University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

The next morning, Chilion and Margaret, joined by Obed,
started on a bee-hunt. Obed was to remain with them till
they should have been successful in this enterprise, then Margaret
agreed to help him gather such plants and roots, growing
wild in the woods, as could be of use to his mother. They
took with them the honey, an axe, leather-mittens for the
hands, and screens for the face, some brimstone and a tinder-box,
a basket, spade, &c., for their several purposes. They
entered the woods lying to the south of the Pond, an unlimited
range, extending in some directions many miles. The honey
was placed on a stump, and several bees, springing up as it
were from vacuity, lading themselves with it, darted off. Our
hunters pursued, watching the course of their flight, and were
conducted by the unconscious guides to their own abode.
This was a chesnut tree, hollow at the root and partially
decayed in the top. Not many strokes were requisite to bring
it crashing to the ground. It was a more difficult job to possess
themselves of the honey. The angry bees seemed to
spurt out from their nest like fire; their simultaneous start,
their mixed and deepened buzz, their thousand wings beating
as for life, made a noise not unlike a distant waterfall, or the
hidden roar of an abyss. Their persecutors speedily covered
their faces and hands and waited for the alarm to subside.
Margaret said she thought they would not hurt her, as those
at the widow's did not. It is said there are some persons
whom bees never sting. She kindled the brimstone each side
of the tree. The bees within, called out by a rap on the
trunk, and those without, flying and crawling about their nest,
fell dead in the smoke. Chilion cut about the cavity where
the comb was deposited. Margaret, looking in, and seeing

the beautiful well-constructed house of the bees, seemed struck
with remorse. She had eaten honey and honey-comb. She
had seen bees, but she never had associated the two together
in such a touching, domestic and artistical sense. She saw
the bees lying dead in heaps. She had killed them. She had
seen them aroused by a relentless hand from the repose and
security of their house, and sink in the blue flame. Some
were not quite dead, some lay on their backs, their feet convulsed
and arms quivering. Others were endeavoring to stretch
their wings. She could give back no life; she could set not
a muscle in motion; she could re-form not a filament of a
wing. They would visit her flowers no more; their hum
would blend never again with the sounds she loved to hear.
Whether the reflections of the child were just of this sort,
order and proportion, we are not told. The bees were dead
and she was sad. She had seen dead squirrels, raccoons,
partridges, pigeons. But they were brought in dead; she had
not killed them. What is the child's first sense of death?
She would have given all her little heart was worth, could she
render back that life she had so thoughtlessly taken, could she
see them again busy, blithe, happy about their house. Tears
ran down her cheeks, the unconscious expiation of Nature to
the Infinite Life. Chilion and Obed were apparently too much
occupied to notice her agitation, nor would she have dared to
speak to them of what she felt.

The tall, gawky form of Obed went before through the woods.
The lad's skilts, through which were thrust his lean dry shanks,
gave him a semblance to a peasant of Gascony on stilts. His
shovel hat dodged to and fro, bobbed up and down among the
branches. It was, as we might say, a new scene to Margaret.
She had never gone so far into the forest before. She was susceptible
in her feelings, and fresh as susceptible. The impression
of the bees somewhat abated, though its remembrance
could never be stifled. The woods,—where Adam and Eve enjoyed
their pastime and sought their repose; where the Amorites
and Assyrians learned to pray, and the Israelites to rebel; where
all ancient nations found materials for sacrifice and offering;
where Hertha, the Goddess of the Angles, had her lovely residence;
where the Druids “thought everything sent from
heaven that grew on the oak;” the religion and worship of
the old Germans, Italians, and Gauls; where Pan piped, the
Satyrs danced, the Fauns browsed, Sylvanus loved, Diana
hunted, and Feronia watched; whence Greek and Saracen,
Pagan and Christian derived architecture, order, grace, capitals,

groins, arches; whence came enchantment and power to
Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Scott, Cooper, Bryant,
Titian, Rosa, Poussin, Claude, Meyer, Allston; where
“the stately castle of the feudal lord reared its head, the
lonely anchorite sang his evening hymn, and the sound of the
convent bell was heard,” and the fox and stag-hunter pursued
their game; where Robin Hood and his merry men did their
exploits, and king Rufus was slain; the enlivenment and
decoration of the Feast of Tabernacles, May-day, Whitsuntide,
Christmas; the ward of dryads, the scene of fairy revels, and
Puck's pranks, the haunt of bul-beggars, witches, spirits,
urchins, elves, hags, dwarfs, giants, the spoorn, the puckle, the
man in the oak, will-o'-the-wisp; the opera-house of birds, the
shelter of beasts, the retreat of mosquitoes and flies; where
sugar was made, and coal burnt; where the report of the
rifle was heard, and the stroke of the axe resounded; the
home, manor, church, country, kingdom, hunting-ground and
burial place of the Indian; the woods, green, sweet-smelling,
imparadisaical, inspiring, suggestive, wild, musical, sombre,
superstitious, devotional, mystic, tranquillizing;—these were
about the child and over her.

