University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE WIDOW WRIGHT.

Margaret was up early in the morning, before the sun.
She washed at the cistern and wiped herself on a coarse crash
towel, rough, but invigorating, beautifying and healthy. She
did her few chores, and, as she had promised, started for the
Widow Wright's. Hash was getting ready his team, a yoke
of starveling steers, in a tumbril-cart, the axle fast in the
wheels, which were cut from a solid block of wood. He set
her in the cart, he desired to show his skill in driving, perhaps
he wished to tease her on the way. “Haw! Buck, hish!
Bright, gee up!”; vigorously plied he his whip of wood-chuck
skin on a walnut stock. The cart reeled and rattled. It
jolted over stones, canted on knolls, sidled into gutters. The
way was rough, broken, unfinished. Margaret held fast by
the stakes. “Good to settle your breakfast, Peggy. Going to
see Obed, hey? and the widder? ask her if she can cure the
yallers in Bright.” Margaret was victimized and amused by
her brother. She half cried, half laughed. Her brother came
at last to the lot he was engaged in clearing. He lifted Margaret
from the cart. She went on, and Bull followed her.
Hash called the dog back, and in great wrath gave him a blow
with his whip. The animal leaped and skulked away, and
joined again with Margaret, who patted his head, and he ran
along by her side. She entered woods; the path was narrow,
grass-grown. She picked flowers, and followed the cow-tracks
through the thickets of sweet fern almost as high as
her head. She descended a pitch in the road to a brook,

which was crossed by a bridge of poles. The dog stopped to
drink, she to look into the water. Minnows and pinheads
were flashing and skirting through the clear, bright stream.
There were hair-worms fabled to spring from horse-hair, in
black lines writhing on the surface; caddice-worms clothed
with shells and leaves, crawling on the bottom; and boat-flies
swimming on their backs. The water made music with the
stones. She waded in, and sported bare-feet on the smooth,
shiny round pebbles. She looked under the bridge, and that
shaded spot had a mystery to the child's mind, such perhaps
as is more remembered in future years, than commented on at
the time. She pursued a trout, that had shown its black eye
and golden spotted back and vanished. She could not find it.
On she went towards Mrs. Wright's.

This lady had lost her husband a few years before. He left
her in possession of a small farm, and a larger reversion in the
medicinal riches of the whole district. It had been a part of
Dr. Wright's occupation to gather and prepare herbs for the
sick. His materia medica was large, various and productive.
He learnt as he could the nature of diseases, and was sometimes
called to prescribe as well as to sell his drugs. When
he died, his wife came in full possession of his secrets and his
practice. She gathered plants from all the woods, sands and
swamps. She knew the quality of every root, stalk, leaf,
flower and berry. Her son Obed she was instructing to be
her servitor and aid, as well as the successor of his father.
The lady's habits were careful, saving, thriving. She cultivated,
in addition, a few acres of land. Her house was neat
and comfortable. It was a small frame building, clap-boarded
on the sides and roof. It had a warm, sunny position, on a
southern slope, with rocks and woods behind. It stood in the
centre of a large yard, surrounded on all sides by a stump-fence,
those of hemlock-trees, with their large, spreading, tangled
roots, like the feet of giants, turned towards the street, making
an impenetrable and very durable barrier. You entered the
yard by a stile formed of the branches of these roots. Within
the enclosure were beds of cultivated herbs, caraway, rue,
savory, thyme, tansy, parsley and other aromatic and medicinal
plants. Obed was at work among the beds. Margaret climbed
the stile. Bull leaped up after her. When Obed saw Margaret
his dull face gave a recognition of joy which was succeeded
by an expression of dismay.

“Bull won't hurt you, Obed. He's a good dog,” said Margaret.
“Put your hand on his head.”

“He's a great dog,” said Obed. “He's got dreadful big
teeth. Hash's allers makin' him bite me.”

The dog went and laid down in the sun under the eaves of
the house. Margaret helped Obed pull the weeds from his
beds, while with a hoe he loosened and aired the roots of the
plants. The atmosphere was charged with the perfume of the
flowers. Margaret shook the thyme-bed, and a shadowy
motion, like the waving of a cloud, floated over it. Bees, flies,
beetles, butterflies, were bustling upon it, diving into every
flower, and searching every cup.

“What d'ye think of the yarbs, Moll?” said the widow,
who stood in the door of her house.

“They look pretty,” replied Margaret.

“Not looks, child, 'tis use. We 'll get a hundred bunches,
this year. The saffron we 'll cut to-morrow, and the balm 'll
be ready soon.”

“You are not going to cut all these pretty flowers, are
you?”

“Yes. Them's for medicine. Wait till the flowers is
gone, they wouldn't be worth more'n your toad-flax and bean
vines. They wouldn't fetch a bungtown copper. See here,
that's sage, good for tea. That's goat's rue, good for women
as has little babies. Guess you was a little baby once. I've
known ye ever sen ye warn't more'n so high.”

“Was I so little?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, and pimpin enough. An I fed yer marm with rue,
and comfrey-root, or ye never'd come teu this. Ye was thin
and poor as a late chicken. Now sow some sand.”

Margaret took the dish, and began to sprinkle the floor.

“Well done,” said the woman. “Ye'll make a smart gal.
Here's some honey and bread.”

The Widow Wright was dressed in the costume of the times,
a white linen short-gown, checked apron, black petticoat.
She wore on her head a large brown turban. Her eye was
black and piercing, and she possessed a singular power of
laughter which was employed to express every variety of
emotion, whether pleasure or pain, anger or complacence.

There was a bee-hive in front of the house, a close, well
built shed, open to the south. The little workers were streaming
through the air like a shower, dropping at the mouth of
the hive, their legs laden and yellow with the dust of flowers.
Margaret stood in front of the range. The bees shot by her
from side to side, multitudes wheeled round her, some lit on
her hat, some crawled over her neck. She watched the confusion;

she listened to the hum within the hive. Not one
offered her harm; she was not stung.

“A marvellous wonderful gal,” uttered the widow to herself,
as she surveyed the scene from the door. “Pity 'tis she's
Brown Moll's child.”

Margaret had an errand at the place, to get some honey for
a bee-hunt Chilion had proposed for the next day, and stated
her desire to the widow. There was an old feud between the
two families, not affecting intercourse and acquaintance, so
much as matters of interest. The widow received the message
rather coldly, and beginning in unwillingness, ended with
invective.

“He's a lazy, good for nothin feller, Chil is. He's no
better than a peaking mud-sucker. He lives on us all here
like house-leek. He's no more use than yer prigged up creepers.
He is worse than the witches, vervain nor dill won't
keep him away. I tell ye, Chil shan't have no honey.”

Margaret was abashed, silenced. She could understand
that her brother would feel disappointed; that he was not so
bad. Beyond this she did not discriminate

“Chilion is good,” she stammered out at last.

“Good! what's he good for?” rejoined the woman. “Does
he get any money? Can he find yarbs? He don't know the
difference between snake-root and lavender.”

“He's good to me,” said Margaret. This was an appeal
that struck the woman with some force. She seemed to
soften.

“Ye are a good child; ye help Obed.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, as if watching her cue, “I will
help Obed. I'll mind the beds when the birds are about.
I'll go into the woods and get plants. I'll keep Bull off from
him.”

“Bein ye'll help Obed, I'll give ye the honey. But don't
come agin.”

Margaret, taking the article in question on some green leaves,
went merrily home.

We cannot dismiss this chapter without remarking that the
Widow Wright revered the memory of her husband. It was
certainly of some use for her to do so, as his reputation had
been considerable in the line of his practice. The representation
of the deceased, which she herself bore, she designed
by degrees to transfer to her son. The silver buttons,
which shone on Obed, as well as other articles of dress
he occasionally wore, belonged to his late father. With all

her thrift and care, the lady liked our Margaret very well.
“She was so feat and spry, and knowing, and good-natered,”
she said, “she could be made of some use to somebody.”