Chapter 2

“Why, certainly,” replied Hetty, in an impatient tone, “that's what I said: didn't I make it plain?” and she walked faster and faster back and forth.

“Hetty, you're an angel,” exclaimed the old man, solemnly. “If there's any thing that could make him hold up his head again, it would be just that thing. But--” he hesitated, “you know Sally?”

“Yes, yes, I know her. I know all about her. She's a poor, weak thing,” said Hetty, with no shade of tenderness in her voice; “but Jim was the most to blame, and it's abominable the way people have treated her. I always wished I could do something for them both, and now I've got the chance: that is if you think they'd like to come.”

The deacon hesitated again, began to speak, broke off, hesitated, tried again, and at last stammered:--“Don't think I don't feel your kindness, Hetty; but, low's Jim's fallen, I don't quite feel like having them go into anybody's kitchen, especially with black help.”

“Kitchen!” interrupted Hetty. “What do you take me for, Deacon Little? If Jim comes to live with me as my overseer, he is just the same as my partner in the place, so far as his position goes. How do you suppose I thought that the men would respect him, and take orders from him, if I meant to put him in the kitchen with Cæsar and Nan? No indeed, they shall live with me as if they were my brother and sister. There are plenty of rooms in the house for them to have their own sitting-room, and be by themselves as much as they like. Kitchen indeed! I think you've forgotten that Jim and I were schoolmates from the time we were six till we were twenty. I always liked Jim, and he hasn't had half a chance yet: that miserable affair pulled him down when he was so young.”

“That's so, Hetty; that's so,” said the deacon, with tears rolling down his wrinkled cheeks. “Jim wasn't a bad boy. He never meant to harm anybody, and he hasn't had any chance at all since that happened. It seems as if it took all the spirit right out of him; and Sally, she hasn't got any spirit either: she's been nothin' but a millstone round his neck. It's a mercy the baby died: that's one thing.”

“I don't think so at all, Mr. Little,” said Hetty, vehemently. “I think if the baby had lived, it would have strengthened them both. It would have made Sally much happier, at any rate. She is a motherly little thing.”

“Yes,” said the old man, reluctantly. “Sally's affectionate; I won't deny that: but”--and an expression of exceeding bitterness passed over his face--“I wish to the Lord I needn't ever lay my eyes on her face again! I can't feel right towards her, and I don't suppose I ever shall.”

“I wouldn't wonder if the time came when she was a real comfort to you, Mr. Little,” said Hetty, cheerily. “You get them to come and live with me and see what that'll do. I can afford to give Jim more than he can make at surveying. I have a notion he's a better farmer than he is engineer, isn't he?”

“Yes, there's nothing Jim don't know about a farm. I always did hope he'd settle down here at home with us. But we couldn't have Sally in the house: it would have killed Mrs. Little. It gives her a day's nervous headache now, long ago 's 'tis, whenever she sees her on the street.”

“Well, well,” said Hetty, impatiently, “she won't give anybody nervous headaches in my house, poor little soul, that's certain; and the sooner they can come the better I shall like it. So you will arrange it all for me at once, won't you?”

Then Hetty went on to speak of some matters in regard to the farm about which she was in doubt,--as to certain fields, and crops, and what should be done with the young stock from last year. Presently the old clock in the hall struck nine, and the village bells began to ring.

Hetty sprang to her feet.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “I had no idea it was so late. I only meant to stay an hour. Nan will be frightened about me.” And she was out of the house and on her pony's back almost before Deacon Little could say,--

“But, Hetty, ain't you afraid to go home by yourself. I can go with you 's well 's not.”

“Bless me, no!” said Hetty. “I always ride alone. Polly knows the road as well as I do;” and she cantered off, saying cheerily, “Goodnight, deacon, I can't tell you how much I'm obliged to you. Please see Jim 's early 's you can to-morrow: I want to get settled and begin work.”

When Hetty reached home, the house was silent and dark: only one feeble light glimmered in the hall. As she threw open the door, old Cæsar and Nan rushed forward together from the kitchen, exclaiming, half sobbing,--

“Oh, Miss Hetty! Miss Hetty! we made sure you was killed.”

“Nonsense, Nan!” said Hetty, goodnaturedly: “what put such an idea into your head? Haven't I ridden Polly many a darker night than this?”

“Yes'm,” sobbed Nan; “but to-night's different. All our luck's gone: 'When the master's dead, the house is shook,' they say where I was raised. Oh, Miss Hetty! it's lonesome's death in the kitchen.”

Hetty threw open the door into the sitting-room. “Put on a stick of wood, Nan, and make the fire blaze up,” she said.

While Nan was doing this, Hetty lighted the lamps, drew down the curtains, and gave the room its ordinary evening look. Then she said,--

“Now, Nan, sit down: I want to talk with you,” and Hetty herself sat down in her father's chair on the right hand of the fireplace.

“Oh, Miss Hetty!” cried Nan, “don't you go set in that chair: you'll die before the year 's out if you do. Oh please, Miss Hetty! get right up;” and the poor old woman took forcible hold of her young mistress's arms, and tried to lift her from the chair.

“To please you, I will sit in another chair now, Nan, because I want you to be quiet and listen to me. But that will be my chair to sit in always, just as it used to be my father's; and I shall not die before the year 's out, Nan, nor I hope for a great many years to come yet,” said Hetty.

“Oh, no! please the Lord, Miss Hetty,” sobbed Nan: “who'd take care of Cæsar an' me ef you was to die.”

“But I expect you and Cæsar to take care of me, Nan,” replied Hetty, smiling, “and I want to have a good talk with you now, and make you understand about our life here. You want to please me, don't you, Nan?”

“Oh, yes! Miss Hetty. You knows I do, and so does Cæsar. We wouldn't have no other missus, not in all these Norf States: we'd sooner go back down where we was raised.” Hetty smiled involuntarily at this violent comparison, knowing well that both Cæsar and Nan would have died sooner than go back to the land where they were “raised.” But she went on,--

“Very well. You never need have any other mistress as long as I live: and when I die you and Cæsar will have money enough to make you comfortable, and a nice little house. Now the first thing I want you to understand is that we are going to live on here in this house, exactly as we did when my father was here. I shall carry on the farm exactly as he would if he were alive; that is, as nearly as I can. Now you will make it very hard for me, if you cry and are lonesome, and say such things as you said to-night. If you want to please me, you will go right on with your work cheerfully, and behave just as if your master were sitting there in his chair all the time. That is what will please him best, too, if he is looking on, as I don't doubt he very often will be.”

“But is you goin' to be here all alone, Miss Hetty? yer don't know what yer a layin' out for, yer don't,” interrupted Nan.

“No,” replied Hetty: “Mr. James Little and his wife are coming here to stay. He will be overseer of the farm.”

“What! Her that was Sally Newhall?” exclaimed Nan, in a sharp tone.

“Yes, that was Mrs. Little's name before she was married,” replied Hetty, looking Nan full in the face with a steady expression, intended to restrain any farther remarks on the subject of Mrs. Little. But Nan was not to be restrained.

“Before she was married! Yes'm! an' a good deal too late 'twas she was married too. 'Deed, Miss Hetty, yer ain't never going to take her in to live with you, be yer?” she muttered.

“Yes, I am, Nan,” Hetty said firmly; “and you must never let such a word as that pass your lips again. You will displease me very much if you do not treat Mrs. Little respectfully.”

“But, Miss Hetty,” persisted Nan. “Yer don't know”--

“Yes, I do, Nan: I know it all. But I pity them both very much. We have all done wrong in one way or another; and it is the Lord's business to punish people, not ours. You 've often told me, Nan, about that pretty little girl of yours and Cæsar's that died when I was a baby. Supposing she had lived to be a woman, and some one had led her to do just as wrong as poor Sally Little did, wouldn't you have thought it very hard if the whole world had turned against her, and never given her a fair chance again to show that she was sorry and meant to live a good life?”

Nan was softened.

“'Deed would I, Miss Hetty. But that don't make me feel like seein' that gal a settin' down to table with you, Miss Hetty, now I tell yer! Cæsar nor me couldn't stand that nohow!”

“Yes you can, Nan; and you will, when you know that it would make me very unhappy to have you be unkind to her,” answered Hetty, firmly. “She and her husband both, have done all in their power to atone for their wrong; and nobody has ever said a word against Mrs. Little since her marriage; and one thing I want distinctly understood, Nan, by every one on this place,--any disrespectful word or look towards Mr. or Mrs. Little will be just the same as if it were towards me myself.”

Nan was silenced, but her face wore an obstinate expression which gave Hetty some misgivings as to the success of her experiment. However, she knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb which her grandfather had explained to her when she was a little girl,--

“Don't cross bridges till you come to them.”

III.

The gratitude with which James Little's wife received Hetty's proposition was so great that it softened even her father-in-law's heart.

“I do believe, Hetty,” he said, when he gave her their answer, “I do believe that poor girl has suffered more 'n we've given her credit for. When I explained to her that you was goin' to take her right in to be like one o' your own family, she turned as white as a sheet, and says she,--

“'You don't mean it, father: she won't ever dare to:' and when I said, says I,--

“'Yes, she does: Hetty Gunn ain't a girl not to know what she means to do. And that's just what she says she's goin' to do with you and Jim,' she broke right out crying, out loud, just like a little baby, and says she,--

“'If the Lord don't bless Hetty Gunn for bein' so good to us! she sha'n't ever be sorry for it's long's she lives.'”

“Of course I sha'n't,” said Hetty, bluntly. “I never was sorry yet for any thing I did which was right, and I am as sure this is right as I am that I am alive. When will they come?”

“Sarah said she would come right over to-day, if you'd like to have her help you; and Jim he could fix up things at home, and shut the house up. Jim said they'd better not let the house till you had tried how it worked havin' 'em here. Jim don't seem very sanguine about it. Poor fellow, he's got the spirit all taken out of him.”

“Well, well, we'll put it back again, see if we don't, before the year is out,” replied Hetty, with a beaming smile, which made her face beautiful.

It happened fortunately that poor Sarah Little first came to her new home alone, rather than with her husband. The years of solitude and disgrace through which they had lived, had made him dogged and defiant of manner, but had made her humble and quiet. She still kept a good deal of the beauty of her youth; and there were few persons who could be unmoved by the upward glance of her saddened blue eyes. In less than five minutes, she conquered old Nan, and secured her as an ally for ever. As she entered the house, Hetty met her, and saying cordially,--

“I'm glad to see you, Sally. It was so good of you to come right over at once; we have a great deal to do,”--she kissed her on her forehead.

Sarah burst into tears. Nan stood by with a sullen face. Turning towards her involuntarily, perhaps because she hardly dared to speak to Hetty, Sarah said,--

“Oh, Nan, I'm only crying because she is so kind to me. I can't help it;” and the poor thing sank into a chair and sobbed. No wonder! it was six years since she had returned to her native village, a shame-stricken woman, bearing in her arms the child whose birth had been her disgrace. That its father was now her husband did little or nothing to repair the loss which her weakness and wrong-doing had entailed on her. If there be a pitiless community in this world, it is a small New England village. Calvinism, in its sternest aspects, broods over it; narrowness and monotony make rigid the hearts which theology has chilled; and a grim Pharisaism, born of a certain sort of intellectual keen-wittedness, completes the cruel inhumanity. It was six years since poor Sarah Little, baby in arms, had come into such an air as this,--six years, and until this moment, when Hetty Gunn kissed her forehead and spoke to her with affection, no woman had ever said to her a kindly word. When the baby died, not a neighbor came to its funeral. The minister, the weeping father and mother, and the stern-looking grandfather, alone followed the little unwelcomed one to its grave. After that, Sarah rarely went out of her house except at night. The tradesmen with whom she had to deal came slowly to have a pitying respect for her. The minister went occasionally to see her, and in his clumsy way thought he perceived what he called “the right spirit” in her. Sarah dreaded his calls more than any thing else. What made her isolation much harder to bear was the fact that, only two years before, every young girl in the county had been her friend. There was no such milliner in all that region as Sarah Newhall. In autumn and in spring, her little shop at Lonway Four Corners was crowded with chattering and eager girls, choosing ribbons and hats, and all deferring to her taste. Now they all passed her by with only a cold and silent bow. Not one spoke. To Sarah's affectionate, mirth-loving temperament, this was misery greater than could be expressed. She said not a word about it, not even to her husband: she bore it as dumb animals bear pain, seeking only a shelter, a hiding-place; but she wished herself dead. Jim's share of the punishment had been in some ways lighter than hers, in others harder. He had less loneliness; but, on the other hand, by his constant intercourse with men, he was frequently reminded of the barrier which separated himself and his wife from all that went on in the village. He had the same mirthful, social temperament which she had: the thoughtless, childish, pleasure-loving quality, which they had in common, had been the root of their sin; and was now the instrument of their suffering. Stronger people could have borne up better; worse people might have found a certain evil solace in evil ways and with evil associates: but Jim and Sally were incapable of any such course; they were simply two utterly broken-spirited and hopeless children whose punishment had been greater than they could bear. In a dogged way, because they must live, Jim went on earning a little money as surveyor and draughtsman. He often talked of going away into some new faraway place where they could have, as he said, in the same words Hetty had used, “a fair chance;” but Sally would not go. “It would not make a bit of difference,” she said: “it would be sure to be found out, and strange folks would despise us even more than our own folks do; perhaps things will come round right after a while, if we stay here.” Jim did not insist, for he loved Sally tenderly; and he felt, to the core of his heart, that the least he could do for her now was to let her live where she chose to live: but he grew more sullen and dogged, day by day; and Sally grew sadder and quieter, and things were fast coming to a bad pass, when Hetty Gunn's generous offer came to them, like a great rift of sunlight in a black sky.

When Sally sank into the chair sobbing, Hetty made a quick movement towards her, and was about to speak; but, seeing that old Nan was hastening to do the same thing, she wisely waited, thinking to herself,--

“If Nan will only take her under her wing, all will go well.”

Old Nan's tenderness of heart was unlimited. If her worst enemy were in pain or sorrow, she would succor him: ready perhaps to take up the threads of her resentment again, as soon as his sufferings were alleviated; but a very Samaritan of good offices as long as he needed them. Cæsar, so well understood this trait in her, that in their matrimonial disputes, which, it must be confessed, were frequent and sharp, when all other weapons failed him, he fell back on the colic. He had only to interrupt the torrent of her reproaches, with a groan, and a twist of his fat abdomen, and “oh, honey, I'm so bad in my stomach!” and she was transformed, in an instant from a Xantippe into a Florence Nightingale: the whole current of her wrath deviated from him to the last meal he had eaten, whatever it might be.

“Now, it's jist nothin' but that pesky bacon you ate this mornin', Cæsar: you sha'n't never touch a bit again's long's you live; do you hear?” and with hot water and flannels, she would proceed to comfort and coddle him as if no anger had ever stirred her heart.

When she saw poor Sarah Little sink crying into a chair, and heard the humble gratefulness of her words; and, moreover, felt herself, as it were, distinctly taken into confidence by the implied reference to the unhappy past,--old Nan melted.

“There, there, honey: don't ye take on so. We're jest powerful glad to get you here, we be. I was a tellin' Miss Hetty yesterday she couldn't live here alone, noways: we couldn't any of us stand it. Come along into the dinin'-room, an' Cæsar he'll give you a glass of his blackberry wine. Cæsar won't let anybody but hisself touch the blackberry wine, an' hain't this twenty year.”

“Here, Cæsar! you, Cæsar! where be yer? Come right in here, you loafin' niggah.” This was Nan's most affectionate nickname for her husband; it was always accompanied with a glance of proud admiration, which was the key to the seemingly opprobrious epithet, and revealed that all it really meant was a complacent satisfaction in her breast that her husband was in a position to loaf if he liked to,--a gentleman of leisure and dignity, so to speak, subject to no orders but her own.

Cæsar could hardly believe his ears when he heard himself called upon to bring a glass of his blackberry wine to Mrs. Sarah Little. This was not at all in keeping with the line of conduct which Nan had announced beforehand that she should pursue in regard to that lady. Bewildered by his perplexed meditations on this change of policy, he moved even more slowly than was his wont, and was presently still more bewildered by finding the glass snatched suddenly from his hand, with a sharp reprimand from Nan.

“You're asleep, ain't you? p'raps you'd better go back to bed, seein' it's nigh noon.”

“There, honey, you jest drink this, an' it'll do you good,” came in the next second from the same lips, in such dulcet tones, that Cæsar rubbed his head in sheer astonishment, and gazed with open mouth and eyes upon Nan, who was holding the glass to Sally's mouth, as caressingly as she would to a sick child's.

The battle was won; won by a tone and a tear; won, as, ever since the days of Goliath, so many battles have been won by the feebleness of weapons, and not by their might.

When two days later, James Little, more than half unwillingly, spite of his gratitude to Hetty, came to take his position as overseer at “Gunn's,” he was met at the great gate by his wife, who had been watching there for him for an hour. He looked at her with undisguised wonder. There was a light in her eyes, a color in her cheeks, he had not seen there for many years. “Why, Sally!” he exclaimed, but gave no other expression to his amazement. She understood.

“Oh, Jim!” she said, “it is like heaven here: they're all so kind. I told you things would come round all right if we waited.”

The new overseer found himself welcomed because he was Sally's husband, and the strangeness of this was a bewilderment indeed. He could hardly understand the atmosphere of cordial good feeling which seemed in so short time to have grown up between his wife and all the household. He had become so used to Sally's sweet sad face, that he did not know how great a charm it held for others; and he had never seen in her the manner which she now wore to every one. One day's kindly treatment had been to her like one day's sunlight to a drooping plant.

Hetty was relieved and glad. All her misgivings had vanished; and she found growing up in her heart a great tenderness toward Sally. She recollected well the bright rosy face Sally had worn only a few years before, and the contrast between it and her pale sorrow-stricken countenance now smote Hetty whenever she looked at her. Her sympathy, however, took no shape in words or caresses. She was too wise for that. She simply made it plain that Sally's place in the family was to be a fixed and a busy one.

“I shall look after the out-door things, Sally,” she said. “I have done that ever since father was so poorly, and I like it best. I shall trust to you to keep the house going all straight. Old Nan isn't much of a housekeeper, though she's a good cook: she needs looking after.”

And so the new household entered on its first summer. The crops sprang up, abundant and green: all the cattle throve and increased: the big garden bloomed full of its old-fashioned flowers; its wide borders of balm and lavender made the whole road-side sweet: the doors stood open, and the cheery sounds of brisk farm life were to be heard all day long. To all passers-by “Gunn's” seemed unchanged, unless it were that it had grown even more prosperous and active. But in the hall, two knobbed old canes which used to stand in the corner were hung by purple ribbons from the great antlers on the wall, and would never be taken down again. Hetty had hung them there the day after the funeral, and had laid the squire's riding-whip across them, saying to herself as she did so,--

“There! I'll keep those up there as long as I live, and I wonder what will become of them then or of the farm either,” and she had a long and sad reverie, standing with the riding-whip in her hand in the doorway, and tying and untying the purple ribbons. But she shook the thought off at last, saying to herself,--

“Well, well, I don't suppose the farm'll go begging. There are plenty of people that would be glad enough to have me give it to them. I expect it will have to go to Cousin Josiah after all; but father couldn't abide him. It's a great pity I wasn't a boy, then I could have married and had children to take it.” A sudden flush covered Hetty's face as she said this, and with a shamefaced, impatient twist of her expressive features, she ran in hastily and laid the whip above the canes.