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Queechy

<h1> Chapter XVIII. </h1> <blockquote> Gon. Here is everything advantageous to lift. </blockquote> <blockquote> Ant. True; save means to live. </blockquote> <blockquote> Tempest. </blockquote> Fleda's fatigue did not prevent her being up before sunrise the next day. Fatigue was forgotten, for the light of a fair spring morning was shining in at her windows and she meant to see aunt Miriam before breakfast. She ran out to find Hugh, and her merry shout reached him before she did, and brought him to meet her. "Come, Hugh!--I'm going off up to aunt Miriam's, and I want you. Come! Isn't this delicious?" "Hush!--" said Hugh. "Father's just here in the barn. I can't go, Fleda." Fleda's countenance clouded. "Can't go! what's the matter?--can't you go, Hugh?" He shook his head and went off into the barn. A chill came upon Fleda. She turned away with a very sober step. What if her uncle was in the barn, why should she hush? He never had been a check upon her merriment, never; what was coming now? Hugh too looked disturbed. It was a spring morning no longer. Fleda forgot the glittering wet grass that had set her own eyes a sparkling but a minute ago; she walked along, cogitating, swinging her bonnet by the strings in thoughtful vibration,--till by the help of sunlight and sweet air, and the loved scenes, her spirits again made head and swept over the sudden hindrance they had met. There were the blessed old sugar maples, seven in number, that fringed the side of the road,--how well Fleda knew them. Only skeletons now, but she remembered how beautiful they looked after the October frosts; and presently they would be putting out their new green leaves and be beautiful in another way. How different in their free-born luxuriance from the dusty and city-prisoned elms and willows she had left. She came to the bridge then, and stopped with a thrill of pleasure and pain to look and listen, Unchanged!--all but herself. The mill was not going; the little brook went by quietly chattering to itself, just as it had done the last time she saw it, when she rode past on Mr. Carleton's horse. Four and a half years ago!--And now how strange that she had come to live there again. Drawing a long breath, and swinging her bonnet again, Fleda softly went on up the hill; past the saw-mill, the ponds, the factories, the houses of the settlement. The same, and not the same!--Bright with the morning sun, and yet somehow a little browner and homelier than of old they used to be. Fleda did not care for that; she would hardly acknowledge it to herself; her affection never made any discount for infirmity. Leaving the little settlement behind her thoughts as behind her back, she ran on now towards aunt Miriam's, breathlessly, till field after field was passed and her eye caught a bit of the smooth lake and the old farmhouse in its old place. Very brown it looked, but Fleda dashed on, through the garden and in at the front door. Nobody at all was in the entrance room, the common sitting-room of the family. With trembling delight Fleda opened the well-known door and stole noiselessly through the little passage-way to the kitchen. The door of that was only on the latch and a gentle movement of it gave to Fleda's eye the tall figure of aunt Miriam, just before her, stooping down to look in at the open mouth of the oven which she was at that moment engaged in supplying with more work to do. It was a huge one, and beyond her aunt's head Fleda could see in the far end the great loaves of bread, half baked, and more near a perfect squad of pies and pans of gingerbread just going in to take the benefit of the oven's milder mood. Fleda saw all this as it were without seeing it; she stood still as a mouse and breathless till her aunt turned; and then, a spring and a half shout of joy, and she had clasped her in her arms and was crying with her whole heart. Aunt Miriam was taken all aback; she could do nothing but sit down and cry too and forget her oven door. "Ain't breakfast ready yet, mother?" said a manly voice coming in. "I must be off to see after them ploughs. Hollo!--why mother!--" The first exclamation was uttered as the speaker put the door to the oven's mouth; the second as he turned in quest of the hand that should have done it. He stood wondering, while his mother and Fleda between laughing and crying tried to rouse themselves and look up. "What is all this?" "Don't you see, Seth?" "I see somebody that had like to have spoiled your whole baking--I don't know who it is, yet." "Don't you now, cousin Seth?" said Fleda shaking away her tears and getting up. "I ha'n't quite lost my recollection. Cousin, you must give me a kiss.--How do you do? You ha'n't forgot how to colour, I see, for all you've been so long among the pale city-folks." "I haven't forgotten any thing, cousin Seth," said Fleda, blushing indeed but laughing and shaking his hand with as hearty good-will. "I don't believe you have,--anything that is good," said he. "Where have you been all this while?" "O part of the time in New York, and part of the time in Paris, and some other places." "Well you ha'n't seen anything better than Queechy, or Queechy bread and butter, have you?" "No indeed!" "Come, you shall give me another kiss for that," said he, suiting the action to the word;--"and now sit down and eat as much bread and butter as you can. It's just as good as it used to be. Come mother!--I guess breakfast is ready by the looks of that coffee-pot." "Breakfast ready!" said Fleda. "Ay indeed; it's a good half hour since it ought to ha' been ready. If it ain't I can't stop for it. Them boys will be running their furrows like sarpents 'f I ain't there to start them." "Which like serpents," said Fleda,--"the furrows or the men?" "Well, I was thinking of the furrows," said he glancing at her;--"I guess there ain't cunning enough in the others to trouble them. Come sit down, and let me see whether you have forgotten a Queechy appetite." "I don't know," said Fleda doubtfully,--"they will expect me at home." "I don't care who expects you--sit down! you ain't going to eat any bread and butter this morning but my mother's--you haven't got any like it at your house. Mother, give her a cup of coffee, will you, and set her to work." Fleda was too willing to comply with the invitation, were it only for the charm of old times. She had not seen such a table for years, and little as the conventionalities of delicate taste were known there, it was not without a comeliness of its own in its air of wholesome abundance and the extreme purity of all its arrangements. If but a piece of cold pork were on aunt Miriam's table, it was served with a nicety that would not have offended the most fastidious; and amid irregularities that the fastidious would scorn, there was a sound excellence of material and preparation that they very often fail to know. Fleda made up her mind she would be wanted at home; all the rather perhaps for Hugh's mysterious "hush"; and there was something in the hearty kindness and truth of these friends that she felt particularly genial. And if there was a lack of silver at the board its place was more than filled with the pure gold of association. They sat down to table, but aunt Miriam's eyes devoured Fleda. Mr. Plum field set about his more material breakfast with all despatch. <ANTIMG src="images/illus11.jpg" height-obs="250" alt="'They will expect me at home.'" title="'They will expect me at home.'" /> "They will expect me at home." "So Mr. Rossitur has left the city for good," said aunt Miriam. "How does he like it?" "He hasn't been here but a day, you know, aunt Miriam," said Fleda evasively. "Is he anything of a farmer?" asked her cousin. "Not much," said Fleda. "Is he going to work the farm himself?" "How do you mean?" "I mean, is he going to work the farm himself, or hire it out, or let somebody else work it on shares?" "I don't know," said Fleda;--"I think he is going to have a farmer and oversee things himself." "He'll get sick o' that," said Seth; "unless he's the luck to get hold of just the right hand." "Has he hired anybody yet?" said aunt Miriam, after a little interval of supplying Fleda with 'bread and butter.' "Yes ma'am, I believe so." "What's his name?" "Donohan,--an Irishman, I believe; uncle Rolf hired him in New York." "For his head man?" said Seth, with a sufficiently intelligible look. "Yes," said Fleda. "Why?" But he did not immediately answer her. "The land's in poor heart now," said he, "a good deal of it; it has been wasted; it wants first-rate management to bring it in order and make much of it for two or three years to come. I never see an Irishman's head yet that was worth more than a joke. Their hands are all of 'em that's good for anything." "I believe uncle Rolf wants to have an American to go with this man," said Fleda. Seth said nothing, but Fleda understood the shake of his head as he reached over after a pickle. "Are you going to keep a dairy, Fleda?" said her aunt. "I don't know, ma'am;--I haven't heard anything about it." "Does Mrs. Rossitur know anything about country affairs?" "No--nothing," Fleda said, her heart sinking perceptibly with every new question. "She hasn't any cows yet?" She!--any cows!--But Fleda only said they had not come; she believed they were coming. "What help has she got?" "Two women--Irishwomen," said Fleda. "Mother you'll have to take hold and learn her," said Mr. Plumfield. "Teach her?" cried Fleda, repelling the idea;--"aunt Lucy? she cannot do anything--she isn't strong enough;--not anything of that kind." "What did she come here for?" said Seth. "You know," said his mother, "that Mr. Rossitur's circumstances obliged him to quit New York." "Ay, but that ain't my question. A man had better keep his fingers off anything he can't live by. A farm's one thing or t'other, just as it's worked. The land won't grow specie--it must be fetched out of it. Is Mr. Rossitur a smart man?" "Very," Fleda said, "about everything but farming." "Well if he'll put himself to school maybe, he'll learn," Seth concluded as he finished his breakfast and went off. Fleda rose too, and was standing thoughtfully by the fire, when aunt Miriam came up and put her arms round her. Fleda's eyes sparkled again. "You're not changed--you're the same little Fleda," she said. "Not quite so little," said Fleda smiling. "Not quite so little, but my own darling. The world hasn't spoiled thee yet." "I hope not, aunt Miriam." "You have remembered your mother's prayer, Fleda?" "Always!"-- How tenderly aunt Miriam's hand was passed over the bowed head,--how fondly she pressed her. And Fleda's answer was as fond. "I wanted to bring Hugh up to see you, aunt Miriam, with me, but he couldn't come. You will like Hugh. He is so good!" "I will come down and see him," said aunt Miriam; and then she went to look after her oven's doings. Fleda stood by, amused to see the quantities of nice things that were rummaged out of it. They did not look like Mrs. Renney's work, but she knew from old experience that they were good. "How early you must have been up, to put these things in," said Fleda. "Put them in! yes, and make them. These were all made this morning, Fleda." "This morning!--before breakfast! Why the sun was only just rising when I set out to come up the hill; and I wasn't long coming, aunt Miriam." "To be sure; that's the way to get things done. Before breakfast!--What time do you breakfast, Fleda?" "Not till eight or nine o'clock." "Eight or nine!--Here?" "There hasn't been any change made yet, and I don't suppose there will be. Uncle Rolf is always up early, but he can't bear to have breakfast early." Aunt Miriam's face showed what she thought; and Fleda went away with all its gravity and doubt settled like lead upon her heart. Though she had one of the identical apple pies in her hands, which aunt Miriam had quietly said was "for her and Hugh," and though a pleasant savour of old times was about it, Fleda could not get up again the bright feeling with which she had come up the hill. There was a miserable misgiving at heart. It would work off in time. It had begun to work off, when at the foot of the hill she met her uncle. He was coming after her to ask Mr. Plumfield about the desideratum of a Yankee. Fleda put her pie in safety behind a rock, and turned back with him, and aunt Miriam told them the way to Seth's ploughing ground. A pleasant word or two had get Fleda's spirits a bounding again, and the walk was delightful. Truly the leaves were not on the trees, but it was April, and they soon would be; there was promise in the light, and hope in the air, and everything smelt of the country and spring-time. The soft tread of the sod, that her foot had not felt for so long,--the fresh look of the newly-turned earth,--here and there the brilliance of a field of winter grain,--and that nameless beauty of the budding trees, that the full luxuriance of summer can never equal,--Fleda's heart was springing for sympathy. And to her, with whom association was everywhere so strong, there was in it all a shadowy presence of her grandfather, with whom she had so often seen the spring-time bless those same hills and fields long ago. She walked on in silence, as her manner commonly was when deeply pleased; there were hardly two persons to whom she would speak her mind freely then. Mr. Kossitur had his own thoughts. "Can anything equal the spring-time!" she burst forth at length. Her uncle looked at her and smiled. "Perhaps not; but it is one thing," said he sighing, "for taste to enjoy and another thing for calculation to improve." "But one can do both, can't one?" said Fleda brightly. "I don't know," said he sighing again. "Hardly." Fleda knew he was mistaken and thought the sighs out of place. But they reached her; and she had hardly condemned them before they set her off upon a long train of excuses for him, and she had wrought herself into quite a fit of tenderness by the time they reached her cousin. They found him on a gentle side-hill, with two other men and teams, both of whom were stepping away in different parts of the field. Mr. Plumfield was just about setting off to work his way to the other side of the lot when they came up with him. Fleda was not ashamed of her aunt Miriam's son, even before such critical eyes as those of her uncle. Farmer-like as were his dress and air, they shewed him nevertheless a well-built, fine-looking man, with the independent bearing of one who has never recognised any but mental or moral superiority. His face might have been called handsome; there was at least manliness in every line of it; and his excellent dark eye shewed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. Let Mr. Plumfield wear what clothes he would one felt obliged to follow Burns' notable example and pay respect to the man that was in them. "A fine day, sir," he remarked to Mr. Rossitur after they had shaken hands. "Yes, and I will not interrupt you but a minute. Mr. Plumfield, I am in want of hands,--hands for this very business you are about, ploughing,--and Fleda says you know everybody; so I have come to ask if you can direct me." "Heads or hands, do you want?" said Seth, clearing his boot-sole from some superfluous soil upon the share of his plough. "Why both, to tell you the truth. I want hands, and teams, for that matter, for I have only two, and I suppose there is no time to be lost. And I want very much to get a person thoroughly acquainted with the business to go along with my man. He is an Irishman, and I am afraid not very well accustomed to the ways of doing things here." "Like enough," said Seth;--"and the worst of 'em is you can't learn 'em." "Well!--can you help me?" "Mr. Douglass!"--said Seth, raising his voice to speak to one of his assistants who was approaching them,--"Mr. Douglass!--you're holding that 'ere plough a little too obleekly for my grounds." "Very good, Mr. Plumfield!" said the person called upon, with a quick accent that intimated, "If you don't know what is best it is not my affair!"--the voice very peculiar, seeming to come from no lower than the top of his throat, with a guttural roll of the words. "Is that Earl Douglass?" said Fleda. "You remember him?" said her cousin smiling. "He's just where he was, and his wife too.--Well Mr. Rossitur, 'tain't very easy to find what you want just at this season, when most folks have their hands full and help is all taken up. I'll see if I can't come down and give you a lift myself with the ploughing, for a day or two, as I'm pretty beforehand with the spring, but you'll want more than that. I ain't sure--I haven't more hands than I'll want myself, but I think it is possible Squire Springer may spare you one of his'n. He ain't taking in any new land this year, and he's got things pretty snug; I guess he don't care to do any more than common--anyhow you might try. You know where uncle Joshua lives, Fleda? Well Philetus--what now?" They had been slowly walking along the fence towards the furthest of Mr. Plumfield's coadjutors, upon whom his eye had been curiously fixed as he was speaking; a young man who was an excellent sample of what is called "the raw material." He had just come to a sudden stop in the midst of the furrow when his employer called to him; and he answered somewhat lack-a-daisically, "Why I've broke this here clevis--I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing, and it broke right in teu!" "What do you s'pose'll be done now?" said Mr. Plumfield gravely going up to examine the fracture. "Well 'twa'n't none of my doings," said the young man. "I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing--and the mean thing broke right in teu. 'Tain't so handy as the old kind o' plough, by a long jump." "You go 'long down to the house and ask my mother for a new clevis; and talk about ploughs when you know how to hold 'em," said Mr. Plumfield. "It don't look so difficult a matter," said Mr. Rossitur,--"but I am a novice myself. What is the principal thing to be attended to in ploughing, Mr. Plumfield?" There was a twinkle in Seth's eye, as he looked down upon a piece of straw he was breaking to bits, which Fleda, who could see, interpreted thoroughly. "Well," said he, looking up,--"the breadth of the stitches and the width and depth of the farrow must be regulated according to the nature of the soil and the lay of the ground, and what you're ploughing for;--there's stubble ploughing, and breaking up old lays, and ploughing for fallow crops, and ribbing, where the land has been some years in grass,--and so on; and the plough must be geared accordingly, and so as not to take too much land nor go out of the land; and after that the best part of the work is to guide the plough right and run the furrows straight and even." He spoke with the most impenetrable gravity, while Mr. Rossitur looked blank and puzzled. Fleda could hardly keep her countenance. "That row of poles," said Mr. Rossitur presently,--"are they to guide you in running the furrow straight?" "Yes sir--they are to mark out the crown of the stitch. I keep 'em right between the horses and plough 'em down one after another. It's a kind of way country folks play at ninepins," said Seth, with a glance half inquisitive, half sly, at his questioner. Mr. Rossitur asked no more. Fleda felt a little uneasy again. It was rather a longish walk to uncle Joshua's, and hardly a word spoken on either side. The old gentleman was "to hum;" and while Fleda went back into some remote part of the house to see "aunt Syra," Mr. Rossitur set forth his errand. "Well,--and so you're looking for help, eh?" said uncle Joshua when he had heard him through. "Yes sir,--I want help." "And a team too?" "So I have said, sir," Mr. Rossitur answered rather shortly. "Can you supply me?" "Well,--I don't know as I can," said the old man, rubbing his hands slowly over his knees.--"You ha'n't got much done yet, I s'pose?" "Nothing. I came the day before yesterday." "Land's in rather poor condition in some parts, ain't it?" "I really am not able to say, sir,--till I have seen it." "It ought to be," said the old gentleman shaking his head,--the fellow that was there last didn't do right by it--he worked the land too hard, and didn't put on it anywhere near what he had ought to--I guess you'll find it pretty poor in some places. He was trying to get all he could out of it, I s'pose. There's a good deal of fencing to be done too, ain't there?" "All that there was, sir,--I have done none since I came." "Seth Plumfield got through ploughing yet?" "We found him at it." "Ay, he's a smart man. What are you going to do, Mr. Rossitur, with that piece of marsh land that lies off to the south-east of the barn, beyond the meadow, between the hills? I had just sich another, and I"-- "Before I do anything with the wet land, Mr. ---- I am so unhappy as to have forgotten your name?--" "Springer, sir," said the old gentleman,--"Springer--Joshua Springer. That is my name, sir." "Mr. Springer, before I do anything with the wet land I should like to have something growing on the dry; and as that is the present matter in hand will you be so good as to let me know whether I can have your assistance." "Well I don't know,--" said the old gentleman; "there ain't anybody to send but my boy Lucas, and I don't know whether he would make up his mind to go or not." "Well sir!"--said Mr. Rossitur rising,--"in that case I will bid you good morning. I am sorry to have given you the trouble." "Stop," said the old man,--"stop a bit. Just sit down--I'll go in and see about it." Mr. Rossitur sat down, and uncle Joshua left him to go into the kitchen and consult his wife, without whose counsel, of late years especially, he rarely did anything. They never varied in opinion, but aunt Syra's wits supplied the steel edge to his heavy metal. "I don't know but Lucas would as leave go as not," the old gentleman remarked on coming back from this sharpening process,--"and I can make out to spare him, I guess. You calculate to keep him, I s'pose?" "Until this press is over; and perhaps longer, if I find he can do what I want." "You'll find him pretty handy at a' most anything; but I mean,--I s'pose he'll get his victuals with you." "I have made no arrangements of the kind," said Mr. Rossitur controlling with some effort his rebelling muscles. "Donohan is boarded somewhere else, and for the present it will be best for all in my employ to follow the same plan." "Very good," said uncle Joshua, "it makes no difference,--only of course in that case it is worth more, when a man has to find himself and his team." "Whatever it is worth I am quite ready to pay, sir." "Very good! You and Lucas can agree about that. He'll be along in the morning." So they parted; and Fleda understood the impatient quick step with which her uncle got over the ground. "Is that man a brother of your grandfather?" "No sir--Oh no! only his brother-in-law. My grandmother was his sister, but they weren't in the least like each other." "I should think they could not," said Mr. Rossitur. "Oh they were not!" Fleda repeated. "I have always heard that." After paying her respects to aunt Syra in the kitchen she had come back time enough to hear the end of the discourse in the parlour, and had felt its full teaching. Doubts returned, and her spirits were sobered again. Not another word was spoken till they reached home; when Fleda seized upon Hugh and went off to the rock after her forsaken pie. "Have you succeeded!' asked Mrs. Rossitur while they were gone. "Yes--that is, a cousin has kindly consented to come and help me." "A cousin!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "Ay,--we're in a nest of cousins." "In a what, Mr. Rossitur?" "In a nest of cousins; and I had rather be in a nest of rooks. I wonder if I shall be expected to ask my ploughmen to dinner! Every second man is a cousin, and the rest are uncles." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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