 | CHAPTER VII. Dollars and cents |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
Then finds the walls not good to eat.
Prior.
“FINE hay weather, isn't it?” said my father, as he looked
away from his saucer of raspberries to the beautiful
summer light that was upon everything out of doors. “I
must be off to the oak-meadow directly.”
“You, papa?” said Kate.
“I, my dear—I must go over and set those men to work.
Ezra Barrington to be sure is a good mower, but the rest
will be as like to cut themselves as the grass unless I show
them how.”
“Why don't you let Ezra do it?”
“He won't mow much himself if he has to teach half a
dozen others.”
“Never mind if he does not,” said my stepmother,—
“you are not used to the sun and will just tire yourself out.”
“No, I'll stop short of that,” said Mr. Howard, eating the
last spoonful of cool cream and fruit with complete satisfaction.
“But papa,” said Kate, “do you think it will have a good
effect on the men?”
“Think what will have a good effect?—their cutting the
grass instead of themselves?”
“No, no,—but your working with them.”
“Yes, a very good effect, for they'll have to do something.”
“They won't respect you so much—you needn't think it,”
said Kate gravely.
“Pshaw!”—said my father,—“well, I shall respect myself
a great deal more than if I let those six men do nothing
trim.”
“I do wish papa wouldn't!” said Kate the moment he was
out of the room. “Can't you persuade him, mamma?”
“I shall not try,” said Mrs. Howard smiling. “He will
do himself no harm, Katie.”
“Indeed mamma, you are mistaken,—I am sure”—
“By the way,” said my father coming in at that moment,
“I wish you would send over some luncheon about eleven
o'clock, and a pail of buttermilk or something of the sort,—
the poor fellows will be thirsty.” And he went out before
we had breath to remonstrate.
“Why they should all bring their own luncheon!” exclaimed
my stepmother,—“they are only day-labourers.”
“And I am sure there are springs enough in the neighbourhood,”
remarked Stephanie rather scornfully.
Mr. Howard opened the door again, and putting in his
head he added,
“I forgot to tell you my dear, that I must take Andy
over to turn hay;—but I suppose Caddie can bring the
things.”
We looked at each other, and then gave one clap and
shout.
“What is papa thinking of!” exclaimed Kate.
“I am sure I don't know,” said Mrs. Howard, “but it's
pretty clear what I must be thinking of;”—and she began
to roll up her sleeves.
“What are you going to do, mamma?”
“Make some cake for those men.”
“No indeed you must not,” said Kate earnestly. “Just
let it alone and they will know better next time.”
“Your father would not like that, Katie.”
“Well I'd give them bread then—I wouldn't give them
one morsel of cake. Now mamma—only look at your little
arms and hands, and then think if they ought to make lunch
for mowers.”
“It won't hurt them any more than `making lunch' for
other people, I imagine,” said Mrs. Howard laughing; “and
as to bread, Katie, we have but just enough in the house for
our own dinner. No, I must make some gingerbread, and
then we must go and carry it to the oak-meadow.”
“Carry it!—why mamma you are absolutely crazy.
Carry a basket of cake and a pail of buttermilk for those
men to eat!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Howard, “I am quite willing it should
go in any other way, if you will only say how. Rose has a
sick headache.”
“Let Caddie take it, as papa said.”
“You know about as much of the matter as he does.
Caddie is washing, and I should have to hang out clothes
during her absence.”
“Well I do think it is rather too bad!”
“Now Kate my dear,” said Mrs. Howard with a smile,
“you may as well make the best of it. Your father did not
think nor understand what he was doing,—he has been a
citizen too long to turn farmer at once; but this will not
happen again, and the day is not so hot that we shall find
the walk disagreeable.”
“Stephanie and I will go with the basket,” I said,—“she
is old enough to escort me, and it would be clear fun.”
“Very poor fun indeed,” said Stephanie. “Why the sun
will make our hands as black as a coal—to say nothing of
the pail's dragging down our fingers.”
“O well,” said I laughing, “but I can't go alone you
know; so you may carry a piece of gingerbread, and I will
hang the pail on one arm and the basket on the other.”
“No, we will all go,” said Mrs. Howard,—“I cannot let
you go so far without me. I will make the gingerbread at
once; and if you Stephanie will sew up the fingers of those
gloves that I saw lying about this morning, I think they will
protect your fingers sufficiently.”
“Don't put any carraway in your cake ma'am,” replied
Miss Holbrook, “because it might be mistaken for hay
seeds.”
“Carraway in gingerbread! you foolish child.”
“My dear Mrs. Howard, I assure you that combination
is not unheard of. You are not quite read up in your
cookery book, ma'am.”
