A Little Country Girl Part 13

"Now I will show you how to swing a pot over the fire," she said; and in three minutes a rustic crane of boughs was constructed, the kettle was hanging from it, and the wood piled artistically underneath. A box of matches appeared from Mrs. Gray's pocket, which; as Marian said, was every bit as good as the "Bag" of the Mother in the "Swiss Family Robinson," and seemed to hold almost as great a variety of useful things. Presently a gay little fire was crackling and snapping against the face of the rock, and adding its smoke to the blackened stains left by those other smokes of long ago. The girls stood about, watching the blaze and listening for the first hiss of the kettle; but Mrs. Gray informed them that there was still work to be done.

"I want some new potatoes to roast, for one thing," she said. "Maud and Georgie, you might run up to the farm and ask Mr. Bacon to send me a few, say eighteen or twenty large ones,--oh, and a couple of dozen fresh eggs."

While they were absent on this errand, the other girls, under Mrs.

Gray's direction, unpacked the baskets and arranged their contents on the rock beneath the cedar-tree. Mrs. Gray had taken pains to provide, as far as was possible, the same sort of food which twenty-odd years before it had been customary to take to picnics. Out of one basket came a snow-white table-cloth and napkins; out of another, a chafing-dish, a loaf of home-made brown bread, and a couple of pats of delicious Darlington b.u.t.ter. A third basket revealed a large loaf of "Election Cake," with a thick sugary frosting; a fourth was full of crisp little jumbles, made after an old family recipe and warranted to melt in the mouth. There was a pile of thin, beautifully cut sandwiches; plenty of light-b.u.t.tered rolls; and a cold fowl, ready carved into portions. By the time that these provisions were unpacked, Maud and Georgie were seen descending the hill at a rapid walk, which, at sight of the festive preparations below, changed to what Julia Prime called "a hungry gallop." By this time exercise and fresh air had made everybody so desperately hungry that it seemed impossible to wait another moment; so, while Mrs. Gray heated the coffee and dropped the large pink potatoes into their bed of embers to roast, the younger members of the party fell to work on the sandwiches, just to take off the fine edge of their appet.i.tes till something better was ready.

When the coffee was hot, Mrs. Gray seated herself by the rock, lit the lamp under her chafing-dish, dropped in a bit of b.u.t.ter, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and proceeded to "scramble" a great dish of eggs. Did any of you ever eat hot scrambled eggs under a tree when you were furiously hungry? If not, you can form no idea of the pleasure which the "Early Dippers" took in theirs. But it was not the eggs only; it was everything: never was a luncheon so delicious, the girls protested. New potatoes roasted in the ashes were a feast for the G.o.ds; and as for the grandmother's cake with which the repast wound up, it baffled a.n.a.lysis and description.

Mrs. Gray had made this cake with her own hands, "in order to carry out the historic verities," as she said. It used to be part of the religion of New England, especially of Connecticut, she explained; and she told them how once, when she was a girl, making a visit to an old aunt in Wethersfield, she had sat up nearly all night over a "raising" of Election cake.

"But why did you do that?" asked the girls.

"Well, you see, my aunt had a sudden attack of rheumatism in her arm.

She was going to have the sewing-society meet at her house; and such a thing as a sewing-society without Election cake was not to be dreamed of. So I offered to make it; and I was bound that it should be good. The peculiarity of this particular cake is that it must rise twice before it is baked. You mix half the b.u.t.ter and sugar, and so on, with the yeast; and when that is light, you put in the other half. Now, my first half refused to rise."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, I sat beside it with one of Scott's novels, and I waited. It was rather poky; for my aunt and her servant had gone to bed, and there were queer creaks and noises now and then, as there always are in old houses.

Midnight struck, and one, and two, before the first bubbles appeared on the surface of the cake; and I had fallen asleep over my book more than once, before I could be quite sure that it was safe to stir in the remainder of the spice and fruit, and go to bed. It was just four o'clock when I finally put out my lamp; and very sleepy I was next day, as you may imagine: but the cake turned out a great success, and I had many compliments about it from the crack housekeepers in the neighborhood, when they found that it was of my making."

"Wasn't it a dreadful trouble to have to make cake and things like that at home?" asked Maud Hallett. "I think I would rather have had it not quite so good, and got it from the confectioner's, than to have all that fuss and bother."

"My dear, there _were_ no confectioners in those days except in two or three of the largest cities, and none even then who would be thought worth speaking of in our time. It was a case of home-made cake or none; and though it was certainly a great deal of trouble, the cake was better than any confectioner's cake that I ever tasted. People took great pride in it; and recipes were copied and handed about and talked over with an interest which would be impossible now-a-days, when everything comes to hand ready made, and you can order a loaf of sponge cake by postal card, and have it appear in a few hours, sent by express from central New York, as some of us have been doing this summer."

The last crumb of the Grandmother's loaf had now disappeared, and Mrs.

Gray proposed that the girls should go for a scramble on the hills while she repacked the baskets. But this division of labor was not permitted.

The girls insisted that they must be allowed to stay and help, and that the scramble would be no fun at all without their matron. Julia seized the coffee-pot and chafing-dish, and ran up the hill to rinse them at the spring; the others collected forks and plates; and, many hands making light work, in a very short while all was in order, and Mrs. Gray in readiness to head the walking party.

She guided them to the top of the granite ridge which is visible from Newport, and made them observe the peculiarity of the rock lines, and the contrast between their bareness and the fertility of the little intervening glades, for which they serve as a natural conservatory. Then they dipped down into the thickets of the farther side, finding all manner of ferns and wild-flowers and shy growing things, and so to the sandy flats above the third beach, with their outlook across the river-like strait to Little Compton and up the curving sh.o.r.e of Newport Island, set with old farm-houses and solemn orchards of gnarled apple-trees. From thence a short walk brought them to the end of the ridge and to Bishop Berkeley's seat, with its ponderous projecting roof of rocks; and they all sat down to rest just where he is said to have sat with his books and pen, looking off toward far Bermuda, and dreaming of the "star of empire." At that time no ugly brick chimneys or artificial water-basin existed to mar the foreground; and nothing sweeter or more peaceful could be imagined than the view from the rocky shelf,--the breadth of ocean lit with clear sun, the shining capes to right and left, the yellow sand-dunes and winding creek bordered with brown gra.s.ses and patches of mallow or green rushes, and over all the arch of blue summer sky. One or two carriages rolled along the distant road as they sat there; but otherwise; the stillness was unbroken save by the twitter of birds in the woods behind them, the chirp of sand-peeps or the scream of gulls on the beach, and the soft intermittent boom of the surf.

It had been a perfect afternoon, and a great success, all the picnickers voted, as they parted in the dusk on the gravel-walk in front of Mrs.

Gray's door. Yet, after all, there was much to be said for Newport and civilization, and they were not sorry to come back to them. It was all very well to play at being old-fashioned for a day; but modern times have their distinct charms and conveniences, and if the girls, on sober second-thought, preferred their own share of the centuries to any other, no one need count them blameworthy.

CHAPTER VIII.

BRIC-A-BRAC.

ONE afternoon in August, Candace happened to be alone in the drawing-room with Mrs. Gray when Mrs. Joy was announced.

"My dear," began that lady, after administering the two hard, rapid little kisses which were her idea of a cordial greeting, "I've come to see if you don't want to go down to the Point with me. There's an old woman there, I hear, who has a lot of wonderful old china and some mahogany arm-chairs which she wants to sell, and I'm going to look at them. Do put your things on, and come. I hate to drive alone; and there's no fun in this sort of expedition unless there's some one along with you."

"You are very kind," said Mrs. Gray; "but I have promised Mr. Gray to go with him at four to call on some friends who have just arrived at Bateman's, so it's quite impossible for me to go with you. Who is the old woman? Do you recollect her name?"

"Oh, Collishan or Collisham,--some name like that. She lives in Third Street."

"It must be old Miss Colishaw. Are you sure she wants to sell her china?" asked Mrs. Gray, who as a child had spent many summers in Newport before it became a fashionable watering-place, and knew the townspeople much better than did Mrs. Joy.

"I believe so; why shouldn't she? She's as poor as a church mouse, they tell me; and what use can such things be to her? She would rather have the money, of course. You can't go, then? I'm awfully sorry. But you'll let me have one of the girls, dear, won't you? I absolutely can't do it alone."

"Georgie has gone to drive with Berry, and I am sorry to say that Gertrude is on the sofa with a headache."

"Well, here's Miss Candace; she hasn't a headache, I'm sure: perhaps she will take pity on me.--You'll come, won't you? that's a dear. Run and put on your hat. It's a splendid afternoon, and the Point's a very interesting place if you happen to like old things. I don't care for them myself; but they're all the fashion now, you know, and I dare say you've caught the fever with the rest of the folks.--She can come, can't she, dear Mrs. Gray?"

"I don't think she has any engagement," replied Mrs. Gray, trying not to smile at the struggle with dismay that was going on in Candace's countenance; "she likes driving, and it is a beautiful afternoon.--You can go, can't you, Cannie?"

It was impossible on the spur of the moment to frame any excuse. Mrs.

Joy's eyes were full upon her; Cousin Kate gave no help; there seemed nothing to do but to comply. Candace murmured something about "Certainly,--very kind,--very happy," and went away to put on the red hat, which went very well with the dress of red and white linen that she happened to have on. It was a new one, which Mrs. Gray had bought for warm days, and which Elizabeth had fitted and made. She wore a red rose in her breast, and had a pair of gray gloves, and she looked very fresh and girlish in this simple costume; but Mrs. Joy did not quite approve of it.

"Why don't they fix the little thing up better?" she was thinking to herself as she got into the carriage. "It's too bad. She'd be quite nice-looking if she were a little more stylish. A light silk, now, or a surah in two shades, like Berry's blue, would make quite a different thing of her."

"You've been down on the Point before now, I suppose," she said as they rolled smoothly along the Avenue.

"Yes, once I did. Cousin Kate took me with her one day to call on a friend of hers, Miss Gisborne."

"Oh, yes, that queer old maid. I know they're very intimate, though I confess I never could see what Mrs. Gray finds in her to like. She's so eccentric, and so different from other people, and she wears such extraordinary clothes."

"But she's very nice, and she tells the funniest stories, and her house is ever so pretty," said Candace, rather at a loss to know what she ought to say.

"Ah, indeed, is it? Inside, you mean. I don't think it amounts to much outside, though people who have a mania for old houses rave about it, I believe. I'm afraid I'm dreadfully modern in my tastes. I can't, for the life of me, see any beauty in ceilings so low that you b.u.mp your head against them, and little sc.r.a.ps of windows filled with greenish gla.s.s that you can't see through, and which make you look like a mouldy fright, if any one looks through from the outside."

"Miss Gisborne's window-panes _are_ green," admitted Candace. "Some of them are so old that they have colors all over them like mother-of-pearl,--red and blue and yellow. I liked to see them; and she told us that last summer an architect who was going by the house stopped and looked at them a long time, and then rang the bell and offered to give her new sashes with great big panes in them if she would exchange; but she wouldn't."

"The more fool she!" rejoined Mrs. Joy, frankly. "My! what a splendid big house that is going to be! That's the kind of thing I like." And she pointed to an enormous half-finished structure of wood, painted pumpkin color and vermilion, which with its size, its cottage-like details, and the many high thin chimneys which rose above its towering roofs, looked a happy mixture of an asylum, a factory, and a Swiss chalet.

"But what a little bit of ground there is about it for such a big house!" said Candace, whose country eyes were often struck by the disproportion between the Newport edifices and the land on which they stood.

"Yes; land is so dreadfully dear now that people can't afford large places."

"I wonder why this is called 'Farewell Street,'" said Candace, looking at the name painted on the corner of a street into which they were turning.

"Some people say it's because this is the street by which funerals come away from the Cemetery," replied Mrs. Joy. "There's the Reading-room down there. You've seen that, I suppose. Mrs. Gray comes down to the mothers' meetings sometimes, I know."

"Yes; and she has promised to take me with her some day, but we haven't gone yet."

The carriage now turned into a narrow street, parallel with the Bay, but not in sight of it; and Mrs. Joy indicated to her footman a low dormer-windowed house, shabby with weather-stains and lack of paint, whose only ornament was a large and resplendent bra.s.s knocker on its front door.

"That's the place," she said. "Just look at that knocker. I know for a certainty that lots of people have offered to buy it, and the absurd old creature to whom it belongs won't sell. She declares that it's been there ever since she can remember, and that it shall stay there as long as she stays. So ridiculous, when things of the kind bring such an enormous price now, and she really needs the money!"

The carriage now stopped. Mrs. Joy got out, and Candace with her. The footman seized the shining knocker, and gave a loud rap.

"Go back to the carriage, Wilkins," said Mrs. Joy. Then she added in a low voice to Candace: "Get close to the door, dear. These people are so queer. I often have to push my way in, but I can always manage them in the end."

The door was opened a very little way by a very little girl.