“You have a great deal of work on hand at this season. Wouldn’t it be better for Uncle George and me to go?”
He answered impetuously,–
“If all my property goes to ruin, I will hunt for Willie all over the earth, so long as there is any hope of finding him, I always felt as if mother couldn’t forgive me for leaving him that day, though she always tried to make me think she did. And now, if we find him at last, she is not here to”—-
His voice became choked.
Mr. Wharton replied, impressively,–
“She will come with him, my son. Wherever he may be, they are not divided now.”
The next morning Charles started on his expedition, having made preparations for an absence of some months, if so long a time should prove necessary. The first letters received from him were tantalizing. The young man and his interpreter had gone to Michigan, in consequence of hearing of a family there who had lost a little son many years ago. But those who had seen him in Indiana described him as having brown eyes and hair, and as saying that his mother’s eyes were the color of the sky, Charles hastened to Michigan. The wanderer had been there, but had left, because the family he sought were convinced he was not their son. They said he had gone to Canada, with the intention of rejoining the tribe of Indians he had left.
We will not follow the persevering brother through all his travels. Again and again he came close upon the track, and had the disappointment of arriving a little too late. On a chilly day of advanced autumn, he mounted a pony and rode toward a Canadian forest, where he was told some Indians had encamped. He tied his pony at the entrance of the wood, and followed a path through the underbrush. He had walked about a quarter of a mile, when his ears were pierced by a shrill, discordant yell, which sounded neither animal nor human. He stopped abruptly, and listened. All was still, save a slight creaking of boughs in the wind. He pressed forward in the direction whence the sound had come, not altogether free from anxiety, though habitually courageous. He soon came in sight of a cluster of wigwams, outside of which, leaning against trees, or seated on the fallen leaves, were a number of men, women, and children, dressed in all sorts of mats and blankets, some with tufts of feathers in their hair, others with bands and tassels of gaudy-colored wampum. One or two had a regal air, and might have stood for pictures of Arab chiefs or Carthaginian generals; but most of them looked squalid and dejected. None of them manifested any surprise at the entrance of the stranger. All were as grave as owls. They had, in fact, seen him coming through the woods, and had raised their ugly war-whoop, in sport, to see whether it would frighten him. It was their solemn way of enjoying fun. Among them was a youth, tanned by exposure to wind and sun, but obviously of white complexion. His hair was shaggy, and cut straight across his forehead, as Moppet’s had been. Charles fixed upon him a gaze so intense that he involuntarily took up a hatchet that lay beside him, as if he thought it might be necessary to defend himself from the intruder.
“Can any of you speak English?” inquired Charles.
“Me speak,” replied an elderly man.
Charles explained that he wanted to find a white young man who had been in Indiana and Michigan searching for his mother.
“_Him_ pale-face,” rejoined the interpreter, pointing to the youth, whose brown eyes glanced from one to the other with a perplexed expression.
Charles made a strong effort to restrain his impatience, while the interpreter slowly explained his errand. The pale-faced youth came toward him.
“Let me examine your right arm,” said Charles.
The beaver-skin mantle was raised; and there, in a dotted outline of blue spots, was the likeness of the prairie-dog which in boyish play he had pricked into Willie’s arm. With a joyful cry he fell upon his neck, exclaiming, “My brother!” The interpreter repeated the word in the Indian tongue. The youthful stranger uttered no sound; but Charles felt his heart throb, as they stood locked in a close embrace. When their arms unclasped, they looked earnestly into each other’s faces. That sad memory of the promise made to their gentle mother, and so thoughtlessly broken, brought tears to the eyes of the elder brother; but the younger stood apparently unmoved. The interpreter, observing this, said,–
“Him sorry-glad; but red man he no cry.”
There was much to damp the pleasure of this strange interview. The uncouth costume, and the shaggy hair falling over the forehead, gave Willie such a wild appearance, it was hard for Charles to realize that they were brothers. Inability to understand each other’s language created a chilling barrier between them. Charles was in haste to change his brother’s dress, and acquire a stock of Indian words. The interpreter was bound farther north; but he agreed to go with them three days’ journey, and teach them on the way. They were merely guests at the encampment, and no one claimed a right to control their motions. Charles distributed beads among the women and pipes among the men; and two hours after he had entered the wood, he was again mounted on his pony, with William and the interpreter walking beside him. As he watched his brother’s erect figure striding along, with such a bold, free step, he admitted to himself that there were some important compensations for the deficiencies of Indian education.
Languages are learned rapidly, when the heart is a pupil. Before they parted from the interpreter, the brothers were able, by the aid of pantomime, to interchange various skeletons of ideas, which imagination helped to clothe with bodies. At the first post-town, a letter was despatched to their father, containing these words: “I have found him. He is well, and we are coming home. Dear Lucy must teach baby Willie to crow and clap his hands. God bless you all! Charley.”
They pressed forward as fast as possible, and at the last stage of their journey travelled all night; for Charles had a special reason for wishing to arrive at the homestead on the following day. The brothers were now dressed alike, and a family-likeness between them was obvious. Willie’s shaggy hair had been cut, and the curtain of dark brown locks being turned aside revealed a well-shaped forehead whiter than his cheeks. He had lost something of the freedom of his motions; for the new garments sat uneasily upon him, and he wore them with an air of constraint.
The warm golden light of the sun had changed to silvery brightness, and the air was cool and bracing, when they rode over the prairie so familiar to the eye of Charles, but which had lost nearly all the features that had been impressed on the boyish mind of William. At a little distance from the village they left their horses and walked across the fields to the back-door of their father’s house; for they were not expected so soon, and Charles wished to take the family by surprise. It was Thanksgiving day. Wild turkeys were prepared for roasting, and the kitchen was redolent of pies and plum-pudding. When they entered, no one was there but an old woman hired to help on festive occasions. She uttered a little cry when she saw them; but Charles put his finger to his lip, and hurried on to the family sitting-room. All were there,–Father, Emma, Uncle George, Aunt Mary, Bessie and her young Squire, Charles’s wife, baby, and all. There was a universal rush, and one simultaneous shout of, “Willie! Willie!” Charles’s young wife threw herself into his arms; but all the rest clustered round the young stranger, as the happy father clasped him to his bosom. When the tumult of emotion had subsided a little, Charles introduced each one separately to his brother, explaining their relationship as well as he could in the Indian dialect. Their words were unintelligible to the wanderer, but he understood their warmth of welcome, and said,–
“Me tank. Me no much speak.”
Mr. Wharton went into the bedroom and returned with a morocco case, which he opened and placed in the stranger’s hand, saying, in a solemn tone,–
“Your mother.”
Charles, with a tremor in his voice, repeated the word in the Indian tongue. Willie gazed at the blue eyes of the miniature, touched them, pointed to the sky, and said,–
“Me see she, time ago.”
All supposed that he meant the memories of his childhood. But he in fact referred to the vision he had seen four years before, as he explained to them afterward, when he had better command of their language.
The whole family wept as the miniature passed from hand to hand, and, with a sudden outburst of grief, Charles exclaimed,–
“Oh, if _she_ were only here with us this happy day!”
“My son, she is with us,” said his father, impressively.
William was the only one who seemed unmoved. He did not remember his mother, except as he had seen her in that moment of clairvoyance; and it had been part of his Indian training to suppress emotion. But he put his hand on his heart, and said,–
“Me no much speak.”
When the little red-and-yellow basket was brought forward, it awakened no recollections in his mind. They pointed to it, and said, “Wik-a-nee, Moppet”; but he made no response.
His father eyed him attentively, and said,–
“It surely _must_ be our Willie. I see the resemblance to myself. We cannot be mistaken.”
“I _know_ he is our Willie,” said Charles; and removing his brother’s coat, he showed what was intended to be the likeness of a prairie-dog. His father and Uncle George remembered it well; and it was a subject of regret that William could not be made to understand any jokes about his boyish state of mind on that subject. Mr. Wharton pointed to the chair he used to occupy, and said,–
“It seems hardly possible that this tall stranger can be the little Willie who used to sit there. But it is our Willie. God be praised!” He paused a moment, and added, “Before we partake of our Thanksgiving dinner, let us all unite in thanks to our Heavenly Father; ‘for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.'”
They all rose, and he offered a prayer, to which heart-felt emotion imparted eloquence.
Charles had taken every precaution to have his brother appear as little as possible like a savage, when he restored him to his family; and now, without mentioning that he would like raw meat better than all their dainties, he went to the kitchen to superintend the cooking of some Indian succotash, and buffalo-steak _very_ slightly broiled.
For some time, the imperfect means of communicating by speech was a great impediment to confidential intercourse, and a drawback upon their happiness. Emma, whose imagination had been a good deal excited by the prospect of a new brother, was a little disappointed. In her own private mind, she thought she should prefer for a brother a certain Oberlin student, with whom she had danced the last Thanksgiving evening. Bessie, always a stickler for propriety, ventured to say to her mother that she hoped he would learn to use his knife and fork, like other people. But to older members of the family, who distinctly remembered Willie in his boyhood, these things seemed unimportant. It was enough for them that the lost treasure was found.
The obstacle created by difference of language disappeared with a rapidity that might have seemed miraculous, were it not a well-known fact that one’s native tongue forgotten is always easily restored. It seems to remain latent in the memory, and can be brought out by favorable circumstances, as writing with invisible ink reappears under the influence of warmth. Tidings of the young man’s restoration to his family spread like fire on the prairie. People for twenty miles round came to see the Willie Wharton of whose story they had heard so much. Children were disappointed to find that he was not a little rosy-cheeked boy, such as had been described to them. Some elderly people, who prided themselves on their sagacity, shook their heads when they observed his rapid improvement in English, and said to each other,–
“It a’n’t worth while to disturb neighbor Wharton’s confidence; but depend upon it, that fellow’s an impostor. As for the mark on his arm that they call a prairie-dog, it looks as much like anything else that has legs.”
To the family, however, every week brought some additional confirmation that the stranger was their own Willie. By degrees, he was able to make them understand the outlines of his story. He did not remember anything about parting from his brother on that disastrous day, and of course could not explain what had induced him to turn aside to the Indian trail. He said the Indians had always told him that a squaw, whose pappoose had died, took a fancy to him, and decoyed him away; and that afterward, when he cried to go back, they would not let him go. From them he also learned that he called himself six years old, at the time of his capture; but his name had been gradually forgotten, both by himself and them. He wandered about with that tribe eight summers and winters. Sometimes, when they had but little food, he suffered with hunger; and once he was wounded by a tomahawk, when they had a fight with some hostile tribe; but they treated him as well as they did their own children. He became an expert hunter, thought it excellent sport, and forgot that he was not an Indian. His squaw-mother died, and, not long after, the tribe went a great many miles to collect furs. In the course of this journey they encountered various tribes of Indians. One night they encamped near some hunters who spoke another dialect, which they could partly understand. Among them was a woman, who said she knew him. She told him his mother was a white woman, with eyes blue as the sky, and that she was very good to her little pappoose, when she lost her way on the prairie. She wanted her husband to buy him, that they might carry him back to his mother. He bought him for ten gallons of whiskey, and promised to take him to his parents the next time the tribe travelled in that direction,–because, he said, their little pappoose had liked them very much.
“We remember her very well,” said Mr. Wharton. “Her name was Wik-a-nee.”
“That not _name_” replied William. “Wik-a-nee mean little small thing.”
“You were a small boy when you found the pappoose on the prairie,” rejoined his father. “You took a great liking to her, and said she was _your_ little girl. When she went away, you gave her your box of Guinea-peas.”
“Guinea-peas? What that?” inquired the young man.
“They are red seeds with black spots on them,” replied his father. “Emma, I believe you have some. Show him one.”
The moment he saw it, he exclaimed,–
“Haha! A-lee-lah show me Guinea-peas. Her say me give she.”
“Then you know Wik-a-nee?” said his father, in an inquiring tone.
The wanderer had acquired the gravity of the Indians. He never laughed, and rarely smiled. But a broad smile lighted up his frank countenance, as he answered,–
“Me know A-lee-lah very well. She not Wik-a-nee now.”
Then he became grave again, and told how he was twining the red seeds in A-lee-lah’s hair, when his mother came and looked at him with great blue eyes and smiled. Most of his auditors thought he was telling a dream. But Mr. Wharton said to his oldest son,–
“I told you, Charles, that mother and son were not separated now.”
William seemed perplexed by this remark; but he comprehended in part, and said,–
“Me see into Spirit-Land.”
When asked why he had not started in search of his mother then, he replied,–
“A-lee-lah’s father, mother die. A-lee-lah say not go. Miles big many. Me not know the trail. But Indians go hunt fur. Me go. Me sleep. Me dream mother come, say go home. Me ask where mother? Charles come. Him say brother.”
The little basket was again brought forth, and Mr. Wharton said,–
“Wik-a-nee gave you this, when she went away; but when we showed it to you, you did not remember it.”
He took it and looked at it, and said,–
“Me not remember”; but when Emma would have put it away, he held it fast; and that night he carried it with him to his chamber.
Some degree of restlessness had been observed in him previously to this conversation. It increased as the weeks passed on. He became moody, and liked to wander off alone, far from the settlement. The neighbors said to each other,–“He will never be contented. He will go back to the Indians.” The family feared it also. But Uncle George, who was always prone to look on the bright side of things, said,–
“We shall win him, if we manage right. We mustn’t try to constrain him. The greatest mistake we make in our human relations is interfering too much with each other’s freedom. We are too apt to think _our_ way is the _only_ way. It’s no such very great matter, after all, that William sometimes uses his fingers instead of a knife and fork, and likes to squat on the floor better than to sit in a chair. We mustn’t drive him away by taking too much notice of such things. Let him do just as he likes. We are all creatures of circumstances. If you and I were obliged to dance in tight boots, and make calls in white kid gloves, we should feel like fettered fools.”
“And _be_ what we felt like,” replied Mr. Wharton; “and the worst part of it would be, we shouldn’t long have sense enough to _feel_ like fools, but should fall to pitying and despising people who were of any use in the world. But really, brother George, to have a son educated by Indians is not exactly what one could wish.”
“Undoubtedly not, in many respects; but it has its advantages. William has already taught me much about the habits of animals and the qualities of plants. Did you ever see an eye so sure as his to measure distances, or to send an arrow to the mark? He never studied astronomy, but he knows how to make use of the stars better than we do. Last week, when we got benighted in the woods, he at once took his natural place as our leader; and how quickly his sagacity brought us out of our trouble! He will learn enough of our ways, by degrees. But I declare I would rather have him always remain as he is than to make a city-fop of him. I once saw an old beau at Saratoga, a forlorn-looking mortal, creeping about in stays and tight boots; and I thought I should rather be the wildest Ojibbeway that ever hunted buffaloes in a ragged blanket.”
The rational policy recommended by Uncle George was carefully pursued. Everything was done to attract William to their mode of life, but no remark was made when he gave a preference to Indian customs. Still, he seemed moody, and at times sad. He carried within him a divided heart. One day, when he was sitting on a log, looking absent and dejected, his father put his hand gently upon his shoulder, and said,–
“Are you not happy among us, my son? Don’t you like us?”
“Me like very much,” was the reply. “Me glad find father, brother. All good.”
He paused a moment, and then added,–
“A-lee-lah’s father, mother be dead. A-lee-lah alone. A-lee-lah did say not go. Me promise come back soon.”
Mr. Wharton was silent. He was thinking what it was best to say. After waiting a little, William said,–
“Father, me not remember what is English for squaw.”
“Woman,” replied Mr. Wharton.
“Not that,” rejoined the young man. “What call Charles’s squaw?”
“His wife,” was the reply.
“Father, A-lee-lah be my wife. Me like bring A-lee-lah. Me fraid father not like Indian.”
Mr. Wharton placed his hand affectionately on his child’s head, and said,–
“Bring A-lee-lah, in welcome, my son. Your mother loved her, when she was Wik-a-nee; and we will all love her now. Only be sure and come back to us.”
The brown eyes looked up and thanked him, with a glance that well repaid the struggle those words had cost the wise father.
So the uncivilized youth again went forth into the wilderness, saying, as he parted from them, “Me bring A-lee-lah.” They sent her a necklace and bracelets of many-colored beads, and bade him tell her that they remembered Wik-a-nee, and had always kept her little basket, and that they would love her when she came among them. Charles travelled some distance with his brother, bought a new Indian blanket for him, and returned with the garments he had worn during his sojourn at home. They felt that they had acted wisely and kindly, but it was like losing Willie again; for they all had great doubts whether he would ever return.
He was incapable of writing a letter, and months passed without any tidings of him. They all began to think that the attractions of a wild life had been strong enough to conquer his newly awakened natural affections. Uncle George said,–
“If it prove so, we shall have the consciousness of having done right. We could not have kept him against his will, even if we had wished to do it. If anything will win him to our side, it will be the influence of love and freedom.”
“They are strong agencies, and I have great faith in them,” replied Mr. Wharton.
Summer was far advanced, when a young man and woman in Indian costume were seen passing through the village, and people said, “There is William Wharton come back again!” They entered the father’s house like strange apparitions. Baby Willie was afraid of them, and toddled behind his mother, to hide his face in the folds of her gown. All the other members of the family had talked over the subject frequently, and had agreed how they would treat Wik-a-nee, if she came among them again. So they kissed them both, as they stood there in their Indian blankets, and said, “Welcome home, brother! Welcome, sister!” A-lee-lah looked at them timidly, with her large moonlight eyes, and said, “Me no speak.” Mr. Wharton put his hand gently on her head, and said, “We will love you, my daughter.” William translated the phrase to her, heaved a sigh, which seemed a safety-valve for too much happiness, and replied, “Me thank father, brother, sister, all.” And A-lee-lah said, “Me tank,” as her mother had said, in years long gone by.
All felt desirous to remove from her eyebrows the mass of straight black hair, which she considered extremely becoming, but which they regarded as a great disfigurement to her really handsome face. However, no one expressed such an opinion, by word or look. They had previously agreed not to manifest any distaste for Indian fashions.
Mr. Wharton, apart, remarked to Charles,–
“When you were a boy, you said Moppet would be pretty, if she wore her hair like folks. It was true then, and is still more true now.”
“Let us have patience, and we shall see her handsome face come out of that cloud by-and-by,” rejoined Uncle George. “If we prove that we love her, we shall gain influence over her. Wild-flowers, as well as garden-flowers, grow best in the sunshine.”
Emma tried to conform to the wishes of the family in her behavior; but she did not feel quite sure that she should ever be able to love the young Indian. It was not agreeable to have a sister who was clothed in a blanket and wore her hair like a Shetland pony. Cousin Bessie thought stockings, long skirts, and a gown ought to be procured for her immediately. Her father said,–
“Let me tell you, Bessie, it would be far more rational for you to follow _her_ fashion about short skirts. I should like to see _you_ step off as she does. She couldn’t move so like a young deer, if she had long petticoats to trammel her limbs.”
But Bessie confidentially remarked to Cousin Emma that she thought her father had some queer notions; to which Emma replied, that, for her part, she thought A-lee-lah ought to dress “like folks,” as Charley used to say, when he was a boy. They could not rest till they had made a dress like their own, and had coaxed William to persuade her to wear it. In a tone of patient resignation, she at last said, “Me try.” But she was evidently very uncomfortable in her new habiliments. She often wriggled her shoulders, and her limbs were always getting entangled in the folds of her long, full skirts. She finally rebelled openly, and, with an emphatic “Me no like,” cast aside the troublesome garments and resumed her blanket.
“I suppose she felt very much as I should feel in tight boots and white kid gloves,” said Uncle George. “You will drive them away from us, if you interfere with them so much.”
It was agreed that Aunt Mary would understand how to manage them better than the young folks did; and the uncivilized couple were accordingly invited to stay at their uncle’s house. Emma cordially approved of this arrangement. She told Bessie that she did hope Aunt Mary would make them more “like folks,” before the Oberlin student visited the neighborhood again; for she didn’t know what he _would_ think of some of their ways. Bessie said,–
“I feel as if I ought to invite William and his wife to dine with us; but if any of my husband’s family should come in, I should feel _so_ mortified to have them see a woman with a blanket over her shoulders sitting at my table! Besides, they like raw meat, and that is dreadful.”
