 | IV. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
4. IV.
The orange light of the coming sunrise was widening among
the eastern clouds, and the grass that had till then kept green,
stood stiff in the white frost, when the quick step of Charlotte
broke rather than bent it down, for she had risen early to milk
the spotted heifer ere any one should be astir. She tripped
gracefully along, unconscious that earnest eyes were on her,
singing snatches of rural songs, and drinking the beauty of the
the heifer shook her horns of pearly green for such
untimely rousing from the warm grassy hollow in which she
lay, but the white pine pail was soon brimming with milk.
The wind blew aside Charlotte's little hood, and with cheeks,
flushed with the air, and the exercise, gleaming through the
tangles of her black hair, she really presented a picture refreshing
to look on, especially to eyes wearied with artificial complexions
and curls. As she arose the hues deepened, and she
drew the hood quickly forward—for standing midway in the
crooked path leading from the door-yard to the cow-yard, and
shelling corn to a flock of chickens gathered about him, was
Mr. Sully Dinsmore—a rather good looking, pleasant-faced
young man of thirty or thereabout. He bowed with graceful
ease as the girl approached, and followed his salutation by
some jest about the fowl proceeding in which he had been detected,
and at the same time took from her hand the pail with
an air and manner which seemed to say he had been used to
carrying milk-pails all his life—there was nothing he liked so
well, in fact. Charlotte had no time for embarrassment—deference
was so blended with familiarity—and beside, the gentleman
apologized so sweetly and sadly for the informal introduction
he had given himself: the young lady looked so like
one—he hesitated—like his own dear wife—and he continued
with a sigh, “she sleeps now among the mountains.” He was
silent a moment, and then went on as if forcibly rallying,
“This is a delightful way to live, is it not? We always intended,
poor Florence and I, to come to the West, buy a farm,
and pass the evening of our days in quiet independence; but,”
in a more subdued tone, “I had never money enough till dear
Florence died, and since that I have cared little about my way
of life—little about life at all.”
Charlotte's sympathies were aroused. Poor man, his cheek
did look pale, and doubtless it was to dissipate his grief that
he was there; and with simple earnestness she expressed a
hope, that the bright hills and broad forests of the West might
restore something of the old healthiness of feeling in his heart.
His thanks were given with the tone and manner of one sincerely
had been fated mostly to mingle, could not appreciate his
feelings. All this required much less time than I have taken
to record it, for the gentleman made the most of the brief
walk.
At the door Captain Bailey met them, and with a look of
mingled surprise and curiosity, was beginning a formal presentation,
when Mr. Dinsmore assured him such ceremony was
quite unnecessary—each had recognized a friend in the other,
he said, and they were already progressing toward very intimate
relations. No sooner had Charlotte disappeared, with
her pail and strainer, than, abruptly changing tone and manner,
he exclaimed, “Dev'lish pretty girl—I hope she remains here
as long as I do!”
The Captain, who was displeased, affected ignorance of what
had been said, and bent his steps in rather a hurried way
toward the barn.
“Propose to fodder the stock, eh?” called out Mr. Dinsmore:
“allow me to join you—just the business I was brought
up to do.” And coming forward, he linked his arm through
that of the stout Captain, and brought him to a sudden stand-still,
saying, with the delightful enthusiasm of a voyager come
to the beautiful shore of a new country, “What a wonderful
scene—forest and meadow, and orchards and wheat-fields! why,
Captain, you are a rich man; if I owned this place I should n't
want anything beside—no other place nalf so good about here,
I suppose?—in fact, it seems to me, in all my travels, I never
saw such a farm—just enough of it—let's see, what's its extent?
Yes, I thought you must have just about that much; and, if I
had never seen it, I could have sworn it was the best farm in
the country, because I know the soundness of your judgment,
you see!”
The Captain drew himself up, and surveyed the prospect
more proudly than he had done before, saying he ought to
know something of good land, and favorable localities—he had
seen something of the world.
“Why,” answered Mr. Sully Dinsmore, as though his host
had not done half justice to himself, “I guess there is not much
been a great traveler, Captain; and you know what you see,
too,” he added in a tone acceptably insinuating.
“Yes, yes, that is true: few men know better what they
see than Captain Bailey,” and he began pointing out the various
excellencies and attractions of his place which the young
man did not seem to have observed.
“No wonder,” Mr. Dinsmore proceeded, “my vision was too
much dazzled to take all in at once; you must remember, I am
only used to rugged hills and bleak rocks, where the farmers
fasten the grain down with stones, lest being indignant at the
poor soil, it should scrabble out, you see.” This word was
coined with special reference to the Captain, who sometimes
found himself reduced to such necessities. An approving peal
of laughter rewarded his pains, and he repeated it, “Yes, the
grain would actually scrabble out but for the stones; so you
see it's natural my eyes failed to perceive all those waves of
beauty and plenty.” Where he saw the waves referred to,
only himself could have told, for the stubble land looked bleak
enough, and the November woods dark and withered to dreariness.
“Well, Captain,” he said at last, as though the scene
were a continual delight to his eyes, “it's of no use—I could
stand gazing all day—so let us fodder those fine cattle of
yours.”
With good will he entered upon the work—seizing bundles
of oats and corn-blades, and dusty hay, regardless of broad-cloths
and linen; now patting the neck of some clumsy-horned,
long-legged steer, calling to the Captain to know if he were not
of the full blood; and now, as he scattered the bushel of oats
among the little flock of thin and dirty sheep, inquiring, with
the deepest interest apparently, if they were not something superior
to the southdowns or merinos—for the wool was as fine
as could be.
The “chores” completed, they returned to the house, but
Mr. Dinsmore found so many things to admire by the way that
their progress was slow; now he paused at the gateway to remark
what nice strong posts they were—he believed they were
of cedar; and now he turned in admiration of the smoke-house
which the walls were overgrown with moss, the roof sunken,
and the door off its hinges: they seemed to him about the best
bricks he ever saw—moss would n't gather over them if they
were not solid as a rock—“what a pleasing effect it has,”
he said.
“A little out of repair,” said the Captain, “and too small—
too small! I think of enlarging,” and he attempted to urge
his companion forward.
“But,” interposed the guest, still gazing at the smoke-house,
“that is one of your few errors of judgment: I would n't have
it an inch bigger, nor an inch less; and besides, the moss is
prettier than any paint.”
“I must put up the door, at least,” interrupted the Captain.
“Ay, no sir, let me advise you to the contrary. Governor
Patterson, of New Jersey, smokes all his meat, and has for
twenty years, in a house without a door—it makes the flavor
finer—I thought it was built so on purpose—if ever I have a
farm I should make your smoke-house a model.”
This morning all the household tasks had fallen on Charlotte.
“She went to bed early,” said the cousins, “and can afford to
get up early—besides, she has no toilet to make, as we have.”
But though they gave her the trouble of delaying the breakfast,
after she had prepared it, Charlotte was amply repaid for
all, in the praises bestowed on her coffee and toast by Mr. Sully
Dinsmore. Her uncle, too, said she had never looked so pretty,
that her hair was arranged in most becoming style, and that
her dress suited her complexion.
“Really, Lotty, I am growing jealous,” said Kate, tossing
her head in a way meant to be at once irresistibly captivating,
and patronizing.
Kate had never said “Lotty” before, but seeing that Mr.
Dinsmore was not shocked with the rural cousin, she thought it
politic to make the most of her, and from that moment glided
into the most loving behavior. Lotty was a dear little creature,
in her way, quite pretty—and she was such a housekeeper!
Finally, it was concluded to make a “virtue of necessity,”
and acknowledge that they were learning to keep house
to have as few troublesome servants about as possible.
So a few days glided swiftly and pleasantly to Charlotte,
notwithstanding that most of the household labor—all its
drudgery—devolved on her. What cared she for this, while
the sunrise of a paradisal morning was glorifying the world.
Kate and Sally offered their assistance in making the new dress,
and contrived various little articles, which they said would relieve
the high colors, and have a stylish effect. These arts, to
the simple-minded country girl, were altogether novel—at
home she had never heard of “becoming dress.” She, as well
as all the girls whom she knew, had been in the habit of going
to town once or twice a year, when the butter brought the best
price, or when a load of hay or a cow was sold, and purchasing
a dress, bonnet, &c., without regard to color or fashion. A
new thing was supposed to look well, and to their unpractised
eyes always did look well.
“Come here, Lotty,” said Kate, one evening, surveying her
cousin, as she hooked the accustomed old black silk. “Just
slip off that old-womanish thing,” she continued, as Charlotte
approached—and ere the young girl was aware, the silk dress
that had been regarded with so much reverence was deprived
of both its sleeves. “Oh mercy! what will mother say?” was
her first exclamation; but Kate was in no wise affected by the
amputation she had effected, and coolly surveying her work,
said “Yes, you look a thousand dollars better.” And she
continued, as Charlotte was pinning on the large cape she had
been used to wear, “Have you the rheumatism in the shoulders,
or anything of that sort, or why do you wrap up like a
grandmother at a woods-meeting?”
Charlotte could only say, “Just because”—it was, however,
that she desired to conceal as much of her bare arms as possible;
and it was not without many entreaties and persuasions
that she was induced to appear with arms uncovered and a simple
white frill about her neck.
“What a pity,” said the cousins, as they made up the red
calico, “that she had not consulted us, and spent her money
thing!”
They regarded her in a half-pitying, half-friendly light, and,
perhaps, under the circumstances, did the best they could; for
though Charlotte had many of the instincts of refinement, she
had been accustomed to a rude way of living, and a first contact
with educated society will not rub off the crust of rusticity
which has been years in gathering.
“I have been too sensitive,” thought Charlotte, or she tried
to think so, and if her heart ever throbbed wildly against some
delicate insinuation or implied rebuke, she crushed it down
again, blaming her own awkwardness and ignorance rather than
the fine relations who had stood pre-eminent in her childish
imagination. She might not so readily have reconciled herself
to the many mortifications she endured, but for the sustaining
influence of Mr. Dinsmore's smiles and encouraging words.
Ever ready to praise, and with never a word of blame, he
would say to the other ladies, “you are looking shocking to-night,”
and they could afford to bear it—they never did look
so; but whatever Charlotte wore was in exquisite taste—at
least he said so. And yet Mr. Dinsmore was not really and
at heart a hypocrite, except indeed in the continued and ostentatious
display of private griefs. Constitutionally, he was a
flatterer, so that he could not pass the veriest mendicant without
pausing to say, “Really, you are as fine a looking old beggar-man
as I have met this many a day!” Whether he was
disinterested and desired only to confer pleasure upon others,
or whether he wished to win hearts to himself, I know not—I
only know, no opportunity of speaking gracious words ever
escaped him.
However or whatever this disposition was, Charlotte interpreted
all his speeches kindly. “She had eyes only for what
was good,” he said, and the sombre shadow of affliction in
which he stood, certainly gave him an appearance of sincerity.
When the Misses Bailey were thrown, or rather when they
threw themselves in his way, he said his delight could not be
expressed—they seemed to have the air of the mountain maids
about them that made him feel at home in their presence.
he not unfrequently said on these occasions, “I have been sacrificing
an hour to that country cousin of yours,” or, “I have
been benevolently engaged,” pointing toward Charlotte. Then
came exchanges of smiles and glances, which seemed to say,
“We understand each other perfectly—and nobody else understands
us.” One day, while thus engaged in playing the agreeable,
Charlotte having finished her dish-washing, came in, her
hands red and shining from the suds. Mr. Dinsmore smiled,
and, with meaning, added, “Do you remember where Elizabeth
tells some clodhopper, the reputed husband of Amy
Robsart, I think, that his boots well nigh overcame my Lord
of Leicester's perfumery!” and in the burst of laughter which
followed, the diplomatist rose and joined the unsuspecting girl,
saying, as he seated himself beside her, and playfully took two
of her fingers in his, “You have been using yellow soap, and
the fragrance attracted me at once—there is no perfume I like
half so well. Why, you might spend hundreds of dollars for
essential oils, and nice extracts, and after all, if I could get it, I
would prefer the aroma of common yellow soap—it's better
than that of violets.”
“I have been talking to those frivolous girls,” he continued,
after a moment, and with the manner of one who had been acting
a part and was really glad to be himself again: “rather
pretty,” in a soliloquising sort of way, “but their beauty is not
of the fresh, healthful style I admire.”
“I thought,” said Charlotte, half pettishly, “you admired them
very much!”
“Yes, as I would a butterfly,” he said, “but they have not
the thrifty and industrious habits that could ever win my serious
regard—my love;” and his earnest tone and admiring look
were more flattering than the meaning of his words. Charlotte
crushed her handkerchief with one hand and smoothed her
heavy black hair with the other, to conceal the red burning of
her cheek. Mr. Dinsmore continued, “Yes, I have been thinking
since I came here, that this is the best way in the world
to obtain health and happiness—this rural way of life, I mean.
Just see what a glorious scene presents itself!” and he drew the
and sheep, the meadow and woodland, with the enthusiasm of
a devoted practical farmer.
“Of course,” said Charlotte, “my predilections are all in favor
of the habits to which I have been used.”
“Another proof of your genuine good sense,” and Mr. Dinsmore
folded close both the little red hands of Charlotte within
his own soft white ones, but with less of gallantry than sincere
appreciation of her sweet simplicity and domestic excellencies.
And he presently went on to say, that if he ever found any
happiness again, it must be with some such dear angel as herself,
and in the healthful, inspiriting occupation of a farmer.
True, he did not say in so many simple words, “I should like
to marry you, Charlotte,” but the nameless things words cannot
interpret, said it very plainly to the uusophisticated, simple-minded,
true-hearted Charlotte. Poor man, he seemed to
her so melancholy, so shut out from sympathy, it was almost
a duty to lighten the weary load that oppressed him.
But I cannot record all the sentiment mingled in the recess
of that window. I am ignorant of some particulars; and if I
were not, such things are interesting only to lovers. But I
know a shadow swept suddenly across the sweetest light that
for Charlotte had ever brightened the world. The window, beside
which these lovers sat, if we may call them lovers, overlooked
the highway for half a mile or more; and as they sat
there it chanced that a funeral procession came winding through
the dust and under the windy trees far down the hill. It was
preceded by no hearse or other special carriage for the dead,
for in country places the coffin is usually placed in an open
wagon, and beneath a sheet, carried to the grave-yard. So,
from their elevated position, they could see, far off, the white
shape in the bottom of the wagon. Mr. Dinsmore's attentions
became suddenly abstracted from the lady beside him, and the
painful consciousness of bereavement, from which he had almost
escaped, weighed on him with tenfold violence. “Hush, hush,”
he said, in subdued and reproachful accents, as she made attempts
to talk of something besides shrouds. “Florence,” he
continued, burying his face in his hands, and as though swept
“why was I spared when you were taken, and why am
I not permitted to go voluntarily”—he abruptly broke off the
sentence, and, rising, rushed from the house. Charlotte arose,
too, her heart troubled and trembling, and followed him with
her eyes, as he staggered blindly forward to obtain a nearer
view of the procession, every now and then raising himself on
tiptoe, that he might see the coffin more distinctly.
In the suburbs of the city, and adjoining the grounds of Captain
Bailey, lay the old grave-yard termed the Potter's Field,
and across the sloping stubble land, toward this desolate place,
Charlotte bent her steps, and seated on the roots of a blasted
tree, on a hill-side, waited for the procession. Gloomy enough
was the scene, not relieved by one human figure, as perhaps
she had hoped to find it. To the South hung clouds of smoke
over crowded walls, with here and there white spires shooting
upward, and in one opening among the withered trees, she
caught a glimpse of the Ohio, and over all and through all
sounded the din of busy multitudes. In the opposite direction
were scattered farm-houses, and meadows, and orchards, with
sheep grazing and cattle pasturing, and blue cheerful columns
of smoke drifted and lifted on the wind. And just at her feet,
and dividing the two pictures, lay this strip of desolated and
desecrated ground, the Potter's Field. It was inclosed by no
fence, and troops of pigs and cows eked out a scanty sustenance
about the place. One of these starved creatures, having one
horn dangling loosely about her ear—in consequence of some
recent quarrel about the scanty grass perhaps—drew slowly
toward the hollow nearest the place where Charlotte sat, and
drank from a little grave which seemed to have been recently
opened. The soil was marshy—so much so that the slightest
pit soon filled with water. The higher ground was thickly furrowed
with rows of graves, and two or three, beside this open
one, had been made in the very bottom of the hollow. Nearer
and nearer came the funeral train. It consisted of but few persons—men,
and women, and children—the last looking fearfully
and wonderingly about, as led by the hands of their
parents they trod the narrow path between the long lines of
bearing in his arms the coffin—that of a little child; and Charlotte
shuddered to think of the cold damp bed which was waiting
for it. There seemed to be no clergyman in attendance; and
without hymn or prayer, the body that had slept always in its
mother's arms till now, was laid in the earth, and in the obscurest
and lonesomest corner of the lonesomest of all burial places, left
alone. Closer than the rest, even pressing to the edge of the
grave, was a pale woman, whose eyes looked down more earnestly
than the eyes of the others; and that it was, and not
the black ribbon crossed plainly about the straw bonnet—
which indicated the mother. Hard by, but not so near the
grave, stood a man holding in his arms a child of some two
years, very tightly, as though the grave should not get that;
and once he put his hand to his eyes; but he turned away before
the woman, and as he did so, kissed the cheek of the little
child in his arms—she thought only of the dead.
The sun sunk lower and lower, and was gone; the windy
evening came dimly out of the woods, shaking the trees and
rustling the long grass; the last lengths of light drew themselves
from the little damp heap, and presently the small grey
headstones were lost from view. And, scarcely disturbing the
stillness, the funeral people returned to their several homes—
for the way was dusty and they moved slowly—almost as
slowly as they came. There were no songs of birds in the twilight—not
even a hum of insects; the first were gone, and the
last, or such of them as still lived, were crept under fallen
leaves, and were quietly drowsing into nothingness. No snakes
slipt noiselessly along the dust-path, hollowing their slow ways.
They too were gone—some dropping into the frosty cracks
of the ground, and others, pressed flat, lay coiled under decaying
logs and loose stones. So, at such a time and in such a
place, the poor little baby was left alone, and the parents went
to their darkened cottage, the mother to try to smile upon the
child that was left, while her eyes are tearful and she sees only
the vacant cradle,—and the father to make the fire warm and
cheerful, and essay with soft words to win the heavy-hearted
wife from their common sorrow. They are poor, and have no
meal, the father will deal out to the impatient cows hay and
corn, more liberally than his garners can well afford, for to-night
he feels like doing good to everything.
Something in this way ran the thoughts of Charlotte, as
slowly and sadly she retraced her steps, trying to make herself
believe she would have felt no less lonely at any other time if
she had witnessed so mournful a scene. And in part she
deceived herself: not quite, however, for her eyes were wandering
searchingly from side to side of the path, and now and
then wistfully back, though she could scarcely distinguish the
patches of fading fennel from the thick mounds of clay. Perhaps
she fancied Mr. Sully Dinsmore still lingered among the
shadows to muse of the dead.
Nothing like justice can here be done to the variously accomplished
Sully Dinsmore. Charlotte requires no elaborate
painting; a young and pretty country girl—with a heart,
except in its credulity, like most other human hearts, yearning
and hopeful—as yet she had distilled from no keen disappointment
a bitter wisdom. Little joys and sorrows made up the
past; her present seemed portentous of great events.
“Where is Kate?” she asked one day, in the hope of learning
what she did not dare to ask; and Sally replied in a way
that she meant to be kindly, and certainly thought to be wise,
by saying, “She is in some recess, I suppose, comforting poor
Mr. Dinsmore, who seems to distribute his attentions most
liberally. It was only this morning,” she added, “that against
a lament for the dead Florence, he patched the story of his love
for me.”
Charlotte joined in the laugh, but with an ill grace, and still
more reluctantly followed when Sally led the way toward the
absentees, saying in a whisper, “Let us reconnoitre—all stratagems
fair in war, you know.”
But whether the stratagem was fair or not, it failed of the
success which Sally had expected, for they no sooner came
within hearing of voices than Mr. Dinsmore was heard descanting
in a half melancholy, half enthusiastic tone, of the superiority
of all western products. “Why, Captain Bailey,” said
of the mountains for anything I can think of—not for hardly
anything in the world!” Such childish simplicity of speech
made it difficult to think him insincere; and Charlotte, at least
did not, but was the more confirmed in her previous notions
that he was a weary, broken-hearted man, sick of the world
and pining for some solitude, “with one sweet spirit for his
minister.”
Whether Sally's good intentions sprang from envy and jealousy,
it might be difficult to decide; but Charlotte attributed
only these feelings to her, as she petulantly turned away with
the exclamation—“Pshaw! Kate has left him, and he is trying
to make father believe the moon is made of green cheese!”
From that day the cousins began to be more and more
apart; the slight disposition to please and be pleased, which
had on both sides been struggling for an existence, died, and
did not revive again.
It was perhaps a week after this little scene, and in the
mean time Mr. Dinsmore had been no unsuccessful wooer; in
truth, Charlotte began to feel a regret that she had not selected
a white instead of a red dress; all the world looked brighter
to her than it had ever done before, dreary as the season was.
The distance between the cousins and herself widened every
day; but what cared she for this, so long as Mr. Dinsmore
said they were envious, selfish, frivolous, and unable to appreciate
her. I cannot tell what sweet visions came to her heart;
but whatever they were, she found converse with them pleasanter
than friends—pleasanter than the most honeyed rhymes
poet ever syllabled. And so she kept much alone, busy with
dreams—only dreams.
| IV. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |