Cape Cod Folks Part 23

"I beg your pardon," I said, looking up. "Yes, you don't often have such mild winters on the Cape, Mr. Barlow!"

"No'm, we don't," said Lovell, "not very often, ahem!" He moved his chair a peg nearer the gun. "Quite a--ahem!--quite a little fall of snow we had last night, Miss Hungerford."

"Any deer tracks? Eh, Lovell?" inquired Grandpa.

"Pa," said Grandma; "I wish you'd fill Abigail--seems to me she smells sorter dry."

"She ain't, for sartin', ma," replied Grandpa, giving the tea-kettle a shake to verify his a.s.sertions; "and Rachel's chock full!"

Grandma then gave Grandpa a meaning look, and put her fingers on her lips.

"Well, Cap'n, I saw more rabbit tracks," replied Lovell, innocently amused at the ludicrousness of the old Captain's speech. "I did, rather--ahem!--yes, I saw more rabbit tracks--ahem!--ahem!" He gave his chair a desperate hitch gunward. "I don't suppose they ever do such a thing, where you live, Miss Hungerford, as to go--ahem!--to go sleigh-riding, now, do they, Miss Hungerford?"

"Why, yes," I said; "they always do in the winter. I haven't been home through the winter for a year or two past, but I remember what splendid times we used to have."

I was thinking particularly of a certain snow-fall, that came when I was seventeen years old, and John Cable had just returned from College, with a moustache and patriarchal airs.

Some grinning recollections of the past were also floating through Grandpa's mind. The look of reprehensible mirth was still in his eyes, and he showed his teeth, which gleamed oddly white and strong in contrast with his grizzled countenance.

"I remember"--he began.

"Pa," said Grandma, with an expressive wink of one eye, and only part of her face visible around the corner of the doorway, through which Madeline had already disappeared; "pa--I wish you'd come out here a minute, now--I want to see ye."

"Wall, wall, can't ye see me here, ma? What makes ye so dreadful anxious to see me all of a sudden?" inquired Grandpa. But his face did not lose its thoughtful illumination. "Wall, as I was a tellin' ye, teacher," he went on; "I was only a little shaver then--a little shaver--and my father had one of those 'ere pungs, as we used to call 'em, that he used to ride around in--and he was a dreadful man to swear, my father was, teacher--Lordy, how he would swear!----"

"Pa!" said the great calm voice at the door; "I'm a waitin' for you to come out, so't I can shet the door."

"Wall, wall, ma, shet the door if ye want to, I've no objections to havin' the door shet----and we had an old hoss, teacher. Lordy, how lean he was, lean as a skate, and----"

"Bijonah Keeler!"

"Yis, yis, I'm a comin', ma, I'm a comin'." And wonderful indeed, I thought must have been the tale, which, even under these exasperating circ.u.mstances, kept Grandpa's face a-grin as he ran and shuffled towards the door.

The door was quickly closed behind him by other hands than his own, and then I observed that Lovell's chair had been drawn into frightfully close proximity to his gun.

"I--I think it's pleasanter, that is--I--I sometimes think it's warmer for t-t-two in a sleigh, than--a--'tis--for one, don't you, Miss Hungerford?" said Lovell, and gasped for breath and continued; "Now, I think of it, you--you wouldn't think of such a thing as going to ride with me to-night, would you, Miss Hungerford? You--you wouldn't think of such a thing, would you now?"

"Why--if you are kind enough to invite me to go sleigh-riding with you, Mr. Barlow?"

"_I_ think so;" said Lovell, grasping his gun, and becoming immediately pale, though composed. "Yes'm, _I_ think so, certainly, _I_ do."

"Thank you, I will go with pleasure," I said.

"Thank you, Miss Hungerford," said Lovell, rising hurriedly. "I wish you a pleasant day--_I_ do, with pleasure, and I hope that nothing will happen to prevent!"

And Lovell marched back across the fields as valiantly as a man may, who, on occasions of doubt and peril, takes the precaution to go suitably armed.

During the day the Wallencampers indulged in a mode of recreation, suggestive of that unique sort of inspiration to which they not unfrequently fell victims.

They attached a horse to a boat, a demoralized old boat, which had hitherto occupied a modest place amid the _debris_ surrounding the Ark, and thus equipped, they rode or sailed up and down the lane. It proved a stormy sea, and often, as the boat capsized, the air was rent with screams of mock terror and yells of unaffected delight.

Thus the youth of Wallencamp, yes, and those who heeded not the swift decline of years, by reason of the immortal freshness of their spirits, disported themselves. And I was not amazed, catching a glimpse through the school-house windows of this joyous boat on one of her return voyages up the lane, to see Grandma Keeler swaying wildly in the stern.

Meanwhile, I managed to keep my flock indoors. But when, at four o'clock, I took my ruler in hand to give the usual signal of dismissal, the Phenomenon's heels had already vanished through the window, and the repressed animal spirits of a whole barbaric epoch sounded in the whoop with which the Modoc shot through the door.

Finally, I, myself, rode up the lane in the boat. The path was well worn by this time, and there was no danger of a catastrophe. It seemed to me a novel performance enough, but I had not yet been to ride in Lovell's sleigh.

Lovell came very early, and preferred to wait outside until I had finished eating my supper. Then, with that deep self-satisfaction which predominated in my soul, even over its appreciation of the novel and amusing, I donned my seal-brown cloak, and stepping out of the door, gathered up my skirts, and smiled at Mr. Lovell with a pair of seal-brown eyes, and was not surprised to hear him e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, coughing slightly; "Ahem! _I_ think so, certainly, yes'm, _I_ think so; _I_ do."

Lovell's was the only sleigh in Wallencamp, and, as he informed me, it was one that he had himself constructed. It had, indeed, already suggested to my mind the workings of no ordinary intellect. Perhaps its most impressive features were its lowness and its height--the general lowness and length of its body, into which one could step easily, the floor being covered with a carpet of straw, suggesting field-mice; and the unusual height to which it rose in the back, being surmounted by two glittering k.n.o.bs, like those on the head-board of an old-fashioned bedstead. Half-way down the back of this imposing structure the arms or wings sprouted out, giving to the whole the appearance of an immense Pterodactyl, or some other fossil bird of fabulous proportions, and Effectually shutting in the occupants of the sleigh from any Contemplation of the possible charms of the scenery. The seat was made very low, and it was, perhaps, on this account that the horse seemed so abnormally high. It was a white horse, and from our lowly position, there seemed to be something awful and shadowy in the motions of its legs. The red of sunset had not gone out of the sky when we started, and a pale young moon was already getting up in the heavens, but we could see neither fading sky nor rising moon, nor rock, nor tree, nor snowy expanse, naught but the gigantic hoof-falls of our phantom steed.

Being thus hopelessly debarred from any communication with external nature, and fearing to give myself up to my own thoughts, which were of a somewhat dangerous character, I endeavored to engage my companion in lively and cheerful converse by the way; but he was in a position of actual physical suffering, for the reins were short--too short, that is, to form a happy connecting link between him and the horse, and poor Lovell was obliged to lean forward at an acute angle in order to grasp them at all. Whenever the ghostly quadruped made a plunge forward, as he not unfrequently did, Lovell was thrust violently down into the straw, and throughout all this he comported himself with such firm and hopeless dignity that, with the respect due to suffering, I was moved to witness the struggle, at length, with silent commiseration. Once, having kept his seat for a longer time than usual, Lovell said:--

"I'll give you a riddle, Miss Hungerford, _I_ will. Ahem! 'Why--why does a hen go around the road,' Miss Hungerford?"

I posed my head in an att.i.tude of deep thought.

"Because," Lovell hastened to say; "because she can't go across--no, that wasn't right--why--ahem! why does a hen go _across_ the road, Miss Hungerford?" and the next instant he was wallowing in the straw at my feet.

My soul was filled with unutterable compa.s.sion for him.

"Because," I ventured, when Lovell reappeared again, affecting a tone of lively inspiration: "because she can't go around it?"

"You--you've heard of it before!" gravely protested Lovell.

"I confess," said I, "that I have. It used to be my favorite riddle."

"It--it used to be mine, too," said Lovell. "It _used_ to be, Miss Hungerford--ahem! It _used_ to be--You--you couldn't tell what I was thinking of when I--ahem--when I started from home to-night, now, could you, Miss Hungerford?" said Lovell, at length.

"I'm sure I couldn't, Mr. Barlow," said I: "but I hope it was something very agreeable."

"But it wasn't," said Lovell; "that is, not very, Miss Hungerford; ahem!

not very. I was--I was--ahem! I was thinking of it, you know, of--of such a thing as getting married, you know."

"I hope," said I, cheerfully, after a pause; "that as you consider the subject longer, it will be a less painful one to you."

"I hope so, Miss Hungerford," said Lovell. "Ahem! I hope so, certainly;"

but there was little of that sanguine quality expressed in his tones.

The great white horse made another plunge forward, and Lovell recovered himself with a desperate effort.

"What should you think now, Miss Hungerford," he continued, moistening his parched lips; "if I should do such a thing as to--ahem!--as to speak of such a thing as--ahem!--as something of that sort to you, now, Miss Hungerford? Now, what should you think of such a thing? now, really?"

"I should think you were very inconsiderate," I said, "and would probably regret your rashness afterwards."

"_I_ think so," said Lovell; "ahem! _I_ think so, Miss Hungerford; _I_ do, certainly."

After this it seemed as though a weight had been lifted from Lovell's mind. He kept his seat better. His was not a buoyant spirit, but there was, on this occasion, an air of repressed cheerfulness about him such as I had never before seen him exhibit. I tried to think that it was a joyous mental rebound from the contemplation of those dark riddles which trouble humanity, "Why does the hen go across the road," etc.