 | CHAPTER XLIII.
WHAT OUR FOLKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Oldtown folks |  |
43. CHAPTER XLIII.
WHAT OUR FOLKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT.
AT home, that evening, before the great open fire, still the
same subject was discussed. Tina's engagement to Ellery
Davenport was spoken of as the next most brilliant stroke of
luck to Harry's accession to the English property. Aunt Lois
was all smiles and suavity, poor dear old soul! How all the
wrinkles and crinkles of her face smoothed out under the influence
of prosperity! and how providential everything appeared
to her!
“Providence gets some pay-days,” said an old divine. Generally
speaking, his account is suffered to run on with very lax
attention. But when a young couple make a fortunate engagement,
or our worldly prospects take a sudden turn to go as we
would, the account of Providence is gladly balanced; praise
and thanksgiving come in over-measure.
For my part, I could n't see the Providence at all in it, and
found this looking into happiness through other people's eyes
a very fatiguing operation.
My grandfather and grandmother, as they sat pictured out
by the light of a magnificent hickory fire, seemed scarcely a year
older; but their faces this evening were beaming complacently;
and my mother, in her very quiet way, could scarcely help
triumphing over Aunt Lois. I was a sophomore in Cambridge,
and Harry a landed proprietor, and Tina an heiress to property
in her own right, instead of our being three poor orphan children
without any money, and with the up-hill of life to climb.
In the course of the evening, Miss Mehitable came in with
Ellery Davenport and Tina. Now, much as a man will dislike
the person who steps between him and the lady of his love, I
could not help, this evening, myself feeling the power of that
fascination by which Ellery Davenport won the suffrages of all
hearts.
Aunt Lois, as usual, was nervous and fidgety with the
thought that the call of the splendid Mr. Davenport had
surprised them all at the great kitchen-fire, when there was
the best room cold as Nova Zembla. She looked almost reproachfully
at Tina, and said apologetically to Mr. Davenport,
“We are rough working folks, and you catch us just as we
are. If we 'd known you were coming, we 'd have had a fire in
the parlor.”
“Then, Miss Badger, you would have been very cruel, and
deprived us of a rare enjoyment,” said he. “What other land but
our own America can give this great, joyous, abundant home-fire?
The great kitchen-fire of New England,” he added, seating himself
admiringly in front of it, “gives you all the freshness and
simplicity of forest life, with a sense of shelter and protection.
It 's like a camp-fire in the woods, only that you have a house
over you, and a good bed to sleep in at hand; and there is
nothing that draws out the heart like it. People never can
talk to each other as they do by these great open fires. For my
part,” he said, “I am almost a Fire-worshipper. I believe in
the divine properties of flame. It purifies the heart and warms
the affections, and when people sit and look into the coals together,
they feel a sort of glow of charity coming over them that
they never feel anywhere else.”
“Now, I should think,” said Aunt Lois, “Mr. Davenport, that
you must have seen so much pomp and splendor and luxury
abroad, that our rough life here would seem really disagreeable
to you.”
“Quite the contrary,” said Ellery Davenport. “We go
abroad to appreciate our home. Nature is our mother, and the
life that is lived nearest to nature is, after all, the one that is the
pleasantest. I met Brant at court last winter. You know he
was a wild Indian to begin with, and he has seen both extremes,
for now he is Colonel Brant, and has been moving in fashionable
society in London. So I thought he must be a competent person
to decide on the great question between savage and civilized life,
and he gave his vote for the savage.”
“I wonder at him,” said my grandmother.
“Well, I remember,” said Tina, “we had one day and night
of savage life — don't you remember, Harry? — that was very
pleasant. It was when we stayed with the old Indian woman, —
do you remember? It was all very well, so long as the sun
shone; but then when the rain fell, and the wind blew, and the
drunken Indian came home, it was not so pleasant.”
“That was the time, young lady,” said Ellery Davenport,
looking at her with a flash in his blue eyes, “that you established
yourself as housekeeper on my premises! If I had only known
it, I might have picked you up then, as a waif on my grounds.”
“It 's well you did not,” said Tina, laughing; “you would
have found me troublesome to keep. I don't believe you would
have been as patient as dear old Aunty, here,” she added, laying
her head on Miss Mehitable's shoulder. “I was a perfect
brier-rose, — small leaves and a great many prickles.”
“By the by,” said Harry, “Sam Lawson has been telling us,
this morning, about our old friends Miss Asphyxia Smith and Old
Crab.”
“Is it possible,” said Tina, laughing, “that those creatures are
living yet? Why, I look back on them as some awful pre-Adamite
monsters.”
“Who was Miss Asphyxia?” said Ellery Davenport. “I have
n't heard of her.”
“O, 't was a great threshing-machine of a woman that caught
me between its teeth some years ago,” said Tina. “What do
you suppose would ever have become of me, Aunty, if she had
kept me? Do you think she ever could have made me a great
stramming, threshing, scrubbing, floor-cleaning machine, like herself?
She warned Miss Mehitable,” continued Tina, looking at
Ellery and laughing shyly, “that I never should grow up to be
good for anything; and she spoke a fatal truth, for, since she
gave me up, every mortal creature has tried to pet and spoil me.
Dear old Aunty and Mr. Rossiter have made some feeble attempts
to make me good for something, but they have n't done
much at it.”
“Thank Heaven!” said Ellery Davenport. “Who would think
of training a wild rose? I sometimes look at the way a sweetbrier
beautiful defiance it is to gardeners.”
“That is all very pretty to say,” said Tina, “when you happen
to be where there are none but wild roses; but when you were
among marchionesses and duchesses, how was it then?”
For answer, Ellery Davenport bent over her, and said something
which I could not hear. He had the art, without seeming
to whisper, of throwing a sentence from him so that it should
reach but one ear; and Tina laughed and blushed and dimpled,
and looked as if a thousand little graces were shaking their wings
around her.
It was one of Tina's great charms that she was never for a moment
at rest. In this she was like a bird, or a brook, or a young
tree, in which there is always a little glancing shimmer of movement.
And when anything pleased her, her face sparkled as a river
does when something falls into it. I noticed Ellery Davenport's
eyes followed all these little motions as if he had been enchanted.
O, there was no doubt that the great illusion, the delicious
magic, was in full development between them. And Tina looked
so gladly satisfied, and glanced about the circle and at him with
such a quiet triumph of possession, and such satisfaction in her
power over him, that it really half reconciled me to see that she
was so happy. And, after all, I thought to myself as I looked
at the airy and spirituel style of her beauty, — a beauty that
conveyed the impression of fragility and brilliancy united to the
highest point, — such a creature as that is made for luxury,
made for perfume and flowers and jewelry and pomp of living
and obsequious tending, for old aristocratic lands and court
circles, where she would glitter as a star. And what had I
to offer, — I, a poor sophomore in Harvard, owing that position
to the loving charity of my dear old friend? My love to
her seemed a madness and a selfishness, — as if I had wished to
take the evening star out of the heavens and burn it for a household
lamp. “How fortunate, how fortunate,” I thought to myself,
“that I have never told her! For now I shall keep the love
of her heart. We are friends, and she shall be the lady of my
heart forever, — the lady of my dreams.”
I knew, too, that I had a certain hold upon her; and even at
this moment I saw her eye often, as from old habit, looking
across to me, a little timidly and anxiously, to see what I thought
of her prize. She was Tina still, — the same old Tina, that
always needed to be approved and loved and sympathized with,
and have all her friends go with her, heart and hand, in all
her ways. So I determined to like him.
At this moment Sam Lawson came in. I was a little curious
to know how he had managed it with his conscience to leave his
domestic circle under their trying circumstances, but I was very
soon satisfied as to this point.
Sam, who had watched the light flaring out from the windows,
and flattened his nose against the window-pane while he announced
to Hepsy that “Mr. Devenport and Miss Mehitable
and Tiny were all a goin' into the Deacon's to spend th' evenin',”
could not resist the inexpressible yearning to have a peep himself
at what was going on there.
He came in with a most prostrate air of dejection. Aunt Lois
frowned with stern annoyance, and looked at my grandmother,
as much as to say, “To think he should come in when Mr.
