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THE 
 
 VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1895 
 
Copyright, 1895, 
 BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Hougliton & Co. 
 
T\EAR OLD APPLE-TREE, under whose 
 gnarled branches these stories were 
 written, to you I dedicate the book. My 
 head was so close to you, who can tell from 
 whence the thoughts came ? I only know 
 that when all the other trees in the orchard 
 were barren, there were always stories to 
 be found under your branches, and so it is 
 our joint book, dear apple-tree. Your pink 
 blossoms have fallen on the page as I 
 wrote; your ruddy fruit has dropped into 
 my lap ; the sunshine streamed through your 
 leaves and tipped my pencil with gold. T7ie 
 birds singing in your boughs may have lent 
 a sweet note here and there; and do you 
 remember the day when the gentle shower 
 came ? We just curled the closer, and you 
 and I and the sky all cried together while 
 we wrote " The Fore-Room Rug." 
 
 It should be a lovely book, dear apple- 
 tree, but alas ! it is not altogether that, be 
 cause I am not so simple as you, and because 
 I have strayed farther away from the heart 
 of Mother Nature. 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIG GIN. 
 
 " Qwllcote," Hollis, Maine, 
 August 12, 1895. 
 
 M11986 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER .... 1 
 
 TOM o THE BLUEB RY PLAINS ... 31 
 
 THE NOONING TREE 55 
 
 THE FORE-ROOM RUG 95 
 
 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS 123 
 
 THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY 195 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 IT stood on the gentle slope of a hill, 
 the old gray house, with its weather-beaten 
 clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. 
 It was in the very lap of the road, so that 
 the stage-driver could almost knock on the 
 window pane without getting down from his 
 seat, on those rare occasions when he 
 brought " old Mis Bascom " a parcel from 
 Saco. 
 
 Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was 
 almost beautiful in the springtime, when 
 the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the 
 great stone steps ; or in the summer, when 
 the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful 
 shadow over the front door. The elm, 
 indeed, was the only object that ever did 
 cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom 
 said her " front door V entry never hed ben 
 used except for fun rals, V she was goin to 
 keep it nice for that purpose, 11 not get it 
 all tracked up." 
 
4 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 She was sitting now where she had sat 
 for thirty years. Her high-backed rocker, 
 with its cushion of copperplate patch and its 
 crocheted tidy, stood always by a southern 
 window that looked out on the river. The 
 river was a sheet of crystal, as it poured 
 over the darn ; a rushing, roaring torrent of 
 foaming white, as it swept under the bridge 
 and fought its way between the rocky cliffs 
 beyond, sweeping, swirling, eddying, in its 
 narrow channel, pulsing restlessly into the 
 ragged fissures of its shores, and leaping 
 with a tempestuous roar into the Witches 
 Eel-pot, a deep wooded gorge cleft in the 
 very heart of the granite bank. 
 
 But Lucinda Bascom could see more than 
 the river from her favorite window. It was 
 a much-traveled road, the road that ran past 
 the house on its way from Liberty Village 
 to Milliken s Mills. A tottering old sign 
 board, on a verdant triangle of turf, directed 
 you over Deacon Chute s hill to the Flag 
 Medder Road," and from thence to Liberty 
 Centre ; the little post-office and store, 
 where the stage stopped twice a day, was 
 quite within eyeshot ; so were the public 
 watering-trough, Brigadier Hill, and, behind 
 the ruins of an old mill, the wooded path 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 5 
 
 that led to the Witches Eel-pot, a favorite 
 walk for village lovers. This was all on 
 her side of the river. As for the bridge 
 which knit together the two tiny villages, 
 nobody could pass over that without being 
 seen from the Bascoms . The rumble of 
 wheels generally brought a family party to 
 the window, Jot Bascom s wife (she that 
 was Diadema Dennett), Jot himself, if he 
 were in the house, little Jot, and grandpa 
 Bascom, who looked at the passers-by with 
 a vacant smile parting his thin lips. Old 
 Mrs. Bascom herself did not need the 
 rumble of wheels to tell her that a vehicle 
 was coming, for she could see it fully ten 
 minutes before it reached the bridge, at 
 the very moment it appeared at the crest of 
 Saco Hill, where strangers pulled up their 
 horses, on a clear day, and paused to look 
 at Mount Washington, miles away in the 
 distance. Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at 
 the bridge, and just there, too, the river road 
 began its shady course along the east side 
 of the stream : in view of all which " old 
 Mis Bascom s settin -room winder" might 
 well be called the "Village Watch-Tower," 
 when you consider further that she had 
 moved only from her high-backed rocker to 
 
6 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 her bed, and from her bed to her rocker, 
 for more than thirty years, ever since 
 that July day when her husband had had a 
 sun-stroke while painting the meeting-house 
 steeple, and her baby Jonathan had been 
 thereby hastened into a world not in the 
 least ready to receive him. 
 
 She could not have lived without that 
 window, she would have told you, nor with 
 out the river, which had lulled her to sleep 
 ever since she could remember. It was in 
 the south chamber upstairs that she had 
 been born. Her mother had lain there and 
 listened to the swirl of the water, in that 
 year when the river was higher than the 
 oldest inhabitant had ever seen it, the 
 year when the covered bridge at the Mills 
 had been carried away, and when the one at 
 the Falls was in hourly danger of succumb 
 ing to the force of the freshet. 
 
 All the men in both villages were work 
 ing on the river, strengthening the dam, 
 bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams 
 of logs ; and with the parting of the boom, 
 the snapping of the bridge timbers, the 
 crashing of the logs against the rocks, and 
 the shouts of the river-drivers, the little Lu- 
 cinda had come into the world. Some one 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 7 
 
 had gone for the father, and had found him 
 on the river, where he had been since day 
 break, drenched with the storm, blown from 
 his dangerous footing time after time, but 
 still battling with the great heaped-up masses 
 of logs, wrenching them from one another s 
 grasp, and sending them down the swollen 
 stream. 
 
 Finally the jam broke ; and a cheer of 
 triumph burst from the excited men, as the 
 logs, freed from their bondage, swept down 
 the raging flood, on and ever on in joyous 
 liberty, faster and faster, till they encoun 
 tered some new obstacle, when they heaped 
 themselves together again, like puppets of 
 Fate, and were beaten by the waves into 
 another helpless surrender. 
 
 With the breaking of the jam, one dead 
 monarch of the forest leaped into the air 
 as if it had been shot from a cannon s 
 mouth, and lodged between two jutting 
 peaks of rock high on the river bank. 
 Presently another log was dashed against 
 it, but rolled off and hurried down the 
 stream ; then another, and still another ; 
 but no force seemed enough to drive the 
 giant from its intrenched position. 
 
 " Hurry on clown to the next jam, Raish, 
 
8 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 and let it alone," cried the men. " Mebbe 
 it 11 git washed off in the night, and anyhow 
 you can t budge it with no kind of a tool 
 we ve got here." 
 
 Then from the shore came a boy s voice 
 calling, "There s a baby up to your 
 house 1 " And the men repeated in stento 
 rian tones, " Baby up to your house, Raish ! 
 Leggo the log ; you re wanted ! 
 
 "Boy or girl?" shouted the young fa 
 ther. 
 
 " Girl ! " came back the answer above the 
 
 roar of the river. 
 
 Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied him 
 self with his pick and taking a hatchet from 
 his belt cut a rude letter " L " on the side of 
 the stranded log. 
 
 " L s for Lucindy," he laughed. 4 Now 
 you log, if you git s fur as Saco, drop in 
 to my wife s folks and tell em the baby s 
 
 name." 
 
 There had not been such a freshet for 
 years before, and there had never been one 
 since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, 
 "Lucindy s log" was left in peace, the 
 columbines blooming all about it, the hare 
 bells hanging their heads of delicate blue 
 among the rocks that held it in place, the 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 9 
 
 birds building their nests in the knot-holes 
 of its withered side. 
 
 Seventy years had passed, and on each 
 birthday, from the time when she was only 
 " Raish Dunnell s little Lou," to the years 
 when she was Lucinda Bascom, wife and 
 mother, she had wandered down by the 
 river side, and gazed, a little superstitiously 
 perhaps, on the log that had been marked 
 with an "L" on the morning she was born. 
 It had stood the wear and tear of the ele 
 ments bravely, but now it was beginning, 
 like Lucinda, to show age. Its back was 
 bent, like hers; its face was seamed and 
 wrinkled, like her own ; and the village 
 lovers who looked at it from the opposite 
 bank wondered if, after all, it would hold 
 out as long as "old Mis Bascom." 
 
 She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, 
 though she was "all skin, bones, and 
 tongue," as the neighbors said ; for no 
 body needed to go into the Bascoms to 
 brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, or take 
 her the news ; one went in to get a bit of 
 brightness, and to hear the news. 
 
 "I should get lonesome, I s pose," she 
 was wont to say, " if it wa n t for the way 
 this house is set, and this chair, and this 
 
10 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 winder, n all. Men folks used to build 
 some o the houses up in a lane, or turn 
 em back or side to the road, so the women 
 folks could n t see any thin to keep their 
 minds off their churnin or dish-washin ; 
 but Aaron Dunnell hed somethin else to 
 think about, n that was himself, first, last, 
 and all the time. His store was down to 
 the bottom of the hill, n when he come 
 up to his meals, he used to set where he 
 could see the door; n if any cust mer 
 come, he could call to em to wait a spell 
 till he got through eatin . Land ! I can 
 hear him now, yellin to em, with his mouth 
 full of victuals ! They hed to wait till he 
 got good n ready, too. There wa n t so 
 much comp tition in business then as there 
 is now, or he d a hed to give up eatin or 
 hire a clerk. . . . I ve always felt to be 
 thankful that the house was on this rise 
 o ground. The teams hev to slow up on 
 count o the hill, n it gives me consid ble 
 chance to see folks n what they ve got in 
 the back of the wagon, n one thing n 
 other. . . . The neighbors is continually 
 com in in here to talk about things that s 
 goin on in the village. I like to hear em, 
 but land ! they can t tell me nothin ! 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 11 
 
 They often say, For massy sakes, Lucindy 
 Bascom, how d you know that? 4 Why, 
 says I to them, 4 1 don t ask no questions, 
 V folks don t tell me no lies ; I just set in 
 my winder, n put two V two together, 
 that s all I do. I ain t never ben in a 
 playhouse, but I don t suppose the play 
 actors git down off the platform on t the 
 main floor to explain to the folks what 
 they ve ben doin , do they? I expect, if 
 folks can t understand their draymas when 
 they re actin of em out, they have to go 
 ignorant, don t they? Well, what do I 
 want with explaining when everythin is 
 acted out right in the road ? " 
 
 There was quite a gathering of neighbors 
 at the Bascoms on this particular July 
 afternoon. No invitations had been sent 
 out, and none were needed. A common 
 excitement had made it vital that people 
 should drop in somewhere, and speculate 
 about certain interesting matters well known 
 to be going on in the community, but going 
 on in such an underhand and secretive fash 
 ion that it well-nigh destroyed one s faith 
 in human nature. 
 
 The sitting-room door was open into the 
 entry, so that whatever breeze there was might 
 
12 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 come in, and an unusual glimpse of the new 
 foreroom rug was afforded the spectators. 
 Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema 
 was a housekeeper of the type fast passing 
 away. The great coal stove was enveloped 
 in its usual summer wrapper of purple 
 calico, which, tied neatly about its ebony 
 neck and portly waist, gave it the appear 
 ance of a buxom colored lady presiding 
 over the assembly. The kerosene lamps 
 stood in a row on the high, narrow man 
 telpiece, each chimney protected from the 
 flies by a brown paper bag inverted over 
 its head. Two plaster Samuels praying 
 under pink mosquito netting adorned the 
 ends of the shelf. There were screens at 
 all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted ner 
 vously when a visitor came in the mosquito- 
 netting door, for fear a fly should sneak in 
 with her. 
 
 On the wall were certificates of member 
 ship in the Missionary Society; a picture 
 of Maidens welcoming Washington in the 
 Streets of Alexandria, in a frame of cucum 
 ber seeds ; and an interesting document set 
 ting forth the claims of the Dunnell family 
 as old settlers long before the separation of 
 Maine from Massachusetts, the fact be- 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 13 
 
 ing established by an obituary notice read 
 ing, " In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, 
 daughter of Abiathar Dimnell, two months 
 old of Fits unbaptized." 
 
 " He may be goin to marry Eunice, and 
 he may not," observed Almira Berry ; 
 " though what she wants of Reuben Hobson 
 is more 11 I can make out. I never see 
 a widower straighten up as he has this last 
 year. I guess he s been lookin round 
 pretty lively, but could n t find anybody 
 that was fool enough to give him any en 
 couragement." 
 
 "Mebbe she wants to get married," said 
 Hannah Sophia, in a tone that spoke vol 
 umes. " When Parson Perkins come to 
 this parish, one of his first calls was on 
 Eunice Emery. He always talked like the 
 book o Revelation ; so says he, Have you 
 got your weddin garment on, Miss Em 
 ery ? says he. No, says she, but I ve 
 ben tryin to these twenty years. She was 
 always full of her jokes, Eunice was ! " 
 
 " The Emerys was always a humorous 
 family," remarked Diadema, as she anni 
 hilated a fly with a newspaper. " Old Silas 
 Emery was an awful humorous man. He 
 used to live up on the island ; and there 
 
14 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 come a freshet one year, and lie said he 
 got his sofy n chairs off, anyhow! That 
 was just his jokin . He had n t a sign of 
 a sofy in the house ; t was his wife Sophy 
 he meant, she that was Sophy Swett. Then 
 another time, when I was a little mite of 
 a thing runnin in n out o his yard, he 
 caught holt o me, and says he, 4 You d 
 better take care, sissy ; when I kill you and 
 two more, thet 11 be three children I Ve 
 killed! Land! you couldn t drag me in 
 side that yard for years afterwards. . . . 
 There ! she s got a fire in the cook-stove ; 
 there s a stream o smoke comin out o 
 the kitchen chimbley. I m willin to bet 
 my new rug she s goin to be married to 
 night! " 
 
 " Mebbe she s makin jell ," suggested 
 Hannah Sophia. 
 
 " Jell ! " ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. 
 "Do you s pose Eunice Emery would build 
 up a fire in the middle o the afternoon V 
 go to makin jell , this hot day ? Besides, 
 there ain t a currant gone into her house 
 this week, as I happen to know." 
 
 " It s a dretf ul thick year for fol age," 
 mumbled grandpa Bascom, appearing in the 
 door with his vacant smile. " I declare, 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 15 
 
 some o the maples looks like balls in the 
 air." 
 
 " That s the twentieth time he s hed that 
 over since mornin , said Diadema. " Here, 
 father, take your hat off V set in the kitchen 
 door n shell me this mess o peas. Now 
 think smart, n put the pods in the basket 
 n the peas in the pan ; don t you mix em." 
 
 The old man hung his hat on the back of 
 the chair, took the pan in his trembling hands, 
 and began aimlessly to open the pods, while 
 he chuckled at the hens that gathered round 
 the doorstep when they heard the peas rat 
 tling in the pan. 
 
 " Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that s 
 all," remarked the Widow Buzzell, as one 
 who had given the matter some considera 
 tion. 
 
 " I should think he did," rejoined old Mrs. 
 Bascom. "Those children bout git their 
 livin off the road in summer, from the time 
 the dand lion greens is ready for diggin till 
 the blackb ries n choke-cherries is gone. 
 Diademy calls em in n gives em a cooky 
 every time they go past, 11 they eat as if 
 they was famished. Rube Hobson never was 
 any kind of a pervider, n he s cousid able 
 snug besides." 
 
16 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 " He ain t goin to better himself much," 
 said Almira. " Eunice Emery ain t fit to 
 housekeep for a cat. The pie she took to the 
 pie supper at the church was so tough that 
 even Deacon Dyer could n t eat it ; and the 
 boys got holt of her doughnuts, and declared 
 they was goin fishin next day V use em 
 for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth, 
 Eunice Emery does. She s about as much 
 of a doshy as Rube is. She 11 make tea that s 
 strong enough to bear up an egg, most, and 
 eat her doughnuts with it three times a day 
 rather than take the trouble to walk out to 
 the meat or the fish cart. I know for a fact 
 she don t make riz bread once a year." 
 
 " Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread 
 best ; some do," said the Widow Buzzell. 
 " My husband always said, give him butter 
 milk bread to work on. He used to say my 
 riz bread was so light he d hev to tread on 
 it to keep it anywheres ; but when you d eat 
 buttermilk bread he said you d got somethin 
 that stayed by you ; you knew where it was 
 every time. . . . For massy sake ! there s the 
 stage stoppin at the Hobsons door. I won 
 der if Rube s first wife s mother has come 
 from Moderation ? If t is, they must a 
 made up their quarrel, for there was a time 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 17 
 
 she wouldn t step foot over that doorsill. 
 She must be goin to stay some time, for 
 there s a trunk on the back o the stage. . . . 
 No, there ain t nobody gettin out. Land, 
 Hannah Sophia, don t push me clean through 
 the glass ! It beats me why they make win 
 ders so small that three people can t look out 
 of em without crowdin . Ain t that a wash- 
 boiler he s handin down? Well, it s a 
 mercy ; he s ben borrowin long enough ! 
 
 " What goes on after dark I ain t respon 
 sible for," commented old Mrs. Bascom, 
 " but no new wash-boiler has gone into Rube 
 Hobson s door in the daytime for many a 
 year, and I 11 be bound it means some thin . 
 There goes a broom, too. Much sweepin 
 he 11 get out o Eunice ; it s a slick V a 
 promise with her ! " 
 
 " When did you begin to suspicion this, 
 Diademy ? " asked Almira Berry. " I ve got 
 as much faculty as the next one, but anybody 
 that lives on the river road has just got to 
 give up knowin anything. You can t keep 
 runnin to the store every day, and if you 
 could you don t find out much nowadays. 
 Bill Peters don t take no more interest in his 
 neighbors than a cow does in election." 
 " I can t get mother Bascom to see it as I 
 
18 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 do," said Diadema, " but for one thing she s 
 ben carryin home bundles bout every other 
 night for a month, though she s ben too 
 smart to buy anythin here at this store. She 
 had Packard s horse to go to Saco last week. 
 When she got home, jest at dusk, she drove 
 int the barn, n bimeby Pitt Packard come 
 to git his horse, t was her own buggy she 
 went with. She looked over here when 
 she went int the house, n she ketched my 
 eye, though t was half a mile away, so she 
 never took a thing in with her, but soon as t 
 was dark she made three trips out to the barn 
 with a lantern, n any fool could tell t her 
 arms was full o pa cels by the way she car 
 ried the lantern. The Hobsons and the 
 Ernerys have married with one another more 
 n once, as fur as that goes. I declare, if I 
 was goin to get married I should want to be 
 relation to somebody besides my own folks." 
 " The reason I can t hardly credit it," said 
 Hannah Sophia, " is because Eunice never 
 had a beau in her life, that I can remember 
 of. Cyse Higgins set up with her for a spell, 
 but it never amounted to nothin . It seems 
 queer, too, for she was always so fond o see- 
 in men folks round that when Pitt Packard 
 was shinglin her barn she used to go out 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 19 
 
 nights V rip some o the shingles off, so t 
 he cl hev more days work on it." 
 
 " I always said t was she that begun on 
 Rube Hobson, not him on her," remarked 
 the Widow Buzzell. " Their land joinin 
 made courtin come dretf ul handy. His crit 
 ters used to git in her field bout every other 
 day (I always suspicioned she broke the fence 
 down herself), and then she d hev to go over 
 and git him to drive em out. She s wed his 
 onion bed for him two summers, as I happen 
 to know, for I ve been ou doors more 11 
 common this summer, tryin to fetch my con 
 stitution up. Diademy, don t you want to 
 look out the back way V see if Rube s come 
 home yet ? " 
 
 " He ain t," said old Mrs. Bascom, " so 
 you need n t look ; can t you see the curtains 
 is all down ? He s gone up to the Mills, V 
 it s my opinion he s gone to speak to the 
 minister." 
 
 " He hed somethin in the back o the 
 wagon covered up with an old linen lap 
 robe ; t ain t at all likely he d a hed that if 
 he d ben goin to the minister s," objected 
 Mrs. Jot. 
 
 " Anybody d think you was born yester 
 day, to hear you talk, Diademy," retorted 
 
20 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 her mother-in-law. " When you ve set in 
 one spot s long s I hev, p raps you 11 hev 
 the use o your faculties ! Men folks has 
 more n one way o gettin 1 married, specially 
 when they re ashamed of it. ... Well, I 
 vow, there s the little Hobson girls comin out 
 o the door this minute, n they re all dressed 
 up, and Mote don t seem to be with em." 
 
 Every woman in the room rose to her feet, 
 and Diadema removed her murderous eye 
 from a fly which she had been endeavoring 
 to locate for some moments. 
 
 " I guess they re goin up to the church 
 to meet their father n Eunice, poor little 
 things," ventured the Widow Buzzell. 
 
 " P raps they be," said old Mrs. Bascom 
 sarcastically ; " p raps they be goin to church, 
 takin a three-quart tin pail V a brown paper 
 bundle along with em. . . . They re comin 
 over the bridge, just as I s posed. . . . Now, 
 if they come past this house, you head em 
 off, Almiry, n see if you can git some satis 
 faction out of em. . . . They ain t hardly old 
 enough to hold their tongues." 
 
 An exciting interview soon took place in 
 the middle of the road, and Almira recntered 
 the room with the expression of one who had 
 penetrated the inscrutable and solved the 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 21 
 
 riddle of the Sphinx. She had been vouch 
 safed one of those gleams of light in dark 
 ness which almost dazzle the beholder. 
 
 "That s about the confirmingest thing 
 I ve heern yet ! " she ejaculated, as she took 
 off her shaker bonnet. " They say they re 
 goin up to their aunt Hitty s to stay two 
 days. They re dressed in their best, clean 
 to the skin, for I looked ; V it s their night- 
 gownds they ve got in the bundle. They 
 say little Mote has gone to Union to stop all 
 night with his uncle Abijah, V that leaves 
 Rube all alone, for the Smith girl that does 
 his chores is home sick with the hives. And 
 what do you s pose is in that pail ? Fruit 
 ca k e ^ that s what t is, no more V no less ! 
 I knowed that Smith girl did n t bake it, 
 n so I asked em, n they said Miss Emery 
 give it to em. There was two little round 
 try-cakes, baked in muffin-rings. Eunice 
 hed took some o the batter out of a big 
 loaf n baked it to see how it was goin to 
 turn out. That means wedding-cake, or I m 
 mistaken ! " 
 
 " There ain t no gittin round tha,t," agreed 
 the assembled company, " now, is there, Mis 
 Bascom?" 
 
 Old Mrs. Bascom wet her finger, smoothed 
 
22 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 the parting of her false front, and looked 
 inscrutable. 
 
 " I don t see why you re so secret," ob 
 jected Diadema. 
 
 " I Ve got my opinions, and I ve had em 
 some time," observed the good lady. " I 
 don t know s I m bound to tell em and 
 have em held up to ridicule. Let the veal 
 hang, I say. If any one of us is right, we 11 
 all know to-morrow." 
 
 " Well, all any of us has got to judge 
 from, is appearances," said Diadema, " and 
 how you can twist em one way, and us 
 another, stumps me I " 
 
 " Perhaps I see more appearances than 
 you do," retorted her mother-in-law. " Some 
 folks mistakes all they see for all there is. 
 I was reading a detective story last week. 
 It seems there was an awful murder in 
 Schenectady, and a mother and two children 
 was found dead in one bed, with bullet holes 
 in their heads. The husband was away on 
 business, and there was n t any near neigh 
 bors to hear her screech. Well, the detec 
 tives come from far and from near, and 
 begun to work up the case. One of em 
 thought twas the husband, though he set 
 such store by his wife he went ravin crazy 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 when he heard she was dead, one of em 
 laid it on the children, though they was 
 both under six years old ; and one decided 
 it was suicide, though the woman was a 
 church member and did n t know how to fire 
 a gun off, besides. And then there come 
 along a detective younger and smarter than 
 all the rest, and says he, If all you bats have 
 seen everything you can see, I guess I 11 take 
 a look round, says he. Sure enough, there 
 was a rug with Welcome on it layin in 
 front of the washstand, and when he turned 
 it up he found an elegant diamond stud with 
 a man s full name and address on the gold 
 part. He took a train and went right to 
 the man s house. He was so taken by sur 
 prise (he had n t missed the stud, for he had 
 a full set of em) that he owned right up 
 and confessed the murder." 
 
 " I don t see as that s got anything to do 
 with this case," said Diadema. 
 
 " It s got this much to do with it," replied 
 old Mrs. Bascom, "that perhaps you ve 
 looked all round the room and seen every 
 thing you had eyes to see, and perhaps I ve 
 had wit enough to turn up the rug in front 
 o the washstand." 
 
 " Whoever he marries now, Mis Bas- 
 
24 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 com 11 have to say t was the one she meant," 
 laughed the Widow Buzzell. 
 
 " I never was caught cheatin yet, and if 
 I live till Saturday I shall be seventy-one 
 years old," said the old lady with some heat. 
 " Hand me Jot s lead pencil, Diademy, and 
 that old envelope on the winder sill. I 11 
 write the name I think of, and shut it up 
 in the old Bible. My hand s so stiff to-day 
 I can t hardly move it, but I guess I can 
 make it plain enough to satisfy you." 
 
 " That s fair n square," said Hannah 
 Sophia, " and for my part I hope it ain t 
 Eunice, for I like her too well. What they re 
 goin to live on is more 11 I can see. Add 
 nothin to nothin n you git nothin , that s 
 arethmetic ! He ain t hed a cent o ready 
 money sence he failed up four years ago, 
 thout it was that hundred dollars that fell to 
 him from his wife s aunt. Eunice 11 hev 
 her hands full this winter, I guess, with them 
 three hearty children, n him all wheezed up 
 with phthisic from October to April! . . . 
 Who s that comin down Tory Hill? It 1 
 Rube s horse n Rube s wagon, but it don t 
 look like Rube." 
 
 " Yes, it s Rube ; but he s got a new 
 Panama hat, V he s hed his linen dus- 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 25 
 
 ter .washed," said old Mrs. Bascom. . . . 
 " Now, do you mean to tell me that that 
 woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice 
 Emery? It ain t, V that green parasol 
 don t belong to this village. He s drivin 
 her into his yard ! . . . Just as I s posed, 
 it s that little, smirkin , worthless school 
 teacher up to the Mills. Don t break my 
 neck, Diademy ; can t you see out the other 
 winder ? Yes, he s helpin her out, n 
 showin her in. He can t a ben married 
 more n ten minutes, for he s goin clear up 
 the steps to open the door for her ! " 
 
 " Wait n see if he takes his horse out," 
 said Hannah Sophia. u Mebbe he 11 drive 
 her back in a few minutes. . . . No, he s 
 onhitched ! . . . There, he s hangin up the 
 head-stall ! " 
 
 "I ve ben up in the attic chamber," 
 called the Widow Buzzell, as she descended 
 the stairs ; " she s pulled up the curtains, and 
 took off her hat right in front o the winder, 
 s bold as a brass kettle ! She s come to 
 stay ! Ain t that Kube Hobson all over, 
 to bring another woman hit this village stid 
 o weedin one of em out as he d oughter. 
 He ain t got any more public sperit than a 
 hedgehog, n never had ! " 
 
26 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied 
 on her shaker, and started for the door. 
 
 " I m goiii over to Eunice s," she said, 
 " and I in goin to take my bottle of cam- 
 phire. I should n t wonder a mite if I found 
 her in a dead faint on the kitchen floor. 
 Nobody need tell me she wa n t buildin 
 hopes." 
 
 " I 11 go with you," said the Widow 
 Buzzell. " I d like to see with my own eyes 
 how she takes it, V it 11 be too late to tell 
 if I wait till after supper. If she d ben 
 more open with me V ever asked for my 
 advice, I could a told her it wa n t the first 
 time Rube Hobson has played that trick." 
 
 " I d come too if t wa n t for milkin , 
 but Jot ain t home from the Centre, and 
 I ve got to do his chores ; come in as you 
 go along back, will you ? " asked Diadema. 
 
 Hannah Sophia remained behind, prom 
 ising to meet them at the post-office and 
 hear the news. As the two women walked 
 down the hill she drew the old envelope 
 from the Bible and read the wavering words 
 scrawled upon it in old Mrs. Bascom s rheu 
 matic and uncertain hand, 
 
 the milikins Mills Teecher. 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 27 
 
 " Well, Lucindy, you do make good use 
 o your winder," she exclaimed, u but how 
 you pitched on anything so onlikely as her 
 is more n I can see." 
 
 " Just because t was onlikely. A man s 
 a great sight likelier to do an onlikely thing 
 than he is a likely one, when it comes to 
 marryin . In the first place, Rube sent his 
 children to school up to the Mills stid of 
 to the brick schoolhouse, though he had to 
 pay a little something to get em taken in 
 to another deestrick. They used to come 
 down at night with their hands full o ward 
 o merit cards. Do you s pose I thought 
 they got em for good behavior, or for know- 
 in their lessons? Then aunt Hitty told 
 me some question or other Rube had asked 
 examination day. Since when has Rube 
 Hobson tended examinations, thinks I. And 
 when I see the girl, a red-and-white paper 
 doll that would n t know whether to move 
 the churn-dasher up V down or round V 
 round, I made up my mind that bein a man 
 he d take her for certain, and not his next- 
 door neighbor of a sensible age and a house 
 11 farm n cow n buggy ! " 
 
 " Sure enough," agreed Hannah Sophia, 
 " though that don t account for Eunice s 
 
28 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 queer actions, n the pa cels V the fruit 
 cake." 
 
 "When I make out a case," observed 
 Mrs. Bascom modestly, " I ain t one to 
 leave weak spots in it. If I guess at all, I 
 go all over the ground n stop when I git 
 through. Now, sisters or no sisters, Mary- 
 abby Emery ain t spoke to Eunice sence 
 she moved to Salem. But if Eunice has 
 ben bringin pa cels home, Mary ab by must 
 a paid for what was in em ; and if she s 
 ben bakin fruit cake this hot day, why Mary- 
 abby used to be so fond o fruit cake her 
 folks were afraid she d have fits n die. 
 I shall be watchin here as usual to-morrow 
 mornin , n if Maryabby don t drive hit 
 Eunice s yard before noon I won t brag any 
 more for a year to come." 
 
 Hannah Sophia gazed at old Mrs. Bascom 
 with unstinted admiration. " You do beat 
 all," she said ; " and I wish I could stay all 
 night n see how it turns out, but Almiry is 
 just comin over the bridge, n I must start 
 n meet her. Good-by. I m glad to see 
 you so smart ; you always look slim, but I 
 guess you 11 tough it out s long s the rest 
 of us. I see your log was all right, last 
 time I was down side o the river." 
 
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 29 
 
 "They say it s jest goin to break in 
 two in the middle, and fall into the river," 
 cheerfully responded Lucinda. " They say 
 it s jest hangin by a thread. Well, that s 
 what they ve ben sayin about me these ten 
 years, n here I be still hangin ! It don t 
 make no odds, I guess, whether it s a thread 
 or a rope you re hangin by, so long as you 
 hang." 
 
 The next morning, little Mote Hobson, 
 who had stayed all night with his uncle in 
 Union, was walking home by the side of 
 the river. He strolled along, the happy, 
 tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, eyes 
 one moment on the trees in the hope of 
 squirrels and birds -nests, the next on the 
 ground in search of the first blueberries. 
 As he stooped to pick up a bit of shining 
 quartz to add to the collection in his ragged 
 trousers pockets he glanced across the river, 
 and at that very instant Lucinda s log broke 
 gently in twain, rolled down the bank, 
 crumbling as it went, and, dropping in like 
 a tired child, was carried peacefully along 
 on the river s breast. 
 
 Mote walked more quickly after that. 
 It was quite a feather in his cap to see, with 
 
30 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 his own eyes, the old landmark slip from 
 its accustomed place and float down the 
 stream. The other boys would miss it and 
 say, " It s gone! " He would say, " I saw it 
 go!" 
 
 Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top 
 of the hill. His white locks were uncovered, 
 and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Baby Jot, 
 as usual, held fast by his shaking hand, for 
 they loved each other, these two. The 
 cruel stroke of the sun that had blurred the 
 old man s brain had spared a blessed some 
 thing in him that won the healing love of 
 children. 
 
 "How d ye, Mote?" he piped in his 
 feeble voice. " They say Lmcindy s dead. 
 . . . Jot says she is, n Diademy says she 
 is, n I guess she is. ... It s a dretful 
 thick year for fol age ; . . . some o the 
 maples looks like balls in the air." 
 
 Mote looked in at the window. The 
 neighbors were hurrying to and fro. Dia- 
 dema sat with her calico apron up to her 
 face, sobbing ; and for the first morning in 
 thirty years, old Mrs. Bascom s high-backed 
 rocker was empty, and there was no one 
 sitting in the village watch-tower. 
 
TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
TOM O THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 THE sky is a shadowless blue ; the noon 
 day sun glows fiercely ; a cloud of dust rises 
 from the burning road whenever the hot 
 breeze stirs the air, or whenever a farm 
 wagon creaks along, its wheels sinking into 
 the deep sand. 
 
 In the distance, where the green of the 
 earth joins the blue of the sky, gleams the 
 silver line of a river. 
 
 As far as the eye can reach, the ground 
 is covered with blueberry bushes ; red leaves 
 peeping among green ones; bloom of blue 
 fruit hanging in full warm clusters, 
 spheres of velvet mellowed by summer sun, 
 moistened with crystal dew, spiced with fra 
 grance of woods. 
 
 In among the blueberry bushes grow 
 huckleberries, "choky pears,* and black- 
 snaps. 
 
 Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift them 
 selves out of the wilderness of shrubs. They 
 look dwarfed and gloomy, as if Nature had 
 
34 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 been an untender mother, and denied them 
 proper nourishment. 
 
 The road is a little-traveled one, and fur 
 rows of feathery grasses grow between the 
 long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts. 
 
 The first goldenrod gleams among the 
 loose stones at the foot of the alder bushes. 
 Whole families of pale butterflies, just out 
 of their long sleep, perch on the brilliant 
 stalks and tilter up and down in the sun 
 shine. 
 
 Straggling processions of woolly brown 
 caterpillars wend their way in the short 
 grass by the wayside, where the wild car 
 rot and the purple bull-thistle are coming 
 into bloom. 
 
 The song of birds is seldom heard, and 
 the blueberry plains are given over to si 
 lence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, 
 the humming of bees, and the chirping of 
 crickets that stir the drowsy air when the 
 summer begins to wane. 
 
 It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of 
 a footstep can be heard in the distance, the 
 tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to 
 and fro, the swish of an alder switch crop 
 ping the heads of the roadside weeds. All 
 at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 35 
 
 a child s, a woman s, or a man s ? Neither, 
 yet all three. 
 
 " I d much d ruth-er walk in the bloom-in gy-ar-ding, 
 An hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly 
 
 Everybody knows the song, and everybody 
 knows the cracked voice. The master of 
 this bit of silent wilderness is coming home : 
 it is Tom o the blueb ry plains. 
 
 He is more than common tall, with a 
 sandy beard, and a mop of tangled hair 
 straggling beneath his torn straw hat. A 
 square of wet calico drips from under the 
 back of the hat. His gingham shirt is open 
 at the throat, showing his tanned neck and 
 chest. Warm as it is, he wears portions of 
 at least three coats on his back. His high 
 boots, split in foot and leg, are mended and 
 spliced and laced and tied on with bits of 
 shingle rope. He carries a small tin pail of 
 molasses. It has a bail of rope, and a bat 
 tered cover with a knob of sticky newspaper. 
 Over one shoulder, suspended on a crooked 
 branch, hangs a bundle of basket stuff, 
 split willow withes and the like ; over the 
 other swings a decrepit, bottomless, three- 
 legged chair. 
 
db TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 
 
 I call him the master of the plains, but in 
 faith he had no legal claim to the title. If 
 he owned a habitation or had established 
 a home on any spot in the universe, it was 
 because no man envied him what he chose, 
 and no man grudged him what he took ; for 
 Tom was one of God s fools, a foot-loose pil 
 grim in this world of ours, a poor addle- 
 pated, simple-minded, harmless creature, 
 in village parlance, a " softy." 
 
 Mother or father, sister or brother, he 
 had none, nor ever had, so far as any one 
 knew; but how should people who had to 
 work from sun-up to candlelight to get the 
 better of the climate have leisure to dis 
 cover whether or no Blueb ry Tom had any 
 kin? 
 
 At some period in an almost forgotten 
 past there had been a house on Tom s par 
 ticular patch of the plains. It had long 
 since tumbled into ruins and served for fire 
 wood, and even the chimney bricks had dis 
 appeared one by one, as the monotonous 
 seasons came and went. 
 
 Tom had settled himself in an old tool- 
 shop, corn-house, or rude out-building of 
 some sort that had belonged to the ruined 
 cottage. Here he had set up his house- 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 37 
 
 hold gods; and since no one else had ever 
 wanted a home in this dreary tangle of 
 berry bushes, where the only shade came 
 from stunted pines that flung shriveled 
 arms to the sky and dropped dead cones 
 to the sterile earth, here he remained un 
 molested. 
 
 In the lower part of the hut he kept his 
 basket stuff and his collection of two-legged 
 and three-legged chairs. In the course of 
 evolution they never sprouted another leg, 
 those chairs ; as they were given to him, so 
 they remained. The upper floor served for 
 his living-room, and was reached by a lad 
 der from the ground, for there was no stair 
 way inside. 
 
 No one had ever been in the little upper 
 chamber. When a passer-by chanced to be 
 think him that Tom s hermitage was close 
 at hand, he sometimes turned in his team 
 by a certain clump of white birches and 
 drove nearer to the house, intending to re 
 mind Tom that there was a chair to willow- 
 bottom the next time he came to the village. 
 But at the noise of the wheels Tom drew 
 in his ladder ; and when the visitor alighted 
 and came within sight, it was to find the in 
 hospitable host standing in the opening of 
 
38 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 the second-story window, a quaint figure 
 framed in green branches, the ladder be 
 hind him, and on his face a kind of im 
 penetrable dignity, as he shook his head 
 and said, " Tom ain t ter hum ; Tom s gone 
 to Bonny Eagle." 
 
 There was something impressive about this 
 way of repelling callers ; it was as effectual 
 as a door slammed in the face, and yet there 
 was a sort of mendacious courtesy about it. 
 No one ever cared to go further ; and indeed 
 there was no mystery to tempt the curious, 
 and no spoil to attract the mischievous or 
 malicious. Any one could see, without en 
 tering, the straw bed in the far corner, the 
 beams piled deep with red and white oak 
 acorns, the strings of dried apples and 
 bunches of everlastings hanging from the 
 rafters, and the half-finished baskets filled 
 with blown bird s-eggs, pine cones, and peb 
 bles. 
 
 No home in the village was better loved 
 than Tom s retreat in the blueberry plains. 
 Whenever he approached it, after a long 
 day s tramp, when he caught the first sight 
 of the white birches that marked the gate 
 way to his estate and showed him where to 
 turn off the public road into his own private 
 
TOM THE ELUERRY PLAINS. 39 
 
 grounds, he smiled a broader smile than 
 usual, and broke into his well-known song : 
 
 " I d much d ruth-er walk in the bloom-in gy-ar-ding, 
 An hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly 
 
 Poor Tom could never catch the last note. 
 He had sung the song for more than forty 
 years, but the memory of this tone was so 
 blurred, and his cherished ideal of it so high 
 (or so low, rather), that he never managed 
 to reach it. 
 
 Oh, if only summer were eternal ! Who 
 could wish a better supper than ripe berries 
 and molasses ? Nor was there need of sleep 
 ing under roof nor of lighting candle to grope 
 his way to pallet of straw, when he might 
 have the blue vault of heaven arching over 
 him, and all God s stars for lamps, and for 
 a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elas 
 tic couch of pine needles. There were two 
 gaunt pines that had been dropping their 
 polished spills for centuries, perhaps, silently 
 adding, year by year, another layer of aro 
 matic springiness to poor Tom s bed. Fling 
 ing his tired body on this grateful couch, 
 burying his head in the crushed sweet fern 
 of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of 
 
40 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 pleasure, there, haunted by no past and 
 harassed by no future, slept God s fool as 
 sweetly as a child. 
 
 Yes, if only summer were eternal, and 
 youth as well ! 
 
 But when the blueberries had ripened 
 summer after summer, and the gaunt pine- 
 trees had gone on for many years weaving 
 poor Tom s mattress, there came a change in 
 the aspect of things. He still made his way 
 to the village, seeking chairs to mend ; but 
 he was even more unkempt than of old, his 
 tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled 
 as he wove the willow strands in and out, 
 and over and under. 
 
 There was little work to do, moreover, for 
 the village had altogether retired from busi 
 ness, and was no longer in competition with 
 its neighbors : the dam was torn away, the 
 sawmills were pulled down ; husbands and 
 fathers were laid in the churchyard, sons and 
 brothers and lovers had gone West, and 
 mothers and widows and spinsters stayed 
 on, each in her quiet house alone. " T ain t 
 no hardship when you get used to it," said 
 the Widow Buzzell. " Land sakes ! a lan 
 tern s s good s a man any time, if you only 
 think so, n t ain t half so much trouble to 
 keep it filled up ! " 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 41 
 
 But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, 
 and the children always gathered about him 
 for the sake of hearing him repeat his well- 
 worn formula, "Tom allers puts two 
 handles on baskets : one to take em up by, 
 one to set em down by." This was said with 
 a beaming smile and a wise shake of the 
 head, as if he were announcing a great dis 
 covery to an expectant world. And then he 
 would lay down his burden of basket stuff, 
 and, sitting under an apple-tree in some 
 body s side yard, begin his task of willow- 
 bottoming an old chair. It was a pretty 
 sight enough, if one could keep back the 
 tears, the kindly, simple fellow with the 
 circle of children about his knees. Never 
 a village fool without a troop of babies at his 
 heels. They love him, too, till we teach them 
 to mock. 
 
 When he was younger, he would sing, 
 
 " Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop," 
 
 and dance the while, swinging his unfinished 
 basket to and fro for a cradle. He was too 
 stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but 
 he still sang the " bloomin gy-ar-ding " when 
 ever they asked him, particularly if some 
 apple-cheeked little maid would say, " Please, 
 
42 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 Tom ! " He always laughed then, and, pat 
 ting the child s hand, said, " Pooty gal, 
 got eyes ! " The youngsters danced with 
 glee at this meaningless phrase, just as their 
 mothers had danced years before when it was 
 said to them. 
 
 Summer waned. In the moist places the 
 gentian uncurled its blue fringes ; purple as 
 ters and gay Joe Pye waved their colors by 
 the roadside ; tall primroses put their yellow 
 bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to 
 see themselves; and the dusty pods of the 
 milkweed were bursting with their silky 
 fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. 
 Autumn began to paint the maples red and 
 the elms yellow, for the early days of Sep 
 tember brought a frost. Some one remarked 
 at the village store that old Blueb ry Tom 
 must not be suffered to stay on the plains 
 another winter, now that he was getting so 
 feeble, not if the " seleckmen " had to 
 root him out and take him to the poor-farm. 
 He would surely starve or freeze, and his 
 death would be laid at their door. 
 
 Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, 
 sharp words, all failed to move him one jot 
 or tittle. He stood in his castle door, with 
 the ladder behind him, smiling, always smil- 
 
TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 43 
 
 ing (none but the fool smiles always, nor 
 always weeps), and saying to all visitors, 
 " Tom ain t ter hum ; Tom s gone to Bonny 
 Eagle ; Tom don want to go to the poor- 
 farm." 
 
 November came in surly. 
 
 The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest 
 were over, the corn was shocked, the apples 
 and pumpkins were gathered into barns. 
 The problem of Tom s future was finally laid 
 before the selectmen ; and since the poor fel 
 low s mild obstinacy had defeated all at 
 tempts to conquer it, the sheriff took the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 The blueberry plains looked bleak and 
 bare enough now. It had rained incessantly 
 for days, growing ever colder and colder as 
 it rained. The sun came out at last, but it 
 shone in a wintry sort of way, like a duty 
 smile, as if light, not heat, were its object. 
 A keen wind blew the dead leaves hither 
 and thither in a wild dance that had no merri 
 ment in it. A blackbird flew under an old 
 barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling himself 
 into a ball, remarked despondently that 
 feathers were no sort of protection in this 
 kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, 
 glanced in at the barrel, and observed that 
 
44 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 anybody who minded a little breeze like that 
 had better join the woodcocks, who were leav 
 ing for the South by the night express. 
 
 The blueberry bushes were stripped bare 
 of green. The stunted pines and sombre 
 hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape 
 now ; where all was dreary they did not seem 
 amiss. 
 
 " Je-whilikins ! " exclaimed the sheriff as 
 he drew up his coat collar. " A madhouse 
 is the place for the man who wants to live 
 ou doors in the winter time ; the poor-farm 
 is too good for him." 
 
 But Tom was used to privation, and even 
 to suffering. "Ou doors" was the only 
 home he knew, and with all its rigors he 
 loved it. He looked over the barren plains, 
 knowing, in a dull sort of way, that they 
 would shortly be covered with snow ; but 
 he had three coats, two of them with sleeves, 
 and the crunch-crunch of the snow under 
 his tread was music to his ears. Then, too, 
 there were a few hospitable firesides where 
 he could always warm himself ; and the 
 winter would soon be over, the birds would 
 come again, new birds, singing the old 
 songs, the sap would mount in the trees^ 
 the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 45 
 
 the young ivory leaves push their ruddy 
 tips through the softening ground. The 
 plains were fatherland and mother-country, 
 home and kindred, to Tom. He loved the 
 earth that nourished him, and he saw 
 through all the seeming death in nature 
 the eternal miracle of the resurrection. To 
 him winter was never cruel. He looked 
 underneath her white mantle, saw the in 
 fant spring hidden in her warm bosom, 
 and was content to wait. Content to wait? 
 Content to starve, content to freeze, if only 
 he need not be carried into captivity. 
 
 The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, 
 if only Tom had been a reasonable being. 
 To be sure, when Hannah Sophia Palmer 
 asked old Mrs. Pinkham how she liked it, 
 she answered, with a patient sigh, that "her 
 11 Mr. Pinkham hed lived there goin on 
 nine year, workin their fingers to the bone, 
 most, V yet they hadn t been able to lay 
 up a cent ! " If this peculiarity of admin 
 istration was its worst feature, it was cer 
 tainly one that would have had no terrors 
 for Tom o the blueb ry plains. Terrors 
 of some sort, nevertheless, the poor-farm 
 had for him; and when the sheriff s party 
 turned in by the clump of white birches 
 
46 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 and approached the cabin, they found that 
 fear had made the simple wise. Tom had 
 provisioned the little upper chamber, and, 
 in place of the piece of sacking that usually 
 served him for a door in winter, he had 
 woven a defense of willow. In fine, he 
 had taken all his basket stuff, and, treat 
 ing the opening through which he entered 
 and left his home precisely as if it were a 
 bottomless chair, he had filled it in solidly, 
 weaving to and fro, by night as well as by 
 day, till he felt, poor fool, as safely in 
 trenched as if he were in the heart of a 
 fortress. 
 
 The sheriff tied his horse to a tree, and 
 Rube Hobson and Pitt Packard got out of 
 the double wagon. Two men laughed when 
 they saw the pathetic defense, but the other 
 shut his lips together and caught his breath. 
 (He had been born on a poor-farm, but 
 no one knew it at Pleasant River.) They 
 called Tom s name repeatedly, but no other 
 sound broke the silence of the plains save 
 the rustling of the wind among the dead 
 leaves. 
 
 " Numb-head ! " muttered the sheriff, pound 
 ing on the side of the cabin with his whip- 
 stock. " Come out and show yourself ! We 
 
TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 47 
 
 know you re in there, and it s no use hid- 
 ing!" 
 
 At last, in response to a deafening blow 
 from Rube Hobson s hard fist, there came 
 the answering note of a weak, despairing 
 voice. 
 
 " Tom ain t ter hum," it said ; " Tom s 
 gone to Bonny Eagle." 
 
 " That s all right ! " guffawed the men ; 
 " but you ve got to go some more, and go 
 a diff rent way. It ain t no use fer you to 
 hold back ; we ve got a ladder, and by 
 Jiminy ! you go with us this time ! " 
 
 The ladder was put against the side of 
 the hut, and Pitt Packard climbed up, took 
 his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top 
 to bottom, and turned back the flap. 
 
 The men could see the inside of the 
 chamber now. They were humorous per 
 sons, who could strain a joke to the snap 
 ping point, but they felt, at last, that there 
 was nothing especially amusing in the situ 
 ation. Tom was huddled in a heap on the 
 straw bed in the far corner. The vacant 
 smile had fled from his face, and he looked, 
 for the first time in his life, quite dis 
 traught. 
 
 "Come along, Tom," said the sheriff 
 
48 TOM THE BLUEB RY PLAINS. 
 
 kindly ; " we re going to take you where 
 you can sleep in a bed, and have three 
 meals a day." 
 
 " I d much d ruth-er walk in the bloom-in gy-ar-ding," 
 
 sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head 
 in a paroxysm of fear. 
 
 " Well, there ain t no bloomin gardings 
 to walk in jest now, so come along and be 
 peaceable." 
 
 " Tom don want to go to the poor-farm," 
 he wailed piteously. 
 
 But there was no alternative. They 
 dragged him off the bed and down the 
 ladder as gently as possible; then Kube 
 Hobson held him on the back seat of the 
 wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the 
 horse. As they were 011 the point of start 
 ing, the captive began to wail and struggle 
 more than ever, the burden of his plaint 
 being a wild and tremulous plea for his 
 pail of molasses. 
 
 " Dry up, old softy, or I 11 put the buggy 
 robe over your head ! " muttered Rube Hob- 
 son, who had not had much patience when 
 he started on the trip, and had lost it all 
 by this time. 
 
 " By thunder ! he shall hev his molasses, 
 
TOM 0> THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 49 
 
 if he thinks he wants it!" said Pitt Pack 
 ard, and he ran up the ladder and brought 
 it down, comforting the shivering creature 
 thus, for he lapsed into a submissive si 
 lence that lasted until the unwelcome jour 
 ney was over. 
 
 Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely 
 twelve hours. It did not enter the minds 
 of the authorities that any one so fortunate 
 as to be admitted into that happy haven 
 would decline to stay there. The unwilling 
 guest disappeared early on the morrow of 
 his arrival, and, after some search, they 
 followed him to the old spot. He had 
 climbed into his beloved retreat, and, hav 
 ing learned nothing from experience, had 
 mended the willow door as best he could, 
 and laid him down in peace. They dragged 
 him out again, and this time more impa 
 tiently; for it was exasperating to see a 
 man (even if he were a fool) fight against 
 a bed and three meals a day. 
 
 The second attempt was little more suc 
 cessful than the first. As a place of resi 
 dence, the poor-farm did not seem any more 
 desirable or attractive on near acquaintance 
 than it did at long range. Tom remained 
 a week, because he was kept in close con- 
 
50 TOM 0> THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 
 
 finement; but when they judged that he 
 was weaned from his old home, they loosed 
 his bonds, and back to the plains he sped, 
 like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a 
 bit of iron leaping to the magnet. 
 
 What should be done with him ? 
 
 Public opinion was divided. Some people 
 declared that the village had done its duty, 
 and if the "dog-goned lunk-head" wanted 
 to starve and freeze, it was his funeral, not 
 theirs. Others thought that the community 
 had no resource but to bear the responsi 
 bility of its irresponsible children, however 
 troublesome they might be. There was en 
 tire unanimity of view so far as the main 
 issues were concerned. It was agreed that 
 nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand 
 guard over Tom night and day, and that 
 the sheriff could not be expected to spend 
 his time forcing him out of his hut on the 
 blueberry plains. 
 
 There was but one more expedient to be 
 tried, a very simple and ingenious but radi 
 cal and comprehensive one, which, in Rube 
 Hobson s opinion, would strike at the root 
 of the matter. 
 
 Tom had fled from captivity for the third 
 time. 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 51 
 
 He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by 
 an unexpected stroke of fortune, the mo 
 lasses pail was hanging on a nail by the 
 shed door. The remains of a battered old 
 bushel basket lay on the wood-pile : bottom 
 it had none, nor handles ; rotundity of side 
 had long since disappeared, and none but 
 its maker would have known it for a bas 
 ket. Tom caught it up in his flight, and, 
 seizing the first crooked stick that offered, 
 he slung the dear familiar burden over his 
 shoulder and started off on a jog-trot. 
 
 Heaven, how happy he was ! It was the 
 rosy dawn of an Indian summer day, a 
 warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak 
 world of yesterday without a hint of benefi 
 cent intention ; one of those enchanting 
 weather surprises with which Dame Nature 
 reconciles us to her stern New England 
 rule. 
 
 The joy that comes of freedom, and the 
 freedom that comes of joy, unbent the old 
 man s stiffened joints. He renewed his 
 youth at every mile. He ran like a lapwing. 
 When his feet first struck the sandy soil of 
 the plains, he broke into the old song of 
 the " bloom-in gy-ar-ding " and the " jolly 
 swain," and in the marvelous mental and 
 
52 TOM THE ELUERRY PLAINS. 
 
 spiritual exhilaration born of the supreme 
 moment he almost grasped that impossible 
 last note. His heart could hardly hold its 
 burden of rapture when he caught the well- 
 known gleam of the white birches. He 
 turned into the familiar path, boy s blood 
 thumping in old man s veins. The past 
 week had been a dreadful dream. A few 
 steps more and he would be within sight, 
 within touch, of home, home at last ! 
 No what was wrong ? He must have gone 
 beyond it, in his reckless haste ! Strange 
 that he could have forgotten the beloved 
 spot ! Can lover mistake the way to sweet 
 heart s window ? Can child lose the path to 
 mother s knee ? 
 
 He turned, ran hither and thither, like 
 one distraught. A nameless dread flitted 
 through his dull mind, chilling his warm 
 blood, paralyzing the activity of the moment 
 before. At last, with a sob like that of a 
 frightened child who flies from some im 
 agined evil lurking in darkness, he darted 
 back to the white birches and started anew. 
 This time he trusted to blind instinct ; his 
 feet knew the path, and, left to themselves, 
 they took him through the tangle of dry 
 bushes straight to his 
 
TOM THE BLUER RY PLAINS. 53 
 
 It had vanished ! 
 
 Nothing but ashes remained to mark the 
 spot, nothing but ashes ! And these, ere 
 many days, the autumn winds would scatter, 
 and the leafless branches on which they fell 
 would shake them off lightly, never dream 
 ing that they hid the soul of a home. 
 Nothing but ashes ! 
 
 Poor Tom o the blueb ry plains ! 
 
THE NOONING TKEE. 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 THE giant elm stood in the centre of the 
 squire s fair green meadows, and was known 
 to all the country round about as the " Bean 
 ellum." The other trees had seemingly re 
 tired to a respectful distance, as if they 
 were not worthy of closer intimacy ; and so 
 it stood alone, king of the meadow, monarch 
 of the village. 
 
 It shot from the ground for a space, 
 straight, strong, and superb, and then burst 
 into nine splendid branches, each a tree in 
 itself, all growing symmetrically from the 
 parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow 
 under which all the inhabitants of the tiny 
 village might have gathered. 
 
 It was not alone its size, its beauty, its 
 symmetry, its density of foliage, that made 
 it the glory of the neighborhood, but the 
 low growth of its branches and the extra 
 ordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by 
 from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch 
 their teams by the wayside, crawl through 
 
58 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 the stump fence and walk across the fields, 
 for a nearer view of its magnificence. One 
 man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree 
 every day during the summer, and lift his 
 hat to it, respectfully, each time he passed ; 
 but he was a poet and his intellect was not 
 greatly esteemed in the village. 
 
 The elm was almost as beautiful in one 
 season as in another. In the spring it 
 rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed 
 ground, its tiny brown leaf buds bursting 
 with pride at the thought of the loveliness 
 coiled up inside. In summer it stood in the 
 midst of a waving garden of buttercups and 
 whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leaf 
 age, a shelter from the sun and a refuge 
 from the storm ; a cool, splendid, hospitable 
 dome, under which the weary farmer might 
 fling himself, and gaze upward as into the 
 heights and depths of an emerald heaven. 
 As for the birds, they made it a fashionable 
 summer resort, the most commodious and 
 attractive in the whole country ; with no 
 limit to the accommodations for those of a 
 gregarious turn of mind, liking the advan 
 tages of select society combined with country 
 air. In the autumn it held its own; for 
 when the other elms changed their green to 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 59 
 
 duller tints, the nooning tree put on a gown 
 of yellow, and stood out against the far 
 background of sombre pine woods a bril 
 liant mass of gold and brown. In winter, 
 when there was no longer dun of upturned 
 sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy 
 autumn grasses, it rose above the dazzling 
 snow crust, lifting its bare, shapely branches 
 in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming 
 to say, " Do not pity me ; I have been, and, 
 please God, I shall be ! " 
 
 Whenever the weather was sufficiently 
 mild, it was used as a " nooning " tree by all 
 the men at work in the surrounding fields ; 
 but it was in haying time that it became the 
 favorite lunching and " bangeing " place for 
 Squire Bean s hands and those of Miss Vilda 
 Cummins, who owned the adjoining farm. 
 The men congregated under the spreading 
 branches at twelve o the clock, and spent 
 the noon hour there, eating and " swapping " 
 stories, as they were doing to-day. 
 
 Each had a tin pail, and each consumed 
 a quantity of " flour food " that kept the 
 housewives busy at the cook stove from morn 
 ing till night. A glance at Pitt Packard s 
 luncheon, for instance, might suffice as an 
 illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, " Pitt 
 
60 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 took after both his parents : one et a good 
 deal, V the other a good while." His pail 
 contained four doughnuts, a quarter section 
 of pie, six buttermilk biscuits, six ginger 
 cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of 
 cold coffee. This quantity was a trifle un 
 usual, but every man in the group was lined 
 throughout with pie, cemented with butter 
 milk bread, and riveted with doughnuts. 
 
 Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay ex 
 tended slouchingly, their cowhide boots 
 turned up to the sky ; Dave Milliken, Steve 
 Webster, and the others leaned back against 
 the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hug 
 ging their knees and chewing blades of grass 
 reflectively. 
 
 One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily 
 puffing rings of smoke into the air. After 
 a while he lay down in the grass with his 
 head buried in his hat, sleeping to all ap 
 pearances, while the others talked and 
 laughed ; for he had no stories, though he 
 put in an absent-minded word or two when 
 he was directly addressed. This was the 
 man from Tennessee, Matt Henderson, 
 dubbed " Dixie " for short. He was a giant 
 fellow, a " great gormin critter," Saman- 
 tha Ann Milliken called him ; but if he had 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 61 
 
 held up his head and straightened his broad 
 shoulders, he would have been thought a 
 man of splendid presence. 
 
 He seemed a being from another sphere 
 instead of from another section of the coun 
 try. It was not alone the olive tint of the 
 skin, the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back 
 from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and 
 the sad mouth, a mouth that had never 
 grown into laughing curves through telling 
 Yankee jokes, it was not these that gave 
 him what the boys called a "kind of a 
 downcasted look." The man from Tennes 
 see had something more than a melancholy 
 temperament ; he had, or physiognomy was 
 a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart. 
 
 I m goin to doze a spell," drawled Jabe 
 Slocum, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. 
 "I ve got to renew my strength like the 
 eagle s, f I m goin to walk to the circus 
 this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when 
 you think I d ought to sling that scythe 
 some more, for if I hev it on my mind I 
 can t git a wink o sleep." 
 
 This was apparently a witticism ; at any 
 rate, it elicited roars of laughter. 
 
 " It s one o Jabe s useless days ; he takes 
 em from his great-aunt Lyddy," said David 
 Milliken. 
 
62 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 " You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me 
 as long to git to workin as it did you to git 
 a wife, I bate this hay would n t git mowed 
 down till crack o doom. Gorry ! ain t this 
 a tree ! I tell you, the sun n the airth, the 
 dew n the showers, n the Lord God o cre 
 ation jest took holt n worked together on 
 this tree, n no mistake ! ; 
 
 " You re right, Jabe." (This from Steve 
 Webster, who was absently cutting a D in 
 the bark. He was always cutting D s these 
 days.) "This ellum can t be beat in the 
 State o Maine, nor no other state. My 
 brother that lives in California says that the 
 big redwoods, big as they air, don t throw 
 no sech shade, nor ain t so han some, specially 
 in the fall o the year, as our State o Maine 
 trees ; assiduous trees, he called em." 
 
 "Assidyus trees? Why don t you talk 
 United States while you re about it, n not 
 fire yer long-range words round here ? As 
 sidyus ! What does it mean, anyhow ? " 
 
 " Can t prove it by me. That s what he 
 called em, n I never forgot it." 
 
 " Assidyus assidyus it don t sound 
 as if it meant nothin , to me." 
 
 " Assiduous means busy, " said the 
 man from Tennessee, who had suddenly 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 waked from a brown study, and dropped off 
 into another as soon as he had given the 
 definition. 
 
 " Busy, does it ? Wall, I guess we ain t 
 no better off now n we ever was. One tree s 
 bout s busy as another, as fur s I can 
 
 see." 
 
 " Wall, there is a kind of a meanin in it 
 to me, but it s tumble far fetched," remarked 
 Jabez Slocum, rather sleepily. "You see, 
 our ellums and maples n all them trees 
 spends part o the year in buddin n gittin 
 out their leaves 11 hangin em all over the 
 branches ; n then, no sooner air they full 
 grown than they hev to begin colorin of em 
 red or yeller or brown, n then shakin of 
 em off ; V this is all extry, you might say, 
 to their every-day chores o growin n cir- 
 kerlatin sap, n spreadin n thickenin n 
 shovin out limbs, n one thing n nother ; 
 n it stan s to reason that the firs n hem 
 locks n them California redwoods, that 
 keeps their clo es on right through the 
 year, can t be so busy as them that keeps 
 a-dressin n ondressin all the time." 
 
 " I guess you re bout right," allowed 
 Steve, " but I shouldn t never a thought of 
 it in the world. What yer takin out o that 
 
64 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 bottle, Jabe ? I thought you was a temper 
 ance man." 
 
 " I guess he s like the feller over to Sha- 
 dagee schoolhouse, that said he was in favor 
 o the law, but agin its enforcement ! " 
 laughed Pitt Packard. 
 
 " I ain t breakin no law ; this is yarb 
 bitters," Jabe answered, with a pull at the 
 bottle. 
 
 " It s to cirkerlate his blood," said Ob 
 Tarbox ; " he s too dog-goned lazy to cirker 
 late it himself." 
 
 " I m takin it fer what ails me," said 
 Jabe oracularly ; " the heart knoweth its 
 own bitterness, n it s a wise child that 
 knows its own complaints thout goin to a 
 doctor." 
 
 " Ain t yer scared fer fear it 11 start yer 
 growth, Laigs ? " asked little Brad Gibson, 
 looking at Jabe s tremendous length of limb 
 and foot. " Say, how do yer git them feet 
 o yourn uphill ? Do yer start one ahead, 11 
 side-track the other ? " 
 
 The tree rang with the laughter evoked by 
 this sally, but the man from Tennessee never 
 smiled. 
 
 Jabe Slocum s imperturbable good humor 
 was not shaken in the very least by these 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 65 
 
 personal remarks. " If I thought t was a 
 good growin medicine, I d recommend it to 
 your folks, Brad," he replied cheerfully, 
 " Your mother says you boys air all so short 
 that when you re diggin potatoes, yer can t 
 see her shake the dinner rag thout gittin 
 up n standin on the potato hills ! 
 was a sinikitin feller like you, I wouldn t 
 hector folks that had made out to grow 
 
 " Speakin o growin ," said Steve Web 
 ster, " who do you guess I seen in Boston, 
 when I was workin there ? That tall Swat- 
 kins girl from the Duck Pond, the one that 
 married Dan Robinson. It was one Sunday, 
 in the Catholic meetiii -house. I d allers 
 wanted to go to a Catholic meetin , an I de 
 clare it s about the solemnest one there is. I 
 mistrusted I was goin to eveiiastin ly giggle, 
 but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter yer 
 ever see. But anyway, the Swatkins girl 
 or Mis Robinson, she is now was there 
 as large as life in the next pew to me, 
 jabberin Latin, pawin beads, gettin up n 
 kneelin down, n crossin herself north, 
 south, east, n west, with the best of em. 
 Poor Dan ! c Grinnin Dan, we used to call 
 him. Well, he don t grin nowadays. He 
 
66 THE NOONING TREE; 
 
 never was good for much, but he s hed 
 more n his comeuppance ! " 
 
 " Why, what s the matter with him ? 
 Can t he git work in Boston ? " 
 
 "Matter? Why, his wife, that I see 
 makin believe be so dreadful pious in the 
 Catholic meetin , she s carried on wuss n 
 the Old Driver fer two years, V now she s 
 up n left him, gone with a han somer 
 man." 
 
 Down on Steve Webster s hand came Jabe 
 Slocum s immense paw with a grasp that 
 made him cringe. 
 
 " What the " began Steve, when the 
 man from Tennessee took up his scythe and 
 slouched away from the group by the tree. 
 
 " Did n t yer know no better n that, yer 
 thunder in fool ? Can t yer see a hole in a 
 grindstun thout it s hung on yer nose ? " 
 
 " What hev I done? " asked Steve, as if 
 dumfounded. 
 
 " Done ? Where ve yer ben, that yer 
 don t know Dixie s wife s left him? " 
 
 " Where ve I ben ? Hain t I ben workin 
 in Boston fer a year ; n since I come home 
 last week, hain t I ben tendin sick folks, so 
 t I could n t git outside the dooryard ? I 
 never seen the man in my life till yesterday, 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 67 
 
 in the field, V I thought he was one o them 
 dark-skinned Frenchies from Guildford that 
 hed come up here fer hayin ." 
 
 " Mebbe I spoke too sharp," said Jabe 
 apologetically ; " but we ve ben scared to 
 talk wives, or even women folks, fer a month 
 o Sundays, fer fear Dixie d up 11 tumble 
 on his scythe, or do somethin crazy. You 
 see it s this way (I d ruther talk than work ; 
 n we ain t workin by time to-day, anyway, 
 on account of the circus comin ) : Bout a 
 year n a half ago, this tall, han some feller 
 turned up here in Pleasant Kiver. He in- 
 hailed from down South somewheres, but he 
 did n t like his work there, n drifted to New 
 York, n then to Boston ; n then he remem 
 bered his mother was a State o Maine 
 woman, n he come here to see how he liked. 
 We did n t take no stock in him at first, 
 we never hed one o that nigger-tradin , se- 
 cedin lot in amongst us, but he was pleas 
 ant spoken n a square, all-round feller, n 
 did n t git off any secesh nonsense, n it ended 
 in our likin him first-rate. Wall, he got 
 work in the cannin fact ry over on the But- 
 terfield road, n then he fell in with the Mad- 
 doxes. You ve hearn tell of em ; they re 
 relation to Pitt here." 
 
68 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 " I would n t own em if I met em on 
 Judgment Bench ! " exclaimed Pitt Packard 
 hotly. " My stepfather s second wife mar 
 ried Mis Maddox s first husband after he 
 got divorced from her, V that s all there is 
 to it ; they ain t no bloody-kin o mine, n I 
 don t call em relation." 
 
 " Wall, Pitt s relations or not, they re all 
 wuss n the Old Driver, as yer said bout 
 Dan Robinson s wife. Dixie went to board 
 there. Mis Maddox was all out o husbands 
 jest then, she d jest disposed of her fourth, 
 somehow or nother ; she always hed a plenty 
 n to spare, though there s lots o likely 
 women folks round here that never hed one 
 chance, let alone four. Her daughter Fidelity 
 was a chip o the old block. Her father hed 
 named her Fidelity after his mother, when 
 she wa n t nothin but a two-days-old baby, 
 V he did n t know how she was goin to turn 
 out ; if he d a waited two months, I believe 
 I could a told him. /^fidelity would a ben 
 a mighty sight more propriate; but either 
 of em is too long fer a name, so they got to 
 callin her Fiddy. Wall, Fiddy did n t waste 
 no time ; she was nigh onto eighteen years 
 old when Dixie went there to board, n she 
 begun honeyfuglin him s soon as ever she 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 69 
 
 set eyes on him. Folks warned him, but t 
 wa n t no use ; he was kind o bewitched with 
 her from the first. She wa n t so han some, 
 neither. Blamed I know how they do it ; 
 let em alone, f yer know when yer re well 
 off, s my motter. She was red-headed, but 
 her hair become her somehow when she curled 
 V frizzed it over a karosene lamp, V then 
 wound it round n round her head like ropes 
 o carnelian. She hed n t any particular 
 kind of a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry ! 
 when she looked at yer, yer felt kind as if 
 yer was turnin to putty inside." 
 
 " I know what yer mean," said Steve in 
 terestedly. 
 
 " She hed a figger jest like them fashion- 
 paper pictures you ve seen, an the very day 
 any new styles come to Boston Fiddy Mad- 
 dox would hev em before sundown ; the 
 biggest bustles n the highest hats n the 
 tightest skirts n the longest tails to em ; 
 she d git em somehow, anyhow ! Dixie 
 wa n t out o money when he come here, an 
 a spell afterwards there was more 11 a thou 
 sand dollars fell to him from his father s folks 
 down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I 
 tell you ! Dixie bought a top buggy n a 
 sorrel hoss, n they was on the road most o 
 
70 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 the time when he wa n t to work ; V when 
 he was, she d go with Lem Simmons, n 
 Dixie none the wiser. Mis Maddox was 
 lookin up a new husband jest then, so t she 
 did n t interfere " 
 
 " She was the same kind o goods, any 
 how," interpolated Ob Tarbox. 
 
 " Yes, she was one of them women folks 
 that air so light-minded you can t anchor em 
 down with a sewin -machine, nor a dishpan, 
 nor a husband V young ones, nor no nam- 
 able kind of a thing ; the least wind blows 
 em here n blows em there, like dandelion 
 puffs. As time went on, the widder got her 
 self a beau now n then ; but as fast as she 
 hooked em, Fiddy up n took em away from 
 her. You see she d gethered in most of her 
 husbands afore Fiddy was old enough to hev 
 her finger in the pie ; but she cut her eye- 
 teeth early, Fiddy did, n there wa n t no 
 kind of a feller come to set up with the wid 
 der but she d everlastin ly grab him, if she 
 hed any use fer him, n then there d be Hail 
 Columby, I tell yer. But Dixie, he was s 
 blind s a bat n deef s a post. He could n t 
 see nothin but Fiddy, n he could n t see her 
 very plain." 
 
 " He hed warnings enough," put in Pitt 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 71 
 
 Packard, though Jabe Slocum never needed 
 any assistance in spinning a yarn. 
 
 " Warnin s! I should think he hed. The 
 Seventh Day Baptist minister went so fur as 
 to preach at him. 4 The Apostle Paul gin 
 heed, was the text. Why did he gin heed ? 
 says he. 4 Because he heerd. If he had n t 
 a heerd, he couldn t a gin heed, V t 
 would n t a done him no good to a heerd 
 thout he gin heed ! Wall, it helped con- 
 sid ble many in the congregation, specially 
 them that was in the habit of hearin V heed- 
 in , but it rolled right off Dixie like water 
 off a duck s back. He V Fiddy was seen 
 over to the ballin alley to Wareham next 
 day, V they did n t come back for a week." 
 
 " He gin her his hand, 
 
 And he made her his own, " 
 
 sang little Brad Gibson. 
 
 " He hed gin her his hand, but no minis 
 ter nor trial-jestice nor eighteen-carat ring 
 nor stificate could a made Fiddy Maddox 
 anybody s own ceptin the devil s, an he 
 would n t a married her ; she d a ben too 
 near kin. We d never spicioned she d git s 
 fur s marryin anybody, V she only married 
 Dixie cause he told her he d take her to the 
 
72 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 Wareham House to dinner, V to the County 
 Fair afterwards ; if any other feller hed of 
 fered to take her to supper, n the theatre 
 on top o that, she d a married him instid." 
 
 " How d the old woman take it ? " asked 
 Steve. 
 
 " She disowned her daughter punctilio : 
 in the first place, fer runnin away stid o 
 hevin a church weddin ; n second place, 
 fer marryin a pauper (that was what she 
 called him ; n it was true, for they d spent 
 every cent he hed) ; n third place, fer alien- 
 atin the fections of a travelin baker-man 
 she hed her eye on fer herself. He was a 
 kind of a flour-food peddler, that used to 
 drive a cart round by Hard Scrabble, Mod 
 eration, n Scratch Corner way. Mis Mad- 
 dox used to buy all her baked victuals of him, 
 specially after she found out he was a wid 
 ower beginnin to take notice. His cart used 
 to stand at her door so long everybody on the 
 rout would complain o stale bread. But 
 bime bye Fiddy begun to set at her winder 
 when he druv up, n bime bye she pinned a 
 blue ribbon in her collar. When she done 
 tha^t, Mis Maddox allers hed to take a back 
 seat. The boys used to call it a danger 
 signal. It kind o drawed yer tention to 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 73 
 
 p ints bout her chin V mouth V neck, 
 n one thing n nother, in a way that was 
 cal lated to snarl up the thoughts V per- 
 fessors o religion n turn em earthways. 
 There was a spell I hed to say, Remember 
 Rhapseny ! Remember Rhapseny! over 
 to myself whenever Fidcly put on her blue 
 ribbons. Wall, as I say, Fiddy set at the 
 winder, the baker-man seen the blue rib 
 bons, n Mis Maddox s cake was dough. 
 She put on a red ribbon; but land! her 
 neck looked s if somebody d gone over it 
 with a harrer! Then she stomped round 
 n slat the dish-rag, but twa n t no use. 
 Gracious, mother, says Fiddy, 4 1 don t do 
 nothin but set at the winder. The sun 
 shines for all. 4 You re right it does, says 
 Mis Maddox, 4 11 that s jest what I com 
 plain of. I d like to get a chance to shine 
 on someftiing myself. 
 
 "But the baker -man kep on comin , 
 though when he got to the Maddoxes 
 doorsteps he couldn t make change for a 
 quarter nor tell pie from bread ; an sure s 
 you re born, the very day Fiddy went away 
 to be married to Dixie, that mornin she 
 drawed that everlastin numhead of a flour- 
 food peddler out into the orchard, n cut off 
 
74 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 a lock o her hair, n tied it up with a piece 
 o her blue ribbon, n give it to him ; an 
 old Mis Bascom says, when he went past 
 her house he was gazin at it n kissin of 
 it, n his horse meanderin one side the road 
 n the other, n the door o the cart open 
 n slammin to n fro, n ginger cookies 
 spillin out all over the lot. He come back 
 to the Maddoxes next mornin ( t wa n t his 
 day, but his hoss couldn t pull one way 
 when Fiddy s ribbon was pullin t other ) ; 
 an when he found out she d gone with 
 Dixie, he cussed n stomped n took on like 
 a loontic ; an when Mis Maddox hinted 
 she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy d 
 inflicted, he stomped n cussed wuss n 
 ever, n the neighbors say he called her a 
 hombly old trollop, an fired the bread loaves 
 all over the dooryard, he was so crazy at 
 bein cheated. 
 
 " Wall, to go back to Dixie - I 11 be 
 comin right along, boys." (This to Brad 
 Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink 
 of ginger tea preparatory to beginning 
 work.) 
 
 1 " I pity you, Steve ! " exclaimed Brad, 
 between deep swallows. " If you d known 
 when you was well off, you d a stayed in 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 75 
 
 Boston. If Jabe hed a story started, he d 
 talk three days after he was dead." 
 
 " Go long ; leave me be ! Wall, as I was 
 sayin , Dixie brought Fiddy home ( 4 Dell, 
 he called her), an they peared bride n 
 groom at meetin next Sunday. The last 
 hundred dollars he hed in the world hed 
 gone into the weddin tower n on to 
 Fiddy s back. He hed a new suit, n he 
 looked like a major. You ain t got no idea 
 what he was, cause his eyes is dull now, 
 n he s bowed all over, n ain t shaved nor 
 combed, hardly ; but they was the han somest 
 couple that ever walked up the broad aisle. 
 She hed on a green silk dress, an a lace 
 cape that was like a skeeter nettin over her 
 neck an showed her bare skin through, an 
 a hat like an apple orchard in full bloom, 
 hummin -bird an all. Dixie kerried himself 
 as proud as Lucifer. He did n t look at the 
 minister n he did n t look at the congrega 
 tion ; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, as 
 if he could n t hardly keep from eatin of her 
 up. An she behaved consid able well for a 
 few months, as long s the novelty lasted an 
 the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, 
 though, she begun to peter out n git slack- 
 twisted. She allers hated housework as bad 
 
76 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 as a pig would a penwiper, an Dixie lied to 
 git his own breakfast afore he went to work, 
 or go off on an empty stomach. Many s 
 the time he s got her meals for her V took 
 em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fel 
 lers 11 wait on women folks long as they can 
 stan up. 
 
 " Then bime bye the baby come along ; 
 but that made things wuss stid o better. 
 She did n t pay no more tention to it than 
 if it hed belonged to the town. She d go 
 off to dances, an leave Dixie to home tendin 
 cradle ; but that wa n t no hardship to him, 
 for he was bout as much wropped up in the 
 child as he was in Fiddy. Wall, sir, bout 
 a month ago she up V disappeared off the 
 face o the airth thout sayin a word or 
 leavin a letter. She took her clo es, but 
 she never thought o takin the baby ; one 
 baby more or less did n t make no odds to 
 her s long s she hed that skeeter-nettin 
 cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an low 
 fer a fortnight, but after that he give it up 
 as a bad job. He found out enough, I guess, 
 to keep him pretty busy thinkin what he d 
 do* next. But day before yesterday the same 
 circus that plays here this afternoon was 
 playin to Wareham. A lot of us went over 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 77 
 
 on the evenin train, an we coaxed Dixie 
 into goin , so s to take his mind off his 
 trouble. But land ! he did n t see nothin . 
 He d walk right by the lions n tigers in 
 the menagerie as if they was cats n chick 
 ens, an all the time the clown was singin 
 he looked like a dumb animile that s hed 
 a bullet put in him. There was lots o side 
 shows, mermaids n six-legged calves n 
 spotted girls, n one thing n nother, an 
 there was one o them whirligig machines 
 with a mess o rockin -hosses goin round n 
 round, n an organ in the middle playin 
 like sixty. I wish we d a kept clear o the 
 thing, but, as bad luck would hev it, we 
 stopped to look, an there, on top o two high- 
 steppin white wooden hosses, set Mis Fiddy 
 an that dod-gasted light-complected baker- 
 man ! If ever she was suited to a dot, it 
 was jest then n there. She could a gone 
 prancin round that there ring forever n 
 forever, with the whoopin n hollerin n 
 whizzin n whirlin soundin in her ears, n 
 the music playin like mad, n she with no- 
 thin to do but stick on n let some feller 
 foot the bills. Somebody must V ben 
 thinkin o Fiddy Maddox when they in 
 vented them whirl-a-go-rounds. She was 
 
78 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 laughin V carryin on like the old Scratch ; 
 her apple-blossom hat come off, V the baker 
 man put it on, V took consicTable time over 
 it, V pulled her ear n pinched her cheek 
 when he got through ; an that was jest the 
 blamed minute we ketched sight of em. I 
 pulled Dixie off, but I was too late. He 
 give a groan I shall remember to my dyin 
 day, n then he plunged out o the crowd n 
 through the gate like a streak o lightnin . 
 We f ollered, but land ! we could n t find 
 him ; an true as I set here, I never ex 
 pected to see him alive agin. But I did ; I 
 forgot all about one thing, you see, V that 
 was the baby. If it wa n t no attraction to 
 its mother, I guess he cal lated it needed a 
 father all the more. Anyhow, he turned up 
 in the field yesterday mornin , ready for 
 work, but lookin as if he d lied his heart 
 cut out n a piece o lead put in the place 
 of it." 
 
 " It don t seem as if she d a ben brazen 
 enough to come back so near home," said 
 Steve. 
 
 " Wall, I don t s pose she hed any idea 
 o Dixie s bein at a circus over at Ware- 
 ham jest then ; an ten to one she did n t 
 care if the whole town seen her. She 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 79 
 
 wanted to git rid of him, V she didn t 
 mind how she done it. Dixie ain t one of 
 the shootin kind, an anyhow, Fiddy Matl- 
 dox wa n t one to look ahead; whatever 
 she wanted to do, that she done, from the 
 time she was knee high to a grasshopper. 
 I ve seen her set down by a peck basket of 
 apples, V take a couple o bites out o one, 
 V then heave it fur s she could heave it 
 V start in on another, n then another ; n 
 t wa n t a good apple year, neither. She d 
 everlastin ly spile bout a dozen of em n 
 swaller bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Mor 
 ton, now, would eat an apple clean down to 
 the core, n then count the seeds n put em 
 on the window-sill to dry, n get up n put 
 the core in the stove, n wipe her hands on 
 the roller towel, n take up her sewin agin ; 
 n if you ve got to be cuttin nitials in tree 
 bark an writin of em in the grass with a 
 stick, like you ve ben doin for the last half- 
 hour, you re blamed lucky to be doin D s, 
 not F s, like Dixie there ! " 
 
 It was three o clock in the afternoon. 
 The men had dropped work and gone to 
 the circus. The hay was pronounced to 
 be in a condition where it could be left 
 
80 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 without much danger ; but, for that matter, 
 no man would have stayed in the field to 
 attend to another man s hay when there 
 was a circus in the neighborhood. 
 
 Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as 
 in a dream to that subtle something in the 
 swish of the scythe that makes one seek to 
 know the song it is singing to the grasses. 
 
 " Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, 
 Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep ; 
 Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, 
 Hush, they sing to the clover deep ; 
 Hush, t is the lullaby Time is singing, 
 Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. 
 Hush, ah, hush ! and the scythes are swinging 
 Over the clover, over the grass." 
 
 And now, spent with fatigue and watch 
 ing and care and grief, heart sick, mind 
 sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and 
 present certainty and future dread, he sat 
 under the cool shade of the nooning tree, 
 and buried his face in his hands. He was 
 glad to be left alone with his miseries, 
 glad that the other men, friendly as he felt 
 them to be, had gone to the circus, where he 
 would not see or hear them for hours to 
 come. 
 
 How clearly he could conjure up the 
 scene that they were enjoying with such 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 81 
 
 keen relish! Only two days before, he 
 had walked among the same tents, star 
 ing at horses and gay trappings and painted 
 Amazons as one who noted nothing; yet 
 the agony of the thing he saw at last lit up 
 all the rest as with a lightning flash, and 
 burned the scene forever on his brain and 
 heart. It was at Wareham, too, Ware- 
 ham, where she had promised to be his wife, 
 where she had married him only a year be 
 fore. How well he remembered the night ! 
 They left the parsonage ; they had ten miles 
 to drive in the moonlight before reaching 
 their stopping-place, ten miles of such joy 
 as only a man could know, he thought, who 
 had had the warm fruit of life hanging 
 within full vision, but just out of reach, 
 just above his longing lips ; and then, in 
 an unlooked-for, gracious moment, his ! He 
 could swear she had loved him that night, 
 if never again. 
 
 But this picture passed away, and he saw 
 that maddening circle with the caracoling 
 steeds. He heard the discordant music, 
 the monotonous creak of the machinery, the 
 strident laughter of the excited riders. At 
 first the thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of 
 whirling colors, into which there presently 
 
82 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 crept form and order. ... A boy who had 
 cried to get on, and was now crying to get 
 off. ... Old Kube Hobson and his young 
 wife ; Kube looking white and scared, partly 
 by the whizzing motion, and partly by the 
 prospect of paying out ten cents for the 
 doubtful pleasure. . . . Pretty Hetty Dun- 
 nell with that young fellow from Portland ; 
 she too timid to mount one of the mettle 
 some chargers, and snuggling close to him 
 in one of the circling seats. Then, good 
 God T Dell ! sitting on a prancing white 
 horse, with the man he knew, the man he 
 feared, riding beside her ; a man who kept 
 holding 011 her hat with fingers that trem 
 bled, the very hat she " peared bride 
 in ; " a man who brushed a grasshopper 
 from her shoulder with an air of ownership, 
 and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, 
 even dared to pinch her pink cheek, his 
 wife s cheek, before that crowd of on 
 lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The 
 horrible thing was well named ; and life was 
 just like it, a whirl of happiness and 
 misery, in which the music cannot play loud 
 enough to drown the creak of the machinery, 
 in which one soul cries out in pain, another 
 in terror, and the rest laugh ; but the pran- 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 cing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once 
 mounted, there is no getting off, unless . . . 
 There were some things it was not pos 
 sible for a man to bear ! The river ! the 
 river! He could hear it rippling over the 
 sunny sands, swirling among the logs, dash 
 ing and roaring under the bridge, rushing 
 to the sea s embrace. Could it tell whither 
 it was hurrying ? No ; but it was escaping 
 from its present bonds ; it would never have 
 to pass over these same jagged rocks again. 
 " On, on to the unknown I " called the river. 
 " I come ! I come ! " he roused himself to 
 respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice 
 broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, 
 cleaving his torn heart in twain ; not a real 
 voice, the half -forgotten memory of one ; 
 a tender wail that had added fresh misery 
 to his night s vigil, the baby ! 
 
 But the feeble pipe was borne down by 
 the swirl of the water as it dashed between 
 the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he 
 could only close his ears to it ! But it still 
 called called still the river ! And still 
 the child s voice pierced the rush of sound 
 with its pitiful flute note, until the two re 
 solved themselves into contesting strains, an 
 swering each other antiphonally. The river 
 
84 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 the baby the river the baby ; and 
 in and through, and betwixt and between, 
 there spun the whirling merry-go-round, 
 with its curveting wooden horses, its dis 
 cordant organ, and its creaking machinery. 
 
 But gradually the child s voice gained in 
 strength, and as he heard it more plainly 
 the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, 
 thank God! they were hushed. The din, 
 the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain 
 were lulled into silence, as under a " Peace, 
 be still ! " and, worn out with the contest, 
 the man from Tennessee fell asleep under 
 the grateful shade of the nooning tree. So 
 deep was the slumber that settled over ex 
 hausted body and troubled spirit that the 
 gathering clouds, the sudden darkness, the 
 distant muttering of thunder, the frightened 
 twitter of the birds, passed unnoticed. A 
 heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage 
 and fell on his face, but the storm within 
 had been too fierce for him to heed the 
 storm without. He slept on. 
 
 Almost every man, woman, and child in 
 the vicinity of Pleasant Kiver was on the 
 way to the circus, Boomer s Grand Six- 
 in-One Universal Consolidated Show; Bril- 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 85 
 
 Kant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining 
 in the same Vast Firmament ; Glittering 
 Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian Art 
 ists ; the biggest elephants, the funniest 
 clowns, the pluckiest riders, the stubbornest 
 mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest 
 man and the shortest man, the thinnest wo 
 man and the thickest woman, on the hab 
 itable globe; and no connection with any 
 other show on earth, especially Sypher s 
 Two-in-One Show now devastating the same 
 State. 
 
 If the advertisements setting forth these 
 attractions were couched in language some 
 what rosier than the facts would warrant, 
 there were few persons calm enough to per 
 ceive it, when once the glamour of the vil 
 lage parade and the smell of the menagerie 
 had intoxicated the senses. 
 
 The circus had been the sole topic of 
 conversation for a fortnight. Jot Bascom 
 could always be relied on for the latest and 
 most authentic news of its triumphant pro 
 gress from one town to another. Jot was 
 a sort of town crier; and whenever the 
 approach of a caravan was announced, he 
 would go over on the Liberty road to find 
 out just where it was and what were its im- 
 
86 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 mediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of 
 calling at every one of the neighbors on 
 his way home, and delivering his budget of 
 news. He was an attendant at every fu 
 neral, and as far as possible at every wed 
 ding, in the village ; at every flag-raising 
 and husking, and town and county fair. 
 When more pressing duties did not hinder, 
 he endeavored to meet the two daily trains 
 that passed through Milliken s Mills, a mile 
 or two from Pleasant River. He accom 
 panied the sheriff on all journeys entailing 
 serving of papers and other embarrassing 
 duties common to the law. On one occa 
 sion, when the two lawyers of the village 
 held an investigation before Trial Justice 
 Simeon Porter, they waited an hour because 
 Jot Bascom did not come. They knew 
 that something was amiss, but it was only 
 on reflection they remembered that Jot was 
 not indispensable. He went with all 
 paupers to the Poor Farm, and never missed 
 a town meeting. He knew all the condi 
 tions attending any swapping of horses that 
 occurred within a radius of twenty miles, 
 the terms of the trade and the amount paid 
 to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man 
 and who owed the meat-man, and who could 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 87 
 
 not get trusted by either of them. In fact, 
 so far as the divine attributes of omniscience 
 and omnipresence could be vested in a 
 faulty human creature, they were present 
 in Jot Bascom. That he was quite unable 
 to attend conscientiously to home duties, 
 when overborne by press of public service, 
 was true. When Diadema Bascom wanted 
 kindling split, wood brought in, the cows 
 milked, or the pigs fed, she commonly found 
 her spouse serving humanity in bulk. 
 
 All the details of the approach of the 
 Grand Six-in-One Show had, therefore, been 
 heralded to those work-sodden and unam 
 bitious persons who tied themselves to their 
 own wood-piles or haying-fields. 
 
 These were the bulletins issued : 
 
 The men were making a circle in the 
 Widow Buz/ell s field, in the same place 
 where the old one had been, the old one, 
 viewed with awe for five years by all the 
 village small boys. 
 
 The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, 
 whatever they might be, had arrived and 
 gone to the tavern. 
 
 An elephant was quartered in the tavern 
 shed! 
 
 The elephant had stepped through the 
 floor!! 
 
88 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 The advance guard of performers and part 
 of the show itself had come ! 
 
 And the " Cheriot " ! ! 
 
 This far-famed vehicle had paused on top 
 of Deacon Chute s hill, to prepare for the 
 street parade. Little Jim Chute had been 
 gloating over the fact that it must pass by 
 his house, and when it stopped short under 
 the elms in the dooryard his heart almost 
 broke for joy. He pinched the twenty-five- 
 cent piece in his pocket to assure himself 
 that he was alive and in his right mind. 
 The precious coin had been the result of care 
 ful saving, and his hot, excited hands had 
 almost worn it thin. But alas for the vanity 
 of human hopes ! When the magnificent 
 red-and-gold " Cheriot " was uncovered, that 
 its glories might shine upon the waiting 
 world, the door opened, and a huddle of 
 painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead 
 the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the 
 neighborhood. Little Jim gave one panic- 
 stricken look as they leaped over the chariot 
 steps, and then fled to the barn chamber, 
 whence he had to be dragged by his mother, 
 dnd cuffed into willingness to attend the spec 
 tacle that had once so dazzled his imagina 
 tion. 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 89 
 
 On the eventful afternoon of the perform 
 ance the road was gay with teams. David 
 and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss 
 Cummins neat carryall, two children on the 
 back seat, a will-o -the-wisp baby girl held 
 down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was 
 driving Doxy Morton in his mother s buggy. 
 Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, 
 Cyse Higgins, and scores of others were rid 
 ing " shank s mare," as they would have 
 said. 
 
 It had been a close, warm day, and as 
 the afternoon wore away it grew hotter and 
 closer. There was a dead calm in the air, 
 a threatening blackness in the west that made 
 the farmers think anxiously of their hay. 
 Presently the thunderheads ran together 
 into big black clouds, which melted in turn 
 into molten masses of smoky orange, so 
 that the heavens were like burnished brass. 
 Drivers whipped up their horses, and pedes 
 trians hastened their steps. Steve Webster 
 decided not to run even the smallest risk of 
 injuring so precious a commodity as Doxy 
 Morton by a shower of rain, so he drove 
 into a friend s yard, put up his horse, and 
 waited till the storm should pass by. Brad 
 Gibson stooped to drink at a wayside brook, 
 
90 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 and as he bent over the water he heard a low, 
 murmuring, muttering sound that seemed to 
 make the earth tremble. 
 
 Then from hill to hill " leapt the live thun 
 der." Even the distant mountains seemed 
 to have " found a tongue." A zigzag chain 
 of lightning flashed in the lurid sky, and 
 after an appreciable interval another peal, 
 louder than the first, and nearer. 
 
 The rain began to fall, the forked flashes 
 of flame darted hither and thither in the 
 clouds, and the boom of heaven s artillery 
 grew heavier and heavier. The blinding 
 sheets of light and the tumultuous roar of 
 sound now followed each other so quickly 
 that they seemed almost simultaneous. 
 Flash crash flash crash flash 
 crash ; blinding and deafening eye and ear 
 at once. Everybody who could find a shel 
 ter of any sort hastened to it. The women 
 at home set their children in the midst of 
 feather beds, and some of them even huddled 
 there themselves, their babies clinging to 
 them in sympathetic fear, as the livid shafts 
 of light illuminated the dark rooms with 
 more than noonday glare. 
 
 The air was full of gloom ; a nameless ter 
 ror lurked within it ; the elements seemed 
 
THE NOONING TREE. 91 
 
 at war with each other. Horses whinnied 
 in the stables, and colts dashed about the 
 pastures. The cattle sought sheltered places ; 
 the cows ambling clumsily towards some 
 refuge, their full bags dripping milk as they 
 swung heavily to and fro. The birds flew 
 towards the orchards and the deep woods ; 
 the swallows swooped restlessly round the 
 barns, and hid themselves under the eaves 
 or in the shadow of deserted nests. 
 
 The rain now fell in sheets. 
 
 " Hurry up V git under cover, Jabe," said 
 Brad Gibson ; " you re jest the kind of a 
 pole to draw lightnin ! " 
 
 "You hain t, then!" retorted Jabe. 
 " There ain t enough o you fer lightnin 
 to ketch holt of ! " 
 
 Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped 
 out of a cloud, and then another, till the 
 sky seemed lit up by cataracts of flame. A 
 breath of wind sprang into the still air. 
 Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, roar, 
 peal! and as Jabe Slocum looked out of 
 a protecting shed door, he saw a fiery ball 
 burst from the clouds, shooting brazen 
 arrows as it fell. Within the instant the 
 meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue of 
 flame, and then, looking towards home, he 
 
92 THE NOONING TREE. 
 
 fancied that the fireball dropped to earth 
 in Squire Bean s meadow. 
 
 The wind blew more fiercely now. There 
 was a sudden crackling of wood, falling of 
 old timbers, and breaking of glass. The 
 deadly fluid ran in a winding course down a 
 great maple by the shed, leaving a narrow 
 charred channel through the bark to tell 
 how it passed to the earth. A sombre pine 
 stood up, black and burned, its heart gaping 
 through a ghastly wound in the split trunk. 
 
 The rain now subsided ; there was only 
 an occasional faint rumbling of thunder, as 
 if it were murmuring over the distant sea ; 
 the clouds broke away in the west ; the sun 
 peeped out, as if to see what had been 
 going on in the world since he hid himself 
 an hour before. A delicate rainbow bridge 
 stretched from the blackened church stee 
 ple to the glittering weathercock on the 
 squire s barn ; and there, in the centre of 
 the fair green meadows from which it had 
 risen in glorious strength and beauty for a 
 century or more, lay the n6oning tree. 
 
 The fireball, if ball of fire indeed there 
 wtere, had struck in the very centre of its 
 splendid dome, and ploughed its way from 
 feather tip to sturdy root, riving the tree in 
 
TEE NOONING TREE. 93 
 
 twain, cleaving its great boughs left and 
 right, laying one majestic half level with the 
 earth, and bending the other till the proud 
 head almost touched the grass. 
 
 The rainbow was reflected in the million 
 drops glittering upon the bowed branches, 
 turning each into a tear of liquid opal. The 
 birds hopped on the prone magnificence, and 
 eyed timorously a strange object underneath. 
 
 There had been one swift, pitiless, merci 
 ful stroke ! The monarch of the meadow 
 would never again feel the magic thrill of the 
 sap in its veins, nor the bursting of brown 
 bud into green leaf. 
 
 The birds would build their nests and sing 
 their idyls in other boughs. The " time of 
 pleasure and love " was over with the noon 
 ing tree ; over, too, with him who slept be 
 neath; for under its fallen branches, with 
 the light of a great peace in his upturned 
 face, lay the man from Tennessee. 
 
THE FOKE-KOOM RUG. 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 DIADEMA, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting 
 at the window of the village watch-tower, so 
 called because it commanded a view of nearly 
 everything that happened in Pleasant River ; 
 those details escaping the physical eye being 
 supplied by faith and imagination working 
 in the light of past experience. She sat in 
 the chair of honor, the chair of choice, the 
 high-backed rocker by the southern window, 
 in which her husband s mother, old Mrs. 
 Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a 
 still more powerful intellectual telescope to 
 the doings of her neighbors. Diadema s seat 
 had formerly been on the less desirable side 
 of the little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis 
 was now installed. 
 
 Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore- 
 room rug, the former one having been trans 
 ferred to Miss Hollis s chamber ; for, as the 
 teacher at the brick schoolhouse, a graduate 
 of a Massachusetts normal school, and the 
 daughter of a deceased judge, she was a 
 
98 THE FORE-ROOM RUG, 
 
 boarder of considerable consequence. It 
 was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two 
 women were alone. It was a pleasant, peace 
 ful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every 
 part. The floor was covered by a cheerful 
 patriotic rag carpet woven entirely of red, 
 white, and blue rags, and protected in vari 
 ous exposed localities by button rugs, red, 
 white, and blue disks superimposed one on 
 the other. 
 
 Diadema Bascom was a person of some 
 sentiment. When her old father, Captain 
 Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from 
 under his pillow, and handed her a twenty- 
 dollar bill to get something to remember him 
 by. This unwonted occurrence burned itself 
 into the daughter s imagination, and when 
 she came as a bride to the Bascom house she 
 refurnished the sitting-room as a kind of 
 monument to the departed soldier, whose 
 sword and musket were now tied to the wall 
 with neatly hemmed bows of bright red cot 
 ton. 
 
 The chair cushions were of red-and-white 
 glazed patch, the turkey wings that served 
 as hearth brushes were hung against the 
 white-painted chimney-piece with blue skirt 
 braid, and the white shades were finished 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 99 
 
 with home-made scarlet " tossels." A little 
 whatnot in one corner was laden with the 
 trophies of battle. The warrior s brass but 
 tons were strung on a red picture cord and 
 hung over his daguerreotype on the upper 
 shelf ; there was a tarnished shoulder strap, 
 and a flattened bullet that the captain s jeal 
 ous contemporaries swore he never stopped, 
 unless he got it in the rear when he was fly 
 ing from the foe. There was also a little tin 
 canister in which a charge of powder had 
 been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, 
 said that " the cap n put it in his musket 
 when he went into the war, and kep it there 
 till he come out." These objects were taste 
 fully decorated with the national colors. In 
 fact, no modern aesthete could have arranged 
 a symbolic symphony of grief and glory with 
 any more fidelity to an ideal than Diadema 
 Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, 
 white, and blue. 
 
 Eows of ripening tomatoes lay along the 
 ledges of the windows, and a tortoise-shell 
 cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The 
 tall clock in the corner ticked peacefully. 
 Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking at the 
 jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars 
 on a blue ground, the trig little ship, the old 
 
100 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 house, and the jolly moon again, creeping 
 one after another across the open space at 
 the top. 
 
 Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering 
 statistics of the last horse trade ; little Jot 
 was building " stickin " houses in the barn ; 
 Priscilla was sewing long strips for braid 
 ing ; while Diadema sat at the dra wing-in 
 frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of 
 cut rags by her side. 
 
 Not many weeks before she had paid one 
 of her periodical visits to the attic. No 
 housekeeper in Pleasant Kiver save Mrs. 
 Jonathan Bascom would have thought of 
 dusting a garret, washing the window and 
 sweeping down the cobwebs once a month, 
 and renewing the camphor bags in the chests 
 twice a year ; but notwithstanding this zeal 
 ous care the moths had made their way into 
 one of her treasure-houses, the most precious 
 of all, the old hair trunk that had belonged 
 to her sister Lovice. Once ensconced there, 
 they had eaten through its hoarded relics, 
 and reduced the faded finery to a state best 
 described by Diadema as " reg lar riddlin 
 sieves." She had brought the tattered pile 
 down into the kitchen, and had spent a tear 
 ful afternoon in cutting the good pieces from 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 101 
 
 the perforated garments. Three heaped-up 
 baskets and a full dish-pan were the result ; 
 and as she had snipped and cut and sorted, 
 one of her sentimental projects had entered 
 her mind and taken complete possession 
 there. 
 
 "I declare," she said, as she drew her 
 hooking-needle in and out, " I would n t set 
 in the room with some folks and work on 
 these pieces ; for every time I draw in a 
 scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all 
 the world as if she was settin on the sofy 
 there. I ain t told you my plan, Miss Hol- 
 lis, and there ain t many I shall tell ; but 
 this rug is going to be a kind of a hist ry of 
 my life and Lovey s wrought in together, 
 just as we was bound up in one another 
 when she was alive. Her things and mine 
 was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha n t 
 cheat me out of em altogether. If I can t 
 look at em wet Sundays, and shake em out, 
 and have a good cry over em, I 11 make em 
 up into a kind of dumb show that will mean 
 something to me, if it don t to anybody 
 else. 
 
 " We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey 
 and I, and we was twins. There s never 
 been more n half o me left sence she died. 
 
102 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 We was born together, played and went to 
 school together, got engaged and married 
 together, and we all but died together, yet 
 we wa n t a mite alike. There was an old 
 lady come to our house once that used to 
 say, There s sister Nabby, now : she V I 
 ain t no more alike n if we wa n t two; 
 she s jest as dif rent as I am t other way. 
 Well, I know what I want to put into my 
 rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don t hardly 
 know how to begin." 
 
 Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent 
 over the frame with interest. 
 
 " A spray of two roses in the centre, 
 there s the beginning ; why, don t you see, 
 dear Mrs. Bascom ? " 
 
 " Course I do," said Diadema, diving to 
 the bottom of the dish-pan. " I ve got my 
 start now, and don t you say a word for a 
 minute. The two roses grow out of one 
 stalk ; they 11 be Lovey and me, though I m 
 consid able more like a potato blossom. The 
 stalk s got to be green, and here is the very 
 green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey 
 and I had roundabouts of it afterwards. 
 She had the chicken-pox when we was about 
 four years old, and one of the first things 
 I can remember is climbing up and look- 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 103 
 
 ing over mother s footboard at Lovey, all 
 speckled. Mother had let her slip on her 
 new green roundabout over her nightgown, 
 just to pacify her, and there she set playing 
 with the kitten Eeuben Granger had brought 
 her. He was only ten years old then, but 
 he d begun courting Lovice. 
 
 " The Grangers farm joined ours. They 
 had eleven children, and mother and father 
 had thirteen, and we was always playing 
 together. Mother used to tell a funny story 
 about that. We were all little young ones 
 and looked pretty much alike, so she did n t 
 take much notice of us in the daytime when 
 we was running out n in ; but at night, 
 when the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen 
 was taken down and the trundle-beds were 
 full, she used to count us over, to see if 
 we were all there. One night, when she d 
 counted thirteen and set down to her sew 
 ing, father come in and asked if Moses 
 was all right, for one of the neighbors had 
 seen him playing side of the river about 
 supper-time. Mother knew she d counted 
 us straight, but she went round with a can 
 dle to make sure. Now, Mr. Granger had 
 a head as red as a shumac bush ; and when 
 she carried the candle close to the beds to 
 
104 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 take another tally, there was thirteen chil 
 dren, sure enough, but if there wa n t a red 
 headed Granger right in amongst our boys 
 in the turn-up bedstead ! While father set 
 out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked 
 the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o 
 the middle and took him home, and father 
 found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings 
 under the joiner s bench. 
 
 " They don t have such families nowadays. 
 One time when measles went all over the 
 village, they never came to us, and Jabe 
 Slocum said there wa n t enough measles to 
 go through the Dennett family, so they 
 did n t start in on em. There, I ain t going 
 to finish the stalk ; I m going to draw in a 
 little here and there all over the rug, while 
 I m in the sperit of plannin it, and then it 
 will be plain work of matching colors and 
 filling out. 
 
 " You see the stalk is mother s dress, and 
 the outside green of the moss roses is the 
 same goods, only it s our roundabouts. I 
 meant to make em red, when I marked the 
 pattern, and then fill out round em with a 
 light color ; but now I ain t satisfied with 
 anything but white, for nothing will do in 
 the middle of the rug but our white wedding 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 105 
 
 dresses. I shall have to fill in dark, then, 
 or mixed. Well, that won t be out of the 
 way, if it s going to be a true rag story ; 
 for Lovey s life went out altogether, and 
 mine has n t been any too gay. 
 
 " I 11 begin Lovey s rose first. She was 
 the prettiest and the liveliest girl in the vil 
 lage, and she had more beaux than you could 
 shake a stick at. I generally had to take 
 what she left over. Reuben Granger was 
 crazy about her from the time she was knee- 
 high ; but when he went away to Bangor to 
 study for the ministry, the others had it all 
 their own way. She was only seventeen ; 
 she hadn t ever experienced religion, and 
 she was mischeevous as a kitten. 
 
 " You remember you laughed, this morn 
 ing, when Mr. Bascom told about Hogshead 
 Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep 
 company with Lovey ; but she could n t 
 abide him, and whenever he come to court 
 her she clim into a hogshead, and hid till 
 after he d gone. The boys found it out, 
 and used to call him Hogshead Jowett. 
 He was the biggest fool in Foxboro Four 
 Corners ; and that s saying consid able, for 
 Foxboro is famous for its fools, and always 
 has been. There was thirteen of em there 
 
106 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 one year. They say a man come out from 
 Portland, and when he got as fur as Fox- 
 boro he kep inquiring the way to Dun- 
 stan ; and I declare if he did n t meet them 
 thirteen fools, one after another, standing in 
 their front dooryards ready to answer ques 
 tions. When he got to Dunstan, says he, 
 For the Lord s sake, what kind of a village 
 is it that I ve just went through ? Be they 
 all fools there ? 
 
 "Hogshead was scairt to death whenever 
 he come to see Lovice. One night, when 
 he d been there once, and she d hid, as she 
 always done, he come back a second time, 
 and she went to the door, not mistrusting it 
 was him. Did you forget anything? says 
 she, sparkling out at him through a little 
 crack. He was all taken aback by seeing 
 her, and he stammered out, Yes, I forgot 
 my han k chief ; but it don t make no odds, 
 for I did n t pay out but fifteen cents for it 
 two year ago, and I don t make no use of it 
 ceptins to wipe my nose on. How we did 
 
 lauo;h over that ! Well, he had a conviction 
 
 & 
 
 of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p r aps it 
 
 helped his head some ; at any rate, he quit 
 
 farming, and become a Bullockite preacher. 
 
 "It seems odd, when Lovice wa n t a 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 107 
 
 perfessor herself, she should have drawed 
 the most pious young men in the village, 
 but she did : she had good Orthodox beaux, 
 Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Ad- 
 ventists, all on her string together ; she even 
 had one Cochranite, though the sect had 
 mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger 
 come home, a full-feathered-out minister, 
 he seemed to strike her fancy as he never 
 had before, though they were always good 
 friends from children. He had light hair 
 and blue eyes and fair skin (his business 
 being under cover kep him bleached out), 
 and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple 
 you ever see; for she was dark complected, 
 and her cheeks no otherways than scarlit 
 the whole durin time. She had a change 
 of heart that winter ; in fact, she had two of 
 em, for she changed hers for Reuben s, and 
 found a hope at the same time. T was a 
 good honest conversion, too, though she did 
 say to me she was afraid that if Reuben 
 hadn t taught her what love was or might 
 be, she d never have found out enough 
 about it to love God as she d ought to. 
 
 " There, I ve begun both roses, and hers 
 is bout finished. I sha n t have more n 
 enough white alapaca. It s lucky the moths 
 
108 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 spared one breadth of the wedding dresses; 
 we was married on the same day, you know, 
 and dressed just alike. Jot wa n t quite 
 ready to be married, for he wa n t any more 
 forehanded bout that than he was bout 
 other things; but I told him Lovey and I 
 had kept up with each other from the start, 
 and he d got to fall into line or drop out o 
 the percession. Now what next?" 
 
 "Wasn t there anybody at the wedding 
 but you and Lovice? " asked Priscilla, with 
 an amused smile. 
 
 " Land, yes ! The meeting-house was cram 
 jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know what 
 you re driving at! Well, I have to laugh 
 to think I should have forgot the husbands ! 
 They ll have to be worked into the story, 
 certain ; but it 11 be consid able of a chore, 
 for I can t make flowers out of coat and 
 pants stuff, and there ain t any more flowers 
 on this branch, anyway." 
 
 Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt 
 thought, and then made a sudden inspired 
 dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently 
 heard her rummaging in an old chest. She 
 soon came down, triumphant. 
 
 " Wa n t it a providence I saved Jot s and 
 Reuben s wedding ties ! And here they are, 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 109 
 
 one yellow and green mixed, and one 
 brown. Do you know what I m going to 
 do ? I m going to draw in a butterfly hov 
 ering over them two roses, and make it out 
 of the neckties, green with brown spots. 
 That 11 bring in the husbands ; and land ! I 
 would n t have either of em know it for the 
 world. I 11 take a pattern of that lunar 
 moth you pinned on the curtain yester 
 day." 
 
 Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. 
 "You have some very ingenious ideas and 
 some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do 
 you know it? " 
 
 "It s the first time I ever heard tell of 
 it," said Diadema cheerfully. "Lovey was 
 the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I 
 was always plain and practical. While I 
 think of it, I 11 draw in a little mite of this 
 red into my carnation pink. It was a red 
 scarf Keuben brought Lovey from Portland. 
 It was the first thing he ever give her, and 
 aunt Hitty said if one of the Abel Grangers 
 give away anything that cost money, it 
 meant business. That was all fol-de-rol, 
 for there never was a more liberal husband, 
 though he was a poor minister; but then 
 they always are poor, without they re rich ; 
 
110 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 there don t seem to be any halfway in min 
 isters. 
 
 "We was both lucky that way. There 
 ain t a stingy bone in Jot Bascom s body. 
 He don t make much money, but what he 
 does make goes into the bureau drawer, and 
 the one that needs it most takes it out. He 
 never asks me what I done with the last 
 five cents he give me. You ve never been 
 married, Miss Hollis, and you ain t engaged, 
 so you don t know much about it ; but I tell 
 you there s a heap o foolishness talked 
 about husbands. If you get the one you 
 like yourself, I don t know as it matters if 
 all the other women folks in town don t 
 happen to like him as well as you do ; they 
 ain t called on to do that. They see the 
 face he turns to them, not the one he turns 
 to you. Jot ain t a very good provider, nor 
 he ain t a man that s much use round a 
 farm, but he s such a fav rite I can t blame 
 him. There s one thing : when he does 
 come home he s got something to say, and 
 he s always as lively as a cricket, and smil 
 ing as a basket of chips. I like a man that s 
 good comp ny, even if he ain t so fore 
 handed. There ain t anything specially 
 lovable about forehandedness, when you 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. Ill 
 
 come to that. I should n t ever feel clrawed 
 to a man because he was on time with his 
 work. He s got such pleasant ways, Jot 
 has ! The other afternoon he did n t get 
 home early enough to milk; and after I 
 done the two cows, I split the kindling and 
 brought in the wood, for I knew he d want 
 to go to the tavern and tell the boys bout 
 the robbery up to Boylston. There ain t 
 anybody but Jot in this village that has wit 
 enough to find out what s going on, and tell 
 it in an int resting way round the tavern 
 fire. And he can do it without being full 
 of cider, too; he don t need any apple juice 
 to limber his tongue ! 
 
 "Well, when he come in, he see the pails 
 of milk, and the full wood-box, and the 
 supper laid out under the screen cloth on 
 the kitchen table, and he come up to me at 
 the sink, and says he, Diademy, you re 
 the best wife in this county, and the bright 
 est jewel in my crown, that s what you 
 are ! (He got that idea out of a duet he 
 sings with Almiry Berry.) Now I d like 
 to know whether that ain t pleasanter than 
 t is to have a man do all the shed V barn 
 work up smart, and then set round the 
 stove looking as doleful as a last year s 
 
112 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 bircTs-nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: 
 get a good provider if you can, but anyhow 
 try to find you a husband that 11 keep on 
 courting a little now and then, when he 
 ain t too busy; it smooths things consid - 
 able round the house. 
 
 "There, I got so int rested in what I was 
 saying, I ve went on and finished the carna 
 tion, and some of the stem, too. Now what 
 comes next? Why, the thing that happened 
 next, of course, and that was little Jot. 
 
 " 1 11 work in a bud on my rose and one 
 on Lovey s, and my bud 11 be made of Jot s 
 first trousers. The goods ain t very appro 
 priate for a rosebud, but it 11 be mostly cov 
 ered with green on the outside, and it 11 
 have to do, for the idee is the most impor 
 tant thing in this rug. When I put him 
 into pants, I had n t any cloth in the house, 
 and it was such bad going Jot could n t get 
 to Wareham to buy me anything ; so I made 
 em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and 
 lined em with flannel." 
 
 "Buds are generally the same color as 
 the roses, aren t they ?" ventured Priscilla. 
 
 "I don t care if they be," said Diadema 
 obstinately. " What s to hender this bud s 
 bein grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 113 
 
 black as an Injun, but the little Granger 
 children were all red-headed, for they took 
 after their father. But I don t know ; you ve 
 kind o got me out o conceit with it. I s pose 
 I could have taken a piece of his baby blan 
 ket; but the moths never et a mite o that, 
 and it s too good to cut up. There s one 
 thing I can do : I can make the bud with a 
 long stem, and have it growing right up 
 alongside of mine, would you?" 
 
 " No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone 
 of your bone, flesh of your flesh, so to 
 speak. I agree with you, the idea is the 
 first thing. Besides, the gray is a very 
 light shade, and I dare say it will look like 
 a bluish white." 
 
 " I 11 try it and see ; but I wish to the 
 land the moths had eat the pinning-blanket, 
 and then I could have used it. Lovey 
 worked the scallops on the aidge for me. 
 My grief! what int rest she took in my 
 baby clothes! Little Jot was born at 
 Thanksgiving time, and she come over from 
 jSkowhegan, where Reuben was settled pas 
 tor of his first church. I shall never forget 
 them two weeks to the last day of my life. 
 There was deep snow on the ground. I 
 had that chamber there, with the door open- 
 
114 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 ing into this setting-room. Mother and 
 father Bascom kep out in the dining-room 
 and kitchen, where the work was going on, 
 and Lovey and the baby and me had the 
 front part of the house to ourselves, with 
 Jot coming in on tiptoe, heaping up wood 
 in the fireplaces so t he most roasted us 
 out. He don t forget his chores in time o 
 sickness. 
 
 "I never took so much comfort in all my 
 days. Jot got one of the Billings girls to 
 come over and help in the housework, so t 
 I could lay easy s long as I wanted to; and 
 I never had such a rest before nor since. 
 There ain t any heaven in the book o Keve- 
 lations that s any better than them two 
 weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good 
 feather bed, fingering the pattern of my 
 best crochet quilt, and looking at the fire 
 light shining on Lovey and the baby. She d 
 hardly leave him in the cradle a minute. 
 When I didn t want him in bed with me, 
 she d have him in her lap. Babies are 
 common enough to most folks, but Lovey 
 was diff rent. She d never had any experi 
 ence with children, either, for we was the 
 youngest in our family; and it wa n t long 
 before we come near being the oldest, too, 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 115 
 
 for mother buried seven of us before she 
 went herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody 
 else look as she done when she held my 
 baby. I don t mean nothing blasphemious 
 when I say twas for all the world like your 
 photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus. 
 
 "The nights come in early, so it was 
 most dark at four o clock. The little cham 
 ber was so peaceful ! I could hear Jot rat 
 tling the milk-pails, but I d draw a deep 
 breath o comfort, for I knew the milk would 
 be strained and set away without my step 
 ping foot to the floor. Lovey used to set 
 by the fire, with a tall candle on the light- 
 stand behind her, and a little white knit 
 cape over her shoulders. She had the pink 
 est cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and 
 a mouth like a little red buttonhole; and 
 when she bent over the baby, and sung to 
 him, though his ears wa n t open, I 
 guess, for his eyes wa n t, the tears o 
 joy used to rain down my cheeks. It was 
 pennyrial hymns she used to sing mostly, 
 and the one I remember best was 
 
 " Daniel s wisdom may I know, 
 Stephen s faith and spirit show ; 
 John s divine communion feel, 
 Moses meekness, Joshua s zeal, 
 Run like the unwearied Paul, 
 Win the day and conquer all. 
 
116 TUB FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 " Mary s love may I possess, 
 Lydia s tender-heartedness, 
 Peter s fervent spirit feel, 
 James s faith by works reveal, 
 Like young Timothy may I 
 Every sinful passion fly. 
 
 " Oh, Diademy, she d say, you was 
 always the best, and it s nothing more n 
 right the baby should have come to you. 
 PVaps God will think I m good enough 
 some time ; and if he does, Diademy, I 11 
 offer up a sacrifice every morning and every 
 evening. But I m afraid, says she, he 
 thinks I can t stand any more happiness, 
 and be a faithful follower of the cross. The 
 Bible says we ve got to wade through fiery 
 floods before we can enter the kingdom. I 
 don t hardly know how Reuben and I are 
 going to find any to wade through; we re 
 both so happy, they d have to be con- 
 sid able hot before we took notice, says 
 she, with the dimples all breaking out in 
 her cheeks. 
 
 "And that was true as gospel. She 
 thought everything Eeuben done was just 
 right, and he thought everything she done 
 was just right. There wa n t nobody else; 
 the world was all Reuben n all Lovey to 
 them. If you could have seen her when 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 117 
 
 she was looking for him to come from Skow- 
 hegan ! She used to watch at the attio win 
 dow ; and when she seen him at the foot of 
 the hill, she d up like a squirrel, and run 
 down the road without stopping for any- 
 thin o- but to throw a shawl over her head. 
 
 o 
 
 And Reuben would ketch her up as if she 
 was a child, and scold her for not putting 
 a hat on, and take her under his coat com 
 ing up the hill. They was a sight for the 
 neighbors, I must confess, but it wa n t one 
 you could hardly disapprove of, neither. 
 Aunt Ilitty said it was tempting Providence 
 and could n t last, and God would visit his 
 wrath on em for making idols of sinful 
 human flesh. 
 
 " She was right one way, it did n t last ; 
 but nobody can tell me God was punishing 
 of em for being too happy. I guess he 
 ain t got no objection to folks being happy 
 here below, if they don t forget it ain t the 
 whole story. 
 
 " Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey s 
 stalk now, and I m going to make it of her 
 baby s long white cloak. I earned the money 
 for it myself, making coats, and put four 
 yards of the finest cashmere into it; for 
 three years after little Jot was born I went 
 
118 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 over to Skowhegan to help Lovey through 
 her time o trial. Time o trial ! I thought 
 
 O 
 
 I was happy, but I did n t know how to be 
 as happy as Lovey did; I wa n t made on 
 that pattern. 
 
 "When I first showed her the baby (it 
 was a boy, same as mine), her eyes shone 
 like two evening stars. She held up her 
 weak arms, and gathered the little bundle 
 o warm flannen into em ; and when she got 
 it close she shut her eyes and moved her 
 lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb 
 to the altar and off ring it up as a sacrifice. 
 Then Reuben come in. I seen him give one 
 look at the two dark heads laying close 
 together on the white piller, and then go 
 down on his knees by the side of the bed. 
 T wa n t no place for me ; I went off, and 
 left em together. We didn t mistrust it 
 then, but they only had three days more of 
 happiness, and I m glad I give em every 
 minute." 
 
 The room grew dusky as twilight stole 
 gently over the hills of Pleasant Eiver. 
 Priscilla s lip trembled; Diadema s tears 
 fell thick and fast on the white rosebud, and 
 she had to keep wiping her eyes as she fol 
 lowed the pattern. 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 119 
 
 "I ain t said as much as this about it for 
 five years," she went on, with a tell-tale 
 quiver in her voice, "but now I ve got go 
 ing, I can t stop. I 11 have to get the 
 weight out o my heart somehow. 
 
 "Three clays after I put Lovey s baby into 
 her arms the Lord called her home. When 
 I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reu 
 ben, says she, holding the baby as if she 
 could never let it go, I did n t think I d got 
 to give up my own in place of it ; but it s 
 the first fiery flood we ve had, dear, and 
 though it burns to my feet I 11 tread it as 
 brave as I know how. 
 
 "She didn t speak a word after that; she 
 just faded away like a snowdrop, hour by 
 hour. And Reuben and I stared one an 
 other in the face as if we was dead instead 
 of her, and we went about that house o 
 mourning like sleep-walkers for days and 
 days, not knowing whether we et or slept, 
 or what we done. 
 
 "As for the baby, the poor little mite 
 did n t live many hours after its mother, and 
 we buried em together. Reuben and I 
 knew what Lovey would have liked. She 
 gave her life for the baby s, and it was a 
 useless sacrifice, after all. No, it wa n t 
 
120 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 neither ; it could n t have been ! You need 
 n t tell me God 11 let such sacrifices as that 
 come out useless ! But anyhow, we had one 
 coffin for em both, and I opened Lovey s 
 arms and laid the baby in em. When Reu 
 ben and I took our last look, we thought she 
 seemed more n ever like Mary, the mother 
 of Jesus. There never was another like her, 
 and there never will be. Nonesuch, Reu 
 ben used to call her." 
 
 There was silence in the room, broken 
 only by the ticking of the old clock and the 
 tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made 
 an impetuous movement, flung herself down 
 by the basket of rags, and buried her head 
 in Diadema s gingham apron. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Bascom, don t cry. I m 
 sorry, as the children say." 
 
 "No, I won t more n a minute. Jot can t 
 stand it to see me give way. You go and 
 touch a match to the kitchen fire, so t the 
 kettle will be boiling, and I 11 have a min 
 ute to myself. I don t know what the neigh 
 bors would think to ketch me crying over 
 my drawing-in frame; but the spell s over 
 now, or bout over, and when I can muster 
 up courage I 11 take the rest of the baby s 
 cloak and put a border of white everlastings 
 
THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 121 
 
 round the outside of the rug. It 11 always 
 mean the baby s birth and Lovey s death to 
 me; but the flowers will remind me it s life 
 everlasting for both of em, and so it s the 
 most comforting end I can think of." 
 
 It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was 
 finished and laid in front of the sofa in the 
 fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. 
 When company was expected, she removed 
 it from its accustomed place, and spread it 
 in a corner of the room where no profane 
 foot could possibly tread on it. Unexpected 
 callers were managed by a different method. 
 If they seated themselves on the sofa, she 
 would fear they did not "set easy" or "rest 
 comfortable " there, and suggest their mov 
 ing to the stuffed chair by the window. 
 The neighbors thought this solicitude merely 
 another sign of Diadema s "p ison neat 
 ness," excusable in this case, as there was 
 so much white in the new rug. 
 
 The fore - room blinds were ordinarily 
 closed, and the chillness of death pervaded 
 the sacred apartment; but on great occa 
 sions, when the sun was allowed to penetrate 
 the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each 
 window, and a blaze was lighted in the fire 
 place, Miss Hollis would look in as she went 
 
122 THE FORE-ROOM RUG. 
 
 upstairs, and muse a moment over the pa 
 thetic little romance of rags, the story of two 
 lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned 
 posies, whose gay tints were brought out by 
 a setting of sombre threads. Existence had 
 gone so quietly in this remote corner of the 
 world that all its important events, baby 
 hood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, mo 
 therhood, with all their mysteries of love 
 and life and death, were chronicled in this 
 narrow space not two yards square. 
 
 Diadema came in behind the little school 
 teacher one afternoon. 
 
 "I cal late," she said, "that being kep in 
 a dark room, and never being tread on, it 
 will last longer n I do. If it does, Pris- 
 cilla, you know that white crape shawl of 
 mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays : that 
 would make a second row of everlastings 
 round the border. You could piece out the 
 linings good and smooth on the under side, 
 draw in the white flowers, and fill em round 
 with black to set em off. The rug would 
 be han somer than ever then, and the story 
 would be finished." 
 
A VILLAGE STKADIVARIUS. 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 i. 
 
 "Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, 
 Know more than any book. 
 Down with your doleful problems, 
 And court the sunny brook. 
 The south-winds are quick-witted, 
 The schools are sad and slow, 
 The masters quite omitted 
 The lore we care to know." 
 
 EMERSON S April. 
 
 "FiND the 317th page, Davy, and begin 
 at the top of the right-hand column." 
 
 The boy turned the leaves of the old in 
 struction book obediently, and then began 
 to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone : 
 
 " One of Pag-pag "- 
 
 "Pag-a-iii-ni s." 
 
 " 4 One of Paggernyner s (I wish all the 
 fellers in your stories did n t have such 
 tough old names !) most dis-as-ter-ous tri 
 umphs he had when playing at Lord Hol 
 land s. (Who was Lord Holland, uncle 
 Tony?) Some one asked him to im-pro- 
 vise on the violin the story of a son who 
 
126 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 kills liis father, runs a-way, becomes a high 
 way-man, falls in love with a girl who will 
 not listen to him ; so he leads her to a wild 
 country site, suddenly jumping with her 
 from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s " 
 
 " Abyss." 
 
 a rock into an abyss, where 
 they disappear forever. Paggernyner lis 
 tened quietly, and when the story was at an 
 end he asked that all the lights should be 
 distinguished. 
 
 "Look closer, Davy." 
 
 " Should be extinguished. He then be 
 gan playing, and so terrible was the musical 
 in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been 
 given him that several of the ladies fainted, 
 and the sal-salon-salon, when relighted, 
 looked like a battle-field. Cracky! Would 
 n t you like to have been there, uncle Tony? 
 But I don t believe anybody ever played 
 that way, do you?" 
 
 "Yes," said the listener, dreamily raising 
 his sightless eyes to the elm -tree that grew 
 by the kitchen door. " I believe it, and I 
 can hear it myself when you read the story 
 to me. I feel that the secret of everything 
 in the world that is beautiful, or true, or 
 terrible, is hidden in the strings of my 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 127 
 
 violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it 
 from captivity." 
 
 "You make stories on your violin, too, 
 uncle Tony, even if the ladies don t faint 
 away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn t 
 look like a battle-field when you ve finished. 
 I m glad it does n t, for my part, for I 
 should have more housework to do than 
 ever." 
 
 "Poor Davy! you couldn t hate house 
 work any worse if you were a woman ; but 
 it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one 
 of your pictures, laddie ; make me see with 
 your eyes." 
 
 The boy put down the book and leaped 
 out of the open door, barely touching the 
 old millstone that served for a step. Tak 
 ing a stand in the well-worn path, he rested 
 his hands on his hips, swept the landscape 
 with the glance of an eagle, and began like 
 a young improvisator : 
 
 "The sun is just dropping behind Briga 
 dier Hill." 
 
 "What color is it?" 
 
 "Red as fire, and there isn t anything 
 near it, it s almost alone in the sky; 
 there s only teenty little white feather 
 clouds here and there. The bridge looks 
 
128 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 as if it was a silver string tying the two 
 sides of the river together. The water is 
 pink where the sun shines into it. All the 
 leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in 
 the red light, I tell you, nunky, just as 
 if I was looking through red glass. The 
 weather vane on Squire Bean s barn dazzles 
 so the rooster seems to be shooting gold 
 arrows into the river. I can see the tip top 
 of Mount Washington where the peak of its 
 snow-cap touches the pink sky. The hen 
 house door is open. The chickens are all 
 on their roost, with their heads cuddled un 
 der their wings." 
 
 "Did you feed them?" 
 
 The boy clapped his hand over his mouth 
 with a comical gesture of penitence, and 
 dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, 
 which he scattered over the ground, enti 
 cing the sleepy fowls by insinuating calls of 
 " Chick, chick, chick, chick ! Come, biddy, 
 biddy, biddy, biddy! Come, chick, chick, 
 chick, chick, chick!" 
 
 The man in the doorway smiled as over 
 the misdemeanor of somebody very dear and 
 lovable, and rising from his chair felt his 
 way to a corner shelf, took down a box, and 
 drew from it a violin swathed in a silk bag. 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 129 
 
 He removed the covering with reverential 
 hands. The tenderness of the face was like 
 that of a young mother dressing or undress 
 ing her child. As he fingered the instru 
 ment his hands seemed to have become all 
 eyes. They wandered caressingly over the 
 polished surface as if enamored of the per 
 fect thing that they had created, lingering 
 here and there with rapturous tenderness on 
 some special beauty, the graceful arch of 
 the neck, the melting curves of the cheeks, 
 the delicious swell of the breasts. 
 
 When he had satisfied himself for the 
 moment, he took the bow, and lifting the 
 violin under his chin, inclined his head 
 fondly toward it and began to play. 
 
 The tune at first seemed muffled, but had 
 a curious bite, that began in distant echoes, 
 but after a few minutes playing grew firmer 
 and clearer, ringing out at last with velvety 
 richness and strength until the atmosphere 
 was satiated with harmony. No more ethe 
 real note ever flew out of a bird s throat 
 than Anthony Croft set free from this vio 
 lin, his liebling, his "swan song," made in 
 the year he had lost his eyesight. 
 
 Anthony Croft had been the only son of 
 his mother, and she a widow. His boyhood 
 
130 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 had been exactly like that of all the other 
 boys in Edgewood, save that he hated school 
 a trifle more, if possible, than any of the 
 others; though there was a unanimity of 
 aversion in this matter that surprised and 
 wounded teachers and parents. 
 
 The school was the ordinary "deestrick" 
 school of that time ; there were not enough 
 scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a 
 " degraded school. The difference between 
 Anthony and the other boys lay in the rea 
 son as well as the degree of his abhorrence. 
 
 He had come into the world a naked, 
 starving human soul; he longed to clothe 
 himself, and he was hungry and ever hun 
 grier for knowledge; but never within the 
 four walls of the village schoolhouse could 
 he get hold of one fact that would yield him 
 its secret sense, one glimpse of clear light 
 that would shine in upon the "darkness 
 which may be felt " in his mind, one thought 
 or word that would feed his soul. 
 
 The only place where his longings were 
 ever stilled, where he seemed at peace with 
 himself, where he understood what he was 
 made for, was out of doors in the woods. 
 When he should have been poring over the 
 sweet, palpitating mysteries of the multipli- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVAR1US. 131 
 
 cation table, his vagrant gaze was always 
 on the open window near which he sat. He 
 could never study when a fly buzzed on the 
 window-pane; he was always standing on 
 the toes of his bare feet, trying to locate 
 and understand the buzz that puzzled him. 
 The book was a mute, soulless thing that 
 had no relation to his inner world of thought 
 
 o 
 
 and feeling. He turned ever from the dead 
 seven -times -six to the mystery of life about 
 him. 
 
 He was never a special favorite with his 
 teachers; that was scarcely to be expected. 
 In his very early years, his pockets were 
 gone through with every morning when he 
 entered the school door, and the contents, 
 when confiscated, would comprise a Jew s- 
 harp, a bit of catgut, screws whittled out of 
 wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. But 
 when robbed of all these he could generally 
 secrete a piece of elastic, which, when put 
 between his teeth and stretched to its ut 
 most capacity, would yield a delightful 
 twang when played upon with the forefin 
 ger. He could also fashion an interesting 
 musical instrument in his desk by means of 
 spools and catgut and bits of broken glass. 
 The chief joy of his life was an old timing- 
 
132 A VILLAGE STRADIVAR1US. 
 
 fork that the teacher of the singing-school 
 had given him, but, owing to the degrading 
 and arbitrary censorship of pockets that 
 prevailed, he never dared bring it into the 
 schoolroom. There were ways, however, of 
 evading inexorable law and circumventing 
 base injustice. He hid the precious thing 
 under a thistle just outside the window. 
 The teacher had sometimes a brief season of 
 apathy on hot afternoons, when she was 
 hearing the primer class read, " / see a pig. 
 The pig is big. The big pig can dig ;" 
 which stirring phrases were always punctu 
 ated by the snores of the Hanks baby, who 
 kept sinking down on his fat little legs in 
 the line and giving way to slumber during 
 the lesson. At such a moment Anthony 
 slipped out of the window and snapped the 
 tuning-fork several times, just enough to 
 save his soul from death, and then slipped 
 in again. He was caught occasionally, but 
 not often; and even when he was, there 
 were mitigating circumstances, for he was 
 generally put under the teacher s desk for 
 punishment. It was a dark, close, sultry 
 spot, but when he was well seated, and had 
 grown tired of looking at the triangle of 
 elastic in the teacher s congress boot, and 
 
A VILLAGE STRAD1VARIUS. 133 
 
 tired of wishing it was his instead of hers, 
 he would tie one end of a bit of thread to 
 the button of his gingham shirt, and, carry 
 ing it round his left ear several times, make 
 believe he was Paganini languishing in 
 prison and playing on a violin with a single 
 string. 
 
 As he grew older there was no marked 
 improvement, and Tony Croft was by gen 
 eral assent counted the laziest boy in the 
 village. That he was lazy in certain mat 
 ters merely because he was in a frenzy of 
 industry to pursue certain others had no 
 thing to do with the case, of course. 
 
 If any one had ever given him a task in 
 which he could have seen cause working to 
 effect, in which he could have found by per 
 sonal experiment a single fact that belonged 
 to him, his own by divine right of discov 
 ery, he would have counted labor or study 
 all joy. 
 
 He was one incarnate Why and How, 
 one brooding wonder and interrogation point. 
 "Why does the sun drive away the stars? 
 Why do the leaves turn red and gold? 
 What makes the seed swell in the earth? 
 From whence comes the life hidden in the 
 egg under the bird s breast? What holds 
 
134 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 the moon in the sky? Who regulates her 
 shining? Who moves the wind? Who 
 made me, and what am I? Who, why, 
 how, whither? If I came from God but 
 only lately, teach me his lessons first, put 
 me into vital relation with life and law, and 
 then give me your dead signs and equiv 
 alents for real things, that I may learn 
 more and more, and ever more and ever 
 more." 
 
 There was no spirit in Edgewood bold 
 enough to conceive that Tony learned any 
 thing in the woods, but as there was never 
 sufficient school money to keep the village 
 seat of learning open more than half the 
 year the boy educated himself at the foun 
 tain head of wisdom and knowledge the 
 other half. His mother, who owned him 
 for a duckling hatched from a hen s egg, 
 and was never quite sure he would not turn 
 out a black sheep and a crooked stick to 
 boot, was obliged to confess that Tony had 
 more useless information than any boy in 
 the village. He knew just where to find 
 the first Mayflowers, and would bring home 
 the waxen beauties when other people had 
 scarcely begun to think about the spring. 
 He could tell where to look for the rare 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 135 
 
 fringed gentian, the yellow violet, the In 
 dian pipe. There were clefts in the rocks 
 of the Indian Cellar where, when every one 
 else failed, he could find harebells and col 
 umbines. 
 
 When his tasks were done, and the 
 other boys were amusing themselves each in 
 his own way, you would find Tony lying 
 flat on the pine needles in the woods, listen 
 ing to the notes of the wild birds, and imi 
 tating them patiently, till you could scarcely 
 tell which was boy and which was bird ; and 
 if you could, the birds couldn t, for many 
 a time he coaxed the bobolinks and thrushes 
 to perch on the low boughs above his head 
 and chirp to him as if he were a feathered 
 brother. There was nothing about the build 
 ing of nests with which he was not familiar. 
 He could have taken hold and helped if the 
 birds had not been so shy, and if he had 
 had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. 
 He would sit near a beehive for hours with 
 out moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, 
 under the full glare of the sun, watching 
 the ants acting out their human comedy; 
 sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with 
 stones, that the comedy might not be turned 
 into tragedy by a careless footfall. The 
 
136 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 cottage on the river road grew more and 
 more to resemble a museum and herbarium 
 as the years went by, and the Widow 
 Croft s weekly house-cleaning was a matter 
 that called for the exercise of Christian 
 grace. 
 
 Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, 
 considerate, and obedient. His mother had 
 no idea that he would ever be able, or in 
 deed willing, to make a living; but there 
 was a forest of young timber growing up, 
 a small hay farm to depend upon, and a lit 
 tle hoard that would keep him out of the 
 poorhouse when she died and left him to his 
 own devices. It never occurred to her that 
 he was in any way remarkable. If he were 
 difficult to understand, it reflected more 
 upon his eccentricity than upon her density. 
 What was a woman to do with a boy of 
 twelve who, when she urged him to drop 
 the old guitar he was taking apart and 
 hurry off to school, cried, "Oh, mother! 
 when there is so much to learn in this 
 world, it is wicked, wicked, to waste time 
 in school." 
 
 About this period Tony spent hours in the 
 attic arranging bottles and tumblers into a 
 musical scale. He also invented an instru- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 137 
 
 ment made of small and great, long and 
 short pins, driven into soft board to differ 
 ent depths, and when the widow passed his 
 door on the way to bed she invariably saw 
 this barbaric thing locked to the boy s 
 breast, for he often played himself to sleep 
 with it. 
 
 At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put 
 together again, strengthened, soldered, tin 
 kered, mended, and braced, every accor 
 dion, guitar, melodeon, dulcimer, and fid 
 dle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the 
 neighboring villages. There was a little 
 money to be earned in this way, but very 
 little, as people in general regarded this 
 "tinkering " as a pleasing diversion in which 
 they could indulge him without danger. As 
 an example of this attitude, Dr. Berry s 
 wife s melodeon had lost two stops, the 
 pedals had severed connection with the rest 
 of the works, it wheezed like an asthmatic, 
 and two black keys were missing. Anthony 
 worked more than a week on its rehabilita 
 tion, and received in return Mrs. Berry s 
 promise that the doctor would pull a tooth 
 for him some time! This, of course, was a 
 guerdon for the future, but it seemed pathet 
 ically distant to the lad who had never had 
 
138 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 a toothache in his life. He had to plead 
 with Cyse Higgins for a week before that 
 prudent young farmer would allow him to 
 touch his five -dollar fiddle. He obtained 
 permission at last only by offering to give 
 Cyse his calf in case he spoiled the violin. 
 "That seems square," said Cyse doubtfully, 
 "but after all, you can t play on a calf!" 
 "Neither will your fiddle give milk, if you 
 keep it long enough," retorted Tony; and 
 this argument was convincing. 
 
 So great was his confidence in Tony s 
 skill that Squire Bean trusted his father s 
 violin to him, one that had been bought in 
 Berlin seventy years before. It had been 
 hanging on the attic wall for a half century, 
 so that the back was split in twain, the 
 sound-post lost, the neck and the tailpiece 
 cracked. The lad took it home, and stud 
 ied it for two whole evenings before the 
 open fire. The problem of restoring it was 
 quite beyond his abilities. He finally took 
 the savings of two summers "blueberry 
 money " and walked sixteen miles to Port 
 land, where he bought a book called The 
 Practical Violinist. The Supplement proved 
 to be a mine of wealth. Even the headings 
 appealed to his imagination and intoxicated 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 139 
 
 him with their suggestions, On Scraping, 
 Splitting, and Eepairing Violins, Violin 
 Players, Great Violinists, Solo Playing, 
 etc. ; and at the very end a Treatise on the 
 Construction, Preservation, Repair, and Im 
 provement of the Violin, by Jacob Augustus 
 Friedheim, Instrument Maker to the Court 
 of the Archduke of Weimar. 
 _ There was a good deal of moral advice in 
 the preface that sadly puzzled the boy, who 
 was always in a condition of chronic amaze 
 ment at the village disapprobation of his 
 favorite fiddle. That the violin did not in 
 some way receive the confidence enjoyed by 
 other musical instruments, he perceived from 
 various paragraphs written by the worthy 
 author of The Practical Violinist, as for 
 example : 
 
 "Some very excellent Christian people 
 hold a strong prejudice against the violin 
 because they have always known it associ 
 ated with dancing and dissipation. Let it 
 be understood that your violin is converted, 
 and such an objection will no longer lie 
 against it. ... Many delightful hours may 
 be enjoyed by a young man, if he has ob 
 tained a respectable knowledge of his instru 
 ment, who otherwise would find the time 
 
140 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 hang heavy on his hands; or, for want of 
 some better amusement, would frequent the 
 dangerous and destructive paths of vice arid 
 be ruined forever. ... I am in hopes, 
 therefore, my dear young pupil, that your 
 violin will occupy your attention at just 
 those very times when, if you were immoral 
 or dissipated, you would be at the grogshop, 
 gaming - table, or among vicious females. 
 Such a use of the violin, notwithstanding 
 the prejudices many hold against it, must 
 contribute to virtue, and furnish abundance 
 of innocent and entirely unobjectionable 
 amusement. These are the views with which 
 I hope you have adopted it, and will con 
 tinue to cherish and cultivate it." 
 
 ii. 
 
 " There is no bard in all the choir, 
 
 Not one of all can put in verse, 
 Or to this presence could rehearse 
 The sights and voices ravishing 
 The boy knew on the hills in spring, 
 "When pacing through the oaks he heard 
 Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, 
 The heavy grouse s sudden whir, 
 The rattle of the kingfisher." 
 
 EMERSON S Harp. 
 
 Now began an era of infinite happiness, 
 of days that were never long enough, of 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 141 
 
 evenings when bedtime came all too soon. 
 Oh that there had been some good angel 
 who would have taken in hand Anthony 
 Croft the boy, and, training the powers 
 that pointed so unmistakably in certain di 
 rections, given to the world the genius of 
 Anthony Croft, potential instrument maker 
 to the court of St. Cecilia ; for it was not 
 only that he had the fingers of a wizard ; his 
 ear caught the faintest breath of harmony 
 or hint of discord, as 
 
 " Fairy folk a-listening 
 Hear the seed sprout in the spring, 
 And for music to their dance 
 Hear the hedge-rows wake from trance; 
 Sap that trembles into buds 
 Sending little rhythmic floods 
 Of fairy sound in fairy ears. 
 Thus all beauty that appears 
 Has birth as sound to finer sense 
 And lighter-clad intelligence." 
 
 As the universe is all mechanism to one 
 man, all form and color to another, so to 
 Anthony Croft the world was all melody. 
 Notwithstanding all these gifts and possi 
 bilities, the doctor s wife advised the Widow 
 Croft to make a plumber of him, intimat 
 ing delicately that these freaks of nature, 
 while playing no apparent part in the divine 
 
142 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 economy, could sometimes be made self- 
 supporting. 
 
 The seventeenth year of his life marked 
 a definite epoch in his development. He 
 studied Jacob Friedheim s treatise until he 
 knew the characteristics of all the great 
 violin models, from the Amatis, Hierony- 
 mus, Aritonius, and Nicolas, to those of 
 Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and Steiner. 
 
 It was in this year, also, that he made a 
 very precious discovery. While browsing 
 in the rubbish in Squire Bean s garret to 
 see if he could find the missing sound-post 
 of the old violin, he came upon a billet of 
 wood wrapped in cloth and paper. When 
 unwrapped, it was plainly labeled "Wood 
 from the Bean Maple at Pleasant Point; 
 the biggest maple in York County, and be 
 lieved to be one of the biggest in the State 
 of Maine." Anthony found that the oldest 
 inhabitant of Pleasant River remembered 
 the stump of the tree, and that the boys 
 used to jump over it and admire its propor 
 tions whenever they went fishing at the 
 Point. The wood, therefore, was perhaps 
 eighty or ninety years old. The squire 
 agreed willingly that it should be used to 
 mend the old violin, and told Tony he 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 143 
 
 should have what was left for himself. 
 When, by careful calculation, he found that 
 the remainder would make a whole violin, 
 he laid it reverently away for another twenty 
 years, so that he should be sure it had com 
 pleted its century of patient waiting for 
 service, and falling on his knees by his bed 
 side said, "I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, 
 for this precious gift, and I promise from 
 this moment to gather the most beautiful 
 wood I can find, and lay it by where it can 
 be used some time to make perfect violins, 
 so that if any creature as poor and as help 
 less as I am needs the wherewithal to do 
 good work, I shall have helped him as Thou 
 hast helped me." And according to his 
 promise so he did, and the pieces of richly 
 curled maple, of sycamore, and of spruce 
 began to accumulate. They were cut from 
 the sunny side of the trees, in just the right 
 season of the year, split so as to have a 
 full inch thickness towards the bark, and a 
 quarter inch towards the heart. They were 
 then laid for weeks under one of the falls in 
 Wine Brook, where the musical tinkle, tin 
 kle of the stream fell on the wood already 
 wrought upon by years of sunshine and 
 choruses of singing birds. 
 
144 A VILLAGE STRAD1VARIUS. 
 
 This boy, toiling not alone for himself, 
 but with full and conscious purpose for pos 
 terity also, was he not worthy to wear the 
 mantle of Antonius Stradivarius ? 
 
 " That plain white-aproned man who stood at work 
 Patient and accurate full fourscore years, 
 Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, 
 And since keen sense is love of perfectness, 
 Made perfect violins, the needed paths 
 For inspiration and high mastery." 
 
 And as if the year were not full enough of 
 glory, the school-teacher sent him a book 
 with a wonderful poem in it. 
 
 That summer s teaching had been the 
 freak of a college student, who had gone 
 back to his senior year strengthened by his 
 experience of village life. Anthony Croft, 
 who was only three or four years his junior, 
 had been his favorite pupil and companion. 
 
 "How does Tony get along?" asked the 
 Widow Croft when the teacher came to call. 
 
 "Tony? Oh, I can t teach him any 
 thing." 
 
 Tears sprang to the mother s eyes. 
 
 "I know he ain t much on book learning," 
 she said apologetically, "but I m bound he 
 don t make you no trouble in deportment." 
 
 "I mean," said the school-teacher gravely, 
 "that I can show him how to read a little 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 145 
 
 Latin and do a little geometry, but lie 
 knows as much in one day as I shall ever 
 know in a year." 
 
 Tony crouched by the old fireplace in the 
 winter evenings, dropping his knife or his 
 compasses a moment to read aloud to his 
 mother, who sat in the opposite corner 
 knitting : 
 
 "Of old Antonio Stradivari, him 
 Who a good century and a half ago 
 Put his true work in the brown instrument, 
 And by the nice adjustment of its frame 
 Gave it responsive life, continuous 
 With the master s finger-tips, and perfected 
 Like them by delicate rectitude of use." 
 
 The mother listened with painful intent- 
 ness. "I like the sound of it," she said, 
 "but I can t hardly say I take in the full 
 sense." 
 
 "Why, mother," said the lad, in a rare 
 moment of self-expression, "you know the 
 poetry says he cherished his sight and touch 
 by temperance; that an idiot might see a 
 straggling line and be content, but he had 
 an eye that winced at false work, and loved 
 the true. When it says his finger-tips were 
 perfected by delicate rectitude of use, I 
 think it means doing everything as it is 
 done in heaven, and that anybody who 
 
146 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 wants to make a perfect violin must keep 
 his eye open to all the beautiful things God 
 has made, and his ear open to all the music 
 he has put into the world, and then never 
 let his hands touch a piece of work that is 
 crooked or straggling or false, till, after 
 years and years of rightness, they are fit to 
 make a violin like the squire s, a violin that 
 can say everything, a violin that an angel 
 wouldn t be ashamed to play on." 
 
 Do these words seem likely ones to fall 
 from the lips of a lad who had been at the 
 tail of his class ever since his primer days ? 
 Well, Anthony was seventeen now, and he 
 was "educated," in spite of sorry recita 
 tions, educated, the Lord knows how ! 
 Yes, in point of fact the Lord does know 
 how ! He knows how the drill and pressure 
 of the daily task, still more the presence of 
 the high ideal, the inspiration working from 
 within, how these educate us. 
 
 The blind Anthony Croft sitting in the 
 kitchen doorway had seemingly missed the 
 heights of life he might have trod, and had 
 walked his close on fifty years through level 
 meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every 
 finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head 
 among the clouds, feet stumbling, eyes and 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 147 
 
 ears open to hear God s secret thought; 
 seeing and hearing it, too, but lacking force 
 to speak it forth again ; for while imperious 
 genius surmounts all obstacles, brushes laws 
 and formulas from its horizon, and with its 
 own free soul sees its "path and the outlets 
 of the sky," potential genius forever needs 
 an angel of deliverance to set it free. 
 
 Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony 
 Croft, I know not which, God knows ! 
 Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. 
 "One thing I do," said Paul. "One thing 
 I do," said Anthony. He was not able to 
 realize his ideals, but he had the "angel 
 aim " by which he idealized his reals. 
 
 O waiting heart of God ! how soon would 
 thy kingdom come if we all did our allotted 
 tasks, humble or splendid, in this conse 
 crated fashion ! 
 
 in. 
 
 " Therein I hear the Pare* reel 
 The threads of man at their humming wheel, 
 The threads of life and power and pain, 
 So sweet and mournful falls the strain." 
 
 EMERSON S Harp. 
 
 Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third 
 stroke of paralysis, and died of a Sunday 
 night. She was all alone in her little cot- 
 
148 A VILLAGE STKADIVAR1US. 
 
 tage on the river bank, with no neighbor 
 nearer than Croft s, and nobody there but 
 a blind man and a small boy. Everybody 
 had told her it was foolish for a frail old 
 woman of seventy to live alone in a house 
 on the river road, and everybody was pleased, 
 in a discreet and chastened fashion of course, 
 that it had turned out exactly as they had 
 predicted. 
 
 Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up 
 to Milliken s Mills, with her little black 
 reticule hanging over her arm, and noticing 
 that there was 110 smoke coming out of the 
 chimney, and that the hens were gathered 
 about the kitchen door clamoring for their 
 breakfast, she thought it best to stop and 
 knock. No response followed the repeated 
 blows from her hard knuckles. She then 
 tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield s bed 
 room window with her thimble finger. This 
 proving of 110 avail, she was obliged to pry 
 open the kitchen shutter, split open a mos 
 quito netting with her shears, and crawl 
 into the house over the sink. This was a 
 considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic 
 elderly lady, but this one never grudged 
 trouble when she wanted to find out any 
 thing. 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 149 
 
 When she discovered that her premoni 
 tions were correct, and that old Mrs. But- 
 terfield was indeed dead, her grief at losing 
 a pleasant acquaintance was largely miti 
 gated by her sense of importance at being 
 first on the spot, and chosen by Providence 
 to take command of the situation. There 
 were no relations in the village; there was 
 no woman neighbor within a mile: it was 
 therefore her obvious Christian duty not 
 only to take charge of the remains, but to 
 conduct such a funeral as the remains would 
 have wished for herself. 
 
 The fortunate Vice-President suddenly 
 called upon by destiny to guide the ship of 
 state, the general who sees a possible Vic 
 toria Cross in a hazardous engagement, can 
 have a faint conception of aunt Hitty s 
 feeling on this momentous occasion. Fu 
 nerals were the very breath of her life. 
 There was no ceremony, either of public or 
 private import, that, to her mind, ap 
 proached a funeral in real satisfying inter 
 est. Yet, with distinct talent in this direc 
 tion, she had always been "cabined, cribbed, 
 confined " within hopeless limitations. She 
 had assisted in a secondary capacity at fu 
 nerals in the families of other people, but 
 
150 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 she would have reveled in personally con 
 ducted ones. The members of her own 
 family stubbornly refused to die, however, 
 even the distant connections living on and 
 on to a ridiculous old age ; and if they ever 
 did die, by reason of a falling roof, ship 
 wreck, or conflagration, they generally died 
 in Texas or Iowa, or some remote State 
 where aunt Hitty could not follow the hearse 
 in the first carriage. This blighted am 
 bition was a heart sorrow of so deep and 
 sacred a character that she did not even 
 confess it to "Si," as her appendage of a 
 husband was called. 
 
 Now at last her chance for planning a 
 funeral had come. Mrs. Butterfield had no 
 kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, who 
 lived in Andover, or Lawrence, or Haver- 
 hill, Massachusetts, aunt Hitty couldn t 
 remember which, and hoped nobody else 
 could. The niece would be sent for when 
 they found out where she lived ; meanwhile 
 the funeral could not be put off. 
 
 She glanced round the house preparatory 
 to locking it up and starting to notify An 
 thony Croft. She would just run over and 
 talk to him about ordering the coffin ; then 
 she could attend to all other necessary pre- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 151 
 
 liminaries herself. The remains had been 
 well-to-do, and there was no occasion for 
 sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined 
 in her own mind to have the latest fashion 
 in everything, including a silver coffin plate. 
 The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to 
 be proud of. They had been sacredly pre 
 served for years and years, and the entire 
 collection numbering nineteen in all 
 had been framed, and adorned the walls of 
 the deceased lady s best room. They were 
 not of solid silver, it is true, but even so it 
 was a matter of distinction to have belonged 
 to a family that could afford to have nine 
 teen coffin plates of any sort. 
 
 Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic de 
 tails as she walked down the road to Croft s. 
 It came to her in a burst of inspiration that 
 she would have two ministers : one for the 
 long prayer, and one for the short prayer 
 and the remarks. She hoped that Elder 
 Weeks would be adequate in the latter di 
 rection. She knew she couldn t for the life 
 of her think of anything interesting about 
 Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed 
 nineteen coffin plates, and brought her hens 
 to Edgewood every summer for their health ; 
 but she had h?ard Elder Weeks make a 
 
152 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 moving discourse out of less than that. To 
 be sure, he needed priming, but she was 
 equal to that. There was Ivory Brown s 
 funeral : how would that have gone on if it 
 hadn t been for her? Wasn t the elder 
 ten minutes late, and what would his re 
 marks have amounted to without her sug 
 gestions? You might almost say she was 
 the author of the discourse, for she gave 
 him all the appropriate ideas. As she had 
 helped him out of the wagon she had said : 
 "Are you prepared? I thought not; but 
 there s no time to lose. Kemember there 
 are aged parents; two brothers living, - 
 one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other 
 clerking in Washington, D. C. Don t men 
 tion the Universalists, there s ben two 
 in the f am ly ; nor insanity, there s ben 
 one o them. The girl in the corner by the 
 clock is the one that the remains has been 
 keeping comp ny with. If you can make 
 some genteel allusions to her, it 11 be much 
 appreciated by his folks." 
 
 As to the long prayer, she knew that the 
 Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied on to pray 
 until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch 
 him by the coat tails. She had done it 
 more than once. She had also, on one oc- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 153 
 
 casion, got up and straightened his minis 
 terial neckerchief, which he had gradually 
 "prayed" around his saintly neck until it 
 was behind the right ear. 
 
 These plans proved so fascinating to aunt 
 Hitty that she walked quite half a mile 
 beyond Croft s, and was obliged to retrace 
 her steps. She conceived bands of black 
 alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the pall 
 bearers, and a festoon of the same over the 
 front gate, if there should be any left over. 
 She planned the singing by the choir. There 
 had been no real choir-singing at any fu 
 neral in Edgewood since the Rev. Joshua 
 Beckwith had died. She would ask them 
 to open with 
 
 Rebel mourner, cease your \veepin . 
 
 You too must die. 
 
 This was a favorite funeral hymn. The 
 only difficulty would be in keeping aunt 
 Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key 
 where nobody but a soprano skylark, accus 
 tomed to warble at a great height, could 
 
154 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 possibly sing it. It was generally given at 
 the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated ; but 
 it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the 
 good elder always looked so unpicturesque 
 when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief 
 over his head before beginning the twenty- 
 seven verses. After the long prayer, she 
 would have Almira Berry give for a solo 
 
 This gro-o-oanin world s too dark and 
 
 dre-e-ar for the saints e - ter - nal rest. 
 
 This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile 
 one to death, enabled one to look upon life 
 with sufficient solemnity. It was a thou 
 sand pities, she thought, that the old hearse 
 was so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly 
 Eldridge, who drove it, would insist on 
 wearing a faded peach-blow overcoat. It 
 was exasperating to think of the public spirit 
 at Egypt, and contrast it with the state of 
 things at Pleasant River. In Egypt they 
 had sold the old hearse house for a sausage 
 shop, and now they were having hearse so 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVAR1US. 155 
 
 ciables every month to raise money for a 
 new one. 
 
 All these details flew through aunt Hit- 
 ty s mind in fascinating procession. There 
 shouldn t be "a hitch" anywhere. There 
 had been a hitch at her last funeral, but she 
 had been only an assistant there. Matt 
 Henderson had been struck by lightning at 
 the foot of Squire Bean s old nooning tree, 
 and certain circumstances combined to make 
 the funeral one of unusual interest, so much 
 so that fat old Mrs. Potter from Deerwander 
 created a sensation at the cemetery. She 
 was so anxious to get where she could see 
 everything to the best advantage that she 
 crowded too near the bier, stepped on the 
 sliding earth, and pitched into the grave. 
 As she weighed over two hundred pounds, 
 and was in a position of some disadvantage, 
 it took five men to extricate her from the 
 dilemma, and the operation made a long 
 and somewhat awkward break in the reli 
 gious services. Aunt Hitty always said of 
 this catastrophe, "If I d a ben Mis Pot 
 ter, I d a ben so mortified I believe I d a 
 said, I wa n t plannin to be buried, but 
 now I m in here I declare I 11 stop ! 
 
 Old Mrs. Butterfield s funeral was not 
 
156 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 only voted an entire success by the vil 
 lagers, but the seal of professional approval 
 was set upon it by an undertaker from 
 Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could 
 make a handsome living in the funeral line 
 anywhere. Providence, who always assists 
 those who assist themselves, decreed that the 
 niece Lyddy Ann should not arrive until 
 the aunt was safely buried; so, there being 
 none to resist her right or grudge her the 
 privilege, aunt Ilitty, for the first time 
 in her life, rode in the next buggy to the 
 hearse. Si, in his best suit, a broad weed 
 and weepers, drove Cyse Higgins s black 
 colt, and aunt Hitty was dressed in deep 
 mourning, with the Widow Buzzell s crape 
 veil over her face, and in her hand a palm- 
 leaf fan tied with a black ribbon. Her com 
 ment to Si, as she went to her virtuous 
 couch that night, was: "It was an awful 
 dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in 
 it. It would a ben perfect if there d ben 
 anybody to shed tears. I come pretty nigh 
 it myself, though I ain t no relation, when 
 Elder Weeks said, You 11 go round the 
 house, my sisters, and Mis Butterfield won t 
 be there; you 11 go int the orchard, and 
 Mis Butterfield won t be there; you ll go 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 157 
 
 hit the barn and Mis Butterfield won t be 
 there ; you 11 go int the shed, and Mis 
 Butterfield won t be there ; you 11 go int 
 the hencoop, and Mis Butterfield won t be 
 there ! That would a drawed tears from 
 a stone most, specially sence Mis Butterfield 
 set such store by her hens." 
 
 And this is the way that Lycldy Butter- 
 field came into her kingdom, a little lone 
 brown house on the river s brim. She had 
 seen it only once before when she had driven 
 out from Portland, years ago, with her 
 aunt. Mrs. Butterfield lived in Portland, 
 but spent her summers in Edge wood on 
 account of her chickens. She always ex 
 plained that the country was dreadful dull 
 for her, but good for the hens; they always 
 laid so much better in the winter time. 
 
 Lyddy liked the place all the better for 
 its loneliness. She had never had enough 
 of solitude, and this quiet home, with the 
 song of the river for company, if one needed 
 more company than chickens and a cat, 
 satisfied all her desires, particularly as it 
 was accompanied by a snug little income of 
 two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum 
 that seemed to open up mysterious avenues 
 of joy to her starved, impatient heart. 
 
158 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 When she was a mere infant, her brother 
 was holding her on his knee before the great 
 old-fashioned fireplace heaped with burning 
 logs. A sudden noise startled him, "and 
 the crowing, restless baby gave an unex 
 pected lurch, and slipped, face downward, 
 into the glowing embers. It was a full 
 minute before the horror-stricken boy could 
 extricate the little creature from the cruel 
 flame that had already done its fatal work. 
 The baby escaped with her life, but was 
 disfigured forever. As she grew older, the 
 gentle hand of time could not entirely efface 
 the terrible scars. One cheek was wrinkled 
 and crimson, while one eye and the mouth 
 were drawn down pathetically. The acci 
 dent might have changed the disposition of 
 any child, but Lyddy chanced to be a sensi 
 tive, introspective bit of feminine humanity, 
 in whose memory the burning flame was 
 never quenched. Her mother, partly to 
 conceal her own wounded vanity, and partly 
 to shield the timid, morbid child, kept her 
 out of sight as much as possible ; so that at 
 sixteen, when she was left an orphan, she 
 had lived almost entirely in solitude. 
 
 She became, in course of time, a kind of 
 general nursery governess in a large family 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 159 
 
 of motherless children. The father was al 
 most always away from home; his sister 
 kept the house, and Lyddy stayed in the 
 nursery, bathing the brood and putting them 
 to bed, dressing them in the morning, and 
 playing with them in the safe privacy of the 
 back garden or the open attic. 
 
 They loved her, disfigured as she was, - 
 for the child despises mere externals, and 
 explores the heart of things to see whether 
 it be good or evil, but they could never 
 induce her to see strangers, nor to join any 
 gathering of people. 
 
 The children were grown and married 
 now, and Lyddy was nearly forty when she 
 came into possession of house and lands and 
 fortune ; forty, with twenty years of un 
 expended feeling pent within her. Forty, 
 -that is rather old to be interesting, but 
 age is a relative matter. Have n t you seen 
 girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled 
 and been nibbled at ever since they were 
 sixteen, but who have neither caught any 
 thing nor been caught? They are old, if 
 you like, but Lyddy was forty and still 
 young, with her susceptibilities cherished, 
 not dulled, and with all the "language of 
 passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leaf 
 age about a spring." 
 
160 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "He shall daily joy dispense 
 Hid in song s sweet influence." 
 
 EMEKSON S Merlin. 
 
 Lyddy had very few callers during her 
 first month as a property owner in Edge- 
 wood. Her appearance would have been 
 against her winning friends easily in any 
 case, even if she had not acquired the habits 
 of a recluse. It took a certain amount of 
 time, too, for the community to get used to 
 the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead, 
 and her niece Lyddy Ann living in the cot 
 tage on the river road. There were num 
 bers of people who had not yet heard that 
 old Mrs. Butterfield had bought the house 
 from the Thatcher boys, and that was fifteen 
 years ago; but this was not strange, for, 
 notwithstanding aunt Hitty s valuable ser 
 vices in disseminating general information, 
 there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle 
 road who was surprised to hear that Daniel 
 Webster was dead, and complained that 
 folks were not so long-lived as they used to 
 be. 
 
 Aunt Hitty thought Lyddy a Goth and 
 a Vandal because she took down the twenty 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 161 
 
 silver coffin plates and laid them reverently 
 away. "Mis Butterfield would turn in her 
 grave," she said, "if she knew it. She ain t 
 much of a housekeeper, I guess," she went 
 on, as she cut over Dr. Berry s old trousers 
 into briefer ones for Tommy Berry. "She 
 gives considerable stuff to her hens that 
 she d a sight better heat over and eat her 
 self, in these hard times when the mission 
 ary societies can t hardly keep the heathen 
 fed and clothed and warmed no, I don t 
 mean warmed, for most o the heathens live 
 in hot climates, somehow or nother. My 
 back door s jest opposite hers; it s across 
 the river, to be sure, but it s the narrer 
 part, and I can see everything she doos as 
 plain as daylight. She washed a Monday, 
 and she ain t taken her clothes in yet, and 
 it s Thursday. She may be bleachin of 
 em out, but it looks slack. I said to Si 
 last night I should stand it till bout Fri 
 day ? seein em lay on the grass there, - 
 but if she didn t take em in then, I should 
 go over and offer to help her. She has a 
 fire in the settin -room most every night, 
 though we ain t had a frost yet; and as 
 near s I can make out, she s got full red 
 curtains hangin up to her windows. I ain t 
 
162 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 sure, for she don t open the blinds in that 
 room till I get away in the morning, and 
 she shuts em before I get back at night. 
 Si don t know red from green, so he s use 
 less in such matters. I m going home late 
 to-night, and walk down on that side o the 
 river, so t I can call in after dark and see 
 what makes her house light up as if the sun 
 was settin inside of it." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling 
 in house-furnishing of a humble sort. She 
 had a passion for color. There was a red- 
 and-white straw matting on the sitting-room 
 floor. Reckless in the certain possession of 
 twenty dollars a month, she purchased yards 
 upon yards of turkey red cotton ; enough to 
 cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, 
 for long curtains at the windows, and for 
 cushions to the rockers. She knotted white 
 fringes for the table covers and curtains, 
 painted the inside of the fireplace red, put 
 some pots of scarlet geraniums on the win 
 dow-sills, filled a newspaper rack with ferns 
 and tacked it over an ugly spot in the wall, 
 edged her work-basket with a tufted trim 
 ming of scarlet worsted, and made an elabo 
 rate photograph case of white crash and red 
 cotton that stretched the entire length of 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 163 
 
 the old -fashioned mantelshelf, and held pic 
 tures of Mr. Reynolds, Miss Elvira Rey 
 nolds, George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, 
 Ella, and Rufus Reynolds, her former 
 charges. When all this was done, she 
 lighted a little blaze on the hearth, took the 
 red curtains from their bands, let them fall 
 gracefully to the floor, and sat down in her 
 rocking-chair, reconciled to her existence 
 for absolutely the first time in her forty 
 years. 
 
 I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough 
 in. Paradise to appreciate and feel Lyddy s 
 joy. I can even believe she was glad to 
 have died, since her dying could bring such 
 content to any wretched living human soul. 
 As Lydia sat in the firelight, the left side 
 of her poor face in shadow, you saw that 
 she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure, 
 clad in a plain black-and-white calico dress, 
 was a graceful, womanly one. She had 
 beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet 
 waist. Her hair was soft and plentiful, 
 and her hands were fine, strong, and sensi 
 tive. This possibility of rare beauty made 
 her scars and burns more pitiful, for if a 
 cheap chromo has a smirch across its face, 
 we think it a matter of no moment, but we 
 
164 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any 
 work of real art. 
 
 Lydia felt a little less bitter and hopeless 
 about life when she sat in front of her own 
 open fire, after her usual twilight walk. It 
 was her habit to wander down the wooded 
 road after her simple five-o clock supper, 
 gathering ferns or goldenrod or frost flowers 
 for her vases; and one night she heard, 
 above the rippling of the river, the strange, 
 sweet, piercing sound of Anthony Croft s 
 violin. 
 
 She drew nearer, and saw a middle-aged 
 man sitting in the kitchen doorway, with a 
 lad of ten or twelve years leaning against 
 his knees. She could tell little of his ap 
 pearance, save that he had a high forehead, 
 and hair that waved well back from it in 
 rather an unusual fashion. He was in his 
 shirt - sleeves, but the gingham was scru 
 pulously clean, and he had the uncommon 
 refinement of a collar and necktie. Out of 
 sight herself, Lyddy drew near enough to 
 hear ; and this she did every night without 
 recognizing that the musician was blind. 
 The music had a curious effect upon her. 
 It was a hitherto unknown influence in her 
 life, and it interpreted her, so to speak, to 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 165 
 
 herself. As she sat on the bed of brown 
 pine needles, under a friendly tree, her 
 head resting against its trunk, her eyes half 
 closed, the tone of Anthony s violin came 
 like a heavenly message to a tired, despair 
 ing soul. Remember that in her secluded 
 life she had heard only such harmony as 
 Elvira Reynolds evoked from her piano or 
 George Reynolds from his flute, and the 
 Reynolds temperament was distinctly inar 
 tistic. 
 
 Lyddy lived through a lifetime of emo 
 tion in these twilight concerts. Sometimes 
 she was filled with an exquisite melancholy 
 from which there was no escape ; at others, 
 the ethereal purity of the strain stirred her 
 heart with a strange, sweet vision of myste 
 rious joy; joy that she had never possessed, 
 would never possess ; joy whose bare exist 
 ence she never before realized. When the 
 low notes sank lower and lower with their 
 soft wail of delicious woe, she bent forward 
 into the dark, dreading that something would 
 be lost in the very struggle of listening; 
 then, after a pause, a pure human tone 
 would break the stillness, and soaring, bird- 
 like, higher and higher, seem to mount to 
 heaven itself, and, "piercing its starry 
 
166 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 floors," lift poor scarred Lydia s soul to the 
 very gates of infinite bliss. In the gentle 
 moods that stole upon her in those summer 
 twilights she became a different woman, 
 softer in her prosperity than she had ever 
 been in her adversity ; for some plants only 
 blossom in sunshine. What wonder if to 
 her the music and the musician became one ? 
 It is sometimes a dangerous thing to fuse 
 the man and his talents in this way; but it 
 did no harm here, for Anthony Croft was 
 his music, and the music was Anthony 
 Croft. When he played on his violin, it 
 was as if the miracle of its fashioning were 
 again enacted ; as if the bird on the quiver 
 ing bough, the mellow sunshine streaming 
 through the lattice of green leaves, the tin 
 kle of the woodland stream, spoke in every 
 tone; and more than this, the hearth-glow 
 in whose light the patient hands had worked, 
 the breath of the soul bending itself in pas 
 sionate prayer for perfection, these, too, 
 seemed to have wrought their blessed influ 
 ence on the willing strings until the tone 
 was laden with spiritual harmony. One 
 might indeed have sung of this little red 
 violin that looked to Lyddy, in the sunset 
 glow, as if it were veneered with rubies 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 167 
 
 all that Shelley sang of another perfect in 
 strument : 
 
 " The artist who this viol wrought 
 To echo all harmonious thought, 
 Fell d a tree, while on the steep 
 The woods were in their winter sleep, 
 Rock d in that repose divine 
 Of the wind-swept Apennine ; 
 And dreaming, some of Autumn past, 
 And some of Spring approaching fast, 
 And some of April buds and showers, 
 And some of songs in July bowers, 
 And all of love; and so this tree 
 O that such our death may be! 
 Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 
 To live in happier form again." 
 
 The viol "whispers in enamoured tone: " 
 
 " Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 
 And summer winds in sylvan cells; . 
 The clearest echoes of the hills, 
 The softest notes of falling rills, 
 The melodies of birds and bees, 
 The murmuring of summer seas, 
 And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 
 And airs of evening; all it knew. . . . 
 All this it knows, but will not tell 
 To those who cannot question well 
 The spirit that inhabits it; ... 
 But, sweetly as its answers will 
 Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
 It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
 For one beloved Friend alone." 
 
 Lyddy heard the violin and the man s 
 voice as he talked to the child, heard 
 
168 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 t 
 
 them night after night ; and when she went 
 home to the little brown house to light the 
 fire on the hearth and let down the warm 
 red curtains, she fell into sweet, sad reve 
 ries ; and when she blew out her candle for 
 the night, she fell asleep and dreamed new 
 dreams, and her heart was stirred with the 
 rustling of new-born hopes that rose and 
 took wing like birds startled from their 
 nests. 
 
 v. 
 
 " Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, 
 A poet or a friend to find: 
 Behold, he watches at the door! 
 Behold his shadow on the floor! " 
 
 EMERSON S Saadi. 
 
 Lyddy Butterfield s hen turkey was of a 
 roving disposition. She had never appreci 
 ated her luxurious country quarters in Edge- 
 wood, and was seemingly anxious to return 
 to the modest back yard in her native city. 
 At any rate, she was in the habit of stray 
 ing far from home, and the habit was grow 
 ing upon her to such an extent that she 
 would even lead her docile little gobblers 
 down to visit Anthony Croft s hens and 
 share their corn. 
 
 Lyddy had caught her at it once, and was 
 now pursuing her to that end for the second 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 169 
 
 time. She paused in front of the house, 
 but there were no turkeys to be seen. Could 
 they have wandered up the hill road, - 
 the discontented, "traipsing," exasperating 
 things? She started in that direction, when 
 she heard a crash in the Croft kitchen, and 
 then the sound of a boy s voice coming from 
 an inner room, a weak and querulous 
 voice, as if the child were ill. 
 
 She drew nearer, in spite of her dread of 
 meeting people, or above all of intruding, 
 and saw Anthony Croft standing over the 
 stove, with an expression of utter helpless 
 ness on his usually placid face. She had 
 never really seen him before in the daylight, 
 and there was something about his appear 
 ance that startled her. The teakettle was 
 on the floor, and a sea of water was flooding 
 the man s feet, yet he seemed to be gazing 
 into vacancy. Presently he stooped, and 
 fumbled gropingly for the kettle. It was 
 too hot to be touched with impunity, and he 
 finally left it in a despairing sort of way, 
 and walked in the direction of a shelf, from 
 under which a row of coats was hanging. 
 The boy called again in a louder and more 
 insistent tone, ending in a whimper of rest 
 less pain. This seemed to make the man 
 
170 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 more nervous than ever. His hands went 
 patiently over and over the shelf, then 
 paused at each separate nail. 
 
 "Bless the poor dear!" thought Lyddy. 
 "Is he trying to find his hat, or what is he 
 trying to do? I wonder if he is music 
 mad?" and she drew still nearer the steps. 
 
 At this moment he turned and came rap 
 idly toward the door. She looked straight 
 in his face. There was no mistaking it : he 
 was blind. The magician who had told her 
 through his violin secrets that she had 
 scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had 
 set her heart to throbbing and aching and 
 longing as it had never throbbed and ached 
 and longed before, the being who had worn 
 a halo of romance and genius to her simple 
 mind, was stone-blind! A wave of impetu 
 ous anguish, as sharp and passionate as any 
 she had ever felt for her own misfortunes, 
 swept over her soul at the spectacle of the 
 man s helplessness. His sightless eyes struck 
 her like a blow. But there was no time to 
 lose. She was directly in his path: if she 
 stood still he would certainly walk over her, 
 and if she moved he would hear her, so, on 
 the *pur of the moment, she gave a nervous 
 cough and said, "Good-morning, Mr. Croft." 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 171 
 
 He stopped short. "Who is it? " he 
 asked. 
 
 "I am it is I am your new neigh 
 bor," said Lyddy, with a trembling attempt 
 at cheerfulness. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have 
 called up to see you before this if it hadn t 
 been for the boy s sickness. But I am a 
 good-for-nothing neighbor, as you have 
 doubtless heard. Nobody expects anything 
 of me." 
 
 ("Nobody expects anything of me." Her 
 own plaint, uttered in her own tone !) 
 
 "I don t know about that," she answered 
 swiftly. "You ve given me, for one, a great 
 deal of pleasure with your wonderful music. 
 I often hear you as you play after supper, 
 and it has kept me from being lonesome. 
 That isn t very much, to be sure." 
 
 "You are fond of music, then?" 
 
 " I did n t know I was ; I never heard any 
 before," said Lyddy simply; "but it seems 
 to help people to say things they could n t 
 say for themselves, don t you think so ? It 
 comforts me even to hear it, and I think it 
 must be still more beautiful to make it." 
 
 Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no 
 sooner uttered this commonplace speech than 
 
172 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 the reflection darted through her mind like 
 a lightning flash that she had never spoken 
 a bit of her heart out like this in all her 
 life before. The reason came to her in the 
 same flash: she was not being looked at; 
 her disfigured face was hidden. This man, 
 at least, could not shrink, turn away, shiver, 
 affect indifference, fix his eyes on hers with 
 a fascinated horror, as others had done. 
 Her heart was divided between a great throb 
 of pity and sympathy for him and an irre 
 sistible sense of gratitude for herself. Sure 
 of protection and comprehension, her lovely 
 soul came out of her poor eyes and sat in 
 the sunshine. She spoke her mind at ease, 
 as we utter sacred things sometimes under 
 cover of darkness. 
 
 "You seem to have had an accident; what 
 can I do to help you? " she asked. 
 
 "Nothing, thank you. The boy has been 
 sick for some days, but he seems worse since 
 last night. Nothing is in its right place in 
 the house, so I have given up trying to find 
 anything, and am just going to Edge wood to 
 see if somebody will help me for a few days." 
 
 "Uncle Tony! Uncle To ny ! where are 
 you? Do give me another drink, I m so 
 hot! " came the boy s voice from within. 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 173 
 
 "Coming, laddie! I don t believe lie 
 ought to drink so much water, but what can 
 I do? He is burning up with fever." 
 
 "Now look here, Mr. Croft," and Lydia s 
 tone was cheerfully decisive. "You sit down 
 in that rocker, please, and let me command 
 the ship for a while. This is one of the cases 
 where a woman is necessary. First and fore 
 most, what were you hunting for? " 
 
 "My hat and the butter," said Anthony 
 meekly, and at this unique combination they 
 both laughed. Lyddy s laugh was particu 
 larly fresh, childlike, and pleased; one that 
 would have astonished the Reynolds children. 
 She had seldom laughed heartily since little 
 Rufus had cried and told her she frightened 
 
 O 
 
 him when she twisted her face so. 
 
 "Your hat is in the wood-box, and I ll 
 find the butter in the twinkling of an eye, 
 though why you want it now is more than 
 My patience, Mr. Croft, your hand is burned 
 to a blister!" 
 
 "Don t mind me. Be good enough to 
 look at the boy and tell me what ails him ; 
 nothing else matters much." 
 
 " I wilt with pleasure, but let me ease you 
 a little first. Here s a rag that will be just 
 the thing," and Lyddy, suiting the pretty 
 
174 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 action to the mendacious word, took a good 
 handkerchief from her pocket and tore it in 
 three strips, after spreading it with tallow 
 from a candle heated over the stove. This 
 done, she bound up the burned hand skill 
 fully, and, crossing the dining-room, disap 
 peared within the little chamber door be 
 yond. She came out presently, and said 
 half hesitatingly, "Would you mind 
 going out in the orchard for an hour or so? 
 You seem to be rather in the way here, and 
 I should like the place to myself, if you 11 
 excuse me for saying so. I m ever so much 
 more capable than Mrs. Buck; won t you 
 give me a trial, sir? Here s your violin 
 and your hat. I 11 call you if you can help 
 or advise me." 
 
 "But I can t let a stranger come in and 
 do my housework," he objected. "I can t, 
 you know, though I appreciate your kind 
 ness all the same." 
 
 "I am your nearest neighbor, and your 
 only one, for that matter," said Lyddy 
 firmly ; " it s nothing more than right that 
 I should look after that sick child, and I 
 must do it. I have n t got a thing to do in 
 my own house. I am nothing but a poor 
 lonely old maid, who s been used to children 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 175 
 
 all her life, and likes nothing better than to 
 work over them." 
 
 A calm settled upon Anthony s perturbed 
 spirit, as he sat under the apple-trees and 
 heard Lyddy going to and fro in the cot 
 tage. " She is n t any old maid, " he thought ; 
 " she does n t step like one ; she has soft 
 shoes and a springy walk. She must be a 
 very handsome woman, with a hand like 
 that ; and such a voice ! I knew the mo 
 ment she spoke that she didn t belong in 
 this village." 
 
 As a matter of fact, his keen ear had 
 caught the melody in Lyddy s voice, a voice 
 full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power. 
 His sense of touch, too, had captured the 
 beauty of her hand, and held it in remem 
 brance, the soft palm, the fine skin, sup 
 ple fingers, smooth nails, and firm round 
 wrist. These charms would never have been 
 noted by any seeing man in Edgewood, but 
 they were revealed to Anthony Croft while 
 Lyddy, like the good Samaritan, bound up 
 his wounds. It is these saving stars that 
 light the eternal darkness of the blind. 
 
 Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo 
 when, with arms akimbo, she gazed about 
 the Croft establishment, which was a scene 
 
176 A VILLAGE STRADIVAR1US. 
 
 of desolation for the moment. Anthony s 
 cousin from Bridgton was in the habit of 
 visiting him every two months for a solemn 
 house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from Pleas 
 ant River came every Saturday and Mon 
 day for baking and washing. Between times 
 Davy and his uncle did the housework to 
 gether; and although it was respectably done, 
 there was no pink-and-white daintiness about 
 it, you may be sure. 
 
 Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in 
 about an hour, laughing a little nervously 
 as she said, " I m sorry to have taken a 
 mean advantage of you, Mr. Croft, but I 
 know everything you ve got in your house, 
 and exactly where it is. I could n t help it, 
 you see, when I was making things tidy. 
 It would do you good to see the boy. His 
 room was too light, and the flies were de 
 vouring him. I swept him and dusted him, 
 put on clean sheets and pillow slips, sponged 
 him with bay rum, brushed his hair, drove 
 out the flies, and tacked a green curtain up 
 to the window. Fifteen minutes after he 
 was sleeping like a kitten. He has a sore 
 throat and considerable fever. Could you 
 can you at least, will you, go up to my 
 house on an errand? " 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 177 
 
 "Certainly I can. I know it inside and 
 out as well as my own." 
 
 "Very good. On the clock shelf in the 
 sitting-room there is a bottle of sweet spirits 
 of nitre ; it s the only bottle there, so you 
 can t make any mistake. It will help until 
 the doctor comes. I wonder you did n t send 
 for him yesterday? " 
 
 "Davy wouldn t have him," apologized 
 his uncle. 
 
 " Wouldn t he? " said Lyddy with cheer 
 ful scorn. "He has you under pretty good 
 control, hasn t he? But children are un 
 merciful tyrants." 
 
 "Couldn t you coax him into it before 
 you go home?" asked Anthony in a whee 
 dling voice. 
 
 " I can try ; but it is n t likely I can in 
 fluence him, if you can t. Still, if we both 
 fail, I really don t see what s to prevent our 
 sending for the doctor in spite of him. He 
 is as weak as a baby, you know, and can t 
 sit up in bed: what could he do? I will 
 risk the consequences, if you will! " 
 
 There was a note of such amiable and 
 winning sarcasm in all this, such a cheery, 
 invincible courage, such a friendly neighbor- 
 liness and cooperation, above all such a dif- 
 
178 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 ferent tone from any he was accustomed to 
 hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt 
 warmed through to the core. 
 
 As he walked quickly along the road, he 
 conjured up a vision of autumn beauty from 
 the few hints nature gave even to her sight 
 less ones on this glorious morning, . the 
 rustle of a few fallen leaves under his feet, 
 the clear wine of the air, the full rush of 
 the swollen river, the whisking of the squir 
 rels in the boughs, the crunch of their teeth 
 on the nuts, the spicy odor of the apples 
 lying under the trees. He missed his mother 
 that morning more than he had missed her 
 for years. How neat she was, how thrifty, 
 how comfortable, and how comforting ! His 
 life was so dreary and aimless; and was it 
 the best or the right one for Davy, with his 
 talent and dawning ambition? Would it 
 not be better to have Mrs. Buck live with 
 them altogether, instead of coming twice a 
 week, as heretofore? No; he shrank from 
 that with a hopeless aversion born of Satur 
 day and Monday dinners in her company. 
 He could hear her pour her coffee into the 
 saucer ; hear the scraping of the cup on the 
 rim, and know that she was setting it slop 
 pily down on the cloth. He could remem- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 179 
 
 ber her noisy drinking, the weight of her 
 elbow on the table, the creaking of her cal 
 ico dress under the pressure of superabun 
 dant flesh. Besides, she had tried to scrub 
 his favorite violin with sapolio. No, any 
 thing was better than Mrs. Buck as a con 
 stancy. 
 
 He took off his hat unconsciously as he 
 entered Lyddy s sitting-room. A gentle 
 breeze blew one of the full red curtains 
 towards him till it fluttered about his shoul 
 ders like a frolicsome, teasing hand. There 
 was a sweet, pungent odor of pine boughs, 
 a canary sang in the window, the clock was 
 trimmed with a blackberry vine; he knew 
 the prickles, and they called up to his mind 
 the glowing tints he had loved so well. His 
 sensitive hand, that carried a divining rod 
 in every finger-tip, met a vase on the shelf, 
 and, traveling upward, touched a full branch 
 of alder berries tied about with a ribbon. 
 The ribbon would be red ; the woman who 
 arranged this room would make no mistake; 
 for in one morning Anthony Croft had pene 
 trated the secret of Lyddy s true personality, 
 and in a measure had sounded the shallows 
 that led to the depths of her nature. 
 
 Lyddy went home at seven o clock that 
 
180 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 night rather reluctantly. The doctor had 
 said Mr. Croft could sit up with the boy 
 unless he grew much worse, and there was 
 no propriety in her staying longer unless 
 there was danger. 
 
 "You have been very good to me," An 
 thony said gravely, as he shook her hand at 
 parting, "very good." 
 
 They stood together on the doorstep. A 
 distant bell called to evening prayer-meet 
 ing; the restless murmur of the river and 
 the whisper of the wind in the pines broke 
 the twilight stillness. The long, quiet day 
 together, part of it spent by the sick child s 
 bedside, had brought the two strangers curi 
 ously near to each other. 
 
 "The house hasn t seemed so sweet and 
 fresh since my mother died," he went on, 
 as he dropped her hand, "and I haven t 
 had so many flowers and green things in it 
 since I lost my eyesight." 
 
 "Was it long ago?" 
 
 "Ten years. Is that long? " 
 
 "Long to bear a burden." 
 
 "I hope you know little of burden-bear- 
 ing?" 
 
 "I know little else." 
 
 "I might have guessed it from the alac- 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVAR1US. 181 
 
 rity with which you took up Davy s and 
 mine. You must be very happy to have 
 the power to make things straight and sunny 
 and wholesome; to breathe your strength 
 into helplessness such as mine. I thank 
 you, and I envy you. Good-night." 
 
 Lyddy turned on her heel without a word ; 
 her mind was beyond and above words. 
 The sky seemed to have descended upon, 
 enveloped her, caught her up into its heaven, 
 as she rose into unaccustomed heights of 
 feeling, like Elijah in his chariot of fire. 
 She very happy! She with power, power 
 to make things straight and sunny and 
 wholesome! She able to breathe strength 
 into helplessness, even a consecrated, God- 
 smitten helplessness like his ! She not only 
 to be thanked, but envied ! 
 
 Her house seemed strange to her that 
 night. She went to bed in the dark, dread 
 ing even the light of a candle ; and before 
 she turned down her counterpane she flung 
 herself on her knees, and poured out her soul 
 in a prayer that had been growing, waiting, 
 and waited for, perhaps, for years : 
 
 "O Lord, I thank Thee for health and 
 strength and life. I never could do it be 
 fore, but I thank Thee to-night for life on 
 
182 A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 
 
 any terms. I thank Thee for this home; 
 for the chance of helping another human 
 creature, stricken like myself ; for the privi 
 lege of ministering to a motherless child. 
 Make me to long only for the beauty of 
 holiness, and to be satisfied if I attain to 
 it. Wash my soul pure and clean, and let 
 that be the only mirror in which I see my 
 face. I have tried to be useful. Forgive 
 me if it always seemed so hard and dreary 
 a life. Forgive me if I am too happy be 
 cause for one short day I have really helped 
 in a beautiful way, and found a friend who 
 saw, because he was blind, the real me un 
 derneath ; the me that never was burned by 
 the fire ; the me that is n t disfigured, unless 
 my wicked discontent has done it; the me 
 that has lived on and on and on, starving to 
 death for the friendship and sympathy and 
 love that come to other women. I have 
 spent rny forty years in the wilderness, feed 
 ing on wrath and bitterness and tears. For 
 give me, Lord, and give me one more vision 
 of the blessed land of Canaan, even if I 
 never dwell there." 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARI US. 183 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Nor less the eternal poles 
 Of tendency distribute souls. 
 There need no vows to bind 
 Whom not each other seek, but find." 
 
 EMERSON S .Celestial Love. 
 
 Davy s sickness was a lingering one. 
 Mrs. Buck came for two or three hours a 
 day, but Lyddy was the self -installed angel 
 of the house ; and before a week had passed 
 the boy s thin arms were around her neck, 
 his head on her loving shoulder, and his 
 cheek pressed against hers. Anthony could 
 hear them talk, as he sat in the kitchen 
 busy at his work. Musical instruments were 
 still brought him to repair, though less fre 
 quently than of yore, and he could still 
 make many parts of violins far better than 
 his seeing competitors. A friend and pupil 
 sat by his side in the winter evenings and 
 supplemented his weakness, helping and 
 learning alternately, while his blind master s 
 skill filled him with wonder and despair. 
 The years of struggle for perfection had not 
 been wasted ; and though the eye that once 
 detected the deviation of a hair s breadth 
 could no longer tell the true from the false, 
 yet nature had been busy with her divine 
 
184 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 work of compensation. The one sense 
 stricken with death, she poured floods of 
 new life and vigor into the others. Touch 
 became something more than the stupid, 
 empty grasp of things we seeing mortals 
 know, and in place of the two eyes he had 
 lost he now had ten in every finger-tip. As 
 for odors, let other folks be proud of smell 
 ing musk and lavender, but let him tell you 
 by a quiver of the nostrils the various kinds 
 of so-called scentless flowers, and let him 
 bend his ear and interpret secrets that the 
 universe is ever whispering to us who are 
 pent in partial deafness because, forsooth, 
 we see. 
 
 He often paused to hear Lydia s low, 
 soothing tones and the boy s weak treble. 
 Anthony had said to him once, "Miss But- 
 terfield is very beautiful, isn t she, Davy? 
 You haven t painted me a picture of her 
 yet. How does she look?" 
 
 Davy was stricken at first with silent em 
 barrassment. He was a truthful child, but 
 in this he could no more have told the whole 
 truth than he could have cut off his hand 
 He was knit to Lyddy by every tie of grati 
 tude and affection. He would sit for hours 
 with his expectant face pressed against the 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 185 
 
 window-pane, and when lie saw her coming 
 down the shady road he was filled with a 
 sense of impending comfort and joy. 
 
 "No," he said hesitatingly, "she isn t 
 pretty, nunky, but she s sweet and nice 
 and dear. Everything on her shines, it s 
 so clean ; and when she comes through the 
 trees, with her white apron and her purple 
 calico dress, your heart jumps, because you 
 know she s going to make everything pleas 
 ant. Her hair has a pretty wave in it, and 
 her hand is soft on your forehead ; and it s 
 most worth while being sick just to have her 
 in the house." 
 
 Meanwhile, so truly is "praise our fructi 
 fying sun," Lydia bloomed into a hundred 
 hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and 
 heart and speech. A sly sense of humor 
 woke into life, and a positive talent for 
 conversation, latent hitherto because she had 
 never known any one who cared to drop a 
 plummet into the crystal springs of her con 
 sciousness. When the violin was laid away, 
 she would sit in the twilight, by Davy s 
 sofa, his thin hand in hers, and talk with 
 Anthony about books and flowers and music, 
 and about the meaning of life, too, its 
 burdens and mistakes, and joys and sorrows; 
 
186 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 groping with him in the darkness to find a 
 clue to God s purposes. 
 
 Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy s 
 house as the autumn grew into winter. lie 
 read to her while she sewed rags for a new 
 sitting-room carpet, and they played domi 
 noes and checkers together in the twilight 
 before supper time, suppers that were a 
 feast to the boy, after Mrs. Buck s cookery. 
 Anthony brought his violin sometimes of an 
 evening, and Almira Berry, the next neigh 
 bor on the road to the Mills, would drop in 
 and join the little party. Almira used to 
 sing Auld Robin Gray, What Will You 
 Do, Love, and Robin Adair, to the great 
 enjoyment of everybody; and she persuaded 
 Lyddy to buy the old church melodeon, 
 and learn to sing alto in Oh, Wert Thou 
 in the Cauld Blast, Gently, Gently Sighs 
 the Breeze, and I Know a Bank. Nobody 
 sighed for the gayeties and advantages of a 
 great city when, these concerts being over, 
 Lyddy would pass crisp seedcakes and rasp 
 berry shrub, doughnuts and cider, or hot 
 popped corn and molasses candy. 
 
 " But there, she can afford to," said 
 aunt Hitty Tarbox; " she s pretty middlin 
 wealthy for Edge wood. And it s lucky she 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 187 
 
 is, for she bout feeds that boy o Croft s. 
 No wonder he wants her to fill him up, af 
 ter six years of the Widder Buck s victuals. 
 Aurelia Buck can take good flour and sugar, 
 sweet butter and fresh eggs, and in ten 
 strokes of her hand she can make em into 
 something the very hogs 11 turn away from. 
 I declare, it brings the tears to my eyes some 
 times when I see her coming out of Croft s 
 Saturday afternoons, and think of the stone 
 crocks full of nasty messes she s left be 
 hind her for that innocent man and boy 
 to eat up. . . . Anthony goes to see Miss 
 Butterfield consid able often. Of course it s 
 awstensibly to walk home with Davy, or do 
 an errand or something, but everybody knows 
 better. She went down to Croft s pretty 
 nearly every day when his cousin from 
 Bridgton come to house-clean. She suspi- 
 cioned something, I guess. Anyhow, she 
 asked me if Miss Butterfield s two hundred 
 a year was in gov ment bonds. Anthony s 
 eyesight ain t good, but I guess he could 
 make out to cut cowpons off. ... It would 
 be strange if them two left-overs should 
 take an marry each other; though, come to 
 think of it, I don t know s t would neither. 
 He s blind, to be sure, and can t see her 
 
188 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 scarred face. It s a pity she ain t deef , 
 so t she can t hear his everlastin fiddle. 
 She s lucky to get any kind of a husband ; 
 she s too humbly to choose. I declare, she 
 reminds me of a Jack-o -lantern, though if 
 you look at the back of her, or see her in 
 meetin with a thick veil on, she s about the 
 best appearin woman in Edgewood. . . . 
 I never see anybody stiffen up as Anthony 
 has. He had me make him three white 
 shirts and three gingham ones, with collars 
 and cuffs on all of em. It seems as if six 
 shirts at one time must mean something out 
 o the common! " 
 
 Aunt Hitty was right ; it did mean some 
 thing out of the common. It meant the 
 growth of an all-engrossing, grateful, di 
 vinely tender passion between two love- 
 starved souls. On the one hand, Lyddy, 
 who though she had scarcely known the 
 meaning of love in all her dreary life, yet 
 was as full to the brim of all sweet, womanly 
 possibilities of loving and giving as any 
 pretty woman ; on the other, the blind vio 
 lin-maker, who had never loved any woman 
 but his mother, and who was in the direst 
 need of womanly sympathy and affection. 
 
 Anthony Croft, being ministered unto by 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 189 
 
 Lyddy s kind hands, hearing her sweet voice 
 and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, 
 knowing the best ; forgiving the worst, like 
 God, and forgetting it, still more like God, 
 I think. 
 
 And Lyddy ? There is no pen worthy to 
 write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep in her 
 heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear 
 pool, so deep that no ripple or ruffle on the 
 surface could disturb the hidden treasure. 
 If God had smitten these two with one 
 hand, he had held out the other in tender 
 benediction. 
 
 There had been a pitiful scene of un 
 speakable solemnity when Anthony first told 
 Lyddy that he loved her, and asked her to 
 be his wife. He had heard all her sad his 
 tory by this time, though not from her own 
 lips, and his heart went out to her all the 
 more for the heavy cross that had been laid 
 upon her. He had the wit and wisdom to 
 put her affliction quite out of the question, 
 and allude only to her sacrifice in marrying 
 a blind man, hopelessly and helplessly de 
 pendent on her sweet offices for the rest of 
 his life, if she, in her womanly mercy, would 
 love him and help him bear his burdens. 
 
 When his tender words fell upon Lyddy s 
 
190 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 dazed brain she sank beside his chair, and, 
 clasping his knees, sobbed: "I love you, I 
 cannot help loving you, I cannot help tell 
 ing you I love you! But you must hear 
 the truth; you have heard it from others, 
 but perhaps they softened it. If I marry 
 you, people will always blame me and pity 
 you. You would never ask me to be your 
 wife if you could see my face ; you could not 
 love me an instant if you were not blind." 
 
 "Then I thank God unceasingly for my 
 infirmity," said Anthony Croft, as he raised 
 her to her feet. 
 
 Anthony and Lyddy Croft sat in the ap 
 ple orchard, one warm day in late spring. 
 
 Anthony s work would have puzzled a 
 casual on - looker. Ten stout wires were 
 stretched between two trees, fifteen or 
 twenty feet apart, and each group of five 
 represented the lines of the musical staff. 
 Wooden bars crossed the wires at regular 
 intervals, dividing the staff into measures. 
 A box with many compartments sat on a 
 stool beside him, and this held bits of wood 
 that looked like pegs, but were in reality 
 whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, rests, 
 flats, sharps, and the like. These were cleft 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 191 
 
 in such a way that he could fit them on the 
 wires almost as rapidly as his musical theme 
 came to him, and Lyddy had learned to 
 transcribe with pen and ink the music she 
 found in wood and wire. He could write 
 only simple airs in this way, but when he 
 played them on the violin they were trans 
 ported into a loftier region, such genius lay 
 in the harmony, the arabesque, the delicate 
 lacework of embroidery with which the tune 
 was inwrought; now high, now low, now 
 major, now minor, now sad, now gay, with 
 the one thrilling, haunting cadence recur 
 ring again and again, to be watched for, 
 longed for, and greeted with a throb of de 
 light. 
 
 Davy was reading at the window, his 
 curly head buried in a well - worn Shake 
 speare opened at Midsummer Night s Dream. 
 Lyddy was sitting under her favorite pink 
 apple-tree, a mass of fragrant bloom, more 
 beautiful than Aurora s morning gown. She 
 was sewing ; lining with snowy lawn innu 
 merable pockets in a square basket that she 
 held in her lap. The pockets were small, 
 the needles were fine, the thread was a 
 length of cobweb. Everything about the 
 basket was small except the hopes that she 
 
192 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 
 
 was stitching into it; they were so great 
 that her heart could scarcely hold them. 
 Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds 
 were springing in the warm earth. The 
 hens were clucking to their downy chicks 
 just out of the egg. The birds were flying 
 hither and thither in the apple boughs, and 
 there was one little home of straw so hung 
 that Lyddy could look into it and see the 
 patient mother brooding her nestlings. The 
 sight of her bright eyes, alert for every sign 
 of danger, sent a rush of feeling through 
 Lyddy s veins that made her long to clasp the 
 little feathered mother to her own breast. 
 
 A sweet gravity and consecration of 
 thought possessed her, and the pink blos 
 soms falling into her basket were not more 
 delicate than the rose-colored dreams that 
 flushed her soul. 
 
 Anthony put in the last wooden peg, and 
 taking up his violin called, "Davy, lad, 
 come out and tell me what this means! " 
 
 Davy was used to this ; from a wee boy 
 he had been asked to paint the changing 
 landscape of each day, and to put into 
 words his uncle s music. 
 
 Lyddy dropped her needle, the birds 
 stopped to listen, and Anthony played. 
 
A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. 193 
 
 "It is this apple orchard in May time," 
 said Davy; "it is the song of the green 
 things growing, is n t it ? " 
 
 "What do you say, dear?" asked An 
 thony, turning to his wife. 
 
 Love and hope had made a poet of Lyddy. 
 "I think Davy is right," she said. "It is 
 a dream of the future, the story of all new 
 and beautiful things growing out of the old. 
 It is full of the sweetness of present joy, 
 but there is promise and hope in it besides. 
 It is like the Spring sitting in the lap of 
 Winter, and holding a baby Summer in her 
 bosom." 
 
 Davy did not quite understand this, though 
 he thought it pretty ; but Lyddy s husband 
 did, and when the boy went back to his 
 books, he took his wife in his arms and 
 kissed her twice, once for herself, and 
 then once again. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MID 
 NIGHT CRY. 
 
 IN the little villages along the Saco River, 
 in the year 1850 or thereabouts, the arrival 
 and departure of the stage-coach was the 
 one exciting incident of the day. It did 
 not run on schedule time in those days, but 
 started from Limington or Saco, as the case 
 might be, at about or somewhere near a 
 certain hour, and arrived at the other end 
 of the route whenever it got there. There 
 were no trains to meet (the railway popu 
 larly known as the " York and Yank em " 
 was not built till 1862) ; the roads were oc 
 casionally good and generally bad ; and thus 
 it was often dusk, and sometimes late in the 
 evening, when the lumbering vehicle neared 
 its final destination and drew up to the little 
 post-offices along the way. However late it 
 might be, the village postmaster had to be 
 on hand to receive and open the mailbags ; 
 after which he distributed the newspapers 
 and letters in a primitive set of pine pigeon- 
 
198 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 holes on the wall, turned out the loafers, 
 " banked up " the fire, and went home to 
 bed. . 
 
 " Life " Lane was a jolly good fellow, 
 just the man to sit on the box seat and drive 
 the three horses through ruts and " thank- 
 you-ma ams," slush and mud and snow. 
 There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, 
 his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laugh 
 ter, and he had a good story forever on the 
 tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two 
 in his stockings (his mother used to say she 
 had the longest Life of any woman in the 
 State o Maine) ; his shoulders were broad 
 in proportion, and his lungs just the sort to 
 fill amply his noble chest. Therefore, when 
 he had what was called in the vernacular 
 " tumble bad goin , and when any other 
 stage-driver in York County would have 
 shrunk into his muffler and snapped and 
 snarled on the slightest provocation, Life 
 Lane opened his great throat when he 
 passed over the bridges at Moderation or 
 Bonny Eagle, and sent forth a golden, sono 
 rous "Yo ho! halloo!" into the still air. 
 The later it was and the stormier it was, 
 the more vigor he put into the note, and it 
 was a drowsy postmaster indeed who did 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 199 
 
 not start from his bench by the fire at the 
 sound of that ringing halloo. Thus the 
 old stage-coach, in Life Lane s time, was 
 generally called " The Midnight Cry," and 
 not such a bad name either, whether the 
 term was derisively applied because the 
 stage was always late, or whether Life s 
 " Yo ho ! " had caught the popular fancy. 
 
 There was a pretty girl in Pleasant River 
 (and, alas ! another in Bonny Eagle) who 
 went to bed every night with the chickens, 
 but stayed awake till she heard first the 
 rumble of heavy wheels on a bridge, then a 
 faint, bell-like tone that might have come 
 out of the mouth of a silver horn ; where 
 upon she blushed as if it were an offer of 
 marriage, and turned over and went to sleep. 
 
 If the stage arrived in good season, Life 
 would have a few minutes to sit on the 
 loafers bench beside the big open fire ; and 
 what a feature he was, with his tales culled 
 from all sorts of passengers, who were never 
 so fluent as when sitting beside him " up in 
 front ! " There was a tallow dip or two, and 
 no other light save that of the fire. Who 
 that ever told a story could wish a more 
 inspiring auditor than Jacob Bean, a lit 
 eral, honest old fellow who took the most 
 
200 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 vital interest in every detail of the stories 
 told, looking upon their heroes and their 
 villains as personal friends or foes. He 
 always sat in one corner of the fireplace, 
 poker in hand, and the crowd tacitly allowed 
 him the role of Greek chorus. Indeed, no 
 body could have told a story properly with 
 out Jake Bean s parentheses and punctua 
 tion marks poked in at exciting junctures. 
 
 " That s so every time ! " he would say, 
 with a lunge at the forestick. " I 11 bate 
 he was glad then ! " with another stick 
 flung 011 in just the right spot. " Golly ! 
 but that served em right ! " with a thrust at 
 the backlog. 
 
 The New England story seemed to flour 
 ish under these conditions : a couple of good 
 hard benches in a store or tavern, where 
 you could not only smoke and chew but 
 could keep 011 your hat (there was not a 
 man in York County in those days who 
 could say anything worth hearing with his 
 hat off) ; the blazing logs to poke ; and a 
 cavernous fireplace into which tobacco juice 
 could be neatly and judiciously directed. 
 Those were good old times, and the stage 
 coach was a mighty thing when school chil 
 dren were taught to take off their hats and 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 201 
 
 make a bow as the United States mail passed 
 the old stage tavern. 
 
 Life Lane s coaching days were over long 
 before this story begins, but the Midnight 
 Cry was still in pretty fair condition, and 
 was driven ostensibly by Jeremiah Todd, 
 who lived on the " back-nippin " road from 
 Bonny Eagle to Limington. 
 
 When I say ostensibly driven, I but 
 follow the lead of the villagers, who de 
 clared that, though Jerry held the reins, 
 Mrs. Todd drove the stage, as she drove 
 everything else. As a proof of this lady s 
 strong individuality, she was still generally 
 spoken of as " the Widder Bixby," though 
 she had been six years wedded to Jere 
 miah Todd. The Widder Bixby, then, 
 was strong, self-reliant, valiant, indomitable. 
 Jerry Todd was, to use his wife s own charac 
 terization, so soft you could stick a cat s tail 
 into him without ruffling the fur. He was 
 always alluded to as " the Widder Bixby s 
 husband ; " but that was no new or special 
 mortification, for he had been known succes 
 sively as Mrs. Todd s youngest baby, the 
 Widder Todd s only son, Susan Todd s 
 brother, and, when Susan Todd s oldest boy 
 fought at Chapultepec, William Peck s 
 uncle. 
 
202 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 The Widder Bixby s record was far dif 
 ferent. She was the mildest of the four 
 Stover sisters of Scarboro, and the quartette 
 was supposed to have furnished more kinds 
 of temper than had ever before come from 
 one household. When Peace, the eldest, 
 was mad, she frequently kicked the churn 
 out of the kitchen door, cream and all, 
 and that lost her a husband. 
 
 Love, the second, married, and according 
 to local tradition once licked her husband 
 all the way up Foolscap Hill with a dried 
 cod-fish. 
 
 Charity, the third, married too, for the 
 Stovers of Scarboro were handsome girls, 
 but she got a fit mate in her spouse. She 
 failed to intimidate him, for he was a foeman 
 worthy of her steel ; but she left his bed and 
 board, and left in a manner that kept up the 
 credit of the Stover family of Scarboro. 
 
 They had had a stormy breakfast one morn 
 ing before he started to Portland with a load 
 of hay. " Good-by," she called, as she stood 
 in the door, " you ve seen the last of me ! " 
 " No such luck ! " he said, and whipped up 
 his horse. Charity baked a great pile of bis 
 cuits, and left them on the kitchen table with 
 a pitcher of skimmed milk. (She would n t 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 203 
 
 give him anything to complain of, not she !) 
 She then put a few clothes in a bundle, and, 
 tying on her shaker, prepared to walk to 
 Pleasant Kiver, twelve miles distant. As 
 she locked the door and put the key in its 
 accustomed place under the mat, a pleasant 
 young man drove up and explained that he 
 was the advance agent of the Sypher s Two- 
 in-One Menagerie and Circus, soon to appear 
 in that vicinity. He added that he should be 
 glad to give her five tickets to the entertain 
 ment if she would allow him to paste a few 
 handsome posters 011 that side of her barn 
 next the road ; that their removal was at 
 tended with trifling difficulty, owing to the 
 nature of a very superior paste invented by 
 himself ; that any small boy, in fact, could 
 tear them off in an hour, and be well paid by 
 the gift of a ticket. 
 
 The devil entered into Charity (not by any 
 means for the first time), and she told the 
 man composedly that if he would give her 
 ten tickets he might paper over the cottage 
 as well as the barn, for they were going to 
 tear it down shortly and build a larger one. 
 The advance agent was delighted, and they 
 passed a pleasant hour together; Charity 
 holding the paste-pot, while the talkative 
 
204 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 gentleman glued six lions and an elephant 
 on the roof, a fat lady on the front door, a 
 tattooed man between the windows, living 
 skeletons on the blinds, and ladies insuffi 
 ciently clothed in all the vacant spaces and 
 on the chimneys. Nobody went by during 
 the operation, and the agent remarked, as 
 he unhitched his horse, that he had never 
 done a neater job. "Why, they 11 come as 
 far to see your house as they will to the cir 
 cus ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " I calculate they will," said Charity, as 
 she latched the gate and started for Pleasant 
 River. 
 
 I am not telling Charity Stover s story, so 
 I will only add that the bill-poster was mis 
 taken in the nature of his paste, and greatly 
 undervalued its adhesive properties. 
 
 The temper of Prudence, the youngest sis 
 ter, now Mrs. Todd, paled into insignificance 
 beside that of the others, but it was a very 
 pretty thing in tempers nevertheless, and 
 would have been thought remarkable in any 
 other family in Scarboro. 
 
 You may have noted the fact that it 
 is a person s virtues as often as his vices 
 that make him difficult to live with. Mrs. 
 Todd s masterfulness and even her jealousy 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 205 
 
 might have been endured, by the aid of fast 
 ing and prayer, but her neatness, her economy, 
 and her forehandedness made a combination 
 that only the grace of God could have abided 
 with comfortably, so that Jerry Todd s com 
 parative success is a matter of local tradition. 
 Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough, 
 but as the years went on, Mrs. Todd blew 
 her breakfast horn at so early an hour that 
 the neighbors were in some doubt as to 
 whether it might not herald the supper of the 
 day before. They also predicted that she 
 would have her funeral before she was fairly 
 dead, and related with great gusto that when 
 she heard there was to be an eclipse of the sun 
 on Monday, the 26th of July, she wished they 
 could have it the 25th, as Sunday would be 
 so much more convenient than wash-day. 
 
 She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the 
 floor, and oilcloth mats to save the oilcloth ; 
 yet Jerry s boots had to be taken off in the 
 shed, and he was required to walk through 
 in his stocking feet. She blackened her stove 
 three times a day, washed her dishes in the 
 woodhouse, in order to keep her sink clean, 
 and kept one pair of blinds open in the sit 
 ting-room, but spread newspapers over the 
 carpet wherever the sun shone in. 
 
206 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 It was the desire of Jerry s heart to give 
 up the fatigues and exposures of stage- 
 driving, and " keep store," but Mrs. Todcl 
 deemed it much better for him to be in the 
 open air than dealing out rum and molasses 
 to a roystering crew. This being her view 
 of the case, it is unnecessary to state that 
 he went on driving the stage. 
 
 "Do you wear, a flannel shirt, Jerry?" 
 asked Pel Frost once. " I don know," he 
 replied, " ask Mis Todd ; she keeps the 
 books." 
 
 " Women-folks " (he used to say to a 
 casual passenger), "like all other animiles, 
 has to be trained up before they re real 
 good comp ny. You have to begin with 
 em early, and begin as you mean to hold 
 out. When they once git in the habit of 
 takin the bit in their teeth and runnin , it s 
 too late for you to hold em in." 
 
 It was only to strangers that he aired his 
 convictions on the training of " women 
 folks," though for that matter he might 
 safely have done it even at home ; for every 
 body in Limington knew that it would always 
 have been too late to begin with the Widder 
 Bixby, since, like all the Stovers of Scar- 
 boro, she had been born with the bit in her 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 207 
 
 teeth. Jerry had never done anything he 
 wanted to since he had married her, and he 
 had n t really wanted to do that. He had 
 been rather candid with her on this point 
 (as candid as a tender-hearted and obliging 
 man can be with a woman who is determined 
 to marry him, and has two good reasons 
 why she should to every one of his why he 
 shouldn t), and this may have been the 
 reason for her jealousy. Although by her 
 superior force she had overborne his visible 
 reluctance, she, being a woman, or at all 
 events of the female gender, could never 
 quite forget that she had done the wooing. 
 
 Certainly his charms were not of the sort 
 to tempt women from the strict and narrow 
 path, yet the fact remained that the Widder 
 Bixby was jealous, and more than one person 
 in Limington was aware of it. 
 
 Pelatiah, otherwise " Pel " Frost, knew 
 more about the matter than most other 
 folks, because he had unlimited time to 
 devote to general culture. Though not yet 
 thirty years old, he was the laziest man in 
 York County. (Jabez Slocum had not then 
 established his record ; and Jot Bascom had 
 ruined his by cutting his hay before it was 
 dead in the summer of 49, always alluded 
 
208 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 to afterwards in Pleasant River as the year 
 when gold was discovered and Jot Bascom 
 cut his hay.) 
 
 Pel was a general favorite in half a dozen 
 villages, where he was the life of the loafers 
 bench. An energetic loafer can attend prop 
 erly to one bench, but it takes genius as well 
 as assiduity to do justice to six of them. 
 His habits were decidedly convivial, and he 
 spent a good deal of time at the general 
 musters, drinking and carousing with the 
 other ne er-do-weels. You may be sure he 
 was no favorite of Mrs. Todd s ; and she 
 represented to him all that is most undesira 
 ble in womankind, his taste running decid 
 edly to rosy, smiling, easy-going ones who 
 had no regular hours for meals, but could 
 have a dinner on the table any time in fifteen 
 minutes after you got there. 
 
 Now, a certain lady with a noticeable green 
 frock and a white " drawn-in " cape bonnet 
 had graced the Midnight Cry on its journey 
 from Limington to Saco on three occasions 
 during the month of July. Report said that 
 she was a stranger who had appeared at the 
 post-office in a wagon driven by a small, 
 freckled boy. 
 
 The first trip passed without comment ; 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 209 
 
 the second provoked some discussion ; on 
 the occasion of the third, Mrs. Todd said no 
 thing, because there seemed nothing to say, 
 but she felt so out-of -sorts that she cut Jerry s 
 hair close to his head, though he particularly 
 fancied the thin fringe of curls at the nape 
 of his neck. 
 
 Pel Frost went over to Todd s one morn 
 ing to borrow an axe, and seized a favorable 
 opportunity to ask casually, " Oh, Mis Todd, 
 did Jerry find out the name o that woman 
 in a green dress and white bunnit that rid to 
 Saco with him last week ? " 
 
 " Mr. Todd s got something better to do 
 than get acquainted with his lady passen 
 gers," snapped Mrs. Todd, " specially as they 
 always ride inside." 
 
 " I know they gen ally do," said Pel, 
 shouldering the axe (it was for his mother s 
 use), " but this one rides up in front part o 
 the way, so I thought mebbe Jerry d find out 
 something bout her. She s han some as a 
 picture, but she must have a good strong back 
 to make the trip down V up in one day." 
 
 Nothing could have been more effective or 
 more effectual than this blow dealt with con 
 summate skill. Having thus driven the iron 
 into Mrs. Todd s soul, Pel entertained his 
 
210 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 mother with an account of the interview 
 while she chopped the kindling-wood. He 
 had 110 special end in view when, lago-like, 
 he dropped his first poisoned seed in Mrs. 
 Todd s fertile mind, or, at most, nothing 
 worse than the hope that matters might reach 
 an unendurable point, and Jerry might strike 
 for his altars and his fires. Jerry was a 
 man and a brother, and petticoat government 
 must be discouraged whenever and wherever 
 possible, or the world would soon cease to be 
 a safe place to live in. Pel s idea grew upon 
 him in the night watches, and the next morn 
 ing he searched his mother s garret till he 
 found a green dress and a white bonnet. 
 Putting them in a basket, he walked out on 
 the road a little distance till he met the stage, 
 when, finding no passengers inside, he asked 
 Jerry to let him jump in and " ride a piece." 
 Once within, he hastily donned the green 
 wrapper and tell-tale headgear, and, when 
 the Midnight Cry rattled down the stony hill 
 past the Todd house, Pel took good care to 
 expose a large green sleeve and the side of 
 a white bonnet at the stage window. It was 
 easy enough to cram the things back into the 
 basket, jump out, and call a cordial thank 
 you to the unsuspecting Jerry. He was re- 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 211 
 
 warded for his ingenuity and enterprise at 
 night, when he returned Mrs. Todd s axe, for 
 just as he reached the back door he distinctly 
 heard her say that if she saw that green 
 woman on the stage again, she would knock 
 her off with a broomstick as sure as she was 
 a Stover of Scarboro. As a matter of fact 
 she was equal to it. Her great-grandmother 
 had been born on a soil where the broomstick 
 is a prominent factor in settling connubial 
 differences ; and if it occurred to her at this 
 juncture, it is a satisfactory proof of the 
 theory of atavism. 
 
 Pel intended to see this domestic tragedy 
 through to the end, and accordingly took 
 another brief trip in costume the very next 
 week, hoping to be the witness of a scene of 
 blood and carnage. But Mrs. Todd did not 
 stir from her house, although he was confi 
 dent she had seen "my lady green-sleeves" 
 from her post at the window. Puzzled by 
 her apathy, and much disappointed in her 
 temper, he took off the dress, and, climbing 
 up in front, rode to Moderation, where he re 
 ceived an urgent invitation to go over to the 
 county fair at Gorham. The last idea was 
 always the most captivating to Pel, and he 
 departed serenely for a stay of several days 
 
212 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 without so much luggage as a hairbrush. 
 His mother s best clothespin basket, to say 
 nothing of its contents, appeared at this junc 
 ture to be an unexpected incumbrance ; so 
 on the spur of the moment he handed it up to 
 Jerry just as the stage was starting, saying, 
 "If Mis Todd has a brash to-night, you can 
 clear yourself by showing her this basket, but 
 for rnassy sakes don t lay it on to me ! You 
 can stan it better n I can, you re more 
 used to it ! " 
 
 Jerry took the basket, and when he was 
 well out on the road he looked inside and 
 saw a bright green calico wrapper, a white 
 cape bonnet, a white " fall veil," and a pair 
 of white cotton gloves. He had ample time 
 for reflection, for it was a hot day, and though 
 he drove slowly, the horses were sweating 
 at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have 
 overheard his wife s storm of reproaches, 
 perhaps even her threats of violence. It 
 had come to this, that he was the village 
 laughing-stock, a butt of ridicule at the 
 store and tavern. 
 
 Now, two years before this, Jerry Todd 
 had for the first and only time in his mar 
 ried life " put his foot down." Mrs. Todd 
 had insisted on making him a suit of clothes 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 213 
 
 much against his wishes. When finished 
 she put them on him almost by main force, 
 though his plaintive appeals would have 
 melted any but a Stover-of-Scarboro heart. 
 The stuff was a large plaid, the elbows and 
 knees came in the wrong places, the seat 
 was lined with enameled cloth, and the 
 sleeves cut him in the armholes. 
 
 Mr. Todd said nothing for a moment, but 
 the pent-up slavery of years stirred in him, 
 and, mounting to his brain, gave him a mo 
 mentary courage that resembled intoxication. 
 He retired, took off the suit, hung it over 
 his arm, and, stalking into the sitting-room 
 in his undergarments, laid it on the table 
 before his astonished spouse, and, thumping 
 it dramatically, said firmly, "I will not 
 wear them clo es ! " whereupon he 
 fell into silence again and went to bed. 
 
 The joke of the matter was, that, all 
 unknown to himself, he had absolutely 
 frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could 
 have realized the impressiveness and the 
 thorough success of his first rebellion ! But 
 if he had realized it he could not have re 
 peated it often, for so much virtue went out 
 of him on that occasion that he felt hardly 
 able to drive the stage for days afterward. 
 
214 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 " I shall have to put down my foot agin," 
 he said to himself on the eventful morning 
 when Pel presented him with the basket. 
 " Dern my luck, I ve got to do it agin, 
 when I ain t hardly got over the other time." 
 So, after an hour s plotting and planning, 
 he made some purchases in Biddeford and 
 started on his return trip. He was very 
 low in his mind, thinking, if his wife really 
 meditated open warfare, she was likely to 
 inspect the stage that night, but giving her 
 credit in his inmost heart for too much 
 common sense to use a broomstick, a 
 woman with her tongue ! 
 
 The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. 
 Its route had been shortened, and Mrs. Todd 
 wanted its name changed to something less 
 outlandish, such as the Rising Sun, or the 
 Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon, but 
 her idea met with no votaries ; it had been, 
 was, and ever should be, the Midnight Cry, 
 no matter what time it set out or got back. 
 It had seen its best days, Jerry thought, 
 and so had he, for that matter. Yet he had 
 been called " a likely feller " when he mar 
 ried the Widder Bixby, or rather when she 
 married him. Well, the mischief was done ; 
 all that remained was to save a remnant 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 215 
 
 of his self-respect, and make an occasional 
 dash for liberty. 
 
 He did all his errands with his usual care, 
 dropping a blue ribbon for Doxy Morton s 
 Sunday hat, four cents worth of gum-cam 
 phor for Almira Berry, a spool of cotton for 
 Mrs. Wentworth, and a pair of " galluses " 
 for Living Bean. He finally turned into 
 the " back-nippin " road from Bonny Eagle 
 to Limington, and when he was within 
 forty rods of his own house he stopped to 
 water his horses. If he feared a scene he 
 had good reason, for as the horses climbed 
 the crest of the long hill the lady in green 
 was by his side on the box. He looked 
 anxiously ahead, and there, in a hedge of 
 young alder bushes, he saw something stir 
 ring, and, unless he was greatly mistaken, 
 a birch broom lay on the ground near the 
 hedge. 
 
 Notwithstanding these danger signals, 
 Jerry s arm encircled the plump waist of 
 the lady in green, and, emboldened by the 
 shades of twilight, his lips sought the iden 
 tical spot under the white " fall veil " where 
 her incendiary mouth might be supposed to 
 lurk, quite " fit for treasons, stratagems, and 
 spoils." This done, he put on the brake 
 
216 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 and headed his horses toward the fence. 
 He was none too soon, for the Widder 
 Bixby, broom in hand, darted out from the 
 alders and approached the stage with ob 
 jurgations which, had she rated them at 
 their proper value, needed no supplement in 
 the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror- 
 stricken look, wound his reins round the 
 whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, disap 
 peared behind a convenient tree. 
 
 At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd 
 would have preferred to chastise both her 
 victims at once; but, being robbed of one 
 by Jerry s cowardly flight, her weapon de 
 scended upon the other with double force. 
 There was no lack of courage here at least. 
 Whether the lady in green was borne up 
 by the consciousness of virtue, whether she 
 was too proud to retreat, or whatever may 
 have been her animating reason, the blow 
 fell, yet she stood her ground and gave no 
 answering shriek. Enraged as much by her 
 rival s cool resistance as by her own sense 
 of injury, the Widder Bixby aimed full at 
 the bonnet beneath which were the charms 
 that had befuddled Jerry Tocld s brain. To 
 blast the fatal beauty that had captivated 
 her wedded husband was the Widder Bixby s 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 217 
 
 idea, and the broom descended. A shower 
 of seeds and pulp, a copious spattering of 
 pumpkin juice, and the lady in green fell 
 resistlessly into her assailant s arms; her 
 straw body, her wooden arms and pumpkin 
 head, decorating the earth at her feet ! Mrs. 
 Todd stared helplessly at the wreck she had 
 made, not altogether comprehending the ruse 
 that had led to her discomfiture, but fully 
 conscious that her empire was shaken to its 
 foundations. She glanced in every direc 
 tion, and then hurling the hateful green-and- 
 white livery into the stage, she gathered up 
 all traces of the shameful fray, and sweeping 
 them into her gingham apron ran into the 
 house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. 
 
 Jerry stayed behind the tree for some 
 minutes, and when the coast was clear he 
 mounted the seat and drove to the store and 
 the stable. When he had put up his horses 
 he went into the shed, took off his boots as 
 usual, but, despite all his philosophy, broke 
 into a cold sweat of terror as he crossed the 
 kitchen threshold. " I can t stand many 
 more of these times when I put my foot 
 down," he thought, "they re too weaken 
 ing!" 
 
 But he need not have feared. There was 
 
218 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 a good supper under the mosquito netting 
 on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a 
 pot of hot tea. Mrs. Todd had gone to bed 
 and left him a pot of tea ! 
 
 Which was the more eloquent apology ! 
 
 Jerry never referred to the lady in green, 
 then or afterwards ; he was willing to let 
 well enough alone ; but whenever his spouse 
 passed a certain line, which, being a Stover 
 of Scarboro, she was likely to do about 
 once in six months, he had only to summon 
 his recreant courage and glance meaningly 
 behind the kitchen door, where the birch 
 broom hung on a nail. It was a simple 
 remedy to outward appearances, but made 
 his declining years more comfortable. I 
 can hardly believe that he ever took Pel 
 Frost into his confidence, but Pel certainly 
 was never more interesting to the loafers 
 bench than when he told the story of the 
 eventful trip of the Midnight Cry and " the 
 breaking in of the Widder Bixby." 
 
-APR-&^J94H*- 
 
 LD 21-100m-7, 40(6936 8 ) 
 
M11986 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY