He " You have the wickedest nib to your pen any 
 woman ever had, and every time you use it you draw 
 blood. If you were poor, it would be very different. 
 You would not then feel that you have the right to tutor 
 me. Our natural positions are reversed, and I do not 
 see how we are ever to get over this insuperable obstacle. 
 But do not mind what I say now ; you have made me 
 angry. Haven t you ever a kind -word to fling to me ? 
 You might telegraph." 
 
 She " I don t send love missives by telegraph or on 
 postal-cards. You have now begun to doubt my my 
 feeling for you, and I think it must soon end. You will 
 keep flinging it up in my face that I have a little money. 
 I never knew any thing so scandalous in all the days of 
 my life. If I were a perfect termagant, you could not 
 talk to me much worse than you do. I do not at all 
 know what I am made of to stand it. Ah, me, I am very 
 miserable. How terrible it would be if we should find 
 
45 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 ourselves tied together with nothing really in common 
 but a mutual disposition to squabble and bicker ! If you 
 should repent the step you had taken, I think I should 
 commit suicide. I feel so snubbed by your last letter I 
 hardly know what to say or do. I am sure you regret 
 having written it ; but you would do the same thing over 
 again next week. We are too old to take deliberately 
 the risk of life-long misery, and I think we had better 
 consider this correspondence closed." 
 
 Now, as Hugh sat in the cheerless school-house at 
 Cedar Glen, with the letters spread out before him on 
 Tim Long s desk, he felt an emotion of intense wonder 
 and astonishment that two sensible grown people should 
 get into such a boggle by their own perversity and mis 
 directed nobleness of nature. But sitting there, with 
 almost the whole history of his unique love-affair in view, 
 Hugh saw with a rush of repentant feeling that he had 
 been in fault, not only through his false pride, which 
 haggled about the bargain in taking what love offered, 
 but also by a certain wild and nomadic streak in his 
 nature that made it hard for him to bow and worship 
 the domestic ideal. It was selfish doubtless, and Oriana, 
 with her subtle woman s instinct, had felt it all out, and 
 had doubted with perfect propriety the wisdom of the 
 step they thought of taking. 
 
 It all came upon Hugh as a new discovery his pride 
 and tough-rooted independence, the sense of resistance 
 toward yielding to an absolute self-surrender. At that 
 moment he felt that he loved Oriana for the first time as 
 she deserved to be loved. He resolved to burn his ships 
 for her sake and cut loose from every yearning for the 
 old life. He looked about for the stub of some ancient 
 pen, an ink-bottle, and the stray blank leaf of an old 
 copy-book, and sitting there he wrote the best and great 
 est, if not the first, love-letter of his life. I shall not tell 
 what it contained further than to say that it might be 
 
FAREWELL. 453 
 
 expressed in Gen. Grant s immortal words, " Immediate 
 and unconditional surrender." 
 
 And now they are going to be married, and next day 
 sail on an Italian steamer for Naples. Hugh has said 
 farewell to all his favorite haunts, the hills and fields, 
 the rocks and woods, and trout-brooks, and forest walks, 
 and lonely glens, and waterfalls, but he has slipped away 
 just before the close of the year without taking a formal 
 leave of any of his friends in the village except Aunt 
 Dido. Poor Aunt Dido is heart-broken, and yet so 
 happy to have Hugh settled in life. She laughs with 
 one eye and cries with the other. To relieve her mind 
 from its burden of grief for the final departure of her 
 eccentric but charming young man she has plunged into 
 communistic literature between her spells of cooking, 
 and now, she says laughingly, mixes a little dynamite with 
 her crullers and seed-cakes. She has taken up the works 
 of Mr. Henry George, but merely as a means of distrac 
 tion. 
 
 " Tain t Progress and Poverty," she says, that she 
 cares about so much ; it s only to relieve the destitution 
 and heart-ache she feels for the loss of Hugh. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 LOOSE ENDS AND DROPPED STITCHES OF VILLAGE LIFE. 
 
 WITH us Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to lean 
 toward each other, and clasp hands. Like right 
 eousness and peace, they meet together and kiss. The 
 sweetness of family affections has been hived in the life 
 cells, and with the pressure of this good time the comb 
 yields abundant store of honey. In the fall and winter 
 holidays every body comes home, and there is a little 
 freshet of news and gossip. Many dropped threads of 
 village life which have strayed away into distant 
 places can then be picked up and woven into the story 
 without an end, with more or less of consistency in the 
 web. The village tingles with pleasant expectations of 
 weddings and social events. 
 
 And to begin with the news : Those two Busy Bees, the 
 middle one and the youngest, are both soon to be married 
 from the house of their sister, Mrs. Worldly Wiseman. 
 The middle girl, with her turn for aesthetics and decora 
 tive art, has taken up with a rich oldish man, with grown 
 children, who are furious because she dares to intrude 
 into the family, and refuse to come to the wedding. The 
 youngest, that volatile butterfly-girl, will bestow her hand 
 on a young drummer who knows all about silks, and 
 laces, and Lyons velvet, and goes to Paris every year to 
 buy for his house. So it would seem that not one of 
 these Bee marriages is ideal, only conventional and re 
 spectable. Not one of the Bees I fear has that dainty 
 little cross which is said to lie at the base of the forefinger 
 in the palm of every person who finds his or her true 
 mate. 
 
A DELICIOUS LITTLE SECRET. 455 
 
 But there is a delicious little secret which I must con 
 fess has given me a great deal of pleasure, especially 
 because I know all about it, and it has not yet leaked out 
 and got abroad in town. We all of us love to be ensconced 
 behind the scenes while the rest of the world are kept 
 out in the cold ; only one aches so to tell, that the 
 pleasure is somewhat modified. 
 
 I sympathize deeply with the little sisters, Miss Henri- 
 ette and Miss Sophie, who in their delight and exultation 
 seem to be more one soul in two bodies than usual. Their 
 tiny house is fairly bursting with the importance of what 
 it tries to hold. The cat (I firmly believe she is an en 
 chanted princess) sits on the little porch and ticks her 
 white fur with a knowing look. The window-panes seem 
 to wink and the vines to wave toward me as I go past. 
 Shall I let out the secret ? I must. Miss Crayshaw has 
 been spending a few weeks in our neighborhood, not 
 just in the village, but with a friend some miles away, 
 and she is going to marry Mr. Allibone, our bank cashier, 
 that poor man who was so dreadfully scathed by the 
 charming adventuress,. Mrs. Bridgenorth. It would take 
 too long to tell you how it came about. They were thrown 
 together quite accidentally by a designing friend ; and 
 I think Miss Crayshaw felt that in poor Mr. Allibone s 
 fate there was something similar to her own. And you 
 know sympathy is akin to love ; only one little step 
 remains to be taken. 
 
 Though both are quite mature, and Miss Crayshaw 
 seems a little affected and artificial, I should not at all 
 wonder if they discovered that tiny cross at the base of 
 the forefinger upon which the adepts in palmistry lay 
 such stress. The little sisters are going to have a wed 
 ding of their own. All their predictions have come true, 
 and who can help being a partaker in their pure, unsel 
 fish joy, although they idealize Crayshaw in the most 
 ridiculous way, and have as much sentiment about her 
 as if she were sweet sixteen instead of six-and-thirty ? 
 
45 6 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 One swallow does not make a summer. There will 
 still remain many perpetual widows and widowers and 
 old maids in the village. The constant Spengler still 
 continues to shut himself up and hold a day of fasting 
 and prayer when one of his friends or acquaintances com 
 mits the enormity of a second marriage. There are spin 
 sters like Marcella Hildreth and Miss Candace, Melissa 
 Tooler, and Marthy Smartweed, who might as well be one 
 hundred and fifty as on the bright side of fifty for all prac 
 tical purposes of matrimony. There are widows like Sis- 
 t r Ann and Aunt Mariar who have been too severely 
 scorched in the ordeal to think of marrying again if they 
 could, which is out of all question. There are others, like 
 the Widow Holcomb and young Mrs. Holt who are too com 
 fortable to think much of taking another mate, having a 
 good nest already built and stocked with means sufficient 
 to keep it in perfect repair. 
 
 As for my delightful friend Milly Grant, the milliner, 
 I am not so certain about her. She is still on the Round 
 about Road of life, and must remain there until I can 
 take her up at a point further on. I could wish that some 
 man, wise and good, and sensible enough to win her love, 
 might get a peep at her through the keyhole of her 
 bright little shop, and learn how shrewd and clever, 
 sympathetic, and even noble, she is. 
 
 But if this never happens, Milly will do well. She will 
 have her Spinoza and her Plato from which to draw an 
 ideal philosophy and maxims for the higher life. She 
 will still love folks, and laugh at their oddities and foi 
 bles with a kindly heart. She will still idolize the mem 
 ory of a bad father, being of that feminine mold that 
 must idolize something, and will go weekly, summer and 
 winter, to put flowers on his grave. She will still take 
 that precious MS. volume of her father s poems from the 
 case and read some favorite verses to her intimate friends, 
 saying thoughtfully, " When I am rich enough, these 
 
MRS. POINDEXTER S LETTER. 457 
 
 shall be published." It Is something to live for. As to 
 Margaret Elmore and many another nice girl in our vil 
 lage, their story lies warm and rosy in the bosom of the 
 future. Next year, perhaps, shall be Pentecostal and 
 bring them the perfect blessing for which their pure 
 young hearts are waiting. 
 
 Salmon A. Poindexter is still with his family at his 
 country-seat, the Cedars. He has written to his sister 
 Crissie, who is now abroad, that if she will come home, 
 he will build a new wing to the villa, with apartments for 
 her use, which she can shut off when she wishes to be 
 alone. He will give her a pony-carriage for her exclusive 
 pleasure, and as they now have an excellent housekeeper, 
 there is no need of her taking charge. She can live and 
 do as she pleases, only he wants her back again because 
 she is necessary to his comfort. But Mrs. Poindexter 
 has also written. She is perfectly delighted Crissie is 
 having a happy time abroad. Crissie s last letter con 
 tained an account of how she had learned to drink beer 
 and eat black bread, and was very amusing, especially 
 her account of the way she danced at the Hofrath s ball 
 with a great red-bearded colonel in sword and spurs. 
 Mrs. Poindexter has ju-st nursed Beatrice through the 
 measles. She has been getting acquainted this year with 
 the minds and hearts of her children, and although they 
 miss Aunt Crissie so much, still she desires her to remain 
 abroad until she is quite satisfied, and has taken her fill 
 of sights and impressions. As an inducement for Cris 
 to go to Italy this winter she has forwarded a handsome 
 sum, quite unbeknown to Salmon A., who thinks she has 
 spent the whole amount on two evening dresses. 
 
 Just now I saw Marcella Hildreth pass the window 
 with her uncle Jones Davis, a tall soldierly-looking man, 
 erect as a young ash, with long silky white hair waving 
 about his head, and an active black eye as quick to see a 
 pretty girlish face as it ever was. Davis had always 
 
45 8 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 been the strong, loving friend of his brother-in-law, our 
 heavenly-minded deacon, known among the children as 
 the town clock, albeit a very different type of man, a man 
 of the world, fond of jovial companions, good suppers, 
 and all the pleasures of life, and though not a scoffer at 
 sacred things, by no means a religionist. Still he loved 
 the steady-going deacon, and for many years, until the 
 war broke out, was accustomed to drive over with his wife 
 on Thanksgiving Day from the county town where he 
 lived to break bread with the Hildreths. 
 
 But the war came and thrust its sharp sword into 
 many a united family circle, and Jones Davis was known 
 as a copperhead of a very rank and offensive kind. The 
 deacon, on the other hand, felt his heart burning for the 
 Union cause, and gave his money to equip regiments, 
 and sent his son to die, burned up, they say, in the Battle 
 of the Wilderness, a year after his first colonel, Ralph 
 Freeman, fell mortally wounded on the field. For some 
 time after Sumter was fired on there was little or no 
 communication between the Davis and Hildreth families, 
 but when Thanksgiving Day came, because old habits 
 are strong, and his wife urged him to try and heal the 
 breach silently made, Jones Davis drove over as usual to 
 the village with his wife and daughters. As the horses 
 drew up before the deacon s door he came out bare 
 headed, and before any one knew what he meant to do, 
 he, without saying a word, took them by the bits and 
 turned the carriage round squarely in the road until the 
 horses heads pointed down the old pike. There were 
 tears in his eyes and his lips were tremulous, but his hand 
 was as firm as iron. 
 
 "Jones," said he, in a husky, broken voice, "don t 
 come here until the war is over, and if it goes against the 
 Union don t ever come," and then he stood and pointed 
 down the pike like a mystic figure of fate, and Jones 
 with his head dropped on his breast drove slowly away. 
 
" WE WILL DRIVE OVER TO JONES S" 459 
 
 The families did not meet again for four years. The 
 Davis girls grew to young womanhood, and the deacon 
 yearned to see them, for he had been very fond of them as 
 children. As the war had ended in a way to make him 
 happy in spite of the memory of his dead boy, whose 
 body he had sought for on the field of battle, but never 
 found, the deacon s heart was suffused with a great ten 
 der glow of gratitude. He could even find some grain 
 of tolerance for his copperhead friends and neighbors, 
 remembering that God tolerates them, and that the rain 
 falls and the sun shines on the just and the unjust. 
 
 The day before Thanksgiving he said to his wife : 
 " Mother, we will drive over to Jones s to-morrow, and 
 I will tell you what we will do. We will sit in the wagon 
 before his door, and wait like Lazarus before the rich 
 man s gate for some of them to come and speak to us and 
 bid us enter, and if Jones harbors hard feeling, still at 
 any rate we shall have shown him that we are ready to 
 meet him more than half-way." 
 
 So they did accordingly, and after drawing up before 
 Davis s door, and sitting there expectantly for some 
 minutes, the door opened and the youngest Davis girl, 
 a bright and pleasing picture of young maidenhood, 
 flew down the steps, and, with ready wit, unhitched the 
 traces, and led the horse away into the stable. Then she 
 ran back, and giving her hand to her aunt, said, " Uncle, 
 if you and aunt will walk right in and make believe there 
 never has been any war, father will be perfectly de 
 lighted." So they did ; and now Jones Davis is an old 
 man, and perhaps his memory is failing, but he tries to 
 make out that he was the strongest kind of an abolitionist. 
 
 I ought to mention that St. Patty s sons, those stalwart 
 Western men, came home this year to eat of the sacred 
 turkey under the family roof-tree, and there was a great 
 gathering of kindred. It was charming to see the de 
 light those big boys took in petting their old mother and 
 
460 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, 
 
 making her happy. For the first time they met the Rev. 
 Arthur Meeker, Brasilia s husband, and I suspect they 
 tried very maliciously to give him the moral support he 
 needed, partially at least, to throw off the domestic yoke. 
 That big western ex-governor has been convulsed with 
 inward laughter during his entire visit by the state of 
 subjection to his wife s will in which he found poor 
 Meeker. It has leaked out in the village that under his 
 protection Arthur has been caught smoking a mild cigar. 
 He was at once summoned before the bureau of domestic 
 correction, but we hope we almost pray he was not ut 
 terly subdued in the inquisitorial chamber. Some peo 
 ple say he has actually refused to live any longer on 
 messes and Graham food. It is even confidently pre 
 dicted that within a year he may swear at his wife and 
 demand a latch-key. But as he is a clergyman, trained 
 up to meekness and long suffering, this is of course a pro 
 fane joke invented by the old enemy. 
 
