CHAPTER XI.
"My flagging soul flies under her own pitch."
DRYDEN.
Fleda mused as she went up stairs, whether the sun were a luminous body to himself or no, feeling herself at that moment dull enough. Bright was she, to others? nothing seemed bright to her. Every old shadow was darker than ever. Her uncle's unchanged gloom her aunt's unrested face Hugh's unaltered, delicate, sweet look, which always, to her fancy, seemed to write upon his face, "Passing away!" and the thickening prospects whence sprang the miasm that infected the whole moral atmosphere alas, yes! "Money is a good thing," thought Fleda; "and poverty need not be a bad thing, if people can take it right; but if they take it wrong!"
With a very drooping heart, indeed, she went to the window. Her old childish habit had never been forgotten; whenever the moon or the stars were abroad, Fleda rarely failed to have a talk with them from her window. She stood there, now, looking out into the cold, still night, with eyes just dimmed with tears not that she lacked sadness enough, but she did lack spirit enough to cry. It was very still; after the rattle and confusion of the city streets, that extent of snow-covered country, where the very shadows were motionless the entire absence of soil and of disturbance the rest of nature the breathlessness of the very wind all preached a quaint kind of sermon to Fleda. By the force of contrast, they told her what should be; and there was more yet she thought that by the force of example, they showed what might be. Her eyes had not long travelled over the familiar old fields and fences before she came to the conclusion that she was home in good time she thought she had been growing selfish, or in danger of it; and she made up her mind she was glad to be back again among the rough things of life, where she could do so much to smooth them for others, and her own spirit might grow to a polish it would never gain in the regions of ease and pleasure. " To do life's work!" thought Fleda, clasping her hands "no matter where and mine is here. I am glad I am in my place again I was forgetting I had one."
It was a face of strange purity and gravity that the moon shone upon, with no power to brighten as in past days; the shadows of life were upon the child's brow. But nothing to brighten it from within! One sweet, strong ray of other light suddenly found its way through the shadows, and entered her heart. "The Lord reigneth! let the earth be glad!" and then the moonbeams, pouring down with equal ray upon all the unevenness of this little world, seemed to say the same thing over and over. Even so! Not less equally his providence touches all not less impartially his faithfulness guides. "The Lord reigneth! let the earth be glad!" There was brightness in the moonbeams now that Fleda could read this in them; she went to sleep, a very child again, with these words for her pillow.
It was not six, and darkness yet filled the world, when Mr. Rossitur came down stairs, and softly opened the sitting-room door. But the home fairy had been at work; he was greeted with such a blaze of cheerfulness as seemed to say what a dark place the world was everywhere but at home; his breakfast- table was standing ready, well set and well supplied; and even as he entered by one door, Fleda pushed open the other, and came in from the kitchen, looking as if she had some strange spirit-like kindred with the cheery, hearty glow which filled both rooms.
"Fleda! you up at this hour!"
"Yes, uncle Rolf," she said, coming forward to put her hands upon his; "you are not sorry to see me, I hope."
But he did not say he was glad; and he did not speak at all; he busied himself gravely with some little matters of preparation for his journey. Evidently, the gloom of last night was upon him yet. But Fleda had not wrought for praise, and could work without encouragement; neither step nor hand slackened, till all she and Barby had made ready was in nice order on the table, and she was pouring out a cup of smoking coffee.
"You are not fit to be up," said Mr. Rossitur, looking at her; "you are pale, now. Put yourself in that arm-chair, Fleda, and go to sleep; I will do this for myself."
"No, indeed, uncle Rolf," she answered, brightly: "l have enjoyed getting breakfast very much at this out-of-the-way hour, and now I am going to have the pleasure of seeing you eat it. Suppose you were to take a cup of coffee instead of my shoulder!"
He took it and sat down; but Fleda found that the pleasure of seeing him was to be a very qualified thing. He ate like a business man, in unbroken silence and gravity; and her cheerful words and looks got no return. It became an effort at length to keep either bright. Mr. Rossitur's sole remarks during breakfast were, to ask if Charlton was going back that day, and if Philetus was getting the horse ready?
Mr. Skillcorn had been called in good time by Barby, at Fleda's suggestion, and coming down stairs had opined discontentedly that "a man hadn't no right to be took out of bed in the morning afore he could see himself." But this, and Barby's spirited reply, that "there was no chance of his doing that at any time of day, so it was no use to wait," Fleda did not repeat. Her uncle was in no humour to be amused.
She expected almost that he would go off without speaking to her. But he came up kindly to where she stood watching him.
"You must bid me good-bye for all the family, uncle Rolf, as I am the only one here," she said, laughing.
But she was sure that the embrace and kiss which followed were very exclusively for her. They made her face almost as sober as his own.
"There will be a blessing for you," said he, "if there is a blessing anywhere!"
"If, uncle Rolf," said Fleda, her heart swelling to her eyes.
He turned away, without answering her.
Fleda sat down in the easy chair, then, and cried, but that lasted very few minutes; she soon left crying for herself to pray for him, that he might have the blessing he did not know. That did not stop tears. She remembered the poor man sick of the palsy, who was brought in by friends to be healed, and that "Jesus seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.' " It was a handle that faith took hold of and held fast, while love made its petition. It was all she could do, she thought; she never could venture to speak to her uncle on the subject.
Weary and tired, tears and longing at length lost themselves in sleep. When she awaked, she found the daylight broadly come, little King in her lap, the fire, instead of being burnt out, in perfect preservation, and Barby standing before it, and looking at her.
"You ha'n't got one speck o' good by this journey to New
York," was Miss Elster's vexed salutation.
"Do you think so?" said Fleda, rousing herself. "I wouldn't venture to say as much as that, Barby."
"If you have, 'tain't in your cheeks," said Barby, decidedly. "You look just as if you was made of anything that wouldn't stand wear, and that isn't the way you used to look."
"I have been up a good while without breakfast my cheeks will be a better colour when I have had that, Barby they feel pale."
The second breakfast was a cheerfuller thing. But when the second traveller was despatched, and the rest fell back upon their old numbers, Fleda was very quiet again. It vexed her to be so, but she could not change her mood. She felt as if she had been whirled along in a dream, and was now just opening her eyes to daylight and reality. And reality she could not help it looked rather dull after dream-land. She thought it was very well she was waked up; but it cost her some effort to appear so. And then she charged herself with ingratitude, her aunt and Hugh were so exceedingly happy in her company.
"Earl Douglass is quite delighted with the clover hay, Fleda. said Hugh, as the three sat at an early dinner.
"Is he?" said Fleda.
"Yes you know he was very unwilling to cure it in your way, and he thinks there never was anything like it now."
"Did you ever see finer ham, Fleda?" inquired her aunt. "Mr.
Plumfield says it could not be better."
"Very good!" said Fleda, whose thoughts had somehow got upon Mr. Carleton's notions about female education, and were very busy with them.
"I expected you would have remarked upon our potatoes before now," said Hugh. "These are the Elephants have you seen anything like them in New York?"
"There cannot be more beautiful potatoes," said Mrs. Rossitur. "We had not tried any of them before you went away, Fleda, had we?"
"I don't know, aunt Lucy no, I think not."
"You needn't talk to Fleda, mother," said Hugh, laughing "she is quite beyond attending to all such ordinary matters; her thoughts have learned to take a higher flight since she has been in New York."
"It is time they were brought down, then, said Fleda, smiling; "but they have not learned to fly out of sight of home, Hugh."
"Where were they, dear Fleda?" said her aunt.
"I was thinking, a minute ago, of something I heard talked about in New York, aunt Lucy; and, afterwards, I was trying to find out by what possible or imaginable road I had got round to it."
"Could you tell?"
Fleda said, "No," and tried to bear her part in the conversation. But she did not know whether to blame the subjects which had been brought forward, or herself, for her utter want of interest in them. She went into the kitchen, feeling dissatisfied with both.
"Did you ever see potatoes that would beat them Elephants?" said Barby.
"Never, certainly," said Fleda, with a most involuntary smile.
"I never did," said Barby. "They beat all, for bigness and goodness both. I can't keep 'em together. There's thousands of 'em, and I mean to make Philetus eat 'em for supper such potatoes and milk is good enough for him, or anybody. The cow has gained on her milk wonderful, Fleda, since she begun to have them roots fed out to her."
"Which cow?" said Fleda.
"Which cow? why the blue cow there aint none of the others that's giving any, to speak of," said Barby, looking at her. "Don't you know the cow you said them carrots should be kept for?"
Fleda half laughed, as there began to rise up before her the various magazines of vegetables, grain, hay, and fodder, that for many weeks had been deliciously distant from her imagination.
"I made butter for four weeks, I guess, after you went away," Barby went on; "just come in here and see and the carrots makes it as yellow and sweet as June I churned as long as I had anything to churn, and longer; and now we live on cream you can make some cheesecakes just as soon as you're a mind to see! aint that doing pretty well? and fine it is put your nose down to it "
"Bravely, Barby and it is very sweet."
"You ha'n't left nothing behind you in New York, have you?" said Barby, when they returned to the kitchen.
"Left anything! no what do you think I have left?"
"I didn't know but you might have forgotten to pack up your memory," said Barby, drily.
Fleda laughed, and then in walked Mr. Douglass.
"How d'ye do?" said he. "Got back again. I heerd you was hum, and so I thought I'd just step up and see. Been getting along pretty well?"
Fleda answered, smiling internally at the wide distance between her "getting along," and his idea of it.
"Well, the hay's first rate!" said Earl, taking off his hat, and sitting down in the nearest chair "I've been feedin' it out now for a good spell, and I know what to think about it. We've been feedin' it out ever since some time this side o' the middle o' November I never see nothin' sweeter, and I don't want to see nothin' sweeter than it is! and the cattle eats it liked May roses they don't know how to thank you enough for it."
"To thank you, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda, smiling.
"No," said he, in a decided manner "I don't want no thanks for it, and I don't deserve none! 'Twa'n't thanks to none or my foresightedness that the clover wa'n't served the old way. I didn't like new notions, and I never did like new notions, and I never see much good of 'em; but I suppose there's some on 'em that aint moonshine my woman says there is, and I suppose there is, and after this clover hay I'm willin' to allow that there is. It's as sweet as a posie if you smell to it and all of it's cured alike; and I think, Fleda, there's a quarter more weight of it. I ha'n't proved it nor weighed it, but I've an eye and a hand as good as most folks, and I'll qualify to there being a fourth part more weight of it and it's a beautiful colour. The critters is as fond of it as you and I be of strawberries."
"Well, that is satisfactory, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda. "How is Mrs. Douglass and Catherine?"
"I ha'n't heerd 'em sayin' nothin' about it," he said; "and if there was anythin' the matter, I suppose they'd let me know. There don't much go wrong in a man's house without his hearin' tell of it. So I think. Maybe 'tan't the same in other men's houses. That's the way it is in mine."
"Mrs. Douglass would not thank you," said Fleda, wholly unable to keep from laughing. Earl's mouth gave way a very little, and then he went on.
"How be you?" he said. "You ha'n't gained much, as I see. I don't see but you're as poor as when you went away."
"I am very well, Mr. Douglass."
"I guess New York aint the place to grow fat. Well, Fleda, there ha'n't been seen in the hull country, or by any man in it, the like of the crop of corn we took off that 'ere twenty- acre lot they're all beat to hear tell of it they wont believe me Seth Plumfield ha'n't showed as much himself; he says you're the best farmer in the state."
"I hope he gives you part of the credit, Mr. Douglass how much was there?"
"I'll take my share of credit whenever I can get it," said Earl, "and I think it's right to take it, as long as you ha'n't nothing to be ashamed of; but I wont take no more than my share; and I will say I thought we was a-goin' to choke the corn to death, when we seeded the field in that way. Well, there's better than two thousand bushel more or less and as handsome corn as I want to see there never was handsomer corn. Would you let it go for five shillings? there's a man I've heerd of wants the hull of it."
"Is that a good price, Mr. Douglass? Why don't you ask Mr.
Rossitur?"
"Do you s'pose Mr. Rossitur knows much about it?" inquired Earl, with a curious turn of feature, between sly and contemptuous. "The less he has to do with that heap of corn, the bigger it'll be that's my idee. I aint a-goin' to ask him nothin' you may ask him what you like to ask him but I don't think he'll tell you much that'll make you and me wiser in the matter o' farmin'."
"But now that he is at home, Mr. Douglass, I certainly cannot decide without speaking to him."
"Very good," said Earl, uneasily " 'taint no affair of nine as you like to have it, so you'll have it just as you please! But now, Fleda, there's another thing I want to speak to you about I want you to let me take hold of that 'ere piece of swamp land and bring it in. I knew a man that fixed a piece of land like that, and cleared nigh a thousand dollars off it the first year."
"Which piece?" said Fleda.
"Why, you know which 'tis just the other side of the trees over there between them two little hills. There's six or seven acres of it nothin' in the world but mud and briers will you let me take hold of it. I'll do the hull job if you'll give me half the profits for one year. Come over and look at it, and I'll tell you come! the walk wont hurt you, and it aint fur."
All Fleda's inclinations said no, but she thought it was not best to indulge them. She put on her hood and went off with him; and was treated to a long and most implicated detail of ways and means, from which she at length disentangled the rationale of the matter, and gave Mr. Douglass the consent he asked for, promising to gain that of her uncle.
The day was fair and mild, and in spite of weariness of body, a certain weariness of mind prompted Fleda, when she had got rid of Earl Douglass, to go and see her aunt Miriam. She went, questioning with herself all the way, for her want of goodwill to these matters. True, they were not pleasant mind-work; but she tried to school herself into taking them patiently as good life-work. She had had too much pleasant company, and enjoyed too much conversation she said. It had unfitted her for home duties.
Mrs. Plumfield, she knew, was no better. But her eye found no change for the worse. The old lady was very glad to see her, and very cheerful and kind as usual.
"Well, are you glad to be home again?" said aunt Miriam, after a pause in the conversation.
"Everybody asks me that question," said Fleda, smiling.
"Perhaps for the same reason I did because they thought you didn't look very glad."
"I am glad," said Fleda, "but I believe not so glad as I was last year."
"Why not?"
"I suppose I had a pleasanter time. I have got a little spoiled, I believe, aunt Miriam," Fleda said, with glistening eyes and an altering voice "I don't take up my old cares and duties kindly at first I shall be myself again in a few days."
Aunt Miriam looked at her with that fond, wistful, benevolent look which made Fleda turn away.
"What has spoiled you, love?"
"Oh! easy living and pleasure, I suppose," Fleda said, but said with difficulty.
"Pleasure?" said aunt Miriam, putting one arm gently round her. Fleda struggled with herself.
"It is so pleasant, aunt Miriam, to forget these money cares! to lift one's eyes from the ground, and feel free to stretch out one's hand not to be obliged to think about spending sixpences, and to have one's mind at liberty for a great many things that I haven't time for here. And Hugh and aunt Lucy somehow things seem sad to me."
Nothing could be more sympathizingly kind than the way in which aunt Miriam brought Fleda closer to her side, and wrapped her in her arms.
"I am very foolish," Fleda whispered. "I am very wrong I shall get over it."
"I am afraid, dear Fleda," Mrs. Plumfield said, after a pause, "it isn't best for us always to be without sad things though I cannot bear to see your dear little face look sad but it wouldn't fit us for the work we have to do it wouldn't fit us to stand where I stand now, and look forward happily."
"Where you stand?" said Fleda, raising her head.
"Yes, and I would not be without a sorrow I have ever known. They are bitter now, when they are present but the sweet fruit comes after."
"But what do you mean by 'where you stand?' "
"On the edge of life."
"You do not think so, aunt Miriam!" Fleda said, with a terrified look. "You are not worse?"
"I don't expect ever to be better," said Mrs. Plumfield, with a smile. "Nay, my love," she said, as Fleda's head went down on her bosom again "not so! I do not wish it either, Fleda. I do not expect to leave you soon, but I would not prolong the time by a day. I would not have spoken of it now if I had recollected myself; but I am so accustomed to think and speak of it, that it came out before I knew it. My darling child, it is nothing to cry for."
"I know it, aunt Miriam."
"Then don't cry," whispered aunt Miriam, when she had stroked
Fleda's head for five minutes.
"I am crying for myself, aunt Miriam," said Fleda. "I shall be left alone."
"Alone, my dear child?"
"Yes there is nobody but you that I feel I can talk to."
She would have added that she dared not say a word to Hugh, for fear of troubling him. But that pain at her heart stopped her, and pressing her hands together, she burst into bitter weeping.
"Nobody to talk to but me?" said Mrs. Plumfield, after again soothing her for some time "what do you mean, dear?"
"Oh, I can't say anything to them at home," said Fleda, with a forced effort after voice; "and you are the only one I can look to for help Hugh never says anything almost never anything of that kind; he would rather others should counsel him."
"There is One friend to whom you may always tell everything, with no fear of wearying Him of whom you may at all times ask counsel, without any danger of being denied more dear, more precious, more rejoiced in, the more he is sought unto. Thou mayest lose friend after friend, and gain more than thou losest in that one."
"I know it," said Fleda; "but dear aunt Miriam, don't you think human nature longs for some human sympathy and help too?"
"My sweet blossom! yes," said Mrs. Plumfield, caressingly, stroking her bowed head; "but let Him do what he will; he hath said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' "
"I know that too," said Fleda, weeping. "How do people bear life that do not know it?"
"Or that cannot take the comfort of it. Thou art not poor nor alone while thou hast him to go to, little Fleda. And you are not losing me yet, my child; you will have time, I think, to grow as well satisfied as I with the prospect."
"Is that possible, for others?" said Fleda.
The mother sighed as her son entered the room.
He looked uncommonly grave, Fleda thought. That did not surprise her, but it seemed that it did his mother, for she asked an explanation, which, however, he did not give.
"So you've got back from New York," said he.
"Just got back yesterday," said Fleda.
"Why didn't you stay longer?"
"I thought my friends at home would be glad to see me," said
Fleda. "Was I mistaken?"
He made no answer for a minute, and then said
"Is your uncle at home?"
"No," said Fleda; "he went away this morning on business, and we do not expect him home before nightfall. Do you want to see him?"
"No," said Seth, very decidedly. "I wish he had staid in Michigan, or gone further west anywhere that Queechy'd never have heard of him."
"Why, what has he done?" said Fleda, looking up, half laughing, and half amazed at her cousin. But his face was disagreeably dark, though she could not make out that the expression was one of displeasure. It did not encourage her to talk.
"Do you know a man in New York by the name of Thorn?" he said, after standing still a minute or two.
"I know two men of that name," said Fleda, colouring and wondering.
"Is either on 'em a friend of your'n?"
"No"
"He aint?" said Mr. Plumfield, giving the forestick on the fire an energetic kick, which Fleda could not help thinking was mentally aimed at the said New Yorker.
"No, certainly, what makes you ask?"
"Oh," said Seth, drily, "folks' tongues will find work to do; I heerd say something like that; I thought you must take to him more than I do."
"Why what do you know of him?"
"He's been here a spell lately," said Seth, "poking round; more for ill than for good, I reckon."
He turned, and quitted the room abruptly; and Fleda bethought her that she must go home while she had light enough.