',"-" -- 1 -
 
 fllhAND SMtTHf 
 ACRES OF BOON** 
 149 PACIFIC AVBNVI 
 I ON MACH. At.fr

 
 tfje Same 
 
 A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS 
 
 Wherein is written the History of 
 her "Doorstep T3abv," a fancy 
 which in time became a fact and 
 changed a life. 
 
 Illustrated with half-tone vignettes .... $1.25 
 
 5Lee ant Sfjepart Publishers Boston
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 BY 
 
 ALYN YATES KEITH 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A SPINSTER'S LEAFLETS " 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 10 .MILK STREET 
 
 BOSTON
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY LEE AND SHEPARD 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 ELECTROTYPED BY C. J. PETERS & SON.
 
 TO 
 
 M. J. M.
 
 THKSK SKKTCHKS AKK COLLECTED AND PUT INTO COVERS 
 THROUGH THE COURTESY OF THE 
 
 NKW YORK EVENING POST 
 WHICH FIRST PUBLISHED THEM
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK. 
 
 I. RACHEL AND JESSE 1 
 
 II. JESS'S MONEY 14 
 
 III. A LITTLE WOULD 29 
 
 IV. CAP'N SATI 43 
 
 V. THE WIDOW PEASE 54 
 
 VI. A HOT SUNDAY 65 
 
 VII. HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 78 
 
 VIII. A XEW FKIKND 87 
 
 IX. THE LAST OF HILLTOP . 101
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 
 
 WE followed the little procession to the door of the 
 gray old meeting-house, and lingered to watch its slow 
 
 winding down the hill. 
 
 ^c&._gr Four white-haired men 
 
 bore the coffin on their 
 shoulders, treading after the old 
 minister with uneven steps. The 
 
 . .; L 
 
 road was rough, and the mourn- 
 ers jostled each 
 other as they picked 
 their way among the 
 stones. But Aunt 
 Rachel was past 
 being disturbed by 
 any lack of harmony 
 among her followers. 
 The coffin-plate said 
 she had fulfilled her ninety 
 years ; but remembering the 
 majesty of the face from which 
 
 
 
 '- , 
 *-.-
 
 2 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 kindly Death had smoothed all lines of age and sorrow, 
 it was hard to believe the legend we had just read 
 while the body lay in homely, solemn state below the 
 high pulpit. 
 
 Aunt Rachel did not belong to us ; and, though any 
 one was welcome to join the wavering line that went 
 noiselessly down the sharp hill and turned to the little 
 bury ing-ground at the right, we sat on the rocks back 
 of the church, listening to the birds that hopped and 
 chirped around us. 
 
 It seemed a thing impossible that Death could be, 
 in this living sunshine above the new grass, with 
 the full song of the nesting robins shaking the sweet 
 air. 
 
 The cracked bell in the steeple ceased its melancholy 
 stroke as the last of the broken line entered the gate ; 
 and the tones of the preacher's voice floated up to us. 
 jarring somewhat upon the peaceful air. There were 
 no tears shed as the coffin was slowly lowered into the 
 grave ; and when the prayer was ended three old men 
 with two old wives and one old daughter turned away 
 with an air of relief. The neighbors shook hands with 
 them in a listless way ; then came briskly up the hill, 
 stopping for a moment at the still open church-door to 
 ask after the health of absent families and the prospect 
 of crops. No one said good-by, but after lingering 
 awkwardly for a while the men slunk away first, and 
 the women followed ; the younger ones dropping back
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 3 
 
 to ask for some new cake receipt, or the best way to dye 
 faded merino. 
 
 One old man stayed behind. He stepped cautiously 
 along the uneven rocks, leaning on a heavy staff, and 
 shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked over us to 
 the fresh mound below. 
 
 " Well, I'm mighty sorry Aunt Rachel's gone," he 
 said, addressing us with the indifference of age. " She 
 was a proper good woman. Not a child her ekal 
 amongst 'em all, not a one that could hold a candle 
 to Rachel. Mebbe you two didn't know her. No ? 
 What a pity ! Well, she wa'n't much older'n I be, 
 and I can't think of a time when I didn't know her. 
 Purty girl an' woman as ever you see. Didn't look it, 
 did she ? Set down ? Well, no, 'bleeged to ye ; I've 
 got rheumatics bad, an' 'tain't easy to git up ag'in. 
 Where was I ? Oh ! Her folks was Babtists, and they 
 kep' her strict, I tell ye. She was babtized one awful 
 cold Sunday over there in the big pond jest beyond the 
 buryin'-ground. She wa'n't more'n sixteen year old, 
 an' jest as purty as a pink all red an' white ; looked 
 jest 's if somebody'd spatted her side o' the face. She 
 went down into the water with the parson ; an' when 
 he put her under an' fetched her up ag'in, I shouted 
 Hallelujah as loud as any of 'em. Did it hurt her any, 
 you say ? Laud sakes, no ! Folks never catches cold 
 them times. 
 
 " Our Jesse, he stood back with the crowd, and when
 
 4 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 she come out all drippin' and solemn, seemed 's if she 
 looked for him fust one. But he turned his head 'tother 
 way an' walked off. I can see him as plain. What 
 for? Why, you see he wa'n't a professor. He didn't 
 b'lieve that way. An' her folks w r as terrible strict. 
 He was a peart one, if I do say it. An' he was my 
 brother, too. Folks don't allays hev a call to flatter 
 their own, but I ain't no believer in riinnin' down your 
 kith an' kin for perliteness to other folks. They 
 couldn't say a word against Jess. Square up an' down 
 he was 'bout everything, an' a mind of his own. He 
 hed a mighty masterful way with him, too ; an' pa an' 
 ma they jest hoped he'd get Rachel if he'd wait long 
 enough. Mebbe they thought the old folks 'd die. 
 But old folks will hang on amazin'. An' after a spell 
 he got the Western fever bad, an' nothiii' 'd do but to 
 try farmin' on't out there. 
 
 " Folks didn't write letters much them days. It cost 
 twenty-five cents to get one, an' money didn't grow 
 onto every bush, way it does now. But Jesse wrote to 
 ma that fall 'twas spring when he left an' he sent 
 some word to Rachel. Ma cried, I remember, an' I 
 wondered what for, but she wouldn't tell. It was a 
 Sunday mornin', an' one o' the neighbors fetched her 
 the letter to church. He said he tucked it under the 
 wagon seat when he went to the post-office, an' forgot 
 it for about a week. She carried that letter 'round 
 in her pocket an' never showed it, an' pa said he
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 5 
 
 couldn't get it out of her what 'twas all about. Jess 
 was like ma ; straight as an arrer, an' true as preachin', 
 an' mighty close-mouthed. 
 
 " After that Rachel didn't come to our house, nor we 
 didn't go there. That winter ma got another letter, an' 
 some on't she read to us, but not all. She waited till 
 meetin' was out to see Rachel, an' said somethin' or 
 'nother to her. I couldn't make out what 'twas, but 
 the girl redded up an' acted jest's if she'd got somethin' 
 to say, only the deacon was close by, lookin' at her, an' 
 she shet her mouth tight. The deacon, I forgot to say, 
 was her pa. 
 
 ' Well, 'twas nigh onto five year 'fore Rachel 
 married, an' we'd kind o' lost sight o' Jess. What 
 made her marry? Laws! how sh'd I know? Mark 
 was a good farmer, an' he'd got money laid up. He 
 was a professor, too. He went down into the water 
 that same day with Rachel buried in babtism, you 
 know ; an' we Babtists make a good deal o' that. He 
 wa'ii't much of a man after all ; sort o' chips in por- 
 ridge, you know ; never did a mite o' harm, but he 
 didn't amount to a row o' shucks. Only he could 
 make money. They used to say he'd pinch a dollar till 
 the eagle on't squealed. When the ol' folks died he got 
 the farm, bein' the oldest, an' I guess Rachel had easier 
 times. For Mark's folks was plaguey hard to got along 
 with. They was all money-makers, tight as a drum. I 
 tell you the ol' man squeezed the pennies !
 
 6 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " An' Rachel had a lot o' children. There was Joe 
 an' Tim an' Zeke all jest like their pa. Then she 
 had one little girl that took arter her ; a purty cretur, 
 with a smile for everybody; allays givin' away every- 
 thing she'd got, jest like her ma, the ol' folks said. 
 She was a lovin' little thing as ever I see, an' Rachel 
 set store by her. Mark said she spiled her, but 'twu'n't 
 so. She wa'n't that sort. It's weak stuff that spiles 
 easy. 
 
 " One day they had a sewin'-meetin' to the house, an' 
 Rachel was awful busy gettin' supper. 'Twas a hot 
 day, an' the little un played outside. Jest as they was 
 all settin' down to the table she come mopin' along in, 
 an' said her head ached, an' cried some. Rachel was 
 that worried, but the minister's wife was there, an" they 
 all thought she babied the little girl too much : so 
 Rachel jest told her to run along out an' she should 
 have her supper when they got through. She told me 
 after 'twas all over, seemed 's if 'twould kill her sendin' 
 the child away so. Somethin' seemed hangin' over her; 
 only she Avas 'shamed to act foolish. Well, that night 
 little Mary died sudden ; out of her head an' never 
 knew her mother. That's her little grave-stone, leanin' 
 onto one side, over there by Mark's folks most cov- 
 ered up witli grass. After she was buried Rachel had 
 a fit o' sickness, an' there wa'n't a mite o' color in her 
 face when she got over it. 
 
 " I reckon 'twas a good thing for her when the old
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 7 
 
 folks passed away. She didn't have a real easy time 
 with 'em, bring-in' up her boys. Boys will be boys, an' 
 they didn't like to hev so many orderin' 'em 'round. 
 Tim, he run away : but when his granther died lie got 
 back ag'in. They was stiddy enough bo}'s, as boys 
 goes, but they didn't amount to much. Kind o' small 
 potatoes, every one of 'em. Rachel, she had the snap. 
 She'd do more work days an' then set up nights with 
 sick folks than anybody within ten miles o' here. Jest 
 about a year after Mary died she hed another girl baby, 
 and by an' by two more boys. 
 
 When Tom he was the baby then was big 
 enough to run 'round, all of a sudden Jess come home. 
 Pa hed been dead a good man}* years, an' ma was livin' 
 with us. Mebbe you don't wan* to hear all about this. 
 You do, eh ? Well, our folks says you can't stop me 
 when I get onto old times, more'n you could stop a 
 ox-team runnin' down meetin'-us hill. Where be I ? 
 Oil yes I sort o' wondered what Jess'd say, but 
 my wife she told me to keep still. Jess was a grand 
 lookin' man, if I do say it. He'd got a big farm out 
 West, and he said ma must go an' keep house for him. 
 She was as tickled about it as missy with a new beau ; 
 an' proud ! proud wa'n't no name for it ! 
 
 " Well, next mornin' I hed to be down medder 
 tnrnin' the grass, an' Rachel's little feller was t'other 
 side the fence hollerin' at me. I was 'fraid he'd get 
 lost or somethin'd happen to him, so I told him his ma
 
 8 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 wanted him, an' purty soon down she come ; for Rachel 
 never could let one on 'em out of her sight. An' when 
 I looked 'round, what should I see but Jess comin' 
 down the lane ! I got out o' the way, for it scairt me 
 to think o' seein' them two together ag'in. Rachel did 
 a poor thing when she took Mark, for all his money. 
 It didn't do her a mite o' good, an' his stingy ways was 
 powerful pinchin' for anybody to put up with, let alone 
 a big-hearted woman like her, allays helpin' poor folks 
 an' gettin' scolded for 't, an' bearin' the brunt of every- 
 thing. Well, I jest scrooched down behind a rock that 
 I'd allays hated to hev in the medder, but I was power- 
 ful glad on 't that day ; an' Rachel picked up her baby 
 an' started to go back. When she see Jess standin' 
 still before her, a great, big feller, all dressed up fine's 
 a fiddle, she sort o' sunk right down on to the grass. 
 They didn't shake hands, nor so much as pass the time 
 o' day. But Jess picked up the little feller, an' set 
 down, with 'im on one knee, an' took out a big watch 
 from his wesket pocket for 'im to play with. Rachel 
 was white as a sheet, an' she didn't seem to open her 
 mouth; leastways I couldn't hear a word. The little 
 chap was terrible sassy with 'im, pullin' his whiskers, 
 and climbin' all over 'im, an' flingin' the Avatch fur as 
 'twould go to the end o' the chain. Purty soon Jess 
 spoke up. an' says he : 
 
 " 'This little feller had ought to be'n mine, Rachel.' 
 " An' then I see Rachel get up like an old woman an'
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 9 
 
 reach out for the child ; but he wouldn't leave Jess. 
 She put both hands up over her face, an" Jess, he 
 pushed the boy out'n his lap an' was over the fence an' 
 up the lane in the shake of a lamb's tail. He went out 
 West ag'in in a day or two, an' took ma with 'iin ; 'twas 
 like l>ein' set right down in a butter-tub, as we say, an' 
 there she stayed, roll in' in luxury, she wrote to us, till 
 she died. 
 
 Xow, mebbe you think "tain't much of a story, this, 
 but there's a little more to it. By an' by the boys got 
 along up to be men, narrer, like their pa ; scrimpin' in 
 their ways, so's nobody could get along with 'em unless 
 'twas their wives. Women folks does have a way of 
 puttin" up with things that "d rile a saint. Then Mark 
 up and died 'twas one hot summer in hayin' time 
 an' Joe got the farm. Rachel stayed on with 'em, an' 
 did the heavy work. Joe's wife had narves, an' she 
 couldn't have the babies sleep with her nights ; so 
 Rachel took 'em, and did most o' the bringin' up. 
 She got enough to eat an' to wear, but 'twas all purty 
 plain, even for plain folks like us. Someways she man- 
 aged to look different from other women folks, even 
 when she got old an" wrinkled. There was a 'mazin' 
 peaceful kind o' look on her face, as if this world wa'n't 
 all there was of it, that I declare to goodness when she 
 come into church with two or three little uns hangin' 
 onto her, she was han'some as a pictur'. When any o' 
 the neighbors took sick, they sent for her, day or night :
 
 10 A HILLTOP SL'MMEK 
 
 an' my wife she says the sight of her face was better'n 
 a dose o' medicine any time. 
 
 " Well, it went on that way till she was nigh onto 
 seventy year old. An' then Jess come back ag'in. 
 We was that proud on him ! A better lookin' man, an' 
 a younger, for one that was gettiii' along, you couldn't 
 pick out in a week o' Sundays. Held his head up 's 
 if 'twas check-reined, high collar, good necktie week 
 days an' all, not a wrinkle in the back of his coat, 
 trousers gallussed up to the right notch, boots shiny. 
 It jes' did your heart good to look at 'im. 
 
 " 'Twas Saturday night when he come, an' Sunday 
 we took 'im to church with us. I brushed up some, an' 
 wife she fixed up her bunnit with a new ribbin. 
 Rachel was there in her weeds, with Joe an' his chil- 
 dren. Their ma couldn't stan' Babtist preachin' no 
 way ; an' she was most giner'ly on her back Sundays. 
 An' Jess, he never took his eyes off' n Rachel. But she 
 didn't see 'm I say, though wife she says she did. 
 What made her think so was because Rachel's cheeks 
 was as pink as peaches. But 'twas a hot Sunday, an' 
 the parson lied a miled-long sermon, about bein' buried 
 in babtism, provin' that the' wa'n't no other way to be 
 saved skercely. My wife, she thought 'twas all gospel 
 truth; an' mebbe I should too if it hadn't been that 
 Jess was settin' right there hearin' of it too. 
 
 " When we went home out o' sight o' him an' the 
 neighbors, she nudged me sudden, an' says she :
 
 RACHEL AND JESSE 11 
 
 " ' What d'ye thiiik's goin' to happen ? ' 
 
 u An' I says, ' Dunno, unless you women folks 've 
 been gittiii' up another donation visit to take the bread 
 out o' our mouths.' We'd jest lied one along towards 
 spring ; an' I wa'n't the only man that growled some 
 because the parson lived so high without workin' for't 
 like the rest on us. 
 
 " Well, she's a master-hand to guess out things, my 
 wife is, an' she tried to get me into 't. I was jest beat 
 out with the heat an' the preachin' and says I, ' Out 
 with it if you've got anythin' to say, an' don't keep me 
 on tenter hooks no longer.' 
 
 " But she waited till I'd onloeked the kitchen door, 
 an' then she stepped inside right afore me, an' says 
 she : 
 
 " ' Rachel's goin' to marry Jess this time ! ' 
 
 " I declar' for 't, you could hev knocked me down 
 with a broom splinter! 'You don't say so!' says I. 
 An' I couldn't eat any dinner leastways not much, 
 an' she lied an extry one that day. 
 
 " When Jess come in he'd been talkin' with Square 
 'Lias out by the shed I was goin' to ask "im. But 
 wife jest hushed me up, an' begun to talk about the 
 weather ; an' when we was alone, me an' him, I hedn't 
 got the courage. If I hed, I'd a known ; an' 'twould 
 be a comfort. But that's the end to a long story, an' I 
 reckon, you're purty well tuckered out with my talk by 
 this time. Didn't he marry her after all? Well, I'm
 
 12 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 bound to say, no. He hung round a spell, which wa'n't 
 like Jess, an' use' to go to the house purty often, till 
 Joe as good's invited him to leave. Joe never wasted 
 time Tamiii' manners, from what I heerd say. He told 
 the Square after meetin' next Sunday, that any man 
 that couldn't take care of his own mother hedn't never 
 ough' to hev one. 
 
 " I ruther guess they kind o' over-persuaded Aunt 
 Rachel, an' talked about her dooty, an' the foolishness 
 of it all. Jess lied the same old masterful way that 
 most folks couldn't git 'round. But they argied that 
 old folks better be satisfied as they was. An' they got 
 the parson to come down to the house an' tell 'im. It 
 was kind o' town talk for a spell. An' then Jess he 
 went West ag'in, an' said nothin' to nobody ; an' not a 
 word have we heerd from that day to this." 
 
 The old man walked off. leaning hard on his staff, 
 but turned by the meeting-house steps to set his hat 
 well on the back of his head, and say, " Good day, an' 
 good luck to ye." 
 
 One evening just at sunset, we strolled down to the 
 little burying-ground, drawn irresistibly toward the 
 grave of everybody's Aunt Rachel. The robins were 
 piping their happy good-night song, and the world 
 seemed brimful and running over with life and hope. 
 Picking our way among the slanting headstones, we 
 came suddenly upon the new-made grave. Kneeling
 
 BACUEL AND JESSE 
 
 13 
 
 beside it was a tall figure with silvery hair. One thin 
 hand rested on the mound, supporting the body which 
 had half fallen across it. 
 
 Three days later we stood with our old friend beside 
 another new-made grave, side by side with Rachel's. 
 The neighbors had left us alone, and the old man 
 
 O 
 
 thought aloud, as if we too were gone. 
 
 " Jess, my boy, 'twas a hard row you hed to hoe a 
 hard row. They 
 might 've let you 
 hed her. 'Twa'n't 
 right. She'd ough' 
 to hev hed your 
 prop'ty not us. 
 They 'd a buried 
 you over there in 
 the swamp corner 
 if I hedn't hed my 
 say. They can't 
 send you away 
 now, Jess, if you ain't a perfessor. An' whose shall 
 she be in the resurrection ? If the Scriptur's true that 
 says there they neither marry nor are given in mar- 
 riage, but are as the angels of God, I don't see 
 Avhy you ain't got jest as good a claim to Rachel as 
 Mark hed. For lovin's the main thing up ther, I 
 reckon, Jess, my boy, an' you've allays loved her 
 dear."
 
 14 
 
 A HILLTOP sl'MMKK 
 
 II 
 
 JESS S MONEY 
 
 WE came to Hilltop "when the trees were just begin- 
 ning to thicken at their twigs. The little runways that 
 slid down the hills carried a 
 faint line of growth along their 
 edges, as if tidy Nature had 
 turned over a green hem of 
 earth to keep them within 
 bounds. The precaution seem- 
 ed needless, though in touch 
 with the general economic plan. 
 Elsewhere the grass lay dis- 
 couragingly dead and trodden, 
 without a suggestion of what 
 was to come. 
 
 After a few days the sharp edge of the air was blunted, 
 and as the sap rose and rioted along the patient tree- 
 trunks it set the dry bark thinking, and swelled the 
 millions of leaf-buds till they showed misty reds and 
 browns and pale yellows against the cold blue of the 
 sky. One evening a warm rain fell ; the angel on the 
 meeting-house steeple veered, and blew his long trumpet
 
 JESS'S MONEY 15 
 
 toward the south ; and when the sun shone at next mid- 
 day, the trees of the fields clapped their hands. 
 
 Now the contagion of growth had seized them every 
 one ; and this May morning, as we strolled along in the 
 dew after our six o'clock breakfast, spoiling our shoes 
 and trailing our flannel gowns, we saw that the pap- 
 poose buds had dropped great hanging sheaths, and let 
 out soft pale-green baby leaves that were ready to shift 
 for themselves with the rashness of youth. The maples 
 were bright atop, the horse-chestnuts held up great bou- 
 quets of fringed white and green. Everywhere grew 
 yellow buttercups. Red sorrel in the fields, red colum- 
 bine in crevices of the rocks ; the old, barren earth had 
 indeed broken forth into singing, and these were her 
 first quivering chords. Painted-cup was gay in the 
 meadows, Jack-in-the-pulpit was ready for his sermon, 
 and the swamp was one fog of leaves. 
 
 Coming suddenly upon a story-and-a-half house at a 
 turn in the road, we stopped to admire the vines that 
 clambered up by the brown picket fence, and hung 
 themselves over when they could no longer climb. 
 There were bittersweet from the woods, and wild clem- 
 atis ; and tangled with this transplanted growth were 
 sweet peas and nasturtiums, reaching foolish tendrils 
 nowhere, or clinging to spears of grass that bent to 
 every breath of wind. 
 
 "Come right along in right along in," said Uncle 
 Arad, planting his stout staff in our direction. " She'll 
 be proper glad to see you."
 
 16 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 "But at this time," we objected. 
 
 "Land! what time do ye s'pose it is? We get our 
 breakfast 'long o' the robins ; an' they don't waste none 
 o' the dew-time, I reckon. Why, Aunt Tishy she got 
 her bakin' done an hour ago, an' hes jest be'n up garret 
 for a passel o' rags. She'll be tickled enough to hev 
 you two come in an' help her sort colors. Rag mats, y' 
 know." 
 
 We needed no other invitation. The cool, clean 
 kitchen, with its scoured floor and wide fireplace, where 
 two sticks were making bright embers, was the main 
 room of the house. Besides this, its roof covered a 
 tiny, shut-up parlor, a bedroom on one side the chimney, 
 and a large pantry and milkroom on the other. The 
 window that looked toward the meeting-house was bril- 
 liant with scarlet geraniums that love the sunniness and 
 moisture of a kitchen. A tabby cat curled on the hearth 
 gave a homey look to the somewhat bare room. We 
 had been frequent visitors at the house since our com- 
 ing to Hilltop early in the spring, and our presence was 
 no more disturbing to the cat than to Aunt Tishy. 
 
 Uncle Arad sat down before the fire with his hat on, 
 and leaned both hands on his staff. 
 
 " She was a school-teacher some years back," he be- 
 gan,; "an' what she don't know how to do " 
 
 Uncle Arad's pride in his wife's attainments came to 
 no conclusion. 
 
 "My other Mis' Ridge," he added, "sent the little
 
 JESS'S MONEY 17 
 
 uns to school to her when she wa'n't more'n fifteen ; 
 now, was ye ? " 
 
 " Sixteen that spring Ann died," said Aunt Tishy, 
 cutting strips of red flannel which we begged to sew 
 together and roll into balls. 
 
 " Ann come nex' to the boy," said Uncle Arad medi- 
 tatively. " Sam well, then Ann, then Thurzy, then Al- 
 miry. All of 'em went afore their ma. Seem's though 
 'twas some other world them days. An' now they're 
 gone where the streets is paved with gold, an' money 
 can't do 'em a mite o' good. An' here Jess hes up an 
 left me all his prop'ty. Curi's. It kind o' tires me to 
 think on 't. Can't take it with me, as they say, when 
 I've got to le' go my hold here. Not a soul to leave it 
 to 'cept the missionaries, an' 'twouldn't be a drop in 
 the buckit to them." 
 
 The old man got up, heavy with thought, and sat 
 down on the doorsill. 
 
 " 'Tis a terrible responsibility," said Aunt Tishy 
 softly, taking up the burden where he dropped it. 
 "Sometimes I think and then again I let it alone. 
 But it does seem doesn't it? as if when we've 
 got through with it we ought to fix it so as some of 
 our sort could have the use of it. I never believed 
 in missionarying so much as some. If a man has a call 
 to go amongst the heathen, I'm not going to put blocks 
 in his way. But when he expects a woman and little 
 children to live there with him, and bear the brunt of
 
 18 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 it, and keeps the blessing to himself why, it gets me 
 right up in arms. Let him self-sacrifice if he wants to. 
 I like to see a man that can. But I don't know. I've 
 thought and thought." 
 
 There was a long pause. The cat rose and stretched 
 herself, and tried her claws on her mistress's apron. 
 
 " There, Tildy, I knew you'd do it," she said mildly, 
 as the red and black strips slid to the floor. " See 
 what a mess you've made ! No, you know I can't have 
 you in my lap. Don't you see I had my strips all 
 sorted ? " 
 
 The cat listened with a bored air, turned resignedly 
 away, and jumped for her master's shoulder. 
 
 "That's Tildy all over!" said Aunt Tishy, making 
 a deeper lap for her balls. "If I won't have her she 
 goes straight to him. She thinks she's had her own 
 way now. But about that money. I wish I could 
 have a sort of leading of Providence, such as some folks 
 have. I think and think till it seems as if I couldn't. 
 You wonder if there isn't some of my folks needing it, 
 you say. Well, yes, I'm free to tell you, plenty of 
 them. But there's one of his sort that I do feel a draw- 
 ing towards. He's his sister's well there, you don't 
 know. But he had one sister, Samiry, and she didn't 
 do well marrying. That is, in one way." 
 
 "Smirymus wus her name," put in Uncle Arad. 
 " 'Twa'n't Scriptur', but it b'longed to some o' them 
 countries."
 
 JESS'S MONEY 19 
 
 " All his folks and hers set against it," continued 
 Aunt Tishy, " but she would have him, and she did. 
 He was a wild harum-scarum sort of boy, mighty fond 
 of his book, though. But he was different. He was 
 made different, I say; and the old folks didn't know 
 how to get along with him any more than if he'd been 
 a live scarecrow. He was full of his tricks, and they 
 didn't have any too much patience. Folks didn't have, 
 very often, in those days. There was everything to do, 
 and not much to do with, and they couldn't put up 
 with fooling. Young folks had to walk straight. If a 
 boy had got to man's size, he must toe the mark or take 
 a birching. And Abner couldn't. I always would 
 stand up for him. I said then, and I say it now, it was 
 a shame to whip a boy for laughing 011 a Sunday. He 
 was a pretty boy too. There wasn't one in school I set 
 more store by than him always read}- to get a pail of 
 water recess time, and then he'd want to pass it round 
 in school. I couldn't say no after he'd spent all his 
 play-time to get it ; but when he passed it round there'd 
 be such a jumping and squealing that I knew some mis- 
 chief was afoot. He was just as sober as a judge, and I 
 couldn't find out for the life of me till little Billy Riggs 
 told 011 him. He said when the little boys bent down 
 their heads to do sums, Abner passed the dipper over, 
 and a trickle went right down their necks. But he 
 never seemed to do it, and try my best I couldn't find 
 out if 'twas more than an accident.
 
 20 A UILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " He was kind-hearted, but the sort that can't be 
 happy unless they're in mischief. He knew every weed 
 that ever grew round the swamp, and was always get- 
 ting into difficulties with his muddy clothes and what 
 not. He was always tearing his jackets too. And I 
 can fairly see him now, tetering way out on an oak- 
 limb to get a peek into a bird's nest. The birds didn't 
 care. They thought he was another kind of one so 
 
 long as he didn't 
 have four legs. He 
 knew just what 
 every bird sung, 
 and just how they 
 called to each other, and he 
 could make sounds like every 
 one of them. Why, I've heard 
 a pewee answer back to him 
 time and again. He never took 
 their eggs nor disturbed them any way ; and the old 
 robin that had a nest right out here in the cherry- 
 tree would let him come close up to her when she 
 was brooding, and never stir. She'd kind of cock 
 her head on one side, and look him over as if she 
 was taking his measure and calculating what sort of a 
 nest he was likely to build. Like as not he'd fall out 
 of the tree, forgetting where he was, with his mind 
 somewhere else, and 'twas bad for his clothes. I do 
 suppose that boy's back smarted from one week's end
 
 JESS'S MONEY 21 
 
 to the other, let alone the scratches he got from the 
 trees. But he wasn't any coward. I've seen the tears 
 come to liis eyes when I've read stories in school 
 well, I won't tell you what about. I was young then, 
 but I ought to have known better. There's enough to 
 cry about when real trouble comes. But Abner never 
 cried on his own account. I can say that for him. 
 
 " Well, he wanted to be somebody, he said ; and 
 when he was old enough they put him to shoemaking 
 with Uncle Israel Ball. Uncle Israel pegged right 
 down to work, and wanted everybody to do the same. 
 He was clever enough ; but there wasn't ever any fun 
 in him, and he couldn't see the use of it. You couldn't 
 eat it nor drink it, he said, and folks was put into this 
 world to make a living. 'Twas pretty hard on Abner 
 when he wanted learning so bad. It was meat and 
 drink to him. I don't know what would have become 
 of him if they'd let him have his head; but he'd been 
 some sort of a scholar, and likely as not made a living 
 by it." 
 
 u He run away," interpolated Uncle Arad from the 
 doorsill. 
 
 " Yes," sighed Aunt Tishy, "he ran away; and when 
 they got him back his father was considerable stricter 
 with him." 
 
 "He thrashed 'im," said Uncle Arad, bending his 
 neck to give Tabby a comfortable perch. 
 
 " Well, so they said," replied Aunt Tishy mildly,
 
 22 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 'and 1 shouldn't wonder. His father wasn't a saint, 
 and I suppose Abner was trying. But in these days 
 they don't draw the lines so tort. Well, that boy would 
 stay up nights to read till they took his light away ; 
 and then he'd get up soon as he could see. The minis- 
 ter lent him books, all about birds and beasts. He was 
 fond of them himself. There was White's Natural His- 
 tory of something that he read twenty times over, till 
 he could tell everything in it. Many a time has he sat 
 on that doorsill and told me things I couldn't hardly 
 believe. Seems as if he'd die if he couldn't get learn- 
 ing some way. I've seen some of the things he wrote 
 out, and Parson Todd said they compared favorable 
 with pieces he'd read in the newspapers. But as for 
 shoemaking, 'twas of no use. The boy got so he hated 
 the sight of a last, and a waxed end was an abomina- 
 tion; and his folks just about went distracted over 
 him." 
 
 " More fools they ! " piped Uncle Arad. " He wa'n't 
 the sort that goes wrong a-purpose. They nagged an' 
 nagged, enough to spile the soundest boy-timber that 
 ever growed ; till one day he up an' run away in good 
 'arnest, an' nobody to answer for't but his pa. Out 
 West he went, like many another, an' picked up work 
 enough ; no shirk about him, an' bymeby home he come 
 to marry our S'miry. Folks flung out everything they 
 could about him ; but Jess he stood up for Abner, and 
 'twas him, I reckon, helped 'em get away. Parson
 
 JESS'S MONEY 23 
 
 Smith, over mountain, he married 'em one Monday 
 mornin' afore breakfast. She'll tell ye the rest." 
 
 " Well," said Aunt Tishy with a comfortable sigh, 
 " 'tisn't much more to tell. He got work to do and 
 books to study, and Samiry wrote home that he was 
 just as good a provider as any man could be, and that 
 she'd yet to see the day she was sorry. But 'twasn't 
 more than two or three years before Abner took the 
 fever and died, and she came home with her baby, and 
 kind of faded away to nothing. The old folks did as 
 well as they knew how for the baby, and never would 
 give it up to his folks. Mother Ridge was a good hand 
 with babies, easy-going and always trying to excuse 
 their ways. We used to say she recollected when she 
 was little. She could see good in other folks's children 
 too, and was always laying up the reddest apples and 
 the biggest but'nuts for them. But that poor mother- 
 less baby didn't seem to belong to Abner. He hadn't 
 any spunk. You could put him in one place and he'd 
 stay there. When he was big enough they tried him 
 at shoemaking and he stuck to it. So he would to any- 
 thing, though he wouldn't have thought it out for him- 
 self. When folks put things into his hands he held on. 
 It's a born fool, they say, that hasn't got any grip. 
 
 " Well, Abner's boy made a good steady-going man, 
 though for the life of me I couldn't feel drawn towards 
 him, even for his poor father's sake ; and when his time 
 came, he got married and settled down. They jogged
 
 24 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 along pretty comfortable for some years, without any 
 children to keep them spry and looking into things, 
 so that when our Abner did come along late in the day, 
 'twas like a miracle. 
 
 " They do say family looks and other things will 
 likely as not skip a generation and crop out again. 
 It's somehow like a piece of fallow ground. And 
 Abner's peculiar ways hadn't been worked up much 
 for one generation. First anybody knew this child 
 blazed right out, another Abner; the very image and 
 superscription of his grandpa. They couldn't have 
 named him better, though they didn't know it then. 
 He's all books, books, books, and nobody to encourage 
 him, only when he comes over here of a Sunday. I 
 have to tell him all about his grandfather, every 
 single word. I did hate to mention his pranks, but 
 there's no keeping back from this one. I've told those 
 same stones over and over till half the time I don't 
 believe them myself. He lives over there on Davy's 
 hill all alone, since the old gentleman died last winter. 
 One of the neighbors cooks his breakfast and supper, 
 and sees to the house, and he carries his dinner to 
 school, down there in the hollow. I expect he studies 
 too much nights, but he won't own up to it. We get 
 him over here to dinner Sundays ; and when Uncle 
 Arad goes out to do the milking, I make him talk over 
 his plans. But, poor boy I he'll be as old as Methusaleh 
 before he gets money enough to go to college. You're
 
 JESS'S MONEY 25 
 
 sure you ha ven* t run across him anywhere ? Well, I 
 wonder at it, for I reckon you like to climb rocks and 
 wade round in the swamp 'most as well as he does." 
 
 " She's coniin' to the p'int now,'' said Uncle Arad, 
 slowly getting up and straightening his cramped 
 muscles. " I ain't in a hurry, but mebbe you two be, 
 an' I've seen better 'commodations than this 'ere door- 
 sill. Tell 'em now, Aunt Tishy, what you was think- 
 in' about doiii' for Abner. Y' see, for a spell after we 
 got Jess's money, we use' to lie awake nights about it. 
 We couldn't take it with us, an' we hated dretfully 
 to leave it, an' we hedn't got long to stay, though she's 
 nigh onto twenty year younger 'n I be. An' for one 
 spell last winter we'd lie an' hear the wind squealin' 
 round the chimbly, an' we'd say, 4 Le's fix up the ol' 
 house, an' raise the ruff, an' make it two stories between 
 jints, an' put a portico over the south stoop with pil- 
 lers.' But, land-a-massy ! what could we do with a 
 mansion over our heads? 'Twouldn't fit. Some cre- 
 turs can crawl out o' their ole shells into bigger ones 
 an' rattle round in 'em till they grow to fill 'em out, ef 
 they hev good luck. But \ve was too old. 'Twould 
 make a kind o' division amongst the neighbors too. 
 They wouldn't drop in after supper, friendly, if we hed 
 a front room all fixed up with a boughten carpet an' a 
 sofy. She thought we'd move the bed out, an' use the 
 room common. But we'd miss it in case of sickness. 
 Top chamber rooms don't fit old folks with stiff j'ints.
 
