Queechy Volume I Part 81

"No, indeed," said Fleda, brightly; "I am very glad I have come home. We will try and manage the troubles, aunt Lucy."

There was no doing anything that day, but the very next afternoon Fleda and Hugh walked down through the snow to Mrs.

Dougla.s.s's. It was a long walk and a cold one, and the snow was heavy; but the pleasure of being together made up for it all. It was a bright walk, too, in spite of everything.

In a most thrifty-looking well-painted farm-house, lived Mrs.

Dougla.s.s.

"Why, 'taint you, is it'?" she said, when she opened the door ? "Catharine said it was, and I said I guessed it wa'n't, for I reckoned you had made up your mind not to come and see me at all. How do you do?"

The last sentence in the tone of hearty and earnest hospitality. Fleda made her excuses.

"Ay, ay ? I can understand all that just as well as if you said it. I know how much it means, too. Take off your hat."

Fleda said she could not stay, and explained her business.

"So you ha'n't come to see me, after all? Well, now, take off your hat 'cause I wont have anything to say to you till you do. I'll give you supper right away."

"But I have left my aunt alone, Mrs. Dougla.s.s; and the afternoons are so short now, it would be dark before we could get home."

"Serve her right for not coming along! and you sha'n't walk home in the dark, for Earl will harness the team, and carry you home like a streak ? the horses have nothing to do. Come, you sha'n't go."

And as Mrs. Dougla.s.s laid violent hands on her bonnet, Fleda thought best to submit. She was presently rewarded with the promise of the very person she wanted ? a boy, or young man, then in Earl Dougla.s.s's employ; but his wife said, "she guessed he'd give him up to her;" and what his wife said, Fleda knew Earl Dougla.s.s was in the habit of making good.

"There aint enough to do to keep him busy," said Mrs.

Dougla.s.s. "I told Earl he made me more work than he saved; but he's hung on till now."

"What sort of a boy is he, Mrs. Dougla.s.s."

"He aint a steel-trap, I tell you beforehand," said the lady, with one of her sharp intelligent glances; "he don't know which way to go till you show him; but he's a clever enough kind of a chap ? he don't mean no harm. I guess he'll do for what you want."

"Is he to be trusted?"

"Trust him with anything but a knife and fork," said she, with another look and shake of the head. "He has no idee but what everything on the supper-table is meant to be eaten straight off. I would keep two such men as my husband as soon as I would Philetus."

"Philetus!" said Fleda ? "the person that brought the chicken, and thought he had brought two?"

"You've hit it," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s. "Now you know him. How do you like our new minister?"

"We are all very much pleased with him."

"He's very good-looking, don't you think so?"

"A very pleasant face."

"I ha'n't seen him much yet except in church; but those that know, say he is very agreeable in the house."

"Truly, I dare say," answered Fleda, for Mrs. Dougla.s.s's face looked for her testimony.

"But I think he looks as if he was beating his brains out there among his books. I tell him he is getting the blues, living in that big house by himself."

"Do you manage to do all your work without help, Mrs.

Dougla.s.s?" said Fleda, knowing that the question was in "order," and that the affirmative answer was not counted a thing to he ashamed of.

"Well, I guess I'll know good reason," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, complacently, "before I'll have any help to spoil _my_ work.

Come along, and I'll let you see whether I want one."

Fleda went, very willingly, to be shown all Mrs. Dougla.s.s's household arrangements and clever contrivances, of her own or her husband's devising, for lessening or facilitating labour.

The lady was proud, and had some reason to be, of the very superb order and neatness of each part and detail. No corner or closet that might not be laid open fearlessly to a visitor's inspection. Miss Catharine was then directed to open her piano, and amuse Fleda with it while her mother performed her promise of getting an early supper ? a command grateful to one or two of the party, for Catharine had been carrying on all this while a most stately tete-a-tete with Hugh, which neither had any wish to prolong. So Fleda filled up the time good naturedly with thrumming over the two or three bits of her childish music that she could recall, till Mr. Dougla.s.s came in, and they were summoned to sit down to supper; which Mrs. Dougla.s.s introduced by telling her guests "they must take what they could get, for she had made fresh bread and cake and pies for them two or three times, and she wasn't a-going to do it again."

Her table was abundantly spread, however, and with most exquisite neatness; and everything was of excellent quality, saving only certain matters which call for a free hand in the use of material. Fleda thought the pumpkin pies must have been made from that vaunted stock which is said to want no eggs nor sugar, and the cakes, she told Mrs. Rossitur afterwards, would have been good if half the flour had been left out, and the other ingredients doubled, The deficiency in one kind, however, was made up by superabundance in another; the table was stocked with such wealth of crockery that one could not imagine any poverty in what was to go upon it. Fleda hardly knew how to marshal the confusion of plates which grouped themselves around her cup and saucer, and none of them might be dispensed with. There was one set of little gla.s.s dishes for one kind of sweetmeat, another set of ditto for another kind; an army of tiny plates to receive and shield the tablecloth from the dislodged cups of tea, saucers being the conventional drinking vessels; and there were the standard bread and b.u.t.ter plates, which, besides their proper charge of bread and b.u.t.ter, and beef, and cheese, were expected, Fleda knew, to receive a portion of every kind of cake that might happen to be on the table. It was a very different thing, however, from Miss Anastasia's tea-table, or that of Miss Flora Quackenboss. Fleda enjoyed the whole time without difficulty.

Mr. Dougla.s.s readily agreed to the transfer of Philetus's services.

"He's a good boy!" said Earl ? he's a good boy; he's as good a kind of a boy as you need to have. He wants tellin'; most boys want tellin'; but he'll do when he is told, and he means to do right."

"How long do you expect your uncle will be gone?" said Mrs.

Dougla.s.s.

"I do not know," said Fleda.

"Have you heard from him since he left?"

"Not since I came home," said Fleda. "Mr. Dougla.s.s, what is the first thing to be done about the maple-trees in the sugar season?"

"Why, you calculate to try makin' sugar in the spring?"

"Perhaps ? at any rate I should like to know about it."

"Well, I should think you would," said Earl, "and it's easy done ? there aint nothin' easier, when you know the right way to set to work about it; and there's a fine lot of sugar trees on the old farm ? I recollect of them sugar trees as long ago as when I was a boy ? I've helped to work them afore now, but there's a good many years since ? has made me a leetle older; but the first thing you want is a man and a team, to go about and empty the buckets ? the buckets must be emptied every day ? and then carry it down to the house."

"Yes, I know," said Fleda; "but what is the first thing to be done to the trees?"

"Why, la! 'tain't much to do to the trees ? all you've got to do is to take an axe and chip a bit out, and stick a chip a leetle way into the cut for to dreen the sap, and set a trough under, and then go on to the next one, and so on; ? you may make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree, and one or two cuts in the north side, if the tree's big enough, and if it aint, only make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree; and for the sap to run good, it had ought to be that kind o' weather when it freezes in the day and thaws by night; I would say! ? when it friz in the night and thaws in the day; the sap runs more bountifully in that kind o' weather."

It needed little from Fleda to keep Mr. Dougla.s.s at the maple- trees till supper was ended; and then, as it was already sundown, he went to harness the sleigh.

It was a comfortable one, and the horses, if not very handsome nor bright-curried, were well fed and had good heart to their work. A two-mile drive was before them, and with no troublesome tongues or eyes to claim her attention, Fleda enjoyed it fully. In the soft clear winter twilight, when heaven and earth mingle so gently, and the stars look forth brighter and cheerfuller than ever at another time, they slid along over the fine roads, too swiftly, towards home; and Fleda's thoughts as easily and swiftly slipped away from Mr.

Dougla.s.s, and maple-sugar, and Philetus, and an unfilled woodyard, and an empty flour-barrel, and revelled in the pure ether. A dark rising ground covered with wood sometimes rose between her and the western horizon; and then a long stretch of snow, only less pure, would leave free view of its unearthly white light, dimmed by no exhalation, a gentle, mute, but not the less eloquent, witness to earth of what heaven must be.

But the sleigh stopped at the gate, and Fleda's musings came home.

"Good night!" said Earl, in reply to their thanks and adieus; ? " 'taint anything to thank a body for ? let me know when you're a-goin' into the sugar-making, and I'll come and help you."

"How sweet a pleasant message may make an unmusical tongue!"

said Fleda, as she and Hugh made their way up to the house.

"We had a stupid enough afternoon," said Hugh.