 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
A NEW START.
The hush of the Sabbath evening hung over the world.
Youths and maidens were crossing the green fields to the music
of some rustic chapel, as the last light that burned about the
sunset went out, and twilight opened her dusky wing, full of
stars.
The rumbling of the wheels that went down the grass-grown
lane, now dragging heavily through some deep rut, and now
gliding smoothly along the level sward again, scarce disturbed
the silence. The cattle that lay along by the fence, chewing
the cud quietly, their sleek backs gray with frost, looked up
with instinctive recognition, and the blue smoke curled upward
from the old mossy and steep-roofed homestead, and the light
(how far a little candle throws its beams!) shone forth its welcome
from the narrow and old-fashioned window. They were
almost home—Uncle Peter and Aunt Jane; they had had a
good visit, but still they were glad to get back.
Poor Richard Claverel! there was no eye to look brighter
for his coming; and as he sat on the little trunk that contained
all his earthly effects, with his face turned away from his relations,
he was sad, for he was going forth to try once more if
there were energy or manhood in him, though he secretly felt
there was neither, for he was convinced, at least, that he was
really ill-starred.
“If it had been thus or thus,” he would say, “I might have
been different;” for he was vexed and maddened against everything
for being what he was. Circumstances above his ordering
had shaped his destiny, as he thought, and so he sat, helpless
and faithless, and let the current drift him as it would.
What poor apologists we are, and how our judgments lean
weakly in favor of ourselves. What is crime in another, in
us is privilege, or chance; rules that are sacredly binding to
others, we may trespass, if we will, for there is some sweet
reservation of mercy for us that violated justice seals away
from others; and so we sin, and draw after us a long train of
evil and sorrow and remorse, even to the edges of the grave;
and pity us, our Father! if we also dim the pure radiance of
eternity. How hardly is the spirit taught, amid all the trials
and weaknesses and temptations of our mortality, to shape its
upward flight!
Richard was sad; for a thousand times over we may say to
ourselves, Can my weak hands wrest my destiny from the
power of Omniscience? Can I warp circumstances to my will?
Can I be other than I am? and so, yield to the sway of blind
impulse; but a voice that condemns us—a still, small voice
—is speaking all the while in our hearts, and making itself
felt above our senseless declamation. Turn right about from
the tempter, weak idler, and work—work diligently and earnestly,
doing what your hand finds to do with your might—
and the wicked one will flee away. No mere intellectual resolve,
though never so well contrived, is strong enough, without
work. If you come to a rock that you can neither blast
nor break, nor dig under, nor climb over, turn aside, but work
on, and by little and little you will get forward, and each step
will give new strength for the next, till at last you will triumph,
even though it be not till that “hoary flower that crowns extreme
old age” shall have blossomed on your brow.
When the little journey was over, and the carriage stopped
before the large red gate, Richard felt sadder than ever; the
monotony of his thought must be broken in upon; he must
encounter new faces, and make some show of gratitude for the
kindness he should receive. All this was painful to him, and
so, in place of talking with his cousins, Joseph and Hannah,
and listening to Aunt Jane's glowing account of Uncle Sammy
Claverel's folks, as she made the tea and changed the butter-plate
from one side of the table to the other, and re-arranged
the cups and saucers to the way she was used to have them,
though the air was very cold and comfortless. The cribs and
barns and haystacks looked not as they looked at home; and
the scythes and sickles and saws that garnished the side of the
piazza were quite out of place, he thought. His father kept
such like articles in a little room in the wagon house; and
Uncle Peter seemed only half-civilized. From the end of the
piazza, fronting the south, could be seen the little village of
Medford, which lay some half mile away; clusters of white
houses among the trees, gleaming lights, and one or two spires
shooting up through the blue, were seen distinctly, for the
moonlight streamed broadly over all.
