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Queechy

<h1> Chapter XXVII. </h1> <blockquote> I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up. </blockquote> <blockquote> Shakspeare. </blockquote> Every day could not be as bright as the last, even by the help of pitch pine knots. They blazed indeed, many a time, but the blaze shone upon faces that it could not sometimes light up. Matters drew gradually within a smaller and smaller compass. Another five dollars came from uncle Orrin, and the hope of more; but these were carefully laid by to pay Philetus; and for all other wants of the household excepting those the farm supplied the family were dependent on mere driblets of sums. None came from Mr. Rossitur. Hugh managed to collect a very little. That kept them from absolute distress; that, and Fleda's delicate instrumentality. Regular dinners were given up, fresh meat being now unheard-of, unless when a kind neighbour made them a present; and appetite would have lagged sadly but for Fleda's untiring care. She thought no time nor pains ill bestowed which could prevent her aunt and Hugh from feeling the want of old comforts; and her nicest skill was displayed in varying the combinations of their very few and simple stores. The diversity and deliciousness of her bread stuffs, Barby said, was "beyond everything!" and a cup of rich coffee was found to cover all deficiencies of removes and entremêts; and this was always served, Barby said further, as if the President of the United States was expected. Fleda never permitted the least slackness in the manner of doing this or anything else that she could control. Mr. Plumfield had sent down an opportune present of a fine porker. One cold day in the beginning of February Fleda was busy in the kitchen making something for dinner, and Hugh at another table was vigorously chopping sausage meat. "I should like to have some cake again," said Fleda. "Well, why don't you?" said Hugh, chopping away. "No eggs, Mr. Rossitur,--and can't afford 'em at two shillings a dozen. I believe I am getting discontented--I have a great desire to do something to distinguish myself--I would make a plum pudding if I had raisins, but there is not one in the house." "You can get 'em up to Mr. Hemps's for sixpence a pound," said Barby. But Fleda shook her head at the sixpence and went on moulding out her biscuits diligently. "I wish Philetus would make his appearance with the cows--it is a very odd thing they should be gone since yesterday morning and no news of them." "I only hope the snow ain't so bright it'll blind his eyes," said Barby. "There he is this minute," said Hugh. "It is impossible to tell from his countenance whether successful or not." "Well where are the cows, Mr. Skillcorn?" said Barby as he came in. "I have went all over town," said the person addressed, "and they ain't no place." "Have you asked news of them, Philetus?" "I have asked the hull town, and I have went all over, 'till I was a'most beat out with the cold,--and I ha'n't seen the first sight of 'em yet!" Fleda and Hugh exchanged looks, while Barby and Mr. Skillcorn entered into an animated discussion of probabilities and impossibilities. "If we should be driven from our coffee dinners to tea with no milk in it!"--said Hugh softly in mock dismay. "Wouldn't!" said Fleda. "We'd beat up an egg and put it in the coffee." "We couldn't afford it," said Hugh smiling. "Could!--cheaper than to keep the cows. I'll have some sugar at any rate, I'm determined. Philetus!" "Marm." "I wish, when you have got a good pile of wood chopped, you would make some troughs to put under the maple trees--you know how to make them, don't you?" "I do!" "I wish you would make some--you have pine logs out there large enough, haven't you?" "They hadn't ought to want much of it--there's some gregious big ones!" "I don't know how many we shall want, but a hundred or two at any rate; and the sooner the better. Do you know how much sugar they make from one tree?" "Wall I don't," said Mr. Skillcorn, with the air of a person who was at fault on no other point;--"the big trees give more than the little ones--" Fleda's eyes flashed at Hugh, who took to chopping in sheer desperation; and the muscles of both gave them full occupation for five minutes. Philetus stood comfortably warming himself at the fire, looking first at one and then at the other, as if they were a show and he had paid for it. Barby grew impatient. "I guess this cold weather makes lazy people of me!" she said bustling about her fire with an amount of energy that was significant. It seemed to signify nothing to Philetus. He only moved a little out of the way. "Didenhover's cleared out," he burst forth at length abruptly. "What!" said Fleda and Barby at once, the broom and the biscuits standing still. "Mr. Didenhover." "What of him?" "He has tuk himself off out o" town." "Where to?" "I can't tell you where teu--he ain't coming back, 'tain't likely." "How do you know?" "'Cause he's tuk all his traps and went, and he said farming didn't pay and he wa'n't a going to have nothin' more to deu with it;--he telled Mis' Simpson so--he lived to Mis' Simpson's; and she telled Mr. Ten Eyck." "Are you sure, Philetus?" "Sure as 'lection!--he telled Mis' Simpson so, and she telled Mr. Ten Eyck; and he's cleared out." Fleda and Hugh again looked at each other. Mr. Skillcorn having now delivered himself of his news went out to the woodyard. "I hope he ha'n't carried off our cows along with him," said Barby, as she too went out to some other part of her premises. "He was to have made us quite a payment on the first of March," said Fleda. "Yes, and that was to have gone to uncle Orrin," said Hugh. "We shall not see a cent of it. And we wanted a little of it for ourselves.--I have that money from the Excelsior, but I can't touch a penny of it for it must go to Philetus's wages. What Barby does without hers I do not know--she has had but one five dollars in six months. Why she stays I cannot imagine; unless it is for pure love." "As soon as the spring opens I can go to the mill again," said Hugh after a little pause. Fleda looked at him sorrowfully and shook her head as she withdrew her eyes. "I wish father would give up the farm," Hugh went on under his breath. "I cannot bear to live upon uncle Orrin so." Fleda's answer was to clasp her hands. Her only words were, "Don't say anything to aunt Lucy." "It is of no use to say anything to anybody," said Hugh. "But it weighs me to the ground, Fleda!" "If uncle Rolf doesn't come home by spring--I hope, I hope he will!--but if he does not, I will take desperate measures. I will try farming myself, Hugh. I have thought of it, and I certainly will. I will get Earl Douglass or somebody else to play second fiddle, but I will have but one head on the farm and I will try what mine is worth." "You could not do it, Fleda." "One can do anything!--with a strong enough motive." "I'm afraid you'd soon be tired, Fleda." "Not if I succeeded--not so tired as I am now." "Poor Fleda! I dare say you are tired." "It wasn't that I meant," said Fleda, slightly drawing her breath;--"I meant this feeling of everything going wrong, and uncle Orrin, and all--" "But you are weary," said Hugh affectionately. "I see it in your face." "Not so much body as mind, after all. Oh Hugh! this is the worst part of being poor!--the constant occupation of one's mind on a miserable succession of trifles. I am so weary sometimes!--If I only had a nice book to rest myself for a while and forget all these things--I would give so much for it!--" "Dear Fleda! I wish you had!" "That was one delight of being in New York--I forgot all about money from one end of it to the other--I put all that away;--and not having to think of meals till I came to eat them. You can't think how tired I get of ringing the changes on pork and flour and Indian meal and eggs and vegetables!--" Fleda looked tired and pale; and Hugh looked sadly conscious of it. "Don't tell aunt Lucy I have said all this!" she exclaimed after a moment rousing herself,--"I don't always feel so--only once in a while I get such a fit--And now I have just troubled you by speaking of it!" "You don't trouble any one in that way very often, dear Fleda," said Hugh kissing her. "I ought not at all--you have enough else to think of--but it is a kind of relief sometimes. I like to do these things in general,--only now and then I get tired, as I was just now, I suppose, and then one sees everything through a different medium." "I am afraid it would tire you more to have the charge of Earl Douglass and the farm upon your mind;--and mother could be no help to you,--nor I, if I am at the mill." "But there's Seth Plumfield. O I've thought of it all. You don't know what I am up to, Mr. Rossitur. You shall see how I will manage--unless uncle Rolf comes home, in which case I will very gladly forego all my honours and responsibilities together." "I hope he will come!" said Hugh. But this hope was to be disappointed. Mr. Rossitur wrote again about the first of March, saying that he hoped to make something of his lands in Michigan, and that he had the prospect of being engaged in some land agencies which would make it worth his while to spend the summer there. He bade his wife let anybody take the farm that could manage it and would pay; and to remit to Dr. Gregory whatever she should receive and could spare. He hoped to do something where he was. It was just then the beginning of the sugar season; and Mrs. Douglass having renewed and urged Earl's offer of help, Fleda sent Philetus down to ask him to come the next day with his team. Seth Plumfield's, which had drawn the wood in the winter, was now busy in his own sugar business. On Earl Douglass's ground there happpened to be no maple trees. His lands were of moderate extent and almost entirely cultivated as a sheep farm; and Mr. Douglass himself though in very comfortable circumstances was in the habit of assisting, on advantageous terms, all the farmers in the neighbourhood. Philetus came back again in a remarkably short time; and announced that he had met Dr. Quackenboss in the way, who had offered to come with his team for the desired service. "Then you have not been to Mr. Douglass's?" "I have not," said Philetus;--"I thought likely you wouldn't calculate to want him teu." "How came the doctor to know what you were going for?" "I told him." "But how came you to tell him?" "Wall I guess he had a mind to know," said Philetus, "so I didn't keep it no closer than I had teu." "Well," said Fleda biting her lips, "you will have to go down to Mr. Douglass's nevertheless, Philetus, and tell him the doctor is coming to-morrow, but I should be very much obliged to him if he will be here next day. Will you?" "Yes marm!" "Now dear Hugh, will you make me those little spouts for the trees!--of some dry wood--you can get plenty out here. You want to split them up with a hollow chisel about a quarter of an inch thick, and a little more than half an inch broad. Have you got a hollow chisel?" "No, but I can get one up the hill. Why must it be hollow?" "To make little spouts, you know,--for the sap to run in. And then, my dear Hugh! they must be sharpened at one end so as to fit where the chisel goes in--I am afraid I have given you a day's work of it. How sorry I am you must go to-morrow to the mill!--and yet I am glad too." "Why need you go round yourself with these people?" said Hugh. "I don't see the sense of it." "They don't know where the trees are," said Fleda. "I am sure I do not. Do you?" "Perfectly well. And besides," said Fleda laughing, "I should have great doubts of the discreetness of Philetus's auger if it were left to his simple direction. I have no notion the trees would yield their sap as kindly to him as to me. But I didn't bargain for Dr. Quackenboss." Dr. Quackenboss arrived punctually the next morning with his oxen and sled; and by the time it was loaded with the sap-troughs, Fleda in her black cloak, yarn shawl, and grey little hood came out of the house to the wood-yard. Earl Douglass was there too, not with his team, but merely to see how matters stood and give advice. "Good day, Mr. Douglass!" said the doctor. "You see I'm so fortunate as to have got the start of you." "Very good," said Earl contentedly,--"you may have it;--the start's one thing and the pull's another. I'm willin' anybody should have the start, but it takes a pull to know whether a man's got stuff in him or no." "What do you mean?" said the doctor. "I don't mean nothin' at all. You make a start to-day and I'll come ahint and take the pull to-morrow. Ha' you got anythin' to boil down in, Fleda?--there's a potash kittle somewheres, ain't there? I guess there is. There is in most houses." "There is a large kettle--I suppose large enough," said Fleda. "That'll do, I guess. Well what do you calculate to put the syrup in--ha' you got a good big cask, or plenty o' tubs and that? or will you sugar off the hull lot every night and fix it that way? You must do one thing or t'other, and it's good to know what you're a going to do afore you come to do it." "I don't know, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda;--"whichever is the best way--we have no cask large enough, I am afraid." "Well I tell you what I'll do--I know where there's a tub, and where they ain't usin' it nother, and I reckon I can get 'em to let me have it--I reckon I can--and I'll go round for't and fetch it here to-morrow mornin' when I come with the team. 'Twon't be much out of my way. It's more handier to leave the sugarin' off till the next day; and it had ought to have a settlin' besides. Where'll you have your fire built?--in doors or out?" "Out--I would rather, if we can. But can we?" "La, 'tain't nothin' easier--it's as easy out as in--all you've got to do is to take and roll a couple of pretty sized billets for your fireplace and stick a couple o' crotched sticks for to hang the kittle over--I'd as lieve have it out as in, and if anythin' a leetle liever. If you'll lend me Philetus, me and him'll fix it all ready agin you come back--'tain't no trouble at all--and if the sticks ain't here we'll go into the woods after 'em, and have it all sot up." But Fleda represented that the services of Philetus were just then in requisition, and that there would be no sap brought home till to-morrow. "Very good!" said Earl amicably,--"very good! it's just as easy done one day as another--it don't make no difference to me, and if it makes any difference to you, of course we'll leave it to-day, and there'll be time enough to do it to-morrow; me and him'll knock it up in a whistle.--What's them little shingles for?" Fleda explained the use and application of Hugh's mimic spouts. He turned one about, whistling, while he listened to her. "That's some o' Seth Plumfield's new jigs, ain't it. I wonder if he thinks now the sap's a goin to run any sweeter out o' that 'ere than it would off the end of a chip that wa'n't quite so handsome?" "No, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda smiling,--"he only thinks that this will catch a little more." "His sugar won't never tell where it come from," remarked Earl, throwing the spout down. "Well,--you shall see more o' me to-morrow. Good-bye, Dr. Quackenboss!" "Do you contemplate the refining process?" said the doctor, as they moved off. "I have often contemplated the want of it," said Fleda; "but it is best not to try to do too much. I should like to make sure of something worth refining in the first place." "Mr. Douglass and I," said the doctor,--"I hope--a--he's a very good-hearted man, Miss Fleda, but, ha! ha!--he wouldn't suffer loss from a little refining himself.--Haw! you rascal--where are you going! Haw! I tell ye--" "I am very sorry, Dr. Quackenboss," said Fleda when she had the power and the chance to speak again,--"I am very sorry you should have to take this trouble; but unfortunately the art of driving oxen is not among Mr. Skillcorn's accomplishments." "My dear Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, "I--I--nothing I assure you could give me greater pleasure than to drive my oxen to any place where you would like to have them go." Poor Fleda wished she could have despatched them and him in one direction while she took another; the art of driving oxen quietly was certainly not among the doctor's accomplishments. She was almost deafened. She tried to escape from the immediate din by running before to shew Philetus about tapping the trees and fixing the little spouts, but it was a longer operation than she had counted upon, and by the time they were ready to leave the tree the doctor was gee-hawing alongside of it; and then if the next maple was not within sight she could not in decent kindness leave him alone. The oxen went slowly, and though Fleda managed to have no delay longer than to throw down a trough as the sled came up with each tree which she and Philetus had tapped, the business promised to make a long day of it. It might have been a pleasant day in pleasant company; but Fleda's spirits were down to set out with, and Dr. Quackenboss was not the person to give them the needed spring; his long-winded complimentary speeches had not interest enough even to divert her. She felt that she was entering upon an untried and most weighty undertaking; charging her time and thoughts with a burthen they could well spare. Her energies did not flag, but the spirit that should have sustained them was not strong enough for the task. It was a blustering day of early March; with that uncompromising brightness of sky and land which has no shadow of sympathy with a heart overcast. The snow still lay a foot thick over the ground, thawing a little in sunny spots; the trees quite bare and brown, the buds even of the early maples hardly shewing colour; the blessed evergreens alone doing their utmost to redeem the waste, and speaking of patience and fortitude that can brave the blast and outstand the long waiting and cheerfully bide the time when "the winter shall be over and gone." Poor Fleda thought they were like her in their circumstances, but she feared she was not like them in their strong endurance. She looked at the pines and hemlocks as she passed, as if they were curious preachers to her; and when she had a chance she prayed quietly that she might stand faithfully like them to cheer a desolation far worse and she feared far more abiding than snows could make or melt away. She thought of Hugh, alone in his mill-work that rough chilly day, when the wind stalked through the woods and over the country as if it had been the personification of March just come of ape and taking possession of his domains. She thought of her uncle, doing what?--in Michigan,--leaving them to fight with difficulties as they might,--why?--why? and her gentle aunt at home sad and alone, pining for the want of them all, but most of him, and fading with their fortunes. And Fleda's thoughts travelled about from one to the other and dwelt with them all by turns till she was heart-sick; and tears, tears, fell hot on the snow many a time when her eyes had a moment's shield from the doctor and his somewhat more obtuse coadjutor. She felt half superstitiously as if with her taking the farm were beginning the last stage of their falling prospects, which would leave them with none of hope's colouring. Not that in the least she doubted her own ability and success; but her uncle did not deserve to have his affairs prosper under such a system and she had no faith that they would. "It is most grateful," said the doctor with that sideway twist of his jaw and his head at once, in harmony,--"it is a most grateful thing to see such a young lady--Haw I there now I--what are you about? haw,--haw then!--It is a most grateful thing to see--" But Fleda was not at his side; she had bounded away and was standing under a great maple tree a little ahead, making sure that Philetus screwed his auger up into the tree instead of down, which he had several times shewed an unreasonable desire to do. The doctor had steered his oxen by her little grey hood and black cloak all the day. He made for it now. "Have we arrived at the termination of our--a--adventure?" said he as he came up and threw down the last trough. "Why no, sir," said Fleda, "for we have yet to get home again." "'Tain't so fur going that way as it were this'n," said Philetus. "My! ain't I glad." "Glad of what?" said the doctor. "Here's Miss Ringgan's walked the whole way, and she a lady--ain't you ashamed to speak of being tired?" "I ha'n't said the first word o' being tired!" said Philetus in an injured tone of voice,--"but a man ha'n't no right to kill hisself, if he ain't a gal!" "I'll qualify to your being safe enough," said the doctor. "But Miss Ringgan, my dear, you are--a--you have lost something since you came out--" "What?" said Fleda laughing. "Not my patience?" "No," said the doctor, "no,--you're--a--you're an angel! but your cheeks, my dear Miss Ringgan, shew that you have exceeded your--a--" "Not my intentions, doctor," said Fleda lightly. "I am very well satisfied with our day's work, and with my share of it, and a cup of coffee will make me quite up again. Don't look at my cheeks till then." "I shall disobey you constantly," said the doctor;--"but, my dear Miss Fleda, we must give you some felicities for reaching home, or Mrs. Rossitur will be--a--distressed when she sees them. Might I propose--that you should just bear your weight on this wood-sled and let my oxen and me have the honour--The cup of coffee, I am confident, would be at your lips considerably earlier--" "The sun won't be a great haighth by the time we get there," said Philetus in a cynical manner; "and I ha'n't took the first thing to-day!" "Well who has?" said the doctor; "you ain't the only one. Follow your nose down hill, Mr. Skillcorn, and it'll smell supper directly. Now, my dear Miss Ringgan!--will you?" Fleda hesitated, but her relaxed energies warned her not to despise a homely mode of relief. The wood-sled was pretty clean, and the road decently good over the snow. So Fleda gathered her cloak about her and sat down flat on the bottom of her rustic vehicle; too grateful for the rest to care if there had been a dozen people to laugh at her; but the doctor was only delighted, and Philetus regarded every social phenomenon as coolly and in the same business light as he would the butter to his bread, or any other infallible every-day matter. Fleda was very glad presently that she had taken this plan, for besides the rest of body she was happily relieved from all necessity of speaking. The doctor though but a few paces off was perfectly given up to the care of his team, in the intense anxiety to shew his skill and gallantry in saving her harmless from every ugly place in the road that threatened a jar or a plunge. Why his oxen didn't go distracted was a question; but the very vehemence and iteration of his cries at last drowned itself in Fleda's ear and she could hear it like the wind's roaring, without thinking of it. She presently subsided to that. With a weary frame, and with that peculiar quietness of spirits that comes upon the ending of a days work in which mind and body have both been busily engaged, and the sudden ceasing of any call upon either, fancy asked no leave and dreamily roved hither and thither between the material and the spirit world; the will too subdued to stir. 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 passed 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 soars 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 shew 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, ain't 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 over-exertion or exhaustion, and the next day justified Barby's fears. She was the quiet prisoner of pain. But Earl Douglass 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, ain't 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 Douglass 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 wood-yard; 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 passing and repassing 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 shewing themselves in every novel variety of grouping and colouring. There was Earl Douglass, 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 fashions and perhaps for the same reason, he looked now like any bandit and now in a more pacific view could pass 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 gypsy. 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 shews herself to her army, to grace and reward the labours of her servants. The doctor was profuse in enquiries 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 mornin' 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 ain't sure about it, but that's what I think; and 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 sass for his chicken." "Now, Mr. Douglass!"--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 molasses 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 albumen of eggs will answer all the same purpose." "Well anyhow you like to fix it," said Earl,--"eggs or calf's blood--I won't 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 black bird 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 birds' nests in creation to get enough of 'em, and they ain't 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." "'Tain't 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 ain't 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 shewing 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 pattron to her--a--to all young ladies." "A patron!" said Mr. Olmney. "Passively, not actively, the doctor means," said Fleda softly. "Well I won't say but she's a good girl," said Mr. Douglass 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!" Nobody'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." "O I shall have no lack of service," said Fleda gayly;--"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. Douglass is to be my right hand; I occupying only the quiet and unassuming 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, eying with concentrated gravity the movements of Earl Douglass 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 flashing 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 amusement 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!'" "What was the fate of Milo?" said Mr. Olmney presently. "Don't you remember,--the famous wrestler that in his old age trying to break open a tree found himself not strong enough; and the wood closing upon his hands held him fast till the wild beasts came and made an end of him. The figure of our unfortunate wood-cutter though, was hardly so dignified as that of the old athlete in the statue.--Dr. Quackenboss, and Mr. Douglass,--you will come in and see us when this troublesome business is done?" "It'll be a pretty spell yet," said Earl;--"but the doctor, he can go in,--he ha'n't nothin' to do. It don't take more'n half a dozen men to keep one pot a bilin'." "Ain't there ten on 'em, Mr. Douglass?" said Philetus. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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