 I have peeped into some of the humble homes of the 
 village to get a glimpse of their Thanksgiving cheer. 
 The wish of the good French king is realized. Every 
 laborer has a fowl, not in his pot, but in his oven ; even 
 the poor-house people have been abundantly feasted. 
 Mrs. Judge Magnus sent the Small family what Jake 
 called " the handsome compliment of a generous dinner." 
 Tim McCoy has taken a new wife, an excellent, clean, 
 strong woman, and a good cook, who will see that the 
 " childers" are cared for like her own. The hearth is bright 
 this year, and the humble larder well stocked. Tim does 
 not mind if his son-in-law, Wilkins, gives him the windy 
 side of the street. The postmistress is always true to her 
 poor relations, nor does she forget the lowly nest where 
 she was born. As for our one colored family, Mandy 
 and Sambo Brown and the " pickaninnies," you should see 
 them around the board with the " tukke " as center-piece 
 and common object of fetish worship. How the teeth 
 
.A GREAT NOVELIST. 461 
 
 gleam, and the whites of the eyes roll up, and the tight 
 little wool takes a new kink at this happy time, when 
 Mandy abates the rigor of her rule and allows the chil 
 dren to make as much noise and litter as they please. 
 
 Between Thanksgiving and Christmas there is a great 
 deal of coming and going. Mrs. Magnus warms up her 
 large house hospitably for some weeks before she with 
 draws to Washington, and Aunt Dido is busy cooking 
 and planning for her entertainments. This year we were 
 all in a state of quivering expectancy over the advent of 
 a great novelist who was coming to pay a visit of some 
 days to the Magnus mansion. The village felt itself hon 
 ored in advance by the rumor of his approach. From 
 time to time in the past there had been no lack of dis 
 tinguished visitors among us, but this celebrity was of a 
 more exhilarating and exciting kind than any we had 
 heretofore seen. We had read his books with avidity, 
 and there had always been a little scramble as to who 
 should draw them earliest from the library, and thus get 
 the first cut of the new loaf. We had enjoyed his char 
 acters and scenes, and talked them over together to see 
 if they "jibed " with our own experience in life. Some 
 of us felt that he would understand our secret aspirations, 
 and that we should be conscious of a kind of flow of 
 sweet sympathy from his soul into ours. 
 
 Our literary young lady, who writes poetry for the 
 local papers and occasionally gets a little piece inserted in 
 a religious journal in one of the large cities (I think the 
 Religious Cfiromvhas printed two of her pieces), had such 
 dreams over the advent of the great genius that she 
 actually believed he would volunteer to offer her thin 
 manuscript volume which she calls " Soul Thrills and 
 Heart Hunger," to his own publisher. She had always 
 been hidden away in a corner, unappreciated and un 
 prized, but if he deigned to smile upon her, Fame might 
 yet breathe her name through his trumpet. Thus she 
 
42 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 dreamed early in the morning, half awake, while all the 
 sparrows in the vines around her window seemed to 
 twitter the name of the great novelist. If he could have 
 imagined one-half the silly fancies and foolish expecta 
 tions of his lady admirers in the village, he would have 
 been a great man indeed. 
 
 Mrs. Magnus had sent out invitations for an evening 
 reception to Mr. and Mrs. Fancy Penholder. The place 
 was in a flutter from end to end. We all endeavored to 
 furbish up our best bib and tucker, and also to invent 
 some suitable conversation wherewith to approach the 
 lion. We primed ourselves with beautiful things we 
 would say to him, delicate compliments we meant to pay, 
 and lay awake nights getting our little speeches by heart. 
 There was a singular previousness about this proceeding 
 which did not strike the village mind as at all funny, but 
 then we did not confess to each other. Secretly, we all 
 meant to be so very clever and bright that he would see 
 at a glance we are not clodhoppers, but thoroughly in 
 structed people, quite abreast of every thing in literature 
 and art, and, of course, not too much overawed by the 
 presence of any celebrity, however portentous. And yet 
 we all secretly knew we were ready to get down on our 
 knees and worship if he proved in the least worthy of 
 adoration. 
 
 Mrs. Magnus had illuminated the grounds and the 
 Doric porch of her house with Chinese lanterns, and 
 it was very interesting to watch the people as they poured 
 in at the hospitable door. Poor Freddie Haven had not 
 been invited, I am sorry to say, the social prejudice 
 against her being just now very extreme. She therefore 
 sat by her window in the dark, and watched all who 
 went in, as one can fancy, with a perturbed and aching 
 heart. There was Deacon Hildreth in his black stock 
 and well-brushed clothes, his wisp of hair combed high 
 up on his head, and with his comfortable stout wife on 
 his arm quite confident that she had never looked so well 
 
THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLES. 463 
 
 in her life. Behind them came that handsome old world 
 ling, Jones Davis, who had remained over for the occa 
 sion, with his niece Marcella on his arm, looking ex 
 tremely prim in her new black silk. There was Drusilla 
 in her business suit convoying the Rev. Arthur as if he 
 had been a charity scholar. There was the young par 
 son, his hair " tousled," his neckcloth a little on one 
 side, all agog for new ideas, while his pretty wife looked 
 as if she were thankful to have the opportunity of wear 
 ing her best gown and laces once in the season. There 
 was the doctor, with his saintly wife and blooming grand 
 child, and Brother George in evening dress. Miss Can- 
 dace came plain as a Quaker, and without gloves. Mr. 
 Worldly Wiseman looked as sleek as a shiny glass bottle, 
 and his handsome wife in a city-made gown was a little 
 overdressed. 
 
 The Busy Bees, with their chosen suitors, made quite 
 a flutter of high fashion as they entered. The literary 
 young lady brought the MS. of " Soul Thrills " in a 
 little blue bead bag, which she carried on her arm. She 
 felt almost certain he would ask to see it. " Brother" 
 and his wife, she that was the Widow Withers, and 
 rosy little Stella glided in just in the wake of Miss El- 
 more, and Margaret, and the Sophomoric Joe, who soon 
 made it manifest to his girl that this adoration of genius 
 was all bosh, and they two could live a romance that 
 would beat any thing the novelist had ever written all 
 hollow. The little sisters came in their best frisettes 
 and false fronts, and paid their respects with many 
 courtesies and old-time steps. Miss Crayshaw came too, 
 trying to pretend she did not see Mr. Allibone, whose 
 head shone like a billiard ball. Old Madam Macy 
 entered, looking like a duchess, and Mrs. Ned Buckner 
 on her husband s arm seemed very happy spite of the 
 whispers that have gone round that she is much to be 
 pitied. 
 
 They poured in and flooded the large, handsome, light 
 
4^4 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 rooms, all eager to pay homage at the shrine. He stood 
 upright, expressionless, by the side of his hostess. His 
 supercilious glance ranged coldly over the crowd. He 
 was tall and faultlessly dressed, and when he spoke it 
 was with an affected stammer which he had cultivated at 
 some pains and cost to himself. He bowed just so many 
 times a minute, bending his body at exactly the same 
 angle each time. When relieved from the necessity of 
 bowing, he adjusted his eye-glasses, and looked around 
 with a perfectly impersonal glance which seemed to say, 
 " If you think I have any thing to give away, you are 
 mistaken. My ideas are all engaged at so much a line. 
 After a few moments, however, he did relapse into a 
 fatigued, world-worn expression, as if his social duties 
 weighed upon him like lead. 
 
 After the first observations, most of the people were 
 struck with awe and crept into corners and conversed in 
 whispers. When the doctor, and the young clergyman, 
 and a few others approached the lion in the hope of tick 
 ling him into a mild conversational roar, they could get 
 nothing out of him except, " Oh, ah ; I fancy you are 
 quite right " ; or, " You are really very kind to say so." 
 But Mrs. Fancy Penholder proved to be quite another 
 style of person. She was somewhat of the Skye-terrier 
 order, you know, great eyes and a picturesque tangle of 
 hair ; but she dressed to a charm and was really very 
 pretty. Her frankness in talking about her husband was 
 truly original and engaging. She spoke of him almost 
 as if he did not belong to her, while she was merely part 
 of his properties for getting up his novels. 
 
 " I m less literary than I was before I married Mr. 
 Penholder," she said with naive frankness to Mrs. Worldly 
 Wiseman. " I find being literary in earnest is rather 
 tiresome. And then I have to dress up to each of my 
 husband s characters as they form themselves in his mind. 
 If he has a tragic woman on the carpet, I am expected 
 to come out in a thunder-cloud polonaise with streaks of 
 
"ISN T SHE A LITTLE TRUMP?" 465 
 
 lightning cut bias, or I must wear something very lurid 
 and fiery. If he is in a sentimental Bopeep novel, then 
 he will not let me put any thing on but sky-blue muslin 
 and rosebuds. You can have no idea what a time I have 
 trying to embody all his conceptions. I have almost lost 
 my identity. When I am allowed to be myself, I naturally 
 seek something light and frivolous. At home Mr. Pen 
 holder refuses to let me wear any thing that does not 
 match the furniture, and when I am buying a new gown 
 I have to carry the wall paper, the chairs, sofas, and car 
 pets, even the picture-frames in my eye. Sometimes I 
 get so mixed up with his creations I am nearly wild. 
 There is Lady Claudia I detest that woman, she ran 
 away with another woman s husband, and yet for a time 
 I had to personate her. I am fast coming to the point 
 where I shall have absolutely no character of my own. I 
 shall only be a faint echo of Mr, Penholder s novels." 
 
 The people escaped to the library, the hall, and the 
 front porch to laugh over Mrs. Penholder and to groan 
 over her husband. " Are you not dreadfully disap 
 pointed?" "What a stupid man!" " Do you think 
 he wrote his own books ? " " He evidently does not 
 mean to give himself away." "How conceited he looks! " 
 " Perhaps he despises us." These were some of the 
 whispered comments passed around from one to another. 
 There was one poor joke from Jones Davis : " He may 
 fancy Penholder, but we don t." But when the wife was 
 mentioned, every body said, " Isn t she a little trump ? " 
 Our literary young lady kept the secret of the blue bead- 
 bag locked in her own breast. She never thought of the 
 silly hopes she had placed on the great genius for the 
 publication of "Soul Thrills and Heart Hunger " without 
 a certain sense of shame. 
 