There was to be the scene of his new efforts. What would
be the result? Interest that he had not felt for a long time
began to attach itself to the place, and he wished it were morning,
that his work might begin, though he had nothing to do,
except to nail the sign of “Dr. Claverel” to the gate post,
for the public road was a quarter of a mile from Uncle Peter's
house, and the sign must therefore be at the gate opening
to the lane. To the northward, stood a thick wood, the edges
of which were ragged with patches of clearing, and half decayed
stumps of trees, blackened and charred; and now and then a
tree with half its branches broken and crushed away by the fall
of some neighboring fellow, caught the cold glimmer of the
moonlight, and shivered to the passing of the wind.
In the midst of one of these openings stood a small log cabin,
from the little square window of which the light streamed very
brightly. There seemed to be no buildings about it; and Richard
marvelled to himself as to the character of the people who
lived there. A narrow strip of meadow and a part of the
clearing only divided it from his view: some poor family of
emigrants, he thought, or people who mend the roads. But as
he looked and thought, the door opened, and a female figure was
presented to his sight, which, imperfectly as he saw, belied his
previous impression. Her arms were folded across her bosom,
and she stood for some time perfectly still—whether in musing
mood, or in expectancy of some one, it was impossible to tell.
Richard was half resolved to cross the meadow, and gain a
every direction but the right one, exclaimed, “Where on earth
is the boy?” and, as she saw him, added, “Come in; you will
get your death of cold.” And Richard went in, and ate with
better relish, and talked more than he had before in a month.
Perhaps he didn't know why, himself; very probably not; nevertheless,
if he had not seen the lady in the moonlight, the
humanizing sensations he now experienced would have had no
place in his heart. Once or twice he was about to ask something
respecting the cabin, yet he hesitated, he scarce knew
why; but at length, thinking to gain indirectly the knowledge
he desired, he said, “What thick woods you have at the north,
here?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane, and then proceeded to tell how a
neighbor's little boy was lost there a few days previous, and
that half the village had been engaged in the search; at all of
which Richard expressed great wonder, adding, “It will not be
left there much longer for boys to be lost in; I see there are
some clearings into it already.” But in this he failed, as before,
and went on to say that some sort of a house stood close against
the woods, if he were not mistaken; to which Aunt Jane
replied, that he was not mistaken, that a house did stand there.
“It seems a desolate place. Any person living there?” asked
Richard.
Aunt Jane replied that no persons lived there, laying stress
on the word persons—at which the young folks exchanged
smiles.
“How do you like the view of our village by moonlight?”
asked Uncle Peter; and Richard's curiosity was left ungratified
for that night.
His chamber chanced to be at the north end of the house,
and before retiring he drew aside the curtain and surveyed
the scene. The light was still burning brightly as before, and a
sudden shower of red sparkles issued from the low stone chimney
as he looked, and ran, burning and glimmering, along the
dark, indicating that the fire was not without attention. He fell
asleep, thinking of the woman; and whether she were old or
neither old nor unpardonably plain.
The next morning, after breakfast, he discovered a small tree
in the edge of the northern meadow, which, he said, wanted pruning,
very badly, proffering his services at the same time.
“It is not the season,” said Uncle Peter; but Richard insisted
that the season would make no difference, that, in fact,
he believed it was then the best season; and in a few minutes
he had crossed the meadow, and was lopping off the boughs with
alacrity, glancing now and then towards the mysterious cabin.
There were roses and lilacs all around the door, ivy trained
over the wall, and jasmine about the window. The fence enclosing
the house was of the rudest description, and just without
stood the blackened stumps and trees before referred to, nor
was the yard itself entirely free from them, but here they were
covered with vines of wild grapes, hops, or the wild morning-glory,
which in summer transformed them to columns of verdurous
beauty. Just now, they were whitened with the snowflakes
which had fallen during the night. The curtain was
drawn close over the window, and no other sign of life was
discoverable, save the smoke, which hung about the roof and
settled in long blue ridges near the ground.