“I must grant that,” said Mrs. Howard smiling.
“But mamma,” said Kate, “in the abstract you know—
don't you think it is very bad policy for ladies to do such
things?”
“In the abstract Katie, I think books are pleasanter companions
than flour-pails and boxes of sugar; but I have a
poor opinion of the lady who is not woman enough to do
anything that comes in the way of her duty. The less of
such delicacy of hand we have, the better; and you must
not grow up to practise it.”
“You'll never practise anything else”—said Stephanie
when we were left alone,—her own disapprobation having
faded before the amusement of seeing Kate's. “Miss
Howard—how will you dress yourself for the hayfield?”
“In my sunbonnet.”—
“But my dear you might be mistaken for a farmer's
daughter. Do at least take a fan—and a bottle of smelling
salts.”
“I doubt the hay is sweeter.”
“But more trying to delicate nerves—when combined
with baize jackets. Think of your being obliged to behold
those articles, after all!”
“Stephanie,” said Kate, “you ought not to try to aggravate
my notions till you are sure they are wise and right,—
or until I am.”
“I am wondering,” said Stephanie, “what name you will
bear in this region. Mr. Howard's chief support in the farming
line has given me the pleasing title of `Miss Ste Fanny'
—I am curious as to the probable cognomen of Miss Howard
a few years hence,—in most circles of society one might
guess—but here—”
“I hope Miss Howard will always be herself,” said Kate
composedly.
“In other words, that she will always be Miss Howard?”
“She might easily be a better thing,” Kate said, so
gravely that Miss Holbrook took up her gloves and was
silent.
The sun looked hotter than it felt; and we who walked
quietly through the thorn-hedged lane, had often a cooling
wind and shade. But when we reached the oak-meadow we
found a most glowing atmosphere, and all the mowers in
their shirt-sleeves. Sometimes these were partly rolled up,
disclosing the red flannel undersleeve; and coats and jackets
hung from the trees or lay scattered about on the swath.
Even Mr. Howard had adopted the prevailing fashion, (to
the irregular mowing of the Irishmen, which formed a strong
contrast to the long, steady, and even sweeps of Ezra Barrington.
Besides the fresh swath, a part of the meadow was spread
with half-dried hay which Andy was turning; and in one
place it was even gathered into winrows. Several rakes
stood upright on their sharp-pointed handles in different
parts of the field; and its central and naming tree—a great
oak—cast a broad shadow that was ever shortening.
We stood on a little rising ground looking over the fair
scene, and presently my father espied us and sent one of
the mowers for our load.
“We put some ice in the pail,” said I, “and now if you
set it in the shade it will keep cool.”
“Ya-as,” said the man, who had a good-natured, pleasant
face, “vera true,—I'll put it by the big tree there beyont.”
“And here is some gingerbread.”
“Och it's too much trouble!” said the man. “Indade
thin, Miss, we're intirely thankful t'ye;—for it's a vera hot
day, surely.”
We watched him as he descended the hill, saw the others
gather round, and smiled to see the little shake of the head
with which each man finished a cup of the iced-buttermilk—
`the Squire' being first served.
The wind was blowing very softly, just bending the tops
of the uncut grass and stirring the long winrows and waving
my short hair. It was hard to regret anything that had
brought us to a scene so lovely; and we did not move until
my father joined us.
“Now papa,” said Kate, “do you think it is well for a
gentleman to go about with his coat on his arm?”
“Very well,—when he doesn't want it on his back.”
“But papa it looks so.”—
“Hum”—said Mr. Howard, “I don't see why one may
not follow a country fashion as well as a city fashion—when
one is in the country.”
“It isn't the fashion—that is just it, papa,—you wouldn't
see any one else do so.”
“I beg your pardon,—if you go over to Daisy Lea this
morning I don't doubt you will find Mr. Collingwood and
sure they are `only farmers'.”
“I don't believe you would ever see Captain De Camp
looking so, Mr. Howard,” said Stephanie.
“Captain De Camp's epaulettes are a part of himself,”
said my father a little impatiently, “which happily my coat
is not. Come, I don't want to hear any more of this,—if
my respectability lies so near the surface and is so easily
got rid of, I can't hope to keep it long, any way. Neither
Captain De Camp nor any other youngster would hesitate
to pull off his coat if he were going to row you on the lake,—
but a moustache seems to confer as many immunities and
privileges as a seat in the House of Lords.”
“I thought you were so very notional and particular,
papa”—Kate said in a low voice.
“I always shall be, my child—about realities,” he answered
kindly,—“these false landmarks of breeding I take no
note of. I make some distinction of time and place, Katie,—
if I sat in the drawing-room without a coat, you might justly
complain of me.”
