The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 26

At dinner Oliver sat on Mrs. Grant's right--her best ear, she said--Margaret next, and John opposite. The father was at the foot, in charge of the carving-knife.

During the pauses in the talk Oliver's eyes wandered around the room, falling on the queer paper lining the walls--hunting-scenes, with red-coated fox-hunters leaping five-barred gates; on the side-board covered with silver, but bare of a decanter--only a pitcher filled with cider which Hopeful Prime, the servant, a woman of forty in spectacles, and who took part in the conversation, brought from the cellar; and finally on a family portrait that hung above the fireplace. A portrait was always a loadstone to Oliver.

Mrs. Grant had been watching his glance.

"That's Mr. Grant's great-uncle--old Governor Shaw," she said, with a pleased smile; "and the next one to it is Margaret's great-grandmother This one--" and she turned partly in her chair and pointed to a face Oliver thought he had seen before, where, he couldn't remember--"is John Quincy Adams. He was my father's most intimate friend," and a triumphant expression overspread her face.

Oliver smiled, too, inwardly, to himself. The talk, to his great surprise, reminded him of Kennedy Square. Family portraits were an inexhaustible topic of conversation in most of its homes. He had never thought before that people at the North had any ancestors--none they were very proud of.

John looked up and winked. "Great scheme naming me after his Royal Highness," he said, in an undertone. "Sure road to the White House; they thought I'd make a good third."

Mrs. Grant went on, not having heard a word of John's aside: "This table you're eating from, once belonged to Mr. Adams. He gave it to my father, who often spent a week at a time with him in the White House."

"And I wish he was there now," interrupted Silas from the foot of the table. "He'd straighten out this snarl we're drifting into. Looks to me as if there would be some powder burnt before this thing is over. What do your people say about it?" and he nodded at Oliver. He had served the turkey, and was now sharpening the carver for the boiled ham, trying the edge with his thumb, as Shylock did.

"I haven't been at home for some time, sir," replied Oliver, in a courteous tone--he intended to be polite to the end--"and so I cannot say. My father's letters, seem to be very anxious, but mother doesn't think there'll be any trouble; at least she said so in her last letter."

Silas looked up from under the tufts of cotton-wool. Were the mothers running the politics of the South, he wondered?

"And there's another thing you folks might as well remember. We're not going to let you break up the Union, and we're not going to pay you for your slaves, either," and he plunged the fork into the ham that the spectacled waitress had laid before him and rose in his chair, the knife poised in his hand to carve it the better.

"Mr. Horn hasn't got any slaves to sell, father--didn't you hear him say so? His father freed his," laughed Margaret. Her father's positiveness never really worried her. She rather liked it at times. It was only because she had read in Oliver's face the impression her father was making upon him that she essayed to soften the force of his remarks.

"I heard him, Margaret, I heard him. Glad of it--but he's the only man from his parts that I ever heard who did. The others won't give 'em up so easy. They hung John Brown for trying to help the negroes free themselves, don't forget that." Oliver looked up and knitted his brows.

Silas saw it. "I'm not meaning any offence to you, young man," he said quickly, waving the knife toward Oliver. "I'm taking this question on broad grounds. If I had my way I'd teach those slave-drivers--" and he buried the knife in the yielding ham, "that--"

"They did just right to hang him," interrupted John. "Brown was a fanatic, and ought to have stayed at home. No one is stronger than the law. That's where old Ossawatomie Brown made a mistake." Everybody was ent.i.tled to express his or her opinion in this house except the dear old mother. Margaret's fearless independence of manner and thought had been nurtured in fertile soil.

Mrs. Grant had been vainly trying to get the drift of the conversation, her hand behind her ear.

"Parson Brown, did you say, John? He married us, sir," and she turned to Oliver. "He lived here over forty years. The church that you pa.s.sed was where he preached."

John laughed, and so did Silas, at the old lady's mistake, but Oliver only became the more attentive to his hostess. He was profoundly grateful to the reverend gentleman for coming out of his grave at this opportune moment and diverting the talk into other channels. Why did they want to bother him with all this talk about slavery and the South, when he was so happy he could hardly stay in his skin? It set his teeth on edge--he wished that the dinner were over and everybody down at the bottom of the sea but Margaret; he had come to see his sweetheart--not to talk slavery.

"Yes, I saw the church," and for the rest of the dinner, Oliver was entertained with the details in the life of the Rev. Leonidas Brown, including his manner of preaching; the crowds who would go to hear him; the number converted under the good man's ministrations; to all of which Oliver listened with a closeness of attention that would have surprised those who knew him unless they had discovered that his elbow had found Margaret's during the recital, and that the biography of every member of Brown's congregation might have been added to that of the beloved pastor without wearying him in the slightest degree.

When the nuts were served--Silas broke his with his fingers--his host made one more effort to draw Oliver into a discussion, but Margaret stopped it by exclaiming, suddenly:

"Where shall Mr. Horn smoke, mother?" She wanted Oliver to herself--the family had had him long enough.

"Why, does he want to SMOKE?" she answered, with some consternation.

"Yes, of course he does. All painters smoke."

"Well, I don't know; let me see." The old lady hesitated as if seeking the choice between two evils. "I suppose in the sitting-room. No--the library would be better."

"Oh, I won't smoke at all if your mother does not like it," Oliver protested, springing from his chair.

"Oh, yes, you will," interrupted John. "I never smoke, and father don't, but I know how good a pipe tastes. Let's go into the library."

Margaret gave Oliver the big chair and sat beside him. It was a small room, the walls almost hidden with books; the windows filled with flowering plants. There was a long table piled up with magazines and pamphlets, and an open fireplace, the wall above the mantel covered with framed pictures of weeping-willows worked out with hair of dead relatives, and the mantel itself with faded daguerreotypes propped apart like half-opened clam-sh.e.l.ls.

Mr. Grant on leaving the dining-room walked slowly to the window without looking to the right or left, dropped into a chair and gazed out through the leaves of a geranium. The meal was over. Now he wanted rest and quiet. When Mrs. Grant entered the library and saw the wavy lines of tobacco-smoke that were drifting lazily about the room she stopped, evidently annoyed and uneasy. No such sacrilege of her library had taken place for years; not since her Uncle Reuben had come home from China. The waves of smoke must have caught the expression on her face, for she had hardly reached Oliver's chair before they began stealing along the ceiling in long, slanting lines until they reached the doorway, when with a sudden swoop, as if frightened, and without once looking back, they escaped into the hall.

The dear lady laid her hand on Oliver's shoulder, bent over him in a tender, motherly way, and said:

"Do you think it does you any good?"

"I don't know that it does."

"Why should you do it, then?"

"But I won't if you'd rather I'd not." Oliver sprang to his feet, took his pipe from his mouth, and was about to cross the room to knock the ashes from it into the fireplace when Margaret laid her hand on his arm.

"No, don't stop. Mother is very foolish about some things--smoking is one of them."

"But I can't smoke, darling," he said, in an undertone, "if your mother objects." The mother law was paramount, to say nothing of the courtesy required of him. Then he added, with a meaning look in his eyes--"Can't we get away some place where we can talk?" Deaf mothers are a blessing sometimes.

Margaret pressed his hand--her fingers were still closed over the one holding the pipe.

"In a moment, Ollie," and she rose and went into the adjoining room.

Mrs. Grant went to her husband's side, and in her gentle mission of peace put her arm around his neck, patting his shoulder and talking to him in a low tone, her two yellow-white curls streaming down over the collar of his coat. Silas slipped his hand over his wife's and for an instant caressed it tenderly with his cold, bony fingers. Then seeing Oliver's eyes turning his way he drew in his shoulders with a quick movement and looked askance at his guest. Any public show of affection was against Silas's creed and code. If people wanted to hug each other, better do it upstairs, he would say, not where everybody was looking on, certainly not this young man, who was enough of a mollycoddle already.

John, now that Margaret had gone, moved over from the lounge and took her seat, and the two young men launched out into a discussion of flies and worms and fish-bait, and whether frog's legs were better than minnows in fishing for pickerel, and what was the best-sized shot for woodc.o.c.k and Jack-snipe. Oliver told of the ducking-blinds, of the Chesapeake, and of how the men sat in wooden boxes sunk to the water's edge, with the decoy ducks about them, and shot the flocks as they flew over. And John told of a hunting trip he had made with two East Branch guides, and how they went loaded for deer and came back with a bear and two cubs. And so congenial did they find each other's society that before Margaret returned to the room--she had gone into her studio to light the lamp under the tea-kettle--the two young fellows had discovered that they were both very good fellows indeed, especially Oliver and especially John, and Oliver had half promised to come up in the winter and go into camp with John, and John met him more than half-way with a promise to accept Oliver's invitation for a week's visit in Kennedy Square the next time he went home, if that happy event ever took place, when they would both go down to Carroll's Island for a crack at a canvas-back.

This had gone on for ten minutes or more--ten minutes is an absurdly long period of time under certain circ.u.mstances--when Margaret's voice was heard in the doorway:

"Come, John, you and Mr. Horn have talked long enough; I want to show him my studio if you'll spare him a moment."

John knew when to spare and when not to--oh, a very intelligent brother was John! He did not follow and talk for another hour of what a good time he would have duck-shooting, and of what togs he ought to carry--spoiling everything; nor did he send his mother in to help Margaret entertain their guest. None of these stupid things did John do. He said he would go down to the post-office if Oliver didn't mind, and would see him at supper, and Margaret said that that was a very clever idea, as n.o.body had gone for the mail that day, and there were sure to be letters, and not to forget to ask for hers. Awfully sensible brother was John. Why aren't there more like him?

Entering Margaret's studio was like going back to Moose Hillock. There were sketches of the interior of the school-house, and of the children, and of the teacher who had taught the year before. There was Mrs. Taft sitting on that very porch, peeling potatoes, with a tin pan in her lap--would they ever forget that porch and the moonlight and the song of the tree-toads, and the cry of the loon? There was Hank in corduroys, with an axe over his shoulder; and Hank in a broad straw hat and no shoes, with a fishing-pole in one hand; and Hank chopping wood; the chips littering the ground. There was Ezra Pollard sitting in his buckboard with a buffalo-robe tucked about him, and Samanthy by his side. And best of all, and in the most prominent place, too, there was the original drawing of the Milo--the one she was finishing when Oliver upset Judson, and which, strange to say, was the only Academy drawing which Margaret had framed--besides scores and scores of sketches of people and things and places that she had made in years gone by.

The room itself was part of an old portico which had been walled up. It had a fireplace at one end, holding a Franklin stove, and a skylight overhead, the light softened by green shades. Here she kept her own books ranged on shelves over the mantel; and in the niches and corners and odd s.p.a.ces a few rare prints and proofs--two Guido Renis and a Leonardo, both by Raphael Morghen. Against the wall was an old clothes-press with bra.s.s handles, its drawers filled with sketches, as well as a lounge covered with chintz and heaped up with cushions. The door between the studio and library had been taken off, and was now replaced by a heavy red curtain. Margaret had held it aside for Oliver to enter, and it had dropped back by its own weight, shutting them both safely in.

I don't know what happened when that heavy red curtain swung into place, and mother, father, sea, sky, sun, moon, stars, and the planets, with all that in them is, were shut out for a too brief moment.

And if I did know I would not tell.

We go through life, and we have all sorts of sensations. We hunger and are fed. We are thirsty, and reach an oasis. We are homeless, and find shelter. We are ill, and again walk the streets. We dig and delve and strain every nerve and tissue, and the triumph comes at last, and with it often riches and honor. All these things send shivers of delight through us, and for the moment we spread our wings and soar heavenward.

But when we take in our arms the girl we love, and hold close her fresh, sweet face, with its trusting eyes, and feel her warm breath on our cheeks, and the yielding figure next our heart, knowing all the time how mean and good-for-nothing and how entirely unworthy of even tying her shoe-strings we are, we experience a something compared with which all our former flights heavenward are but the flutterings of bats in a cave.

And the blessed John did not come back until black, dark night!--not until it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand before you or the girl beside you, which is nearer the truth; not until the stout woman in spectacles with the conversational habit, had brought in a lard-oil lamp with a big globe, which she set down on Margaret's table among her books and papers. And when John did come, and poked his twice-blessed head between the curtains, it was not to sit down inside and talk until supper-times but to say that it was getting cold outside and that they ought to have a fire if they intended to sit in the studio after supper. (Oh, what a trump of a brother!) And if they didn't mind he'd send Hopeful right away with some chips to start it. All of which Miss Hopeful Prime accomplished, talking all the time to Margaret as she piled up the logs, and not forgetting a final word to Oliver as she left the room, to the effect that she "guessed it, must be kind o'

comfortin' to set by a fire"--such luxuries, of course, to her thinking, being unknown in his tropical land, where the blacks went naked and the children lay about in the sun munching watermelons and bananas.

What an afternoon it had been! They had talked of the woods and their life under the trees; of the sketches they made and how they could improve them, and would; of the coming winter and the prospect of the school being opened and what it meant to them if it did, and how much more if it did not, and she be compelled to remain in Brookfield with Oliver away all winter in New York, and of a thousand and one other things that lay nearest their hearts and with which neither you nor I have anything to do.