Amy E Blanchard

“ Agnes flashed out again.
“Oh, you are very complimentary. Perhaps you don’t like our ways, either. For my part I am too independent, and I hope not so lazy that I like people to wait on me; I would rather do for myself anything that I am strong enough to do, and let the men attend to their own work.”
“I would, too, in a measure; but I like to see a man ready to spare a woman when he can, and I didn’t mean your ways, for your ways are our own, too, but I was thinking of Polly.”
“But you like Polly and try to be like her; you are getting to be quite like her; we have all been thinking so.” ”

“ Agnes preferred to share her mother’s three-legged stool, and sat there contentedly.
“Are you dull, dear mother?” she whispered.
“No, I am vastly entertained. This exhibit of backwoods manners amuses me greatly; it is quite beyond my comprehension, yet they are all good people. I thought we at home were far removed from city ways, but this is surprising.” She found herself turning to Parker Willett. “It is strange what a press of necessity will bring about, and how soon one becomes used to things which at first seem shocking. I doubt not another generation will forget gentle ways entirely.” ”

“ Archie looked at her in amazement. “Are ye daft, Agnes? Why should you be knowing all those things?”
“I do know them, and many other things of the same kind. There is a man, more modest than you, who has been to a great university, and yet who does not all the time be speaking in Latin, and yet I have no doubt but that he has forgotten more than you will ever know. I will answer your Latin speech with another: ‘Laus propria sordet,’ and I hope you like it.” She was as proud in her mouthing of the words as Archie had been. ”

“ And Sandy and Margret and Jock and Jessie,—you remember, father,—they’ll all be coming along before long.” Then she would look at Parker, as if to say, “Don’t you dare to contradict.” And the young man would not for the world have borne her a moment’s ill-will, though he might have been thinking her a little hypocrite and a lawless young creature who should be well lectured. As time went on they had many tiffs, for Parker loved to tease, and Agnes would brook no contradictions from any one but her father. ”

“ Agnes alone refused to leave. “Oh, Jeanie dear,” she whispered, “out of evils sometimes comes a blessing. I have known it so. Don’t give up, dear heart.”
Jeanie turned from her and clasped her hands, then with groping steps strove to reach the door; at the threshold she stopped. “I can’t—I can’t face them all,” she cried. “Tell my mother.”
“Hark!” exclaimed Agnes. There was the sound of flying hoofs—beat, beat,—along the road. With one spring Jeanie reached the window and pulled back the curtain. “It’s David!” she cried. “It’s David, my lad!” ”

“ No one knew the man’s intention except Mrs. Kennedy and the minister himself. “It was a good woman’s prayers, her beautiful faith and trust, which I had daily evidence of, that at last brought me light,” said the doctor to the minister, and the good man returned, “Ay, many a puir soul has been brought home by the gentle leadings of a woman, Dr. Flint.”
It was such great joy to see her father regaining his old interest in life, and to see her mother so beaming of countenance and light of heart that it seemed to Agnes as if it would be ungrateful in her to consider that she had any trouble. ”

“ I mind the last time ye were here with Archie M’Clean that sorry a word could he get in.”
“Oh, Archie, he doesn’t talk even when one is still, and to sit hours at a time gazing at another is not to my liking.”
“Puir Archie; he uses his eyes if not his tongue, and what is one better than the other to use?”
“I’d rather a wagging tongue than a blinking eye; it’s more cheerful,” responded Agnes.
“I misdoubt it when the tongue wags to your discredit,” returned Polly. “But, my fathers! who’s a longer tongue than mesel’? An’ I’m not one to run down me own most spakin’ attrybutes.” ”

“ Now your news, Nancy. Were you harmed by the freshet? and isn’t it marvellous that Jimmy O’Neill should have come back?”
“It is marvellous, and he is marvellous, the same old roystering Jimmy, for all his adventures. And it is so strange to see him with no hair on his head after being used to that bushy poll of his. Polly is so happy that she is noisier than ever; indeed, Jeanie, betwixt Polly and Jimmy and the bairns there is little quiet to be had anywhere unless one goes off into the woods.” ”

“ Honey nodded. The plan suited him exactly. He had accepted his new surroundings with equanimity after the first day when he had called for mammy and daddy, but now he had Nanny and Daddy Kennedy, he seemed quite content.
It was a weary day for Agnes; she longed for yet dreaded the return of Parker, for she persuaded herself that it was as Polly had suggested, and that he had left his heart down there in Virginia, and she was to him but a little girl who had won his sympathy. “Yet, why? Why?” she said more than once, as she remembered that last evening. “‘A man must make his own home,’ he said. ”

“ Agnes remarked, “if we have company when we are fairly on our way, for I hear there are trains and trains of wagons besides the packhorse going westward. I’d like a merry company, wouldn’t you, daddy?”
Her father shook his head. “I misdoubt it, Nancy. I’m no one for new acquaintances, as ye weel know.”
“Ah, but I am,” returned Agnes, “and that’s for why you are better when I am along. You don’t draw so dour a face. It’s no worse that we are doing than your grandfather did, and no so bad, for did he not leave his country and come across the ocean to this land? ”

“ I have a crow to pick with him. Yet, sweetheart, out of our sorrow has come a great joy, as we used to say long ago. Do you remember?”
Agnes was looking off at the sunset sky. “I remember. I am glad it was on the hilltop that we met to-day,” she murmured.
“The dear hilltop. It has been in my mind many and many a time, when I thought I had lost my dear little frontier lass. Many and many a time I fancied I could see you standing there in your linsey-woolsey gown, with your sunbonnet in your hand, and your little kerchief folded about your neck. ”

“ We were always good comrades, my father and I; for I was the baby all those years before Sandy came,—three years.” But the reckoning of years soon became lost in the land of dreams, and the song of the wind in the chimney was Agnes’s last lullaby in the old home.
It was a bright sunny morning that Agnes and her father took for starting out upon their journey, the man on foot, and Agnes established in a sort of basket or creel made of willow and fastened to one side of the packhorse, balancing the burden of provisions and other necessities made in a bundle on the other. ”

“ Agnes meant to have them for her father’s supper. She turned to get the bowl, when in at the door was thrust the muzzle of a gaunt wolf, which, scenting the fresh meat, had come to investigate. For a second Agnes was paralyzed with fear, and the next moment, considering discretion the better part of valor, she sprang to the ladder leading to the loft and climbed up, leaving the rifle, which she knew well how to use, below. The squirrels were young and tender and the wolf was hungry, so he made short work of them, yet they were only a mouthful and but whetted his appetite. ”

“ The summer had come upon them before Parker was ready to issue his invitation for his friends to come to take supper with him in his little shanty, for being very comfortable at Dod Hunter’s, and being in no hurry to exchange hearty, cheerful society for utter loneliness, the young man set to work to prepare his garden and plant his corn-field before he should occupy his cabin. ”

“ You bluster around here as if the universe belonged to you, and you are so puffed up with importance that there is no comfort to be had in you. Ah, but you’re sadly changed, Archie, and not for the better.” And Archie’s humiliation was complete. Agnes, having begun to give vent to her feelings, went on. “I used to think you were as nice and modest a lad as ever I knew, but if being a minister means disobeying Paul’s injunction not to be puffed up, then I’ll forswear ministers, though they are the heralds of the gospel.” ”

“ With all her rough heartiness and shrewd common sense, Polly was sentimental and she loved Agnes as a younger sister. “They’re a likely looking pair,” she said to herself. “I hope they’ll hit it off, though I’m no so sure o’ Nancy. She’s far too unconscious-like when Archie’s around. He’s a good lad, though a bit too serious. Faith, he’d make a good meenister or a schoolmaster if he had the larnin’.” She turned into the house while Archie and Agnes went on through the clearing to where Fergus Kennedy was at work in the little garden. ”

“ In the woods ran wild the herd of porkers which, feasting on acorns and other nuts, were easily raised, and when one was required for food, it was despatched by a shot from Joseph’s rifle. The loom and spinning-wheel were ever busy, and now would be busier than ever turning out the rolls of linen and wool which would be required for Jeanie’s wedding-chest. Much talk there was over it all, the homely Scotch-Irish phrases cropping out ever and anon as the matter was discussed by the women of the settlement, who, like those of to-day, were all agog when a wedding was in prospect. ”

“ Jeanie M’Clean, half a mile on one side, and the O’Neills, half a mile the other, were the nearest neighbors, so that, with her father busy all day in the woods hunting or clearing his land, it was rather a lonely life for the girl used to a family of brothers and sisters, and with a mother to consult with and direct her. Yet it was a very free life; and the little log-cabin an easy house to keep, consequently Agnes could almost daily find time to run through the woods for a chat with Jeanie M’Clean, though it was to good-natured, kind-hearted Polly O’Neill that she took her troubles. ”

“ AGNES SLIPPED OFF TO A CORNER WHERE JEANIE FOUND HER.
“Ah, but Polly is a romp; I’d fain have her agility,” said Jeanie, admiringly.
Agnes laughed as Polly belabored a stout lad who captured her in a rollicking game, but she yawned the next minute and said: “I’m sleepy. Does one have to stay up all night?”
“Indeed, yes. You’ll have no chance to sleep. We shall have to hang on till morning or they will hunt us out and parade us up and down the floor. Here is something to waken you up. Supper is ready.” ”

“ Agnes paused before she answered. She thought first of the miniatures, but who would want such purely personal things? Then like a flash came a thought of the will. Parker carried that. Humphrey Muirhead knew it would be in his possession. “There is something,” she said breathlessly; “it is the will, Uncle Dod, my grandfather Muirhead’s will. Mr. Willett has that and Hump Muirhead knows it.”
Uncle Dod made an exclamation and said something under his breath. “You’ve hit it, girl. Trust a woman’s wits. I’m glad I tackled you first. You’ve hit the nail on the head. ”

“ Parker turned to Agnes. There was a grave look on his face. “I found where Honey belongs,” he said without preliminary. “He is Hump Muirhead’s son.”
“Oh!” Agnes started up, the color dying out of her face. Then she sat down again, and, burying her face on her father’s shoulder, she burst into tears.
“There, there, child, don’t greet so,” said Polly. “I [Pg 160] suppose his mother is as fond of him as you are, even if she is Hump Muirhead’s wife.”
“She is very fond of him; so is the father, Dod Hunter told me,” Parker went on to say. “They have been nearly distracted at the loss of the child. ”

“ Polly is a dear, good woman, but—but—Mr. Willett’s sister wouldn’t be like her, nor his mother. I can fancy them, the mother a stately dame, and the sister so dainty and sweet; I wonder he can stand us.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jeanie, loftily. [Pg 175] “We are good enough for any one. If he doesn’t like us, he can leave us. I’m sure nobody cares about having him here, for we are all of a different race, anyhow,—I don’t mean that exactly; but we are Scotch-Irish and like to go with our own kind, and he is a Church of England man and is cold and proud.” ”

“ She’ll roll the little baby up in a bearskin, and leave the next older, sucking his thumb, to watch the baby while Polly herself goes off to dance an Irish jig. Oh, but she’s a funny Polly.”
“She is that, and I am loath to leave her.”
“But I was so pleased when father said you were coming with us,” said Jeanie, “and some one else was pleased, too.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“No, Miss Innocence; it was Archie. I shall like you for a sister, Nancy. Doesn’t Archie grow to be a tall fine lad? Eighteen, and six feet tall. He’ll not be long finding you a home.”
“That’s nonsense,” Agnes replied sharply. ”

“ It is the need of homes, and the fact that it is not good for man to be alone. You’ll make a fine woman, I’m thinking.”
Agnes blushed at the unwonted praise. She had more than once been conscious that she was looked upon with critical eyes by this young man, and that it was often to her disadvantage that she appeared to him. If he thought she would make a fine woman, then maybe—She had just parted from Archie, and out of the fullness of her heart she spoke, “Do you think I’d ever make a proper wife for a minister?” ”

“ I don’t believe it can be very far away, or he’d be in a worse plight.”
“If it isn’t far, maybe we can find out,” said Parker. “We’ll keep him for the present, will we, Polly?”
“Will we? Am I a brute to turn a baby out into the worruld? An’ on a day when he’s fetched home to me by me own man?”
“I’ll take care of him,” said Agnes, eagerly. “I’d love to, Polly. Just hand him over to me; you’ve enough of your own to look after.”
“But I’ve me man to help me now,” said Polly, joyously, looking triumphantly toward Jimmy. ”

“ Agnes took the little fellow in her arms; he was a pretty, chubby child, between two and three years of age; he had been crying forlornly, but at the sight of a bowl of warm mush and milk his tears ceased.
Polly had gathered her own brood about her, and they were shrilly calling, “Daddy, daddy!” while Polly herself had not taken her eyes off Jimmy’s face. “It’s me own lad, me own lad,” she crooned, rocking herself back and forth. “An’ where’s yer hair, Jimmy dear? An’ you with such a fine crop. An’ how did ye git here, an’ are ye hungry?” ”

“ Society upon the frontier was decidedly mixed, and to Polly one was as good as another. She rather admired the handsome, courtly young Virginian, but she gave quite as much favor to rough, awkward Jerry Hunter, and, indeed, preferred his boisterous laugh and clumsy jokes to the more quiet conversation of Parker Willett. ”