“Certainly it is not pleasant,” replied her father; “but I once dined in Boston, at a house of high civilization, where the odor of venison and of Stilton cheese produced much more internal disturbance than I have ever experienced from any of their Indian messes.”
This philosophical way of viewing the subject was thought by some of the neighbors to be assumed, as the best mode of concealing wounded pride. They said, in compassionate tones, that they really did pity the Whartons; for, let them say what they would, it must be dreadfully mortifying to have that squaw about. But if such a feeling was ever remotely hinted to Uncle George, he quietly replied,–
“So far from feeling ashamed of A-lee-lah, we are truly grateful to her; and we are deeply thankful that William married her. His love for her safely bridges over the wide chasm between his savage and his civilized life. Without her, he could not feel at home among us; and the probability is that we should not be able to keep him. By help of his Indian wife, I think we shall make him contented, and finally succeed in winning them over to our mode of life. Meanwhile, they are happy in their own way, and we are thankful for it.”
The more enlightened portion of the community commended these sentiments as liberal and wise; but some, who were not distinguished either for moral or intellectual culture, said, sneeringly,–
“They talk about his Indian wife! I suppose they jumped over a stick together in some dirty wigwam, and that they call being married!”
Uncle George and Aunt Mary had been so long in the habit of regulating their actions by their own principles, that they scarcely had a passing curiosity to know what such neighbors thought of their proceedings. They never wavered in their faith that persevering kindness and judicious non-interference would gradually produce such transformations as they desired. No changes were proposed, till they and their untutored guests had become familiarly acquainted and mutually attached. At first, the wild young couple were indisposed to stay much in the house. They wandered far off into the woods, and spent most of their time in making mats and baskets. As these were always admired by their civilized relatives, and gratefully accepted, they were happier than millionnaires. They talked to each other altogether in the Indian dialect, which greatly retarded their improvement in English. But it was thus they had talked when they first made love, and it was, moreover, the only way in which their tongues could move unfettered. Her language no longer sounded to William like “lingo,” as he had styled it in the boyish days when he found her wandering alone on the prairie. No utterance of the human soul, whether in the form of language or belief, is “lingo,” when we stand on the same spiritual plane with the speaker, and thus can rightly understand it.
The first innovation in the habits of the young Indian was brought about by the magical power of two side-combs ornamented with colored glass. At the first sight of them, A-lee-lah manifested admiration almost equal to that which the scarlet peas had excited in her childish mind. Aunt Mary, perceiving this, parted the curtain of raven hair, and fastened it on each side with the gaudy combs. Then she led her to the glass, put her finger on the uncovered brow, and said,–
“A-lee-lah has a pretty forehead. Aunt Mary likes to see it so.”
William translated this to his simple wife, who said,–
“Aunt Mary good. Me tank.”
Mr. Wharton happened to come in, and he kissed the brown forehead, saying–
“Father likes to have A-lee-lah wear her hair so.”
The conquest was complete. Henceforth, the large, lambent eyes shone in their moonlight beauty without any overhanging cloud.
Thus adroitly, day by day, they were guided into increasing conformity with civilized habits. After a while, it was proposed that they should be married according to the Christian form, as they had previously been by Indian ceremonies. No attempt was made to offer higher inducements than the exhibition of wedding-finery, and the assurance that all William’s relatives would be made very happy, if they would conform to the custom of his people. The bride’s dress was a becoming hybrid between English and Indian costumes. Loose trousers of emerald-green merino were fastened with scarlet cord and tassels above gaiters of yellow beaver-skin thickly embroidered with beads of many colors. An upper garment of scarlet merino was ornamented with gilded buttons, on each of which was a shining star. The short, full skirt of this garment fell a little below the knee, and the border was embroidered with gold-colored braid. At the waist, it was fastened with a green morocco belt and gilded buckle. The front-hair, now accustomed to be parted, had grown long enough to be becomingly arranged with the jewelled side-combs, which she prized so highly. The long, glossy, black tresses behind were gathered into massive braids, intertwined on one side with narrow scarlet ribbon, and on the other with festoons of the identical Guinea-peas which had so delighted her when she was Wik-a-nee. The braids were fastened by a comb with gilded points, which made her look like a crowned Indian queen. Emma was decidedly struck by her picturesque appearance. She said privately to Cousin Bessie,–
“I should like such a dress myself, if other folks wore it; but don’t you tell that I said so.”
Charles smiled, as he remarked to his wife,–
“The grub has come out of her blanket a brilliant butterfly. Uncle George and Aunt Mary are working miracles.”
After the wedding-ceremony had been performed, Mr. Wharton kissed the bride, and said to the bridegroom,–
“She is handsome as a wild tulip.”
“Bright as the torch-flower of the prairies,” added Uncle George.
When William made these compliments intelligible to A-lee-lah, she maintained her customary Indian composure of manner, but her brown cheeks glowed like an amber-colored bottle of claret in the sunshine. William, though he deemed it unmanly to give any outward signs of satisfaction, was inwardly proud of his bride’s finery, and scarcely less pleased with his own yellow vest, blue coat, and brass buttons; though he preferred above them all the yellow gaiters, which A-lee-lah had skilfully decorated with tassels and bright-colored wampum.
The next politic movement was to build for them a cabin of their own, taking care to preserve an influence over them by frequent visits and kind attentions. They would have been very happy in the freedom of their new home, had it not been for the intrusion of many strangers, who came to look upon them from motives of curiosity. The universal Yankee nation is a self-elected Investigating Committee, which never adjourns its sessions. This is amusing, and perhaps edifying, to their own inquiring minds; but William and A-lee-lah had Indian ideas of natural politeness, which made them regard such invasions as a breach of good manners.
By degrees, however, the young couple became an old story, and were left in comparative peace. The system of attraction continued to work like a charm. As A-lee-lah was never annoyed by any assumption of superiority on the part of her white relatives, she took more and more pains to please them. This was manifested in many childlike ways, which were extremely winning, though they were sometimes well calculated to excite a smile. As years passed on, they both learned to read and write English very well. William worked industriously on his farm, though he never lost his predilection for hunting. A-lee-lah became almost as skilful at her needle as she was at weaving baskets and wampum. Her talk, with its slightly foreign arrangement, was as pretty as the unformed utterance of a little child. Her taste for music improved. She never attained to Italian embroidery of sound, still less to German intonations of intellect; but the rude, monotonous Indian chants gave place to the melodies of Scotland, Ireland, and Ethiopia. Her taste in dress changed also. She ceased to delight in garments of scarlet and yellow, though she retained a liking for bits of bright, warm color. Nature guided her taste correctly in this, for they harmonized admirably with her brown complexion and lustrous black hair. She always wore skirts shorter than others, and garments too loose to impede freedom of motion. Bonnets were her utter aversion, but she consented to wear a woman’s riding-hat with a drooping feather. Those outside the family learned to call her Mrs. William Wharton; and strangers who visited the village were generally attracted by her handsome person and the simple dignity of her manners. Her father-in-law regarded her with paternal affection, not unmixed with pride.
“Who, that didn’t know it,” said he, “could be made to believe this fine-looking woman was once little Moppet, who coiled herself up to sleep on the floor of our log-cabin?”
Uncle George replied,–
“You know I always told you it was the nature of all sorts of flowers to grow, if they had plenty of genial air and sunshine.”
As for A-lee-lah’s little daughter, Jenny, she is universally admitted to be the prettiest and brightest child in the village. Mr. Wharton says her busy little mind makes him think of his Willie, at her age; and Uncle Charles says he has no fault to find with her, for she has her mother’s beautiful eyes, and wears her hair “like folks.”
* * * * *
A CALL TO MY COUNTRY-WOMEN.
In the newspapers and magazines you shall see many poems–written by women who meekly term themselves weak, and modestly profess to represent only the weak among their sex–tunefully discussing the duties which the weak owe to their country in days like these. The invariable conclusion is, that, though they cannot fight, because they are not men,–or go down to nurse the sick and wounded, because they have children to take care of,–or write effectively, because they do not know how,–or do any great and heroic thing, because they have not the ability,–they can pray; and they generally do close with a melodious and beautiful prayer. Now praying is a good thing. It is, in fact, the very best thing in the world to do, and there is no danger of our having too much of it; but if women, weak or strong, consider that praying is all they can or ought to do for their country, and so settle down contented with that, they make as great a mistake as if they did not pray at all. True, women cannot fight, and there is no call for any great number of female nurses; notwithstanding this, I believe, that, to-day, the issue of this war depends quite as much upon American women as upon American men,–and depends, too, not upon the few who write, but upon the many who do not. The women of the Revolution were not only Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Schuyler, but the wives of the farmers and shoemakers and blacksmiths everywhere. It is not Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Howe, or Miss Stevenson, or Miss Dix, alone, who is to save the country, but the thousands upon thousands who are at this moment darning stockings, tending babies, sweeping floors. It is to them I speak. It is they whom I wish to get hold of; for in their hands lies slumbering the future of this nation.
The women of to-day have not come up to the level of to-day. They do not stand abreast with its issues. They do not rise to the height of its great argument. I do not forget what you have done. I have beheld, O Dorcases, with admiration and gratitude, the coats and garments, the lint and bandages, which you have made. Tender hearts, if you could have finished the war with your needles, it would have been finished long ago; but stitching does not crush rebellion, does not annihilate treason, or hew traitors in pieces before the Lord. Excellent as far as it goes, it stops fearfully short of the goal. This ought ye to do, but there are other things which you ought not to leave undone. The war cannot be finished by sheets and pillow-cases. Sometimes I am tempted to believe that it cannot be finished till we have flung them all away. When I read of the Rebels fighting bare-headed, bare-footed, haggard, and unshorn, in rags and filth,–fighting bravely, heroically, successfully,–I am ready to make a burnt-offering of our stacks of clothing. I feel and fear that we must come down, as they have done, to a recklessness of all incidentals, down to the rough and rugged fastnesses of life, down to the very gates of death itself, before we shall be ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not so, for the hardest fights the earth has ever known have been made by the delicate-handed and purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is neither gold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery soul that consumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bending impossibilities to the ends of its passionate purpose.
This soul of fire is what I wish to see kindled in our women,–burning white and strong and steady, through all weakness, timidity, vacillation, treachery in Church or State or press or parlor, scorching, blasting, annihilating whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie,–extinguished by no tempest of defeat, no drizzle of delay, but glowing on its steadfast path till it shall have cleared through the abomination of our desolation a highway for the Prince of Peace.
O my country-women, I long to see you stand under the time and bear it up in your strong hearts, and not need to be borne up through it. I wish you to stimulate, and not crave stimulants from others. I wish you to be the consolers, the encouragers, the sustainers, and not tremble in perpetual need of consolation and encouragement. When men’s brains are knotted and their brows corrugated with fearful looking for and hearing of financial crises, military disasters, and any and every form of national calamity consequent upon the war, come you out to meet them, serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formal distortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in your heart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of your goods. Not only look poverty in the face with high disdain, but embrace it with gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; the gain is for all time. Go farther than this. Consecrate to a holy cause not only the incidentals of life, but life itself. Father, husband, child,—I do not say, Give them up to toil, exposure, suffering, death, without a murmur;–that implies reluctance. I rather say, Urge them to the offering; fill them with sacred fury; fire them with irresistible desire; strengthen them to heroic will. Look not on details, the present, the trivial, the fleeting aspects of our conflict, but fix your ardent gaze on its eternal side. Be not resigned, but rejoicing. Be spontaneous and exultant. Be large and lofty. Count it all joy that you are reckoned worthy to suffer in a grand and righteous cause. Give thanks evermore that you were born in this time; and _because_ it is dark, be you the light of the world.
And follow the soldier to the battlefield with your spirit. The great army of letters that marches Southward with every morning sun is a powerful engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the foe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest man idealizes his far-off home, and every word of love uplifts him to a lover. But let your tenderness unfold its sunny side, and keep the shadows for His pity who knows the end from the beginning, and whom no foreboding can dishearten. Glory in your tribulation. Show your soldier that his unflinching courage, his undying fortitude, are your crown of rejoicing. Incite him to enthusiasm by your inspiration. Make a mock of your discomforts. Be unwearying in details of the little interests of home. Fill your letters with kittens and Canaries, with baby’s shoes, and Johnny’s sled, and the old cloak which you have turned into a handsome gown. Keep him posted in all the village-gossip, the lectures, the courtings, the sleigh-rides, and the singing-schools. Bring out the good points of the world in strong relief. Tell every sweet and brave and pleasant and funny story you can think of. Show him that you clearly apprehend that all this warfare means peace, and that a dastardly peace would pave the way for speedy, incessant, and more appalling warfare. Help him to bear his burdens by showing him how elastic you are under yours. Hearten him, enliven him, tone him up to the true hero-pitch. Hush your plaintive _Miserere_, accept the nation’s pain for penance, and commission every Northern breeze to bear a _Te Deum laudamus_.
Under God, the only question, as to whether this war shall be conducted to a shameful or an honorable close, is not of men or money or material resource. In these our superiority is unquestioned. As Wellington phrased it, there is hard pounding; but we shall pound the longest, if only our hearts do not fail us. Women need not beat their pewter spoons into bullets, for there are plenty of bullets without them. It is not whether our soldiers shall fight a good fight; they have played the man on a hundred battle-fields. It is not whether officers are or are not competent; generals have blundered nations into victory since the world began. It is whether this people shall have virtue to endure to the end,–to endure, not starving, not cold, but the pangs of hope deferred, of disappointment and uncertainty, of commerce deranged and outward prosperity cheeked. Will our vigilance to detect treachery and our perseverance to punish it hold out? If we stand firm, we shall be saved, though so as by fire. If we do not, we shall fall, and shall richly deserve to fall; and may God sweep us off from the face of the earth, and plant in our stead a nation with the hearts of men, and not of chickens!
O women, stand here in the breach,–for here you may stand powerful, invincible, I had almost said omnipotent. Rise now to the heights of a sublime courage,–for the hour has need of you. When the first ball smote the rocky sides of Sumter, the rebound thrilled from shore to shore, and waked the slumbering hero in every human soul. Then every eye flamed, every lip was touched with a live coal from the sacred altar, every form dilated to the stature of the Golden Age. Then we felt in our veins the pulse of immortal youth. Then all the chivalry of the ancient days, all the heroism, all the self-sacrifice that shaped itself into noble living, came back to us, poured over us, swept away the dross of selfishness and deception and petty scheming, and Patriotism rose from the swelling wave stately as a goddess. Patriotism, that had been to us but a dingy and meaningless antiquity, took on a new form, a new mien, a countenance divinely fair and forever young, and received once more the homage of our hearts. Was that a childish outburst of excitement, or the glow of an aroused principle? Was it a puerile anger, or a manly indignation? Did we spring up startled pigmies, or girded giants? If the former, let us veil our faces, and march swiftly (and silently) to merciful forgetfulness. If the latter, shall we not lay aside every weight, and this besetting sin of despondency, and run with patience the race set before us?
A true philosophy and a true religion make the way possible to us. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will; and He never yet willed that a nation strong in means and battling for the right should be given over to a nation weak and battling for the wrong. Nations have their future–reward and penalty–in this world; and it is as certain as God lives that Providence _and_ the heaviest battalions will prevail. We have had reverses, but no misfortune hath happened unto us but such as is common unto nations. Country has been sacrificed to partisanship. Early love has fallen away, and lukewarmness has taken its place. Unlimited enthusiasm has given place to limited stolidity. Disloyalty, overawed at first into quietude, has lifted its head among us, and waxes wroth and ravening. There are dissensions at home worse than the guns of our foes. Some that did run well have faltered; some signal-lights have gone shamefully out, and some are lurid with a baleful glare. But unto this end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world. When shall greatness of soul stand forth, if not in evil times? When the skies are fair and the seas smooth, all ships sail festively. But the clouds lower, the winds shriek, the waves boil, and immediately each craft shows its quality. The deep is strown with broken masts, parted keels, floating wrecks; but here and there a ship rides the raging sea, and flings defiance to the wind. She overlives the sea because she is sea-worthy. Not our eighty years of peace alone, but our two years of war are the touchstone of our character. We have rolled our Democracy as a sweet morsel under our tongue; we have gloried in the prosperity which it brought to the individual; but if the comforts of men minister to the degradation of man, if Democracy levels down and does not level up, if our era of peace and plenty leaves us so feeble and frivolous, so childish, so impatient, so deaf to all that calls to us from the past and entreats us in the future, that we faint and fail under the stress of our one short effort, then indeed is our Democracy our shame and curse. Let us show now what manner of people we are. Let us be clear-sighted and far-sighted to see how great is the issue that hangs upon the occasion. It is not a mere military reputation that is at stake, not the decay of a generation’s commerce, not the determination of this or that party to power. It is the question of the world that we have been set to answer. In the great conflict of ages, the long strife between right and wrong, between progress and sluggardy, through the Providence of God we are placed in the van-guard. Three hundred years ago a world was unfolded for the battle-ground. Choice spirits came hither to level and intrench. Swords clashed and blood flowed, and the great reconnoissance was successfully made. Since then both sides have been gathering strength, marshalling forces, planting batteries, and to-day we stand in the thick of the fray. Shall we fail? Men and women of America, will you fail? Shall the cause go by default? When a great Idea, that has been uplifted on the shoulders of generations, comes now to its Thermopylae, its glory-gate, and needs only stout hearts for its strong hands,–when the eyes of a great multitude are turned upon you, and the fates of dumb millions in the silent future rest with you,–when the suffering and sorrowful, the lowly, whose immortal hunger for justice gnaws at their hearts, who blindly see, but keenly feel, by their God-given instincts, that somehow you are working out their salvation, and the high-born, monarchs in the domain of mind, who, standing far off, see with prophetic eye the two courses that lie before you, one to the Uplands of vindicated Right, one to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, alike fasten upon you their hopes, their prayers, their tears,–will you, for a moment’s bodily comfort and rest and repose, grind all these expectations and hopes between the upper and nether millstone? Will you fail the world in this fateful hour by your faint-heartedness? Will you fail yourself, and put the knife to your own throat? For the peace which you so dearly buy shall bring to you neither ease nor rest. You will but have spread a bed of thorns. Failure will write disgrace upon the brow of this generation, and shame will outlast the age. It is not with us as with the South. She can surrender without dishonor. She is the weaker power, and her success will be against the nature of things. Her dishonor lay in her attempt, not in its relinquishment. But we shall fail, not because of mechanics and mathematics, but because our manhood and womanhood weighed in the balance are found wanting. There are few who will not share in the sin. There are none who will not share in the shame. Wives, would you hold back your husbands? Mothers, would you keep your sons? From what? for what? From the doing of the grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. You would hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the agony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in all the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto him from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons him forward. Death itself wears for him a golden crown. Ever since the world swung free from God’s hand, men have died,–obeying the blind fiat of Nature; but only once in a generation comes the sacrificial year, the year of jubilee, when men march lovingly to meet their fate and die for a nation’s life. Holding back, we transmit to those that shall come after us a blackened waste. The little one that lies in his cradle will be accursed for our sakes. Every child will be base-born, springing from ignoble blood. We inherited a fair fame, and bays from a glorious battle; but for him is no background, no stand-point. His country will be a burden on his shoulders, a blush upon his cheek, a chain about his feet. There is no career for the future, but a weary effort, a long, a painful, a heavy-hearted struggle to lift the land out of its slough of degradation and set it once more upon a dry place.
Therefore let us have done at once and forever with paltry considerations, with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise, submission, and every form of dishonorable peace be not so much as named among us. Tolerate no coward’s voice or pen or eye. Wherever the serpent’s head is raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the standard of manhood. Measure country’s price by country’s worth, and country’s worth by country’s integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep down from the mountains of life, and drive out these miasmas that befog and beguile the unwary. Around every hearthstone let sunshine gleam. In every home let fatherland have its altar and its fortress. From every household let words of cheer and resolve and high-heartiness ring out, till the whole land is shining and resonant in the bloom of its awakening spring.