Stephanie shook her head, and Kate walked on with a
grave look that seemed to say she could neither give up her
own position nor attack my father's.
“I can't conceive, papa, where you ever learned anything
about mowing!”
“I have learned a great many things when you were not
present, Katie,” said he smiling.
“But you never had to do it?”
“Never.”
Kate looked better satisfied.
“I don't believe you know any too much of it now, papa,”
she said with a laugh,—“I daresay Ezra Barrington was not
pleased with your performance.”
My father looked at her for a moment as if her words had
not quite pleased him; but whether he had some feeling for
the notions that were in such a fair way to be rubbed off,
or whether he thought Kate might indemnify herself for a
morning's discomfort, he at all events left her remark undisputed.
It was destined to be a day of trial. Mr. Ned Howard
had arrived during our absence, and feeling thirsty he had
nor cup,—only the long rows of pans which were creamed
to a most tempting degree. Mr. Ned went down to the
edge of the lake, searched about till he found a long hollow
reed, and then returning to the dairy he proceeded to imbibe
the lactic fluid, in a way which it must be owned, is one of
the very best. Our arrival cut short the performance; and
Mr. Ned, reed in hand, came out of the dairy with a degree
of fun and enjoyment in his face, that might have disarmed
anybody's resentment. Resentment Mrs. Howard did not
feel; but she remonstrated and Kate argued, and Mr. Ned
only laughed the harder.
“Where have you been?” he said as he caught sight of
my father.
“Tiring myself to death with those mowers.”
“What, in the hill-field?”
“No—in the oak-meadow.”
“Why brother I am surprised at you! the grass in the
hill-field is a great deal the ripest,—it is just fit to be laid by
the first high wind.”
“Ezra Barrington thought not,—he said the meadow
would suffer most.”
“I'll tell you what,” said my uncle looking round with a
stern face, “it's my opinion that Ezra Barrington leads you
all by the nose—yes every soul of you.”
It was our turn to laugh now.
“Well,” said my father when he regained his gravity, “if
he leads us in the right direction it don't much matter;” and
then skilfully throwing in some word about improvements,
they both dashed off into granite and mills and cottages,
until—making allowance for the anachronism—one would
have thought the one speaker to be Crœsus and the other
Rothschild. Mrs. Howard sighed, and once or twice looked
up as if she would have ventured an opinion; but the mill-stones
and blasted rocks that were flying about might have
deterred more courage than hers.
“Are you looking so grave about me, mamma?” Kate
said when we went up to dress. “Are you afraid that I
shall grow up a fine lady? If I have a great many follies,
you do not think them incurable?”
“No dear,” she answered smiling,—“they are anything
—I was thinking of this wild system of improvements. It
seems to me Katie, as if your father was going to fill the
hopper of that mill out of his own pockets; and once in,
the dollars will rattle down till there is not one left.”
Rattle down! if my father had had the use of his
senses he might have heard them even then. I think he
never went out without a bag of dollars to put somewhere.
It was not only on the mill-dam—but here they were laid
down on some new road instead of paving stones, and here
they went up in the air per force of gunpowder; and another
time were exchanged for a new pair of farm-horses—
though we had five already. But alas! there was no transforming
back again;—whenever this was attempted, mill
and roads and horses became all dry leaves.
Then as ill luck would have it, Squire Suydam's gardener
got hold of Mr. Howard with a plan for raising
fruits out of season—out of reason it might have been
called; and what a pile was raised there!—or several
piles,—we thought they were only stone and mortar but I
know now they were dollars. I say ill luck—for the fable
declares that when Fortune once found a boy asleep by the
side of a well, she roused him, saying, “Pr'ythee child,
awake; for if you should fall in people would lay all the
blame upon me.”
Then there was the haying,—but whether it did not cost
more than it came to, “is” as Sam Weller says, “a matter
of opinion.” My father tired himself out systematically,
for the hayfields were far off and the weather July. Had
less been undertaken, Ezra Barrington's practical sense and
steadiness could have kept things straight enough; but the
power to make so many ends meet, never existed save in
the mind of a speculator.
And so the season wore on; and we young ones sported
like butterflies, nor realized that winter was coming. And
Mr. Howard was the busiest of bees;—but he made
one grand mistake,—instead of filling his cells as fast as
they were finished, he went on adding comb to comb while
not one contained any honey. And what did we butterflies
care for that?—Nothing. We thought the making cells
was very pretty work, and had no doubt but they would be
father. Mrs. Howard to be sure had misgivings, and often
looked grave and sometimes remonstrated; but what was
her one word against the combined forces of my father and
Mr. Ned?
Meantime the flowers faded.
| CHAPTER VII. Dollars and cents | |