The Old Homestead Part 47

"That's right," said uncle Nathan, patting her head with his wet hand "run, hang over the tea-kettle, set the table, sweep up a little. You can do ch.o.r.es, I reckon?"

"I don't know; what are ch.o.r.es?"

"Oh! a little of everything," replied the old man, laughing his deep, good-natured laugh.

"Oh! yes, I can try at that, any way," cried the child, and her laugh stole through the mellow fullness of his, much as the bird-songs mingled with the flow of the river. "I'm a good deal stronger than I look!"

"Bright as a dollar, and smart as a steel-trap. I knew it. Them eyes weren't made for nothing. Now run and begin; but look here, darter: don't plague Hannah with questions; just make yourself handy; and no fuss about it, you know."

"Oh! I can do that, you'll see," cried the girl, cheerfully, and while uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had some little difficulty in managing the windla.s.s, and when the old mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water twenty feet below, it made her start and shiver all over as if she had harmed something.

I am afraid she never could have managed with those little hands, to have drawn the bucket over the well-curb; but while she stood trembling like a leaf, holding back the windla.s.s with both hands, and gazing desperately on the bucket, down whose green sides the water-drops were raining back into the well, good uncle Nathan came up, panting with exertion, and seizing hold of the bucket jerked it over the curb.

"Don't try that again; it's rather more than you can manage yet," he said, breathing hard. "I was an old Ishmaelite to put you up to it."

"I thought it was easy enough," said Mary, trembling with affright and the overtax of her strength, while uncle Nathan filled the tea-kettle and bore it into the porch; "next time I shall know how better."

She took the kettle from the old man's hand, and bending her whole strength to the task, bore it into the kitchen.

Aunt Hannah was still on her knees, blowing away at the obstinate green wood that smoked and smouldered at its ease. When Mary came tottering under the weight of her kettle; and hung it upon the trammel-hook just over an incipient blaze, the old lady gave her a keen glance, as much of surprise as pleasure, and working vigorously with her ap.r.o.n, sent a whirl of smoke into the child's eyes, while her lips muttered something that sounded like "nice girl."

It was quite wonderful how the little creature found out all the ways of that old house so noiselessly! While aunt Hannah sat, knife in hand, stripping the skins from her cold potatoes, and cutting them in round slices that dropped hissing one by one into the hot gravy, which, with thin slices of pork, simmered in the frying-pan just taken from the fire, Mary had drawn forth the little cherry wood table, found the tablecloth of birds-eye diaper in one end of the drawer, and the knives and forks in the other, which she proceeded to arrange after the fashion she had observed the night before.

Aunt Hannah turned her head now and then, after stirring up her potatoes, and held the dripping knife above the frying-pan, while she gave a sharp glance at these proceedings, quite ready to impart a brief reprimand should the case require it. But each glance grew shorter, and at last those thin lips relaxed into a look of grim satisfaction, when she saw the little girl measuring a drawing of tea in the top of her tin canister, levelling it nicely off with the edge of a spoon handle, not a grain more or less than the usual allowance.

Aunt Hannah was not a close woman in the usual country acceptation of the term, but she hated changes and loved tea. That old canister lid had been the household standard for thirty years, and it was not likely that she would heartily sanction any addition or diminution for a little girl like that.

At length the breakfast was ready. The slices of salt pork were neatly arranged on a plate; and the potatoes crisped to a turn, were placed beside it on the hearth. Between them stood a plate of milk-toast and the little pewter tea-pot, puffing threads of steam from its puny nozzle as if it really intended an opposition to the great salamander of a kettle that sung and fumed and made a great ado over the hot fire back in the chimney.

Just as everything seemed ready for breakfast, uncle Nathan came in, obedient to a nod from his grim sister, and seating himself before the fire, opened the Bible and began to read.

It was a temptation to worldly thoughts, that warm breakfast, so savory and tantalizing to a child whose appet.i.te was stimulated with exercise and the fresh mountain air, and it is no use pretending that once or twice she did not wonder a little if uncle Nathan always read so slow or prayed so long. But it was a pa.s.sing thought, and, as uncle Nathan said afterward, "she couldn't help birds flying over her head, but that was no reason why they should build nests in her hair." In this case, naughty thoughts were like the birds, and if she drove them away, that was all that could be expected. Uncle Nathan was a good old man in his day and generation, and we have no idea of criticising any opinion of his.

When the breakfast was over, aunt Hannah disappeared from the back porch, with a milk-pail in one hand and a three-legged stool in the other. Uncle Nathan followed her example, but more slowly, and the cotton handkerchief of many colors that his sister had tied on her head, disappeared over the back garden-fence before he had half crossed the cabbage-patch. He lingered behind long enough to give Mary an encouraging smile through the kitchen-door, and went off murmuring, as if in confidence to his milking-stool,

"Nice girl, nice girl, I wonder we never thought of taking a little thing like that before. If Hannah had only kept poor Anna's baby now, what company they would have been for each other."

When the good man reached the little pasture-lot, thinly scattered over with apple-trees, in which half-a-dozen fine cows grazed over night, he found aunt Hannah beneath one of the largest trees, seated upon her stool, and milking what she called the "hardest" cow of the lot. When disposed to be refractory she cut its "tantrums" short with a sharp "soh!" that went off from her thin lips like the crack of a pistol; and this one word had more effect upon the animal, than a world of uncle Nathan's gentle "so-hos, so-hos," that seemed as if he were quieting an infant. The vicious animal knew the difference well enough, for one was usually followed by a whack of the stool over its ribs, while the other sometimes resulted in leaving the rotund old gentleman wallowing, like a mud-turtle, on his back in the gra.s.s.

It is natural to suppose that under these circ.u.mstances, uncle Nathan usually gave a wide berth to his sister's favorite; but this morning he drove the meekest and fattest cow of the herd gingerly up to the old apple tree, and after placing his stool very deliberately on the gra.s.s, and the pail between his knees, began a slow accompaniment to the quick motion of aunt Hannah's hands, which kept two pearly streams in rapid flow to the half-filled pail resting against her feet.

While the milk rattled and rushed upon the bottom of his empty pail, uncle Nathan kept quiet, leaning his head against the cow, and thinking over the pleasant ideas that little Mary had aroused in his kind heart. Unconsciously wishing to share those thoughts with his sister, he had driven his cow close to hers that they might converse together. Hannah took no notice of his presence, however, but went on filling her pail so rapidly, that it began to foam over the edge. When her brother saw this, and knew by the soft, feathery sound that she had nearly finished, he stooped down, and with his dear old face just visible under the cow, called out,

"I say, Hannah, what do you think of her?"

Did the vicious animal start? Or what was it that made the stern woman shriek out, and wheel round so sharply on her stool?

"Why, Hannah, did I frighten her! has she kicked again?" cried uncle Nathan, surprised by the sharp action and wild look that she cast back upon him.

"Yes, she did start," answered aunt Hannah, rising and taking up the pail, now quite full, which made her waver to and fro, a singular weakness which no one had ever witnessed in her before.

"But you ain't frightened, sister; nothing can frighten you," said Nathan, soothingly.

"No, but you asked something, what is it."

"Only, how you liked her?"

"Her!--who?"

"Why, Mary Fuller, our little girl, you know."

"You are thinking of her then."

"Why, yes, Hannah, I can't think of anything else. Isn't she a nice little creature?"

"Yes!"

"How handy she was about the breakfast, I shouldn't wonder now if all the dishes are washed up by the time we get back."

"Do you think so!" said aunt Hannah, gazing down into her foaming pail so steadily, that even uncle Nathan could see that she was not thinking of anything so trivial as her morning's work.

"Hannah," he said, "what has come over you! you seem so strange since this little girl came. You scarcely speak."

"Do I ever speak much?" she answered.

"No," said uncle Nathan with a sigh, "but now something has gone wrong--what is it? don't you like to keep the child?"

"Yes, I like it."

"She will be a help to you."

"Yes, I think so--of course she must."

"And company for me--for us both."

"For you, yes--as for me, brother, I have no company, good or bad, but my own thoughts."

She spoke with some feeling, her voice shook, her hard eyes wavered as they turned towards her brother. In years Nathan had not seen her so moved. Why was it? What was there in the coming of a helpless child beneath their roof, to disturb the composure of a woman like that?

As the good man sat upon his stool, pondering over these thoughts, for he was too much surprised for speech, she hung her stool upon a limb of the apple-tree, and moved towards the house, stooping more than usual beneath the weight of her milk-pail.

As uncle Nathan had prophesied, Mary was busy as a humming-bird washing up the breakfast dishes, and putting every thing to rights in the kitchen. Aunt Hannah did not seem to observe it, but strained her milk, and went out again. When she came back, uncle Nathan was with her, looking rather grave and perplexed.

It was now approaching nine o'clock, and all the "ch.o.r.es," as the good couple called the household work, "were done up."

"Go up stairs and get your things," said aunt Hannah to Mary, "it's school-time."

Mary obeyed, and aunt Hannah proceeded to change her checked ap.r.o.n for one of black silk, and to invest her head in a straw bonnet that had been tolerably fashionable ten years before, and since that time it had been often bleached, but never changed in form.