Hills of the Shatemuc Part 5

An old black woman, the sole house servant of the family, presently came in, and while taking up two or three of the plates, cast looks of affectionate pity at her mistress and friend. She had been crying herself, but her sorrow had taken a quiet form.

"Don't ye!" she said in a troubled voice, and laying her shrivelled hand timidly on Mrs. Landholm's shoulder, -- "don't ye, Mis' Landholm. He's in the Lord's hand, -- and just you let him be there."

Mrs. Landholm threw her ap.r.o.n over her face and went out of the kitchen into her own room. The old woman continued to go round the table, gathering the plates, but very evidently busy with something else; and indeed humming or talking to herself, in a voice far from steady,

"'There is a happy land, Where parting is unknown --'"

She broke off and sat down and put her face in her hands and wept.

"Oh Lord! -- oh good Lord! -- I wish I was there! -- Be still Karen -- that's very wicked -- wait, wait. 'They shall not be ashamed that wait for him,' he said, -- They will not be ashamed," she repeated, looking up, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. "I will wait. But oh! -- I wisht I had patience! I want to get straight out of trouble, -- I do. Not yet, Karen, -- not yet. 'When _he_ giveth quietness, then who can make trouble?' That's it -- that's my way."

She went about her business and quietly finished it.

It had long been done, and the afternoon was wearing well on, when Mrs. Landholm came into the kitchen again. Karen had taken care of the children meanwhile. But where was Winthrop?

The mother, now quite herself, bethought her of him. Karen knew he was not about the house. But Mrs. Landholm saw that one of the big barn doors was open, and crossed over to it. A small field lay between that and the house. The great barn floor was quite empty, as she entered, except of hay and grain, with which the sides were tightly filled up to the top; the ends were neatly dressed off; the floor left clean and bare. It oddly and strongly struck her, as she saw it, the thought of the hands that had lately been so busy there; the work left, the hands gone; and for a few moments she stood absolutely still, feeling and putting away the idea that made her heart ache. She had a battle to fight before she was mistress of herself and could speak Winthrop's name. n.o.body answered; and scolding herself for the tone of her voice, Mrs.

Landholm spoke again. A little rustling let her know that she was heard; and presently Winthrop made his appearance from below or from some distant corner behind the hay, and came to meet her. He could not command his face to his mother's eyes, and sorrow for Will for a moment was half forgotten in sorrow for him. As they met she put both hands upon his shoulders, and said wistfully, "My son?" -- But that little word silenced them both. It was only to throw their arms about each other and hide their faces in each other's neck, and cry strange tears; tears that are drawn from the heart's deepest well.

Slight griefs flow over the surface, with fury perhaps; but the purest and the sweetest waters are drawn silently.

Winthrop was the first to recover himself, and was kissing his mother with manly quietness before she could raise her head at all. When she did, it was to return his kisses, first on one cheek and then on the other and then on his forehead, parting the hair from it with both hands for the purpose. It seemed as if she would have spoken, but she did not, then, not in words.

"My boy," she said at last, "you have too hard measure laid on you!"

"No, mother -- I don't think it so; -- there is nothing to make me sorry in that."

"Will has got his wish," she observed presently.

"Don't you approve of it mother?"

"Yes --" she said, but as if there were many a thought before and behind.

"_Don't_ you approve of it, mother?" Winthrop asked quickly.

"Yes, yes -- I do, -- in itself; but you know there is one wish before all others in my mind, for him and for you, Winthrop."

He said nothing.

"Come," she said a moment after more cheerfully, "we must go in and see how cosy and sociable we can make ourselves alone.

We must practise," -- for next winter, she was going to say, but something warned her to stop. Winthrop turned away his face, though he answered manfully.

"Yes mother -- I must just go over to the bank field and see what Sam Doolittle has been at; and I've got to cut some wood; then I'll be in."

"Will you be back by sundown?"

"I'll not be long after."

The mother gave a look towards the sun, already very near the high western horizon, and another after Winthrop who was moving off at a good pace; and then slowly walked back to the house, one hand clasping its fellow in significant expression.

Karen was sitting in her clean kitchen with little Winifred on her knees, and singing to her in a very sweet Methodist tune,

"There fairer flowers than Eden's bloom, Nor sin nor sorrow know.

Blest seats! -- through rude and stormy seas, I onward press to you."

The mother stooped to take up the child.

"What put that into your head, Karen?"

"Everything puts it in my head, missus," said the old woman with a smiling look at her; "sometimes when I see the sun go down, I think by'm-by I won't see him get up again; and times when I lose something, I think by'm-by I won't want it; and sometimes when somebody goes away, I think by'm-by we'll be all gone, and then we'll be all together again; only I'd like sometimes to be all together without going first."

"Will you get down, Winnie?" said her mother, "and let mamma make a cake for brother Winthrop?"

"A cake? -- for Governor?"

"Yes; get down, and I'll make one of Governor's hoe-cakes."

The spirit of love and cheerfulness had got the upper hand when the little family party gathered again; at least that spirit had rule of all that either eyes or ears could take note of. They gathered in the 'keeping-room,' as it was called; the room used as a common sitting room by the family, though it served also the purpose of a sleeping chamber, and a bed accordingly in one corner formed part of the furniture.

Their eyes were accustomed to that. It did not hurt the general effect of comfort. There the supper-table was set this evening; the paper window-curtains were let down, and a blazing fire sparkled and crackled; while before it, on the approved oaken barrel-head set up against the andirons, the delicate rye and indian hoe-cake was toasting into sweetness and brownness. Asahel keeping watch on one side of the fire, and Winifred at the other burning her little fair cheek in premature endeavours to see whether the cake was ready to be turned.

"What's going on here!" said Winthrop, catching her up in his arms as he came in.

Winifred laughed and kissed him, and then with an earnest slap of her little hand on his cheek requested to be set down, that she might see, "if that side wasn't done."

"Yes, to be sure it's done," said Asahel. "Where's mamma to turn it?"

"Here," said Winthrop, taking up the barrel cover, -- "do you think n.o.body can turn a cake but mamma?"

"_You_ can't," said Asahel, -- "you'll let it fall in the ashes, -- you will! --"

But the slice of half baked dough was cleverly and neatly slipped off the board and happily put in its place again with the right side out; and little Winifred, who had watched the operation anxiously, said with a breath of satisfaction and in her slow utterance,

"There -- Governor can do anything!"

There were several cakes to take the benefit of the fire, one after the other, and then to be split and b.u.t.tered, and then to be eaten; and cakes of Winthrop's baking and mamma's b.u.t.tering, the children p.r.o.nounced "as good as could be."

Nothing could have better broken up the gloom of their little tea party than Winthrop's hoe-cakes; and then the tea was so good, for n.o.body had eaten much dinner.

The children were in excellent spirits, and Winthrop kept them in play; and the conversation went on between the three for a large part of the evening. When the little ones were gone to bed, then indeed it flagged; Winthrop and his mother sat awhile silently musing, and then the former bade her good night.

It was long before Mrs. Landholm thought of going to bed, or thought of anything around her; the fire was dead and her candle burnt out, when at length she roused herself. The cold wind made itself felt through many a crevice in the wooden frame house; and feeling too much of its work upon her, she went into the kitchen to see if there were not some warmth still lingering about the covered-up fire. To her surprise, the fire was not covered up; a glow came from it yet; and Winthrop sat there on the hearth, with his head leaning against the jamb and his eyes intently studying the coals. He started, and jumped up.

"Winthrop! --what are you here for, my dear?"

"I came out to warm myself."

"Haven't you been to bed?"

"No ma'am."