University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Spenser.

The fall, that sad season, when the reaping is all
done, and the husbandman sits by the fire, while
the long, dreary rains beat down the last flowers,
and the housewife gathers, from long shut drawers
and presses, the last year's clothes of the children,
brushing off cobwebs, and patching and mending
—that lonesome season came, and went. The revolutions
in costume which take place in the country
with the changes of the seasons, are much more
distinctly marked than in cities; because there, as
the Scotch have it, the “auld clathes” are made to
look “amaist as well as new,” until the winter stores
of woolens come from the factory, and the approach
of the holidays justifies the donning of new suits.

How awkwardly and almost funnily they look—
boys and girls—as they appear in those shearsand-needle-renewed
garments, too narrow and too
short: boys in coats that have fallen behind the
fashion, with new patches at elbows, and shrinking
from the wrist as though afraid of it, while buttons
and buttonholes will not acknowledge the slightest
affinity; and vests draw themselves up in disdain
from trowsers, that, in turn, leave the ankle unprotected,
and looking slim and shivering, like the
leg of a pullet below the feathers. Half ashamed
they feel when first required to go into the village
for tea and sugar, in spite of the dear kind mother's
assurance that they look very well, and her promise
that they shall soon have new suits, though they
must make the old ones serve as long as they can.
The last admonition is not always heeded, and the
rents widen faster and the patches give way sooner
than seems necessary. And the girls look odd
enough, too, with the bright streaks around their
skirts, where the last year's tucks were; some of
the dresses—for they are woolen—shrunken till
they are thick and stiff enough to stand alone, and
yet too long and large for the younger sisters, to
whom they are appropriated in succession. To be
sure, they can pretend such gowns are the new
fashion when they play with longnecked pumpkins
in the barn, where the veriest old hen serves for a

waiting-maid, and the tall young calf, stepping
feebly and awkwardly, becomes, in “the rapture of
a vision,” my lady's pet antelope.

This season of falling leaves and changing garments
was long past, and the great log-fires had
blazed in the deep chimneys, and gone down, for
winter, too, was over. The drifting snows, that
made such chilly beds for the young lambs, had
melted in the thawing rains of spring, and the
blustering winds, that angrily shook the great black
forests as easily as they would have shaken the
little beds of reeds, had subsided to laughing murmurs.
The long evenings, bright with hearth-light,
and merry with the sports of children, had
shortened into brief twilights, beautiful with red
clouds, and soft with balmy airs.

And spring now was ripening into summer.
The windows were open, the knitting-work laid
aside for the distaff; the colt was put in harness;
and the fragrant earth turned up before the plow;
while from the open barn-door flew a golden
shower of chaff, where the threshing flail was
heard beating and beating all the day long. The
birds had mended their old nests, and silently and
patiently awaited for the young life and the new
song. The gardens were planted, and tender beets,
and thick-leaved cucumbers, gave thrifty promise;
and the orchard grounds were sown thick with

blossoms, which the enlarging fruit had pushed
aside.

And Joseph Arnold and his friend still lingered
and loitered with the Yanceys; but Joseph had
grown more melancholy, and was more often than
ever before seen alone. He had concluded that
there was less chance for a man of sense to get
along in this world than he had once with a fond
self-flattery believed.

Frederick Wurth, on the contrary, had become
even more easy and good natured; but though still
generally replying “I think not,” if Joseph said so,
there was one point he would not yield: “single
blessedness” was not the compassing of all human
felicity, and, strange to say, in this opinion he had
a strong ally in Miss Eunice, and she was actually
about to renounce her immature vows, and consecrate
anew her life on the altar of matrimony.

The little puffs, which had at first been worn
with tremulous misgiving, were, in process of time,
lengthened into curls; and afterward these were
divided, and subdivided, till a profusion of graceful
ringlets had more than once been shaken in the
face of some tender appeal with a coquettish “nay.”

Miss Eunice was now, indeed, assured beyond a
possibility of doubt that she was come into the full
light. Beyond the sphere of her vision, there was
nothing to be discovered. The mind and heart

were all that were worth living for in this poor
world. This was the third or fourth time she
had been equally confident of the correctness and
comprehensiveness of her opinions and ambitions;
and, though the new plan was always in direct
opposition to the old, she affirmed with each change,
and heartily believed, that any further alteration
or modification was quite outside of reason, or any
possibility.

Mr. Wurth was by several years the junior of the
elect lady, who, in her decided habits of thought,
and uncultivated manners, was altogether different
from him, while in every personal attraction he
seemed to have as much superiority as in acquaintance
with the world.

There are some men, and Mr. Frederick Wurth
was one of them, who seem to marry on the
principle by which they would procure a new coat
or hat. The acquisition is indispensable, and who
ever chances to be in the way at the propitious
season is taken, for better or for worse.

Mr. Frederick Wurth was never hard to please.
He shaped his thought in all things, and when it
required but little exertion, the habits of his life, to
a concurrence with the wishes of those about him.
His first wife had been all grace and gentleness,
but wooed less for these qualities than because
accident had thrown him into her society; and

now—his faculty of adaptation as he called it, but
really his want of such energy as is necessary for
the preservation of any individuality, having made
him familiar and at ease among the Yanceys—he
would have seen in the best trained and most accomplished
belle of the gay world to which he was
born, no attractions higher than those of which the
spinster Eunice boasted. If the whim to marry
had seized him while wandering with Joseph Arnold
beyond the Rocky Mountains, some tawny
daughter of the forest would perhaps as readily
have been chosen for his bride.

Mrs. Yancey grew more laughter-loving every
day, and more confident in hope that some good
luck would happen to her and William; she had
often heard of people having money sent them, or
something, just when they were in the greatest
need. And so, in the blind credulity that takes no
thought of ways and means, she prepared for the
wedding, making larger expenditures than the hard
and scanty earnings of her husband would justify.
Once the little man ventured to hint the propriety
of some economy, when she requested him to buy
half a dozen cans of oysters, and as many turkeys,
and loaves of wedding-cake, with jars of preserves,
and other confections, adding that she must also
have five or six women to help her for a fortnight.
“I thought,” said the little man, “you made fifty

pounds of sugar into preserves last fall;” and he
looked puzzled, and spoke deprecatingly.

The home-made preserves had fomented, and
been fed to the pigs.

But it was not every day they had a wedding,
and they must do a little like other folks. “Maybe
you will find some money, William, when you
are on the way to town;” and she concluded by
relating that once, when she wanted to go to a big
muster, she couldn't get a new dress, and just when
she had given up, Uncle Benjamin happened to
send her a new red calico pattern for one from
down the river.

So the trustful woman carried the point, and the
obedient husband arrayed himself in his Sunday
trowsers and hat, (he wore no coat in the summer),
with one of the unbleached cotton shirts originally
designed for the Indians, and set out to procure the
aforementioned cakes, sweet-meats and other things
needful at a wedding; having first, with the assistance
of Mr. Frederick Wurth, who democratically
volunteered his assistance, added a fresh supply
of tar to the axles.

Mrs. Yancey purchased for herself, to be worn
on the happy occasion, a new silk dress, and a lace
cap, tastefully ornamented with flowers; and, for
the sake of her husband's gentility she spread in
the yard one of the lot of cotton shirts, to bleach,

which, owing to the rëconsecration, had fallen to
him. The preparations went forward vigorously.
One or two women of the neighborhood spared
their oldest girls to assist, and occasionally she
herself superintended, waddling, from kitchen to
cellar, with upturned sleeves, and an apron made
of a small table-cloth.

The beating of eggs, and mixing, and rolling,
and cutting, and baking, must be left to the reader's
fancy, and also the nice washing of nice things, and
starching, and drying, and, last of all, the table-setting
and toilet-making—connected with which
last duty poor Mr. Yancey suffered a disappointment.

The shirt which the kind-hearted wife intended
to have bleached and “done up,” had been quite
forgotten, and when it should have been ready, in
shining whiteness, it was still spread, bleaching, in
the yard, the grass grown round it so that it was
half concealed from observation. For a moment,
it must be confessed, the good man, who was not
entirely destitute of suitable pride for grand occasions,
felt half vexed; but when his wife said it
reminded her of their own happy wedding, he put
his arm up about her neck and kissed her—saying
one of the unbleached shirts would do just as well.

And little Nanny, where was she while the fire

blazed, and the blustery snows drifted against the
door, and when the garden was planted, and the
spring bloomed and ripened into summer? Slight
and delicate always, she had been growing more
and more fragile, all this while—quietly attending to
household duties as long as she could. Then they
began to give her the rocking-chair, and to tell her
if she would not work so hard she would be better.
Her father came home earlier of nights to milk the
spotted cow, that liked no one to milk her so well
as Nanny—who said every day she was better, and
would soon be able to do as much as she used.
While the winter lasted she was sure she should be
well in the spring, and when spring came, and,
instead of sitting in the rocking-chair, she lay all
day in bed, she said, if it were not for that ugly
cough, she would soon be well.

One day her father brought some roots and
herbs, and made a sort of bitter tea, which Nanny
did not like, though she drank it every day, still
saying it made her stronger, till she could not lift
her head from the pillow to take it any more. The
village doctor was next called, and for weeks the
poor child patiently and almost cheerfully took his
medicines, that seemed more frightful than the
disease; and still, though she said not any longer
she was better, she continued to smile sweetly, and
did not complain. And so, as the faint summer

came along the meadows and orchards, the dark
shadow imprinted itself in the fair groundwork of
her life.

The father ceased to speak of her getting well,
yet he forebore to mention the grave, or the bright
infinity beyond—as if being silent would push the
reality aside. But still the mother talked hopefully,
saying in a cheerful tone, as she brought the
drink or the medicine, “When you get well, Nanny.”
And the new summer dress and bonnet were
bought, as though she were in health, and as if
such shows would make her so.

In the old fashioned parlor the lights burned
brightly; the little group of rustic friends were in
holiday attire; but Nanny was not there. In a
dimly lighted chamber she too was arrayed, in the
new dress, which, by her own choice, was of pure
white.

Joseph Arnold had been her faithful and constant
watcher, and to-night he kept his place, looking
very melancholy, but neither speaking nor
moving. How distinctly sounded the ticking of
the clock in the adjoining room.

Suddenly a cloud passed over the moon, and the
soft light, that had fallen over the sick girl's pillow,
was gone.

“I am cold, very cold,” she said, faintly.

The young man arose, and laid his hand on her

forehead. The pulses fluttered, and were still; and
softly kissing her cheek he said, “Dear little Nanny
you will never say you are cold any more.”