The Old Homestead Part 57

"You are too large, uncle Nathan, and I am too helpless; we are good for nothing but to comfort one another."

"Aunt Hannah, you don't know how much she loves us both."

Mary was very thoughtful. The story she had heard for the first time; the rush of the storm; the darkness that seemed to surround her, body and soul, was cruelly depressing. It seemed like an epoch in her life, as if some grave event were approaching in which she must hold a share.

"Now, darter," said uncle Nathan, laying his hand or her head, "you and I have got a secret between us. It's the first time in years that I have mentioned Anna. We needn't be afraid to talk about her now, when Hannah isn't by."

Just then, amid the turmoil of winds, and the tossing of trees, a burst of thunder shook the house in every timber. Then came flash after flash of lightning, shooting long fiery trails through the rain, and spreading sheets of lurid flame in the air. Another crash, another burst of fire, and lo! a column of flame shot up into the blackened sky, lighting the river, the hills, and all the minute surroundings of uncle Nathan's house; as it were with a fiery cataract.

"It is the dry hemlock by the river-side," cried uncle Nathan; "that night it was struck for the first time, this night for the last," and he rushed out bareheaded, into the storm of fire and rain that deluged the valley.

Mary followed him. A little further down the valley was the grave-yard. The stones with which it was crowded gleamed cold and ghastly in the light of the burning hemlock.

On two of these stones, somewhat apart, but facing the same way, Mary could see the black lines with gloomy distinctness.

"Isn't it strange?" said uncle Nathan, pointing toward the stones, "isn't it strange that the light should fall strongest on those two graves, just as we were talking about them for the first time? What is going to happen now? That night two children came into the world, and one good soul went out of it. While Farnham's wife lay under her silk curtains, with her baby warm and sleeping by her side, our Anna lay alone in her cold bed, and the baby would have been chilled to death on her bosom. Why was the storm only for our Old Homestead, the sunshine for them?"

"Perhaps G.o.d will explain all this when we get to heaven," answered Mary, lifting her forehead in the gloomy light. "Come, uncle Nat--come in."

With gentle violence the girl drew him into the house.

From that night Mary Fuller ceased to be a child. The story of a woman's wrongs had given her a woman's heart.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

DARK STORMS AND DARK MEMORIES.

Hush! be silent--let the storm sweep by!

Its howlings fill me with unuttered dread!

This shuddering soul hugs its dark mystery, Oh, trouble not the ashes of the dead!

While uncle Nathan and Mary were conversing on the porch, the two women within doors remained comparatively silent, till the storm rose almost to a hurricane. The gloominess of the night seemed to oppress them, and they sat before the hearth till the fire had nearly smouldered out, leaving only a couple of large pointed brands of what had been a back-log, protruding from a bed of ashes, that grew whiter and deeper with each coal that crumbled away from the original stock.

With her calf-skin shoes planted on each foot of the andiron, and her dress just enough lifted to reveal a glimpse of her blue yarn stockings, aunt Hannah sat gazing on the embers, with a countenance that grew stern and troubled as the storm raged more and more fiercely. Her knitting-work lay upon the stand beside her; three of the needles formed a triangle, and the fourth was thrust through the stocking, in a way that betokened a strange tumult in the owner, for never, save when it was the sign of some great calamity, had aunt Hannah been known to lay down her knitting except at the seam-st.i.tch.

That some bitter trouble weighed upon her now was certain, for the thoughts that possessed her seemed bowing her person forward. She stooped heavily toward the fire, with her long, flail-like arms clasped around her knees, not rocking back and forth as seemed most natural to the position, but immovable as the andiron upon which her feet rested, and sombre as the storm that shook the windows and howled down the chimney.

Salina occupied the other andiron. Her leathern shoes were tinged with mud about the soles, and a spot or two had settled on her white yarn stockings, which were gingerly exposed at the ankles. But while aunt Hannah stooped forward, bowed down by thought, Salina sat upright as a church-steeple, with one elbow planted on each knee, and her sharp chin resting in the palms of her hands. Faint flashes from the fire now and then gleamed across her hair, firing it up with ferocious redness; and her eyes were bent upon the broken back-log, as if defying it to a compet.i.tion, while her feet were planted on the andiron.

At last, when the storm grew so fierce that it rocked the old house to its foundations, and gusts of rain came sweeping down the chimney, the two women looked into each other's eyes.

"Did you ever see anything like it!" said Salina.

It was an exclamation only, but aunt Hannah answered as if her thoughts had been questioned.

"Yes, once--that night!"

"True enough--that was an awful night. I hate to think of it."

"But how can one help it?" said aunt Hannah, bending her white face downward again, "I'd give anything on earth to forget that one night."

"Well," answered Salina, "I have sort of forgot a good deal about it; but now, as you bring it to mind, there was a thing or two happened that I never told of before, and couldn't account for in any way--that is, for the whole of it."

"What was that?" questioned aunt Hannah, sharply.

"Well, now, it's no use snapping one's head off, if the night is howling like old Nick himself," answered Salina, kindling up.

"If I was snappish, it wasn't because I meant it," said aunt Hannah, sinking to her dejected position again; "you said something about that night--what was it?"

"Well, now, I'll up and tell you--it's nothing worth mentioning--but somehow I always sort of remembered it. You know, after poor little Anna died, I went home in all the storm, for I had only run over to tell you about Mrs. Farnham's baby, and hadn't expected to stay. I couldn't but jest get along, the wind and rain beat in my face so; and somehow what I had seen here took away all my nat'ral strength; besides, it was dark as pitch, and before I got home there wasn't a dry thread on me.

"Well, I went in through the back door mighty still, I tell you, for I didn't want any one to know that I'd been out when there was sickness in the house. Besides, I'd promised the nus to sit up and tend the baby, while she got a little sleep. So, without stopping to bolt the back door or anything, I jest stole up to the chamber next Mrs.

Farnham's, where the nus was with the baby, and opening the door a trifle, told her to go to bed, and I'd be down in less than no time.

"The baby was sound asleep in the cradle, that had been ready for it ever so long, so the nus just put the blanket a little more over its head and went out.

"I ran up stairs, got off my wet clothes, and went down to the room agin, but first I remembered the back door, and went to fasten it for fear some one would find out that I had been away from home.

"When I got to the door, it was wide open, and the wind came storming in like all possessed. The candle swirled till it almost went out in my hand, and it was as much as I could make out to shut the door and get things to rights, without being wet through agin. At last I got the door shut to and fastened, but when I went to cross the kitchen, where I never would let them put a carpet down, you know, the white pine boards were tramped over and over with wet footsteps. Now, I hadn't crossed it but once with my wet things on, and the footsteps went both ways, as if some one had gone in and went out agin.

"Well, I held down the light and followed these same steps along the carpet clear into the room where the baby was; I hadn't gone across the threshold, remember, and yet the steps were all over the room, and a little puddle of water lay close agin the cradle--are you listening, aunt Hannah?"

"Go on," answered the old woman, in a husky voice.

"I haven't anything more to say, only this," said Salina, "the baby lay snug in the cradle, but its little hands were as cold as stone, and I'm sartin there was a drop of water on its forehead. That wasn't all. As I was looking around, I saw a little baby's night-gown a-lying half across the door-sill."

Aunt Hannah looked up suddenly, and Salina checked herself.

"Good gracious, how pale you are!--do tell--what's the matter?"

"You heard the thunder--I always was afraid of thunder."

"Yes," answered Salina, "lightning don't amount to much, but when thunder strikes it is awful. That clap wasn't nothing to speak of, though, after all."

"Wasn't it?" said aunt Hannah, dropping her face between both her hands. "It seemed terribly loud to me."

"Well, as I was a-saying about that night. There was a baby's night-gown on the door-sill. I took it up and looked at it. It was fine cotton, edged round with a little worked pattern, such as I'd seen our Anna working there in the out-room. The sight of it sort of puzzled me, I can tell you, besides it made me feel bad to think how cold her poor little fingers were then, so I sat down and cried over it all by myself. But how came the little gown there? It didn't belong to Mrs. Farnham, for her baby's clothes were all linen, cambric, and lace, and French work. I sat down and thought and thought, but at last burst out a-crying agin. It was all clear enough."

"How," said aunt Hannah, lifting her face suddenly, "how was it clear?"

"Why, the night-gown must have stuck to my shawl when we laid Anna's baby in your bed up stairs. Everything was tossed about, you know; and I am always catching to briars and things every time I move. Never could go a blackberrying with other gals, but the first thing they were calling out, 'that Salina had got a bean' and there would be a great long briar dragging to the bottom of my frock. It was my luck always to have things hanging onto me. I wish you could see the ticks and burdock leaves that I have picked off from this identical dress since harvest."

Aunt Hannah drew herself up a little more freely, but it was some moments before she spoke.

"Did you keep the night-gown?" she inquired.