Chapter 25

I dinna ken what I should want If I could get but a man.

Scotch Ballad.

Capt. Rossitur did no work at the saw-mill. But Fleda's words had not fallen to the ground. He began to shew care for his fellow-creatures in getting the bellows mended; his next step was to look to his gun; and from that time so long as he staid the table was plentifully supplied with all kinds of game the season and the country could furnish. Wild ducks and partridges banished pork and bacon even from memory; and Fleda joyfully declared she would not see another omelette again till she was in distress.

While Charlton was still at home came a very urgent invitation from Mrs. Evelyn that Fleda should pay them a long visit in New York, bidding her care for no want of preparation but come and make it there. Fleda demurred, however, on that very score. But before her answer was written, another missive came from Dr. Gregory, not asking so much as demanding her presence, and enclosing a fifty-dollar bill, for which he said he would hold her responsible till she had paid him with,--not her own hands,--but her own lips. There was no withstanding the manner of this entreaty. Fleda packed up some of Mrs. Rossitur's laid-by silks, to be refreshed with an air of fashion, and set off with Charlton at the end of his furlough.

To her simple spirit of enjoyment the weeks ran fast; and all manner of novelties and kindnesses helped them on. It was a time of cloudless pleasure. But those she had left thought it long. She wrote them how delightfully she kept house for the old doctor, whose wife had long been dead, and how joyously she and the Evelyns made time fly. And every pleasure she felt awoke almost as strong a throb in the hearts at home. But they missed her, as Barby said, "dreadfully;" and she was most dearly welcomed when she came back. It was just before New Year.

For half an hour there was most gladsome use of eyes and tongues. Fleda had a great deal to tell them.

"How well--how well you are looking, dear Fleda!" said her aunt for the third or fourth time.

"That's more than lean say for you and Hugh, aunt Lucy. What have you been doing to yourself?"

"Nothing new," they said, as her eye went from one to the other.

"I guess you have wanted me!" said Fleda, shaking her head as she kissed them both again.

"I guess we have," said Hugh, "but don't fancy we have grown thin upon the want."

"But where's uncle Rolf? you didn't tell me."

"He is gone to look after those lands in Michigan."

"In Michigan!--When did he go?"

"Very soon after you."

"And you didn't let me know!--O why didn't you? How lonely you must have been."

"Let you know indeed!" said Mrs. Rossitur, wrapping her in her arms again;--"Hugh and I counted every week that you staid with more and pleasure each one."

"I understand!" said Fleda laughing under her aunt's kisses. "Well I am glad I am at home again to take care of you. I see you can't get along without me!"

"People have been very kind, Fleda," said Hugh.

"Have they?"

"Yes--thinking we were desolate I suppose. There has been no end to aunt Miriam's goodness and pleasantness."

"O aunt Miriam, always!" said Fleda. "And Seth."

"Catherine Douglass has been up twice to ask if her mother could do anything for us; and Mrs. Douglass sent us once a rabbit and once a quantity of wild pigeons that Earl had shot. Mother and I lived upon pigeons for I don't know how long. Barby wouldn't eat 'em--she said she liked pork better; but I believe she did it on purpose."

"Like enough," said Fleda, smiling, from her aunt's arms where she still lay.

"And Seth has sent you plenty of your favourite hickory nuts, very fine ones; and I gathered butternuts enough for you near home."

"Everything is for me," said Fleda. "Well, the first thing I do shall be to make some butternut candy for you. You won't despise that, Mr. Hugh?"--

Hugh smiled at her, and went on.

"And your friend Mr. Olmney has sent us a corn-basket full of the superbest apples you ever saw. He has one tree of the finest in Queechy, he says."

"_My_ friend!" said Fleda, colouring a little.

"Well I don't know whose he is if he isn't yours," said Hugh. "And even the Finns sent us some fish that their brother had caught, because, they said, they had more than they wanted. And Dr. Quackenboss sent us a goose and a turkey. We didn't like to keep them, but we were afraid if we sent them back it would not be understood."

"Send them back!" said Fleda. "That would never do! All Queechy would have rung with it."

"Well, we didn't," said Hugh. "But so we sent one of them to Barby's old mother for Christmas."

"Poor Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda. "That man has as near as possible killed me two or three times. As for the others, they are certainly the oddest of all the finny tribes. I must go out and see Barby for a minute."

It was a good many minutes, however, before she could get free to do any such thing.

"You ha'n't lost no flesh," said Barby shaking hands with her anew. "What did they think of Queechy keep, down in York?"

"I don't know--I didn't ask them," said Fleda. "How goes the world with you, Barby?"

"I'm mighty glad you are come home, Fleda," said Barby lowering her voice.

"Why?" said Fleda in a like tone.

"I guess I ain't all that's glad of it," Miss Elster went on, with a glance of her bright eye.

"I guess not," said Fleda reddening a little;--"but what is the matter?"

"There's two of our friends ha'n't made us but one visit a piece since--oh, ever since some time in October!"

"Well never mind the people," said Fleda. "Tell me what you were going to say."

"And Mr. Olmney," said Barby not minding her, "he's took and sent us a great basket chock full of apples. Now wa'n't that smart of him, when he knowed there wa'n't no one here that cared about 'em?"

"They are a particularly fine kind," said Fleda.

"Did you hear about the goose and turkey?"

"Yes," said Fleda laughing.

"The doctor thinks he has done the thing just about right this time, I s'pect. He had ought to take out a patent right for his invention. He'd feel spry if he knowed who eat one on 'em."

"Never mind the doctor, Barby. Was this what you wanted to see me for?"

"No," said Barby changing her tone. "I'd give something it was. I've been all but at my wit's end; for you know Mis' Rossitur ain't no hand about anything--I couldn't say a word to her--and ever since he went away we have been just winding ourselves up. I thought I should clear out, when Mis' Rossitur said maybe you wa'n't a coming till next week."

"But what is it Barby? what is wrong?"

"There ha'n't been anything right, to my notions, for a long spell," said Barby, wringing out her dishcloth hard and flinging it down to give herself uninterruptedly to talk;--"but now you see, Didenhover nor none of the men never comes near the house to do a chore; and there ain't wood to last three days; and Hugh ain't fit to cut it if it was piled up in the yard; and there ain't the first stick of it out of the woods yet."

Fleda sat down and looked very thoughtfully into the fire.

"He had ought to ha' seen to it afore he went away, but he ha'n't done it, and there it is."

"Why who takes care of the cows?" said Fleda.

"O never mind the cows," said Barby;--"they ain't suffering; I wish we was as well off as they be;--but I guess when he went away he made a hole in our pockets for to mend his'n. I don't say he hadn't ought to ha' done it, but we've been pretty short ever sen, Fleda--we're in the last bushel of flour, and there ain't but a handful of corn meal, and mighty little sugar, white or brown.--I did say something to Mis' Rossitur, but all the good it did was to spile her appetite, I s'pose; and if there's grain in the floor there ain't nobody to carry it to mill,--nor to thresh it,--nor a team to draw it, fur's I know."

"Hugh cannot cut wood!" said Fleda;--"nor drive to mill either, in this weather."

"I could go to mill," said Barby, "now you're to hum, but that's only the beginning; and it's no use to try to do everything--flesh and blood must stop somewhere.--"

"No indeed!" said Fleda. "We must have somebody immediately."

"That's what I had fixed upon," said Barby. "If you could get hold o' some young feller that wa'n't sot up with an idee that he was a grown man and too big to be told, I'd just clap to and fix that little room up stairs for him and give him his victuals here, and we'd have some good of him; instead o' having him streakin' off just at the minute when he'd ought to be along."

"Who is there we could get, Barby?"

"I don't know," said Barby; "but they say there is never a nick that there ain't a jog some place; so I guess it can be made out. I asked Mis' Plumfield, but she didn't know anybody that was out of work; nor Seth Plumfield. I'll tell you who does,--that is, if there _is_ anybody,--Mis' Douglass. She keeps hold of one end of 'most everybody's affairs, I tell her. Anyhow she's a good hand to go to."

"I'll go there at once," said Fleda. "Do you know anything about making maple sugar, Barby?"

"That's the very thing!" exclaimed Barby ecstatically. "There's lots o' sugar maples on the farm and it's murder to let them go to loss; and they ha'n't done us a speck o' good ever since I come here. And in your grandfather's time they used to make barrels and barrels. You and me and Hugh, and somebody else we'll have, we could clap to and make as much sugar and molasses in a week as would last us till spring come round again. There's no sense into it! All we'd want would be to borrow a team some place. I had all that in my head long ago. If we could see the last of that man Didenhover oncet, I'd take hold of the plough myself and see if I couldn't make a living out of it! I don't believe the world would go now, Fleda, if it wa'n't for women. I never see three men yet that didn't try me more than they were worth."

"Patience, Barby!" said Fleda smiling. "Let us take things quietly."

"Well I declare I'm beat, to see how you take 'em," said Barby, looking at her lovingly.

"Don't you know why, Barby?"

"I s'pose I do," said Barby her face softening still more,--"or I can guess."

"Because I know that all these troublesome things will be managed in the best way and by my best friend, and I know that he will let none of them hurt me. I am sure of it--isn't that enough to keep me quiet?"

Fleda's eyes were filling and Barby looked away from them.

"Well it beats me," she said taking up her dishcloth again, "why _you_ should have anything to trouble you. I can understand wicked folks being plagued, but I can't see the sense of the good ones."

"Troubles are to make good people better, Barby."

"Well," said Barby with a very odd mixture of real feeling and seeming want of it,--"it's a wonder I never got religion, for I will say that all the decent people I ever see were of that kind!--Mis' Rossitur ain't though, is she?"

"No," said Fleda, a pang crossing her at the thought that all her aunt's loveliness must tell directly and heavily in this case to lighten religion's testimony. It was that thought and no other which saddened her brow as she went back into the other room.

"Troubles already!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "You will be sorry you have come back to them, dear."

"No indeed!" said Fleda brightly; "I am very glad I have come home. We will try and manage the troubles, aunt Lucy."

There was no doing anything that day, but the very next afternoon Fleda and Hugh walked down through the snow to Mrs. Douglass's. It was a long walk and a cold one and the snow was heavy; but the pleasure of being together made up for it all. It was a bright walk, too, in spite of everything.

In a most thrifty-looking well-painted farm-house lived Mrs. Douglass.

"Why 'tain't you, is it?" she said when she opened the door,--"Catharine said it was, and I said I guessed it wa'n't, for I reckoned you had made up your mind not to come and see me at all.--How do you do?"

The last sentence in the tone of hearty and earnest hospitality. Fleda made her excuses.

"Ay, ay,--I can understand all that just as well as if you said it. I know how much it means too. Take off your hat."

Fleda said she could not stay, and explained her business.

"So you ha'n't come to see me after all. Well now take off your hat, 'cause I won't have anything to say to you till you do. I'll give you supper right away."

"But I have left my aunt alone, Mrs. Douglass;--and the afternoons are so short now it would be dark before we could get home."

"Serve her right for not coming along! and you sha'n't walk home in the dark, for Earl will harness the team and carry you home like a streak--the horses have nothing to do--Come, you sha'n't go."

And as Mrs. Douglass laid violent hands on her bonnet Fleda thought best to submit. She was presently rewarded with the promise of the very person she wanted--a boy, or young man, then in Earl Douglass's employ; but his wife said "she guessed he'd give him up to her;" and what his wife said, Fleda knew, Earl Douglass was in the habit of making good.

"There ain't enough to do to keep him busy," said Mrs. Douglass. "I told Earl he made me more work than he saved; but he's hung on till now."

"What sort of a boy is he, Mrs. Douglass?"

"He ain't a steel trap. I tell you beforehand," said the lady, with one of her sharp intelligent glances,--"he don't know which way to go till you shew him; but he's a clever enough kind of a chap--he don't mean no harm. I guess he'll do for what you want."

"Is he to be trusted?"

"Trust him with anything but a knife and fork," said she, with another look and shake of the head. "He has no idea but what everything on the supper-table is meant to be eaten straight off. I would keep two such men as my husband as soon as I would Philetus."

"Philetus!" said Fleda,--"the person that brought the chicken and thought he had brought two?"

"You've hit it," said Mrs. Douglass. "Now you know him. How do you like our new minister?"

"We are all very much pleased with him."

"He's very good-looking, don't you think so?"

"A very pleasant face."

"I ha'n't seen him much yet except in church; but those that know say he is very agreeable in the house."

"Truly, I dare say," answered Fleda, for Mrs. Douglass's face looked for her testimony.

"But I think he looks as if he was beating his brains out there among his books--I tell him he is getting the blues, living in that big house by himself."

"Do you manage to do all your work without help, Mrs. Douglass?" said Fleda, knowing that the question was "in order" and that the affirmative answer was not counted a thing to be ashamed of.

"Well I guess I'll know good reason," said Mrs. Douglass complacently, "before I'll have any help to spoil _my_ work. Come along, and I'll let you see whether I want one."

Fleda went, very willingly, to be shewn all Mrs. Douglass's household arrangements and clever contrivances, of her own or her husband's devising, for lessening or facilitating labour. The lady was proud, and had some reason to be, of the very superb order and neatness of each part and detail. No corner or closet that might not be laid open fearlessly to a visitor's inspection. Miss Catharine was then directed to open her piano and amuse Fleda with it while her mother performed her promise of getting an early supper; a command grateful to one or two of the party, for Catharine had been carrying on all this while a most stately tête-à-tête with Hugh which neither had any wish to prolong. So Fleda filled up the time good-naturedly with thrumming over the two or three bits of her childish music that she could recall, till Mr. Douglass came in and they were summoned to sit down to supper; which Mrs. Douglass introduced by telling her guests "they must take what they could get, for she had made fresh bread and cake and pies for them two or three times, and she wa'n't a going to do it again."

Her table was abundantly spread however, and with most exquisite neatness, and everything was of excellent quality, saving only certain matters which call for a free hand in the use of material. Fleda thought the pumpkin pies must have been made from that vaunted stock which is said to want no eggs nor sugar, and the cakes she told Mrs. Rossitur afterwards would have been good if half the flour had been left out and the other ingredients doubled. The deficiency in one kind however was made up by superabundance in another; the table was stocked with such wealth of crockery that one could not imagine any poverty in what was to go upon it. Fleda hardly knew how to marshal the confusion of plates which grouped themselves around her cup and saucer, and none of them might be dispensed with. There was one set of little glass dishes for one kind of sweetmeat, another set of ditto for another kind; an army of tiny plates to receive and shield the tablecloth from the dislodged cups of tea, saucers being the conventional drinking vessels; and there were the standard bread and butter plates, which besides their proper charge of bread and butter and beef and cheese, were expected, Fleda knew, to receive a portion of every kind of cake that might happen to be on the table. It was a very different thing however from Miss Anastasia's tea-table or that of Miss Flora Quackenboss. Fleda enjoyed the whole time without difficulty.

Mr. Douglass readily agreed to the transfer of Philetus's services.

"He's a good boy!" said Earl,--"he's a good boy; he's as good a kind of a boy as you need to have. He wants tellin'; most boys want tellin'; but he'll do when he _is_ told, and he means to do right."

"How long do you expect your uncle will be gone?" said Mrs. Douglass.

"I do not know," said Fleda.

"Have you heard from him since he left?"

"Not since I came home," said Fleda. "Mr. Douglass, what is the first thing to be done about the maple trees in the sugar season?"

"Why, you calculate to try makin' sugar in the spring?"

"Perhaps--at any rate I should like to know about it."

"Well I should think you would," said Earl, "and it's easy done--there ain't nothin' easier, when you know the right way to set to work about it; and there's a fine lot of sugar trees on the old farm--I recollect of them sugar trees as long ago as when I was a boy--I've helped to work them afore now, but there's a good many years since--has made me a leetle older--but the first thing you want is a man and a team, to go about and empty the buckets--the buckets must be emptied every day, and then carry it down to the house."

"Yes, I know," said Fleda, "but what is the first thing to be done to the trees?"

"Why la! 'tain't much to do to the trees--all you've got to do is to take an axe and chip a bit out and stick a chip a leetle way into the cut for to dreen the sap, and set a trough under, and then go on to the next one, and so on;--you may make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree, and one or two cuts in the north side, if the tree's big enough, and if it ain't, only make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree; and for the sap to run good it had ought to be that kind o' weather when it freezes in the day and thaws by night;--I would say!--when it friz in the night and thaws in the day; the sap runs more bountifully in that kind o' weather."

It needed little from Fleda to keep Mr. Douglass at the maple trees till supper was ended; and then as it was already sundown he went to harness the sleigh.

It was a comfortable one, and the horses if not very handsome nor bright-curried were well fed and had good heart to their work. A two mile drive was before them, and with no troublesome tongues or eyes to claim her attention Fleda enjoyed it fully. In the soft clear winter twilight when heaven and earth mingle so gently, and the stars look forth brighter and cheerfuller than ever at another time, they slid along over the fine roads, too swiftly, towards home; and Fleda's thoughts as easily and swiftly slipped away from Mr. Douglass and maple sugar and Philetus and an unfilled wood-yard and an empty flour-barrel, and revelled in the pure ether. A dark rising ground covered with wood sometimes rose between her and the western horizon; and then a long stretch of snow, only less pure, would leave free view of its unearthly white light, dimmed by no exhalation, a gentle, mute, but not the less eloquent, witness to Earth of what Heaven must be.

But the sleigh stopped at the gate, and Fleda's musings came home.

"Good night!" said Earl, in reply to their thanks and adieus;--"'tain't anything to thank a body for--let me know when you're a goin' into the sugar making and I'll come and help you."

"How sweet a pleasant message may make an unmusical tongue," said Fleda, as she and Hugh made their way up to the house.

"We had a stupid enough afternoon," said Hugh.

"But the ride home was worth it all!"