Wheat and Huckleberries Part 8

"Grandfather himself frequently personates the whole seven," observed Stella, with a nod at her cousins. She smiled, as if the memory of some past scenes amused her, then said soberly: "The fact of it is, Aunt Katharine is a regular crank. There's nothing in this world that goes right according to her notion of it, but she's particularly down on the ways of the men. She _would_ have a little patience with women-for she thinks their faults are mostly due to their being so down-trodden-if they only wouldn't marry. I've heard her say so! She never married herself, you know, and she has an awfully poor opinion of the whole inst.i.tution."

Ruel Saxon looked as if he had a word to offer at this point in regard to his sister's matrimonial opinions, but Aunt Elsie was before him.

"Now, don't you think," she said, looking gravely at Stella, and incidentally including him in the pa.s.sing glance, "that we'd better let the girls form their own impressions of Aunt Katharine? They may like her a great deal better than you do, Stella."

"I'm sure I'm willing," said the girl, with another shrug, and her grandfather, after wrestling with a little more extremely hot tea, seemed to be willing too; but he suggested that the girls should make an early call on their Aunt Katharine. It would give them a chance of forming the desired impressions, and besides she would expect it.

The girls accepted the suggestion promptly. Indeed Kate, whose interest in her namesake had been considerably whetted by what had been said of her, proposed that they should go that very morning; but to this Aunt Elsie's judgment was again opposed. It seemed that Aunt Katharine had a special dislike to being interrupted in her morning duties by callers, and was disposed to think slightingly of people who hadn't "work enough to keep them at home in the fore part of the day." In the case of her nieces, who must certainly be excused for being at leisure, she might waive the last objection, but it was best to be on the safe side.

It was settled that the girls, accompanied by their grandfather, should go that afternoon, and if the call had been upon some distinguished person they could not have taken more pains with their toilets. Esther debated between three gowns, and finally settled on a soft gray, with plain white cuffs and collar, while Kate put on a pretty lawn and the dashing Roman sash which had been Aunt Milly's parting gift.

It was less than a half hour's walk across the fields to Aunt Katharine's house, but the grandfather had decided to go by the road in state, and had Dobbin and the two-seated carriage at the door in good time. He had taken a little more pains than usual with his own appearance, and his daughter-in-law added the last touches with careful hand.

She was not much inclined to the giving of gratuitous advice; but, in the absence of the young people from the room, she did say, persuasively, as she adjusted the old gentleman's cravat: "If I were you, father, I'd try not to get into one of those discussions to-day with Aunt Katharine. We want the girls to have as pleasant an opinion of her as possible, and you know she always appears at a disadvantage when she's arguing with you."

Sly Aunt Elsie! There were moments when the wisdom of the serpent was as nothing to hers. Ruel Saxon twisted his neck for a moment impatiently in his cravat, then replied meekly: "Well, I s'pose it does kind of put her out to have me always get the better of her. Katharine has her good p'ints as well as anybody, and I'd be glad to have Lucia's children see 'em. If she don't rile me up too much I'll-yes, I'll try to bear with her this afternoon. Solomon says there's a time for everything: a time to keep silence and a time to speak; and mebbe it's a time to keep silence to-day."

In this accommodating frame of mind he started off with his granddaughters. Stella had declined an invitation to accompany them-possibly at her mother's suggestion-though the fact that the way lay along one of her favorite drives, the old county road, had been something of an inducement to go.

It was one of those dear old roads, familiar in every part of New England, through which the main business of the region, now diverted to other highways, once took its daily course, but which, as its importance dwindled, had gained in every roadside charm. The woods, sweet with all summer odors, had crept close to its edge; daisies and ferns encroached on its borders, and its wavy line made gracious curve for the rock which had rolled from the hill above and lay beside it still, a moss-covered perch for children and squirrels. Here, the birds, not startled too often in their secret haunts, tilted on sprays of the feathery sumach, finishing their songs with confident clearness as the traveller drew near, and the swift brown lizards darted across the way before the very wheels of his carriage.

Miss Katharine Saxon's farm was one of those which still had contact with the world through this deserted highway, but its comparative isolation had not affected its well-kept appearance. The house was white, with green blinds at the front and sides, but presented a red end to the fields behind, after the fashion of many in that section. The dooryard, a small rectangle, was shut off from the surrounding pastures by a high picket fence, though there were no shrubs, or even a flower-bed, inside the enclosure. The owner was not visible at any of the windows as her guests walked up the gravel path, which was too narrow to admit of their advancing in any but single file, but the bra.s.s knocker had scarcely fallen before she opened the door in person.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE OPENED THE DOOR IN PERSON."]

Even Esther had no remembrance of having seen her before, but there could be no doubt of her ident.i.ty. In feature she was singularly like her brother, but her small thin figure was not trim and straight like his. She was so painfully bent as plainly to need the aid of the stout oak stick on which she leaned, and her hair, in striking contrast with his, was snowy white. She greeted her nieces with as little effusion as their Aunt Elsie, but her quick bright eyes betrayed a much keener interest as they darted sharply from one to the other.

"Well, Ruel, I s'pose you're feeling just as smart as ever to-day, and just as able to bless the Lord that you ain't as the rest of us are.

Thank you, my rheumatism ain't a mite better 'n 'twas the last time you was here, and my sight and hearing are mebbe a little grain worse."

She delivered herself of this with surprising rapidity as she walked before them into the parlor, looking back with short quick glances at her brother. He responded by a rather discomfited grunt. Evidently she had the start of him. The parlor was of the primmest New England type, and so dark that for some moments the girls, sitting uncomfortably on straight-backed chairs whose hard stuffed seats seemed never before to have been pressed by a human figure, could scarcely make out what manner of place they had entered. It dawned on them by degrees, and if anything had been needed to enhance the charm of the parlor at the old homestead, the necessary contrast would certainly have been furnished here.

There was nothing to suggest that any of the ordinary occupations of human life had ever been carried on in this room. The pictures which Stella had banished would seem to have been dragged from their hiding-places and hung on these walls, and beside them there was nothing of mural ornament except three silver coffin plates framed in oak on a ground of black. The Northmore girls, gazing in wonder at these shining tablets, could scarcely believe that they were really what they seemed, but Stella, to whom they appealed on their return, promptly disabused them of the doubt. Most certainly these sombre ornaments had their original place on the funeral casket. It was not uncommon, she said, to find such relics displayed in old-fashioned houses in this region.

"There were some in our house once," she added, "but I persuaded grandfather to let me lay them away in the best bureau drawers. He objected at first, but after I put up my Madonnas and cathedrals he succ.u.mbed. I believe he considered the place unfit to display the names of those who had died in the faith."

But this was afterward. At present Esther was occupied with the strenuous effort to read the names thus honored of Aunt Katharine, and Kate was bending all her energies to discover the points in which she herself resembled that lady. The latter turned upon them now with one of her sharp glances.

"So you're Lucia's girls," she said with deliberation. "Well, you ain't as good looking as she was, neither of you. But handsome is that handsome does; and if you behave yourselves, you'll do."

The girls were somewhat taken aback by this, but Kate rallied in a moment. "You can't hurt our feelings by telling us we aren't as good looking as mother was," she said gayly, "for we know she was a regular beauty. Father's told us that over and over."

"I'll warrant he thought so," chuckled her grandfather, "and he wasn't the only one, neither. Why all the likeliest young fellows in town came courting your mother. She didn't have to take up with a Western man because she couldn't get anybody nearer home."

"Perhaps it was because she had a chance to compare the Western man with those around here that she _did_ take up with him," said Kate, quickly.

It was a fair retort; but the old gentleman's forehead puckered for a moment as if he were not quite prepared for it. Before he could say anything in reply his sister had changed the subject, by asking, in her abrupt way, with her eyes fixed on her younger niece, "What do you think of this country?"

It is the stereotyped question from the old resident to the newcomer in all parts of the world. Perhaps, convenient as it is in bridging over the awkwardness of first acquaintance, it would be oftener omitted if society remembered that dictum of Dr. Johnson's, that no one has a right to put you in such a position that you must either hurt him by telling the truth, or hurt yourself by not telling it. Kate Northmore had never faced the alternative under very crucial conditions, but whatever twinge there might be she preferred on general principles to resign to the other party, and she did so promptly now.

"Well, I can't say I'm very much struck with the looks of it," she said frankly. "It's different from ours, you know; and these little bits of fields are so funny, all checkered off with stone walls. I haven't got used to them yet."

Miss Saxon looked at her niece without speaking, but the grandfather bristled at this. "Hm!" he grunted, "You Western folks seem to think nothing's of any account unless it's big. 'Taint the size of things, but what you do with 'em, that counts."

"Well, it's a wonder to me what you can do with some of this land of yours, it's so rough and poor," said Kate, lightly. "I don't see how the farmers manage to make a living, scratching round among the rocks."

Then, with a good-natured laugh, she added: "Oh, we don't despise the littles, out our way, as much as you think; but when it comes to wheat and corn, and things of that sort, we do like to see a lot of it growing all together. It looks as if there was enough to go round, you know, and makes people feel sort of free and easy."

Perhaps, in his heart, Ruel Saxon doubted whether it was good for people to feel free and easy in this transient mortal state, but he had no chance just then to discuss the moral advantages of large labor and small returns, for Esther exclaimed, with a glance at her sister which was half reproachful: "But there are so many other things in a country besides the crops! For my part, I think New England is perfectly beautiful. I believe I'm in love with it all."

Miss Katharine Saxon turned her head and looked at the girl attentively.

The mother must have been very pretty indeed if she had ever looked prettier than Esther did at that moment. A delicate pink had risen in her cheeks, and her brown eyes seemed unusually soft and l.u.s.trous in the warmth with which she had spoken. She had made a lucky suggestion, and her grandfather took his cue instantly.

"We never pretended that our strong p'int was raising wheat 'n' corn here in New England," he said loftily. "The old Bay State can do better than that. She can raise men; men who fear G.o.d and honor their country, and can guide her in the hour of need with the spirit of wisdom and sound understanding."

"We've got some of that sort, too," said Kate, cutting in at the first pause. "The only difference is you started on your list a little ahead of us."

But the remark was lost on her grandfather. He was on solid ground now, and he felt his eloquence rising. "You talk about our land being poor.

Well, mebbe 'tis; mebbe we do have to scratch round among the rocks to make a living, but we've scratched lively enough to do it, and support our schools and churches, and start yours into the bargain. We've scratched deep enough to find the money to send lots of our boys to college-there's been a good many of 'em right from this district. There was Abner Sickles that went to Harvard from the back side of Rocky Hill, where they used to say the stones were so thick you had to sharpen the sheep's nose to get 'em down to the gra.s.s between; there was Baxter Sloc.u.m-thirteen children his father had-there were the Dunham boys, three out of six in one family."

For the last minute Miss Katharine Saxon had been moving uneasily in her chair. Her square chin, which had been resting on her clasped hands at the top of her cane, had come up, and her eyes were fixed sharply on her brother.

"While you're about it, Ruel," she said, interrupting him in the dryest of tones, "you might just mention some o' the _girls_ that have been sent to college from these old farms."

Ruel Saxon, reined up thus suddenly in the onward charge of his eloquence, opened and closed his lips for a moment with a rather helpless expression. She waited for him to speak, her thin hands gripping the cane, and the corners of her mouth twitching ominously.

"Well, of course, Katharine," he said testily, "there hain't been as many girls. For that matter there warn't the female colleges to send 'em to fifty years ago; but you know yourself there hain't been the means to send 'em both, the boys _and_ the girls, and if it couldn't be but one-"

He paused to moisten his lips, and she took up the word with an accent of intense bitterness. "If there couldn't be but one, it must be the boy, of course,-always the boy. Oh, I know! Yes, and I know how the girls 'n' their mothers have slaved to send 'em. It ain't the men that have learned how to get more out of the farms; it's the women that have learned how to get along with less in the house. There was Abner Sickles! Yes, there was; and there was his sister Abigail, too. I went to school with 'em both. She was enough sight smarter 'n he was; always could see into things quicker, 'n' handle 'em better, but they took a notion to send him to college,-wanted to make a minister of him,-and she stopped going to school when she was fourteen, and did the housework for the family,-her mother was always sickly,-and then sat up nights, sewing straw and binding shoes to earn money for Abner." She paused, with a note in her voice which suggested a clutch at the throat, then added: "She died when she was twenty. Went crazy the last part of the time, and thought she'd committed the unpardonable sin. It's my opinion somebody _had_ committed it; but 'twarn't her."

It was the old gentleman who was moving uneasily now. "It was too bad about Abigail," he said, with a shake of the head. "I remember her case, and 'twas one of the strangest we ever had in the church. I went out to see her once, with two of the other deacons, and we set out the doctrine of the unpardonable sin clear and strong, and showed her that if she really _had_ committed it she wouldn't be feeling so bad about it-she'd have her conscience seared as with a hot iron; but she couldn't seem to lay hold of any comfort. However, it was plain that her mind wasn't right, and I don't believe the Lord held her responsible for her lack of faith."

The old woman gave an impatient snort. "If he didn't hold somebody responsible, you needn't talk to me about justice," she said fiercely.

"I don't know how you and the other deacons figured it out, Ruel, but if it ain't the unpardonable sin for folks to act like fools, when the Lord has given 'em eyes to see with, and sense enough to put two and two together, I don't know what 'tis. I tell you the whole trouble grew out of that notion that a boy must be sent away to school just because he was a boy, and a girl must be kept at home just because she was a girl.

If the Almighty ever meant to have things go that way why didn't He give the men the biggest brains, and put the strongest backs 'n' arms on the women? Heaven knows they've needed 'em."

A good memory was undoubtedly one of Ruel Saxon's strong points, but all recollection of the gentle warning his daughter-in-law had given him was put utterly to flight by this speech of his sister's. He stiffened himself in his chair, and his nostrils dilated (to use a pet figure of his own) "like a war-horse smelling the battle from afar."

"Katharine," he said, "you darken counsel by words without knowledge. I don't pretend, and n.o.body ever pretended, that Abigail Sickles or' to have worked herself to death to keep Abner in college. Her folks or' to have seen it in time, and stopped her. But you take too much upon yourself when you want to change things round from the way the Lord made 'em. It's the _men_ that have got to be at the head of things in church and state; it's the _men_ that have got to go out into the world and earn the living for the women and children; and it's because they've needed the education more, and had more call to use it, that the boys have been sent to college instid of the girls. There's reason in all things."

She broke in upon him with a short, scornful laugh. "There's a terrible good reason sometimes, Ruel, why the women have to earn the living for themselves, 'n' the children too; and that's to keep themselves from starving. Who earned the living for Nancy's children when she brought 'em all home to the old house forty years ago? Well, I guess she 'n' I earned most of it."

She lifted her shoulders with an effort, and added: "Shouldn't be quite so near doubled together now if it hadn't been for bending over that spinning-wheel day in 'n' day out, working to get food 'n' clothes for those children, the six of 'em that John Proctor ran away 'n' left. You talk about men going out in the world to earn the living. It would be a good thing for the women to go into the world too, sometimes. Mebbe they wouldn't be quite so helpless then when they're left to shift for themselves."

The old man winced. "You had an awful hard time, Katharine, you 'n'

Nancy. John Proctor didn't do his duty by his family," he said; and then he faced her with a fresh impatience. "But that ain't the way the men gener'ly do, is it? To hear you talk a body'd think the women had just naturally got to plan for that sort of thing. You want 'em to go out into the world, like the men, and make a business of it. I'd like to know who'd take care of the home 'n' the children if they did. Home is the place for women. The Apostle Paul-"

There was a distinct flash of anger now in the small, bright eyes of Miss Katharine Saxon. "Don't tell me what Paul said," she exclaimed. "I tell you that notion o' his, that there was nothing a woman had a right to do but marry, 'n' have children, 'n' tend the house, is at the bottom of half the foolishness there is in the world to-day. Women have just as good a right to pick 'n' choose what they shall do as the men have. And some of 'em had a good deal better do something else than marry the men that want 'em. I tell you Paul didn't know it all. 'Cording to his own account he had to be struck by lightning before he could see some things, and if another streak had come his way mebbe he'd caught sight of a few more that were worth looking at."

Ruel Saxon gazed at his sister for a minute speechless. Then he said solemnly, "Katharine, there _is_ such a thing as blasphemy, and I'd be a little careful if I was you how I talked about the Lord's dealings with his saints."