 We have all come to the conclusion that Penholder 
 does not write his own books, but we firmly believe his 
 bright, animated better-half not only poses for them, but 
 composes them. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN THE VILLAGE. 
 
 THE first real snow-storm of the season came in loose 
 large flakes, like white feathers or tufts of wool cast 
 down from the shearing of the heavenly sheep. It has 
 remained with us for the Christmas festival, and has 
 brought the genuine Christmas cheer and jollity. It lies 
 downy and pure upon the fields, and gently rounds the 
 valleys and clings to all the inequalities of the hills. Vir 
 gin purity breathes over the village and makes it to shine 
 like the palace of Baldur, the Norse god of light, which 
 knew no grain of dust or touch of defilement. The roads 
 lead through a spotless world, softly laced and printed 
 with the shadows of naked trees and the delicate blues 
 and violets of the hills. The villagers look more pictur 
 esque than their wont in fur hoods and cloaks ; the 
 cheeks of the young glow lustily, and the old are beauti 
 fied by the snow-frame with its interfoliations and ara 
 besques ; the sleighs are out with tinkling bells ; and the 
 sleds are out, manned by boy crews ; the sunshine 
 glides into old rooms through speckless windows, and 
 touches old faces and antique furniture with a new 
 charm of expression. Like a dove the snow has come 
 and perched on the house-tops, and the evergreeens are 
 burdened with tufted white, the Christmas roses of our 
 northern clime. 
 
 In these last sad sweet days of the year, when the 
 longest story without an end must needs come to a period 
 
THE OTHER SELF. 467 
 
 for the time being, I have been going round in the vil 
 lage like an old Diogenes, with a tallow dip in my hand, 
 to find one perfect character. There is the doctor s 
 wife, there is Miss Candace, old Deacon Hildreth, St. 
 Patty, and a dozen others who are often spoken of as 
 just perfect saints upon earth ; but when we look closely 
 we detect little flaws and specks of narrowness and old 
 habits, the hardening of opinions and prejudices, tag- 
 ends of folly and vanity and human weakness, small 
 lapses from the highest ideal, such as mark too many 
 repentant crosses in our own life experience. 
 
 There is not one perfect, no, not one. But going 
 about with my candle in the still twilight of the old year, 
 when the trees stand so gray and motionless, I see, strange 
 to say, a shadowy figure stealing along beside every 
 human being that other self so strange and mysterious 
 even to its owner. On reflection I am sure Styles Garth 
 saw that other self in his shadow, and its potentiality of 
 evil may have frightened him when he caught sight of it 
 in the sunlight. It is the shadow-self that makes every 
 human being interesting and worthy of study. The vil 
 lage, quiet, humdrum, and sleepy, with its faded old 
 houses and steady habits, is still full of this subtle, mys 
 terious, creeping life, which we do not comprehend and 
 only discover by flashes of true insight. The quiet air 
 often tingles with the radiation of thought and feeling as 
 a blue column quivers over the glow of flame. 
 
 You may have remarked that my village has increased 
 strangely in size for so small and unimportant a place. 
 But its story does not embrace so much of what is as 
 what has been. The past is still intact with us. It ac 
 companies the village as an aggregate shadow self, a 
 village ghost ; often to be seen looking white and wan 
 like the pallid moon before sunset. It takes in the whole 
 of Burying-Ground Hill ; for the dead are not so dead as 
 they seem, nor are the living so much alive. The dead 
 
468 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 walk about here at all hours. A dead hand sticking up 
 out of a grave on the hill often points the finger of des 
 tiny to the new-born, and shapes the lives of creatures 
 who come even a hundred years after it was put away in 
 earth. Have I not said that powerful, sound-headed, 
 large-hearted Dr. Abijah Manners, though he died some 
 half century ago, seems alive and active to the children 
 who play in our street ? Much more is he alive to-day 
 than many a torpid creature maimed and deformed by 
 disobedience to the laws of his own being, and broken on 
 the wheel of life, not strictly as punishment, but because 
 of the inevitableness of the laws of the universe. 
 
 It is an odd thing, but only yesterday I saw " Dr. 
 Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " walking close together through 
 the village street, not interchangeable, but existing in a 
 semi-detached state. For Hyde, however ugly he may 
 be, carries Jekyll s features, and Jekyll, though a prosper 
 ous, handsome man, is still marked by Hyde as by the 
 small-pox, nor can he get rid of him while wearing his own 
 proper form. 
 
 I have a curious fancy on Christmas Eve I have never 
 confessed before. It comes to me while the evergreen 
 and holly are going up in the church. The young clergy 
 man likes these beautiful old heathenish customs, and 
 encourages the boys and girls to make the church look 
 as lovely as possible in its verdant garniture. Many 
 houses, too, are wreathed with Christmas green, nota 
 bly the doctor s. For days before the blessed eve, 
 he and Effie are abroad in the woods gathering ground- 
 pine and lusty branches of spruce and hemlock. All the 
 pictures look out of leafy setting, and the hearth is 
 wreathed with boughs and red berries. 
 