 26 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 You want to go right from the kitchen lire to bed. An' 
 a front room ain't reel comfortable anyway y' can fix it. 
 You set round kind o' starchy like comp'ny, an' nothin' 
 to say. Folks ain't plagued with idees when they live 
 in the front room. Now she'll go on." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Aunt Tishy took up the dropped 
 thread of her story again, while the cat crept out be- 
 hind the rose bushes to lay plans for a robin that stalked 
 just beyond reach. 
 
 " What I was coming to was about Abner. We'd be 
 glad enough to help him if only we knew how. But 
 that's the business that keeps us awake nights. He's 
 in favor of giving the boy enough right out to take him 
 square through college ; but I can't seem to see my 
 way clear to it. Of course he's our folks, but then 
 and I get to thinking it over and over till it don't seem 
 to have any sense. I shouldn't want folks to give me 
 money that they could use for themselves, and he's 
 enough like his grandpa to say he wouldn't touch it. 
 You can't give money to folks same as if 'twas garden 
 sauce, or maybe a piece of sperrib at butchering time 
 that was more than you knew what to do with your- 
 self. I'm free to tell you it's harder for me not to hold 
 on to money than 'tis for him. It's partly in the blood, 
 and it's partly bringing up. He was forehanded for 
 those days when I married him; and I'd been earning 
 my money at the hardest in a district school, and board- 
 ing round. There wasn't anybody to look out for me.
 
 JESS'S MONEY 27 
 
 But there, I shall think it all out some night when I'm 
 lying awake, and then I'll know for sure. If young 
 folks had to lie awake the way old folks do, they 
 wouldn't make so many mistakes bringing up their 
 families. It's so kind of peaceful along before cock- 
 crow, and the earth seems so small flying 'round there 
 amongst the stars, that your own affairs don't loom up 
 to the daytime size, and you can get a sight at them 
 all round." 
 
 The tall clock in the corner ticked in an important 
 way, and flashed back at the sun that had just looked 
 into its face. Tabby slipped in, licking her chops with 
 a foretaste of spring robin, and lay down discontented 
 at the feet of her mistress, who added : 
 
 " Providence didn't see fit, all these years, to send 
 us anybody to provide for specially : Why, Arad 
 Ridge ! " she cried, with such energy that Tabby bris- 
 tled and sprang for the door ; "why, for goodness' sake, 
 don't we two adopt him! Maybe that's what Provi- 
 dence meant all this time ! " 
 
 As we went out under the cherry-trees two robins 
 stood at gaze in a straight line and watched us severely. 
 In the tall Norway spruce by the back gate there was 
 a sound like touching a dry leaf followed by the quip 
 of hurrying wings. Something suspected us. Two 
 wrens were building in a box on a pole, singing as they 
 built. It sounded like " blowing a pipe under water." 
 Orioles flashed by with their flying thir-r-r, thir-r-r ; a
 
 28 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 song sparrow was trying variations on his quis-ka-dee 
 theme. The air was full of the divine scent of apple 
 blossoms, some trees still in pink bud, fresh and sweet 
 as if this were their first experiment in a waiting world. 
 A young man passed us beside the garden wall, and 
 lifted his hat. It was the first attention of the kind 
 that Hilltop had granted us, and we promptly made up 
 our minds that this could be no other than Abner the 
 Second. It was Saturday and a holiday. The stranger 
 carried a mighty bouquet of wild columbine. As we 
 went on the gate creaked behind us, and we fell to 
 wondering if Aunt Tishy would recognize in this un- 
 usual visit a leading of Providence.
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 
 
 29 
 
 III 
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 
 
 IF clouds could pick up individual houses as one 
 gathers flowers or berries, and drop them again reck- 
 lessly, Hilltop might have been the result of a cloud- 
 burst at an inauspicious moment. Perched on the tip 
 of a rocky plateau, stood the orthodox meeting-house, 
 
 
 <'!> ' ' '' i<2 ^^WlffTi 
 
 1 y M^S-fePii" 
 
 to which all but a favored half-dozen families had to 
 climb for their weekly sermon. Around the edifice, as 
 the slow imagination of the elders named it, spread a 
 discouraged common, less than a half-acre in extent, 
 zigzagged by footpaths, and foiled in its tardy attempts 
 at greenness by sheep that roamed and nibbled at will,
 
 30 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 and made quiet pictures, restful to the eye. One could 
 hear the sound of their grazing across the common on 
 still days when the world lay asleep. A small box of a 
 brown church called 'Piscopal, with a cross on its 
 steeple, stood blinking over the way, with shutterless 
 windows. The weather-beaten door, that had not been 
 unlocked since the society died out, groaned dismally 
 in a high wind; and children ran away from it. A 
 haunted church is far more ghostly than a haunted 
 house, for its possibilities are as ten to one. 
 
 On a sunny slope still higher than the common, 
 'Squire 'Lias's house stood, cheerful and inviting, catch- 
 ing the light of the sun before he dropped to unseen 
 depths behind the opposite hill, and flashing it back 
 from two rows of shining windows, two oval cross-eyes 
 above the front door, and the one small, arched garret 
 window over all. 
 
 Mrs. 'Lias, the presiding genius of the place through 
 the day, was the serene mother of sons and daughters 
 who came home with large families to Thanksgiving, 
 but left the great house lonely through the long sum- 
 mer days, so that it was easy to secure a comfortable 
 shelter during the weeks of heat that depopulate cities. 
 We were the only summer boarders that had, as yet, 
 toiled up the steeps to Hilltop, and the chances were 
 that its casino-days were as far removed as the millen- 
 nium. Once a week the stage climbed slowly up and 
 up and up ; the driver halted by the town pump, took a
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 31 
 
 package from his breast pocket and handed it to the 
 storekeeper, Captain Saul, who blew the dust out of a 
 cigar-box before transferring the precious foreign intel- 
 ligence to its keeping. The postmaster had been a 
 seafaring man in his youth long past, and now kept 
 house in a small room back of the store. There he 
 took his letters, and the two or three weekly papers 
 subscribed for by the moneyed men of the place, who 
 would call for them in 
 the evening. Seated be- 
 side his one window, 
 with a thrift}- lilac bush 
 tapping on the pane, he 
 took what he called 
 solid comfort in looking 
 over the mail, reading 
 the addresses and post- 
 marks on the letters, 
 
 and guessing who wrote each one and for what pur- 
 pose it was written, before he laid them carefully by 
 in the cigar-box to be called for, or forwarded to 
 remote farms by some so-called neighbor. It beguiled 
 the lingering hours, and furnished abundant food 
 for thought and conjecture. His teakettle always 
 sang fitfully on a stove not much too large for it, 
 unless its room were needed for a skillet of beans 
 or plum duff. We often made small errands to 
 the store, hoping to coax a sea-yarn out of Captain
 
 32 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 Saul. It was well that the errands were of minor 
 importance. 
 
 " Well, 116, miss, I ain't got number eighty, that's a 
 fact ; but here's a spool of twenty left if that'll do you. 
 I bought that thread back in the seventies." 
 
 The Captain assured us that he never extortioned 
 anybody, but that he couldn't afford noway to have 
 clearin' out sales as they did over mountain. Appar- 
 ently he had never had " a home and folks " anywhere. 
 He had sailed to heathenish lands, he told us, but was 
 always in a hurry to get home again and stow away his 
 toggery ship-shape above high-water mark. 
 
 His tales of the sea were not imaginative. He could 
 tell the plain truth with the accuracy of the table in 
 addition, but could no more spin a yarn than weave a 
 web. If he had been born a spider, the flies would 
 have had no occasion to complain of him. The element 
 of romance was wholly lacking in his simple life. 
 " I've heer'd the sea roar and the wind howl," he would 
 say meditatively, with one elbow on the counter ; " but 
 bein' ashore' s another thing another thing." When 
 asked to explain, he had no answer ready ; and while 
 solemnly thinking it over, a customer would occasion- 
 ally surprise him, and so entirely turn the tide of his 
 thoughts that we never knew precisely how the differ- 
 ence between the sea and land struck him. 
 
 At one time all Hilltop thought that Aunt Minerva 
 Pease, a widow of long standing, looked with favor on
 
 A LITTLE WOELD 33 
 
 Captain Saul ; but as the look was not returned, nothing 
 came of it, and the subject, after much handling, was 
 reluctantly dropped. Yet Aunt Minerva, who lived in 
 a house of her own, had five hundred dollars laid up in 
 the bank, as every one knew, and was not a bad-looking 
 woman for one of her age. The Captain was plainly 
 lacking in foresight, if his other faculties were tolerably 
 well preserved. The conjecture caused a lively ripple 
 in the community, that kept it in a state of sparkle for 
 weeks. 
 
 'Squire 'Lias's comfortable house commanded a view 
 of the hill that led to the town ; but away on the west 
 was another summit that we had not explored. Early 
 one bright afternoon we started to look down, if possi- 
 ble, into the mysterious region where the sun disap- 
 peared every night. Our hostess was concerned lest 
 we should be all tuckered out, and late to supper 
 besides, and suggested our taking the horse and shay. 
 But as any horse, however recommended, was to us an 
 unknown quantity, we preferred the ills we w r ere accus- 
 tomed to, and set off sturdily on foot. Passing the 
 common, with its white flock that nibbled all day and 
 gave no thought to digestion, we stopped a moment at 
 Uncle Arad's gate, that hospitably swung in. The 
 vines were reaching out in a clamorous, wild way, and 
 the air was bitter-sweet with cherry blossoms. A sec- 
 ond turning to the west led to higher ground, where we 
 stopped to watch Hurry Brook, as it held the little
 
 34 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 burying ground gently in its left elbow, and, after a 
 caressing pause, dashed on under the low bridge that 
 helped the road climb the hill. 
 
 At the foot of the ascent 
 stood the brown schoolhouse, 
 in the very heart of temptation, 
 where Abner the Second ruled 
 over the entire coming genera- 
 tion of Hilltop. We could hear 
 the shrill voices spelling dread- 
 ful words of four syllables as 
 we climbed the hill. Two grin- 
 ning heads like live gargoyles 
 bent out at two windows to 
 beam upon us, and the spelling 
 voices fell a little, then rose 
 again in a higher key, like those 
 of interrupted katydids. The brook 
 beckoned and the birds enticed, hold- 
 ing the little schoolhouse in the spell 
 of their enchantment ; and the young 
 of all but man made glorious holiday. 
 Long Hill stretched on alluringly, 
 with thick woodland on one side and lonely 
 dwellings on the other, set close to the high- 
 way for what scant company they might find in the 
 few passers-by. It was simply a wood-road that led 
 nowhere. If we had been a circus procession with
 
 A LITTLE WOULD 35 
 
 a brass band, we could not have called more heads to 
 the windows. Now and then an overgrown girl came 
 boldly out to shoo a foolish hen that flew with needless 
 squawking into a new flower-bed, and was left to over- 
 turn the work of days, while we passed in review, con- 
 scious that the fashion of our gowns and the faults of 
 our hats would be repeated for years. 
 
 Here we rested to look down on the little world 
 below. We could track civilization by the rows of 
 cherry-trees, like great white bouquets, marking every 
 homestead. The peach-trees added a pink tinge to the 
 green and white world, and a faint odor of opening 
 apple-buds mingled with the tonic of the cherry. 
 Toward the south, Hurry Brook fell into Roaring River, 
 and, just where they joined forces, the sawmill under 
 its rickety shed was making a huge log into slabs. The 
 sound was not discordant at this distance. Nature 
 manages her chords with discretion, even utilizing man's 
 discords. A single tree-trunk, hewn level on the upper 
 side, bridged the brook perilously a few feet before the 
 stream fell into the rocky bed of the river, and hung 
 full ten feet above the foaming water. Here the saw- 
 miller's wife, whose head grew suddenly dizzy, once 
 made herself famous by jumping into the stream from 
 the middle of the uncertain bridge, and wading out 
 unharmed. In the dearth of talk the story grew as 
 large, if not as fast, as those of town origin, and prom- 
 ised a grandmotherty heroine to future generations.
 
 36 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 In that event we, too, might win local fame. So with 
 sketch-books already half filled, we drew the log bridge, 
 the sawmill, and the two mad streams that suddenly 
 lost their united selves in a gorge between the hills. 
 
 Hours slid away like moments ; the twilight was 
 long in coining ; and as we went on, the ridge of the 
 world seemed to stretch from east to west before us. 
 The trees were wrenched and twisted, mercilessly de- 
 formed and bowed by years of northern blasts. There 
 was an abrupt descent in the path of the sun that daily 
 hid itself from Hilltop long in advance of almanac time. 
 It was too late for us to follow ; so we turned aside, and 
 in the deeps of the wood, a little lower down, sat on a 
 fallen tree-trunk to rest. 
 
 Suddenly, as from some strange planet, if not from 
 the sun itself, whose rays made dancing green and 
 orange tints before our eyes, two figures appeared on 
 the brow of the hill. We sat in the shadow of a great 
 oak-trunk and waited, but they did not pass. Their 
 voices came to us clearly, as they turned with the full 
 light on their young faces, and looked out over the 
 wonderful scene. The young girl was bareheaded, 
 and her hat, swung by its strings, was full of red col- 
 umbine. 
 
 " No, Abner," she was saying, as we tried, guiltily, 
 not to hear, " it's of no use. I shall not change my 
 mind. You are going to be somebody in the world, and
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 
 
 37 
 
 I think too much of you to be a drag. Besides, I am 
 older than you. You will understand it for yourself as 
 soon as you go away from here. Think of a freshman 
 at Yale engaged ! " 
 
 She laughed, a hearty, ringing laugh ; but the young 
 man stood, motionless and unresponsive, with bow r ed 
 head. 
 
 " College life 
 will make a new 
 world for you, 
 Abner, and no- 
 body can be glad- 
 der than I. You 
 will write me 
 about it, I know." 
 
 " No," said Ab- 
 ner the Second, 
 raising his head, 
 " I shall not 
 write." 
 
 " Then I shall be grieved and disappointed," said the 
 other. " You won't keep all your good times to your- 
 self. That isn't like you, Abner." 
 
 There was a pause, and we dared not breathe. 
 
 " No, I don't care for anybody else," she continued, 
 " but I know for certain that my judgment in this is 
 better than yours. I'm older, you know ! " 
 
 And so, with strong emphasis on the word that set 
 

 
 38 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 her to judge her young lover, she turned, and the two 
 passed out of sight. 
 
 Next morning we strolled over to the house beyond 
 the common and found it unoccupied. The kitchen 
 door stood wide open, and the sleepy cat lay in a streak 
 of sunshine, making up for a prowling night. The 
 kettle sang on the longest hook suspended from the 
 crane, and puffed out spiteful jets of steam for its own 
 amusement. We waited awhile, with our tribute of 
 columbine, wild flowers, and saxifrage, until the sound 
 of voices in the garden guided us down the walk be- 
 tween the cherry-trees, whose falling petals made a 
 summer snow flurry. 
 
 " Only jest look at 'er, puttin' her posy-seeds into 
 the ground," said Uncle Arad. " You'd think she's 
 goin' to plant an acre lot." 
 
 We had no other greeting. Uncle Arad sat con- 
 tentedly on the garden bench, watching Aunt Tishy as 
 she dug shallow trenches and dropped seeds with gen- 
 erous, loving care. The accustomed tall silk hat of 
 another generation was replaced by a rakish straw witli 
 narrow brim that might have been great-grandson to 
 the other, though not in lineal descent. 
 
 " I'm doing just as near like Nature as I can," replied 
 Aunt Tishy, from the deeps of a green gingham sun- 
 bonnet. " There isn't a stingy thread about her any- 
 where as I can see, and I calculate I've looked close 
 year after year. Just see how she gives the seeds
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 39 
 
 wings, and sticks them onto the sheep's backs, and 
 trusts the birds with 'em, and sows 'em broadcast from 
 the trees to be trod on and ground up by wheels and 
 lost. If a quarter of mine come up they'll do well." 
 
 " Now, don't y' giv' in to Natur' ; jest expect 'em all 
 to come up," said Uncle Arad, thrusting his stick into 
 the soft mould and making mathematical patterns. 
 " She'll git the better of y' every time ef y' do. 
 Many's the Sunday forenoon I've stood fust on one 
 foot and then on t'other, a-watchin' that cre'tur' on the 
 meetin'-us steeple a-p'intin' nor'east ; an' ef ever I 
 stayed to home to save my clo'es, no sooner 'd the 
 second bell stopped ringin', too late to start, than round 
 she'd flop an' p'int due west, goin' round by the nor- 
 rard, too, like's not, which ain't a sign o' good weather." 
 
 " Uncle Arad, that's an angel," said Aunt Tishy, 
 with as much emphasis as was compatible with her tem- 
 porary obscurity. 
 
 "Angel or woman, I d' know," said Uncle Arad 
 addressing us collectively ; " but she's plaguey con- 
 trairy all the same. Don't y' recollect the time we 
 went over mountain to Isr'el Beerses bury in' ? I got 
 ol' Poll hitched up, sun shinin' an' birds pipin' away, 
 an' it begun to thunder. But I jest tucked in an 
 extry buffalo under the wagon seat, an' a big umberill, 
 an' says I to Aunt Tishy, ' Put on y'r ole things out- 
 side. Ef it's got to rain, 'twill.' I declar' for 't ef them 
 black clouds didn't jest pile right up in the teeth o' the
 
 40 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 wind. The trees sagged, an' the' was a roar follerin' as 
 ef the end o' the world 'd come. But I wa'n't goin' to 
 back out an' lose thet fun'ral. We hedn't be'n over 
 mount'in fer more'n a year ; an' Isr'el was a sort o' 
 distant relation. His father's brother married my 
 mother's half-sister for his second wife, an' one o' the 
 boys was named Arad for me." 
 
 " And it didn't rain a drop," said Aunt Tishy, stand- 
 ing bent a moment with both hands on her knees, then 
 straightening to shake out her apron. " If you don't 
 want to get dirt in your finger-nails, just dip them in 
 flour to begin with." 
 
 "No more it didn't," said Uncle Arad, ignoring the 
 aside. ' Them clouds jest rolled round the mount'in 
 an' let drop some'ers off to west'ard. That extry buf- 
 falo did the bus'ness. You jest go right along when y' 
 git ready, pay no sort o' 'tention to the weather, an' ten 
 to one 'twill hold up for ye. But you stan' on one foot 
 a spell, teterin' in yer mind whether you'll hev yer 
 own way er git wet, an' you'll ketch it for sure. Go 
 right along about yer bus'ness an' the weather"!! most 
 giner'ly stan' out o' yer way. It's so about sights o' 
 things, only I didn't find it out soon enough. A young 
 feller'll hang round a likely girl a spell, an' mebbe let 
 somebody get ahead of him, when ef he'd jest walked 
 right up to 'er fair an' square, he'd got her, easy's 
 preachinV 
 
 "Don't you be too sure of that," warned Aunt Tishy.
 
 A LITTLE WORLD 41 
 
 " You didn't get me first time asking by any manner of 
 means." 
 
 " Nor the second neither," chuckled Uncle Arad, with 
 a great sense of humor ; " but I got ye. That's the 
 p'int." 
 
 " Last night," said Aunt Tishy with dignity, as she 
 loosened the warm strings of her sunbonnet, " I saw 
 our Abner walking up toward Peter's Hill with that 
 Brumley girl." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Uncle Arad shrewdly, "jest like 'er. 
 She set her cap for 'im 'long about the time we 'dopted 
 him. Anybody could see that with half an eye." 
 
 "But she won't catch him," said Aunt Tishy with 
 spirit. " She's all of three years the oldest, if she does 
 keep it close. He'll find it out sometime. You can't 
 cheat a man forever. She's well enough, but Abner'll 
 be apt to look higher. I don't believe she's going to 
 get around him." 
 
 " Say nothin', say nothin'," put in Uncle Arad. " Jest 
 let 'im git off to college. He'll find girls there thicker'n 
 huckleberries. But ef you go to sayin' a word, 'twill 
 spile it all." 
 
 And not one word could we whisper to exonerate the 
 Brumley girl. We were simply eavesdroppers, and 
 must hide our guilty secret. But we did enjoy saying 
 to ourselves on the way home that the world's judg- 
 ments were cruelly wrong, and that it was a worth- 
 while kind of girl who would try to make a man
 
 42 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 promise to write her about his every-day affairs, and so 
 tide over the time till he could see things clearly him- 
 self, instead of cutting off his future right there in the 
 solemn light of the dying sun, and making the whole 
 thing tragic.
 
 CAP'N SAUL 
 
 43 
 
 IV 
 
 CAP N SAUL 
 
 THE rain came all aslant, and at times quite obscured 
 the angel on the steeple, that had flown frantically at 
 
 all points of the com- 
 pass since daybreak. The 
 fruit-trees were bedrag- 
 gled, and a snow of 
 cherry blossoms had left 
 the trees bare of beauty. 
 The battle of the wind 
 and shriek of the storm 
 reminded one of the sea,
 
 44 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 and suggested Captain Saul. On such a day, with no 
 human possibility of a stray customer, might we not 
 reasonably expect from him the yarn that our wiliest 
 devices had thus far failed to suggest ? 
 
 So we sallied out, with umbrellas steering us against 
 our will, and mackintoshes that flapped wildly and 
 flattened us against the fence as we struggled to open 
 the gate. There was a brief lull as we crossed the 
 common, reminding us of Uncle Arad's wise saw, 
 "Never give in to the weather." But at Captain Saul's 
 three steep steps the angel veered again, and we were 
 driven quite into the little shop before the sudden rear- 
 charge of the gale. As the latch gave way, the Captain 
 came leisurely forward, pulling down his sleeves, and 
 to our joy asked us into the back room to dry off. 
 Thus far were the fates uncommonly propitious. While 
 the postmaster set our streaming umbrellas in a tub, 
 and hung our mackintoshes on the backs of his only 
 chairs, to drip on the hearth, we ventured feebly to ask 
 for a paper of number nine needles and a ball of twine. 
 
 Captain Saul said he knew we must want them two 
 things bad, and he'd do his best to hunt 'em up for us. 
 There was an unexpected twinkle in his eyes ; and when 
 he came back, package in hand, after opening creaky 
 drawers that hitched at the corners, we owned up and 
 begged for a story. 
 
 It seemed to strike a deep-lying vein of humor of 
 whose very existence we had been doubtful. We were,
 
 CAP'N SAUL 45 
 
 in a way, at the Captain's mercy, and could see a 
 slowly forming wrinkle of laughter on his leathery 
 cheeks, as he moved around clearing decks and making 
 things taut. His housekeeping seemed accidental, and 
 dependent on circumstances. We had hit upon a day 
 when things were not redded up. 
 
 Above the small pine table by the window that over- 
 looked the garden patch hung a great cage ; and an 
 evil-eyed parrot, with shining feathers and cruel beak, 
 clawed up and down its wires, and laughed at us, but 
 not covertly. It was an embarrassing situation; and 
 the Captain, with rare tact, drew the green cambric 
 cover over the cage and said soothingly, " There, there, 
 Quilp, good-night, now, and stop your nonsense." A 
 gurgled good-night came lazily from behind the screen, 
 and we were secure from an interruption that had 
 threatened to ruin our plans. 
 
 " You wanted them things so bad now," continued 
 the Captain, with fresh access of humor, " that I don't 
 know but what I had ough' to tell you a yarn to pay 
 you for the trouble of comin' after 'em such a day. So 
 I'll just hang your things up on a hook and let 'em 
 drean, and wipe off a couple of chairs for you. You 
 see I don't have comp'ny every day, let alone cus- 
 tomers." 
 
 The Captain reached to a high line over the stove 
 for his dish-towel, and scrubbed the chairs with hospi- 
 table intent ; then drew an old-style linen duster over
 
 46 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 his blue flannel short sleeves for manners, and sat down 
 on a cracker box at the end of the table, where a jack- 
 knife, and block of wood partly whittled into boat 
 shape, lay at hand. 
 
 The lilac outside bowed and scraped against the small 
 window, and dragged its heavy blossoms to and fro, as 
 if trying to get in ; and a homely old heirloom of a clock, 
 whose case touched the low r ceiling, swung its pendulum 
 in a mournful way, and dismally marked the time. A 
 mariner's compass hung beside it, and 
 seashells, great and small, perched on 
 every ledge that offered a foothold. 
 A hammock, close reefed, depended 
 double from a hook, and dingy fishing- 
 tackle of salty flavor huddled in a 
 
 -j-^^^^^H corner behind it. 
 
 With the rash confidence of youth 
 we broke silence by saying that it must be lonesome 
 living all by one's self. 
 
 "I s'pose," said the Captain cheerfully, "you've got 
 Mis' Pease on your mind. Most folks has. Time 
 enough for me when they've all had their say out. 
 Fact is, there ain't much to talk about here. But I 
 don't look like a man to be drove, now, do I ? An old 
 sea cap'n's pretty well seasoned, and he can get his 
 bearin's most as good as a 'longshoreman, now, can't 
 he?" 
 
 We dared not deny it.
 
 CAP'N SAUL 47 
 
 The parrot rustled in its darkened cage, and suddenly 
 shrieked " Good-morning ! " with an effect quite dispro- 
 portioned to the cause. It had dragged the cover down 
 till the ring hole came on a level with its beak, and one 
 wicked eye looked at us askance. The Captain rose 
 laboriously and pulled off the cover. " Got ahead of 
 me, just as you allays do, you ! If these ladies don't 
 mind, let out your talk now, but don't you dare to 
 swear ! Mind ! " The parrot, with human contrariness, 
 kept still with a show of not hearing a word that had 
 been said. 
 
 " The generality of folks," said the Captain, drawing 
 his knife-blade firmly across the sole of his shoe. " man- 
 ages to get some sort of a play spell into their threescore 
 and ten, even when their nighest don't suspicion it. 
 When a man's stiddy and solemn in his ways, they 
 reckon there ain't any fun in him. But I ain't sure but 
 what it's goin' on inside of the best of 'em. Some 
 things ain't made to show on top. I reckon the mains'l 
 gets jest as much good of the breeze as the top-gallants 
 does, if it don't make words about it. You see the folks 
 in this 'ere town don't know as much as they think they 
 do about me, and I'd just as lieves they wouldn't." 
 
 It was a delicate way of confiding in us, which we 
 appreciated. 
 
 " Some folks, now, can reel off yarns, fathoms of 'em, 
 long as they can hold out at the windlass. But nothin' 
 ever come to me but once, and that I've kept close,
 
 48 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 many's the year. Somehow in the middle of the night, 
 or on a blowy day like this 'ere, I get to thinkin', 
 thinkin' and mebbe it's good to get it off n my mind. 
 Mebbe it's better not to be buried with me, as if 'twas 
 a wrong to somebody another, which it wa'n't." 
 
 The Captain closed one eye, and sighted his boat from 
 stem to stern. 
 
 " When I wa'n't much more'n a lad," he continued 
 cautiously, " I was off to one of them heathenish coun- 
 tries that you've studied about in your school-books, and 
 we went ashore of a Sunday. My old mother over 
 mountain brought me up to go to meetin' ; so I 
 looked round for a steeple, and calculated I'd save up 
 my money whilst the other boys spreed it. Pretty soon 
 I fetched up to a queer place with a cross on top. You 
 don't mind my tellin' you there was as pretty a girl as 
 ever you see, a dippin' her little fingers into a dish right 
 by the door. I didn't know it was holy water then. 
 But she crossed herself and went in, and I follered, ex- 
 pectin' to take a seat and hear a sermon. Down she 
 went on her knees, and I standin' there like an ijit. 
 
 " You see, I wa'n't used to sayin' my prayers afore 
 folks. Why, I'd as soon a kissed my old mother outside 
 here on the green. So I stood 'round a spell and 
 watched when she went out, and follered her. I'd made 
 up my mind she wa'n't no heathen, or she wouldn't say 
 her prayers. She wa'n't exactly white, and she wa'n't 
 a colored person, by no manner of means. She was just
 
 CAP'N SAUL 49 
 
 that soft kind of nice dark white, with eyes black as 
 huckleberries, and white teeth, and a great rope of black 
 hair braided down her back, big as a ship's cable. You 
 mayn't be sure she was good lookin', but I give you my 
 word for't. Well, my mind was made up in a minit, 
 and gener'ly I ain't a quick man. Only I wondered 
 what my poor old mother 'd say. But I could tell her 
 the girl was pious, sure. 
 
 " That night I w T ent to the priest, and found out her 
 name and all I could about her. 'Twa'n't easy. She 
 didn't have any folks, only her old grandmother, and 
 they had got just a little money, enough to keep 'em 
 along in a poor way. I told the priest I'd be obligated 
 to him if he'd sort o' keep an eye on her till I come 
 'round next time, and he said he would. I didn't know 
 whether to believe him or not ; but he was a clever sort 
 of fellow, if he was a priest ; and if he didn't quite un- 
 derstand, we made signs and sort o' guessed. And he 
 could talk our talk a little. We was takin' on a load of 
 well, there, no matter. You'd know where it was, 
 mebbe, and it's jest as well not. But we stayed a week ; 
 and every blessed day that Marree, they called her, went 
 to church, sun-up. I was on hand, I tell you ! And 
 one day I walked along with her, and she seemed to 
 know what I was try in' to say. I'd had my grog along 
 with the boys till then, but I tell you I never touched 
 it again when I went ashore. We had to have it reg'lar 
 for rations on the Mary Jane, you know. That's our 
 ship.
 
 50 A HILLTOP HUMMER 
 
 " You mayn't be willin' to believe it, but next year 
 when we touched at them when we got there again, 
 straight to the church went I, and there, true's you're 
 alive, was Marree, a kneelin' down right in the middle 
 aisle. When she'd said her prayers, I stood stock still, 
 and she looked at me, and then the color went all the 
 way up to her eyes. I hope she wouldn't mind my 
 tellin' you. And we found the priest, and he married 
 us. Don't sound true, now, does it? But so it was. 
 And I'm a married man to this day. And she took me 
 to her house, and told her grandma, and the poor old 
 lady was blind, and couldn't see ; so Marree made me 
 kneel down for her to put her two wrinkled old hands 
 on my head. She jabbered something too, but I 
 couldn't understand ; and she couldn't hear a word 
 I said, though Marree could talk to her. 
 
 " Three years I went back and forth, the sea ragin' 
 and the wind howlin' and the sun beatin' down ; and 
 the last time Marree cried to go home with me. She'd 
 got so we could talk a little mixed talk then. She 
 could say some of my words, and she'd laugh till she 
 cried hearin' me try her lingo. You see, I hadn't got 
 to be cap'n yet, and I couldn't take her with me. But 
 she promised to write, and just as soon as I got my 
 ship I said she should come home with me. I hadn't 
 ever broke it to my old mother, and she died afore I 
 could make up my mind to tell her. It lay heavy on 
 me for years. It does now. I'd ought to have told
 
 CAP'N SAUL 51 
 
 her, poor old woman ! but I knew she'd make a fuss, 
 because her plans was all staked out for a girl over 
 mountain that she knew for certain would make me a 
 good wife. Then 'twas two years that we didn't go 
 there, and I got just four letters. You see 'twas hard 
 spellin' out our words." 
 
 The captain choked a little and coughed to hide it, 
 and Quilp laughed fiendishly, biting the wires and 
 clawing up and down the cage. 
 
 - But what little I did get I kept in mother's Bible. 
 It was like a little bit of the Good Book to me, and it's 
 stayed there ever since. I didn't look the way I do 
 now."' he added apologetically, with a brave effort at 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 By no manner of means. When Tom Stow was 
 home him that shipped first with me 'twas last 
 year he come says he, ' Saul Lamb, you ain't changed 
 a mite since first we sailed seas together.' But, Lordy ! 
 I come home, and I looked into that little glass over 
 yonder where I do my Sunday shavin', and says I right 
 out loud. *Saul Lamb, did you always look so?' ' 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 "And did she come home with you?'' we ventured to 
 ask. 
 
 The captain shook his head and brushed the back of 
 his hand across one eye. It was the hand that held the 
 jack-knife. 
 
 When I went back the priest was dead, and the old
 
 52 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 lady was dead ; seemed as if everybody was gone. 
 Some young folks tried to make me think she was 
 underground. But I didn't believe it. And one of 
 'em brought out a little mite of a baby and put it into 
 my arms and shut its eyes, and made signs that Marree 
 had one like it, and now both of 'em was gone. But I 
 wouldn't believe it. I darsent. So 'round I went, 
 tryin' and tryin' to find out. 'Twas the same old story. 
 You see, I hadn't heard a word from Marree the latter 
 part of the time. It was pretty soon after sailin' that I 
 got her letters. Mostly folks didn't seem to know what 
 I wanted. It just about killed me to think I might 'a' 
 known and couldn't, because they couldn't talk. They 
 wouldn't understand, though I spoke up loud and slow, 
 as if I was say in.' a hard spellin' lesson. But nobody 
 could say a thing satisfactory. The more they tried, 
 the worse off I was. 
 
 " Year by year I went back, and every time I hunted 
 and I s'arched. The last time an old woman got hold 
 of me, and she took me backside the church and showed 
 me a place with two boards, a little and a big one, and 
 some writing that the rain had washed out long ago, so 
 there wa'n't three words left. And I don't doubt now 
 but what she must be a lyin' there. I don't want to 
 see salt water, nor a ship, nor a sailor again, as long as I 
 live. She must be gone, for she set great store by me, 
 though you mightn't think it. If I'd been commodore 
 she couldn't have made more of me. I didn't look the
 
 CAP-'N SAUL 53 
 
 way I do now. I was a lad once, but 'twas years 
 ago." 
 
 There was a long, solemn pause. 
 
 " When my posy beans blow," the captain continued, 
 " and the trees all round get white and bloomy, and I 
 hear the sheep a nibblin', and the birds makin' their 
 nests and singin' about it all, says I to myself, ' I don't 
 know as I want any better heaven, fur's I'm concerned.' 
 I ain't much of a religious man, but I'm gettin' old ; 
 and when the wind blows, and the snow piles up and 
 cuts me off till I'm all alone, and fearful lonesome, I 
 get a sort of hankerin' after the Better Country the 
 parson tells about. And it does seem to me, if she's 
 there, she won't be a mite more contented than she used 
 to be, even with the little one to tend, till I get there 
 too. We can say all we want to there, don't you think ? 
 and understand all that's said, I reckon, and I don't 
 suppose I'll look the way I do now." 
 
 We had blown half-way to the town pump when we 
 heard him calling, "Say you! "and turned back. He 
 made a speaking trumpet of his hands, but we had to 
 go quite back to the steps and listen, as he bent down 
 humbly to say : 
 
 'You'll recollect, won't you, that was all a joke 
 about Mis' Pease ? "
 
 54 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 
 
 AFTER Captain Saul's story we lost all but the ordi- 
 nary country interest in Mrs. Minerva Pease, and were 
 
 even mildly annoyed 
 when our provident 
 hostess suggested that 
 Hilltop would better 
 be looking out for a 
 new storekeeper. 
 
 It was perfectly un- 
 derstood in church cir- 
 cles that Mrs. Pease 
 had money laid up in 
 the bank far beyond 
 her need, and that she 
 
 only required a good, smart man to manage her farm 
 and be taken care of in return, which was clearly an 
 economic measure when wages were high. No other 
 motive carried weight in this rural community, where 
 young, and consequently foolish, people were supposed 
 to marry in haste only to repent in the scant leisure 
 following matrimony and farm life. Marriage was an
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 55 
 
 affair of suitability, the adapting of means to an end, 
 and worldly advancement. " Bettering one's self," they 
 called it ; an opinion wholly confined to remote country 
 places. 
 
 Mrs. Pease was a " professor " whom we had seen at 
 church, in false front of blue-black hair and gold-bowed 
 .spectacles ; wearing also a sombre, if not severe, expres- 
 sion, as befitting her widow weeds. Her pew was on a 
 level with the parson's own, just across the aisle, but 
 fully as select and uncomfortable as his, where one had 
 to throw the head back with the aching effect of a top 
 check to get a fair view of the pulpit. The aristocratic 
 front pew-holders were impaled, as it were, on the very 
 horns of the altar, but with a certain sense of distinction 
 that helped offset all physical inconvenience. 
 
 We came by chance upon Mrs. Minerva's house, and, 
 impelled by a somewhat vulgar curiosity fostered in the 
 stimulating atmosphere of Hilltop, made up an errand, 
 encouraged by our success at Captain Saul's, and 
 planned to stop at the door and ask our way over the 
 mountain. The heat of the day was so great that we 
 were more than once tempted to turn back before we 
 had trailed down through the dust and rolling stones, 
 and again up through dust and rolling stones and 
 thankee-ma'ams, to our surprised glimpse of the house 
 \ve had seen from our own windows. 
 
 One never knew to what lengths Hilltop roads might 
 go. After scrambling up breezy hills and cork-screw-
 
 56 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 ing down, down into still valleys, where some small 
 mountain stream gleamed in the sun "like a shining 
 blade unsheathed," and made the meadows knee-deep 
 with tender grass, the road that set out so bravely 
 
 might fade grad- 
 ually into a cart- 
 path that led to 
 some great barn- 
 door, or a wood- 
 road that lost it- 
 self among the 
 oaks and chest- 
 nuts destined for 
 the axe. 
 
 We came at 
 last to the cool 
 lane leading 
 through trim 
 rows of great, 
 Avhite - blossomed 
 locust - trees, to 
 the side porch of 
 
 a broad-fronted house that sat down like a watch- 
 dog, half at rest, but wholly alert to protect the 
 premises. This architectural peculiarity of truly old 
 houses lias never been traced to its source with any de- 
 gree of satisfaction. Uncle Arad explained to us once 
 that a roof of that build shed rain like a duck's back,
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 57 
 
 and could be come at from behind without a ladder, 
 when it leaked. Before the ending of the lane, we 
 caught a glimpse of its owner at her ironing-table, for it 
 was yet early on a Tuesday morning. 
 
 The Sabbath-day false front had disappeared, and 
 with it the company expression of the wearer. Her 
 own pretty, crinkly gray hair was drawn back under a 
 rusty black-lace cap with flat bows ; but the heat of the 
 day, combined with the dampness of violent exercise, 
 had cajoled a few stray hairs into little dandelion curls 
 that ringed about the withered face caressingly, as if 
 youth had only turned the corner and might be coaxed 
 back. 
 
 We knocked timidly at the Dutch door cleft horizon- 
 tally, that stood with halves hospitably wide, leading 
 out to a trim garden, sweet with old-fashioned " lay- 
 locks " and '-pineys.'' The ironing-table stood directly 
 before the entrance, taking advantage of the southerly 
 breeze that quietly wafted in the warm odors of all 
 outdoors. 
 
 "Over mountain?" Mrs. Pease repeated incredu- 
 lously after us. '-Over mountain such a day as this? 
 Wouldn't Square 'Lias give you a lift in his buggy if 
 he knew you'd got to go ? " 
 
 It was useless to say that the buggy had no charms 
 for us. Appearances were plainly not in our favor. 
 We tried to make it sound probable that we were sim- 
 ply exploring the country for pleasure, and preferred 
 to walk.
 
 58 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " You wouldn't if you'd been ironing all the morn- 
 ing," said Mrs. Minerva, with practical country sense. 
 'I s'pose you don't have a mortal thing to do. I'm 
 proper glad to set down when night comes, and let the 
 country take care of itself. A lone woman finds steps 
 ready provided, and don't have to go out him tin' 'em 
 up. But do come in, if you can get by this table, or 
 take seats out there under the grape-vine and cool off. 
 There's quite a pretty breeze outside. You can go over 
 mountain any day if you're so minded ; and some of 
 'em are bound to be cooler than this. Tuesdays gen'- 
 rally is hot days. But I can stand that better than wet 
 Mondays, that put your work all aback." 
 
 We waived the limited invitation to enter, and sat 
 down contentedly under the arbor that held two seats 
 beside the stone steps, and extended its shade as far as 
 the latticed well. A thrifty grape-vine with no dead 
 twigs overran the whole, and managed its thoughtless 
 tendrils in a tidy way. Everything about the premises 
 spoke of thriftiness and aversion to loose ends. 
 
 We suggested, as once before with good effect at 
 Captain Saul's, that it must be lonely at night so far 
 from neighbors, when one had no family. 
 
 " You're right there," said Mrs. Minerva, folding a 
 pillow-case critically, and listening to the heat of an 
 iron that she had just taken up from the stove behind 
 her. " I never could see why a clock ticks so much 
 louder nights. Half the time I don't hear it till Eben
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 59 
 
 Smith goes home after milkin", and then I declare if it 
 don't act as though 'twas alive ! I've known it to stop 
 a spell and hark, and then go on again. 
 
 " Do I stay here all alone ? Why, bless your hearts. 
 yes. Eben lives just beyond the woods there, where I 
 can call him with a horn any time, day or night. He 
 takes his meals at home, and glad enough I am to miss 
 the sound of his boots for a spell. But it's a relief to 
 his wife, I know, to have him away the heft of the 
 time. He's as open-mouthed as a tarrier. and many's 
 the time I've wished his talk would run to bark. 
 But I should be bad off for news if 'twa'n't for him. I 
 don't s'pose anybody ever dropped an idle word at the 
 store that he didn't pick it up and bring it home. 
 Likely's not he forgot his errand into the bargain, and 
 I had to do without codfish over Sunday." 
 
 Our hostess mused a space, and hung tAvo pillow-cases 
 on a line above the stove without losing the thread of 
 discourse. We could easily connect what followed 
 with Eben's reprehensible tongue. 
 
 '"Folks 'round here that don't have their own busi- 
 ness to 'tend to have hard times getting up a match for 
 me every now and then. It worries them dreadfully to 
 think I'm lonesome. They do say Captain Saul Lamb's 
 lookin' out for to better himself," she added. "' But 
 land o' Goshen ! I'd as soon sell off stock and buy a 
 man. Why that sofly kind couldn't get a cow home 
 by milkin'-time. And you can see for yourself he don't
 
 60 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 keep things put up. You can order a man 'round that 
 comes to you for his pay every Saturday night, and get 
 a good deal out of him if you keep at it; but as for 
 havin' one steady in the house, day in and day out, to 
 cook for, and wash and iron for starched shirt bosoms 
 and collars land! what fools some women be. When 
 I don't feel like settin' table I just go into the butt'ry 
 and draw a chair up to the window lookin' out on the 
 meadow, and pick a cold chicken-bone, mebbe, or dish 
 out some baked beans to eat with my cold coffee, and 
 then wash my cup and spoon and saucer. That's all 
 there is to it. But think of a man's takin' vittles that 
 way ! I'd as li'ves have a cow in my butt'ry. 
 
 " No, I didn't do that way when I was young. Mr. 
 Pease was a good provider ; and we had things as com- 
 fortable as the best, and thanked Providence for it. 
 His folks left him some money about the time we 
 begun to housekeep. We had one little girl too. 
 Irene, we called her, after his mother. Year after year 
 we laid up money for her and allowed she'd marry well, 
 and have the farm after us, and a houseful of young 
 ones, like as not. It hadn't ever dawned on us that 
 she would go first and leave us all alone. It was like 
 wipin' out a long sum on a slate. We knew, of course, 
 that one of us would be obliged to go first, sooner or 
 later, and we used to talk it over how the one that was 
 left would live with Irene. I used to tell him just 
 where to keep his clothes and not make trouble the
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 61 
 
 way some old folks will, leavin' things at loose ends. 
 I didn't want him to be a burden on Irene. 
 
 " I can see her now, stanclin' on her little cricket that 
 he made for her when she was four years old; stanclin' 
 back there by the sink wipin' dishes for me. Her hair 
 was real pretty, and I braided it in two little round 
 braids that never got fuzzy. Why, she was just like a 
 little woman, though it wouldn't have been proper to 
 tell her so. She pieced a whole bed-quilt before she 
 five was years old ; little bits of squares. 
 
 4% You see, she didn't go to school, and I didn't let 
 her have children here to play with, so she had plenty 
 of time. She was better off alone. She had her rag 
 babies and a white kitten ; and I never left her home 
 when I went to meetin' or sewin' society, or a funeral, 
 or for a walk in the buryin'-ground Sundays after tea. 
 Why, she knew more than four hundred Bible verses, 
 if you'll believe it, before her bed-quilt was done. 
 Four hundred and twenty-seven it was. She used to 
 say, ' Suffer the little children to come and see me, and 
 forbid them not.' And it affected her pa. He wouldn't 
 let me change it, and so she always said it that way. 
 But he didn't have the care of her bringing up. He 
 was for lettin' her go to school with all the rag-tag from 
 down the hill." 
 
 Mrs. Minerva took up the tip of her apron and passed 
 it across one eye, while with the other she watched the 
 iron moving back and forth over the shining table- 
 cloth.
 
 62 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " I don't want any little angel with a harp," she said 
 resolutely, though with a slight hoarseness in her voice. 
 "I want just my little Ireny standin' on her cricket to 
 wipe dishes. She wanted to be buried in her red shoes, 
 and so she was. Some folks thought 'twas a waste, 
 and that 'twas wrong to indulge her right on the very 
 brink of eternity. You don't think it was ? No more 
 do I ; or them little red shoes would be settin' up 
 chamber now, along with her little dresses, in the north 
 closet two little pink sprigged calicoes and a brown 
 one for every day hangin' up there now. I washed 
 'em and ironed 'em and hung 'em away with my own 
 hands the day after the funeral. But they wasn't 
 starched, and so they don't look like her when she had 
 them on. I'll take you up to see them some day along 
 the last of the week if you happen in, but not of a 
 Saturday. That's bakin'-day. 
 
 " You seem so kind of interested that I've let on the 
 way Eben Smith does when I give him chores 'round 
 the house. I never told anybody, not even the minis- 
 ter, all this. When you go along home past the buryin'- 
 ground, just look over beyond Aunt Rachel's headstone, 
 and you'll see a little white picket fence, and a marble 
 slab with a lamb lyin' down on it. It cost me forty-two 
 dollars and seventy-five cents ; and I wouldn't have 
 begrudged it if it had been fifty dollars in gold. He 
 lies over on the right hand of where I'm goin' to be 
 laid. Six years come Thanksgivin' since he passed
 
 THE WIDOW PEASE 
 
 63 
 
 away. You won't find any stone, because when I get 
 time to "tend to it, and find something to my mind, I'm 
 goin' to have a monument for both of us. It won't cost 
 much more than two good stones, and 'twill 
 make a sight more show for the money. 
 Probably they could see it from 'Squire 
 Hopton's. If he'd died when we used to 
 talk it over about livin' with Irene, he'd 
 been a young man. I used to think any- 
 body that lived to be forty had got all the 
 good there was out of this world, and had 
 ought to be ready for the next. Queer, 
 ain't it, that you don't never 
 seem too old to yourself to keep 
 right along ! " 
 
 Going home we picked our 
 way across the neglected mounds of 
 the old burying-ground, and through 
 tangled grass that shed its seed on us 
 as generously as if we had been good, 
 soil, and leaned for a while on the little 
 picket fence that guarded the sleeping child 
 from improper company. 
 
 Beneath the white lamb we read : " Irene, 
 aged five years, three months, and two days, 
 such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 Then we sat down in the deep grass, and plucked 
 daisies and red clover-heads, and reached them through 
 
 For of
 
 64 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 the fence till the small, tidy mound was quite littered 
 with them ; knowing that no little hands could ever 
 place their tribute on it. One of us said, " Poor little 
 Ireny ! " and as we sat there till dinner-time talking it 
 over, we indulged fond hopes in an earthly way that in 
 the select society where little Ireny had gone without 
 her mother, hosts of children might be, not suffered, but 
 invited to come and see her ; that they might play 
 together in the bright sand on the seashore, and fashion 
 sand pies in celestial scallop shells, and wade in the 
 shining River of Life, and sail boats on its still waters ; 
 that they might wander to pick daisies and weave dan- 
 delion chains in the green pastures, shouting their 
 merry songs in chorus till the heavens rang again, and 
 harpers with golden harps should pause to listen to the 
 children's praise ; that at night, with hands full of 
 heavenly trash and white raiment stained with grass 
 and flowers, they might dance along the starlit, dewy 
 way that led to the homes of graver but still tender and 
 gracious older angels, without the shadow of a fear or 
 the faint memory of past reproof to dim the brightness 
 of their happy eyes.
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 
 
 65 
 
 VI 
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 
 
 IT was without doubt a hot Sunday. The angel on 
 the steeple trumpeted persistently towards the south. 
 The great elm between the meet- 
 ing-house and parsonage drooped 
 its leaves, and not a shiver of 
 breeze lifted them. Even the 
 sheep stopped nibbling the 
 grass-blades they had learned 
 by heart, and lay down in any 
 rag of shade at hand. The 
 horses fastened under the low 
 sheds stamped and whisked in 
 vain. Fly weather had come. 
 Imitation bumble-bees left piles 
 of sawdust in the stalls, and 
 buzzed and worked on the Sab- 
 bath Day, grinding out round 
 homestead holes with the accu- 
 racy of an auger, and exasper- 
 ating the overheated fancy of many a restless farm- 
 horse.
 
 66 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 The meeting-house door stood wide open, beguiling 
 one to enter with a vain show of coolness. Within, the 
 pulpit rose high and forbidding, a box with two doors 
 set on a pedestal, and approached on either hand by a 
 winding stair patterned to fit a narrow preacher. Tra- 
 dition asserts that one, Jared Lines, failed to attempt 
 the passage, and preached from the communion-table, 
 finding text and lessons in a pocket Testament, and 
 thus detracting from the remoteness and solemnity of 
 the services. A sermon unaccompanied by thumps on 
 the ancient Bible, which in times of stress was often 
 lifted bodily and dropped on its cushion with much stir- 
 ring up of dust, was regarded by the elders as a light 
 production, savoring more of worldly learning and dis- 
 play than of spiritual quickening and upbuilding. 
 
 The walls of the meeting-house were covered with 
 paper hangings of a mournful character, which repre- 
 sented Pharaoh, a stout figure with muscular arms, 
 again and again on the point of being overwhelmed with 
 his chariots and the horsemen thereof. Wherever the 
 eye turned, it encountered Pharaoh on a brown ground 
 with lighter brown horses and chariots, and a deep- 
 brown thunderous sky overhead. The pattern repeated 
 itself geometrically up, down, and across. It was be- 
 wildering to follow the Pharaohs, and quite distracting 
 if one tried also to keep the thread of the sermon. 
 
 At the extreme right of the pulpit, there was a break 
 in the figure very restful to the eye, and also to the
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 67 
 
 fancy, where the paper had failed in length and been 
 pieced economically with the effect of a rescue, the 
 upper chariot grappling with the lower, and assisting 
 the hopeful imagination. Mrs. Elias Hopton told us 
 that if possible the defect would have been remedied 
 years ago, because it was bad for the children to get an 
 idea that Pharaoh might have been saved after all, and 
 the Providential design made to miscarry. That was 
 the sentiment, though not here expressed in the words 
 of our hostess, which had no graphic quality to enable 
 them to maintain that hold on the mind so essential to 
 accuracy in quotation. 
 
 From the same source we heard with much pleasure 
 the story of the old minister from Harris, over moun- 
 tain, who exchanged pulpits one Sunday with Parson 
 Lum, and gave out the first hymn, beginning with 
 
 " Lord, what a barren land is this, 
 That yields us no supply.'' 
 
 Now, Harris had nothing whereof to brag over Hilltop 
 in point of fertility ; and its young farmers were wont 
 to cast envious eyes at the pumpkins and pound sweet- 
 ings displayed by the Hilltop youth at the county fair ; 
 a decent sort of jealousy that keeps the country from 
 stagnation. 
 
 Uncle Arad Ridge led the singing in those far-back 
 days, striking the pitch with his tuning-fork, and loudly 
 announcing the name of the tune to be sung, while the
 
 68 A HILLTOP SUMMEll 
 
 congregation rose, and, turning their backs 011 the minis- 
 ter, faced the choir. Mrs. Hopton, who was quite a 
 girl at the time, though still in pantalets, remembered 
 well the awe she felt when, above the ring of the tun- 
 ing-fork, the name " Harris," boldly given out, struck 
 the congregation pale. But they joined the choir in 
 singing the good old tune as reverently as possible, fear- 
 ing lest some judgment should befall the leader for his 
 levity. " And just one year from that time, if you'll 
 believe it," the 'Squire's wife added, " his Ann was laid 
 away in the burying-ground." It was considered the 
 proper thing to stand up for Hilltop, but not to the 
 extent of making light of sacred things on the Sabbath 
 Day. 
 
 The momentary coolness of the church as we entered 
 the door was delusive, and an odor of peppermint, 
 combined with the irregular waving of palm-leaf fans, 
 made the air vibrate. Bees buzzed through the open 
 windows, and bumped their heads whenever there was 
 anything to hit, not perceiving that the readiest way 
 out was that by which they came in. The bald-headed 
 spread ample handkerchiefs over their crowns, while 
 foolish younglings dodged and tittered. Outside Bob 
 White called, with no regard for the proprieties, and 
 even walked up and down the hillside in full view of 
 those who owned window sittings. A pair of bobolinks 
 sat close by, he of the black vest and patched coat on 
 the bending tip of a low cedar-bush, while his brown
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 69 
 
 little wife exchanged ideas with him from the ground. 
 By the aid of a key we might have learned all their 
 secrets ; but they looked as conscious and secure as two 
 students of Volapiik setting out to enjoy themselves. 
 When the black and white coat flew to the next bush, 
 trilling and rolling his melody over and over as he 
 went, the little wife followed silently and perched 
 yards away, while he kept up the conversation. 
 
 The bell ceased its melancholy toll as the new can- 
 didate walked briskly up the right-hand aisle, dropped 
 a very worldly looking straw hat on the chair beside 
 the communion-table, and mounted fearlessly to his 
 high perch. He looked so painfully young and con- 
 scious when his glance swept the audience, that we felt 
 abashed for him and looked the other way. wishing he 
 might have omitted the new moustache, and diverted 
 its effort towards side whiskers. The old minister had 
 died in the winter, and ever since the people had been 
 sorely tried by new-fledged ideas that beat about to no 
 purpose. 
 
 But before we had adjusted our minds to judge from 
 appearances whether or no this candidate could be a 
 success, there was a new diversion. A tall young girl 
 came up the left-hand aisle, and with an air of uncon- 
 sciousness knelt for a moment, the only figure in the 
 four reverse pews. She was what the novelist of to-day 
 is fond of calling a symphony ; and the effect was 
 peculiarly cool and refreshing. Beyond the nodding
 
 70 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 red roses on high stalks, the tall poppies and chrys- 
 anthemums, the yellow daisies and carnations, that 
 bloomed above the rural hats of the Hilltop girls, the 
 slim figure in pale green, with a pond lily at her belt 
 and a white sailor hat coiled about with a filmy bit of 
 illusion, looked like a water-lily herself, sheathed in 
 coolness. 
 
 The young minister foolishly allowed his wandering 
 glance to be arrested for a moment ; then blushed visi- 
 bly as he turned to the great Bible and failed to find 
 the place for his text. But we considered that there 
 would be time enough for that after the opening prayer 
 and hymn, while the contribution for foreign missions 
 was being taken up. 
 
 Just then an unprovoked breeze slipped in from no- 
 where in particular, and died out again as soon as it had 
 performed its mission, whisking off two or three leaves 
 of the sermon that lay beside the Bible. Mrs. Hopton 
 pulled the sleeve of her husband, who turned slowly 
 from his comfortable attitude to ask " What ? " and the 
 two deacons started simultaneously from the same side 
 of the church, and simultaneously sat down again. 
 Once more they rose together, with much confusion of 
 face, in the solemn stillness of the house, when the 
 young lady, seeing the leaves alight near her own pew, 
 picked them up carefully and walked with them to the 
 foot of the pulpit stairs. 
 
 The great Rachel in her prime could not have done
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 71 
 
 the act with more gracious unconsciousness ; but the 
 youth who opened the pulpit door that stuck, and came 
 down to receive his papers at her hands, stumbled in his 
 confusion, and the door banged as it saved him from a 
 fall. 
 
 "That's the Brumley girl," whispered Mrs. Hopton 
 behind her fan, as she emphasized the fact with one el- 
 bow. "Ain't afraid o' nothin', and never was." 
 
 After this prelude the sermon turned out but a mild 
 affair, quite in keeping with the sultry weather, though 
 everybody was wide awake at the beginning, and dis- 
 posed to be critical. But any provocation to deep feel- 
 ing or unusual stirring up to spiritual effort must have 
 fallen flat on the congregation that day. Fans moved 
 slowly and more slowly, and raked against bonnets and 
 slapped the backs of the next pews, momentarily awak- 
 ing the sleeper. Mrs. Elias nodded forward as the 
 'Squire's head fell back, and only the younger portion of 
 the audience were in condition to judge of the sermon, 
 its merits or defects. We decided that the ayes would 
 have it, as happened some weeks later on. For the el- 
 ders could give no reason why the young man should 
 not be called ; and so, after several hearings, they reluc- 
 tantly yielded to the expressed wish of the younger 
 members, who were growing to have their own way 
 about things in an alarming nineteenth-century fashion. 
 
 As we went out after the benediction, leaving the 
 deacons to shake the minister's hand loosely and allow
 
 72 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 him the privilege of opening the conversation, our host- 
 ess detained us in the vestibule, and beckoned the young 
 lady from the other aisle. 
 
 " Gracie ! " she called in a loud whisper. " Come 
 over here a minute. I want to make you acquainted 
 with my two young ladies from the city. We think 
 they're about right. And they're mighty fond of know- 
 ing all us country folks." 
 
 " Couldn't get a soul to stay with your grandma be- 
 fore, could you ? Haven't seen you out to church before 
 this summer," added Mrs. 'Lias patronizingly. " But 
 how in this mortal world did you ever do that, Grace ? " 
 
 "Did I do what?" 
 
 ' Why, walk right out in meetin' and pick up them 
 papers ! There wa'n't another girl there darst do it to 
 save her life, hardly. And the men, they all held back 
 too. My man, he didn't happen to see it in time." 
 
 " Why, the young man had to have his sermon, and I 
 was nearest." 
 
 " Well ! if 'twas anybody but you, Grace Brumley.- 
 Why, you couldn't have hired me to do it ! " 
 
 "No, nor me," said Miss Brumley simply. "There 
 was nothing else to be done, and I didn't stop to think 
 about it. Why was it any harder than walking into 
 church, or out of it, or across the green ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't say," said Mrs. 'Lias with a sigh ; " but 
 I couldn't have done it no way no, not for a kingdom." 
 
 As Miss Brumley bade us good-morning and walked
 
 A UOT SUNDAY 73 
 
 away, a little ripple of conversation came in, like the 
 untoward breeze, from nowhere in particular. Every- 
 body seemed to be talking at once, as in times of politi- 
 cal excitement. 
 
 " Deary me ! " said Aunt Tishy gently, as she raised 
 her large umbrella. " Did you ever see the beat of it? " 
 
 " Brass enough to make a kittle, and sass enough to 
 fill it ! " piped Uncle Arad, in the high key that deaf 
 people approve of in others. 
 
 " I started to get up some'ers near Brother Biglow," 
 said the younger deacon, " but he got ahead of me 
 twice, and it sorter took all the wind out o' my sails." 
 
 " Your sails wa'n't set fur enough to wind'ard, young 
 man," said Cap'n Saul heartily. "That's what made 
 'em flop." 
 
 The deacon, who was only young by courtesy and a 
 bachelor to boot, blushed before all the nodding roses 
 that were coming down the gallery stairs, and turned 
 aside in some confusion, crushing the brim of his brown 
 straw hat against 'Squire Hopton's broad shoulders. 
 
 The young minister shook hands again with the 
 elder deacon, and to the relief and disappointment of 
 every one, accepted our host's invitation to dinner. 
 He was a nice young fellow, scarcely older than our- 
 selves ; just a boy let loose from the Theological Semi- 
 nary to try his clipped wings. We had a pleasant 
 nooning together. It was like entertaining a bright 
 young freshman, just come to his university with ideas
 
 74 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 and good manners, and not yet spoiled by girls or 
 moulded by upper-classmen. He gave us the best 
 he had without any reserves, without one apparent 
 provident thought of laying up good phrases for the 
 next sermon, or memorizing his own fresh ideas. We 
 liked him genuinely, and resolved to say a good word 
 for him whenever we had a chance. 
 
 When the early afternoon service was ended, our 
 host proposed hitching up and taking him over moun- 
 tain before milking-time ; but to his surprise the young 
 man said he preferred to walk, arid would wait, if con- 
 venient, till evening. 
 
 Mrs. Hopton, who stood in wholesome awe of a 
 minister in any stage, explained with much hesitation 
 and choosing of words, that it was not the custom of 
 the house to prepare supper on the day of rest, but that 
 he was welcome to all the bread and milk and cottage 
 cheese he could eat, along with the family. It jarred 
 on her feelings not a little, we could see. to have the 
 minister throw himself down on the grass under the 
 crooked apple-trees as if he had been but a common 
 man, and later on, swing himself by one arm from a 
 bough within jumping distance, to straighten his mus- 
 cles. But being a reasonable woman she kept these 
 things in her own heart, and did not try to influence 
 her husband's vote when the committee meeting was 
 called in September. 
 
 We had our bread and milk under the trees, with no
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 75 
 
 grace preceding. But the birds sang vespers in a heav- 
 enly way, and nobody felt the ceremony less sacred for 
 the omission. The sun was still making prisms of 
 Abner the Second's windows over on Davy's Hill, when 
 our guest picked himself up and bade us a gracious 
 good-by. We had been talking about Abner, and tell- 
 ing our new friend where to find him over mountain. 
 For Abner was spending all his summer days studying 
 for examinations in the hope of entering Yale in the 
 autumn. 
 
 The young minister Avaved us a final farewell from 
 the verge of the common, and we watched his boyish 
 step till the sudden descent of the hill dropped him 
 from sight. In the hollow he appeared again for an in- 
 stant, like an object seen from the wrong end of a tele- 
 scope ; and Mrs. Hopton, shading her eyes as she looked 
 after him with motherly interest, cried out suddenly : 
 
 u Oh, pa ! do go after him as fast as ever you can. 
 He's took the wrong road a'ready." 
 
 But the 'Squire, who had just set down two foaming 
 milk-pails, stood on tiptoe, and comprehending the val- 
 ley in one long look, shook his head knowingly. 
 
 "Tain't more'n a couple o' miles further that way, 
 mother, and he'll have to go straight past the Brum- 
 leys. I guess she won't let him get lost. Mebbe 
 there'll be a sudden breeze down there, and Grace 
 she's a master hand at pickin' up the pieces. But I 
 bet Aunt Tishy'll squirm if the parson takes a shine
 
 76 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 to Grace Brumley. What's the matter of her, you 
 say?" 
 
 " Now, pa, hush ! " warned Mrs. 'Lias with uncom- 
 mon vigor and authority. " You and Aunt Tishy and 
 Uncle Arad and all of 'em knows that there ain't a mor- 
 tal thing the matter of her. She's just as nice a girl as 
 there is anywheres about, only she ain't a bit like the 
 rest of us. That's all there ever was against her, any- 
 way. Her folks died when she was little, and she and 
 grandma live all alone down there. There was a house 
 left 'em and not much else, and folks think Grade 'd 
 rather read than work. But I don't. Why, she might 
 have kept school. She's smart enough. But Grandma 
 Brumley' s losin" her sense, and they say it's a job to 
 take care of her. Grade can't leave her alone, even of 
 a Sunday. 
 
 " They're 'Piscopal. You see how she went down on 
 her knees to say her prayers this morning. She never 
 would talk about herself or anything belongin' to her. 
 But one of the neighbors happened in pretty often, and 
 she found out in some way unbeknown to me that 
 Gracie done fancy-work and sent it to town by the 
 stage-driver. And they do say, but he won't tell 
 what he fetches and carries, that she's took to makin' 
 jellies and such this year. There's sights o' berries 
 all round there. I ain't one to blame a girl for livin' 
 easy whilst she can. It's good to recollect when you're 
 head over ears with a family.
 
 A HOT SUNDAY 77 
 
 " Abner, now, 's mighty fond of her. That's the 
 pinch with the old folks. They think she's set her cap 
 for him, 'specially since he's goiu' to college. You see, 
 when he does marry they want him to get something 
 uncommon. Nobody quite good enough here. Why, 
 some folks will tell you that rosberries from over moun- 
 tain's ever so much better than ours. Mebbe the soil 
 does make a difference. But folks turn out just about 
 the same wherever you raise 'em." 
 
 ' They're just about the surest crop there is any- 
 where," said the 'Squire musing. " You drive over the 
 barrens twenty miles east 'o here, and if they can't raise 
 stuff enough to keep 'em alive skercely, there's no end 
 to the young ones. It's the surest crop there is." 
 
 " Well," put in Mrs. 'Lias, " I do hope the minister 
 hasn't got lost. I didn't once think to ask him if he'd 
 got a mother. It's just about as hot since sundown, 
 and I'll go up garret and open the windows. Not a mite 
 of a breeze. But wa'n't it queer the way it started up, 
 not a cloud anywheres, and blew the sermon off ! First 
 I thought 'twas a judgment ; but now when I turn it 
 over in my mind since he went away, it seems almost as 
 if it might turn out to be a providence. You never 
 know." 
 
 "Well, mother," interrupted the 'Squire, "if you've 
 got to guessin' out things, I reckon I'd as good's lock 
 up and go to bed. Sure you shut down that milkroom 
 window ? We've got to have some crackin' thunder to 
 keep us awake after a spell like this."
 
 78 A HILLTOP SUMMED 
 
 VII 
 HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 
 
 LYING in a hammock day after day, under maple- 
 trees seventy feet high, and looking up at the backs of 
 the leaves overhead, one comes to feel that each leaf 
 is an old friend whose face will greet us when it turns 
 around. There were other trees at the 'Squire's that 
 we loved : ragged locusts catching the filmiest breezes, 
 and turning them over to the maples, locusts, honey- 
 sweet in flowering time. And there were stunted and 
 crooked apple-trees that blossomed heartily when their 
 time came, making up in sweetness, like many a human 
 being, what nature had denied them of grace. But 
 best of all we loved the maples. Though acres of oaks 
 and chestnuts, beeches and hickories, waved towards 
 the west, just beyond the home meadow, and we could 
 hear from their depths the always unanswered question 
 of the oven-bird as we swung under the nearer shadows, 
 the woodland did not belong to us. The homelier, 
 e very-day birds nested in our own two trees, and em- 
 braced us in the privacy of their domestic affairs, till 
 we felt that they would miss us quite as much as we
 
 HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 
 
 79 
 
 should mourn them, when October came and sent us 
 back to the dust and racket of the town. 
 
 This August day had been intensely, bewilderingly 
 hot. The air vibrated dizzily, and we felt the weight 
 of the sky above our heads as if it had been the roof 
 of an uncertain steamer-berth or the ceiling of an air- 
 less sleeping-car. 
 ( )nly here we had 
 what there was of 
 
 freshness and pu- , %, 
 
 l"0 
 
 rity, with no fear \ \ 
 
 that our modicum 
 of air had been 
 thrice breathed before 
 it reached us. The 
 cows in the meadow left the 
 sunny slope where they ate 
 grass, and thought grass, 
 and dreamed grass, all the 
 day long, and walked in sol- 
 emn, undulatory procession to the little brook corner ; 
 and two cow-buntings followed persistently, darting 
 and rising, but never far away from their leaders. 
 
 The heat grew appalling. Even our comfortable host- 
 ess brought out a low rocking-chair and a palm-leaf 
 fan, and sat down idly in the shade of the nearer maple, 
 apologizing that this was one of the days when she was 
 rich enough without work. The bees reproached us
 
 80 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 with their busyness ; humming-birds dived into the red 
 trumpets of the great creeper at the porch, fanning 
 themselves as they complained of their fare. 
 
 "Deary me! I guess I could keep to work," sighed 
 a voice from the rocking-chair, " if I carried two fans 
 along, the way they do." 
 
 By five o'clock the air darkened suddenly, and every- 
 thing hushed but the crickets. Their " rascally voices " 
 cut through the silence like knives. Then a great 
 wind-storm rose as from the earth, swept the streets, 
 and snatched up the dust from the roadways, to lay it 
 down as suddenly in the tidy front rooms and halls that 
 stood open to breathe. Green maple-leaves torn from 
 the trees flew across our spare room, and flattened them- 
 selves on the opposite wall. The curtains strained and 
 flapped from their moorings, and caught wildly at un- 
 protected mantel ornaments, dashing them madly into 
 space, with streams of water and trails of goldenrod 
 following. The carpet rose in long waves, and tugged 
 at its fastenings like a ship's canvas. The house rocked 
 and shuddered, and the chimney dropped two bricks on 
 the roof to hurry us as we flew up stairs and down, 
 shutting windows, latching doors, and picking up 
 pieces. "We saw Cap'n Saul reach out a long arm for 
 a banging shutter ; there was a clatter of glass at the 
 parsonage. " Betty ain't spry enough for a time like 
 this," gasped Mother Hopton from the garret stairs. 
 Betty was the old woman who lived all alone in the 
 deserted parsonage.
 
 HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 81 
 
 " Don't it seem like the end o' the world ! There 
 I heard it thunder ! Now, I do wish 'Lias would come 
 home. Why, here he is this blessed minute ! You 
 hadn't ought to run, pa. My ! how tired and hot you 
 be ! Drop right down on to the lounge." 
 
 " Windows all seen to, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure." 
 
 " You ain't hasped the milkroom door ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; do set down and get cool." 
 
 " Be'n up garret ? " 
 
 "Why, certain." 
 
 " You ain't be'n down cellar ? " 
 
 ' Dear, dear, yes, pa. Be'n down cellar, and hild all 
 the barrels down," she added with a sense of weakly 
 humor. 
 
 " I bet a cent you didn't rec'lect the woodroom 
 door.'' 
 
 " Well, there ! But that don't matter. I'll go now 
 and see to it, if only you'll drop down somewheres and 
 get cool." 
 
 " No, you won't ; I'll go myself. If you want busi- 
 ness done, send a man. Like as not somethin' else'll 
 be at loose ends ; and we're in for a ripper, I tell you ! 
 Heat don't pile up this way for nothin', now." 
 
 The storm came tramping on from the northwest, 
 black above and livid below, bowing the treetops with 
 shrill whistle and deafening roar. The rain followed 
 after, hissing as it laid the dust. The first great drops
 
 82 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 struck like bullets, punching holes in the roadways. 
 The lightning quivered incessantly, dancing about the 
 woodland, shining between the trees, flashing across the 
 north, lighting up the black world that helplessly 
 waited and harked. We knew that half Hilltop had 
 taken refuge in the midst of plump feather beds, and 
 that the other half sat far from open fireplaces and 
 doors with its feet on the rungs of chairs, preternat- 
 urally silent, with an awed hush like that of nature 
 before the storm burst. 
 
 "There goes that old fool of a brindle straight for 
 the big ellurn, and the whole kit and boodle a-fol- 
 lerin' ! " cried the 'Squire, as he shaded his eyes at the 
 western kitchen window. " And lightnin' always goes 
 for the likeliest critturs. Hand me down that rubber 
 coat, mother." 
 
 " You ain't a-going to tempt Providence ! " cried the 
 wife in a pitiful, shrill key. 
 
 But the 'Squire had no time for a reply. The 
 heavens opened in one superlative, impossible blaze, 
 and out of the heart of the blaze came a sound as if the 
 rocks rent and the mountains fell ; as if the foundations 
 of earth had given way, and chaos was at hand. Each 
 grasped at the nearest support, blinded by blue flames 
 that darted everywhere about the room, like bats on a 
 night when moths are abroad. 
 
 The 'Squire was the first to speak. He stood holding 
 the rubber coat at arm's length, but dropped it and
 
 HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 83 
 
 looked foolish as his wife laid hold of his arm. She 
 had clutched the teakettle in her fright, and stood hold- 
 ing it in one hand while the lid clattered. 
 
 " I thought you two was struck," she said, laughing 
 nervously. " You sort of settled right down on to the 
 floor." 
 
 "I thought 'twas me," said the 'Squire, "and I ain't 
 quite sure yet. But Lordy ! what's afire ? Run all of 
 you somewheres anywheres ! Save something if 
 you can, but run for your lives ! " 
 
 He caught at a pile of milk-pans ready for the even- 
 ing's milking, and started for the spare room. 
 
