 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
THE MOODS OF SETH MILFORD AND HIS
SISTERS.
The mists hung red along the blue basement of the October
sky, and now and then was heard the uncertain, impatient twitter
of some wild bird, that lingered behind its fellows, for the
last flocks had flown over the hills and faded off in the distance,
like clouds. The woods, not yet withered from their autumn
splendor, were beautiful exceedingly. The winds, crying for
the lost summer, ran along the tops of the long reaches of maples,
breaking their shivering wilderness of leaves into golden
furrows—low hedges of the red, glossy-leaved gum trees, ran in
among the forks of the hills, and the brown, shaggy vines of
the wild grape, full of black clusters, clambered about the sassafras
and elm, and the oak still towered in green magnificence.
The sun grew larger and larger, and went down, and gradually
the evening fell, with its solemn calm, over all the scene. Evening,
in autumn!
To most minds, the autumn is a melancholy time, sweeping
off the light and beauty from the summer, and leaving the
world, like Eden when the Fall swept thence the light, and the
dews of sorrow blotted out the footsteps of the angels.
In a stubble field, high and flat, bordered on two sides with
thick woods, on one by an open meadow, from which, just now,
the cows were wending their way slowly homeward, and on
the other, commanding a view of the homestead and the road,
Seth Milford was ploughing.
The air was all fragrant with the smell of fresh earth, as furrow
after furrow crumbled off, and the weary and jaded horses
to the hand of their master.
Twilight fell deeper and darker, and the silver ring of the
new moon was seen just over the western tree-tops, when Seth
paused at the edge of the field nearest the house, drew the
plough from the furrow on to the narrow border of grass that
edged the stubble, loosened the traces, and winding the long
rein about the slender and glossy neck of one of his horses, lowered
the bars, and the animals walked slowly homeward alone.
With arms folded across his bosom, and eyes bent on the
ground, the young ploughman remained for some time listlessly
leaning against the fence; and it was not until his good steeds,
having reached the next bars and found themselves unable to proceed
further, had once or twice neighed impatiently, that his
reverie, whatever its nature, was interrupted. Drawing his
rough boots backward and forward over the long and fallen
grass, by way of cleansing them of the moist earth that attached
to them in the furrows, he refolded his arms, lowered his hat a
little over his sullen brow, and was proceeding slowly and mechanically
homeward, when he was interrupted with the brisk,
lively salutation of “How are you, Seth?” He looked up, and
a smile, half sorrowful, half disdainful, passed across his regularly
handsome features, as though he scarcely knew whether
most to pity or despise any one who could be happy in this
world. The recipient of this dubious greeting was a young
neighboring farmer, with a round, rosy face, indicative of good
nature and good health, and large gray eyes, and the beginnings
of a yellowish beard. Cordially shaking the hand of his unsocial
neighbor, he apologized, a little bluntly, for crossing
without liberty his fields; for it must be owned, that Seth Milford
had, either justly or unjustly, obtained the reputation of
being a little selfish and particular as to who trespassed on his
premises. The young man was evidently arrayed in his best;
and whether the fashion of his garments was such as obtained
in the gay world or not, mattered to him very little. He was
going, he said, the distance of a mile or so, to “sit up with a
corpse,” and the direction he had taken materially shortened the
way.
“Who is dead?” inquired Seth, manifesting for the first time
a little interest. “Humph!” he continued, on learning who it
was; “he was a young man—must have been younger than
I—and yet has been so blest as to die.”
“Yes,” said the happy farmer, without understanding or apparently
heeding the conclusion of the remark; “yes, he was
young; if he had lived till the twenty-second of January, he
would have been his own man. Good evening.”
Seth looked after the young watcher, and repeated, half aloud,
as he turned homeward,—
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the world, and all our woes.”
It seems, sometimes, as if we were but drifted here and there,
by blind chances, to perish, at last, like the flowers; and this
especially seems true, when, after striving earnestly but vainly
to pierce the darkness which lies between the farthest stretch of
imagination, and the eternal brightness about God, our thoughts
come back to our poor mortal being. Else it seems that we
were predestined from eternity to fill a certain round, from
which there is no escape; and, sick at heart, we turn from each
lofty endeavor. We have too little of the child's faith—too
little of simple and trustful reliance on “our Father.”
The bad alone act by necessity,”
owing to an unhealthy temperament—moody and morbid—and
partly to the continually fretful contrasts of high aspirations and
inadequate powers, in the end believe in a blind fate.
