Flint.
by Maud Wilder Goodwin.
CHAPTER I
THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS
"Say not "a small event." Why "small"?
Costs it more pain that this ye call "A great event" should come to pa.s.s Than that? Untwine me from the ma.s.s Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power should fall short in, or exceed."
_The following chapter is an Extract from the Journal of Miss Susan Standish, dated Nepaug, July 1, 189-._
We are a house-party.
To be sure we find pinned to our cushions on Sat.u.r.day nights a grayish slip of paper, uncertain of size and ragged of edge, stating with characteristic New England brevity and conciseness the amount of our indebtedness to our hostess; but what of that? The guests in those stately villas whose lights twinkle at us on clear evenings from the point along the coast, have their scores to settle likewise, and though the account is rendered less regularly, it is settled less easily and for my part, I prefer our Nepaug plan.
We are congenial.
I don"t know why we should be, except that no one expects it of us. We have no tie, sacred or secular, to bind our hearts in Christian love.
We have in fact few points in common, save good birth, good breeding, and the ability to pay our board-bills as they fall due; but nevertheless we coalesce admirably.
We are Bohemian.
That is, our souls are above the standards of fashion, and our incomes below them, and of such is the kingdom of Bohemia. A life near to Nature"s heart, at eight dollars a week, appeals to us all alike.
We are cross.
Yes, there is no denying it. Not one of us has escaped the irritation of temper naturally resulting from ten days experience of the fog which has been clinging with suffocating affection to earth and sea, putting an end to outdoor sport and indoor comfort, taking the curl out of hair, the starch out of dresses, the sweetness out of dispositions, and hanging like a pall over all efforts at jollity.
Irritation shows itself differently in each individual of our community. As is the temperament, so is the temper.
Master Jimmy Anstice, aged twelve, spends his time in beating a tattoo on the sofa-legs with the backs of his heels. His father says: "Stop that!" at regular intervals with much sharpness of manner; but lacks the persistent vitality to enforce his command.
My nephew, Ben Bradford, permanently a resident of Oldburyport, and temporarily of Cambridge, sits in a grandfather"s chair in the corner, "Civil Government" in his lap, and "Good-Bye, Sweetheart," in his hand. Even this profound work cannot wholly absorb his attention; for he fidgets, and looks up every few minutes as if he expected the sunshine to walk in, and feared that he might miss its first appearance.
I, for occupation, have betaken myself to writing in this diary, having caught myself cheating at solitaire,--a deed I scorn when I am at my best.
Doctor Cricket, his hands nervously clasped behind him, has been walking up and down the room, now overlooking my game and remonstrating against the liberties I was taking with the cards (as if I had not a right to cheat myself if I like!) and then flying off to peer through his gold-bowed spectacles at the hygrometer, which will not budge, though he thrusts out his chin-whisker at it for the fortieth time.
"The weather is in a nasty, chilly sweat," he says grumpily; "if it were my patient, I would roll it in a blanket, and put it to bed with ten grains of quinine."
"Not being your patient, and not being dosed with quinine, it may be better to-morrow," Ben retorts saucily.
Ordinarily, the Doctor takes Ben"s sallies with good-humored contempt.
To-day, he is in other mood. He smiles--always a bad sign with him, as the natural expression of his truly benignant mood is a fierce little terrier-like frown.
"My poor boy!" he says sympathetically. "The brain is going fast, I observe. Steep a love-story, and apply it over the affected part!"
I see Ben wrestling with a retort; but before he has it to his mind, something happens. The door opens and a girl enters. Ben"s face lights up. The sunshine has come.
There is something more than a suggestion of sunshine about Winifred Anstice, even to those of us who are neither of the age nor the s.e.x to fall under the glamour of sentimental illusions. I have often speculated on the precise nature of her charm, without being able to satisfy myself. She is not so extraordinarily pretty, though her hair ripples away from her forehead after the American cla.s.sic fashion, to which style also belongs the little nose, straight in itself, but set on at an angle from the brow, which, to my thinking, forms a pleasing variation from the heavier, antique type. The cla.s.sic repose is wholly lacking. The eyes are arch, bright, and a little daring; the mouth always on the verge of laughter, which is not quite agreeable, for sometimes when there is no visible cause for amus.e.m.e.nt, it gives one an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps he is being laughed at unbeknown, and a person need not be very stingy not to relish a joke at his expense.
Perhaps this sounds as if Winifred were hard, which she is not, and unsympathetic, which she never could be; but it is not that at all. It comes, I think, of a kind of bubbling over of the fun and spirits which belong to perfect physical condition and which few girls have nowadays. I suppose I ought not to wonder if a little of this vigor clings to her manner, making it not hoidenish exactly, but different from the manner of Beacon Street girls, who, after all said and done, have certainly the best breeding of any girls the world over. Ben doesn"t admire Boston young ladies; but then he hates girls who are what he calls "stiff," as much as I dislike those whom he commends as "easy." Of course he gets on admirably with Winifred, who accepts his adoration as a matter of course, and rewards him with a semi-occasional smile, or a friendly note in her voice.
After all, Winifred"s chief charm lies in her voice. For myself, I confess to a peculiar sensitiveness in the matter of voices,--an unfortunate peculiarity for one condemned to spend her life in a sea-board town of the United States. Like Ulysses, I have endured greatly, have suffered greatly; but when this girl speaks, I am repaid. I often lose the sense of what she is saying, in the pure physical pleasure of listening to her speech. It has in it a suggestion of joy, and little delicate trills of hidden laughter which, after all, is not laughter, but rather the mingling of a reminiscence and an antic.i.p.ation of mirth. I cannot conceive where she picked up such a voice, any more than where she came by that carriage of the head, and that manner, gracious, yet imperative like a young queen"s. Professor Anstice is a worthy man and a learned scholar; but the grand air is not acquired from books.
"How glum you all look!" Winifred exclaims, as she looks in upon us.
At his daughter"s entrance, the face of Professor Anstice relaxes by a wrinkle or two; but he answers her words as academically as though she had been one of his cla.s.s in English.
"_Glum_ is hardly the word, my dear; it conveys the impression of unamiability."
"Precisely," persists Mistress Winifred, not to be put down, "that is just the idea you all convey to me."
"Why shouldn"t we be unamiable," answers Ben, eager to get into the conversation, "when there is nothing to amuse us, and you go off upstairs to write letters?"
"You should follow my example, and _do_ something. When I went upstairs Miss Standish was in a terrible temper, scowling at the ace of spades as if it were her natural enemy; but since she has taken to writing in that little green diary that she never will let me peep into, she has a positively beatified, not to say sanctified, expression. And there is Ellen Davitt hard at work too, and as cheerful as a squirrel--just listen to her!"
With this the girl stands still, and we listen. The waitress in the next room, apparently in the blithest of spirits, is setting the tea-table to the accompaniment of her favorite tune, sung in a high, sharp, nasal voice, and emphasized by the slapping down of plates.
"Tell me _one_ thing--tell me trooly; Tell me _why_ you scorn me so.
Tell me _why_, when asked the question, You will always answer "_No_"-- No, sir! No, sir! No-o-o, sir--No!"
The voice is lost in the pantry. Smiles dawn upon all our faces.
"A beautiful ill.u.s.tration of the power of imagination!" says Dr.
Cricket. "Ellen is contentedly doing the housework because she fancies herself an heiress haughtily repulsing a host of suitors. It is the same spirit which keeps the poet cheerful in his garret, or a young Napoleon in his cellar, where he dines on a crust and fancies himself an emperor."
"Steep an ill.u.s.tration and apply it over the affected part!" drawls Ben.
The Doctor prepares to be angry; but Winifred, scenting the battle and eager to keep the peace, claps her hands and cries out, "Excellent!"
with that pretty enthusiasm which makes the author of a remark feel that there must have been more in his observation than he himself had discovered.
"There, Ben, if you are wise you will act on this clever suggestion of Dr. Cricket"s, and travel off to the land of fancy, where you can make the weather to suit yourself, where fogs never fall, and fish always bite, and sails always fill with breezes from the right quarter, and whiff about at a convenient moment when you want to come home--oh, I say!" she adds with a joyful upward inflection, "there"s the sun, and I am going for the mail."
"I"ll go with you," volunteers Master Ben.
"Thank you, but Mr. Marsden said that I might drive his colt in the sulky."
"Not the _colt_!" we all cry in chorus.
"The _colt_," she answers with decision.
"Not in the sulky?"