Hetty's Strange History Part 16

"Youth is not a matter of years," replied Father Antoine. "I have known very young women much older than you."

Hetty smiled sadly, and walked on. Father Antoine's words had given her a pang. They were almost the same words which Dr. Eben had said to her again and again, when she had reasoned with him against his love for her, a woman so much older than himself. "That is all very well to say,"

thought Hetty in her matter-of-fact way, "and no doubt there are great differences in people: but old age is old age, soften it how you will; and youth is youth; and youth is beautiful, and old age is ugly. Father Antoine knows it just as well as any man. Don't I see, good as he is, every day of my life, with what a different look he blesses the fair young maidens from that with which he blesses the wrinkled old women.

There is no use minding it. It can't be helped. But things might as well be called by their right names."

Marie sat down on a garden bench, and reflected. So the good Aunt Hibba's birthday was next month, and there would be n.o.body to keep it for her in this strange country. "How can we find out?" thought Marie, "and give her a pleasure."

In summer weather, Father Antoine took his simple dinners on the porch.

It was cool there, and the vines and flowers gave to the little nook a certain air of elegance which Father Antoine enjoyed without recognizing why. On this evening Marie lingered after she had removed the table. She fidgeted about, picking up a leaf here and there, and looking at her master, till he perceived that she had something on her mind.

"What is it, Marie?" he asked.

"Oh, M'sieur Antoine!" she replied, "it is about the good Aunt Hibba's birthday. Could you not ask her when is the day? and it should be a _fete_ day, if we only knew it; there is not one that would not be glad to help make it beautiful."

"Eh, my Marie, what is it then that you plan? The people in the country from which she comes have no _fetes_. It might be that she would think it a folly," answered Father Antoine, by no means sure that Hetty would like such a testimonial.

"All the more, then, she would like it," said Marie. "I have watched her. It is delight to her when they dance about the spring, and she has the great love for flowers."

So Father Antoine, by a little circ.u.mlocution, discovered when the birthday would come, and told Marie; and Marie began straightway to go back and forth in the village, with a pleased air of mystery.

XIV.

The birthday fell on a day in June. It so happened that Hetty was later than usual in leaving her patients that night; and her purpose had been to go home by the nearest way, and not pa.s.s through the Square. The villagers had feared this, and had forestalled her; at the turning where she would have left the main road, she found waiting for her the swiftest-footed urchin in all St. Mary's, little Pierre Michaud. The readiest witted, too, and of the freest tongue, and he was charged to bring Aunt Hibba by the way of the Square, but by no means to tell her the reason.

"And if she say me nay, what is it that I am to tell her, then?" urged Pierre.

"Art thou a fool, Pierre?" said his mother, sharply, "Thou'rt ready enough with excuses, I'll warrant, for thy own purposes: invent one now.

It matters not, so that thou bring her here." And Pierre, rea.s.sured by this maternal _carte blanche_ for the best lie he could think of, raced away, first tucking securely into a niche of the stone basin the little pot with a red carnation in it which he had brought for his contribution to the birthday _fete_.

When Hetty saw Pierre waiting at the corner, she exclaimed:

"What, Pierre, loitering here! The sunset is no time to idle. Where are your goats?"

"Milked an hour ago, Tantibba[1], and in the shed," replied Pierre, with a saucy air of having the best of the argument, "and my mother waits in the Square to speak to thee as thou pa.s.sest."

[Footnote 1: "Tante Hibba."]

"I was not going that way, to-night," replied Hetty. "I am in haste.

What does she wish? Will it not do as well in the morning?"

Alarmed at this suggestion, young Pierre made a master-stroke of invention, and replied on the instant:

"Nay, Bo Tantibba[2], that it will not; for it is the little sister of Jean Cochot which has been badly bitten by a fierce dog, and the mother has her there in her arms waiting for thee to dress her wounds. Oh, but the blood doth run! and the little one's cries would pierce thy heart!"

And the rascally Pierre pretended to sob.

[Footnote 2: The French Canadians often contract "bonne" and "bon" in this way. "Bo Tantibba" is contraction for "Bonne Tante Hibba."]

"Eh, eh, how happened that?" said Hetty, hurrying on so swiftly towards the Square that even Pierre's brisk little legs could hardly keep up with her. Pierre's inventive faculty came to a halt.

"Nay, that I do not know," he replied; "but the people are all gathered around her, and they all cry out for thee by thy name. There is none like thee, Tantibba, they say, if one has a wound."

Hetty quickened her pace to a run. As she entered the Square, she saw such crowds around the basin that Pierre's tale seemed amply corroborated. Pressing in at the outer edge of the circle, she exclaimed, looking to right and left, "Where is the child? Where is Mere Michaud?" Every one looked bewildered; no one answered. Pierre, with an upward fling of his agile legs, disappeared to seek his carnation; and Hetty found herself, in an instant more, surrounded by a crowd of children, each in its finest clothes, and each bearing a small pot with a flowering-plant in it.

"For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" they all cried, pressing nearer, and lifting high their little pots.

"See my carnation!" shouted Pierre, struggling nearer to Hetty. "And my jonquil!" "And my pansies!" "And this forget-me-not!" cried the children, growing more and more excited each moment; while the chorus, "For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" rose on all sides.

Hetty was bewildered.

"What does all this mean?" she said helplessly.

Then, catching Pierre by the shoulder so suddenly that his red carnation tottered and nearly fell, she exclaimed:

"You mischievous boy! Where is the child that was bitten? Have you told me a lie?"

At this moment, Pierre's mother, pushing through the crowd, exclaimed:

"Ah! but thou must forgive him. It was I that sent him to lie to thee, that thou shouldst not go home. We go with thee, to do our honor to the day on which thou wert born!"

And so saying, Mere Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession.

The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women, all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty, and bore her with them. The children, carrying their little pots of flowers, ran along shouting and screaming with laughter to see the good "Tantibba" so amazed. Louder and louder rose the chorus:

"For thee! For thee! May the good saints bless the day thou wert born!"

Hetty was speechless: her cheeks flushed. She looked from one to the other, and all she could do was to clasp her hands and smile. If she had spoken, she would have cried. When they came to Father Antoine's cottage, there he stood waiting at the gate, wearing his Sunday robes, and behind him stood Marie, also in her best, and with her broad silver necklace on, which the villagers had only two or three times seen her wear. Marie had her hands behind her, and was trying to hold out her narrow black petticoat on each side to hide something. Mysterious and plaintive noises struggled through the woollen folds, and, at each sound, Marie stamped her foot and exclaimed angrily:

"Bah! thou silly beast, be quiet! Wilt thou spoil all our sport?"

The procession halted before the house, and Father Antoine advanced, bearing in his hands a gay wreath of flowers. The people had wished that this should be placed on Hetty's head, but Father Antoine had persuaded them to waive this part of the ceremony. He knew well that this would be more than Hetty could bear. Holding the wreath in his hands, therefore, he addressed a few words to Hetty, and then took his place by her side. Now was Marie's moment of joy. Springing to one side as quickly as her rheumatic old joints would permit, she revealed what she had been trying to hide behind her scant petticoat. It was a white lamb, decorated from ears to tail with knots of ribbon and with flowers.

The poor little thing tugged hard at the string by which it was held, and shook its pretty head in restless impatience under its load of finery, and bleated piteously: but for all that it was a very pretty sight; and the broken English with which Marie, on behalf of the villagers, presented the little creature to Hetty, was prettier still.

When they reached Hetty's gate, all the women who had hold of the long pine wreath gave their places to men; and, in the twinkling of an eye, the lithe vigorous fellows were on the fences, on the posts of the porch, nailing the wreath in festoons everywhere; from the gateway to the door in long swinging loops, above the porch, in festoons over the windows, under the eaves, and hanging in long waving ends on the walls.

Then they hung upon the door the crown which Hetty had not worn, and the little children set their gay pots of flowers on the window-sills and around the porch; and all was a merry hubbub of voices and laughter.

Hetty grasped Father Antoine by the arm.

"Oh, do you speak to them, and thank them for me! I can't!" she said; and Father Antoine saw tears in her eyes.

"But you must speak to them, my daughter," he replied, "else they will be grieved. They cannot understand that you are pleased if you say no word. I will speak first till you are more calm."

When Father Antoine had finished his speech, Hetty stepped forward, and looking round on all their faces, said:

"I do not know how to thank you, friends. I never saw any thing like this before, and it makes me dumb. All I can say is that you have filled my heart with joy, and I feel no more a stranger: your village is my home."

"Thanks to thee, then, for that! Thanks to thee! And the good saints bless the day thou wert born," shouted the people, and the little children catching the enthusiasm, and wanting to shout something, shouted: "Bo Tantibba! Bo Tantibba!" till the place rang. Then they placed the pet lamb in a little enclosed paddock which had been built for him during the day, and the children fed him with red clover blossoms through the paling; and presently, Father Antoine considerately led his flock away, saying,--"The good Aunt is weary. See you not that her eyes droop, and she has no words? It is now kind that we go away, and leave her to rest."