“Mebbe he didn’t,” said the deacon; “but there’s been plenty of scripture fulfilled without folks knowing it. Well, naturally it made Peleg pretty mad, ’specially when folks twitted him ’bout it; and a day or two afterward he pitched on Jabez down town, and I guess it’s more ’n likely one of ’em would have got hurt if folks hadn’t separated ’em. Jabez wrote some verses about it afterward, and I remember my grandfather telling me one of ’em was:—
“‘Old Tory Wright with me did fight,
Designing me to kill;
But over me did not obtain
To gain his cursèd will.’”
“So he was a poet, too!” exclaimed Mr. Hadley.
“Bless you, yes,” said Ruel Saxon. “When he warn’t contriving something or other, he was always making up verses. I’ve seen ’em scribbled with chalk all over his house. It was a little house without any paint on it, and when it got so full it wouldn’t hold any more he’d rub ’em out and put on some fresh ones. Paper warn’t as plenty in those days as it is now, specially not with Jabez.”
“Do you remember any more of his verses?” asked Mr. Hadley, who was evidently a good deal impressed with this ancestor of his, in spite of his lack of that economic turn of mind which had so distinguished the other side of his house.
“I don’ know as I do,” said the old gentleman, “though I guess I could think up some of ’em if I tried. Oh, Jabez Bridgewood was a good deal of a character. He could do anything he set his hand to, and I never did see anybody that knew as much about things outdoors as he did. He was like Solomon, and spoke of the trees, ‘from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall’; and when it came to the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and the creeping things, it seemed as if he knew ’em all, though some folks did think he spent too much time watching ’em, for the good of his family.”
“Why, he must have been a real genius, a Thoreau sort of man,” exclaimed Esther, who had been listening with rapt attention, as she always did when her grandfather told a story. “Grandpa, won’t you show me some day where his little house stood, and the tree he loaded with stones to fire at the British?”
“And please let me go, too,” said Mr. Hadley, glancing at the girl, and catching her quick responsive smile at her grandfather; “I should like it immensely.”
“Why, to be sure, I should like it myself,” said Deacon Saxon, promptly; “though there ain’t anything there now but dirt and rocks. And I’ll take you round by the old burying-ground and show you his grave, and the grave of my great-grandfather, John Saxon, that was killed by the Indians, if you want me to.”
They had it settled in another minute, with Stella in the plan too. Mr. Hadley was to call again in a few days, and they were all to take the trip together. And then the young man stayed a little longer, not talking of his ancestors now, but of things more modern; of Scotland with Stella; of her impressions of New England with Esther; and with the old gentleman of the summer home in a neighboring town, which the Hadleys had lately purchased. It seemed he had ridden over from there to-day. There was no chance to talk with Kate of anything. She had disappeared long ago.