Autumn Part 15

"He used to," said Juliet, "but he ran away. Now Mrs. Grumble's sick, he ought to come home again, and ease her last hours."

The farmer began to chuckle. "What's the old gaffer's name?"

"Mr. Jeminy," said Juliet.

"Hop in," said the farmer. "I'll take you along. He's been stopping with Aaron Bade, over to the Forge. I declare, if that don't beat all.

Curl up in the hay, child, it'll keep you warm. What were you doing, hollering for him?"

"Yes, sir," said Juliet.

The farm wagon started on again, through the rapidly falling dusk.

Juliet, under a blanket in the hay, looked up at the tall figure of the farmer, set like a giant above her.

"Mister," she said.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Did he come with a scarlet woman, did you hear?"

"Not so far as I know. No, he came all alone, early in the morning.

Wasn't anybody with him."

Beneath her blanket, Juliet hugged Anna to her breast. "There, you see," she whispered. And in her fresh, young voice, she began to sing, while the wagon rattled down the road to Milford, a song she had heard her mother singing the year Noel Ploughman died.

"Love is the first thing, Love goes past.

Sorrow is the next thing, Quiet is the last.

Love is a good thing, Quiet isn't bad, But sorrow is the best thing I've ever had."

XI

AND IS FOUND IN GOOD HANDS

From the Bade farmhouse, a mile below Hemlock Mountain, the road winds down to Adams' Forge, past Aaron Bade's stony fields. To the north lies Milford; but to the south lies that enchanting land, blue in the distance, misty in the sun, which the heart delights to call its home.

It is the land we see from any hilltop. As we gaze at its far off rises, its hazy, shadowy valleys, we feel within us a longing and a faint melancholy. There, we think, dwell the friends who would love us, if we were known to them, and there, too, must be found the beauty and the happiness that we have failed to discover where we are. It seems to us that there, in the distance, we should be happier, we should be more amiable and more dignified.

Aaron Bade, tied to his rocky farm on the slopes above Adams' Forge, remembered with a feeling of pleasure his one journey as far south as Attleboro. He had been obliged to return home before he had found the happiness which he had expected to find. However, once he was home, he realized that he had left it behind him, in Attleboro, or just a little further south . . .

Now, at forty, he was neither happy nor unhappy, but turned back in his mind to the fancies of his youth, and enjoyed, in imagination, the travels denied him in reality.

He had no love for the farm, which had belonged to his father; an old flute, on which his father used to play, was more of a treasure to him.

Often in summer, as day faded, and the dews of night descended; when the clear lights in the valley were set twinkling one by one, leaving the uplands to the winds and stars, Aaron Bade, perched upon his pasture bars, piped to the faintly glowing sky his awkward thoughts and clumsy feelings.

In the morning he took leave of his wife, and with his hoe slung over his shoulder, made his way down to the cornfield. There, seated upon a stone, he saw himself in Attleboro again, pictured to himself the countryside beyond, and before noon, was half way round the world, leaving friends behind him in every land. Then, with a sigh, he would go in among the corn with his weeder, only to stand dreaming at every rustle of wind, seeing, in his mind, the smoke of distant cities, hearing, in fancy, the booming of foreign seas.

His wife was no longer a young woman. As a girl she had also had hopes for herself. It seemed to her, when she chose Aaron Bade, that in his company, life would be surprising and delightful. She expected to see something of the world--he spoke of it so much. But she was mistaken.

For Aaron's travels were all of the mind. And she soon discovered that the more he talked, the more there remained for her to do. Thus her hopes died away; between the stove and the chickens, and what with cleaning, was.h.i.+ng, sweeping and dusting, she rarely found time nowadays for more than a shake of her head, never very pretty, and at last no longer young, at the thought of what she had looked for, what she had meant to find. In short, from hopeful girl, Margaret Bade was, sensibly enough, turned practical woman; and when, on clear afternoons, with his work still to do, Aaron would take his flute down into the fields, she did his ch.o.r.es, as well as her own, with the wise remark that after all, they had to be done.

Nevertheless, when the dishes were washed--when the shadows of evening crept in past the lamp, no longer able to exclude them, she began to feel lonely and sad. And as the notes of Aaron's flute mingled with the night sounds, the chirp of crickets, the hum of insects, she felt, rather than thought, "Life is so much spilt milk. And all that comes of fancies, is Aaron's flute, playing down there in the pasture."

It was to this family that Mr. Jeminy came in the chilly dawn, on his way, apparently, to the ends of the earth, and, after breakfast, fell asleep in the hayloft, leaving them both gaping with pleasure and curiosity. For he came, Aaron had to admit, like a tramp; but spoke, Margaret thought, like the Gospels. "He's from roundabout," she said; "I hope he doesn't think to try and sell us anything. Men with something to sell always talk like the minister first."

But Aaron, with his mind on the far off world across the smoky autumn hills, was pained at such a suggestion. "You're wrong, mother," he said solemnly. "No, sirree. He's not from roundabout. And he's no common tramp either. He's come a distance, I believe."

"Then," said Margaret with regret, "I suppose he'll be going on again."

Aaron Bade stared attentively at one brown hand. "We could use a man on the farm," he said.

It gave his wife no pleasure to be obliged to agree with him.

"There's plenty still for a man to do, after you're done," she said.

But she smiled almost at once; for like the women of that north country, crabbed and twisted as their own apple trees, she loved her husband for the trouble he gave her.

"It's a queer thing," said Aaron; "he has the look of a bookish man.

Like old St. John Deakan down to the Forge, only St. John don't know anything, for all his looks."

"His talk was elegant," Mrs. Bade agreed. She stood still for a moment, looking down at her pots and pans. "He's seen a deal of life, I dare say," she added casually--so casually as to make one almost think that she herself had seen all she wanted to see.

"Well," said Aaron, "that's what schooling does for a man. It gives him a manner of talking, along with something to say."

Margaret, bent over her work again, plunged her red, wet arms up to the elbow in hot, soapy water. "You'll never lack talk, Aaron," she remarked; "or suffer for want of something to say. But it isn't was.h.i.+ng my pots for me, nor bringing in the corn . . ."

"I'm going along now," said Aaron. "If the old man wakes before I'm back again, don't hurry him off, mother; I'd be glad to talk with him a bit before he goes."

"Who said anything about hurrying him off?" cried Mrs. Bade. "He can stay till doomsday, for all I care. He can sit and talk to me, while you're blowing on your flute. It'll be real companionable."

And she turned back to her pots and pans, a faint smile causing her mouth to curl down at one end, and up at the other.

Mr. Jeminy awoke in the afternoon. It was the nature of this kind and simple man to accept without question the hospitality of people he had never seen before; for he felt friendly toward every one. As he sat down to supper with the Bades, he bowed his head, and offered up a grace, with all his heart:

"Abide, O Lord, in this house; and be present at the breaking of bread, in love and in kindness. Amen."

During the meal, Aaron Bade asked Mr. Jeminy many questions, to discover what the old man hoped to do. "I suppose," he said, "you've come a good distance."

"Yes," said Mr. Jeminy gravely, "I have come a good distance."

Aaron Bade gave his wife a look which said plainly, "There, you see, mother."

"Where is your home, old man?" asked Mrs. Bade kindly.

"I have no home," said Mr. Jeminy.

Aaron Bade cleared his throat. "Are you bound anywhere in particular?"

he asked.