 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
THE COLLEGIAN'S MISTAKE.
1. I.
It was about the middle of the month of July, and intensely
not; scarcely a breeze stirred the russet gold of the wheat-field,
in which two men were at work—the one pausing now
and then to wipe great drops of sweat from his forehead, and
push back his gray hair, as he surveyed the heavy swaths
that lay drying in the sun; while the other kept right on, the
steady rush of his cradle sending up from the falling grain a
thin dust; and bending under the burning heat, and laying swath
after swath of the ripe wheat beside him, he moved around the
field, hour after hour, never whistling, nor singing, nor surveying
the work that was done, nor the work that was to do.
“Willard,” called the old man, as for the third time the
youth passed him in his round—and there was something more
impatient than kindly in his tone—“Willard, what in the name
of sense possesses you to-day? I can generally swing my
cradle about as fast as you, old as I am. Leave working for a
half-hour; you will gain in the end; and let us cross over by
way of the spring, and rest in the shade of the locust for a
while.”
“I am not very tired,” answered the boy, without pausing
from his work; “go on, and I will join you when I come round
again.”
The old man hesitated, cut a few vigorous strokes, threw
down his cradle in the middle of the field, and turned back.
And well he might; he had need of rest; the grasshoppers
could not hum, it was so hot, and the black beetles crept beneath
the leaves and under the edges of the loose clods, and
the birds hid in the bushes, and dropped their wings and were
into the full warmth.
One side of the field lay the public road, heaped with hot
dust, fetlock deep; and now and then a heavy wagon plowed
along, drawn by five or six horses, their necks ornamented with
bear skins and brass bells, the latter sending tinkling music
far across the fields, and cheering the teamster's heart, as
beneath his broad-rimmed straw-hat he trod through the dry
fennel beside his stout horses. All day the narrow foot-path
kept the print of naked feet, left by the school children as they
went to and came from their tasks. Bordering the field's edge,
opposite this dusty way, was a wooded hill, at the base of
which, beneath a clump of trees, burst out, clear and cool, a
spring of the purest water. To the north lay other harvest-fields,
and the white walls of cottages and homesteads glimmered
among the trees; and to the south, nestled in the midst
of a little cherry-orchard, were discernible the brown walls and
mossy roof of an old farm-house. A cool, quiet, shady place
it looked, and most inviting to the tired laborers; but it was
toward the spring, and not the house, that the old man bent his
steps when he left off work.
Having drank, from a cup of leaves, the tired man stretched
himself in the thick shadow that ran up the hillside from a
cluster of sassafras and elms that grew in the hollow. But he
seemed not to rest well; for every now and then he lifted his
head from its pillow of grass, and looked toward the field,
where the young man was still at his labor. More than an hour
had elapsed, when, for the third time nearing the shadows, and
seeing, perhaps, the anxious look directed toward him, he threw
down his cradle, and staggered, rather than walked, along the
hollow toward the spring, and, throwing himself flat on the
ground, he drew in long draughts of water from the cool, mossy
stones. As he rose, his cheeks were pale from exhaustion, and
his long black hair hung in heavy wet masses down his neck
and forehead.
“Well, my son,” said the older man, rousing from his slumberous
reverie, “you have come at last.” The youth made no
reply, and he continued, “If I had been as smart, we should
—I am getting old.” And his blue eyes grew moist, as,
drooping them on the ground, he silently pulled the grass and
white clover blossoms that grew at his feet, and scattered them
about.
“Oh, no, father, you are not so very old,” replied Willard,
anxiously and earnestly; “and I have fewer years before me
than you, though I have not lived quite so long.”
“It may be so,” said the father, “if you continue to work so
hard; your constitution cannot endure as much as mine. See
how your hands are trembling, from exhaustion, now.”
“That is nothing; I shall get over it soon, and for the time
to come I shall be more prudent; indeed, I have been thinking
that to rise an hour or two earlier, and rest for an hour or two
in the heat of the day, would be a wiser disposition of the
time.” The father made no reply, and he added, “In that way
I shall be able to do almost everything, and you need only
work for recreation.”
“And so, Willard,” said the old man, at length, “you have
been tasking yourself so heavily to-day on my account?”
The son did not reply directly; in fact, he had been influenced
by far other than kindly feelings toward anybody in the
energetic prosecution of his work; farming was not to his taste;
the excessive heat that day had made him irritable; and to be
revenged on fate, and in defiance of his failing strength, he had
labored with all his might. But his sullenness subsided at the
first word of kindness; and he felt that his father was indeed
getting old, and that what he said about doing all the work in
future was perfectly sincere.
There was a long silence, broken at last by the elder of the
two. “You have always had a great notion of books, Willard;
and I have been thinking that if I could send you to college,
you might live more easily than I have done.”
“If I could go, father, I should be very glad; but if you
were able to send me, I could not be spared very well;” and
in a moment he added, “Could I?” in the hope of hearing
something further urged in favor of his wishes.
“There is `Brock' we might sell,” the father remarked,
oats this fall. Yes, I think we can manage; that is, if you
have a mind to let Brock go.”
“I should not mind parting with him; he is six years old,
and will never be worth more than now; besides, I can buy
plenty of horses, good as he, if I ever want them.”
An hour was consumed in speculations of one sort and
another, and the shadows had crept far up the hill when they
arose to resume their occupation.
“But how,” said Willard, as they walked toward the field,
“will you get along at home?” for it was now almost a settled
point that he should go to college.
“Do n't be troubled about us; our hearts are here, and that
makes work go much easier; besides, we have lived our day—
your mother and I—it is little matter about us; but you, Willard,
you are young and ambitious, and so smart. Linney,” he
added, after a moment, “will miss you.”
The young man seemed not to hear this remark, and taking
up their cradles, the father and the son worked and talked together
till set of sun. The grain was all down; and as they
swung their cradles over their shoulders to go home, the old
man sighed, and, looking on the sparkling eyes and flushed face
of the youth, he said, “Perhaps we may never reap this field
together again.”
Willard had always thought it would make him very happy
to know he should not have to swing the cradle any more; but
somehow his father's words made his heart heavy; and, in
spite of the fast-coming beard, he turned away and brushed the
tears from his browned cheek with the back of his hand. He
tried to count the outside passengers of the stage-coach, as it
rattled past, filling all the road with clouds of dust, in vain—
he was thinking of something else; the old farm, that he had
sometimes almost hated, looked beautiful now: the ripe standing
harvests, and the yellow stubble-fields, stretching away
toward the woodland, and the red and orange shadows trembling
along the hill-sides and among the green leaves. A little
and a little more he lingered, till, finally, where the birds
chirped in the hedge which divided the meadow from the
melancholy cries, and quick gushing songs, all mingled and
blended together, and the stir of leaves and the whirr of wings
sounded through and over all. The blue morning-glories had
puckered up their bells, but looked pretty yet, and the open
trumpet-flowers hung bright and flaunting everywhere.
Many a time he had come out to the hedge with Linney
Carpenter in the summer twilights. Now he might not come
any more; and if he went away, she would forget him—perhaps
love some one else.
There was a crashing and cracking of the boughs in the
hedge, and Brock, pressing as near as he could, leaned his
slender head upon the shoulder of the young man. “No, no,
I will not sell you!” he exclaimed, parting away the boughs
which divided them; “a thousand dollars would not buy you!”
and for a half hour he caressed and talked to the beautiful
animal, as though he had been a reasoning creature. At the
end of that time he was pretty nearly resolved to think no
more of the college; and, dismissing the horse, with an abrupt
promise to keep him always, he bent his steps hurriedly homeward.
But Brock had either a sudden fit of fondness, or else
some premonition of the hard things meditated against him,
and he followed his young master at a little distance, droopingly
and noiselessly. Willard had just reached the boundary
of the cherry-orchard, bending wearily under his cradle, and
with his face begrimed with dust and sweat, when a wave of
sweet perfumes came against him; and, looking up, he beheld
in the path directly before him a graduate of the most celebrated
institution of learning then in the west. “Ay, how are
you, Hulbert?” he said, approaching, and stripping the kid-glove
off his delicate hand.
Willard recognized him as a former school-fellow and playmate,
but his greeting was cold and formal, expressing nothing
of the cordial surprise which a sometime absent friend might
have expected. Having addressed him as Mr. Welden, he set
his cradle on the ground beside him, dashed back his heavy,
wet hair, and seemed to wait for the young man to make known
instead, something of the heat of the day.
“I should scarcely have expected you to know anything
about it,” Willard replied, drily.
“Why, I have been making hay, and think I should know,”
answered Welden; “just look here,” and he showed two blisters
on the palm of his hand.
But Willard was in one of those dissatisfied moods which an
angel could not soften, and, simply saying, “Is it possible?” he
took up the cradle again. He felt as if the blistered hands had
offered a terrible insult to his own, which were too much accustomed
to toil to be affected in that way.
“Will you go to the house, Mr. Welden?” he said, after he
had advanced a step or two. The habitual, or, it may be, well-bred
amiability of Mr. Welden, seemed not at all disturbed,
and, politely assenting, he followed rather than accompanied
the moody young farmer to the house, replying for the most
part to his own observations.
“He accepts my invitation in the hope of seeing Linney,”
thought Willard, “and not that he cares anything about me;”
but, to his equal surprise and displeasure, the gentleman seemed
not to notice Linney at all. “Perhaps he thinks her beneath
his notice,” said Willard to himself. “If he does, he is mistaken;
she is as good as he, or any one like him.”
Reaching the house, there was still no perceptible improvement
in the youth's temper, despite many kindly advances on
the part of his guest.
“And so you are going to college?” Mr. Welden said.
“Ay, indeed am I,” he answered, petulantly, and without
looking up.
“Willard, Willard!” interposed Mr. Hulbert, with a reproving
look, that sent blood mantling into his cheek and
forehead; for such correction from his father implied that he
was still a boy, and it was that, joined to the knowledge that
he merited a more severe rebuke, which stung him.
The family were at tea, and but for the coming pride of manhood,
he could have risen from the table, and gone out into the
night, and cried. That privilege was denied him, however, and,
sat sullenly silent till the meal was concluded.
Mr. Welden then said, apologetically, “As I was passing
here, Willard, I chanced to meet your father, who informed me
you were going to college, and that, having no further use for
him, you would dispose of a fine horse you have.”
“I am obliged to you for so politely suggesting my necessities.
I cannot afford to leave home for this purpose unless I
sell the horse—that is the amount.”
“Then there is no obstacle in your way; for, unless your
terms are exorbitant, I can find a purchaser; in fact, I would
like to get him myself.” But that he was afraid to do, as he
would have said he wanted the horse, and would have him at
any price. “I will come to-morrow morning,” he concluded,
as he took leave, after some further conversation, “and then
we shall both have determined what we can afford to do.
Good-night!”
“Good-night—and the devil go with you!” muttered Wil
lard; and, sitting down against an old apple-tree, he threw his
hat on the grass beside him, folded his arms, about which hung
gracefully the full shirt-sleeves, and gave way to the mingled
feelings which had been gathering in his heart—feelings which
could be repressed only with tears. The harvest moon came
up round and full, the dew gathered on the grass, and dropped
heavily now and then from the apple-tree boughs; and far
away hooted and called the owl; but all beside was still.
And here, lost in bitter musings, we will leave the young
man for a little while, to speak of Linney, who does not see
the pride and ambition that darken between her and her hopes.
Her history may be comprised in a few words. A poor man,
living a short distance from Clovernook, died, leaving a large
family, who, as fast as they were old enough, must needs be
sent from home, to earn something for themselves. One of
these was Linney, who fortunately fell into the care of Mrs.
Hulbert, a plain, good, quiet woman, with a pale face, full of
benevolence, and blue eyes, beaming with love. She had never
considered the girl as a servant, but in all ways treated her
kindly as she did her own child. It was, indeed, for the good
beneath her roof. She and Willard, who was four years older,
had been playmates, and workmates, too, for the Hulberts were
far from rich, and, though they owned the farm on which they
lived, it required thrift and economy and continual labor, to
keep the fences in repair, pay the taxes, and supply the household
wants. They had made the garden, edging the vegetable
beds with rows of hollyhocks and prince's feathers; they had
gathered the eggs, and fed the broods of young chickens, and
shook down and gathered up the ripe apples; they had hunted
the silver-white hickory-nuts along the brown, windy woods of
November, gathered the small black-frost grapes from the long
tangling vines that ran over the stunted red trees, making
pyramids of their tops; and in these sometimes they had
climbed, and as they sat fronting the sun, and rocking merrily,
Linney had listened to the first ambitious dreams that brightened
the humble way of her companion. “When I am a man,
Linney, I am going to be rich. I will have a house as big as
two of father's, all painted red, and with corner cupboards in
the parlor, full of honey-jars and roast turkey. Then I mean
to have a fine coach, that will move along more softly than
these vines move now; and I will ride outside and drive the
horses, and you shall be a lady, and ride within; and if George
Welden happens to be anywhere about, we 'll run right over him.”
Of such sort were the dreams of the boy, and whatever good
fortune he pictured for himself, it was forever to be shared by
his playmate; and always the crowning of his delights was to
be a triumph in some way over George Welden—a lad whose
only crime was that he was the son of a man of fortune, that
he wore fashionable clothes, and rode to the academy on a pony
of his own; while Willard's garments were patched, and he
walked barefooted to the free-school. True, George was an
amiable boy, and often came to play with him; but Willard
said he only pretended to be very good, for, in fact, he was
selfish and ugly as he could be.”
As he grew older, and as they walked in the orchard, or sat
in the shade of some favorite tree, his dreams took other shapes;
or if he still thought he should be rich, and ride in a coach with
over George Welden. Still he dreamed of a great world that
was somewhere—he had no definite notion where—but outside
the little circle in which he lived—a world where sorrow was
scarcely sorrow, but only a less degree of happiness, and where
everything was loftier and grander than the things with which
he was familiar. And how to get out of the one world and
into the other, was the subject that occupied his thoughts
mostly, as he grew into maturer boyhood. He became more
thoughtful, less communicative, and often, when he strayed
into the orchard, or sat in the shade, it was alone. George
Welden was gone to college.
Linney was fifteen, and a pretty girl, quiet and amiable;
and if she had any ambition, it was for Willard, and not for
herself. It was little she could do, but all that seemed possible
to do, she did quietly, joyously. The long winter evenings she
employed in knitting, and all she could earn in that way, was
her own; and in the summer she picked berries sometimes,
which Mr. Hulbert sold for her in the market. The little
money thus accumulated was carefully put by for Willard.
She had amassed at length nine dollars; and when she should
get ten, she had resolved to reveal to him the precious secret,
and perhaps they would go to town together and buy books;
for she had heard him relate some stories he had read, and she
smiled, thinking how many he would have to tell when he
should read all the new books they would buy.
Willard was now nearly twenty. His life had been all
passed at home, and mostly in working on the farm. Sundays
he had gone to church with Linney, and in the longer evenings
he had read some of the few books they possessed, while she
employed herself with knitting or sewing. So, sharing the
same toils, and hopes, and fears, they had grown very dear to
each other—more dear than they were aware till the parting
came. They had never spoken of love, but whatever Linney's
feelings or dreams, Willard regarded her as one of whom no
one but himself had a right to think at all.
“Where in the world can Willard be so long?” said his
the low porch, in the yellow moonlight.
“I don 't know,” answered Linney, after a pause; and Mrs.
Hulbert continued, “He did not seem well at supper, poor
boy!”
“True,” answered Mr. Hulbert, significantly; in a moment
adding, “I think he needs to go to college, or somewhere else.”
“Seems to me the air is chilly,” said the mother, not heeding
the suggestion of the father; and, with a shiver, she arose, and
went into the house.
It was lonesome to Linney, as she sat there with the old
man; a cricket chirped under the doorstep, early as it was in
the season, and the heavy breathing of the cows, as they lay
together in the near yard, was heard now and then. The view
was closely shut in by a thick grove of cherry-trees—only the
gray gable of the barn was to be seen over their black shadows.
Linney rose, and, wrapping a shawl about her, for the evening,
as Mrs. Hulbert had said, was cool, she walked out into the
moonlight. She had not, perhaps, very clearly apprehended
her motive, though it would very readily have suggested itself
to another.
She had not long pursued her lonely walk, when she encountered
the object of her thoughts, sitting, moody and silent, under
a tree. He looked up as she approached, but did not speak;
Linney, however, cared little for this—she could have found
excuses for him had he been twice as morose; and, seating herself
on a tuft of clover, a little way from him, she talked cheerfully
and hopefully of the future. Not till she had disclosed
the long-cherished secret about the money she had saved for
him, did his stubborn humor bend at all. Taking from his
pocket a large red silk handkerchief, he spread it on the grass
beside him, saying, “Won't you sit here, Linney?” and when
she did so, he said, by way of apology for his rudeness, “That
George Welden has been the curse of my life!”
“Never mind him, Willard; you need not be envious of
any one, now!”
He laughed, because he thought there was something amusing
in her limited notions of position and independence; but, in
think him, now that he was to go to school, and have nine
dollars, all his own, to do with as he pleased. And as
he was reconciled to himself, and George Welden forgotten,
they were very happy. A long time they lingered under the
apple-tree, the yellow harvest moonlight falling quietly through,
and though neither said to the other, “I love you,” it was felt
that it was so.