That we must know in order to know, that we must feel in
order to feel, was a truth Margaret but little realized. She
was beginning to know and to feel. Could the Immortal
Spirit of the Woods have spoken to her? but she was not
prepared for it; she was too young; she only felt an exhilarating
sensation of variety, beauty, grandeur, awe. She leaped
over roots, she caught at branches above her head, she hid
herself in thickets, she chased the birds. Yet with all that
was new about her, and fitted to engross her vision, and supplant
her recent sorrowful impressions, there seemed a new
sense aroused, or active within her, an unconscious instinct,
a hidden prompting of duty; she trod with more care than
usual; a fly, or beetle, or snail, she turned aside for, or stepped
protectingly over; she would not jostle or tear a spider's
web—the wood-spider that strings his lines across from bush
to bush.

“It won't hurt ye,” said Obed. “It brings good weather.”

“I know that,” replied Margaret, “but I don't want to kill
it.”

Obed was homely and clever, as we have said, simple and
trusting. He never argued a point with Margaret; he was
glad to have her help him, and glad to help her. He held
back the low wiry branches of the hemlocks where she passed,

he assisted her over the round slippery trunk of a fallen tree,
he lifted her across the narrow deep stream of Mill Brook,
running in green spongy banks. He brandished his spade,
and said he would keep off the snakes; Margaret replied that
she was not afraid of them. They came to a sunny glade in
the woods, tufted with black and white moss, shaded by huckle-berry
shrubs, and sown with checker-berries, whose fruit hung
in round crimson drops, and little waxen flowers bloomed under
the dark shining leaves. Margaret sat down and ate the
sweet berries and their spicy leaves. The shadows of the
forest vibrated and flickered on the yellow leaf-strewed earth
and through the green underwood; the trunks of the trees shot
up, in straight, rough, tapering stems clear through the branches
into the sky.

The particular patch of woods where Margaret now sat was
of great age, and the trees were very large, and the effect on
her mind was like that of a child going into St. Peter's church
at Rome. But there were no bronze saints here to look down
on her; a red squirrel, as she came in sight, raised a loud
shrill chattering, a singular mixture of contempt, welcome and
alarm. She made some familiar demonstrations towards the
little fellow, and he, like a jilt, dropped a nut into her face.
She saw a brown cat-headed owl asleep, muffled in his dark
feathers and darker dreams, and called Obed's attention to it.

“That's an owl,” cried the startled lad; “it's a bad sign;
Marm says it will hurt ye.”

“No,” replied Margaret; “I've seen them on the Butternut
a good many times.” Knowing that as Obed never reasoned
so he could never be persuaded, Margaret joined him in leaving
the ominous vicinage.

“That's saxifax,” said her companion, striking his spade
into the roots of a well-known shrub. “It's good teu chaw;
the Settlers eats it—take it down, and they'll give ye ribbons
and beads for it.” Wisping the top together, and
bending it over, he bade Margaret hold on, while he proceeded
with the digging. The light black mould was removed,
and the reddish damp roots disclosed. “Taste on't,”
he said, “it's as good as nutcakes.” He gave her a fibre—
fleshy it was, moist, soft and of agreeable flavor, and rubbing
the earth from the mass, cut it into short bits and
laid it in his basket. Margaret loitered, wandered, attracted
by the flowers she stopped to pick. “Marm won't let us,”
said Obed, “them ant yarbs, they won't doctor, the Settlers
won't give anything for them.” Margaret, whether convinced

or not, yielded, and ran on before, apparently the most anxious
to discover the plants desired.

“That's um!” cried Obed.

Margaret was bounding through a wet bog, springing from
one tussock of sedge to another. She, too, had espied it, and
in sight of its beauty and novelty forgot everything else. It
was a wake-robin, commonly known as dragon-root, devil's
ear, or Indian turnip. Margaret broke off the flower, which
she would have carried to her nose.

“Don't ye taste on't!” exclaimed Obed, “it's orful burnin;
put it in the basket.” So the plant, flower and all, was deposited
with the rest of their collection.

It was time to go home. They had reached the edge of the
woods whence they started.

“That's him!” cried Margaret.

“It's the Master!” echoed Obed, evidently a little flustered.

There appeared before them a man, the shadow of whom
they had seen moving among the leaves, about fifty or sixty
years of age, and dressed in the full style of the times, or we
should say of his own time, which dated perhaps a little earlier
than that of Margaret. He wore a three-cornered hat, with a
very broad brim tied with a black ribbon over the top. His
coat, of drab kerseymere, descended in long, broad, square
skirts, quite to the calves of his legs. It had no buttons in
front, but in lieu thereof, slashes, like long button holes, and
laced with silk embroidery. He had on nankeen small-clothes,
white ribbed silk stockings, paste knee and shoe buckles, and
white silk knee-bands. His waistcoat, or vest, was of yellow
embossed silk, with long skirts or lappels, rounded and open
at the bottom, and bordered with white silk fringe. The
sleeves and skirts of his coat were garnished with rows of silver
buttons. He wore ruffle cuffs that turned back over his wrists
and reached almost to his elbows; on his neck was a snow-white
linen plaited stock, fastened behind with a large paste
buckle, that glistened above the low collar of his coat. Under
his hat appeared his grey wig, falling in rolls over his shoulders,
and gathered behind with a black ribbon. From his side
depended a large gold watch-seal and key, on a long gold chain.
He had on a pair of tortoise-shell bridge spectacles. A golden-headed
cane was thrust under his arm. This was Mr. Bartholomew
Elliman, the Schoolmaster, or the Master, as he
was called. He was tall in person, had an aquiline nose, and
a thin face.

“Ha, my Hamadryad!” said he, addressing Margaret, salutem

et pacem, in other words, how do you do, my girl of the
woods?”

“Pretty well, thankee,” replied Margaret.

“I thank you, Sir,” said he, amending her style of expression.

“I forgot,” she added, “pretty well, I thank you, Sir.”

He nodded to Obed, who stood aloof in awkward firmness;
besides there were signs of uneasiness or displeasure on the
faces of both.

“How came the Pond Lily in the woods?” said he.

“I came out after herbs,” replied Margaret, “and I have
some flowers too,” added she, taking off her hat.

“Flowers, have you? You are a noble specimen of foliacious
amfractuosity—A hortus siccus of your hat! Would I
could send you and your flowers across the waters to my friend,
Mr. Knight, the great botanist, nox semperlucens.”

“He shan't hurt Molly,” interrupted Obed. “He'll drown
her, he'll pull her teu pieces. Marm says he spiles everything.
He wants to pitch Molly into the Pond.”

“Don't be alarmed, my glandulous champion, no harm shall
come to this fair flower.”

“He'll git um all, Molly; don't ye let him have any.”

“I tell you,” responded the Master, “Margaret is a flower;
she is my flower.”

“No, she an't a flower,” rejoined Obed, “she's Pluck's
Molly.”

Obed became quite excited, and spake with more than his
customary freedom. It needs perhaps to be explained, that
Master Elliman and the Widow Wright were somewhat at
odds. He was in pursuit of science, she of gain. They took
a common track, herbs and flowers; their ends essentially
diverged. They frequently encountered, but they could never
agree. Margaret herself became another point of issue between
them, and the Widow was jealous of the child's attachment
to the Master. The impression that Obed derived on
the whole was, that he was an evil disposed person, and one
whose presence boded no good to Margaret.

The Master proceeded in the examination of the flowers
Margaret gave him.

“I have another one,” said she, and thrusting her hand
into Obed's basket, drew out the wake-robin.

“An Arum!” said the Master, “the very thing I have been
written to upon.”

“Tan't yourn, Molly; it's Marm's,” said Obed, seizing the
flower and replacing it in the basket.

Here was, indeed, a mistake. Margaret had unreflectingly
given the flower to Obed to carry, at the same time thinking
it was her own property. She did not know the value attached
to it by Obed, whose mother had enjoined him to get one if
possible, for some particular purpose of her own. At last she
said,

“I can get more, I know where they grow.”

“Can you, can you?” said the Master, “their habitat is
sphagnous places, what you call swamps. It is impossible for
me to reach them—stultiloquent yarb-monger! ” he broke
out, speaking of or to Obed; “son of an helminthic android!
you ought to be capistrated.”

“That's hocuspocus, Molly,” said the lad; “Marm says 'tis.
He'll hurt ye, he'll hurt ye.”

“I will get some for both of you,” said Margaret; “I will go
to-morrow.”

“You don't know the way,” rejoined Obed, “snakes 'll bite
ye; there's painters in the woods, and wild-cats, and owls.”

“I'll take Bull with me,” answered Margaret.

This allusion to the dog gave Obed more trouble. He feared
his mother, who he thought would not wish the Master should
have the flower; he dreaded the dog, he disliked the Master, he
loved Margaret; he was in a quandary. He stammered, he
tried to laugh, he put his hand on Margaret's head, he yerked
up his trowsers, he looked into his basket. He leaned against
a tree, and dropped his face upon his arm. Margaret ran to
him, she took hold of his hand. “Don't cry Obed,” she said;
“poor Obed, don't cry.”

The Master, seeing the extremity of affairs, told Margaret
not to care, that he presumed she would be able to get the
flower for him, and took her hand to lead her away. She
clung to Obed, or he to her, wholly enveloping her little hand,
wrist and all, in his great knuckles. Thus linked, sidling,
skewing, filing as they could through the trees and brush, they
soon emerged in the road. The Master went on with them to
the house, and Obed continued his course homeward. Master
Elliman was evidently not a stranger to the family. His visit
seemed welcome. Even the hard, ragged, muddy features of
Hash brightened with a smile as he entered. The dry, pursed
mouth of the mother opened with a pleasant salutation. Chilion
offered him the best chair. Pluck was always merry. Margaret
alone for the moment, contrary to her general manner,
appeared sorrowful.