One of this unfortunate class was Seth Milford. Born and
bred on the farm which he now inherited, and having never
been beyond the shadows of his native hills, he had nevertheless
“immortal longings in him.” Naturally diffident and shy,
and very imperfectly educated, he grew up to manhood, dissatisfied,
restless, wretched—despising and scorning the circle to
for no other, though gifted with a mind superior to that of
thousands occupying high places in society, and looking down
upon him. He was not loved—even by his two sisters, with
whom he lived in the old homestead, and whom he supported,
not very elegantly, indeed, but according to his best ability. He
would have done better, but it was his fate to be as he was, and
to do no more than he did.
These sisters—Mary and Annie—better educated, and with
more of tact and ambition than he, had by various means succeeded
in elevating themselves considerably, as they thought,
above their awkward and ill-natured brother.
Seth was sensitively alive to their want of affection—to the
mortifying truth that they were sometimes ashamed of him,
and consequently made little effort towards their maintenance
in such style as they desired. When the spring time came
round, he scattered the seed with a listless hand; and when the
suns of summer ripened the harvest, he gathered it instinctively
in, but with no pious song—no thought of ampler threshing-floors.
It was a wise rule among the Jesuits, that would not permit
of two persons talking apart; and if these sisters had strictly
kept such a rule, how much happiness would have been gained,
how much misery avoided!
They complained, and with a good deal of justice, of their
brother's improvident and thriftless way of living; and by
dwelling on it often, and exaggerating real evils, a feeling of
indifference grew up against him, which he, on his part, made
no effort to break down. They seldom met, save at meals,
usually seanty enough, and then in silence.
The grounds comprising the farm were extensive and valuable,
but sadly neglected and unprofitable. Patches of
briers grew about the meadows, and the fences were so decayed
and fallen, that all the unruly pigs and cattle of the neighborhood
trespassed at will. Even the homestead, which had
originally had pretensions to gentility, now looked as if
But something ailed it now; the house was cursed.”
The paint was beaten from the weatherboards, some of the
chimneys were toppling, the shutters broken, and the railings
about the piazza half gone. The fence around the yard, in spite
of the props here and there, leaned one way and the other
towards the ground, and the front gate was quite off its hinges;
nevertheless, the flower-beds on either side the grass-grown
walk, and the snowy curtains at such of the windows as had unclosed
shutters, indicated that the place was inhabited—while
the great blue cloud of smoke, issuing just now from the kitchen
chimney, gave the place an unusually cheerful and home-like
aspect.
Mary was preparing the tea, bustling in and out, and up and
down the cellar—singing as she did so—and Annie was gone to
milk, for they lived humbly. Though, for the most part, the
brother and sisters went on in the silent unsympathizing manner
I have described, there were times when mutual good nature
melted away the ice between them, and an evening or a morning
passed pleasantly.
“Now tell us what hath chanced to-day, that Cæsar looks so
sad,” said Annie Milford, gaily, to Seth, as he came near where
she sat by the little spotted cow. Without heeding the gay
salutation, he threw open the gate, and, neglecting to slip his
hand through the bridle rein, as he should have done, he suffered
his horse to pass on in what direction he chose, and that
was so close to the little cow as to make her whirl suddenly
round, and thus upset the milk over the clean dress of Annie.
She was, however, in too pleasant a mood to be seriously vexed,
and called after Seth, saying—“Just stop, and see the ruin you
have wrought—when I was thinking, too, what color would best
suit my complexion.”
The young man passed on moodily without answering, and
seemingly without heeding her raillery; but a kind word is
never lost, and, affecting to busy himself, he waited till Annie's
pail was again flowing, when, passing as by accident, he took it
from her hand and carried it into the house.
“I think the air feels like rain,” said Annie, as she took the
milk to strain, and Seth replied that he thought so too; and
this was the first time he had spoken to her that day.
By the time Seth had washed his face and hands in the tin
basin that always stood on the stone step at the door, and
Annie had strained the milk, and washed and turned down her
bright tin pail by the well-curb, the tea was ready, and though
the girls had made the most of a scanty larder, the board was
less substantially spread than suited the requirements of a hungry
man.
“Well, Seth,” said Mary, as she added the spoonful of sugar
to his cup of tea, which he liked to be sweet, “I gave away all
your old boots to-day, to Captain Hill, who wanted them to
smoke under the nose of a consumptive colt.” Seth could not
help laughing, though he tried hard to do so; and drawing
nearer to the table, he began to eat his supper, which he at first
manifested no disposition to do.
“He staid a good while with us,” continued Mary, “and
amused us very much with anecdotes of early times; relating,
amongst other things, how, when he retired from the militia
captaincy, he traded his regimentals for a steer.”
“Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!” said Seth, as
he passed his cup to be refilled—a thing he was seldom known
to do. With light and lively talk of this sort, the supper
passed—so small a thing turns the current, sends it rippling
into the sunshine, or moving toward the shade. When the
meal was finished, Seth took up the market-basket, saying he
would go into the village and see if he could add anything to
their stock of provision.
“Not to-night,” said the sisters, both at once—“you look
tired—let it be to-morrow, or the next day.”
But the more they dissuaded him from going, the more he
was inclined to go—though a week's scolding could not have
induced him to do so—and he left the house, saying perhaps he
should gather a little harmless gossip to enliven the next evening
meal; and his heart and step were lighter than they had
been for many a day. Lifting the broken gate, to pass out, he
resolved to stop at the blacksmith's and order some new hinges.
The tea things were put by, and a little fire blazed cheerfully
on the hearth, for the evenings were growing chilly. Annie sat
knitting a sock of gray woollen yarn, beside the little old-fashioned
volume, when Seth returned, and, placing his well-filled basket
on the table, he took up a ham of partly-dried beef, saying,
“When I come home to-morrow night, I want some of this
broiled for supper; and here are some cranberries, too, to be
stewed.”
Mary said it should be as he wished, and kindly giving him
the rocking-chair, they sat together—Annie knitting, Mary
reading, and Seth rocking backwards and forwards before the
fire, and occasionally making some comment on the book, till
the old cock, from the cherry tree by the door, crowed for nine
o'clock.
Then, laying the embers together, they talked of various
plans for future improvements. The paling around the yard
was to be straightened up and whitewashed, the shrubbery
trimmed, and new gravel put in the walk. Then the shutters
were to be mended and painted, a rag carpet which the girls
had made was to be woven for the dining-room, a boy was to
be hired to milk the cows and assist about the farm, “and then,
Seth,” said the girls, “you will have more time for books and
thought.”
How bright the future looked to them all, for this strengthening
of each other's hands, by interchange of opinions, hopes,
and fears. How easy of execution seemed all their plans, as
they retired for the night, pleased with themselves and with
the world.
The next day found Seth in the stubble field as before, but
with a countenance more cheerful, a step more firm and elastic;
and now and then, as he stopped for his horse to rest and
browse from briers on the border of the field, while, taking a
book from his pocket, he sat down on the grass bank and read,
he really looked enviable—lord as he was of the acres around
him.
The sky was overcast, and the easterly wind blew chill and
dreary all day—the leaves fell fast, and drifted to great yellow
ridges along the woods—the nuts dropped off as a stronger gust
swept by—the cattle cowered from the blast in the fence
all the time.
Having assigned himself a certain task, Seth continued to
plough, backward and forward, long after the sun was set. But
it was accomplished at last, and drawing his plough from the
furrow on to the border of grass as in the preceding evening, he
loosened the traces, and whistling some fragment of a song,
walked briskly homeward. When his horse had been cared
for, he took a bundle of hay under his arm for the little cow,
but, on going into the yard, he found she was not there, to his
regret, for it was already growing late, and clouds indicated a
speedy storm.
I can soon bring her, thought he—supper will not have to
wait long; and he hurried towards the meadow. But by the
time he reached it the darkness was so great he could not see
far, and so was obliged to walk round and round to discover
whether she were there. In doing this, he found the fence
thrown down next the woods, and, thinking she was doubtless
into them, he continued his search, though the darkness had
become dense, and the rain was falling steadily and cold. The
mildness of the morning had induced him to go to the field
without a coat, so that, though his search was finally successful,
it was not until he was completely drenched. The provoking
little cow was milked at last, and the flowing pail carried home
—and now for a warm fire and supper, thought Seth, as he
opened the door of the kitchen. But, to his surprise and discomfort,
he found neither. The dining-room was in the same
desolate and cheerless state, but the parlor was a-glow with
light and warmth, and the gay chattering of voices announced
the presence of strangers. Seth's brow clouded—unhappily,
the friends of his sisters were not his friends. Belonging for
the most part to a different grade of society, he neither knew
them nor cared to know them; and, in the present instance, he
was certainly in no guise to present himself. There was no
servant on whom to call for a change of garments—he knew not
where to find any himself, and so he sat down in the cheerless
kitchen, wet and cold as he was, to wait the departure or retiring
of the guests, as patiently as he could. This situation was
He thought over all the wrongs and slights he had ever known
or suffered—and they were not a few, and exaggerated the
difficulties and obstacles that beset him, until there seemed no
hope, no good worth living for. Before him and behind him
all was very dark. The time appeared insupportably long;
and, worn out at last, he retired to his room, half-wishing,
boyishly, that he was dead.