 When the church and the village homes begin to deck 
 themselves on Christmas Eve, I have the strange fancy 
 that all the dead come home to keep the holiday old 
 and young, white-haired people, beautiful maidens, bands 
 
A STRANGE FANCY. 469 
 
 of little children, all bearing the Christmas rose and 
 palm. In they glide, with no pushing or crowding, such 
 as happened in Mrs. Oliphant s " Beleaguered City," but 
 they make the place only the more homelike to those 
 who remain, and sweeten the air as if they had poured 
 upon it the essence of violets. 
 
 It is a strange fancy, but I can not shake it off, and I 
 steal about in the dusk of this gracious eve, the fairest of 
 all the year, and seem to see the departed friends troop 
 in over worn thresholds of old homes. They carry gifts 
 in their hands, and as they go in they all turn and smile 
 at me, sometimes roguishly. The dear children look 
 back with their starry eyes through floating sunny curls. 
 I wonder if the mothers whose constant hearts still ache 
 for their little ones, no matter how long they have been 
 what we call dead, do not feel the warm kisses and the 
 little clinging hands while tender heads nestle upon their 
 bosoms. Shall I tell them their little ones have all come 
 home to-night ? Before I can speak or move the vision 
 vanishes perhaps it was only a dream. 
 
 It is the custom of our good doctor to celebrate Christ 
 mas Eve with a little gathering of friends and neighbors 
 about the holly-decked hearth, and though he offers but 
 the simplest entertainment nuts and apples and sweet 
 cider no occasion is ever awaited with more impatience 
 and delight by the few who are privileged to come to 
 gether there. 
 
 The doctor has a peculiar sentiment connected 
 with this eve. He feels for all the children who 
 are so restless and happy in their little beds, dreaming of 
 Santa Claus, while the stockings dangle around the chim 
 ney-piece. It is a holy night, sacred to childhood, when, 
 according to the old traditions, witches have no evil power, 
 only good elves and fairies can come into homes with the 
 evergreens, and blessed influences rain in star showers 
 over every crib and cradle. While Drusilla and the First 
 
47 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 Church ladies give out fat turkeys to all who are too poor 
 to buy them, the doctor sees to it that no poor child, not 
 even a little Irisher,shall go without some gift in the stock 
 ing. He stole away the other day to the nearest large 
 town, not even taking Effie with him, as he coveted the 
 luxury of buying cheap toys all by himself, and when he 
 came back his wagon was full of mysterious, odd-shaped 
 parcels. Not one of Jake Small s bantlings, nor Sambo 
 Brown s pickanninies, nor Tim McCoy s children were 
 forgotten ; and out of his overcoat pocket protruded an 
 eye-winking, real-hair doll for Chippie, cheek by jowl with 
 a fine dog-collar for her dog, Zip Coon. 
 
 This Christmas Eve of which I am writing has been a 
 joyous one to the doctor, for his brother George was still 
 with him, and the friends who came were taken into a 
 warm hospitable embrace. The judge and Mrs. Magnus 
 are now in Washington, where he has been corresponding 
 immensely in the newspapers, to try and soften down and 
 explain away the interview with Bob Smartweed. As this 
 brings him so much before the public the judge feels with 
 a little inward, pious self-justification that there is balm 
 in Gilead. The judge, therefore, could not beam upon 
 the doctor s little party, but he had Milly, and Aunt Dido, 
 and Miss Candace, and John Dean and his wife, and the 
 clergyman and his pretty mate, and Drusilla and the Rev. 
 Arthur Meeker, and Deacon and Mrs. Hildreth, and the 
 Elmores, and others of our friends who need no particu 
 lar mention. 
 
 The company played games and sang old songs 
 at times to Effie s accompaniment on the piano, 
 and again they gathered about the hearth and told old 
 tales, some of them of a weird and ghostly nature, as 
 seemed to befit the occasion. I know the doctor spoke 
 of a patient of his who once lived on the other side of 
 Saddleback, indeed was a neighbor to the man Hayrick, 
 who came to such an awful end about the time of Presi- 
 
"MISS" SAWYEX S GHOST. 471 
 
 dent Lincoln s assassination. This old man Sawyer was 
 something of a hermit, and entertained peculiar religious 
 views. The old man had been unfortunate with his chil 
 dren, most of whom died young, and the only boy who 
 grew to manhood went into the war and was carried off 
 by camp fever in hospital. In a few years Sawyer s wife 
 had passed away, and he was left alone, a solitary, slim 
 old body, creeping noiselessly about the mountain world 
 where he lived. His religious oddities troubled none of 
 the few and widely-scattered neighbors. They consisted 
 in certain rites and ceremonies peculiar to himself, among 
 others the placing of plates and chairs at the table for all 
 his dead family on Sundays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, 
 and at the New Year festival. Silently on those days he 
 seemed to sit down and break bread with the departed in 
 a strange invisible communion, and the country children 
 spread the rumor abroad that " Miss " Sawyer often ap 
 peared at a certain window of the house, looking out with 
 wan, shadowy presence at the place where she had been 
 accustomed to sit in life to watch the " passing," of which 
 there was but the least. Old Sawyer is dead and the 
 place has new occupants, but the haunted window where 
 " Miss " Sawyer s ghost used to sit and gaze is still 
 pointed out, and idlers have scratched their names all 
 over the glass. 
 
 This purely local tale called forth from George Riv- 
 ington a little story which he had heard from an ex-con 
 federate officer in the south-west. It was narrated to him 
 at a large hotel in St. Louis some ten years after the 
 close of the war. After the capture of Lee s army, 
 twelve officers who had served together in the same army- 
 corps in the confederate ranks formed themselves into a 
 little club. They had scattered away to various parts of 
 the South and West, but they agreed to meet on Christ 
 mas Eve of each year at a large hostelry in one of our 
 western cities for a late supper. Exactly as the bell 
 
47 2 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 chimed the hour of midnight they were to rise, and 
 solemnly, and in silence, pledge the memory of their dead 
 comrades. Moreover, as one after another the members 
 of the club were taken by death, the covers were still to 
 be laid for the entire twelve, and the memory of these 
 comrades was but to swell the aggregate of honor and 
 sorrow paid to all the confederate dead. When the 
 agreement was first made, all the club members were 
 comparatively young, strong, vigorous men. But in a 
 few years death had singularly reduced their ranks, and 
 each season, as the survivors met around the board, the 
 occasion became more melancholy and the midnight cer 
 emonies more solemn and impressive. Six or seven years 
 after the club was formed there were but five surviving, 
 and they, sitting with the seven empty seats, seemed to be 
 attending their own funerals. Four years later the gen 
 tleman who told this tale to George Rivington was the 
 sole survivor of the club. 
 
 On Christmas Eve he repaired to the place of meeting 
 as usual, and ordered the table laid for twelve. Alone 
 he seated himself in full uniform at the head of the 
 board, and strove to go through the ceremony of din 
 ing. As the clock struck twelve, the waiter having left 
 the room, he slowly rose from his chair, glass in hand, 
 and with suffused eyes, drank to the memory of the 
 departed. At that instant, by some strange illusion, 
 every place was filled. He saw his dead friends exactly 
 as in life, with the light glancing off epaulet and sword- 
 hilt, each holding his glass as he rose to his feet to 
 drink the solemn pledge to the confederate dead. 
 With a groan he sank back in his chair. The glass was 
 dashed from his hand. The sound of his fall brought 
 the people of the house, who found him insensible, ap 
 parently in a fit. They put him to bed and procured a 
 doctor, and it was long before his confused brain could 
 recall the exact occurrences of that night. But when he 
 
AS THE CLOCK CHIMED TWELVE. 473 
 
 regaired strength and memory, the dread of the next 
 Christmas Eve, when he was pledged again to meet his 
 eleven comrades, affected him with superstitious terrors. 
 However, before the time came round he too had passed 
 over to the great majority. 
 
 When Mr. Rivington had finished this strange little 
 Christmas tale, it was drawing on toward the witching 
 hour, and a kind of awed hush fell on the company, as 
 if they expected to see a ghostly troop enter the room. 
 Erne stole to the piano and struck some notes of Auld 
 Lang Syne, and just as the clock chimed twelve, and 
 Christmas Day was born the whole company broke into 
 the grand, inspiring old song, the uncanny feeling was at 
 once dispelled, and the lamps which had seemed to burn 
 blue, brightened the room. 
 
 The good doctor, knowing Milly s weakness, asked her 
 before they parted to recite one of her father s little 
 poems. Not for their merit did Milly choose the follow 
 ing simple lines, but because they seemed to breathe a 
 spirit of hope and courage toward the great dim unknown 
 future upon whose threshold they were standing : 
 
 Brave hearts rejoice to meet the summer s gold, 
 Brave hearts still gladden in the winter s cold, 
 Blow high, or low the winds on land and sea, 
 They bring no ill to me. 
 
 The sun but sinks to lead the new-born day, 
 Its red rose blossoms out of misty gray. 
 Blow high, or low the winds on land and sea, 
 They bring no ill to me. 
 
 In youth, dear Nature decks the sunny brow, 
 In age, she wreathes anew the frosty pow. 
 Blow tempests wild, or breathe a southern gale, 
 All winds shall fill my sail. 
 
 Good wishes and merry quips had flown about like 
 little birds in all directions. A few simple gifts were 
 
474 VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 exchanged, and then the guests poured forth into the 
 cold night air, where the winter sky sparkled resplen- 
 dently with ten thousand stars over the snow, and a trace 
 of sweetness seemed to linger, as if the herald angels, 
 with their new song of " Peace on earth, good will to 
 men," had just passed that way. And because a child 
 was born and laid in a manger the symbol of infancy s 
 closeness to nature, and her creative powers the old 
 earth seemed happier than her wont. 
 As the season brings its pleasant tokens fraught with 
 love and kindness, so would I send you a present, though 
 of a humble, homely sort ; and I therefore slip into the 
 hamper of Santa Glaus, as he makes his midnight rounds, 
 a bundle of Village Photographs. 
 
 THE END. 
 

817 
 
 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 

 
, 3817 
 
 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES