LIBRARY 
 
 \)niver*y o California^ 
 
 IRVINE
 
 M
 
 A X urn pike Lady 
 
 Beartown, Vermont, 1768-1796 
 
 BY 
 SARAH N. CLEGHORN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1907
 
 PS 
 
 3505 
 LSQ 
 
 T8 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published September ; 1907 
 
 THE QUINN ft 60DEN CO. PRESS 
 RAH WAY, N. J.
 
 So 
 
 J. O. H. AND J. D. C. 
 
 WITH PANSIES AND WITH ROSEMARY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE POLICES DESCRIBED 
 
 II. TALL TALK AT THE SAPHOUSE .... 
 
 III. THE DAY OF THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 
 
 IV. ELIZA'S ILLNESS THE GREEN SILK . 
 
 V. THE ARRIVAL OF THE LUCYS ELIZA GOES TO 
 
 JAMAICA 57 
 
 VI. ELIZA SULKS 74 
 
 VII. ALPHEUS AND MARYETTE THE BLACK SATUR 
 DAY go 
 
 VIII. GATEWAYS OF THE ENCHANTED COUNTRY . 108 
 
 IX. FLAVIA OBEYS HER MOTHER . . . .118 
 
 X. HONOURS AND EMOLUMENTS .... 131 
 
 XI. THE PROUD SUMMER BEGINS .... 140 
 
 XII. ADVICE FROM MARM AND MRS. DARBY . . 151 
 
 XIII. DRIVING TO WESTMINSTER .... 165 
 
 XIV. THE CRADLE IN THE WOODHOUSE CHAMBER . 178
 
 vi Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV. ELIZA'S VISIT 193 
 
 XVI. THE PROUD SUMMER ENDS .... 213 
 
 XVII. THE LITTLE INNOCENT ..... 223 
 
 XVIII. MORNING, AFTERNOON, AND EVENING AT THE 
 
 HOUSE ON THE NORTH TURNPIKE . . 239
 
 A TURNPIKE LADY
 
 A TURNPIKE LADY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Gbe polfces Described 
 
 Alexis, here she walked: among these pines. 
 
 IN the amphitheatre between Red and Bald 
 Mountains (peaks of eastern Vermont) are 
 the remains of the tollgate hamlet of Beartown, 
 which flourished there four generations ago. 
 From the valley Beartown looks no bigger than a 
 child's necklace of beans or spools, lost in the 
 mountain hollow. But this brief row of log and 
 clapboarded houses then sheltered large families 
 of children, cheerful huskings, spellings, paring 
 bees, and kitchen fiddlings; and a long parade 
 walked on Sundays to the church, where the 
 Prayer-Book was read to a congregation of loyal 
 ists by the toothless Mr. Greenpiece. 
 
 The tollgate was kept by James Darby, who,
 
 The Polkes Described 
 
 with his brother-in-law Richard Polke, drilled 
 and led away the Beartown Whig-Biters. Mr. 
 Darby and Mr. Polke had married sisters of some 
 wealth, and their houses were the most pretentious 
 in the town clapboarded with wide boards, and 
 painted yellow and white. The Polkes had a few 
 scrawny poplars in front, which they valued more 
 than all the fine maples round their barn. Their 
 house, though it looked large among its neigh 
 bours, would not have been large enough for the 
 eleven children, if they had all been children at 
 once. But the eldest were married and gone 
 away before the youngest were born; and there 
 was a great gulf in the middle of the family, 
 where several little boys and girls had died in 
 quick succession of chin-cough and spinal disease. 
 Naomi and her next sister Eliza could only re 
 member one of these shadowy lost ones their 
 poor little brother David, whose head was drawn 
 sidewise, and who wore a cruel brace made of a 
 coat-hook.
 
 The Polkes Described 
 
 Eliza was seven years old, and Naomi was 
 three, when Saul, the youngest child, was born. 
 Naomi remembered well her little brother's bap 
 tism, on a raw, lowering November afternoon. 
 The church had not been aired, and struck a fatal 
 chill to Mrs. Polke's chest. It was thought that 
 the peevish, ailing baby could not long survive his 
 christening ; but he grew to be a stout boy, while 
 his mother went into a slow consumption. 
 Naomi could always recall her mother in those 
 last years, as she used to sit in a deep chintz chair, 
 her bony knees poking up through her petti 
 coats with hollow grey eyes looking over 
 the rim of Bald Mountain toward her early 
 home. 
 
 Of the eleven children who had been born to 
 Mr. Polke, but four now remained in the house 
 behind the poplars. An aunt of their mother's 
 came up from Charlotte County to take care of 
 them. Marm Patridge, as she was called, was a 
 kind, fat, shrewd old woman, who sewed and
 
 The Polkes Described 
 
 scrubbed and contrived with all her heart and 
 strength for those whom she called her children 
 by adoption and grace. Titus, the eldest, was a 
 dark, lank, stooping, silent youth of fifteen. 
 Eliza was a delicate child of eleven. She had the 
 blue eyes, blue-black hair, and delicate complexion 
 of the Polkes Irish colouring, with which she 
 showed a mercurial Irish temperament. Her 
 loose frocks hung off her bottle-sloping shoulders. 
 When she cast down her wistful eyes, a faint 
 pearl shadow fell from her lashes, painting her 
 cheek beautifully wan. 
 
 Naomi alone of all the children had her 
 mother's grey eyes. Her hair was reddish, her 
 skin a freckled amber. She was short and 
 stocky; her legs, she thought, were as powerful 
 as a young moose's, to spring up the steep rocky 
 paths. She was a staid, obedient, blunt, truthful 
 child. Her father called her best trait by its 
 prettiest name when he said sometimes, 
 
 "Little Naomye's a sisterly child."
 
 The Polkes Described 
 
 She was different from all her brothers and 
 sisters in one trait, a deep absent-mindedness. 
 She was always being told to "come down out 
 of the clouds"; for many things threw her into 
 fits of musing, such as the sound of singing, or of 
 flowing waters, the woods in autumn, or the 
 Psalter in church. 
 
 Little Saul, called Budsey, was already a 
 venturesome, vagrant little boy, whose hands 
 were always covered with warts, scratches, and 
 cuts. He had soon outgrown his early delicacy, 
 and his cheeks were so red that strangers thought 
 he had a fever. Before he was out of petticoats 
 he had acquired a tall opinion of himself. His 
 great-aunt would trudge away, on her gouty 
 limbs, to fetch his playthings: and Naomi would 
 run across the garret barefoot, on a cold snowy 
 morning, to bring an apple for him to eat in his 
 trucklebed. She thought no child had ever loved 
 another as she loved little Budsey. 
 
 Such was the family of whom Marm Patridge
 
 The Polkes Described 
 
 used to philosophise, through the gaps in her 
 teeth. 
 
 "Theshe childern air quite a care to me; but 
 who elshe, saysh I, be they to look to? for the 
 Patridgesh air all dead but me ; I'm the only one 
 to have my shroud turn yallow with age." 
 
 While the Polke children were picking blue 
 berries, or wading in the pools of Roaring 
 Branch, the clouds of war were rolling up toward 
 their hollow. Awaking before daylight one 
 morning, Naomi saw lanterns moving in the 
 woods about Westminster, the village in the 
 valley, where two sheriffs were being given the 
 "beach seal" on their naked backs. The west 
 loopholes of the garret looked down, across a 
 broad landscape, to the Courthouse itself, with its 
 high fenced roof, in the middle of Westminster 
 Street.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Call Calk at tbc Sapbouse 
 
 They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
 
 The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep. 
 
 NAOMI'S young cousin Debbe Darby came 
 up one melting March afternoon to bor 
 row buckets. The sap was running on Red 
 Mountain. Debbe had on her cowhide boots, 
 ready to plunge through the spongy snow and 
 reeking damp woods, to the saphouse. Naomi 
 snatched her padded bonnet and ran out to join 
 her. When the sap ran, the spring had begun. 
 A sharp wind blew down from the snowy caves 
 above, but the little girls could see a plough 
 glisten in the brown fields of Westminster far 
 below. Delicate young-ladified Eliza stood at 
 the window peering out through the pane of 
 greased paper at the tomboys, as they ran along
 
 8 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 the woods looking for the fringed leaves of the 
 squirrel corn, and reddish trefoil of the wind- 
 flower. 
 
 As they passed the tollgate house, they saw 
 Debbe's sister Pleiades sitting at the keeping- 
 room window, with her hands clasped round 
 her knees, idly looking down at the nine 
 waterbars and the fork of the Westminster 
 road. 
 
 "What ails Pleiades?" inquired Naomi. "Is 
 she sick?" 
 
 "Sick? no. She's as stout's hickory." 
 
 "Why hain't she up at the saphouse 
 then?" 
 
 "Oh, she likes to set at hum and moon about 
 her beau." 
 
 "What's a beau?" asked little Naomi. 
 
 "Hain't you ever heared of beaus, you ignorant 
 young one?" 
 
 "No, sir, I hain't. What be they? a kind of 
 bunnit ?"
 
 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 "Te-hee! no, you ignorant child. A beau's a 
 young man that goes a-visitin' Wednesdays and 
 Sabbies, and wears his best wescat, and greases 
 his hair." 
 
 "Oh !" 
 
 "Pleiades has catched William French for her 
 beau. He comes the hull way up from Brattle- 
 boro to see her; but he hain't be'n here since 
 Wednesday evening. He missed his Sabby. 
 Hain't you ever seen William French's nag 
 hitched to our gate?" 
 
 "What, that humly piebald ?" 
 
 "Don't you call my sister's beau's nag a humly 
 piebald, Naomye Polke, or I'll saouse your face 
 in the hen's pail !" 
 
 "You hain't stout enough to do so." 
 
 "Hain't, hey? Oh, looky, Naomye, how fast 
 the spouts drip !" 
 
 The little girls "were springing up the steep 
 path. Already they could smell the boiling 
 sap, and could hear their fathers talking over
 
 io Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 the kettle. They heard Mr. Polke's loud 
 imaginative talk, and Mr. Darby's cackling 
 laughter. 
 
 "I tell ye," Mr. Polke was saying to his 
 brother-in-law, "there's very tall talk in West 
 minster in these days. Peleg Sunderland has 
 be'n over the mountain, and they say he's fetched 
 back another pair of haounds." 
 
 "To hunt the Beartown Tories, hey?" inquired 
 Mr. Darby derisively. 
 
 "Captin Hiel Hawley says he heared a very 
 ribble song as he rid past the tavern in West 
 minster a fortnit ago." 
 
 "What was it, hey? 'Town by Town'?" 
 
 "No, sir, that wan't the song." 
 
 "What was it, then ?" 
 
 "It was this new one, Hanky or Panky Doodle, 
 I believe they call it. Hawley larnt me one 
 verse, but I've forgot it. It was something of 
 this nature;" and Mr. Polke, in his fine trolling 
 voice, tried to sing
 
 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 1 1 
 
 "There sits a cock on Windsor walls, 
 
 If we could git him handy, 
 We'd pull his tail and whiskers aout 
 Hank-a-doodle dandy. 
 
 It's a very ribble song." 
 
 Mr. Darby inquired in a hushed voice, 
 "Who d'ye think was meant by the cock, 
 Richard?" 
 
 "Why, James, the king was meant." 
 "Then we better shine up our bills and blades, 
 Richard! We better meet together and drill 
 ourselves into a company. Parliament should 
 know of such doin's !" 
 
 "Yes, by hen! The king should know of it!" 
 cried Mr. Darby. "What would be thought in 
 London if the truth was knowed there about 
 these goin's-on in Westminster, and Jamaiky, 
 and Bennin'ton? What if Peleg Sunderland 
 was fetched up before Parliament for sicking 
 his haounds on the Tories of Beartown, 
 hey?" 
 
 "They've got so uppish in Westminster, they
 
 1 2 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 vaow the king's Court hain't to set at all in their 
 town," said Mr. Darby. 
 
 "That's a good one!" said Mr. Polke mirth 
 fully. 
 
 "It'll be a long while, I guess, before the Court 
 doos set to Westminster." The speaker was a 
 young man in hunting clothes, who had sat, until 
 now, silent, in the corner of the saphouse. 
 
 "I forgot you was there, Tite," said Mr. 
 Darby. "You hain't spoke for an hour." 
 
 "He hain't spoke," said Mr. Polke, "since he 
 got hum from Westminster this forenoon." 
 
 Titus Polke shifted his long legs and relapsed 
 into thought again. Naomi saw him lick his 
 lips. 
 
 "What ails Titey?" she muttered to herself. 
 
 "I guess," said Mr. Darby, "the Court '11 set 
 when the day comes." 
 
 "The day has come," said Titus, "but the Court 
 hain't setting yit." 
 
 "Oh, wal, there may be some little delay. The
 
 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 1 3 
 
 Whigs at Westminster air gitting to be the ring 
 leaders of this hull trouble all over the Grants. 
 The canker of rebellion is gathering in this 
 valley. If I was asked, I should say Cut 
 it aout with sabres! Burn it aout with gun- 
 paowder!" 
 
 "There was sabres and guns a-cutting and 
 a-burning in Westminster yistaday," said 
 Titus. 
 
 "What say ?" cried his father and uncle. 
 
 "I say there was gunnin' round the Courthouse 
 in Westminster last night, and two good fellows 
 was shot " 
 
 "What say? What say?" 
 
 "William French was shot in the head, and 
 Dan'l Houghton in the belly. French is dead," 
 said Titus in a heavy voice. 
 
 "William French!" whispered Naomi to 
 Debbe. "Your sister's beau !" 
 
 Mr. Polke and Mr. Darby had sunk back in 
 their chairs. Mr. Polke was very pale. Titus
 
 14 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 got up and walked to the doorway, where he 
 stood looking out at the dripping trees, and chip 
 munk tracks in the snow. 
 
 "I guess," he said suddenly, "I'll go with the 
 liberty party now, if I git hanged for it, as most 
 likely I shall." 
 
 Then he turned round, and saw his father's 
 head hanging down on his breast. 
 
 "Father! if you had seen his maouth, poor 
 French's maouth, all blubbered and bloody, and 
 heared poor Houghton, how he groaned! They 
 stepped on a stun as they was carryin' him his 
 belly was tore almost in two." 
 
 "Stop stop tellin' of it!" cried Mr. Darby, 
 stopping his ears. 
 
 "Father, I hain't forgot how praoud we all be, 
 to think we're loyal, down to second cousins ; and 
 that's why," said Titus, "I hain't turned long 
 before." 
 
 Mr. Polke did not speak, but Mr. Darby asked 
 coldly :
 
 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 1 5 
 
 "What harm have the king's people ever done 
 to you or any of your kin, Titus Polke?" 
 
 "Why, uncle, I'll tell ye what they've done. 
 They've pestered and bullied the hull of Cumber 
 land Caounty: and naow they've killed two lun- 
 kin' great fellows that I'd give my half of the 
 gun if I'd never seen 'em lyin' there . . . poor 
 French, his maouth. . . . I'm sick, I guess." 
 His cheeks did look mottled and purplish. The 
 sap boiled over the monstrous kettle, and no one 
 saw it. Naomi and Debbe let their cups fall, and 
 the half-grained sugar ran over their aprons. 
 
 "Be I dreaming, James," asked Mr. Polke, "or 
 is my son a t-t-t-turnco't ?" 
 
 "No, Richard, you hain't dreamin'. Your son 
 is a snivellin' tail-turner. Spew him aout let 
 him go in a ragged shirt to the Westminster Mob 
 let 'em all be shot to hell together!" 
 
 "Father can speak for himself, uncle " 
 
 "Be still, turncoat! Have him gether his 
 clothes in a bundle, Richard. Send him down to
 
 1 6 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 
 
 Westminster let the king's troops shoot him 
 through the back." 
 
 The little girls screamed faintly, and put their 
 fingers in their ears. 
 
 Mr. Polke said, "You hain't any son of your 
 own, James, that you speak so to mine." 
 
 "God be thanked for that," said Mr. Darby 
 grimly. 
 
 "Oh, father, don't hear to such talk !" cried little 
 Naomi, letting go her cousin's hand and running 
 out of her corner. She ran to her father, and 
 stood between his knees, looking fiercely at her 
 uncle Darby; a feverish colour burning up her 
 pale freckles, and her hands clenched until the 
 knuckles were white. 
 
 "Shame on Uncle Darby !" she cried. 
 
 "Box that child's ears, Richard!" 
 
 But Mr. Polke did not hear. He saw the 
 delicate hollow in his little girl's cheek, and her 
 grey eyes like her mother's ; and all that he could 
 say to Mr. Darby was :
 
 Tall Talk at the Saphouse 1 7 
 
 "What would his m mother think, James, if 
 I was to do as you say? Come, Naomye, climb 
 up on father's knee. Hush your brother Tite 
 hain't goin' away from home." 
 
 None of them all thought then of poor 
 Pleiades, whose lover was lying, with his mouth 
 "all blubbered and bloody," on the floor of the 
 Courthouse at Westminster.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Dag ot tbe JBattle of JBennington 
 
 The forest cracked, the waters curled, 
 The cattle huddled on the lea. 
 
 THERE was a swamp in a deep hollow be 
 hind the tollgate, filled with matted grass, 
 brown lilies, and adders' nests. This became the 
 parade-ground of the Beartown Whig-Biters, 
 when Mr. Darby in his Italian boots, and Mr. 
 Polke in his tight Peninsular uniform, drilled them 
 in the summer evenings of 1777. The talk was 
 taller than ever in these days, between the fierce 
 villages of loyal Beartown and rebellious West 
 minster. The Biters of Beartown were a miscel 
 laneous company, and their weapons were a 
 museum of ancient and modern arms. Bills once 
 carried by London apprentices in Tudor riots 
 were there, with cutlasses, pistols of Portugal, 
 
 and even a tomahawk, which Mr. Greenpiece had 
 
 18
 
 The Battle of Bennington 19 
 
 dug up in his sauce garden. The children of 
 Beartown perched in the surrounding trees to 
 watch the drills. Naomi, who was nine years old 
 in May, was thought too much of a young lady to 
 shin up pine trees any more she and Debbe 
 Darby must carry their crickets across pasture to 
 the swamp, and sit and knit as they watched their 
 townsmen drill. 
 
 Eliza, that delicate house plant, could not corne 
 to the drills. She was not able to breathe the 
 fresh air except through a fine strainer of a veil. 
 The tender creature, with her pale pleasure-crav 
 ing face and asking eyes, must sit all day in a 
 baking temperature, while she executed her 
 fancies in needlework. She had a secret piece 
 of work which she would fold away in haste 
 when Captain Polke, with Budsey and Naomi 
 hanging on his yellow-faced tails, came up the 
 pike. 
 
 Naomi was watching the drill, on an afternoon 
 in middle August, when the Biters were swagger-
 
 2O The Battle of Bennington 
 
 ing to and fro across the swamp, swelling out 
 their stomachs, and exchanging tall brags and 
 boasts among themselves. Budsey followed 
 them on his short legs, imitating every motion of 
 their gait a baby Biter. Debbe Darby was 
 there, and so was Marm Patridge, who kept a 
 sharp eye on the little girls' knitting; every now 
 and then interrupting the Captains' orders to call 
 out: 
 
 "Pick up that loop you've dropped there, 
 Naomye Polke!" or 
 
 "It'sh time you wash narrowin' that shock, Deb 
 Darby!" 
 
 "I wish the Biters could have be'n in Bostown 
 a couple of years ago," said Mr. Greenpiece 
 admiringly, "to snip this rebellion in the 
 bud." 
 
 "It was decreed otherwise," said Mr. Darby. 
 "The raskills was to have rope enough to hang 
 themselves." 
 
 "Captin Kiel Hawley says," put in Mr. Polke,
 
 The Battle of Bennington 2 1 
 
 "that the hull rebellion has petered aout, and 
 Burgoyne wun't hardly git here in time to set 
 foot on the tail of it. Washin'ton is as good as 
 catched. He can't get out of York with a hull 
 hide." 
 
 "There's a good many don't sleep very well in 
 Westminster these nights, I warrant," said Mr. 
 Byjam darkly. 
 
 "Where's Sunderland, hey? Where's his 
 haounds? Why don't he come and ketch us?" 
 cried Mr. Darby, slapping his leg. But suddenly 
 he pricked up his ears. 
 
 "What what's that?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Look ye there !" cried Mr. Polke. 
 
 A frantic creature in pale breeches, with pale 
 streaming hair, came fleeing through the woods. 
 His coat tails blew out behind, and his stick-like 
 legs hurled him forward like a two-spoked wheel 
 among the brambles and loose rocks of the Red 
 woods. 
 
 "It's Henry Tibbald!" cried little Naomi in
 
 22 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 great anxiety, jumping up from her cricket. 
 "Leg it, Henry ! Leg it faster !" 
 
 "Sunderland's haounds!" cried several voices 
 in alarm. "We better all let out for hum." 
 Some of the Biters shinned up trees, others cocked 
 their guns with trembling fingers. 
 
 The desperate boy fell panting on the wet 
 matted grass, and looked about for the beast that 
 had been chasing him. No creature was in view 
 but a brown setter, which now came nosing in a 
 friendly manner at his knees. 
 
 "Why, it's our old Snooper !" cried Mr. Polke. 
 
 He whistled to the dog. 
 
 "What made ye run away from old Snooper, 
 hey?" 
 
 "Why," said the youth, "Pleiades Darby called 
 out to me as I was walkin' up the pike she put 
 her head out the winder, and told me to run as 
 quick as I could the haounds was after me; so 
 I legged it." 
 
 "Haw, haw !" laughed the Biters.
 
 The Battle of Bennington 23 
 
 "Te-hee !" cackled the children in the tree-tops. 
 "Hen Tibbald put aout up Bald Mount'in, to git 
 away from Mr. Polke's old Snooper." 
 
 "You needn't to laugh at Hen," cried Naomi, 
 stamping her foot. "Budsey Polke, don't you 
 titter again ! Any of you would have runned as 
 fast as he did, if Pleiades had told you the same 
 tale." 
 
 Henry Tibbald gave his defender a grateful 
 look. 
 
 "W-wal," said he, "I've fuf-fetched something 
 here that hain't a tut-titterin' matter." He 
 pulled a paper out of his bosom and gave it to Mr. 
 Polke. Mr. Polke read, and passed it in haste to 
 Mr. Darby. In another moment the Biters were 
 all in an uproar, the young boys shouting and 
 throwing their bills and hats into the air, the older 
 men slapping each other on the back ; and Marm 
 Patridge had climbed on the tipping-stone, and 
 was trying to cut a pigeon wing. 
 
 Naomi ran to her father, and pulled at his coat.
 
 24 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 "Who's a-twitchin' my tails ?" 
 
 "It's me, father. What's befallen? What 
 ails ye all ?" 
 
 "What ails us, hey?" Mr. Polke swung his 
 little daughter to his shoulder. "Why, Naomye, 
 this is a day of glory for Beartown. We've 
 got our marchin' orders from Captin Hiel 
 Hawley." 
 
 "Oh, father! Where? When? How you 
 goin'?" 
 
 "Afoot." 
 
 "Oh, father; where?" 
 
 "Bennin'ton way." 
 
 "Oh, no, please, father! I don't want you 
 should go there. I had a bad dream last night. 
 I dreamt of a mouse catched in a tail-trap 
 that's a very bad sign. Father! He's walked 
 away and left me jawing. I'd give my husk- 
 dolly's bunnit if I could keep father to hum," she 
 muttered sadly as she sat down by Debbe Darby 
 again.
 
 The Battle of Bennington 25 
 
 But Debbe was not listening. Her ear was 
 turned to the forest, whence she could hear a 
 faint sound of singing. It was a voice she knew, 
 and she could hear the Whiggish tune, 
 
 "Town by town, town by town, 
 Allen's tall Green Mountain Boys 
 Air a-piling down." 
 
 "Hark," said Debbe, "to my sister Pleiades 
 singin' in the woods!" 
 
 "What makes her do so ?" 
 
 "I can't tell ye. She's got some curious ways 
 of late. She's all the while mumblin' to herself, 
 and I tell ye, Naomye, sometimes " 
 
 "You speak so low I can't hear ye, Deb." 
 
 "Sometimes I'm most afeared of her ! my own 
 sister! hain't it ter'ble?" 
 
 Naomi felt herself shaking, her cousin looked 
 so strangely at her. 
 
 The dusk was already falling from the high 
 peaks behind which the sun went down at five 
 o'clock. Mr. Polke called his two children to go
 
 26 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 home. Rather solemnly they walked up the dusty 
 pike. The ferns along the roadside were dry 
 and withered by the drought, but a welcome 
 dampness began at sundown to exhale from the 
 woods. As they turned into their own gate, 
 young Eliza, with a bright red spot under each 
 eye, appeared at the window. She beckoned to 
 them ; and as soon as they entered, she ran to her 
 father and shook out her secret needlework a 
 tiny British flag. 
 
 "There, father that's for the Biters to carry. 
 I made it out of an old red petticoat, and an old 
 chimee, and the little blue babe's dress we've all 
 worn in turn." 
 
 "You're a good girl, Elizy, to think of it. 
 Beautiful beautiful fine stitches you've set into 
 it. But you mustn't set and sew too much. 
 That's what makes you despise your victuals, we 
 think." 
 
 "I hain't had the stitch in my side in most a 
 week, father."
 
 The Battle of Bennington 27 
 
 "Wai but you look peaked to-night, I think. 
 Air you well ? hain't you feverish ?" 
 
 "No, father, but I thought I had the janders 
 coming on this forenoon, for Pleiades was here 
 to set and sew with me, and she stared so at me, I 
 thought I must be turning yallow. I don't know 
 what's come over Pleiades since her beau was 
 killed. She's got some very strange ways. She 
 looks, and stares, and creeps like a cat " 
 
 "Oh, tut, tut, tut, my dear, you must get rid of 
 such notions. Marm better take away your 
 needle and push ye out of doors." 
 
 Eliza began to cry, partly at her father's 
 anxious tone, and partly from a natural longing, 
 not quite smothered, to run out freely, like little 
 Naomi, into that same "raw" air. Her father 
 took her on his knee. He patted her head, and 
 smoothed her thin black hair back from her 
 lovely brows. It was sweeter than honey in the 
 honeycomb, she thought, to have him do so. 
 Little Budsey whispered to Naomi,
 
 28 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 "Sister cries to git father to comfort her." 
 
 "Wai, I would too," said Naomi. 
 
 It was a solemn supper, and a solemn walk 
 down the familiar cross-cut to the pasture bars. 
 No mockery was heard from Marm Patridge's 
 sharp tongue to-night. There were a great many 
 shooting stars in the August skies. Naomi saw 
 one shooting westward, as if it were pointing the 
 way to Bennington. 
 
 "Good-bye, childern!" their father called. 
 "We'll bring the raskills' provender home to feed 
 the bob-tailed colt. I wish we'd had aour sum 
 mons a month ago; for this is the tail end of the 
 war." 
 
 Naomi darted after her father and pressed a 
 small parcel into his coat pocket. 
 
 "Here ! hi ! what you up to, Naomye ?" 
 
 "Father, I thought if you went over Bennin'ton 
 way, p'haps you'd see Titey ; and I could send him 
 that passel " 
 
 "What's in it, hey?"
 
 The Battle of Bennington 29 
 
 "Something . . . something I set store 
 by " 
 
 "What is it, I say?" 
 
 "Wai, it's . . . it's my Sabby tippet. I want 
 Titey should have it, for he must have wore 
 his old one out this hull year he's be'n 
 away. He can wear mine for bettermost this 
 winter." 
 
 It was very hot for the next twenty-four hours. 
 The milk soured, and the dogs licked the grass. 
 The stitch in Eliza's side was very bad. In the 
 afternoon, as she was lying on the spare bed, 
 tossing her lean bare arms over her head, and 
 watching the sky over Bald Mountain for the 
 longed-for thunder-clouds, there was heard a 
 curious low boom to the westward, prolonged, 
 renewed, and slowly dying away. 
 
 "Hark to the thunder!" cried Eliza. 
 
 Marm hurried to the window, but the sky was 
 clear in all directions.
 
 30 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 "That wan't thunder," said Marm, shaking 
 her head. 
 
 "What was it, then?" asked Eliza sharply. 
 "Thar 'tis again." 
 
 "I don't know, child, if 'tishn't the shound of 
 gunnin'." 
 
 It was the guns at Bennington, reverberating 
 among the mountains. Their low boom sounded 
 again, and after it a murmurous commotion far 
 down the south turnpike, with voices and horns 
 which faintly echoed from Red Mountain back to 
 Bald again. 
 
 "Marm Patridge! What's befalling?" 
 cried Eliza, clutching her Marm by the 
 sleeve. 
 
 The dogs began to bark, and the stag-hound 
 bayed. 
 
 Budsey ran in, with Naomi at his heels. Her 
 butternut frock was hanging off her shoulders as 
 usual, and her stocking yarn was trailing and 
 ravelling about her feet.
 
 The Battle of Bennington 3 1 
 
 "Oh, Marm! sister the Biters air a-marching 
 back!" 
 
 "What shay? what shay?" 
 
 "I say the Biters air a-comin', and the haounds 
 a-herdin' 'em " 
 
 "And Peleg Sunderland's a-crackin' a long 
 whip " 
 
 "What do you mean, childern? Tell quick." 
 
 "We be a-telling! Their faces air all grime 
 and sweat oh, it's a ter'ble sight!" 
 
 "But father hain't amongst 'em." 
 
 "What do you shay, Naomye? Your father 
 hain't thar ?" 
 
 "No father's missin'." 
 
 Eliza, with a little groan, sank down limp on 
 the bed. 
 
 The commotion had increased to a medley of 
 shouts, horns, and fifes. From the narrow win 
 dows the advance of the procession could be seen 
 a crowd of impish boys dancing clogs and 
 reels, tooting and drumming, and singing the
 
 32 The Battle of Bennington 
 
 hated liberty tune, "Town by Town." Behind 
 them marched the forlorn and beaten Biters, some 
 savagely lunging their heads and elbows at their 
 captors (for their hands were tied), some trying 
 amid the drowning sounds of the liberty tune to 
 make their own song of "King Hancock" heard ; 
 while others walked in silence with bowed heads. 
 Sunderland's hounds ran alongside, their tongues 
 hanging out, and Sunderland himself marshalled 
 them from behind with his loud whip. 
 
 No one knew who had betrayed the Biters. 
 They had walked into an ambush in the tama 
 rack swamp on the outskirts of Westminster; 
 some forty Green Mountain Boys rising from the 
 ragged underbrush like spirits of the underworld. 
 By the glimmering light of stars they looked 
 more like two hundred than two score. The 
 startled Biters fled like sheep before the men of 
 Westminster. Of all that tall-talking company 
 but two showed fight Mr. Greenpiece and Mr. 
 Polke. Mr. Greenpiece had been spared for his
 
 The Battle of Bennington 33 
 
 cloth and age. But Mr. Polke had sent a bullet 
 too close to Peleg Sunderland's own ear; and he 
 was mounted on a poor galled horse, and sent 
 over the Red Pass to the new "liberty" jail at 
 Manchester. Riding through the Red Woods as 
 the moon rose, trying to plaster with mullein the 
 horse's raw spots, he did not see his niece Plei 
 ades Darby, wandering in the hollow, and mur 
 muring over and over to herself : 
 
 "Wan't for nothing I rid down over those 
 twenty waterbars a-Monday night." 
 
 The moon which was rising over the Red 
 Woods rose too on the field of Bennington, where 
 Titus Polke was lying on his face, with purple 
 blood spouting from his ears.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 f Hne00 ttbe <5reen Silfc 
 
 Art thou so pale, who wast so bland ? 
 T T 7HAT a dark winter was this on which the 
 * Polkes were now entering!. It was said 
 in Manchester that Mr. Polke gnawed the door of 
 the jail in his desperation ; but his captors would 
 not set him free. Perhaps his captivity was in 
 some ways a piece of good fortune for him. He 
 was perhaps happier to be away from home in 
 these days, where he could not see his favourite 
 daughter's slender body visibly shrivelling away 
 inside her garments. The stitch in Eliza's side 
 hung on all winter. The least fatigue or excite 
 ment brought it on. She grew very listless, and 
 would sit with her hands loosely clasped in her 
 lap, in the midst of the busy family, neither join 
 ing in the talk, nor noticing the pauses in it, when 
 
 34
 
 Eliza's Illness 35 
 
 Marm Patridge would turn and give her a long 
 look, and say, 
 
 "Elizy, child, you don't feel very peart?" 
 
 When directly spoken to, she would blink, and 
 smile as if from far away, and say : 
 
 "I guess I shall smarten up when the snow 
 melts." 
 
 This new anxiety really helped the Polkes to 
 bear these long months, their father's imprison 
 ment, and the sight of the new grave beside the 
 churchyard fence, marked 
 
 Tytus, Son of 
 
 Richd & Sarah Polke 
 
 Aged 1 8 yrs. 7 mos. & 5 Days. 
 
 To Erre Is Human, To Forgive Divine. 
 
 Bleached by the equinoctial rains, and half 
 buried in the snows, Eliza's poor little British flag 
 now marked the head of the boy who had fallen 
 fighting against it. Marm Patridge had placed it 
 there. "The boy'sh a good Britisher now," she 
 said ; for she thought all good people were British
 
 36 Eliza's Illness 
 
 in heaven. "Hish mother'd want the flag at 
 hish head, and hish father in jail'd be glad 
 of it." 
 
 At last the snow began to melt, and to run 
 down the swollen torrent of Roaring Branch. 
 The Polkes could hear the cascades roar as they 
 sat in the kitchen. Eliza now began to say, 
 
 "I guess I shall perk up when the popples leaf 
 out." 
 
 The poplars leafed out, and the air began to be 
 life-giving. Eliza now said : 
 
 "I guess I shall perk up when the turkeys take 
 to the woods." 
 
 Before the turkeys took to the woods, on a 
 windy May afternoon, when Budsey and Naomi 
 came home from school, they found a paper nailed 
 to their door by the Gazette rider. It was in their 
 father's hand. Marm Patridge put on her spec 
 tacles with shaking fingers, to read it, while Bud 
 sey and Naomi jumped about her chair, and 
 Eliza's eyes glowed in their bluish caverns.
 
 Eliza's Illness 37 
 
 "Deare Childn (& Harm P)," the letter read, "Yr 
 Fathr is out of Gaol I gott away by Mad Tom woods & 
 lay there over ye sugar thaw, now I be in ye House of a 
 good Loyal 8 * in Winhaul well & harty in Spight of 
 prizzen fare wch was in ye last extream Misable If twere 
 not for ye Treachr us passes of Stratton Mtn & Sunder- 
 land his bloody Houndes wd come strait hoame but fear 
 for my Pate if I shd be Catched agen Is little Elizy sprite- 
 lier ye Boy is a Bawlin to me so farewell fm yr Loveing 
 Fathr 
 
 "Lett not one of ye Goald pieces be spent out of ye king 
 his jar for any Sakes." 
 
 When the letter was read, Eliza sank back in 
 her chair and clapped her hand to her side. To 
 see her do so always unmanned Marm Patridge 
 and made a sort of rage rise in Naomi's heart. 
 Then they would try the medicine made by steep 
 ing toads in cider, and adding dried plantains and 
 spices. Eliza smacked her lips over it, for she 
 liked the spices; but it brought her no flesh nor 
 strength. Candlelight brought back to her 
 cheeks a portion of their old delicate, but glow 
 ing, fairness, but by the broad light of day her 
 skin looked dry and sallow. As the spring ad-
 
 38 Eliza's Illness 
 
 vanced, Marm made errands to send her out into 
 the air, though she still distrusted its "rawness" ; 
 or perhaps Eliza went, after a little urging, to 
 see her aunt and cousins at the tollgate. From 
 these outings she would return with a transient 
 brightness, which wore off by tea-time. 
 
 While things were at this pass, Mrs. Darby 
 came up one day in a great flutter, to give an im 
 portant invitation. House services were then 
 much in vogue in those parts, and of all the 
 parlour-preaching ministers none was so much 
 sought after as Master Berkly of Jamaica. Mrs. 
 Darby, who was a very blue Presbyterian, had 
 secured Master Berkly for her parlour. 
 
 "There's a-many wants to hear this discourse/' 
 she began, "but I shall save all my green chairs 
 for my own kin; and I want you should be there, 
 Marm let poor little Elizy come with ye." 
 
 "Thanky, no," said Marm in her weak, 
 troubled voice. "I hain't much heart for 
 getherin'sh. I tell ye, Shue, when Titey died, I
 
 Eliza's Illness 39 
 
 thought I couldn't bear no more; and naow 
 here'sh their father away and Lizy shick sho ash 
 nobody knowsh what ailsh her, for she hain't no 
 cough " 
 
 ''You keep Lizy too close to home. She hain't 
 been down to the tollgate in a week. Why don't 
 ye let her come a-Sabby afternoon, and sit under 
 Master Barkly? It'll be a little aoutin' for her; 
 p'haps she'll be the better for it." 
 
 "Wai, if it'sh a fine day, p'hapsh I'll fetch her. 
 But she'll have to ride behind Budshey she can't 
 walk ash fur ash an old creeter like me," said 
 Marm, beginning to cry. 
 
 When Sunday came, Eliza was dressed in her 
 nice delaine, which hung loose on her, her pretty 
 calash and black and green mitts, and was lifted 
 into the saddle behind her stocky little brother. 
 On their arrival at the tollgate, their aunt hung 
 a shawl over a chair for Eliza, and she sat down, 
 looking very listless, to hear that terrible sermon, 
 to which she had come as a lamb to the slaughter.
 
 40 Eliza's Illness 
 
 The text was, "Let there not be found among you 
 an enchanter, or a witch; a wizard, or a necro 
 mancer." At first Eliza sat mooning, as she did 
 at home, but after a little she began to breathe 
 fast, and the blood rushed to her cheeks, as she 
 heard how poor little babies had been pricked in 
 their beds, and screamed at their invisible tor 
 mentors before their parents' very eyes ; and how 
 at last a doll, stuck full of pins, had been found 
 hidden in a neighbour's house. She heard how 
 cows' udders were dried, and how hens were 
 given the pip, all by the horrible brews of witches 
 in their secret cellars ; and how sounds of barking 
 and singing were heard from the woods about the 
 houses of witches, where neither mortal dog nor 
 mortal bird could be seen by mortal eyes. Eliza 
 drew her breath with a whistling sound. He was 
 saying that a witch as far away as Jamaica could 
 pinch a dog's or tabby's ears, and give a child in 
 Beartown the ear-ache. The early dusk fell over 
 the scantily-leaved trees of the forest, and Eliza
 
 Eliza's Illness 41 
 
 thought she saw black dogs and dancing figures 
 there. The sermon had done its work upon her 
 simple brain and feeble nerves. She was shiver 
 ing as she took her place on the good brown 
 horse, and clasped little Saul's waist. Before the 
 pleasant ride home, in the fern-smelling dusk, was 
 over, she had seen strange animals in the woods, 
 and heard voices on the wind. Her bonnet hung 
 down her back as they jogged along, and her 
 cheeks were burning red. 
 
 "Budsey, I see monkeys in the trees I hear 
 them gibbering!" 
 
 "Oh, hush, sister!" 
 
 "Budsey!" 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 "Look behind us if you dast, little brother." 
 
 The poor little boy, so tightly clasped by in 
 carnate fear, gingerly turned and looked behind. 
 The road, stretching down, ridged with water- 
 bars, was clear as far as he could see in the gather 
 ing dusk.
 
 42 Eliza's Illness 
 
 "You may look, sister there's naught behind 
 us." 
 
 "Air you sure o' that? Git ap, Prince. Oh, 
 ain't it ter'ble to be aout so late !" 
 
 "Why, it hain't but six o'clock." 
 
 "But it's so dark. What's that I hear? Don't 
 you hear a curious noise?" 
 
 "I hear a woodchuck clawin' in his hole." 
 
 "I thought I heared a noise like a petticoat 
 catched on a bramble." 
 
 "Foolishness! 'Twas a woodchuck." The 
 little boy's sense and courage began to return as 
 he saw the house and barn and poplar trees of 
 home coming into view. But Eliza huddled 
 closer to him as they climbed the last bar. On 
 getting down, she was seized with the stitch in 
 her side, and frightened them all with her 
 crying. 
 
 "Oh, sister, here ; we've het this crock for you 
 to hold against you," cried Naomi, hurrying to 
 Eliza with a hot crock in her apron.
 
 Eliza's Illness 43 
 
 "Take it away I wun't touch it," said Eliza, 
 shuddering. 
 
 "Marm Patridge, she wun't have the hot 
 crock!" 
 
 "Wun't, hey? Wai, give her her snail-juish." 
 
 "It hain't any good," said Eliza. "I wun't 
 taste of it." 
 
 "Sister, what makes you so peevish? Marm 
 Patridge spiced this for ye." 
 
 "I wun't taste of it." 
 
 "What'sh come over you, Lizy? You wash 
 alwaysh gentle and teachable," complained Marm 
 Patridge weakly, coming in from the wood- 
 house. 
 
 "Why can't ye find aout who's bewitched me ?" 
 cried Eliza fiercely. 
 
 "Bewitched ye?" 
 
 "Yis! that's what ails me." 
 
 Marm Patridge turned very white round the 
 gills. She thought of the uncle who had died in 
 a madhouse, and her weak old head spun round
 
 44 Eliza's Illness 
 
 and round. But she said as firmly and sensibly 
 as she could : 
 
 "Naow we wun't have any more talk of 
 witchesh. You'll drink a cup of warm milk and 
 lay down, and little Naomye '11 be here to wait 
 on ye." 
 
 When Marm Patridge had stepped out, Eliza 
 said suddenly to her little sister : 
 
 "I know who 'tis." 
 
 "What do you mean, sister?" asked Naomi, 
 whose stout legs were shaking under her. 
 
 "I know who 'tis that's bewitched me. It's 
 Pleiades Darby." 
 
 "You've be'n dreamin', sister." 
 
 "I tell ye I hain't. She's wished me harm a 
 long while, and now it's come true." 
 
 "Sister, you're all unstringed, and don't know 
 what you're saying." 
 
 "I hain't either, unstringed I know very 
 well." Eliza's brain seemed certainly to be turn 
 ing. During the night she screamed out several
 
 Eliza's Illness 45 
 
 times with imaginary pinches. In the morning 
 she was no better. The expression of her face 
 had already begun to change : she looked at once 
 frightened and sullen. When she spoke, it was 
 to complain. She thought she was tormented 
 by blows, pricks, and pinches ; and by monkeys in 
 the tops of the poplar trees outside, who looked 
 in at the windows, making faces and gibbering 
 at her. Sometimes her arms had black and blue 
 marks on them, where she had pinched herself in 
 her hallucinations. Marm tried to sleep with 
 her, but Eliza would push her out of the bed. 
 The children caught the panic in the house. 
 Neither of them would go into a dark room alone, 
 and they slept with the bedclothes over their 
 heads. All her life long Naomi could remember 
 the very sound of her poor sister's cries, "Oh, 
 she's pinching me! She's tickling me!" and 
 could see, in her mind's eye, the black and blue 
 marks on Eliza's body. 
 
 The Beartown doctor had no medicine for this
 
 46 Eliza's Illness 
 
 sort of sickness. The old doctor from West 
 minster came up the mountain, looked at her, 
 scraped her tongue, and gave her a vial of lily- 
 water. She was growing gaunt and swarthy. 
 She was carried to the garret, where she might 
 feel the freshest air blowing over her; she was 
 brought down again to the living-room settle, 
 where she could watch the passing along the turn 
 pike; and all in vain. 
 
 Naomi was waked up, long before daylight, 
 one morning, by Eliza's dreadful cries : 
 
 "Oh, how she pulls my ears ! Oh ! Oh ! Let 
 me be, or I'll harm ye! Hain't anybody comin' 
 to purtect me from her?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, sister I'll come!" called Naomi, 
 running barefoot in her nightgown across the 
 garret. But on the stairs she met Marm, pain 
 fully climbing up. 
 
 "Come with me, Naomye. Your shister'sh 
 quiet fetch your brother, and both of ye come 
 with me." Marm was very solemn. Naomi ran
 
 Eliza's Illness 47 
 
 back and waked up Budsey, and they all went 
 down together to the living-room. 
 
 "Both of ye kneel down," said Marm. She 
 knelt down herself between the children, and took 
 a hand of each. Naomi had never felt anything 
 so solemn except her mother's, and poor Titus's, 
 funerals. Marm began to say the prayer of St. 
 Chrysostom. 
 
 "Almighty God^ when two or three air 
 gathered together, thou wilt grant their prayersh ; 
 now shend Richard Polke home to hish childern, 
 and lift up little Elizy from her bed, for if she 
 hain't better ... if she hain't better before 
 
 long " Marm broke off, weeping, and poor 
 
 little Budsey too began to cry; but Naomi said 
 "Amen." She felt too solemn to cry. She 
 thought the Lord would hear. 
 
 Eliza had several bad turns on that day and the 
 next. A dreadful addition to her moans and 
 cries began she herself gibbered, and screamed 
 out that it was the monkeys that did so. Marm
 
 48 Eliza's Illness 
 
 trembled so that she could scarcely wait on her. 
 Naomi said to her little brother : 
 
 "I guess the Lord didn't pay very much atten 
 tion to that prayer we all said together, Budsey." 
 
 "There's father at the gate," said Budsey. 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "I see his old striped pantaloons." 
 
 Naomi sprang to the window. It was her 
 father, certainly. His ancestral Peninsular 
 pantaloons, once so tight, hung loose on him now. 
 His black beard was very grey. 
 
 "Marm! Marm! here's father!" 
 
 "Childern ! your father' sh home !" 
 
 "Hi, hi, father!" 
 
 They all fell on him, kissing and shouting, but 
 he looked about him with troubled eyes, and 
 asked, where was Eliza ? 
 
 "Naomye, show your father." 
 
 Naomi took her father into the haunted bed 
 room, but when she saw him looking at Eliza, 
 she could have pulled him away from the
 
 Eliza's Illness 49 
 
 bedside for pity. Eliza was asleep. Soon she 
 began talking in her sleep, and once she cried in a 
 loud sobbing voice : 
 
 "Marm! Naomye! She's at me again !" When 
 Naomi flew to her side and waked her, she would 
 exclaim coldly : 
 
 "Little sister, I will thank you to leave me to 
 myself." 
 
 "Fetch me a stool," said Mr. Polke drearily. 
 
 He placed the high stool in the doorway, and 
 sat down. Naomi brought him some frizzled 
 pork, with berries and milk, but he would not 
 touch them. He sat in his daughter's doorway 
 almost all night, beating out of his brain a plan 
 to cure her. It was the plan of a visionary and 
 impulsive man, but of one who saw deep into the 
 mind and heart of that frail creature tossing on 
 the bed. He recollected the asking eyes, the crav 
 ing mouth, the high, delicate, quivering nostril 
 of his child in bygone days, as she used to press 
 her pale face against the window on many an
 
 50 Eliza's Illness 
 
 afternoon, weary of her needlework and indoors 
 prison. At about three o'clock in the morning 
 Naomi woke up, smelling the spicy odour of a 
 bayberry candle in the garret. She saw her 
 father at the feedbox in the corner. His candle 
 stood on an apple barrel, and lighted up his vi 
 sionary countenance. He drew out the jar buried 
 deep in the feedbox, and took out two of the four 
 sacred gold pieces they had saved for the king's 
 cause. Naomi sat up in bed and watched her 
 father down the ladder; and heard the south 
 wind blowing up from the valley a long time 
 before she could get to sleep. 
 
 When she woke again, the morning had 
 dawned in rain, and her father was riding down 
 the mountain with the moidores in his pocket. 
 He rode into the town of his enemies, trotting 
 through Westminster as boldly as Ethan Allen 
 had once trotted through Albany. Only a 
 few faces looked out of a few windows at him ; a 
 dog barked, and a peacock screamed ; and a little
 
 Eliza's Illness 51 
 
 boy in petticoats began to sing, in his small voice, 
 "Town by Town," as the sometime Captain of 
 the Biters rode by. He dismounted at Amri Fal 
 coner's shop, and when he came out, some wist 
 fully smiling women stood for a while looking 
 after him and the parcel which he carried. He 
 was back in the sad house again by dinner-time, 
 lighting it up like a human sun. He was in a 
 very happy, excited mood. He taught little Bud- 
 sey the sword-exercise; he played creepy-crabby 
 with Naomi; and when he had drunk some old 
 hard cider, in the evening, he cut pigeon-wings 
 and danced clogs on the kitchen table. 
 
 The sick girl was accustomed to sleep a broken 
 sleep until about five o'clock in the morning, 
 when the roosters crowed, the children came 
 clumping down the ladder, and Naomi filled the 
 yard with high treble shouts as she drove the 
 cows up the turnpike. On this Saturday Eliza 
 woke up feeling a curious twinge of colour under 
 her eyelids. She opened them to see a dozen
 
 52 Eliza's Illness 
 
 breadths of bright green silk heaped all over her 
 bed, and the sun shining on it. She shut her eyes 
 opened them the strange and touching sound 
 of her laugh was heard. She blinked at the daz 
 zling vision ; fingered it ; it was the first time she 
 had ever touched silk in the piece. "Who has 
 buyed me this?" she wondered. "Marm has 
 buyed it with the seed-money! Oh, no I guess 
 I'm dreaming." She rubbed her pale cheek with 
 it. She could not keep her fingers off it. The 
 roosters crowed below ; the sun shone on the cab 
 bages; she heard the churn in the woodhouse. 
 Budsey, in his long apron, carried the bucket up 
 from the well. For the first time in many a week, 
 Eliza wished she were up and dressed. 
 
 Naomi, clumping down the garret ladder with 
 her purple calico hanging off her shoulder, heard 
 her poor sister's tinkling laughter and rejoiced 
 very much. "Oh, Budsey," cried the sisterly 
 child, as she raced out to the stable, "did you hear 
 her ? did you hear Elizy laughing ?"
 
 Eliza's Illness 53 
 
 "She'll git well, naow, probable," said Budsey. 
 
 "Father cured her !" 
 
 "Father? Haow did he contrive it?" 
 
 "I don't know! I don't know! P'haps he 
 catched the toad that has the lucky jewil in its 
 head." 
 
 Eliza was lying in the sun, with the silk drawn 
 up to her chin, when Marm came labouring up 
 stairs with a dish of suppawn for her breakfast. 
 Eliza wanted no breakfast but the feast of colour 
 which she was drinking in with her gentle, 
 sunken, craving eyes. Marm saw how well the 
 charm had worked, and beckoned Mr. Polke, who 
 crept to the doorway on his stocking feet. He 
 heard Eliza say: 
 
 "I know, Marm Patridge, you buyed me this 
 dress aout of the seed-money." 
 
 "Guesh again, Mishtresh Lizy." 
 
 "I warrant you did, though." 
 
 "Do you want I should tell ye who buyed it for 
 ye?"
 
 54 Eliza's Illness 
 
 "Yes, yes tell me quick." 
 
 "Twash your father." 
 
 "Father ! Is father to home ?" 
 
 "Yish." 
 
 Eliza got out of bed, with a little swaying. 
 
 "Git back to bed!" cried the old woman in 
 alarm. 
 
 "I want father!" 
 
 "You hain't ash well ash you think you 
 be!" 
 
 "I tell ye I want my father." Sweeter music 
 than that call for him, Mr. Polke thought he had 
 never heard. 
 
 On Sunday Eliza was up and dressed. On 
 Monday she began hinting subtly to Marm, 
 
 "Have you got any quilts pieced up ready for 
 quiltin'?" 
 
 "Ash many ash three." 
 
 "What patterns be they, hey?" 
 
 "Job'sh Trouble, and Tare-and-Trett." 
 
 "I should admire to see Job's Trouble tufted."
 
 Eliza's Illness 55 
 
 "Wai, child," said Marm, "when you feel well 
 enough, we can have a quiltinV 
 
 "I feel 'most well enough to-day." 
 
 Marm considered. 
 
 "Wai I could take hold of your new shilk 
 thish very afternoon, if I let the little onesh wait 
 for their new dudsh." 
 
 "My duds can wait my duds can wait !" cried 
 the sisterly one. "I can wear my old butternut 
 Sabbies, and weekdays, and all!" 
 
 There was a quilting at the Polkes' in early 
 July. Eliza was still feeble, but she was getting 
 her colour back, and excitement made her 
 stronger than she was, for this one evening. 
 Naomi and Budsey were allowed to stay up to the 
 quilting. Budsey wore his old yellow pantaloons, 
 with yet one more of Marm's quaint patches, like 
 no other patches that ever were on sea or land, 
 set into them; and Naomi wore her ancient but 
 ternut calico, lengthened, with a frill of buff tick 
 ing, to a decent point below her ankles. Little
 
 56 Eliza's Illness 
 
 cared the sisterly one, when she could see Eliza, 
 beautiful in her shining woodland green, with her 
 fair complexion and silky ringlets, dancing the 
 Needle's Eye and Meadow Mouse with all the 
 tallest beaus in the town !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 arrival of tbe Zucgs tf3a (5oes to Jamaica 
 
 They clicked the light heel 
 In the strathspey and reel. 
 
 WONDERFUL was the change that now 
 came over Eliza Polke. From the mag 
 ical appearance of the silk, a new world had 
 seemed to open on her view. All those cravings 
 after pleasure which her delicate, confined child 
 hood had left unsatisfied, now began to disappear 
 from her heart and eyes. She made up now for 
 all that wearisome needlework. If she sewed 
 nowadays, it was at some new-fangled piece of 
 finery to wear to the huskings, quiltings, and spell 
 ing matches where she was such a belle. Her 
 dreadful illness seemed nothing but a bad dream, 
 not only to herself, but to the family. Naomi, as 
 the years went on, could only think of that deli- 
 
 57
 
 58 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 cate Eliza of her early years as another little lost 
 sister ! 
 
 Eliza in her seventeenth year was decidedly the 
 beauty of the family, casting her sister Abigail in 
 the shade. Her long hair hung naturally in ring 
 lets, her cheeks were a clear azalea. ; her blue eyes, 
 which were both lively and liquid, were shaded by 
 wan, bluely veined lids and long lashes. Her dis 
 position was growing both charming and trouble 
 some; for the eagerness with w r hich she indulged 
 her whims seemed excuse enough for them. It 
 was actually growing hard to control Eliza. Her 
 father sometimes shook his head over her. Marm 
 Patridge, with a shrewd look, said : 
 
 "Lizy'sh too pretty to be hulshome she'll 
 make trouble in the taown." 
 
 Naomi felt deserted and left behind in the race 
 of growing up. She began to feel, and to look, 
 wistful. Debbe Darby, who had once been her 
 playmate, had of late become young-ladified, and 
 followed and aped Eliza. Budsey was growing
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 59 
 
 too big and boyish to play with her. He tagged 
 after his father, with his hands in the pockets of 
 his skin-tight nankeen trousers, and made himself 
 a little bean-gun with which he went off hunting 
 in the woods. If he killed a mole or a baby 
 muskrat, he would skin it for Naomi (who 
 vainly tried to make him forego his manly, but as 
 she thought bloody, sports) but he would never 
 be her playmate any more. Naomi did not know 
 how much she herself was changing too. The 
 indescribable longings and lockings ahead, of 
 which she was conscious, were signs that she was 
 not, after all, being left behind in the race of 
 growing up, though her dresses were still short, 
 and she was still the slender shape of a little girl. 
 Until she was twelve or thirteen, she had been 
 altogether a child ; the capture of the Biters, the 
 bringing home of poor Titus, and Eliza's illness 
 formed all her past. But now she began to mark 
 her life "by lustres," events important to herself, 
 but unknown to those about her. The morning
 
 60 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 when she had watched the sun rise over West 
 minster with such and such hopes and longings 
 the dark rainy afternoon when she had indulged 
 such and such fancies over her hetchel these 
 were events in her life far exceeding in impor 
 tance the dipping of candles, and the bartering of 
 homespun for tea and brandy at the store. How 
 often nowadays was she recalled from absent 
 musings by the old saying : 
 
 "Come down out of the clouds, Naomye!" 
 The autumn of 1781 came on very fine, with 
 frosts in the middle of September, the leaves 
 hanging on the trees a long time after changing 
 colour, and an October without a single rainy 
 day thirty-one mild, mellow, apple-ripening 
 days. The blue haze hung over Jamaica and 
 veiled its fields of golden corn. This was 
 Naomi's favourite season Eliza's too, for it 
 brought the huskings, the gayest parties of the 
 year. Eliza had long forgotten how a stitch in 
 the side could feel. Scarcely three years from
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 61 
 
 her nightmare illness, she was dancing almost all 
 night at a tavern ball in Jamaica. 
 
 When a young bachelor of the same town in 
 vited her to a husking on the last day of October, 
 Mr. Polke at first refused to let her go. She had 
 danced too late, he said, at the tavern ball; and 
 Jamaica was too far. But he ended as usual by 
 yielding to the mute pleading of Eliza's eyes. 
 She might go, he said, if Saul would take her, 
 and would have her at home again by eleven 
 o'clock ; for he could not leave the parish meeting 
 himself on that night. 
 
 Eliza spent the whole afternoon in looping up 
 her polonaise with some rosettes which she made 
 out of the train of it. When Naomi saw her 
 pretty sister prinking for the husking, she felt 
 more wistful and deserted than ever. She said: 
 
 "Lizy, I hain't got anybody to play with." 
 
 Eliza turned, buttoning up her charming dress 
 of faded maize and green. 
 
 "Where's Budsey?"
 
 62 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 "He's out huntin' gophers in the Branch paster. 
 I don't go anywhere with him any more, he 
 stomps and scolds me so." 
 
 "Why don't ye sew on your pretty patches?" 
 
 "I can't set still to sew I feel sech a thinkin' 
 in my head." 
 
 "Where's your husk-dolly?" 
 
 "I don't feel to play with her any more." 
 
 "You're a curious child what ails ye ?" 
 
 "I don't know, sister." 
 
 "Wai, p'haps I know. P'haps you want to 
 go to a huskin', and have your petticoats 
 down to your heels, and be called Mistress 
 Naomye." 
 
 Naomi made no answer. She was lying on 
 top of the feedbox. now looking up at the beams 
 with wasps' nests hanging from them, now down 
 the turnpike where the sun was setting. Eliza 
 stepped across the ladder-hole and said pleas 
 antly : 
 
 "Never you mind, Naomye. You'll be a young
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 63 
 
 lady soon, and I'll give ye this dress, p'haps, when 
 I'm married." 
 
 "It's a sweet pretty dress," said Naomi, "and 
 you look sweet pretty in it, Lizy." 
 
 "Thanky," said Eliza, running down the garret 
 ladder holding up her dress, and showing her 
 shoes laced round her ankles with maize-coloured 
 strings. Naomi lay still, looking down the turn 
 pike as if it were the road to a place where wan 
 dering wishes came true. Marm Patridge came 
 up with a pan to get some cornmeal, and sat down 
 on a chest to rest her gouty knees. 
 
 "Why, Naomye Polke, why hain't you out 
 doin' your evenin' choresh?" 
 
 "'Tain't five o'clock yit, Marm Patridge." 
 
 "It'sh high time you wash to work. I can't 
 bear to shee a child mope. Air you feverish? 
 Let me feel of your forehead. 'Tain't hot." 
 
 "No, I hain't sick, Marm Patridge, thanky," 
 said Naomi, still gazing out with absent eyes. 
 There was a little cavalcade mounting the turn-
 
 64 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 pike a woman on horseback, a child on horse 
 back, and a man, with a tall spindling girl, walk 
 ing behind. When Naomi noticed them, she 
 cried, 
 
 "Why, who be these, Marm Patridge?" 
 
 The old woman hobbled to the window, 
 
 "Naomye Polke, it'sh that family from Char 
 lotte Caounty, I warrant my wig !" 
 
 "What they doin' here?" 
 
 "Hain't you heared your father tell ? They're 
 Toriesh from Charlotte Caounty they wash run 
 aout of taown for it." 
 
 Naomi looked with interest at the cavalcade. 
 The girl on foot was thin and bashful-looking. 
 The little one on horseback had a shock of black 
 hair falling all over its face. The man had a 
 sword at his side, and an order on his breast. 
 
 Such was the entry of the Lucys into Bear- 
 town. They slowly passed the Pouncet and By- 
 jam houses, the Darbys' and the Polkes'; and 
 turned in at the deserted sugar-house, where the
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 65 
 
 younger child was put to sleep in the sapkettle. 
 The despised loyalists were welcome in this loyal 
 ist town. They arrived at sundown before 
 seven o'clock it was known in every house that 
 the father had been a Captain in the British army, 
 and that both the children had heathen names. 
 
 After tea, when Budsey and Eliza had set off 
 for the husking, Marm filled a basket with eat 
 ables, and hobbled with it up to the saphouse; 
 and Naomi followed a little way behind, hoping 
 to get acquainted with the tall girl. The Lucy 
 girl saw Naomi coming dawdling up the road, 
 and said to herself, "Come along, red-haired lit 
 tle girl!" and opened the door and bashfully 
 stepped outside. She looked like an old portrait. 
 Her head, which was small, was set on a long 
 slender neck, round which a loose necklace hung ; 
 her cheeks were the warm ivory of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds's ladies. She wore a short, tight, 
 faded blue dress. Naomi's heart warmed to her. 
 She said :
 
 66 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 "My name's Naomye Polke. I live down here 
 a little piece." 
 
 "My name's Flavia Lucy." 
 
 "How many brothers and sisters have you 
 got?" 
 
 "I've only got one sister. A long while ago I 
 had a brother, but he died." 
 
 "I've got two to home, and three married, and 
 five dead." 
 
 "I wish there was a big b'iling of us, I can 
 tell ye." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "So I wouldn't ever be lonesome." 
 
 "Air you lonesome?" cried Naomi. "So be I, 
 for my sister Lizy's grown up, and my little 
 brother wun't play with me no more." 
 
 "I'll play with you," said Flavia. 
 
 "Then you may wear this ring, that my brother 
 Budsey made me out of a mole's tail," said Na 
 omi, showing this valuable. "Budsey Polke is as 
 smart as the nation, I can tell ye."
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 67 
 
 "What's his name, do you say?" 
 
 "Saul's his name; but we all call him Budsey. 
 What was yours?" 
 
 "My brother was named Darius, for the king 
 of Persia; and my little sister's Cassandra. 
 That's a Roman lady's name, like mine." 
 
 "Oh, what beautiful, sweet names!" cried Na 
 omi. She thought them so beautiful that she 
 kept saying them over to herself as she dawdled 
 homeward through the gathering dusk. As she 
 undressed, she repeated them aloud to the squeak 
 ing mice ; and after she had got into bed, she lay 
 for a long time half awake and half asleep, think 
 ing of the Lucy children and their pompous and 
 beautiful names. She was awakened by Eliza's 
 candle shining in her eyes. 
 
 "Wake up, Naomye," cried Eliza, "and let me 
 tell ye what a time I've had to Jamaiky! Oh, 
 I've danced it ! my feet was like feathers. I was 
 dizzy, I was so whirled abaout. Oh, it was the 
 wildest huskin' ! Father would have brought me
 
 68 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 home if he'd be'n there. The fiddler played the 
 sweetest gallops I ever heared. He was a hand 
 some boy. I had some words with him. Look, 
 Naomye! he throwed me this as I danced past 
 him." She showed a velvet rose with a green 
 silk leaf. 
 
 "Lizy, you're all agog you'd better git to 
 bed. You wun't be up till all haours." 
 
 "I don't care if I sleep as late as six o'clock! 
 Oh, those pretty gallops I can hear 'em now. 
 Budsey came and twitched my sleeve, and said 
 he'd fetch me home ; but I saw the moon was high 
 yit, so I stayed for one more prance around the 
 barn." 
 
 "Did anybody husk any red ears?" * 
 
 "Oh, yes, Budsey had one, and Mace Paouncet, 
 he had one . . . and the fiddler had one " 
 
 "Your cheeks air so red as I never saw 'em 
 before, Lizy." 
 
 * A red ear of corn at a husking entitled the young man 
 who husked it to kiss all the girls.
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 69 
 
 "Air they?" asked Eliza, holding up her tiny 
 blurred handglass first to one beautiful cheek, 
 then to the other, and smiling in a strange way, 
 as if her thoughts charmed and yet frightened her 
 at once. Naomi forgot to talk, and lay staring 
 up at the beams, and thinking of the Lucys. If 
 the sisters had been growing apart before, they 
 were now divided by a great arm of the sea of 
 life. The thoughts of each were strange to the 
 other ; they lived in different worlds, though they 
 slept on the same pillow. 
 
 Early on the next Sunday evening, while the 
 family were sitting on the portico, watching the 
 sunshine recede, field by field, from the valley, 
 Budsey Saul, who had been looking down the 
 road, cried: 
 
 "Here comes your fiddler, Lizy!" 
 
 Naomi looked, not down the road, but at her 
 sister's face, and she saw the red pennant flying 
 there, as a horse and rider came into view above 
 the last waterbar. Eliza slipped into the house.
 
 70 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 All her family now sat looking at her fiddler as 
 he rode swaggering to the gate. He was short 
 and slight, but very handsome and spirited-look 
 ing; he was dressed in a long bright blue coat, 
 fawn-coloured breeches, and silk stockings. Bud- 
 sey was almost as tall as he, and yet he felt the 
 fiddler looking down upon him as from a height. 
 This appearance was caused by the fiddler throw 
 ing back his head and squinting slightly. On his 
 asking for Mistress Elizy, she came out dressed 
 in her maize and green dress, with the velvet rose 
 at her breast. She seemed to see no one but the 
 fiddler, walked straight to him through the ranks 
 of the family, and led him into the house. 
 
 "One of my beaush wash a fiddler, too," said 
 Mrs. Patridge. "But my brother Eliash vowed 
 I shouldn't have him if he wash the only bach- 
 elder or widower in taown ; for he wash a peevy, 
 ailin' creeter." 
 
 Mr. Polke said nothing. Naomi and Budsey 
 were sent to bed when the owls began to hoot and
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 71 
 
 screech. After a long visit, the fiddler took his 
 leave, and Eliza stood in the doorway and watched 
 him ride away. When he was far enough out of 
 hearing, her father turned to her, and said, in a 
 troubled, kind, embarrassed voice, 
 
 "Lizy, my dear, your father was wrong to let 
 ye go to Jamaiky, and you so young and green. 
 Budsey was too little to go with ye. I see you've 
 made friends with a young man I don't like the 
 looks of, nor yet the name he's got for himself in 
 this caounty. I pass over his being a nevew of 
 Peleg Sunderland's, though his father was a rebel 
 too, and 's daown in Virginia naow, fightin' 
 against his king but as to that, there's be'n a 
 madness all over the country a long while," said 
 Mr. Polke, shaking his long grey beard. "I pass 
 over his father's and his uncle's doin's. But I 
 don't like his reputation in this caounty. If 
 father'd a-knowed Frederick Dukes was to fiddle 
 to that huskin', he'd have kept his little girl to 
 home. But it hain't too late. If he rides up here
 
 72 The Arrival of the Lucys 
 
 next Sabby-day, I'll see him and tell him my 
 Lizy's to home no more to him." 
 
 Eliza turned away without a word, and reached 
 the garret before she began to cry. She did not 
 hear her old Marm adding: 
 
 "Peevy creetersh fiddlersh air Lizy don't 
 want one for her beau." 
 
 Naomi woke up and saw her poor pretty sister 
 sitting on the floor in her best dress, her face 
 hidden in the hanging quilts, and her shoulders 
 twitching. She called : 
 
 "Come to bed and warm ye, sister !" but Eliza 
 took no notice. 
 
 "What ails ye, sister?" Eliza made no reply. 
 
 Naomi went over to her where she crouched 
 by the quilts. 
 
 "Sister ! doos your tooth haowl ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, child leave me alone." 
 
 "Haow can I leave you alone, when you set on 
 the floor and cry?" 
 
 "Leave me be, I tell ye, in my misery."
 
 The Arrival of the Lucys 73 
 
 "Oh, sister, you're very unhappy." 
 
 "Yis, I be very mis'able." 
 
 Naomi stood patting Eliza's shoulder, until her 
 feet and ankles were chilled by the night wind. 
 Her pats were balm to the angry grieving which 
 Eliza felt; for it was nothing but angry grieving; 
 it was not misery at all. Mixed with it were 
 feelings of excitement, pride, and undeserved 
 great joy. She breathed over to herself the 
 fiddler's words, and saw his small, shapely form 
 painted on the shadows of the garret. For better 
 or worse, she was sure her fate had come.
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JElt;,a Sulhs 
 HEN Eliza awoke the next morning she 
 
 had no colour in her cheeks, and nothing 
 to say to any one. She went about her work all 
 day with a face like a mask. Her angry silence 
 was like a blow in the face to her father; it re 
 proached him, and made his conscience seem no 
 longer clear toward his child. Little Saul and 
 Naomi felt a dreariness in the house. Budsey 
 took his bean-gun, and went out to play, but the 
 sisterly one followed Eliza about with timid 
 efforts to attract her downcast eyes, or provoke 
 her lovely, sullen lips to smile. At dinner Marm 
 spoke across the sulking girl and recommended 
 her father to smack her. Eliza would not thus 
 be tempted to lift her heavy lids. She ate and 
 drank in gloom, and went away to her churn. 
 When she was gone, Marm said : 
 
 74
 
 Eliza Sulks 75 
 
 "She'll be aout of her shulksh to-morrow, 
 nevew. It'sh all dander and pride." 
 
 Marm Patridge was a shrewd observer, but she 
 was mistaken in supposing that Eliza would be 
 her old self very soon again. Her sullen silence 
 continued all that week. No one could tell how 
 much miserable pride Eliza took in hanging like 
 a pall over the meal-time and evening sociability 
 of the family. Sometimes on fine afternoons she 
 went out in the direction of the tollgate no one 
 asked where, or followed, or pried into her com 
 ings and goings. Sometimes she carried dishes 
 of sauce or pie with her, and Marm guessed that 
 she was taking them to Pleiades, and said : 
 
 "That'sh right, child do you be kind to your 
 poor coushin." 
 
 Pleiades Darby was far gone in a sort of 
 melancholia. It must run in the family, Marm 
 thought, remembering Eliza's terrible sickness, 
 and wondering with a sinking heart if now it 
 were coming on again. Her fears would quickly
 
 76 Eliza Sulks 
 
 have flown away if she could have seen the 
 changed Eliza in the tollgate kitchen. While 
 Pleiades sat moodily picking at her work, Eliza 
 and the feather-headed Debbe sat off in a corner 
 whispering together. They took walks down the 
 turnpike, and Eliza came back very glowing; but 
 she was careful to put on her morose look again 
 before she got home. Marm Patridge was partly 
 right when she said that Eliza's gloom was all 
 temper and pride. "She'sh got her dander up, 
 and she'sh praoud of it she likesh to make 
 trouble, I tell ye," the shrewd old woman would 
 say, trying to convince herself that this was all. 
 But on the very next day she would be stewing 
 a quince, or making a tart, for the ungracious 
 one. 
 
 While Eliza was thus comporting herself, and 
 causing worry and sadness to those who loved 
 her, Naomi was beginning to taste the pleasure of 
 having a confidential friend of her own age. 
 Flavia Lucy and she would often nowadays walk
 
 Eliza Sulks 77 
 
 to and from school arm in arm, holding long 
 conversations on large subjects. Naomi's mind 
 expanded, her eager thoughts flew between earth 
 and heaven ; and she and Flavia were, if they had 
 but known it, almost talking in poetry on some of 
 those Indian summer afternoons. Naomi began 
 to think that the greatest event in her life was the 
 day when the Lucys had come to Beartown. 
 
 When the winter came, after this prolonged 
 mellow autumn, it brought a succession of such 
 storms as had not been known on Bald Mountain 
 since white men settled there. The drifts were 
 deeper than the heaviest horse could plough 
 through, and yet there were always bald spots 
 where the yellow ruts showed like skeleton ribs, 
 and where sleighs could not be drawn. The wind 
 from the south, which blew up the valley for days 
 in succession like a blast of vengeance, turned into 
 a sort of whirlwind on the mountain's shoulder, 
 and shook the houses from every side in turn. 
 The snow sifted into the garret and into the
 
 78 Eliza Sulks 
 
 children's beds. The apples froze under their 
 hoods of quilts. The children slept with cold 
 feet, and the cheek which was not sunk in the 
 pillow often ached in every tooth. Four or five 
 funerals of babies passed up and down the turn 
 pike this winter. The cold seemed to weaken the 
 tough fibres of old men and women, and Marm 
 Patridge this winter took on a frost-bitten, or 
 age-dried look, which in spite of her lost teeth she 
 had not had before. 
 
 Marm, when she saw that Eliza was not losing 
 either flesh or strength, by degrees ceased to 
 worry about her health; but she felt, like all the 
 others, the shadow which Eliza cast over the 
 household to be intolerable. If her father so 
 much as looked at her, Eliza became as mute as a 
 stone. When he spoke, she looked a thousand 
 miles away. Marm fared little better. She 
 might pat Eliza on the back, but the sulky girl 
 would hang her head and barely endure it. Na 
 omi could only rarely drag out a word from the
 
 Eliza Sulks 79 
 
 locked mouth of her sister. She did waylay 
 Eliza one afternoon in the cold pantry, and asked 
 her. somewhat timidly : 
 
 "Sister, what doos ail you? You never speak 
 a syllable from morning till night ; and you never 
 play creepy-crabby with Budsey or me any more." 
 
 Eliza looked away. 
 
 "Your mouth hain't bitter, is it, sister?" con 
 tinued Naomi in a faltering tone. "A bitter taste 
 would make anybody sulk and cry. Do let me 
 see your tongue, sister!" 
 
 Eliza almost smiled, but managed to maintain 
 her knitted brows. 
 
 "Lizy, don't sulk at father, and make him so 
 mis'able think how teachable and pleasant you 
 used to be, when you was younger; and don't 
 make everything so gloomy in the haouse, sister ! 
 She's gone and left me talking." 
 
 Eliza put her head back inside the pantry to 
 mutter : 
 
 "You're a good child, Naomye. But I shall
 
 80 Eliza Sulks 
 
 never be happy in this haouse again." She went 
 away, and in a little while, as Naomi sat, sewing 
 her stint, at Harm's knees, she saw Eliza's quilted 
 yellow petticoat flouncing through the drifts, and 
 her green tippet blowing in the breeze, as she 
 walked down to the tollgate. 
 
 At tea that evening Budsey said : 
 
 "Father, there's painters around again we 
 must bait the traps." 
 
 Naomi, who hated the traps which broke the 
 panthers' and wildcats' legs and left them alive, 
 crying fiercely in their pain, said : 
 
 "Oh, no, Budsey you hain't seen any painters, 
 I don't believe." 
 
 "I hain't seen 'em, but I heared 'em bellerin' 
 over Tempe way this afternoon." 
 
 "Was you in the east woods?" asked Eliza, 
 while every one looked up, surprised to hear her 
 join in the talk. 
 
 "Yis, Bill Byjam and I go git the twigs this 
 week for the school fire."
 
 Eliza Sulks 8 1 
 
 "Oh !" said Eliza. 
 
 "We fetched as many as three baskets. 'Twas 
 dark when we came hum; and yit we saw a pair 
 a-traipsin' in the Hollow." 
 
 Naomi saw Eliza bite her lip. 
 
 "Who wash it, child?" Marm Patridge asked, 
 looking up over her saucer with blinking, troubled 
 eyes. 
 
 "I don't know, Marm. All I saw was a petti 
 coat flouncin' along, and a tippet a-blowin'." 
 
 Mr. Polke, awaking out of one of the reveries 
 in which he was so often sunk, took a long 
 look at Eliza. Her eyes were fixed on her 
 trencher. 
 
 "Marm !" said Mr. Polke suddenly, "was Elizy 
 out this afternoon ?" 
 
 For the first time in many weeks, Eliza noticed 
 what her father said. 
 
 "Yis," said she. "I went to set with Pleiades." 
 
 But after supper Marm Patridge came and 
 twitched Mr. Polke's sleeve, and drew him after
 
 82 Eliza Sulks 
 
 her into the dark bedroom. She closed the door 
 and said: 
 
 "Nevew, I have my daoubtsh about Elizy. I 
 don't know what to think of her doin'sh." 
 
 "You may think she tells the truth, Mistress 
 Patridge !" 
 
 "She turned ash red ash a beet while that talk 
 wash goin' on to the tea-table." 
 
 "Wai, Marm, it'd be a poor day for us if our 
 childern didn't speak the truth, and had to be 
 spied on!" cried Mr. Polke warmly. 
 
 "I tell you, nevew, a great change hash come 
 over the child." 
 
 "That's true, Marm, and it's bad to have her 
 so sulky ; but I can trust my sons and darters, and 
 I shall." 
 
 Marm said no more, but she thought, "Richard 
 Polke' sh growin' old, and I shall have to be a 
 father ash well ash a mother to the young onesh." 
 At dinner on the next day Marm asked : 
 
 "You goin' to the tollgate again to-day, Elizy ?"
 
 Eliza Sulks 83 
 
 Eliza raised her head and said shortly: 
 
 "Yis, I be." 
 
 "Wai, I'll go with ye, and fetch 'em a few 
 butternutsh." 
 
 Whatever scorn and anger Eliza felt, she 
 showed nothing, for she neither spoke nor looked 
 up again. Marm Patridge painfully hobbled to 
 the tollgate with her on that day and several 
 others; but she never saw anything except once 
 or twice what she thought a meaning look 
 between Eliza and the foolish Debbe; and she 
 found it too wearisome to her gouty joints, and 
 hateful to her mind, to tag Eliza about in this 
 way. Sometimes she sent Naomi or Budsey 
 after school to walk in the east woods or the Hol 
 low; but they never met any couples walking 
 there. Once Naomi went to the garret in the 
 middle of the afternoon, and found Eliza sewing 
 fringe round her hood; and when she saw some 
 one looking, she tore it off in a temper. Yet, as 
 the spring came on, her sulky silence began to
 
 84 Eliza Sulks 
 
 melt a very little, like the icy pools of the Branch. 
 Sometimes now she even wore a sparkling look, 
 as she stole a hand into her apron pocket and held 
 it there. Marm noticed this, and drew Mr. Polke 
 aside to tell him. 
 
 "Nevew !" she whispered, "the child hash got a 
 token!" 
 
 "Wai, Marm P., what is it?" 
 
 "I don't know what 'tish, but she keepsh it in 
 her apern pocket." 
 
 "I can't bear to have you spy on my darter, 
 Marm Patridge. You're in her mother's place 
 .... poor young one," said Mr. Polke, turn 
 ing away. 
 
 Marm Patridge shook her grey head, on which 
 the first tremblings of palsy had begun to take 
 hold, and said to herself : 
 
 "Wai, I'll take care of the poor little feather- 
 headed creeter, if I can. I hope her father'll 
 never come to wish he hadn't buyed her that green 
 shilk!"
 
 Eliza Sulks 85 
 
 Mr. Polke was really aging fast, and joining 
 Marm Patridge in the world of old people. They 
 talked together of the seeming wreck of the 
 colonies in this long, ruinous war, which was 
 dragging itself out in Jersey and the South; and 
 recalled for each other the days when every vil 
 lage was loyal, and the name of the king was 
 cheered even in Boston. Mr. Polke shook his 
 magnificent beard as he watched little Budsey do 
 the sword exercise. The little boy was well- 
 grown for his age. He no longer had coughs in 
 the spring and fall. He loved to sit, in these long 
 evenings, listening to his father's account of the 
 Indian wars of his boyhood, and his escape from 
 Manchester Jail. Budsey sat with his ear of 
 corn unshelled, listening, with a fine, thrilled look, 
 to these tales. But he was full of childish 
 humour too, and could mimic the dancing of 
 every young man on Bald Mountain; he could 
 shuffle and reel, and come down stamping like the 
 most accomplished. He could draw good cari-
 
 86 Eliza Sulks 
 
 catures, and filled the margins of his Primer with 
 tiny smirking portraits of the big girls in the 
 Beartown school. Naomi felt a pride and happi 
 ness as deep as her heart could hold, in little Saul. 
 His warts his turned-up nose his rough, coarse 
 hair, were handsome to her. She thought his 
 dancing wonderful, and his drawings beyond 
 compare. Wherever he came, he could always 
 make for her "a sunshine in a shady place." In 
 her box, under her Sabbath mitts, she kept the 
 catfish's eye which he had once scraped for her, 
 together with a button from his first breeches, 
 and the ring made of the mole's tail which she 
 had once let Flavia wear. She often thought, if 
 the house should burn down, like the Byjams', she 
 would carry these valuables out first, and come 
 back for her best dress. 
 
 Many such fancies were in her mind as she 
 wandered along to Flavia's one April afternoon, 
 with her bag of coloured beads. Flavia brought 
 out her bag of beads, and the friends sat down in
 
 Eliza Sulks 87 
 
 the neglected Lucy orchard, where they could see 
 their townsmen ploughing and harrowing the 
 fields on either side; and where they could see 
 Hester Pouncet too, sitting and spinning at her 
 window. 
 
 "Haow long it seems since Hester used to play 
 with us !" said Flavia. 
 
 "It hain't but a few months." Naomi spoke 
 with her head on one side, and tier eyes focussed 
 for a hundred miles away. 
 
 "A great deal can happen in a few months," 
 said Flavia sententiously. 
 
 "Hunh?" asked Naomi, not listening. 
 
 "I said, a great deal can happen in a few 
 months." 
 
 "Yes, it can. My sister Lizy has fallen in 
 love, for one thing." 
 
 "Your sister Lizy ! Is that what ails her ?" 
 
 "I s'pose it's that. Hain't it curious?" 
 
 "Wai, wal! It's coming quite close to us, 
 hain't it, Naomye?"
 
 88 Eliza Sulks 
 
 Naomi was silent a long time. "Flavy " 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 "What if you and I was both to be old maids ?" 
 
 "We shan't be, if we're good girls," said the 
 wise Flavia. 
 
 "Good girls air old maids sometimes. If I 
 was one, I know what I should do." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I'd git me a baby somewheres, and fetch it up 
 for my own." 
 
 "You'd have to git it from the workhouse." 
 
 "Wai, then, I would," replied Naomi firmly. 
 
 "I shouldn't wonder if I was to be an old 
 maid," said Flavia, "for I hain't very pretty." 
 
 "Yes, you be too ! You're the prettiest, and the 
 sweetest, and the best girl in Beartown; and if 
 you're an old maid, I'll be one too, to comfort 
 you!" 
 
 "Oh, Naomye, what a good friend you be !" 
 
 They leaned back against the pear-tree, and 
 looked up into the clouds, and spoke their
 
 Eliza Sulks 
 
 thoughts freely, without any fear that either 
 would laugh at the other; while the sun went 
 down, unnoticed by them, behind the picture pine, 
 and ants and grasshoppers ran away with their 
 pretty beads.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Blpbeus an> /lbarv>ctte Cbe JGlach Saturday 
 
 That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe. 
 
 TT THEN Flavia had modestly said that she 
 * * was "not very pretty" Naomi had warmly 
 contradicted her. Flavia, in her eyes, was pretty. 
 She had a soft, colourless complexion, which only 
 a blush would brighten, a bashful blue eye, and a 
 deprecating mouth. Naomi's own looks were the 
 opposite of Flavia's. She was stout, healthy, and 
 cheerful-looking. Her skin beneath her freckles 
 was tinted a lovely pink, and her reddish-chestnut 
 hair, looped over her forehead, kept that white 
 and unfreckled. In vain she tried to think that 
 her hair was not red, but what Marm comfort 
 ingly called "amberowne." She sopped her 
 cheeks in vinegar to drive away the kisses of the 
 sun, but all in vain. Her lips were large, her 
 
 go
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 91 
 
 chin, alas, receded ; her nose was turned up. She 
 gazed sorrowfully at her reflection with her 
 honest, vain, troubled grey eyes. 
 
 But these mournful moments before the look 
 ing-glass were not the moments when she looked 
 her best. She should have seen herself "all agog" 
 (as she called it) when Budsey was going 
 through the sword exercise before his father; or 
 when he brought home the red ticket of merit 
 from school. She looked pretty enough then ; for 
 the colour in her cheeks blotted out the hateful 
 freckles, and her large, homely, generous, tender 
 mouth was smiling with love and pride. 
 
 She looked pretty enough in church, when the 
 Psalms or the Prophets were read "Babylon is 
 fallen, is fallen ;" or "Thy pomp is gone down to 
 the grave, and the noise of thy viols;" or "Blow 
 up the trumpet in the new moon!" Then her 
 small breast heaved behind its buskboard, and she 
 looked out the high church windows at the tree- 
 tops as if she saw David there, playing his harp.
 
 92 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 She looked pretty enough when walking alone in 
 the woods, forgetful of the berries or eggs for 
 which she had come; or talking with Flavia; or 
 staring out, over her morning washbowl, at 
 Westminster valley full of bright mist. Then 
 thoughts sweeter than honey came into her mind, 
 and she seemed to see her life unfolding like a 
 path through the spring woods. The next turn 
 might show a plantation of the ferny squirrel 
 corn, or a mat of blue hepaticas. Young boys 
 and girls feel such a glow and certainty of com 
 ing joy; for whatever in later life seems too 
 pleasant to be true, in youth seems too pleasant to 
 be mistaken. 
 
 It was a part of these rhapsodies of her early 
 teens, that Naomi supposed they were peculiar to 
 herself. She did not suppose that Flavia had the 
 same feelings. It was a part, too, of their great 
 ness that common words would not describe them. 
 No! the terms which suited candle-dipping and 
 apple-stringing would not do tc tell Flavia
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 93 
 
 Naomi's new thoughts, or to tell Naomi 
 Flavia's. 
 
 By very slow degrees, in the month of May, 
 Naomi began to be aware that Flavia Lucy had 
 a secret from her. One of those blushes which 
 so beautified Flavia first told her ; and next, a fear 
 ful falling-off in Flavia's amount of spinning; 
 and at last the burdock under the seckel-pear tree 
 gave away the whole secret. 
 
 The friends were sitting on the circular bench 
 under the pear-tree, when a chipmunk peeped 
 from behind the great burdock, and Naomi cau 
 tiously parted the leaves to find his hole. 
 
 "Hi, hi, Naomye !" cried Flavia in alarm. "Let 
 go o' that I don't want you should handle that 
 dock !" 
 
 "Why hain't I to handle it?" 
 
 "Wai, because. ... I tell ye not to." 
 
 "Flavia Lucy, I see what the trouble is with 
 you!" 
 
 "No, you don't there hain't any trouble "
 
 94 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 "You've got a secret! I suspected it as much 
 as a week ago." 
 
 Flavia said nothing. 
 
 "I'm your best bosom friend, and here you've 
 got a secret from me." 
 
 "Hain't much of a secret/' muttered Flavia. 
 
 "I'll bid you good-afternoon, Miss Lucy," said 
 Naomi, gathering up all the pieces of Budsey's 
 new pantaloons, which she had been stitching 
 together. 
 
 "Set down again, Naomye! I'll tell ye what 
 'tis." 
 
 "P'haps I don't care to hear it, naow," said 
 Naomi, but with a yearning glance toward the 
 burdock. 
 
 "You may look for yourself, Naomye. I don't 
 care if you know of it, but I don't want sh! is 
 that her? I don't want my mother should 
 know." 
 
 Thus mollified, Naomi approached the giant 
 weed again, and parted its leaves to find at the
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 95 
 
 roots a thick brown book, much worn, tied to 
 gether with a tape. 
 
 "What ails you at this book?" asked Naomi, 
 untying the tapes. "It looks like a pretty 
 one." 
 
 "Tis a pretty one," said Flavia. "A sweet 
 pretty tale." 
 
 "Then what grudge has your mother got 
 against it, hey?" 
 
 "Naomye Polke, it's a novil!" 
 
 "Is that anything against it?" 
 
 "Why, yis! You hain't got one in your 
 haouse, have ye ?" 
 
 "I don't know whether we have or not." 
 
 "Mother wouldn't let me read a novil for any 
 sakes if she knowed of it. She says no young 
 lady would read one. I guess any young lady 
 would read this that could git her tabs on it! 
 Fan Paouncet lent it to me. It's the sweetest 
 tale, and the saddest one, you ever heared." 
 
 "What's the name of it?" asked Naomi.
 
 96 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 " 'Alpheus and Maryette/ I was goin' to lend 
 it to you as quick as I could finish it. Fan Paoun- 
 cet said I could. I kep' it a secret from you be 
 cause I was afeared afeared you might forget, 
 and let on to mother, or to Aunt Marye." 
 
 Naomi was not listening. She was reading 
 the novel. 
 
 "Maryette," continued Flavia, "was a beautiful 
 young lady. But very delicut. She was pale 
 and slim, and no wonder, she'd be'n through such 
 terrible scares. She was locked up in a lonesome 
 castle, for one thing, because she wouldn't marry 
 the wicked Marquis." 
 
 "What happened to her then ? Did she die ? or 
 what befell to her?" 
 
 "Oh, no there was a young man around 
 named Alpheus. He was a good deal bigger 
 punkins than the Marquis. Maryette was in 
 love with him." 
 
 "Wai, what did he do?" 
 
 "Why, he gave a hull gallon of whiskey to the
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 97 
 
 sentinel, and got into the castle, and fetched aout 
 Maryette." 
 
 "I s'pose he was in love with her?" 
 
 "Wai, I guess yes! I never heared of any 
 body so much in love." 
 
 "Then they git married, don't they ?" 
 
 "Git married oh, no ! I've peeked over into 
 the tail end of it, and it says they died locked in 
 one another's arms." 
 
 "Where does it tell about that?" asked Naomi. 
 
 "About which? Where they die, and so 
 forth?" 
 
 "No, not that. About her . . . why, you 
 know, . . . her being in love with this young 
 man." 
 
 "I'll read it to ye. I never heared of anybody 
 so much in love." 
 
 "Wai, find it and read it," said Naomi, sur 
 rendering the book to Flavia. 
 
 "You watch and see if anybody's coming, 
 then."
 
 98 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 Flavia found the place, and read to her friend 
 the flowery description of Maryette's love for 
 Alpheus. It carried them both far away from 
 the pasture where they sat, to the 
 
 "Magic casements opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn." 
 
 As Naomi walked home, she thought : 
 
 "I wonder if Maryette was fonder of that Al 
 pheus than I be of little Budsey ? I can't scarcely 
 believe it. P'haps Maryette was an only child, 
 poor creeter." 
 
 In the night she awoke and lay thinking of 
 Alpheus and Maryette. She looked at Eliza's 
 dark head on the pillow beside her, the beautiful 
 black braid hanging over the edge of the bed. 
 Eliza was breathing very softly. Her younger 
 sister gazed respectfully, and said to her 
 self: 
 
 "Elizy's felt it she feels it now. I wonder if 
 she feels it in her sleep? P'haps she's dreaming 
 about Alpheus I mean the fiddler. Poor Elizy,
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 99 
 
 I pity her and yet I envy her. I wonder ... if 
 my turn'll ever come?" 
 
 Budsey Saul coughed in his sleep, behind the 
 partition of quilts on the Tempe side of the gar 
 ret. The sisterly child sat up with an anxious, 
 puckered face, and her fancies all scattered and 
 forgotten. 
 
 'That's the second time I've heared Budsey 
 cough ! He's kicked his comforter off, I warrant. 
 I wouldn't have him cough again for any sakes. 
 Three times inside of an hour means a cold on the 
 lungs, Marm always says." She ran barefoot 
 across the moonlit floor, and tucked the quilt 
 about young Saul. Four times, half-awake, he 
 flung it off, and each time Naomi patiently 
 covered him up again. At last he submitted, and 
 his disturbed slumber settled down again on his 
 tanned face beneath its rough thatch of tow hair 
 that homely face which Naomi thought so 
 handsome. 
 
 But Naomi, whose solicitude for her young
 
 ioo Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 brother was as an ^olian harp to every wind 
 that blew, knelt down beside his bed and prayed 
 for a long time on his behalf. 
 
 "God bless my darling brother Budsey, and let 
 him not have a cold on his lungs, but deliver him 
 from this cough let not the sun harm him by 
 day, nor the moon by night. A thousand shall 
 fall beside him, and ten thousand at his right 
 hand, but let it not come nigh him. Make him 
 grow as tall as They, and never have a hollow 
 chest. Let him get up to the head of the spell 
 ing class, and stay there a hull week. But let him 
 not cough the third time, for Marm says, etc. 
 Amen." 
 
 Thus Naomi prayed, and not for the first time, 
 kneeling on the cold garret floor, and trying to 
 cover Budsey's whole future, up to old age, with 
 sisterly hopes and plans, and mapping out a hun 
 dred blessings for him! 
 
 When she awoke in the morning, she was not 
 at all startled to find herself alone in the bed
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 101 
 
 which she shared with Eliza. Even when she 
 spied Eliza's everyday dress still hanging on its 
 nail, she only thought : 
 
 "Lizy's gone out early to pick the worms off the 
 cabbages ; but how came she not to put on her old 
 gown? She's worn that polonaise of Marm's, I 
 warrant." She gave it no more consideration, 
 but sprang up and buttoned her calico, by its one 
 wooden billet, round her neck, and raced away to 
 the woods with a basket on her arm, for partridge 
 eggs. No one else was awake in the house; it 
 was not yet five o'clock. She knew where to 
 look for partridge nests in the roots of trees be 
 side the water; and she had filled her basket and 
 started homeward, when who was this running 
 so pell-mell through the briers and underbrush, 
 tearing his pantaloons ? It was Budsey, panting, 
 and calling, "Naomye! Naomye! Where be 
 you?" His eyes were bulging, his hair wet, and 
 his cheeks were scarlet. 
 
 "What's wanted, little brother?" shouted
 
 IO2 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 Naomi, crashing through the blackberry 
 vines. 
 
 "You're wanted to hum! Elizy 's gone!" he 
 shouted back. 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 "Sister Lizy's gone !" 
 
 "Elizy gone ! Gone where ?" 
 
 "Nobody knows. You're to hasten hum, 
 and let what eggs you can't run with, 
 be." 
 
 "Marm told me to fetch 'em home." 
 
 "Fetch 'em then, but leg it better than that, you 
 snail. I'm all beat aout trying to keep back with 
 ye," prevaricated the little boy, who was well- 
 nigh tired out. 
 
 "Elizy gone!" repeated Naomi in her deep 
 amazement, as she ran alongside her brother 
 through the yellow-green glades. "Nobody 
 knows where, you say? Did she flee away with 
 the fiddler?" 
 
 "I tell ye I don't know. All I know is, that
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 103 
 
 she took the white mare; and the black's lame; 
 and father's at his wits' end. She left a piece of 
 paper for father, and he sets and reads it, and 
 shakes his head over it." 
 
 "What doos she say in the paper?" 
 
 "I don't know. Can't you leg it faster ? You 
 must be too fleshy to run." 
 
 With such bold remarks the little boy covered 
 up the fact that he could scarcely run himself, and 
 was purring and panting. 
 
 Marm Patridge met them at the gate. She 
 looked blown and dishevelled. She still had on 
 her nightcap, and her pocket was hanging out 
 side her dress, and her eyes looked smarting. 
 She took Naomi by the shoulders, and walked her 
 into the house. 
 
 "Come in here, Naomye, till I tell you thish 
 bad newsh about your shister," said she. Naomi 
 too began to cry; the morning darkened, and the 
 atmosphere of home was chilled, as if there were 
 a fog indoors.
 
 104 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 "Your shister hash fled away with that fiddler, 
 Naomye," said her old Marm severely. 
 
 Naomi said nothing, but stared at Marm Pat- 
 ridge. 
 
 "She'sh left a letter for your father. He wun't 
 let nobody read it, but I know full well what'sh in 
 it. Your shister hain't be'n a good girl." 
 
 "I know she wa'nt, Marm, of late. She sulked 
 a great deal." 
 
 Marm Patridge wept afresh. "Wai, wal," 
 said she, "you'd better go and comfort your 
 father with your prattle, if you can." 
 
 "Oh," thought Naomi, as she wandered 
 through the house, "I wish I'd a-picked her goose 
 for her I wish I'd let her have the squaw's bead 
 mat when she was so set on it and now she's 
 gone, and I shall have to sleep all alone in our 
 bed." 
 
 Her father sat in the kitchen, his large horny 
 hands spread out on his knees (the veins very 
 blue) and his back bent almost as double as the
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 105 
 
 great-grandfather of the Pouncets. Naomi went 
 
 close to him, but he did not see her; she courtesied 
 
 until her calico brushed his knee, but he took no 
 
 notice; and at last she had to pull his sleeve. 
 
 Then he drew her down on his lap, and patted her 
 
 back. 
 
 "Father, Elizy wan't a very good girl, but she 
 
 was so troubled " 
 
 "How do you mean she wan't a good girl ?" 
 "Why, she sulked so, and drawed such a long 
 
 face ; but she was so unhappy, father, you might 
 
 forgive her." 
 
 "I forgive her all her sulks, my dear." 
 "Oh, father, when will she come back?" 
 "Who can tell, my dear? If she comes, I 
 
 daoubt it'll be like a thief in the night, as she went 
 
 away." 
 
 "Oh, father, don't speak so, and make it all so 
 
 black !" cried poor Naomi. 
 
 Her father, instead of replying, slowly and 
 
 painfully straightened his bent back, and slowly
 
 106 Alpheus and Maryette 
 
 drew a folded paper from his pocket. He held it 
 up before her. 
 
 "Stand up, Naomye. Toe that board in the 
 floor. Hold up your head, and pull your frock 
 straight." 
 
 She did so, with wondering looks. 
 
 "Naow take this paper in your hands. Naow 
 look me in the eyes. No, you hain't to read the 
 paper. You're to say some words after me. 
 
 "I promise say it slow, very slow never to 
 forget this eighteenth day of May in the year 
 eighty-three. If ever I'm in danger of forgetting 
 to be a good girl say that " 
 
 " 'Forgetting to be a good girl,' " repeated 
 Naomi clearly. 
 
 "I promise to think of this paper I hold in my 
 hand, and remember I was forbidden to read it; 
 and to think why." 
 
 " 'To think why,' " repeated Naomi, who had 
 been brought up to unquestioning obedience. 
 
 "That's all," concluded Mr. Polke heavily.
 
 Alpheus and Maryette 107 
 
 "But don't forget your prayers, and your text, 
 'Thou God seest me,' that your mother made all 
 you childern larn, as soon as you was able to 
 speak." 
 
 While Naomi was taking this vow, her fugi 
 tive sister, in a dark little parlour in Tempe, was 
 being made Mrs. Frederick Dukes. Eliza was 
 very happy. Yet some misgivings crossed her 
 mind. Once she thought, "This is my father's 
 mare, not my husband's / purvided the mare for 
 us to flee away on" ; and again, as the Presbyterian 
 minister's door closed behind them, she thought : 
 
 "Where will our home be? Shall I be a rov 
 ing woman without a home?"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 (Satewags of tbe BncbanteC* Country 
 
 Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, 
 Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew. 
 
 W 
 
 HERE be you with that nutmeg, Na- 
 
 omye ?' 
 
 Marm Patridge stood in the tiny square entry, 
 calling upstairs. It was two years since that 
 Black Saturday which had closed the doors of 
 Naomi's little-girlhood behind her. Only a faint 
 shadow had been left on her face of those wake 
 ful nights when she had lain awake and wept to 
 think : 
 
 "I might have carded Lizy's wool I might 
 have done her dipping for her but it's too late 
 now !" 
 
 Marm stood calling : 
 
 "Naomye! Naomye! Has the child fell in a 
 fit?" 
 
 But now a faint tinkle reached her dull ears. 
 
 108
 
 The Enchanted Country 109 
 
 It came from the living-room where the new 
 spinet stood, and sounded the jigging tune of 
 "Weevily Wheat." 
 
 "Naomye Polke, you're at that instrument 
 again, air you? Fetch me that nutmeg this in 
 stant to the kitchin !" 
 
 "Yes, Marm." Naomi slowly shut the spinet- 
 lid the gate to the enchanting moonshine 
 country. She looked back more longingly than 
 Lot's wife. Naomi Polke might appear very 
 staid and stiff in her flat-breasted calico, but be 
 hind that buskboard beat a heart that loved sweet 
 music, poetry, and all enchantments. She had 
 not long been grating the nutmeg into Marm's 
 batter, when she began to sing, to a monotonous 
 no-tune of her own, some odd verses of an old 
 ballad which she had picked up by heart from old 
 Mr. Pouncet 
 
 "The Percy out of Northumberland, 
 
 A vow to God made he, 
 That he would hunt on the mountains 
 Of Cheviot within days three "
 
 1 1 o The Enchanted Country 
 
 "Naomye!" 
 
 "What say, Marm?" 
 
 "Have you darned up that hole in my 
 mantilly ?" 
 
 "No, Marm but I will after supper, certain." 
 She began to beat the eggs again, and the fairy 
 trumpeters whom Marm had driven away began 
 to creep back, and to sound their silver marches 
 through the kitchen 
 
 "They were twenty hundred spearmen bold 
 
 Withouten any fail; 
 
 They were born along by the water of Tweed, 
 In the bounds of Teviotdale " 
 
 "Naomye!" 
 
 "What say, Marm?" 
 
 "You hain't tried aout that lard, I don't be 
 lieve!" 
 
 "Oh, my wig! no, I hain't!" replied Naomi in 
 consternation, while all the gates of the enchanted 
 country swung to behind her for that morning. 
 
 But when she had an errand down the south, or 
 up the north, turnpike, she could wander un-
 
 The Enchanted Country 1 1 1 
 
 molested along the shoulder of Red Mountain, 
 looking down between the pine and maple trunks 
 to where the Branch roared along its narrow bed. 
 Or she might follow a blaze of her own to the 
 tiny pool in the Hollow, where the dead leaves 
 lay heaped in a drift on the water; or she might 
 lie on her back on Fox Cobble in the sunshine, her 
 bonnet over her eyes; swelling with great 
 thoughts, or feeling fairy presences. Then there 
 was no one to call out sharply, with a twitch of 
 her sleeve : 
 
 "Come down out of the clouds, Naomye!" 
 Her father often shook his .head over this 
 daughter; but not as he had shaken it over Eliza. 
 Mr. Polke had a way of musing aloud as he sat 
 resting in the slack of the afternoon, over his 
 own life, and over the characters and prospects 
 of his children. 
 
 "Saul's all his mother's child, ventur'some but 
 stiddy he has a barrel of good sense in his in 
 nards. He'll be a good brother to Naomye.
 
 H2 The Enchanted Country 
 
 Thar was Josiph . . . thar was Charles . . . 
 they was all good fellows but one all but one; 
 and he's paid the forfeit. One of my boys and 
 one of my girls wal, let her be forgotten . . . 
 but I can't forgit her 
 
 "Naomye's more like my sisters. Their frocks 
 was always hangin' off one shoulder, and their 
 hair'd blow into their eyes. Naomye takes after 
 my side of the family. I hear her singin' like a 
 mooner at times. Her mother's folks was all 
 more worldly-wise, and up-and-comin'. But her 
 freckles she gets from her mother's side, poor 
 little maouse. . Her freckles air liable to injure 
 her prospects in life, I'm afeared. I daoubt if she 
 could wash 'em off with lemon juice. If her 
 mother was alive, she'd put a stop to the child's 
 runnin' out bareheaded; but Harm's too old to 
 think of such things in a young spinster, im 
 portant as they be important as they be," re 
 peated Mr. Polke to himself, shaking his beard. 
 
 "Naomye Polke moonsh a great deal for one
 
 The Enchanted Coiintry 113 
 
 sho young," was Marm Patridge's opinion. "She 
 should be at her wheel, gitting her shettin-aout of 
 linen; or elshe a-trimmin' up her bunnit or her 
 blue gownd. She hash a kind of an old-timey 
 look. She ought to keep up with the fashionsh 
 better. To be sure they do change very often. 
 When I wash a girl one fashion would lasht one 
 lifetime. But naowadaysh they change every 
 ten or fifteen yearsh. That mantilly of her 
 grandmother Patridgesh', that Naomye wearsh 
 to church, ish all aout of fashion ! 'Twash made 
 forty or fifty yearsh ago !" 
 
 "Naomye doosn't care about the fashions," ob 
 served Budsey, who was greasing his boots on the 
 other side of the fireplace. 
 
 "Don't care about the fashionsh, hey?" 
 "No, Marm she doosn't care. She gits up 
 into the garret with the old folio, and gits a shawl 
 kind of draped around her, and a turkey-tail fan 
 for a sword, and p'tends she's Caesar, and calls 
 aout:
 
 H4 The Enchanted Country 
 
 " 'The Ides of March have come! ' 
 
 and then she claps her hand to her side, and 
 tumbles over on the feedbox, and sprawls there 
 a-panting as if somebody had hit her a terrible 
 whack." 
 
 "Play-actin' !" 
 
 "Or else she'll tie a nightcap round her head, 
 wrong side foremost, and be a duke : or else she 
 climbs up the chimney and says it's the Tower of 
 London: or else she puts on my pantaloons and 
 say s 
 
 "Pantaloonsh !" shrieked Marm in horror. 
 
 "Oh, yes, and says she's Rosalind in the Forest 
 of Arden." 
 
 "I don't shee why a darter of aour housh 
 should behave sho," said Marm plaintively. 
 "Flavy don't do sho. Debbe Darby don't; nor 
 none of the Byjamsh." 
 
 "They hain't none of 'em smart enough to do 
 so," cried Budsey loyally. "It takes some wit." 
 
 Flavia at that very moment was listening coldly
 
 The Enchanted Country 115 
 
 while Naomi repeated to her the darling ballad of 
 the "Nut-Brown Maid," which she had found in 
 an old Gazette in the woodhouse chamber; stop 
 ping from time to time to cry, "Haint that a hand 
 some line!" or "What a sweet creeter she was 
 don't you think so, Flavy?" to all which Flavia 
 would only reply: 
 
 "Well enough, but I don't see a great deal of 
 sense to it." 
 
 "Don't you see what they meant by their 
 speeches to one another?" 
 
 "No, I can't see what they meant, unless they 
 meant to spin out the piece as long as they could." 
 
 Naomi sighed, and leaned her head heavily 
 against the pear-tree. It was plain that Flavia 
 did not care a great deal about the moonshine 
 country. It was of no use trying to drag her 
 through the poetry gate. 
 
 "You don't care for these things, do you, 
 Flavia?" she asked. "I think you're changed in 
 that respect. It seems more than two years ago
 
 1 1 6 The Enchanted Country 
 
 that you and I read that tale of Alpheus and 
 Maryette." 
 
 "And you'll be seventeen in November." 
 
 "You'll be eighteen in April." 
 
 "Un-hunh. That tale of Alpheus and Mary 
 ette was pretty silly." 
 
 "Silly!" cried Naomi, her bright flush over- 
 flooding her freckles. 
 
 "Why, yes, Naomye don't you call it 
 so?" 
 
 "Call a tale of true love silly, hey? The next 
 thing you'll be calling the Bible silly." 
 
 "Hush, Naomye you're almost swearing." 
 
 "I'd almost as lief you would call the Bible 
 names!" cried Naomi indignantly. 
 
 "You hain't outgrowed novils and such truck, 
 you see, Naomye. I've got beyond 'em," said 
 Flavia calmly. 
 
 "Beyond 'em! Oh, Flavia!" 
 
 "You better be filling up your chest with pillow 
 cases," continued Flavia. "You better be laming
 
 The Enchanted Country i i 7 
 
 yourself new recipes, than these long-winded 
 ballats. What kind of a husband do you think '11 
 be pleased with you if you don't larn anything 
 useful?" 
 
 "I guess my cupcakes air pretty nigh as good 
 as yours be, Mistress Flavia Lucy! Marm Pat- 
 ridge's goin' to have me bake a batch of 'em for 
 the Fair !" cried Naomi. 
 
 "Cup-cakes air very well; but your raised 
 breads hain't all they should be," said Flavia. 
 
 "Mistress Paouncet said I scalloped my night 
 caps full as fine as her Hester !" 
 
 "Wai but Marm has to make Budsey's Sab 
 bath shirts because you hain't able to set up the 
 bosoms," returned Flavia judicially. 
 
 Naomi, almost crying, muttered, "I shall larn 
 in time." 
 
 "Certain you will, Naomye, if you put the hull 
 of your mind to it. But that seems a very hard 
 thing for you to do. Your head's most always 
 in the clouds."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 jflavfa begs "bet flfcotber 
 
 That which is tender layeth hold on that which is near 
 est unto it, and groweth with it, and becometh like it. 
 
 IV DISTRESS LUCY was a hopelessly shift- 
 !-"-* less woman in all regards but one. Her 
 cupboards were overflowing with crockery, books, 
 clothes, and old family relics, all jumbled to 
 gether. On her pantry shelves her gold wedding 
 bracelets might be found in the teapot, where they 
 were steeped more than once in the tea : large 
 pieces of cheese mouldered away in the warming- 
 pan ; the curtains were torn, the barn-door off its 
 hinges, the leaves were never raked off the grass, 
 but the little pigs rooted among them for nuts, 
 and the hens laid their eggs in the broken founda 
 tions. Mistress Lucy meanwhile was beginning 
 elaborate embroideries, never to be finished, or 
 making "cut-work" out of paper, to lumber the 
 
 118
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 1 1 9 
 
 rickety living-room table still further. A fine 
 landscape hung in the kitchen, in the reek and 
 smoke, and the rats which rolled apples across the 
 kitchen floor in broad daylight had even nibbled 
 a hole in it, while the mistress of the house sat 
 drawing new patterns for nightcaps. Flavia had 
 certainly not inherited her practical capability 
 from her mother. Only in one thing was Mis 
 tress Lucy forehanded, only at one task did she 
 persevere until it was accomplished, and that 
 was her determination to have her elder daugh 
 ter married before her younger. 
 
 Flavia had arrived at the age of twenty-one 
 practically unsought. Tall, refined, and gentle, 
 with a painful bashfulness in company, her 
 "countenance," though it had not beauty, was 
 called "pleasing," and her "ways," though neither 
 animated nor charming, were commended by her 
 elders for being "modest." From time to time 
 she had an incipient admirer or two, but she 
 always discouraged them by her bashful silence
 
 I2O Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 and evident longing to have them go away. She 
 tried conscientiously to "sparkle," as her mother 
 wished; but the result was sadder than before. 
 In addition to her natural shyness, Flavia was 
 placed in the most trying of situations for an 
 awkward, neglected girl. She was a natural foil 
 for her sister Cassandra. The thin child who 
 had once slept in the sap-kettle was growing up, 
 and daily growing more charming. While bash 
 ful Flavia timidly repulsed her partners at a 
 dance, and sent them looking for other girls, 
 Cassandra had only to glance, and, like bees to a 
 flower, the boys flocked about her. 
 
 Mistress Lucy thus saw her elder child passing 
 the heyday of her young womanhood unmarried 
 and un-beau'd, and like Mistress Darby and 
 Marm Patridge at a later date like many 
 mothers and aunts of that time, she decided to 
 venture on that path where angels would fear to 
 tread, and to choose a husband herself for Flavia. 
 
 Naomi saw, in church one evening, a tall sandy
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 121 
 
 man, whom she only knew by the name of Mr. 
 Snodgrass of Westminster. He was intently 
 looking at her friend across the aisle. "Well," 
 said Naomi to herself, "I guess Mr. Snodgrass '11 
 know Flavy the next time he sees her." He was 
 singing toward her now, with his clear tenor voice. 
 After service he waited and offered her his arm. 
 Naomi wondered if her friend's day had come, 
 to take ship for that fabled shore where people 
 dwelt who were in love ? She wondered if Flavia 
 felt as Maryette did on the fortieth page, where 
 she met Alpheus in the forest ? 
 
 On the next Sunday afternoon she met her 
 friend out walking with Mr. Snodgrass toward 
 the graveyard, that constant haunt of Beartown 
 lovers. Flavia was hanging on her escort's arm ; 
 her face was downcast. As Naomi passed them, 
 Flavia blushed; but the colour did not distract 
 Naomi from noticing the timid look, not of hap 
 piness, in her eyes. Naomi lay awake for a little 
 while that night, wondering and troubled.
 
 122 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 She and Flavia had never rallied each other 
 about beaux. They were too sincere and literal 
 in their natures, as well as too ladylike, to do so. 
 Again and again, in the days that followed, 
 Naomi thought she could direct the conversation 
 to Mr. Snodgrass ; but though it often veered in 
 that direction, it quickly blew away again, as if 
 Flavia herself were on the defensive. However, 
 Flavia went on quietly tatting all the time, with 
 out a quiver of the eyelids. She worked to such 
 good advantage that she was able to announce be 
 fore long : 
 
 "Here's most enough tattin' for my twelve 
 longshorts." 
 
 Naomi was startled, for she had not supposed 
 the affair was so far advanced as "longshorts." 
 
 "Flavy, I had you on my mind last night again. 
 I've laid awake a-many nights on your account 
 this fall." 
 
 "You're a curious creature, Naomye." 
 
 "Yes, I be a curious creature, I guess, but that
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 123 
 
 hain't to the point. I want you should let me 
 ask you a question, and give me a true-blue 
 answer." 
 
 Flavia trembled a little, she knew not why. 
 
 "Wai." 
 
 "Cross your heart, then." 
 
 "I cross my heart to speak you true, 
 You may cut it out unless I do," 
 
 recited Flavia, like a good child. 
 
 "Wai, this is the question. Was you . . . oh, 
 I can't say it, I don't believe. Let me whisper it 
 to you. Was you happy last Sabbath afternoon 
 when you walked in the graveyard?" 
 
 Flavia looked away. She was obliged to 
 pause before she could frame her answer. Na 
 omi leaned toward her, and pressed the question, 
 home. 
 
 "Remember Maryette in the forest! Did you 
 know where you was stepping? Did you see me 
 at the church door?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean, Naomye."
 
 124 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 "I know what you mean, Flavy, when you look 
 so hard at Budsey's bonfire over thar !" 
 
 "Wai, Naomye, I hain't at all wwhappy." 
 
 "You hain't at all happy, Flavia!" 
 
 "I guess I'm happy enough." 
 
 "No, you hain't happy at all." 
 
 Flavia stared past Naomi, with a passive 
 face. 
 
 "Flavia, you must stop your longshorts and all 
 your sewin'. You must tell your mother how 
 you feel. You must tell Mr. Snodgrass. You 
 do very wrong to deceive him." 
 
 "I don't deceive him, Naomye. He knows how 
 it is with me." 
 
 "And is he willin' ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He's a wicked man, then !" 
 
 "Hush, Naomye. How can you speak so?" 
 
 "I say he's a bad, wicked man." 
 
 "Hush hush! You frighten me, Naomye. 
 It hain't maidenly to speak so."
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 125 
 
 "I want to frighten you, Flavia Lucy, before 
 it's too late to save ye !" 
 
 "It's too late, as you call it, already. We've 
 promised one another." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, it can't be too late! when did 
 you promise?" 
 
 "A-Saturday night." 
 
 "Oh, what a wicked woman I be, that I didn't 
 speak before! I was very fain to speak to you 
 a-Friday night to singing-school; but I was 
 scared; my mind misgave me. I'll never forgive 
 myself for this !" 
 
 "Poor Naomye ! hush, you silly. You needn't 
 to fret, nor think you could 'a' had it different. 
 My mind has be'n made up a long while, and I 
 was sure of what I should do." 
 
 "Oh, Flavy, I'm sore afraid for you. You'll 
 repent you when it's too late. Think of it naow, 
 before the words air said between you oh, think 
 w r hat you might feel, and what you do !" 
 
 "You needn't to fret, Naomye, and shake your
 
 126 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 hair all down into your eyes. Mr. Snodgrass is 
 a good man, and one I respect. A good purvider 
 too. He's very kind and pleasant with me. I 
 couldn't wish him different." 
 
 Naomi shivered a little. She felt chilled to the 
 marrow of her bones. 
 
 "You silly Naomye, I guess I know what 
 you're thinking of. You're thinking of the olden 
 time when you and I was little girls, and when we 
 used to spend hull afternoons lookin' over our 
 pretty beads, and buildin' castles " 
 
 "Yes! I think of those days, and wish they'd 
 come back to us." 
 
 "But they can't. They're gone for ever." 
 
 "They come back to me," replied Naomi with 
 kindling eyes. "If you want 'em, they'll come 
 back. Oh, it's pleasant, when you're all alone, 
 and those old fancies come twinkling through 
 your mind what if they hain't ever to come 
 true? but I believe they will, some day wal, 
 p'haps not in this lifetime. I want you should
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 127 
 
 have such fancies, Flavia, for they're as sweet 
 now as ever they was, and they warm the cockles 
 of your heart, and will for ever!" 
 
 For one moment, while Naomi was speaking, 
 her friend's glance responded as if she under 
 stood; and then it relapsed into passive in 
 credulity. After a little pause, Flavia replied : 
 
 "You mean well by me, Naomye, coming and 
 trying to frighten me out of my promise. But I 
 only see that we hain't at all alike, though we was 
 brought up in the same community. P'haps I'm 
 more settled by nature than you be. You want I 
 should take pattern by you I think you'd do well 
 to take pattern by me: what do you think o' that, 
 hey ? If you had a husband, naow, you wouldn't 
 be troubled by these curious thoughts you tell of. 
 You say they hain't a trouble to ye. Wai, p'haps 
 they hain't; but I should be troubled and vexed 
 by 'em. My path's so plain, I can't but follow it. 
 It pleases father and mother it pleases Mr. 
 Snodgrass full well."
 
 128 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 "Don't think of them, my dear think of. Fla 
 via Lucy !" 
 
 "Why, Naomye, it pleases me very well too." 
 "I'm sore afraid for you," said Naomi once 
 more. She rose to go; but before leaving, she 
 put her arm round her friend's neck, and whis 
 pered in her ear : 
 
 "Will you pray over it, Flavy? this one night?" 
 "Why, I pray over it every night!" replied 
 Flavia. Her tone was serious and sincere. Na 
 omi went home much perplexed. "For with 
 stammering lips and another tongue will I speak 
 to this people." This strange verse came into 
 her mind and perplexed her yet more. Certainly 
 Flavia was honest, she was sincere; how then 
 could her conscience tell her false? Naomi was 
 frowning and sullen all that evening. When such 
 a question as this was fermenting in her mind, she 
 could not bear to be spoken to. At bedtime she 
 took the large Bible upstairs with her, and read 
 late by the light of the candle. She read first in
 
 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 129 
 
 the Gospels and Epistles, but they seemed to be 
 speaking to some one else, and not to her. At 
 length she opened to the old Prophets, and read 
 their more mysterious and poetical pages ; read of 
 the doom of nations and mighty kings, the terrible 
 and long-drawn vengeance of the Almighty as 
 foreseen with mortal eyes. She was calmed with 
 a sense of the greatness of her God, but her ach 
 ing sense of Flavia's mistake was in no wise 
 relieved. She sat frowning over the great book. 
 "I eenamost think," she said aloud to the rats and 
 mice sitting up on their haunches in the dark 
 corners of the garret, "that the Bible's got noth 
 ing to say to me about Flavy's case. Oh !" Her 
 eyes had fallen on these verses 
 
 "For as the heaven is high above the earth, so 
 are my ways higher than your ways, and my 
 thoughts than your thoughts. . . . Instead of the 
 thorn shall come up the fir tree; and instead of 
 the briar shall come up the myrtle tree." 
 
 When Naomi read these words, a light dawned
 
 1 30 Flavia Obeys Her Mother 
 
 on her soul; she humbled her own standards, 
 laughed at her fears for Flavia, and felt once 
 more that settled ease of heart which was tem 
 peramentally hers. The Almighty's ways with 
 Flavia were not her ways not human ways at 
 all, perhaps. 
 
 "How ridiculous I be, and what a figure I cut, 
 to be thinking I must labour with Flavy to pre 
 vent this thing! It's curious it's strange, that 
 she should bring herself to do it ; but as she says, 
 we hain't all alike. Mr. Snodgrass, she says, is 
 willing. I don't think much of him for that. But 
 everything isn't to be done according to my idees, 
 the Good Book says. 'Instead of the thorn shall 
 come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall 
 come up the myrtle tree.' That's a curious thing 
 for the Book to say; for I've always heared that 
 the myrtle's the flower of love! 
 
 "But I'm glad it hain't Budsey Polke that's 
 doing this thing that Flavia Lucy's doing. I 
 daoubt if I should be so easily reconciled to it in 
 Budsey's case !"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 fjonours and Emoluments 
 
 TJETWEEN huskings and parings, sugarings 
 *-' and barn-warmings, and sings and spells, 
 Beartown was becoming a very gay place to live 
 in. Naomi's best blue dress was in requisition as 
 often as twice a week. But she was seldom or 
 never a belle at these parties, which were apt to 
 end (if they did not begin) with dancing. She 
 and Flavia had always been too shy to throw 
 about those saucy glances, or to toss their heads 
 and turn away, drawing a young man after them 
 by the eyelash, as they saw other girls doing. 
 The light, bright, frivolous "You and I" talk 
 would not come trippingly from their tongues. 
 They were accustomed to sit, thoughtful and 
 grave, on the edge of the dancers' world some 
 times beating time with their red wooden heels to 
 131
 
 132 Honours and Emoluments 
 
 the fiddles, or clapping the best of the spread- 
 eagles and pigeon-wings. 
 
 This was all very well so long as Naomi had 
 a companion wall flower. But when Flavia 
 married Mr. Snodgrass and went to Jamaica to 
 live, it was rather forlorn to sit alone in a corner, 
 while Isabella By jam or Fanny Pouncet whirled 
 by in the squashvine, light as the seeds of a 
 dandelion. Their flying skirts brushed Naomi's 
 knees, and seemed to waft airs of another world 
 about her. She might forget it to-morrow, as 
 she herded the turkeys through the painted aisles 
 of the Red Woods, or even to-night, when she 
 awoke and heard the thunder, and the uprooted 
 trees crashing over into the Branch; but who in 
 her young years can help winking back a tear or 
 two, as she sits lonely in the midst of pleasure ? 
 
 "I guess, Marm," said Naomi on one of the 
 mornings after, "I wun't go to the next party the 
 By jams have." 
 
 Marm pursed up her thousand-wrinkled face
 
 Honours and Emoluments 133 
 
 and looked at the whites of Naomi's eyes. She 
 
 asked anxiously: 
 
 "What ailsh you, child? Ish your tongue 
 
 coated? Air you feverish?" 
 
 "Oh, no, Marm my head's as cool as a cheese. 
 
 But I guess I'm getting too old for these parties." 
 "Too old, hey? Why, haow old be you?" 
 "I'm 'most twenty-two," said Naomi sadly. 
 "Twenty-two, hey? Have any of your teeth 
 
 fell aout? Air you bald? Do your jointsh 
 
 crack?" 
 
 Naomi smiled a little wanly. 
 
 "A young maid hain't an old maid a minute 
 
 before she'sh twenty-five," said Marm Patridge 
 
 firmly. "She'sh in her prime at your age. Don't 
 
 let me hear any more of thish nonshensh." 
 "Wai but I never have any partners." 
 "Wun't your brother dansh with ye ?" 
 "Yes but he's gen'ally the only one." 
 Marm cocked her head on one side in deep 
 
 thought for a few moments ; then she rose on her
 
 134 Honours and Emoluments 
 
 groaning joints and beckoned Naomi to follow 
 her, saying: 
 
 "I guesh I know what'll fetch ye a few part- 
 nersh." 
 
 Marm had a cedar chest in the garret where 
 she kept all her fineries of long ago. Out of this 
 she now fished a pair of rainbow stockings, a blue 
 sash with knotted fringe, and a monstrous comb 
 topped with a silver bird. She gave them all to 
 Naomi, and watched with delight the unquench 
 able vanity leap up and shine in her great-niece's 
 deep eyes. 
 
 "Wai ! did thoshe dudsh do ye any good, hey?" 
 inquired Marm as Naomi came down the ladder 
 on the morning after the Pouncets' large sugar 
 ing party, where she had worn the rainbow stock 
 ings, the sash, and the comb. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I had three or four partners," replied 
 Naomi quite happily. 
 
 "Good enough who wash they?" 
 
 "Budsey once; and then I sat out a spell of
 
 Honours and Emoluments 135 
 
 three or four dances : and then I had a whirligig 
 squashvine with Bill Byjam, and then I sat out a 
 few more ; and then I had a Hi-Betty with Mace 
 Paouncet." 
 
 "Good enough and who set by ye at supper?" 
 
 "Mr. Tibbald set one side, and Emily Byjam 
 t'other." 
 
 "Wan't there boysh enough to go round?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, but there was seven or eight of 'em 
 together as near as they could get to Fan Paoun 
 cet and little Cassie Lucy." 
 
 "Wash that little one there ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Marm, and danced every dance, and 
 split some of 'em in two." 
 
 When Naomi had gone to bake the breakfast 
 cakes, her father said to Marm : 
 
 "It's uphill work, tryin' to have Naomye cut a 
 figure at these doin's. She hain't one to shine 
 before the fiddles. She's had that spinster look 
 about her ever since she was born, poor little 
 maouse! And then her freckles "
 
 136 Honours and Emoluments 
 
 "Shucksh, I tell ye! What air frecklesh? 
 What'sh red hair? It hain't beauty it'sh 
 the beckoning eye that bringsh a girl part- 
 nersh." 
 
 "You can't make a sparkler aout of poor little 
 Naomye," repeated Mr. Polke pensively. 
 
 "Wai, I shall do my besht .for the child. My 
 head'sh full of plansh about her. I intend she 
 shall get the blue ribbon for her cupcakesh to the 
 Valley Fair, too," said Mann firmly. "I mean 
 she shall amount to shomething." 
 
 In pursuance of this design, Marm made 
 Naomi practise the cupcakes twice a week all 
 summer long. By the month of the Fair Naomi 
 could place the puffed-over top exactly in the 
 middle of each cake, and could fringe the edges 
 deftly with fine slices of citron. She would un 
 doubtedly have taken the blue ribbon had not 
 Emily Byjam sent a dozen cupcakes as good as 
 hers, with a stick of cinnamon on each represent 
 ing a cannon, with clove seeds heaped in front for
 
 Honours and Emoluments 137 
 
 cannon balls which deservedly captured the 
 prize. 
 
 "Don't you care, Naomye," said her father. 
 "Yours air twice as pretty, with all that grass on 
 'em. Emily By jam's a year or two older than 
 you be, and her uncle's wife's sister was one of 
 the judges. I can't see anything pretty in can 
 nons on a cake/' continued Mr. Polke. "The 
 cannons on the wrong side have winned in this 
 country." He began to sing the old loyalist song, 
 "Hunting Shirts and Rifle Guns," coming out 
 very strong on the last verse 
 
 "Then Congress, and every such damn'd inquisition, 
 Be fed with hot sulphur from Lucifer's kitchen! 
 With their hunting shirts and rifle guns." 
 
 "Naomye'sh a-going to have that blue ribbon 
 next year," said Marm. 
 
 "She'd have winned it this year," said Budsey, 
 "if Emily Byjam hadn't fetched a pie to the 
 judges for their dinner." 
 
 But before the Valley Fair again came round,
 
 138 Honours and Emoluments 
 
 another honour had befallen Naomi, which caused 
 the blue ribbon to sing very small. Mr. Green- 
 piece, calling one day with his last and best 
 funeral gloves on, presented her with a triangular 
 brown box and well-thumbed blank book; 
 and pronounced as she took them (with 
 her best "retiring" courtesy) the following 
 speech : 
 
 "In consideration of your superior mind and 
 respectable character, Mrs. Naomye, you have 
 been chosen Mite Collector of the Dorcas Society 
 for the ensuing year." 
 
 Forgotten now were the lanterns and fiddles, 
 the billowing skirts of Fanny and Isabella in the 
 Dutchman's Bridal! 
 
 When the Fair again came round, Naomi's cup 
 cakes took the blue ribbon, and premium of a 
 dollar and a half. Now she could say with the 
 Psalmist : 
 
 "Gilead is mine, and Manassas is mine !" 
 
 She was retained in the responsible position of
 
 Honours and Emoluments 139 
 
 Mite Collector for two years, and resigned it only 
 to become President of the Dorcases. 
 
 When Mrs. Naomye went now to dances, she 
 held her head as high and higher than the frivo 
 lous creatures who pranced about her. And if 
 sometimes she felt a small pang, and thought : 
 
 "I wish I had a Beau for once: " 
 
 she forgot it next moment when Budsey 
 whirled by with Fan Pouncet or Cass Lucy on his 
 arm. To Budsey's vain sister, all the other boys 
 in Beartown were as stars in his sunshine, or 
 moths round his candle. "How handsome," 
 thought Naomi, "Budsey doos look in that tab 
 bied wescat! and I certainly admire to see his 
 hair tufted out so behind his ears !"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Gbe prouD Summer 
 
 f I AHE empire of Isabella Byjam and Fanny 
 -*- Pouncet began to fall, as little Cassandra 
 Lucy grew up. The thin, almost scrawny child 
 was now a tall, pretty thing of seventeen. She 
 was not really so handsome as Isabella or Fanny ; 
 not very much prettier, in feature alone, than 
 Flavia had been. Too angular as yet, with a 
 head shaped by nature for any fashion but this 
 of straining the hair back and gumming it into a 
 mountain of bands, coils, and ornaments Cas 
 sandra Lucy was, in her rare dull moments, 
 almost plain looking. But her face lighted so 
 quickly and so brightly, on the smallest occasions, 
 that it almost seemed to bloom before one's eyes, 
 like a flower opening wider. She had that 
 peculiar bright vividness which excels beauty. It 
 
 was not brightness of colour, but brightness of 
 140
 
 The Proud Summer Begins 141 
 
 look a shining look which no one could describe. 
 Her eyes indeed were windows illuminated from 
 within. Perhaps the secret was that Cassandra 
 loved companions as other persons love music and 
 flowers. Certain it is, that under the iridescent 
 veil of her magnetism her character was little 
 seen. She was flighty and impulsive to the point 
 of insincerity; very mercurial and irresponsible. 
 In short, her nature was a shallow though an in 
 nocent one. But her manners, so animated, warm 
 and debonair, her irresistible sweet laughter, and 
 cloudless good nature, captivated the judgment; 
 and in the end, like many another woman, she 
 rose to the opinion of those who loved her best 
 and most blindly. 
 
 Such a character was that "Cass Lucy" of 
 whom veiled remarks began to be made behind 
 Naomi's back in the winter of 1791, the year of 
 Vermont's statehood. 
 
 "Budsey Polke has painted up his father's old 
 sleigh."
 
 142 The Proud Summer Begins 
 
 "Poor Naomye she's such a fond sister, she'll 
 take it very hard." 
 
 "It'll be like losing an eyetooth." 
 
 Naomi's eyes were opened at a certain spelling 
 match in April, when Budsey was one of the 
 captains. How long she was to remember 
 that evening! Budsey won first choice by 
 the penny, and Mr. Tibbald, the schoolmaster, 
 who was invariably the first one chosen, 
 was half rising to go to Budsey's side, the 
 banner of victory already flying in his wan 
 countenance, when Budsey from the platform 
 announced : 
 
 "I choose Cassandra Lucy!" 
 
 Spelling matches were taken in earnest in Bear- 
 town, and the choice of a poor speller like Cass 
 before Mr. Tibbald was snatched up, caused looks 
 of astonishment, and even a few faint titters. 
 These gatherings were usually the triumph of the 
 neglected but studious girls, and wholesome re 
 minders to the others that turn about is fair play.
 
 The Proud Summer Begins 143 
 
 Cass walked with a pretty manner to her place be 
 side her captain. 
 
 "Cass '11 be able to set down and rest her very 
 soon," whispered the young people. She sat 
 down at the very first word that was given her. 
 It was "festival," and she spelled it as follows : 
 
 "F-e-s, fes, there's your fes; t-y, ty, there's 
 your ty, festy; v-a-1, val, there's your val; 
 festival." 
 
 Naomi looked away in pity. What was her 
 surprise to hear the doomed one cheerfully 
 adding: 
 
 "I guess in the books they spell it with two 1's. 
 Bill Byjam, you needn't to laugh. I can spell 
 very pretty if I have the right words handed to 
 me." 
 
 "Mistress Lucy, you're spelt daown. Will you 
 please to be seated?" 
 
 "I'll thank you for the Boston rocker, then, 
 William Byjam. If I'm the first one to set down, 
 I'll take my choice o' the chairs." She sank with
 
 144 The Proud Summer Begins 
 
 a beautiful courtesy into the chair which the op 
 posing captain set out for her. 
 
 "A curious maid is Cass Lucy," thought 
 Naomi. "Here she's put to shame before us all, 
 and she carries it off as if she'd spelt everybody 
 down. Budsey's larnt a lesson he wun't choose 
 her again. I could have told him how she stands 
 as a speller, if he'd asked me." 
 
 "Why, the sides hain't even!" cried one of 
 Budsey's spellers. "Mace Paouncet, what you 
 doin' on Bill Byjam's side? You was 'lected by 
 Budse'." 
 
 "Bill Byjam 'lected me, by a rabbit !" cried fat 
 Mace Pouncet. 
 
 "'Twas Budse' Polke, I tell ye!" 
 
 "I tell ye it wan't!" 
 
 Those who had been spelt down now began to 
 urge the captains to choose all over again. Na 
 omi urged it too, thinking that her brother's side 
 would be stronger by one at least. At length the 
 captains agreed to it, and the choosing began
 
 The Proud Summer Begins 145 
 
 afresh. The penny was tossed up Saul Polke 
 won again. 
 
 "I choose Cassandra Lucy!" 
 
 All was plain now. Naomi looked at Budsey, 
 then at Cass, and mingled feelings crossed her 
 mind. First she thought, "It's come to pass 
 my brother's in love." Then she thought, "Cass 
 is pretty she's pretty and sprightly, but she 
 hain't quite good enough for my brother Bud 
 sey." Then she thought, "I feel a year or two 
 older than I did when I put on this plum-coloured 
 petticoat." 
 
 While she was thus musing, William Byjam 
 called out : 
 
 "Come down out of the clouds, Mrs. Naomye! 
 Your name's been throwed at ye twice. Can't 
 spare such a speller as you be !" 
 
 Naomi took her place next Mr. Tibbald, near 
 the head of her line. She spelled readily all the 
 words that came to her; but her thoughts would 
 go off wandering far into her brother's future,
 
 146 The Proud Summer Begins 
 
 and her eyes were often fixed on Cassandra Lucy 
 until all was darkness round that bright face. 
 This absent, intent expression which she wore be 
 came her well. Sometimes she smiled; some 
 times her eyes brimmed for a moment. Some 
 times her breast rose high beneath her buskboard, 
 when her young brother spared her a look. 
 
 A tiny, cold, damp thing like the nose of a very 
 small puppy was pushed into her hand. She 
 started, and let it fall a little red comfit on the 
 floor. Whence had it come? Fat Mace Pouncet 
 had his back turned toward her, and was waving 
 a peacock fan over Debbe Darby it was not he 
 whose offering she had spilt. Mr. Tibbald 
 towered like a mast on the other side, his tail- 
 buttons almost on a level with her shoulders. She 
 stole a quick glance at him was he blushing? 
 
 Naomi heard a titter from the opposing ranks. 
 Elbows nudged ribs all down the line; and she 
 caught a wise glance from Isabella By jam. 
 
 Now she was wide awake her dreams were
 
 The Proud Summer Begins 147 
 
 scattered. Her ready blush rose in a flood as she 
 felt the battery of laughing eyes all turned on her 
 and the bashful schoolmaster. She fidgeted and 
 closed and unclosed her fingers, looked up, then 
 down, and heard with gratitude the new word 
 called out by Budsey : 
 
 "Prestidigitation." 
 
 The next caraway that was laid in her palm 
 she did not drop, but softly murmured thanks for 
 it. And then they followed fast the green, the 
 red, and the white caraways, as many as she could 
 devour. When she whispered : 
 
 "Thanky," 
 
 Mr. Tibbald would answer low : 
 
 "Welcome." 
 
 And when an uproar arose about Mace Poun- 
 cet, who would not sit down on account of a diph 
 thong, Mr. Tibbald took advantage of it to stoop 
 down from his tall height, and to murmur : 
 
 "Your shawl's very pretty for spring wear, 
 Mrs. Naomye."
 
 148 The Proud Summer Begins 
 
 Naomi courtesied, with a glance at Debbe and 
 Isabella out of the corner of her eye. 
 
 "And I like," continued Mr. Tibbald, "your 
 hair drawed back so from your brows." 
 
 Whence came these involuntary tossings of 
 Naomi's head, these bridlings and tiltings? In 
 all her modest youth she had not behaved so be 
 fore. Now a sprite that had dwelt unsuspected 
 in some deep cavern of her nature a peacock 
 trait came to light. She fluttered her fan, cast 
 down her eyes, and turned her cheek over her 
 shoulder, well aware that many were looking at 
 her and Mr. Tibbald. 
 
 Budsey and Cass were forgotten. The tubs of 
 snow brought from the cave in the Hollow were 
 trundled out, the low benches set about them. A 
 crowd of half-grown-up boys and girls hung 
 about the kettle, "trying" the boiling sap until it 
 was ready to candy. When at last it was poured 
 on the snow, fragrant as ambrosia, how gallantly 
 Mr. Tibbald forked up the sweet candy for Mrs.
 
 The Proud Summer Begins 149 
 
 Naomi! He beat off the encroaching forks of 
 Debbe Darby's beau on one side, and Fanny 
 Pouncet's on the other. He chose Mrs. Naomi 
 into the ring in the romping games of "Ruth and 
 Jacob" and "King William Was." 
 
 It was very fine, Naomi found, to be some one's 
 lady, and to know that she should have an escort 
 home other than kind Captain Lucy and his wife. 
 Though Mr. Tibbald said nothing about it, Na 
 omi knew that he would walk home with her, and 
 every one else knew it. "What a fine young lady 
 I be !" thought Naomi. "I was the queen of the 
 spell." She had hardly pinned her shawl to 
 gether when Mr. Tibbald was there, offering his 
 arm. Perhaps his thoughts were of a different 
 sort from hers. When they were out of range of 
 the lanterns, he pointed to the stars, which were 
 as bright and thick as in August. 
 
 "On such a night as this," he began to recite in 
 the excellent deep voice which issued from his 
 lean throat as from a trumpet :
 
 150 The Proud Summer Begins 
 
 "Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew; 
 On such a night, 
 
 Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls; 
 . . . On such a night 
 Stood Dido, with a willow in her hands, 
 Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love 
 To come again to Carthage! " 
 
 Naomi's breast heaved, for she had never 
 heard words so beautifully spoken. 
 
 "O let me larn to speak that piece as you do !" 
 she cried. 
 
 Her escort taught it to her word for word. 
 What a strange evening this was! how like an 
 other woman she felt, as she walked hanging on 
 Mr. Tibbald's arm! Budsey and Cass passed 
 them, and threw back a glance or two. Naomi 
 had never been so much "agog" before; and yet 
 what tiny smart was this in her breast? What 
 cold voice in her ear, bidding her beware the 
 primrose path ?
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 from flbarm anD flfcrs. Darbp 
 T breakfast the next morning Marm said : 
 
 A" breal 
 "I 
 
 hear you catched a beau at the doin'sh, 
 Naomye." 
 
 Yesterday Naomi might have replied to this 
 question only by an uncomfortable little grin ; but 
 to-day in her new-found pride she answered 
 coldly : 
 
 "Catching a beau is work I never learned to 
 do, Marm Patridge." 
 
 "Oh, wal, shomebody fetched ye hum, didn't 
 they?" 
 
 "Yes, Marm." 
 
 "Who wash it, hey? Billy Byjam?" 
 
 "No, Marm." 
 
 Marm looked shrewdly at Naomi's red cheeks. 
 
 "Did that Hen Tibbald git up courage enough 
 
 to shee you hum ?" 
 
 151
 
 152 Advice from Marrn and Mrs. Darby 
 
 "Yes, Marm." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Nothing more was said about beaux that day; 
 and Naomi, with her proud thoughts all to her 
 self, finished her work and retrimmed her Sabbath 
 bonnet. 
 
 When Sunday evening came, Marm casually 
 inquired : 
 
 "Your beau comin' round to-night, Naomye?" 
 
 "My which, Marm Patridge?" 
 
 "Your beau, Hen Tibbald." 
 
 "I didn't know as I had any beau Mister Tib- 
 bald." 
 
 "Oh, wal! Air you expectin' company to 
 night?" 
 
 "No, Marm, I hain't!" 
 
 "What you got on thoshe green ear-ringsh for, 
 then hey?" 
 
 Mr. Tibbald came to call on that evening. 
 
 He came on many an evening after that, and 
 faces ceased to leap into the windows of houses
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 153 
 
 along the road when his semi-clerical coat-tails 
 passed. It was soon well known as far as Ja 
 maica and even Tempe, that Mrs. Naomi Polke, 
 that settled person, had a beau. She became 
 about four times prettier, and six times more im 
 portant, in everybody's estimation. She was 
 really prettier to look at, for Marm now fished 
 out, without reserve, all the dainties of her cedar 
 chest the lace cape, the English fan, the wax 
 roses, and the beaded pocket. She would climb 
 the ladder, groaning, on a Wednesday or a Sun 
 day afternoon, and pinch and pat Naomi's dress, 
 to make it "set" better, putting a pin here and a 
 pin there, until a new neatness and snugness was 
 achieved in the old blue basque. Sometimes she 
 even tweaked the red-chestnut hair into curl with 
 the hot scissors, while she advised her victim to 
 suffer all these things in patience. 
 
 "I knowed of a woman older than you be," 
 Marm would say, "that up and buyed hershelf (or 
 it wash given to her) a comb with three cherriesh
 
 154 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 on top of it, and she wash married to a widower 
 within a year!" 
 
 The best thing about Mr. Tibbald was the 
 abundance of poetry which he knew. Most of it, 
 to be sure, was of a serious cast, but he recited it 
 well, and Naomi loved to hear him. As the fine 
 lines of Dryden or of Pope unrolled, the gate to 
 the enchanted lands flew open again on its scarcely 
 rusted hinges, and the very trees seemed to dance 
 ;n the woods. 
 
 In all this, it is true, there was something very 
 much amiss, and an inward voice remonstrating, 
 to which she tried in .vain to turn a deaf ear. 
 Sometimes when Mr. Tibbald would persist in 
 talking of himself and herself, in a voice deeper 
 than ordinary, with long pauses, she saw plainly 
 enough that she was playing with something 
 much too good for her to touch. Once when he 
 found her paring apples, he made so bold as to 
 take the pan out of her hands., and to remind her 
 that she had "company to entertain."
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 155 
 
 "What shall I do to entertain my company?" 
 Naomi asked. 
 
 "You may talk, if you please." 
 
 "Couldn't you tell me some more of that Be 
 linda piece?" 
 
 "W-wal, I'd sooner hear your voice, Mrs. 
 Naomye." 
 
 "What would I talk about?" 
 
 "W-wal, you might talk about me." 
 
 "What would I say?" 
 
 "You might say you might say I was a some 
 what larned man." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I could say that, certain! That's 
 very true indeed." 
 
 "You might say whether I was an important 
 man in the community." 
 
 "Oh, you certainly air that ! You're very large 
 potatoes in the town." 
 
 But she did not think of saying, as Mr. Tibbald 
 had hoped in the secret depths of his bosom, that 
 he was a handsome man, or a reckless rider.
 
 156 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 And still she tried to muffle the reproaches of 
 the honest woman in her heart, with the old 
 excuse : 
 
 "How can I tell Mr. Tibbald that I don't love 
 him, before he asks me?" 
 
 It sounded very maidenly, and was really a 
 puzzling question. 
 
 Thus the golden days slipped along, and each 
 cast its faint shade of change over Naomi's coun 
 tenance, covering its plain, transparent look with a 
 fine, bright veil of satisfied vanity. Only a shrewd 
 observer could have seen, at first, the speck of 
 trouble in the lowest depths of her eyes. Its 
 shadow was no larger than the point of a pin in 
 the early summer; but every time that any one 
 spoke to her of Mr. Tibbald, the trouble expanded 
 over her face, and made two deep perpendicular 
 wrinkles in her forehead. 
 
 Mr. Polke, who had grown much older to look 
 at than Marm Patridge, and who sat all day wait 
 ing as it were to get back to his bed, took but little
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 157 
 
 notice of the affairs of his children. Since that 
 overwhelming day when the news of the end of 
 the war had come, and every window in Bear- 
 town was hung with black, Mr. Polke neither 
 played on his old flute, nor sang "King Hancock 
 Sat," or "Hunting Shirts and Rifle Guns," or 
 any other of the old Loyalist songs. He no 
 longer cared to see Budsey do the sword-exercise. 
 Sometimes he still talked to himself, when he was 
 alone, about the characters and prospects of his 
 children, but in these musings he now often in 
 cluded Charles, Joseph and Abigail, his married 
 children, and all the little ones who had died in 
 childhood. Then he would pull himself up with 
 a start, and begin again, and again forget which 
 children were married, and which had died. 
 
 Marm took her work, and double-barrelled 
 spectacles, and sat down by him one afternoon, 
 to discuss Naomi's affair. 
 
 "What do you think, Richard, of thish beau of 
 Naomye'sh?"
 
 158 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 "Naomye the little one has she got a beau, 
 hey?" inquired Mr. Polke, turning round slowly 
 from his blind contemplation of the cornfields. 
 
 "Hash she! wal, I guesh. A good match for 
 the child. It'sh that Henry Tibbald, nevew." 
 
 "Oh Tibbald? I've seen her setting on the 
 bench under the popple tree with some young 
 man or another. Tibbald, hey? Why, he's too 
 old for the little maouse, hain't he?" 
 
 "Why, no, Richard he'sh a very shootable 
 age." 
 
 "Haow can you say so, Marm ? he's older than 
 I be. He was the host of the Bridle when I was 
 a young man." 
 
 "Why, Richard, man alive, that wash the father 
 that wan't thish young Henry!" 
 
 "Oh, the father, was it? Wal, wal! Time 
 flies, however we may think it creeps from day to 
 day." 
 
 "Wal, Richard, what would you think of thish 
 young Henry for Naomye, hey?"
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 159 
 
 "I don't know the young man, Marm. I hope 
 he's a good loyalist, and hain't afeared of work, 
 and 's in his place in the church on Sabbath morn 
 ings. Doos the little maouse take a shine to him, 
 do you think, Marm?" 
 
 "She'll do ash she'sh told, I hope!" 
 
 "Why, Marm, she better choose of her own 
 free will. Her mother and I did so. I can leave 
 the child a roof over her head she's no need to 
 wed for a home. I've had it in mind a long while 
 to bequeath her poor Sarey's place on the north 
 turnpike, that she had from her father. You can 
 tell her that. Marm, and then she'll feel free to 
 choose this Tibbald or no though he seems to 
 me a long sight too old for her," concluded Mr. 
 Polke, relapsing into his absent gaze over the 
 cornfields, and merging Henry Tibbald again into 
 his father, the host of the old Bridle Tavern. 
 
 "I shan't tell the child of that housh on the 
 north turnpike," said Marm to herself. "She'sh 
 too backward for her own good ash it ish."
 
 1 60 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 To herself Marm might speak so ; but in a mo 
 ment of family pride she mentioned to her niece 
 Mrs. Darby that Naomi had no need to marry un 
 less she chose she had a father who could pro 
 vide for her. Mrs. Darby said that she should 
 keep any such bee as that out of Naomi's bonnet, 
 if she were looking after the child. She added : 
 
 "I shall give her very different counsel if she 
 comes to me, you may be sure, Marm." 
 
 She made an opportunity to do so, on the next 
 day when Naomi went to see Pleiades. 
 
 William French would not have known his in 
 tended if he could have seen her now. Pleiades 
 Darby was a confirmed cataleptic. She sat or 
 stood for hours perfectly motionless, with her 
 large eyes wide open an uncounted martyr of 
 the Revolution. The Beartown children ran past 
 the tollgate house with fearful looks backward, 
 and told ghoulish stories of the poor woman in 
 side. But on this day Naomi found her asleep, 
 and Mrs. Darby appropriated the call.
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 1 6 1 
 
 "Why don't you fetch your beau," she in 
 quired, "to visit your aunt and cousins?" 
 
 Naomi said nothing, but fanned herself and let 
 her aunt's question fill the room with its echoes. 
 
 "You're going to buy you a new bunnit, your 
 Marm says." 
 
 "Oh, yis, Aunt, a blue one, I think, to go with 
 my muslin." 
 
 "I s'pose she wants it for you to appear out 
 in?" 
 
 The perpendicular wrinkles began to show in 
 Naomi's forehead. 
 
 "No, Marm, no such a thing," she replied. 
 
 "That's pretty talk, when you're keepin' com 
 pany as fast as you can with Henry Tibbald." 
 
 "I bid ye good-day, Aunt Darby." 
 
 "Set still, Saucebox. 7 wun't ask ye no ques 
 tions I know enough already. I guess you can 
 hark to the only aunt you've got on Bald 
 Mountin'. You was always a curious young one, 
 singing sams to yourself, and forgetting what
 
 1 62 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 you'd gone for, and who'd sent ye. / recomember 
 when you went to church with one white and one 
 red stockin' on. I recomember what you did at 
 Hester Paouncet's weddin' too, when you flyed 
 off daown cellar to fetch some more cider 
 drawed a gallon of vinegar and served it to half 
 the company before you was ketched at it. And 
 it's just so with you naow. Here's a stiddy 
 young man, that would make ye a good husband 
 but no! You've had a dream, or seen a 
 maouse, or read a verse in the Bible, that's turned 
 ye against him. Your father's sisters did so, two 
 of 'em, Eliza and Louisa. They never had but 
 the one chance apiece." 
 
 Naomi never had a worse faceburn than during 
 this speech. Her cheeks grew hotter and hotter 
 until they were almost purple under the scourge. 
 Her aunt, however, paused at last, and leaning 
 back in her chair, said : 
 
 "But naow I've done my duty by ye, I shall say 
 no more. You'll do as you please, I s'pose. I've
 
 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 163 
 
 got girls of my own, and enough to think of 
 about 'em. No, Pleiades hain't any better. I 
 did think yesterday she showed a little more life. 
 I thought I heared her cluckin' to the chickens. 
 No, Debbe hain't to home. I send her aout all 
 I can." 
 
 "Has Debbe begun her new Sabbath dress?" 
 asked Naomi, whose cheeks were cooling off now. 
 
 "She's got it basted together. I don't like this 
 new fashion for the sleeves. Flowin' sleeves 
 they call 'em, and they dip in your tea and sauce 
 every time you come to the board." 
 
 "It sounds like a pretty fashion," said Naomi. 
 
 "Pretty enough. The old was full as pretty." 
 
 Naomi thought seriously enough of her future 
 as she walked home from the tollgate that after 
 noon. What if she never told Henry Tibbald 
 how it was with her? On that side, her elders 
 said, stretched the broad highway of comfort and 
 pleasure, and on the other a narrow path of briers. 
 But as she turned in between the poplars, she saw
 
 164 Advice from Marm and Mrs. Darby 
 
 Budsey and Cass walking across fields to the 
 Hollow, holding hands; and suddenly she felt 
 very old, and very worldly-wise. She laid her 
 head down on top of the gate post, and cried for 
 a long time. 
 
 She was crying there when Marm Patridge 
 threw open the door and called out in a dreadful 
 voice : 
 
 "Come in here, Naomye! Your father'sh fell 
 in a fit on the floor he'sh turning blue, and hish 
 eyesh have rolled back in hish head ! u
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Driving to THJlestmineter 
 R. POLKE lay on his bed, breathing hard, 
 
 for a week and a day. Naomi could not 
 look at him without weeping; and even Budsey, 
 whose nerves were strong, turned away from that 
 dreadful sight. Mr. Polke's eyes were rolled 
 back until only the whites of them showed. His 
 legs and arms were rigid, his poor choked throat 
 displayed its swollen veins above his open shirt. 
 The old doctor from Westminster met the Bear- 
 town doctor at his bedside. They bled him ; con 
 cocted plasters and poultices ; bled him again ; and 
 gave him strong cherry bounce ; and bled him yet 
 once more. The swollen veins relaxed, and Na 
 omi blessed the doctors, and looked on hopefully 
 while they cupped the very life-blood from her 
 father's heart. He grew fainter, weaker, peace- 
 fuller, until his eyelids fluttered down over his 
 165
 
 1 66 Driving to Westminster 
 
 dreadful white eyes ; and then he drew a few slow 
 breaths, with long pauses between; and three 
 times they thought that he had ceased to breathe. 
 And then he did cease; and in a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, that stillness fell over the 
 house behind the poplars which had not fallen 
 over it since Naomi was nine years old. 
 
 How small now looked her former troubles 
 and perplexities to her! They dwindled away 
 into midges. She forgot Mr. Tibbald, and his 
 calls, and Marm's worrying advice, and her 
 aunt Darby's. When the moonlight was creep 
 ing from rafter to rafter across the garret, the 
 reproach of many generations awoke in her 
 heart : 
 
 "Oh, I wish I had been kinder to father! I 
 might have mended him better I might have 
 taken a thousand more stitches for him but it's 
 too late now !" 
 
 Marm herself was very sad, but she grieved 
 more for Naomi when she saw the bloom being
 
 Driving to Westminster 167 
 
 washed out of her eyes, and the self-reproachful 
 droop of her mouth. She noted with consterna 
 tion the long silences in Mr. Tibbald's calls, when 
 Naomi sat with her glance averted, and her 
 fingers absently playing. A new bonnet, Marm 
 thought, would be a good remedy, perhaps the 
 best, for these sad looks. Her close black one 
 should be discarded after four weeks, Marm said, 
 and she should have a silvery poke with a white 
 flower. 
 
 Naomi clung to the close black bonnet, but 
 Marm was very firm. She might wear her black 
 dress all summer, if she chose. But the black 
 bonnet was too sad, too aged and forlorn. "It 
 makesh her more backward than ever," said 
 Marm. "If I do my duty by Richard Polke, now 
 he'sh dead and gone, I shall buy a new bunnit 
 for hish darter. Young men have roving eyesh, 
 and Henry Tibbald may be looking away from 
 our Naomye, if we don't shee to it." 
 
 Naomi was wandering up the Branch one after-
 
 1 68 Driving to Westminster 
 
 noon, at about the hour when the wood-insects all 
 come out and dance and whirl in the air. It was 
 a favourite hour to Naomi, and she felt, for the 
 first time since her sorrow, a faint call from the 
 pleasures of life. They called her as if from far 
 away. Their voice was sweet in the ears of 
 healthy youth, and comforting to youth's poign 
 ant loneliness. They called faintly from the 
 recesses of the woods : 
 
 "You'll be happy again! you'll be happy 
 again ! you'll see !" 
 
 "How can I be happy, when I'm so lonely for 
 father?" 
 
 The voices called in a twittering tone: 
 
 "Life is sweet! short and sweet!" 
 
 "Oh, no!" thought Naomi. "Life isn't short 
 at all. I shall live to be an old woman ; and never 
 see father till I die." 
 
 But the twittering went on, and the insects 
 danced in the level rays, as the sun "drew water" 
 over Red Mountain's brow. Nature's kind nurs-
 
 Driving to Westminster 169 
 
 ing was easing Naomi's first sorrow, despite the 
 tears which dropped on the tall ferns where she 
 walked. 
 
 While she was walking along, and hearing 
 youth's voices call her from invisible distances, 
 Marm Patridge was sitting in the kitchen crook 
 ing unwonted fingers round a pen. She was 
 writing to Mrs. Nabby Waterford in Grant 17 of 
 Jamaica township, setting a day for Mrs. Nabby 
 to come and take her young sister to Westminster 
 and buy her a new bonnet. 
 
 "Ye child has No Taiste in Sch matters," wrote Marm, 
 "& yett as I toald you tis Import 1 ** She shd have ye 
 Bunnet. Doe like a good Sistr come a-Satterday morngr 
 & fetch ye child down to Wminster & a s you Drive along 
 you can speak a word or 2 in season to ye child She is too 
 Backard by far." 
 
 On the Saturday like a good sister Mrs. Nabby 
 came, and Naomi was pushed into the old yellow 
 buckboard to go a-bonneting. Nabby Waterford 
 had left off her own mourning, and was wearing 
 again the gay, if unfashionable, large bonnet and
 
 170 Driving to Westminster 
 
 greenish brown mantilla which, with care, had 
 lasted her these eleven years. Naomi might have 
 seen much more of this sister with no disadvan 
 tage to herself. Abigail Waterford was a whole 
 some, kind, practical, cheerful creature, "full of 
 wise saws." She eyed her silent young sister for 
 some time without saying anything; and then she 
 said with startling calmness : 
 
 "This bunnit you buy to-day wun't do to be 
 married in." 
 
 Naomi started, and turned and stared into the 
 sumach bushes. 
 
 "I told you you'd ketch a beau at one of these 
 spellin' matches," her sister continued. 
 
 "Nabby!" 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 "I don't care to have you talk on that 
 subject." 
 
 "Why, Naomye, we've all got to go on living, 
 and gitting married, when the time comes, though 
 our father and mother air both gone. They did
 
 Driving to Westminster 171 
 
 so in their day ; and their fathers and mothers did 
 so in their day." 
 
 "But I don't think I shall ever be married, 
 Nabby." 
 
 "Why, what's the trouble with you, little 
 sister?" 
 
 "I don't know, Nab. I hain't been very happy 
 about Mr. Tibbald all summer." 
 
 "Why, when I was here in May, I thought you 
 seemed very well pleased with his visits." 
 
 "So I was pleased; but I wan't happy." 
 
 "That sounds very whimsey," said Abigail, 
 shaking her head. "You was pleased; but you 
 wan't happy. I guess you've got some other 
 young man in your eye," she added, taking a long 
 look at her sister. Naomi as steadily returned 
 the gaze. There was no shadow of any young 
 man in her eyes, unless it were the unsubstantial 
 shadow of a man of dreams and romances. 
 
 The silence between the sisters continued for 
 some time. They had reached the last and
 
 172 Driving to Westminster 
 
 steepest waterbars. The spire and roofs of West 
 minster, and its small dark blue lake, began to 
 show between the trees ahead. 
 
 "What ails you at little Henry Tibbald, Na- 
 omye? Wai, he was little when I knowed him. 
 What fault do you find in him, hey?" 
 
 "I don't find any fault with him, Nabby. All 
 the fault I find's with Naomye Polke. She's to 
 blame. She's a callous thing she can't make 
 herself care about him." 
 
 "He's a good upright man, they all say." 
 
 "Oh, yes very respectable." 
 
 "He hain't, to be sure, as handsome as some," 
 conceded Mrs. Waterford. "He's somewhat 
 spindlin'." 
 
 Naomi said nothing. 
 
 "He's a timid, narvous, book-readin' man is 
 that what ails you at him?" 
 
 Naomi shook her head impatiently, but her eyes 
 were full of tears. Why could not Abigail un 
 derstand ?
 
 Driving to Westminster 173 
 
 "Hain't he gentle with ye? Hain't he kind?" 
 persisted Abigail. 
 
 "Oh, yes he's kind he's gentle don't ask 
 me any more, Nabby, please. You worrit me I 
 can't make you understand." 
 
 "If there was a novil or a romance in the 
 haouse, I should be afeared you'd be'n dip 
 ping into it!" cried Abigail. She added her 
 favourite proverb, in a somewhat pensive 
 tone 
 
 "Time's the rider that breaks youth in." 
 
 They reached Westminster, and the bonnet, a 
 pretty thing of grey braids, with a white chicken 
 pompon, was bought. A few calls made, they set 
 out for home. The shadows began to lengthen, 
 the birds to call in the woods. Both sisters were 
 thinking of the same thing. At length Abigail 
 said musingly : 
 
 "Young maids have curious fancies. I had, 
 I recollect. You see, Naomye, we mustn't give 
 ear to every whim that hops into our heads. We
 
 174 Driving to Westminster 
 
 must larn wisdom, as the Book says, and ketch 
 hold of understanding. 
 
 "Naow we should be sorry to have you an old 
 maid, Naomye. Your father would have be'n 
 sorry." She paused, as she saw Naomi's eyes 
 quite brim over. 
 
 "Poor Marm," she continued thoughtfully. 
 "She'll grieve a great deal about this, if you carry 
 out as you've begun. It wun't take much, at her 
 
 age " Naomi was very much touched, and 
 
 stole a side glance at her sister; but she thought 
 she saw a tiny self-congratulatory smile play 
 round Abigail's mouth, and something shut up 
 quickly in her breast. She almost heard it click. 
 Nabby might have heard it too, for she went on 
 in a different strain : 
 
 "Naow here's a young man's picked you aout 
 of all the maids in Beartown. He's passed by 
 Emily Byjam, and Isabella Byjam, and Fan 
 Pouncet, to take up with you." Naomi could not 
 help a small, pleased smile at this. "And if you
 
 Driving to Westminster 175 
 
 like, you may have a home, and husband, and 
 childern, like other women; everything to make 
 life pleasant to you. 
 
 "But if you're an old maid, you'll grow very 
 peppery and spiteful; you'll be very saving and 
 close, likely; you'll be looked down upon, and the 
 childern '11 run after ye and holler at ye in the 
 streets. You don't think of that, 'tain't likely; 
 but it's a sad life an old maid leads. She's no 
 body and nothing." 
 
 Naomi was studiously looking at the tumbling 
 falls of the Branch. Abigail went on : 
 
 "Think of Mr. By jam's wife's aunt what 
 kind of a life doos she lead, hey?" Naomi did 
 think of her, and conjured up before her mind's 
 eye the bald capless head, pale sunken eyes, at 
 tenuated figure, wispy bonnet strings and moth- 
 eaten shawl of Mr. Byjam's household drudge. 
 Abigail looked, and saw that picture in her young 
 sister's eyes. She pressed the contrast home. 
 
 "So we want to have a new bunnit for you,
 
 176 Driving to Westminster 
 
 little sister, and to have you take your chance and 
 be happy. 'The things a man feared air often 
 better than those he prayed for.' You may be 
 lieve it's better to be married than single, even if 
 you don't feel that you could never have wed any 
 but this one. Many a woman's married that 
 way, and 's glad she did." 
 
 "I hope," said Naomi, "none of my sisters or 
 brothers married that way." Abigail's brown 
 cheek flushed. Naomi was sorry to have run the 
 risk of wounding her. She put her hand out 
 timidly toward Abigail's. "I don't think you did 
 so, Nabby," said she. Abigail did not speak for 
 a long time. At last she said with some con 
 straint : 
 
 "I wun't purtend to caounsil you against your 
 own judgment, little sister. Do what you think's 
 right ; you wun't be punished for that." 
 
 "Nabby, don't you believe it's true that people 
 fall in love ? It must have happened to poor Mr. 
 Tibbald, else why should he pick me out, when
 
 Driving to Westminster 177 
 
 I'm not half so pretty as some on the moun 
 tain?" 
 
 "Wai but you're a very good speller." 
 
 "The more I think and ponder, the more per 
 plexed I be, Nabby." 
 
 Abigail shook her head. 
 
 "You cultivate these whimseys, I'm afeared, 
 little sister !" 
 
 "Hark!" said Naomi, putting her hand up to 
 her ear. 
 
 A fine thread of a voice which had once been 
 sweet was singing at Mr. Byjam's back chamber 
 window. A head looked out. It was the bald, 
 capless poll of the old maiden drudge, "Mrs." 
 Maria. The sun was in her eyes, but she was not 
 frowning either at it or at her toilsome needle, as 
 she sang away cheerfully : 
 
 "The next that came a-courtin' was young Ellis Gove: 
 I met him first with a joyful love; 
 
 With a joyful love how could I be afraid ? 
 
 The good wine needs no bush, 'tis said. 
 Timei, timeum, pata."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 CraMc in tbe lUoo&bonsc Chamber 
 
 Yea, even mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted! 
 
 OOMETIMES in these days Naomi said to 
 *^ herself, "Now I see how it was with poor 
 Flavia." It was her turn now to feel the opinions 
 of her family flowing like a strong current round 
 her feet, and carrying her down the stream of 
 average conduct. More and more frail and in 
 termittent became the tiny cords of instinct and 
 of conscience pulling back against the stream. 
 
 And yet they pulled her back. Shadowy 
 friends and helpers were with her in the contest. 
 Alpheus and Maryette, those somewhat wooden 
 and impossible lovers, were on her side, and so 
 were those faint and scarcely remembered dreams 
 which only left a vague glow and freshness in her 
 mind on awaking, like the thirsty traveller's 
 
 dream of a spring. Even the Bible seemed to her 
 
 178
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 179 
 
 troubled mind, as she searched it, a storehouse of 
 personal advice to her. When St. Paul said : 
 
 "Take the whole armour of righteousness, that 
 ye may be able to withstand in the evil day," 
 Naomi understood that she was to fortify her 
 self with texts and perhaps with fasting, in order 
 to withstand Nabby, Marm, and the rest in the 
 evil day of Mr. Tibbald's proposal ; and when the 
 parable of the Rich Young Man closed with 
 the remark : 
 
 "And he went away sorrowful, because he had 
 get possessions," Naomi said to herself, "So be I 
 sorrowful, because I possess a beau." 
 
 "Why couldn't he fall in love with Emily By- 
 jam?" she thought fretfully. "She's as good a 
 speller as I be, and has a better countenance not 
 a freckle to her face. But that's the worst of 
 falling in love. People in love don't change; 
 their hearts air fixed on that one for life," con 
 cluded this wise woman. 
 
 But there was another hope at the back of Na-
 
 180 The Cradle 
 
 omi's mind, and in the bottom of her heart. 
 That hope was Budsey, a real knight and 
 champion, better than any beings in books. Bud 
 sey had not told her what forlorn creatures old 
 maids were. He had not warned her that this 
 would probably prove her only offer of marriage. 
 It was not Budsey who had talked about a new 
 bonnet, and a toilet water for freckles no; the 
 women of the family had done all these things. 
 "Budsey," said Naomi to herself, "has held his 
 tongue and pitied me." 
 
 To be sure, Budsey's own affairs were very en 
 grossing. By Mr. Polke's will, the farm was his, 
 but he must give a home to Marm as long as she 
 lived, and to Naomi unless she preferred the place 
 on the north turnpike. Budsey had built an 
 ashery, and a sawmill on the edge of the woods. 
 He was as capable a farmer as his father had been 
 remiss and visionary. Busy as he was all day in 
 the fields and woods, and spending seven long 
 evenings a week at his lady's, Naomi had not seen
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 1 8 1 
 
 much of him. But his darling image was al 
 ways in the back of her mind, and no picture of 
 the future, dark or bright, was without the un 
 spoken thought, "Budsey will take my part." 
 
 The asters had withered, the woods had turned 
 and begun to fall. The mountains began to show 
 the winter afterglow, maroon and purple lakes in 
 their hollows. This was Naomi's darling season. 
 No perplexity or trouble could quite destroy its 
 pleasure to her. Her nerves were steady and 
 quiet, and she could sometimes forget the worry 
 ing Day ahead. 
 
 "Naomye, I want you should take this measure 
 up to the woodhouse chamber and shuck it full of 
 but'nut meats for my suet-cake," said Marm on 
 one of these early October mornings. Naomi 
 was not sorry to have an errand into the dark 
 mysterious woodhouse chamber. She had not 
 been there for months. It was the true garret of 
 the house, full of the cracked china, broken 
 furniture, old gazettes, and moth-eaten dresses
 
 1 82 The Cradle 
 
 and shawls which Marm could not endure to 
 throw away. These musty treasures, detailed 
 histories of bygone days, lay piled all round the 
 kegs of old black butternuts which buttressed the 
 chimney. Naomi crept along the low-ceiled attic, 
 afraid of routing the wasps from their paper 
 domes overhead, until she reached the dormer, 
 and tipped over a keg of butternuts in her apron. 
 
 At first the black shells flew fast all over the 
 woodhouse chamber. Bees came in, explored the 
 beams, and buzzed out again into the sunshine. 
 The branches of the wine-glass elm made a 
 tremulous dapple on the floor. The sweet air of 
 the morning flowed in and made her impercepti 
 bly slacken her loud hammer. All this energy 
 was out of tune with the soft still weather. 
 "Cheep, cheep," sang the autumn swallows in the 
 elm. She stopped cracking and looked out. 
 
 The fair-weather mist had rolled away, leaving 
 diamond webs all over the grass, as if for fairy 
 bridals. The old pointer sniffed at the cheeping
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 183 
 
 swallows from where he lay on the grass. Mr. 
 By jam drove away to the cider mill in a cart of 
 apples, his little grandchild sitting in the back, 
 bareheaded to the breeze and sun. 
 
 "I wish," said Naomi to herself, "I was as 
 young as Harriet Byjam's child." 
 
 She took up a nut, but forgot to crack it. 
 
 "I wish I was a child again, and father was 
 alive, and my path ran down with butter and 
 honey." 
 
 The swallows cheeped, the school-bell rang, and 
 Martha Pouncet came down the hill with buckets 
 to the spring. 
 
 "Everybody," thought Naomi, "is settled and 
 contented in their minds but me." She drew a 
 long sigh, and gazed about the woodhouse 
 chamber. 
 
 "Nabby said to take warning by Mrs. Maria, 
 but I think she's happier than poor I be. Marm 
 and Nabby and Aunt Darby all seem to think 
 alike. I see now how poor Flavia was over-
 
 1 84 The Cradle 
 
 borne, and persuaded to marry Mr. Snodgrass. 
 And she was young and tender, whereas I'm quite 
 old and tough. And yet it hain't very easy for 
 me to choose 
 
 "On one side, here's comfort, and pleasing the 
 family, and being respected in the community, and 
 having a man to look after me." She paused a 
 long time over this picture. "It's a great thing 
 to be wedded, everybody says, and very likely 
 they're right. On the other side, what would I 
 find to comfort me for being an old maid like 
 Mrs. Maria? Wai, I should have Budsey and 
 his childern. But they say that wun't content me. 
 Oh! what's that?" 
 
 The breeze blew in and began to rock the little 
 old cradle with the carved hood, which stood in 
 the corner. It rocked as softly as if there were a 
 baby in it. And as Naomi looked, there seemed 
 to be a baby in the cradle a young maiden's 
 dream baby her own. How strangely it fright 
 ened her! She drew a long and trembling
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 185 
 
 breath. The wind died away, and the cradle was 
 still. 
 
 "I will never marry Mr. Tibbald," said Naomi 
 aloud, taking up her hammer again. "I choose 
 to be like Mrs. Maria." 
 
 "Hi, sister slowcoach !" 
 
 The door below opened, and Budsey came up 
 with long leaps. He had Marm's large apron 
 tied round his neck, and a flatiron in each hand. 
 He came leapfrog over the chests and baskets of 
 ragged keepsakes, bumping with his shoulders 
 the pendent paper castles of the wasps. 
 
 "Is that all you've shucked, ye snail?" He 
 skimmed Naomi's peck measure up to the ceiling 
 without spilling a butternut. He whistled and 
 cracked and flung his shells into the farthest cor 
 ners. When bees flew in, he beat at them with 
 his flatiron, and shouted: 
 
 "Aha, Mr. Bumble ! I had ye then in the small 
 of your back!" 
 
 Naomi laughed at all he said and did. To her
 
 1 86 The Cradle 
 
 his monkey-shines were very clever and charm 
 ing. He brought the wholesomest mountain 
 breezes wherever he came; they blew round her 
 with refreshing coolness. 
 
 "You're very cocky to-day, Budsey." 
 
 "I'll tell ye something, sister." 
 
 "What is it? I'm all agog to hear." 
 
 "Wai Cassie and I air going to appear out 
 this Sabbath." 
 
 "Oh, Budsey!" 
 
 "Yes, marm. She's got her bunnit trimmed, 
 and her mantilly." 
 
 "Wai, wall You hain't little Budsey any 
 more, be you? You're Master Saul Polke Miss 
 Cass Lucy's husband to be." 
 
 Budsey said nothing, but swelled out his chest, 
 and his speaking eyes looked up the pike toward 
 the church. 
 
 "But I hain't as happy as you be, Bud 
 sey." 
 
 "What say? What's the trouble, sister?"
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 187 
 
 "Why, Budsey, Marm and Nabby want I 
 should want I should " 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 "Why, they all think think it would be very 
 foolish of me, if anybody if anybody ever asked 
 me to marry 'em, and I should say no to 'em." 
 
 Budsey was silent. 
 
 "But I can't feel to say yes." 
 
 Budsey was silent still. 
 
 "P'haps after all he wun't ask me," said Naomi 
 with a little nervous laugh. "That would be the 
 best way out of the tangle. For I don't feel that 
 way." 
 
 "What way?" 
 
 "Why, the way you and Cassie feel." 
 
 Budsey smiled, the superior smile of a young 
 man in love. He knew that no one ever had felt, 
 or ever could feel, as he -did. 
 
 "Hen Tibbald," he said, "is a very respectable 
 man." 
 
 Naomi listened with a beating heart.
 
 1 88 The Cradle 
 
 "I think he'd make you a good husband." 
 
 "Oh, Budsey!" 
 
 "You better look at it from all sides," continued 
 young Saul. "You know you hain't as young 
 as you once was." 
 
 ("No! not as young as Cassie!") 
 
 "A good many would give a good deal for your 
 chance." 
 
 "I wish they had it, then they'd be very 
 welcome." 
 
 "Why, Naomye, don't you think you can be 
 happy with poor Hen ?" 
 
 "Budsey!" 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 "I thought you was in love and I thought 
 you'd see how it is with me, and be sorry for 
 me " 
 
 "Don't cry, Naomye !" 
 
 "I w-will cry! I'm very mis'able anybody 
 would pity me if they knowed ... if they 
 knowed how sorry I be that I ever had a b-beau !"
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 189 
 
 "Don't cry please don't cry, Naomye." 
 
 "I thought you'd tell me not to wed him unless 
 I felt that way " 
 
 Budsey patted Naomi's shoulder in silence for 
 a while. She looked at him once or twice through 
 a tear's magnifying lens, and his countenance was 
 good and brotherly in her eyes. There was no 
 tiny smirk there such as she had thought she saw 
 in Nabby's eyes when they were driving to West 
 minster and talking of this matter. At length 
 Budsey said: 
 
 "I'm sorry for you, Naomye, and I wish it was 
 somebody you could be fond of, instead of poor 
 Hen. But there's a great deal for you to think of. 
 It hain't best for a young woman to stay single. 
 Your father hain't alive to know of it, but you'd 
 like to do what would have pleased him," said 
 Budsey very gently and kindly. "You'd like to 
 make him happy if you could; wouldn't you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Naomi in a tiny voice. 
 
 "And then there's Marm. She's be'n a pretty
 
 190 The Cradle 
 
 good parent to all of us childern. You'd like to 
 please her too." 
 
 "Yes " said Naomi, thinking, "I've heared 
 
 this once or twice before." 
 
 "And p'haps," said Budsey, "you'd like to 
 please me." 
 
 Naomi cried, as softly as she could, into her 
 lap. Her knight and defender, then, was on the 
 other side. Budsey was not going to take her 
 part. She felt a grief beyond her own, and a 
 chilly wind blew in through the elm's branches. 
 
 "Budsey! how would you like it, if you was 
 told to marry Fanny Paouncet instead of Cass?" 
 
 "Is there somebody you're fond of, then, Na- 
 omye ?" 
 
 "No no there hain't anybody," said Naomi 
 weakly. 
 
 Budsey was silent for a while. 
 
 "Then I think, Naomye, you'd better try to 
 grow fond of poor Hen. I shall be sorry if you 
 feel that you must turn him away."
 
 In the Woodhouse Chamber 191 
 
 "Buds'ey, look look at the cradle! It's rock 
 ing again !" 
 
 "What of that? Hain't anything but the 
 wind." 
 
 "It's a sign to me ! It's a sign, I tell ye !" 
 
 "Foolishness, Naomye." 
 
 "I tell ye it's a sign to me, that I should follow 
 my own feelings, and say No to Mr. Tibbald." 
 
 "I should think a cradle rocking would be a 
 sign to you to say Yes to poor Hen, Naomye. I 
 should think it would be a sign to you that you'd 
 find comfort in your childern, if you didn't in 
 your husband. I should think it would make you 
 afeared to be a childless woman " 
 
 "I could love and do for your childern, yours 
 and Cassie's." 
 
 "You ought to have a cradle of your own, 
 sister." 
 
 Naomi knew better. She knew that the imag 
 inary baby in the cradle was the child of love. 
 But she was very weary of the struggle. The
 
 192 In the Woodhouse Chamber 
 
 current was very strong, and Budsey had not 
 taken her part. She surrendered to the stream. 
 Let it carry her away, then, to the sea. There 
 was a sort of peace in yielding. She turned her 
 back on the cradle, which was still rocking in the 
 wind. 
 
 She said to herself, "I was mistaken in think 
 ing I knew before how it was with Flavia; but 
 now I know."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 Wait 
 
 We twa hae paidlet in the burn 
 
 From morning sun till dine; 
 But seas between us braid hae roared 
 
 Sin auld lang syne. 
 
 ON her wedding morning Eliza Polke had 
 said to herself the prophetic words, "Shall 
 I be a roving woman without a home?" Even 
 such had her life been ; nine roving years without 
 a home. The restlessness of Frederick Dukes 
 was beyond cure. How many a morning had 
 Eliza risen in the misty dawn, and dressed her 
 sleepy children, and stowed away her battered 
 household goods in a wagon, and travelled all day 
 to what she often hoped might be a home indeed, 
 only to leave it the next spring or fall to jog away 
 to another township. Her children were all born 
 in different towns and baptised in different 
 
 churches; some were baptised Episcopalians, 
 193
 
 194 Eliza's Visit 
 
 some Congregationalists, and some Baptists. 
 Eliza Dukes never had real neighbours. Her 
 husband never held a town office; he was never 
 even a fence-viewer. There was but little money 
 in the purse; and when by good luck or good 
 management there was an extra sum, Frederick 
 Dukes would buy a horse, and begin an endless 
 chain of horse-trading. This insidious vice had 
 grown upon him until his stable was full of four- 
 footed speculations which he was trying to fatten, 
 or to cure of spavins or proud feet, and to sell at 
 an advantage. 
 
 Such was the outside view of this travel-worn 
 family. Their townspeople shook their heads 
 and pitied Mrs. Dukes, and supposed that she 
 wished she had never seen her shiftless husband. 
 Sometimes they met the family out walking on a 
 Sunday afternoon, and seeing the wife hanging 
 on her husband's arm, and the children playing 
 round them, wondered, "Can she be happy after 
 all, in her own way?" The ways of Providence
 
 Eliza's Visit 195 
 
 are past finding out. This shifting life: these 
 children and cares ; this husband to stand by when 
 he had little standing among his acquaintances, 
 agreed well with that hidden self in Eliza which 
 time had brought to birth. Marriage had done 
 as much for her husband. At times he drank too 
 much; he was sometimes rough-spoken; but he 
 was more to be trusted than before. His burdens 
 were his best blessing. While they aged and 
 weighed him down, they steadied him along the 
 narrow way. 
 
 When Eliza was almost thirty, and looked 
 about forty-five, her husband's innumerable mov- 
 ings brought her back from Maine, where they 
 had wandered for a year or two, to Westminster. 
 She thought at first, with somewhat calloused 
 memories, that she would not care to go up the 
 mountain to see her old home, or her brothers and 
 sisters who still lived in the tollgate town. By 
 hearsay she knew most of the events that had be 
 fallen them. She knew of Saul's betrothal, and
 
 196 Eliza's Visit 
 
 faint rumours had reached her that Naomi 
 had an admirer. These matters did not touch 
 her heart, but when she heard of her father's 
 death she shed many, and some bitter, tears. She 
 saw him now as she had been too blind to see him 
 in the old days, as the most loving father in Bear- 
 town; and waked up at night by her croupy or 
 teething little ones, she often found some wistful 
 dream still clinging about her, of sitting on her 
 father's knee again, while he smoothed her low- 
 growing hair back from her forehead. She be 
 gan to ruminate with softer eyes as she looked 
 northward from Westminster. All must be much 
 changed up there. She was herself much 
 changed, and perhaps nobody behind the poplars 
 would know her if she appeared there. Perhaps 
 if she were recognised she would not be any too 
 welcome, she thought. It was a long, long time 
 since she had fled away on the white mare. Thus 
 she meditated at first, as she looked up from her 
 work, and saw the tiny houses embosomed in
 
 Eliza's Visit 197 
 
 trees, in the mountain hollow. "Naomye may 
 come and see me and the childern p'haps she 
 will when she knows I'm settled here. If she 
 doosn't, it's because she's forgotten her sister." 
 But soon the grass-grown track winding upward, 
 which she saw from her kitchen window all day 
 long, began to call and beckon to her. When the 
 third Saturday came, she asked her husband to 
 harness one of his trading horses and drive her up 
 the mountain. They slowly climbed the brown 
 grassy track which she remembered so well, across 
 the twenty-odd waterbars, by Tipping Rock, and 
 the bridge over the Branch falls, until at last they 
 came in sight of the spindling poplars. Eliza 
 clutched her husband's arm, with cheeks as white 
 as chalk. She had not supposed she cared so 
 much as this! 
 
 Naomi sat looking over her piece-bags, all 
 alone, in the side doorway, while the sound of 
 wheels creaked in her ears ; but absent-minded as 
 ever, she did not hear them. She was absorbed
 
 Eliza's Visit 
 
 in the engrossing task of young women in ex 
 changing her own ideals and hopes for those 
 which her relations preferred for her. She for 
 got her actual piece-bags spilling their variegated 
 colours on the floor, in the allegorical pieces which 
 she was fitting together in her mind ; picking out 
 every bright morsel of comfort, and every strong 
 morsel of common sense, in her situation, and 
 trying to piece them together into a stout service 
 able garment for lifelong wear. It was a work 
 of time. 
 
 "I've made up my mind now, and all there is 
 left to do is to say yes to Mr. Tibbald when he 
 asks me. It's best that I should take him, and I 
 hain't going to repine. Everybody says I shall 
 .be happy when I'm wedded to him. I'm so old 
 now, it hain't likely I shall ever fall in love. The 
 pleasantest thing about it is, that it pleases Marm 
 and Budsey. Then there's having a home of my 
 own, that they all make so much of when they 
 counsel me about it. Wai, I might go and live in
 
 Eliza'.s Visit 199 
 
 the house father left me, on the north turnpike; 
 but I should have to live there alone. Wai, 'tis a 
 pleasant thought, and doos help to make marriage 
 look brighter, to think I shall be able to shift the 
 counterpanes as often as I please, and use my 
 best dishes every day. A woman stands better in 
 the community, they say, if she has a husband to 
 show for herself. I don't know about that. I've 
 be'n President of the Dorcases for two years, and 
 Mite Collector before that; and I took the blue 
 ribbon with my cupcakes to the Valley Fair. But 
 then they say look at poor Mrs. Maria! Wai, 
 but Budsey would never make a drudge of 
 me. He ain't that kind of a brother. When 
 all's said and done, how I wish I could 
 be an old maid, and live with Budsey and 
 Cass " 
 
 A shadow darkened the doorway, and Naomi 
 turned and saw her sister. 
 
 "Elizy Polke, can this be you?" 
 
 "I guess 'tis, Naomye."
 
 200 Eliza's Visit 
 
 The sisters embraced, and then stood apart, 
 drinking in each other's lineaments. 
 
 "Wai ! you hain't changed much since you was 
 little Naomye," said Eliza. 
 
 "You hain't changed much either, sister," Na 
 omi replied in her loving-kindness; but she had 
 never seen any one so changed as Eliza Dukes. 
 This faded woman, with her loose-jointed figure 
 dressed without pains or pride, with her wisps of 
 grey hair, the crows' feet round her eyes, and 
 such a patient mouth a mouth made over, en 
 tirely altered this woman Eliza? Naomi was 
 painfully conscious of the contrast which she 
 made, with her blooming cheeks and comely stout 
 figure ; and in her sisterly heart she wished it were 
 otherwise. 
 
 Eliza stood gazing at Naomi, and the words 
 which she next said were even more unlike her 
 former self than her faded cheeks and homely 
 dress. 
 
 "Haow the wheels go raound ! time was when
 
 Eliza's Visit 201 
 
 I thought I was far away the prettiest of us two ; 
 and here you're far away the prettiest of us 
 naow." 
 
 "Oh, sister, you look pretty enough to me!" 
 cried Naomi. 
 
 "I hain't pretty any more," said Eliza calmly. 
 "But you're very pretty, Naomye. P'haps you 
 always was, but I was too feather-headed to see 
 it. Wai, let's hope we can both be happy, if we 
 can't both be pretty. Oh!" She had caught 
 sight of the wooden portrait which the journey 
 man artist had made of Budsey the week before. 
 
 "Ah !" cried Naomi, following her sister's eyes. 
 "That's little Budsey in his appearing-out clothes ! 
 You'd scarcely know Budsey, he's growed so. 
 But his hair's the same handsome colour it used 
 to be, and his teeth air as fine and even as the 
 pebble ones they sell ye to Boston. He's a proper 
 tall young man too, I can tell ye !" 
 
 "Betrothed, I hear," put in Eliza. 
 
 "Oh, yes, to little Cassie Lucy. They're goin'
 
 2O2 Eliza's Visit 
 
 to appear out to-morrow. Budsey's got a purple- 
 faced suit. I tell ye what, Elizy, if you'll come 
 upstairs I'll show it to ye the handsomest 
 thing " 
 
 "I guess I'll set here and visit awhile with you, 
 Naomye, first." 
 
 "Wai, you'll want to hear about Budsey. He 
 was the smartest scholar to winter school before 
 he left. To one match he spelt everybody down 
 but Mr. . . . Mr. Tibbald. What do you think 
 of that, hey?" 
 
 "Mr. Tibbald?" queried Eliza. 
 
 "Why, yes, sister. Hen Tibbald we used to 
 call him before he took up the school." 
 
 "I remember Hen Tibbald. Hain't he bald 
 yet? His hair was always as thin as nettin'." 
 
 "Why, no, sister, he hain't he hain't bald," 
 said Naomi in a very troubled voice, with trem 
 bling lips. 
 
 But Eliza's mind had wandered off the thin- 
 haired schoolmaster. She thought it very strange
 
 Eliza's Visit 203 
 
 that Naomi had not inquired yet about her chil 
 dren. She said : 
 
 "I wish I had fetched up my little Sim to show 
 you, Naomye." 
 
 "Oh, Elizy, how many childern have you got?" 
 cried Naomi, eager to atone for not having asked 
 before. "How many air boys? How old be 
 they? I'm all agog to know." 
 
 "Why, Sim's the oldest, and then there's Jim 
 talk of spelling! they're the best spellers I ever 
 knowed of for their ages. Sim was a forward 
 young one from the beginning. I do wish I'd 
 fetched him up to show ye ! Hain't had the same 
 teacher a hull year since he was born; but he 
 knowed all his letters before he was three, and 
 could read good that same year. His father 
 thought he was the smartest child in nine caoun- 
 ties." Eliza flushed when she spoke of her hus 
 band, and a tone of sweetness crept into her voice, 
 and Naomi heard it with a strange pang. 
 
 "How many have you got in all, Elizy?"
 
 204 Eliza's Visit 
 
 "Eight above the sod and two below." 
 
 "How old was they when you lost 'em, sister ?" 
 
 "My second twins ? They died when they was 
 born." 
 
 A shadow crossed the window. 
 
 "Here's Frederick himself," said Eliza, rising 
 and standing, with dignity in every line of her 
 body, as a round-shouldered man, with a growth 
 of stubbly beard, came into the room. 
 
 "Husband, here's Naomye." 
 
 "Good-day, marm." 
 
 He no longer threw his head back, and looked 
 through slits in his eyelids. He showed many a 
 trace of hard work and poverty. The manliness 
 in him had thriven on these hardships, and like a 
 growing tree, had crowded out the weeds of his 
 youth so Naomi thought, as she looked at him 
 respectfully. 
 
 "I put the mare in your brother's barn, marm. 
 Site wun't teach any tricks to the colts aout there. 
 She's as saound as a trigger. You could water
 
 Eliza's Visit 205 
 
 that mare with apple-jack, and she'd show ye no 
 tricks, neither in stall nor in harness." 
 
 Naomi could not think of any reply to make to 
 this, so she looked out the window in the vain 
 hope of seeing Budsey and Marm returning across 
 lots in the buckboard. 
 
 "Your brother hain't to home, I p'sume?" 
 asked Eliza's husband. "I was goin' to ask him 
 if he'd trade any of his nags for that mare." 
 
 "He hain't here now, but I expect him and 
 Marm both hum by supper-time. You'll stay all 
 night, wun't ye? I'll make up the spare cham 
 ber " 
 
 "Why, thanky, marm " Mr. Dukes was 
 
 beginning, when Eliza cut across with : 
 
 "No no, Frederick we must be gitting back 
 to the childern." 
 
 "Oh, Elizy, I do want to have you see Budsey, 
 how he's growed ! and Marm '11 have a tantrum if 
 she finds you've be'n here while she was 
 away "
 
 206 Eliza's Visit 
 
 "We'll come again, and fetch up little Jim 
 and Sim, and little Poll and Mag, to show 
 
 ye." 
 
 "Wai, let me go find some of the shrub and 
 raspberry vinegar for ye; and you must take a 
 quarter of beef if you've got room for it, and a 
 firkin of cider jell." 
 
 When they had drunk the shrub and vinegar, 
 and eaten some rich stale cake, Naomi took them 
 out to show the new ashery, the plum trees, new 
 hencoops, and reaping rake. They looked over 
 the pigs, calves, and hens. They tasted the crude 
 potash in the tumble-kettle, and looked at the 
 beginnings of Budsey's sawmill. But when 
 Frederick Dukes was gone to hitch up his gentle 
 mare with her many-times-pieced and knotted 
 harness, Eliza fell into one or two long reveries. 
 Naomi furtively studied her sister's old face, bent 
 spine, and crooked, toiling gait. 
 
 "Is she dreaming of her young days, when she 
 was so pretty and so frivolous, so high-strung and
 
 Eliza's Visit 207 
 
 haughty?" wondered Naomi as she took these 
 sidelong gazes. "Doos she wish she could choose 
 again, and choose to stay in a cheerful farmhouse, 
 where there was a plenty of everything? Or else 
 wed with some respected man and good purvider, 
 such as my . . . such as Mr. Tibbald? I don't 
 know if I darest to ask her ! I don't know what 
 she might say I don't scarcely know what I 
 zvish she'd say! Elizy?" 
 
 The dreamer turned, with a slight start. 
 
 "What was you thinkin' of?" 
 
 "Something I hain't told you about yet." 
 
 "Can't you tell me ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. It's my little innocent." 
 
 "Have you got such a child, Elizy ? Is it a boy 
 or a girl?" 
 
 "It's a little boy. His father and I think a 
 great deal about him, what's to become of him in 
 the years to come. But the Lord '11 provide." 
 
 "How old is he? Have you christened 
 him?"
 
 208 Eliza's Visit 
 
 "Oh, yes. His name's Alferd. He's four 
 years old this May." 
 
 Naomi forgot her question in a sudden desire 
 to see the unintelligent plaintive face which 
 Eliza's few words had painted on her imagina 
 tion. She could not tell why, but she "craved 
 after him." She asked Eliza many questions. 
 What colour were Alfred's eyes ? Was he strong 
 or delicate? Did he play about, or moon and 
 dream? Whether he talked? Whether he was 
 taken to church? Whether his brothers and sis 
 ters were kind to him? and did he know the 
 Lord's Prayer, or any little hymn ? 
 
 Eliza said his eyes were pale, like an albino's ; 
 he was thin and delicate, with a bluish leaden 
 skin ; he played wildly by fits and starts, and then 
 it was hard to catch him ; he spoke a few words, 
 and babbled a great many ; he could not learn the 
 Lord's Prayer, or to count, or to tell his letters; 
 yes, his brothers and sisters were very good with 
 him.
 
 Eliza's Visit 209 
 
 "There air those, Naomye, that think such 
 childern air sent as a punishment to their 
 fathers and mothers; but Alfy's not a pun 
 ishment to Frederick and me. Instead of 
 vexation we take a kind of comfort in him 
 but I don't believe I could explain to ye 
 the curious kind of comfort 'tis," she ended 
 wistfully. 
 
 Long-forgotten scenes had returned to Na 
 omi's mind at that word "punishment." She 
 thought of the paper Eliza had left for their 
 father, and of how Marm had said, "Your shister 
 hain't be'n a good girl." 
 
 "Elizy," said Naomi, "you left a little paper for 
 father when you when you " 
 
 "I b'lieve I did, my dear." 
 
 "I was never allowed to read it, and I've often 
 wondered what it said." 
 
 "Never allowed to what do you mean, Na 
 omye ?" 
 
 "Why why, nothing, only that father was so
 
 2io Eliza's Visit 
 
 choice of it, and set so much store by it, and all 
 don't cry, Elizy !" 
 
 "You frightened me so, Naomye! I thought 
 you meant I thought you meant that father 
 thought I " 
 
 "Oh, no! no! Father was comforted by that 
 paper, and set the most store by it of anything he 
 had," said Naomi, falsifying like a good sister. 
 
 "All I said in it was that I did grieve to be 
 bringing disgrace on him, for I had a longing to 
 comfort him, and I knowed how saour and sulky 
 I'd be'n all that winter." said Eliza, drying her 
 eyes. They had turned back toward the house, 
 and could see the gentle (not too gentle) mare 
 being persuaded into the thills of the worn buck- 
 board. Naomi saw the time growing short in 
 which, if ever, she was to ask her question. A 
 great deal suddenly seemed to hang on it. Bud- 
 sey had not taken her part; but what if Eliza 
 should have come now to her rescue? A great 
 thrill, a taste of freedom, ran through her calm
 
 Eliza's Visit 211 
 
 body. Eliza perhaps had been sent here by those 
 Powers in whom Naomi believed "like the 
 Daughter of Jerusalem," said Naomi to herself, 
 "that brought good tidings up the high moun 
 tain." What a clatter this was in her side! 
 Aloud she said : 
 
 "Elizy!" 
 
 "What say, sister?" 
 
 "Will you answer me a question true blue, ancl 
 not be angry with me for asking it? It hain't a 
 matter of curiosity it's very important to me." 
 
 "Ask it," replied Eliza, giving her a full look. 
 
 ("This curious beating in my side," thought 
 Naomi, "must be the tremor cordis.") 
 
 "In your heart and soul, Elizy, air you glad 
 you fled away with Frederick Dukes? or would 
 you take your life back and stay to home? Be 
 sure you speak the truth! the hull, plain truth!" 
 
 "Take my life back, sister ? Oh, no ! I never 
 saw the woman I'd change my lot with; neither 
 in Maine; nor in York; nor in the Green Moun-
 
 212 Eliza's Visit 
 
 t'ins. There's a kind of happiness that's worth 
 the price I've paid for it, and a great sight more; 
 and it's my hope, little sister, that, old as you be, 
 you may have it yet, for it's far above rubies. 
 You better wait for it, Naomye. Favour is 
 deceitful, and beauty is vain; but as the Good 
 Book says, All for love and the world well lost." 
 
 Naomi took up her sister's stubbed and knotty 
 hand. She was trembling all over. 
 
 "Good-bye, Mr. Tibbald," she muttered. 
 
 "What say, Naomye?" 
 
 "I say I've be'n through the fire, and through 
 the water, and you've brought me out into a 
 wealthy place."
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 prouO Summer 
 
 HEN Naomi awoke on the morning after 
 
 Eliza's visit, the blue-jays were chattering 
 in the poplar tops, and a sprinkle of yellow leaves 
 blew in the window, and made a sunshine on the 
 floor before the sun was up. 
 
 "What makes me feel this lightness in my 
 head? Oh, yes, I recollect! I recollect! Elizy 
 was here yistaday." 
 
 She stopped, transfixed, with her face half 
 washed. 
 
 "I recollect what she said to me about that 
 matter of true love. How those blue-jays twit 
 ter ! Twitter away, little jays ! I feel as young, 
 and free, and spry as any of ye." 
 
 She paused a full five minutes over her shoes 
 
 and stockings. 
 
 213
 
 ?.I4 The Proud Summer Ends 
 
 "I'm most afeared I shall hop and prance on 
 the way to church. Elizy, this is your doin's. 
 You let me out of the cage." 
 
 " True love,' said she, 'is wuth a large price.' 
 And then she said, 'P'haps you, sister, old as you 
 be, may have it yet.' Here! I must dress me 
 quicker than this. This is Budsey's appearin'- 
 out day." 
 
 There was enough to do to make any young 
 woman hasten with her dressing. All the Lucys 
 were coming to dinner, and yet all the Polkes 
 must be in church to see the betrothed ones enter 
 arm in arm, and sit down solemnly in one pew in 
 the eyes of the congregation. Naomi had not 
 only herself to dress, when her work was done; 
 but she must help Marm into her bursting tight 
 beaded waist and long mantilla ; and she meant to 
 fetch Budsey a brown lily for his buttonhole, if 
 she could find time to run to the swamp. 
 
 Naomi herself was to wear her rainbow stock 
 ings and silver comb. Her old blue dress was
 
 The Proud Summer Ends 215 
 
 still her best, but she had a pair of crocheted 
 mitts, and a green flower in her silvery poke. 
 
 As she came into church, Mr. Tibbald looked 
 at her with kindling eyes. She looked very 
 young, very spruce and cheerful, in all her best 
 garments. How well the green flower became 
 her chestnut hair ! 
 
 Mr. Tibbald had often felt like this before, 
 especially in his solitary lodging, where the 
 stuffed owl sat on the head of his bed, and his 
 melancholy fiddle hung on the wall. He was 
 accustomed to these waves of longing for a small 
 creature in petticoats behind his teapot, or beside 
 his studious chair. But it was almost always by 
 lamplight that he felt such pangs, which the 
 broad light of day generally dissipated, as it 
 raised the value of his comfortable bachelorhood 
 in his eyes. And yet he knew that the waves of 
 longing were a rising tide, and he was content to 
 feel that swell, and to be carried out of his haven 
 in the fulness of time.
 
 2i 6 The Proud Summer Ends 
 
 Now in the bright light of morning, and in all 
 this concourse of people, he felt all his pangs and 
 longings coming upon him in a flood. Where 
 was his customary nervousness? What made 
 him feel himself another man, one who would 
 never again tremble on lonely roads, or behind 
 side-stepping horses? That red-chestnut head, 
 those silken soft grey eyes, sweet hollows in 
 amber-freckled cheeks. . . . Was it possible that 
 the tide had risen to the full, and was bearing him 
 out of his haven? 
 
 Here were the appearers-out. Cass, in a 
 striped mantle and large pink bonnet, hung on 
 Budsey's arm. Budsey's purple-faced suit be 
 came his figure and proud, darkly sunburnt face. 
 He carried himself with an excellent lordly air. 
 Mr. Tibbald drew several deep breaths as the 
 Psalm began : 
 
 "Sing we merrily unto God our strength, 
 make a cheerful noise unto the God of Ja 
 cob:
 
 The Proud Summer Ends 217 
 
 "Take the psalm, bring hither the tabret, the 
 merry harp with the lute. 
 
 "Blow up the trumpet in the new moon." 
 
 "Before another new moon," thought Mr. Tib- 
 bald solemnly, "I may have appeared out with 
 Mrs. Naomye." 
 
 And when he went up to his lady's door that 
 evening, he had only one fleeting cold fear, as 
 he seemed to behold her, in a glass, retiring 
 smoothly on the billowing wave of her cour 
 tesy. But in that instant he thrust his nails 
 into his palm until they drew a little of his pale 
 blood. 
 
 "Come out, Mrs. Naomye, and set on the bench 
 under the popple tree." 
 
 "I'm afeared it's blowing up a shower." 
 
 "If it doos, I can purtect you." 
 
 What solemn tones were these? 
 
 "Wai, then, I'll find me a shawl." 
 
 They sat down on the bench, and Mr. Tibbald 
 began as he had resolved to do.
 
 2i 8 The Proud Summer Ends 
 
 "I've fetched a new ballad to larn you, Mrs. 
 Naomye." 
 
 "Oh, I'm all agog to hear it !" 
 
 "I'll speak the first line, and see what you think 
 of it" 
 
 Again that solemn tone ! 
 
 Naomi said, "I hope it's as pretty as 'Barbry 
 Allen.' " 
 
 "I I think it's far away prettier." 
 
 "Wai, hasten and let me hear it." 
 
 How fast his waistcoat rose and fell ! 
 
 "My Deare My Deare " 
 
 "If you've forgot it, never mind, Mr. Tibbald." 
 "I hain't forgot it. 
 
 "My Deare and Only Love." 
 
 Mr. Tibbald stopped here; and he thought his 
 lady could have heard his loudly hammering 
 heart; but she was trembling worse than he. 
 
 "Wh-what do you think of that line, Mrs. . . . 
 Mrs. "
 
 The Proud Summer Ends 219 
 
 ("Oh!" thought Naomi, "he cannot speak my 
 name!") 
 
 "I think I would better be dead, Mr. Tibbald." 
 
 "Don't say that, Mrs. Naomye !" 
 
 "I do I do wish so, Mr. Tibbald ! I see now 
 what a wicked woman I be. I should be struck 
 deef or blind for this you never can forgive 
 me." 
 
 "What do you mean, Mrs. Naomye?" 
 
 "I mean that I'm one o' those hateful women 
 hussies minxes cats that let a gentleman 
 come to visit them and teach them pretty ballads, 
 and all the time they don't don't feel that way 
 they're proud, they're pleased, but they don't feel 
 to to to love that gentleman the smallest 
 bit." 
 
 After a dreadful pause, Mr. Tibbald said in a 
 sort of frozen voice: 
 
 "I've beared of such women, but that you was 
 one of that kind I never would believe. Wai, 
 I've be'n deceived and played with, and that's the
 
 22O The Proud Summer Ends 
 
 end of it. Enough said I hope no other man'll 
 ever " 
 
 "Mr. Tibbald!" 
 
 "Leave go my coat !" 
 
 "Mr. Tibbald, I hain't one of that kind that 
 deceive and play with a person ! I never deceived 
 you I never took your stuffed owl, though you 
 offered it to me twice! I never accepted any 
 token from you !" 
 
 "I bid you good-night, Mrs. Naomye." 
 
 "You're very angry with me, and all because I 
 couldn't think of any maidenly way to tell you I 
 didn't love you before you asked me." 
 
 Mr. Tibbald stopped, as these words pierced 
 through his wounded pride like a rapier. 
 
 "How could I help this coming to pass, Mr. 
 Tibbald?" 
 
 "You never w-wanted to help it! You were 
 content if you could bring me to these straits. 
 W-wal, enough said. I p'sume I'm not the only 
 man you've served so. Go on, do, and tell your
 
 The Proud Summer Ends 221 
 
 old Marm all about it, what a figure I cut, and all, 
 and laugh about it, both of ye! You needn't to 
 wait any longer than till I get as far away as the 
 Temples' barn." 
 
 "Hush, Mr. Tibbald! Marm Patridge wun't 
 laugh at this she'll be very sorry and cross. 
 Budsey '11 be sorry too, and my aunt Darby '11 
 scold me she'll scold me for choosing to be an old 
 maid. I shall be one ! I shall grow peevish, and 
 stingy, and spiteful the childern in the streets 
 '11 holler at me. And that's because I wun't tell 
 you what's false, and cheat both of us out of the 
 best thing in life " 
 
 The purple anger all ebbed away from Mr. 
 Tibbald's face as Naomi's voice broke on these 
 words. He felt a great shame and tenderness in 
 his heart. He turned back, and lifted up the lit 
 tle locket on Naomi's neck, and kissed it. Had 
 he loved her before, he wondered? for he loved 
 her much more now that he had forgiven her. 
 
 "Naomye Mrs. Naomye if a man should be
 
 222 The Proud Summer Ends 
 
 content to wait a long while a matter of months, 
 or a year wouldn't there be a chance for him? 
 He hasn't, p'haps, behaved quite as a gentleman 
 should, this evening. But that was because it 
 was p-pretty hard for him " 
 
 Naomi shook her head. 
 
 "I would say so, Mr. Tibbald I would say 
 there was a chance for a man, that / call an excel 
 lent gentleman, if I could feel even the smallest 
 feeling for him, like a tiny little breath of wind 
 but no! I'm like a tree with not a leaf stir- 
 ring." 
 
 "This world is pretty hard for a man " 
 
 "Oh ! Can you forgive me, Mr. Tibbald ?" 
 
 "Call me Henry once, if you can." 
 
 "Henry, if I could help you to forget this, and 
 to find some other, better woman !" 
 
 "I shall be a bachelor to the end of my days, 
 Mrs. Naomye."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 Gbe little f nnocent 
 
 Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes ? 
 
 THE harvest moon, it seemed to Naomi, 
 would never wane. On night after night 
 it waked her up with its silver patterns on the 
 curtains and the ceiling beams, and made her sit 
 up and look out at the winking world. Then 
 began the long hours of self-reproach of which 
 
 she knew the ache and burn so well 
 
 "How could I draw Mr. Tibbald into all this 
 trouble? Oh, I wish, I wish I had it to do over 
 again! How much sooner would I be rude and 
 unmaidenlike ! How much sooner would I have 
 throwed all his comfits on the floor, that night of 
 the spell! Then I would have been hateful for 
 an hour; but now I've pushed him into a pit of 
 
 misery for years and years ! 
 
 223
 
 224 The Little Innocent 
 
 "I wish he could be cured of loving me. But 
 said he, 'I shall be a bachelor to the end of my 
 days.' I'm sure Mace Paouncet was twice be 
 trothed, but I s'pose he wasn't a true lover. Mr. 
 Tibbald hain't so fickle as Mace. I wish he could 
 cast an eye on Emily Byjam, or Sarey Paouncet. 
 They're both prettier and smarter than I be, ac 
 cording to what most folks think. But no ! that 
 hain't the way. True lovers air inconsolable. 
 'I shall be a bachelor all my days,' said he. I 
 deserve to lie awake and cry this hull night 
 through. I'm one of those hateful women that 
 I've heared about and hated, in ballads and books. 
 Yes ! I'm like one of those callous, painted, brazen 
 women." 
 
 Her pillow was wet with weeping, and what 
 with self-reproach, and the disappointed looks of 
 her elders, she grew to have a drooping carriage, 
 in spite of Marm's quoting a thousand times : 
 
 "Up with your head, and up with your chin, 
 Toes turned out, and heels turned in."
 
 The Little Innocent 225 
 
 Budsey and Cass were married in the third 
 week of December. They had a very fine wed 
 ding; the church was lined with young spruces, 
 and a hundred ropes of ground pine festooned 
 the ceiling. Everybody in Beartown came and 
 danced and feasted in the small Lucy house. 
 Eliza and Frederick Dukes, with their little 
 girls, came, and Nabby and her husband brought 
 all their children, down to the babe of seven 
 months. Naomi danced a reel of eight with 
 William Byjam, and a Betty Martin with old Mr. 
 Greenpiece himself. She could not mope on 
 Budsey's wedding day, even when she saw Mr. 
 Tibbald meandering alone in the porch with his 
 sad, roving eye. But was it quite so sad and rov 
 ing in these days? or did Time drop his honey 
 balm even into the wounds of true lovers ? 
 
 In spite of Naomi's dark deservings, the winter 
 began to brighten all about her. Budsey and 
 Cass went away to Albany on their wedding trip, 
 and were gone for two weeks. When they came
 
 226 The Little Innocent 
 
 back, Mrs. Darby had a great dancing party for 
 them at the tollgate. Mrs. Lucy, not to be out 
 done, hired the Temples' large barn for another. 
 The By jams gave a monstrous musical party. 
 Naomi, though not a belle, was a considered per 
 son at all these doings. She was never left to 
 sit out more than three dances in succession. 
 
 After all her sorrowful autumn nights, this 
 winter was the shortest she had ever known. It 
 burst into a fine early spring. Hepaticas were 
 out in March, and adder-tongues in early April. 
 The green film spread in a week's time halfway 
 up Bald Mountain, from the blackberry thickets 
 at the foot to the fern-overgrown landslide. 
 
 Naomi was planting lettuce and radishes one 
 afternoon, on a slope overlooking the tiny green- 
 specked gardens of Westminster, when a word 
 less melody began running in her head and de 
 manding a garment of poetry. She was accus 
 tomed to these wild-goose chases on which her 
 mind would run off in spite of her, interrupting
 
 The Little Innocent 227 
 
 all her good practical work. She was spilling 
 the lettuce seed into the radish row while the 
 melody poked about in her brain for its lines and 
 verses, and a delicious, faint, burning smell rose 
 up from the bonfires of Westminster. 
 
 "Here here! What be I doing? I've for 
 got which bag is radishes and which is sallet. 
 
 "I see the smoke rise up to Heaven 
 Across Jamaica valley 
 
 Tut, tut! I'm out here to plant this sauce- 
 gardin, not to be cappin' verses. What would 
 Budsey think of me? But if I could just think of 
 a rhyme for 'heaven' and another for Valley' 
 
 "I see the smoky steeples rise 
 
 Along Jamaica valley: 
 I hear the cow-bells down the pike, 
 Co' boss, Whitefoot and Sally." 
 
 It was while she sat, with half-shut eyes, on the 
 damp earth, composing this beautiful lyric, that 
 a small boy on horseback came plodding up the 
 mountain. He was white round the lips and nose 
 with fatigue, with fear, and with strangeness. He
 
 228 The Little Innocent 
 
 had never ridden this road before. He did not 
 look more than eleven years old. When he saw 
 the woman in the clean calico sitting under the 
 bush, he dismounted, and tied his horse to one of 
 the poplars. 
 
 "Doos my uncle Saul Polke live here?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Yis, this is his haouse, the sightliest place in 
 taown. But he's away, and your aunt Cass too, 
 over the mount'in. And your great-aunt Harm's 
 gone to the tollgate. Whose child be you, little 
 man ? If Saul Polke's your uncle, I must be your 
 aunt Naomye. Air you Josiph's child? You 
 hain't Charles's, for he's in the West." 
 
 "I'm Frederick Dukes's son my name's Sim. 
 Oh, what a ride I've had ! I was lost and astray 
 a-many times. I guess you're the one my 
 mother's bellering after. She's so sick, in such 
 pain as I never saw her before. The horse kicked 
 her in the head, father's new spavined one, that 
 he was goin' to trade in Tempe this very day ; it
 
 The Little Innocent 229 
 
 kicked her over the ear, and made her crazy for a 
 spell. I'm all sore with ridin' so fur oh, haow 
 my legs do ache !" He began to cry with hunger, 
 fatigue, and strangeness, despite his evident 
 efforts to be manly. 
 
 Naomi fed and rested her nephew, while she 
 gave orders to the new, green hired man, and left 
 messages for Marm and Budsey. Then she 
 mounted the rawboned horse her young escort 
 had ridden, and clasped him round the waist, with 
 rather a faint heart. For such a fearless tomboy 
 child, Naomi had grown into a somewhat timid 
 woman, as her old-maidhood told on her, bit by 
 bit, year by year. She clung to the little boy as 
 darkness came on and the woods looked so il- 
 limitably black. 
 
 "This horse has got a shoe loose, little nevew, 
 I feel sure," she kept crying, and what with her 
 clinging and her fears, she made the little boy 
 very manly and almost a braggart. Showing 
 weakness oneself is the best way in the world to
 
 230 The Little Innocent 
 
 bolster up the coward heart. Aunt and nephew 
 were very good friends indeed by the time they 
 reached the poor unpainted house, on the out 
 skirts of Westminster, where Eliza dwelt. 
 
 In the kitchen bedroom, on a battered bedstead, 
 lay the careworn woman who had once been the 
 delicate, spoilt Eliza. Her eyes rested on Naomi 
 without recognising her. Her head was bound 
 with wet cloths, and the room, with its closed 
 window, smelt of vinegar. The scared, neglected 
 children peered in the door and scurried away 
 when they saw the stranger. If some were bold 
 enough to twitch little Sim by the coat-tails, he 
 looked round and rebuked them, and they fled 
 away over the creaking floors like visionary chil 
 dren, Naomi thought. 
 
 She drew the bedclothes up smoothly, opened 
 the window and let in the sweet smell of the damp 
 maple bark, brought water from the cistern and 
 washed Eliza's face and hands, and braided her 
 hair. Eliza lifted herself and gazed at her sister
 
 The Little Innocent 231 
 
 with puzzled looks. At length she recognised 
 Naomi, and weakly laughed with pleasure to 
 think she had come. "Wai, Naomye, here you be 
 you've come, hain't you?" was all she could say 
 for some time. Naomi held her hand, and tried 
 not to look sorry or sad. After a considerable 
 time, Eliza with an effort began : 
 
 "Naomye, I had little Sim had him go after 
 you, to ask you something. . . . It's a great deal 
 for one sister to ask of another, but you've got 
 such a good home so much to do with and you 
 know you offered Frederick and me your haouse 
 on the north pike that father left ye " 
 
 "And you can have it now, Elizy, whenever 
 you're ready to move in " 
 
 "No no it hain't the house. What was I 
 saying? I've forgot it, I'm af eared. I've for 
 got it, after all, Naomye !" she ended plaintively. 
 
 "I promise I will do it, whatever 'tis you want 
 of me, Elizy." 
 
 "When I'm dead and gone, sister."
 
 232 The Little Innocent 
 
 "Oh, no, sister ! when you're alive and well." 
 
 "Wai, but what is it I want you should 
 do?" 
 
 "Rest you a minute: you'll think of it. Here 
 we be together; everything's all right. I'll see to 
 the house and the childern; was that what you 
 wanted to say?" 
 
 "No, it wan't . . . that. What . . . was it?" 
 asked Eliza dreamily. 
 
 "Never you mind what 'twas, poor darling! 
 Can you git a little sleep, do you think? You'll 
 be the better for it." 
 
 "I can't think what 'tis I wanted to say!" 
 
 "Never mind, then." 
 
 "Oh, I can't think I can't . . . tell ye!" 
 
 "Wai, wal, my dear, go to sleep, then; by and 
 by you'll remember it." 
 
 "By and by," repeated Eliza contentedly, shut 
 ting her eyes. Next moment a faint scream was 
 heard outside, and a strange little wizened 
 creature ran into the room and made for its
 
 The Little Innocent 233 
 
 mother. Eliza raised herself; a look of beauty 
 came over her face; she opened her arms to the 
 little one. 
 
 Naomi thought she comprehended then what it 
 was that Eliza wanted of her. She touched her 
 sister's coarse sleeve. 
 
 "Little Alferd '11 come to his aunt Naomye," 
 she said cheerfully. "Come, little Alferd." 
 
 The child clung to Eliza, but Naomi gently 
 pulled him free, and took him on her own lap. 
 Holding him close, she said : 
 
 "Elizy, look at me. What do you see?" 
 
 "I see my sister Naomye, with Alferd in her 
 lap." 
 
 "You do so, Elizy. Now tell me what you 
 hear. Little Alferd, I crave to have you for my 
 own child. I'll keep you, and purtect you, and 
 try to make you a good child and a happy one, 
 as long as I live. Did you hear, Elizy ?" 
 
 "I beared my sister Naomye I beared her 
 say I beared her promise to love and keep my
 
 234 The Little Innocent 
 
 little Alferd, so I guess . . . guess I needn't try 
 any more to think what I was goin' to say . . . 
 Naomye has said it for me." 
 
 "Go to sleep and rest you, then, Elizy. It's 
 dark outdoors; you're sleepy. The crickets make 
 you sleepy with their singin'. I'll see to all the 
 childern. Come, little Alferd; your mother's all 
 drowsy and quiet; her pillow's cool; she's going 
 to take a long rest. Sweet dreams, Elizy!" 
 
 Her words made Eliza drowsy, for her mind 
 was in that weakened hypnotic state when sug 
 gestion acts upon it easily. What sweet dreams 
 she had in this her last sleep ! for she smiled again 
 and again, almost as if she heard the "pretty 
 gallops" at that husking long ago, when she had 
 first met her husband. When Frederick Dukes 
 came home with the doctor, his wife was scarcely 
 breathing. Her eyes were shut, her hands 
 clasped over her breast, and she had only one 
 more journey to take over the rough roads of the 
 Green Mountains.
 
 The Little Innocent 235 
 
 When the small funeral, to which Saul and 
 Cass came down, was over, Frederick Dukes took 
 his orphans back to his old parents in Charlotte 
 County all but little Alfred. The innocent 
 went by stage, with his aunt Naomi, up Bald 
 Mountain. His thin, triangular face, blinking 
 pink eyes, his old, shrewd, and yet simple look, 
 his bursts of rapid babble, interspersed with 
 actual words in short, the whole maimed and 
 lacking personality of the child appealed deeply 
 to the primeval woman in Naomi. His perfect 
 helplessness, so pitiable to see, made her exult to 
 think that he was all her own hers and hers 
 only. 
 
 "Here we be I'll lift him down, thanky, Mr. 
 Byjam," said Naomi as the stage stopped in front 
 of the poplars. It was not until this moment, 
 when Cass looked out of the window, that any 
 fear as to the child's welcome crossed her mind. 
 
 "Is this Elizy's innocent child, Naomye?" 
 asked Cass as she opened the door ; and it seemed
 
 236 The Little Innocent 
 
 to Naomi that she felt a cold wind blow out from 
 her brother's house. 
 
 "Yes, this is little Alferd." 
 
 Cass shuddered a little. 
 
 "You don't intend to keep him here but a few 
 days, I p'sume, until his father gets settled and 
 comes' for him?" 
 
 "Why, yes, Cass I did I do I promised 
 Elizy I'd keep the child." 
 
 The shadow deepened on Mrs. Budsey's fair 
 long face. Her apple-blossom cheeks turned 
 pinker. 
 
 "Wai . . . bring him in." 
 
 It was the first time she had spoken shortly to 
 her sister-in-law; and Naomi shrank a little, and 
 said to herself, "Budsey's honeymoon is over." 
 She did not realise yet what she had done, in 
 darkening Cass's bright bridal house. 
 
 They all went in together. Marm was sitting 
 on the tipping settle behind the table. When 
 she saw Alfred, she first started, and then winked,
 
 The Little Innocent 237 
 
 and shook her head, and nodded hard at Naomi, 
 pointing with her thumb over her shoulder to 
 ward Cass. But Naomi did not see. Her eyes 
 were fixed on Budsey, while she took off, with 
 trembling fingers, Alfred's rusty coat and ante 
 diluvian hood. The child stood displayed in all 
 his blankness and poverty of look, before his 
 elders. 
 
 Budsey crossed to his wife's side, and pulled 
 her shawl up round her shoulders. He looked 
 very much perplexed; and as Naomi beheld that 
 troubled frown, all the tendernesses of twenty-five 
 years flowed over her heart, and entirely engulfed 
 her new affection. Should she make Budsey 
 trouble? then she saw that she herself had ended 
 his honeymoon. 
 
 "Brother, I'll go down to Mr. Martin Paoun- 
 cet's to-morrow forenoon, and hire us a room 
 over his shop," she said in a voice full of tears. 
 "I can afford that, I guess." 
 
 "Foolishness, Naomye."
 
 238 The Little Innocent 
 
 "I'm very sorry I fetched up little Alfred I 
 didn't think " 
 
 "Foolishness, I tell ye !" 
 
 Budsey's "foolishness" was the most comfort 
 ing word ever spoken, Naomi thought. 
 
 "Put the little toad to bed, sister, and then 
 we'll talk it over," said Budsey. "You see, Na- 
 
 omye you see " Something in his tone 
 
 made Naomi look at her sister-in-law. Was Cass 
 very tired ? or why did she lean on Budsey's arm, 
 and give that little, childish sigh ? 
 
 Marm gave Naomi's sleeve a sharp pull, and 
 whispered : 
 
 "You're ash blind ash a bat, Naomye Polke! 
 Wai, you needn't to cry about it. We'll take the 
 little toad, you and I will, up to your haoush, that 
 your father left you, on the north turnpike, and 
 thar we'll live together, the three of ush."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 flfcornfng, Bfternoon, an& Bvening at tbe t>ou0e on 
 tbe Hortb Curnptfte 
 
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 
 Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 
 And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
 Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 
 
 , little Alf, the Paouncet boys and girls 
 all ploddin' away to school. There's Mat 
 thew drawin' little Marthy in her wagon away 
 they all go, to say their lessons and doosn't Alfy 
 want to say his lessons too?" 
 
 Naomi sat on the doorstep of her saltbox house 
 on the north turnpike. She had her young 
 nephew in her lap. Three years had not changed 
 the little boy much, though he stood several inches 
 taller in his quaint homemade pantaloons. His 
 face was still a bluish, leaden colour. He still 
 
 babbled many more words than he spoke plainly. 
 239
 
 240 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 But there was a sort of background in his pale 
 shallow eyes of late, as if some brighter light 
 were shining into them. 
 
 "Pictures, Alfey. See the pictures," his aunt 
 went on. "Doosn't Alfey want to read what it 
 says with the pictures?" She showed a print of 
 little Samuel, in a well-starched Colonial night 
 gown. 
 
 Alfred began to pull at his dickey, with a ques 
 tioning look. 
 
 "No, no, Alfey! Keep on your dickey and 
 pinafore. It hain't bedtime, though little 
 Samuel's got his nightgown on. Aunt wants you 
 should larn your letters. Look, here they be. 
 A, B, C. You larned those three yesterday. 
 Don't you recollect 'emr" 
 
 Babble, babble, babble. 
 
 "A, little man. Say A. Look at aunt's 
 mouth. A." 
 
 The little man laid a finger on his aunt's tongue 
 and said "Pill."
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 241 
 
 "No, Alferd. Aunt's very well, needs no pills. 
 Open your own mouth. Now ! say A." 
 
 The steady light pouring from those patient, 
 warm grey eyes into Alfred's poor pale ones, 
 seemed at length to kindle a spark there, and he 
 cried suddenly: 
 
 "A!" 
 
 "Good ! Good boy. He shall have a string of 
 spools to play with. Now here's A on the paper. 
 Look at it well. You write A now for Aunt. 
 Good ! Now B . . . Now C." 
 
 How drawn and studious was Alfred's face, as 
 with his tongue hanging out, and his hollow 
 cheeks sucked in, he scrawled his three letters on 
 the paper ! 
 
 Naomi smiled a bright smile of triumph. 
 
 "There! He's recomembered his hull week's 
 lesson ! Now I'll teach him D, if it takes me an 
 hour." 
 
 She began again patiently. 
 
 "D, little Alferd. A, B, C, D. Look at aunt's
 
 242 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 mouth, see how she pushes her tongue against her 
 teeth. DID!" 
 
 "Tea! Tea!" cried Alfred, hopping up and 
 down. 
 
 "Oh, no, Alfey, it hain't tea time. Here! 
 where's the child gone ? Alfey! Alfey!" She ran 
 after him, where his whitish mane bobbed among 
 the willows in the waste meadows of the glebe 
 land. She was fleet and well-winded, but she 
 could not catch her little wild boy. As she called 
 "Alf! Alf!" it sounded like "Elf! Elf!" and he 
 darted like an elf, or a firefly, in and out of the 
 orange willows and berry thickets of the glebe. 
 
 "I wun't be discouraged," said Naomi to her 
 self, but winking back a few tears. "He's larned 
 three letters, and he knows part of his 'Now I 
 lay me.' How hard I worked to teach him that ! 
 But I've never slapped his hands, though I eena- 
 most thought it was my duty to when he stole 
 that hen of Mrs. By jam's." 
 
 She went into the house and sat down with her
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 243 
 
 sewing. Her face had grown longer and thinner 
 in these years. The freckles were fading away 
 from her cheeks, where the delicate hollows had 
 deepened. These three years had been full of 
 pleasant and not unrewarded toil, which yet left 
 her with some odds and ends of longing unful 
 filled. Sometimes she had a foolish craving to 
 snatch back her disappearing youth ; and then she 
 called herself peevish, and drank a cup of bitter 
 boneset, or weeded in her sauce-garden, to "sun 
 and sweeten" herself. 
 
 But she could not read poetry any more. It 
 was too poignant, and made her more wakeful 
 than the moonlight had used to do. "Those 
 pretty ballads belong to the young," said Naomi, 
 not knowing that when her youth was really past, 
 these cravings and longings would be all at rest. 
 She did not know how youthful a quality it is 
 which makes music and poetry too sharply sweet. 
 
 She was twenty-eight years old, and thought 
 herself a middle-aged woman. All her former
 
 244 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 playmates were long since married. Isabella By- 
 jam and Fanny Pouncet were not only married, 
 but wore caps, which indeed became them very 
 well. They had their babies, and so had Debbe 
 Darby, who had married the fat Mace. Mr. Tib- 
 bald had begun, some time before, a cautious 
 courtship of a widow in Westminster. Naomi 
 had always thought that such news as this would 
 make her very glad ; but she was ashamed to find, 
 on hearing of it, that she felt lonely and a little 
 forlorn. 
 
 "I must get over this," she said to herself. "It 
 hain't reasonable in me. It's a good thing for 
 Henry Tibbald that he can be consoled. I'm sur 
 prised to feel as I do, and yet it hain't the first 
 time I've found myself a different woman from 
 what I thought I was." 
 
 It was not the first, nor was it to be the last 
 time. 
 
 But now as she sat over her sewing, Naomi be 
 gan to philosophise about her little boy.
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 245 
 
 "He's like one of the shad trees father used to 
 fetch home from the Red Woods, and try to graft 
 a branch of gardin plums on it. I'm very like 
 father, in more ways than one, I find as I grow 
 older. Father used to talk to himself, and we 
 childern thought haow curious it was; and now 
 here I be talking to myself, and sewin' in poor 
 little Alfey's sleeve wrong side foremost. There's 
 nobody to say to me 'Come down out of the 
 clouds, Naomye!' since poor Marm was taken." 
 
 She turned her chair so that she could see a 
 sagging slate headstone under a lilac bush at the 
 foot of her small orchard. 
 
 "Harm's earned a pleasant rest and sleep. 
 Doos she dream, I wonder, or is she alive again 
 in some of the stars, p'haps ? I think more likely 
 she's here on the face of the earth, in some far 
 country. This doctrine of angels flying along 
 gold and silver streets doosn't seem natural, and I 
 never could get to believe it. Wherever Marm 
 is, I wish I could have a little short talk with her.
 
 246 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 I wish I could say, 'I wasn't very mindful of you, 
 Marm, when you was here, but I think about it 
 considerable in these days.' 
 
 "I recomember when Deb Darby first had a 
 husk-dolly with teeth, haow I cried, and Marm 
 laid down her bunnit that she was trimmin', and 
 set some barley kernils into my husk-dolly's 
 maouth. ... If she was here now, I'd thank 
 her for that, and a few other things she did for 
 Budsey and Elizy and me, I guess . . . but it's 
 too late now, Marm Patridge ! 
 
 "Why, what's Alfey going into the shed for? 
 He's got hold of the hoe he's carryin' it aout to 
 the cistern ! He's got a string, and tied it to the 
 handle. Oh! oh! I believe I believe he's try 
 ing to fish !" 
 
 Naomi sprang up, dropping all her spools on 
 the floor. 
 
 "He's trying to fish ! He's trying to fish ! His 
 mind's beginning to wake up! He's laming 
 from the other boys he sees a-fishing in the
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 247 
 
 Branch. Oh, my dear little Alferd, I'll take you 
 down the Branch, in your uncle Budsey's west 
 meadow, this very afternoon !" 
 
 At about two o'clock that afternoon, Mrs. Bud- 
 sey Polke, going out in bonnet and mitts to pay 
 ceremonious visits, met Mrs. Naomi and Alfred 
 walking southward from their saltbox house. 
 Alfred carried a willow pole, with a cotton cord 
 fastened into the end of it with a staple, in one 
 hand; and in the other a box of buttercup heads. 
 Mrs. Naomi wore her short calico and stogiest 
 boots, for the west meadow was rich and boggy. 
 
 "Where you off to, sister Naomye?" asked 
 Mrs. Budsey. Cassandra had matured into a 
 very handsome woman. Her long apple-blossom 
 face, sweet smiling mouth, dark eyes, and glossy 
 hair curtained over her ears, were all in the prime 
 of their beauty. She was, as usual, tagged afar 
 off by a spindling child of three, her little Jess, 
 whose shock of dark straight hair, long spine, and 
 slender legs, were the exact copy of Cassandra
 
 248 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 in the days when she had slept in the sap-kettle. 
 Naomi had a peculiar fondness for little Jess. 
 Not all because she was Budsey's eldest, nor all 
 because she was a clean, clever child; but chiefly 
 because she was little and childish enough to play 
 with poor Alfey. So many times had Naomi 
 stood by the window watching her poor darling 
 hovering like a gnome on the edge of the other 
 children's games hovering, and trying to un 
 derstand ! 
 
 "Where air you going, Naomye?" repeated her 
 sister-in-law. 
 
 "Why, Cass, what do you think? Alfey wants 
 to go fishin' ! I catched him this forenoon tyin' 
 a string to the hoe, and anglin' after minnies in 
 the cistern! What do you think of that, hey?" 
 
 "Why, that's very encouraging to ye, hain't it? 
 Where you goin' down the west meadow, where 
 his uncle Budsey can keep an eye on him?" 
 
 "That's where we've set out for. Oh, Cass, 
 think of Alfey fishin' like other boys !" cried Na-
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 249 
 
 omi, her bosom swelling. "But I shall have him 
 
 use these 'buttercups and squash-blossoms for bait 
 
 I wouldn't have him stick a pin through a live 
 
 worm for any sakes." 
 
 "Traouts wun't bite at a buttercup, Naomye!" 
 "I don't see why they wun't. A yallow flower 
 
 makes a very bright spot in the water." 
 
 "Why, Naomye, you'll only make the child 
 
 ridiculous, laming him to fish with a buttercup 
 
 and a squash-blossom!" 
 
 "Wai he better be ridiculous, than to harden 
 
 his heart." 
 
 "You're a curious creature, Naomye." 
 
 "I guess I be, and I don't know as I care," cried 
 
 Naomi, with a wave of very warm colour in her 
 
 cheeks. "I hain't going to bring up my little boy 
 
 to hurt and maim every little creeter he can 
 
 catch !" 
 
 "Wai, wal, sister! Please yourself!" 
 
 Budsey was hilling corn in his large westward 
 
 field. He looked down the daisied meadow and
 
 250 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 saw Naomi, in her old short green calico and 
 brown sunbonnet, wandering along the stream 
 with little Alfred. She was baiting his pinhook 
 with a yellow flower, and throwing it out into the 
 rapids of the tiny stream. 
 
 Budsey called across the corn to his Irish farm 
 hand: 
 
 "Hi, John Michaelfergus ! look here!" 
 The other ceased hoeing, and came where he 
 too could see the fishers. 
 
 "What do you think of that, John?" 
 The farmhand looked in silence. His well- 
 tanned face quivered a little, but he did not quite 
 laugh. He leaned on his hoe and considered the 
 pair. Naomi's white ankles twinkled along the 
 stream, but he could not see her face. 
 
 "Hi, John ! The little feller's got one !" cried 
 Budsey, slapping the Irishman's shoulder. "Look 
 at him! See him jump! It's all he can do to 
 keep inside of his skin! That's the first traout 
 he ever catched woman alive, what is my sister
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 251 
 
 doing? Did you see that, John? She took that 
 traout and throwed it back in the water!" 
 
 "Sure I saw," replied the farmhand slowly. 
 A small smile played round his excellent mouth, 
 but his eyes were soft and grave. He seemed to 
 have forgotten his work. He leaned on his hoe, 
 watching Mrs. Naomi's white ankles and blowing 
 green skirts. 
 
 "My sister Naomye was always one of that 
 kind," continued Budsey. "She'd let the mice 
 aout of the tail-trap if Marm didn't watch her. 
 Once she tipped a hull bottle of my bait over into 
 the grass, and when I gathered 'em all up again, 
 she 'most had a tantrum over it." 
 
 The farmhand looked in silence at the merciful 
 lady and her innocent boy; and it seemed to him 
 that they were surrounded by a ring of the little 
 "Good People" of Ireland. 
 
 "John Michaelfergus is very silent of late," 
 mused Budsey. "I hain't knowed him to be so 
 silent and serious since his first Sunday in Bear-
 
 252 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 taown, when I catched him crying for his old 
 country. Perhaps he thinks more of his empty 
 pockets now than he did at that time. I recollect 
 how he danced all night at little Jess's christenin', 
 when he had a year and seven months left to 
 work off the price of his voyage." 
 
 Budsey's guess was right. John Michaelfer- 
 gus was thinking of his empty pockets, which had 
 hung so light in his worn shag coat when he left 
 Castlemartyr. They had been light enough all 
 these two years and more of indentured labour. 
 He could dance his wonderful reels and clogs the 
 better for their emptiness, he had always thought. 
 But now they hung like millstones on each side of 
 him. 
 
 And yet he had forgotten them again as he 
 walked up the turnpike that evening. He walked 
 very well, with a different gait from the men of 
 the Green Mountains a longer and more spring 
 ing step. He was of a fair height, but not tall. 
 His hair was black, his eyes a shining hazel. He
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 253 
 
 had picked up a squash-blossom in the west 
 meadow ; it had no stem, but he put it in the but 
 tonhole of his grey shag coat, with the help of a 
 wisp of grass. As he walked, he sang the lovely, 
 plaintive song of "Shule Aroon," sang it very 
 pathetically, because his heart was very light. 
 
 "I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel, 
 I'll sell my only spinning wheel, 
 To buy for my love a sword of steel- 
 Is go, d-teidhu, a muirneen slan." 
 
 He sang so heartily that he did not hear the 
 wheels of Mr. Greenpiece's aged buggy behind 
 him, until the feeble voice of Beartown's old 
 minister called out : 
 
 "Which way you going, John? Wun't ye 
 ride?" 
 
 "Sure I think Shanks's mares '11 carry me, thank 
 your river'nce." 
 
 "Better climb in. Where air you bound for ?" 
 "I was after walking a small piece up the pike." 
 "Wai, I set forth in that direction too. I was
 
 254 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 a-going up to see Mrs. Naomye and that little 
 boy of hers, if she hadn't put him to bed yet." 
 
 "Indade." 
 
 "Mrs. Naomye wants I should larn the poor 
 child the Lord's Prayer," continued Mr. Green- 
 piece. "I've been up there several times, but I 
 can't see that the child makes any progress." 
 
 "Sure I'm sorry from my boots up to hear 
 that." 
 
 "Yes, it's considerable of a disappointment to 
 his auntie. And now I doubt I doubt she's got 
 another trouble in store, though most would look 
 upon it as a blessing." 
 
 "Trouble! what trouble, your river'nce? what 
 trouble?" asked the Irishman, taking hold of the 
 spokes of Mr. Greenpiece's wheel, and looking 
 with cloudy eyes at the minister. 
 
 "Why, the poor little boy's not very long for 
 this world, it appears. I had a talk with the 
 doctor here awhile ago. These innocent childern 
 never live very long, he tells me."
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 255 
 
 "The gossoon has the best of care." 
 
 Mr. Greenpiece shook his head. 
 
 "He's a blue-looking child. That means a 
 weak heart." 
 
 The Irishman was silent. He had forgotten 
 his song. He was wishing that he could keep the 
 wind and rain away from the merciful lady. 
 
 "I must peg along," said Mr. Greenpiece. 
 "Get ap, King George." 
 
 "I can aisily keep ahead of ould King George," 
 said John Michaelfergus to himself. 
 
 Naomi had been putting her little boy to bed. 
 She kept the candle burning on the dresser for a 
 little while, for he was afraid of the dark, and she 
 humoured him in it. The moon was rising over 
 Bald Mountain, and the air was chilly with the 
 dew. 
 
 "What a curious thing it is for a woman of my 
 Age," mused Naomi aloud, "to feel this light 
 ness in my heels when evening comes on ! I don't 
 know what it signifies. The other night I dreamt
 
 256 Morning, Afternoon, and Evening at 
 
 I was out in the woods, and a circle of fairies 
 came up around me, and all began to dance. I 
 don't know what gives me such dreams! They 
 grow more and more curious every night. Last 
 night I dreamt I had me a white dress, with a 
 blue sash. At my Age !" 
 
 The moon had risen above the Hollow. A 
 barn-owl screeched close by, and Naomi started 
 to Alfred's side; but he did not awaken. 
 
 "Alfey's so fast asleep, I can blow out his 
 candle now, I guess," whispered Naomi. "Oh! 
 .... Somebody ... is coming in across my 
 sauce-gardin. It hain't Mr. Greenpiece walking 
 so fast and so fur. But I wan't expecting Oh ! 
 little Alfey, I've got on this old green calico, and 
 somebody ... is coming to visit me " 
 
 When Mr. Greenpiece, a little while later, 
 knocked on the door of the saltbox house, no one 
 answered him. The ginger-coloured cat peered 
 round the corner of the portico, and Alfey's pet 
 lamb bleated. Mr. Greenpiece strained his feeble
 
 The House on the North Turnpike 257 
 
 eyes to see up and down the turnpike, but he did 
 not think to look over toward the Hollow, where 
 a short and stocky lady with small white ankles 
 was walking with a gentleman in a long grey 
 coat. They walked hand in hand, like very 
 young lovers. 
 
 THE END
 
 By MAY SINCLAIR 
 
 THE HELPMATE 
 i2tno. $1.50 
 
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 clair make waste paper of most of the fiction of a sea 
 son." This new story, the first written since " The 
 Divine Fire," will strengthen the author's reputation. 
 It has been serialized in The Atlantic Monthly, and 
 The New York Sun says of an early instalment : 
 
 "Miss Sinclair's new novel, 'The Helpmate,' is attracting 
 much attention. It is a miniature painting of delicacy and skill, 
 reproducing few characters in a small space, with fine sincerity, 
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 convictions. The riddle is to find which one of the women is the 
 helpmate. In the vital situation thus far developed the sister is 
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 As the plot develops the canvas is filled in with other 
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 By MARY MOSS. 121110. $1.50 
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 ture <:fo'd time days, which is doubtless true enougii in its setting. 
 . . . In her treatment of human passions, which do not change with 
 the march of centuries, sue keeps well within the limits of credibility 
 and stood taste." 
 
 Rv ftrfi-HernliJ: "A pathetic, human story of love and conflict. 
 . . . Stirring, old world scenes that touch the heart and soul." 
 
 Outlook: " Has something of the quality of a fine old tapestry . . . 
 well written . . . an artistic close." 
 
 Ph ila^elphin Ledger : " For a novel of this semi-historical charac 
 ter it ranks high. The contemporary and local coloring are well 
 maintained, the plot and action are decidedly interesting, and the 
 character of Suzanne, the peasant girl, is remarkably well drawn. 
 Historical fiction is too often totally 1 icking in human interest, high- 
 flown romance takin ; its place; but, most certainly, this cannot be 
 said of this work . . . well worth reading." 
 
 Henry Holt and Company 
 
 Publishers (i,'o;) New York
 
 A CHEERFUL YEAR BOOK FOR 1908 
 For Engagements and other Serious Matters accom 
 panied by Philosophic and Moral Aphorisms for the 
 instruction of youth, the inspiration of maturity and 
 the solace of age, by F. M. KNOWLES, the same 
 being illustrated with tasteful and illuminating pic 
 tures by C. F. LESTER, and the whole being intro 
 duced and concluded with profound and edifying re 
 marks by CAROLYN WELLS. i2mo. $i net ; by 
 mail, $1.10. 
 
 A new popular-priced edition for 1908 of this amus 
 ing and attractive engagement book. 
 
 HARPS HUNG UP IN BABYLON 
 By ARTHUR COLTON. i2mo. $1.25 net ; by mail, 
 
 $i.35. 
 
 Some forty poems, many of which first appeared 
 in such magazines as The Atlantic, Century, Scrib- 
 ners' , Harper's, etc., including The Captive and 
 Allah's Tent, verses from " The Canticle of the Road" 
 a group of 16 poems "To Faustina," and finally a 
 group in lighter vein. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED GREAT POEMS 
 Selected by R. J. CROSS. Probable price, $1.25 net. 
 
 This dainty pocket volume is a worthy companion to 
 Lucas's " The Friendly Town " and "The Open Road." 
 
 Among the poets included, with the number bracketed 
 after each, are: Shakespeare (n), Jonson (2), Herbert 
 (i), Herrick (2), Milton (4), Gray (i), Burns (2), Words 
 worth (5), Coleridge (4), Lamb (2), Moore (i). Leigh 
 Hunt (i), Byron (2), Shelley (9), Keats (7), Hood (2), 
 Macaulay (2), Symonds (i), Longfellow (2), Tennyson 
 (10), Lord Houghton (i), Mrs. Browning (4), Brown 
 ing (7), Emily Bronte (i), Clough (2), Lowell (i), Chris 
 tina Rossetti (i), Swinburne (3), O'Shaughnessy (3). 
 
 THE OPEN ROAD 
 THE FRIENDLY TOWN 
 
 Two little books compiled by EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS 
 that promise to become standards. i6mo. Cloth. Each 
 $1.50. Leather, $2.50. 
 
 "The Open Road" contains some 125 poems of out 
 door life from over 60 authors. 
 
 "The Friendly Town " contains over 200 selections 
 in verse and prose from 100 authors. ^_^ 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Publishers New York
 
 Date Due 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
 CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000254771 9