Elinor Wyllys Volume Ii Part 29

"No; not in the least extraordinary," added Miss Agnes; "such marriages, dear, seem quite common." Mr. Wyllys was not at all astonished at the intelligence.

"I have expected that Harriet would marry, all along; she has a great many good intentions, and some good qualities; but I knew she would not remain a widow. It is rather strange that she should have chosen James Hubbard; but she might have done worse."

With these philosophical reflections, Mrs. Wyllys's friends looked forward to the happy event which was soon to take place.

The very same morning that Miss Agnes was taken into the confidence of the bride, the friends of the groom also learned the news, but in a more indirect manner.

The charms of a parterre are daily be-rhymed in verse, and vaunted in prose, but the beauties of a vegetable garden seldom meet with the admiration they might claim. If you talk of beets, people fancy them sliced with pepper and vinegar; if you mention carrots, they are seen floating in soup; cabbage figures in the form of cold-slaw, or disguised under drawn-b.u.t.ter; if you refer to corn, it appears to the mind's eye wrapt in a napkin to keep it warm, or cut up with beans in a succatash {sic}. Half the people who see these good things daily spread on the board before them, are only acquainted with vegetables after they have been mutilated and disguised by cookery. They would not know the leaf of a beet from that of the spinach, the green tuft of a carrot from the delicate sprigs of parsley. Now, a bouquet of roses and pinks is certainly a very beautiful object, but a collection of fine vegetables, with the rich variety of shape and colour, in leaf, fruit, and root, such as nature has given them to us, is a n.o.ble sight. So thought Uncle Dozie, at least. The rich texture and shading of the common cabbage-leaf was no novelty to him; he had often watched the red, coral-like veins in the glossy green of the beet; the long, waving leaf of the maize, with the silky ta.s.sels of its ears, were beautiful in his eyes; and so were the rich, white heads of the cauliflower, delicate as carved ivory, the feathery tuft of the carrot, the purple fruit of the egg-plant, and the brilliant scarlet tomato. He came nearer than most Christians, out of Weathersfield, to sympathy with the old Egyptians in their onion-worship.

{"parterre" = ornamental flower garden; "out of Weathersfield" = Wethersfield (the modern spelling), Connecticut, was famous for its onions (there is still a red onion called "Red Weathersfield"), until struck by a blight about 1840; "old Egyptians" = ancient Egypt was proverbial for worshiping the onion}

With such tastes and partialities, Uncle Dozie was generally to be found in his garden, between the hours of sun-rise and sun-set; gardening having been his sole occupation for nearly forty years. His brother, Mr. Joseph Hubbard, having something to communicate, went there in search of him, on the morning to which we refer. But Uncle Dozie was not to be found. The gardener, however, thought that he could not have gone very far, for he had pa.s.sed near him not five minutes before; and he suggested that, perhaps Mr. Hubbard was going out somewhere, for "he looked kind o' spruce and drest up." Mr. Hubbard expected his brother to dine at home, and thought the man mistaken. In pa.s.sing an arbour, however, he caught a glimpse of the individual he was looking for, and on coming nearer, he found Uncle Dozie, dressed in a new summer suit, sitting on the arbour seat taking a nap, while at his feet was a very fine basket of vegetables, arranged with more than usual care. Unwilling to disturb him, his brother, who knew that his naps seldom lasted more than a few minutes at a time, took a turn in the garden, waiting for him to awake. He had hardly left the arbour however, before he heard Uncle Dozie moving; turning in that direction, he was going to join him, when, to his great astonishment, he saw his brother steal from the arbour, with the basket of vegetables on his arm, and disappear between two rows of pea-brush.

"James!--I say, James!--Where are you going? Stop a minute, I want to speak to you!" cried Mr. Joseph Hubbard.

He received no answer.

"James!--Wait a moment for me! Where are you?" added the merchant; and walking quickly to the pea-rows, he saw his brother leave them and dexterously make for the tall Indian-corn. Now Uncle Dozie was not in the least deaf; and his brother was utterly at a loss to account for his evading him in the first place, and for his not answering in the second. He thought the man had lost his senses: he was mistaken, Uncle Dozie had only lost his heart. Determined not to give up the chase, still calling the retreating Uncle Dozie, he pursued him from the pea-rows into the windings of the corn-hills, across the walk to another growth of peas near the garden paling. Here, strange to say, in a manner quite inexplicable to his brother, Uncle Dozie and his vegetables suddenly disappeared! Mr. Hubbard was completely at fault: he could scarcely believe that he was in his own garden, and that it was his own brother James whom he had been pursuing, and who seemed at that instant to have vanished from before his eyes--through the fence, he should have said, had such a thing been possible. Mr. Hubbard was a resolute man; he determined to sift the matter to the bottom. Still calling upon the fugitive, he made his way to the garden paling through the defile of the peas. No one was there--a broad, open bed lay on either hand, and before him the fence. At last he observed a foot-print in the earth near the paling, and a rustling sound beyond. He advanced and looked over, and to his unspeakable amazement, saw his brother, James Hubbard, busily engaged there, in collecting the scattered vegetables which had fallen from his basket.

"Jem!--I have caught you at last, have I? What in the name of common sense are you about there?"

No reply was made, but Uncle Dozie proceeded to gather up his cauliflowers, peas and tomatoes, to the best of his ability.

"Did you fly over the fence, or through it?" asked his brother, quite surprised.

"Neither one nor the other," replied Uncle Dozie, sulkily. "I came through the gate."

"Gate!--why there never was a gate here!"

"There is one now."

And so there was; part of the paling had been turned into a narrow gate.

"Why, who cut this gate, I should like to know?"

"I did."

"You did, Jem? What for?--What is the use of it?"

"To go through."

"To go where? It only leads into Mrs. Wyllys's garden."

Uncle Dozie made no answer.

"What are you doing with those vegetables? I am really curious to know."

"Going to carry them down there," said Uncle Dozie.

"Down where?" repeated Uncle Josie, looking on the ground strewed with vegetables.

"Over there."

"Over where?" asked the merchant, raising his eyes towards a neighbouring barn before him.

"Yonder," added Uncle Dozie, making a sort of indescribable nod backward with his head.

"Yonder!--In the street do you mean? Are you going to throw them away?"

"Throw away such a cauliflower as this!" exclaimed Uncle Dozie, with great indignation.

"What are you going to do with them, then?"

"Carry them to the house there."

"What house?"

"Mrs. Wyllys's, to be sure," replied Uncle Dozie, boldly.

"What is the use of carrying vegetables to Mrs. Wyllys? She has a garden of her own" said his brother, very innocently.

"Miserable garden--poor, thin soil," muttered Uncle Dozie.

"Is it? Well, then, I can understand it; but you might us well send them by the gardener."

Uncle Dozie made no reply, but proceeded to arrange his vegetables in the basket, with an eye to appearances; he had gathered them all up again, but another object which had fallen on the gra.s.s lay unnoticed.

"What is that--a book?" asked his brother.

Uncle Dozie turned round, saw the volume, picked it up, and thrust it in his pocket.

"Did you drop it? I didn't know you ever carried a book about you," replied his brother, with some surprise. "What is it?"

"A book of poetry."

"Whose poetry?"

"I am sure I've forgotten," replied Uncle Dozie, taking a look askance at the t.i.tle, as it half-projected from his pocket. "It's Coleridge's Ancient Mariner," he added.

{"Coleridge's..." = "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). A number of chapter epigraphs in "Elinor Wyllys" are taken from this famous poem}

"What in the world are you going to do with it?" said his brother, with increasing surprise.

"I wanted a volume of poetry."

"You--Jem Hubbard! Why, I thought Yankee-Doodle was the only poetry you cared for!"

"I don't care for it, but she does."

"She!--What SHE?" asked Uncle Josie, with lively curiosity, but very little tact, it would seem.