University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH LAKESIDE BECOMES LIVELY.

Winter at last set in—the steady winter of Central New
York, where the snow which falls at the beginning of December
usually covers the ground until March. Ptolemy, at least,
which lies upon the northern side of the watershed between
the Susquehanna and the rivers which flow into Lake Ontario,
has a much less variable winter temperature than the great
valley, lying some thirty miles to the southward. Atauga
Lake, in common with Cayuga and Seneca, never freezes,
except across the shallows at its southern end; but its waters,
so piercingly cold that they seem to cut the skin like the blade
of a knife, have no power to soften the northern winds. The
bottoms between Ptolemy and the lake, and also, in fact, the
Eastern and Western Valleys, for some miles behind the village,
are open to the North; and those sunny winter days
which, in more sheltered localities, breathe away the snow,
here barely succeed in softening it a little. On the hills it is
even too deep for pleasure. As soon as a highway has been
broken through the drifts, the heavy wood-sleds commence
running, and very soon wear it into a succession of abrupt
hollows, over which the light cutters go pitching like their
nautical namesakes in a chopping sea.

Woodbury, in obedience to a promise exacted by his sister,
went to New York for the holidays, and, as might have been
anticipated, became entangled in a succession of social engagements,
which detained him until the middle of January. He
soon grew tired of acting as escort to his two pretty, but (it

must be confessed, in strict confidence), shallow nieces, whose
sole æsthetic taste was opera—and in opera, especially Verdi.
After a dozen nights of “darling Bosio,” and “delightful Beneventano,”
and “all the rest of them,” he would have been
glad to hear, as a change, even the “Taza be-taza” of the Hindoo
nautch-girls. A season of eastern rains and muddy streets
made the city insupportable, and—greatly to the wonder of
his sister's family—he declined an invitation to the grand
Fifth Avenue ball of Mrs. Luther Leathers, in order to return
to the wilderness of Ptolemy.

Taking the New York and Erie express-train to the town
of Miranda, he there chartered a two-horse cutter, with an
Irish attachment, and set out early the next morning. He
had never before approached Ptolemy from this side, and the
journey had all the charm of a new region. It was a crisp,
clear day, the blood of the horses was quickened by the frosty
air, and the cutter slid rapidly and noiselessly over the well-beaten
track. With a wolf-skin robe on his knees, Woodbury
sat in luxurious warmth, and experienced a rare delight in
breathing the keen, electric crystal of the atmosphere. It was
many years since he had felt such an exquisite vigor of life
within him—such a nimble play of the aroused blood—such
lightness of heart, and hope, and courage! The snow-crystals
sparkled in the sunshine, and the pure shoulders of the hills
before him shone like silver against the naked blue of the sky.
He sang aloud, one after another, the long-forgotten songs,
until his moustache turned to ice and hung upon his mouth
like the hasp of a padlock.

Rising out of the Southern valleys, he sped along, over the
cold, rolling uplands of the watershed, and reached Mulligansville
towards noon. Here the road turned westward, and a
further drive of three miles brought him to the brink of the
long descent to East Atauga Creek. At this point, a superb
winter landscape was unfolded before him. Ptolemy, with its
spires, its one compactly-built, ambitious street, its scattered
houses and gardens, lay in the centre of the picture. On the

white floor of the valley were drawn, with almost painful
sharpness and distinctness, the outlines of farm-houses, and
barns, fences, isolated trees, and the winding lines of elm and
alder which marked the courses of the streams. Beyond the
mouth of the further valley rose the long, cultivated sweep of
the western hill, flecked with dull-purple patches of pine forest.
Northward, across the white meadows and the fringe of trees
along Roaring Brook, rose the sunny knoll of Lakeside, sheltered
by the dark woods behind, while further, stretching far
away between the steep shores, gleamed the hard, steel-blue
sheet of the lake. The air was so intensely clear that the distance
was indicated only by a difference in the hue of objects,
not by their diminished distinctness.