 "It's only the church," we gasped, as we reached the 
 windows first and flung open the blinds. 
 
 " Only the church ! " cried the 'Squire, in a passion of 
 grief. " Do you begin to know what that meetin'-house 
 cost? Confound it! Why Ava'n't it the Tiscopal ? 
 There goes Cap'n Saul with a couple o' buckets. Wife, 
 get the milk-pails." 
 
 A dozen men ran to the pump. Where they came 
 from we could not tell. They were just there, as if 
 the cloud had dropped them too. A line was formed, 
 and pails were passed from hand to hand, but veiy little 
 water reached the fire. The rain stopped, inconsider- 
 ately, as suddenly as it had begun. Flames shot out at 
 the windows of the prim old meeting-house and licked 
 the clapboards dry, creeping and darting toward the 
 steeple. Cap'n Saul capered heavily here and there,
 
 84 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 directing, shouting, falling over himself, and lending a 
 hand everywhere ; even venturing to beat in vain at 
 the doors with an axe. We saw him driven back again 
 and again. But it was of no use. The heat grew in- 
 tolerable ; and the men stopped work, and stood like 
 sentinels to guard the houses around. Women with 
 brooms swept burning cinders from doorsteps and 
 fences, and put out small blazes that threatened to 
 kindle the little settlement. The 'Squire hurried home 
 to say that we must look out for ourselves when the 
 bell fell. Then he mounted the stairs to guard the 
 roof. The clouds were passing towards the south, but 
 a ragged fringe lingered to trickle a few ineffectual 
 drops on the doomed meeting-house. Uncle Arad 
 limped across the green to our door, staffing along 
 with an umbrella, his straw hat set askew, and his long 
 thin locks dripping on his coat-collar, while Aunt 
 Tishy, with a woollen shawl over her head, sat down 
 on the door-sill, a personified grief ! 
 
 " It's a judgment," she sobbed hoarsely ik a judg- 
 ment and a solemn warning." 
 
 But what was in her mind, or on it, we could not 
 guess 
 
 Everybody waited waited as one gathers up the 
 faculties into one knot when the fuse of a cannon 
 cracker is lighted, or a man's finger is on the trigger of 
 a gun. But the flames crawled on, and shot up to the 
 steeple and played around the bell that hung in loneli-
 
 HILLTOP'S DESOLATION 85 
 
 ness on high, till only the skeleton of the old church 
 stood with vain bravery defying a paltry enemy. 
 
 The timbers were hewn in the old days of honest 
 work, and stood by each other. But the moment came 
 when the bell must go, and women held their ears 
 and pinched their eyelids close, and felt their hearts 
 stand still with a deadly spasm of pain. The steeple 
 rocked and the bell tolled one; then down it came 
 with a dull crash, and buried itself half in the earth. 
 Showers of sparks and cinders flew to the height of the 
 steeple a grand pyrotechnic display for disengaged 
 eyes. The danger was past ; church and steeple, bell 
 and trumpeting angel, all " in one red ruin blent." 
 Cap'n Saul volunteered to keep watch all night, so we 
 kneAv that Hilltop was safe. He said over and again 
 that he was just as wide awake as a blackfish, and 
 might as good 's put it to account. He could turn in 
 for an hour or two by sun-up, when everybody would 
 be a-stirring. A dozen or more drenched and muddy 
 men and women filled the 'Squire's clean kitchen, drink- 
 ing cider and staying themselves generously from a 
 milk-pan full of ginger cookies set out on the two- 
 leaved table, together with great slices of sage cheese 
 and wedges of apple-pie. 
 
 The kettle, restored to its place again, steamed cheer- 
 fully ; cups and spoons jingled, and the odor of coffee 
 filled the room. But no amount of good cheer could 
 stay Hilltop's dreary mourning for its old meeting- 
 house.
 
 86 
 
 A UlLLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " What shall we do ? " groaned Aunt Tishy, " hymn- 
 books all gone nothing left but a heap of ashes, and 
 Sunday coming." 
 
 " Do ! " exclaimed Uncle Arad, with the force of a 
 sudden inspiration that lifted him from the 'Squire's 
 elbow-chair and set him on his feet, "Clean up the 
 old 'Piscopal ! Guess the Lord won't care, sence we 
 can't help ourselves." 
 
 " How can we sing the Lord's songs in a strange 
 land?" piped the elder deacon, as he helped himself to 
 a second glass of cider. 
 
 ' Pity if some of us can't remember the old hymn- 
 tunes," said Mrs. Minerva Pease ener- 
 getically. " The very babes and suck- 
 lin's know ' Old Hundred ' and ' Chiny ; ' 
 and betwixt us all we can make shift to 
 keep up the singin' end, if the parson '11 
 do the rest. There's a sight of work to 
 be done there, though. S'pose 
 we women folks all get together 
 here to-morrow morning 
 with our brooms. 'Squire 
 Hopton'll let us have 
 pails, I know. And the 
 men, they'll just have to 
 turn in and help move 
 things." 

 
 A NEW FRIEND 87 
 
 VIII 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 OUR acquaintance with Miss Brumley, which began 
 at the church porch, developed fast in the few weeks 
 that remained. We were welcomed so heartily when 
 an errand took us one morning to her door a prac- 
 tical errand in the form of a delicacy from our host- 
 ess to the invalid that we went again and again with 
 increasing zest, as the days began to economize on the 
 evening end. It was of necessity a one-sided affair ; for 
 Miss Brumley, with the sole care of an exacting invalid, 
 had scant time for anything outside her own home. 
 
 One sunny morning we started with our hostess, who 
 had important business at Harris, which lay in the di- 
 rection of our favorite walk. The day before 'Squire 
 Hopton had promised to have an order filled for Miss 
 Brumley at " Cap'n Saul's " an order that had waited 
 long, and increased day by day until somebody hap- 
 pened by. 
 
 Country supplies, when one lives at a distance from 
 their source, do not come in like the tides. Their sea- 
 sons of ebb and flow might well be represented in alge- 
 braic formula by x. Two factors in the present problem
 
 88 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 were a stray cow and her owner. The 'Squire, after a 
 luckless chase in the heat of a September afternoon, 
 glowing and full of wrath, came suddenly upon Miss 
 Brumley, who opened a hospitable gate and invited him 
 to come in with her to the cool porch, and refresh him- 
 self with raspberry shrub. As the story of his griev- 
 ance grew to Homeric proportions, his anger cooled, 
 and his heart, expanding abnormally with the continued 
 refreshment and sympathy, prompted him to offer any 
 assistance in his power to the lone women, who kept 
 neither errand-boy nor horse, and so were liable to the 
 Biblical embarrassment of empty cruse and barrel. 
 
 Immediately upon the 'Squire's return we had the joy 
 of taking the order to the store, and seeing the leisurely 
 weighings and measurings develop from shapeless masses 
 into square-ended parcels, tied with criss-crossings and 
 bow-knots of brownish twine, which snapped off sharply 
 against the captain's hard little finger. More than once 
 it had seemed to us that the scales were not reliable ; 
 the weight-end going up too far every time. When it 
 came to the precious quarter of Old Hyson tea, we 
 remonstrated. 
 
 " But, Captain Lamb, you made a mistake. It was 
 only a quarter of a pound." 
 
 " Why, bless my eyes, if my hand didn't slip ! I'll 
 be car'ful next time." 
 
 Surely the recording angel looked the other way. and 
 presently turned back a leaf or two to rub out any
 
 A NEW FRIEND 89 
 
 dark marks that may have accrued in his youth against 
 the captain's name. 
 
 Mrs. Hopton sat between us on the broad seat of the 
 buggy as we set out early the next morning in the 
 direction of Harris, and piloted old Zach skilfully 
 down Meetin'-us Hill, past the 
 ruins of the lamented sacred 
 building, which were matter 
 for shying to the orthodox 
 beast. But our hostess held 
 a firm rein in each hand 
 well up under her chin, 
 and addressed soothing 
 remarks to Zach, who 
 listened with one ear as 
 made long diagonals down the 
 hill, marking his initial with 
 the wheels all along the damp 
 roadway. The brook at the 
 foot of the hill was at its lowest, so 
 we boldly plunged in with much rock- 
 ing over stones, to give the beast a 
 drink, and as boldly strained and struggled up the steep 
 bank on the other side. This was also an economic 
 measure, we learned, as the off-wheel tire rattled be- 
 cause it was too dry, and a good soaking in the brook 
 would stop its creak. 
 
 At this point our ways diverged, as the road to Har-
 
 90 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 ris wound up the hill ; so, taking an armful of parcels, 
 we descended from the buggy, and walked along the 
 brookside in the midst of an apology for a country thor- 
 oughfare. Grass grew between the ruts, and golden- 
 rod with pale asters 
 blossomed there. On 
 either side the untrim- 
 med bushes made a 
 thick hedge which the spiders 
 laid claim to, spreading their 
 glistening webs with the sat- 
 isfaction of geometrical pro- 
 fessors ; looping them from high 
 slender twigs, and fearlessly 
 swinging like mad acrobats, till 
 their gauzy cable caught and 
 gave them a tight-rope for other 
 pranks. Even now, with midsummer in 
 the air, sumacs and swamp maples and 
 blackberry leaves had put on gaudiest 
 colors, defying the fate that already had 
 them in its grasp. 
 
 Everything was dewy, sweet, and still. 
 Presently a cricket chirped and then another ; 
 and in the distance a meadow-lark, like a rejected 
 lover, sang indefinitely, "You are so-o" 
 
 The cottage we sought stood a little back from the 
 highway, three-quarters hidden by lilacs and rose-
 
 A NEW FRIEND 
 
 91 
 
 bushes, and a huge trumpet creeper in full scarlet 
 flower. There was a tangle of honeysuckle at its roots, 
 unearthly sweet with late, pale blossoms that the bees 
 were at. A wide porch, over-generous for the country, 
 held a wicker chair and round table. 
 
 As the gate creaked, Miss Brumley, in a pink ging- 
 ham gown and long white apron, came to the open 
 door. It was jelly-day, and the odors of a whole sum- 
 mer followed her out into 
 the cooler air. Our brief 
 country experience had 
 taught us the primary 
 lesson that company is 
 not needed at crises, and 
 we hastened to withdraw, 
 after giving our parcels into 
 the young girl's hands. But 
 she urged us so genuinely to 
 stay, that we lingered, and 
 at last consented, as we knew 
 
 we should if we could be of service. Certainly, she 
 assured us, we could make ourselves very useful. The 
 sound of our voices 011 the . cool porch would make her 
 forget the heat of the kitchen, and in ten minutes we 
 could help fill the glasses. 
 
 Here was another kind of woman from the one we 
 had dreamed of finding a woman with the manners 
 of a princess ; a woman, moreover, whose delicate hands
 
 92 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 looked as if they had never done anything less graceful 
 than lute-work in king's palaces. 
 
 The long morning was holiday time. Glasses with a 
 silver spoon to carry off the heat were filled, cooled, 
 and labelled. The invalid in the bedroom close by was 
 curious to know what all the talking was about. " You 
 can't work and talk too," she said severely. "Come 
 right here, Grace, and tell me who's out there." The in- 
 terruptions were many and annoying ; but our new friend 
 accepted them, as we found afterwards she accepted 
 everything that came to her, with a sunny, elastic spirit 
 and never-failing kindliness. 
 
 That day was but the beginning of rare days to lay 
 up in memory. Sometimes we sat on the porch-steps 
 and looked over portfolios of sketches. This was the 
 winter work after berries and fruits were gathered, 
 canned, and jellied, and made into fragrant jams and 
 marmalades. Sometimes we posed for our friend when 
 the artist-cook became the artist-designer ; playing a 
 warming-pan for mandolin in an Eastern balcony scene, 
 or balancing kitchen crocks on our heads as Greek 
 maidens with amphorae. The stern old woman in her 
 elbow chair looked upon it as a degenerate sort of play 
 in a working world, where jelly-making brought sure re- 
 sults. She, too, often posed, though unconsciously, as 
 Roman matron or Puritan grandam, her resolute features 
 softened by cap and kerchief that owed their daintiness 
 to another touch than hers. We, with young enthusi-
 
 A NEW FRIEND. 93 
 
 asm, hailed the artist so newly discovered, and brought 
 to her all our books that furnished promising material 
 for illustration. Already we saw " G. B." writ large 
 across the glowing future. 
 
 Everything about the old house was dainty with 
 artistic instinct, from the white curtain behind the 
 kitchen spoons and skimmers, to the scoured floor and 
 white tables. We must have looked interrogatory ; for 
 Miss Brumley replied to our thoughts, " I don't do 
 everything. A real old-school gentlewoman comes in 
 every week and refines things. Haven't you heard of 
 Aunt Mercy ? No ? Why, you've missed the best of 
 Hilltop. Don't think of going away till you have seen 
 her. Spring cleanings wait for her, and weddings and 
 funerals would be simply out of the question without 
 her. She is as angelic in a sick-room as my dear grand- 
 mother, who was never happy unless she could comfort 
 somebody. I often wonder what she has been doing in 
 heaven all summer. 
 
 " But about my house ; yes, there is a great deal to 
 be done, but I am up before the sun, and could do it all 
 if my hands were not more useful in other ways. It 
 marks me as over proud, I know." She smiled con- 
 tentedly, and we knew then that all Hilltop's comment 
 and censure could not chill nor hinder the even flow in 
 her veins nor add one drop of bitterness to her cup of 
 life. 
 
 Her own room we longed to carry off in our kodak,
 
 94 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 that already held a dozen interiors, and was a constant 
 surprise to our good neighbors. We thought of our 
 own room at the 'Squire's, with its green-paper curtains 
 uneasily rolled up and disagreeable to touch ; our two 
 clean rag mats with vivid colors ; our painted chairs 
 that came off on the backs of our gowns, and held 
 us when we wished to go ; our high bedstead with 
 pink calico valance, and orange-and-blue quilt above a 
 mighty feather bed ; our tiny pillows edged with home- 
 knit lace ; our narrow looking-glass 
 that made us wonder what our friends 
 could see in us to tolerate; and our 
 wall-paper that we never mentioned. 
 
 Here was a little, crooked room, 
 where the ceiling stooped down to a 
 four-foot height on one side, and 
 thrust out a dormer window with 
 thin muslin curtains full ruffled, and 
 held back by old-fashioned brass lily knobs and knots 
 of pale pink ribbon. The oval mirror above a bow 
 legged low-boy that did duty as toilet-table and chiffo- 
 nier, was also draped daintily, and gave back one's 
 casual expression with the precision of a snap shot. 
 There was a low couch with wide pillows, a white 
 rug, a round stand with crooked legs, a narrow man- 
 tel over a tiny corner fireplace, holding two tall 
 silver candlesticks with snuffers and tray. Knobbed 
 brass andirons held birch sticks laid for a fire ; books
 
 A HEW FRIEND 95 
 
 everywhere, and a pink-lined work-basket added the 
 last touch of hominess. A frieze of sketches in water- 
 color ran around the room like a precession of the equi- 
 noxes. Above the fireplace a snowed-in hamlet with a 
 rosy glow from the setting sun, a cold thread of moon 
 above the church spire. Over the east window a mist 
 of trees, just touched by spring, with a wandering line 
 of brook among their roots, and a robin with two straws 
 in his bill planning a nest. Beyond, a garden of scarlet 
 poppies and a flight of birds ; and touching the winter 
 scene, a glory of goldenrod and cardinal flower with its 
 feet in a stony brook. 
 
 It was all like the magic of a dream, and we dreaded 
 to see it fade away before our eyes. 
 
 One evening we came just after tea, and stayed to be 
 called for by our host on his way home from church 
 committee-meeting at the elder deacon's. The grand- 
 mother was asleep after a weary day, and peace had 
 descended upon the lonely little house. The night was 
 cool, with a foretaste of the coming winter. We were 
 asked directly up to the little crooked room where the 
 birch fire was burning softly, with a low moon looking 
 in at the west window. Miss Brumley sat on the rug 
 full in the firelight, and we all watched the creeping 
 flames like devout Parsees. We were thinking of the 
 summer already closed, and our lost opportunities ; and 
 one said, " To think, we did not know you all these 
 months ! "
 
 96 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 Miss Brumley mused a moment. 
 
 " To think you do not know Abner Geddie ! That 
 is what I have to regret for you. You have lost a great 
 deal out of your lives and don't know it. I can talk 
 to both of you about him, because you have sense, and 
 don't look on all men as possible lovers. Of course 
 you know Hilltop gossip. So do I. It's untrue, like 
 most gossip, and doesn't reach me. I mean, the real 
 me. Of course it would be annoying if it were worth 
 while ; if there weren't better things to think about. 
 After these weeks with you that have put something 
 new into my life, I couldn't in justice let you go away 
 without knowing the one real man in Hilltop. Only 
 I'm afraid I shall fail to make a picture for you. He is 
 working too hard. I asked the young minister about 
 him last Sunday. He always has worked too hard. 
 He always will work too hard. It's in him. You 
 don't mind my telling this to you? Thank you. I 
 wanted you to know that he is a real man ; not just 
 stuffed clothes. And he never has to entertain you 
 with his pedigree ; just a son of Adam, which was a son 
 of God. Besides, it shows in his eyes. Nothing un- 
 dignifies him. He can teach district school with its 
 babble of noisy young ones, or hoe corn, or hold the 
 plough, feed pigs, or read Plato. Big and little are all 
 one to him. His body does its work well, and so does 
 his mind. They work together like man and angel. 
 A strong team, isn't it? If you meet him in the
 
 A NEW FRIEND 97 
 
 potato-patch, he takes off whatever he calls a hat with 
 as much grace as if it were his Sunday's best ; and is 
 no more affected by his clothes than a scarecrow. 
 
 u Aunt Tishy thinks I shall marry him," Miss Brum- 
 ley laughed softly. " He still has the spirit of a man," 
 she added. " When we came here I was a child ten 
 years old. He was my one real friend in school. They 
 said I was proud. Very likely. I suppose I did keep 
 apart from what I didn't like. I must have been a 
 dreadful little prig. Love of humanity developed 
 slowly in me, and not very far. Abner looked out for 
 everything that was stepped on, from a hopper toad to 
 a dirty youngster with a stubbed toe. I'm afraid I 
 looked the other way. I was different, they said. But 
 they were different too. Abner was the only one of 
 them all that liked me and took my part. I was dis- 
 agreeable enough to need it all. The big boys made 
 fun of him, but his loyalty was the enduring kind. I 
 am four months older than Abner. Everybody thought 
 I was a great deal older, and I was proud of it. I call 
 myself four years older now to him when I want to be 
 motherly. He was really older than I, with a deep ex- 
 perience of trial and unsatisfied ambition that made him 
 a man long before his time. I look back on those days 
 with a feeling of motherly pity for the plucky, freckled 
 little Abner, who was so proud when I, who had been 
 the taller, had to look up to him, and who took every- 
 thing hard, from measles to affliction.
 
