"My dear Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, "I I nothing, I assure you, could give me greater pleasure than to drive my oxen to any place where you would like to have them go."
Poor Fleda wished she could have despatched them and him in one direction while she took another; the art of driving oxen quietly was certainly not among the doctor's accomplishments. She was almost deafened. She tried to escape from the immediate din by running before to show Philetus about tapping the trees and fixing the little spouts, but it was a longer operation than she had counted upon, and by the time they were ready to leave the tree the doctor was gee-hawing alongside of it; and then if the next maple was not within sight she could not in decent kindness leave him alone. The oxen went slowly, and though Fleda managed to have no delay longer than to throw down a trough as the sled came up with each tree which she and Philetus had tapped, the business promised to make a long day of it. It might have been a pleasant day in pleasant company; but Fleda's spirits were down to set out with, and Doctor Quackenboss was not the person to give them the needed spring; his long-winded complimentary speeches had not interest enough even to divert her. She felt that she was entering upon an untried and most weighty undertaking; charging her time and thoughts with a burden they could well spare. Her energies did not flag, but the spirit that should have sustained them was not strong enough for the task.
It was a blustering day of early March, with that uncompromising brightness of sky and land which has no shadow of sympathy with a heart overcast. The snow still lay a foot thick over the ground, thawing a little in sunny spots; the trees quite bare and brown, the buds even of the early maples hardly showing colour; the blessed evergreens alone doing their utmost to redeem the waste, and speaking of patience and fortitude that can brave the blast and outstand the long waiting, and cheerfully bide the time when "the winter shall be over and gone." Poor Fleda thought they were like her in their circumstances, but she feared she was not like them in their strong endurance. She looked at the pines and hemlocks as she passed, as if they were curious preachers to her; and when she had a chance, she prayed quietly that she might stand faithfully like them to cheer a desolation far worse, and she feared far more abiding than snows could make or melt away. She thought of Hugh, alone in his mill-work that rough chilly day, when the wind stalked through the woods and over the country as if it had been the personification of March just come of age and taking possession of his domains. She thought of her uncle, doing what? in Michigan leaving them to fight with difficulties as they might why? why? and her gentle aunt at home sad and alone, pining for the want of them all, but most of him, and fading with their fortunes. And Fleda's thoughts travelled about from one to the other, and dwelt with them all by turns till she was heart-sick; and tears, tears fell hot on the snow many a time when her eyes had a moment's shield from the doctor and his somewhat more obtuse coadjutor. She felt half superstitiously, as if with her taking the farm were beginning the last stage of their falling prospects, which would leave them with none of hope's colouring. Not that in the least she doubted her own ability and success; but her uncle did not deserve to have his affairs prosper under such a system, and she had no faith that they would.
"It is most grateful," said the doctor, with that sideway twist of his jaw and his head at once, in harmony "it is a most grateful thing to see such a young lady Haw! there now! what are you about? haw haw? then! It is a most grateful thing to see "
But Fleda was not at his side she had bounded away and was standing under a great maple-tree a little a-head, making sure that Philetus screwed his auger up into the tree instead of down, which he had several times shown an unreasonable desire to do. The doctor had steered his oxen by her little grey hood and black cloak all the day. He made for it now.
"Have we arrived at the termination of our a adventure?" said he, as he came up and threw down the last trough.
"Why, no, Sir," said Fleda, "for we have yet to get home again."
" 'Tain't so fur going that way as it were this'n," said
Philetus. "My! aint I glad?"
"Glad of what?" said the doctor. "Here's Miss Ringgan's walked the whole way, and she a lady aint you ashamed to speak of being tired?"
"I ha'n't said the first word o' being tired!" said Philetus, in an injured tone of voice "but a man ha'n't no right to kill hisself, if he aint a gal!"