THE TRUE CHURCH.
I asked a holy man one day,
“Where is the one true church, I pray?”
“Go round the world,” said he, “and search: No man hath found the one true church.”
I pointed to a spire, cross-crowned. “The church is false!” he cried, and frowned.
But, murmuring he had told me wrong, I pointed to the entering throng.
He answered, “If a church be true,
It hath not many, but a few.”
Around the font the people pressed,
And crossed themselves from brow to breast.
“A cross!” he cried, “writ on the brow In water!–is it Christ’s?–look thou!
“Each forehead, frowning, sheds it off: Christ’s cross abides through scowl and scoff.”
Then, looking through the open door, We saw men kneeling on the floor;
Faint candles, by the daylight dimmed,– Like wicks the foolish virgins trimmed;
Fair statues of the saints, as white As now their robes are, in God’s light;
Sun-ladders, dropped aslant, all gold,– Like stairs the angels trod of old.
Around, above, from nave to roof,
He gazed, and said, in sad reproof,–
“Alas! who is it understands
God’s temple is not made with hands?”
–We walked along a shaded way,
Beneath the apple-blooms of May,
And came upon a church whose dome
Bore still the cross, but not for Rome.
We brushed a cobweb from a pane,
And gazed within the sacred fane
“Do prayers,” he asked, “the more avail, If murmured nigh an altar-rail?
“Does water sprinkled from a bowl
Wash any sin from any soul?
“Do tongues that taste the bread and wine Speak truer after, by that sign?
“The very priest, in gown and bands, Hath lying lips and guilty hands!”
“He speaks no error,” answered I;
“He says the living all shall die,
“The dead all rise; and both are true; Both wholesome doctrines,–old, not new.”
My friend returned, “He aims a blow
To strike the sins of long ago,–
“Yet shields, the while, with studied phrase, The evil present in these days.
“Doth God in heaven impute no crime
To prophets who belie their time?”
–We turned away among the tombs:
The bees were in the clover-blooms;
The crickets leaped to let us pass;
And God’s sweet breath was on the grass.
We spelled the legends on the stones: The graves were full of martyrs’ bones,–
Of bodies which the rack once brake
In witness for the dear Lord’s sake,–
Of ashes gathered from the pyres
Of saints whose souls fled up through fires.
I heard him murmur, as we passed,
“Thus won they all the crown at last;
“Which now men lose, through looking back To find it at the stake and rack:
“The rack and stake have gathered grime: God’s touchstone is the passing time.”
–Just then, amid some olive-sprays, Two orioles perched, and piped their lays,
Until the gold beneath their throats Shook molten in their mellow notes.
Then, pealing from the church, a psalm Rolled forth upon the outer calm.
“Both choirs,” said I, “are in accord; For both give worship to the Lord.”
Said he, “The tree-top song, I fear, Fled first and straightest to God’s ear.
“If men bind other men in chains,
Then chant, doth God accept the strains?
“Do loud-lipped hymns His ear allure?– God hates the church that harms the poor!”
–Then rose a meeting-house in view, Of bleached and weather-beaten hue,
Where, plain of garb and pure of heart, Men kept the church and world apart,
And sat in waiting for the light
That dawns upon the inner sight;
Nor did they vex the silent air
With any sound of hymn or prayer;
But on their lips God’s hand was pressed, And each man kissed it and was blessed.
I asked, “Is this the true church, then?” “Nay,” answered he, “a sect of men:
“And sects that lock their doors in pride Shut God and half His saints outside.
“The gates of heaven, the Scriptures say, Stand open wide by night and day:
“Whoso shall enter hath no need
To walk by either church or creed:
“The false church leadeth men astray; The true church showeth men the way.”
–Whereat I still more eager grew
To shun the false and find the true;
And, naming all the creeds, I sought What truth, or lie, or both, they taught:
Thus,–“Augustine–had _he_ a fault?” My friend looked up to yon blue vault,
And cried, “Behold! can one man’s eyes Bound all the vision of the skies?”
I said, “The circle is too wide.”
“God’s truth is wider,” he replied;
“And Augustine, on bended knee,
Saw just the little he could see;
“So Luther sought with eyes and heart, Yet caught the glory but in part;
“So Calvin opened wide his soul,
Yet could not comprehend the whole:
“Not Luther, Calvin, Augustine,
Saw half the vision I have seen!”
–Then grew within me a desire
That kindled like a flame of fire.
I looked upon his reverent brow,
Entreating, “Tell me, who art thou?”
When, by the light that filled the place, I knew it was the Lord’s own face!
Through all my blood a rapture stole That filled my body and my soul.
I was a sinner and afraid:
I bowed me in the dust and prayed:–
“O Christ the Lord I end Thou my search, And lead me to the one true church!”
Then spake He, not as man may speak: “The one true church thou shalt not seek;
“Behold, it is enough,” He said,
“To find the one true Christ, its Head!”
Then straight He vanished from my sight, And left me standing in the light.
UNDER THE PEAR-TREE.
PART II.
CHAPTER IV.
Two years passed; and Swan Day was to all appearance no nearer his return to the land of his birth than when he first trod the deck that bore him away from it. He was still on the first round of the high ladder to fortune. Thus far he had wrought diligently and successfully. He had been sent hither and thither: from Canton to Hong-Kong; from Macao to Ningpo and Shanghai. He was clerk, supercargo, anything that the interest of the Company demanded. He worked with a will. His thoughts were full of tea, silks, and lacquered ware,–of exquisite carved ivory and wonderful porcelains,–of bamboos, umbrellas, and garden-chairs,–of Hong-Hi, Ching-Ho, and Fi-Fo-Fum.
There were moments, between the despatch of one vessel and the lading of another, when his mind would follow the sun, as it blazed along down out of sight of China, and fast on its way towards the Fox farm,–when an intense longing seized him to look once again on the shady nest of all his hopes and labors. He hated the life he led. He hated the noisy Tartar women that surrounded him,–aquatic and disgusting as crawfish,–brown, stupid, and leering. He hated the feline yawling of their music. He hated the yellow water, swarming with boats, and settled with junks. He hated their pagodas, and their hideous effigies of their ancestors, looking like dumb idols. Their bejewelled Buddhas, their incense-lamps, their night and day, were alike odious to him.
Stretched on a bamboo chair, in an interval of labor, and when the intense heat brought comparative stillness, before his closed eyes came often up his home among the New-Hampshire hills. He thought of his dead mother in the burying-ground, and the slate stones standing in the desolate grass. Then his thoughts ran eagerly back to the Fox farm, and the sweet, lonely figure that stood watching his return under the pear-tree,–the warm kiss of happy meeting, life opening fair, and a long vista through which the sunlight peeped all the more brightly for the shadowing trees.
Then over the farm, broad and bountiful, scanning every detail of the large red house, the great barns and sheds, the flocks of turkeys, and the geese, kept for feathers, and not dreamed of for eating. (Our Puritan fathers held neither to Christmas nor Christmas goose.) Through the path up by the well-sweep, where the moss-covered bucket hangs dripping with the purest of water. Beyond the corn-barn to the butternut-trees,–by this time, they have dropped their rich, oily fruit; and the chestnut-burrs, split open, and lying on the sunny ground. Then round to the house again, where the slant October sun shines in at the hospitable open door, where the little wheel burrs contentedly, and the loom goes _flap-flap_, as the strong arm of Cely Temple presses the cloth together, and throws the shuttle past, like lightning: stout cloth for choppers and ploughmen comes out of that loom!
In all his peepings at the interior of the house, one figure has accompanied him, beautified and glorified the place; so that, whether he looks into the buttery, where fair, round cheeses fill the shelves, or wanders up the broad stairs with wide landings to the “peacock chamber,” he seems to himself always to be going over a temple of sweet and sacred recollections. Into the peacock chamber, therefore, his soul may wander, where the walls are sparsely decked with black-and-white sketches, ill displaying the glorious plumage of the bird, and, like all old pictures, very brown,–even to the four-posted bed, whitely dressed, and heaped to a height that would defy “the true princess” to feel a pea through it, and the white toilet-table, neatly ornamented with a holder and a pair of scissors, both sacred from common usage. Asparagus in the chimney, with scarlet berries. General Washington, very dingy and respectable, over the fireplace; and two small circular frames, inclosing the Colonel and his wife in profile. The likenesses are nearly exact, and the two noses face each other as if in an argument. Dutch tiles are set round the fireplace, of odd Scripture scenes, common in design and coarse in execution. Into the “square room” below, where the originals of the black profiles sit and smoke their pipes, Swan does not care to venture. But some day, he will show the Colonel!
Many days, these thoughts came to Swan. Months, alas, years, they came,–but few and far between. The five thousand dollars that was to have been the summit was soon only the footstool of his ambition. He became partner, and then head of a house having commercial relations with half the world. His habits assimilated themselves to the country about him, and the cool, green pictures of his mountain-home ceased to float before his sleeping eyes or soothe his waking fancies.
His busy life left him little opportunity for reading. But he took in much knowledge at first-hand by observation, which was perhaps better; and as he hit against all sorts of minds, he became in time somewhat reflective and philosophical. Through daily view of the yellow water, and perhaps the glare of the bright sun on it, or the sight of so much nankeen cloth, or the yellow faces about him, perhaps,–or whatever the cause or causes,–Swan certainly altered in his personal appearance, as the years went by. The handsome, erect youth, lithe and active, with keen features and brilliant eyes, ruddy lips and clear oval face, was gradually fading and transforming into something quite different. The brilliant eyes became sleepy, and, from a habit of narrowing the lids over them, possibly to shut out the bright sun, receded more and more beyond the full and flaccid cheeks, and even contracted a Mongolian curve at the outer corners.
One May morning Swan sat alone in his Chinese-furnished room, luxuriously appointed, as became him, on his silk, shaded ottoman, and dreamily fanned himself. His dreams were of nothing more than what occupied him waking. If he glanced upward, he would see the delicate silk curtains at the windows, and the mirrors of polished steel between the carved ivory lattices. Great porcelain vases, such as are never seen here, were disposed about the room, and jars of flowers of strange hues stood on mats of yellow wool. Furniture inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and coral, decked the apartment, and a small, rich table held an exquisite tea-set. Swan had just been drinking from it, and the room was full of the fragrance. He toyed with the tea-cup, and half dozed. Then, rousing himself, he put fresh tea from the canister into the cup, and poured boiling water over it from the mouth of the fantastic dragon. Covering the cup, he dallied languidly with the delicious beverage, and with the half-thoughts, half-musings, that came with the dreamy indolence of the weather. Was it, indeed, ten years,–ten,–nay, fifteen years, that he had lived this China-life?
The door swung softly open, and a servant brought a note, and stood waiting for him to read it.
Swan glanced disdainfully at the object, which he could never quite consider human,–at his white and blue petticoats, and his effeminate face, so sleepy and so mindless, as if he expected him to turn into a plate or sugar-bowl, or begin flying in the air across some porcelain river, and alighting on the pinnacle of a pagoda.
“Hong man, he outside,” said the servant.
“Show him in, you stupid fool!” said the master, “and get out of the room with yourself!”
CHAPTER V.
The Hong merchant’s intelligence proved at once to Swan Day the absolute necessity of his return to America to protect the interests of the Company in Boston. With the promptitude which had thus far been one of the chief elements of his success, he lost not a moment in (so to speak) changing his skin, for the new purpose of his existence.
It seemed as if with the resumption of the dress of his native country, (albeit of torrid texture still, since a chocolate silk coat, embroidered waistcoat, and trousers of dark satin speak to a modern ear of fashions as remote as China,) Swan resumed many of the habits and feelings therewith connected. With the flowing flowered robe he cast off forever the world to which it belonged, and his pulse beat rapidly and joyfully as the sails filled with the breeze that bore him away. He gazed with a disdainful pleasure at the receding shore, and closed his eyes,–to turn his back fairly and forever on the Chew-Sins and the Wu-Wangs,–to let the Hang dynasty go hang,–to shut out from all but future fireside-tales the thought of varnish-trees, soap-trees, tallow-trees, wax-trees, and litchi,–never more to look on the land of the rhinoceros, the camel, the elephant, and the ape,–on the girls with thick, protuberant lips, copper skins, and lanky, black hair,–on the corpulent gentry with their long talons, and madams tottering on their hoofs, reminding him constantly of the animal kingdom, as figured to imagination in childhood, of the rat that wanted his long tail again, or of the horse that will never win a race,–on the land of lanterns and lying, of silver pheasants and–of scamps.
The faster the good ship sailed, the stronger the east-wind blew, the swifter ran the life-current in the veins of the returning exile,–friend, countryman, lover.
As the vessel neared the coast of Massachusetts, and the land-breeze brought to his eager nostrils the odors of his native orchards, or the aromatic fragrance of the pine, and the indescribable impression, on all his senses, of home, the fresh love of country rushed purely through his veins, bubbled warmly about the place where his heart used to beat, and rose to his brain in soft, sweet imaginations. Vivid pictures of past and future; identical in all their essential features, swam before his closed eyes, languid now from excess of pleasure. Again and again he drew in the breath of home, and felt it sweeter than the gales from the Spice Islands or odors from Araby the Blest. Hovering before his fancy, came sweet eyes, full of bewildering light, half-reproachful, half-sad, and all-bewitching; a form of such exquisite grace that he wondered not it swam and undulated before him; over all, the rose-hue of youth, and the smooth, sweet charm of lip and hand that memory brought him, in that last timid caress under the pear-tree after sunset.
As soon as he could possibly so arrange his affairs in Boston as to admit of his taking a journey to Walton, Swan determined to do so. But affairs will not always consent to an arrangement; and although he exerted himself to gain a week’s leisure, it was not till the Indian summer was past that he took his place in the stage-coach which plied between Boston and Walton.
How very short seemed the time since he was last on this road! Yet how much had things changed! Fifteen years! Was it possible he had been gone so long? How rapidly they had gone over himself! He felt scarcely a day older. The stage-coach was aptly termed “Accommodation,” and Swan had great amusement, as he sat with the driver on the box, in noting the differences in the aspect of houses and people, since his own last ride over the same road. New villages had sprung up here and there, while already more than one manufacturing establishment showed the Northern tendencies; and the elements of progress peeped from every settlement, in the shape of meeting- and school-houses.
When the driver whipped up his modest team to an animated trot before the Eagle Hotel in Walton, Swan felt as if he must have been in a dream only, and had just now awakened. Walton was one of those New-Hampshire towns, of which there came afterwards to be many, which were said “to be good to go _from_”; accordingly, everybody had gone everywhere, except the old inhabitants and the children. All the youths had gone towards “the pleasant Ohio, to settle on its banks”; and such maidens as had courage to face a pioneer settlement followed their chosen lords, while the less enterprising were fain to stay at home and bewail their singlehood. All business was necessarily stagnant, and all the improvements, architectural or otherwise, which had marked the route on which Swan had come, now seemed suddenly to have ceased. He might have thought Walton the Enchanted Palace, and himself the Fairy-Prince that was to waken to life and love the Sleeping Beauty.
How unchanged was everything! The store where he used to sell crockery and pins,–the great elm-tree in front of it,–the old red tavern on the hill, where they had the Thanksgiving ball,–the houses, from one end of the street to the other, all just as when he left: he might have found his way in the dark to every one of them.
At the Eagle Tavern, the same men sat on the stoop, with chairs tilted back, smoking. A man in the bar-room was mixing flip or gin-sling for two others, who were playing checkers. Taft himself stood at the door, somewhat changed indeed, though he was always fat, but with the same ready smile as ever; and Swan could see through the windows, by the bright candle-light, the women flitting to and fro, in brisk preparations for supper.
Swan’s first touch of surprise was that Taft did not recognize him,–him whom he used to see every day of his life! That was strange. It looked as if time told on Taft’s faculties a little. He had himself recognized Taft in a moment. So he had recognized everything, as they drove along, and now how familiar everything looked in the evening light!
Wrapping his travelling-cloak about him, Swan asked to be shown directly to his room, and, in his anxiety to avoid being recognized, ordered a light supper to be sent up to him. First of all, he wanted to see Dorcas, to settle affairs with Colonel Fox, and to feel established. Until then, he cared not to see or talk with his old acquaintances. It would be time enough afterwards to take them by the hand,–to employ them, perhaps. And as it takes almost no time to think, before he was half-way up the stairs, Swan Day had got as far as the erection of a superb country-seat on the hill where the old Cobb house stood, and of employing a dozen smart young carpenters and masons of his acquaintance in the village. The garden should have a pagoda in it; and one room in the house should be called the “China room,” and should be furnished exclusively with Chinese tables and chairs; and he would have a brilliant lantern-_fete_, and—-Here he reached the top-stair, and the little maid pointed to his room, curtsied, and ran away.
Swan dropped his cloak, snuffed the candle, and, sitting down before the pleasant wood-fire that had been hastily lighted, proceeded to make his own tea, by a new Invention for Travellers.
As people are not changed so quickly as they expect and intend to be by circumstances, it came to pass that Swan Day’s plans for elegant expenditure in his native town soon relapsed, perhaps under the influence of the Chinese herb, into old channels and plans for acquisition. The habit of years was a little too strong for him to turn short round and pour out what he had been for so many years garnering in. Rather, perhaps, keep in the tread-mill of business awhile longer, and then be the nabob in earnest. At present, who knew what these mutterings in the political atmosphere portended? A war with England seemed inevitable, and that at no distant period. It might be better to retire on a limited certainty; but then there was also the manful struggle for a splendid possibility.
A neat-handed maid brought in a tray, with the light Supper he had ordered.
The sight of four kinds of pies, with cold turkey and apple-sauce, brought the Fox farm and its inhabitants more vividly to his mind than anything else he had seen. Pumpkin of the yellowest, custard of the richest, apple of the spiciest, and mince that was one mass of appetizing dainty, filled the room with the flavor of by-gone memories. Every sense responded to them. The fifteen years that had hung like a curtain of mist before him suddenly lifted, and he saw the view beyond, broad, bountiful, and cheery, under the sunshine of love, hope, and plenty. He closed his eyes, and the flavor filled his soul, as sweet music makes the lover faint with happiness.
He took out his writing-materials, and wrote,–
“My DEAREST, SWEETEST DORCAS,–Never for one instant has the thought of you left my heart, since”—-
“That’s a lie, to begin with!” said he, coolly, and throwing the paper into the fire,–“try again!”
“DEAREST DORCAS,–I feel and I know what you may possibly think of me by this time,–that you may possibly imagine me false to the vows which “—-
It will be perceived that Swan had improved in rhetoric, since the day he parted from his lady-love. Still he could not satisfy himself in a letter. In short, he felt that expression outran the reality, however modestly and moderately chosen. Some vividness, some fervency, he must have, of course. But how in the world to get up the requisite definition even to the words he could conscientiously use? The second attempt followed the first.
Swan Day is not the first man who has found himself mistaken in matters of importance. In his return to his native country, and the scenes of his early life, he had taken for granted the evergreen condition of his sentiments. Like the reviving patient in epilepsy, who declares he has never for an instant lost his consciousness, while the bystanders have witnessed the dead fall, and taken note of the long interval,–so this sojourner of fifteen years in strange lands felt the returning pulse of youth, without thought of the lapsing time that bridges over all gulfs of emotion, however deep.
In fact, that part of his nature which had been in most violent action fifteen years before had been lying as torpid under Indian suns as if it had been dead indeed; and his sense of returning vitality was mixed with curious speculations about his own sensations.
He dropped the pen, and placed his feet on the top of the high stuffed easy-chair which adorned the room. This inverted personal condition relieved his mystification somewhat, or perhaps brought his whole nature more into harmony.
“Dorcas!–hm! hm!–fifteen years! so it is!–ah! she must be sadly changed indeed! At thirty, a woman is no longer a wood-nymph. Even more than thirty she must be.”
He removed his feet from their elevation, and carefully arranged a different scaffolding out of the materials before him, by placing a cricket on the table, and his feet on the cricket. To do this effectually and properly required the removal of the four pies, and the displacement of the cold turkey.
But Swan was mentally removing far greater and more serious difficulties. By the time he had asked himself one or two questions, and had answered them, such as, “Whether, all the conditions being changed, I am to be held to my promise?” and the like, he had placed one foot carefully up. Then, before conscience had time to trip him up, the other foot followed, and he found himself firmly posted.
“I will write a note to-morrow,–put it into the post-office—-No, that won’t do; in these places, nobody goes to the post-office once a week;–I’ll send a note to the house.”
Here he warmed up.
“A note, asking her to meet me under the great pear-tree, as we met—-It is, by Jove! just fifteen years to-morrow night since I left Walton! That’s good! it will help on some”—-
The little maid here interrupted his meditations by coming for the relics of the supper; and Swan, weary with unwonted thought, dropped the paper curtains, and plunged, body and soul, into fifty pounds of live-geese feathers.
CHAPTER VI.
The great clock in the dining-room whirred out twelve strokes before Swan opened his eyes. As soon as the eyes took in the principal features of the apartment, which process his mental preoccupation had hindered the night before, he was as much at home as if he had never left Walton.
The great beam across the low room,–the little window-panes,–the rag-carpet, made of odds and ends patriotically arranged to represent the American eagle holding stars and stripes in his firm and bounteous claws, with an open beak that seemed saying,–“Here they be!–‘cordin’ as you behave yourselves!–stars _or_ stripes!”–all within was more familiar to his eye than household words, for it was the old room he had occupied the year before he left America. He stepped quickly across the chamber to a certain beam, where he had, fifteen years before, written four initial letters, and intertwined them so curiously that the Gordian knot was easy weaving in comparison. The Gordian one was cut;–and this had been painted and effaced forever.
Swan returned to his trunk with a half-sigh. He selected a suit of clothes which he had purchased in Boston, put aside his travelling-dress, and looked out of the window occasionally as he dressed. It was a warm, sunny day. The Indian summer had relented and come back to take one more peep, before winter should shut the door on all the glowing beauty of the year. A dozen persons were crossing the street. He knew every one of them at sight. Of course there was no forgetting old Dan Sears, with whom he had forty times gone a-fishing; nor Phil Sanborn, who had stood behind the counter with him two years at the old store. Though Phil had grown stout, there was the same look. There was the old store, too, looking exactly as it did when he went away, the sign a little more worn in the gilding. He seemed to smell the mingled odors of rum, salt-fish, and liquorice, with which every beam and rafter was permeated. And there was old Walsh going home drunk this minute! with a salt mackerel, as usual, for his family-dinner.
He wrote a short note as he dressed and shaved leisurely. The note was to Dorcas, and only said,–“Meet me under the old pear-tree before sunset tonight,”–and was signed with his initials. This note he at first placed on the little mantel-shelf in plain sight, so that he should not forget to take it down-stairs when he went to breakfast. Afterwards he put it into his pocket-book.
His dress—-But the dress of 1811 has not arrived at the picturesque, and could never be classical under any circumstances. He finished his toilet, and went into the dining-room just as everybody else had dined, and asked the landlord what he could have for breakfast. Even then, the landlord hardly looked curious. Taft was certainly failing. In five minutes he found himself at a well-known little table, with the tavern-staple for odd meals, ham and eggs, flanked with sweetmeats and cake, just as he remembered of old. He nibbled at the sharp barberries lying black in the boiled molasses, and listened eagerly to the talk about British aggressions which was going on in the bar-room. Suddenly a face looked in at the low window.
Swan sprang forward, kicked over his chair, and knocked the earthen pepper-box off the table. Before he reached the window, however, the shadow had passed round the corner of the house, out of sight.
It was only a youthful figure, surmounted by a broad-brimmed straw hat, that half hid two sweet, sparkling eyes. Ah! but they were Dorcas’s eyes!
He picked up the pepper-box, and mechanically sifted its contents into the barberry-dish.
Dorcas’s eyes,–lips,–cheeks,–and waving grace! A rocking movement, a sort of beating, bounding, choking emotion, made the room suddenly dark, and he fell heavily into a chair.
The landlord opened the door, and said,–
“The hoss and shay ready, any time.”
Swan roused himself, and drove away, without speaking to any of the smoking loungers on the stoop, to whom he was as if he had never been born. But this, from his preoccupied state, did not strike him as singular. One little voice, a bird’s voice, as he drove along through the pine woods, sang over and over the same tune,–“Dorcas! Dorcas!”
The silence of the road, when all animated Nature slept in the warm noon of the late autumn day, when even the wheels scarcely sounded on the dead pine-spears, made this solitary voice, like Swan’s newly awakened memory, all but angelic.
The sadness, which, through all the beauty of a New-England November, whispers in the fallen leaves, and through the rustle of the firs, overspread Swan’s soul, not yet strengthened as well as freshened by his native air. He was melancholy and half stunned. He had been frightened, as he sat in the chair, by the capacity for enjoyment and suffering that was left in him. And he peered curiously into his own soul, as if the sensibilities locked up there belonged to somebody else. Impulsively he turned his horse towards the graveyard,–forgetting that he had all along intended to go there,–and fastening him at the broken gate, went on till he reached his mother’s grave. Before his departure he had set up a slate stone to her memory and that of Robert Day, a soldier in the English army.
“She shall have a marble monument now, poor mother!” thought the son, picking his way through the long, tangled grass of the dreary place. Not a tree, not a shrub in sight. Not even the sward kept carefully. The slate had fallen flat, or, more likely, had been thrown down, and no hand had cared to raise again a stone to the memory of a despised enemy, who had never been even seen in Walton.
When Swan tried to move the stone, a thousand ugly things swarmed from beneath it. He dropped it, shuddering, and passed on. A white marble tablet of some pretension stood near, and recorded the names of
ZEPHANIAH FOX,
AND
AZUBAH, HIS WIFE.
_They died the, same day and their bones rest here, till the final resurrection_.
He glanced at the date,–
JUNE 14th, 1805.
And he had never heard of it!–never guessed it! But then, he had not heard at all from Dorcas. Poor Dorcas! how had she borne this sudden and terrible bereavement? All that he might have been to her in her sorrow, for one moment all that he had _not_ been, floated by him. The yellow melted away that had so long incrusted his soul, and he felt on his bared breast, as it were, the fresh air of truth and constancy,–of all that makes life worth the having.
He drove away,–away over the broad fields and the well-remembered meadows, out upon the Dummerston road, and over the Ridge Hill. Well, life was not all behind him!
He took out his watch. It was time to keep his appointment. He left the horse at the tavern-door, and walked up the road towards the trysting-place, the old pear-tree. He looked wistfully at it, and sprang over the wall, with considerable effort, as he could not but admit to himself. That old pear-tree! They had called it old fifteen years ago,–and here it stood, as proud and strong as then! The two great branches that stretched towards the south, and which he had often thought had something benignant in their aspect, as if they would bless the wayfarer or the sojourner under their shade, still reached forth and spread abroad their strong arms. But to-night, whether from his own excited imagination, or because the early frosts had stripped it of its leaves and so bereaved it of all that gave grace to its aspect, or perhaps from the deepening twilight,–however it was, the old tree had a different expression, and stretched forth two skeleton arms with a sort of half-warning, half-mocking gesture, that sent a shudder over his frame, already disturbed by the successive presence, in the last two or three hours, of more emotions than he could comfortably sustain.
Swan was not an imaginative person. Yet the tree looked to him like a living, sentient thing, dooming him and warning him. As in the compression of the brain in drowning, it is said forgotten memories are hustled uppermost, and the events of early life vividly written on the consciousness,–so in this unwonted stir of past and present associations, Swan found himself remembering, with a thrill of pleasure that was chased by a spasm of pain, the last evening on which he had parted from Dorcas. He remembered, as if it were but now, how he had turned towards the pear-tree, when Dorcas had gone out of sight and he dared not follow her, and that the pear-tree had seemed to hear, to see, to sympathize with him,–that it had spread out great blessing arms on the southern air, and had seemed to encourage and strengthen his hopes of a happy return.
Was the fearful expression it now wore a shadow, a forerunner of what he might expect? He shook off, with an effort that was less painful than the sufferance of the thought, both fears and prognostics. He turned his back and walked rapidly and uneasily up and down the path between the tree and the old well.
He had left Dorcas blooming, lovely, and twenty-two. As blooming, as lovely, as lithe, and as sparkling, she was now. His own eyes had seen the vision.
But would she remember and love him still? For the first time it occurred to him that he must himself be somewhat changed,–changed certainly, since old Taft did not recognize him, after all the hogsheads of rum he had sold him! For the first time he felt a little thrill of fear, lest Dorcas should have been inconstant,–or lest, seeing him now, she might not love him as she once did. A faint blush passed over his face.
He raised his eyes, and Dorcas stood before him at the distance of a few feet: the bloom on her delicate cheek the same,–the dimpled chin, the serene forehead, the arch and laughing eyes!
Somehow, she seemed like a ghost, too; for, when he stepped towards her, she retreated, keeping the same distance between them.
“Dorcas!” said Swan, imploringly.
“What do you want of me?” answered a sweet voice, trembling and low.
“Are you really Dorcas? really, really _my_ Dorcas?” said Swan, in an agony of uncertain emotion.
“To be sure I am Dorcas!” answered the girl, in a half-terrified, half-petulant tone.
In a moment she darted up the path out of sight, just as Dorcas had done on the last night he had seen her!
Had he kept the kiss on his lips with which he had parted from her,–that kiss which, to him at least, had been one of betrothal?
The short day was nearly dead. In the gloom of the darkening twilight, Swan stood leaning against the old tree and looking up the path where the figure had disappeared, doubting whether a vision had deluded his senses or not.
Was Dorcas indeed separated from him? Was there no bringing back the sweet, olden time of love to her? She had seemed to shrink from him and fade out of sight. Could she never indeed love him again?
It was getting dark. But for the great, broad moon, that just then shone out from behind the Ridge Hill, he would not have seen another figure coming down the path from the house. Swan felt as if he had lived a long time in the last half-hour.
A woman walked cautiously towards him, apparently proceeding to the well. She stooped a little, and a wooden hoop round her person supported a pail on each side, which she had evidently come to fill. It was no angel that came to trouble the fountain to-night. She pulled down the chained bucket with a strong, heavy sweep, and the beam rose high in the air, with the stone securely fastened to the end. While she drew up and poured the water into the pails, she looked several times covertly at the stranger. The stranger, on his part, scanned her as closely. She belonged to the house, he thought. Probably she had come to live on the Fox farm at the death of the old people,–to take care of Dorcas, possibly. Again he scanned her curiously.
The face was an ordinary one. A farmer’s wife, even of the well-to-do, fore-handed sort, had many cares, and often heavy labors. Fifty years ago, inventive science had given no assistance to domestic labor, and all household work was done in the hardest manner. This woman might have had her day of being good-looking, possibly. But the face, even by moonlight, was now swarthy with exposure; the once round arm was dark and sinewy; and the plainly parted hair was confined and concealed by a blue-and-white handkerchief knotted under her chin. The forehead was freely lined; and the lips opened, when they did open, on dark, unfrequent teeth. These observations Swan made as he moved forward to speak to her; for there was no special expressiveness or animation to relieve the literal stamp of her features.
“Can you tell me, Madam,–hem!–who lives now on this place? It used to belong to Colonel Fox, I think.”
He called her “Madam” at a venture, though she might, for all he could see, be a “help” on the farm. But it wasn’t Cely, nor yet Dinah.
At the sound of his voice the woman’s whole expression changed. Her quick eyes fell back into a look of dreamy inquiry and softness. She dropped her pails to the ground, and stood, fenced in by the hoop, like a statue of bewilderment,–if such a statue could be carved.
Was his face transfigured in the moonlight, as she slowly gathered up old memories, and compared the form before her with the painted shadows of the past? She answered not a word, but clasped her hands tightly together, and bent her head to listen again to the voice.
“I say! good _woman_!”–this time with a raised tone, for he thought she might be deaf,–“is not this the old Fox farm? Please tell me who lives here now. The family are dead, I think.”
The woman opened her clenched hands and spread the palms outward and upward. Then, in a low tone of astonishment, she said,–
“Good Lord o’ mercy! if it a’n’t him!”
He moved nearer, and put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.
“To be sure it is, my good soul. Don’t be frightened. I give you my word, I am myself, and nobody else. And pray, now, who may you be? Do you live here?” he added, with a short laugh.
He addressed her jocosely; for he saw the poor frightened thing would never give him the information he wanted, unless he could contrive to compose her. It was odd, too, that he should frighten everybody so. Dorcas had hurried off like a lapwing.
“Swan Day!” said the woman, softly.
“That is my name, Goody! But I am ashamed to say, I don’t remember you. Pray, did you live here when I went away?”
“Yes,” said she, softly again, and this time looking into his eyes.
“Tell me, then, if you can tell me, whose hands this farm fell into? Who owns the place? Has it gone out of the family? Where is Dorcas Fox?”
He spoke hastily, and held her by the arm, as if he feared she would slide away in the moonlight.
“Dorcas Fox is here, Swan. I am Dorcas.”
“You? you Dorcas Fox?” said he, roughly. “Was it a ghost I saw?” he murmured,–“or is this a ghost?”
He had seen a bud, fresh, dewy, and blooming; and now he brushed away from his thought the wilted and brown substitute. Not a line of the face, not a tone of the voice, did he remember.
“Don’t you see anything about me, Swan,–anything that reminds you of Dorcas Fox?” said the woman, eagerly, and clasping her hands again.
His eyes glared at her in the moonlight, as he exclaimed,–
“No, my God! not a feature!”
CHAPTER VII.
“Well, I expect I be changed, Swan,” said Dorcas, sadly.
She said nothing about his change; and, besides, she had recognized him.
“They say my Dorcas favors me, and looks as I used to. Come, come up to the house; Mr. Mowers’ll be glad to see you. You don’t know how many times we’ve talked you over, and wondered if ever you’d come back! But, dear sakes! you can’t think what a kind of a shock you give me, Swan! Why, I expected nothin’ but what you was dead, years ago!”
Here was a pretty expression of sentiment! Swan only answered, faintly,–
“Did you?” and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.
They walked slowly towards the house. The great red walls stood staring and peaceful, as of old, and the milkers were coming in from the farmyard with their pails foaming and smoking, as they used to do fifteen years before. In the door-way, with his pipe in his mouth, stood Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed. He had come, by marriage, to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres. He had woodland and pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,–and in his house, health, peace, and children: dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood on his broad, strong palms,–two others, Philip and Henry, had died in the cradle.
Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards her father. She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,–
“There’s the man coming now with mother! I thought’t was a crazy man!”
The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing glance, which she knew must be painful.
“What do you think, Henry? Swan Day has come back, just in time to spend Thanksgiving with us!”
“Swan Day? I want to know!” answered Henry, mechanically holding out his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to recall the youthful features.
“Well! if ever!” he continued, turning to his wife, with increased astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan’s eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the river of life flowing by and far beyond him.
Keeping up a despairing shaking, Henry walked the stranger into the old square room, where the once sanded floor was now covered with a carpet, and a piano strutted in the corner where the bed used to stand. But still in the other corner stood the old “buffet,” and the desk where Colonel Fox kept his yellow papers. How stern, strong, and mighty Henry looked, with his six feet height, his sinewy limbs and broad chest, and his clear, steady eyes, full of manliness! How cheery the old parlor looked, too, as the evening advanced, and Dorcas lighted the pine-knots that sparkled up the chimney and set all the eyes and cheeks in the room ablaze! That was a pleasant evening, when the three elders chatted freely of all that had come and gone in Swan’s absence,–of those who had died, and those who were living, and of settlers even far beyond Western New York!
“It will be like old times to have you here to-morrow at Thanksgiving, won’t it?” said Henry.
“Won’t it?” echoed Dorcas.
Swan said it would, and good-night.
When he was gone, little Dorcas exclaimed,–
“What a queer little old man, mother! isn’t he?”
“How, queer, Dorcas?” said her mother, curious to compare the effects on the minds of the different members of the family of their visitor’s appearance.
“Oh, so odd-looking! such queer little eyes! and no hair on the top of his head! and such funny whiskers!” said Dorcas, smoothing her own abundant locks, and looking at her father and brothers, whose curls were brushed back and straight up into the air, a distance of three inches, after the fashion then called “Boston.” The smallest child gave an instinctive push over his forehead at the remark, and Zephaniah added,–
“He’s as round and yellow as a punkin!”
“He looked stiddy to Dorcas all the time,” said ‘Mima, roguishly.
“Now you shet up, you silly child!” said Dorcas, with the dignity of a twelve-month’s seniority.
“Wal, he dropped this ‘ere in my hand, anyhow, as he went out,” said Obed, opening his hand cautiously, and showing a Spanish doubloon.
“Oh! then you must give it right back to him to-morrow, Obe!” said the honest sisters; “it’s gold! and he couldn’t ‘a’ meant you should hev it!”
“I do’ know ’bout that! I’ll keep it t’ll he asks me for ‘t, I guess!” said Obed, sturdily.
“What did you think about him, Henry?” said the wife; “you wouldn’t ‘a’ known him?”
“Never! there a’n’t an inch o’ Swan Day in him! They say people change once in seven years. I should be loath to feel I’d lost all my looks as he has!”
“We grow old, though,” answered she, with a touch of pathos in her voice, as she remembered the words of Swan.
“Old? of course, wife!” was the hearty answer; “but then we’ve got somethin’ to show for ‘t!”
He glanced at her and the children proudly, and then bidding the young ones, “Scatter, quick time!” he stretched his comfortable six-feet-two before the fire, and smiled out of an easy, happy heart.
“What’s looks?” said he, philosophically. “You look jest the same to me, wife, as ever you did!”
“Do I?” said the pleased wife. “Well, I’m glad I do. I couldn’t bear to seem different to you, Henry!”
Henry took his pipe from his mouth, and then looked at his wife with a steady and somewhat critical gaze.
“I don’t think anything about it, wife; but if I want to think on ‘t,–why, I can, by jes’ shettin’ my eyes,–and there you are! as handsome as a picter! Little Dorcas is the very image of you, at her age; and you look exactly like her,–only older, of course.–Everything ready for Thanksgiving? We’ll give Day a good dinner, anyhow!”
“Yes, all’s ready,” answered Dorcas, with her eyes fixed on the fire.
“I knew it! There’s no fail to you, wife!–never has been!–never will be!”
Dorcas rose and went behind her husband, took his head in her two faithful hands, kissed his forehead, and went upstairs.
“Little Dorcas” was fastening her hair in countless _papillotes_. She smiled bashfully, as her mother entered the room, and showed her white, even teeth, between her rosy lips.
“I wonder if I ever did look so pretty as that child does!” said the mother to herself.
But she said to Dorcas only this:–
“Here’s your great-aunt’s pin and ring. They used to be mine, when I was young and foolish. Take care of ’em, and don’t you be foolish, child!”
“I wonder what mother meant!” soliloquized the daughter, when her mother had kissed her and said good-night; “she certainly had tears in her eyes!”
In the gray dawn of the next morning, Swan Day rode out of Walton in the same stage-coach and with the same “spike-team” of gray horses which had brought him thither thirty-six hours before. When the coach reached Troy, and the bright sun broke over the picturesque scenery of the erratic Ashuelot, he drew his breath deeply, as if relieved of a burden. Presently the coach stopped, the door opened, and the coachman held out his hand in silence.
“Fare, is it?”
“Fare.”
Opening his pocket-book, he saw the note which he had written to Dorcas, appointing an interview, and which he had forgotten to send to her.
As he rode on, he tore the letter into a thousand minute fragments, scattering them for a mile in the coach’s path, and watching the wheels grind them down in the dust.
“‘T isn’t the only thing I haven’t done that I meant to!” said he, with a sad smile over his sallow face.
He buttoned his coat closely to his chin, raised the collar to his ears, and shut his eyes.
The coachman peeped back at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader