CHAPTER XIV
AUNT POLLY CARTER
But old Mother Derwent was not altogether disappointed. As if answering the blast of her horn a female appeared on the opposite shore, signalizing for a boat with great vigor. Mary could only see that the woman wore a short scarlet cloak, and that the brilliant cotton handkerchief flaunting so impatiently was large enough for a sail to any craft on the river.
Jane had withdrawn sulkily into the bedroom. She was by no means pleased with the efforts her grandmother was making to bring the missionary back; in her heart she was beginning to detest the good man.
When Mary came down and saw there was no one else to answer the stranger’s signal, she went at once to unmoor her pretty canoe, and was soon across the river.
“Oh, is it you, my pet?” cried a cordial voice, as she neared the shore. “I thought mebby Jane would be on hand to row me across. Is grandmarm to hum, and how’s your sister? Purty well, I hope?”
Mary’s face brightened. The visitor was Aunt Polly from the Elm-tree tavern on the Kingston shore, a welcome guest at any house from Wilkesbarre to the Lackawanna gap, but a woman who seldom, left the shelter of her own roof, and her presence so far from her home might well be a matter of wonder.
“Why, Aunt Polly, is it you? How glad grandma will be,” said Mary, looking up from her seat in the canoe with pleasure in her eyes.
“Yes, it’s me sure enough, safe and sound. I’ll just take the bits out of Gineral Washington’s mouth, and let him crop a bite of grass while I go over and say how-do-you-do to grandma. See how the old feller eyes that thick grass with the vilets in it! There, old chap, go at it.”
As she spoke, the old maid went up to a huge farm horse, cumbered with a saddle much too narrow for his back, which bore unmistakable evidence of its Connecticut origin; for the horns curved in like those of a vicious cow, and the stirrups were so short that a tall rider, like Aunt Polly, was compelled to double her limbs up till they formed a letter A under her calico skirt whenever General Washington had the honor of carrying her in state upon the wonderful mechanism of that side-saddle, which was the pride and glory of her house.
“There, now,” she said, unbuckling the throat-latch, and slipping the bridle, bits and all, around General Washington’s stumpy neck, which she patted with great affection. “Go in for a feed, and no mistake, Gineral; only keep to the bank, and, mind you, don’t roll on that saddle—it couldn’t be matched on this side the Green Mountains, I tell you, now.”