University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
MR. WOODBURY'S INTRODUCTION TO LAKESIDE.

On the very day when the Sewing-Union met in Ptolemy,
there was an unusual commotion at Lakeside. Only four or
five days had elapsed since the secluded little household had
been startled by the news that the old place was finally sold,
and now a short note had arrived from Mr. Hammond, of Tiberius,
who was the agent for the estate, stating that the new
owner would probably make his appearance in the course of
the day.

The first thing that suggested itself to the distracted mind
of Mrs. Fortitude Babb, the housekeeper, was immediately to
summon old Melinda, a negro woman, whose specialty was
house-cleaning. Had there been sufficient time, Mrs. Babb
would have scoured the entire dwelling, from garret to cellar.
A stranger, indeed, would have remarked no appearance of
disorder, or want of proper cleanliness, anywhere: but the
tall housekeeper, propping her hands upon her hips, exclaimed,
in despair: “Whatever shall I do? There 's hardly time to
have the rooms swep', let alone washin' the wood-work.
Then, ag'in, I dunno which o' the two bed-rooms he'd like
best. Why couldn't Mr. Hammond hold him back, till things
was decent? And the libery 's been shet up, this ever so
long; and there's bakin' to do—squinch tarts, and sich likes
—and you must kill two chickens, Arbutus, right away!”

“Don't be worried, Mother Forty,” replied Arbutus Wilson,
the stout young man whom Mrs. Babb addressed, “things
a 'n't lookin' so bad, after all. Max.—well, Mr. Woodbury, I
must say now, though it'll go rather queer, at first—was always
easy satisfied, when he was here afore.”

“I reckon you think people doesn't change in twenty year.
There's no tellin' what sort of a man he's got to be. But
here comes Melindy. I guess I'll open the libery and let it
air, while she fixes the bedrooms.”

Mrs. Babb's nervousness had a deeper cause than the condition
of the Lakeside mansion. So many years had elapsed
since she first came to the place as housekeeper, that it seemed
to have become her own property as surely as that of the
Dennison family. The death of Mrs. Dennison, eight months
before, recalled her to the consciousness of her uncertain tenure.
Now, since the estate was finally sold and the new
owner about to arrive, a few days, in all probability, would
determine whether her right was to be confirmed or herself
turned adrift upon the world. Although her recollections of
Maxwell Woodbury, whose last visit to Lakeside occurred
during the first year of her reign, were as kindly as was consistent
with her rigid nature, she awaited his arrival with a
mixture of jealousy and dread. True, he was somewhat
nearer to her than those relatives of Mrs. Dennison who had
inherited the property at her death, for the latter Mrs. Babb
had never seen, while him she had both gently scolded and
severely petted: but she felt that the removal of Arbutus
Wilson and herself from the place would be a shameful piece
of injustice, and the fact that such removal was possible indicated
something wrong in the world.

Arbutus, who was a hardy, healthy, strapping fellow, of
eight-and-twenty, was her step-step-son, if there can be such a
relation. His father, who died shortly after his birth, was one
of those uneducated, ignorant men, whose ears are yet quick to
catch and retain any word of grandiloquent sound. Nothing
delighted him so much as to hear the Biblical genealogies
read. He had somewhere picked up the word arbutus, the
sound of which so pleased him that he at once conferred it
upon his baby, utterly unconscious of its meaning. A year or
two after his death, the widow Wilson married Jason Babb,
an honest, meek-natured carpenter, who proved a good father

to the little Arbutus. She, however, was carried away by a
malignant fever, in the first year of her second marriage. The
widower, who both mourned and missed her, cherished her
child with a conscientious fidelity, and it was quite as much
from a sense of duty towards the boy, as from an inclination
of the heart, that he married Miss Fortitude Winterbottom, a
tall, staid, self-reliant creature, verging on spinsterhood.

The Fates, however, seemed determined to interfere with
Jason Babb's connubial plans; but the next time it was upon
himself, and not upon his wife, that the lot fell. Having no
children of his own, by either wife, he besought Fortitude,
with his latest breath, to be both father and mother to the
doubly-orphaned little Bute Wilson. It must be admitted
that Mrs. Babb faithfully performed her promise. The true
feeling of parental tenderness had never been granted to her,
and the sense of responsibility—of ownership—which came in
its stead—was a very mild substitute; but it impressed the
boy, at least, with a consciousness of care and protection,
which satisfied his simple nature. Mrs. Dennison, with her
kind voice, and gentle, resigned old face, seemed much more
the mother, while Mrs. Babb, with her peremptory ways and
strict idea of discipline, unconsciously assumed for him the
attitude of a father. The latter had come to Lakeside at a
time when Mr. Dennison's confirmed feebleness required his
wife to devote herself wholly to his care. Mrs. Babb, therefore,
took charge of the house, and Arbutus, at first a younger
companion of Henry Dennison, afterwards an active farm-boy,
finally developed into an excellent farmer, and had almost the
exclusive management of the estate for some years before Mrs.
Dennison's death.

Thus these two persons, with an Irish field-hand, had been
the only occupants of Lakeside, during the summer and autumn.
Arbutus, or Bute, as he was universally called in the
neighborhood, was well-pleased with the news of Mr. Woodbury's
purchase. He remembered him, indistinctly, as the
“town-boy” who gave him his first top and taught him how

to spin it, though the big fellow couldn't tell a thrush's egg
from a robin's, and always said “tortoise” instead of “tortle.”
Bute thought they'd get along together somehow—or, if they
didn't, he could do as well somewheres else, he reckoned.
Nevertheless, he felt anxious that the owner should receive a
satisfactory impression on his arrival, and busied himself, with
Patrick's assistance, in “setting every thing to rights” about
the barn and out-houses.

After all, there was scarcely need of such hurried preparation.
Mr. Hammond and Woodbury, detained by some
necessary formalities of the law, did not leave Tiberius until
the afternoon of that day. The town being situated at the
outlet of Atauga Lake, they took the little steamer to Atauga
City, near its head, in preference to the long road over the
hills. The boat, with a heavy load of freight, made slow progress,
and it was dusk before they passed the point on the
eastern shore, beyond which Lakeside is visible from the
water. On reaching Ptolemy by the evening stage from
Atauga City, Maxwell Woodbury found the new “Ptolemy
House” so bright and cheerful, that he immediately proposed
their remaining for the night, although within four miles of
their destination.

“I have a fancy for approaching the old place by daylight,”
said he to his companion. “Here begins my familiar ground,
and I should be sorry to lose the smallest test of memory.
Besides, I am not sure what kind of quarters I should be able
to offer you, on such short notice.”

“Let us stay, then, by all means,” said the lawyer. “I can
appreciate feelings, although I am occupied entirely with
deeds.” Here he quietly chuckled, and was answered by a
roar from the landlord, who came up in time to hear the
remark.

“Ha! ha! Good, Mr. Hammond!” exclaimed the latter.
“Very happy to entertain you, gentlemen. Mr. Woodbury
can have the Bridal Chamber, if he likes. But you should go
to the Great Sewing-Union, gentlemen. You will find all

Ptolemy there to-night. It's at Hamilton Bue's: you know
him, Mr. Hammond—Director of the Bank.”

The results of this advice have already been described.
After breakfast, on the following morning, the two gentlemen
set out for Lakeside in a light open carriage. It was one of
the last days of the Indian summer, soft and hazy, with a foreboding
of winter in the air. The hills, enclosing the head of
the lake, and stretching away southwards, on opposite sides
of the two valleys, which unite just behind Ptolemy, loomed
through their blue veil with almost the majesty of mountain
ranges. The green of the pine-forests on their crests, and of
those ragged lines of the original woods which marked the
courses of the descending ravines, was dimmed and robbed of its
gloom. The meadows extending towards the lake were still
fresh, and the great elms by the creek-side had not yet shed
all of their tawny leaves. A moist, fragrant odor of decay pervaded
the atmosphere, and the soft southwestern wind, occasionally
stealing down the further valley, seemed to blow the sombre
colors of the landscape into dying flickers of brightness.

As they crossed the stream to the eastward of the village,
and drove along the base of the hills beyond, Woodbury exclaimed:

“You cannot possibly understand, Mr. Hammond, how
refreshing to me are these signs of the coming winter, after
nearly fifteen years of unbroken summer. I shall enjoy the
change doubly here, among the scenes of the only country-life
which I ever knew in America,—where I was really happiest,
as a boy. I suppose,” he added, laughing, “now that the
business is over, I may confess to you how much I congratulate
myself on having made the purchase.”

“As if I did not notice how anxious you were to buy!” rejoined
the lawyer. “You must be strongly attached to the
old place, to take it on the strength of former associations. I
wish it were nearer Tiberius, that we might have more of your
society. Did you pass much of your youth here?”

“Only my summers, from the age of twelve to fifteen. My

constitution was rather delicate when I was young, and Mrs.
Dennison, who was a distant relative of my father, and sometimes
visited us in New York, persuaded him to let me try
the air of Lakeside. Henry was about my own age, and we
soon became great friends. The place was a second home to
me, thenceforth, until my father's death. Even after I went
to Calcutta, I continued to correspond with Henry, but my
last letter from Lakeside was written by his mother, after his
body was brought home from Mexico.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hammond, “the old lady fairly broke
down after that. Henry was a fine fellow and a promising
officer, and I believe she would have borne his loss better, had
he fallen in battle. But he lingered a long time in the hospital,
and she was just beginning to hope for his recovery, when
the news of his death came instead. But see! there is Roaring
Brook. Do you hear the noise of the fall? How loud it
is this morning!”

The hill, curving rapidly to the eastward, rose abruptly from
the meadows in a succession of shelving terraces, the lowest of
which was faced with a wall of dark rock, in horizontal strata,
but almost concealed from view by the tall forest trees which
grew at its base. The stream, issuing from a glen which descended
from the lofty upland region to the eastward of the
lake, poured itself headlong from the brink of the rocky steep,
—a glittering silver thread in summer, a tawny banner of
angry sound in the autumn rains. Seen through the hazy air,
its narrow white column seemed to stand motionless between
the pines, and its mellowed thunder to roll from some region
beyond the hills.

Woodbury, who had been looking steadily across the meadows
to the north, cried out: “It is the same—it has not yet
run itself dry! Now we shall see Lakeside; but no—yet I
certainly used to see the house from this point. Ah! twenty
years! I had forgotten that trees cannot stand still; that
ash, or whatever it is, has quite filled up the gap. I am afraid
I shall find greater changes than this.”

His eyes mechanically fell, as the wheels rumbled suddenly
on the plank bridge over Roaring Brook. Mr. Hammond looked
up, gave the horse a skilful dash of the whip and shot past
the trees which lined the stream. “Look and see!” he presently
said.

The old place, so familiar to Woodbury, and now his own
property, lay before him. There was the heavy white house,
with its broad verandah, looking southward from the last low
shelf of the hills, which rose behind it on their westward
sweep back to the lake. The high-road to Anacreon and
thence to Tiberius, up the eastern shore, turned to the right
and ascended to the upland, through a long winding glen.
A small grove of evergreens still further protected the house
on its northwestern side, so that its position was unusually
sunny and sheltered. The head of the lake, the meadows
around Ptolemy and the branching valleys beyond, were all
visible from the southern windows; and though the hills to
the east somewhat obscured the sunrise, the evenings wore a
double splendor—in the lake and in the sky.

“Poor Henry!” whispered Woodbury to himself, as Mr.
Hammond alighted to open the gate into the private lane.
The house had again disappeared from view, behind the rise
of the broad knoll upon which it stood, and their approach
was not visible until they had reached the upper level, with
its stately avenue of sugar-maples, extending to the garden
wall.

The place was really unchanged, to all appearance. Perhaps
the clumps of lilac and snowball, along the northern
wall were somewhat higher, and the apple-trees in the orchard
behind the house more gnarled and mossy; but the house itself,
the turfed space before it, the flagged walk leading to the
door, the pyramids of yew and juniper, were the same as
ever, and the old oaks at each corner seemed, twig for twig,
to have stood still for twenty years. A few bunches of chrysanthemum,
somewhat nipped by the frost, gave their sober
autumnal coloring and wholesome bitter-sweet odor to the

garden-alleys. The late purple asters were shrivelled and
drooping, and the hollyhocks stood like desolate floral towers,
tottering over the summer's ruin.

For the first time in twenty years, Woodbury felt the almost
forgotten sensation of home steal through his heart.
Quickly and silently he recognized each familiar object, and
the far-off days of the past swept into the nearness of yesterday.
His ear took no note of Mr. Hammond's rattling remarks:
the latter was not precisely the man whose atmosphere
lures forth the hidden fragrance of one's nature.

As they drove along the garden-wall, a strong figure appeared,
approaching with eager strides. He glanced first at
the horse and carriage. “Fairlamb's livery—the bay,” was
his mental remark. The next moment he stood at the gate,
waiting for them to alight.

“How do you do, Mr. Hammond?” he cried. “You're
late a-comin': we expected ye las' night. And is this really
Mr. Maxwell, I mean Mr. Woodbury—well, I'd never ha
knowed him. I s'pose you don't know me, nuther, Mr.
Max.?”

“God bless me! it must be little Bute!” exclaimed Woodbury,
taking the honest fellow's hand. “Yes, I see it now—
man instead of boy, but the same fellow still.”

“Yes, indeed, that I be!” asserted the delighted Arbutus.
He meant much more than the words indicated.
Fully expressed, his thoughts would have run something in
this wise: “I guess we can git on together, as well as
when we was boys. If you ha'n't changed, I ha'n't. I'll
do my dooty towards ye, and you won't be disapp'inted in
me.”

In the mean time, Mrs. Fortitude Babb had made her appearance,
clad in the black bombazine which she had purchased
for Jason's funeral, and was waiting, tall and rigid, but
with considerable internal “flusteration” (as she would have
expressed it), on the verandah. One mental eye was directed
towards the new owner, and the other to the fowls in the

kitchen, which she had cut up the evening before, for a fricassee,
and which were thus rendered unfit for roasting. “Why,
he's a perfick stranger!” “If there's only time to make a pie
of 'em!” were the two thoughts which crossed each other in
her brain.

“Mrs. Babb! there's no mistaking who you are!” exclaimed
Woodbury, as he hastened with outstretched hand up the
flagged walk.

The old housekeeper gave him her long, bony hand in
return, and made an attempt at a courtesy, a thing which
she had not done for so long that one of her knee-joints
cracked with the effort. “Welcome, Sir!” said she, with becoming
gravity. Woodbury thought she did not recognize
him.

“Why, don't you remember Max.?” he asked.

“Yes, I recollex you as you was. And now I come to
look, your eyes is jist the same. Dear, dear!” and in spite
of herself two large tears slowly took their way down her
lank cheeks. “If Miss Dennison and Henry could be here!”
Then she wiped her eyes with her hand, rather than spoil the
corner of her black silk apron. Stiffening her features the
next moment, she turned away, exclaiming in a voice unnecessarily
sharp: “Arbutus, why don't you put away the
horse?”

The gentlemen entered the house. The hall-door had evidently
not been recently used, for the lock grated with a
sound of rust. The sitting-room on the left and the library
beyond, were full of hazy sunshine and cheerful with the
crackling of fires on the open hearth. Dust was nowhere to
be seen, but the chairs stood as fixedly in their formal places as
if screwed to the floor, and the old books seemed to be glued
together in regular piles. None of the slight tokens of habitual
occupation caught the eye—no pleasant irregularity of domestic
life,—a newspaper tossed here, a glove there, a chair
placed obliquely to a favorite window, or a work-stand or
foot-stool drawn from its place. Mrs. Babb, it is true, with a

desperate attempt at ornament, had gathered the most presentable
of the chrysanthemums, with some springs of arbor-vitæ,
and stuck them into an old glass flower-jar. Their
pungent odor helped to conceal the faint musty smell which
still lingered in the unused rooms.

“I think we will sit here, Mrs. Babb,” said Woodbury,
leading the way into the library. “It was always my favorite
room,” he added, turning to the lawyer, “and it has the finest
view of the lake.”

“I'm afeard that's all you'll have,” the housekeeper grimly
remarked. “Things is terrible upside-down: you come so
onexpected. An empty house makes more bother than a full
one. But you're here now, an' you'll have to take it sich as
it is.”

Therewith she retired to the kitchen, where Bute soon
joined her.

“Well, Mother Forty,” he asked, “how do you like his
looks? He's no more changed than I am, only on th' outside.
I don't s'pose he knows more than ever about farmin',
but he's only got to let me alone and things 'll go right.”

“Looks is nothin',” the housekeeper answered. “Handsome
is that handsome does, I say. Don't whistle till you're
out o' the woods, Bute. Not but what I'd ruther have him
here than some o' them people down to Po'keepsy, that never
took no notice o' her while she lived.”

“There's no mistake, then, about his havin' bought the
farm?”

“I guess not, but I'll soon see.”

She presently appeared in the library, with a pitcher of
cider and two glasses on a tray, and a plate of her best “jumbles.”
“There's a few bottles o' Madary in the cellar,” she
said; “but you know I can't take nothin' without your leave,
Mr. Hammond—leastways, onless it's all fixed.”

Woodbury, however, quietly answered: “Thank you, we
will leave the wine until dinner. You can give us a meal, I
presume, Mrs. Babb?”

“'T wo'nt be what I'd like. I'd reckoned on a supper las'
night, instid of a dinner to-day. Expect it 'll be pretty much
pot-luck. However, I'll do what I can.”

Mrs. Babb then returned to the kitchen, satisfied, at least,
that Mr. Maxwell Woodbury was now really the master of
Lakeside.