 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
UNCLE WILLIAM'S.
1. I.
No matter how ingeniously probabilities may be woven,
how cunning are plots, or effective situations, the fictitious
narrative has rarely the attractive interest of a simple statement
of facts; and every one seems to have that quick instinct which
detects the most elaborate imitations of truth, so that all the
skill of the novelist fails to win a single tribute not due merely
to his art. I cannot tell what I might be tempted to essay if
I possessed more imagination or fancy, but with a brain so
unfruitful of invention, and a heart bound as with spells to the
past, I should find myself, even if attempting a flight in the
realms of fancy, but recalling some half forgotten experience,
and making Puck or Titania discourse after the manner of our
landlord at the Clovernook Hotel, or the young women whose
histories I began to mark when we were girls together in the
district school.
It is, perhaps, seven or eight years ago—ah me, how soon
we grow old enough to look back to seven, and eight, and ten
years, as to yesterday!—since I went to spend the winter with
my cousins, Delia and Jane Peters. They lived in the neighborhood
of Elm Ridge. It is an obscure and was to me a
lonesome place, though they said they had society enough all
around them; and indeed the village meeting-house and tavern-sign
were within view, and the window lights of Abner Widdleton,
the nearest neighbor, shone across the door-yard.
The happiest occasions, if they bring change with them, are
sad; and I remember that I could not sleep well the night
previous to my setting out, though I had been for weeks talking
The last collar was ruffled, the last strings and hooks and eyes
adjusted, my trunk packed, and my bonnet, with the green veil
pinned fast, laid on the bed, and but a night lay between me
and my little journey. Then it was, when all was ready, that
a sorrowful, half-regretful feeling came over me. I stood at
the window and looked on the way the stage-coach would come
in the morning; watched the cows as they crouched with petty
rifts of snow along their backs, and their faces from the wind;
and the chickens, as they flew into the cherry-tree, cackling
their discomfort as they settled themselves on the smoothly
worn boughs; for it was a blustery night, and these commonplaces
seemed to have in them a solemn import, all because I
was to be a dozen miles away for a few weeks!
A dozen times I said to little Dillie, with whom I slept,
“Are you awake?” before I could sleep. But I was wearied
out at last, and but imperfectly heard the speckled cock telling
his mates of midnight when a blessed wave of oblivion came
between me and Elm Ridge, and I woke not till a hand rested
lightly on my shoulder, and a familiar voice said, “I guess it 's
time.” I needed no second call, but was dressed and waiting
in a few minutes. It did not require much time for breakfast,
I think. There seemed nothing for us to say as we watched
the coming of the coach, while my baggage was carried toward
the gate that I might occasion no detention. A few repetitions
of what had been already said, a few exchanges of smiles that
faded into sighs, and the well-known rumble of the approaching
vehicle arrested our make-believe conversation.
My little baggage was hoisted to the top. I was afraid I
should never see it again. A portly gentleman, having a
round red face and pale blue eyes, reached out one hand—it
was freckled and fat, I remember—to assist me in; “All
ready?” cried the driver, and we were off. I looked back presently,
and saw them all standing just as I had left them, except
little Dillie, who had climbed on the fence, and was gazing
after us very earnestly. The coach jolted and rolled from
side to side, for the road was rough and frozen; and the plethoric
individual, who wore a tightly buttoned brown overcoat,
over the gold head of a crooked but highly polished walking-stick,
and conversed with the gentleman opposite, in an easy
and complacent way that indicated a state of satisfaction with
the world and with himself. His companion was exceedingly
diminutive, having the delicate hands and feet of a child; a
mouth in which a shilling might scarcely be slipped; a little
long head, bald about the crown, and with thin brown hair
hanging far over his coat-collar, which was glazed with such
contact to the depth of half an inch, as it seemed. I soon
learned their respective homes and avocations: the fat man
proved to be a pork merchant, homeward bound from a profitable
sale; and his little fellow traveller a tailor and small
merchant of one of the western states. “There,” said he,
smiling, and pointing to a huge wagon of several tons burden,
drawn by six stout horses, wearing bells on their collars,
“there goes a little buggy that 's got a budget or two of mine
aboard.”
The fat man smiled, and every one else smiled, as they saw
the six horses straining with all their ability, slowly to drag
along the ponderous load; for the great wagon-body was heaped
and overheaped with bags, bales, and baskets, crocks, cradles,
and calicoes, in fact with all sorts of family and household utensils,
from a plow to a teapot, and with wearing apparel from
buckram and ducks to cambrics and laces.
“Two or three times a year I buy up such a little bunch as
that,” he said; and he smiled again, and so did every body else.
“That bay cretur on the off side,” he resumed, letting down
the window and looking back, “is fallen lame, I believe my
heart. Polly will be as mad as a hornet about it; it 's her riding
nag, d' ye see—that ere bay.” And as long as we could hear
the bells he continued to gaze back, tying a silk handkerchief
over his head as he did so, to protect it from the cold. Whether
the aforesaid Polly was his wife, and, if she was, whether she
was mad as a hornet, are matters of which to this day I am profoundly
ignorant; but I have hoped that if Polly were wife to
the little merchant, she was pacified with a new dress, and that
the poor beast soon got the better of the lameness.
The fat man pointed out all the places in which the hogs he
had just sold had rested of nights, and each time he concluded
with, “Well, they 'll never root any more.” It would be hard
to tell why, but all the coach passengers looked with interest at
the various fields, and woods, and pens, where the drover's
hogs had rested on their fatal journey toward the city. “Just
on this knoll, or that rise,” he would say, “a fat fellow gave
out, and we let him have a ride the rest of the way, or treated
him to a hot bath.” He occupied more than his share of room,
to the very evident annoyance of the woman who was on the
seat with him; for she had much less than half for herself and
her child, a deformed and forlorn-looking little boy of perhaps
six years of age. He was scantily, even meanly dressed, his
bare feet hanging quite below his cotton frock, and his stiff
fur hat so large as to fall over his eyes, which were remarkably
black and large. I could not but notice that the mother, as I
supposed her to be, wrapped her shawl more carefully about
herself than the child, who kept all the time moaning and fretting,
sometimes crying out bitterly. She made no effort to
soothe him, except that she now and then turned his face from
one direction to another. Once or twice she held it close against
her—I thought not fondly, but crushingly—and more than
once or twice she dashed his head against the fat man's side,
partly by way of jostling him, as I thought, and partly to
punish the child for crying. He rubbed his eyes till his little
hands were wet with tears; but never did she warm them in
her bosom or dry them with kisses. Indeed, she seemed no
more concerned than as if she had held on her lap a bundle of
sticks. A sudden cry of evident pain drew all eyes to her.
In one of the dabs at the fat man she had scratched the boy's
face with a pin sticking in his sleeve.
“Poor little beauty!” whispered a pale, lady-like looking
woman to the person beside her, a black-whiskered, well-fed
sort of man: “poor little beauty! I wish I had it.”
“Really, Nelly,” he answered, in a half kind, half mocking
way, “you are benevolent;” and in a lower voice he added,
“considering the circumstances.”
I occupied the middle seat, with the merchant, and she who
when I heard her voice, and saw, as I have said,
that she looked pale and delicate, and that she dropped her veil
and blushed at the gentle reproval of her companion.
With this couple sat a rosy-cheeked, middle-aged woman,
who had hitherto kept her lips compressed, but, as it appeared
to me, with difficulty. She now leaned across the lap of the
gentleman, and asked the invalid traveller if she had any children
of her own, and if she was married or single; saying she
wondered she should feel such sympathy for that “ornary child,”
for that nobody but a mother could have the feelings of a mother.
“Now I,” she added, “have left a little one at home—
six months old it was the fourteenth of last month—and I 'm
just fairly crazy, though I have n't been gone a day, as you
may say, for it was three o'clock yesterday when I started;
the baby was asleep then; I expect maybe he cried when he
waked up and missed me, but it seemed necessary for me to
go away. I had to go, in fact, as you may say. Nobody
drove me to be sure, but then we wanted a good many things
about the house that, as you may say, nobody could get but
myself, and I thought I might as well go now as ever. I knew
the baby would be taken good care of by Liddy—that 's my
oldest girl; but it seemed like I could n't get my own consent,
and I went without it at last, as you may say. Do you live in
town?” she inquired; and, without pausing for a reply, continued,
“A body sees a heap of pretty things that a body would
like to have, do n't they, if they only had plenty of money?
This is a tea-pot,” she said, holding up a carefully wrapped
parcel; “it 's a new fashion, they told me; but I think it 's a
new-fashioned old fashion; for I remember, when I was a girl,
we used to have one just a'most like it.” And she kindly tore
off a bit of the envelope, telling the lady she could see the
color, and that she had a set of things in a basket on the top of
the coach, the same color, and the make of the same man, she
supposed. Dear sakes! I hope none of them will get broken,
and won't I be glad to see my baby!” Having settled herself
in her place, she leaned forward again to say, “Just hear that
as much interested in them as himself.”
I could not help but smile at her innocent simplicity. How
quick we are to detect the faults of others—how slow to “see
ourselves as others see us.”
“Do you see that old tree with the fork split off and hanging
down?” It was the fat man who asked this question—of
nobody in particular—but every body tried to see, and most
of us did see. “One of my fellows hung himself there last
week. He was well the day before. At supper—we slept at
a tavern not half a mile away—I noticed that he did n't eat,
and seemed down-hearted like; but I did n't say nothing to
him; I wish now I had; and in the morning he could n't be
found, high nor low. Finally, we gave up the search, and got
our drovers started-along later than common. I stopped a bit
after the rest, settling with the landlord, who said to me, in a
joking way like, that he guessed he 'd have to charge me for
his wife's clothes-line; that she said she was as certain as she
was alive that it hung on a particular peg the last night, and
she thought the missing drover knew something about it; he
looked wild out of his eyes, she said. Just that way he spoke
about it; and I laughs at him, mounts my horse, and rides
away. I had just come in sight of the drove when one of my
fellers—that 's the one whose legs you see,” and he pointed to a
pair of muddy boots hanging against the window from the outside
of the coach,—“came toward me running on the full jump,
and told me they had discovered Jake hung on a tree, and
swinging in the wind, stiff as a poker.”
“Good gracious me!” exclaimed the woman with the sick
child, and giving the fat man as much room as possible, “how
did he look, and what did you do with him?”