Davenport is making a call here!”
Ellery Davenport, however, received him with a patronizing
cheerfulness, — “Why, hulloa, Sam, how are you?” It was
Ellery Davenport's delight to start Sam's loquacity and develop
his conversational powers, and he made a welcoming movement
toward the block of wood in the chimney-corner. “Sit down,”
he said, — “sit down, and tell us how Hepsy and the children
are.”
Tina and he looked at each other with eyes dancing with
merriment.
“Wal, wal,” said Sam, sinking into the seat and raising his
lank hands to the fire, while his elbows rested on his knees,
“the children 's middlin', — Doctor Merrill ses he thinks they 've
got past the wust on 't, — but Hepsy, she 's clean tuckered out,
and kind o' discouraged. An' I thought I 'd come over an' jest
ask Mis' Badger ef she would n't kind o' jest mix 'er up a little
milk punch to kind o' set 'er up agin.”
“What a considerate husband!” said Ellery Davenport, glancing
around the circle with infinite amusement.
My grandmother, always prompt at any call on her charity,
was already half across the floor toward her buttery, whence she
soon returned with a saucepan of milk.
“I 'll watch that 'ere, Mis' Badger,” said Sam. “Jest rake out
the coals this way, an' when it begins ter simmer I 'll put in the
sperits, ef ye 'll gin 'em to me. `Give strong drink ter him as is
ready to perish,' the Scriptur' says. Hepsy 's got an amazin'
sight o' grit in 'er, but I 'clare for 't, she 's ben up an' down
nights so much lately with them young uns thet she 's a'most
clean wore out. An' I should be too, ef I did n't take a tramp
now 'n' then to kind o' keep me up. Wal, ye see, the head o'
the family, he hes to take car' o' himself, 'cause ye see, ef he goes
down, all goes down. `The man is the head o' the woman,' ye
know,” said Sam, as he shook his skillet of milk.
I could see Tina's eyes dancing with mirthfulness as Ellery
Davenport answered, “I 'm glad to see, Sam, that you have a
proper care of your health. You are such an important member
of the community, that I don't know what Oldtown would be
without you!”
“Wal, now, Mr. Devenport, ye flatter me; but then everybody
don't seem to think so. I don't think folks like me, as does for
this one an' does for that one, an' kind o' spreads out permiskus,
is appreciated allers. There 's Hepsy, she 's allers at me, a sayin'
I don't do nothin' for her, an' yet there las' night I wus up in
my shirt, a shiverin' an' a goin' round, fust ter one and then ter
'nuther, a hevin' on 'em up an' a thumpin' on their backs, an'
clarin' the phlegm out o' their thruts, till I wus e'en a'most fruz;
and Hepsy, she lay there abed scoldin' 'cause I hed n't sawed no
wood thet arternoon to keep up the fire. Lordy massy, I jest
went out ter dig a leetle sweet-flag root ter gin ter the boys, 'cause
I wus so kind o' wore out. I don't think these 'ere women ever
'flects on men's trials. They railly don't keep count o' what
we do for 'em.”
“What a picture of conjugal life!” said Ellery Davenport,
glancing at Tina. “Yes, Sam, it is to be confessed that the
pay dear for serving them.”
“Jes' so! jes' so!” said Sam. “They don't know nothin' what
we undergo. I don't think Hepsy keeps no sort o' count o' the
nights an' nights I 've walked the floor with the baby, whishin'
an' shooin' on 't, and singin' to 't till my thrut wus sore, an' then
hed to git up afore daylight to split oven-wood, an' then right to
my blacksmithin', jest to git a little money to git the meat an'
meal an' suthin' comfort'ble fur dinner! An' then, ye see, there
don't nothin' last, when there 's so many mouths to eat it up; an'
there 't is, it 's jest roun' an' roun'. Ye git a good piece o' beef
Tuesday an' pay for 't, an' by Thursday it 's all gone, an' ye hev
to go to work agin! Lordy massy, this 'ere life don't seem hardly
wuth hevin'. I s'pose, Mr. Devenport, you 've been among the
gret folks o' th' earth, over there in King George's court? Why,
they say here that you've ben an' tuk tea with the king, with his
crown on 's head! I s'pose they all goes roun' with their crowns
on over there; don't they?”
“Well, no, not precisely,” said Ellery Davenport. “I think
they rather mitigate their splendors when they have to do with
us poor republicans, so as not to bear us down altogether.”
“Jes' so,” said Sam, “like Moses, that put a veil over 's face
'cause th' Israelites could n't bear the glory.”
“Well,” said Ellery Davenport, “I 've not been struck with
any particular resemblance between King George and Moses.”
“The folks here 'n Oldtown, Mr. Devenport, 's amazin' curus
to hear the partic'lars 'bout them grand things 't you must ha'
seen; I 's a tellin' on 'em up to store how you 'd ben with lords
'n' ladies 'n' dukes 'n' duchesses, 'n' seen all the kingdoms o' the
world, an' the glory on 'em. I told 'em I did n't doubt you 'd et
off 'm plates o' solid gold, an' ben in houses where the walls was
all a crust o' gold 'n' diamonds 'n' precious stones, 'n' yit ye did n't
seem ter be one bit lifted up nor proud, so 't yer could n't talk ter
common folks. I s'pose them gret fam'lies they hes as much 's
fifty ur a hunderd servants, don't they?”
“Well, sometimes,” said Ellery Davenport.
“Wal, now,” said Sam, “I sh'd think a man 'd feel kind o'
lower classes.”
“It is something that way, Sam,” said Ellery Davenport.
“That 's one way of providing for the lower classes.”
“Jest what th' Lord told th' Israelites when they would hev
a king,” said Sam. “Ses he, `He 'll take yer daughters to be
confectioners 'n' cooks 'n' bakers, an' he 'll take the best o' yer
fields 'n' yer vineyards 'n' olive-yards, an' give 'em to his sarvints,
an' he 'll take a tenth o' yer seed 'n' give 'em ter his officers,
an' he 'll take yer men-sarvints 'n' yer maid-sarvints, 'n' yer good-liest
young asses, an' put 'em ter his works.”
“Striking picture of monarchical institutions, Sam,” said Ellery
Davenport.
“Wal, now, I tell ye what,” said Sam, slowly shaking his
shimmering skillet of milk, “I should n't want ter git inter that
ere' pie, unless I could be some o' the top crust. It 's jest like a
pile o' sheepskins, — 's only the top un lies light. I guess th' undermost
one 's squeezed putty flat.”
“I 'll bet it is, Sam,” said Ellery Davenport, laughing.
“Wal,” said Sam, “I go for republics, but yit it 's human natur'
ter kind o' like ter hold onter titles. Now over here a man likes
ter be a deacon 'n' a cap'n 'n' a colonel in the milishy 'n' a sheriff
'n' a judge, 'n' all thet. Lordy massy, I don't wonder them grand
English folks sticks to their grand titles, an' the people all kind
o' bows down to 'em, as they did to Nebuchadnezzar's golden
image.”
“Why, Sam,” said Ellery Davenport, “your speculations on
politics are really profound.”
“Wal,” said Sam, “Mr. Devenport, there 's one pint I want ter
consult ye 'bout, an' thet is, what the king o' England's name is.
There 's Jake Marshall 'n' me, we 's argood that pint these many
times. Jake ses his name is George Rix, — R-i-x, — an' thet
ef he 'd come over here, he 'd be called Mr. Rix. I ses to him,
`Why, Jake, 't ain't Rix, it 's Rex, an' 't ain't his name, it 's his title,'
ses I, — 'cause the boys told me thet Rex was Latin 'n' meant
king; but Jake 's one o' them fellers thet allers thinks he knows.
Now, Mr. Devenport, I 'd like to put it down from you ter him,
know.”
“Well, you may tell your friend Jake that you are quite in
the right,” said Ellery Davenport. “Give him my regards, and
tell him he 's been mistaken.”
“But you don't call the king Rex when ye speak to 'im, do
yer?” said Sam.
“Not precisely,” said Ellery Davenport.
“Mis' Badger,” said Sam, gravely, “this 'ere milk 's come to the
bile, 'n' ef you 'll be so kind 's to hand me the sperits 'n' the sugar,
I 'll fix this 'ere. Hepsy likes her milk punch putty hot.”
“Well, Sam,” said my grandmother, as she handed him the
bottle, “take an old woman's advice, and don't go stramming
off another afternoon. If you 'd been steady at your blacksmithin',
you might have earned enough money to buy all these
things yourself, and Hepsy 'd like it a great deal better.”
“I suppose it 's about the two hundred and forty-ninth time
mother has told him that,” said Aunt Lois, with an air of weary
endurance.
“Wal, Mis' Badger,” said Sam, “`all work an' no play makes
Jack a dull boy,' ye know. I hes to recreate, else I gits quite
wore out. Why, lordy massy, even a saw-mill hes ter stop
sometimes ter be greased. 'T ain't everybody thet 's like Sphyxy
Smith, but she grits and screeches all the time, jest 'cause she
keeps to work without bein' 'iled. Why, she could work on, day 'n'
night, these twenty years, 'n' never feel it. But, lordy massy, I
gits so 'xhausted, an' hes sech a sinking 't my stomach, 'n' then
I goes out 'n' kind o' Injunin' round, an' git flag-root 'n' wintergreen
'n' spruce boughs 'n' gensing root 'n' sarsafrass 'n' sich fur
Hepsy to brew up a beer. I ain't a wastin' my time ef I be
enjoyin' myself. I say it 's a part o' what we 's made for.”
“You are a true philosopher, Sam,” said Ellery Davenport.
“Wal,” said Sam, “I look at it this 'ere way, — ef I keep on
a grindin' and a grindin' day 'n' night, I never shell hev nothin',
but ef I takes now 'n' then an arternoon to lie roun' in the sun,
I gits suthin' 's I go 'long. Lordy massy, it 's jest all the comfort
I hes, kind o' watchin' the clouds 'n' the birds, 'n' kind o' forgettin'
all 'bout Hepsy 'n' the children 'n' the blacksmithin'.”
“Well,” said Aunt Lois, smartly, “I think you are forgetting
all about Hepsy and the children now, and I advise you to get
that milk punch home as quick as you can, if it 's going to do her
any good. Come, here 's a tin pail to put it into. Cover it up,
and do let the poor woman have some comfort as well as you!”
Sam received his portion in silence, and, with reluctant glances
at the warm circle, went out into the night.
“I don't see how you all can bear to listen to that man's
maundering!” said Aunt Lois. “He puts me out of all sort
of patience. `Head of the woman' to be sure! when Hepsy
earns the most of what that family uses, except what we
give 'em. And I know exactly how she feels; the poor woman
is mad with shame and humiliation half the time at the charities
he will accept from us.”
“O come, Miss Lois,” said Ellery Davenport, “you must take
an æsthetic view of him. Sam 's a genuine poet in his nature,
and poets are always practically useless. And now Sam 's about
the only person in Oldtown, that I have seen, that has the least
idea that life is meant, in any way, for enjoyment. Everybody
else seems to be sword in hand, fighting against the possibility
of future suffering, toiling and depriving themselves of all present
pleasure, so that they may not come to want by and by.
Now I 've been in countries where the whole peasantry are like
Sam Lawson.”
“Good gracious!” said Aunt Lois, “what a time they must
have of it!”
“Well, to say the truth, there 's not much progress in such
communities, but there is a great deal of clear, sheer animal
enjoyment. And when trouble comes, it comes on them as it
does on animals, unfeared and unforeseen, and therefore unprovided
for.”
“Well,” said my grandmother, “you don't think that is the
way for rational and immortal creatures to live?”
“Well,” said Ellery Davenport, “taking into account the
rational and immortal, perhaps not; but I think if we could mix
the two races together it would be better. The Yankee lives
almost entirely for the future, the Italian enjoys the present.”
“Well, but do you think it is right to live merely to enjoy the
present?” persisted Aunt Lois.
“The eternal question!” said Ellery. “After all, who knows
anything about it? What is right, and what is wrong? Mere
geographical accidents! What is right for the Greenlander is
wrong for me; what is right for me is wrong for the Hindoo.
Take the greatest saint on earth to Greenland, and feed him on
train oil and candles, and you make one thing of him; put him
under the equator, with the thermometer at one hundred in the
shade, and you make another.”
“But right is right and wrong is wrong,” said Aunt Lois,
persistently, “after all.”
“I sometimes think,” said Ellery Davenport, “that right and
wrong are just like color, mere accidental properties. There is
no color where there 's no light, and a thing is all sorts of colors
according to the position you stand in and the hour of the day.
There 's your rocking-chair in the setting sun becomes a fine
crimson, and in the morning comes out dingy gray. So it is
with human actions. There's nothing so bad that you cannot
see a good side to it, nothing so good that you cannot see a bad
side to it. Now we think it's shocking for our Indian tribes,
some of them, to slay their old people; but I 'm not sure, if
the Indian could set forth his side of the case, with all the
advantages of our rhetoric, but that he would have the best of
it. He does it as an act of filial devotion, you see. He loves
and honors his father too much to let him go through all that
horrid process of draining out life drop by drop that we think the
thing to protract in our high civilization. For my part, if I were
an Indian chief, I should prefer, when I came to be seventy, to
be respectfully knocked on the head by my oldest son, rather
than to shiver and drivel and muddle and cough my life out a
dozen years more.”
“But God has given his commandments to teach us what is
right,” said Aunt Lois. “`Honor thy father and mother.'”
“Precisely,” said Ellery; “and my friends the Sioux would
tell you that they do honor their fathers and mothers by respectfully
putting them out of the way when there is no more pleasure
of the fathers, you know.”
“Positively, Ellery,” said Tina, “I sha' n't have this sort of
heathen stuff talked any longer. Why, you put one's head all in
a whirl! and you know you don't believe a word of it yourself.
What 's the use of making everybody think you 're worse than
you are?”
“My dear,” said Ellery, “there 's nothing like hearing all that
can be said on both sides of subjects. Now there 's my good
grandfather made an argument on the will, that is, and forever will
remain, unanswerable, because he proves both sides of a flat
contradiction perfectly; that method makes a logic-trap out of
which no mortal can get his foot.”
“Well,” said my grandmother, “Mr. Davenport, if you 'll take
an old woman's advice, you 'll take up with your grandfather's
good resolutions, and not be wasting your strength in such talk.”
“I believe there were about seventy-five — or eighty, was
it? — of those resolutions,” said Ellery.
“And you would n't be the worse for this world or the next if
you 'd make them yourself,” said my grandmother.
“Thank you, madam,” said Ellery, bowing, “I 'll think of it.”
“Well, come,” said Tina, rising, “it's time for us to go; and,”
she said, shaking her finger warningly at Ellery Davenport,
“I have a private lecture for you.”
“I don't doubt it,” he said, with a shrug of mock apprehension;
“the preaching capacities of the fair sex are something terrific.
I see all that is before me.”
They bade adieu, the fire was raked up in the great fireplace,
all the members of the family went their several ways to bed,
but Harry and I sat up in the glimmer and gloom of the old
kitchen, lighted, now and then, by a sputtering jet of flame,
which burst from the sticks. All round the large dark hearth
the crickets were chirping as if life were the very merriest thing
possible.
“Well, Harry,” I said, “you see the fates have ordered it just
as I feared.”
“It is almost as much of a disappointment to me as it can
cannot quite trust this man.”
“I never trusted him,” said I. “I always had an instinctive
doubt of him.”
“My doubts are not instinct,” said Harry, “they are founded
on things I have heard him say myself. It seems to me that he
has formed the habit of trifling with all truth, and that nothing is
sacred in his eyes.”
“And yet Tina loves him,” said I. “I can see that she has
gone to him heart and soul, and she believes in him with all her
heart, and so we can only pray that he may be true to her. As
for me, I can never love another. It only remains to live
worthily of my love.”
| CHAPTER XLIII.
WHAT OUR FOLKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Oldtown folks | |