6tf n DUMB FOXGLOVE and Other Stories ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON ^5*- JS* 1 AUTHOR OF "SEVEN DREAMERS" " FISHIN' JIMMY" ETC. NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1898 ?5 BY ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON. SEVEN DREAMERS. A Collection of Seven Sto- ries. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. The sweetness, the spiciness, the aromatic taste of the forest has crept into these tales. Philadelphia Ledger. THE HERESY OF MEHETABEL CLARK. Small 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 75 cents. A charming little volume, quite unique in its concep- tion, and its ethical significance is no less noteworthy than its art. Boston Beacon. NEW YORK AND LONDON : HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. Copyright, 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reservtd. CONTENTS PAGE DUMB FOXGLOVE 3 APPLE JONATHAN 47 ANNA MALANN 85 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS 121 CLAVIS 137 A TRANSIENT 161 AUNT LIKFY 193 DUMB FOXGLOVE DUMB FOXGLOVE ALL the golden October day we had been driving leisurely along through the Green Mountain country. Everything was golden that fall. It had been a very dry season, and the leaves upon the maples and other forest trees, instead of ripening into brilliant hues of crimson and scarlet, had all taken on tints of yellow. Then, when the autumn winds arose, sud- denly the whole earth was carpeted with saffron, daffodil, amber, and gold, a thick, soft, rustling carpet, and for days our horses trod upon it, and our wagon -wheels rolled over and through it. Somehow it had the effect of sunshine, and even in cloudy weather we were in the light. But the sun shone that day, and the air was soft and warm. There had been as yet no heavy frost, and the late 3 DUMB FOXGLOVE flowers were still bright, while berry, seed- vessel, and nut were gay with red, blue, rus- set, and gold. Goldenrod was massed by the road-side in tints to match every shade of our leafy car- pet, making for it a gorgeous border of gold color, and asters contrasted or harmonized, with their hues of mauve, blue, purple, lav- ender, and white. The twisted orchid, or lady's-tresses, with its spike of frosted white bells, smelling of bitter almonds, clustered thickly in damp spots along the road-side ; Joe Pye weed, or pink boneset, stood stiffly erect, with flat- topped clusters of dull -pink feathery blos- soms, and sometimes a belated St.-John's-wort added its yellow to the prevailing brightness. The witch-hazel bore on leafless brown boughs its strange flowers of straw color with their sickly sweet odor ; and, most abundant of all, grew, all along our way, the dark -blue closed gentian. There were so many berries ! The short, thick spike which jack-in-the-pulpit wears ; the sapphire-blue bear-plums ; those of trans- lucent garnet, growing like a bunch of ripe 4 DUMB FOXGLOVE currants on the little smilacina ; the crim- son fruit of twisted-stalk, hanging singly on slender stems ; the mountain-holly's rosy red ; moose-berries ; bunch-berries ; the red cohosh and the white, the last like beads of white enamel strung upon red coral stalks all these we saw and gathered ere the day ended. We were climbing the steep turnpike road which crosses the mountains from Manches- ter to Landgrove and Chester, and we 'of ten left the wagon to walk by its side or linger behind it, in the soft air and warm sunshine. We gathered armfuls of maidenhair and ostrich-ferns, wild flowers, berries, moss, and lichen. And many other things we brought back to the wagon unknowingly ; for hun- dreds of seed-vessels, of varied forms, prick- ly, bristly, sticky, barbed, or thorned, clung to our garments, as we scrambled through the tangle of plants and shrubs at the road-side, or strayed into the forests on either hand. The long, slender Spanish needles ; the two -thorned fruit of the yellow bur- marigold; the agrimony seed - holders, look- ing like tiny green feather-dusters ; the odd, flat, thin joints of the tick -trefoil pods; 5 DUMB FOXGLOVE the small green burs of enchanter's night- shade all these and scores of other fast-hold- ing, close-clinging, little hindering things cov- ered our clothing and pricked our fingers in our journey that day. We were to spend the night at Peru, that quiet mountain village we knew so well, and among whose pleasant people we had many friends. The bouquet we had gathered along the way was not a satisfactory one, and there was little of beauty about it when we reached our destination. The golden leaves, full of sunshine as they hung on the branches or lay in our pathway, were dried and shrivelled now ; the berries were crushed, or had fallen from their stems ; the asters looked forlorn, with their rays twisted and drooping. But the closed gentians were unchanged, and we carried into the house with us a big bunch of the strange, undeveloped, bud-like flowers of dark purple-blue. And it was the sight of these blossoms as they stood in the old cream- ware pitcher on the sideboard, that evening, that made Aunt Eunice every one in Peru called her by that name tell the story. 6 DUMB FOXGLOVE "Yes, I know it isn't its real name, but that's what I always call it myself. Ma used to call it that, and so I do. And it's a real good name, come to think of it dumb fox- glove. For it's a good deal like the foxglove that grows in the garden, you know, and it's the dumbest flower, for a real full-growed one, that I know. Never opens out into real blowth, you see, and nothing can make it. Water or sunshine or rich soil, loosening the dirt round it, or transplanting, or anything, don't make any difference; it won't open out. But pick it open and there 'tis, just like the prettiest posy in the world, streaked and painted and all, and nobody ever seeing it. It's dreadful queer why it's that way, ain't it? If the pretty part's all inside and hid and shut up, and isn't ever to do any- body a mite of good, why, what's it made that way for? Why didn't they leave the inside just plain, not finished off any, sort of skimped that part, you know, that wasn't to show ? But there ! it isn't half so queer and puzzling about posies as 'tis about folks, is it, now ? For you know as well as I do, don't you, there's lots of folks just that same way. 7 DUMB FOXGLOVE They're all shut up tight, all in the dark and cold and lonesomeness, and never showing the pretty part inside that most of them's got after all. I never see that dumb foxglove that I don't think of Colossy Bragg. She lived just down the road there, in the house with so much of that wild-cucumber vine running over it, and the marigold bed in front. " David and Lucy Ann Bragg were married a good while before they had any children, and they were dreadful pleased when this one came. She was a nice, big baby, and they thought she was going to take after Grandma West, and be tall and fleshy and fine-looking. So they named her, out of a book, Colossa, but we called it you know how they do with such names about here Colossy. Poor child, it didn't turn out a very suitable name for her. She was a healthy, nice little thing, rugged as any child, till she was about four years old. Then something took her the doctors never seemed to know what, exactly and she stopped growing. Her legs and arms were helpless like, and she couldn't walk or use 8 DUMB FOXGLOVE her hands much. 'Tvvas the pitifulest sight to see her. Her mind was all right ; it was only the poor, pinched-up, pindling body that was wrong. " Hr face was real pretty, sort of thin and white, but with such big, dark, purple -blue eyes, almost black by spells they made me think lots of times of the color of those dumb foxgloves and long, black eye-winkers curl- ing up at the ends. And her hair was long and soft, and such a pretty yellow, and it curled all round her head. She used to sit all day in a big chair with pillows, by the southwest window there, and every one for miles round Peru knew that pretty white face. 'Twas terrible hard on her pa and ma, they'd set so much by her, and lotted so on what she'd be when she grew up. They learnt her to read, but that was about all. For she couldn't use her hands, so there wasn't any ciphering, or drawing pictures on her slate, or sewing patch-work, or any of the things girls did in those days. She never seemed to care much about story-books. To be sure, there wa'n't many in those times ; not what young ones call story-books now- 9 DUMB FOXGLOVE adays, with red-and-gold covers and paint- ed pictures and all. But there was a few in the place, and folks was glad enough to lend them to poor little Colossy. "The Braggses owned Pilgrim's Progress and Evenings at Home themselves, and I had Anna Ross and Dairyman's Daughter. And here and in Landgrove and about there was Little Henry and His Bearer, and The Shep- herd of Salisbury Plain, and some numbers of the Juvenile Miscellany, and there was some books about missionaries, and some travels. She had them all, one after another, and as long as she wanted them, but they didn't interest her much. And there wasn't many things she could play. Puss -in- the - corner and tag and blind-man's-buff and trisket-a-trasket and all such running-about plays was out of the question, course, and even checkers and tit-tat-toe and fox-and- geese, and set-down games like those, she couldn't play at on account of her poor, help- less hands. Why, she couldn't even put down her mite of a forefinger with the other children's and say, ' Hinty minty cuty corn,' to see who was ' it,' as the youngsters used to 10 DUMB FOXGLOVE say. She had a kind of weak, whisp'ry voice, so she couldn't even sing ; and she didn't appear to care much about hearing tunes, neither. So you see she was nigh as much shut up and blind and dumb a little creatur' as that flower there. "You wouldn't have thought, when you saw her sitting in her high-chair, bolstered up with pillows, her little drawed-up hands all helpless in- her lap, and a shawl wrapped round her poor feet and legs you wouldn't have thought there was anything in the world to interest her or make her forget her troubles. But there was. There was just one thing that kept her up, occupied her mind, amused her all day long, and made her willing to live and be so different from the other children. How it came first into her head I don't know, for 'twas the very last thing you'd ever expect would 'a' got there, considering what she was, poor, rickety little mite. " It was cooking ! Now, o' course you know she couldn't cook with her own hands, little, limp, crooked things that they was, but some ways or other she'd got the greatest DUMB FOXGLOVE faculty for making up dishes. 'Twas all she really cared about, the only thing that made her little bleached-out face lighten up, and those queer, pretty, purply eyes shine a speck. She was all the everlasting time composing, as you might say. But it wasn't verses or stories she made up, but things to eat, vic- tuals. Where she got it all, as I said before, I never could see. There wasn't anything like it in the family, either side, Braggses or Wests. Her folks liked good, plain, filling .food, and plenty of it, and Colossy hadn't ever seen anything different. But from the time she was a mite of a young one she was always making up the most beautiful re- ceipts, and laying out the most fixed -up, company-looking dishes. To this day I often think over some of the victuals she talked about, and I can't help wishing they could be tried ; they'd make your mouth water, they sounded so good and tasty. " But somehow you couldn't make them ; there was always something or other to be put in that you couldn't get, even if you could afford it. And they were generally pretty expensive victuals, too. Real receipt- DUMB FOXGLOVE books she didn't care much about. Her mother had one all writ out nice, in a little book made of ruled paper. It came from Aunt Huldy West, her father's sister. And it had real good receipts, too : baked Indian pudding the Wests was always great for that and crollers, and Aunt Jane's tea-rusk, and hard gingerbread, and huckleberry hol- ler, and composition cake, and lots of other things. But Colossy didn't care to hear it much. She'd get fidgety after a spell, when her ma was reading it, and then 's soon as she got a chance she'd begin something of her own. Some of the ingredients, as the cooking-books say, were the funniest things. She'd come across them, I suppose, in stories and newspapers, in the missionary books and the travels, but most of all in the Bible. They were queer, outlandish, foreign things, that couldn't be bought round this part of the world, if they could anywheres. But she'd tell them off till you'd know, or think you did, just how they tasted, and, what's more, could see the whole thing dished up, too. " It all comes back as I tell about it, and I can 'most hear Colossy's croupy, hoarse DUMB FOXGLOVE voice saying over those things. ' Take a teacupful o' anise an' cummin,' she'd croak out 'an' mind it's a blue chiny teacup, not a plain white ; put it into a yaller bakin'- dish, an' pour on a pint o' milk an' honey. Beat it all up till it's white an' bubbly and soapsudsy, an 1 then add ten clusters o' rais- ins. Stir for an hour an' twelve *n' a half minutes by the settin'-room clock. Then you chop up the peel o' nineteen rorangers' she always called them that 'an' mix into the hull mess. An' then now listen, Aunt Eunice,' she'd say, so solemn an' old-fash- ioned, 'for this is the most partic'lerest thing in it bile five an' a half turtle-dove's eggs kind o' hard, take off the shell, an* lay 'em over the puddin' for it's goin' to be a pud- din' this time, Aunt Eunice an' bake half an hour in a quick oven.' "'And what's the name of that?' I used to ask, just to please her and show I was lis- tening. "'Well,' she says, slow, and stopping to think a little, 'well, that's called jest a Plain, Fam'ly Puddin'. But here's one for comp'- ny,' says she. *I made it up last night, 14 DUMB FOXGLOVE when I couldn't get to sleep, my back hurt so, and it's the very nicest puddin' this is a puddin', too you never, never eat ; an' it's so sightly to look at, an' sets off the table so. Now listen, Aunt Eunice,' she says. ' It's called Comp'ny Puddin'. Take two pomy- granites and crack 'em, an' pick out the meats careful. Chop 'em fine, an' sprinkle over 'em a pinch o' frankincense and a teen- ty, teenty speck o' myrrh. Wet it up with a little maple surrup. Then take some fresh bread-fruit an" toast a few slices brown ; lay 'em on a green -spriggled chiny meat -dish, an' spread your pomygranite sass all over 'em. Then beat the whites of ten ostrich's eggs for an hour 'n' a half, an' lay over the hull; sprinkle with light -brown sugar, an' dish up hot. Oh, Aunt Eunice !' she'd say, with her little thin face working and such a pitiful look in her big eyes, ' I wish I could try it my own self. I know I could do it, an' oh, how I'd like to beat up them ostrich's eggs an' spread 'em over, all sudsy an' nice, an' then sprinkle that light-brown sugar on !' '"What's pomygranites, Colossy?' I'd ask her, to divert her mind a little. '5 DUMB FOXGLOVE '"Why, it tells about 'em in the Bible," she says, 'an' Mr. Interpreter give some to Chris- tiana, in Pilgrim's Progress.' "You know I said 'twas this cooking or making up dishes that helped her along, and kept her amused and occupied. Well, it did, one way ; but another it made her uncom- fortable, for she did want so bad to cook and bake and mix up things, to be over the fire, stirring and basting, and baking and boiling. She ached to set the table and dish up the victuals, and make things look as they did in her mind when she composed them. She never fretted because she couldn't play about with the boys and girls, or hoppity-skip along the road, or slide, or run, or jump rope. But she did worry a good deal because she couldn't carry out the things she had in her head, nor mix a single one of the sightly and tasty dishes she was always making up. ' Course I like to think about 'em,' she'd say in her husky voice, 'but lots o' times I think, What's the good of it, anyway? What's the use o' settin' here an' makin* up receipts for pud- din's an' cake an' jells an' all, an' never try 'em, nor see 'em, nor taste the teentiest speck 16 DUMB FOXGLOVE on 'em ? I'm tired settin' here, an' I'm tired achin' an' keepin' still an' Oh, I do jest want to have a bakin'-day of my own, an' try some o' them things !' "'Twas pretty hard to know what to say to her for comfort. She was a good little thing, and she'd been trained right, for the Braggses were pious, church-going folks, and I really believe she was a Christian before she was ten year old. But that didn't make much difference as to the thing she was fret- ting about just then. 'Twasn't heaven and singing and all the glorious things we know there'll be there that the poor little thing was achin' for those times, but just a mite of fussing and messing and cooking before she went away from this earth that was such a lonesome place for her. So I used to be at my wits' ends to know what to tell her to comfort her up when she went on that way ; and her pa and ma, they were just as bothered as me. But there was one person that hadn't any such scruples as we had, and sometimes I was kind of glad there was. 'Twas old Mrs. Peavy that lived next door Mother Peavy, as everybody called her. She was real old, B 17 DUMB FOXGLOVE a good deal over seventy anyway in those days, and I don't know but she was a mite childish. But she was smart and spry for her age, and her eyesight and hearing were as good as ever. And she was a dreadful com- fort to Colossy, that's certain. For, as I said before, she hadn't any scruples that is, the kind the rest of us had. Maybe you'll think she was a heathen, or a heretic, or something of that sort, when I tell you what she used to say to the child ; but I am sure she meant well, and it did seem to help Colossy lots. " ' Oh, Mother Peavy,' the young one would say, 'won't I never, never have no chance to try em? If I'm real good an' patient, an' say my prayers an' my catechis' an' my hymns, an' do 's I'd be done by, an' all, won't I, oh, won't I never be let to try a single one o' them receipts? Jest not even the b'iled dish, with coriander seeds for flav'rin', an' thickened up with fine flour mingled with ile? Oh, won't I, Mother Peavy?' '"Yes, yes, you poor little cosset,' Mother Peavy 'd say ; ' don't you worry an' fret over that. If you want to mess an' cook an' try receipts when you get up there, you'll be let 18 DUMB FOXGLOVE to do it. An' you'll be able to then, you know, for you'll be strong an' well an' rug- ged ; for there ain't a single inhabitant up there that ever says "I'm sick," an' there won't be any more pain. An' your poor little drawed-up fingers will be straight an' sound, an* your legs strong and limber. An' you'll lift up the hands that's a-hangin* down now, and the feeble knees, as the Bible says, an' then if you're set on cookin' an' dishin' up they'll let you try, you see if they don't.' "'But, Mother Peavy,' Colossy 'd whisper in her hoarse, short-breathing way, 'be you certain sure they've got things to do with up there ? There's harps, an* croAvns, an' books to sing out on, an' a sea o' glass, an' golden streets, an' all them pretty, pretty things, but mebbe they don't have the kind o' things you'd oughter have for cookin' an' dishin' up. Mebbe it's bad to want 'em, Mother Peavy, but oh, I jest do sometimes !' " ' No, 'tain't bad, you poor young one ; they understand up there, an' they make 'low- ances. That's what they're great at in that place, you know, makin' 'lowances ; must be the principal thing they do, these times, any- DUMB FOXGLOVE way. An' if they see they ain't no other means o' settin' your poor little mind easy an' showin' you there's more satisfying fillin' things than victuals, why, they'll give you your way an' let you try. An' as for there not bein' any eatable things there, why, the Bible tells about twelve kinds o' fruit, an' about olive-trees an' oil an' wine. An' there's that hymn you like so much, about " ' There cinnamon an' sugar grow, There nard an* balm abound." Take my word for it, Colossy, there won't be no lack o' things to do with, if you want 'cm bad.' "An* the child would take a dreadful lot of comfort out of all her talk, and always stop fretting, at least for a spell. " Now I know it wasn't right ; we all knew it. The way was to show her how much better things there were than what she was set on spiritual food that she didn't dream of, poor, stunted, shut-up little soul. But Mother Peavy always made out that there wasn't any harm in it ; that she didn't really say there would be cooking and dishing up DUMB FOXGLOVE there, but only that if Colossy was still set on that kind of amusement after she got there, she'd be let to try it. ' But she won't want it then, you see,' she'd say. ' She'll have better work there, more satisfyin'. So it don't do any harm, an' it does go against me to see her fret, the dear lamb.' " So they were great cronies, she and Co- lossy, and had long confabs together. 'Twas mighty queer talk to listen to, I can tell you, and you'd get all mixed up and confused to know whether 'twas real flesh-and-blood food of this world they was dwelling on, or the spiritual, heavenly sort. For 'twould be man- na and milk and honey and angels' food and unleavened bread and balm of Gilead and all that, which might be just figurative or speaking parables like. But again 'twould be cakes and puddings and stews, with spices and oil and spikenard and leeks and onions and almonds and turtle-doves and melons, till your mouth watered. " But it really beat all how much that child found about victuals in the Bible ; things none of us ever knew was there till she brought them into her receipts. And then 21 DUMB FOXGLOVE we'd look them up and find they were really there. And to this day I recollect them, and time and again, as I come across them in reading a chapter, I think of poor little Co- lossy and her talk : fish and summer fruit and wheat and barley and millet and apples and butter and broth and nuts and vinegar and parched corn and grapes and raisins and figs and why, I can't tell half of them now. Why, once, I know, she told about some dish or other, and there was to be a pound of pannag. We thought she'd made that up, sure. But come to look it up, there 'twas in Ezekiel, and there 'tis to this day, though I haven't the least idea what 'tis or where it comes from. " Poor little creatur', she looked for that kind of thing, and of course she found it. There's everything folks want in that book. And she got a good deal of a real different sort of comfort out of it, too. She'd be turn- ing over the leaves of the big Bible on the table, as well as she could with her little twisted bony fingers, looking for new ' ingre- junts,' as she called them, for her dishes, and you'd see 'such a pretty look come on her 22 DUMB FOXGLOVE white face. An' she'd draw a long breath, as if she was resting after a hard job, and look up with her big purply eyes all soft and wet, and say over something she'd found there. 'Twas something generally about getting rest, or casting your burdens off, or being carried or comforted as a mother comforteth, or having tears wiped away, or something like that. No, it was not all vict- uals she found there. But it's the victuals part of the story I'm telling you now. "The minister that time was Mr. Robbins. He was a real good man, and terribly sorry for Colossy. He used to go and see her a good deal, and try to help her, and teach her, and raise her thoughts higher. But when she got on that favorite topic of hers, why, he didn't know just what to say. 'Twas a sight to see his face, after he'd been reading and talking and praying with her a spell, and she'd been so sweet and good, and seemed in such a promising state of mind, when she'd look up so pitiful just before he went away and croak out, ' Oh, Mr. Robbins, won't you jest listen to one single one o' my receipts now ?' 23 DUMB FOXGLOVE " He generally did, for he was a good- natured man and had children of his own, but he'd try to put on a moral at the end and draw some kind of a lesson from it all. 'Now hear this, Mr. Robbins,' she says one time, speaking slow and plain as if she was read- ing from a receipt-book. 'Di-rec-tions for ma-king a mess of pottage.' " 'Yes, yes, my little girl,' he says, ' I'll hear it ; but be careful lest you part with your own heavenly birthright for a mess of pot- tage,' he says. "'Yes, sir,' says Colossy very quick, for she was in a hurry to go on with her receipt, ' I'll be careful. Take one fatted calf ' and on she'd go, till Mr. Robbins's face was just a picture, kind of puzzled, and sort of amused, too. "Or she'd tell off a receipt for 'raising un- leavened bread,' poor little cosset, and the minister 'd remind her that ' man shall not live by bread alone.' Again 'twould be some sort of a savory meat stew, and he'd counsel her to labor not for the meat that perisheth. But he was always good and kind to the child, and she was real fond of him to the last. 24 DUMB FOXGLOVE " Poor little thing, she took it all out in making up and telling about victuals, for she hardly eat anything herself. Whether it was her made-up, make-believe dishes was so good it took away her taste for common, every-day food, I don't know, but she didn't eat enough to keep a robin alive, and so, of course, she didn't get very strong or rugged. Fact is, you couldn't want her to stay on here, suffering and shut up and helpless as she was\ and as she'd got to be all her days. And we all saw pretty soon that she wasn't going to be here much longer. Her little scrap of a face got thinner and whiter, and the purple eyes bigger, and the little hands more than ever like bird's claws; and her poor little body was wasted away and weak. She was real patient, but the ache in her back was pretty bad, and she seemed to be tired the whole living time. 'I'm terrible tired," she'd say in her croupy voice 'tired when I lay down, an' tired when I set up, an' nothin' don't seem to rest me any. Seems 's if I'd feel better if I could only walk round a mite, an' get out the dishes an' sasspans, an' grease the bakin'-plates, an' stone some raisins, an' 2 5 DUMB FOXGLOVE chop some citron, an' Oh, Aunt Eunice, I do want so bad jest to dish up a dinner once only once, Aunt Eunice.' "I didn't quite dare to do as Mrs. Peavy did, and tell her she'd have her chance some day, but I did go so far sometimes as to re- fer her over to Mother Peavy. ' What does she tell you, Colossy, when you talk so ?' I said. " Her face brightened up a little, and she answers, 'Oh, Mother Peavy says, when I get up there, if I'm set on messin' an' mixin' an' cookin' things, why, they'll let me try my hand at it. They'll know I 'ain't had no chance down in Peru, 'cause o' my hands an' my legs an ! my back, you know, an' they'll make 'lowances. That's what they're allers a-doin' up there, Mother Peavy says, makin' 'lowances for folks. She says she don't think I'll want to do any dishin' an' bakin' up there, there's such splendid things to do that I don't know nothin' about now. She says nobody 'ain't never heerd nor seed, an' it 'ain't come into nobody's head to guess at sech things as they've got up there for folks that's good an' patient an' lovin'. But I don't 26 DUMB FOXGLOVE know ; I'd like jest to try my hand a little, if they don't mind, seems 's if. An' if I do try, why, I'm goin' to see if they won't let me send down some o' my very fust cookin' to Mother Peavy. But if that can't be done, I mean to let her know, 't any rate, that she was right, an' they've let me try my hand.' " She'd take some of the commonest, plain- est kinds of food to experiment on, and she'd have a receipt for it with something in it you never dreamed of putting in before. Dough- nuts, I know, she'd always say there was to be the third part of a hin of olive-oil in them. 'What's a hin?' I'd ask her; and she'd say, 'Well, about a coffee-cup full, I guess, more nor less.' And there was to be honey from the honey-comb in her dough-nuts, too. And in her apple-dumplings there 'd always got to be 'jest the teentiest pinch of aloes.' And all these victuals were to be fixed up in the tastiest way, and on the queerest kind of dishes. To hear the solemn little old-fash- ioned young one tell about 'butter in a lordly dish,' and meat cooked in a caldron or in a flesh-pot, or sodden in iron pans, and 27 DUMB FOXGLOVE about brazen pots and earthen pitchers, was dreadful odd. " She grew weak very fast near the end. She didn't go to bed, for it hurt her more to lie down, and they bolstered her up in her chair with the pillows, and made her as com- fortable as they could. Her voice got more and more husky and low, down to a whisper, 'most, but she'd talk a little by spells up to the very last. She'd make up receipts still, but they were pretty short, and we couldn't always understand what she said. I stayed there all I could, and Mr. Robbins came a good deal, and old Mrs. Peavy hardly left her for days. She liked to hear verses about resting, and being carried, and made to lie down in green pastures, and having her tears wiped away, and about how the weary are at rest and the sick made well. But by spells she'd think about what she'd always set her little heart on, and she'd turn towards Mother Peavy and whisper, 'An' mebbe I'll be let to try makin' some of them things? 'Cause you know I've never had any chance down here, an' they'll make 'lowances for that.' "And Mrs. Peavy 'd say, stroking her yellow 28 DUMB FOXGLOVE hair, ' Yes, lovey, they'll make 'lowances fast enough. And you'll be let to do it certain sure, if you hanker bad after it ; don't worry about that.' And then she'd say over to her, in her thin old voice, her favorite piece about " ' There cinnamon an' sugar grow, There nard an' balm abound,' and another old-fashioned hymn, all about milk and honey and wine and heavenly manna, till Colossy 'd drop off to sleep like a lamb. " She went off that way at the last, bol- stered up in the big chair by the window, her poor white face resting against the pillows, and her pretty yellow hair like a light all round her head. David and Lucy Ann, Mr. Robbins, Mother Peavy, and me were all there. We loved her dearly, every one of us, but somehow not one could be exactly sorry when the tired look slipped off her little thin face, and the bits of fingers stopped twitching, and the hoarse, short breathing was all still. I never thought as much of Mr. Robbins as I did at that funeral. It seemed as if he knew just the right things to 29 DUMB FOXGLOVE say that day mostly verses from Scripture, or a line or two of a hymn. I can hear him now, speaking in his soft, pleasant way about the 'bread that came down from heaven,' 'meat to eat that ye know not of,' 'whoso- ever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst'; and those comforting verses about how ' they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more,' and how ' blessed are those that are called to the marriage- supper.' And then he led off in his nice, clear voice : " ' Food to which this world's a stranger, Here my hungry soul enjoys ; Of excess there is no danger; Tho' it fills, it never cloys." " Well, 'twas about a week after we put the little girl to rest in the graveyard over there I met Mrs. Peavy one day. We stopped, and naturally we fell to talking about Colossy. Glad as I was to have the child at rest, I missed her lots, and I said so. "'You were real good to her, Mother Peavy,' I said. 'I often think how you used to comfort her, and tell her that maybe she'd 3 DUMB FOXGLOVE have a chance to try her receipts up there, if she wanted to. Dear little thing, she under- stands better now, and don't trouble her head about those earthly things.' " Now, I'd always thought that Mrs. Peavy told the child that about having her chance up there just to chirk her up and please her, and not because she ever dreamt such a thing could really be. So I must say I was took aback when she shook her head now and an- swered in a queer, knowing sort of way, ' She 'ain't found out the better things yet, that's certain. She's got her chance, and she's a-makin' use of it right along ; least- ways, up to yesterday she was.' " ' Why, what do you mean ?' I says. ' What makes you say that ?' "And then she went on and told me the oddest story. She said she'd been thinking and thinking about Colossy, and trying to picture her all well and rested and happy in heaven ; but for the life of her she couldn't see her in her mind as singing and praising and doing all the things the saints and angels are said to do. The poof young one's talk about her wanting to dish up and mess kept DUMB FOXGLOVE coming into her head to spoil everything. One day she was sitting at her dinner. She lived all alone and did her own work. And that day she had what every one in these parts calls ' b'iled dish.' You know what I mean beef and potatoes and carrots and turnips and all. And she says : " ' I'd jest helped myself, and was going to taste of it, when I smelt a queer kind of spicy smell. I couldn't think where it come from, or rec'lect jest what 'twas like. Then I took up a little of the meat and put it in my mouth, and I didn't know what to make of it. I'd made that b'iled dish that day with my own hands, just as I'd made it all my life, an' my mother before me. But this partic'ler one wasn't any more like mine or ma's or any Vermont b'iled dish I ever see than anything. It was tastier, more flavory somehow, and, above, all there was that cu- r'us spicy kind o' physicky smell and taste. " What can it be ?" thinks I to myself. " Is it cloves or saxifrax ? Did I spill any nutmeg or ginger into the pot while 'twas b'ilin* ? No, 'tain't like any of them. It's more like that rhubarb jellup I used to make after old 32 DUMB FOXGLOVE Dr. Phelps's receipt. Lemme see, what did I put in? Rhubarb root an" why, it's cori- ander seed ; that's what it tastes of !" And in a jiffy I rec'lected Colossy, and- how she used to always say in her receipt for b'iled dish, "Add a little coriander seed brayed in a mortar." "'Well, I didn't know what to think,' she went on. 'It seemed 'most too sing'lar to believe in. But to save my life I couldn't help surmisin' that maybe jest maybe they'd let her try, to show her how unsatis- fyin' it was compared to other things up there. And she'd always said, if they did, she'd try to send some of the victuals down to me, the blessed young one ! " ' I tried to get it out of my head and swallow my dinner ; but, deary me, every mouthful choked me, and I salted the gravy with my cryin' into it, thinking of that poor little soul. Well, the next day was Saturday, and I fried some dough-nuts. The taste o' coriander seed bein' all out of my mouth now, I begun to think I'd conceited the whole thing and 'twas all foolishness. But when I set down to supper and took a dough-nut, I c 33 DUMB FOXGLOVE hadn't more'n bit into it than I see 'twasn't one o' my dough-nuts, Aunt Maria's receipt, sech as I'd made for more'n forty year. These was rich an' light, and sort o' iley, and there was a strong taste o' honey about 'em, a thing I never use in cookin'. Oh, Aunt Eunice, then I knowed, I knowed they was lettin' that poor child have her way for a spell, jest to learn her a lesson. "Fine olive- ile an' honey from the honey-comb," she used to say in her receipt for dough-nuts. And when the gingerbread tasted o' spikenard, and the apple -dumplings was jest a little bittery like aloes, and everything I made or thought I made was different from any Peavy cooking ever done in the family, then I see plain I was right. And it's only yes- terday I made or thought I made some one-two-three-four cake, the old plain receipt; and it came out the most cur'us, spicy, milk- an'-honeyish, balmy, minty thing oh, you never did !' " I tell you, as Mother Peavy went on I began to think she was really crazy. She'd always been a little peculiar, and she was growing old, and Colossy's death had weighed 34 DUMB FOXGLOVE on her mind, and I thought it had fairly up- set her now. I tried to reason with her, and show her how such a thing as she thought of could never be. But I couldn't make any impression. I told her it was dreadful to think of heaven in that way, and that dear little girl losing all the light and glory and all, for such earthly, gross kind of employ- ments. I couldn't bear to think of it. Mrs. Peavy looked sort of mournful, and she says, 4 'Tis dreadful, I know. I did hope Colossy 'd put it all out of her little head, once she got there. But there can't be any mistake. If I am old, I "ain't lost my faculties, leastways my taste, and I know what I've been eating all this week. They've got some good reason for it up there, take my word for that ; but oh, I do wish she'd learn about the better things there is.' " Well, I meant to go over and see the old lady next day and taste some of her victuals myself, to show her what a mistake she was making. But I took a bad cold that night, and didn't go outside the door for 'most a week. The first day I was well enough I started, but I met Mrs. Peavy coming over 35 DUMB FOXGLOVE to my house. It upset me to see her, she looked so terrible white and changed and old. "'Oh, Aunt Eunice,' she says, 'it's dread- ful, dreadful. That poor little thing's at it still. She's turning my sody biscuits into unleavened bread, and my pies into pottage ; there's lentils in my corn -beef hash, and fitches in my johnny-cake; and oh, deary, deary me, there's mint, anise, and cummin in every bit of victuals that comes on the table. Poor ignorant little soul, what can she be thinking of ! It jest breaks my heart, Aunt Eunice, for oh, 'twas I done it, I done it !' and she just wrung her hands. " It seemed she'd got it into her head that her tellin' Colossy she'd have a chance and they'd let her try things had made the poor child beg for it ; and now she liked it so well, after never having had anything of the sort all her days, that she couldn't give it up. It seems a crazy idea, I know, but 'twas terrible real to her, and as she said herself, it 'most broke her heart. "'I thought 'twould be sech a comfort,' she went on, 'to think of that child among 36 DUMB FOXGLOVE the blessed ones, all straight and well and rested, all dressed in clean white robes, prais- ing and worshipping and loving, walking along the banks of the river or down the streets o' gold. And now to think of her keepin' on and on this way oh, 'tain't right, 'tain't right.' " I saw she needed some one wiser and better than me, and I went that night to Mr. Robbins with the whole story. I'd cal- culated he'd be very much put out by such foolishness, and think it was wicked and making light of sacred things. But when I got through I saw his eyes looked kind of moist, and he had to cough and clear out his throat before he could say anything. So I spoke again to give him time, and I says, ' Mother Peavy's growing old and she's get- ting childish.' "'Well,' says he, 'that's what we've all got to be to get at the truth of things. " Except ye become as little children," you know ; and childish and unreasonable as the good old soul's idea is, there's a lesson in it. Let us go and see her.' "And we did ; but he couldn't do her much 37 DUMB FOXGLOVE good. She had got so upset and shaky that she couldn't do anything but cry and bewail her having put things into little Colossy's head and spoiled her heaven for her. "At last Mr. Robbins said, 'Well, Mrs. Peavy, suppose we lay this before the Lord and ask His aid,' and then he prayed. I never shall forget that prayer. You see no- body but Catholics ever prayed for dead- and-gone folks then, and I suppose they don't now ; and our church was always strong against it, of course. And I'd heard Mr. Robbins himself preach a powerful discourse about it from the text, ' Where the tree fall- eth, there it shall be.' But I suppose he saw now it was a time for strong measures, and, scruples or no scruples, he must quiet this good old soul. So he prayed for Colossy ! I can't help thinking he meant that prayer more to help Mother Peavy than to do Co- lossy any good; but 'twas beautiful, 't any rate. Of course I can't remember just the very words. But he asked that the child might rest in peace and have light given unto her, that she might with the other little ones always behold the face of her Father. 33 DUMB FOXGLOVE And he asked that she might drink of the water of life, clear as crystal, and eat of the heavenly manna, and be satisfied. And he ended up by asking that her friends here be- low might be given the full assurance of the little one's peace and rest. In all the years he was settled in Peru I never heard him pray so earnest, and I was certain sure in my own heart he'd be heard. Then he asked Mrs. Peavy if he and I could come over next day and eat dinner with her. 'And you must have one of your good old-fashioned dinners for us, Mrs. Peavy,' he says, 'and we'll tell you just what we think of it.' " So we went. She'd made b'iled dish, and it looked real tempting and just like her old way of making it, for she was a real good cook. But she was all shaky and trembly, her face looked drawn up and old, and she could hardly sit up to the table without help. Mr. Robbins asked a blessing, and then the dinner was helped. I'll own up I was a little nervous. The queerer the ideas, you know, the more catching they are. And I'd thought so much of what the old lady had said of the tastes and smells in her cooking lately that 39 DUMB FOXGLOVE I felt almost creepy with being afraid I should find it that way myself. ( Oh dear,' I says to myself, ' if there should be a cori- ander-seed flavor !' But there wasn't. Mr. Robbins began first, and I followed right away. It was the same good, well-seasoned, Peru b'iled dish I'd eat dozens of times be- fore at that table. Mrs. Peavy didn't taste of hers at first. I really don't think she could raise her spoon to her mouth, she shook so. But she fixed her eyes on our faces, first one, then the other, leaning 'way over and looking and looking, as if she was hoping, but scared. " ' Well,' speaks up Mr. Robbins, ' this is good indeed. One of your best old-fashioned dishes, Mrs. Peavy. I should know that this was a Peru b'iled dish if I was a hundred miles away,' and he went on eating it. "'Yes,' I says, following his example, 'I always liked Mrs. Peavy's way of making it just the pepper-and-salt seasoning, and no flavors, as some folks use.' " She looked real earnest at us, and then she says, low and quivery, ' Don't you take notice of a leetle coriander-seed taste just a leetle ?' 40 DUMB FOXGLOVE "And we both hurried up to say there wasn't one bit of that not a suspicion, Mr. Robbins said. " She didn't look quite satisfied, though just a mite more comfortable. Then she took some of the gravy in a spoon with her shaking hand and put it to her mouth. She spilt some and she could hardly swallow any, but I see her face clear up a little, and she sort of whispered to herself, ' She's let that alone, anyway.' " Then we had some apple-dumplings, and 'twas the same way. Mother Peavy waited and watched, half hoping, half frightened, till Mr. Robbins led off, eat some and praised them up, and I followed on. "'An' there don't appear to be any- thing a speck bittery?' she says, leaning across to us and asking so solemn 'not enough to spile 'em, but something like aloes ?' "And again we hurried on to tell her there wasn't a taste of such a thing, not a taste. Then she managed to swallow a little herself, and again I saw her features light up a mite, and she whispers to her- DUMB FOXGLOVE self again, 'An' she 'ain't meddled with them.' "After that came dough-nuts and cheese with our cup of tea, and that was just the same. After Mr. Robbins had praised them up, and I had done it after him, and she'd asked us in the same scared, nervy way if we was sure we couldn't taste a flavor o' olive-ile or honey, we told her decided there wasn't anything at all like that ; they were just good, old-fashioned Peavy dough-nuts. They were the last thing on the table ; she'd tried all the rest, and I saw she was more scared now than any time before, when she took one in her trembling fingers and tried to lift it up to her mouth. I thought for a minute I should have to do it for her, but she man- aged it somehow, and got a piece between her poor, shaking, twitching lips. I thought I was prepared for anything, worked up as I was over this. But I did break down like a baby when the good old soul burst out, the tears running down her wrinkled face in a shower, and the heavenliest smile shining through them like a rainbow, ' She's found it out oh, bless the Lord, she's found it out at 42 DUMB FOXGLOVE last ! No more messin' an' fussin' with earthly things for Colossy Bragg. She's looked up higher, and seen the light at last. Oh, thank the Lord, thank the Lord !' " We both went over to her. Seems to me now, as I look back, we was both crying, but I disremember all about that. We got her quiet after a spell, but for a long time she kept sobbing out, ' I'm so glad, I'm so glad. Your praying done it, Mr. Robbins. They've took the blessed child up higher now, and they've sent me word.' " Well, there was a story went around the whole county, after that, that Mr. Robbins was on the road to Rome, as they said. Maybe you've heard it. It all came from that prayer he made at Mrs. Peavy's in be- half of little Colossy Bragg's soul. But, as I said before, it's my opinion that prayer was meant more to help the living than the dead, and somehow, some ways, it answered its purpose." APPLE JONATHAN APPLE JONATHAN No one who knew the Stonington of thirty years ago can fail to remember old Jonathan Tripp, the apple-dealer. His quaint figure and wagon with its spicy load were as fa- miliar to all who lived in or visited the village as was the Road Meeting-house, the old light- house on Windmill Point, or Roderick Na- than's store. But although I recall with won- derful distinctness the face, form, words, and actions of the old man, I find my memory failing me upon certain points of detail. I am not quite sure where his house and orchard were situated, but I have a strong impression that they were in North Stoning- ton. I know that I often met him driving his wagon into the borough from that direc- tion. Nor do I know if he himself raised all the fruit he sold, or whether he brought into 47 APPLE JONATHAN market the produce of his neighbors together with his own. But I feel well assured that never, before nor since, did I see or taste such apples as those old Jonathan Tripp's wagon bore. He was not often called by his whole name. The Stonington boy of that day had a rare faculty for bestowing appropriate nicknames, and to the old vender of the fruit so dear to all New-Englanders they gave the name of Apple Jonathan. If you who read this sketch are of Con- necticut origin, especially if you have ever lived in dear, salty, rocky old Stonington, you will not need that I should tell you of the toothsome dish that bears this name. Does not your mouth water, do not your eyes grow moist, as you recall it, taken smok- ing-hot from the brick oven, and sending out the spicy, aromatic odors nothing else can quite equal ? Think of the golden - brown, crisply tender paste, the rich flow of sweet but piquant juice, redolent of cinnamon, cloves, and I know not what else ; the deli- cate slices of apple cooked thoroughly, but never too soft ; the oh, you know it all. If APPLE JONATHAN not, no words of mine can make you under- stand. And so old Jonathan Tripp was known in the borough, in Milltown, Flanders, Mystic, Pawcatuck, Voluntown, and for miles around, as Apple Jonathan. Day after day the black wagon, drawn by the old gray mare, rattled along the road, loaded with baskets and bags of the homely, fragrant fruit. There were gillyflowers of dark purple-red and pear-like shape ; golden- sweets big and yellow ; the little Denison reddings, all crimson and shining outside, and with the white crisp meat streaked and veined with red ; Prentice russets of bronzy brown, the larger and greener Cheeseb'rin' russets, spicy red Spitzenbergs, Rhode Island greenings, seek - no - furthers, scarlet Astra- khans, pumpkin-sweets, Roxbury russets, the Northern spy, the Newtown pippin, pear- mains, red - streaks, sheep's - noses, Baldwins, Peck's pleasants. Then there were rare and choice varieties with mysterious names, of whose origin Apple Jonathan would never speak. Such was the Lang'orthy fav'rite, a large, sweet, very juicy fruit, its yellow skin thickly dotted with black. D 49 APPLE JONATHAN Of this kind he was very choice, bringing but a dozen or so at a time in a covered tin pail, with a cloth tied down tightly over the lid. Then there was the Tripp tart to bake for invalids. These were so very rare as to be brought by twos or threes in the pocket of the old man's coat. I well remember the smell and the taste of one of those brought me when recovering from some childish ail- ment. It was cooked in a delightful way, suspended by a string from the wooden man- tel, and revolving slowly in front of the hard- coal fire in the grate of the keepin'-room. A saucer was placed below, just inside the fender, to catch and hold the dripping juice. What matter if a little ashes fell down and mingled with that syrupy stuff, half sweet, half sour ? I ate it all, that Tripp tart juice, and longed for more. It was currently sup- posed that no perfectly sound and well person had ever tasted a Tripp tart apple. Even old Jonathan himself, when asked, once upon a time, if he did not think this variety a little sweeter than in old times, replied, doubtfully, that he " wa'n't certain sure about it, for he'd had a long spell o' good health." And I doubt 5 APPLE JONATHAN not that many a man and woman of to-day finds the very name of Tripp tart a potent charm, calling up a far-away childhood, a restless night, an aching head, small burning hands, or a shivery little body. Somehow those childish pains and aches do not seem so bitter in memory, and we think now a good deal more of the cool soft hands which touched the head and cheek so gently, turned the hot pillow, and held the restless little fingers. Apple Jonathan himself was a tall, spare, awkward man, with rounded, stooping shoul- ders, thin gray hair, and a lean, brown, weather-beaten face. I can see him plainly in recollection, with his shabby brown over- coat, the gray-and-red woollen comforter tied about his neck, the blue -yarn mittens, the faded cloth cap drawn down over his ears, as he drove day after day along the roads and lanes. Now he would stop at Nabby Lord's with some pie-apples for her Saturday bak- ing, again at Uncle Sim Lewis's to leave a bushel of the old man's favorite green- ings, then down the lane by the old Trim- ble place to take a Tripp tart to little APPLE JONATHAN Billy Merritt, just getting up from scarlet- fever. Again and again as he passed along he was hailed, sometimes by a woman with her shawl over her head, who would run out with a milk -pan for some golden - sweets for the children, or pippins for apple-sauce ; some- times by a boy or girl with a big copper cent to spend for juicy fruit. Again, it might be a man with an order for a barrel or two of gillyflowers or seek-no-furthers for the winter evenings. Large or small, the order was promptly filled, and the stock seemed inexhaustible. But Apple Jonathan was not merely a deal- er in apples ; he was a lover of the fruit, which he knew thoroughly in all its forms, stages, developments. I do not mean simply that he understood its cultivation, preservation, and uses, though these he did understand well. But all his thoughts and his words were of his favorite fruit ; he found in it something for every emergency ; he used it for illustra- tion, for suggestion, for moral lesson every- thing. " Tell me I set too much by apples," the 52 APPLE JONATHAN old man would say. "Why, I couldn't do it. There ain't no sech thing as settin' too much by 'em. They're the one thing in all this shaky, onsartin' airth of ourn that stands by you allus, an' don't never fail nor disapp'int. Set your heart on clothes, or houses, or live- stock, or even folks, and more'n likely they'll turn out as you don't want 'em to. Clothes will tear or rip or grow shiny most the fust time you put 'em on ; your new house will be draughty or smoky or leaky or suthin' ; your creatur's will ail, or fall into holes an' break their legs, or be struck by lightnin'; an' folks well, everybody knows what folks is, an' how they ain't to be depended on for a stiddy supply o' comfort best o' times. But apples never disapp'ints ye. There they be, year arter year, seed-time an' harvest an' all, right by ye, never failin', never hurtin' ye, never turnin' out diff'ent from what you'd expected, an' ready for every single state o' mind or sitooation o' body you could git into. S'pose you've had a disapp'intment o' some kind, an' you've begun to feel as if there wa'n't any- thing to be depended on in this mortal airth, that everything's a fleetin' show for man's 53 APPLE JONATHAN delusion given, that there ain't nothin' what it's made out to be, that ' each pleasure hath its p'ison too, an' every sweet its snare,' why, you jest go to your apple barrel for a gilly- flower, say, if that's the kind you like. You take a apple out, an' there 'tis. It's a gilly- flower, an' it's gillyflower color, dark an' pur- ply red like them hollyhawks by the fence there. It don't come out yeller like a golden- sweet, nor brownish like a Prentice russet, nor streaky like a Spitzenberg; it's just what it allus was as to color. Then it's gillyflower shape, too. 'Tain't big 'round an' squatty like a greenin', nor little like a Denison reddin' ; but it's kinder long an' slopin', as gillyflowers allus was an' allus will be. Then you come to the proof o' the puddin', 's they say the eatin*. You bite into it. 'Tain't so tasty an' high-flavored one way as a seek-no-further, nor so nice an' sweet as a sweetin', nor sech a pleasant tart as the Davis sour ; mebbe 'tain't so good reely as any o' them kinds, but it's itself anyway, an' jest what you knowed 'twould be, mashy an' half an' half sorter, not very decided tastin' anyway, but it's gilly- flowery, an' that's what you want jest now, 54 APPLE JONATHAN an' you says to yourself, ' Here's suthin' cert'- in, suthin' I can lot on an' never be disap- p'inted.' Tell me that don't help ye ? It can't miss o' doin' it. " Or s'pose ag'in you're sick, an' nothin' seems to do you any good doctors' stuff, nor yarbs, nor nothing. Why, you have to come to apples. If you're run down an' pindlin', an* need stren'th'nin' an' stimerlatin', why there's new cider or old apple-jack to build ye up. Or ag'in, if it's t'other way, an' you're too hot- blooded an' rilled up an' pulsy, why, there's nothin' so coolin' an' down-pullin' as a froze- an'-thawed apple on a empty stomach. If it's nettle-rash or erysipler, or any outside skin- ny thing like that, a poultice o' sour apples spread on is the best thing in the world lots better 'n cramb'ry. For a hackin' cough you take apple surrup with a leetle bit o' flaxseed or slipp'ry ellum. For bitters, when you don't relish your victuals, why, you stick a Rhode Island greenin' full o' cloves, an" roast it 'fore the fire, an' when it's done through pour some New England rum over it as much as it '11 soak up ; sprinkle some dried tansy an' worm- wood leaves with a pinch or two o' camamile 55 APPLE JONATHAN flowers over it, an* take it afore eatin'. There ain't nothin' apples can't cure, take it in time. " But s'pose you ain't sick, but kinder tired o' meat an' potaters an' fish an' clams an' lobster, why, live on apples. There's apple- sass an apple-butter an' dried-apple pie an' green-apple pie, an' apple-dumplin's, an' apple turnovers, an' apple slump. There's steamed- apple puddin' an' bread - an' - apple puddin'. There's baked apples an' stewed apples an' preserved apples an' fried apples. There's apple jell an' apple marm'lade an' why, you could live on nothin' but apples for a year, an' never have the same dish two days runnin' !" And so the old man would run on as long as any one would listen to his talk. On topics of general interest he had nothing to say. He knew little of public affairs, poli- tics, wars, or even the local village gossip. He was, according to most standards, a very ignorant man. He could read slowly and with difficulty, spelling out laboriously the larger words. He wrote a little, and knew enough of figures to "tot up" his accounts 56 APPLE JONATHAN in the apple trade. Not a very liberal edu- cation, you see. But he had picked up much odd, out-of-the-way information religious, biographical, historical relating to his fa- vorite theme. To humor his fancy, for he was a general favorite in the town, people brought to the old man any facts they could gather relating to his hobby. And he laid them away carefully, till his mind was a queer storehouse, an apple - cellar, so to speak, of pomological treasure. And he knew how to bring out these bits of learning, casually as it were, in his daily conversations, often giv- ing one the impression that he was a student and a thinker, and had read and absorbed many books. He did read his Bible a great deal. He was a good, pious old soul, and if his religion seemed strongly flavored by his favorite fruit, can we blame or judge him ? Is there not decided individuality in each one's creed, and do not our own peculiar tastes influence strongly the hopes and fears of our theolog- ical sentiments ? I never saw Apple Jona- than read any book but the Bible an old leather-bound copy which was his constant 57 APPLE JONATHAN companion and a queer old hymn - book, which he knew by heart. Of this last I know but one copy, Avhich is unique as far as I know. Its title is Divine Hymns, a Collection by Joshua Smith and Others, and it is full of quaint verses, which the old man was fond of repeating. I suppose that the principal, perhaps the sole reason that it was included in his small library was because of one hymn which bore upon his beloved hobby. It is a curious old piece, entitled " Christ, the Apple- Tree. " However strangely it may sound to modern ears, it certainly did not strike any of us who heard it in Apple Jonathan's thin, quavering voice as irreverent, or lacking in a sort of homely fervor. I quote here some of the lines, and I can almost hear his very tones, while a faint spicy odor, as from an orchard, seems to fill the air : " The Tree of Life my soul hath seen, Laden with fruit, and always green ; The trees of nature fruitless be Compared with Christ, the apple-tree." One verse begins : 58 APPLE JONATHAN "I'll sit and eat this fruit divine; It cheers my heart like spiritu'l wine"; and this Jonathan would repeat with great feeling, thinking of his own beloved earthly fruit, though never forgetting, I am sure, the divine with its spiritual cheer. There seems to be a good deal about fruit in that old book. Perhaps Joshua Smith and others had orchards too. One of them sings : " There we shall see that fruitful tree Which bears twelve times a year, Whose lovely fruits so sweetly suits All heav'n's guests for cheer." And another addresses "My children dear that now appear Like blossoms on the trees." It is in this last hymn that the writer says : " You know that then five out of ten Of virgins did prove fools; Why may not you be found so too, If you take up their rules?" 59 APPLE JONATHAN Although this stanza bore no allusion to apples, Jonathan often quoted it. He was an old bachelor, and there was a tinge of something like contempt in the way in which he sometimes spoke of woman and her capacities. According to him, she judged an apple by its exterior, the color or gloss of its skin, or, worse yet, by its price, a very belittling thing to do. "I never knowed a woman hardly," he would say, " that was a real jedge o' apples. They don't never seem to have what I call a tasty fac'lty. Course they can't help knowin' when a apple's out an' out sour, or up an' down sweet ; but the betwixts an' be- tweens, the half-ways, the jest off one an' a mite on t'other, why, they can't ketch it minds ain't strong enough. Why, there's Tildy Bliven, she makes a great time over my Lang'orthy fav'rites, an' one time I asked her what she held to be the p'int o' that apple, the thing that made it diff'rent from other apples ; I jest wanted to see what she'd say ; an' she says, ' Why, I call it sweet,' says she. ' Nothin' else ?' says I. ' Why, it's aw- ful dear,' she says ; ' highest priced you've 60 APPLE JONATHAN got, 'most.' Now that shows. Why, any man would 'a' told ye the main p'int of a Lang'orthy fav'rite was juice, lots o' juice, an' all on it with jest the leetlest taste an' smell o' sweet - birch. I've knowed women treat comp'ny men comp'ny too, that knows what good fruit is to lady-apples, an' noth- in' else, jest 'cause they was pink an' yeller, an' looked pooty on a blue willow-ware plate !" Apple Jonathan was an even - tempered, kindly man, and rarely showed any acidity or real bitterness in his feelings. The only occasions on which I have seen him give vent to much irritation or annoyance were when any of the "city folks," summer visitors, staying at the old Wadawannuck, made in- quiries of him concerning some species of apples unknown to him. That piqued and vexed the old man sorely. I met him one day, out on the east road, shaking his head and muttering to himself, with a very troubled look on his brown, wrinkled face. " Jest come from the hotel," he said. " Man from Philadelphy wanted to know if I'd got any twenty-ounce apples. I wa'n't goin' to let on I never heered on 'em, so I says : 61 APPLE JONATHAN ' 'Tain't the season for twenty-ouncers. The kep'-over ones is gone, an' the new crop ain't ripe.' "An" then a lady she run out an' she says : ' Ain't you got any New Jersey codlins ? That's the only specie my husband can eat,' she says. " Codlins ! codlins ! Better call 'em torn- cods an' done with it, an' buy 'em from Abel Wilcox, the fish-man. I 'ain't no patience with them 'ere furren fruits an' names. Ev- ery apple that's good for anything is raised in Stonin'ton borough, or within five miles on it, 't any rate." We often teased the old man and tried to draw from him some of his odd information as to the fruit he sold, by pretending to decry it and seeming to doubt its close connection with the history of the universe. " Why, what has it to do with geography, for instance?" one of us would ask. " Jography ? Why, it's got everything to do with jography. 'Tis jography itself. How does the books go to work when they want to lay down the very beginnin' o* things an' tell how the airth's shaped ? They say it's like a 62 APPLE JONATHAN apple, kind o' round, but a little flattened off at the stem an' blossom ends. They couldn't give no idea o' the airth if 'twa'n't for apples, an' we might 'a' got to conceitin' 'twas narrer an' p'inted like a pear, or skewy an' knobby like a quince, or with a turnover handle like a crook-neck squash, if we hadn't got jest the thing to measure it off by." " But history, Uncle Jonathan how about that ?" '" Hist'ry ? It's jest chock - full on 'em ! You rec'lect about the man that put the ap- ple on his boy's head a greenin', I guess 'twas ; that's flattest at the bottom, an' would set good without jogglin' an' fired at it. An' then there's that story that's in all the school- books, they say, about a prize apple they give one time to the best-lookin' woman, an' the time they had over it. It's jest so to-day at our county fairs an' fruit shows ; there's sure to be trouble about the premiums, par- tic'lar if there's women in it. But that wa'n't in Conne'ticut, but out Troy way, I believe. An' then there's that story they tell about George Washin'ton an' his cut- tin' his pa's apple-tree. Oh, hist'ry's jest 63 APPLE JONATHAN as full o' apples as this peck measure here is." "But arithmetic do apples come into that ?" we would ask. " More 'n anything else," Apple Jonathan would reply. "I hear the boys an' girls at Miss Lucy Ann's school sayin' their lessons when I'm waitin' outside, days. Teacher says, ' If John's got fifteen apples, an' he gives . Mary six,' an' so on an' so on, ' how many,' she says, ' has he got left ?' ' An' if a bushel o' apples cost so much,' says she, ' how much does a barrel come to ?' An' so 'tis, over 'n over apples, apples, apples. " More 'n that, they can't learn young ones to read without 'em. I heerd Hepsy Pome- roy sayin' over her letters t'other day, an' 'twas all, ' A apple-pie, B bit it, C cried arter it, D danced for it,' an' so on an' so on, from A to Zed and Ampersand. " What you gigglin' at now ? They ain't got anything to do with courtin' an' love- makin' ? Well, I don't know what's got any more. How'd you tell whether your sweetheart likes you or not 'thout namin' apples an' then countin' the seeds, an' sayin' : 64 APPLE JONATHAN "'One I love, two I love, three I love I say, Four I love 'ith all my heart, And five I cast away,' an' so on ? Or ag'in, how'd you git the fust letter of her name if you didn't have a apple- parin' to throw 'round your head an' drop on the floor ? An' do you suppose there was ever a couple kep' comp'ny here in the borough or anywhere else 'thout a dish o' apples set out when he come to see her ? I was sayin' that once to Elder Frink, o'West'ly, an' he laughed kind o' foolish, an' owned right up that he be- gun courtin' Mis' Frink she was Selmy Noyes, ye know by givin' her a bite of a pumpkin -sweet at recess when he wa'n't fourteen years old. You've got to ask me suthin' harder 'n that. "Now about the Scripters that's the great- est. They're jest full o' apples. In the fust place, in the very beginning ye know, there was the gardin o' Eden, an' the best tree there, the very ch'icest, everybody knows, was a apple-tree. You rec'lect all that story, an' you know what come on it. A apple was the one thing Adam an' Eve couldn't stan' E 65 APPLE JONATHAN bein' tempted by, an' they give way. So, you see, 'riginal sin, that the ministers make so much on nowadays, was started by apples. That wa'n't the fault o' the apples, but the folks that made a bad use on 'em. " Then Solomon, he was the wisest man 't ever lived, an' he couldn't find a stronger com- parin' or measurin' to use than to say, ' As a apple-tree is compared to other trees.' He set a great deal by apples, Solomon did. The Bible says he writ a book about trees, an' I often think I'd like to git hold on it an' see what he said about the Lang'orthy fav'rite, f'r instance. He talks about bein' ' under the apple-tree,' an' he says to his folks once, ' Comfort me with apples,' he says, showin' that he knowed what they could do to raise your sperrits an' chirk ye up when low in your mind. Why, the best thing he can liken a good, seas'nable, appropri'te sayin' to is to apples o' gold golden-sweets, I s'pose in picters o' silver, that is, set out on a shinin' pewter plate or Brittany waiter; 'tis as hand- some 's a picter then, ye know. " An' then Joel, one o' the old prophets, he tells about the apple-trees bein' all withered ; 66 APPLE JONATHAN kind of a blight, ye see. To be sure, he men- tions the palm-tree in the same c'nection, but that was a mistake, I guess. I dun'no' what palm-trees is good for except for fans to keep in the pews at meetin'. "An' then there's one sayin' that's come down from them Bible times about the apple of our eye. That means the thing we've set our hearts on, the very best thing we've got the apple, ye see, of our eye. They had to use the apple, ye see, to figur' that out too." There was in the village at that time a boy named Joseph Peckham, but universally known as Joe Ricketts. His misshapen little figure, rounded shoulders, crooked legs, large head, and pale, thin face were well known to every one in Stonington. He was wonder- fully intelligent, fond of reading, and had a remarkable memory. To this boy Apple Jonathan seemed greatly drawn, and the two were close friends. It was from Joe Ricketts that the old man learned much of the apple lore he dealt out with the fruit itself to his customers. It was little Joe who hunted out from books, papers, or magazines stories about the fruit, found out for his old friend the ori- 67 APPLE JONATHAN gin of the different names his apples bore, and the history of each variety. I cannot remem- ber them, those old tales. I do not know now who was the Peck who gave his name to the Peck's pleasant, nor the Denison who had for namesake the little redding. I am not quite clear as to which particular branch of the Cheesebroughs belonged the discoverer of the Cheeseb'rin' russet, nor why the Astrakhan should bear that furry name. But Apple Jonathan knew it all, and it was little Joe Ricketts who told him. There was one apple in the old man's or- chard whose name puzzled both him and his little humpbacked teacher. A young tree had been given him years before by an old farmer long ago dead, and to the best of Jonathan's recollection he had called it the Neester ap- ple-tree. That name was inexplicable to little Joe. No such family as Neester was known in the town, nor, as far as he knew, in the neigh- boring villages. Neither was there any place of that name known to the boy, or to any of whom he made inquiries. He was piqued and interested, and determined to solve the mys- tery. No trained antiquarian or philologist 68 APPLE JONATHAN could have thrown himself more eagerly into the question. He said the word over and over, suggested theories, and again demol- ished them. " I wonder," said he, in one of his talks with Apple Jonathan, "if that tree didn't useter stand in the northeast corner o' the lot, an' so they came to call it the Nor'easter, an' then Neester ?" " That's so, sonny," said the old man ; " that's reas'nable 'nough. Nor'easter ; I bet that's how it come about. What a head you've got, Joe !" "It's big 'nough, ain't it?" responded the boy. " But, arter all, I don't b'lieve it's Nor'- easter ; it don't sound right somehow, does it?" " No, it don't, it don't, sonny. Can't you hit on suthin' likelier?" " You cert'in sure that farmer didn't call it the Yeasty apple ?" asks the boy. " Then ye see it might be, 'cause it's kind o' light an' juicy like yeast emptins, ye know. Yeasty apple, wa'n't that it?" " Mebbe 'twas, mebbe 'twas," the old man agrees. " But somehow I've allers rec'lected it as the Neester apple-tree." 69 APPLE JONATHAN " That's so," the boy would answer. " You wouldn't get it so dreffle diff'ent 's all that. No, it can't be Yeasty. But, deary me, what can it be, anyway ?" The farmer who had given this puzzling fruit to Jonathan was a Miner, and had lived at Quiambaug Cove, and to this place Apple Jonathan and Joe made several voyages of investigation. But they met with little suc- cess. Jubal Miner had died many years be- fore, and none of his immediate family re- mained. He had never married, but lived with his brother's daughter Mercy, who, after the death of her uncle, had married and gone West. "There !" exclaimed Joe Ricketts, one day, as he went over this part of the story; "I bet we've got it now. He lived with his niece, didn't he? Now, why didn't he name that apple arter her, an' call it Nieceter, 'cause o' her, his niece, ye know ?" " Jes so, jes so," says Apple Jonathan. " I rec'lect Massy Miner ; she was a real likely gal ; an' Jubal he sot everything by her. Neester, arter his niece ; that's so, ain't it ?" " I d'no," says the boy ; " it don't seem to 70 APPLE JONATHAN satisfy me some ways. If he'd wanted to name it arter her, he'd 'a' called it the Massy apple, or Massy's fav'rite, or suthin' like that. No, I ain't got it right yit." After a talk of this nature one day, as the boy rode along the village streets by the old man's side, the wagon drew up before the green door of Miss Esther Carew. "Wait a minute, sonny," said Jonathan ; " I promised to speak to Miss Easter about some pie- apples." Now in Stonington, and through all New England, I think, the name Esther was pro- nounced Easter. It was often spelled so, and I have found it in that form on many an old gravestone. As Apple Jonathan came out of the back gate and rejoined the boy, little Joe cried out : " I 'most b'lieve I got it this time. Wa'n't there an Easter 'mong Jubal Miner's folks, an' didn't he name it arter her, an' call it an Easter apple ?" " Sounds likely," responded Jonathan, " but I don't rec'lect any one o' that name in the family. We'll find out. I hope 'tis that way, for I allus liked that name. In my hymn- APPLE JONATHAN book here there's a piece called 'Composed on the Death of a Wife.' I've spoke it to you, you know ; that one that says : " ' Now like a disconsolate dove I'm left all alone for to mourn.' An' her name 'peared to be Easter, for in one stanzy he says : "'An' jine that eternal new song An' with my kind Easter to sing.' " So to Quiambaug again they journeyed to look for a possible Esther among Jubal Miner's folks. But no trace of any one bear- ing that name could be found among the Miners, nor in the closely connected families of Wheelers or Yorks. It was on a blustering day in early March, as the old apple-dealer rode down the main street of the village, that he saw Joe Ricketts hobbling towards him up " the doctor's lane." Joe waved his little thin hand, and Jonathan stopped and took him in. The boy's face was bright with excitement and interest. "Mebbe we've got it this time," he gasped, out of breath with his exertion. 72 APPLE JONATHAN "I jest cameacrost it in a Sabba'-school book Ben Niles lent me. D'ye know there was another kind o' Easter ?" " No," said Apple Jonathan, in a surprised tone. " What is 't a woman ?" *' Oh no ; it's a day a day some folks keep. Jever hear of it, Uncle Jonathan ?" Now you must remember that the feasts and festivals of what is called the Christian Year were but little heeded at that time in Puritan New England. There was no Epis- copal church then in Stonington, and in the other churches the custom of holding services upon Christmas or Easter was quite unknown. I doubt not there were many in the village and town who had never heard of Easter Sunday, though knowing well all about the glorious fact it is intended to commemorate. So Apple Jonathan shook his head. " Never heerd of a day like that, Joe," he said. " What's it kep' for ?" Now poor Joe Ricketts was very close to being a heathen. There had been little in his wretched life to make him anything else. He remembered nothing of father or mother, but made his home if we can give the place 73 APPLE JONATHAN that beautiful name with a crabbed, soured old aunt, who beat and abused the boy. Apple Jonathan, though a religious old soul, was reticent upon sacred themes, save so far as they seemed associated with his favorite pursuit, and had taught the boy little of what might have brought much light and comfort to the stunted, dwarfed soul shut up in its queer, battered cage. I will not give you the story of Easter as the boy told it. You would hardly recognize the tale in its quaint, homely form. But Jonathan knew it for what it was. His wrinkled brown face took on a softened look as he interpreted the story, and with the aid of his old Bible and hymn-book tried to make it clear to little Joe. This is no place in which to say much of that, nor of the hope which began to dawn in the boy's soul of a possible change some day in the rickety, aching body he dragged about so wearily. But after all, though there was such an Easter as this, what had Jubal Miner's apple- tree to do with it ? Neither Jonathan nor Joe could explain this. " Did the book say what time o' year this Easter come ?" asked Jonathan. 74 APPLE JONATHAN " Said it changed about a good deal, but 'most allus come along in April somewher's." " April ! There ain't no apple-tree bears that time o' year," said the old man. "Mebbe this kind keeps over till April better 'n t'others," suggested Joe. " No," said Jonathan ; " they don't keep good anyway. Fac' is, they ain't good for much, them Neester apples, 'tany rate late years. The leaves was all eat up this year an' last by caterpillars, an' the fruit wasn't much but windfalls, an' I left 'em on the ground ; didn't pay to gether 'em." Many and long were the conversations held upon this theme by the odd pair of friends. Their world was very small, and this question of the Neester apple's origin, so trivial to us, assumed vast proportions. Little Joe found much about Easter in his books, now that he looked for it, and he asked many questions of the minister and others well informed on the subject. But nothing helped him to make out the con- nection between the anniversary and the gnarled, worm-infested apple-tree. At last he read in the New London weekly paper 75 APPLE JONATHAN that Easter would that year fall upon the 2oth of April, and the boy looked forward eagerly to the day. Somehow he would know all about it then, he thought ; some- thing would happen. "I hope 'twill be nice weather," he said, "so 't I can set out an' watch, an' I b'lieve I'll find out the reason o' that name." Apple Jonathan was to take the boy home with him on Saturday, the igth, and keep him over Sunday. It was an early spring for that climate, and there had been a suc- cession of soft, warm days, with the sun al- most hot at noontime, though the nights were still cold. It was warm that Saturday morning as Apple Jonathan and Joe Ricketts started on their drive out to the old man's home. Joe thought it was too warm, took off his ragged woollen comforter, and said his hands and cheeks were " burnin' up." And surely there was a crimson spot on each thin cheek, and the little fingers felt very hot when Jonathan touched them. The boy was strangely excited, for they two were going to keep Easter, their first, under the Neester tree. April is an uncertain 76 APPLE JONATHAN month, particularly so in New England, and before they reached Jonathan's house the sky had clouded and a cold wind had come up. And when the old man lifted the boy down he was blue and shivering. It was from old Jonathan himself that I heard the story of that Easter. The morn- ing dawned sunshiny and fair, and the pair of friends were early at their post. There was nothing of awakening or reviving about the Neester apple-tree. Some of the early fruit already showed small pink buds, and there were leaves of tender green on many trees. But Jubal Miner's tree looked brown and dead. They sat down under it, and again little Joe questioned Apple Jonathan. He asked him about the blowth, the fruit, the leaves, and finally about the caterpillars that devoured the foliage. " Oh, they was jest these pesky little things," the old man told him, " that spin down on ye by a thread, ye know ; the kind that go along, fust their heads an' then drorin' up their tails, hunch- in' their backs up every time, ye know." " Like me," said the boy ; " I've seed that sort ; allus makes me feel 's if they was mock- 77 APPLE JONATHAN in' me an' my way o' gettin' along. An' what become on 'em, Uncle Jonny ?" " What, the wu'ms, sonny ? Why, I killed all I could on 'em ; an' the rest there, now, they was suthin' cur'us about that ! I forgot it till now. I see some on 'em let theirselves down off the tree, an' then what d'ye think come on 'em ? Why, they dug down inter the groun' like a mole, an' there they stayed." The boy raised himself on his elbow and looked into the old man's face. " Buried theirselves in the groun'," he said, " an' stayed there !" He shivered. " Wish ye hadn't tole me that," he said ; " that's what I'm scared of." " What, of bein' buried, sonny? You hadn't oughter talk that way ; 'tain't good for little boys." " Yes," in a low, frightened voice. " Aunt Viny says I ain't never goin' to grow up ; an' if I don't, why, that means I'm goin' to be put in the groun', like Jim Fannin', an' it scares me so !" " But, bubby, you mustn't think o' that part. Don't ye rec'lect what I told ye about the risin' an' all that ?" 78 APPLE JONATHAN " I know," sighs the boy ; " but I can't make it out real, someways. It don't seem reas'na- ble, does it, now, that you put me down in the dirt there, a drawed-up, hunched-up chap like them caterpillars you tell on, an' spect me to come out ag'in, an' all diff'ent an* spry an' flyin' ; it don't, does it, now, Uncle Jonny? Might jest 's well think as how them hunchy wu'ms that went down an' died undergroun' there was goin' to come back ag'in." As he spoke, the boy, still leaning on one elbow, sift- ed through the fingers of his other hand the earth, lifting and letting it fall idly. In doing this he uncovered something small and hard and brown. " There, that's one on 'em now !" he said, in a weary tone ; " all dried up an' dead 's a nail, jest's I'll be, arter a spell." He touched it with his finger. Suddenly his face flushed and his eyes grew bright. " Uncle Jonny, quick ! look ! Suthin's happin' to it ! Look ! look !" Together the two bent over the dry, horny thing. And something did happen. It was an every-day, common thing, not a miracle. We do not believe in miracles in these days when we know so much. But it was a strange and wonderful thing to those 79 APPLE JONATHAN simple folk. The bursting shell, the waking life, the spreading wings, the flight oh, it was a glorious Easter lesson ! And when I saw, only a few days later, the rough, strangely shaped coffin that held the quiet form of poor Joe Ricketts, I thought less of the little grave just dug in the moist earth of the grave-yard than of the waking at another Easter. " There 'tis, ye see," said Apple Jonathan, setting down his wooden peck measure while he wiped his eyes with his big red handker- chief ; " even that has to be learnt ye by ap- ples. Sin an' dyin' come in by 'em, ye know, an' it looks now 's if they went out same way. Never made that little feller take in the doc- trine o' risin' from the dead till we come to the apple-tree for 't. I'm dreffle glad he got a leetle comfort out on it ; though anyway he'd 'a' found it all out pooty soon, where he's gone. But I kinder miss him, an' even ap- ples don't seem to help me 's much 's you'd think." What mattered it that I learned long after from Elder Browning the true origin of the name old Jubal Miner had given his seed- So APPLE JONATHAN ling apple, and that he had called it after his dead sweetheart, Esther Swan, for whose sake he had lived solitary all his days ? The les- son was the same, and so was the comfort it brought to one poor little crawling, hunchy, human earthworm. ANNA MALANN ANNA MALANN A GROUP of boys ranging in age from six to twelve, a small dog in the midst held tightly, while five little heads, brown, black, flaxen, and fiery red, all bent closely over the animal; a river conveniently near what wonder that I thought I understood the scene ! I had looked upon so many such, the surroundings, the actors, the little vic- tim, almost identical. I love dogs, I am very fond of boys, but somehow I do not always enjoy seeing the two classes together. It was a hot still day in August. We were driving down from the mountains towards our home in southern New England, not by the direct and shortest route, but by a wan- dering, circuitous way, changing our plans from day to day, to suit our own or our horses' tastes or convenience. A rambling, 85 ANNA MALANN lazy, hot - weather sort of journey it was. We had spent the last night at Morris, and were now going to Thacherville, some fifteen miles away. Our road was a pleasant one, along the bank of Wild River. St. - John's- wort, wild sunflowers, black-eyed-susans, the earliest goldenrod, and all the yellow and orange blossoms with which August shines and flames, grew along our way. Sometimes the vivid red of the cardinal-flower flashed upon our sight, and asters of every tint, from white to deepest blue and purple, starred the roadside. I was very comfortable, lying idly back in the carriage, and looking out at the birds and flowers and butterflies, and did not care to move. But the little group attracted my notice, and I called a halt. Stepping from the carriage, I walked towards the boys, ready with the appeal I had so often made in behalf of my dumb favorites. They were so absorbed that at first they took no notice of my ap- proach. But in brushing through some tall plants a cracking twig or stem roused them, and one or two, turning, held up warning fingers or shook their heads to express disap- proval of my coming nearer. Fired with 86 ANNA MALANN missionary zeal, I kept on my course and walked quickly towards them. Suddenly one of the group, a brown-faced, barefooted little chap, some ten years old, started on tiptoe to meet me. He did not speak till quite close, and then it was in a whisper. "Please don't come any nigher, lady," he said ; " you'll frighten him." "What do you mean?" I cried. "What are you doing to that dog? Tell me this instant." "Oh, don't, don't speak so loud !" he said, still in that same whisper, while again from others of the group came those silent signals of warning and disapproval ; " he's dreadful bad, an' " with a quaver in the low voice "we think he's a-dyin'." There was no mistaking the look in the boy's misty eyes and the tremble in the tones. I lowered my voice in sympathetic comprehension, and only saying, " Let me come ; I won't disturb him," I stepped softly towards the little company. I had thought I might be of use, knowing a good deal of animals and their ailments, but at a glance I saw it was too late. The fast-glazing eyes, 87 though still looking up with a pathetic at- tempt to express appreciation of the fond care shown him by his young friends, the convulsive twitching of the little form, showed he was, as my guide had said, "a-dyin'." So I was still and silent, for I was not needed. Doggie lacked nothing ; love, sympathy, sorrow, tender care, they were his in abundance. He was not a pretty dog nor of high line- age. He was a mongrel, of yellow and white, a thin, bony, ugly little fellow. But no dog of song or story ever had truer friends. He lay across the knees of one of the boys, while the others knelt or crouched or stood around, and all watched silently and sadly the pass- ing of the soul ? Or shall we call it instinct ? It was life, at any rate, and it was fast going out. It was soon over, and very quietly. The faintest movement of the poor stump of a tail a pitiful attempt at a wag, poor beastie as the youngest mourner, a mite of a fel- low, touched with tiny brown fingers the rough coat of the sufferer, and all was ended. As I looked about upon the sorry little 88 ANNA MALANN faces, the wet eyes, the quivering lips, I felt I must be dreaming. Was this a real dog, and were these boys? The little fellow whose knees had made the dying - bed for the animal did not at once rise or move, though he must have been stiff and aching from the constrained position in which for an hour he had been obliged to sit. As we lifted the limp little form from his lap, I asked him if the dog was his own. " Oh no, ma'am," he replied ; " he's a stranger to all of us. Johnny that's my brother there found him layin' in the road back a little way. I guess he'd been run over, an" he was real bad. So we fetched him here, an' was goin' to carry him down to the Gore, but we see he was a-dyin' fast, and we didn't take him." " To the Gore ?" I said. " What's that ?" The boy looked puzzled. " Why, the Gore," he said again. " We allers take 'em there, you know." "I'm a stranger here," I explained, "and do not understand. Is it the name of a place ?" " Oh yes, 'm, I thought you knowed. Wil- 89 ANNA MALANN son's Gore, they call it, 'bout half a mile from here, out that way. There's jest nine families live in it, that's all. We're all Gore boys, us here ; our folks live there ; an' so o' course we knowed where to fetch the poor dog." Then turning to the rest, he added, " But she can't do him no good now. Anyway, I s'pose we'd better take him over to her an' see what she says 'bout buryin' him." All signified approval, and I was more than ever puzzled. " Does the dog belong to some one at the Gore ?" I asked, but was again met with the assurance that he was a stranger, and noth- ing was known of his home or folks. " But why do you take him to the Gore, then ?" said I. " Why, to Anna Malann, o' course," he an- swered. " Yes," said another little chap, " we allers fetch 'em to Anna Malann, even when they're dead." By this time my friends in the carriage were growing weary of the long delay, and I was obliged to rejoin them hastily. But I was determined to know more of 90 ANNA MALANN this mysterious Gore, and of Anna Malann herself. At the inn a little farther on we made inquiries and obtained some informa- tion on the subject. Wilson's Gore was one of those bits of land, occasionally found even now in New England, which were left between the boundary-lines of different land grants, and sometimes failed to be included in town- ships. In this little spot lived nine families, as I had been told by the boys. And through the example or influence of one Anna Malann, an old woman in the place, every one there seemed to treat dumb creatures with strange consideration. About this matter the land- lord said little, but advised me to go and see for myself. " She'll like to see ye," he said, "partic'lar if you like creatur's. An' it's dreadful amusin' to hear her talk." Of course I went. I do like "creatur's," and my curiosity and interest were strangely excited by what I had seen and heard con- cerning Anna Malann and her missionary work. I had not far to go. The inn itself was in Thacherville, but the boundary-line between 9 1 ANNA MALANN that village and Wilson's Gore was but half a mile beyond. And the Gore once reached, the house I sought was easily recognized from the description of my landlord : " A lit- tle house that looks as if folks was movin' or cleanin' house, and sounds like a menagerie." I knew it at once by sight and hearing both a small house surrounded apparently by rubbish boxes, barrels, tin cans, crates, baskets, scattered about in confusion. And out upon the warm, soft air floated strange sounds whines, mews, barks, whinnies, chirps, squeaks, duckings, chatterings. Yes, this surely was the abode of my home mis- sionary. The door was open, and just within it stood a thin, pale little woman stirring with an iron spoon some mixture in a tin pan. As I approached she looked up, and I saw that she had soft brown eyes, with a cer- tain wistful, gentle look often seen in the eyes of an animal, especially an intelligent, affectionate dog. You may think this fanci- ful ; perhaps it is. Perhaps I was uncon- sciously influenced to make this comparison by what I had heard of the woman's tastes and characteristics. But this I know, that 92 ANNA MALANN since I first saw her I can never look into the true eyes of my brave dog Larry with- out a quick memory of Anna Malann and her gentle face. " Miss Malann ?" I said, inquiringly, as her eyes met mine and then turned quickly and shyly away, making them more than ever like Larry's, so averse to meeting a pro- longed human gaze. " No, ma'am ; my name's Ellis Ann El- lis. Won't you walk in ?" " Why," I said, somewhat puzzled, " I thought Miss Malann lived here. Miss Anna Malann the boys called her." She interrupted me with a smile. "Oh, the boys ! Well, I guess they said Animal Ann ; that's what they call me, 'cause of my setting more 'n most folks by creatur's Don't wonder you didn't get it straight, not know- ing about my queer ways and all. But come in, come in." Animal Ann ! Why, of course it was plain enough now when explained, and I looked with fresh wonder and reverence upon one whose very bearing of the title seemed to give her a sort of canonization. 93 ANNA MALANN I want to tell you as simply and truly as possible the story of this woman. I shall try to quote her own words in what she herself told me, and to describe without exaggera- tion or sentimentality what I saw of her life and work. I use the word "story," but in one way there is to be no story. This is a mere descriptive sketch. There is no plot, little incident, and no denouement. For, thank God ! the life is still being lived and the quiet, unobtrusive work going on in, and farther and farther beyond, the tiny hamlet of Wilson's Gore. I hardly know where or how to begin. But perhaps I had best tell first one little in- cident which seems to mark the key-note of the whole tale. As we were walking out that first day among the boxes, barrels, and baskets which proved to be the humble dwelling-places of Animal Ann's favorites, I said : "Why, how many animals have you here?" She turned quickly towards me, her finger uplifted with a " Hush-h-h !" of warning. As I stared in perplexity she whispered in my 94 ANNA MALANN ear, " They don't know they're animals ; they think they're just folks." And that gives one a pretty good notion of her ideas and her mode of treatment. I shall let her speak for herself now. She told me the story then, and I wrote it down di- rectly afterwards, while the words were fresh in my mind. And many times since then I have heard her tell it to others. For the friendship begun that day has lasted and grown, and again and again, as the summer comes, I find my way to Wilson's Gore and the little home of Animal Ann. " I don't know exactly how it come about, my taking to dumb creatur's, as they call them though I must say I never see one that was anyways dumb myself. I lived over to Danvers, in the east part of the State, you know. Pa was a real good man, kind to his folks, a church-member, and one of the select-men of the borough. He was brought up in the strict up-and-down old- fashioned way as to religion, and had some pretty hard notions about some things. He had a good deal of stock horses and cows and oxen and so on and he took good care 95 ANNA MALANN of them, gave them plenty of food and drink and good sleeping-quarters, and never beat them, or let his hired men do it. But he had views about animals that he'd picked up from his father before him, and from old Mr. Luther, his minister. I supposed they was all right, 'cause pa held them, but even when I was a mite of a girl they struck me as queer and sort of ha'sh. He was good to his stock, as I said before, but he insisted that was only just because they was useful to him and he wanted to keep them that way. He was kind to Leo, the collie-dog, but he said that was because he was so handy about driving the cows and finding the sheep, and he couldn't spare him. He was dreadful good to the cats, but, according to him, that was because of their catching the rats and mice. But he was pleasant to the squirrels too, and the robins, and the brown thrashers fed them and all and he couldn't give no other reason for that than this that he wanted to. ' But,' says he, ' animals haven't got no rights ; that's a well-known fact. The Bible don't give them any ; the Church don't give them any ; the catechism don't give 96 ANNA MALANN them any. If I'm made so soft like and ner- vous myself that I can't see a creatur' hurt or abused without its making me uncomfortable and fidgety, why, that's my lookout. It don't go to show I'd ought to feel that way. I tell ye, if folks go to preaching that kind of doctrine, that creatur's have rights, and I'm bound to treat them as well as I do folks, why, I'll just turn about and abuse them, spite of my creepy, nervous feeling about it. Same rights as folks ? Why didn't God make them folks, then ?' " So he'd go on and over with such talk, and I'd listen and bother my poor little head trying to make it sound right and reasonable. 'Why ain't they folks, anyway?' I says to myself. ' What makes the difference ? They act like folks : they're good or they're bad ; they're lazy or industrious ; they're noisy or quiet, pleasant or ugly, selfish or free-handed, peaceable or snarly. In short, they've got ways. There's no two creatur's just alike, no more than there is folks. They take sick like folks, too, and they don't like to suffer no more'n folks do ; and, come to the last, they die like folks. And why does pa put them G 97 ANNA MALANN all together, and say none of them haven't got any rights ?' " Sometimes I'd ask ma I didn't quite dast to ask pa ; children didn't use to talk so free to their fathers as they do these times I'd ask ma why animals wasn't folks, anyway. And she'd tell me 'twas 'cause of their not having souls immortal souls. At first I used to go on and ask how folks knew creat- ur's hadn't got immortal souls, but she shut me up directly about that, and showed me right off that that was given up to by every- body 'twas one of the doctrines, and wasn't to be argued over ; 'twas settled for good an' all. So I never brought up that part again. But I'd bother and pester ma to know why, anyway even agreeing 'twas that way they wasn't folks just the same, and all the more to be pitied and done good to and made much of because they didn't have everything we had souls and all them things. So when- ever I got the chance I'd treat them that way, and try to make other people do it. But I couldn't make much headway. I had two brothers and one sister, and they all followed pa and ma's lead, and didn't worry them- 98 ANNA MALANN selves about the ' lower beings," as pa called them. Bime-by pa died, and a spell after- wards ma went too. And we four children had the farm and stock and all to divide even. Well, maybe 'twas foolish, but I'd been think- ing and bothering my head so long about an- imals and the awful things that was always being done to them, I couldn't get on any other track. I suppose I took after pa in being soft and nervous about such things, and seemed to me there wasn't a minute of the whole living day that there wasn't some- thing cruel and unjust and dreadful done to poor helpless creatur's even right around me ; and what must it be, take the whole world over ? I says. I was nigh about crazy, and I'd seem to hear such a noise of whips swishing and sticks pounding and kicks sounding hollow against creatur's' sides, and then a whining and moaning and whimper- ing and crying out of the beings folks calls dumb, and my ears ached and buzzed all the blessed time. I couldn't stand it anyhow. I was always a meddler and fusser, different from the rest of the family, and I made up my mind I'd got to have a finger in this 99 ANNA MALANN pie. I talked to Mary, my sister, and to Elam and John, and tried to explain my views. I wanted well, I don't believe I had any real settled plan laid out, and I don't wonder now they thought I'd gone clean out of my wits. But I tried to get them to let me try what I could do on the farm and in Danvers generally to make creatur's more comfortable and get people not to put upon them so. But, my ! they got dreadful worked up over it. You see, the Ellises had always been a re- spectable, quiet, contented kind of family, holding the same ideas from generation to generation, with nothing upsetting in their religion or politics or schooling. They'd all thought alike for a hundred years or more, and they boasted there'd never been a schis- matic or a heretic or a turncoat of any sort in the whole tribe. And now to see an Ellis, and a female one, too, set up for a stirrer-up and overthrower, a sort of a horse-doctor and dog-missionary mixed up, why, they wouldn't have it. We had words, and, to make a long story short, we settled it this way : I was a sort of a mean-spirited, easy-going, anything- for-peace woman myself, and so I just told 100 ANNA MALANN them I'd give up every bit of my share of the old farm to them three for nothing, and go off somewhere to try my plan. And they agreed to that, and let me go. " Then I begun to look about to find the right kind of place. I wanted to see if there was such a thing as bringing over a whole community to my way of thinking. If I could be the means of getting everybody in just one town or village to try treating animals as if they was folks, why well, 'twas something to live for, anyway. I considered and considered, and bime-by this notion came to me : I must find a small enough place so 's I could work it all up before I died ; the Ellises ain't a long-lived family, and I wanted dreadful bad to see the whole thing done in my lifetime. ' Why,' I says to myself, ' it would be almost like a little millennium of my own.' Then I heard one day about Wil- son's Gore, and it appeared to me just what I wanted. Six families in all that's what there was then and not very big ones neither. I had a little money besides my share of the farm I'd give up some left me by the Aunt Ann I was named after, so I'd got something 101 ANNA MALANN to start with. And here I come, and here I be. "It's a good many years now, for 'twas dreadful slow work. But it's done. Every single one of the Gore families and, as I said before, there's nine now has come over to my way of thinking, and yet I ain't reached the average Ellis limit of age yet. So I've got my little millennium, you see. But I must tell the whole truth and own up to one thing. I don't believe I've had much to do with it, after all. Come to think of it, I be- lieve the Gore folks would have come to the same p'int if I hadn't been here at all. For I've never preached about it or scolded and fretted at them or anything. They must have had a leaning that way themselves, and found it all out without my help. Sometimes I wish I'd 'a' taken a harder place, with crueler folks in it ; there'd have been more credit in that. For I've had an easy, comfortable time of it, after all, doing for the dogs and horses and cats that was sick or hurt or old or lost or left out some way. You see, I like them, and so it's dreadful interesting. And I like showing them to folks, too, particular the 102 ANNA MALANN boys and girls. And they'll spend hours at a time watching me take cafe of them and talk to them and treat them my way. But as for preaching at them about it, or to their fathers and mothers, I hadn't got time for it. But there ain't a man or woman or a boy or girl now in the Gore that would do a cruel thing to a horse or a dog or a cow or an ox or any four-footed thing ; and, what's more, they wouldn't stone a bird or break up a nest and children do like that kind of thing, you know ; and there even appears to be a feeling among the babies themselves against pulling off flies' wings and squeezing them to hear them buzz, and little amusements like that. They're terrible good children by nat- ur', you see, and I'm afraid I'll have to move. There ain't no satisfyin' field for real mis- sionary work here." Before this little autobiography was ended we were walking out among the " creatur's," and I had many an object-lesson to illustrate Ann Ellis's mode of treating her friends. Such odd friends they were, but I would not wish for truer, more loyal ones. Dumb ! Why, every soft wistful eye, each pricked-up 103 ANNA MALANN silky ear, each tail that wagged or thumped the ground at the sound of her gentle foot- fall, each pawing eager hoof and quivering dilated nostril, spoke clearly, sharply, out of love and trust and willingness to serve. Here in the little pasture-lot grazed a blind horse; there, a little away, an old and grizzled one, passing his last days his happiest ones, poor fellow ! in peace and comfort. There were dogs with bandaged, splintered legs, dogs that were hurt or ill, lying on soft beds in basket, box, or barrel. And there were well, active animals, dogs and cats, and others too. Some were waiting to be claimed by owners from whom they had strayed away. Others had been wilfully deserted, and had no home but this. There was a lame hen hobbling about on an awkward wooden leg ; there was a blind canary in a rough home-made cage, singing his little heart out as he heard the voice of the one he had never seen, but loved. It was, as the landlord had said, " dreadful amusin' " to hear Animal Ann talk, but it was more. There was to me something strangely pathetic, touching, in the way she spoke of and to these creatures. Certainly there was 104 ANNA MALANN in her words or tones or looks nothing that could hint to these friends of hers that she thought them anything but " folks." " Do you know how to talk French ?" she asked, suddenly, one day. As I owned to some knowledge of the language, she said : " Oh, I'm real glad. You see, the children come over one day last month to tell me that the old monsheer, as they called him round here him that used to learn the young folks to dance over in Danvers was dead, and he'd left a dog unprovided for. The town had buried the old man, and the poor little creat- ur' was crying herself to death over the grave. I went over with them, and we fetched her away, dreadful unwilling, but too weak from mourning and going without victuals and sleep to make much fuss. I've brought lots of sorrowing young things through their troubles, homesickness and lonesomeness and disappointment and grief, but I never had a worse case than this. 'Twas a poodle ; Fan Shong the old man used to call her ; sounds kind of Chinee, don't it, now ? And she was the miserablest being ! She wouldn't make friends, she was scary and terrible bashful, 105 ANNA MALANN and she just about cried her eyes out after that old master of hers an outlandish, snuff- taking, fretful little man to most folks, but the best and dearest in the world to Fan Shong. I tried hard to help her, to make her feel at home, and show her there was something to live for still, but she didn't take any notice. I'd make a good deal of her, praise her up, and call her ' good dog, good dog,' but she didn't appear to care. And then bime-by it struck me she didn't understand ; she was French, and 'good dog' was no more than foreign talk to her. Of course I had to do something about it or she'd 'a' died on my hands. I inquired about, and found there was a lady over in East Thacherville, about four miles from here, that knew some French used to learn it to children in the academy. So I went over there. 'Twas a real hot day in July, and there'd been quite a spell of dry weather, and 'twas terrible dusty. I'd been up all the night before with Charley, the old white horse there, and didn't feel very rugged that day, and I thought I'd never get there. But I found Miss Edwards, and she was real good, took quite an interest, and she learnt 1 06 ANNA MALANN me to say 'good dog' in French 'bong shang,' you know. I practised it over and over till I said it real good, and then I started home. Well, will you believe, time I got there it had gone clean out of my head. You see, I'd got it mixed up with the poor dog's Chinee name, Fan Shong, and for the life of me I couldn't say it right. So back I had to go through that dust and all and learn it again. But my ! it paid, for she was so pleased when I told her she was a 'bong shang,' just as her old master done it. She's bashful yet, though, and lonesome, and she'd admire to hear her native language." You may be sure I aired my best Parisian French for the benefit of the homesick for- eigner, greatly to the delight of my good old friend. Noting how careful she was lest any word of ours should hurt the feelings of her proteges, I asked her if she thought they un- derstood what was said. " Well, I don't really know," she answered ; " and so I go on the plan of acting as if they did. It don't do any harm, you see ; and just supposing they do know our language, why, they'd be dreadful cut up sometimes. So I 107 ANNA MALANN act as I do with folks, and mind my words when they're around." It was a good while before I became used to this peculiarity of the old woman, and I was puzzled and startled again and again by a warning word, look, or gesture when about to speak freely of those about us. " That looks like a good hunting-dog," I said one day, pointing out a fine Irish setter near by. A significant look from Ann, a loudly spoken "Ain't he a nice dog? Yes, Jack's a good dog " which words set the silky tail of golden- brown waving like a banner and then the old woman whispered in my ear : " He's gun- shy, poor fellow. He can't help it ; it's born in him. He's tried and tried, but he says he can't stand it. Just the very sight of a gun of any sort, loaded or not, scares him to death. That's how I got him. Jim Merrill had him, and was bound to train that trick out of him. He beat him till he 'most killed him, but it only made him worse. And so I bought him." I shall never forget the confusion and shame which overwhelmed me one day at a reproof a pretty sharp one from the good 108 ANNA MALANN old philanthropist. Peering out at us from behind a shed was the oddest creature. It was intended, doubtless, for a cat, but was such a caricature of one. One ear stood sharply erect, the other lopped limply down ; the eyes, because of an injury done to one of them, had a chronic squint ; and there was a twist upward to each corner of the wide mouth that suggested the grin of the pro- verbial cat of Cheshire. It was irresistible, and I laughed. Animal Ann clutched my arm. " Stop laughing," she whispered, sharp- ly ; "or if you can't hold it in, go away." I was sobered at once. " Poor Jinny," said the old woman, after we had left the spot, " she's terrible homely, and she knows it as well as we do. Nobody '11 have her, she looks so bad. And the worst of it is she's just aching to be made much of and coddled. There's the lov- ingest heart in that poor outlandish-looking body. She's real touchy about her looks, particular her eyes maybe you took notice there's a mite of a cast in them and I do all I can to make her forget about it." The good woman even attributed to these animals theological creeds of their own, or 109 ANNA MALANN rather, perhaps, adherence to those of the particular sect to which their former masters or owners belonged. " Don't say anything about Jews," she once whispered, as we drew near the rough kennel of a gaunt yellow cur ; " he don't know any other religion ; he's been with them all his days. I took him after Miss Levy died. He set everything by the family, and I don't want him to think we dis- approve of their beliefs." " I suppose I need not ask you," I said, one day, " with your views of animals and their being like folks, if you think there's a future for them after death ?" To my surprise, the old woman shook her head sadly, and the soft brown eyes grew moist. " No," she said, in a low, mournful voice, " I'm afraid there's no chance of that. I've give it up. I did hold to it as long as I could, and it 'most broke my heart to let it go. But so many of the folks I look up to tell me it isn't so that I've had to give up that p'int. Even Elder Peters, that's so fond of dogs and horses himself, he always said there wasn't any chance of meeting them anywhere in the next world ; and Dr. Church held that too ; no ANNA MALANN and good old Mis' Holcombe, that left money to take care of destitute cats. They was all one way, proved it from the Scriptures, you know Mike the beasts that perish,' and all that. They all say there ain't a single word in the Bible that gives them a reasonable hope. There's most everything else spoke of as being there folks and angels and martyrs and saints and trees and flowers and fruit and streams and precious stones. But noth- ing about creatur's, except well, sometimes I think there's a chance for white horses just a chance." " For white horses !" I exclaimed, in amaze- ment. "Yes; in Revelation, speaking about heaven and the saints, it tells about their being dress- ed in white robes and riding on white horses. But there's another a dreadful verse in that book I never like to think of it. After tell- ing all the beautiful things that's inside of heaven, it says, ' But without are dogs.' Now ain't that a terrible mournful pictur'? It's as if the other animals all give up when they was told there wasn't any place for them up there, and just died for good, instincts and all in ANNA MALANN if you don't want to call them souls but dogs, why, they just couldn't do it ; they must follow on after their masters, room or no room. And so I always seem to see them hanging about the door, waiting and waiting, getting a. peek in when it opens to let some- body go inside, and maybe catching sight of their masters oh ! I can't stand it, anyhow. I wish it wasn't writ there, 'Without are dogs.' " In vain I tried to show the poor woman that the dog of Revelation, banished from bliss with murderers, idolaters, and others of the wicked, was not one of her four-footed friends. She had looked at the harrowing vision too long to be able to banish it at once. " But there's one thing I won't give in to," she said, " and that is that Scriptur' don't go to show that folks 'd oughter be kind and merciful to creatur's. It does I say it does. There's heaps and heaps of things that shows it. Of course there's that one about the right- eous man regarding the life of his beast ; but then some might say that was because he needed the beast and wanted its work. But I 12 ANNA MALANN there's lots of passages besides that. Why, how beautiful it always speaks about sheep and lambs ! There ain't anything better it can find to liken God to than a shepherd, and the tenderest kind of one, too. Why, it says He gathers the lambs up in His arms and car- ries them in His bosom ; it tells how He makes them lay down in green pastures, and leads them out beside the still waters. And the Master, too, He calls Himself the Good Shep- herd, and then explains to the folks what a good shepherd is, and how he has names for all his sheep and knows them all, and how they'll follow him all about and know his voice. And it says that he'll even give his own life for his sheep any good shepherd will, he sets so much by them. It stands to reason no one could treat sheep and lambs cruel anyway if they think much of the Bible. And telling people not to aggravate the oxen by muzzling them up while they're threshing out the corn, and not to do such an unnat'ral, cruel kind of thing as to seethe a kid in its mother's milk. And where it tells you in case you come across a bird's-nest on the ground or up in a tree, with the mother-bird setting H 113 ANNA MALANN on her eggs or cuddling her young ones, to be sure and not hurt her, but let her go. And the talking so much about creatur's, how smart and how knowing, and how quick and how busy, and how bold and how handsome ! There's Solomon, he can't say enough about the ants being so forehanded and laying up their food, and the conies building in the rocks, and the greyhound, which is so ' come- ly in going.' And in Job it goes on about the fine looks and the strength and the high spirit of horses, pawing the ground and smelling the battle, and all. And I'm sure our Master when He was here loved the birds, and talked about them, and spoke of His Father's feeding them and keeping count of the sparrows. And He said, however strict folks was about keeping Sunday, any one would help a creatur' that fell into a hole, or got hurt any way, that day or any other. Oh, I tell ye the whole gist of Scriptur's that way, to my thinking, even if it don't say up and down in big capitals, 'Don't beat your horses or kick your dogs.' And Solomon says one real smart thing about my idee of there not being so much difference, after all, 'twixt folks and creatur's. Wait a 114 ANNA MALANN minute, and let me get the old Bible and read it to you. Here, now : ' For that which be- falleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them ; as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast,' and so on. Ain't that good? And him so wise, you know !" " It must be a sad thought," I said to her once, " that you will never see these animal friends in the next world." It was a cruel thing to say, under the circumstances, but I did not stop to think. A mist clouded the soft, dog-like brown eyes, as they met mine for an instant and then turned quickly away. " It's dreadful," she said, in a low, hushed tone " dreadful. It's wicked, I know, to say so, but I couldn't be happy up there and them outside. Me and all the real folks, that's had everything in this world rights, and laws to protect their rights, and and souls us all inside heaven, and them that's been put upon and worried and tortur'd all their days, them out- side of it all, oh, I couldn't stand it I know I couldn't ! So well maybe I sha'n't be ANNA MALANN there myself." She went on hurriedly, as if in response to some expression she thought my face might wear : " Not that I'm giving up my religion. That's a sight of comfort to me more'n anything else, I guess. But, you see, folks generally are so busy saving their own souls and other people's heathen's and all they can't attend to righting the awful wrongs done to creatur's, and it's nat- 'ral, I know. But I've got a leaning that way, and I'm so made I seem to know how to help animals and coax folks to be good to them. So I just tell God right out all about it that I feel I must give up my whole life, day in and day out, to helping and comfort- ing these creatur's He's made, and made so like folks in everything but just not having souls. And I tell Him " she spoke softly and reverently " I tell Him I love Him and want to serve Him, and I'm on his side, and will be to my dying day. But I've got such a terrible aching and burning over the things done to these creatur's that I can't attend to the other things folks tell me is the highest, most important ones. I haven't got time for all the meetings the sewing society and 116 ANNA MALANN missionary concerts and temperance meet- ings and teachers' meetings and the anti- smoking society, and all those stated means, as they call them. I'm drove day and night, looking up suffering creatur's, fetching home them that's lost, nursing the sick, chirking up the lonesome and homesick. Why, you wouldn't believe how full my hands be. And so I tell Him plain, but humble and respect- ful, that if He thinks best to say, because I give up the work and duty of a professor, I must give up the rewards too, why, I've nothing to say. He knows best, understand- ing the whole case, and I know He'll do right. So I just go on with what I've got to do for these poor things as if I was just one of them., soul lacking and all. And they think I am." I told you I had no story, nothing but a picture poorly drawn, I know of one wom- an and her work and ways. I do not even point a moral. Maybe there is none. It is for you to say. DAVY'S CHRISTMAS DAVY'S CHRISTMAS YES, ma'am, of course I'll tell you, as well as I know how, but there ain't much to tell. As for the change you say 's come over Anderson, why, 'twasn't me that done that, you know. You see, I was raised where they set a good deal by Christmas the real part of it, I mean. All the children knew what it was kept for, and whose birthday 'twas, and why folks give presents that day. And we hung up our stockings at home, and had a tree for the Sunday-school, and carols and texts, and all that. Somehow I never knew, or, anyway, stopped to think, about there being other places where nobody done this, nor took any notice of Christmas at all. So, when we moved way out West to Anderson that fall, and I begun to look ahead and lay 121 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS plans what I should do for Christmas, 'twas a big surprise to me to find none of the boys and girls knew what I was driving at. 'Twas a little place, anyway, you know, and there wa'n't many young folks. There wasn't a church or a Sunday-school there neither ; but somehow that didn't seem to trouble me so much at first as the other thing that they didn't have any Christmas. You see, I'd had it all my life, and I thought 'twas just beautiful. Why, 'twas almost every- thing, or, 't any rate, the beginning of every- thing. So I thought and thought about it, and when I'd got things a little straightened out in my head, I went to mother. You know mother, so I needn't tell you how good she was about it, nor how she entered right into it with me. That's her way ain't it, ma'am? She always enters into things so when you want her to. And she talked to father for me that's one good thing about mothers, their talking to your fathers for you and he come into it too. We was going to have a Christmas, a real one, for the folks there in Anderson. Now we wa'n't rich, you know that ; but 122 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS we was pretty well to do, and we had a nice little home fitted up with all our things from the old place. I'd fetched along my books and cards and maps and pictur's, and the carols we used to sing ; and I had some of the things we used to dress the Christmas- tree with bright little balls and shiny stuff and little bits of candles so we could have a tree, and there hadn't anybody there ever see one. Mother had her melodeon, and she said she'd play the carols, and we'd all sing 'em together. And father, he promised to talk a little to the folks about the day, and what it meant to everybody. We meant to give presents too just little cheap ones, o' course, but something, anyway, to every sin- gle boy and girl there. You bet I did enjoy getting up that thing ! I tell you, 'twas fun keeping it so secret, and thinking how surprised they'd be, and all. Father and mother helped, but I done most of it myself ; for father had his regular work *to do, and mother had the baby to 'tend to little Joshua, you know. But 'twas all ready at last. I'd picked out a real pretty little tree up on the hill, and 123 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS father'd cut it down for me, and there 'twas now, standing up in the best room, all shiny with gilt and silver paper, and the little tin balls of different colors swinging on the branches. And there was red apples and pine cones, and the little candles from home all ready to light. 'Twas dreadful pretty. There was little presents for 'em all, mostly things that I'd had give to me Christmases and birthdays, and so on : books and pictur'- cards, and one or two little games, things I was glad enough to give away to them that had so little. So you see what a splendid Christmas 'twas going to be just the thing to show 'em what it meant, and make 'em always keep it afterwards, some way or 'nother. Oh, dear me ! It's three whole years ago now, but it 'most makes me cry to think what happened, and how 'twas all, every single bit of that beautiful plan, spoiled ! It's too dreadful to say much about. The folks was to come Christmas Eve for the treat, and just the night before that, the twenty-third of December, our house catched fire and burnt up. Every single thing was burnt, 124 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS except the clothes we put on in a hurry, and we just saved our own lives that was about all. As it was, poor father got hurt real bad trying to save things. His hands and arms was all blistered and burnt, and his face scorched ; and mother, she catched a dreadful cold, and 'most lost her voice. At first I couldn't think of anything but the house and our furniture and things, and of poor father, and how glad I was we was all alive mother, and little Joshua, and all. But after a spell it come over me all of a sudden Christmas, and the time we'd been going to have for the folks ! The tree and everything on it was burnt up. The house and best room, where the company was to be, the melodeon, and even the singing-books that had the carols in 'em everything, every single thing was gone ; even the barn, and Jack, our dear old horse, went, too. Only the cow-house, that stood by itself a little ways off, didn't burn, and our little Jersey cows, Whitefoot and Buttercup, was saved that was better than nothing. It had been a house once where folks lived, but it got old and shackly, and some of it 125 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS tumbled down, and the rest of it made a good place for the cows. There was a fireplace and a chimney to it, so we had a place to go to, such as 'twas. The people round there was all pretty poor, and nobody lived very near by. They asked us to come, and was pleasant enough about it, but we thought we hadn't better do it as long as we could take care of ourselves. So we settled down that night as well 's we could in the cow-house, with a big fire to keep us warm, and some blankets and things the folks lent us. Next morning, the. very day before Christ- mas, you know, just as quick as I got a chance to talk with mother, I had to let it all out. I wasn't as big then as I be now, and I couldn't to save my life keep from crying like a baby when I spoke about the Christmas. I kept saying how could God have done such a thing, when we was just a-going to learn the Anderson folks about the birthday, and what it all meant. " Oh !" I says, " how could He do it ?" Well, mother she entered into it her way, you know ! She let me see she allowed for my being disapp'inted, but she said she knew I'd come round to seeing 'twas 126 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS all right, somehow, if He'd done it ; and she said He didn't need us nor anybody else to learn the Anderson folks about Christmas ; He could show 'em Himself if 'twas best for 'em to know. And she said I must be a good boy, and give it up, and mebbe next year I'd have another chance. I tried to be good, so's not to trouble her; I helped her with father and little Joshua, and tried to make things comfortable. But I was thinking and think- ing all day about the folks, and how they'd got to wait a whole long year to see what Christmas was. Come along towards noon I says to mother, couldn't I see if some one wouldn't let me have one of their rooms, and maybe their melodeon, and some of the peo- ple help me a little, and have just some sort of a Christmas time, if we couldn't have the tree and the presents. And she said I could try if I was set on it. But 'twasn't any good. Folks was willing to come to a treat, but they wouldn't help get it up. I even went to the little tavern at the Corners, but they said 'twas full that night, and they couldn't be bothered. I went home if you could call it home 127 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS and I set down on the floor, and laid my head down on mother's lap she's got such a nice lap and told her all about it. She was real good, but she didn't know how to help me. She see herself I'd got to give the whole thing up. But she whispers to me, stroking my head, says she, "Tell God all about it, Davy." So I done it right there, just as I was, with my head in mother's lap. When I got up, I says, " Well, mother, I've got to give it up, and I'm going to stand it like a man. But mebbe," I says, " some of the folks will come anyway them that lives a good ways off, and hasn't heard about the fire." And she says, "Well, if they do, Davy, we'll be glad to see 'em, though this isn't much of a place to have company." What do you think ? Come evening, if the boys and girls, and the growed folks too, didn't begin to come along ! You see, I'd invited 'em some days afore, and hadn't took back the invitations. And I s'pose, even if they knew we didn't expect 'em, they was cur'us to see what we'd do, and to look at the burnt house and all. Why, most everybody round there come, seems to me ! 'Twas a 128 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS real nice night ; there wasn't any moon, but I never see the stars shining brighter. I rec'- lect that, 'cause father'd been telling me about the stars that winter, and I'd took to noticing 'em. And as I come in that night I looked up, and see how bright they was, par- tic'lar one big one father called the evening star. The folks didn't come in at first. They kind of stood round outside, and when I went out to speak to 'em, they said they didn't want to trouble us, but they was round that way, and they thought they'd just see if they could do anything for us. 'Twas pretty cold, and I couldn't bear to see 'cm standing out- doors so long. So I run back inside, and asked mother if I couldn't bring 'em in. There wasn't any seats, to be sure, but 'twas warm, and it seemed politer, anyway. Mother said o' course I could ; let 'em come in ; she didn't mind. They was a little backward at first, 'peared to feel a mite bashful. But bime-by one after 'nother stepped inside. I felt a little foolish myself, and' didn't know just what to say first off. But Jim Bissell, a rough sort of boy i 129 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS from the Corners, he begun to laugh, and says out loud, "Where's your Chris'mus, as you call it, Dave? What's it all about, anyway ?" And then I don't know to this day how I ever picked up courage for it, but it come into my head I just must tell 'em something, if 'twas only the leastest bit, about the day that was coming to-morrow I just shet up my eyes one second, and then I wet my lips, and begun. I told 'em what I'd meant to do, and how 'twas all spoiled, and how dreadful sorry I was. I said I'd tried to get some other place to hold the meeting in, but I couldn't, and I'd tried the tavern at the Cor- ners, but there wasn't any room for it there. And then I put it 's well 's I could, about how father was laid up and couldn't talk to 'em, and that I wasn't big enough to explain things myself. " But," I says, " I can read you about it, only I ain't no great of a read- er." And then comes over me, all of a sud- den, that our Bibles was all burnt up. It just seemed as if 'twas meant them folks shouldn't learn about Christmas that year, and I'd bet- ter give up. But mother says in a softly voice she was 130 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS just back of me she says, " Don't you know some verses, Davy ?" I knew I did, for I'd said 'em at a Christmas-tree the year afore. So I begun : " Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea " you know how it goes. At first Jim Bissell laughed, and some of the others j'ined in, and whispered and made fun. But the others stopped 'em, and in a minute I see 'twas dreadful still, and only just my voice, pretty shaky, you know, going on with that chapter. I didn't know only the first 'leven verses. When I come to the last one " And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child and Mary his mother " I heard a little gurglin' sound. I didn't dast to turn my head, but I knew 'twas little Joshua taking notice. And just then I heard another queer noise, kind of a choky noise that was, and I see 'twas Cap'n Frink, the man they called the wildest feller about Anderson, though he come from New England, and was raised, I've heard, 'mongst real good people. There was some- thing the matter with his throat, and he was coughing till the water come into his eyes, and that interrupted me a mite. But in a DAVY'S CHRISTMAS minute I went over to Luke, and I says that part about the shepherds and the Baby lay- ing in the manger, on account of there not being any room in the inn, you know. Then I stopped, and I thinks to myself, oh, if I only had the melodeon, and the books with the carols ! Just then mother says, softly again, " Can't you sing baby's hymn, Davy ?" Now I 'ain't got much ear for music, they say, and I was that scared my voice was croakier than com- mon. I can't turn many tunes, but that one turns itself, I've heard it so many times from mother when she was holding little Joshua. I used to pick it out with one finger on the melodeon. I says to myself, " Here goes, 't any rate," and I let out : "Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber." 'Twas kind of dreadful to hear my own voice, and nobody j'ining in to help me, and I got scarier and shakier, till I was just go- ing to break down, when all of a sudden I found some one was helping. There was a real nice, loud, sweet voice singing the words with me, and carrying the tune all 132 DAVY'S CHRISTMAS right, only shaking a mite, just as mine done. And, of all the folks there, who should it be but Lucy Ann Wells, the roughest woman in the whole place, that 'most everybody was afraid of ! She had a cross, sharp voice when she talked, but 'twas real sweet and clear and pleasant-sounding now. I don't see how she ever knew that hymn, but she did, and she and me sung it right along as far as I knew the words. When we got to where it says : " When His birthplace was a stable, And His softest bed was hay," I see that all the people was looking right over my head, and kind of behind me, and not at me at all. So when we ended up, Lucy Ann and me, and I dast to turn round, I done it. There wa'n't anything uncommon there just mother and the baby. She'd been a- holding him, and he'd heard us singing his fav'rite hymn, that he went to sleep by regu- lar, and he'd thought 'twas bedtime, so he'd dropped off, and mother'd laid him down. O' course there wa'n't any place to lay him but the hay. But that was real soft and com- fortable, and he did look real cute laying DAVY'S CHRISTMAS there, with his pretty yeller hair all fuzzy round his little head, and mother, with her nice, dear, mothery face, a leaning over him. Seems 's if there ain't much more to tell. To this day I don't get it through my head why they begun to have Christmases them- selves, after that, there in Anderson. If I'd 'a' carried out my plan, and had that tree and all, why, I could see how it come about. But when we didn't have any Christmas at all that year no tree, no presents, no re- freshments, no nothing well, as I said afore, it beats me how they come to keep Christmas the very next year, and ever sence. CLAVIS CLAVIS PERHAPS the child's mother might have found it out sooner than I did if she had lived. I cannot tell. I know she could not have loved the little one more tenderly, watched her more closely. From the hour when I took the child into my arms, out of whose clasp the mother had just slipped away quietly and forever, the little girl was all the world to me. There was a strange and wonderful sympa- thy between us two. She understood me al- ways when no one else could, and she told me so. That this comprehension was not gained through the ear, expressed by the tongue, I did not for a long time notice. We lived so quietly, you see, far away from the busy world, in the very heart of nature, among trees and hills and streams, with birds 137 CLAVIS and flowers and wild free things, and we did not talk much. When I held her close to my heart and we looked out upon the shining river, up to the purple hills, into the rosy clouds, or over to the dark, deep forest, there was no need of words. And when there came the rushing sound of the wind among the trees, the music of the brook whose white waters ran over the stones, the glad song of the bobolink, or the tender strain of the thrush, I looked into her deep, still eyes and felt that we were both listening, and that we both heard. We had no neighbors, few friends, and for a long time there was no one to tell me of anything the child lacked or missed. But there came a time when it was said that my little child did not hear, that her ears were sealed to all sound, and that she would never speak to me. I do not remember that even then it was a great grief to hear this. Even then, when she was so small, so young, I felt that, silent and deaf to others though she might be, yet she understood me well, and could tell me so. I do not know how this was ; I cannot ex- 138 CLAVIS plain it. I know only that I, who had failed hitherto to make my meaning clear to those around me, found comprehension, full under- standing, perfect sympathy, in my little silent child. I had always been a shy, awkward, reticent man. A strange, sad, loveless boyhood, a youth of struggle unrewarded, privation un- pitied, longing for affection unsatisfied, had made me this. And now, just when I had ceased to expect it, there came to me all I had needed, craved, despaired of so long. There had always been a strange thing in my life which no one understood or cared for. From my earliest years there had been a constant wonder in my mind, a strange, eager questioning about the meaning of things. I did not care for the answers men give to such questions for the explanations found in learned books or the wisdom taught in schools. All my life long I had known that there was one key to all the mysteries of which this world is so full, but that no man had ever found it. I had felt sure that if any one could learn the meaning of just one simple thing in the CLAVIS woods, or on the hills, or among the flowers or birds, he would understand everything ; there would be no more puzzles, nothing hidden or unexplained, and from my boy- hood I had striven, thirsted, to find that key. Many, many times I had seemed to almost grasp it. Some sight, some sound, some faint elusive odor, would give a hint, a sug- gestion, and quick, sudden as the flight of a darting bird, the truth I