University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
IN WHICH SPRING OPENS.

The rainy Sunday was the precursor of a thaw, which lasted
for a fortnight, and stripped the landscapes of Ptolemy of
every particle of snow, except such as found a lodgment in
fence-corners, behind walls, or in shaded ravines. The wands
of the willow clumps along the streams brightened to a vivid
yellow, and the myriad twigs of low-lying thickets blushed
purple with returning sap. Frozen nights and muddy days
enough were yet in store; but with every week the sun gained
confidence in his own alchemy, and the edge of the north-wind
was blunted. Very slowly, indeed, a green shimmer crept
up through the brown, dead grass; the fir-woods breathed a
resinous breath of awaking; pale green eyes peeped from the
buds of the garden-lilacs, and, finally, like a tender child, ignorant
of danger, the crocus came forth full blown and shamed
the cowardly hesitation of the great oaks and elms.

During this season, Woodbury's intercourse with the society
of the village was mostly suspended. After the termination
of the Great Sewing-Union, families fell back into their
narrower circles, and rested for a time both from their social
and their charitable labors. Even the itinerant prophets and
philanthropists ceased their visits, leaving Ptolemy in its normal
darkness. Only Mr. Dyce, it was whispered, had again
made his appearance at the Merryfields', where his spiritual
sessions were attended by a select circle of the initiated.
Neither Woodbury nor Mr. Waldo had been again invited to
attend.

All minor gossip, however, was lost sight of, in the interest

occasioned by an event which occurred about this time. Miss
Eliza Clancy, to the surprise of everybody, had at last received
“a call.” During a visit to Syracuse, she had made the
acquaintance of the Rev. Jehiel Preeks, a widower who, having
been driven away from Tristan d'Acunha after losing his
wife there, had been commissioned by the A. B. C. F. M. to a
new field of labor in the Telugu country. His station was to
be Cuddapah, only a day's journey from Jutnapore. Miss
Eliza displayed such an intimate knowledge of the latter mission,
derived from Mrs. Boerum's letters, and such a vital concern
in the spiritual welfare of the Telugus, that the Rev.
Jehiel, at their third interview, asked her to share his labors.
There were persons in Ptolemy so malicious as to declare that
the proposal really came from Miss Eliza herself; but this is
not for a moment to be believed. The missionary made a better
choice than such persons were willing to admit. Although
verging on forty, and ominously thin, Miss Clancy was sincere,
active, and patient, and thought more of the heathen souls
whom she might enlighten than of the honors of her new position.
When she returned to Ptolemy as Mrs. Preeks, with
her passage engaged to Madras in the very vessel which was
to carry out the contributions of the Mission Fund, she was
too thoroughly happy to be disturbed by the village gossip.
The other ladies of the Fund — foremost among them her
sister spinsters, Miss Ann Parrott and Miss Sophia Stevenson
—immediately resumed work, in order to provide her with a
generous outfit for the voyage. Early in April the parting
took place, with mutual tears, and thenceforth the pious patronage
of Ptolemy was transferred from Jutnapore and Mrs.
Boerum to Cuddapah and Mrs. Preeks.

The Hon. Zeno Harder occupied his seat in the Legislature,
through the winter. Several times during the session Woodbury
received the compliment of documents, one of them entitled:
“Remarks of the Hon. Zeno Harder, of Atauga County,
on the Mohawk and Adirondac Railroad Bill.” Occasionally,
also, the  Albany  Cerberus was sent to him with one of the

leading editorials marked, by way of directing his attention
to it. The Hon. Zeno looked upon Woodbury, who had been
so long absent from the country as to have lost “the run” of
politics, as fair prey. By securing him before the hostile party
had a chance, he would gain two votes (one of them Bute's),
and possibly more, besides a President of character and substance,
for mass-meetings. Woodbury, however, was too
shrewd, and the Member too clumsy in his diplomacy, for the
success of this plan. The former, although foreseeing that he
would be inevitably drawn to take sides, sooner or later,
determined to preserve his independence as long as possible.

The churches in the village undertook their periodical “revivals,”
which absorbed the interest of the community while
they lasted. It was not the usual season in Ptolemy for such
agitations of the religious atmosphere, but the Methodist clergyman,
a very zealous and impassioned speaker, having initiated
the movement with great success, the other sects became
alarmed lest he should sweep all the repentant sinners of the
place into his own fold. As soon as they could obtain help
from Tiberius, the Baptists followed, and the Rev. Lemuel
Styles was constrained to do likewise. For a few days, the
latter regained the ground he had lost, and seemed about to
distance his competitors. Luckily for him, the Rev. Jehiel
Preeks accompanied his wife on her farewell visit, and was
immediately impressed into the service. His account of his
sufferings at Tristan d'Acunha, embracing a description of the
sickness and triumphant death of his first wife, melted the auditors
to tears, and the exhortation which followed was like seed
planted in well-ploughed ground. The material for conversion,
drawn upon from so many different quarters, was soon exhausted,
but the rival churches stoutly held out, until convinced that
neither had any further advantage to gain over the other.

Mr. Waldo, of course, was not exempt from the general
necessity, although conscious of the disadvantage under which
he labored in representing so unimportant a sect. Its founder
had been a man of marked character, whose strong, peculiar

intellect, combined with his earnestness of heart, wrought
powerfully upon those with whom he came in personal contact,
but his views were not broad enough to meet the wants of a
large class. After his death, many of his disciples, released
from the influence of his personality, saw how slight a difference
separated them from their brethren, and yearned to be included
in a more extensive fold. Among these was Mr. Waldo,
whose native good sense taught him that minor differences in
interpretation and observances do not justify Christians in dividing
their strength by a multitude of separate organizations.
His congregation, however, was very slowly brought to view
the matter in the same light, and he was too sincerely attached
to its members to give up his charge of them while any
prospect of success remained.

On this occasion, nevertheless—thanks to the zeal of some
of his flock, rather than his own power of wielding the thunderbolts
of Terror—Mr. Waldo gained three or four solitary
fish out of the threescore who were hauled up from the deeps
by the various nets. The Cimmerian rite of baptism had this
advantage, that it was not performed in public, and its solemnity
was not therefore disturbed by the presence of a crowd
of curious spectators, such as are especially wont to be on
hand when the water is cold. Mr. Waldo even disregarded
the peculiar form of initiation which characterized his sect,
affirming that it added no sanctity to the rite.

During the period of the revivals, there was a temporary
suspension of the social life of Ptolemy. Even kindred families
rarely assembled at tea except to discuss the absorbing
topic and compare the results obtained by the various churches.
There was a great demand for Baxter's “Saint's Rest,”
Alleine's “Alarm,” Young's “Night Thoughts,” and Pollok's
“Course of Time,” at the little bookstore. Two feathers disappeared
from the Sunday bonnet of Mrs. Hamilton Bue, and
the Misses Smith exchanged their red ribbons for slate-colored.
Still, it was not the habit of the little place to be sombre, its
gayety was never excessive, and hence its serious moods

never assumed a penitential character, and soon wore off. In
this respect it presented a strong contrast to Mulligansville
and Anacreon, both of which communities retained a severe
and mournful expression for a long time after their revivals
had closed.

By this time the meadows were covered with young grass,
the willows hung in folds of misty color, and a double row of
daffodils bloomed in every garden. The spring ploughing and
all the other various forms of farm labor commenced in the
valleys, and on the warm, frostless hillsides. The roads were
again dry and hard; the little steamer resumed its trips on the
lake; and a new life not only stirred within the twin valleys,
but poured into them from without.

As the uniformity of winter life at Lakeside gave way to
the changes exacted by the season, Woodbury became dimly
sensible that Mrs. Fortitude Babb, with all her virtues as a
housekeeper, stood too prominently in the foreground of his
home. Her raw, angular nature came so near him, day by day,
as to be felt as a disturbing element. She looked upon her
dominion as reassured to her, and serenely continued the exercise
of her old privileges. While entertaining the profoundest
respect, not unmixed with a moderate degree of affection, for
her master, she resisted any attempt to interfere with the
regular course of household procedure which she had long
since established. He was still too ignorant, indeed, to dispute
her authority with any success, in-doors; but when the
gardening weather arrived, and she transferred her rule to the
open air, his patience was sometimes severely tried.

He knew, from his boyish days, every square foot in the
sunny plot of ground—the broad alley down the centre, with
flower-beds on either side, producing pinks, sweet-williams,
larkspurs, marigolds, and prince's-feathers, in their succession;
the clumps of roses at regular intervals; the low trellis, to be
overrun with nasturtiums and sweet-peas; the broad vegetable
beds, divided by rows of currant and gooseberry bushes,
and the crooked old quince-trees against the northern wall.

There were they all, apparently unchanged; but, reverently
as he looked upon them for the sake of the Past, he felt that
if Lakeside was to be truly his home, its features must, to
some extent, be moulded by his own taste. The old arrangements
could not be retained, simply for the sake of the old
associations; the place must breathe an atmosphere of life,
not of death. In spite of the admirable situation of the house,
its surroundings had been much neglected, and the trained
eye of its master daily detected new capacities for beauty.

Nothing of all this, however, suggested itself to the ossified
brain of the housekeeper. In her eyes, Woodbury was but a
tenant of Mrs. Dennison, and that lady would cry down from
Paradise to forbid the position of her favorite plants and her
trees from being changed. Hence, Mrs. Babb was almost
petrified with astonishment, one warm morning, on Woodbury
saying to her, as they stood in the garden:

“I shall extend the garden, so as to take in another half-acre.
The ground must be first prepared, so it can scarcely
be done this spring; but, at least, this first row of currants
can be taken up and set beyond the second. The vegetables
will then be partly hidden from sight, and these beds can be
planted with flowers.”

“O, the land!” exclaimed the housekeeper. “Did a body
ever hear o' sich a thing! Where'll you get your currans for
pies, I'd like to know? They won't bear a mite if you take
'em up now. Besides, where am I to plant peas and early
beans, if you put flowers here?”

“There,” said Woodbury, pointing to the other end of the
garden.

“Why, I had 'em there last summer. Here, where these
cabbages was, is the right place. To my thinkin', there's
flowers enough, as it is. Not that I'd take any of 'em up:
she was always fond of 'em, and she was satisfied with my
fixin' of the garden. But there's them that thinks they knows
better. 'T'an't any too big as it was, and if you take off all
this here ground, we'll run out o' vegetables afore the summer's

over. Then, I'll git the blame, all over the neighborhood.
People knows I 'tend to it.”

“Mrs. Babb,” said Woodbury, a little sternly, “I shall take
care that your reputation does not suffer. It is my intention
to engage an experienced gardener, who will take all this
work off your hands, for the future. But the improvements I
intend to make cannot be carried out immediately, and I must
ask you to superintend the planting, this spring. You shall
have sufficient ground for all the vegetables we need, and it
can make little difference to you where they grow.”

The housekeeper did not venture upon any further remonstrance,
but her heart was filled with gall and bitterness. She
could not deny to herself Woodbury's right to do what he
pleased with his own, but such innovations struck her as being
almost criminal. They opened the door to endless confusions,
which it distressed her to contemplate, and the end
whereof she could not foresee.

That evening, as Bute was shelling his seed-corn in the
kitchen, he noticed that her thin lips were a little more tightly
compressed than usual, while she plied her knitting-needles
with an energy that betrayed a serious disturbance of mind.
Bute gave himself no concern, however, well knowing that,
whatever it was, he should hear it in good time.

Mrs. Babb sighed in her usual wheezy manner, drawing up
and letting down her shoulders at the same time, and knit a
few minutes longer, with her eyes fixed on the kitchen clock.
At last she said: “Ah, yes, it's well she's gone.”

Bute looked up, but as she was still inspecting the clock, he
said nothing.

“I was afeard things couldn't stay as they was,” she again
remarked.

Bute picked up a fresh ear, and began grinding the buttend
with a cob, to loosen the grains.

“It's hard to see sich things a-comin' on, in a body's old
days,” groaned the housekeeper. This time her gaze was removed
from the clock, and fell grimly upon her adopted son.

“What's the matter, Mother Forty?” he asked.

“Matter, Bute? I should think you'd ha' seen it, if you
was in the habit o' seein' furder than your nose. Things is
goin' to wrack, fast enough. He will have his way, no matter
how onreasonable it is.”

“Well, why shouldn't he? But as for bein' unreasonable,
I don't see it. He's gettin' the hang of farmin' matters amazin'ly,
and is goin' to let me do what I've been wantin' to,
these five year. Wait till we get the gewano, and phosphate,
and drainin' and deep ploughin', and you won't see such
another farm in the hull county.”

“Yes, and the garden all tore to pieces,” rejoined the housekeeper;
“if she could come out of her grave next year, she
won't know it ag'in. And me, that's tended to it this ever so
long, to have a strange man, that nobody knows, stuck over
my head!”

Bute bent his face over the ear of corn, to conceal a
malicious smile. He knew that all the housekeeper wanted,
was to “speak out her mind”—after which she would resign
herself to the inevitable. He accordingly made no further
reply, and commenced whistling, very softly, “Barbara
Allen,” a tune which of late seemed to harmonize with his
mood.

Woodbury, on his part, was conscious of a restless stirring
of the blood, for which his contact with the housekeeper was
in the least degree responsible. Her figure, nevertheless,
formed a hard, sharp, rocky background, against which was
projected, in double sweetness from the contrast, the soft outlines
of a younger form, glimmering indistinctly through a
mist which concealed the face.

He did not deceive himself. He saw that his apparent independence
was a belligerent condition, in which he could
never find adequate peace; but not for this reason—not from
any cool calculations of prudence—did he long to see the
household of Lakeside governed by its legitimate mistress.
If the long years of summer had made his heart apathetic or

indifferent, it had not deadened his nature to the subtle magic
of spring. A more delicate languor than that of the tropics
crept over him in the balmy mornings; all sounds and odors
of the season fostered it, and new images began to obtrude
upon his sleeping as well as his waking dreams. He knew
the symptoms, and rejoiced over the reappearance of the old
disease. It was not now the fever of youth, ignorantly given
up to its own illusions. He could count the accelerated pulsations,
hold the visions steadily fast as they arose in his brain,
and analyze while he enjoyed them. Love and Experience
must now go hand in hand, and if an object presented itself,
the latter must approve while the former embraced.

Reviewing, in his mind, the women whom he knew, there
was not one, he confessed to himself, whom he would ever,
probably, be able to love. His acquaintances in New York
were bright, lively girls—the associates of his nieces—in some
of whom, no doubt, there was a firm basis of noble feminine
character. It could not be otherwise; yet the woman who
must share his seclusion, finding in him, principally, her
society, in his home her recreation, in his happiness her own,
could scarcely be found in that circle. Coming back to Ptolemy,
his survey was equally discouraging. He could never
overlook a lack of intellectual culture in his wife. Who possessed
that, unless, indeed, Hannah Thurston? She, he admitted,
had both exquisite taste and a degree of culture remarkable
for the opportunities she enjoyed; but a union with
her would be a perpetual torment. She, with her morbid
notions of right, seeing an unpardonable sin in every innocent
personal habit! What little she had observed of his external
life had evidently inspired her with a strong dislike of him;
how could she bear to know him as he was—to look over the
pages of his past life? His wife, he felt, must be allowed no
illusions. If she could not find enough of truth and manliness
in his heart to counterbalance past errors and present defects,
she should find no admittance there.

In spite of these unavailing reviews, one important result

was attained. He would no longer, as heretofore, shrink from
the approach of love. From whatever quarter the guest
might come, the door should be found open, and the word
“Welcome,” woven of the evergreen leaves of immortal
longing, should greet the arrival.