CHAPTER XIV.
“I like to live here,” said little Fanny, running up to Lucy, with her sun-bonnet hanging at the back of her neck; her cheeks glowing, and her apron full of acorns, pebbles, pine leaves, grasses and flowers; “see here, I tied them up with a blade of grass for you, and here’s a white clover; a great bumble bee wanted it, he buzzed and buzzed, but I ran off with it; won’t you go with me, grandmother, and help me find a four-leaved clover? Don’t sew any more on those old vests. Who taught you to make vests?” asked the little chatterbox.
“O, I learned many—many—years ago,” replied Lucy, with a sigh, as she thought of Jacob; “and now you see, dear, what a good thing it is to learn something useful when one is young. If I did not know how to make these vests, I could not pay for this room we live in, you know; here, thread my needle, darling, either the eye is too small, or my eye is too dim; I can’t see as well as I used.”
“I wish I could do something useful,” said Fanny, as she handed back the needle. “I can only brush up the hearth, and fill the tea-kettle, and pick up your spools, and thread your needle, and—what else, grandma?”
“Make this lonely old heart glad, my darling,” said Lucy, pressing her lips to Fanny’s forehead.
“Why didn’t my papa ever come kiss me?” asked Fanny. “Was I too naughty for my papa to love?”
“No—no, my darling,” said Lucy, turning away her head to restrain her tears, “you are the best little girl that—but run away, Fanny,” said she, fearing to trust herself to speak. “Go find grandma a pretty four-leaved clover.”
The child sprang up and bounded toward the door. Standing poised on one foot on the threshold, with her little neck bending forward, she exclaimed eagerly, “Oh, grandma, I dare not; there’s a man climbing over the stile into the meadow, with a pack on his back; won’t he hurt me?”
“No,” said Lucy, peering over her spectacles at the man, and then resuming her seat, “it is only a peddler, Fanny; shops are scarce in the country, so they go round with tapes, needles, and things, to sell the farmers’ wives. I am glad he has come, for I want some more sewing-silk to make these button-holes.”
“Good day, ma’am,” said the peddler, unlading his pack. “Would you like to buy any thing to-day? Combs—collars—needles—pins—tapes—ribbons—laces? buy any thing to-day, ma’am?”
“May I look?” whispered Fanny to Lucy, attracted by the bright show in the box.
“There’s a ribbon for your hair,” said the peddler, touching her curls caressingly; “and here is a string of beads for your neck. You will let me give them to you, won’t you? because I have no little girl to love;” and his voice trembled slightly.
“May I love him, grandma?” whispered Fanny, for there was something in the peddler’s voice that brought tears into her eyes. “May I give him some milk to drink, and a piece of bread?” and hardly waiting for an answer, she flew to the cupboard, and returned with her simple lunch.
“Thank you,” said the peddler, in a low voice, without raising his eyes.
The sewing-silk was purchased, and the box rearranged, and strapped up, but still the peddler lingered. Lucy, thinking he might be weary, invited him to stop and rest awhile.
“I will sit here on the door-step awhile, if you please, with the little girl,” said the peddler. “Are you fond of flowers?” said he to Fanny, again touching her shining curls.
“Oh, yes,” she replied; “only I don’t like to go alone to get them—the cows stare at me so with their great big eyes, and the little toads hop over my feet, and I am afraid they will bite; they won’t bite, will they?” asked Fanny, looking confidingly up in his face.
“I should not think any thing could harm you,” replied the peddler, drawing his fingers across his eyes.
“What are you crying for?” asked Fanny, “’cause you haven’t any little girl to love you?”
“The dust, dear, in the road, quite blinded me to-day,” replied the peddler.
“I will bring you some water for them, in my little cup,” said Fanny. “Grandma bathes her eyes when they ache, sewing on those tiresome vests.”
“No—no”—said the peddler, catching her by the hand as she sprang up—“don’t go away—sit down—here—close by me—I will make a wreath of flowers for your hair; your eyes are as blue as this violet.”
“They are mamma’s eyes,” said Fanny. “Grandma calls them ‘mamma’s eyes.’ We have a pretty picture of mamma—see—that’s it,” and she bounded across the room and drew aside a calico curtain which screened it. “There, isn’t it pretty?—why don’t you look?”
The peddler slowly turned his head, and replied, in a husky voice, “Yes, dear.”
“Mamma is dead,” said Fanny, re-seating herself by his side. “What makes you shiver? are you cold?—he is sick, grandma,” said Fanny, running up to Lucy.
“A touch of my old enemy, the ague, ma’am,” said the peddler, respectfully—and Lucy returned to her needle.
“Yes, my mamma is dead,” said Fanny. “Are you sorry my mamma is dead? Sometimes I talk to her—grandma likes to have me; but mamma’s picture never speaks back. Don’t you wish my mamma would speak back?” said Fanny, looking up earnestly in his face.
The peddler nodded—bending lower over the wreath he was twining.
“My papa is dead, too,” said Fanny—“are you sorry my papa is dead? Nobody loves me but grandma and God.”
“And I”—said the peddler, touching her curls again with his fingers.
“Why do you keep touching my hair?” asked the little chatterbox.
“Because it is so like—oh, well—I am sure I don’t know,” said the peddler, placing the wreath over her bright face, and touching his lips to her forehead. “Good-by, dear, don’t forget me. I will make you a prettier wreath sometime, shall I?”
“O yes,” said Fanny; “let me tell grandma. Grandma is so deaf she can’t hear us;” and the child ran back into the room to tell the news.
“I like peddlers,” said little Fanny, as she watched her new friend saunter slowly down the road. “He gave me this pretty wreath and this ribbon; I am sorry he didn’t like mamma’s picture; he hardly looked at it at all.”
“The peddler never heard of your mamma, my darling; you must not expect strangers to feel as you and grandma do about it.”
“Yes,” replied Fanny, in a disappointed tone;—“but it is a pity, because I like him. There he goes; now he has climbed the fence, and is crossing the meadow. Good by, Mr. Peddler.”
Yes—across the meadow, down the little grassy lane, over the stile—far into the dim—dim woods, where no human eye could penetrate, prostrate upon the earth, shedding such tears as manhood seldom sheds, lay the peddler. Still in his ears lingered that bird-like voice, still in his veins thrilled the touch of that tiny hand, and those silken curls, in whose every glossy wave shone out Mary’s self. Mary—yet not Mary; Mary’s child—yet not his child!—And Lucy, too;—O, the sorrow written in every furrow of that kindly face, and—O God—by whom?
The stars glimmered through the trees, the night-winds gently rocked the little merry birds to sleep—midnight came on with its solemn spirit-whispers—followed the gray dawn with its misty tears, and still—there lay the peddler, stricken, smitten, on Nature’s kindly breast; for there, too (but all unconscious of his misery—deaf to his penitence), lay pillowed the dear head which had erst drooped so lovingly upon his breast.