Richard was a long time pruning the tree, but the task was
completed at length, and it proved an almost fruitless stratagem,
for what he had seen heightened without satisfying his curiosity;
and as he crossed the damp meadow homeward, he felt
as much vexed as disappointed, and perhaps more so, when
Uncle Peter said, “I think the tree is not much improved;
besides, you have made your feet wet and your hands cold; but
that is not the worst—you have missed seeing the prettiest girl
in the whole village.”
Pretty girls were nothing to him, Richard said; and going
moodily into the house, sat by the fire, with the newspaper, in
which he affected to be completely absorbed.
Presently Aunt Jane came that way, to see if her yeast,
which was in an earthen jar, covered over with the table-cloth,
and placed close in the corner, were not rising, and, beating
something about the cabin across the field, last night?”
Richard merely said “Yes,” without looking up, and she
continued—
“The young woman who lives there was to see me this
morning. She came in at one door the very minute you went
out of the other.”
“Ah,” said Richard, for he was too much provoked to say
more.
“Just see how my yeast is coming up!” exclaimed Aunt
Jane. “My work is getting all before me. I stopped to talk
too much with Caty.”
Much as Richard desired to know something about the
visitor, and if she were Caty, and wherefore she lived alone, he
forebore to ask—so perverse is the heart.
“Come, Richard,” said Uncle Peter, as he drew on his mittens,
“I am going down to Medford. Won't you go along?
It will be beginning business, you know; and on the way we
can tack up the sign.”
But Richard said he didn't feel like going, and so moped
around all day.
Busily Aunt Jane kept about her work; everything was
ready for her just as she was ready for it, save that her yeast
did get a little before her. However, she said she believed the
dough-nuts would be all the better for that; and towards evening,
when she fried them, expressed her conviction of the fact,
asking Richard, as she gave him two or three, on a little blue
dish, if he didn't think so too. He thought them very good—
probably all the better for waiting; and concluded by saying,
“What good luck some people always have!”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane, “it's better to be born lucky than
rich;” and she gave him another cake, telling him to keep his
fingers warm with that, and go, like a good boy, and put up the
sign: that he didn't know how soon Dr. Claverel might be
needed. There was no resisting this kind appeal; and taking
the warm cake in one hand and the sign in the other, he did as
directed. When it was fastened to the gate post, he stepped a
little aside, and whistling a tune, surveyed it with some degree
a light step, crushing the snow, arrested his attention, and looking
up, he saw before him a young and seemingly very pretty girl,
though she was too much muffled in hood and shawl to enable him
to judge with much certainty. In one hand she held a small basket,
and in the other two or three books. “Some school girl,”
thought Richard; “I will see to which of the cottages she
betakes herself;” and giving the innocent sign a smart rap with
the hammer, as he wondered whether she saw him, looking
delightedly at his own name, he leaned against the gate to
await her movements—having fixed on the cottage with green
blinds as her home; “for, surely,” he thought, “she cannot be
walking far.” Nor was he mistaken in this. The cottages
stood to the east of the road, which was bordered to the west
by the woods, with the clearing, and the cabin, which were away
from the road, and nearly opposite Uncle Peter's. One, two,
three, of the pretty cottages are passed, and he now thought,
“This is the second time, to-day, I have reconnoitred in vain,”
when, opening a gate in the edge of the forest, the young woman
began to cross the field in the direction of the little cabin. His
way now lay parallel with hers, and musing whether she were
the Caty who lived there alone, he walked homeward, not forgetting
to remark whether her walk was terminated by the
cabin door, as proved to be the case. He felt glad—triumphant
as it were; he had seen the object of the last night's
curiosity, and found her all his fancy painted; and entering the
house, in high glee, he said, as he removed the tea-kettle, which
was boiling into the fire, “Well, Aunt Jane, I have put up my
sign, and more than that, I have seen Caty.”
“You don't say!” said Aunt Jane, arranging the tea to draw;
“but how should you know Caty Allen?”
“Caty Allen—rather pretty—is that her name?”
“That is the name of the young woman that lives in the cabin,
if it was her you saw. But,” added Aunt Jane, “she is not so
very young, either.”
This last information didn't much please Richard, and he
replied that he should not think her so very old—not more than
alone?”
“It's a long story, and I must go and milk my cow;” and
wrapping herself in what had once been her cradle blanket,
Aunt Jane went forth, and the young man remained by the fire,
listening to the singing of the tea-kettle, and in a musing mood.
He wondered why he didn't feel lonesome and home-sick, as he
always before had felt. He supposed it was because he was at
Aunt Jane's; and then the village looked beautiful in the distance
on the one side, and the woods on the other. He would
not have them away on any account. It was the fine background
of a glorious picture.
There was a noise at the door: could Aunt Jane have
milked the cow so soon? A loud rap, as with a stick; and,
opening the door, the person in waiting, a mechanic or laboring
man of some sort, inquired if Dr. Claverel was in. Richard
answered that that was his name, drawing himself up with a
sense of professional dignity; on which the stranger said, “I
want you to come down and see my woman. She has suffered
everything, I guess, with the toothache;” and, putting one
finger in his mouth, he tried to show Richard which one he
believed it was, and at the same time endeavored to tell the
various remedies his woman had applied in vain—“mustard-plasters,
and hops steeped in vinegar; but now it had got to
jumping, and just five minutes before, she had concluded to
have it drawed.”
With scarce a regret for the warm fire and supper he left,
Richard was off. He found his patient a pale little nervous
woman, who seemed, as her husband said, to have suffered
everything. Nevertheless, she still persisted in saying she
would rather have her head taken off than that the Doctor
should touch her tooth, and asking over and over if he thought
it would be painful.
“Slightly so,” said Richard. “We can't draw teeth without
giving some pain, but I have never had a patient make the least
complaint of my manner of operating. Let me see the tooth,
madam.”
A little encouraged, and a little afraid of the Doctor, the
fatal instrument was applied, and the offender extracted, the
young Doctor saying, as he presented it to her view, “You see
it is no awful thing to have a tooth drawn. Is it, madam?”
“Now, wouldn't you have been sorry,” said the husband, “if
the Doctor had came, and you would not have had it drawed?”
And he patted her cheek, calling her a little coward.
“Have you lived long in these parts?” imagining, probably,
they had not been married long, asked Richard.
“Seven years and five months and two days and about three
hours. Isn't it, wifey?”
“I am sure I don't know,” said the wife, blushing slightly.
“Now, you do know just as well as can be,” said the husband.
“You know we came the day you made the preacher
the promise!”
“Oh, hush!” said the wife. “You have so many odd ways.”
“Have I?” said the young man. “Let me see that little bit
of a toofy?”
And Richard hastened to inquire whether there was much
sickness in the village.
“Yes, sir,” said the young man, “pretty considerable. She
isn't well,” indicating his wife. “She has never saw a well day
since we have been here;” and, touching his wife's comb with
his riding whip, he said, “Shan't the new Doctor come and cure
you? Don't you want him to, if I want him to?”
It was soon agreed between them that the Doctor, who had
so miraculously drawn the tooth, should call again in the
morning, and continue his professional attentions till the woman
should have quite recovered—the Doctor expressing the most
sanguine expectation of fully restoring her health.
A new broom sweeps clean, is a saying that finds its application
every day. Here was an instance. A poor woman had
been sick for seven years without obtaining medical aid, chiefly
because she washed for the Doctor who had previously lived in
the village, and knew the number of his socks and shirts, as
also the color of all his neckcloths. That his medicine could
do her no good, it was very resonable to believe; but when a
new man came, there was no knowing the measure of his skill.
which her tooth had been extracted, and affirmed that, though
she died, nobody in the world should attend her but Dr. Claverel.
“I wonder if he can perform such wonders!” said one to
another.
And so patronage came into his hands, and fortune at last
seemed to smile; but, alas, in the brightening twilight of the
morning hung the evil star.
| Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |