When Life Was Young Part 4

"Where have you been, Halstead?" the Old Squire inquired.

"Up in the sheep pasture, sir," said Halstead promptly. "I can't make but forty-seven lambs, the way I count. There is one gone."

"A very sudden liking for shepherd life," remarked Addison in an undertone to Theodora.

"What made you run and heat yourself so?" Gram asked him.

"I was afraid I should be late to dinner," answered Halstead with a bold look, intended for a frank one.

Grandfather looked at him earnestly; but nothing more was said. We all felt uneasy. Dinner ended rather drearily.

In the evening Theodora read to us several chapters from _Dred_, Mrs.

Stowe's novel. Anti-slavery books were then well nigh sacred at the old farm. Almost any other work of fiction would hardly have been considered fit reading for Sunday.

CHAPTER III

MONDAY AT THE OLD FARM

"I shall expect you to work with us on the farm, 'Edmund,'" grandfather said to me after breakfast. "But you may have this forenoon, to look about and see the place. Enjoy yourself all you can."

The robins were singing blithely in the orchard. I went thither and I think it was four robins' nests which I found in as many different apple trees, one with three, two with four and one with five blue eggs. Is there anything prettier than the eggs of a robin, in the eyes of a boy?

As I climbed the orchard wall to cross the road, a milk snake was sunning on the loose stones among the raspberry bushes, the first I had ever seen; and I bear witness that the ancestral antipathy to the serpent leaped within me instantly. I beat his head without remorse, ay, pounded his tail, too, which wriggled prodigiously, and chopped his body to pieces with sharp stones.

This sorry victory achieved, I set off across the fields to the west pasture and thence descended to the west brook, where I saw several trout in a deep hole beneath the decayed logs of a former bridge. With a mental resolve to come here fishing, as soon as I could procure a hook and line, I continued onward through a low, swampy tract overgrown with black alder and at length reached the "colt pasture," upon a cleared hill. Here a handsome black colt, along with a sorrel and a white one, was feeding, and at once came racing to meet me, in the hope of a nib of provender, or salt. Continuing my voyage of discovery, I came to a tract of woodland beyond the pasture through which a cart road led to a clearing where there was a small old house, deserted, and also a small barn. This, as I had yet to learn, was the "Aunt Hannah lot," an appendage of the farm, which had come into grandfather's possession from a sister, my great-aunt of that name. Save a field of oats, the land here was allowed to lie in gra.s.s and remain otherwise uncultivated.

Beyond this small outlying farm, there was a dense body of woodland, which I did not then attempt to penetrate, but made a circuit to the northward through pasture land and young wood for half a mile or more, and by and by crossed the road, looking along which to the northwest, I could see the farmhouses of several of our neighbors.

Still farther around to the north rose a bold, rocky, cleared hill which I concluded was the sheep pasture. In a wet run along the foot of the hill was a stretch of what looked to be low, reddish, brushy gra.s.s, which I ascertained later was the "cranberry swale."

Beyond it to the east, a long field curved around the foot of the sheep pasture; and on the far side of this field there was woodland again, descending first to the valley of the east brook where lay the "Little Sea," then ascending a rugged hill.

A boy, like a bee, must needs take his bearings before he can feel quite at home in a new place. I crossed the valley and climbed the wooded hill beyond, a distance of nearly a mile and a half from the farmhouse.

Formerly there had been a grand growth of pine here; and there were still a few pine trees. Numbers of the old stumps and stubs were of great size. This rugged ridge bore the name of Pine Hill. From the summit I gained a fine view of the country around, with its farms and forest tracts, and of the Pennesseewa.s.see stretching away to the southward; also of the White Mountains in the northwest; while on the other side of the hill to the east and southeast, lay an extensive bog and another smaller lake, or pond, known as North Pond.

For half an hour or more I sat upon a pine stump and pored over the geography of the district with much boyish interest, noting various hills, farmhouses and other landmarks concerning which I determined to inquire of Addison.

At length, beginning to feel hungry and bethinking myself that it must be getting toward noon, I descended from my perch of observation, and made my way homeward, although it did not seem very much like home to me as yet. The tramp had done me good in the way of satisfying my "b.u.mp of location."

Reaching the house in advance of the noon hour, I went out with Theodora to see the eaves swallows again. We counted fifty-seven nests in a row, each resembling very much a dry cocoanut sh.e.l.l, with a swallow's head looking out at a little hole on the upper side. Dora pointed out the nest of one pair which had experienced much ill luck. Three times the nest had fallen. No sooner would they finish it and have an egg or two, than down it would fall on the stones below. But their misfortunes had finally taught the little architects wisdom. They brought hair from the barnyard and mixed it with their mud, after the manner of mortar, and so built a nest which successfully adhered.

All this Theodora told me as we stood watching them, coming and going with cheery, ceaseless twitterings.

"And I think they've got a kind of reason about such things," Theodora added with a certain tone of candid concession. "Although Gram says it is only instinct. She doesn't like to have any one say that animals or birds reason; she thinks it isn't Scriptural."

Just then Ellen came out with the dinner-horn which, after several dissonant efforts, she succeeded in sounding, to call the Old Squire and the boys from the field. Theodora and I were so greatly amused at the odd sound that we burst out laughing; and Ellen, hearing us, was a good deal mortified. "I don't care!" she exclaimed. "It goes awfully hard; I haven't got breath enough to quite 'fill' it; and my lip isn't hard enough. Ad says it takes practice to get up a lip for horn blowing."

Theodora tried it, and elicited a horrible blare. I did not succeed much better; something seemed to be lacking in my lip, or my lungs. It required a tremendous head of wind to make the old tube vibrate; at last, I got it started a-roaring and made the whole countryside hideous with an outlandish sort of blast. Theodora begged of me to desist.

"We shall have the neighborhood aroused and coming to see what the matter is," she said. I was so much elated with my success, however, that I blew a final roar; and just then Addison, Halstead, grandfather and two hired men came upon the scene, over the wall from the field side.

"What on earth are you trying to do with that horn?" Halstead called out. "Do you think we are deaf? I never heard such a noise!"

"It is only our new cousin getting up his lip," said Ellen, scarcely able to speak for laughing.

Grandfather told me that if they ever organized a bra.s.s band thereabout, I should have the big French horn to play, for I seemed to have the makings of a tremendous lip. All these little incidents of my first few days at the farm are enduringly fixed in my memory.

The day proved a warm one; and after dinner I went into the front sitting-room and looked at the old family pictures: grandfather's father and mother in silhouette, General Scott's triumphant entry into the city of Mexico, Jesus disputing with the Doctors, Martin Luther, George Washington and several daguerreotypes of my uncles and aunts, framed and hung on the wall. Next I read the battle parts of a new history of the War, by Abbott.

Erelong grandfather came in for a nap on the lounge; and I found that Addison and Halstead were hitching up old Sol and loading bags of corn into the farm wagon, to go to mill. They told me that the grist mill was three miles distant and invited me to go along with them. We set off immediately, all three of us sitting on the seat, in front of the bags.

Halstead wanted to drive; but Addison had taken possession of the reins and kept them, although Halstead secured the whip and occasionally touched up the horse, contrary to Addison's wishes; for it proved a very hilly road. First we descended from the ridge on which the home farm is located, crossed the meadow, then ascended another long ridge whence a good view was afforded of several ponds, and of the White Mountains in the northwest.

Descending from this height of land to the westward for half a mile, we came to the mill, in the valley of another large brook. It was a weathered, saddle-back old structure, situated at the foot of a huge dam, built of rough stones, like a farm wall across the brook, and holding back a considerable pond. A rickety sluice-way led the water down upon the water-wheel beneath the mill floor.

When we arrived there was no one stirring about the mill; but we had no more than driven up and hitched old Sol to a post, when two boys came out from a small red house, a little way along the road, where lived the miller, whose name was Harland.

"There come Jock and George," said Addison. "Maybe the old man isn't at home to-day.

"Where's your father?" he called out, as the boys drew near.

"Gone to the village," replied the larger of the two, who was apparently thirteen or fourteen years of age.

"We want to get a grist ground," Addison said to them.

"What is it?" they both asked.

"Corn," replied Ad.

"If it's only corn, we can grind it," they said. "Take it in so we can toll it. Pa said we could grind corn, or oats and pease; but he won't let us grind wheat, yet, for that has to be bolted."

We carried the bags into the mill; there were three of them, each containing two bushels of corn; and meantime the two young millers brought along a half-bushel measure and a two-quart measure.

"It's two quarts toll to the bushel, ye know," said Jonathan, the elder of the two. "So I must have two two-quart measurefuls out of every bag."

He proceeded to untie the bags and toll them, dipping out a heaped measureful.

"Here, here," said Addison, "you must _strict_ those measures with a square; you're getting a good pint too much on every one."

"All right," they a.s.sented, and producing a piece of straight-edged board, _stricted_ them.

"Have to watch these millers a little," Addison remarked. "And I guess, Jock, you had better not toll all the bags till you see whether there's water enough to grind all of it."

"O, there's water enough," said they. "There's a whole damful."

They then poured the first bagful into the hopper over the millstones, and went to hoist the gate. It was a very primitive, worn piece of mechanism, and hoisting it proved a difficult task. Addison and Halstead went to help them. At length they heaved the gate up; the water-wheel began to turn and the other gear to revolve, making a tremendous noise.

I climbed down beneath the mill, at the lower end, to see the water-wheel operate. The wheel and big mill post turned ponderously around, wabbling somewhat and creaking ominously. By the time I went back into the mill, above, the first bagful of corn was nearly ground into yellow meal, which came out of the stones into the meal-box quite hot from the molinary process. Addison was dipping the meal out and putting it up in the empty bag.