 98 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " He was one of Dr. Holland's new Adams. The 
 force and genius that were born in him came from an- 
 other generation, and he made the most of them. I 
 often wonder what he would have been with a father 
 and mother until now. Hampered and limited, I 
 know ; never let to do as he chose, any more than his 
 grandfather was before him. They were small souls, 
 that would have fed their eaglet on chicken-meal. 
 Now he has his liberty in a way. Liberty is good for 
 the soul. Otherwise light comes to it through cracks, 
 and stinted. Bars are a great hindrance and make 
 shadows." 
 
 She leaned forward to put another stick on the fire, 
 which flashed suddenly in her face and made her 
 beautiful. 
 
 " You would love Abner if you knew him. Not as I 
 do, for I know him as nobody else can. I have seen 
 him grow from the ground. Perhaps you think there 
 is a flavor of romance here, but there isn't. If Abner 
 were really dying, I would marry him. But I care too 
 much for his future. I simply stand out of his way and 
 keep shadows from him, my own as well as the others. 
 He will understand it some day better than he does 
 now, dear boy. 
 
 "Am I lonely here? Oh, no. When my candle is 
 snuffed out at night I lean across my window-sill and 
 hark to all the small voices in the night-world, till it 
 seems as if each separate little praise belonged to me.
 
 A NEW FRIEND 99 
 
 In the city it is different. The tiny, clear notes are 
 confused in the great money-making roar, and the 
 world seems to hurry away from the stars. Here we 
 are always sailing towards them. When we do make 
 port, I wonder if earth will seem as near as they do now. 
 
 " My own thoughts keep me busy in new worlds, till 
 sleep shuts the door and makes universal harmony. I 
 need all the daytime cares and perplexities to keep me 
 from being visionary. Sleep-walking in the sunshine 
 is against the law of our own life, which takes care of 
 our bones gratuitously. 
 
 " You wonder if I am ever unhappy ? Who can be 
 miserable unless they choose it, with books, and plenty 
 of work, and all one's faculties in good order? I see 
 more than I can think about every hour; and in some 
 way that I can feel but not explain, everything seems 
 to weave itself into the warp of my life, and make 
 patterns that are pictures to me always." 
 
 " I s'pose," said 'Squire Hopton, as tired Zach picked 
 his sleepy way up the hill and stumbled at pebbles, 
 " I s'pose you got all talked out down there 'twas so 
 late. I never could see for the life of me what women 
 folks had to say to each other. They don't go to town 
 meetin' or read the papers. But if I'd been there an' 
 told you what a fight we'd had over the little parson, 
 and how our side come out ahead, you wouldn't have 
 run out o' talk all winter long.
 
 100 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 " The brethren voted to give the young feller a clean 
 four hundred dollars in cash, and the rent o' the parson- 
 age, besides a donation visit in the fall after butcherin'. 
 The parsonage is worth a good sixty dollars a year. 
 Then, come spring and fall, our women folks turns out 
 an' helps clean house and set things to rights, and give 
 advice. It keeps 'em chirk, and gives 'em something 
 to talk about for a spell. Ministers' wives well, 
 they're a queer lot, take 'em all in all. They don't 
 take nat' rally to the washtub, but they do like to have 
 a finger in the pie when it comes to sermons. Sorry 
 that there ain't a wife here, but then he's got a sister 
 that's a widow an' no children. Mighty good chance 
 for her. Ministers' wives ain't gifted in the kitchen- 
 line, far's I can see ; but I do' know but what their 
 sisters may be, 'specially if they've been married to 
 smart business men an' got started straight. 
 
 " If I get my guess though, that sister'll have to step 
 out 'fore long, and let somebody else step in. Under- 
 stand? I ain't so blind but what I can see through a 
 ladder yet. An' she'll do better'n most of 'em if she is 
 different. They all has to be queer some way, an' if 
 he can put up with it I do' know as we've got any call 
 to make remarks. The old woman won't help matters 
 any, but that's their lookout."
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 101 
 
 IX 
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 
 
 IT was the evening of our last day at Hilltop, and 
 the western sky was still glowing when we went to bid 
 Uncle Arad and Aunt Tishy good-by. They sat in 
 silence before a dying fire, with Tildy curled up on the 
 braided rug in the warmest place. 
 
 " Ef ever I was glad to see a human cretur, it's you 
 two," said Uncle Arad, reaching out a shaky hand, 
 while Aunt Tishy rose to set chairs for us. " Now 
 we've got somebody to talk over things with jest as we 
 did a spell ago," he continued, leaning his head on the 
 staff between his thin knees. " Seems as ef 'twould be 
 a comfort. Did y'ever see the beat o' Abner's up an' 
 dyin' right out o' hand as 'twere ? " He winked away 
 a teardrop that glistened on his nose, while Aunt Tishy 
 picked up a corner of her apron. 
 
 " Why, that boy jest as good 's belonged to us. All 
 my prop'ty was made over to him. Never brought my 
 mind to bear on a widder. Widder Geddie ! Land! 
 The perplexin'ist thing 't ever happened, an' the sud- 
 denist. When the parson said he'd took typhoid, 
 thinks to me, the boy's be'n a studyin' too hard. I'll
 
 102 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 go over an' get hold 011 him, an' fetch 'im home for a 
 spell. Aunt Tishy's a master hand at boneset tea. 
 When I was down in the mouth once, 'way back in the 
 sixties, old Dr. Buell says he, ' Mis' Ridge, you'd ough' 
 to hev a degree D. B., says he, doctor o' boneset.' 
 Well, she fetched me through an' saved a big doctor's 
 bill. An' I reckoned 'twould be jest so with Abner. 
 
 " So I hitched up an' went over mountain kind o* 
 easy, watchin' the leetle yaller butterflies tiddlin' round, 
 
 an' the thistle-seeds a-floatin' 
 so shiny an' calm, an' every- 
 thing lookin' so contented, 
 an' some way I got Abner's 
 life all laid out 
 ahead as easy. 
 ^. . Nothin' to hender 
 his bein' a preach- 
 er ef he so minded, 
 -...--*'"" ^ ' ^' '" 
 
 when he'd got his 
 
 eddication ; or a lawyer though it did go a leetle 
 ag'inst the grain; or a reel good country doctor, 
 drivin' round in his own shay, ownin' land all round 
 his place, layin' up two or three hundred a year mebbe, 
 when we was dead an' gone. I got to sort o' wishin' 
 we could hang on a spell longer 'n we're likely to ; jest 
 curi's to see how things would turn out. An' when I 
 got there moggin' along 'twas late in the forenoon 
 he was jest gone ! Married to the Bromley girl, and
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 103 
 
 gone, an' no help for't. Just like snuffin' out a candle 
 accidental. Why, 'tain't reasonable. Here I be, nigh 
 on to ninety year, and he jest in the dew of his youth. 
 We was gettin' so kind o' proud an' set up about 'im 
 well, the Lord's ways ain't our ways." 
 
 "Didn't he look too good to put under ground?" 
 quavered Aunt Tishy. " So like the other Abner ! It 
 all came back to me, that he was the boy I used to know 
 so long ago. It didn't seem right to take him into the 
 church, some way. If he could only have been laid on 
 our own communion-table ; but there it was real good 
 of you to stay with Grandma Brumley and let Grace 
 go and take care of him. They say she just held on 
 those two days and nights, and wouldn't let him die. 
 Seemed as if she lived and breathed for him. Aunt 
 Mercy said she never slept a wink. And when the 
 doctor said he was going, our minister married them 
 jest as solemn as a funeral. They'd sent for him, to 
 please Abner ; for he wouldn't have anybody else, he'd 
 took such a notion to him. Nobody but the doctor and 
 Aunt Mercy for witnesses. They say it was a touching 
 sight." 
 
 " The old woman took good care," said Uncle Arad 
 mournfully. " She nussed Abner's mother when she 
 was a-dyin', an' the boy he was dretful nigh to her. I 
 was a-thinkin' jest before you come in, an' a-sayin' to 
 Aunt Tishy, mebbe we've be'n a leetle hard on Grace 
 all along, not thinkin' she set so much store by Abner.
 
 104 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 We'd got a notion 'twas the prop'ty, mebbe, along o' 
 Aimer's smartness an' good fain'ly an' all that. I tell 
 you, human natur's queer stuff queer stuff. An' I 
 feel a sight worse to think she won't hev his money, 
 than I did when I s'posed she was settin' traps for 
 Abner. Why, his last words to the parson was to let 
 us know how he'd allays wanted to marry her, sence he 
 was a boy, so to say, an' she wouldn't. Makes me feel 
 powerful mean, some way. You see, she's most related 
 to us, or might 'a' be'n. Her pa was Aunt Rachel's 
 youngest; that ar Tom Jess took on his knee I told 
 y' 'bout when you fust come here. The one he said hed 
 ough' to be'n his'n. Yes, 'twas all wrong, Rachel's 
 marryin' the way she did. Well, Tom was the likeliest 
 one on 'em. He was a sight like her. When he got 
 his freedom suit, he took into his head to go over 
 mountain an' find somethin' to do. Farmin' allays did 
 stick in his crop. He pottered round a spell tryin' one 
 thing an' t'other, an' doin' odd jobs, till jest by a mer- 
 ackle, as you might say, he got clerk in a book-store an' 
 married the old man's daughter. He settled down to 
 bus'ness, steady like, an' bought out the concern when 
 th' old folks dropped off. He'd be'n mighty glad to 
 take Aunt Rachel an' do for her, but Mis' Brumley 
 wouldn't hear to't no way. She's a good deal sot in 
 her mind yet. 
 
 " Well, Tom was car'f ul and so was she ; an' betwixt 
 'em they laid up enough to get on comf'table till the
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 105 
 
 year o' the fever that carried off so many. Then he 
 died, an' they brought him here to be buried, an' after 
 a spell his widder sold out an' come here to live with 
 the little un." 
 
 " That's Grace," said Aunt Tishy. 
 
 " You see, her folks was all gone, an' she hadn't no 
 call to go back," continued Uncle Arad. " You didn't 
 know' s Grace belonged to Aunt Rachel? I wan' to 
 know ! " 
 
 " O Abner, Abner ! " cried Aunt Tishy softly in the 
 pause. " It does seem as if I couldn't stand it." 
 
 " Well, we ain't got to long," said Uncle Arad, with 
 an e} r e to comfort. " One day with the Lord's as a 
 thousan' year." 
 
 " That's just the way it seems to me," said Aunt 
 Tishy, with a nervous catch in her breath very like a 
 laugh. " It seems a thousand years now since he 
 passed away." 
 
 There was a long silence which the clock improved 
 with cruel strokes. 
 
 " A thousan' years like one d&y: a thousan' years 
 like one day ; " mused Uncle Arad. " 'Twas techin' to 
 go into that room an' see him a-layin' there so still. 
 His hand was a holdin' on to Grace's, an' she a-kneelin' 
 there by the bed. I couldn't help it if I'd died for't. 
 I bawled like a baby. So I hed to leave. I went out 
 into the little hallway, an' felt in my coat-tail pockets 
 an' not a han'kercher there."
 
 106 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 kt Well ! " said Aunt Tishy, rousing and holding on 
 by the chair arms, " you had two clean ones folded up 
 in your breast pocket. I put 'em there myself, for I 
 thought likely's not you'd need 'em. Didn't you get 
 'round to 'em ? " 
 
 " Well, no, to tell the truth," said Uncle Arad 
 meekly. " But I looked into my hat that was a-standin' 
 on a chair, for the red bandanner, an' used it out there. 
 Didn't seem the thing in a house o' mournin'. After 
 a spell they got her to go down-stairs with me, and we 
 hed a talk all alone. Or I guess 'twas me. She was 
 jest like a stun. But that sort's got feelin'. I've seen 
 Aunt Rachel jes' so. Ef you hadn't 'a' known her, 
 you'd thought she didn't care a cookie. I told her 
 we'd reckoned on Abner's doin' well, an' set forth to 
 'er how we'd left 'im the heft of our prop'ty, 'longside 
 o' what Jess give us, an' now 'twould go to her. I 
 thought she'd be real tickled, an' think mebbe 'twas jest 
 as she'd calc'lated. But the mazin' thing was she said 
 up an' down she wouldn't hev' it. Not uppish you 
 know, but jest sartin in her own mind. 'Twas so sudden 
 I kind o' ketched my breath. She said 't all she wanted 
 was to carry his name long's she lived. And she'd 
 got it. For the rest part she could make her own 
 livin'. That's the gist of her remarks, nigh's I recol- 
 lect. 
 
 " Long in the course o' the day our parson come in 
 ag'in, an' told me more about it. He said how Abner'd
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 107 
 
 allays felt about many in' her, only she wouldn't. 
 She thought he was bound to do somethin' gre't in the 
 world, an' she wouldn't hender. Then he jest reached 
 out for her hand feeble an' shet his eyes like 
 goin' to sleep peaceful, an' sithed once only once. 
 An' she dropt down on her knees the way she does in 
 church, holdin' his hand all the time; an' says she 
 clear an' slow, ' I believe in God the Father A'mighty, 
 Maker of heaven an' earth.' They all stood around, 
 the parson an' the doctor an' Aunt Mercy, an' didn't 
 know what on earth they was agoin' to do. An' then 
 I come in. 
 
 " Nex' day forenoon she made all the arrangements for 
 the fun'ral an' everything, out of her own head, an' 
 nobody da-ret say ay, yes, or no. She told our parson 
 that night when he set up with him, that all along she'd 
 felt 'twa'n't fair an 1 square o' the Lord to make that 
 boy hev such a tough time, till she didn't know but 
 what she'd get to be a unbeliever. But now 'twas all 
 right. She was sartin he'd got somethin' ahead of him 
 'twas of more account 'n anything he was likely to do 
 here. Otherways 'twould hev been a sort of a insult to 
 'im. That's the way it looked to her, y'see. She allays 
 was queer, a leetle off 's we say, but mebbe no harm in't. 
 There wa'n't anv intended. That I will say, if 'twas 
 
 */ / 
 
 my last words. 
 
 " An' there she sot in church that day the Widder 
 Geddie think on't! Jes' like a statoo, in her black
 
 108 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 veil an' bunnit ; the men a sniffliii', an' the women folks 
 all a cryin' an' takin' on. Thinks to me, ' O Absalom, 
 my son Absalom ; O Absalom, my son, my son ! 
 Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, 
 my son ! ' An' when they come to lay 'im 'longside 
 Aunt Rachel, seems 's if I'd tumble right in too, an' be 
 done with't. Not much sense in my cumberin' of the 
 ground an' him gone." 
 
 " Did you want to leave me all breathing alone ? " 
 asked Aunt Tishy, a little hurt. 
 
 It was dark when we came away and crossed the 
 green, shuddering unconsciously at the thought of what 
 lay before us. We had not seen our friend since that 
 memorable day in church. She had been at Abner's 
 boarding-house in town, setting his affairs in order. 
 
 Of that last interview it is impossible to speak. We 
 came out into the calm night from an unknown country 
 remote from time and space. She whom we loved had 
 great treasure laid up in heaven. She was by far the 
 richest woman we had ever seen. 
 
 As we turned the shadowy corner of the up-hill road, 
 where only the stars and the brook seemed alive, a 
 strange figure with waving arms stood directly in our 
 way. An apparition would not have had power to 
 startle us there ; but it was only Eben Smith, with a 
 bag of sugar cookies and a big bouquet of fennel. 
 
 " Mis' Pease thought you'd reckon of 'em on the
 
 THE LAST OF HILLTOP 109 
 
 stage," he said, and added, " I'm real pleased to come 
 acrost you here. Saves me all this tramp up-hill to the 
 'Square's." 
 
 The morning was still and dewy when the stage 
 rounded up to the post-office with a warlike toot on the 
 horn that did not always go off at first. Every one lis- 
 tened, from away beyond the school-house corner and 
 the sawmill bridge, for the cheerful sound that broke 
 through the utter silence, like a weekly trumpet call to 
 something grand and stirring. 
 
 We saw Cap'n Saul bring out the mail, two postal 
 cards and a letter that we had left with him the night 
 before for company, and that were not urgent. Then 
 he went back for his coat and climbed up with difficulty, 
 sitting bareheaded beside the driver. A moment later 
 he caught his foot and fell over the wheel at our gate, 
 with his hands full of cinnamon-stick and peppermint 
 lozenges. Mrs. Hopton hurried out behind us with an 
 apple-pie carefully tied up in a napkin, which we could 
 keep, as she had several more ; and the 'Squire, not to be 
 outdone, offered us the " biggest punkin in town." 
 
 " If we'd come back next year," he added, " we should 
 have our choice of a likely couple of lambs or the slip- 
 p'riest little white pigs you ever see." 
 
 We kissed them all round Mrs. Hopton, Aunt 
 Tishy, the 'Squire, who blushed like a boy, Uncle Arad, 
 and Cap'n Saul ; while the driver grinned from his high 
 seat, and made a doubtful remark about feeling or not 
 feeling safe.
 
 110 
 
 A HILLTOP SUMMER 
 
 Aunt Tishy said it wasn't likely that we should ever 
 see them all again ; but Uncle Arad braced against the 
 hitching-post, and waved his hat round- and round on 
 the staff held high above his head ; a hilarious farewell 
 that was comforting. 
 
 As we dropped below the hill, and lost even the ridge 
 of the world with its shaggy wind-bent trees, the new 
 life in waiting rushed in to fill the vacuum, and Hilltop 
 lay years behind us in the past.