They might sit under that apple-tree now, as then, but
through the yellow moonlight each would look upon how
different a world! And would they be happier?
At last they returned to the house, and Willard said, “When
at the close of the session I come home, what a joyous time it
will be! And you, Linney, will be as glad to see me as I
you?”
“Oh, Willard! can you ask? I shall pass all the days we
are parted in thinking of the time when we are to meet. But
you will be so wise, then,” she continued, half sadly, “I shall
not be a fit companion for you.”
“Linney!” he said, quickly, looking reproachfully; and perhaps
he felt at the same time that her fear was unkind.
“Oh! no,” she answered, as though he had assured her of
his truth, “you will not forget me—I know you will not; and
how happy we shall be, and how much you will know, to
tell me!”
A week afterwards Brock was pacing proudly to the guidance
of a fairer hand than Willard's; the old man was at work
alone, making shocks of the wheat; Mrs. Hulbert sat on the
porch sewing, and thinking what would be nice for her good
man's supper; and Linney was in the shadow of the apple-tree,
her heart fluttering, and her hands unwrapping from its
brown paper envelop a small parcel, which she had that day
discovered on the table of her own room, addressed to herself
in the round and careful but not yet very graceful hand of
Willard. He had meant it as a pleasant surprise for her, she
knew; but he could not have fancied it would be so pleasant
as it was—it seemed like a new tie between them. And if it
seemed so while she knew not yet what it was, how much
she saw within it a small bible, bound in red morocco and gilt.
She opened it, and, on the blank leaf, read—
For here you find the owner's name.
“Malinda Hulbert.”
She blushed, though no one saw her, to see, with the couplet
gracing the books of so many school boys—the name which
had never been whispered—even to herself—written clearly
out.
Kissing the book, she pressed it close to her bosom, while
she recounted the hours and the days that Willard had been
gone, saying—“In six days more he will have been gone two
weeks; and then another week will soon go, and then another,
and he will have been gone a month; then I shall get a letter,
and in four months after that he will come home.” Further
than this she did not suffer her thoughts to go, but, concealing
the book, she returned to the house very happy; yet there was
one sad reflection: Willard had appropriated two dollars of
the money, especially designed for his own use, to the getting
of the Bible.
2. II.
The days seemed longer and the tasks heavier, now that
Willard came not at sunset from the field; and somehow or
other the walks through the orchard and the grove lost their
charm; but what with work and hope, the time went by, and
the day of the expected letter arrived. With the earliest dawn,
and long ere the harmless fires of sunrise ran along the faded
summits of the hills, Linney was astir. The wood seemed to
kindle of itself, and when she brought in her pail of milk, the
kettle was singing about coffee. All day she watched the
clouds with unusual interest; and once or twice walked to the
road, and looked anxiously in the direction of the post-office;
and when toward evening she saw the deep gray dust dimpled
with heavy drops of rain, her heart misgave her sadly. As
many clouds were white, however, as black, and as they chased
each other swiftly by, the sun shone through now and then, and
and grass, so the girl took hope again.
Before the dinner hour, the house was set in order; the
Saturday's work was done; and Linney, long in advance of
the coming of the coach which should bring the mail, made
preparations for her walk, and seated herself at the window to
watch for the distant cloud of dust that would indicate its
approach. It seemed as if the sun would never set; but when
it did, still the coach did not come. “It is always the way,”
said Linney; “I might have known it would not be here till
midnight;” and, going to her own room, she unfolded the Bible
from its careful envelop, and gazed earnestly for a few minutes
on the name written there, and kissed it, for the dear hand that
had traced it; then, closing the volume, resumed her watching.
At last, the heads of the gray horses were seen coming over
the hill; in a moment her little cottage-bonnet was on, and her
gray shawl wrapped about her, and, with a beating heart and
quick step, she was on her way toward the Clovernook post-office.
“I know there will be no letter for me,” she said, to
strengthen herself against disappointment, as she drew near
the grocery—in one corner of which, on a few shelves, the letters
and papers that found their way to our neighborhood, were
kept.
Her heart beat eagerly as the post-master slipped letter after
letter through his hands; but at last her eyes fell on the long-expected
treasure; it was from Willard; and there was another
for Mr. Hulbert, from Willard, too, but Linney looked not so
anxiously on that. I need not repeat the contents of either—
they may readily be guessed. The one to his parents related
chiefly to the neighborhood and its inhabitants, the teachers and
students, his own prospects and hopes for the future, with an
earnest wish that he might repay them for all they had done
and were doing for him. But to Linney he did not write of
these things, nor of other things or persons, but as though they
themselves and their hopes made up all the world.
And so Linney performed her tasks, with renewed energy,
and knitted with fresh courage, even when not occupied with the
she would earn a new dress and hat by the time Willard could
come home; and what a pleasant surprise they would be to
him! A sweet vision it was, that made beautiful many an
evening, as she sat by the stone-hearth of the old homestead.
At her feet chirped the crickets, before her blazed the logs, and
beside her good Mrs. Hulbert talked of the sickness and deaths
and merry-makings of the neighborhood, and made occasional
observations on the condition of the weather, which was one of
her favorite subjects. “Twenty years ago,” she was apt to say,
“we had an early fall; the apples froze on the trees, and the late
turnips were not worth a cent.” Every day and every week she
compared or contrasted with some other day or week, five, ten, or
twenty years agone. So, Linney was no longer interested in
any of the warm spells that had ever thawed the frosts of
January and brought forward the untimely fruit, nor in the
great freshets that had swept off fences and bridges, and
drowned a lamb or two, perhaps, nor yet in the wicked frosts
that blackened the peach blossoms and wilted the young cucumber
vines, some time long ago.
The winter evenings, as I have said, must have been tedious,
but for the bright dream of Linney. It was only a dream;
and the boughs were bare of the roses, the next summer, that
she kept blooming about her all the winter.
In the evenings when the village gossip had been discussed,
the business of the farm reviewed, and the weather considered,
Mrs. Hulbert never failed, as she arose to wind the clock, to
speak of Willard; and then, at least, Linney was an attentive
listener. “I wish he was here, poor boy,” she was apt to say,
as though he suffered continual privation, while enjoying books
and pleasant society and good dinners, and she fared frugally
and worked hard. Any one else could see that there was at
least a partnership of sacrifice in this separation; but how
should Mrs. Hulbert? She was Willard's mother.
And night after night the crickets hopped across the hearth
familiarly, and told their old story; and Linney worked by
the firelight, and thought and dreamed. And this was the
crowning of her visions—a little white cottage, with blue morning-glories
veiling the windows, a cool, deep well at the door, herself
making tea there, and sometimes parting away the vines, to
see, across the fields, if Willard was coming from his fields;
forever, in her most ambitious musings, Willard was but a
farmer, looking and talking just as he did when they parted,
and not a man of books and leisure; she could not fancy how
anything could change him; she knew she did not wish him to
be different. Sometimes she found recreation in fancies of
what would be in his next letter; for she soon grew so familiar
with the contents of the first one, that there was no need to
remove it any more from the lids of the Bible. At length the
time came round again; and now the road was frozen, and the
trees were all bare. The stage-coach did not arrive till after
nightfall; but Linney would not stay away. All the day she
had been singing at her work, so blithely, that Mrs. Hulbert
more than once said, “I have not seen you so gay since Willard
left us—poor boy!”
Linney did not feel the frozen ground beneath her feet as she
walked, nor the bitter air as it blew against her face and bosom.
She went fast, and was soon at the end of her little journey.
About the red-hot stove were gathered a dozen men, chewing
and smoking, and debating their various and trifling interests
in tones as loud and earnest as though they were discussing the
affairs of the nation. With eyes modestly downcast from the
earthen jars and shining delf and gay prints that adorned the
shop, she made her way to the corner occupied by the post-master,
and received a letter. Of course, it was from Willard,
and she retired without so much as glancing at it; nor did she
do so till she was passing the tavern lamp, a quarter of a mile,
perhaps, on her way homeward. What was her surprise, her
disappointment, on seeing, that though it was indeed from Willard,
it was not for her, but for his father. For a moment all
was blank and chill; but hope will flutter long before it dies,
and in a moment she had turned and was retracing her steps:
there must be a letter for her, which had been overlooked.
She did not go back, however, without hesitancy and shame,
for in her childish simplicity she fancied all would know the
look again, sir!” she said, and her voice was tremulous; “I
expected a letter for myself to-night!”
The man turned the letters hastily, very carelessly, she
thought, and said, as he replaced them, “We do n't always get
all we expect, as you will find, if you live long enough.”
When she reached the door, tears blinded her eyes so much
that she did not see who the gentleman was who passed in at
the same moment, but she knew the light and elegant carriage,
and the sleek and proud animal that stamped on the hard ground
so impatiently. She had only proceeded a short distance, when
the sound of approaching wheels and the snorting of a horse,
admonished her to turn aside. “I suppose he would run over
me if I did not,” she thought, and though she continued, “I
would not much care if he did,” she approached the edge of the
road, and as she did so, a low, kindly voice gave her the salutation
of the evening, the impatient Brock curved his neck to the
tightening rein, and George Welden was offering his hand to
assist her into his carriage.
“Thank you, Mr. Welden,” she replied, coldly, “but I prefer
walking.”
“Will you not oblige me by accepting part of the seat?”
he said, deferentially and earnestly; “I am going directly by
your house.”
She could no longer decline without rudeness, and so complied,
but rather ungraciously. She could not but feel her
prejudices against Mr. Welden melting under the warmth of
his real kindness; and as he carefully wrapt the buffalo robe
about her feet, and drove slowly, lest she might be timid about
fast driving, she wished in her heart that Willard could see her;
and though she did not care a straw about riding in George
Welden's carriage, he would be piqued, she knew. When Mr.
Welden spoke of him, it was so kindly and generously, that
she could not but remember how differently he had always
spoken of him.
Warm and red shone the lights through the homestead windows;
the supper table was spread, and Mrs. Hulbert was
bustling about, that all might be nice when Linney returned.
Mr. Hulbert put on his spectacles, snuffed the candle, and
opened the letter, though the wife declared she could not have
the biscuits wait another minute, in proof of which she continued,
“Fill the tea, Malinda.” The girl's face glowed as she
obeyed, for not twice before, in as many years, had the good
woman called her Malinda, and it troubled the fountain that
pride had well nigh stilled. In a moment, Mrs. Hulbert had
added a dish of preserves to the previous preparations, and
Mr. Welden was disburthening himself of furs and over-coats,
in compliance with an invitation to join the family at the
table.
“Come, come, father,” said Mrs. Hulbert, as the rest were
seated; but he only snuffed the candle, and resumed his attention
to the letter. “Well, if you will read,” she continued,
with some asperity in her tone, “do tell us whether he is dead
or alive.”
Mr. Hulbert placed the candle between himself and the
letter, and read aloud, spelling his way, and pausing between
every word: “Be so kind as to present my dutiful regards to
my mother; and say to Linney, dear girl, that I have so many
calls on my time for the few leisure moments I get from study,
that I could not write her this month, though I very much
wished to do so. I shall hope to hear from her as usual; and
ask her, if you please, to tell me if she devotes much time to
the book I gave her.” “And that is all,” said Mr. Hulbert,
looking proud and pleased, “he says to you women folks”—
“Tut, tut,” answered the wife, “that is enough, without it
was better.”
Linney's face grew damp and pale, and George Welden bit
his lip, and made some observation, not at all pertinent, about
shooting, of which he was very fond. The efforts to rally were
ineffectual, all round; and after some awkward and constrained
conversation on commonplace subjects, Mr. Welden took leave,
saying to Linney as he did so, “You are fond of game, you say?”
“Yes,” she answered, though she had not previously said
anything to suggest his question.
And e added, “I will have pleasure in presenting the first
brace of woodcocks I can bring down.”
Linney thanked him formally, and, as though she expected
the polite offer to be forgotten before he reached home. He
prefaced his “Good evening” with a smile, that seemed to say,
“You are incredulous, but I shall remember my promise.”
“I thought,” said Mrs. Hulbert, when he was gone, “that
young Welden was a common simpleton!”
“What made you think that?” answered Linney, looking as
though the matron had been grievously mistaken.
“Oh, I don't know what made me think so;” and in a moment
she added, “Yes I do, too: what made me say that? It
was because Willard always called him `pumpkin-head,' and
all such names.”
“Humph!” said Linney, “I should be sorry to see through
his eyes.”
Mrs. Hulbert rose, stirred the fire, and wound the clock;
this was the hour she had always said something kindly about
Willard; now she simply remarked, “I wish he had staid at
home;” and, seating herself, she took up her apron, as if to
screen her eyes from the fire; but Linney saw that her heart
was sad, and came involuntarily toward her, then hesitated, and
said, as if unaware of her emotion, “Don't get up in the morning
till I call you.” And so they parted for the night, each
feeling as she had never felt before.
It was difficult for the girl to resist the temptation of reopening
the old letter, before she retired, though she said,
repeatedly, “If Willard is inclined to be such a fool, I don't
care—I can live without him—and he is not the only man who
has been to college, either.”
And with such strengthening of her weakness, she sought her
bed, with as much alacrity as if there had been no heaviness on
her heart; but sleep would not be wooed in this brave way,
and there had only been an occasional restless forgetfulness,
when the cold, gray morning glanced through the window.
Mrs. Hulbert was already briskly astir. “I wonder,” she
said, as she turned the smoking ham,—“I wonder how it would
do to brile woodcocks?” Linney answered that she guessed it
would do well enough, but that she did n't suppose they would
ever have any to be cooked. And so they were friends again.
The irritation and pride which she at first leaned on, gradually
gave way, and she found herself more dependent on habitual
hopes and habits of feeling than she at first imagined. In
musing of him, she was apt to forget that he had not written
to her; or, if she remembered it, it was to think very leniently
of the omission. What did she know about the life he led, or
the tasks and duties required of him? He would have written
if he had found opportunity—of course he would. And in this
mood she one day indited for him a long and kind letter, communicating
all the trivial gossip of the neighborhood, and concluding
with, “You will be glad to hear from me, I know,
though you have not written me as you promised.”
Credulous child! she had quite forgotten the familiar way in
which he had called her “dear girl,” in the letter to his father,
and his careless mention of the bible, as though the giving of
it were not the precious secret she herself had always felt it
to be.
The nicest stockings she had knitted were taken from the
bundle designed for the purchase of a new dress, and placed in
the wardrobe of Willard's room. He had been away three
months; surely he would write to her soon; and in two more,
at farthest, she would see him.
3. III.
It was a rough, windy night in December; the stiff, bare
boughs rattled against each other; the ruffled cock made an
unnatural and untimely cackle among his silent mates; the
sheep, despite their woolly coats, bleated piteously; and sometimes
the oxen's low sounded mournfully across the hills. The
snow, which had fallen a day or two before, drifted no longer
as the wind went and came, but, with a frozen crust shining
under the moon, lay hard and cold. Linney was in her chamber,
a small, cheerless room, containing only a few old-fashioned
articles of furniture; a heap of snow lay in the open fire-place;
the uncurtained window was white with the fantastic figures of
the frost, and immediately above it a shelf was suspended, on
which were a few dusty volumes, together with the copy-books
which she had used at school. On this winter night, the place
an hour; she was seated on a low stool, beside her burned a
tallow candle, on the wooden chair on which it stood lay the
bible, open where her name was written, and in her hands she
held the dear letter he had written at the end of the first month
of their parting. As she read, a coming step crushed through
the snow, and she hurried to the window, and looked forth, or
tried to do so, for the frost prevented her from seeing distinctly.
Mr. Hulbert had been gone to the village since an hour before
night; doubtless he was now coming home, and had brought,
perhaps, news from Willard. She hastily placed the letter and
book beneath her pillow; to say truth, it was not the first time
they had lain there; and this done, she hurried below, and saw
the door closing on Mr. George Welden.
The visitor bowed gracefully, as though entering the most
elegant drawing-room; and his sleepy blue eyes, as they encountered
hers, had in them a sparkle of pleasure not habitual
to them, and about the good-natured mouth, as he spoke, there
was a sweetness which most women would have found winning.
“You see my memory is less treacherous than you thought,”
he said, addressing Linney, who stood blushing and smiling
before him, and at the same time presenting, not a brace of
woodcocks, but only a common gray rabbit.
“Why, Linney!” exclaimed Mrs. Hulbert, reprovingly, as
she apprehended the cause of the laughter, which the girl turned
her face away to conceal.
“What funny red eyes it has,” she answered, ingenuously,
not heeding the implied reproof.
“I don't know,” interposed George Welden; and, taking the
rabbit from her hands, he added, “the fellow is too heavy for
you to hold.”
Ordinarily there would be nothing interesting or provocative
of merriment in the dulled eyes of a dead rabbit; but somehow
it chanced that the sportsman and she to whom he brought
his tribute, found an almost exhaustless fund of speculation and
mirth as they stood together, turning the creature from side to
side, examining his form and the texture of his fur. Certainly
no one would have supposed that either of them had frightened
every morning of their lives, when they had walked in the
fields. But the veriest trifles hold us spell-bound, sometimes;
a single withered rose may be sweeter than whole fields of
fresh flowers; and on one occasion, at least, a harmless rabbit
that had been dislodged from the place where he had burrowed
under the winter snow, in which the drops of his life-blood
were yet fresh, served for what seemed the gayest amusement.
“Look there!” exclaimed Mrs. Hulbert, as a fresh crimson
drop trickled over the neck and plashed on the white apron
of Linney: “Oh, dear! and my hands, too!” she said, holding
them up.
“It was all my fault,” said Mr. Welden, looking as if grievously
annoyed. Linney's cheek grew as red as the spot in her
apron. It was not so much the words as the tone of tenderness
with which they were uttered, and the really distressing
look that accompanied them. Both felt it a relief when Mr.
Hulbert entered, and the good wife's attention was diverted
from them, to prepare the arm-chair, and stir the fire.
“But, Linney, you do n't know how to cook it, do you?”
resumed the young man, with his former self-possession, and a
familiar manner he had never used before.
“Why, I suppose we shall fry it.”
He laughed, as if the idea were preposterous, and said he
knew more about the culinary art than half the women, as half
the men are apt to say when they have opportunity She did
not seem to heed him, and he continued, “You must dine with
us to-morrow; we are to have one, too;” and in a moment,
seeing that she did not answer, he said, “Will you come?”
She made some vague reply, which her admirer construed
into an acceptance. But the truth is, she had heard nothing
that he said; and now, as she sunk into a chair, her cheek
assumed a pallor, and her black eyes, naturally brilliant with
joyous feeling, assumed a steadfast and earnest expression,
which was never quite forgotten by him who saw it. She had
been listening to the Hulberts, as they talked of their son.
“What!” said the mother, in a surprised whisper, as she
leaned over the shoulder of her husband, who answered, “He
filled with stuff about Euclid, freshmen, alumni, and all that
which we do n't know nothing about; besides, he wants me to
send money, and tells me to sell the hay if I can't get it without.”
The old man continued, in a tremulous voice, “I expect
he has been running me in debt—twenty or thirty dollars, like
enough.”
“Had he got Linney's letter?” asked the mother, as if willing
to divert his thoughts.
“He received it a week ago,” was replied, “but had not yet
had time to read it when he wrote.”
This it was which brought the pallor to the cheek of Linney,
and the wild and fixed expression to her eyes.
That night, as Mrs. Hulbert wound the clock, she said,
“Do you think you could keep house, Linney, for a day or
two?”
“Yes—why?” she replied, looking more curiosity than she
spoke.
“Oh, I do n't know, child;” but she quickly added, “yes I
do, too. May be we will go away in a week or so, father
and me.”
“Is Willard sick?” she asked, her heart beating strongly.
“No, we do n't know that he is;” and Mrs. Hulbert looked
anxiously into the fire.
“Because,” continued Linney, seeing that there was no prospect
of an explanation, “I thought it strange you should go to
see him when the session will close so soon.” She did not
venture to say, “When Willard is coming home so soon.”
But Mrs. Hulbert, who understood her meaning, replied,
“He is not coming home; he says he shall have plenty of
business and pleasure for the vacation; and, besides, he do n't
want to get his mind in its old trains of thought, he says.”
“Well,” answered Linney, and in that little word there was
a bitterness of meaning which the longest sentences could hardly
have expressed.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Hulbert, presently, “if George has
nothing better to do than hunt rabbits—the poor, harmless
critters?”
“Such sports have been relished by wiser men than he,” answered
Linney, “and I see no particular harm in them.”
“Nor I, as I know of;” and Mrs. Hulbert grew thoughtful
and silent again.
So for an hour the two women sat together. The effect of
Willard's letter was reflected in the minds of both; and how
differently, in the estimate formed by each of George.
Before she retired that night, Linney visited Willard's room,
and, taking from the drawer the stockings designed for him,
replaced them with the bundle prepared for market. Then,
removing the pillow, she took the letter and the Bible and
placed them on the shelf above the window. By such processes
are shaped destinies.
The following day, while preparations for Mrs. Hulbert's
visit to the town where the college was were going briskly forward,
George Welden made his appearance, looking fresh, and
smiling, and happy. “I am come to carry Linney home with
me to dine,” he said, by way of apology to Mrs. Hulbert, who,
perhaps, looked something of the astonishment she felt. “And,”
he added, turning to the girl, “mother sends her compliments,
and says you must not disappoint her. I have myself superintended
the cooking of the rabbit.”
Linney was faltering some excuse, when Mrs. Hulbert interposed,
with an intimation that she could go just as well as not,
if she chose. The horse and sleigh waited at the door, the
young man seriously desired her company, and Mrs. Hulbert
evidently favored his inclinations.
“But I am not ready,” urged Linney, surveying her dress
with evident concern, and well aware that she possessed nothing
in which she would appear to better advantage.
“It is strange,” said Mrs. Hulbert, soliloquizing, “how particular
girls are now-a-days. That plaided flannel of Linney's
I could have worn to a wedding in my day.”
“And Linney can, too, if she has a mind to,” replied George,
laughing, and looking with admiration on the plaids of green,
and red, and blue, so smoothly ironed. In truth, it became the
rustic girl wonderfully well and when she had tied on the
nothing was needed to complete her toilet.
She felt a tremulous shrinking when, for the first time in her
life, she found herself in an elegantly-furnished apartment; but
Mrs. Welden, a sweet, motherly lady of sixty, soon put her
quite at ease, for Linney was a sunshiny and good-tempered girl,
little disposed to quarrel with circumstances. If there were a
little condescension in the lady's cordiality, a little patronage
in the equality she assumed, she did not stop to think of it,
and Mrs. Welden's heart was soon won entirely by her artless
and joyous manner. No wonder they were mutually pleased;
that each found in the other what she herself lacked—the one,
freshness, and sunshine, and hope; and the other, experience,
wisdom, and refinement.
George, habitually good-natured, indolent, careless, was on
that day restless, almost fietful. Now he boxed the ears of
some favorite hunter, for caressing his hand too familiarly; now
he found fault with the fire, which was either too hot or too cold;
and now he was irritated that Linney should be monopolized,
and, apparently, with so much willingness on her part, by even
his mother. Sometimes he tried to be amiable, and he more
than once ventured on a compliment to Linney, but she neither
blushed nor looked down, but only laughed, and replied in the
same vein, though her tone and manner said very plainly there
was little meaning in her words. He felt that he had no
power over her, and consequently became vexed with himself
more and more.
So pleased and delighted was Linney, that she remained long
after dinner; and the great cold moon made the snow sparkle
again as they drove homeward.
“Oh, what a beautiful home you have!” she said, looking
back admiringly, where the many lights of the great house
streamed across the snow.
“Would you like to live there always?” asked George,
tightening the rein.
“Oh, above all things!” she answered, ingenuously.
And the whip was brought in requisition, and Brock suffered
to go forward as fast as he would.
“How kind of you,” said Linney, patting the horse's neck,
when they alighted at the door, “to bring us home so soon.”
And she continued, turning to George, “I wish you were home,
too.”
The young man bit his lip, and resumed his seat in the sleigh.
He had hoped for an invitation to go in.
Mrs. Hulbert opened the door, and George drew in the rein
to say, “Tell Willard, if you please, I shall take as good care
of Linney as he would himself.”
Mrs. Hulbert thanked him, and Linney thought, “I am glad
you happened to say that—it will be so provoking to Willard.”
But neither understood that George remembered the slights he
had formerly received, and that he could not now deny himself
the pleasure of such a taunt. If Willard had been away chopping
wood for a month, Mr. George Welden would have been
silent; but it needed little sagacity to perceive, that though
pique had at first drawn these young persons together, there
was danger that the result would be very different from any
they themselves expected. Already, on the part of George,
there was an awakening affection, as trifles have indicated,
which he might find it very difficult ever to repress. In a
secluded neighborhood, where neither was likely to find much
companionship, it was perfectly natural, that having once met,
they should meet again, and that, time and circumstances
favoring, the young man should become a wooer, especially
when he was free from ambition, and altogether indifferent as
to what others should think of the mistress of his house and
heart, so that she pleased himself. It was natural, too, that a
humble rustic girl should not be wholly averse to the wooing,
especially when the wooer was handsome and the fortune
ample; and, above all, when she could rise so pre-eminently
above a lover who had discarded her.
And the case of Willard is common enough, too, perhaps.
Finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly in a circle somewhat
superior in cultivation and refinement to that in which his
old companion had moved—with girls who perhaps had some
prospects of fortune, and who certainly were more at home in
the world than she to whom he had so sincerely pledged his
should be subjected to the direction of tact, lighting the way for
his advancement in society, he set his foot upon her—not that he
despised her, so much as that he was blinded by the brilliancy
of new hopes, and really did not see nor think about her
at all.
Time taught them both the sincerity of that young and irretrievably-slighted
love. But, though Willard was for a short
time inflated with vanity, and warped from his true nature, he
possessed enough of genuine manhood to regain at length a fit
estimation of his forgotten duties, of the worth of such a character
as Linney's, and of the feelings she had cherished for him, until
they were alienated by his own neglect. He could learn, or
would learn, only by experience, that the guests of ambition
and of love must be forever distinct, or fruitless of rewards to
satisfy either the mind or the heart.
When five years were gone, and he returned from college,
no dear one met him with words sweeter than any triumphs;
Linney had been three years the wife of George Welden, and
one, the mother of “the sweetest little cherub,” Mrs. Hulbert
said, “in all the world.” She was living in the family mansion
of the Weldens—one of the finest in the vicinity of Clovernook—its
mistress, and was one of the most admired as well
as most beloved of all the ladies in the neighborhood.
“I wish, mother,” said Willard, one morning, “you would
fit up the little room that used to be Linney's, for my study.”
He had commenced a course of reading in the law, and was to
pursue it, for the most part, at home, where, whatever haunting
memories there might be, there would be little in the present
to distract his attention from the frigid and selfish philosophy
of expediency, which underlies all the learning and practice of
that profession. So the window was opened, and the cobwebs
swept down; and this, with the addition of a chair and a table
to the furniture, was all that was to be done. With folded
arms and thoughtful brow, the disappointed student superintended
these little preparations, and when all was completed,
he unlocked a small desk, and took from it two old and word
letters, which would scarcely bear unfolding; read and re-read
folded them, and, stepping on a chair, took from the shelf above
the window a book, and was slipping the letters between its
leaves, when his attention was suddenly arrested by the falling
of his own first letter to Linney to the floor—from the book
in which was written, in his own boyish hand, “Malinda Hulbert.”
Book and letter had been forgotten, and the dust of
years had gathered over them.
Willard is a bachelor to this day; and that homely room,
once Linney's, has a charm for him which much finer ones have
never possessed. When last I was out at Clovernook I drank
tea with good old Mrs. Hulbert, and the squire sat with us in
the early evening in the modest porch of the farm-house. As
I recalled to the mother some reminiscences of my childhood,
with which she was familiar, he left us, walking away silently,
and with an air of melancholy. I could not help but say, “How
changed!”
“I do n't know,” she answered; but, after a moment's silence,
“Yes, I do—poor Willard, he will never forget little Linney!”
—Sometimes, as he lingers in the autumn under the old
grape-vine in the meadow, where they recounted to each other
such dreams as arose in childhood, he sees her riding with
George Welden in the beautiful coach from which he thought
to look contemptuous triumph on his rival.
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