“Look! he looked like a dead man; and as for doing with
him, we cut him down, and put him under ground by the side
of an old black log.”
“I wish I could see the one that discovered him,” the woman
said, trying to pull down the window; “is he any kin to the
man that hung himself, and had he taken the clothes-line?”
“He had taken the clothes-line, but the landlady on its being
so threw it in the fire.”
The poor child was not thrust against him any more; but it
kept crying and moaning, and rubbing its eyes and the scratch
on its face, which smarted as the tears rolled over it.
“What ails your child?” asked the fat man, who seemed
not to have noticed its crying till he turned to answer the
nurse's question.
“Nothing, only he 's ugly and cross,” she answered.
“I guess any of us would feel bad,” said the rosy-cheeked
woman with the new tea-pot, “if our bare feet hung dangling
about like his 'n, to say nothing of that scratch on his face.
Wont you be good enough, sir, to take that pin out of your
sleeve?”
“Certainly, ma'am; I was not aware”—he did n't finish the
sentence to her, for she had leaned across the coach, and was
saying to the pale lady that she never could see what a man
wanted to have pins sticking about him for.
“Naughty pin, was n't it!” said the fat man to the baby,
taking from his sleeve the offending instrument and throwing it
from the window; and he continued, putting the child's feet in
one of his mittens, “Tell him murrur she must wrap him in
her shawl.”
“You need n't look at me,” she replied; “I am not his
mother by a great sight; she 's in a mad-house; they just took
her this morning. It was a dreadful sight—she a raving, and
the children screaming and carrying on at a dreadful rate.
They say she is past all cure, and I s'pose she is. She liked to
have pulled all the hair out of my head when she saw I was
going to take the baby. I am only a distant relation, but it 's
not always near of kin that are the best to orphans. Sit up!”
she exclaimed, giving the child a rough jerk; “do n't lean against
the gentleman as heavy as a bag of mush.” The fat man had
become a lion in her estimation since she learned that one of
his drovers had hanged himself.
“He does n't disturb me in the least,” said he; and taking
off the child's hat, he smoothed its hair with his great hand.
“I guess he is a right nice man,” said the rosy-cheeked woman,
fur cape from her neck. “Put it round the little boy, my good
woman,” she said, reaching it toward her.
“Really, Nelly,” said the gentleman beside her, and he
looked at her with evident displeasure.
But the woman returned the cape, saying, “He 's got to take
the world as he can get it; there is no use of wrapping him in
a fine fur cape for an hour.”
“That fellow up there,” said the fat man, “could give
more particulars than I can about the wretched suicide I was
telling of.”
“Wretched what?” inquired the woman.
“The fellow that was so fond of swinging;” and as he spoke
he lifted the child from her knees, unbuttoned his brown coat,
and folded him warmly beneath it, resting his chin on the boy's
hair, informing him that at home he had a little boy just about
his size, and asking him if he would like to go home with him
and be his little boy.
The coach now rattled along at a lively rate, and, soothed by
the warmth and the kindliness of the drover's tone, the poor little
fellow was soon fast asleep.
I noticed that the lady in the corner looked weary; and that
once when she laid her head on the shoulder of the man beside
her, he moved uneasily, as if the weight burdened him, and
that she lifted herself up again, though she seemed scarcely
able to do so.
“That 's my house,” said the rosy-cheeked woman, “right
fernent William Peters's; and I guess I am as glad to get
home as they will be to see me—the dear knows I did n't want
to go. I would have paid anybody, and been very much
obliged to them besides, if they could have done my errands
for me.”
At the gate of her house an obedient-looking man stood in
waiting for her; and as the crockery was handed down, the good-natured
owner gathered her sundry little parcels together;
shook hands with the pale lady, saying she hoped she would
soon get the better of the ill turn she seemed to have; uncovered
the baby's face, and kissed it, dropping a tear on its
was mine!” I suppose by way of apology for what the world
considers a weakness; and, smiling a sort of benediction on us
all, she descended the side of the coach. I followed, for my
destination was also reached.
“You going to stop here? Well now, if that do n't beat
all! I suppose you are Mr. Peters's niece that I 've heard so
much tell of. And as I am alive, if there aint Delia, just going
away! Poor girl, I guess she leaves her heart behind her.”
This suspicion she imparted in a whisper; and having said I
must come in and see her, she flew rather than walked toward
the house, for Jane was coming to meet her with the baby. I
could only shake hands an instant with my cousin Delia, who
seemed to anticipate little happiness from her journey, as I
judged from tear-blind eyes and quivering lips. I thought she
whispered to her father something about remaining at home,
now that I was come.
“Oh, no, Dillie, I do n't think it 's worth while,” he said;
“she will stay here all winter, and you will be back in a month,
at furthest.”
The companion of the pale lady assisted Delia into the coach
with much gallantry; the driver's whip-lash made a circuit in
the air; the jaded horses sprang forward as though fresh for
the race; and the poor little child, with its bare feet and red
hands, was lost to me forever. May the good Shepherd have
tempered the winds to its needs, and strengthened it against
temptations, in all its career in this hard and so often uncharitable
world
2. II.
“How glad I am you have come,” said uncle William,
when we were in the house; “but it seems kind a lonesome
for all.”
Jane was ten years older than Delia—not so pretty nor stylish,
but very good, motherly, and considerate. They had no
mother, and lived with their father in the old house where they
were brought up. Delia was about sixteen at the time of my
the village and neighborhood.
We were a small and quiet family at uncle William's. He
himself did little but tend the parlor fire, read the newspaper,
and consult the almanac and his watch, which things made up
his world. He knew all the phases of the moon, and what the
weather would be likely to be for a month in advance; he knew
what his favorite editor said, and believed it; in fact, there was
no other paper; its contents seemed designed more especially
for him than for anybody else; and to this day I can not rid
myself of the impression that uncle William's newspaper was
altogether the most excellent thing of its kind in the world.
When the sun came up, he took from beneath the parlor looking-glass,
where it hung of nights, the great silver chronometer
that had been his father's and his grandfather's, turned the key
a few times, held it to his ear, consulted the almanac, and compared
the sunrise with his time, as if to see that the sun were
punctual to its appointment. He then mended the fire, and
took up the “Republican,” and when it was read through once
he began again, more studiously to examine, and thoughtfully to
digest its most noticeable contents. It always had something
good in it, he said, and it would do him no harm to read some
of the pieces a dozen times. When the sunlight slanted through
the south window, he carefully folded the paper, and again consulted
his watch. At sunset another comparison was made of
time authorities, and the almanac again resorted to, and then
began the evening reading.
Uncle William never indulged in what is termed frivolous
conversation; the only thing in the way of fun I ever heard him
say was that the editor of his paper was a man that had a head.
But he was less morose, and far more genial, than another of
my relations, uncle Christopher, with whom he held no intercourse
whatever, but of whom I shall have something to relate
in these reminiscences of Clovernook history.
Jane had little more to say than her father. She never read,
and had never been from home; and so, of course, she was not
very wise; and as she never talked of things that did not concern
her, there was not much for her to discuss. In all ways
it more difficult to love her than they would have done had she
possessed more of the common human infirmities. Our conversation
was mostly of the weather, with which, however, she
was always contented; so that if the storm beat never so tempestuously,
I scarcely dared yawn, or say even that “I wish
it would clear off.”
I should have been happier if the house had been left in some
disorder on Delia's departure, so that we might have employed
ourselves by setting it to rights; but everything was in its
place; so we of necessity sat down by the fire, and the little we
did say was in whispers, that we might not disturb uncle William,
who forever sat by, reading in a monotonous mutter,
neither aloud nor in silence. Sometimes he would invite me
to read, for the benefit of himself, who had read it twenty times
previously, Jane, who did n't care a straw for reading, and the
sixteen cats that dozed about the hearth, some “piece” which
he thought of remarkable interest or beauty.
“Will Delia be gone long?” I inquired after my arrival; for
I had previously learned that she was gone two or three hundred
miles from Elm Ridge, to a small city which I had never known
uncle William's folks to visit, and I was curious to know the
why and wherefore. Jane stitched a little faster, I thought;
the twilight was deepening so much that I could not have seen
to stitch at all; but she only answered that her sister's stay
was uncertain.
“I did n't know you had friends there,” I said, for I did not
like to ask more directly.
“Did n't you?” answered Jane, stitching as before.
I was not discouraged, and remembering what the rosy-cheeked
woman had said about Delia's having left her heart behind
her, I continued, “She has grown very pretty since I saw
her; she must be very much admired.”
“Our preacher's wife gave her a book,” she said, “at Christmas,
and our singing master—old Mr. White—offered to teach
her for nothing.” And these were all the evidences of the
admiration she received which Propriety Jane thought fit to
disclose for me.
“Who lives opposite?” I asked; for the house looked so
cheerful, with its lights moving about, the chimneys sending
up their blue smoke, and the bustling in and out of doors, that
I could not help wishing myself there, since not a candle was
lighted in our house, and there was no supper in preparation,
nor any cheerful talk to enliven the time.
“Mr. Widdleton's folks,” replied Jane, and rising from her
chair, she stood close against the window, that she might see to
stitch a little longer.
“What sort of people are they?”
“Oh, very nice people.”
“It must have been Mrs. Widdleton with whom I came up
in the coach: a rosy-cheeked, good-natured woman, who seems
fond of talking.”
“Yes, it was she.”
“Well,” said I, “she bought a new teapot, with a variety of
other things, as she was good enough to inform us all.”
Jane made no reply whatever, nor by smile or gesture indicated
that Mrs. Widdleton had been communicative in any
unusual degree.
The snow was falling dismally, the fire was low, and the
coming on of night seemed gloomy enough. Uncle William
was splitting pine boards into kindling, and though all day I
had wished he would afford us by his absence a little opportunity
for conversation, I now heartily wished he would return,
and tell us when the moon would change.
As I listened to the winds, and wondered what kept my uncle
and cousin alive, there was a low and what seemed to me a
very timid rap at the door. Jane opened it; and though her
tone evinced neither surprise nor pleasure, it was not uncivil,
as she received the visitor. He seemed—for he was a young
man—not to feel at liberty to sit down, though Jane invited
him so to do; but, having made some commonplace observations
relative to the weather, he inquired whether Miss Delia
were at home.
“No,” answered Jane; and she gave no intimation as to
where her sister was gone, or when she would return, or
whether she would ever do so.
“I will then bid you good evening,” he said, “and do myself
the pleasure of calling again.”
When he was gone, Jane left the room, having made no
reply to the young gentleman's intimation.
On his entrance, I had stirred the coals to make a little light,
but it was so faint that I saw him but imperfectly, though with
enough distinctness to warrant me in believing him a very
handsome man, of not more than twenty-two or three years of
age. Besides, his voice was so soft and musical as, together
with his fair looks, to leave a most agreeable impression. Who
he was or whence he came I could not know, but somehow I
was interested in him, and pressing my face to the window,
looked eagerly through the snow to see in what direction he
went. At the gate he paused, thrust his hands into his pockets,
and seemed to muse for a moment, looking one way and then
another, as if in doubt what to do; but presently he lighted a
cigar with a match, and, turning in the direction of a tavern,
was quickly lost from my observation.
“Who was that young person?” I asked, when Jane returned
to the parlor.
“Edward Courtney.”
“Does he live in the village?”
“No.”
“I noticed that he went in that direction.”
Jane lighted the candle and took up her work.
“Very handsome, is n't he?” I said.
“Yes.”
“What is his occupation?”
“His father, with whom he lives, is a farmer, but lately come
to our neighborhood.”
“Well, I wish he had passed the evening with us, and not
been so exclusively devoted to Miss Delia.”
Jane said nothing, and I inquired when he would be likely to
come again.
“I do n't know.”
“Really, Jane,” I said, “you are provoking; for once in
your life tell me something I wish to find out. What is it, that
his name is Edward Courtney, and that his father is a farmer;
about him, and why do you not like him? for I am sure you do
not.”
“Why, yes, I like him well enough,” she answered; “but I
know nothing about him to tell; he is rather a wild young
man, I think.”
“What wild thing has he done?”
“Oh, I do n't know: I do n't know as he is wild.'
And holding out one foot, she asked me how I liked her
shoes, saying they were made out of dog-skin; she thought they
were as pretty as morocco, and her father said he thought they
would last all winter.
“S'cat!” exclaimed uncle William, at this moment making
his way through a dozen of the feline tribe; and having mended
the fire, he said he believed the moon quartered that night, and
proceeded to examine the almanac.
To me the evening seemed setting in very lonesomely, and it
was a most agreeable surprise when one of Mrs. Widdleton's
children came in to ask cousin Jane and myself to pass it with
her. To my disappointment, however, Jane did not feel like
going; she was afraid of getting the toothache, and believed
she could not go very well.
“You go, any how,” said the boy who had asked us; “Mother
says if you ain't acquainted, come and get acquainted.”
I hesitated, for it seemed awkward to go alone into a stranger's
house, but the urgency of the lad and my own inclination
prevailed; and I was already aware that the social customs of
Elm Ridge were not trammeled by oppressive conventional
restrictions.
On my arrival, I saw, to my surprise, the whiskered gentleman
whom I have mentioned as the companion of the pale lady
in the coach.
“Really, madam,” he said, “I do hope, if it will not be a
serious inconvenience, that I can prevail upon you—not so
much on my own account as for my wife's sake. She is pious,
and does n't like being at the hotel, where Sunday is pretty
nearly as good as any other day.”
“And are you not pious?” asked Mrs. Widdleton, looking
at him in innocent astonishment.
He smiled and shook his head, but made no other answer.
“Well, I do n't know what to say. I liked the little
woman”—
“Yes, I like her too,” interrupted the man, with a peculiar
smile, intended perhaps as an expression of humor.
“Did you ever!” exclaimed Mrs. Widdleton, and she went
on to say that she feared their plain way of living would not
suit a fine lady, who had been used to servants, and like
enough never had to wet her hands. She would see what
Abner thought.
“By all means.”
And the gentleman seated himself, and caressed one leg,
while she withdrew, for a consultation, to the kitchen, where a
hammering seemed to indicate the going forward of some active
business.
“Just have it your own way, mother,” I heard him say. “If
you are a mind to do more and have more, why you can; but
seems to me you have enough to do; though I do n't care. Do
just as you please; but I hate to have you make a slave of
yourself, mother.”
“Well, Abner,” she answered, “one or two more in the
family do n't seem to make much difference; and if they are
not suited, why they can find another place, may be.”
When the gentleman had taken leave, which he did very
politely, Mrs. Widdleton informed me that his name was Hevelyn;
that he was a southern man, lately married, and had come
north for the sake of his wife's health. This she had learned
during her late interview with him. She also informed me she
was going to board them awhile; that she wanted to get a few
things for Liddy, more than she could spare the money to buy
—not that Abner would be unwilling to give it to her, but then
he had so many uses for his money.
Mrs. Widdleton was one of those bustling, active women,
who never seem in their right sphere except with hands full and
overflowing. Everybody was active about her—Mr. Widdleton
mending her washing-tub, Liddy making a new gown, one
for what she did during the evening in the way of mending and
making, I can not recount it, but the cradle was heaped, and so
were all the chairs about her, with the work she did. We had
cakes, and apples, and cider, and nuts, besides a constant flow
of talking, in which Mr. Widdleton, having finished his tub,
participated. I felt, I remember, a wish that everybody might
be just as contented as they, and have just as bright a fire.
But Mrs. Widdleton—ah me, I do n't like to write that
“but”—was a little given to talking of things that did not concern
her, as well as of things that did; and when the children
were gone to bed, and while Abner had ground the coffee for
breakfast—“he is so handy about the house,” said Mrs. Widdleton—we
drew close to the embers, and the good woman
glided naturally from her own tea-set to the tea-sets of her
neighbors, and thence the transition to her neighbors themselves
was almost imperceptible. A number of interesting
little family affairs came to my knowledge that night; but
I will not attempt a report of all her disclosures—only of some
intimations that more immediately interested me. Uncle William
and Jane had put their heads together, she said, and sent
off Delia, the dear knows where, to prevent her keeping the
company of Edward Courtney; and for her part she thought,
though she did n't want to say anything one way or the other,
and it was very seldom she did speak at all, that Delia or any
other girl might go further and fare worse, for Edward Courtney
was just as nice a young man, apparently, as ever she set
eyes on, and she would just as soon a daughter of hers married
him as to marry some persons that some persons thought a
good deal better, or to live at home till she was forty years
old, and nurse the cats. Jane, she confessed, was just as good
a girl as ever was, and uncle William was just as good a man
as ever was, but they would think it very hard to be made to
marry somebody they did n't like; and, for her part, she
thought it was just as bad to be kept from marrying whom you
did like. “It 's one thing to marry,” said Mrs. Widdleton,
“and another thing to love the man you marry; and, for my
always averse to match-making, but I have a great mind as ever
I had in my life”—she suddenly paused, and added, “No, I
do n't know as I will, either; but I hate to see folks as cool as
a cucumber about such things, and think nobody has any feeling
more than themselves. Poor Delia! Yes, I have the
greatest mind—no—I do n't know as I will—I might reflect on
myself if it did n't all come out right.” And she vigorously
trotted her baby, long after he was asleep; and I have always
thought that then and there she settled the knotty point, for she
said at last, with a smile, that if she should tell Edward where
Delia was, it would n't be telling him to go there and marry
her; but even if she should give him a piece of her mind to that
effect, she did n't know as they could take her up and hang her.
Before I returned to uncle William's that night, she concluded
she would call on Mrs. Courtney in a day or two; she wanted
to borrow a dress pattern of her; perhaps she would see Edward,
and perhaps not; and she did n't know as she would say
anything about Delia if she did see him; it was the pattern she
wanted. But notwithstanding this conclusion, I felt assured
that she would give Edward the “piece of her mind” with
which she had first proposed to endow him.
The following day I related to Jane the incidents of the evening:
how Mr. Widdleton had mended a tub, and his wife had
darned and mended; in fact, whatever had been done or said
that could interest her, not omitting the conversation about
Edward and Delia—for I was determined to find out something
in reference to the affair, as I persuaded myself I had a perfect
right to do, considering our relationship; and Delia's pale face
haunted me; her supplicating appeal for permission to remain
at home I felt assured was not on my account; I saw pots
of her flowers standing about, dying from neglect, and I could
not help thinking her thoughts had been otherwhere. So, as
I said, I told Jane that Mrs. Widdleton thought Delia and
Edward would make a fine match, and that she was sorry it
was likely not to take place; for I did not choose to repeat
her precise words. My very proper cousin colored slightly,
qualities, she would be a busybody. This was the only reproach
of any one I ever heard from her. I confess to greater
imperfection; the affairs of other people interest me, and I
am apt sometimes to say what I think of their conduct and
character.
I used to take my seat at the window, and there being
neither conversation nor reading within, I naturally looked out
for amusement, and found it in the movements of our neighbors;
for humanity is more to us than everything else, as those
who have passed a winter in an isolated country place can very
easily believe. The evening after this visit, I saw a light in the
front chamber of Mr. Widdleton's house, where I had never
seen a light before, and supposed the Hevelyns were there.
The following morning I saw Mrs. Widdleton set out, bright
and early, in the direction of Mr. Courtney's house. She
walked against the north wind with a straightforward and energetic
step, and I wondered whether there were any purpose in
her movements that did not concern the pattern. It was nearly
noon when she returned, accompanied by young Mr. Courtney.
They paused at the gate, and seemed in earnest conversation
for a long time. Liddy came to the door and looked earnestly
toward her mother several times; the baby was fretting, I
knew; but as often as they seemed about to separate they drew
nearer again, till it seemed their conversation would never have
an end. Seated on the outside of the evening coach that day I
noticed a young man who, I thought, resembled Courtney, and
I was the more convinced of its being him from the graceful
way in which he recognized Mrs. Widdleton, as he passed. A
red scarf about his neck concealed, in part, his face, so that I
could not be positive it was he. “But if it is,” thought I,
“he may have a thousand objects in view besides Delia. I
have no right to think anything about it.” Still I did think
about it.
Often in the courses of the days I saw Mrs. Hevelyn, wrapt
in a shawl which seemed of a very rich and costly pattern,
standing or sitting by the chamber window. Sometimes I observed
sadness and dejection. Occasionally when the sun shone in the
middle of the day, she walked about the yard, examined the
dead flowers, and looked up and down the lonesome road, returning
again to the house with a languid and heavy step.
When the evening coach came rattling over the near hill, I saw
her either raise the sash or step out into the yard, and watch it
eagerly, as though in expectation of some one; and when it
passed she would sometimes return with her handkerchief to
her eyes, and sometimes, sinking at once on the frozen ground,
sit, as though powerless to go in, for an hour or more. One
sunshiny day I went out into the yard to see if the flags were
sprouting or the daffodils coming through the grass, for I had
seen a blue-bird twittering in the lilac and picking its feathers
that morning. “How d' you do?” called a voice that seemed
not altogether unfamiliar, and looking up, I saw Mrs. Widdleton
leaning over her yard-fence, with the evident intention of
having a little chat.
“What is the news,” she asked, “at your house?”
“Oh nothing; what is the news with you?”
“How does uncle William (for she called Mr. Peters uncle
William when she spoke to me of him) seem to take it?”
“Take what?” said I.
“Why, about Edward and Delia.”
“And what about them?”
“Why, they say he 's gone off to B—.” Here she lowered
her voice, and, saying that walls had ears sometimes,
crossed from her yard-fence to ours. “He 's gone off to
B—,” she continued, “and they say it 's to get married.”
“Is it possible!”
“Yes; and old Mr. Courtney is going back to the city to
live, and they say Edward and Delia are going right into the
old house; and from the way things seem to begin and go on,
I think they will do well.”
I said I thought so too, though what things she had seen
beginning and going on I was not in the least advised, however
shrewdly I might guess.
If they should be married, and come and live in the old place,
and do right well, as she hoped and believed they would, she
thought Miss Jane and “uncle William” would be ashamed of
themselves.
3. III.
As often as I met the ever busy and good natured Mrs. Widdleton,
she had much to say about poor Mrs. Hevelyn. Her
husband went away, she said, the very day he brought her there
and right among strangers so, it seemed as if the poor thing
would cry her eyes out. “Often of evenings,” said Mrs. Widdleton,
“I go up into her room to have a cheerful chat. You
know a body must talk or they won't say anything—and I find
her lying on the bed, her face all smothered in the pillow, and
her heart ready to break.” She informed me further, that Mr.
Hevelyn had written only once, and then barely a few lines,
since he went away.
Two or three days went by, when, at nightfall, I observed an
unusual stir about Mr. Widdleton's house; lights moved busily
from cellar to chamber; a strange woman, in a high white cap,
appeared from time to time; and presently the two little
girls came over to pass the evening, saying their mother
had given them leave to stay all night if they wished to.
The next morning the chamber-windows were closed, and
Mrs. Widdleton herself came in soon after breakfast to take
her children home, and informed them that somebody had
brought Mrs. Hevelyn “the sweetest little baby!” Tidings
were despatched to the absent husband, and day after day
the young mother exerted herself beyond her ability to make
her little darling look pretty, that the heart of the expected
father might be rejoiced the more; and day after day the
coach went by, and the sun went down, and he did not
come. At length, one day, in answer to Mrs. Widdleton's
urgent entreaties, and with a hope of giving the poor lady some
comfort, I went in to sit for an hour with her, taking my sewing.
I found her a sweet and lovable creature, indeed—not possessed
and amiable. She had put back her curls in motherly
fashion, and her cheek was thin and pale; but she was beautiful,
and her large eyes had in them a pathos and power which
drew one toward her, as if by a spell. She seemed pleased
with my praise of the child; said she had named him John, for
his father; and added, “He wants to see the darling so much!
and nothing but the most pressing necessity keeps him away—
poor John!” It was a new illustration of the difficulty of dispossessing
a faithful heart of its confidence: she would be the
last to learn how little that father merited her affection.
“Do you think my little beauty is going to have red hair?”
she said, pressing her lips against his head. Her own was a
deep auburn. She looked at me, as if she wanted me to say
no; but I could not, conscientiously, and so replied evasively,
“Why, do n't you like that color?”
“I do n't care,” she said; “it would be pretty to me, no
matter what color it was; but John thinks red hair so ugly.”
“Perhaps it will be the color of yours, and that will please
him.”
“He used to call mine pretty,” she said; and, taking it down,
laid it on the baby's head, and compared it, with the greatest
apparent interest. While thus engaged, the coach drew up at
the gate. “Oh, it is he!—it is he!” she cried; and, placing
the baby in my arms, wound back her long hair, and flew to
meet him, as though the heavens were opening before her.
“Why, Nell,” I heard him say, as he assisted her up stairs,
“you have grown old and ugly since I left.”
The tone was playful, but she replied, “Oh, John!” in a
reproachful accent that indicated a deeply felt meaning.
“And where did you learn this style of arranging your hair?
Is it by good mother Widdleton's suggestion? Really, it is not
becoming—it is positively shocking; and red hair requires the
most careful dressing to make it endurable.”
She tried to laugh as she entered the room, and said to me,
“Do n't you think John is finding fault with me already! but,
never mind, I'll find fault with him one of these days.”
“I dare say, my dear, you will have cause,” he answered,
half seriously, half laughingly; and, putting her arms about his
neck, she kissed him as fondly as though he had said she was
looking young and beautiful. “Oh, the baby!” she suddenly
exclaimed. “Why, John, you have n't seen him!”
“Do n't, my dear, make yourself ridiculous,” he whispered,
“but introduce the lady, and then go and arrange your hair:
there is time enough to see the baby.”
I rose to go, as I would have done sooner but for my little
charge; but the Hevelyns insisted so much on my remaining,
that I was forced to sit down. The mother kept smiling, but
tears seemed ready to fall; and I placed the child in the father's
arms, and said, “See, how like you he is!”
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, turning away his eyes, “you
do n't mean to say I look like this thing!”
“No, not quite,” I said, laughing; “not so well.”
“And you call this boy mine, do you?” he said to his wife;
“red hair, and blue eyes, and ugly in every way. Why, his
hand is as big as a wood-chopper's.” And he held up his own,
which was delicate and beautiful.
“Now, John, dear, he does look like you, and Mrs. Widdleton,
too, says he does.” And to prove the resemblance she brought a
picture of her husband, saying I might trace the resemblance
more readily from that.
“Ah, Nelly,” he said, putting it aside, “that never looked
like me.” And to me he added, “You see it was painted when
I found that I had to marry Nell; and no wonder I looked woebegone!”
I took up a book of engravings, and, laying down the child he
turned over the leaves for me.
“I am so faint!” said the wife, putting her hand to her forehead.
“What shall I do, John?”
“Oh, I do n't know,” he answered, without looking toward
her; “get some water, or lie down, or something.”
I gave her some water, and, seating her in the arm-chair, returned
to the book, that I might not appear to notice her emotion.
She turned her back toward us with a pretence of rocking the
saw it, his conscience smote him, and, stooping over her, he
kissed her forehead, and smoothed her hair, saying, with real or
affected fondness, “You know, dear, I was only jesting.” And
she was pacified, and smiled again. The next morning the
strange gentleman took the coach; he could not stay longer, the
wife said; and other lonesome days came and went.
One wild March morning, when the snow blew blindingly
against the windows, little Peter Widdleton came running in with
great haste. Mrs. Hevelyn's baby was very sick, and she wanted
me to come. I found, on arriving at her room, that it had not
seemed well for several days, and that the previous night it had
grown seriously worse, and that then the most alarming symptoms
were visible. She had written every day to her husband,
she told me, and as he neither came nor wrote, she was terrified
on his account, though it was possible her letters might have
been miscarried. Dear, credulous soul! The morning coach
went by, and the evening coach went by, and he came not; and
all the while the child grew worse. Mrs. Widdleton's skill was
baffled; and as the mother rocked the little sufferer on her
bosom, and said, “What shall I do! oh, what shall I do!” I
forgot all the words of comfort I had ever known.
Poor baby! its little hands clinging tightly to the mother's, it
lay all day; but at nightfall it sunk into slumber, and, though
its mother kissed it a thousand times, it did not wake any more.
It was piteous to see her grief when we put it down in the snow,
and left it with the March winds making its lullaby.
After the burial, Mrs. Hevelyn lost the little energy that had
kept her up before, and sat without speaking all the day. She
seemed to have lost every interest in life.
We were sitting around the fire one night, eight or ten days
after the baby died, when Mrs. Widdleton came bustling in to
tell us that Mrs. Hevelyn was gone; that her husband had
written her to join him without a moment's delay; that he had
not sent her one cent of money, nor in any way made provision
for her to go. “But for all that,” said our neighbor, “she was
nearly crazy to go, and the letter really made her a deal better
I suppose—for you see she had no money—all but her wedding-dress;
that, she said, she should need before long;” and the kind
woman, taking up one of the cats, hugged it close by way of
keeping down her emotion. Ah well,” she added, presently,
“she has n't much to care to live for, I am afraid.”
4. IV.
When our excellent neighbor had completed the narrative respecting
her late guest, and bestowed fit tributes on the respective
characters of the wife and the husband, she sat a moment in
profound silence, and then, as if she had said Be gone! to all
gloomy recollections, her face resumed its wonted glow, and her
eyes sparkled with secrets until now suppressed, and at the
thoughts of surprise and consternation she was likely to introduce
into my uncle's family—surprise and consternation in no degree
associated with real evil, or the good woman would have been
the last being in the world to feel a satisfaction in their creation
or anticipation. Suddenly interrupting the third persual of the
leading article in the week's “Republican,” she said, “Did you
know, Old Mr. and Mrs. Courtney move to town to-day.”
“Do tell,” said uncle William, looking very much pleased, “I
wonder what they are going to do with their house?”
“Well, I hardly know,” replied Mrs. Widdleton, looking slyly
at me; “some say one thing and some say another; but I have
my own thoughts. I do n't think Edward Courtney went to
B— for nothing; and I do n't think he will come back without
a certain little woman, whose name begins with Delia, for a
wife.”
Cousin Jane dropped half the stitches off one needle, and uncle
William opened the paper so suddenly that he tore it, which he
said he would not have done for a fip; and he forgot what quarter
the moon was in, and, on being questioned, said he did n't
know as he cared.
Mrs. Widdleton was right; for the next evening I went with
her to call on the bride, my friend carrying with her a custard-pie
and a loaf of plum-cake. We found the happy pair taking
devotion; and when last I saw them they were as happy as
then—lovers yet, though they had been married a dozen years.
A year after my visit I heard, by chance, that Mrs. Hevelyn
was dead, and the fragment of her life and love that I have
written, is all I know.
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