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Queechy

<h1> Chapter IV. </h1> <blockquote> A mind that in a calm angelic mood Of happy wisdom, meditating good, Beholds, of all from her high powers required, Much done, and much designed, and more desired. </blockquote> <blockquote> Wordsworth. </blockquote> "I've had such a delicious day, dear grandpa,"--said little Fleda as they sat at supper;--"you can't think how kind Mr. Carleton has been." "Has he?--Well dear--I'm glad on't,--he seems a very nice young man." "He's a smart-lookin' feller," said Cynthy, who was pouring out the tea. "And we have got the greatest quantity of nuts!" Fleda went on,--"enough for all winter. Cynthy and I will have to make ever so many journeys to fetch 'em all; and they are splendid big ones. Don't you say anything to Mr. Didenhover, Cynthy." "I don't desire to meddle with Mr. Didenhover unless I've got to," said Cynthy with an expression of considerable disgust. "You needn't give no charges to me." "But you'll go with me, Cynthy?" "I s'pose I'll have to," said Miss Gall dryly, after a short interval of sipping tea and helping herself to sweetmeats. This lady had a pervading acidity of face and temper, but it was no more. To take her name as standing for a fair setting forth of her character would be highly injurious to a really respectable composition, which the world's neglect (there was no other imaginable cause) had soured a little. Almost Fleda's first thought on coming home had been about Mr. Jolly. But she knew very well, without asking, that he had not been there; she would not touch the subject. "I haven't had such a fine day of nutting in a great while, grandpa," she said again; "and you never saw such a good hand as Mr. Carleton is at whipping the trees." "How came he to go with you?" "I don't know,--I suppose it was to please me, in the first place; but I am sure he enjoyed it himself; and he liked the pie and cheese, too, Cynthy." "Where did your cousin go?" "O he went off after the woodcock. I hope he didn't find any." "What do you think of those two young men, Fairy?" "In what way, grandpa?" "I mean, which of them do you like the best?" "Mr. Carleton." "But t'other one's your cousin," said Mr. Ringgan, bending forward and examining his little granddaughter's face with a curious pleased look, as he often did when expecting an answer from her. "Yes," said Fleda, "but he isn't so much of a gentleman." "How do you know that?" "I don't think he is," said Fleda quietly. "But why. Fairy?" "He doesn't know how to keep his word as well, grandpa." "Ay, ay? let's hear about that," said Mr. Ringgan. A little reluctantly, for Cynthia was present, Fleda told the story of the robins, and how Mr. Carleton would not let the gun be fired. "Wa'n't your cousin a little put out by that?" "They were both put out," said Fleda, "Mr. Carleton was very angry for a minute, and then Mr. Rossitur was angry, but I think he could have been angrier if he had chosen." Mr. Ringgan laughed, and then seemed in a sort of amused triumph about something. "Well dear!" he remarked after a while,--"you'll never buy wooden nutmegs, I expect." Fleda laughed and hoped not, and asked him why he said so. But he didn't tell her. "Mr. Ringgan," said Cynthy, "hadn't I better run up the hill after supper, and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down and help to-morrow? I suppose you'll want considerable of a set out; and if both them young men comes you'll want some more help to entertain 'em than I can give you, it's likely?" "Do so--do so," said the old gentleman. "Tell her who I expect, and ask her if she can come and help you, and me too." "O and I'll go with you, Cynthy," said Fleda. "I'll get aunt Miriam to come, I know." "I should think you'd be run off your legs already, Flidda," said Miss Cynthia; "what ails you to want to be going again?" But this remonstrance availed nothing. Supper was hurried through, and leaving the table standing Cynthia and Fleda set off to "run up the hill." They were hardly a few steps from the gate when they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs behind them, and the two young gentlemen came riding hurriedly past, having joined company and taken their horses at Queechy Run. Rossitur did not seem to see his little cousin and her companion; but the doffed cap and low inclination of the other rider as they flew by called up a smile and blush of pleasure to Fleda's face; and the sound of their horses' hoofs had died away in the distance before the light had faded from her cheeks or she was quite at home to Cynthia's observations. She was possessed with the feeling, what a delightful thing it was to have people do things in such a manner. "That was your cousin, wa'n't it?" said Cynthy, when the spell was off. "No," said Fleda, "the other one was my cousin." "Well--I mean one of them fellers that went by. He's a soldier, ain't he?' "An officer," said Fleda. "Well, it does give a man an elegant look to be in the militie, don't it? I should admire to have a cousin like that. It's dreadful becoming to have that--what is it they call it?--to let the beard grow over the mouth. I s'pose they can't do that without they be in the army can they?" "I don't know," said Fleda. "I hope not. I think it is very ugly." "Do you? Oh!--I admire it. It makes a man look so spry!" A few hundred yards from Mr. Ringgan's gate the road began to wind up a very long heavy hill. Just at the hill's foot it crossed by a rude bridge the bed of a noisy brook that came roaring down from the higher grounds, turning sundry mill and factory wheels in its way. About half way up the hill one of these was placed, belonging to a mill for sawing boards. The little building stood alone, no other in sight, with a dark background of wood rising behind it on the other side of the brook; the stream itself running smoothly for a small space above the mill, and leaping down madly below, as if it disdained its bed and would clear at a bound every impediment in its way to the sea. When the mill was not going the quantity of water that found its way down the hill was indeed very small, enough only to keep up a pleasant chattering with the stones; but as soon as the stream was allowed to gather all its force and run free its loquacity was such that it would prevent a traveller from suspecting his approach to the mill, until, very near, the monotonous hum of its saw could be heard. This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of the waters and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless, tireless up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the master spirit, the man-regulator of this machinery, would perform some conjuration on lever and wheel,--and at once, as at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the saw stay its work;--the business of life came to a stand, and the romance of the little brook sprang up again. Fleda never tired of it--never. She would watch the saw play and stop, and go on again; she would have her ears dinned with the hoarse clang of the machinery, and then listen to the laugh of the mill-stream; she would see with untiring patience one board after another cut and cast aside, and log succeed to log; and never turned weary away from that mysterious image of Time's doings. Fleda had besides, without knowing it, the eye of a painter. In the lonely hillside, the odd-shaped little mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her, where the country people saw nothing but business and a place fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining. Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in stores of thought and associations of beauty. How many purposes the same thing serves! <ANTIMG src="images/illus04.jpg" height-obs="250" alt="'Who's got it now, Cynthy?'" title="'Who's got it now, Cynthy?'" /> "Who's got it now, Cynthy?" "That had ought to be your grandpa's mill this minute," observed Cynthy. "I wish it was!" sighed Fleda. "Who's got it now, Cynthy?" "O it's that chap McGowan, I expect;--he's got pretty much the hull of everything. I told Mr. Ringgan I wouldn't let him have it if it was me, at the time. Your grandpa'd be glad to get it back now, I guess." Fleda guessed so too; but also guessed that Miss Gall was probably very far from being possessed of the whole rationale of the matter. So she made her no answer. After reaching the brow of the hill the road continued on a very gentle ascent towards a little settlement half a quarter of a mile off; passing now and then a few scattered cottages or an occasional mill or turner's shop. Several mills and factories, with a store and a very few dwelling-houses were all the settlement; not enough to entitle it to the name of a village. Beyond these and the mill-ponds, of which in the course of the road there were three or four, and with a brief intervening space of cultivated fields, a single farm house stood alone; just upon the borders of a large and very fair sheet of water from which all the others had their supply.--So large and fair that nobody cavilled at its taking the style of a lake and giving its own pretty name of Deepwater both to the settlement and the farm that half embraced it. This farm was Seth Plumfield's. At the garden gate Fleda quitted Cynthy and rushed forward to meet her aunt, whom she saw coming round the corner of the house with her gown pinned up behind her from attending to some domestic concern among the pigs, the cows, or the poultry. "O aunt Miriam," said Fleda eagerly, "we are going to have company to tea to-morrow--won't you come and help us?" Aunt Miriam laid her hands upon Fleda's shoulders and looked at Cynthy. "I came up to see if you wouldn't come down to-morrow, Mis' Plumfield," said that personage, with her usual dry business tone, always a little on the wrong side of sweet;--"your brother has taken a notion to ask two young fellers from the Pool to supper, and they're grand folks I s'pose, and have got to have a fuss made for 'em. I don't know what Mr. Ringgan was thinkin' of, or whether he thinks I have got anything to do or not; but anyhow they're a comin', I s'pose, and must have something to eat; and I thought the best thing I could do would be to come and get you into the works, if I could. I should feel a little queer to have nobody but me to say nothin' to them at the table." "Ah do come, aunt Miriam!" said Fleda; "it will be twice as pleasant if you do; and besides, we want to have everything very nice, you know." Aunt Miriam smiled at Fleda, and inquired of Miss Gall what she had in the house. "Why I don't know, Mis' Plumfield," said the lady, while Fleda threw her arms round her aunt and thanked her,--"there ain't nothin' particler--pork and beef and the old story. I've got some first-rate pickles. I calculated to make some sort o' cake in the morning." "Any of those small hams left?" "Not a bone of 'em--these six weeks, I don't see how they've gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd been in." "Have you cooked that roaster I sent down?" "No, Mis' Plumfield, I ha'n't--it's such a plaguy sight of trouble!" said Cynthy with a little apologetic giggle;--"I was keepin' it for some day when I hadn't much to do." "I'll take the trouble of it. I'll be down bright and early in the morning, and we'll see what's best to do. How's your last churning, Cynthy?" "Well--I guess it's pretty middlin,' Mis' Plumfield." "'Tisn't anything very remarkable, aunt Miriam," said Fleda shaking her head. "Well, well," said Mrs. Plumfield smiling, "run away down home now, and I'll come to-morrow, and I guess we'll fix it. But who is it that grandpa has asked?" Fleda and Cynthy both opened at once. "One of them is my cousin, aunt Miriam, that was at West Point, and the other is the nicest English gentleman you ever saw--you will like him very much--he has been with me getting nuts all to-day." "They're a smart enough couple of chaps," said Cynthia; "they look as if they lived where money was plenty." "Well I'll come to-morrow," repeated Mrs. Plumfield, "and we'll see about it. Good night, dear!" She took Fleda's head in both her hands and gave her a most affectionate kiss; and the two petitioners set off homewards again. Aunt Miriam was not at all like her brother, in feature, though the moral characteristics suited the relationship sufficiently well. There was the expression of strong sense and great benevolence; the unbending uprightness, of mind and body at once; and the dignity of an essentially noble character, not the same as Mr. Ringgan's, but such as well became his sister. She had been brought up among the Quakers, and though now and for many years a staunch Presbyterian, she still retained a tincture of the calm efficient gentleness of mind and manner that belongs so inexplicably to them. More womanly sweetness than was in Mr. Ringgan's blue eye a woman need not wish to have; and perhaps his sister's had not so much. There was no want of it in her heart, nor in her manner, but the many and singular excellencies of her character were a little overshadowed by super-excellent housekeeping. Not a taint of the littleness that sometimes grows therefrom,--not a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such pursuits is too apt to bring;--on every important occasion aunt Miriam would come out free and unshackled from all the cobweb entanglements of housewifery; she would have tossed housewifery to the winds if need were (but it never was, for in a new sense she always contrived to make both ends meet). It was only in the unbroken everyday course of affairs that aunt Miriam's face shewed any tokens of that incessant train of small cares which had never left their impertinent footprints upon the broad high brow of her brother. Mr. Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping of a little cur. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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