Stories by American Authors Volume IV Part 8

The summer heats came on apace and the nights grew shorter. It seemed to Dorothy that she had hardly stretched out her tired young body and forgotten her cares in the low attic bedroom, before the east was streaked with light and the birds were singing in the apple-trees, whose falling blossoms drifted in at the window.

One day in early June, Friend Barton's flock of sheep--consisting of nine experienced ewes, six yearlings, and a sprinkling of close-curled lambs whose legs had not yet come into mature relations with their bodies--were gathered in a little railed inclosure, beside the stream which flowed into the "mill head." It was supplied by the waste from the pond, and when the gate was shut, rambled easily over the gray slate pebbles, with here and there a fall, just forcible enough to serve as a douche bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting in their heavy fleeces, and their hoa.r.s.e, plaintive tremolo mingled with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic.

Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage.

The two elder boys stood in the stream to receive the sheep, which she, with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged to the bank.

The boys were at work now upon an elderly ewe, while Dorothy stood on the brink of the stream, braced against an ash sapling, dragging at the fleece of a beautiful but reluctant yearling. Her bare feet were incased in a pair of moccasins which laced around the ankle; her petticoats were kilted, and her broad hat bound down with a ribbon; one sleeve was rolled up, the other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the sheep-pen. The new candidate for immersion stood bleating and trembling, with her fore feet planted against the slippery bank, pushing back with all her strength, while Jimmy propelled from the rear.

"Boys!" Dorothy's clear voice called across the stream. "_Do_ hurry!

She's been in long enough, now! Keep her head up, can't you, and squeeze the wool _hard_! You're not _half_ washing! Oh, Reuby! thee'll drown her! Keep her _head_ up!"

Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,--Dorothy released the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb, Reuby!" she cried, with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the yearling, which had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an obstacle in its path, which happened to be Jimmy. He was now wailing on the bank, while Dorothy, with the ewe's nose tucked comfortably in the bend of her arm, was parting and squeezing the fleece, with the water swirling round her. Her stout arms ached, and her ears were stunned with the incessant bleating; she counted with dismay the sheep still waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! _do_ stop crying, or else go to the house!"

"He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now Dorothy's sole dependence.

"Oh yes; do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go, and come back quick."

The water had run low that morning in Evesham's pond. He shut down the mill, and strode up the hills, across lots, to raise the gate of the lower Barton Pond, which had been heading up for his use. He pa.s.sed the corn-field where, a month before, he had seen pretty Dorothy Barton dropping corn with her brothers. It made him ache to think of Dorothy, with her feeble mother, the boys, as wild as preacher's sons proverbially are, and the old farm running down on her hands; the fences all needed mending, and there went Reuben Barton, now, careering over the fields in chase of a stray yearling. His mother's house was big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he thought of the "one ewe-lamb" he coveted, out of Friend Barton's rugged pastures. As he raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with its tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts in his blood;--the distant bleating, the hot June sunshine and cloudless sky, did not suggest to him sheep-washing;--but now came a boy's voice shouting and a cry of distress, and he remembered, with a thrill, that Friend Barton used the stream for that peaceful purpose.

He shut down the gate and tore along through the ferns and tangled gra.s.s till he came to the sheep-pen, where the bank was muddy and trampled. The prisoners were bleating drearily and looking with longing eyes across to the other side, where those who had suffered were now straying and cropping the short turf, through the lights and shadows of the orchard.

There was no other sign of life, except a broad hat with a brown ribbon, buffeted about in an eddy, among the stones. The stream dipped now below the hill, and the current, still racing fast with the impetus he had given it, shot away among the hazel thickets which crowded close to the brink. He was obliged to make a detour by the orchard, and come out at the "mill-head" below;--a black, deep pool, with an ugly ripple setting across it to the "head-gate." He saw something white clinging there and ran round the brink. It was the sodden fleece of the old ewe which had been drifted against the "head-gate," and held there to her death. Evesham, with a sickening contraction of the heart, threw off his jacket for a plunge, when Dorothy's voice called rather faintly from the willows on the opposite bank.

"Don't jump! I'm here," she said. Evesham searched the willows, and found her seated in the sun just beyond, half buried in a bed of ferns.

"I wouldn't have called thee," she said shyly, as he sank, pale and panting, beside her, "but thee looked--I thought thee was going to jump into the mill-head!"

"I thought _you_ were there, Dorothy!"

"I was there quite long enough. Shep pulled me out; I was too tired to help myself much." Dorothy held her palm pressed against her temple, and the blood trickled from beneath, streaking her pale, wet cheek.

"He's gone to the house to get me a cloak. I don't want mother to see me--not yet," she said.

"I'm afraid you ought not to wait, Dorothy. Let me take you to the house, won't you? I'm afraid you'll get a deadly chill."

Dorothy did not look in the least like death. She was blushing now, because Evesham would think it so strange of her to stay, and yet she could not rise in her wet clothes, which clung to her like the calyx to a bud.

"Let me see that cut, Dorothy, _please_!"

"Oh, it's nothing. I don't _wish_ thee to look at it!"

"But I will! Do you want to make me your murderer--sitting there in your wet clothes, with a cut on your head?"

He drew away her hand, and the wound, indeed, was no great affair, but he bound it up deftly with strips of his handkerchief. Dorothy's wet curls touched his fingers and clung to them, and her eyelashes drooped lower and lower.

"I think it was _very_ stupid of thee. Didn't thee hear us from the dam? I'm sure we made noise enough."

"Yes, I heard you when it was too late. I heard the sheep before, but how could I imagine that _you_, Dorothy, and three boys, as big as c.o.c.kerels, were sheep-washing? It's the most preposterous thing I ever heard of!"

"Well, I can't help being a woman, and the sheep had to be washed. I think there ought to be more men in the world when half of them are preaching and fighting."

"If you'd only let the men who are left help you a little, Dorothy!"

"I don't want any help. I only _don't_ want to be washed into the mill-head."

They both laughed, and Evesham began again entreating her to let him take her to the house.

"Hasn't thee a coat or something I could put around me until Shep comes?" said Dorothy. "He must be here soon."

"Yes, I've got a jacket here somewhere."

He sped away to find it, and faithless Dorothy, as the willows closed between them, sprang to her feet and fled like a startled Naiad to the house.

When Evesham, pushing through the willows, saw nothing but the bed of wet, crushed ferns and the trail through the long gra.s.s where Dorothy's feet had fled, he smiled grimly to himself, remembering that "ewe-lambs" are not always as meek as they look.

That evening Rachel had received a letter from Friend Barton, and was preparing to read it aloud to the children. They were in the kitchen, where the boys had been helping Dorothy, in a desultory manner, to sh.e.l.l corn for the chickens; but now all was silence, while Rachel wiped her gla.s.ses and turned the large sheet of paper, squared with many foldings, to the candle.

She read the date, "London Grove, 5th month, 22nd.--Most affectionately beloved." "He means us all," said Rachel, turning to the children with a tender smile. "It's spelled with a small b."

"He means thee!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Thee's not such a very big beloved."

There was a moment's silence. "I don't know that the opening of the letter is of general interest," Rachel mused, with her eyes travelling slowly down the page. "He says: 'In regard to my health, lest thee should concern thyself, I am thankful to say I have never enjoyed better since years have made me acquainted with my infirmities of body, and I earnestly hope that my dear wife and children are enjoying the same blessing.

"'I trust the boys are not deficient in obedience and helpfulness. At Sheppard's age I had already begun to take the duties of a man upon my shoulders.'"

Sheppard giggled uncomfortably, and Dorothy laughed outright.

"Oh! if father only _knew_ how good the boys are! Mother, thee must write and tell him about their 'helpfulness and obedience'! Thee can tell him their appet.i.tes keep up pretty well; they manage to take their meals regularly, and they are _always_ out of bed by eight o'clock, to help me hang up the milking-stool!"

"Just wait till thee gets in the mill-head again, Dorothy Barton! Thee needn't come to _me_ to help thee out!"

"Go on, mother! Don't let the boys interrupt thee!"

"Well," said Rachel, rousing herself, "where was I? Oh, 'when I was Sheppard's age'! Well, next come some allusions to the places where he has visited, and his spiritual exercises there. I don't know that the boys are quite old enough to enter into this yet. Thee'd better read it thyself, Dorothy. I'm keeping all father's letters for the boys to read, when they are old enough to appreciate them."

"Well, I think thee might read us about where he's been preachin'! We can understand a great deal more than thee thinks we can!" said Shep, in an injured voice. "Reuby, he can preach some himself! Thee ought to hear him, mother. It's almost as good as meetin'!"

"I _wondered_ how Reuby spent his time!" said Dorothy, and the mother hastened to interpose.

"Well, here's a pa.s.sage that may be interesting: 'On sixth day attended the youths' meeting here,--a pretty favored time on the whole. Joseph'

[that's Joseph Carpenter; he mentions him aways back] 'had good service in lively testimony, while I was calm and easy, without a word to say.

At a meeting at Plumstead, we suffered long, but at length we felt relieved. The unfaithful were admonished, the youth invited, and the heavy-hearted encouraged. It was a heavenly time!' Heretofore he seems to have been closed up with silence a good deal; but now the way opens continually for him to free himself. He's been 'much favored,' he says, 'of late.' Reuby, what's thee doing to thy brothers?" (Shep and Reuby, who had been persecuting Jimmy by pouring handfuls of corn down the neck of his jacket until he had taken refuge behind Dorothy's chair, were now recriminating with corn-cobs on each other's faces.) "Dorothy, can't thee keep those boys quiet?"

"Did thee ever know them to be quiet?" said Dorothy, helping Jimmy to relieve himself of his corn.

"Well now, listen!" Rachel continued placidly, "'Second day, 27th' (of fifth month, he means, the letter's been a _long time_ coming), 'attended their mid-week meeting at London Grove, where my tongue as it were clave to the roof of my mouth, while Hannah Husbands was much favored, and enabled to lift up her voice like the song of an angel'"--

"Who's Hannah Husbands?" cried Dorothy.

"Thee don't know her, dear. She was second cousin to thy father's step-mother; the families were not congenial, I believe; but she has a great gift for the ministry."