“By Jove! this is glorious!” exclaimed Woodbury, scarcely
conscious that he spoke.

“Shure, an' it's a fine place, Surr!” said the Irish driver, appropriating
the exclamation.

Shortly after commencing the descent, a wreck was descried
ahead. A remnant of aristocracy—or, at least, a fondness for
aristocratic privilege—still lingers among our republican people,
and is manifested in its most offensive form, by the drivers
of heavy teams. No one ever knew a lime-wagon or a wood-sled
to give an inch of the road to a lighter vehicle. In this
ease, a sled, on its way down, had forced an ascending cutter
to turn out into a deep drift, and in attempting to regain the
track both shafts of the latter had been snapped off. The sled
pursued its way, regardless of the ruin, and the occupants of
the cutter, a gentleman and lady, were holding a consultation
over their misfortune, when Woodbury came in sight of them.
As the gentleman leading his horse back into the drift to give
room, turned his face towards the approaching cutter, Woodbury
recognized, projecting between ear-lappets of fur, the curiously-planted
nose, the insufficient lips, and the prominent
teeth, which belonged to the Rev. Mr. Waldo. The recognition
was mutual.

“My dear, it is Mr. Woodbury!” the latter joyfully cried,

turning to the muffled lady. She instantly stood up in the
cutter, threw back her veil, and hailed the approaching deliverer:
“Help me, good Samaritan! The Levite has wrecked me, and
the Priest has enough to do, to take care of himself!”

Woodbury stopped his team, sprang out, and took a survey
of the case. “It is not to be mended,” said he; “you must
crowd yourselves in with me, and we will drive on slowly, leading
the horse.”

“But I have to attend a funeral at Mulligansville—the child
of one of our members,” said Mr. Waldo, “and there is no
time to lose. My dear, you must go back with Mr. Woodbury.
Perhaps he can take the harness and robes. I will
ride on to Van Horn's, where I can borrow a saddle.”

This arrangement was soon carried into effect. Mr. Waldo
mounted the bare-backed steed, and went off up the hill, thumping
his heels against the animal's sides. The broken shafts
were placed in the cutter, which was left “to be called for,”
and Mrs. Waldo took her seat beside Woodbury. She had
set out to attend the funeral, as a duty enjoined by her husband's
office, and was not displeased to escape without damage
to her conscience.

“I'm glad you've got back, Mr. Woodbury,” she said, as
they descended the hill. “We like to have our friends about
us, in the winter, and I assure you, you've been missed.”

“It is pleasant to feel that I have already a place among
you,” he answered. “What is the last piece of gossip? Is
the Great Sewing-Union still in existence?”

“Not quite on the old foundation. Our fair has been held
—by the bye, there I missed you. I fully depended on selling
you a quantity of articles. The Anti-Slavery Fair is over, too;
but they are still working for the Jutnapore Mission, as there
is a chance of sending the articles direct to Madras, before
long; and so the most of us still attend, and either assist them
or take our own private sewing with us.”

“Where do you next meet?”

“Ah, that's our principal trouble. We have exhausted all

the available houses, besides going twice to Bue's and Wilkinson's.
Our parsonage is so small—a mere pigeon-house—that
it's out of the question. I wish I had some of your empty
rooms at Lakeside. Now, there's an idea! Capital! Confess
that my weak feminine brain is good at resorts!”

“What is it?” Woodbury asked.

“Can't you guess? You shall entertain the Sewing-Union
one evening. We will meet at Lakeside: it is just the thing!”

“Are you serious, Mrs. Waldo? I could not, of course, be
so ungracious as to refuse, provided there is no impropriety
in compliance. What would Ptolemy say to the plan?”

“I'll take charge of that!” she cried. “Impropriety! Are
you not a steady, respectable Member of Society, I should like
to know? If there's any thing set down against you, we must
go to Calcutta to find it. And we are sure there are no trapdoors
at Lakeside, or walled-up skeletons, or Blue Beard chambers.
Besides, this isn't Mulligansville or Anacreon, and it is
not necessary to be so very straight-laced. Oh yes, it is the
very thing. As for the domestic preparations, count on my
help, if it is needed.”

“I am afraid,” he replied, “that Mrs. Babb would resent
any interference with her authority. In fact,” he added,
laughing, “I am not certain that it is safe to decide, without
first consulting her.”

“There, now!” rejoined Mrs. Waldo. “Do you remember
what I once told you? Yes, you bachelors, who boast of
your independence of woman, are the only real slaves to the
sex. No wife is such a tyrant as a housekeeper. Not but
what Mrs. Babb is a very honest, conscientious, proper sort of
a person,—but she don't make a home, Mr. Woodbury. You
should get married.”

“That is easily said, Mrs. Waldo,” he replied, with a laugh
which covered, like a luxuriant summer vine, the entrance to
a sighing cavern,—“easily said, and might be easily done, if
one were allowed to choose a wife for her domestic qualities
valued at so much per month.”

“Pshaw!” said she, with assumed contempt. “You are
not a natural cynic, and have no right to be single, at your
age, without a good reason.”

“Perhaps there is a good reason, Mrs. Waldo. Few persons,
I imagine, remain single from choice. I have lost the
susceptibility of my younger days, but not the ideal of a true
wedded life. I should not dare to take the only perfect
woman in the world, unless I could be lover as well as husband.
I sincerely wish my chances were better: but would
you have me choose one of the shallow, showy creatures I
have just been visiting, or one of your strong-minded orators,
here in Ptolemy?”

Mrs. Waldo understood both the earnest tone of the speaker,
and the veiled bitterness of his concluding words. She read
his heart at a glance, thorough woman as she was, and honored
him then, and forever thenceforth.

“You must not take my nonsense for more than it is worth,
Mr. Woodbury,” she answered softly. “Women at my age,
when God denies them children, take to match-making, in the
hope of fulfilling their mission by proxy. It is unselfish in us,
at least. But, bless me! here we are, at the village. Remember,
the Sewing-Union meets at Lakeside.”

“As soon as the Autocrat Babb has spoken,” said he, as he
handed her out at the Cimmerian Parsonage, “I will send
word, and then the matter will rest entirely in your hands.”

“Mine? Oh, I am a female General Jackson—I take the
responsibility!” she cried, gayly, as the cutter drove away.

Woodbury, welcomed at the gate of Lakeside by the cheery
face of Bute Wilson, determined to broach the subject at once
to the housekeeper. Mrs. Fortitude Babb was glad to see
him again, but no expression thereof manifested itself in her
countenance and words. Wiping her bony right-hand on her
apron—she had been dusting the rooms, after sweeping—she
took the one he offered, saying: “How's your health, Sir?”
and then added: “I s'pose you've had a mighty fine time,
while you was away?”

“Not so fine but that I'm glad to get home again,” he
answered. The word “home” satisfied Mrs. Babb's sense of
justice. His sister, she was sure, was not the housekeeper
she herself was, and it was only right that he should see and
acknowledge the fact.

“I want your advice, Mrs. Babb,” Woodbury continued.
“The Sewing-Union propose to meet here, one evening.
They have gone the round of all the large houses in Ptolemy,
and there seems to be no other place left. Since I have
settled in Lakeside, I must be neighborly, you know. Could
we manage to entertain them?”

“Well—comin' so suddent, like, I don't hardly know what
to think. Things has been quiet here for a long time:” the
housekeeper grimly remarked, with a wheezy sigh.

“That is true,” said Woodbury; “and of course you must
have help.”

“No!” she exclaimed, with energy, “I don't want no help—
leastways only Melindy. The rooms must be put to rights—
not but what they're as good as Mrs. Bue's any day; and
there'll be supper for a matter o' twenty; and cakes and
things. When is it to be?”

“Next Friday, I presume; but can you get along without
more assistance?”

“'Taint every one that would do it,” replied Mrs. Babb,
“There's sich a settin' to rights, afterwards. But I can't have
strange help mixin' in, and things goin' wrong, and me to have
the credit of it. Melindy's used to my ways, and there's not
many others that knows what housekeepin' is. Sich a mess as
some people makes of it!”

Secretly, Mrs. Babb was well pleased at the opportunity of
publicly displaying her abilities, but it was not in her nature
to do any thing out of the regular course of her housekeeping,
without having it understood that she was making a great
sacrifice. She was not so unreasonable as to set herself up for
an independent power, but she stoutly demanded and maintained
the rights of a belligerent. This point having once

been conceded, however, she exhibited a wonderful energy in
making the necessary preparations.

Thanks to Mrs. Waldo, all Ptolemy soon knew of the arrangement,
and, as the invitation was general, nearly everybody
decided to accept it. Few persons had visited Lakeside
since Mrs. Dennison's funeral, and there was some curiosity
to know what changes had been made by the new owner.
Besides, the sleighing was superb, and the moon nearly full.
The ladies connected with the Sewing-Union were delighted
with the prospect, and even Hannah Thurston, finding that
her absence would be the only exception and might thus seem
intentional, was constrained to accompany them. She had
seen Woodbury but once since their rencontre at Merryfield's,
and his presence was both unpleasant and embarrassing to her.
But the Merryfields, who took a special pride in her abilities,
cherished the hope that she would yet convert him to the true
faith, and went to the trouble of driving to Ptolemy in order
to furnish her with a conveyance.

Early in the afternoon the guests began to arrive. Bute,
aided by his man Patrick, met them at the gate, and, after a
hearty greeting (for he knew everybody), took the horses and
cutters in charge. Woodbury, assuming the character of host
according to Ptolemaic ideas, appeared at the door, with Mrs.
Babb, rigid in black bombazine, three paces in his rear. The
latter received the ladies with frigid courtesy, conducted them
up-stairs to the best bedroom, and issued the command to
each of them, in turn: “lay off your Things!” Their
curiosity failed to detect any thing incomplete or unusual in
the appointments of the chamber. The furniture was of the
Dennison period, and Mrs. Fortitude had taken care that no
fault should be found with the toilet arrangements. Miss
Eliza Clancy had indeed whispered to Miss Ruhaney Goodwin:
“Well, I think they might have some lavender, or baywater,
for us,”—but the latter immediately responded with
a warning “sh!” and drew from her work-bag a small
oiled-silk package, which she unfolded, producing therefrom a

diminutive bit of sponge, saturated with a mild extract of
lemon verbena. “Here,” she said, offering it to the other
spinster, “I always take care to be pervided.”

The spacious parlor at Lakeside gradually filled with
workers for the Mission Fund. Mrs. Waldo was among the
earliest arrivals, and took command, by right of her undisputed
social talent. She became absolute mistress for the
time, having, by skilful management, propitiated Mrs. Babb,
and fastened her in her true place, at the outset, by adamantine
chains of courtesy and assumed respect. She felt herself,
therefore, in her true element, and distributed her subjects
with such tact, picking up and giving into the right hands the
threads of conversation, perceiving and suppressing petty
jealousies in advance, and laughing away the awkwardness or
timidity of others, that Woodbury could not help saying to
himself: “What a queen of the salons this woman would
have made!” It was a matter of conscience with her, as he
perhaps did not know, that the occasion should be agreeable,
not only to the company, but also to the host. She was responsible
for its occurrence, and she felt that its success would
open Lakeside to the use of Ptolemy society.

There was also little in the principal parlor to attract the
attention of the guests. The floor was still covered by the old
Brussels carpet, with its colossal bunches of flowers of impossible
color and form,—the wonder of Ptolemy, when it was
new. There were the same old-fashioned chairs, and deep
sofas with chintz covers: and the portraits of Mrs. Dennison,
and her son Henry, as a boy of twelve, with his hand upon the
head of a Newfoundland dog, looked down from the walls.
Woodbury had only added engravings of the Madonna di San
Sisto and the Transfiguration, neither of which was greatly admired
by the visitors. Mrs. Hamilton Bue, pausing a moment
to inspect the former, said of the Holy Child: “Why, it looks
just like my little Addy, when she's got her clothes off!”

In the sitting-room were Landseer's “Challenge” and Ary
Scheffer's “Francesca da Rimini.” Miss Ruhaney Goodwin

turned suddenly away from the latter, with difficulty suppressing
an exclamation. “Did you ever?” said she to Miss Eliza
Clancy; “it isn't right to have such pictures hung up.”

“Hush!” answered Miss Eliza, “it may be from Scripture.”

Miss Ruhaney now contemplated the picture without hesitation.
It was a proof before lettering. “What can it be, then?”
she asked.

“Well—I shouldn't wonder if 'twas Jephthah and his
daughter. They both look so sorrowful.”

The Rev. Lemuel Styles and his wife presently arrived.
They were both amiable, honest persons, who enjoyed their
importance in the community, without seeming to assume it.
The former was, perhaps, a little over-cautious lest he should
forget the strict line of conduct which had been prescribed for
him as a theological student. He felt that his duty properly
required him to investigate Mr. Woodbury's religious views,
before thus appearing to endorse them by his presence at
Lakeside; but he had not courage to break the dignified reserve
which the latter maintained, and was obliged to satisfy
his conscience with the fact that Woodbury had twice attended
his church. Between Mr. Waldo and himself there
was now a very cordial relation. They had even cautiously
discussed the differences between them, and had in this way
learned, at least, to respect each other's sincerity.

The last of all the arrivals before tea was Mr. and Mrs. Merryfield,
with Hannah Thurston. The latter came, as already
mentioned, with great reluctance. She would rather have
faced an unfriendly audience than the courteous and self-possessed
host who came to the door to receive her. He oppressed
her, not only with a sense of power, but of power
controlled and directed by some cool faculty in the brain,
which she felt she did not possess. In herself, whatever of
intellectual force she recognized, was developed through the
excitement of her feelings and sympathics. His personality,
it seemed to her, was antagonistic to her own, and the knowledge
gave her a singular sense of pain. She was woman

enough not to tolerate a difference of this kind without a
struggle.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Thurston,” said Woodbury,
as he frankly offered his hand. “I should not like any member
of the Union to slight my first attempt to entertain it. I
am glad to welcome you to Lakeside.”

Hannah Thurston lifted her eyes to his with an effort that
brought a fleeting flush to her face. But she met his gaze,
steadily. “We owe thanks to you, Mr. Woodbury,” said she,
“that Lakeside still belongs to our Ptolemy community. I
confess I should not like to see so pleasant a spot isolated, or
—what the people of Ptolemy would consider much worse,”
she added, smiling—“attached to Anacreon.”

“Oh, no!” he answered, as he transferred her to the charge
of Mrs. Babb. “I have become a thorough Ptolemaic, or a
Ptolemystic, or whatever the proper term may be. I hurl defiance
across the hill to Anacreon, and I turn my back on the
south-east wind, when it blows from Mulligansville.”

“Come, come! We won't be satirized;” said Mrs. Waldo,
who was passing through the hall. “Hannah, you are just in
time. There are five of the Mission Fund sitting together, and
I want their ranks broken. Mr. Woodbury, there will be no
more arrivals before tea; give me your assistance.”

“Who is the tyrant now?” he asked.

“Woman, always, in one shape or other,” she answered,
leading the way into the parlor.

