Queechy Volume I Part 89

Days gone by came marshalling their scenes and their actors before her; again she saw herself a little child under those same trees that stretched their great black arms over her head, and, swaying their tops in the wind, seemed to beckon her back to the past. They talked of their old owner, whose steps had so often pa.s.sed beneath them with her own light tread ? light now, but how dancing then! ? by his side; and of her father, whose hand perhaps had long ago tapped those very trees where she had noticed the old closed-up scars of the axe. At any rate, his boyhood had rejoiced there, and she could look back to one time at least in his manhood when she had taken a pleasant walk with him in summer weather among those same woods ? in that very ox-track she believed. Gone ?

two generations that she had known there; hopes and fears and disappointments, akin to her own, at rest, ? as hers would be; and how sedately the old trees stood telling her of it, and waving their arms in grave and gentle commenting on the folly of anxieties that came and went with the wind. Fleda agreed to it all; she heard all they said; and her own spirit was as sober and quiet as their quaint moralizing. She felt as if it would never dance again.

The wind had greatly abated of its violence; as if satisfied with the show of strength it had given in the morning, it seemed willing to make no more commotion that day. The sun was far on his way to the horizon, and many a broad hill-side slope was in shadow; the snow had blown or melted from off the stones and rocks, leaving all their roughness and bareness unveiled; and the white crust of snow that lay between them looked a cheerless waste in the shade of the wood and the hill. But there were other spots where the sunbeams struck, and bright streams of light ran between the trees, smiling and making them smile. And as Fleda's eye rested there, another voice seemed to say ? "At evening time it shall be light," and "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." She could have cried, but spirits were too absolutely at an ebb. She knew this was partly physical, because she was tired and faint, but it could not the better be overcome. Yet those streaks of sunlight were pleasant company, and Fleda watched them, thinking how bright they used to be once; till the oxen and sled came out from the woods, and she could see the evening colours on the hill-tops beyond the village, lighting up the whole landscape with promise of the morrow. She thought her day had seen its brightest; but she thought too that if she must know sorrows, it was a very great blessing to know them at Queechy.

The smoke of the chimney-tops came in sight, and fancy went home ? a few minutes before her.

"I wonder what you'll take and do to yourself next," said Barby, in extreme vexation, when she saw her come in. "You're as white as the wall, and as cold, aint you? I'd ha' let Philetus cut all the trees, and drink all the sap afterwards.

I wonder which you think is the worst, the want o' you, or the want o' sugar."

A day's headache was pretty sure to visit Fleda after any overexertion or exhaustion, and the next day justified Barby's fears. She was the quiet prisoner of pain. But Earl Dougla.s.s and Mr. Skillcorn could now do without her in the woods; and her own part of the trouble Fleda always took with speechless patience. She had the mixed comfort that love could bestow ?

Hugh's sorrowful kiss and look before setting off for the mill, Mrs. Rossitur's caressing care, and Barby's softened voice, and sympathizing hand on her brow, and hearty heart- speaking kiss; and poor little King lay all day with his head in her lap, casting grave wistful glances up at his mistress's face, and licking her hand with intense affection when even in her distress it stole to his head to reward and comfort him.

He never would budge from her side, or her feet, till she could move herself, and he knew that she was well. As sure as King came trotting into the kitchen, Barby used to look into the other room, and say, "So you're better, aint you, Fleda? I knowed it."

After hours of suffering, the fit was at last over; and in the evening, though looking and feeling racked, Fleda would go out to see the sap-boilers. Earl Dougla.s.s and Philetus had had a very good day of it, and now were in full blast with the evening part of the work. The weather was mild, and having the stay of Hugh's arm, Fleda grew too amused to leave them.

It was a very pretty scene. The sap-boilers had planted themselves near the cellar door on the other side of the house from the kitchen door and the woodyard ? the casks and tubs for syrup being under cover there; and there they had made a most picturesque work-place. Two strong crotched sticks were stuck in the ground some six or eight feet apart, and a pole laid upon them, to which by the help of some very rustic hooks two enormous iron kettles were slung. Under them a fine fire of smallish split sticks was doing duty, kept in order by a couple of huge logs which walled it in on the one side and on the other. It was a dark night, and the fire painted all this in strong lights and. shadows threw a faint, fading, Aurora- like light over the snow, beyond the shade of its log barriers; glimmered by turns upon the paling of the garden fence, whenever the dark figures that were pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing between gave it a chance; and invested the cellar- opening and the outstanding corner of the house with striking and unwonted dignity, in a light that revealed nothing except to the imagination. Nothing was more fancifully dignified, or more quaintly travestied by that light than the figures around it, busy and flitting about, and showing themselves in every novel variety of grouping and colouring. There was Earl Dougla.s.s, not a hair different from what he was every day in reality, but with his dark skin and eyes, and a hat that, like its master, had concluded to abjure all fas.h.i.+ons; and perhaps, for the same reason, he looked now like any bandit, and now, in a more pacific view, could pa.s.s for nothing less than a Spanish shepherd at least, with an iron ladle in lieu of crook. There was Dr. Quackenboss, who had come too, determined, as Earl said, "to keep his eend up," excessively bland, and busy, and important; the fire would throw his one- sidedness of feature into such aspects of gravity or sternness that Fleda could make nothing of him but a poor clergyman or a poor schoolmaster alternately. Philetus, who was kept handing about a bucket of sap, or trudging off for wood, defied all comparison ? he was Philetus still; but when Barby came once or twice and peered into the kettle, her strong features, with the handkerchief she always wore about her head, were lit up into a very handsome gipsy. Fleda stood some time unseen in the shadow of the house to enjoy the sight, and then went forward on the same principle that a sovereign princess shows herself to her army, to grace and reward the labours of her servants. The doctor was profuse in inquiries after her health, and Earl informed her of the success of the day.

"We've had first-rate weather," he said; ? "I don't want to see no better weather for sugar-makin'; it's as good kind o'

weather as you need to have. It friz everythin' up tight in the night, and it thew in the sun this morning as soon as the sun was anywhere; the trees couldn't do no better than they have done. I guess we ha'n't got much this side o' two hundred gallon ? I aint sure about it, but that's what I think; there's nigh two hundred gallon we've fetched down; I'll qualify to better than a hundred and fifty, or a hundred and sixty either. We should ha' had more yet if Mr. Skillcorn hadn't managed to spill over one cask of it ? I reckon he wanted it for sa.s.s for his chicken."

"Now, Mr. Dougla.s.s!" said Philetus, in a comical tone of deprecation.

"It is an uncommonly fine lot of sugar trees," said the doctor; "and they stand so on the ground as to give great felicities to the oxen."

"Now, Fleda," Earl went on, busy all the while with his iron ladle in dipping the boiling sap from one kettle into the other ? "you know how this is fixed when we've done all we've got to do with it? ? it must be strained out o' this biler into a cask or a tub, or somethin' nother ? anythin' that'll hold it ? and stand a day or so; ? you may strain it through a cotton cloth, or through a woollen cloth, or through any kind of a cloth, ? and let it stand to settle; and then when it's biled down ? Barby knows about bilin' down ? you can tell when it's comin' to the sugar when the yellow blobbers rises thick to the top and puffs off; and then it's time to try it in cold water ? it's best to be a leetle the right side o' the sugar and stop afore it's done too much, for the mola.s.ses will dreen off afterwards" ?

"It must be clarified in the commencement," put in the doctor.

"O' course it must be clarified," said Earl ? "Barby knows about clarifyin' ? that's when you first put it on ? you had ought to throw in a teeny drop o' milk fur to clear it ?

milk's as good as a'most anything ? or, if you can get it, calf's blood's better" ?

"Eggs would be a more preferable ingredient on the present occasion, I presume," said the doctor. "Miss Ringgan's delicacy would be ? a ? would shrink from ? a ? and the alb.u.men of eggs will answer all the same purpose."

"Well, anyhow you like to fix it," said Earl, ? "eggs or calf's blood ? I wont quarrel with you about the eggs, though I never heerd o' blue ones afore, 'cept the robin's and bluebird's ? and I've heerd say the swamp blackbird lays a handsome blue egg, but I never happened to see the nest myself; ? and there's the chippin' sparrow; but you'd want to rob all the bird's nests in creation to get enough of 'em, and they aint here in sugar time, nother; but, anyhow, any eggs 'll do, I s'pose, if you can get 'em ? or milk 'll do, if you ha'n't nothin' else ? and after it is turned out into the barrel, you just let it stand still a spell, till it begins to grain and look clean on top" ?

"May I suggest an improvement?" said the doctor. "Many persons are of the opinion that if you take and stir it up well from the bottom for a length of time, it will help the coagulation of the particles. I believe that is the practice of Mr.

Plumfield and others."

" 'Taint the practice of as good men as him, and as good sugar bilers besides," said Earl; "though I don't mean to say nothin' agin' Seth Plumfield nor agin' his sugar, for the both is as good as you'd need to have; he's a good man and he's a good farmer ? there aint no better man in town than Seth Plumfield, nor no better farmer, nor no better sugar nother; but I hope there's as good; and I've seen as handsome sugar that wa'n't stirred as I'd want to see or eat either."

"It would lame a man's arms the worst kind," said Philetus.

Fleda stood listening to the discussion and smiling, when Hugh, suddenly wheeling about, brought her face to face with Mr. Olmney.

"I have been sitting some time with Mrs. Rossitur," he said, "and she rewarded me with permission to come and look at you.

I mean ? not that I wanted a reward, for I certainly did not ?

"Ah, Mr. Olmney!" said Fleda, laughing, "you are served right.

You see how dangerous it is to meddle with such equivocal things as compliments. But we are worth looking at, aren't we?

I have been standing here this half hour."

He did not say this time what he thought.

"Pretty, isn't it?" said Fleda. "Stand a little further back, Mr. Olmney; isn't it quite a wild looking scene, in that peculiar light, and with the snowy background? Look at Philetus now, with that bundle of sticks. Hugh, isn't he exactly like some of the figures in the old pictures of the martyrdoms, bringing billets to feed the fire? that old martyrdom of St. Lawrence ? whose was it ? Spagnoletto! ? at Mrs. Decatur's ? don't you recollect? It is fine, isn't it, Mr. Olmney?"

"I am afraid," said he, shaking his head a little, "my eye wants training. I have not been once in your company, I believe, without your showing me something I could not see."

"That young lady, Sir," said Dr. Quackenboss, from the far side of the fire, where he was busy giving it more wood; "that young lady, Sir, is a patron to her ? a ? to all young ladies."

"A patron!" said Mr. Olmney.

"Pa.s.sively, not actively, the doctor means," said Fleda, softly.

"Well, I wont say but she's a good girl," said Mr. Dougla.s.s, in an abstracted manner, busy with his iron ladle: "she means to be a good girl, she's as clever a girl as you need to have."

n.o.body's gravity stood this, excepting Philetus, in whom the principle of fun seemed not to be developed.

"Miss Ringgan, Sir," Dr. Quackenboss went on, with a most benign expression of countenance ? "Miss Ringgan, Sir, Mr.

Olmney, sets an example to all ladies who ? a ? have had elegant advantages. She gives her patronage to the agricultural interest in society."

"Not exclusively, I hope?" said Mr. Olmney, smiling, and making the question with his eye of Fleda. But she did not meet it.

"You know," she said, rather quickly, and drawing back from the fire, "I am of an agricultural turn, perforce; in uncle Rolf's absence, I am going to be a farmer myself."

"So I have heard? so Mrs. Rossitur told me; but I fear, pardon me, you do not look fit to grapple with such a burden of care."

Hugh sighed, and Fleda's eyes gave Mr. Olmney a hint to be silent.

"I am not going to grapple with any thing, Sir; I intend to take things easily."

"I wish I could take an agricultural turn, too," said he, smiling, "and be of some service to you."

"Oh, I shall have no lack of service," said Fleda, gaily; "I am not going unprovided into the business. There is my cousin Seth Plumfield who has engaged himself to be my counsellor and instructor in general; I could not have a better; and Mr.

Dougla.s.s is to be my right hand, I occupying only the quiet and una.s.suming post of the will, to convey the orders of the head to the hand. And for the rest, Sir, there is Philetus!"

Mr. Olmney looked, half laughing, at Mr. Skillcorn, who was at that moment standing with his hands on his sides, eyeing with concentrated gravity the movements of Earl Dougla.s.s and the doctor.

"Don't shake your head at him!" said Fleda. "I wish you had come an hour earlier, Mr. Olmney."

"Why?"

"I was just thinking of coming out here," said Fleda, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with hidden fun; "and Hugh and I were both standing in the kitchen, when we heard a tremendous shout from the woodyard. Don't laugh, or I can't go on. We all ran out towards the lantern which we saw standing there, and so soon as we got near we heard Philetus singing out, 'Ho, Miss Elster! I'm dreadfully on't!' ? Why he called upon Barby I don't know, unless from some notion of her general efficiency, though, to be sure, he was nearer her than the sap-boilers, and perhaps thought her aid would come quickest. And he was in a hurry, for the cries came thick, ? 'Miss Elster! ? here! ?

I'm dreadfully on't' ?"

"I don't understand ?"

"No," said Fleda, whose amus.e.m.e.nt seemed to be increased by the gentleman's want of understanding, "and neither did we till we came up to him. The silly fellow had been sent up for more wood, and, splitting a log, he had put his hand in to keep the cleft, instead of a wedge, and when he took out the axe the wood pinched him; and he had the fate of Milo before his eyes, I suppose, and could do nothing but roar. You should have seen the supreme indignation with which Barby took the axe and released him, with, 'You're a smart man, Mr.

Skillcorn!' "