The Land of Joy

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“If we get short of them, Uncle, maybe they’ll let us have some at the East Farm,” said Margaret, smiling.

“Yes’m. Don’ yo’ be a-troublin’, Miss Margey; I gwine say a word to they hens; I gwine tell ’em ’bout this yer Mister No’th bein’ mighty fond o’ aigs. They’s pow’ful reason’ble hens, Miss Margey!”

Margaret entered the house, followed by Uncle Casper, and passed through the dining-room, where Aunt Cicely, a tall mulatto, was clearing the breakfast table, and out onto a small back porch. This was separated from the hill that rose sharply behind the house only by a narrow graveled driveway. The shadow of the building rested half-way to the summit of the wooded slope, but beyond its edge the trees and undergrowth were aglow with mellow sunlight. It was chilly out there, and Margaret, after tying a long apron about her, threw a little white shawl over her shoulders.

Filling the lamps was a duty that Margaret performed herself. On a long table stood oil-can, shears, cloths and an army of lamps, big and little, from the porcelain-globed monster that stood in the drawing-room down to the tiny hand lamps used by the servants. Margaret maintained that filling and trimming lamps was a science beyond the comprehension of Aunt Cicely or Uncle Casper or Daphne, Mrs. Ryerson’s maid, and each morning went at the task with an amount of reverential concentration befitting the performance of a sacred rite. At Elaine lamps never smoked nor went out in the middle of the evening.

But this morning the concentration was not as perfect as usual. Margaret’s thoughts wandered afield—in fact, to a field to the eastward in which two men with guns were rapidly filling the game-bag that swung over the shoulder of a grinning negro. Now and then, ever fainter and fainter, the sound of the guns reached the girl on the back porch, and would have drawn her thoughts eastward had they not already been speeding that way. Sometimes the thoughts seemed pleasant ones, sometimes a little cloud of perplexity filmed the smile in her eyes. Once she sighed softly, and once she turned with chimney and cloth in hand and gazed wide-eyed at the sunlighted summit of the slope for a full minute ere she turned back to her work.

When the last lamp had been filled, the last wick trimmed, the last chimney polished until it shone, and when she had washed and dried her hands and doffed apron and shawl, she entered the house again and ascended to her mother’s bedroom. Mrs. Ryerson was seated at the window, a slim, frail figure in a dove-gray dressing-gown on which the sunlight threw queer floating shadows of branch and twig. A fire smouldered in the chimney-place and a tray on a low table bore the remains of a scanty breakfast. Daphne was tidying up the room, her leisurely journeying to and fro taking her again and again in front of the west window from which it was possible to catch a glimpse of the house garden and a young negro engaged in repairing a fence. Daphne was young and pretty from the viewpoint of the carpenter outside, and room-cleaning and fence-building went slowly.

“They’re not back yet?” asked Mrs. Ryerson in her soft, delicate voice.

“Not yet, mamma,” Margaret answered. “But it’s only half-past nine, you know. I reckon they’ll not come for a long while yet. They must have found plenty of birds; I heard their guns again and again.”

“Yes, I did, too. Well, I hope Phil will be able to keep Mr. North entertained, dear. I should so dislike having him return to his home thinking us shabby and commonplace.” Mrs. Ryerson sighed, folded her white hands in her lap and looked silently out of the window. Margaret found some sewing and drew a small chair into the broad shaft of sunlight.