CHAPTER VII.
"We rest—a dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise—one wandering thought pollutes the day."
"Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity
Until death tramples it to fragments."
"The silent workings of the dawns" were past, and the whole sky pearled to an exquisite soft grayness when Myron Holder set out that day to go to Mrs. Deans'. The road swam dizzily before her; the snake fence zig-zagged wildly; the trees whirled round; the very stones appeared as if rolling over and over in awkward gambols; the wayside cows loomed gigantic to her uncertain vision. Her head throbbed heavily—her knees trembled; the physical reaction following supreme mental effort had set in, and her nerves, denied outward expression of the strain put upon them, were racking her frame sorely. She persevered, however, holding a wavering course from one side of the road to the other; at last she reached the little graveyard of Jamestown, wedged in between the farms of Mr. White and Mr. Deans. Its picket-fence was garlanded with long trails of the native virgin-bower clematis, just putting forth its first leaf-buds. The hepaticas, their blossoms past, showed circular clumps of broad, green leaves, standing erect on downy stalks over the prostrate copper-colored ones of last year; the blood-root had lost all its white petals, and its spear-pointed seed-pods and single, broad, green leaves stood in thick masses, like miniature stands of arms, spear and shield; but the trilliums were nodding their triune-leaved blossoms; the wild phlox swayed daintily its cluster of fragile azure blooms; the meadow violets were clustered in dark-blue masses; the bracken ferns were uncoiling their fuzzy fronds; the May apples (mandrake) were pointing through the mellow soil, like so many small wax candles. Now and then a pungent odor came to her as she trod upon the fresh-springing pennyroyal, or bruised the stems of the mint that grew everywhere.
She was late already, as she knew, but was moved to go to see her father's sleeping-place. She went slowly between the graves, carefully avoiding treading on any of them. Her father had told her of the ill-luck that follows the foot that treads upon a grave and the hand that casts away bread. By what fearful sacrilege had this woman purchased her fate?
Her eyes were clearing now; and as she stood beside her father's grave, she looked upon it steadily enough. She felt a rapt sense of his presence—he had been very good to her in his absent-minded way. If he had lived! The woman found herself grateful that he died before. She rested her thoughts here to ask herself a question: If her father had lived, would she have lost herself? She held her breath for an instant—then turned and sped from his grave. She felt that her gaze defiled it—for, throbbing in each artery, tingling through every vein, poisoning her heart, she felt her whole being rise to affirm its shame—to give the damning answer "Yes" to that poignant self-interrogation.
She was certainly late that morning, and Mrs. Deans met her with flushed face and angry eyes.
"Well, this is a nice time of day! 'Laziness is much worth when it's well guided.' It would seem to me, Myron Holder, as if you'd try to make some return for the favors I've shown you, and what I've done for you, and what I've put up with. Time and time again, I've said to myself, says I, 'Let her go—what's the good of her? What's the good of keeping a dog and doing your own barking?' But being sorry for you, I never said nothing. But now, I tell you, Myron Holder, this thing's got to quit—either you can come here in decent time, or you can stay home!" Then, in a more insulting tone of voice, she asked: "What time did ye start this morning? I'll ask your grandmother. Pretty doings these, loitering along the roads! I'd have thought you'd had enough of that. Well, don't look at me like that! You're too good to be spoken to, I suppose; it's a pity you didn't do some blushing before now! It's rather late in the day for such delikit feelings—you what? Stopped in the graveyard? I wouldn't wonder, nothing more likely; were you alone? Well 'twasn't your fault, if you were. I guess Jed Holder thinks himself lucky to be rid of the world and such doings as yours. Poor Jed! Little did he know what shame he was leaving behind him. How your grandmother stands it and how she abides that brat, I can't see. One thing I've always said: 'Don't bring me no such brats as them, for I won't be concerned with no such doings!' But there, what's the use of talking? I never say nothing, but I think a lot. I guess your mother must have been a beauty from all I hear tell. Certainly you didn't get your bad blood off Jed Holder, and you must have took it somewhere. 'Like mother, like child'—well—none of such worry for me!" Then, stepping aside suddenly, and thus clearing the passage she had hitherto barred, she went on: "What are you standing looking at? Ain't you going to scrub to-day, or are you come visiting? I'm sorry if you have"—here a fine sarcasm echoed in her tone—"because I can't go and set down and entertain you, for I have my bread and butter to earn. But don't mind me—go right into the setting-room and make yourself at home."
Myron having availed herself of the first opportunity to move from under Mrs. Deans' insulting glances, had already divested herself of her sunbonnet, and was getting cloths and water for her scrubbing. Soon she escaped from Mrs. Deans' eyes, but the sound of her jibing tongue came harshly to her in every pause of her work.
The forenoon passed. After dinner the hired man brought the newspaper in and gave it to Mrs. Deans. She looked at the price of butter and eggs, and passed it to her husband.
He sat blinking by the half-open window: upon the window-sill was a bottle of sarsaparilla, a patch-work pin-cushion, and two or three potatoes Homer Wilson had brought to the Deans as samples—he being agent for a seedsman. Mrs. Deans brought out a big canvas-bag of carpet-balls, and, placing two chairs back to back, began winding the balls into huge skeins. She was going to dye them. Mrs. Deans worked away with her hanks, tying them carefully in separate strands, so that they would dye equally. Mr. Deans read his paper, its leaves rustling in his tremulous fingers. The sound of Myron Holder's scrubbing came raspingly through the air. The bound girl was out in the "yard" raking together dead leaves, bits of old bones, and emptied sarsaparilla bottles, making it tidy for the summer.
"Well, Jane!" ejaculated Henry Deans, in a tone of pleased surprise, "who d'ye think's dead?"
"Who? Old Mrs. White? Is it her? Or Mrs. Warner's sister up in Ovid? She was took terrible bad a week ago Friday. It's young Emmons! I know it! But say, isn't he owing for that last cord of wood? I never seen anything like it, the way people cheat! It's something awful! But I'll have that four dollars, though, out of Mame Emmons. If she can afford flannel at fifty cents a yard (and Ann White saw her pricing it), she can afford to pay her debts. Well, them Emmonses always was shiftless, but——"
"It ain't Emmons, though Homer Wilson says he looks most terrible bad; it's Follett!"
"You don't say!" said Mrs. Deans; "you don't say! When was he took?"
"It don't tell," answered her husband, screwing his eyes horribly as he read the obituary over again. "It don't tell—oh—yes it does! 'Caught a heavy cold a month ago and settled on his lungs.' Well, he's gone, then."
"Not much loss, his kind ain't," said Mrs. Deans contemptuously.
"Wonder if he forgot me before he went?" said her husband, with a reflective enjoyment. "That was a pretty good one, wasn't it, Jane?"
"Yes; no mistake about it, Henry, you hit the nail on the head that time. I declare it does beat all how time flies. Just think! it's six years full since then——"
"Six years full—no, seven," assented Mr. Deans.
"No, six," said his wife; "it was just the year before your accident."
"So 'twas." A pause, then he said, "I think I'll have some sarsaparilly, Jane."
Mrs. Deans got a spoon from the table-drawer, drew out the gummy cork, and gave him a spoonful.
"Better have a taste yourself," he suggested.
"Don't know but I will," she said, and helped herself to a dram.
The cork was replaced; silence fell upon the pair. Henry Deans and his wife had partaken of the closest communion they knew. Mrs. Deans left her rags presently to go out to superintend the placing of some new chicken-coops, and Mr. Deans dozed off into a pleasurable reverie, evoked by the death of Dan Follett.
Around the name of Dan Follett clustered the recollections of Mr. Deans' happiest achievement—for, using Dan Follett as an unworthy instrument, he had purged Jamestown of malt and spirituous liquors and brought the village within the temperance fold.
It was thus: Dan Follett had come to "keep tavern" in the old Black Horse Inn. This was a quaint brick building that stood at the corner of the Front Street nearest the lake. It had but a narrow frontage on the Front Street, but stretched back, a long building, on the side street. From the corner of the inn hung a sign-board, depending from an iron rod. The sign was a jet black horse, rampant, with the legend, "Black Horse Inn." The front of the inn, rising abruptly, as it did, from the side-walk, was more quaint than inviting, but the side view was very hospitable, for all along the side street a veranda (floored with oak and roofed by the second story of the inn, which overhung it) extended, approached by broad, generous steps. It was an old, old building, with queer nooks and corners in it, quaint brass newel-posts in the stairway, odd sideboards built into the walls, and dark, hardwood floors. It was by far the oldest building in Jamestown, and the huge, untidy willow tree before the door had grown from a switch thrown down by one of the soldiers, when he and his comrades departed after their long billet in Jamestown.
Jamestown was not called Jamestown in those days, but Kingsville. Times had changed with the village, and its name with them; but the Black Horse Inn remained unchanged—only the bricks had reddened the mortar between them, so that its walls were all one dark, rich red. "Many a summer's silent fingering" had wrought a green lace-work of ivy over the front and at the corners, and about the chimneys a vivid green stain showed the minute mosses that were gathering there. It was having indeed a green old age; and if the second story was beginning to sag a little between the centre-posts, it conveyed no hint of decay, or lack of safety. The droop only showed a kindly and protective attitude towards the open-armed chairs that stood on the veranda beneath.
In the little garden behind the inn, long neglected and overrun, were bushes of acrid wormwood, stray wisps of thyme, straggling roots of rosemary, and bushes of flowering currants. In the spring, from among its springing grasses came whiffs of perfume; for the English violets, planted long, long ago, had spread through and through the tangle of weeds, unkempt grass, and untrimmed bushes.
The one ambition that had lived in Jed Holder's saddened breast after he came to Jamestown was to be able to rent the Black Horse Inn. But it was only a vague, purposeless wish to possess the right of that little square garden, amid whose desolation he discerned the traces of an English hand. Like so many of Jed's dreams, this one never materialized.
To this house, then, came Dan Follett—displayed his license to sell "wine, beer, malt and other spirituous liquors," set out some hospitable armchairs, erected a horse-trough before the door, and, having assumed a huge and glistening white apron, strode about, a jolly, good-natured, guardian spirit. His rubicund face was always beaming, his little eyes always blinking away tears of laughter. There was but little trade in Jamestown, but Follet managed to make ends meet, for the lake was noted for its fishing, and parties of fishermen were right glad to find a place where they could leave their horses and refresh themselves. But Dan Follett and Dan Follett's business were sore rocks of offence in the eyes of the Jamestown brethren.
At "after meeting" many plans were discussed for the discomfiture of Dan Follett, and, incidentally, the devil. Many a "class meeting" evolved an indignation caucus which dealt with the enormity of Dan Follett's calling, which was cited, with many epithets, as the cause of every evil under the sun. But of all this righteous indignation jolly Dan Follett took no heed, and was as ready to lend his stout brown horse to Mr. Deans or Mr. White when their own "odd" horse was busy as he was to hire it to the few fishermen who fancied a ride along the lake shore.
Henry Deans brooded long over this unholy thing in their midst, and finally hit upon a plan to put the devil, in the person of Dan Follett, to some discomfiture. Mr. Deans was senior deacon in the Methodist Church and, as such, took it upon himself to provide the bread and wine for sacramental purposes. One Saturday, the day before the spring communion, Mrs. Deans stood admiring her bread.
"I reckon Ann White'll open her eyes when she tastes that to-morrow," she said. "There's nothing like making your own yeast—good hop-yeast. I don't take no account with salt-rising bread; may be sure enough, but hops for me every time."
These audible meditations were interrupted by a tramp's voice at the open door—a forlorn-looking object, asking for something to eat. Mrs. Deans gave him some good advice about idleness, drinking, and begging, and sent him off. Then she turned her face to the bread again, separating the loaves carefully, and wrapping two of them up in clean towels. A verse flitted through her mind about taking the children's bread and giving it to the dogs; it struck her as apposite, but her good memory, strangely enough, failed to recall anything about "a cup of cold water."
"Them tramps!" soliloquized Mrs. Deans. "A likely thing I was goin' to break into the bread for the Lord's table for the like of him!" She was just putting the bread into the tin on the pantry floor, where she kept it, when a sudden thought made her drop the bread and stand upright.
"I declare!" she said. "Henry'll never remember the wine! I forgot to tell him when he went away! What in the world will we do now? Borrow it of Ann White I won't; that's settled. Well, if it don't beat all!"
Henry Deans returned from the Saturday market about three o'clock; Mrs. Deans met him in the yard and asked him, before the horses stopped:
"Did you remember the wine?"
A slow smile crept over Henry Deans' face. He pulled up his horses deliberately.
"Did you remember the wine?" asked his wife again.
"Yes, I remembered it," he answered, still smiling slowly.
"Well," said Mrs. Deans, "why didn't you say so at first? I've just been nearly out of my mind a-worrying about it all day. Where is it? Hand it here and I'll take it in."
"I haven't got it yet," said her husband, descending nimbly from his perch, and then, for it was dangerous to prolong a joke too far with his wife, he went and whispered in her ear.
Mrs. Deans' face slowly became irradiate with a joyful and appreciative glow.
"Well, Henry," she said, "you're no slouch, I tell you; I always knew your head was level."
"Guess that'll sicken him, eh?" chuckled Henry Deans, and began to unbuckle his harness-straps.
For the rest of the afternoon Henry Deans and his wife went about in smiling content, chuckling irrepressibly if they chanced to meet.
They had supper at six. Night was already setting in, for the days were not at their longest yet. About half-past seven, Henry Deans got his hat, and, his wife letting him softly out of the front door, took his way to the village. He soon reached its outskirts. Down the unlighted back street he went, across the short transverse one, until the side door of the Black Horse Inn was reached. Dan Follett answered his knock in person. There was a short colloquy between the two; then Dan went his way to the darkened bar-room, and, having declined an invitation to go inside, Henry Deans waited. Presently Dan returned with a bottle and, after a generous demur, accepted the money which Mr. Deans insisted on paying, saying:
"I'm not a church-goer myself, Mr. Deans, but I wouldn't begrudge giving a little now and again;" then after repeating his invitation, bade Mr. Deans a cheery "Good-night," and closed the door.
Henry Deans went home, hardly able to restrain his mirth. From far down the road he saw a narrow slit of light, showing the front door ajar for him. He slipped inside, to be immediately greeted by his wife.
"Did you get it?" she asked, breathlessly.
"I got it, and him, too," said Henry Deans; and they laughed together, as they put the bread and wine for the Lord's table in a basket.
The next day, a sweet and sunshiny Sunday, the mystery of the Lord's Supper was yet again enacted in Jamestown—the symbolic wine, clear and ruddy as heart's blood; the bread, white as an infant's brow.
Next day Henry Deans drove to the market town. On Tuesday Dan Follett was served with a summons to appear before the Court to show why he had broken the law by selling a bottle of wine to one Henry Deans in unlawful hours.
Follett's rage was intense, and could only be gauged by the height of Henry Deans' satisfaction. Of course Follett was fined. He had no defence and offered none, but was fain to relieve his mind by attempting to thrash Deans, which only resulted in his being laid under bonds to keep the peace. The whole affair had completely sickened Follett of Jamestown. He departed to new scenes, and the Black Horse Inn again was tenantless.
The exploit covered Henry Deans with glory, and he bore the honor with the conscious front of one who feels he is not overestimated. Dan Follett was dead now, and Henry Deans slept the sleep of the just in musing over his memories. And from the lonely garden of the Black Horse Inn the English sweet violets sent up their fragrance to the unperceiving night.