Sophie Swett

“ It struck me that this was probably the first time in her life that Loveday had prevaricated. The stress of the moment turned her pale and afterwards she looked angry—either at herself or me. She had had some errand to Hiram’s photograph wagon and it was a secret one; so much was easy to gather from Loveday’s manner. But when even Loveday became mysterious I felt that life was too involved a matter for my simple brains.
I left her with relief, and slid out upon the river; the strong west wind blew me toward the shipyard, and I stopped to see Dave. ”

“ Dave took off his own cap, also, and put it upon Rob’s head and we all laughed a little in spite of our fright, when it came down nearly to his ears.
“I came to find Bathsheba,” he said as Dave scolded him, as gently as his mother might have done. “She—she knows, Dave!” His voice was a husky whisper and he trembled in every limb. “I didn’t think how dangerous it was, at first. She’ll think it her duty to tell, girls always think it’s their duty to do disagreeable things! And if father should find out——! You make her promise not to tell a soul, Dave!” ”

“ To this day I don’t know! But could I be less than content, as I sat upon the orchard slope and thought of the wonderful way in which things had worked together for good for us all? And we were all in one heart, “own folks” at last, even Rob and his father.
The busy hum of the yard—shipyard—mingled again with the placid song of our beautiful river. The soft, blue summer sky [354] bent over us like a benediction, and God’s providence was our sure inheritance.
Viola’s voice aroused me from my meditations:
“Miss Bathsheba, Leander’s cousin has come about the hogs’-head-cheese!” she said. ”

“ I am sure I can answer for that,” said Dave gravely. “No one will tell.” And looking over Rob’s head Dave made a solemn, mournful sign to Estelle and me. It meant that Rob would not live long; we must humor him at whatever cost. Now inwardly I rebelled. I thought there had been too much yielding to Rob’s whims already; that Dave’s had been a foolish martyrdom. It was natural that a strong and healthy young man like Dave should think Rob was upon the verge of the grave; I knew that puny people sometimes live long. And I thought it quite time that Dave’s costly sacrifice should come to an end. ”

“ He held the great cardboard up before my eyes, and watched me, wistfully, while I wrinkled up my brows, and stared at it stupidly. It must have conveyed to my mind very little impression of what it was really intended to be, for I remember that it only served to remind me, irresistibly, of Miss Raycroft as the old woman with the broomstick, and I said, hastily, in a tone of reproof:
“O Dave, I wouldn’t waste my time in that way! They have architects who know more than you, a thousand times, and you will only annoy Cyrus if you say the models he uses are not right!” ”

“ Dear Dave! whatever he had done no one could say that he was not bringing forth works meet for repentance now.
It was tantalizing not to know what Mr. Solomon Salter had said about the design. Perhaps Ned Carruthers would write and tell me; he had certainly shown himself very friendly. He was covered with dust from head to foot; people had stared at him on the wharf, a young man in such fashionable attire and so unkempt. It was presumably the result of his search through the “stack” of designs. Drawings were consigned, it seemed, to the same prolonged and dusty oblivion as manuscripts. ”

“ I will admit that I sometimes felt a little shut out. And yet there is a satisfaction in the production of cheese and preserves, if you feel that you have a real talent in that direction, that I believe is scarcely inferior to that which one feels in the production of literature and art! Moreover, I didn’t refuse to accept the consolation that Octavia offered me. Better pictures and stories were being continually brought forth than either she or Estelle could ever hope to give to the world, she said, while no one could ever beat me at sage cheese or quince jelly! ”

“ Cyrus shook his head. “Only fairly well. Leander Green manages it as well as it can be done, with Loveday’s help.”
“And mine,” I added eagerly.
Cyrus’ small, near-sighted eyes widened, and there was, I fancied, a flicker of a smile under his moustache; but the moustache was not as yet large enough to hide much of anything, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially as he immediately said quite heartily:
“I know you do help, Bathsheba, and I am glad to see that you understand the work that properly belongs to a woman.” ”

“ Something of my horror of those painted saints must have been in time swallowed up by curiosity, for I remember that when I was ten, a year after mother’s return with our new brother and sister, I attempted to transform one of the boys into a saint, according to my unfading recollection of my stepfather’s paintings, by draping his shoulders with some old yellow flannel that hung upon the clothes-line. It was out on the wide lawn, and Cyrus was deep in his Latin book, lying under the great butternut tree. ”

“ I faltered, meekly. “And, Estelle, I don’t dare to show him this! I’m afraid he will think I was meddling.” And I poured into her ears all the little tale of the design.
“Ned Carruthers! It wouldn’t be strange if Dave thought you were meddling,” she exclaimed, even while her eyes shone with pride and delight. “I don’t know how you could talk to him about it, Bathsheba! It’s the hardest of anything to forgive people for having been mean.” ”

“ I interrupted. “I think it would kill Uncle Horace if you were that. I hope you don’t think that illness like yours could ever be a disgrace!”
“Kill him? kill father? I guess it would make him kill me, more likely!” he said, with a queer, grim, little chuckle. “He thinks it’s a disgrace to be weak and girly. It makes a fellow like that, Bathsheba, to be the way I’ve been!” He spoke with sudden earnestness, his voice growing husky. “No one understands all about it but Dave; it’s queer when he’s so strong and plucky himself. Usually a plucky fellow thinks you ought to be so, too. ”

“ For it was sausages that I meant to add to the gilt-edged and paying products of Groundnut Hill Farm!
“Evelyn Marchmont” would not win glory and gold at once; I knew that with all my Palmyran ignorance. And I was quite sure, although I dared not ask—Estelle was so fierce in her sisterly faith—that Dave’s dreadful debt had not yet been paid. Some one must be practical. So all along, in the sweet April weather, with the authoress palpitating with her high hopes and dreams beside me, I reckoned the probable profits of Groundnut Hill Farm sausages, so many pounds per year! ”

“ Her mind had already reverted to her book, and Loveday was forgotten. “I see, now, how I might have made her different.” She talked as if she had now had the benefit of several society seasons! “I’m afraid there is a good deal of Palmyra in her.”
“Well, Palmyra is what you know best,” I said, in my matter-of-fact way.
“A novel is a work of the imagination,” Octavia declared with dignity—and a suspicion of redness in her cheeks.
It was natural, perhaps, that she should not like to have hints given her by a maker of sage cheese! ”

“ He was only nineteen, but I thought admiringly that he already looked like a minister. “It would be a great while before I should have any success, if I ever did. And I couldn’t think of going into the ministry to make money.”
“Money!” I echoed in amazement. “Why, we are all getting where we can take care of ourselves!” And I wondered if he did not know that even I, whose talents were only domestic ones, was to supply the Palmyra canning factory with preserves and the new summer hotel with strawberries and eggs.
“The business isn’t prospering,” said Cyrus slowly. ”

“ No one was in her confidence now but me.
“The surprise will make its success all the pleasanter for them—if it does succeed,” continued Octavia, excusing herself; for we are a family who confide in each other.
“Isn’t even Estelle to know?” I inquired, a little wistfully, for it seemed to me that there might be a sympathy between the two devotees of art.
“Oh, the child wouldn’t understand,” Octavia replied, rather impatiently. “It’s of no use to try to pretend, Bathsheba, that she and Dave are quite like ourselves.”
Aliens! ”

“ But on that day I could not think hopefully of “Evelyn Marchmont.” Emmeline’s boarders lay heavily on my mind. Practical necessities do so sadly change one’s sense of values in this world. And I felt myself to be the only one in the family who had a really practical mind. Butter and board! those were things that people really wanted, I reasoned, a la Hiram Nute.
So when Octavia called me I went reluctantly to the reading of “Evelyn Marchmont.” Octavia did not think me a competent critic; one’s limitations seldom fail to be recognized by one’s brothers and sisters ”

“ Uncle Horace’s new pair of calico colts were harnessed to the Dingo, the great brig that had been lost at sea, and Dave was attempting to drive this unique team over the rough ice of the river—as rough as it had been the day before, when it had broken Dr. Yorke’s skate. The Dingo’s cargo consisted of pots of dainty butter, stamped with clover and wild roses; a kind of sublimated sage cheese, sure to make the fortunes of Groundnut Hill Farm, and glasses of such jelly as never before were seen, with B. D., for Bathsheba Dill stamped upon every [150] glass. ”

“ I shuddered to think of the time when she put sweet marjoram into the cheese instead of sage! And Leander complained that all her turkeys and chickens died in debt, she and Dave would overfeed them so, being so tender-hearted that they were always afraid that something might go unfed. The hens were so fat that they couldn’t lay—and the number of superfluous roosters that belonged to her brood and that she wouldn’t have killed would have destroyed her profits if there had otherwise been any. No! clearly Estelle’s farming methods would never be money-making. ”

“ I am always very outspoken when I am deeply moved. I expected that Cyrus would reprove me. Instead, he walked with hasty strides to and fro across the office, and an unwonted color flamed in his cheeks that were as swarthy, almost, as an Indian’s. ”

“ I had seen the hand that filled the keyholes tremble; the ringlets dependent from her gray head were actually dancing.
My thoughts were a wild chaos of apprehension, which I dared not put into words. Had she heard that an accident had befallen Dave? Had she heard that grandma, who [324] had gone to second-cousin Sarah Saunders’ to spend the day, had been smitten with paralysis? Had Uncle Horace become insane? Had some one stolen the contents of the blue yarn stocking which she kept between mattresses?—for Loveday would never trust her savings to a bank. ”

“ I said, humbly. “I’ve had my mind so upon cheese and preserves. I’m only critical because I so much want you to succeed.”
She gave me one of her rare caresses—rare even when she was a child.
“I’m hateful about my work because I’m so anxious,” she said. “I only wish I had had a talent for cheese and preserves!”
“If you will take my money, just to tide you over this trouble,” I hazarded again. “You will be sure to pay it. Nothing is denied to patient and well-directed effort,” I quoted tritely from the copy-book.
“Not when it’s for Dave—and you don’t believe in him!” she said, firmly. ”

“ Stepping from the shadow of a great heap of sawdust a tall, gaunt figure was visible for a moment, then was lost to sight behind the vessel’s stern. To the back pastures his father had gone, Rob said, and he was going thence to Penfield; but was there another figure in the world that could be mistaken for Uncle Horace’s?
I stepped back to the rattling boards. There were huge tracks behind them, that went zigzagging away as if their maker had moved stealthily behind one pile of boards and then another. From the ground I picked up a dog-skin driving-glove—a very large one. ”

“ She looked a trifle disturbed, now, and I thought that the gold-thread legs of the stork that she was embroidering were a little wabbly. “Young men will have their little differences; only a trifling misunderstanding, in this case, I am sure.”
Ned Carruthers was looking at Estelle as if he had never seen her before. ”

“ Now telegrams addressed to Miss Bathsheba Dill might have been as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa for all the agitation Cyrus showed; but as for me, the blood rushed to my head and for an instant Alice Yorke, on her tilter seemed to be leading a race into the river.
I heard, as in a dream, Dave say, “Will you have some coffee, Miss Yorke?” and noted vaguely that he was just as gallant and graceful as if the cup were not old and cracked. And then, although my hands shook like a leaf, I was face to face with the first telegram of my life.
“The best design. I think a great thing. ”

“ She stood there, in her little white nightgown and a moonbeam fell across her face and showed the hair all tossed back from her high forehead, as Loveday said she always pushed it back when she was full of naughtiness.
“It means—it means that Dave and I don’t belong here like the rest of you!” she said. “We’re the other family. The children at school say so! And we’re a trouble to you! We’re why Cyrus can’t go to college and be a minister. ”

“ She had a fascinating little lisp and seemed simple-hearted and childlike. Loveday said that she had “a way with her.” The quality which we call charm is always indescribable.
We were merry enough that night, and if I caught sight now and then of a cloud upon Dave’s face, it was generally when Cyrus’ near-sighted eyes were fixed upon him in a severely scrutinizing way that they had.
Alice Yorke had a light and sweet little voice, full of sentiment, such as I have only heard elsewhere in so great a degree in an Irish voice, and which one, strangely, never hears except in a youthful voice. ”

“ I think a story is only of value in so far as it is a transcript of real life, and I mean this to be as frank as if it were a diary, which no eyes but my own should ever see. And small things went far toward the shaping of character on Groundnut Hill—as they do everywhere in this dimly-apprehended scheme of things. ”