Cape Cod Folks Part 4

"Yis, yis, ma," replied the old man, hastily. "Then there was Winfield and John, they're all dead now, and Bartholomew, he was first mate in a sailin' vessel; fine man, Bartholomew was, fine man; he----"

"Wall, thar' now," said Grandma; "you'll never git through namin' on 'em, pa, if you stop to talk about 'em."

"Yis, yis," continued Grandpa, hopelessly confused, and showing dark symptoms of smouldering wrath; "there was Bartholomew. That makes a,--le'

me see, Bartholomew,----"

"How many Bartholomews was there?" inquired Grandma, with pitiless coolness of demeanor.

"Thar', now, ma, ye've put me all out!" cried Grandpa, taking refuge in loud and desperate reproach; "I was gettin' along first-rate; why couldn't ye a kept still and let me reckoned 'em through?"

"Yer musn't blame me, pa, 'cause yer can't carry yer own brothers in yer head." There was a touch of gentle reproach in Grandma's calm voice.

"Why, there was my mother's cousin 'Statia, that was only second cousin to me, and no relation at all, on my father's side, and she had thirteen children, three of 'em was twins and one of 'em was thrins, and I could name 'em all through, and tell you what year they was born, and what day, and who vaccinated 'em. There was Amelia Day, she was born April ninth, eighteen hundred and seventeen, Doctor Sweet vaccinated her, and it took in five days." And so on Grandma went through the entire list, gradually going more and more into particulars, but always coming out strong on the main facts.

The effect could not have failed to deepen in Grandpa's bosom a mortifying sense of his own incompetency.

When I got up from the Keelers' breakfast table there was something choking me besides the herrin' and golden seal, and it was not homesickness, either; but as I stepped out of Mrs. Philander's low door into the light and air, all lesser impulses were forgotten in a glow and thrill of exultation. I wondered if that far, intense blue was the natural color of the Cape Cod sky in winter, and if its January sun always showered down such rich and golden beams. There was no snow on the ground; the fields presented an almost spring-like aspect, in contrast with the swarthy green of the cedars. The river ran sparkling in summer-fashion at the foot of "Eagle Hill." From the bay, the sea air came up fresh and strong. I drank it with deep inspirations. At that moment it seemed to me that I had indeed been born to perform a mission.

It was so hopeful to turn over an entire fresh leaf in the book of life, and I was resolved to do it heroically, at any cost. I reflected, not without a shade of annoyance, that I had forgotten to say my prayers, after all. At the same time I had a sort of conviction that it wasn't so unfortunate a remissness on my part as it would have been for some less qualified by nature to take care of themselves.

I discovered the school-house at the end of the lane. The general air of the Wallencamp houses was stranded and unsettled, as though, detained in their present position for some brief and restless season, they dreamed ever of unknown voyages yet to be made on the sea of life. They were very poor, very old. Some of them were painted red in front, some of them had only a red door, being otherwise quite brown and unadorned. There was one exception,--Emily Gaskell's--that stood on the hill, and was painted all over and had green blinds.

I heard a mighty rushing sound mingled with whoops and yells and the terrible clamp of running feet, and was made aware that a detachment from my flock was coming up the lane to meet me.

A girl, taller than I, with stooping shoulders and a piquant and good-natured cast of features, seized my hand and swung it in childish and confiding fashion. She had warts. I wondered, uneasily, if they would be contagious through my gloves.

I was struck with the uncommon beauty of one st.u.r.dy little fellow. He was barefooted (on Cape Cod, in January), and ragged enough to have satisfied the most crazy devotee of the picturesque. His shapely head was set on his shoulders in an exceedingly high-bred way, while its bad archangel effect was intensified by rings of curling black hair and great, seductive black eyes.

The children walked back, in comparative quiet, toward the school-house, except this boy. To him care was evidently a thing unknown. He managed, while keeping the distance undiminished between himself and me, to perform a great variety of antics, in which, by way of an occasional relief, his head was seen to rise above his heels.

Emily's wash had been left out to dry during the night. The wind had torn various articles from the line and carried them down in the direction of the lane fence.

My gymnastic-performing imp vanished through the bars. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time he reappeared, clothed--but, alas! I cannot tell how the imp was clothed, except to say that Emily being a tall, woman and the imp but a well-grown boy of ten, the effect was strangely voluminous and oriental.

This part of the lane was marked by some insignificant though very abrupt depressions and elevations of the surface. Occasionally he of the floating apparel was lost to sight; then he would appear all glorious on some small height, while the mind was compelled to revert irreverently to the picture of Moses on Mount Pisgah. He was the personification of impudence, withal, looking back and showing his teeth in superlative appreciation of his own sinfulness. He descended, and I looked to see him arise again, but I saw him no more.

I had a faint and fleeting vision, afterwards, of an apostolic figure flying back across the fields. It was so indistinct as to remain only among the ephemera of my fancy.

In a fork of the roads, opposite the school-house, stood a house with a red door. It was loaded, in summer, with honeysuckle vines. Aunt Lobelia sat always at the window. Sometimes she had the asthma and sometimes she sang. This morning her favorite refrain from the Moody and Sankey Hymnal was wafted in loud accents up the lane:--

"Dar' to be a Danyell!

Dar' to be a Danyell!

Dar' to make it known!"

As I entered the school-house, the inspiring strains still followed me.

There was a large Franklin stove within, which exhibited the most enormous draught power, emitting sparks and roaring in a manner frightful to contemplate.

Aunt Patty, who acted the part of janitress of the school-house at night and morning, had written on the blackboard in a large admonitory hand, "No spitting on this floor, you ninnies!"

The bench, containing the water-pail, occupied the most central position in the room. At one side of the bench hung a long-handled tin dipper; on the other, another tin instrument, resembling an ear-trumpet, profoundly exaggerated in size.

"That's what you've got to blow to call us in," exclaimed a small child, with antic.i.p.ative enlivenment.

I went to the door with the instrument.

"Dar' to be a Danyell!

Dar' to make it known."

The stirring measures came across from Aunt Lobelia's window. Then the singer paused.

There were other faces at other windows. The countenances of the boys and girls gathered about the door were ominously expressive. I lifted the horn to my lips. I blew upon it what was intended for a cheerful and exuberant call to duty, but to my chagrin it emitted no sound whatever. I attempted a gentle, soul-stirring strain; it was as silent as the grave.

I seized it with both hands, and, oblivious to the hopeful derision Gathering on the faces of those about me, I breathed into it all the despair and anguish of my expiring breath. It gave forth a hollow, soulless, and lugubrious squeak, utterly out of proportion to the vital force expended, yet I felt that I had triumphed, and detected a new expression of awe and admiration on the faces of my flock.

"I don't see how she done it," I heard one freckled-faced boy exclaim, confidingly to another; "with a hull b.u.t.ton in thar'!"

"Who put the b.u.t.ton in the horn?" I inquired of the youngster afterwards, quite in a pleasant tone, and with a smile on which I had learned to depend for a particularly delusive effect; at the same time I put up my gla.s.ses to impress him with a sense of awe.

"Simmy B.," he answered.

"And which is Simmy B.?" I questioned, glancing about the school-room.

"Oh, he ain't comin' in," gasped my informer; "he run over cross-lots with Emily's clo's on."

I had planned not to confine my pupils to the ordinary method of imbibing knowledge through the medium of text-books, but by means of lectures, which should be interspersed with lively anecdotes and rich with the fruitful products of my own experience, to teach them.

My first lecture was, quite appropriately, on the duty of close application and faithful persistence in the acquisition of knowledge, depicting the results that would inevitably accrue from the observance of such a course, and here, glowing and dazzled by my theme, I even secretly regretted that modesty forbade me to recommend to my pupils, as a forcible ill.u.s.tration, one who occupied so conspicuous a position before them.

My new method of instruction, though not appreciated, perhaps, in its intrinsic design, was received, I could not but observe, with the most unbounded favor.

After the first open-mouthed surprise had pa.s.sed away from the countenances of my audience, I was loudly importuned on all sides for water. I was myself extravagantly thirsty. I requested all those who had "slit herrin'" for breakfast to raise their hands.

Every hand was raised.

I gravely inquired if slit herrin' formed an ordinary or accustomed repast in Wallencamp, and was unanimously a.s.sured in the affirmative.

After dwelling briefly on the grat.i.tude that should fill our hearts in view of the unnumbered blessings of Providence, I inaugurated a system by which a pail of fresh water was to be drawn from one of the neighboring wells, and impartially distributed among the occupants of the school-room, once during each successive hour of the day. The water was to be pa.s.sed about in the tin dipper, in an orderly manner, by some member of the flock, properly appointed to that office, either on account of general excellence or some particular mark of good behavior; though I afterwards found it advisable not to insist on any qualifications of this sort, but to elect the water-bearers merely according to their respective rank in age. This really proved to be one of the most lively and interesting exercises of the school, was always cheerfully undertaken, executed in the most complete and faithful manner, and never on any account forgotten or omitted.

I drank, and continued my lecture, but the first look of attractive surprise never came back to the faces of my audience. They sought diversion in a variety of ways, acquitting themselves throughout with a commendable degree of patience until they found it necessary gently to admonish me that it was time for recess.

After recess, as the result of deep meditation, in which I had concluded that the mind of the Wallencamp youth was not yet prepared for the introduction of new and advanced methods, I examined my pupils preparatory to giving them lessons and arranging them in cla.s.ses, in the ordinary way. I found that they could not read, but they could write in a truly fluent and unconventional style; they could not commit prosaical facts to memory, but they could sing songs containing any number of irrelevant stanzas. They could not "cipher," but they had witty and salient answers ready for any emergency. There seemed to be no particular distinction among them in regard to the degree of literary attainment, so I arranged them in cla.s.ses, with an eye mainly to the novel and picturesque in appearance.

They were a little disappointed at the turn in affairs, having evidently antic.i.p.ated much from the continuation of the lecture system, yet they were disposed to look forward to school-life, in any case, as not without its ameliorating conditions.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEAUX OF WALLENCAMP PERFORM A GRAVE DUTY.