University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE WIDOW WRIGHT.

Margaret was up early in the morning, before the
sun. She washed at the cistern and wiped herself on a
coarse crash towel, rough, but invigorating, beautifying and
healthy. She did her few chores, and, as she had promised,
started for the Widow Wright's. Hash was getting ready
his team, a yoke of starveling steers, in a tumbril cart, the
wheels of which were formed from a solid block of wood.
He set her in the cart, he desired to show his skill in driving,
perhaps he wished to tease her on the way. “Haw!
Buck, hish! Bright, gee up!” Vigorously plied he his
whip of wood-chuck skin on a walnut stock. The cart
reeled and rattled. It jolted over stones, canted on knolls,
sidled into gutters. Margaret held fast by the stakes.
“Good to settle your breakfast, Peggy. Going to see
Obed, hey? and the Widder? ask her if she can cure the
yallers in Bright.” Margaret was victimized and amused
by her brother. She half cried, half laughed. Her
brother came at last to the lot he was engaged in clearing.
He lifted Margaret from the cart. She went on, and Bull
followed her. Hash called the dog back, and in great
wrath gave him a blow with his whip. The animal leaped
and skulked away, and joined again with Margaret, who
patted his head as he ran along by her side. She entered
woods; the path was narrow, grass-grown. She followed
the cow-tracks through thickets of sweet fern almost as
high as her head. The road descended to a brook crossed

by a pole-bridge. The dog stopped to drink, she to look
into the water, Minnows and pinheads were flashing and
scudding through the clear, bright stream. There were
hair-worms fabled to spring from horse-hair, in black lines
writhing on the surface; caddice-worms clothed with shells
and leaves, crawling on the bottom; and boat-flies
swimming on their backs. The water made music with
the stones. She waded in, and sported bare-foot on the
slippery pebbles. She looked under the bridge, and that
shaded spot had a mystery to the child's mind, such perhaps
as is more remembered in future years than commented
on at the time. She pursued a trout, that had
shown its black eye and golden-spotted back and vanished.
She could not find it. On she went towards Mrs. Wright's.

This lady had lost her husband a few years before. He
left her in possession of a small farm, and a large reversion
in the medicinal riches of the whole district. It had been
a part of Dr. Wright's occupation to gather and prepare
herbs for the sick. His materia medica was large, various
and productive. He learnt as he could the nature of
diseases, and was sometimes called to prescribe as well
as sell his drugs. When he died his wife came in
full possession of his secrets and his practice. She
gathered plants from all the woods, sands and swamps.
She knew the quality of every root, stalk, leaf, flower and
berry. Her son Obed she was instructing to be her servitor
and aid, as well as the successor of his father. The lady's
habits were careful, saving, thriving. She cultivated, in
addition, a few acres of land. Her house was neat and
comfortable. It was a small frame building, clap-boarded
on the sides and roof. It had a warm sunny position, on a
southern slope, with rocks and woods behind. It stood in
the centre of a large yard, surrounded on all sides by a fence

of hemlock stumps, with their large, spreading, tangled roots,
like the feet of giants, turned towards the street, making a
grotesque but complete barrier. You entered the yard by
a stile formed of the branches of these roots. Within the
enclosure were beds of cultivated herbs, caraway, rue,
savory, thyme, tansy, parsley and other aromatic and
medicinal plants. Obed was at work among the beds.
Margaret climbed the stile. Bull leaped up after her.
When Obed saw Margaret his dull face emitted rays of joy
which were succeeded by a cloud of dismay.

“Bull won't hurt you Obed. He's a good dog,” said
Margaret. “Put your hand on his head.”

“He's a great dog,” said Obed. “He's got dreadful
big teeth. Hash's allers makin' him bite.”

The dog taking no notice of these insinuations, retired to
the shade of the fence. Margaret proceeded to assist Obed
weed his beds, then she walked through the little aisles her
kind friend treated with so much care. The atmosphere
was charged with the perfume of the flowers. Margaret
shook the thyme-bed, and a shadowy motion, like the
waving of a cloud, floated over it. Bees, flies, beetles,
butterflies, were bustling upon it, diving into every flower,
and searching every cup.

“What d'ye think of the yarbs, Moll?” said the Widow,
calling to Margaret from the door of the house.

“They look pretty,” replied Margaret.

“Not looks, child, 'tis use. We'll get a hundred bunches,
this year. The saffron we cut to-morrow, and the balm'll
be ready soon.”

“You are not going to cut all these flowers, are you?”

“Yes. Them's for medicine. Wait till the flowers is
gone, they wouldn't be worth more'n your toad-flax and
bean vines. They wouldn't fetch a bungtown copper. See

here, that's sage, good for tea. That's goat's rue, good for
women as has little babies. Guess you was a little baby
once. I've known ye ever sen ye warn't more'n so high.”

“Was I so little?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, and pimpin enough. An I fed yer marm with rue,
and comfrey-root, or ye never'd come teu this. Ye was
thin and poor as a late chicken.”

The Widow Wright was dressed in the costume of the
times, a white linen short-gown, checked apron and black
petticoat. She wore on her head a large brown turban.
Her eye was black and piercing, and she had a singular
power of laughter, which was employed to express
every variety of emotion, whether pleasure or pain, anger
or complacence.

This lady possessed a fine colony of bees, and Margaret
approached their house. These orderly and profitable
busy-bodies seemed like a rain storm blowing from all points
of the compass, and the child looked as if she was out in it.
The ominous drops fell on her head, and she appeared to
be catching some in the bare palm of her hand; some lit on
her hat, and crawled over her neck. Not one offered her
harm; she was not stung.

“A marvellous wonderful gal,” uttered the Widow to
herself, as she surveyed the scene from the door. “Pity
'tis she's Brown Moll's child.”

Margaret had an errand, to get honey for a bee-hunt
Chilion had in prospect, and stated her desire to Mrs. Wright.
There was an old feud between the two families, not
affecting intercourse and acquaintance, so much as matters
of interest. The widow received the message rather
coldly, and beginning in unwillingness, ended with
invective

“He's a lazy, good for nothin' feller, Chil is. He's no
better than a peakin' mud-sucker. He lives on us all here

like house-leek. He's no more use than yer prigged up
creepers. He is worse than the witches; vervain nor dill
won't keep him away. I tell ye, Chil shan't have no
honey.”

Margaret was abashed, silenced. She could understand
that her brother would feel disappointed; that he was not
so bad. Beyond this she did not discriminate.

“Chilion is good,” she stammered at last.

“Good! what's he good for?” rejoined the woman,
“Does he get any money? Can he find yarbs? He
don't know the difference between snake-root and lavender.”

“He's good to me,” said Margaret. This was an appeal
that struck the woman with some force. She seemed to
soften.

“Ye are a good child; ye help Obed.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, as if watching her cue, “I will
help Obed. I'll mind the beds when the birds are about.
I'll go into the woods and get plants. I'll keep Bull off
from him.”

“Bein' ye'll help Obed, I'll give ye the honey. But don't
come agin.”

Margaret, taking the article in question on some green
leaves, went merrily home.

We cannot dismiss this chapter without remarking that
the Widow Wright revered the memory of her husband.
It was certainly of some use for her to do so, as his reputation
had been considerable in the line of his practice. The
representation of the deceased, which she herself bore, she
designed by degrees to transfer to her son. The silver buttons,
which shone on Obed, as well as other articles of dress
he occasionally wore, belonged to his late father. With all
her thrift and care, the lady liked our Margaret very well.
“She was so feat and spry, and knowin, and good-natered,”
she said, “she could be made of some use to somebody.”