Witch Winnie Part 23

The book-agent read us another epitaph, copied in Vernon, Vt., which suggested a three-volume novel in the history which it gave of early Indian times. Our imaginations sank exhausted as we attempted to follow the heroine through all her matrimonial complications, I give it as it was dictated to me:

MRS. JEMIMA TUTE, SUCCESSIVELY RELICT OF MESSRS. WILLIAM PHIPS, CALEB HOWE, AND AMOS TUTE.

THE TWO FIRST WERE KILLED BY THE INDIANS, PHIPS, JULY 5, 1743; HOWE, JUNE 27, 1755.

WHEN HOWE WAS KILLED, SHE AND HER CHILDREN, THEN SEVEN IN NUMBER, WERE CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY.

THE OLDEST DAUGHTER WENT TO FRANCE, AND WAS MARRIED TO A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. THE YOUNGEST WAS TORN FROM HER BREAST, AND PERISHED WITH HUNGER.

BY THE AID OF SOME BENEVOLENT GENTLEMEN, AND HER OWN PERSONAL HEROISM, SHE RECOVERED THE REST.

SHE DIED MARCH 7, 1805, HAVING Pa.s.sED THROUGH MORE VICISSITUDES AND ENDURED MORE HARDSHIPS THAN ANY OF HER CONTEMPORARIES.

"'No more can savage foe annoy, Nor aught her widespread fame destroy.'"

It was dark when we wandered back to the hotel, past the old manse built for the Reverend John Williams by his parishioners after his return from captivity. We were told that some one residing in the house of late had occasion to move a tall piece of furniture in one of the chambers, and discovered a door. Opening this, a secret staircase was found leading from the cellar to the attic. No one living had known of its existence, and many were the wild guesses made as to its object.

When we returned to the hotel we found that father and Mr. Stillman had not yet arrived. Miss Sartoris seemed very anxious, and feared that there might have been trouble in arresting the tramps. Winnie cheered us by suggesting the trout fishing, which Mr. Stillman had reluctantly abandoned when we left Mt. Toby. It would be a good night for fishing, the landlord said; perhaps they had remained for it, since the distance to Toby was too long to be comfortably made three times in one day.

After breakfast the next morning, as our travelers were still absent, Miss Sartoris and I unpacked our sketch-boxes and began to make a study of the street from the north end, just at the point where the French and Indians, "swarming over the palisades on the drifted snow, surprised and sacked the sleeping town."

Miss Prillwitz and Winnie, with their botanists' cans, followed a little brook that ran at the back of the hotel, and came back laden with blue German forget-me-nots. Father and Mr. Stillman arrived just before dinner, Mr. Stillman carrying in one hand a string of beautiful speckled trout, and in the other something which looked like a buffalo-robe. He looked very triumphant and happy, while father followed, carrying in a rather sheepish manner--what but the old soldering furnace! We greeted them with so much laughter and so many questions that it was some time before they could give an account of their adventures.

Arrived at the Mount Toby railroad station, they had found it deserted.

The men having evidently decided that it was not safe to await the recovery of the bear, had accordingly killed it, and secreted it in a cave at the foot of the mountain. The sheriff knew of this cave, and in examining it in search of the men, found the carca.s.s of the bear.

"And so," exclaimed Mr. Stillman, exhibiting the skin, "I secured my rug, after all, but we concluded that the meat looked rather tough, and we would not take it. I shall express this skin straight to a taxidermist that I know, and have it handsomely mounted."

"But the men!" I asked; "you don't mean to tell me that they escaped?"

"No," replied father; "but if you can't keep quiet I shall not be able to tell you how they were caught. It was this very ill-luck-bringing soldering outfit that did it. When we found that they had left, I suspected that they had taken the morning train for Canada at the Montague station, for no trains stopped at Toby; and in case they had done that, there was hardly a chance of our reaching the station and ascertaining the fact in time to telegraph and effect their arrest before they could leave the country. We had driven from Greenfield pretty rapidly, and our horses were tired; then we took a wrong turning, and got off into Leverett, or some other unhappy wilderness; but after a while we found a farmer who provided us with fresh beasts, and we reached the Montague station toward evening. It was shut up, and the station-master had gone home, but after another half-hour we found him.

Yes, our men had bought tickets for Montreal that morning. Then you should have seen our hurry to telegraph; but the station-master advised us to keep cool, and wait a little. 'They bought their tickets,' he said, 'but they didn't go there.' So that was a feint, I thought, to throw us off the track. But no; on their way from Toby they had decided that they would have a cup of coffee, and they had sat down behind a barn to make it on my soldering furnace, and as they were doubtless as tired of carrying the old thing as I was, they left it there. The wind blew the coals into the hay, and in a few minutes the barn was on fire.

Someone had seen them leave the yard, and before the train came along for which they were waiting, they were arrested as incendiaries, and taken to the Greenfield jail. As this was precisely where the sheriff wished to take them, there was nothing for him to do but to return and notify the authorities that the men would be wanted soon on more serious charges. And as the station-master informed us that there was some good trout-fishing nearby, we decided to spend the night in Montague. So we let the sheriff and constable drive back to Greenfield without us, and telegraphed Mr. Armstrong that his birds were caught."

"If they only turn out to be his birds!" said Winnie.

"I haf no doubtfuls of zat," said Miss Prillwitz.

"But why did you bring back that wretched little furnace and iron?" I asked.

"Why, the curious part of it is that the farmer who drove us over this morning had found them in the ruins of his barn, and he brought them along, thinking that we might like them to help in identifying the rascals. I couldn't refuse his kindness, but I certainly shall not carry them away from this place. I don't believe in such nonsense, but the gypsy's prediction has come true so far, and they brought bad fortune to the gentlemen to whom I presented them."

Mr. Armstrong, who had been telegraphed for, arrived with a police officer that night; and Miss Prillwitz, father, and Mr. Stillman were absent all the next morning making depositions to aid in the identification of the prisoners.

It was finally decided to remove them to New York to await trial on Mr.

Armstrong's charges. We set out that afternoon for Ashfield, our route leading us over beautiful hills, and affording us views of rare loveliness. Ashfield is a village loved by literary men as Deerfield is by artists. Deerfield nestles in a valley, while Ashfield lies on the breezy hill-top; George William Curtis is the centre of the coterie of rare minds who make Ashfield their summer home. Mr. Curtis gives a lecture here once a year for the benefit of the Sanderson Academy. At this time every manner of vehicle brings the country-people over the winding roads, which converge in Ashfield like the spokes of a wheel in their hub. We were not fortunate enough to light on this red-letter day, and we accordingly rested over night at the long low inn, and started early the next morning for uncle's home in Hawley. The distance was short, as the crow flies, but it seemed to be all up-hill. The last mile was through one of those gorges so common in this region, where the fissure between the hills is so narrow that the sun only looks in for two or three hours. Slowly climbing the long, green-vaulted stairway, the dusky tapestry was at length looped back for us, and the road, emerging from the wooded ravine, gleamed yellow-white between the gra.s.sy mounds. Crowning one of these knolls stood a long, white farm-house, spreading out wing after wing in hospitable effort to shelter the entire hill-top. Beside the road stood a post with a letter-box affixed, for the reception of the mail left by the daily stage. We pa.s.sed a huddle of old barns and out-buildings, among which I recognized a carpenter's shop, a carriage-shed, a sugar-house in convenient proximity to a grove of maples, a dairy through which ran the brook, keeping cool and solid the eighty pounds of b.u.t.ter which my cousins made each week, a cider-mill, and behind it an orchard of russet apple-trees, and a long row of bee-hives fronting the flower-garden.

Uncle expected us, and it was delightful to see the meeting between the two brothers, who had not seen each other in twelve years. There were plenty of airy bedrooms, hung with pure white dimity, and after our gypsy life it seemed very pleasant to find once more the comforts of a home. We spent several days at the Maples, attending service in the dear old-fashioned church with its high, square pews.

Aunt Prue had all of our travel-soiled clothing neatly washed, and refilled the emptied hampers and lunch-baskets with abundant supplies from the products of the farm and her own good cookery.

Uncle was a large, easy man, who dearly loved to tell a story to match his own ample proportions, only the twinkle in his eye redeeming him from the charge of deception. Aunt Prue's rigid conscience revolted at uncle's romances. "Asahel Smith!" she would exclaim, "how can you lie like that; and you a church-member?"

"Now, Prudence," Uncle Asahel would reply, "the catechism says a lie is a story told with intention to deceive, and when I told these girls that I drove the oxen home with the last load of hay so fast that I got it into the barn before a drop of water fell, while it was raining so hard behind me that Watch, who was following the wagon, actually _swam_ all the way up from the medder--when I told 'em that, I cal'late I didn't deceive 'em; I was only cultivating their imaginations."

Aunt Prue groaned in spirit, and began to sing, in a high, cracked voice.

"False are the men of high degree, The baser sort are vanity; Weighed in the balance, both appear Light as a puff of empty air."

While at The Maples we made an excursion to c.u.mmington, formerly Bryant's home. We sat in the library, shut in by a thick grove, where he composed his translations of the Odyssey and Iliad, and we played with a little pet dog of which he had been very fond. Not far from the estate is a fine library, Bryant's gift to the little town. "Bryant's River" is a brawling little stream which flows through a very picturesque region.

We amused ourselves by fancying that we recognized spots described in several of his poems.

There was a grand old oak upon the place which might have inspired his lines--

"This mighty oak-- By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem Almost annihilated--not a prince In all that proud Old World beyond the deep E'er wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which Thy hand has graced him."

The scenery about c.u.mmington and Hawley tempted us to a frequent use of our sketching-materials. Mr. Stillman, too, found several birds new to him, and took some beautiful landscape photographs. Miss Sartoris gave him new ideas about choosing views where mountain and cloud, trees and reflections, composed well, and his photographs became much more artistic. He began to talk about the importance of placing his darkest dark here, and his highest light there, of balancing a steeple in this part of his picture by a human interest in the foreground, of ma.s.sing his shadows, of angular composition, of tone and harmony, and the rest of the cant of the studio. Nor was it all cant; Miss Sartoris had taught him to see more in nature than he had ever seen before, and while his ambition had hitherto been to secure sharp photographs of instantaneous effects--mere feats of mechanical skill--his aim was now to produce pictures satisfying to highly cultivated tastes. He acknowledged that all this was due to Miss Sartoris, who had opened a new world to him, though it seemed to me that he really owed quite as much to Miss Prillwitz, but for whose influence he would never have taken up photography. I was a little jealous for our princess, and felt that, though Miss Sartoris was young and fair, and Miss Prillwitz old and wrinkled, this was no reason why honor should not be rendered where honor was due.

There was a pond with a bit of swamp land on uncle's farm, which he considered the blot on the place, but which Miss Sartoris declared was a real treasure-trove for a picture. One end was covered with lily-pads, and great waxy pond-lilies were opening their alabaster lamps here and there on the surface, while the yellow cow-lilies dotted the other end with their b.u.t.ter-pats. Cat-tails and rushes grew in the shallower portions, and here was to be found the rare moccasin-flower, a pink and white orchid of exquisite shape. Miss Sartoris painted a beautiful picture here. She said it reminded her of the pond which Ruskin describes with an artist's insight and enthusiasm.

"A great painter sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will take him a day's work to follow; and he follows it, cost what it will.

He sees it is not the dull, dirty, blank thing which he supposes it to be; it has a heart as well as ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees and their quivering leaves, and all the hazy pa.s.sages of sunshine, the blades of the shaking gra.s.s, with all manner of hues of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; and the bottom seen in the clear little bits at the edge, and the stones of it, and all the sky. For the ugly gutter that stagnates over the drain-bars in the heart of the foul city is not altogether base. It is at your will that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street or the image of the sky; so it is with many other things which we unkindly despise."

We all regretted when our short visit at The Maples came to an end, but Miss Prillwitz felt that she must be hastening back to the Home, and we had already transgressed the bounds which we had set to our outing. We decided to vary our journey by returning through Berkshire. We drove, the first day, to Pittsfield, a flourishing little city, and now for the first time we felt ourselves out of place in the peddler's carts.

Nowhere else had we attracted any special attention. It was a common thing for tin-peddlers to take their feminine relatives with them on their jaunts, and as we dressed very plainly, and conducted ourselves with gravity, no one gave us a second look.

At Pittsfield, however, we came in contact once more with "society," and the loungers on the hotel veranda gave us a broadside of astonished looks as we alighted. "It is very disagreeable to be stared at in this way," Winnie remarked to Miss Prillwitz as we entered.

"My tear," replied the good lady, "it takes four eyes to make a stare."[A]

[A] A remark once made by Professor Maria Mitch.e.l.l to a student of Va.s.sar College who had made a similar complaint.

Winnie colored deeply, for she knew that if she had been less self-conscious she would not have felt the curious and impertinent gaze.

We left Pittsfield so early the next morning that none of the hotel loungers were on the piazza to comment on our appearance.

We drove, that day, over the lovely Lenox hills, once covered by stony pastures, dotted here and there by lonely farm-houses, but now a succession of beautiful parks and aristocratic villas and mansions. Mr.

Stillman had his camera out, and photographed a number of the handsome residences as we pa.s.sed, and one of the gay little village-carts driven by a young woman dressed in the height of fashion, and presided over by a footman in livery.

"That does not seem to me a sensible way of going into the country,"

said Winnie. "I don't believe she has half the fun that we have in this old caravan."

"Perhaps not," I replied, "but I presume that Adelaide and Milly are driving about in much the same style; and we know that better-hearted girls never lived."

We picnicked near "Stockbridge Bowl," a lovely lake, blue as Geneva and encircled by beautiful hills. As father brought out the lunch-hamper I noticed a queer expression on his face. "What do you suppose I have found stowed away in the back part of the cart?" he asked.

"Not the soldering furnace?" we all replied, in unison.

He smiled grimly, and, instead of replying, placed it before us. "That Deerfield landlord must have packed it up without your knowledge," said Miss Sartoris. "Its reappearance is becoming really amusing; let us make one grand final effort to get rid of it by sinking it in the middle of the lake."

"Will you do it?"

"Certainly."