had sought so long would flash before me and was gone. There were so many things to wonder at even in the simple life which my little girl and I lived, and we were always wondering. Perhaps to you there are no mysteries in the wild flowers. They are so simple, so fair, seen at a glance, passed by, or gathered and thrown aside. But to us there were such strange puzzles there. In the spring, when the little linnaea crept over the ground and lifted its pink bells on slender hair-like stems, there came to us from it always the same fragrance, a subtle perfume we could not define. We were sure no other blossom, no other thing on earth, held that odor ; and yet it brought us memories, was linked with some- 140 CLAVIS thing we could not recall ; it was full of asso- ciation, but with what ? Where had we ever before breathed that aroma of spice, of sweet- ness, that it should bring us that strange feeling half sadness, half joy, a memory so like a hope ? And the colors of the flowers they surely held a meaning if we could but catch it. The speedwell's gentle blue, the bear-plum's pale yellow, the buttercup's polished gold, the aster's lavender and mauve and purple, the cardinal-flower's vivid red, the crimson pink of the wild rose we knew them all, and almost understood them. One touch, one word, to help us, and the whole world of- color would fall into harmony. I think my little girl understood these flower tints bet- ter than I did ; perhaps because she did not hear or speak as others hear and speak her eyes saw more than most, and she would hold a brightly tinted blossom and gaze into its blue or pink or yellow with such deep content in her strange eyes that I felt she was learning much of the meaning it held. But she did not know all. One summer she had been day after day among the cardinal- Mi CLAVIS flowers by the brook. She had bent over them and touched them, drinking in the warmth and glow of their brilliant red till she seemed to comprehend all, and to know why these flowers alone held such living fire. But one hot August noon when she was among them, watching them burn to more vivid crimson under the sun's fierce heat, she found, among the others, a stalk of pure white blossoms. They were cardinal-flowers, too, but pale and cold. She led me to the place and showed me the delicate snowy flowers, with a look on her face half sad, half frightened, and very wistful. I could not help her. How could it be ? What was the meaning ? It was the warmth, the glow, the depth and vividness, which made the other blossoms cardinal-flowers. But here was one which lacked all these qualities, and was like snow, not fire. Never again did my child tell me that she knew the meaning of the cardinal-flower. And there was a certain plant which always grew in the forest, under the pines, and bore one large rose-colored blossom, just one soli- tary pouch - like flower upon each slender 142 CLAVIS stalk, always alone, always by itself ; we knew it by its oneness, its being single and solitary. One day we found among the rest a plant just the same but that its slender stalk bore two twin blossoms, and they were white, not pink. But I think there was no puzzle among the flowers so hard to solve as that of the closed gentian. No one could help wondering over that. Why, if it is never to unfold, if no sun- shine or dew or soft warm air can ever open its fast-closed petals why should it be so fair within ? For we had looked inside, gen- tly opening the dark purple -blue, bud -like blossom. It was quite finished within, tinted and veined, satin-smooth, as dainty and com- plete as any of its sisters who open their eyes to the light and air. We could find no secret there, no reason for the shut-up, lonely life, and while I thought and queried and sur- mised, I could see the wonder grow and deepen in my little voiceless child's tender eyes of darkest blue. But no one helped us ; nothing told us the meaning of it all. The birds made us wonder too. We could CLAVIS not understand their songs, though each had its meaning ; we were sure of that. For she heard them too. Sealed as her ears might be, she felt the notes in some strange unex- plained way, and I read them over again in her eyes. The clear, sweet, far - reaching whistle of the white-throat sparrow, the soft, gentle whisper of the waxwing, the swamp- sparrow's trill, the plaintive cry of the wood- pewee, the glad, free strain of the bobolink, the gurgle and croon of the cuckoo we knew them all. But why did each bring such a dif- ferent thought? There was one small bird whose color was like that of the dark pine- trees where he sang, and his strain was al- most like human speech, always the same just a few appealing words, then silence. Up on the hill above the lake the winter-wren sang. There were so many different mean- ings in his song, bright and sad and tender. We smiled as we heard it, but the tears were very near our eyes. And in early morning and in the twilight the veery always rang his silver bells. Over and over again they rang and vibrated, till our hearts ached with the sweetness and mystery of it. Why did the 144 CLAVIS bird sing that strain and never any other? And what did it mean ? And there was the hermit-thrush. I have said that there were many things which seemed at times about to give us the light we sought. But of all these the song of the hermit - thrush most often brought us such glimpses. In the evening twilight of a June day, when all nature seemed resting in quiet, the liquid, melting, lingering notes of the soli- tary bird would steal out upon the air and move us strangely. What was the feeling it awoke in our hearts ? Was it sorrow or joy, fear or hope, memory or expectation ? And while we listened, my little quiet girl and I, suddenly we would turn with quick, eager looks and read in each other's eyes the same thought. The meaning of it all it was com- ing ; we should know ; it was trembling on the air, and in an instant it would reach us. Then it faded, it was gone, and we could not even remember what it had been. The name of my child was Clavis. When I had first looked into her deep, earnest eyes of violet-blue there had arisen in my heart a strange hope that through this little girl ) K i45 CLAVIS might find the meaning, the key, I had sought so long, and in that hope I gave her this name. As the years went by, hope became expectation, expectation foreknowledge, and I knew that sooner or later my silent child would bring me the truth. I do not know just how it came about, but many people learned of this strange question- ing of ours. I sought no knowledge, no help, in the matter from others, even from the most learned men. For I had read their books, and I knew they themselves had never found the key. But they came to me from far and near, and each one brought his own explanation, his own theory or creed. I will own that sometimes for they were very learned men their words half satisfied me, and for a moment I felt that I had grasped the clew I sought. But always, always when I turned and met the quiet eyes of my child, I saw in their dark-blue depths the certainty that I had but touched the surface of things, and that far, far below lay the truth I was seeking. There was a strange thing about these meetings. However earnest and enthusiastic 146 CLAVIS the man might be who came to expound his own belief and teach us the meaning of things, I always saw a change come over him before he went away. For when he looked into my child's quiet eyes, so deep, so full of hidden meaning, his own eyes were troubled, his looks confused ; his voice lost its self- confident ring ; his words came more slowly and with hesitation, and sometimes ceased utterly. Such a one would sometimes tell us before he went away that perhaps, after all, he had not discovered the real meaning of things : perhaps the key was yet to be sought and found. So the months and years went by, and more and more often came to us both those faint brief glimpses of a great satisfying truth, of one single simple key which should unlock all our mysteries. There were mountains about our home, and strange things hap- pened upon those hills. Sometimes when the summer sun lay hot and bright upon them we saw shadows upon their peaks and sides. Some were shadows of clouds which floated above them ; these we saw and recog- nized. But there were other shadows there, 147 CLAVIS strange, unfamiliar things, like nothing in the sky, like nothing on the earth, wonder- ful shapes and full of meaning. As I clasped my little Clavis's hand tightly and we gazed eagerly, tremblingly, upon those dark roll- ing shades cast there by something we could not see, of which we knew nothing, we felt the whole truth very near. There is a won- derful light that comes sometimes at even- ing upon those hills, creeping from base to summit, changing from pink to purple, from purple to blood-red, till all is fire and glow and glory, and every time it came it flashed a quick, fleeting hint of what we sought. And never, never did the hermit - thrush chant his silver, melting, throbbing, ringing strain without our seeming to hold for one short, vanishing instant the key to all things. If it could but sing always, we thought, or even a little longer, we should know all. The learned men, the great scholars, think- ers, writers, came more often to us. I do not remember how it happened that at last these many great men agreed to assemble together at our home my little girl's and mine and listen to what we should say to 148 CLAVIS them. They knew well, for we had told them so, that we had never yet found the one pass- word, the true solution, the right key to all the strange things about us. But I think they wished to be convinced that any one key would open all, that there was but one solution to all problems, one answer to all riddles, as I believed, and as Clavis knew. And I talked to them. It was early June and in the evening twilight, and we were out- of-doors. It seems strange to me, as it doubt- less does to you, that so many great men came together there to listen to one unsatis- fied, questioning man and one little, silent, expectant girl. But they came, and under the shadow of the mighty hills they gathered there, and I stood in their midst, with Clavis at my side. I cannot tell you what we said to them : because of all that came after- wards, I forget much. I know that we spoke of the strange mysteries about us even there in that quiet spot, among the dark pines and under the shadow of the mountains. Then I told them, and Clavis said it over and over again in that silent way I cannot make you comprehend, that we felt sure that there was 149 CLAVIS one single clew to all these riddles, if we could but find it. The secret of the flower that never opens, like a bud, an undeveloped, immature, unfinished thing to outward seem- ing, but a fair, complete blossom within ; the meaning of the purple light that comes upon the hills at evening ; the suggestion in the perfume of the linnaea ; the memories or hopes awakened by the thrush's song ; the black shadows on the sunny mountain-side, cast there by something far above, which our eyes cannot see ; the frost - white cardinal- flower springing up among its glowing sis- ters ; the large pink blossom in the forest, whose very nature and property seems to be that it should be solitary on its slender stem, yet bearing sometimes fair twin flowers all these things, and many more which made us wonder and question now, would lie open, plain, and simple before us could we touch the key we sought. We told them how near it sometimes came to us how a perfume, a sight, a sound, a touch, seemed so close to bringing the clew. And I saw, and my little girl's eyes shone with a glad but still light as she saw it too, that one after another re- 150 CLAVIS membered how such moments, such glimpses, had come to him, and how brief, how sweet, how fleeting, they had been. While I talked, the breeze that always comes down at sunset from the cool mountains sprang up, and as it reached me it brought that strange, elusive odor of spice, of sweetness, from the pink bells of the linnaea growing thickly among the pine-trees, and for one brief, sudden in- stant I remembered or foresaw its meaning. Then, like the faint, evanescent perfume itself, the thought was gone, and I could not recall or tell it. I looked at Clavis. She too had read that meaning, but it had vanished ; yet her deep eyes shone with a still, glad light, which said that it would surely come again, and we should keep it. Now the wonderful light crept up the hills. It was golden at first, and turned the grass and the tree trunks yellow and russet, then it changed the leaves overhead to orange, and then flushed and reddened as it crept up the hill-sides, crimsoning the lower peaks, and still rising, rising, till, as it touched the top of the highest, grandest mountain, it made its rugged, rocky summit as red as blood. CLAVIS Suddenly all my being was flooded with a quick, glowing flame which showed me all we were seeking. For the instant I knew it ; I could tell it to the people. But before my slow tongue could form the words the color upon the hill-tops faded, the flush died away, and I had forgotten. I turned an almost hopeless, despairing look upon my little girl. She was very still, as always. But upon her soft cheek lingered the flush of rose which had left the sky, and in her quiet eyes there shone an almost triumphant light which spoke of victory very near. They saw it too, and clustered close together and around us, while over all came that hush which seems to throb with expectancy and thrill with antici- pation. Up in a lofty pine above our heads a little lonely bird uttered his simple strain a few appealing, wistful notes, then silence. Then a veery rang his silver bells. Over and again they rang and vibrated, till our hearts ached with the sweetness and mystery of it. Then from the hill-side across the river a hermit - thrush began to sing. Everything besides was very still, and the air throbbed 152 CLAVIS and trembled, pulsated and quivered with that wonderful strain. And I knew all : I held the key. A moment of suspense, of waiting, fearing lest it vanish as had died into silence the bird's song, then I looked into my child's eyes. Yes, she knew it too. I read it over again in the dark depths of her eyes, and the strange, sweet, mysterious smile that lingered about her silent lips. Then I spoke. For the first time in all the ages was told the secret of things. I held the key, and I showed it to them all. I can- not tell you of that hour, the wonder, the ex- ultation, the glad surprise ; no words could make you comprehend. It was my voice that spoke, but it was at Clavis that they looked, and from her stillness they gathered more than from my spoken words. Then hands clasped hands, eyes gazed into each other, lips quivered, cheeks were wet with tears. They knew all now, and it was all so simple, learned in one brief second. How had we missed it so long, sought it so vainly ? How could there have been any key but this, now ours forever ? No, I say again, I cannot tell you of it. In all time there 'S3 CLAVIS never was an hour like that. Will ever such a one come again ? Darkness came on, the breeze from the mountains grew chill, and we must separate. On the morrow we would meet again, and then decide how this great news might be told to the world. When all had gone, and my little girl and I were left alone, I took her to my heart, and we talked in our strange, silent way of what had come to us. I was full of a solemn, awed wonder, but she felt no surprise, only a still joy that what she had known was coming should be here now. I had thought that the excitement and won- der would banish sleep from my eyes, but I slept long and dreamlessly. I awoke to dark skies, thick clouds, and a chill air. By degrees I remembered. I thought of the assembly of the night before, of the questioning looks, the earnest faces upturned to mine, of the purple light, the linnaea's fragrance, the lone- some bird in the pine-tree, then the hermit- thrush's song. I saw the glad, the solemn, exulting faces, recalled the joy, the peace, the wonder of those to whom the key was shown. But what was that key ? For an instant I CLAVIS had lost it as in the old days. But it would return ; never could such a blessed thing as came to me that fair June evening and stayed so long never in life could it be forgotten, lost. I was but half awake ; I was yet dazed with sleep ; I would go out into the morning air, look up at the hills, and remember all. But I could not grasp it ; it just escaped each time I sought to seize it. Like the vanishing perfume of a flower, the fading light upon the hills, a bird's faint dying song, it drifted from me. But I was not afraid. So many knew it now, it could not be lost. While I stood in the raw chill air of the dark morning, one of the learned men who had been with us the night before came to me. His face was a little troubled, but brightened as he saw me, and he spoke quickly, eagerly. He told me that in his sleep the clear outlines of that wonderful truth he had held the last night had become somewhat blurred, confused. Would I tell him again, now in the light of day, just what had brought such joy, such peace, when he first heard it ? For the mo- ment I could not tell him, and I said so. '55 CLAVIS One after another came to us those who had listened and heard and rejoiced a few hours before, and all with the same troubled confu- sion. Was it so with all ? Had we let sleep steal away that wonderful, priceless treasure ? So it seemed ; for all came, and all had for- gotten. For a brief instant I was seized with a terrible fear. Then I smiled, and remem- bered there was no cause for alarm : Clavis knew all ; Clavis never forgot, never lost anything she had once held fast. I went to her. She was asleep, her fair hair like sun- shine about her head, the white lids shut down over her dark eyes. As I looked at her she awoke. I need not have been afraid. One glance into her still glad eyes showed me she had not forgotten. The key was not lost : Clavis knew all. She told me in her silent way, as I took her in my arms, that all was well : she held the key ; we should all have it we need not fear ; she knew all, and we should soon know all likewise. She was very weary, she said, and would like to rest a little while only a little while, and we should come to her and know all. It was almost like the hour in which I first held out the key 156 CLAVIS when I went back to the fearful, trembling men and told them that my little child re- membered. Not one doubted ; all believed and were at peace. By-and-bye I went to her again. She was asleep. The white lids lay over her dark, deep eyes, and hid their mean- ing. But the old, mysterious, all -knowing smile rested about the silent lips, and I was not afraid. Nor am I afraid now. No, though she never wakened. Has she not given me the secret she held ? A TRANSIENT A TRANSIENT 'TWAS when I was keeping the Banks House over to Bentley Centre, more'n thirty year ago. Mr. Harris had been dead quite a spell, and I was running the house alone and doing well. Mother lived with me, but she was too old to do much, and feeble anyway. 'Twas the only tavern in the Centre, and open all the year round, but we didn't have many folks except in summer. But from the last of June 'way into September I had a nice lot of summer boarders every year, and we had a good many transients, stopping over for dinner, and often all night too, with supper and breakfast. There wasn't much to bring business people. You've been there, haven't you ? It's just a quiet little place, but it's got the mountains all round it, making it sightly and nice, and plenty of green, cool, L 161 A TRANSIENT woodsy spots to walk or sit in. And that's what summer boarders like. The transients was most generally folks that was travelling for pleasure through the mountains and on their way to the Gorge or back. Sometimes farmers come along on their way to Westboro' to 'tend the county fair, or horse men for the races, and then again there'd be a runner or two travelling for some city store or other. But the transient you asked me to tell you about put up to it, as you said, by Dr. Little was another sort. The first time I saw him I remember it as well as if 'twas last week was the summer Mis' Haskins's folks boarded with me. You know they're among the first families, as to standing, in the State, and 'twas a great thing for my house, and for the whole town, for that matter, to have them put up there. Mis' Haskins wasn't well that year, and was dread- ful nervous and whimsy. So they thought they'd go to some real quiet kind of place, in- stead of a big hotel, as they'd generally done. She was pretty hard to please, but I did my best, and she got along well enough, consider- ing. But one day everything appeared to go 162 A TRANSIENT wrong, seems 's if. There wasn't any other boarders that time 'twas the last of June but the Haskins folks and the Sperrys from Derby. And they set all together at meals to the long table by the south windows, where 'twas light and airy. There was twelve of 'em, five each side and one to each end, and 'twould have held sixteen comfortable. Well, that day the whole party'd been out driving in two wagons, over to the east vil- lage and Wells Pond. They'd had dinner put back to half -past one, and 'twas all ready when they come in. They'd called at Miss Leonard's on their way home, and brought a young lady that was boarding there, a friend of Miss Ellen Sperry's, back with them. I was in the kitchen, dishing up, when I heerd 'em all trooping in together to the table, and then the chairs scraping as they pulled 'em out to set down. Then I heerd a kind of loud speaking out, and some talking back, and a sort of fuss, and next moment Sarah Willett, the table girl, come running out. And she says, a little flustered, " Mis' Haskins won't set down and won't let nobody else set down, 'cause there's too many folks to the table." 163 A TRANSIENT I knew she'd got it wrong some way, for, as I said before, the table would accommodate sixteen easy, and I went right in. They was all standing up by their chairs, looking real hungry and cross, and Mis' Haskins was talk- ing in a kind of scolding, upset way. " No, I won't do it," she says, " it's a-tempting Provi- dence ; it's as much as my life's worth. No, no, no !" and she begun to sort of cry. "Why, what's the matter?" says I. "Is anything wrong, Mis' Haskins?" And then two or three of them spoke up all to once, and I got to understand that there was thir- teen to set at that table, and that was bad luck. I don't recollect that I'd ever heerd of that sign before, though I've often read about it late years and seen a few folks that held by it. But it wasn't one of our sayings there in Bentley. Thirteen wasn't any worse than any other number there ; a little better, maybe, for it went by the name of a baker's dozen, and generally meant something thrown in, which is always satisfying in this world. But I see at once 'twas a sign Mis' Haskins believed in, and that she was terrible upset. But what in the world could I do ? They was 164 A TRANSIENT all one party and all hungry, and I couldn't ask any one of them to leave the table, and there wasn't another boarder in the house to call in. I was at my wits' end, and didn't know what I'd better do, when all of a sudden, but very quiet, a man come into the door that led out of the front hall and walked right up to the table. He was an under-size, homely looking man, but he had a real pleas- ant kind of face, a mite freckled, and slick, thinnish red hair a perfect stranger to me. Everybody stopped talking and turned to look at him. He sort of bowed to us all, and says, in a bashful kind of way but real friend- ly, " Don't let me put you to any trouble," he says ; " I'm only a transient for dinner." Well, I never was so glad to see any one in all my life. And all the folks was tickled to death, and showed it. You'd have thought he'd been a bit surprised at the way they give him a welcome and made room for him, but he took it as calm as you please, and dropped right into the chair Sarah Willett set for him, without a word. Sarah said afterwards that he didn't hard- ly s^ay anything through the meal, but eat 165 A TRANSIENT hearty, as if he enjoyed his victuals. Only once, when young Mr. Sperry spoke to him direct and told him what a fix he'd helped 'em out of, and how much they was obleeged to him for happening in, he says, " Don't speak of it ; 'tain't anything," and went on with his dinner. I meant to speak to him myself before he got away, but I was kept by one thing and another, and when I got into the office at last, he'd gone. He paid his half-dollar to Parker Smith, who was clerk- ing for us that season, and went off. " Did he have a team," I says to Parker, " or was he afoot ?" And Parker didn't know, hadn't took notice. Well, of course there isn't any- thing wonderful in that part of the story. 'Twas lucky he happened along just that minute, that's all. And I never should have thought of the man again but for what come after. 'Twas two or three weeks after that, one hot day in July, that I had the biggest scare of my whole life, I believe. Some ways or other I'd turned my ankle, and 'twas swelled up and stiff so's I couldn't put my foot to the floor. I was up in my bedroom, setting in 166 A TRANSIENT my rocking-chair, with my foot all wrapped up with cloths wet with opedildoc and up on a cricket. All the boarders was off one way or other, except Mis' Skinner. She was in her room with Janie, her little girl. After a spell she come over to my room with her bonnet on and hold of Janie's hand, and asked me if she could leave the child there with me for a few minutes while she went over to the post - office. " She don't need any looking after, Mis' Harris," she says. " She'll play round the room real good and quiet, only I don't exactly like to leave her all alone." I always liked children, and Janie was a favor- ite of mine, so of course I said let her stay. Well, she trotted around and looked at my things and played with her dolly. I was knitting, hard at work on a new kind of bed- spread with a real mixed-up pattern Miss Lee had been learning me. I got to the most tick- lish place in it, where the holes come in, and I was looking close at it and saying over to myself, " Put your thread over and knit one, put your thread over and narrer, knit three plain," when I heerd a little noise. I looked up quick, recollecting the child oh dear, 167 A TRANSIENT dear, dear ! My south window was wide open, and there was a morning-glory vine climbing up on some strings just outside. There was pink and blue and white flowers on it, all shut up and twisted, of course, at that time o' day, but they looked bright and pretty to Janie. So she'd climbed up in a chair and tried to reach 'em. The chair'd tipped, and she'd slipped out, and oh ! there she was hanging with her little white frock catched on the thing the green blinds fasten to. Before the dress give way, before I could holler out, before oh, anything I see some one right in my room step up quick behind the child, catch her up in his arms, unhitch her frock, and put her down on the carpet close up to me. For a spell I didn't think of anything but Janie and her being safe and sound. I kept stroking her yellow head as she leaned it up agin my dress, and I felt sort of sick and head-swimmy. Then I heerd the door creak, and when I looked up there was a man going out. He was an under-size, homely looking man, with a real pleasant freckly face and thin reddish hair, and I see he was the transient that helped us out at 168 A TRANSIENT the table that day I was telling about. I called out to him to stop, and begun to pour it all out how thankful and obleeged I was and all, but he only says, very quiet, " Don't speak of it ; 'tain't anything," he says. Then he mum- bles out sort of quick and bashful something about how he was passing, and see I needed a little help, and come in. I couldn't hear him very plain, and then he was gone. I couldn't follow him, 'count of my lame foot, and he didn't appear to hear when I called out to him again. So off he went without any more thanks from me or anybody. Well, that time I did ask a heap of ques- tions about him, but nobody seemed to know a thing. Folks had seen him coming along the street, and Mary Willey see him running like a streak through our front gate and into the house that afternoon. But nobody knew who he was, nor which way he come from or went to. I disremember just what was the next time I saw him. Mebbe 'twas the day Hiram Merrit's cows broke into our cornfield. There wasn't any men folks about, but Aleck Brace, a little fellow not more'n twelve year old, 169 A TRANSIENT was in the barn, and he run out to see if he could drive 'em out. I knew he couldn't do it alone, and I was just starting out myself, though my ankle wasn't strong yet a while, when I see the cows was all running out o' the field, and there was a man helping Aleck drive 'em. I didn't get a chance to speak to the boy till 'most night, and then I asked him who it was helped him get the cows out. He said 'twas a stranger to him, a man that was going by and see the trouble. Said he was a smallish man, with slinky red hair and freckled as a turkey egg, but a real friendly way with him. I guessed in a minute 'twas that transient again. I don't know but 'twas afore that, after all, that he turned up just at the very minute the keeping-room chimney got afire. I was out myself, and there wasn't anybody down- stairs but Sarah Willett and old Aunty Mills that was turning and sewing over the breadths of the carpet, and up-stairs there wasn't any gentlemen, only two or three of the ladies. I heerd about it as I was coming up the street, and I run home as fast as I could. But when I got there 'twas all out and Sarah was 170 A TRANSIENT sweeping up the soot. She said they'd had a dreadful scare, but just 's they was 'most distracted somebody run in and emptied a bag of salt on the fire 'twas only a blaze of papers Sarah 'd been burning to get 'em out of the way and it put it right out. Neither she nor Aunty Mills had noticed who done it. But Parker Smith, the clerk, come in a spell afterwards, and he says, "I see that sandy-haired man just now, that was here to dinner the day Mis' Haskins had the tan- trums." So I felt certain sure that transient had helped me out again. 'Twas the queerest thing. He never went anywhere else, never give assistance to any of the neighbors, and nobody knew who or what he was. But he was always and forever turning up in the very nick, yes, the nickest of time, when I needed help or got into any scrape or mess. They wasn't all big things he done, some was little ; they wasn't all sol- emn things, some was real comical. Why, once I'd gone over to Petersville with Mis' Bryan to have a pictur' took of her baby. It was fretty with its teeth, and wouldn't look pleasant, all the pictur' man and the rest of 171 A TRANSIENT us could do. 'Twas getting late, and I'd got to be home to make tea-rusk for supper. I was real nervous, but just then a man come In, or was in, for I didn't see him open the door. He stepped up in front of the baby, just where the pictur' thing couldn't take him, and he begun to move his hands up and down, and wiggle his feet, and shake his head all covered with smooth stringy red hair, and twist his homely, freckled face in such a ri- dic'lous way that the baby, let alone the rest of us, just laughed right out, and I've got the pictur' of it with the laugh all sot on his little countenance. 'Course 'twas that transient. But he wouldn't stop to say a single word, and was off before we could thank him. Another time I'd been out in the rain and got wet, and I catched cold. I felt sick all over, and that night I thought I'd take some hot peppermint tea. I went to the closet for the peppermint, and there was the bottle all empty ; not a single drop left. Now if there's a thing I pride myself on, it's my never being out of peppermint. It's the one thing that every respectable family should keep in the house. Aunt Nancy Bartlett used to say 172 A TRANSIENT that to be without peppermint in the house overnight was temptin' Providence, and I guess she was about right. It's the one thing I know that's hot and cold to the same time. So, nat'rally, it's good for folks that's hot- blooded and feverish, and for people that's peaked and shivery. But there I was with- out a drop in the house, and late in the even- ing, too. Just then I thought I heerd a noise at the back of the house. I went to my win- dow and listened, but I couldn't hear any- thing. Pretty soon I felt sure there was steps in the yard, and all of a sudden I recol- lected I hadn't bolted the side door. I took a candle and run down-stairs. I looked about a little, and see there wa'n't nothing wrong ; then I fastened the door and started to go up-stairs. I don't know what 'twas made me turn round and look at the clock that stood on a little shelf in the entry. Just as I done it I see a bottle standing there by the box of matches, and I reached up and took hold of it. It was a middlin'-size bottle, and 'twas brimful of peppermint right up to the cork, as if it had just come out of Deacon Hub- bard's store. 173 A TRANSIENT Do you s'pose I didn't know, just as well as if I'd seen him, that 'twas that friendly transient done that ? But I tell you there was another kind of help that man fetched me once, and I'll never forget it to my dying day. I told you mother was living with me then. She was most eighty, and she failed up fast that summer. The hot weather was too much for her, and she grew weaker, and one day in August 'twas the 25th we see plain she was a-dying. Dr. More had been and gone, saying she wouldn't last many hours, and there wasn't anything he could do. She hadn't sensed anything all day, and her eyes was shut. I was setting close by her, and Libby States, my niece-in-law, nigh by. There wasn't any- body else in the room. All of a sudden I see ma move her lips as if she was trying to speak, but she didn't open her eyes. I leaned over her and says, " What is it, ma ?" She sort of whispers, " Sing ' How firm a foundation ' " and I knew she wanted her favorite hymn. Now I never could sing a note in my life, hadn't any ear or voice or idee of tune, besides being all choky with i74 A TRANSIENT sorrow now. Libby was crying so hard she couldn't raise a note. I tried to say the hymn over, instead of singing it, but I see that didn't satisfy ma. She'd always been fond of music, sung in the choir when she was young. Her poor dry lips moved again, and she says, " Sing, sing !" Oh dear, what wouldn't I've given to do what she wanted ! Just then I heerd a voice begin the old hymn to the old tune, the very one ma wanted. The door was on a jar, and somebody was singing just outside in the entry. 'T wasn't much of a voice ; it flatted terribly, and it cracked on every single high note, but it satisfied mother. She sort of smiled, and she kept her thin, wrinkled old hands is there anything on this whole earth like your mother's hands ? moving a little on the sheet to keep time. The voice went right through the whole hymn a real long one, you know ; and just as it come to " He'll never, no, never, no, never forsake," ma stopped moving her hands, and sort of whispers, " Never forsake " and then, " Ann " (that's my name), and a second after A TRANSIENT she says, very softly, " Nathan," and she was gone. Nathan was my only brother, a little fellow dead and buried twenty year before, but mother'd never forgot him. I could just re- member him a cute, homely little fellow, with sandy hair that never would curl, and a pleasant little face tanned and freckled with being out-doors. But ma thought there never was such a child, said he was too good to live, always doing things for folks, so helpful and self-denying. She said he was always talking of how he was going to spend his whole life, just helping folks and getting 'em out of trouble, partic'lar his own folks. He died, poor young one ! when he was nine year old ; so he never had much chance to show what a helper he could be. But here was ma thinking of him, and saying his name over the very last thing. I mustn't make this story too long and tire you all out, so I won't tell you how I felt to lose my mother, and the lonesome time that come afterwards. I found out what I'd felt pretty sure of all the time that 'twas my friend, the transient, that had come in just 176 A TRANSIENT the very minute he was needed and sung that hymn for ma. I didn't see him myself, but Sarah Willett met him on the stairs, and knew him right away. I didn't think of any- thing for a spell but mother and .the last things I could do for her. But after the funeral I begun to remember what a comfort the hymn had been to her, and I was bound to find out something about that man. But 'twasn't any good, all my questions and searching out. Nobody knew who he was, or'd ever had any talk with him, though a lot of folks had seen him one time or another, and always pretty close to my house. 'Twas a few weeks after that time, one day in September, that Dr. More stopped at my door in his buggy. He said he was go- ing to see a sick woman over to North Bent- ley, and as he should have to pass right by the Red Hill burying-ground, where ma was, he thought maybe I'd like to go out there with him. I was glad of the chance, for I hadn't been there since the funeral, and I went up-stairs to put on my things. As I was hurrying, so's not to keep the doctor waiting, I thought to myself that I wished I M 177 A TRANSIENT had some flowers to put on mother's grave. She was a master-hand for flowers, could al- ways make them grow and bloom. And she set a great deal by the wild flowers 'round Bentley, and knew 'em all apart. " It's just the time," I says to myself, " for blind gentian that ma always liked so, and the twisted- stalk and everlastings. And goldenrod and blue daisies is out a plenty. But the doctor '11 be in a hurry, and I can't ask him to stop for me to pick any." I run down-stairs and out to the buggy. Just as I got in, Dr. More handed me a big bunch of posies, and says : " Here's your flowers. I'm glad you had them ready." " Why, what in the world !" I says. " Where did these come from ?" Dr. More looked real surprised, and says, " Why, I thought you sent them out ! A man fetched them here to me just now, and says, ' Here's some flowers for Mis' Harris.' " "What man?" I says. " He was a stranger ,to me," says the doc- tor, "and I didn't take partic'lar notice of him." But I knew who 'twas well enough. There 178 A TRANSIENT wasn't but one person on the wh'ole airth that would 'a' happened along with just them posies at just that minute. 'Twas that tran- sient again. I looked at the flowers as we rode along. There was blind gentians, pur- ply blue, with their green leaves a mite streaky and spotty. Mother she was from Vermont, and she called them dumb fox- gloves. You know what I mean them flow- ers that's always buds and never open. And there was a lot of twisted-stalk, the big kind that comes late, with a spike of frosty-look- ing white flowers that smell just the way a peach-pit tastes. And there was everlastings and goldenrod and blue daisies all the things ma'd been fond of and I'd been wishing for. Well, then I just had to tell Dr. More all about it. This last thing had somehow stirred me all up, and I begun to think there was something a good deal out of the common about this man and his doings. I was dread- ful excited, and I let the doctor have the whole story. I told him all about it, all the things that had happened to me, and all the times this man had helped me out, and how I couldn't find out anything about him, and 179 A TRANSIENT couldn't get a word with him, and nobody could, and all that. But, some ways or other, it didn't seem to make much impression on the doctor. He didn't appear to think 'twas no great of a myst'ry, nothing very amazing, after all. I guess I didn't tell it just right, mebbe. 'Tany rate, he said things only'd happened so ; he dare say the man was all right, and we'd find out all about him some time. Said he was a respectable - looking man, and pleasant spoken, and he'd surmised at first he was some relative of mine that was staying to my house. I suppose he meant the man favored my family. He said women folks was given to imaginings and such. Dr. More was a single man, and they said he'd been disappointed when he was young. I disremember how long 'twas before I see the man again, or whether I ever did see him more'n once after that time. But any ways, I recollect the last time, and everything that happened then, as well as if 'twas last week. 'Twas in October, the very beginning of the month. All my boarders had been gone some time. I was doing my own work, for I didn't 1 80 A TRANSIENT need any help when I was alone, except Wells Sanford for out-door chores. 'Twas after five o'clock one afternoon I see a team drive up to my door and stop, and there was a wagon- ful of folks come visiting. They was my re- lations from Danby, Cousin Levi Bourne's folks him and his wife, and her mother and Joshua, and his wife and little Abigail. They'd come to have supper and spend the night. I was dreadful glad to see 'em, and made 'em real welcome. I had plenty of things in the house to do with, and I knew I could get 'em up a good supper in no time. But who was going to wait on them at table while I was cooking, frying their griddle-cakes and all ? 'Twas kind of chilly that day, and I made 'em all set up to the wood fire in the keep-_ ing-room, and I went out to the kitchen to see what I could do. I set to work beating up biscuit and making my batter for the cakes, and chopping up the cold beef and potatoes for hash, when I heerd a man's step in the back entry. ' Then some one come to the door and looked in. 'Twas kind of dark, and I couldn't see at first, but I heerd a man's voice say, " Don't put yourself out any, Mis' 181 A TRANSIENT Harris ; it's only a transient for supper," and I knew in one minute 'twas that man. I was in such a hurry, and so nervy and flustered, that somehow I didn't think of how I'd wanted to see him, and all I wanted to say. But I just says, " Deary me, another for supper, and me with not a soul in the house to help me." He come in real quiet, set his hat down on the table, and says, very pleasant and soft : " Let me help ye, Mis' Harris. I'm quite a hand to help, I am." And if you'll believe me, before I could say a word he set to work. He set the table, getting out the crockery without asking me a thing, going in and out very quick and still, laying the napkins around, and putting on the plates and knives and forks. He fixed it real nice, but in a kind of an old-fashioned way. When I went in to take a look at it, I declare it looked for all the world like my mother's tea-table when I was a young one ; all the more because he'd used the old blue and white crockery and some other odd dishes ma'd left to me. He helped me about every single thing ; he was real handy for a man, 182 A TRANSIENT and saved me lots of steps and trouble. Pret- ty soon he says, still just as easy and quiet, " I suppose you'd like to have me wait on table," he says. " I'm used to waitin', and there ain't nothin' I like so much as helpin' folks to things." I tell you I was pleased. Seems queer now that I took it so easy and let a man that had come for his own supper work around so, but it seemed to come real nat'ral then. Well, he waited on table, and I never see any one do better, and so they all said. Levi told me afterwards that he waited on them more's if he was a friend doing for 'em than like paid help. He put a big book in one of the chairs for little Abigail to set on, and he lifted her up on it as if he was her pa, and pinned her napkin round her neck just as nice. Old Mis' Fish, Levi's wife's moth- er, was getting old and sort of childish, and when he passed the biscuit to her she looked up at him, and she says : " How air ye, sir ? Your face is real familiar, but I disremember your name. How do you call yourself ?" she says. "You can call me Nathan," he says, very pleasant and soft. I didn't hear nor know anything about it 183 A TRANSIENT till they told me afterwards. He was real attentive to the old lady, wrapping her knit shawl around her every time it slipped off, and picking up her specs when she dropped 'em. They said he had a real friendly way with him, urging "em to eat, pressing the victuals on 'em, and doing a good deal more'n there was any call for. Bime-by they fin- ished, and I heerd their chairs scrape, and then they went into the keeping-room again. I run in for a minute to tell 'em I'd be ready pretty soon to visit with 'em, and they begun to ask me about the man that waited on ta- ble. Levi said he thought first he might be a relation he had a kind of family look and when he told 'em his name was Nathan, he was pretty sure of it, because that had been a great name among the Bourneses for generations. But I told him 'twa'n't so ; the man was 'most a stranger, and I didn't even know till that minute his name was Nathan. But I said that bime-by I'd come in and tell 'em something remarkable about this tran- sient and the time I'd had with him. Then I went back into the dining-room. The man was there waiting for me, though 184 A TRANSIENT I'd been dreadful afraid he'd go off in his ag- gravating way before I come back. He'd seemed real taken with my old chiny, and he was standing by the table with a piece of it in his hand. 'Twas a queer, old-fashioned thing a mug sort of yellowish white, with a black pictur' on it, and it had been my little brother Nathan's ; he'd always drunk his milk out of it. He set it down real care- ful 's I come in, and I says : " Now you and me, we must have our supper. I'll run out and put the griddle on and fry some hot cakes, and I'll be back in a jiffy. But first," I says, " I must know what to call you, for I 'ain't an idee what your name is." He says, kind of bashful like, " You might call me Nathan." " But that's your first name, I suppose," I says. " Yes, ma'am," he says, with a real pleas- ant look on his face, " that's my very first name." "And might I ask your last one," I says, " so's to call you by it ?" He waited a minute, and then he says, " You wouldn't know any better if I was to 185 A TRANSIENT tell you ; you wouldn't understand it ; but Nathan's my first name." I thought that was kind of queer, but I only said, " Well, when I bring in your sup- per we must have a little talk. For you know well enough," I says, smiling, and nod- ding my head at him, "that there's a good many things to be gone over betwixt you and me, and there's a sight of things I'm beholden to you for, and never a chance be- fore to say obleeged to ye." " 'Tain't worth speaking of, Mis' Harris," he says, in his softly way. " I was dreadful glad to help ye. There ain't nothin' I set by more'n helpin' people, partic'lar my own folks." "What did he mean by that?" I asks my- self, as I fried the griddle-cakes and drawed some fresh tea. " I ain't his folks as I know; mebbe he means his fellow - bein's or his neighbors. I mean to ask him." But I never done it. He was gone when I went back into the dining-room, and sure's I live and breathe, from that day to this I've never catched a sight of that man never, never, never. Nobody see him go, but Levi 186 A TRANSIENT heerd the side door shut, and then steps going down the walk. All my looking and asking and wondering and guessing come to nothing. All I ever knew about him you know yourself now. Dr. Little, that told you to ask me about it, hasn't been here long. He's dreadful in- terested in folks' minds and heads the in- side of 'em and what they believe, and why they believe it, and all that. They've got some name for that sort, but I disremember it ; but 'tany rate, he's one. He's made me tell him that story twenty times if he has once, and he goes over 'n' over it with me. He uses pretty big words, but I've got so I can follow him after a fashion. He'll ask me what I really think about it myself. Well, I tell him I don't know ; sometimes I think one thing, and sometimes another, and then again I don't think anything at all. Then he asks me if I ever thought that maybe this man was my little brother Na- than come back in this form, and carrying out his idee of helping folks. Yes, I had thought of it, and the doctor knew I had, and more'n a little, too. But it don't seem a 187 A TRANSIENT satisfyin" sort of the'ry. Seems 's if folks, if they're let to come back at all, would come lookin' kind of different from us poor folks that's never had their opportunities ; they'd be more like angels or heavenly bein's, ap- pears to me. But this man was just a real Bentley-lookin' kind of man, plain and home- ly, and dreadful bashful. Then if 'twas Na- than, why, he'd growed up. I wonder if they do grow up in that place. This man seemed just about as old as Nathan would have been if he'd lived. And he'd got the same idees as Nathan about helping folks and getting 'em out of trouble. And it was just me, his own sister, he helped. But then it don't stand to reason that a soul would come back to do such common kind of helping jobs as making a baby look pleasant to have its pictur' took, or fetching peppermint, or driv- ing cows out of the corn, and all that. To be sure, it might come down to sing a favor- ite hymn to a dying woman, or to save a little child's life, but no, I can't tell what I do think, and so I always tell Dr. Little. "But," he says, in his solemn, book- word kind o* way that I've got by heart now 1 88 A TRANSIENT "but, Mrs. Harris, do you consider this vis- itant a supernat'ral being ? Do you call it a spirit or ghost ?" And I always answer, " No, Dr. Little, I don't dast to say I hold that." " Well then, my dear Mrs. Harris," he says, again, " what do you call this apparition ?" And I always answer, " Why, I just call him a transient." AUNT LIEFY AUNT LIEFY I DON'T know how it come about exactly ; mebbe 'twas because I never rec'lected any folks of my own. Or again, p'r'aps 'twas owin' to the people where I lived not bein' of the sociable sort. Or mebbe, likely 's not, 'twas all the fault of my own queer, cross- grained, hard-to-get-along-with natur'. But tennerate, there 'twas a fact well known to me and other folks, that I was the lonesomest creatur' that ever lived. I hadn't a real friend on the airth ; more'n that, I hadn't scursely any acquaintances. Folks in the village and town knew who I was, most of 'em, and I knew their names and some of their faces ; but that was about all. You asked me for just one partic'lar part of my story, and I'm goin' to give it to you. As for the rest, why, there's no call for me to N 193 AUNT LIEFY go into that now, and I ain't a-goin' to. How I come to be there in Hilton, without any one belongin' to me, or a soul in the whole world to set by me, or me to set by, why, all that's another story, so we'll let it alone now. And I'll begin just here, when I was a grown-up woman, hard featur'd and harder natur'd, not liked by anybody, and not havin', myself, a mite of int'rest in any one on this airth or outside of it. Never mind what I done for a livin' ; I got along. I had enough to eat and drink, and clo'es to wear ; and I wasn't be- holden to anybody. I lived by myself in that same little red house just out of the village where you fust see me the lonesomest creat- ur', as I said afore, that God ever made. My whole name, you know, is Relief Staples ; but 'twas years and years since I'd heard the fust part. I was "Miss Staples" to the whole town ; and yet 'twasn't the kind of place where they give folks sech names gen'rally. Other single women of my age old maids I suppose you'd call 'em was Ann Nichols, or Lizzy Mount, or Hopey Palmer ; and the married ones was Aunt this or Aunty that or Mother somebody. But I was allers " Miss 194 AUNT LIEFY Staples" to man, woman, and child, speakin' about me, or to me, no matter which. And, queer enough, I never thought of myself by any other name. I'd most forgot I was Re- lief at all ; for I even signed my name to a bill or paper, I never writ a letter R. Staples. I don't seem to remember much about when I was a girl. There was reasons that haven't got anything to do with this story why I was diff'ent from the other children. Strangers that come along and die right in the public roads, and leave young ones too little to know their own names or where they come from, can't expect their children to be fav'rites in the c'mmunity, especially if they're put in among the town-poor at fust. I know I got some schoolin' at the little deestrict school on the north road ; but I don't rec'lect much about the other children playin' with me, or callin' me by my fust name, as they done one 'nother in the games, or in spellin' and read- in'. I don't b'lieve I liked 'em much, or them me ; for after I growed up I allers had a dis- like to young ones, and they returned it every speck. Fact is, I can't remember likin' any- thing much in them days. I done my work 195 AUNT LIEFY without takin' much notice of it ; I eat my meals, sometimes one place, sometimes anoth- er, settin' or standin', or workin' about, as I felt like it. I went to bed and got up ; that was my life. All my neighbors had posy gar- dens, and most of 'em had flowers in the house too ; but I never thought of sech a thing. What was the use of it ? I went to meetin' sometimes ; because well, I don't seem to rec'lect why I did go, but I did. But it didn't int'rest me, and I didn't take no great notice of what went on. That it meant much of anything to me, myself, never come into my head in those days. I'm leavin' out, as I said afore, everything that hasn't really got to do with my story. So I needn't stop to tell you how it come about that I was trav'lin' one day the day my story really begins on a kind of business errand, over the Middle Railroad, nor how I come to get off at the wrong station ; but there I was. I meant to go to Wellsville. I'd been there afore and knew how it looked ; and the train hadn't hardly started after leavin' me before I see I was wrong. There wasn't any real depot, only a kind of platform 196 AUNT LIEFY to wait on, and there wasn't a soul in sight. I looked about a little, and then I begun to walk along the road, not carin* much what I did. My business wasn't pressin', 'twas the middle of the day and lots of daylight ahead, so I jest walked slowly along. The road was an uphill one, and no houses along it at fust. I rec'lect that, though I didn't notice much besides ; for up to that day, you know, I never did notice things. But that was the last of that way of livin', as you'll see pretty soon. It was in the fall of the year, early in Octo- ber, and, as I could tell from what come arter- wards, the trees all along the way was red and yeller and bright-lookin', and I was steppin' on leaves colored the same way ; but I didn't seem to see 'em. I don't know how long or how fur I walked,- or what I was thinkin' about. Somehow it don't seem as if I ever was thinkin' much about anything those times. Mebbe my mind run a little on that piece of business I was goin' to attend to, or some work I'd promised to do, I don't re- member. The fust thing that stands out, as I look back now, was hearin' a man speakin'. He 197 AUNT LIEFY was in a buggy ; but I hadn't noticed the sound of wheels, and he was close up to me, comin' down the road facin' me, as if he was on the way to the station I'd come from, 'fore I see him. He drawed up right alongside of me. He was an oldish man, with a pleasant- lookin* kind of face, only a mite solemn and sorry like, and he says, " I'm so glad you've got here. They've waited, thinkin' you might be on this train. I'm goin' on to tell the min- ister, or I'd give you a lift ; but some one '11 meet you." And then, 'fore I'd had time to say anything, he says, in a low sort of voice, "I'm dreadful sorry for you ; we all be." And then he started his horse and rode away. It seems odd now that I didn't wonder more about what he meant, or ask him somethin', or call after him that I guessed he'd made a mistake. But, if you'll believe me> all I could think of in that fust minute was that some- body was waitin' for me and expectin' me ; somebody was glad I'd come ; and, 'bove and over all, somebody was dreadful sorry for me. Not one of them things, 's fur 's I know, had ever happened to me afore, and though I made sure 'twas all a mistake, somehow jest 198 AUNT LIEFY for a minute I had the comfortablest feelin' I'd ever had in my life. Comfortable in my mind, I mean ; but queer enough, it made me feel weak in my body and with a kind of choked -up, swelly throat. I walked along, tryin' to think, when I see a carryall cotnin' down the road towards me, with a boy drivin'. " Oh, there you be !" he says, as he stopped the old horse. " Get right in. They put off the funeral, you see, thinkin' you might get here on this noon-train." I stood still in the road, lookin' at him ; but he says, " Hurry ! Pa told me to drive quick " ; and I got in. I don't know what made me do it. I go over and over that day some- times in my mind, and try to think how 'twas I fell in with everything so, without explainin' or askin' questions. The only way I can make it out reas'nable is, that I was so took up with this bein' expected and took notice of and made much on, that I jest let myself have the comfort of it all, without sayin' or doin' a thing that might 'a' stopped it. The boy didn't say much ; he driv fast, shakin' the reins and cluckin* to the horse. The road 199 AUNT LIEFY was pretty rough, and the wagon was shackly and shook about and rattled, and we couldn't 'a' held much talk even if we'd had a mind to. We met some folks, and they all looked at me in the same way, kind of int'rested and friendly, but allers sorry, real sorry that was what struck me most. " They've mistook me for somebody else," I says to myself ; " but I can't help likin' it, and I won't tell 'em jest for a spell. It feels so good to be looked at that way. I'll wait a minute 'fore I tell 'em." Mebbe I didn't put it into jest them words, but I was think- in' somethin' most like that, I know. All of a sudden the boy whoaed his horse and stopped. I see a little gal in a red frock runnin' 'crost the road and holdin* up some- thin'. She was all out of breath and her lit- tle face red, she'd run so ; and she didn't say anythin', on'y reached up and put somethin' in my lap and run off. The boy whipped up, and we went on. I looked down into my lap and see some yeller posies. "What be they?" I says, more to my own self than anything. But the boy, he says, in that kind of way boys does when they're sorry 200 AUNT LIEFY and most ashamed of bein', "Gold'nrod, ye know, that she set so much by." Now that bloom grows all along the roads through our part of the country ; but some- how I hadn't ever noticed it afore, and I nev- er 'd heerd its name not to rec'lect it. And whoever did he mean by " she " ? But that give me a little more to hold on by. All this bein' sorry for me, and takin' care and all, had somethin' to do with this somebody he spoke of as " she." I begun to feel dreadful queer and choky, and 's if I must know right straight off all about her, and what had hap- pened. It's a mistake, I says to myself, but oh, I jest can't let on that 'tis yet, and me to go back to bein' no account to anybody, and never wanted or expected anywheres again. We kep' meetin' folks ; but they all turned 's quick as they see us, and went back the way we was goin'. And I could hear teams comin' along behind us too. Bime-by I see a little white house ahead and a good many men folks standin' round it. And the boy drawed up in front of that house. Two or three men came out to the carriage, 201 AUNT LIEFY plain, farmer-lookin' men, with kind of tanned, weather-beat faces, but all with the same sort of sorry look, and I see they was goin' to help me out. I'd jest been a goin' to tell 'em who I was and how 'twas all a mistake ; but for the life of me I couldn't then. They'll find me out in a minute, I says to myself ; but I can't tell 'em now. For you see, in all my born days I hadn't ever afore been helped out of anything, and I wanted to see how 'twould seem. They done it real gentle ; and somehow they led me into the gate. All the men in the front yard, they stood back each side of the path while I walk- ed up to the door. I hadn't more'n stepped over the sill into the entry, where 'twas sort of dark, when I felt somethin' queer, warm, and soft, and wrappy ; and I see I was in somebody's arms. 'Twas an old woman with white hair, and a soft, wrinkled face, and sech a mothery look all over her I wonder how my mother looked ; and she put her face up again' mine, and I felt 'twas all wet. I don't believe I'd ever, afore that, felt anybody's tears, not even my own, sence I was a baby. She'll say somethin' now, I thinks to my- 202 AUNT LIEFY self, that'll show me where the mistake is ; and then 'twill all come out, and I'll jest go back. But she didn't say but one thing, after all, and that didn't help. " Oh, my dear, my dear !" she says. That was all. You can't blame me for not tellin' then, not jest then, can you? S'pose you hadn't ever in all your hull life been called "my dear"; and you was all kind of shakin' and chokin' and cryey, and glad and sorry to once with hearin' it, could you go and spile it right straight off by ownin' up you hadn't no claim to it? Well, I couldn't, anyway. She took me into a little bedroom and put me in a chair. She said there was plenty of time for me to rest a spell ; for folks had got to be let know I was come, and that the fun'ral could go on. She untied my bunnet- strings and unpinned my shawl. She done a lot of things to me that I didn't hardly know what was, they was so new and queer to me, not bein' used to 'em, you know. She talked a good deal ; but I didn't take much notice of the words, I was so took up with her softly voice and the things she was doin' to me. But I know she kep' sayin' over 'n' 203 AUNT LIEFY over, " If you could only 'a' got here afore she went ! If you could only 'a* got here !" I tried to say somethin' ; but some ways my throat was all dry, and 'fore I could get out any words, she says, " Oh, I know you couldn't, you poor dear creatur', and she knew it too. She wanted you dreadful bad," she says, the tears a runnin' down her pret- ty, old, wrinkled face ; " but she knew you couldn't get here, and most the very last word she spoke was your name, my dear." Well, that finished me. Up to that time I hadn't cried any myself. I don't b'lieve I knew how, exactly, never havin' done it sence I was a baby. But now I found the water fallin' out o' my eyes like rain. Mebbe 'twas because I knew 'twas all a mistake ; mebbe again owin* to my half-believin' 'twas real and true after all, and somebody was layin' dead that had set by me so that she'd wanted me dreadful, and said over my name with her last breath most. Anyway I cried and cried and cried. I'd 'a' said afore that, if anybody 'd asked me, that it must hurt to cry, that I shouldn't like it ; but I did. It seemed to help me, and rest me, and comfort me, to 204 AUNT LIEFY make me diff'ent from what I'd ever been afore in all my life more like other folks, and jest a little mite like the white-haired old woman and the people outside with that sorry look on their featur's. I don't know how long 'twas, mebbe only a few minutes, mebbe more, but arter a spell, anyway, we went out o' that little bedroom and into the settin'-room. It was shet up and dark like, and I couldn't see much at fust. They put me into a seat, and pretty soon I found there was lots of folks round me. There was chairs in rows, and people in 'em ; and there was a something black and strange, covered and shet up and still, and I knew, without bein' told, that she they'd said had wanted me, and set by me, and spoke about me up to the very last, was layin' there. My old woman was settin' close by me, and when she see my eyes fixed on that, she says in a whisper, " I wish you could 'a' seen her, she was so peaceful and pleasant - lookin' and nat'ral. But you know how 'twas, and that we couldn't wait." So I wasn't goin* to see her even this way ! I shouldn't ever know how she looked, livin* 205 AUNT LIEFY or dead. Well, I wasn't exactly sorry. I most dreaded the idee of seein* her, for fear somehow I might be disapp'inted. For I'd got a'ready a notion of my own about her, from what the dear old woman told me, and things I heerd whispered round as we set waitin'. Then somebody says, " Here's the minister," and an old man come up to me. I looked up at him ; I hadn't ever seen jest sech a face afore, or if I had, it hadn't made much impres- sion on me. 'Twasn't exactly sorry, but 's if it had been over 'n over again, and knew all about it ; and there was a look as if he was hopin' somethin' real hard, and lottin' on gettin' it too a kind of shinin' in his eyes and a still sort of look jest round his mouth. He took hold of my hand, and he said some- thin'. It don't seem as if I heerd the words, each one on 'em ; but I gathered lots o" mean- in' out of it somehow, and I knew that he was dreadful sorry for me, but glad enough for her, though I couldn't hardly see why jest then, and I see too that he knew I was goin' to be glad too, some day. Well, the fun'ral begun and went on. I dis- 206 AUNT LIEFY remember whether or no I'd ever been to a fun'ral afore ; but I'd seen 'em go by, of course, and thought I knew all about 'em. But this wasn't a bit like what I'd conceited. I can't tell you jest how 'twas diff' ent ; mebbe one thing was I was diff 'ent, even in that short spell. Things the minister read or spoke, though I'd heerd some of 'em afore in meet- in' and elsewheres, got to meanin' somethin' now when I was listenin' so close to find out somethin' about her that laid there, and whether there was any chance of my seein' her some day. And when he prayed well, I'd seen folks pray, time and again, but didn't think of its meanin' much of anythin' ; and as for prayin' myself, I didn't s'pose I knew how. P'r'aps I didn't, and wa'n't prayin' then ; but I was secondin' ev'ry single thing the old minister said, and hopin' with all my heart and mind and body they'd come true. Ain't that a kind of prayin' ? And somebody else said somethin' ; and they sung things soft- ly, and prayed again. And in ev'ry single thing I could see they thought she that laid there b'longed to me more'n to anybody else and that I was the sorriest of any one there. 207 AUNT LIEFY They prayed for me more'n all the rest ; they talked about me, not by name, but "our sister," they says, "her that's so sorely afflict- ed," " she that was so closely bound up with her that's gone," and things like that. Oh, I can't begin to tell you what 'twas to me to be, for the fust time in all my days, right in the middle of things, 'stead of alone outside ; with folks all lovin' me and bein' sorry for me and askin' for things to happen to me. I couldn't, I jest couldn't, put a stop to it all by ownin' up 'twas a mistake somehow. And then we went to the little buryin'- ground. 'Twas close by, and folks walked ; and I was ahead of all, and closest to her. I can see it all so plain, for I b'lieve 'twas the fust out-o'-doors thing I'd ever really looked at in a takin'-notice way, I mean. The trees there was a lot of 'em round was all bright and gay-lookin' with their red and yeller and browny leaves, and the sky was all blue with little white clouds strimmered over it. There was ever so manv posies growin' in the paths, gold'nrod I'd learnt that name a'ready and purple blooms mixed in with 'em, and the air was full of a minty, spicy sort o' smell 208 AUNT LIEFY from yarbs in the grass. And up in a tree, jest over the place they'd dug her grave, set a little bird a-singin' 's loud and sweet 's he could sing. Then the minister said some words sin- g'lar, wonderful sort o' words they 'peared to me then, in fact they do now and they laid her down there. And the sun was a-shin- in'; there was a bumble-bee buzzin' about the posies, and a butterfly lightin' on 'em. And up in the maple, 'mongst the red leaves, that little bird was singin' with all his might and main. There was some tears, o' course ; but folks kep' smilin' through 'em till they was more like rainbows. Why, thinks I to myself, 'tain't like a fun'ral one bit ; it's more like plantin' a flower. And then they all come round me, jest me ; the women, the men, the children, and ev'ry one had somethin' to say about her that was gone, and what she'd been to 'em all, what she was to me and me to her. There was an old blind man she'd took care of and read to, and some little orphan children she'd moth- ered and done for ; and there was friends she'd been friend to, and meetin'-folks she'd o 209 AUNT LIEFY worked with in doin' good, and all of a sud- den it all come over me what she must 'a' been and how I'd heerd of her too late ; and then I thought o' my lonesome, dried-up, good-for- nothin' life all ahind me, and how diff'ent 'twould 'a' been if she'd really b'longed to me, as these folks all thought she done, and seemed 's if I couldn't bear it. Sech a sorrer and longin' and mournin' and grief come rollin' over me, like waves o' the sea, and I see I'd never had any real trouble or grief or loss afore in my life. Oh, what was it for ? What did it mean ? How was I goin' to bear it, anyhow ? They see I was givin' way, and one after 'nother begun to tell me things she'd said about me, word she'd sent to me. " She said she'd be watchin' for you till you come," says one, most in a whisper. " She told me," says another, "to tell you not to feel bad you couldn't get here to take care of her, ' For,' says she, 'if you'll on'y take care o' some- body else that's sick or lonesome 'twill be jest the same 's doin' it for me.' " And a little gal, with yeller curls and sech a soft face, reached up, and says, in the littlest whisper, 210 AUNT LIEFY " She told me to give you this." And she kissed me. I never 'd been kissed afore. And then the old minister, he kind of drawed me to one side and he says, " She asked me over and over, afore she died, to tell you this, that she forgive you everything if there was anythin' to forgive, and that you mustn't mourn and fret thinkin' mebbe you was one cause of her dyin' ; for even if you was, she was glad, and more'n glad, to lay down her life for you." I can't hardly rec'lect how I got away from 'em all, and from that grave and the little buryin'-ground, and found my way back to the station. I on'y know I didn't tell 'em 't all 'twas a mistake, but come away with- out ownin' up anythin'. I took the cars back to Hilton. I see so many things out of the winder I hadn't took notice of that mornin'. There was gold'nrod all 'longside the way her fav'rite flower ; with the sun a-shinin' on it and the cars goin' by so quick it made the roads look like the golden streets the minis- ter 'd talked about. And I see little buryin'- grounds with green graves and white stones that made me think of where she was layin'. AUNT LIEFY And when we stopped, sometimes I'd hear a bird like that one up in the maple -tree. There was a little gal in the car with yeller curls, like the one that kissed me, and I found myself a-smilin' at her, and she smiled back to me. And when I got out at my station and was walkin' up the village street to the red house, things looked diff'ent from what they ever done afore. I see I was walkin' on red and yeller leaves that looked pretty and made a rustlin' sort of noise as I stepped on 'em, jest 's they done 's I stood in the little bury- in' -ground where we laid her. And there was little white houses along the street, some- thin' like the one where I'd been, and where I s'pose she'd lived ; and I begun to wonder if there was anybody resemblin' her livin' in these. I never 'd wondered much about folks afore, didn't take any int'rest in 'em. And jest 'fore I got to my house I see a woman comin'. She had a black dress on, and 's I looked at her I rec'lected she was a neighbor o' mine, and that I'd heerd she'd lost her on'y child, a little boy, a spell back. All of a sudden I 'peared to know what that 212 AUNT LIEFY meant, and see the coffin, and him a-layin* in it, and the folks all together, and heerd the minister's voice sayin" them wonderful words; and 'fore I knew what I was doin' I held out my hand to her and I heerd my own voice a-sayin', " I'm dreadful sorry for you." She looked into my face 's if she hadn't ever see it afore I s'pose it looked diff'ent somehow, with my eyes all swelly and red and she says, with the tears a-comin fast, " Thank ye, thank ye ! I see you've met with a loss yourself, Miss Staples, and that makes you feel for me." I wa'n't tellin' a lie, was I, when I says, " I have, I have, and I do feel for you ?" For I had lost all I ever had in my hull life, and jest 's quick 's I knew I had it, too. Now, 'tisn't scurcely the thing for me to tell the rest ; I don't hardly know how to say it. You asked me to tell you how 'twas I changed about so, as folks told you I done from a lonesome, unfeelin', unreligious wom- an, not havin' a mite of int'rest in anybody, nor them havin' any in me, to somethin' dif- f'ent. And I've told you all I know about what fetched about the change. 213 AUNT LIEFY I never knew anythin' more about that fun'ral, nor the one we buried that day, nor what I was to her nor her to me. I was afraid to find out, so I never asked any ques- tions, nor went back to that station, nor looked in the papers to see who was dead there. As long 's I didn't really know the partic'lars, nor who they took me for, and why they took me for her, why, there wasn't any harm, was there, in my feelin' she was mine now, let alone what she'd been afore ; that that was my grave to think on and mourn over, and, what's more, hope about ? Tennerate, I done it ; and small credit to me that it fetched me some good, and made me alter my old, hateful ways. For it stands to reas'n that havin' a sorrer myself and 'twas one, though mebbe you can't see how made me notice other folks's troubles and feel for 'em and try to help 'em, as I was helped. And hearin' what she liked and set by, posies and sech, made me begin to notice and get fond on 'em myself. And that's how my gardin got to what 'twas when you fust see it, and my winders and porch so chock full of growin' things. And of course you see 214 AUNT LIEFY now how I took to feedin' them birds that you was so struck with, comin' round the steps and pickin' up my crumbs and seeds, lightin' on me, and all that ; that was owin', you see, to that little bird a-singin' in the red maple over her grave. I never forgot him, the peart little fellow, singin' and singin' away with all his might and main 's if he knew somethin' good was goin' to happen. And them queer folks you used to watch a-comin' in my gate and hangin' round there old lame Jesse and foolish Nance and that little rickety Dan with the hump on his poor little back why, I had them come, and done for 'em, on'y jest 'cause she done that kind of thing, they said. 'Twa'n't nothin' 'riginal on my part, that wa'n't jest copyin' her, you see. That was why I took to nussin' the sick and all that ; and that's how they come to take to callin' me Aunt Relief, and then Aunt Liefy, 'stead o' Miss Staples. The other part 'tain't for me to say a word about that ; Some One else done it, if 'tis done. It's reas'nable, ain't it, that I should take some kind of int'rest in what made this friend 215 AUNT LIEFY of mine I hadn't ever see the sort of person they made her out, and that I should study up about that, and about those sing'lar words the minister used at the fun'ral, and about the place where she'd gone to, and, 'bove and over all, what chance there was of my gettin' to see her after a spell. And findin' out con- cernin' all them things, why, of course I found out more'n I was lookin' for. You see, the one thing that had worked on me most that day was hearin' she'd forgive me things ; for I hadn't ever been forgive anythin' in my hull life not to know it, I mean. And some- how I didn't dwell on that part about my havin' done anythin' to bring about her death, as much 's I did on what she said about bein' glad and more'n glad to lay down her life for me. That was the one thing I guess I thought of most, comin' home that day from her buryin' and arterwards. Any one that set by me enough to be glad to lay their life down on my account, it seemed too sing'lar to take in, and 's if it couldn't act'lly be. Well, it don't seem a mite less sing'lar now ; but I've found it could act'lly be ! So I'm jest a-goin' on all the time now as 216 AUNT LIEPY if I'd had folks. It's most 's if I'd had, you see. I've got a grave, anyhow, in a little, sweet, minty, spicy-smellin' buryin'- ground full o' posies, gold'nrod, and sech ; and I've got messages some one left for me word she sent and I'm follerin' 'em and doin' 'em 's well 's I can. And I've been once in my life to a fun'ral that was more to me than to any one else there, where I was prayed for and comforted and pitied and set by. It's most 's if I'd had folks, don't you think so ? That's what I hold. And I don't see how I done anybody any harm by not tellin' 'twas all a mistake and I was took for somebody else. If I was, why, I guess the right one got along a spell arter- wards and got the same comfort out of it I did, and mebbe more. So 't didn't hurt her. And there's one thing can't be took from me. There was somebody lay there that day, whether she was anythin' to me afore all that or not ; and I know what she'd been, from what folks said about her ; and I know where she's gone, from what she was and b'lieved and said. So there ain't no man- ner o' harm, and you can't make me think 217 AUNT LIEFY there is, in my lookin' forrard to seein" her one of these days, and pretty soon now. And when I do see her, why, I sha'n't have to go into a longexplainin' and showin' how it come about, and why I didn't own up that day she was buried. She'll see it in a minute, if she ain't seen it a'ready ; and that if I ain't that one she'd set by so long and that had set by her, I'm the one that's jest lived for her ever sence, and tried to copy her and act like her, and love the ones she loved, and do for the ones she done for, and, partic'lar, that's tried to get herself ready and fit to be let in to see her some day. And I know cert'in sure that there's Some One else up there that '11 understand all about it too, without my tellin ; and He'll know what 'twas to me to think of a buryin'-spot filled with sweet spices, in a place like a gardin o' posies, and of some one layin' there for a spell some one that had set by me so much that she'd 'a' been glad and more'n glad to lay down her life for me. THE END BY JAMES LANE ALLEN A KENTUCKY CARDINAL. Illustrated by ALBERT E. STERNER. Square 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00 ; Half Calf, $2 00. The portrayal of nature alone would give the book high rank, but the story sets the poem to music. Chicago Times. AFTERMATH. Part Second of " A Kentucky Cardinal." Square 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00 ; Half Calf, $2 00. A slender stream of tender and delicate imagining, filtered through prose which is almost poetry. New York Observer. FLUTE AND VIOLIN, and Other Kentucky Tales and Ro- mances. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, 1 50 ; Silk Binding, $2 25. The stories of this volume are fiction of high artistic value fiction to be read and remembered as something rare, fine, and deeply touching. New York Independent. THE BLUE -GRASS REGION OF KENTUCKY, and Other Kentucky Articles. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. We are indebted to Mr. James Lane Allen for the first ade- quate treatment of an interesting subject adequate both in respect of knowledge and of literary skill in the book entitled "The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky." New York Sun. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK I3P" The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. BY KEBECCA HARDING DAVIS PRANCES WALDEAUX. A Novel. Illustrated by T. DE THULSTRUP. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. A capital novel, of the modern, vivacious type. . . . The mi- nor characters of the story furnish no stint of witty interplay, as they sojourn through Europe, and the keen thrusts and cap- tious hits at the European nobility and American ambitions make truly racy reading. Boston Transcript. It grows in interest from chapter to chapter, and retains its grasp on the absorbed attention from beginning to end. This ought to prove one of the most successful stories of the year. Philadelphia Press. "Frances Waldeaux " shows admirable literary reticence and good character drawing. The author never reveals her plot pre- maturely, and the book therefore holds the interest to the last. And she makes living beings of her characters. Chicago Tribune. DOCTOR WARRICK'S DAUGHTERS. A Novel. Il- lustrated by CLIFFORD CARLETON. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. A very enjoyable story, . . . written in a sprightly tone, with here and there a touch of delightfully amiable banter. . . . The characters are strong and drawn effectively. Independent, N.Y. A story of unusual merit. Its success is in its plot, though its descriptions and its characters are handled with a firm and intelligent grasp. Boston Journal. A thoroughly interesting story ; more than that, an absorb- ing one. There is a real vitality about the characters and the situations that fascinates one. Living Church, Chicago. The reader will be at once struck with the freshness of the author's theme and of her method. . . . One of the best novels of the day. Philadelphia Inquirer. NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS DATE DUE DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 548 221 1