Irritation and chilliness at first kept him from sleep, and there
is no more wretched place than a sleepless pillow; then a violent
headache supervened, and he wore the long hours by tossing
and tumbling from one side of his bed to the other. But
wearied nature gave way at last, and towards morning he fell
into a broken and dreamy sleep, from which he did not wake
till the sun was shining broad and bright over the world. His
head was still aching, dull, and heavy, and his cheeks flushed
and burning with fever. Half rising, he drew back the curtain
from the window at the head of his bed, and looked out. His
faithful dog, Juno, that always slept beneath her master's window,
roused from her recumbent posture, and, raising herself
erect, with her fore-paws on the window sill, looked wistfully at
him some time, whining and wagging her tail. But he no
sooner lifted his hands toward her, caressingly, and turned fully
upon her his dull and heavy eyes, than her feet dropped from
the window, and, crouching upon the ground as before, she gave
a melancholy howl.
“An ill-omen,” said Seth; and he fell back upon his pillow
and groaned.
Meantime the girls had risen, and, finding no fire for the preparation
of breakfast, one of them had gone to the door of her
brother and, in a harsh tone, called him to get up and kindle it;
but he, yet asleep, did not of course either hear or answer. After
waiting some time, they succeeded, with much difficulty, in
kindling a fire themselves; and when at last the breakfast was
on the table, they sat down to it alone, saying, that if Seth were
not a mind to get up and make a fire, they were sure they
would not call him to eat.
In so doing they were not happy, but, on the contrary, very
unhappy. Nevertheless, they felt this procedure to be a kind
of duty they owed to their insulted dignity.
The breakfast was eaten in silence, and the table cleared, and
yet Seth came not; but, seating themselves before the fire in
the dining-room, they soon, in recapitulating the events of the
previous evening, forgot all about him.
After an hour or so, the young man came from his chamber,
and passed through the room where they sat, but neither of the
sisters looked up, or in any way noticed him, until, hearing him
in the kitchen, pouring a cup of cold coffee, one of them said,
“If you had risen when you ought to, you might have had your
breakfast. As it is, you can go without.”
“I don't want any breakfast,” said Seth.
“You have grown very meek all at once,” replied the sister
—and no more was said.
After dragging himself about for some time, in the performance
of such little offices as required attention, he felt himself
obliged to return to his bed, which he did without receiving any
more notice than before.
“I wonder if Seth is sick?” said one of the sisters, when he
had gone back to his room.
But the other replied that he generally contrived to make
it known when he was sick, and the conversation flowed again
into its lively channel. Sadly jarred their mirthful tones and
laughter through the sick chamber, as the long hours passed
drearily from the young farmer.
Suffering from thirst—for though burning with fever the sick
man, remembering the harsh tone of the morning, delayed to
call for water—and so, voluntarily adding to his misery, he lay
tossing about until the day was nearly closed, when his audible
groans attracted the notice of Annie, who, from having spoken
harshly in the morning, was perhaps the more sensitively alive
to the possibility of his needing her attention; and, putting
down her work, she went at once to his room.
Startled and alarmed at the terrible change wrought in a single
day and night, she did everything in her power to alleviate
face and hands had been freely bathed in cold water, and his
pillows adjusted, he felt better; and Annie left him to prepare
tea, telling him that when he should have taken a little sleep it
would be ready, and then she was sure he would be well. But
the headache, which had been for a moment lulled, returned
with greater intensity, and the cheeks soon flushed back to a
hotter fever. “Oh, if Seth were only well!” said Mary, as she
went about the preparation of supper. It was no trouble now
to make everything as he liked it best. When it was ready,
and a chair for him set next the fire, she opened the door of his
room, and called him, saying, “You don't know what a nice
supper we have.”
“Oh, Mary,” replied Seth, “I shall never eat supper with you
any more.”
The words smote on her heart, and, hurrying to his bed, she
put her arms around his neck, and, weeping like a child, asked
his forgiveness for all her past neglect, her want of love—exaggerating
her own faults, and magnifying all his kindness, all
his forbearance—saying, over and over, “Oh, you must get well,
Seth; you must get well!”
He smiled faintly, and said his own faults were much greater
than hers; but if he were well, he might not do any better, and
his life had been long enough.
A week went by—the leaves were nearly all gone from the
trees, and lay in heavy and damp masses, the winds moaned
about the old homestead very dismally, the sky was clouded,
and the cold, melancholy rain of autumn, fell all day long. On
the grass border, at the edge of the stubble field, stood the
plough just where it had been left a week before, with the yellow
rust gathered thickly over the share.
Under the naked locust-trees, in the corner of the village
grave-yard, there was a heap of fresh earth, and close beside it
a long narrow mound.
Peace to the dead and the living! Let not me, frail and
erring, sit in judgment upon either.
I have told you, simply, a story of humble sorrows and sufferings.
with whom you journey along this pilgrimage to death, and to
fall not out by the way; for there is no anguish like that which
comes upon us when we remember a wrong done, and feel our
utter impotence to lift the pallid forehead out of death, and
crown it with our sorrow and our love.
| Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |