Dwellers in Arcady Part 5

Matters did not go so well in the living-room. It was not because the old walls were more irregular there than elsewhere--I could negotiate that--it was those pesky bees. Reshingling the sides of the house had closed their outlets, and they had now found a crevice somewhere around the big chimney and were pouring in and out, whizzing and buzzing around the room by the hundred, clinging to the windows in droves, a maddening distraction on a hot afternoon to a man with his head tipped back, in the act of laying a long, flimsy strip of wall-paper on a wavy, billowy old ceiling. They were no longer vicious and dangerous--they were only disorganized and panic-stricken. A hundred times a day I swept quant.i.ties of them from the windows and released them to the open air.

It was no use to shut the doors, for there still were pecks of them between the floor and ceiling, and these came pouring out steadily, while those that I had dismissed hurried back again as soon as they could get their breath. I began to think we had met disaster in this unexpected quarter--that those persistent little colonists were going to dispossess us altogether.

Old Nat and I had tried smoking them with sulphur, which had quieted them temporarily while the men were shingling, but it had in no way discouraged them. In fact, I think there is nothing that will discourage a bee but sudden death, and that seems a pity, for in his proper sphere he is one of our most useful citizens.

He is so wise, so wonderfully skilled and patient. I have read Maeterlinck's life of him, and there is nothing I would t do for a bee--a reasonable bee--one that would appreciate a little sound advice.

That's just the trouble--a bee isn't built that way. He is so smart and capable, and such a wonder in most things, that he won't discuss any matter quietly and see where he is wrong and go his way in peace. Those bees thought that, just because they had found a hole in the outside of an old house, it was their house, and if anybody had to move it wouldn't be they. I explained the situation over and over and begged them to go away while the weather was still warm and the going good, but they just whizzed and raged around the rooms and sickened me with their noise and obstinacy.

When Elizabeth and the Joy came up, school matters being arranged, we decided, among other things, to evict those bees. There was just one way to do it, Westbury said, which was to saw through the floor up-stairs and take them out. He thought there would be some honey. We did not count much on that; what we wanted was to be rid of the pests forever. I sent word to our carpenter, and Henry Jones came one morning with his saws.

In a corner of the upper room where we had heard a great buzzing he bored a hole through the flinty oak floors. I had the smoker ready and pumped the sulphur fumes in pretty freely. Then he began to saw. He had gone only a little way when he said:

"My saw is running in honey."

Sure enough, it was coated with the clear sticky substance, which certainly did not make it run any easier. By hard work he managed to cut across two of the wide boards, and through them again, adjoining the next joist. When he was ready to lift out I pumped a new supply of smoke into the holes, then rather gingerly we pried up the pieces.

What a sight it was! Covered by a myriad of stupefied bees was layer upon layer of pure honey, the frightened insects plunging into the cells, filling themselves with their own merchandise, as is their habit when alarmed. Lazarus, a small colored a.s.sistant whom we had recently acquired, peered in cautiously (the sulphur fumes being still suggestive, with a good many bees flying), and I sent him for something to put the honey in--something large, I said--a dishpan.

But Elizabeth had no great faith in our bee investigations, or she may have been inclined to discount Lazarus. She sent a porcelain dish, which I filled with a few choice pieces.

"Tell her this is just a sample, and to send the dishpan."

But still she thought either I or Lazarus was excited, and sent only an agate stew-pan, which I also filled.

"Take it down, Lazarus, and tell her that we still need the dishpan."

So then at last it came up, and we filled that, too.

We were not through, however. There was a heavy buzzing near the center of the room, and again we bored and smoked and sawed, and presently uncovered another swarm, with another surplus stock, this time a wash-boiler full, most of it fine and white, though some of the pieces were discolored, showing age. Elizabeth left her occupations and came up to investigate. Our old house had proven a regular honey-mine. We had enough for an indefinite period, and some for the neighbors. I suppose if we had left an outside hole for those bees they would have gone on multiplying and eventually would have packed our floors and walls solid full of honey, and we should have had, in truth, "the very sweetest house in all the world."

I confess we felt sorry for those poor bees. A quant.i.ty of them refused to leave the premises and persisted on squeezing into the house if a door or window was left open. A clot of them formed on an old fence-post--around their queen, perhaps--and would not go away, though they knew quite well we had hardened our hearts against them and would not relent. If I had it to do over again I would bring down an old hive made from a hollow log, which we found up in the attic, and put into it some honey and some comb and invite them to set up business again in a small way. But my wounds were too fresh. They had daubed some of my new paper, driven me nearly frantic with their commotion, and stung me in several localities. The old fence-post was quite loose. In the evening I softly lifted it out, carried it to a remote place, and left it, just as any other heartless person would drop an unwelcome kitten. When I pa.s.sed that way the following spring they were gone.

A last word about our papering. To this day I am proud of the job and don't wish to dismiss it in any casual way. I left our square "best"

room till the last; it made a dramatic ending.

I believe I have not mentioned before that I washed down the old plaster with a solution of vinegar (a remnant from one of Uncle Joe's barrels) in order to kill the lime, which, Westbury said, was bad for the sticking qualities of the paste. Perhaps I made my solution a bit too strong for the "best"-room walls, or it may be that the plaster there was different--I don t know. I know that I worked till nearly midnight to get done, Elizabeth holding a pair of lamps, and that when we came down next morning to admire our beautiful green walls by daylight, they were no longer green--at least, not solidly so, not definitely so. What seemed to us at first a sorrowful mottled complaint in yellow had every-where broken through, and I had the sickening feeling that my work was wasted and must be done over. But presently Elizabeth said, reflectively:

"It isn't so bad just as it is."

And I said, "Why, no! it's a kind of a pattern."

And then we both said, "Why, it's really artistic and beautiful."

And so it was. Over the dull green a large, irregular lacework of dull yellow had spread itself, and the more we looked the better we liked it.

Just why the chemical affinity between plaster and paper should produce that particular effect we could not imagine, but there it was and there it stayed, for the process did not go any farther. Later on, when our furniture and pictures were in place, visitors used to say, "_Wherever_ did you get that wonderful paper?" If they were true friends and worthy, we told them. Otherwise we would vaguely hint of a special pattern, and that there was no more to be had of the kind.

IV

_There was a place we sometimes visited to see the trout_

I suppose about the most beautiful thing in life is novelty. In it is the chief charm of youth and travel and honeymoons. I will not say it is the most valuable thing there is, and it is likely to be about the most transient. But while it lasts it is precious, and inspiring beyond words.

No other autumn could ever be quite like that first one of our new possession, none could ever have the halo and the bloom of novelty that made us revel in all the things we could do and moved us to undertake them all. Days to come would be more peaceful and abundantly satisfying, happier, even, in the fullness of accomplishment, but never again would we know quite the thrill that each day brought during our first golden September at Brook Ridge.

To begin with, it was September, and golden. The rains of August had ceased and their lavish abundance had filled brook and river and left the world a garden of wild aster and goldenrod, with red apples swinging from the trees, ma.s.sed umbels of dark elderberries, and pink and purple grapes ripening in the sun. Our satisfaction with everything was unbounded. A New England farm, with its brook and springs and gray walls and odd corners, seemed to us, of all possessions, the most desirable.

We took long walks through our quiet woods where there were hickory and chestnut trees, and oaks and hemlocks, and slender white birches that were like beautiful spirits, and tall maples, and even apple-trees, wild seedlings, planted by the birds, but thrifty and bearing. We had never seen that in the West. The fruit was not very tender, but well flavored and made delicious sauce.

"Why, it must be the Garden of Eden," we said, "if the apple-tree grows wild!"

We carried baskets and gathered in infinite variety. Apples, hickory-nuts, berries, mushrooms--especially mushrooms, for we were fond of them and had carefully acquainted ourselves with the deadly kinds.

Those, by the way, are all that one needs to know. All the others may be eaten. Some of them may taste like gall and wormwood, or living and enduring fire, and an occasional specimen may make the experimenter feel briefly unwell, but if he will acquaint himself with the virulent amanita varieties, and shun them, he will not die--not from poison. I do not guarantee against indigestion.

We would bring home as many as seventeen sorts of those edible toadstools, beautiful things in creamy white, brown, purple, yellow, coral, and vivid scarlet, and get out our _Book of a Thousand Kinds_, and patiently identify them, tasting for the flavor and sometimes getting a hot one or a bitter one, but often putting as many as a dozen kinds into the chafing-dish. Even if the result was occasionally a bit "woodsy" as to savor, we did not mind much, not in those days of novelty, though Elizabeth did once think she felt a "little dizzy" after an unusually large collection, and I had a qualm or two myself. But when we looked up and found that mushroom poison does not begin to destroy for several hours, we fell to discussing other matters, and did not remember our slight inconvenience until long after we should have been dead, by the book limitation.

There was a gap in the stone wall where we pa.s.sed from our land into Westbury's, and beyond it an open place that was a mushroom-garden.

Green and purple russulas grew there as if they had been planted, beds of coral-hued "Tom Thumbs" that were like strawberries, and a big, bitter variety of boletus, worthless but beautiful, having the size and appearance of a pie--a meringue pie, well browned. A path led to another garden where in a hidden nook we one day discovered a quant.i.ty of chanterelles that were like wonderful black morning-glories. It was duskily shaded there, and through the flickering green we noticed a vivid, red spot that was like a flame. We pushed out to it and came upon a tiny, silent brook slipping through a bed of cowslip and water-arum, and at its margin a scarlet cardinal-flower, burning a star upon the afternoon.

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There was a place which we sometimes visited to see the trout. You crossed the bean-lot and came to a little secluded land where there were slim cedars and gra.s.s and asters and goldenrod, a spot so still and unvisited that it was like a valley that one might find in a dream. Our brook flowed through it and in one place there was a quiet pool and an overhanging rock. Willows and alders sheltered it, and if you slipped through without noise and lay very still, you were pretty sure to see a school of trout, for it was their favorite haunt. Once we counted twenty-two there, lying head up-stream, gently fanning their tails and white-edged fins. They were a handsome lot, ranging in size from eight to twelve inches, and we would not have parted with them for the cost of the farm.

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The "precious ones" joined in some of these excursions, but our diversions were too tame for them, as a rule. Wading, racing up and down, tumbling on the hay, with now and then a book in the shade, was more to their liking. When the two older ones had gone to school and the Joy was with us alone, she invented plays of her own, plays in which a capering horse--that is to say, herself--had the star part. Once I found her sitting by a tub of water, sailing a wonderful boat in it--one that she had made for herself, out of a chip and a nail, using a stone for a hammer. She wore one of the antique bonnets brought down from the attic, and seemed lost in contemplation of her handiwork. Without her noticing, I made a photograph. How it carries me back, to-day.

I have mentioned our varied undertakings. When wild grapes ripened on the roadside walls--the big, fragrant wild grapes of New England--we made a real business of gathering them. They were in endless quant.i.ty, three colors--pink, purple, and white--and their rich odor betrayed them. Placing some stones in the brook one afternoon, I became conscious of a thick wave of that sweet perfume, and, looking up, discovered a natural trellis of cl.u.s.ters just above my head. I don't know how many bushels we gathered in all, or how many quarts of jelly and jam and sweet wine we made. I found in the attic, which we named our "Swiss Family Robinson," because it was provided with everything we needed, an old pair of "pressers," and squeezed out grape juice and elderberry juice and blackberry juice, while Elizabeth stirred and boiled and put away, for we were New England farmers now, and were going to do all the things, and have preserves and nuts and apples laid away for winter. How we worked--played, I mean, for with novelty one does not work, but becomes a child again, and plays. And the more toys we can find, and the longer we can make each one last, the happier and better and younger we shall be.

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CHAPTER FOUR

I

_There is compensation even for moving_

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On the 1st of October we moved. Ah, me! How easily one may dismiss in words an epic thing like that. Yet it is better so. Moves, like earthquakes, are all a good deal alike, except as to size and the extent of destruction. Few care for the details. I still have an impression of two or three nightmarish days that began with some attempt at real packing and ended with a desperate dropping of anything into any convenient box or barrel or bureau drawer, and of a final fevered morning when two or more criminals in the guise of moving-men b.u.mped and sc.r.a.ped our choicest pieces down tortuous stairways and slammed them into their cavernous vans, leaving on the pavement certain unsightly, disreputable articles for every pa.s.ser-by to scorn.

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It is true that this time we had a box-car--we had never before risen to that dignity--and I recall a weird traveling to and fro with the vans, and intervals of anguish when I watched certain precious, and none too robust, examples of the antique fired almost bodily into its deeper recesses. Oh, well, never mind; it came to an end. Our goods arrived at the Brook Ridge station, and Westbury and his teams transported them--not to the house, but to the barn, for among other things in Brook Ridge we had unearthed an old cabinet-maker whom we had engaged for the season to put us in order before we set our possessions in place. He erected a bench in the barn, and there for a month he glued and sc.r.a.ped and polished and tacked, and as each piece was finished we brought it in and tried it in one place and another, discovering all over again how handsome it was, restored and polished, and now at last in its proper setting.

There was compensation even for moving in getting settled in that progressive way, each evening marking a step toward completion. When our low book shelves were ranged in the s.p.a.ces about the walls, the books wiped and put into them; when our comfortable chairs were drawn about the fireplaces; when our tall clock with a shepherdess painted on the dial had found its place between the windows and was ticking comfortably--we felt that our dream of that first day was coming true, and that the reality was going to be even better than the dream.