CHAPTER XIV

TALES AND RELICS

True to his promise Mr. Stacy called on Priscilla and Martine the second evening of their stay in Plymouth. He proved even more entertaining as a story-teller than as a guide.

"What he doesn't know about old-colony life isn't worth knowing," Priscilla had said, and Mr. Stacy certainly proved the truth of these words. Of Bradford and Carver and Winslow and Brewster he spoke as familiarly as if they were brothers. He made them live again as he talked, bringing out little facts that he said every schoolgirl and boy ought to know, though Martine had to admit that if she had ever known these things, they were now half forgotten. Priscilla modestly concealed her own store of information, but Martine, remembering how eagerly her friend had drunk in all that Amy and Balfour had had to tell the summer before about the English and the Acadians in Nova Scotia, knew that Priscilla was probably hardly second to Mr. Stacy in her knowledge of Puritan history.

"Oh, please, Mr. Stacy, tell us one of your witch stories," demanded Marcus, as they sat around the blazing fire.

"A witch story! Do you wish me to frighten the young lady from Chicago?"

"A witch story!" repeated Martine; "why, I thought the witches were only in Salem. I supposed people down here were too sensible to believe in witches."

"Few localities are so sensible as to escape all delusion. A vague belief in evil spirits and witches existed in all the colonies even well-through the eighteenth century, although the witchcraft persecution was of comparatively short duration."

"I don't care for witchcraft stories," said Priscilla, quietly.

"Well, well!" cried Mr. Stacy, smiling; "between two fires, what shall I do? Mrs. Danforth, you must be umpire."

"Tell them one little unexciting witch story," replied Mrs. Danforth. "Priscilla is too old to be troubled by bad dreams, at least from so small a cause."

"It isn't that," protested staid Priscilla, "only witch stories are so silly."

"Oh, if that's the only thing against them," cried Martine, "please tell me as many as you can. I love silly things--sometimes. So please tell us a story, Mr. Stacy."

"Really," rejoined Mr. Stacy, "I should hardly know what to say, if the rules of hospitality did not provide me with an excuse. It is fair, I imagine, to regard Miss Martine as a guest of Plymouth in general, as well as of the Danforth family in particular, therefore, fair lady, I yield to your demand. But what I am going to tell you is neither very exciting, nor very silly. It merely shows how recently in this corner of the globe the plain people retained some of the mediaeval belief in witches. For I knew a man who in his youth knew a man who believed this story. On the outskirts of Plymouth once lived an old woman whom people called a witch, and once when she was calling at a certain house, Jenny, a girl of twelve, placed the broom with which she was sweeping, under Aunt Nabby's chair. Aunt Nabby was the reputed witch, and if you know anything about witches, you must know that to offer one a broomstick can only be regarded as an insult. So in this case Aunt Nabby, when she perceived what Jenny had done, rose in anger, and vowed that she would get even with Jenny and her family."

"Did she?" asked George, who was always over-anxious to hear the conclusion of a story.

"Wait," replied Mr. Stacy, "you will soon hear. In a day or two Jenny became very ill, and the old country doctor could not tell what the matter was. She seemed to be fading away. 'Perhaps Aunt Nabby has something to do with it,' said poor Mrs. Bonsal, Jenny's mother; and then the doctor, asking what was meant, heard the story of the broomstick. 'Go, John Bonsal,' he said to Jenny's father, 'go to Aunt Nabby's, and find out what she is up to.' When John Bonsal reached Aunt Nabby's house, there was no one in the kitchen but her big black cat, whom some people thought her assistant in evil doing. So John Bonsal went down by the brook, where he found Aunt Nabby so much occupied that she hardly looked up at his approach."

"What was she doing?" asked George.

"Hush," cried Marcus; "listen, and you will find out."

"Well," continued Mr. Stacy, "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay that she moulded into shape with water from the brook. When she finished these figures or dolls, she stuck a pin or two into them, and John Bonsal understood at once that by means of these dolls she was working a charm on poor Jenny that in time would cause her death, unless he could stop the doll-making. Upon this the angry father raised the horsewhip that he carried in his hand, and thrashed Nabby with might and main. As she cried for mercy, he told her that she should be burned as a witch unless she promised to remove the spell that she had cast over his daughter. At first she refused, but at last she promised. 'Your Jenny shall get well,' she cried, 'and I will work no more charms.' Upon this the big black cat that had followed John Bonsal from the house gave a great howl, and vanished completely from sight."

"Where did he go?" asked George.

"Down to the centre of the earth, probably," replied Mr. Stacy, solemnly. "But it's more to the point that Jenny recovered, and Aunt Nabby was never again known to carry on any of her witcheries."

"Thank you, thank you," cried all the circle, except Priscilla, who still looked as if she thought stories of this kind rather silly.

"Mamma," cried Lucy, after a moment's pause, as if she, too, shared Priscilla's feeling, "let us have something more sensible than witch stories."

"Let us have a charade--you said you had found one in an old book that you would give us."

Mrs. Danforth looked at the clock. "There is just time for one before you go to bed," she said, "and so I will give you the old one you speak of."

George and Lucy clapped their hands with delight. They were fond of guessing-games, particularly when their mother played with them.

"I must tell you," said Mrs. Danforth, picking up a book from the table, "that this is a very short one and must be guessed within five minutes after I have read it." Whereupon she read slowly:

"'Just where the heavens grew blue and high, My first that was so pure and bright, Ere it could rise into the sky, Passed in my second out of sight; Before it vanished from the earth My whole rose through it at their birth.'"

"Only five minutes!" complained George; "I don't think that's long enough. I didn't understand what the first was."

Patiently Mrs. Danforth read the first two lines, then the second, and finally, at Lucy's request, the last.

"I have it," cried Marcus, before three minutes had passed.

"Can't we have five minutes more? I know I could guess it, if we had time enough."

"You never guess anything, George, no matter how much time there is," exclaimed Marcus.

"Neither does Priscilla," rejoined George; "but if we had more time--"

"Six minutes have passed; you see I have given more than the allotted time," called Mrs. Danforth at last.

"What did you make it, Marcus?"

"Snowballs!" cried Marcus, triumphantly.

"Oh, no!" protested Lucy; "how could it be 'snowballs?' What is yours, Miss Martine?"

Martine handed a slip of paper to Lucy on which she had written a word.

"Yes, yes, that is it. Snowdrops, that is right, isn't it, mamma?"

"Yes, my dear; it is almost too simple a charade to set before our guest. It would have been harder to guess if we had tried to act it. Perhaps to-morrow we can act charades."

When the younger children had gone to bed, Martine enjoyed the quiet hour with Priscilla and Mrs. Danforth and Mr. Stacy.

"I had no idea Plymouth could be so interesting," she said. "I feel that my two or three more days will not be enough for all that I wish to see."

Nevertheless, Martine spent less time in actual sight-seeing than at first she had planned. The second day of her stay was so warm and springlike, that all voted for a mayflower picnic in the beautiful Plymouth woods. The next day was rainy--a genuine southerly storm, and no one cared to venture out.

"In town neither of us would think of staying in simply on account of a storm," protested Martine.

"I know it," responded Priscilla, lazily curling herself up in a corner of the big settle before the open fire. "But this is vacation, and home," she concluded, "and we can't behave just as we would in the city."

Finally, on the fourth day of their stay, under the guidance of Mr. Stacy, the two went up to Burial Hill.

"You won't care if I do not pretend to be awfully interested in the epitaphs," said Martine, frankly. "I wish that Amy were here. She loves old graveyards and inscriptions and everything that has a scrap of history. Now I am fond of funny epitaphs, and I love--oh, what a beautiful view!"

"I am glad that Burial Hill has something of interest to offer you. Even in Plymouth we call this a fine view. Generally, we try to be modest about our possessions, but this really is worth praising."

"It is wonderful!" and Martine gazed in admiration at the expanse of blue water that stretched far, far to the East, with only the tiny Clark's Island to break its continuity.

"It looks almost like a toy town," she added, gazing down at the houses and spires of the old town seeming to nestle at the foot of the hill.

"Those woods toward the West are where the Indians used to lurk, and you can see how wise our forefathers were in placing their fort here near the summit of the hill. You remember, probably, that it was a wooden building made of sawed planks, but the six cannon mounted for its defence made it really formidable to the Indians. From this point the defenders of the town could quickly discover the approach of the enemy. For a time, too, the fort was used as a church."

"That is why they used the hill as a burying-place, I suppose."

"Well, oddly enough, the founders of Plymouth were not buried here. Undoubtedly, the first settlers buried their dead near their dwellings. No stones mark the resting-place of most of the Mayflower passengers. There are memorials to many of them put up in later generations here on Burial Hill by their descendants, and two or three who lived to an advanced age, like John Howland, are buried here. But the earliest gravestone on the hill is that of Edward Gray, who died in 1681."

Priscilla, browsing among the stones, returned to Martine with a shade of disappointment on her face.

"I am really sorry, but I cannot find a single absurd stone. Some are rather quaint, but there are no amusing epitaphs, at least, of the kind you like, Martine. Often as I've been here, I have never looked for that special kind of thing before, but now that I have made you a true report, we might as well turn down toward Memorial Hall."

"Thank you, Priscilla, I hope Mr. Stacy will not think that I care only for entertaining things that make one laugh. I have been more impressed by this old burying-ground than by any other I have ever visited. There is certainly something in the atmosphere that carries one back to the past. If there were anything here to laugh at I couldn't laugh." And silently and reverently Martine followed her friends down the hill into the quiet streets of the little town.

"Now for Pilgrim Hall," said Mr. Stacy, as they walked along the Main Street.

"And what shall we see there?" asked Martine.

"Oh, relics of all kinds--driftwood of the past--some things that will move you to tears, and others that may make you smile."

"Old furniture, I suppose. There are several shiploads of Mayflower furniture scattered through the country, and naturally I would look for a little of it here in Plymouth."

"It would almost seem as if you had been reading my favorite Holmes," rejoined Mr. Stacy. "You perhaps recall his verses about the old punch-bowl that--

"'--Left the Dutchman's shore With those that in the Mayflower came--a hundred souls and more Along with all the furniture to fill their new abodes-- To judge by what is still on hand--at least a hundred loads.'"

"I am not sure," replied Martine, "whether I have heard those particular lines, though the poet's sentiments are mine. Sometimes I wonder if the Pilgrims brought any furniture with them. Or if the things they brought could have lasted through the centuries."

"You will soon be able to judge for yourself. I think you can safely believe in most of the specimens that you see here. At any rate, we people of Plymouth have believed in them so long that they have acquired a certain sanctity."

When they were at last within the dignified hall, Priscilla and Martine flitted about from object to object, the latter asking questions, the former answering them, while Mr. Stacy in one or two instances had to act as umpire.

A chair once owned by Governor Carver, and another brought by William Brewster in the Mayflower, were accepted by Martine without question, and she was equally interested in a cabinet also brought over in the Mayflower by the father of Peregrine White.

"Priscilla," she cried, "your ancestor, John Alden, was particularly generous in his bequests. Here's his Bible, and an autograph of his that must be genuine because it is so hard to read. It seems to me that the Aldens and the Winslows have done well by this exhibition. Isn't this an odd ring, and do you really imagine it was once worn by Governor Edward Winslow?"

"Why, yes," replied Priscilla, "I believe it, if that is what the placard says." And she drew nearer to read the card that was placed beside the ring.

"The sword of Myles Standish! What a story it could tell! Really, Priscilla, these things have a wonderful power of calling up the past--and this little piece of embroidery, just look at the date. It is more than three hundred and fifty years old, and some of the silk threads have kept their colors."

"Please read the verse in the corner," urged Priscilla. "Even when I was a very small girl I used to stand here, and call up pictures of the little Lorena."

As Priscilla finished her sentence, Martine began to repeat the lines embroidered in the old sampler--for such the bit of work must have been.

"'Lorena Standish is my name, Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will, Also fill my hands with such convenient skill As will conduce to virtue devoid of shame, And I will give the glory to Thy name.'

"It is touching," said Martine.

"A true Puritan maiden," commented Mr. Stacy, approaching the girls. "But come, you cannot linger too long over any one thing, however interesting. I will not blame you if you pass quickly by the Florida bones, and the Indian relics, and other so-called curiosities that hardly belong in Pilgrim Hall. But there are a number of autographs and old books that I wish to explain to you, and you must study carefully Weir's beautiful painting, 'The Embarkation of the Pilgrims,' and Charles Lucy's magnificent 'Departure of the Pilgrims.'"

The pictures held Martine's attention for a long time, and when at last she left the hall, she had a new and tenderer feeling for Plymouth.

"If ever I have time," she murmured in a laughing aside to Mr. Stacy, "I will try to hunt up some Mayflower ancestors, for I can't let Priscilla continue to be so superior to me in this respect."

"Indeed, I don't feel superior," said Priscilla, "but I can't tell you how pleased I am, Martine, that you have stopped making fun of Plymouth and the Pilgrims."

"Dear Prissie, you should not take things so seriously. My fun was only fun, and you were too ready to take it in as earnest."

Martine from the first had no trouble in winning the affection of all the Danforths. George and Marcus struggled for the first place in her affections, and Lucy admitted that she loved her next to her mother and Priscilla. Martine made other friends in Plymouth besides the members of the Danforth family. A number of Mrs. Danforth's special friends called on her, and at an informal tea-party she met all the young people whom Priscilla cared for especially.

"Every one seems to have heard of me, I am awfully pleased that you should have talked to people about me, but why am I called a 'heroine'? Three people have said to me, 'We are so pleased to meet the young heroine we have heard so much about.' What do they mean?"

"It's the fire," cried Lucy. "Priscilla told us not to say too much to you about it, because you were so modest, but everybody knows how brave you were to pull Priscilla out of the burning house."

"The burning house? Oh, at Windsor; but I didn't pull her out. There wasn't the least danger, and I only tapped at the door. Why, I had almost forgotten about it. It was nothing at all, so far as I was concerned."

But Lucy only shook her head, as she repeated shyly, "But we think you a heroine all the same." Nor could any words of Martine's have made her change her mind. Had she not always been taught that the truly great were modest? Martine's very denials were a strong evidence that she was truly great.

There was nothing, therefore, for Martine to do but accept the place on the pedestal where they put her.

In spite of this idealizing, however, Priscilla's younger friends were not afraid of Martine. If they had felt any awe before they saw her it immediately passed away when they had looked into her frank brown eyes, and had heard the clear notes of her ringing laugh.

Pleasanter even than the tea-party to Martine was the second evening that Mr. Stacy spent with her and Priscilla.

"Everything that you haven't told me before about Plymouth and its early days you must tell me now," Martine had said. "When I go back to Boston I wish to astonish my brother by my display of historical knowledge. I am sure that he doesn't know the difference between a Puritan and a Pilgrim, which you have so carefully explained to me, Mr. Stacy; and there are fifty other things that I shall spring on him, and mortify him to death, for Lucian thinks that he knows a lot of history, but as far as I can make out he hasn't got far beyond Charlemagne in his two years at Harvard."

"Yet he went to school first?" asked Mr. Stacy, quizzically.

"Yes, but everyone knows that boys in the fitting schools remember as little as they can of American history--although," with an afterthought, "I will admit that Lucian did take an interest last summer in the English and Acadian history of Nova Scotia."

This mention of Acadia suggested various questions to Mr. Stacy, and soon Martine had plunged into a vivid account of their experiences of the preceding summer.

"I have heard part of this before from the lips of Priscilla," said Mr. Stacy, "and her description of the various protegees gathered in by your party interested me greatly. I know that she has not forgotten Eunice, and, indeed, we all expect to see the little Annapolis girl in Plymouth before many summers have passed. But what about Yvonne and Pierre, who on the whole interest me rather more than Eunice--as much, perhaps, because of their infirmities as on account of their foreign blood?"

"As to Pierre," responded Martine, "Amy hears from him regularly, and he is very happy this winter in his work. A little money that was given him last autumn (Martine did not mention that this was her father's generous gift) has enabled him to have regular drawing lessons from a good teacher to whom he goes twice a week at Yarmouth. He insisted in using part of the money for his mother, and, like all Acadians, she seems to have spent it very thriftily."

"But what of Yvonne? she, I believe, is your especial pet."

"Oh, Yvonne, too, has had a little money to spend, and so the Babets have let her board with friends at Annapolis. Her eyes have had some attention from a good doctor, and she has been taking music lessons. I was hoping to arrange to have Alexander Babet bring Yvonne to Boston for treatment by a specialist, but for the present I have to wait."

Here Martine sighed a deep sigh. This allusion to Yvonne reminded her of her father and his caution about economy. "I wonder if we shall always have to economize and give up the things we wish to do. Mother talked about economy when I spoke of inviting Priscilla to go to New York. I wonder--" and then a question from Mr. Stacy recalled Martine's wandering thoughts.

"You scold me sometimes for being absent-minded," said Priscilla, "but we spoke to you three times before you heard."

"I was only thinking, Prissie," responded Martine; "and I can't do two things at the same time--listen and think."

Martine at last said good-bye to Plymouth with genuine regret--for Plymouth people at least, and for the Danforth family in particular.

"New York wouldn't have been half as much fun," she said as the train steamed out of the station, "because I know it so well."

Priscilla, who had not heard of Martine's New York plan, did not understand her friend's allusion; and as Martine made no further explanation, she had no opportunity for discontent--if the loss of a trip to New York would have made her discontented.