When Life Was Young Part 25

No one of the family seemed much disposed to attend it. It appeared that the deceased had not been a highly respected citizen. It was said that he had died from the effects of a fit of intoxication. The liquor which drunkards were able to obtain, by hook or crook, at that period and in spite of the Prohibitory Law, was of a peculiarly deleterious character.

At dinner the Old Squire remarked that he should attend the funeral, and that I could go with him, if I liked, but that the others might be excused. I at once accepted the invitation; almost anything was preferable to hoeing corn in the hot sun.

It was a pleasant ride of eight miles along the county road to the northeastward. We first pa.s.sed numerous farms, then a "mud pond" and a "clear water pond," following afterwards the valley of a small river between two high, wooded mountains, till we came at last to a saw-mill, grist-mill and a few houses at a place whimsically known as the "city."

Here in a little weathered house the last rites and services to the deceased were held. Elder Witham, still in his duster, preached a short discourse during which I felt somewhat distressed to hear him express certain doubts as to the man's future state. The Elder was a thoroughly upright Yankee and Methodist, who tried to preach the truth and the gospel, as he apprehended it; he did not believe that all a person's faults are, or ought to be, forgiven at his death. I remember the following words which he made use of on that occasion, for they appealed to some nascent sense of logic in me, I suppose: "The evil which men do in this life lives on in the world after they die; and even so the just penalty for it continues with them in a future state."

The Old Squire, although ordinarily a kind and reasonable man, yet possessed some of the same severe traits of character, which have descended in the sons of New England, from the days of the Puritans. I remember that he said, as we drove along the road, going homeward: "The death of a drunkard is a shameful end. Such a person can expect other people to mourn only for his folly."

But these sentiments made far less impression upon me then than the conduct of the wife of the dead man. I had somehow supposed that he was an old man; but instead, he was only thirty-four years of age; and his wife was an auburn-haired, strong woman, not more than thirty, unusually handsome in face and form. She was in a state of great excitement, not wholly caused by sorrow. It appeared that there had been a violently bitter quarrel between the pair, the night before the man's death; and so far from having forgiven her husband, even then, the woman exhibited the turbulence of her temper and behaved in an unseemly manner during and after the services. Her outcries gave me a very strange impression and in fact so shocked and terrified me, that to this day I cannot recall the scene without a singular sensation of disquiet. Withal, it was the first funeral which I had ever attended. As a lad I was in not a little doubt on several points, touching the behavior of widows on such occasions; and as we drove homeward, I ventured to ask the Old Squire whether women were often liable to go on at funerals as that one did.

For I remember thinking that if this were really the case, I should never under any circ.u.mstances whatever, be allured into matrimony.

But the Old Squire at once said, positively, that they did not behave so, and that this woman (her name was Britannia) was an exception to all rules.

My next question upset him, however, for after a few moments of decent inward satisfaction over his reply, I asked him whether Britannia was a _Pepperill_.

Gramp turned half around on the wagon seat and looked at me in astonishment for an instant; he then burst out in a hearty laugh.

"No, no," said he. "She is no Pepperill, no connection whatever of your grandmother. The shoe is on the other foot. It's on my side this time."

He laughed again as he drove on; and just before we reached home, he told me, and seemed much in earnest that I should understand it, that the Pepperills were a very good family, as much or more so than the average, and that if I had got any different impression from anything I had heard said, it was utterly erroneous.

"You must never mind any of the nonsense I have over to your grandmother when we are at table," he continued. "It's all fun. We don't mean anything. Your grandma is the best woman I ever knew."

I replied that I had thought that was the way of it, myself. As the old gentleman had expressed himself so magnanimously toward the Pepperills, I at once resolved not to say a word to Gram, or any of the others, about this Britannia's behavior. I did not like to have Gramp put at any disadvantage in the family; so the old gentleman and I kept that incident quiet between us for a good many years.

CHAPTER XV

A WET FOURTH OF JULY, WITH A GOOD DEAL OF HUMAN NATURE IN IT

The first days of July were very hot and sultry; the hoeing was finished; haying was at hand. We young folks, however, were now chiefly interested in the Fourth of July celebration at the village, seven miles from the farm, and were laying our plans to go, all the previous day. In fact, the whole family intended to go.

If we were to get the farm ch.o.r.es done, breakfast eaten and reach the village by six o'clock, in time to see the procession of "fantastics" we would have to be astir by three in the morning. Addison proposed to harness old Sol and Nancy to the hay-rack, decorate it with green oak boughs, making a canopy over it, and all ride to town together, taking up six or eight of our neighbors, to swell the party.

Theodora and Ellen hailed this plan with delight, but Gram objected both because of the fact that the hay-rack had no springs, and also upon grounds of decorum.

"Why, people would think we were a part of the 'fantastics,'" the old lady exclaimed. "I will never ride in any such gipsy fashion!"

This vigorous declaration tabled the hay-cart scheme. But as we were milking that evening, Addison obtained the Old Squire's consent to harness Nancy into the horse-cart, and decorate it for us young folks; while our elders drove to the village with old Sol in the beach-wagon.

Boughs were accordingly fetched and a canopy made over the cart and by nine we all retired, so as to secure as much sleep as possible before three A. M.

But the Pluvian powers forbade the excursion. The southern sky, indeed, had looked a trifle dark and wet, the previous evening. Raindrops on the roof waked us shortly before three. We hoped it was but a pa.s.sing shower. At daylight, however, the rain was pouring profusely. Wealthy actually cried; Ellen scolded a little; Halstead made certain irreverent remarks; while Gram sought to inculcate resignation in the abstract.

It proved one of those profuse southerly rains, such as often occur in Maine during the summer season. We milked in the barn and put the cows out to pasture in the midst of the downpour, for it was a warm rain.

"No celebration to-day," remarked Addison; but the Old Squire thought that it would slacken by noon and perhaps clear.

All the morning it rained too hard even to go fishing. Addison went up to his room to read Audubon awhile. Halstead went out to the wagon-house and having appropriated an auger, draw-shave and hammer, took an umbrella and set off for the old cooper shop below the orchard. Seeing me standing in the wood-house door, he said, "You can go down to my shop, if you want to. I wouldn't invite Addison, but I will you."

I ran out to his umbrella, and we went down to the old shop. When we reached the door, Halstead remarked that I need not _see_ the way he opened it; so I stepped around the corner for a moment, till he called to me. I then entered after him and stood around while he set to work on several odd-looking pieces of wheeled gear. Then with his permission, I kindled a little fire in the large old fireplace, and dried my clothes before it.

"I tell ye that's a cute place to roast sweet corn ears," Halstead remarked. "In the fall I have a fire here evenings and roast corn; I did last fall and you and I will this next fall. It's jolly fun, after the nights get cool; I would like to sleep down here, but the old gent wants me to sleep in the house; I made a bunk of shavings and set out to stay one night before my fire, but he came down and knocked at the door about ten o'clock. He said I had better go up to the house.

"The old gent is awful particular about a fellow being out after dark,"

Halstead continued. "I ain't used, myself, to being bossed round so, and treated as if I was a child that hadn't cut my teeth yet. I've seen something of the world and can take care of number one, anywheres. It ain't as if I was a little green chap. I've lived out among folks, till I came 'way back here. I suppose the old gent and all the rest of them think, that I don't know any more and must be looked after just like one of these little greenhorns round here. It's a great bore to me to be treated that way and I don't like it at all. It makes me mad sometimes.

A fellow that has travelled and seen something, wants more liberty."

I could see that he was talking around to lead up to something he wished to tell me, and so said nothing.

"Now the other night," Halstead continued, "all I was going off for was to get some money of a fellow who owes me out at the Corners; I wanted to get it bad, for I wanted to pay you and the girls what I owe you. I knew you wanted it for the Fourth and I wanted to pay it; so I thought I would slip out to the Corners, and see this fellow and get it of him, for he had promised me I should have it that night. I felt ructious that I couldn't go, for of course a fellow wants to pay his honest debts, and it's kinder hard when he can't."

I mentally set this down as one of the things that are important, if true; it was pretty plain to me, however, that Halstead was hedging, and making up a story which he thought suited to my understanding. I did not like to hear him go on, and contrived to change the conversation.

Halstead was in one of his good moods that morning, and as he worked with the draw-shave, he cast knowing, proud glances first at the wheeled contrivance, then at me. I concluded that he wanted me to inquire about it and so asked what it was for.

"A wind-mill," said he. "It will be a buster, too! I'll show 'em a thing or two 'round here. I mean to run a lathe with it here at the shop and do wood turning. I'll turn banisters, rolling-pins, gingerbread creasers and all sorts of things. I can make lots of money off a lathe. I'm going to set the wind-mill up on a tall post at the corner of the shop here, and then have a pulley shaft clean across this whole side of it. Won't it just hum though!"

I grew considerably interested in the proposed wind-mill, as Halse explained it. He really had some ideas of a lathe, run by wind power, and went on for some time telling me of his plans, till Ellen called us to dinner.

It continued to rain till past two o'clock, when the clouds broke away and the sun came forth very hot and bright.

"Shall we go?" was now the question. "Will there be a celebration now the day is so far advanced?"

The Old Squire thought it hardly worth the while to set off, a.s.suredly not in the bough-embowered cart. Gram and the girls therefore decided to give up going altogether, but we three boys at length harnessed old Sol into the express wagon and started; for we hoped to see the fireworks in the evening and perhaps the sack-race and wheelbarrow-race which had been set for afternoon.

The meadow brook was swollen high out its banks and flowed into the gra.s.s on both sides, and the wet road was full of puddles through which old Sol splashed prosaically on. There were very few teams on the road.

Alfred Batchelder, the two Murch boys and Ned Wilbur overtook us, however, when we had nearly reached the village, all four riding on one seat of an old wagon. We found, too, that Thomas Edwards and Catherine had come to the village, in advance of us. Catherine came out from one of the stores to ask us whether Theodora and Ellen had come; she seemed much disappointed to learn that they had not, and that she was the only girl from our neighborhood who had ventured forth.

Despite the wet, a crowd of three or four hundred persons, mostly boys or young men, had collected in front of the Elm House, where they were popping off firecrackers and playing pranks. Zest was presently lent to these latter efforts, by the continuous explosion of half a bunch of crackers beneath the wagon seat of a young farmer who, with his sister, or some other young lady, was sitting in a wagon on the outskirts of the crowd, looking on. Both of them were smiling broadly. In the rear end of their wagon was a b.u.t.ter firkin and a number of packages. Some rogue lighted the crackers and tossed them directly beneath the wagon seat, and immediately they began to pop off. Their horse gave a bound; smoke and sparks flew, and after a moment the girl jumped clear of the wagon and landed nimbly on her feet two yards away! She looked very wild, indeed, and did not relish the joke; for an urchin in the crowd, attempting to follow it up by covertly dropping a lighted cracker near her feet, was instantly detected and received such a box on the ear as set him howling.

Meantime the youthful farmer had no small ado to quiet his nag. When the animal and the crackers had at length subsided into quiet, he began to look about for the girl. His nerves were not of the highly strung variety; he looked out for his horse first; he was not much excited, and smiled broadly when Angelina came forward to climb into the wagon again, but he was heard to remark in a slightly quickened tone. "By Gaul, 'f I could find out who throwed them firecrackers, I'd lick him, I would, I swan."

He gazed about over the crowd, with an inquiring eye, as one honestly on the lookout for accurate information; and although everybody had laughed uproariously, no one now claimed the honor of having started the fun.

Evidently a mischievous spirit possessed the crowd. In fact, when a great concourse of people has gathered in expectation of a good time, and has been balked of the fun, it is well to be wary and keep aloof.

Something is pretty certain to happen, and somebody is likely to be made a victim of the general disappointment. In such a case the most prudent thing is to go quietly home.

While all stood laughing and gaping at young Agricola and his fair companion, another hubbub broke out. A cracker suddenly exploded in the outer pocket of a long linen duster, worn by a tall youth who at that moment had his mouth widely distended with laughter. He clapped his hand to his pocket, when another went off there. With that he whirled around, the lengthy skirts of the "duster" floating out in a circle amidst a wreath of blue powder smoke. _Snap-fizz_ went another and another cracker, the sparks flying and an odor of burnt cloth beginning to pervade the air. The crowd, shouting in fresh glee, speedily drew out from the new victim and formed a ring about him.

"Enoch, you're all afire!" exclaimed one of his acquaintances. "Throw off yer duster." This was sound advice and would probably have been acted upon by "Enoch;" but some one else cried, "Down and roll over."

The adage advising all whose clothes take fire, to roll on the floor, or the ground, has become pretty firmly fixed in the public mind; and hearing it, Enoch at once threw himself down and rolled over and over in the road, to the accompaniment of a tremendous shout. The maneuver did not much improve matters; for a lot of crackers had been dropped into the duster pocket. These continued to pop off, in twos and threes; and the more alarmingly they popped, the more vigorously Enoch rolled! A more laughable spectacle, for the onlookers, can hardly be imagined. The tall fellow's arms and legs flew about in a wonderful manner; the smoke and sparks flew, too, and every time a cracker snapped, Enoch howled.

Somebody at length ran forward with a pailful of water that was set on the tavern piazza, and dashed it over him, and withal the road was still very muddy from the rain. When the water fell over him, he scrambled to his feet; the crackers had snapped themselves out. But oh, sorrows, what a fearfully singed and muddy object was Enoch! His own mother would have looked coldly on him; and the unsympathetic crowd screamed with delight.

But Enoch had arisen in a somber frame of mind; and it was at once apparent that something was going to be done about it, and that somebody must settle the account with him. He cast a rueful glance over his personal remnants, then a wrathy one at the laughter-shaken crowd, took a step forward and giving vent to certain emphatic remarks, declared, "The feller that did that has got to suffer!"