After the very substantial tea which Mrs. Babb had prepared,
and to which, it must be whispered, the guests did
ample justice, there was a pause in the labors of the Union.
The articles intended for the Jutnapore Mission were nearly
completed, in fact, and Mrs. Waldo's exertions had promoted
a genial flow of conversation, which did not require the aid of
the suggestive needle. The guests gathered in groups, chatting
at the windows, looking out on the gray, twilight landscape,
or watching the approach of cutters from Ptolemy, as
they emerged from the trees along Roaring Brook. Mr.

Hamilton Bue and the Hon. Zeno Harder were the first to
make their appearance, not much in advance, however, of the
crowd of ambitious young gentlemen. Many of the latter were
personally unknown to Woodbury, but this was not the least
embarrassment to them. They gave him a rapid salutation,
since it was not to be avoided, and hurried in to secure advantageous
positions among the ladies. Seth Wattles not only
came, to enjoy a hospitality based, as he had hinted, on the
“accursed opium traffic,” but brought with him a stranger
from Ptolemy, a Mr. Grindle, somewhat known as a lecturer
on Temperance.

The rooms were soon filled and Woodbury was also obliged
to throw open his library, into which the elderly gentlemen
withdrew, with the exception of the Rev. Mr. Styles. Mr.
Waldo relished a good story, even if the point was somewhat
coarse, and the Hon. Zeno had an inexhaustible fund of such.
Mr. Bue, notwithstanding he felt bound to utter an occasional
mild protest, always managed to be on hand, and often, in his
great innocence, suggested the very thing which he so evidently
wished to avoid. If the conversation had been for some
time rather serious and heavy, he would say: “Well, Mr.
Harder, I am glad we shall have none of your wicked stories
to-night”—a provocation to which the Hon. Zeno always responded
by giving one.

Bute Wilson, after seeing that the horses were properly
attended to, washed his hands, brushed his hair carefully, and
put on his Sunday frock-coat. Miss Caroline Dilworth was
one of the company, but he had been contented with an occasional
glimpse of her through the window, until the arrival of
Seth Wattles. The care of the fires in the grates, the lamps,
and other arrangements of the evening, gave him sufficient
opportunity to mix with the company, and watch both his
sweetheart and his presumed rival, without appearing to do so.
“Darn that blue-gilled baboon!” he muttered to himself; “I
believe his liver's whiter than the milt of a herrin', an' if you'd
cut his yaller skin, he'd bleed whey 'stid o' blood.”

Seth Wattles, nevertheless, was really guiltless of any designs
on the heart of the little seamstress. Like herself, he was ambitious
of high game, and, in the dreams of his colossal conceit,
looked forward with much confidence to the hour when
Hannah Thurston should take his name, or he hers: he was
prepared for either contingency. To this end he assumed a
tender, languishing air, and talked of Love, and A Mission,
and The Duality of The Soul, in a manner which, in a more
cultivated society, would have rendered him intolerable. He
had a habit of placing his hand on the arm or shoulder of the
person with whom he was conversing, and there were in
Ptolemy women silly enough to be pleased by these tokens of
familiarity. Hannah Thurston, though entirely harmonizing
with him as a reformer, and therefore friendly and forbearing
in her intercourse, felt a natural repugnance towards him
which she could not understand. Indeed, the fact gave her
some uneasiness. “He is ugly,” she thought; “and I am so
weak as to dislike ugliness—it must be that:” which conclusion,
acting on her sensitive principle of justice, led her to
treat him sometimes with more than necessary kindness. Many
persons, the Merryfields included, actually fancied that there
was a growing attachment between them.

“Miss Carrie,” whispered Bute, as he passed her in the hall,
“Do you like your lemonade sweet? We're goin' to bring it
in directly, and I'll git Mother Forty to make a nice glass of
it, o' purpose for you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilson: yes, if you please,” answered the
soft, childish drawl and the beryl-tinted eyes, that sent a thousand
cork-screw tingles boring through and through him.

Bute privately put six lumps of sugar into one glass, which
he marked for recognition; and then squeezed the last bitter
drops of a dozen lemons into another.

The latter was for Seth Wattles.