Part 25

Tears of disappointment fairly sprang to our eyes; but the contrast, the revulsion of feeling, the sense of the ludicrous, was so keen, that we gave way to hysterical laughter; we could not suppress it. Where, alas! were our “manners?” I was the first to recover my self-possession. I turned to Mrs. Maybee, who stood before us speechless with angry astonishment, and said pacifically: “You were very good to let us see it. It is not quite what we expected to find. It is so much newer than an old spinet! I fear my sister could not afford to buy it, as she has one piano already. It is very curious and very ingenious, and no doubt you will sell it to someone.” We were walking slowly toward the open door in the hope of immediate escape; but we were not to escape so easily, not without punishment for our adventurous raid. As we drew back, Mrs. Maybee advanced; and it seemed for a while that we should be obliged to buy the old melodeon and take it off with us. But I seized upon a diversion, a godsend, in the shape of a row of window-plants in the kitchen. One fine geranium flourished in this “copper-lustre” pitcher, which had had a hole knocked in the bottom, to permit the water to drain out. I immediately began to admire that geranium, and offered Mrs. Maybee a dollar for the pitcher and plant. This diverted her mind from the unfortunate “spinet;” and after much sharp talk and bargaining we paid her one dollar and seventy-five cents for the geranium and pitcher, rushed from her inhospitable door, and drove away with our poet. “The True Story of the Life, Temper, and Adventures of Orvilla Maybee,” related to us in legal verse by “Rhyming Darius” on our homeward drive, made us wonder that we escaped unharmed from that New England vixen.

So our broken lustre pitcher was all that we had to carry home with us from our “spinet hunt.” And I will close this little tale of New England experience with a simple statement of the cost of the pitcher and the geranium (which died when transplanted).

Two fares to Pardon and return $4 00 Bill for supper, bed, and breakfast for two 1 50 Wagon, poetry, and legal advice 1 00 Paid Mrs. Maybee for pitcher 1 75 ————— Total cost of pitcher $8 25

As I have since seen a fac-simile of our pitcher (only whole and unbroken) in a bric-a-brac shop, ticketed $2, we cannot consider the trip financially successful; though, truth to tell, it was far more so than many another expedition we have made. But a golden lustre, the memory of our legal poet, englamours forever in our eyes our copper pitcher. When we look at it we hear again the strident voice, the bizarre pronunciation, the voluble rhymes of our poet of the soil, our Darius, as he exclaimed in amazement:

“Ye don’t hang ’em on the wall, Them cracked old kitchen dishes! An’ keep a frac-tured pitcher As if ’t was act-ure-ly precious! They say that city folks Is mighty extrav-ure-gant, But with such test-ure-mony I’m willin’ to swear they ain’t. There ain’t a party in this town So stingy an’ such a non-com As to hang that pitcher on the wall, Lookin’ ’s if ’t was jest goin’ ter fall, An’ the hole showin’ in the botturm.”

Many ghosts has our china hunting revealed to us; the ghosts of the past, the visions and dreams that never become realities, the inexorable fate, the sad kismet of New England life. Such was the story of the house of Hartington, a story sadly typical of many New England homes; a story which the sight of these little lettered and escutcheoned cups always retells to us.

A description had been given to us of an old town with old houses and old people and old china, and after a gloomy night in a hideous country hotel we started out to find some townsman of whom we could hire a horse and carriage of some or any sort to carry us to Rindge and Anthony Hartington’s house—the oldest house of all.

A thin, auburn-haired, freckle-faced Yankee, about twenty-one years old, answered our questions with the greatest interest, and finally offered us the use of his own horse and open wagon for the whole day for two dollars. “And I’ll drive fer ye, too,” he added, with enthusiasm. “Ye’d never find old Hartington’s if ye took the hoss yerself, an’ I do’ ‘now as I can neither, without some pretty tall huntin’ and questionin’.”

So off we started on the back seat of an open country “express wagon” to find “old Hartington’s farm.” The warm October sun streamed down upon us, the great red and russet rock-broken fields stretched off into the beautiful lonely purple mountain, “heeding his sky affairs,” the dying brakes and weeds sent forth their sweet nutty autumn fragrance, the soft yellow and brown leaves fluttered down on us, and the ripe chestnutburrs fell rustling by our side as we rode through the narrow wood-roads. The hard New England landscape was softened and Orientalized by the yellow autumn tints. The half-sad stillness of dying nature and the warmth of the Indian summer inclined us to ride quietly and thoughtfully along the country roads, but that neither Mr. Simmons, nor his new wagon, nor Jenny, his steed, would for a moment permit. She had the unpleasant habit, so common among country horses, of “slacking-up” suddenly at the foot of every hill. The wagon was a “jump-seat,” so the back seat was not fastened in securely. At every hill (and the New England hills are countless) we and the seat were pitched forward on Mr. Simmons’s back. He seemed to expect this assault and rather enjoy it. To quite counterbalance this sudden stoppage of progression, Jenny would spring forward with much and instantaneous speed whenever she caught sight of Mr. Simmons’s short whip. This whip he used as a pointer in his many and diffuse explanations, so whenever our attention was called to an old house, or a poor “run-out” farm, or “the barn old White hung himself in,” Jenny emphasized the explanation with a twitch of our necks that brought into active play muscles little used before.

At last the long hill leading to the Hartington house was reached, the longest and steepest yet seen. The road was almost unused, a mere track, and spoke to our china hunting instincts most favorably of the little intercourse held by the Hartingtons with the rest of the world. Slowly plodded Jenny over the fringed gentians, for here the road was full of them, as open and blue as the October sky over our heads. We had never seen this lovely delicate flower growing elsewhere than sparsely by a brookside or in damp ground, but here, on this rocky hill-side, in this poor soil, it opened its blue eyes in such luxuriance that the road was as full of its azure bloom as in September the fields are yellow with goldenrod, or in June white with daisies. As we turned in from the main country road we passed an elderly man with bowed head, ragged clothes, slouching gait, and a general appearance of extreme depression and sadness more marked even than is usual in the carriage of the New England farmer. As he did not lift his head to look at us, nor nod with the cordial common country form of recognition, we did not speak to him, and he slowly followed us up the hill.

The Hartington house was a mansion, a brick manor-house. We were met at the great door by a young untidy woman, whose clear pink-and-white complexion and curly hair could not, however, compensate for her lack of good teeth, several front teeth being missing and the others discolored. This poor care and poor condition of the teeth is most common among New England women in the country. Nearly every woman over thirty years of age will show when speaking two rows of blue-white porcelain disks so evidently false that they hardly seem like teeth, but look like a “card” of cheap buttons. We thought her the daughter of the house; she proved to be its mistress, the wife of Anthony Hartington. A more desolate, unhappy, hopeless home I have never seen. The elderly gloomy man, who now entered, proved to be Anthony himself. He spoke but little, and from the young wife, who seemed in a feverish state of excitement at our visit, we learned the forlorn and desolate story of the household.

Anthony had married early in life and had had nine children, all of whom, with his wife, had died of that fell curse of New England—consumption. The last child, a daughter, Luriella, had died in June. This young wife had been her school friend and had married the forlorn old man two years ago, in order to come to live there and nurse her friend through her last illness, thus giving a touching example of the life-sacrifices and self-abnegations so sadly frequent in New England country homes. “We didn’t think she’d live through the winter,” she said, “but she did, and died in June. I was glad she lived till it was warm. It is so cold here in winter,” she added apologetically.

A heavy gloom settled on us as we walked from room to room, and I was additionally overwhelmed by the uncanny, unreasoning sense that I had been there before, had lived there. It was all so familiar to me, so strangely well known, that I could scarcely speak, but walked bewildered and frightened through the rooms I had known a hundred years ago. I have never felt at any other time that sense of pre-existence, but I know that nothing about that old house was new to me.

The upper part of the windows were of small panes of greenish “bull’s-eye” glass, rarely found in the country now; the lower panes of cheap, modern glass, some being broken and pasted over with dirty bits of calico and paper, and all as opaque with dirt as the ancient upper panes. Outside the windows lay an unkempt tangle of lilac bushes, shrubs, weeds, straggling withered flowers, box borders, and thistles, that once had been a lovely, well-kept garden, but had evidently been unentered and unheeded for years. It stretched down the hill-side to the well-tenanted family graveyard with its moss-grown and chipped slate headstones with their winged cherubs’ heads and crossbones. I had often gathered flowers in that garden; I remembered it well, and had walked and played among the gravestones.

Inside the four great parlors hung cobwebs and dust—and wasps! the floors were sprinkled with them; thousands lay dead in the two-feet-wide window-seats, while swarms of live ones buzzed loudly at the dingy windows. “They won’t touch you,” she said, as we drew back. “He thinks there must be a nest somewhere.” A nest! A colony of nests rather—a hundred nests, the accumulated nests of years.

The parlors had few pieces of furniture, and all were broken except a modern marble-topped table and a “what-not.” “I bought these,” she said, “when I was married, to please Luriella; I didn’t want to spend much, for fear she would need medicine. But she didn’t take much at last; she thought it didn’t do any good.”

A set of painted book-shelves in a corner held a few books, two or three china dogs, some common seashells, a large ginger-jar, and a number of really beautiful pewter porringers with handles. My companion had already conveyed to “him” our wish “to buy any old pieces of furniture or china you may wish to part with,” and though we had not heard a word nor seen a gesture of assent, the wife told us that “he” was willing to sell. Yet, when we said we would like to buy the little handled porringers, he walked out of the room without a word.

All the wood-work in these parlors—the wainscoting, the high mantels, the panels of the doors, the heavy window-frames—were ornamented with a curious design, a row of half-pillars joined at the top in a series of pointed arches, with carved sunbursts in the spandrels. It was most graceful and odd—I have never seen it elsewhere—yet it was perfectly familiar to me; I could almost remember, yes, I could remember, counting the number of pillars in the room.

The two kitchens were enormous rooms. One, entirely closed away and disused, disclosed a horror of dirt and rubbish, old pots and pans, and tubs, and wheels, thrown, a shapeless mass, into the fireplace, and scattered over the floor. In the smaller kitchen the chimney-nook, the great fireplace, had been boarded over, and a small rusty kitchen stove placed for daily use. I seemed to remember when I sat by this ingleside, and great logs lay on this broad hearth, and the roaring flames surged up the great chimney and threw their cheerful light into the now desolate room.

Through this kitchen there wailed a moaning noise from the empty chimney, which made even my cheerful companion look solemn and depressed. She “didn’t like to hear it, either,” our guide said, quietly.

Two bedrooms and a “living-room” completed the number of apartments on the ground floor. But the living-room was not lived in; the two bedrooms were the only apartments that bore signs of occupation. There was not a carpeted floor in the house, but to these two rooms, braided rag rugs and strips of homespun carpet gave an appearance of comparative comfort. The “rising-sun” and “twin-sister” patchwork quilts on the untidy beds added to the effect.

The most incongruous, most inadequate apartment on this floor was the pantry, a little dark box of a closet, to which one small greenish glass window dispensed a dingy light. We had intended to ask for our dinner, since it was then “high noon,” but a sight of this cooking sanctum dispelled all thought or wish for dinner. It was so cobwebby, so dusty, so poor-looking, that we could not wish to eat any dinner that could issue from its dark shadows. We found afterward, beyond the disused kitchen, a large square room which, in the early days of the prosperity and good cheer of this house, had doubtless been a pantry, but was now filled with broken grindstones, crushed Dutch ovens, fragments of crockery, pails and pans, “peels” and “slices,” yarn-winders, and part of an old rose still. Indeed, through this entire house, nothing could ever have been wholly destroyed or carried away, but was thrown, in its broken, grimy desuetude, into some neglected closet or room to gather years of dust and dirt, as if the owner, too poor to buy new furniture, still clung to the shattered remnants of past plenty.

We rescued from the dingy little pantry, from among the litter of broken cups and plates and knives, bunches of dried herbs, empty spice-boxes, cracked woodenware, and greasy pans, a few treasures which we spread out on the kitchen table—half a dozen “Pain’s Hill” plates (a favorite pattern throughout New England), two open-work bordered Leeds platters, a dear little boat-shaped queen’s-ware creamer with dainty twisted handles, two helmet pitchers, two teacups, and half a dozen plates of a set of old Lowestoft china bearing a pretty armorial device and initials. We hardly dared ask to buy the latter pieces until we saw the evident contempt the farm-wife had for them. Nothing so American as a Lafayette or Pilgrim plate was to be seen.

One large dresser in the kitchen was found to be literally filled with battered and broken brass and pewter candlesticks, glass whale-oil lamps, snuffers, pewter savealls, extinguishers, and trays, and brass chimney hooks for shovel and tongs. We rescued from this medley several candlesticks, two curious Dutch hanging-lamps, and a really beautiful but broken candelabra of Sheffield plate. These we placed with the china on the kitchen table. I wished to add the pewter porringers found in the parlor, but the wife softly drawled in her nasal voice: “He won’t sell ’em—they were hers—she used to make mud-pies in ’em when she was little.” And pretty playthings they must have been—fifteen dear little shallow pewter posnets and porringers with flat pierced handles, varying in size from one large enough to hold a pint to a true doll’s or a “’prentice” porringer an inch and a half in diameter. They were full of little, common, colored pebbles and shells, dried seeds, and old purple glass beads, perhaps just as “she” had last played with them. Other and more distant memories, too, may have clung to the old porringers—of days when the old man was a boy and took his “little porringer” and ate his supper of bread and milk from it; and perhaps, in the far years when the old man was a baby, his mother had had served to her in one of these old porringers her “dish of caudle,” that rich mixture of eggs, spices, bread, milk, and wine which was thought years ago to be the proper diet for a sick person.

Then we mounted the spiral staircase to the second floor, the chambers. Through this dreary expanse we walked slowly—the dusty half-furnishings growing shabbier and shabbier—still stumbling over broken furniture on the uneven floors, until we entered a south room that was such a blaze of cheerful, yellow, tropical light that we exclaimed with delight. Walls and ceilings were hung solid with long yellow ears of corn, left to dry for use in the winter. Even the old cherry fourpost bedstead was draped with them. Such a color! Such a glory! “She used to like to see them too,” the low voice murmured.

A third story, a gambrel-roofed attic, was too dusty and repelling to enter, but in one of the deserted bedrooms we found, whole, though black with dust, a dressing-table which had been the lower portion of a high chest of drawers. As is common now in New England farm-houses, the top drawers had been lifted from this table portion and set upon the floor to use as a bureau; not half so tidy and cleanly a fashion of furniture as when it stood on its high legs and let a broom or brush sweep freely every portion of the floor under it. The upper portion of this high chest was seen afterward in the outer wood-shed full of strips of leather, broken harness, nails, and pieces of iron. It had been gnawed by rats and whittled by knives till it was valueless. The lower or table portion was whole. It had three shallow “jewel drawers,” three deep drawers with brass handles and carved “sunbursts.” It proved, when dusted, to be of curled maple; and after long discussion with Mr. Simmons we decided to take it with us. Its bowed legs ended in claw-and-ball feet that would just set within the carriage sides. “If one on ye don’t mind settin’ in front with me, the other can set in the back seat with the table in front of her,” he said.

This young wife had not once shown the usual country curiosity about us, but as she turned away to find some newspapers to wrap around the plates, I said to her, “There is much here we should like to buy and take away with us, but it would cost so much to move the pieces so far, and they are so out of repair.” Then we told her who we were, whence we came, what we should do with the china, and that we should often think and speak of her when we looked at the plates this coming winter. “I can’t bear to think of the winter without her,” she answered, softly.

Jenny had been fed and watered and “hitched up,” and we prepared to start. I clambered into the back seat of the wagon, then the dressing-table was lifted in and placed in front of me. Luckily its legs were long enough, so the weight did not rest on my legs, else I could never have taken it. Our laps were filled with the frail china; the candlesticks, lamps, and two warming-pans were placed on the floor of the wagon, and we started, leaving the two dreary figures and the dreary house behind us. All the way down the steep hills I had to hold the table to keep it off the occupants of the front seat, and all the way up the steep hills it lay heavily in my lap; but at last we reached the country station and packed our china and brass in two market-baskets which Mr. Simmons brought us from his “store.” We could hear the sallies of country wit from the loafers at the station at Mr. Simmons and his strange load, and his indignant and most offensively personal and profane answers in return. Then we received a baggage-check for the dressing-table, and finally entered the train rather conscious that two warming-pans and two newspaper-covered market-baskets are hardly ordinary or desirable travelling luggage.

A few days later, when cleaning the inside of the dressing-table, the following letter was found. It had been caught and held by a splinter of wood under the top of the table, and had evidently lain untouched for years. It was folded in the old-fashioned way, dated May 12, 1810, and addressed to Madam Janet Hartington. It read thus:

D^R AND RESPECT^{ED} MOTHER The letter which I wrote you some three months ago on the s’bj’ct of my proposed marriage was answered by you, and the answer duly rec^d by me.

The two letters I wrote you since on the same s’bj’ct have rec^d no answer.

And now it is too late to receive any further advice on the matter, for I wish to most Respectfully inform you that I married the object of my choice a week past to-day in Kings Chapel in Boston. There were but few present, as was Oriana’s wish.

The plans you wrote me, most Respect^{ed} Mother, for the advancement and future prospects of our family, interested me much, and I quite concur in them all.

And no one could be more fully fitted to assist me in my career than my Oriana. Her graceful and ladylike deportment fit her to adorn any circle no matter how exalted.

She is quite ready to become a most dutifull and obedient daughter to you and I trust, my D^r Mother, the fact of her being an orphan will open your heart to her; and then the wish you have always had, viz, to have a daughter, may thus find its fullfillment.

I know not from what source you obtained the strange advice that her Father did amass his fortune in the African Slave Trade. I have never wounded her tender heart by inquiry as to the source of her Fathers wealth (tho’ ’tis a calling & trade has been followed by many citizens apparently much respect^{ed}). But the thought of his “ill-gotten gold” need no further trouble you. Thro’ ill advice and knavery, her fortune has dwindled to a thousand dollars, and now her wealth is only in her beauty and her amiable disposition. She has however much good furniture and china which will grace well our home.

I regret much to hear that my bills and debts in College have cost you so much, and that the Farm is so run behindhand. This, with the debts my Father left behind him, make it most advisable for me to give up my intention to practice as a lawyer, and have decided me to return to manage your Farm.

It is quite opportune and most Providential that your Farmer is dead, since he managed so ill.

With your wise instructions and counsels, we can no doubt retrieve the money that has been lost, and carry out my Grandfathers plans to make our house and name one of the most powerful in the State.

Thus shall I assume the position in town and county that you always wished me to take.

We shall leave by coach for Ringe in a week, our household goods and furnishings to follow us in waggons.

I know, D^r Mother, that you will admire and praise my Oriana, as who could do otherwise?

I have talked much to her of your aspirations and ambitions, and she hopes most Respectfully to help to carry out any plans you may have.

With most affectionate greeting from Oriana and myself, I am

Your Loving and Honour^{ed} Son GEORGE HARTINGTON.