CHAPTER VI.
A MORNING DRIVE.
Punctually at ten o"clock the next morning Dr. Abernethy stood before the door, with a neat phaeton behind him; and the girls were summoned from the piazza, where Rose was taking her French lesson.
"My dears," said Miss Wealthy, "are you ready? You said ten o"clock, and the clock has already struck."
"Oh, yes, Cousin Wealthy!" cried Hildegarde, starting up, and dropping one book on the floor and another on the chair. "We are coming immediately. Rose, _nous allons faire une promenade en voiture! Repetez cette phrase!_"
"_Nous allong_--" began Rose, meekly; but she was cut short in her repet.i.tion.
"Not _allong_, dear, _allons_, _ons_. Keep your mouth open, and don"t let your tongue come near the roof of your mouth after the _ll_.
_Allons!_ Try once more."
"You need not wait, Jeremiah," said Miss Wealthy, in a voice that tried not to be plaintive. "I dare say the young ladies will be ready in a minute or two, and I will stand by the Doctor till they come."
Hildegarde heard, smote her breast, flew upstairs for their hats and a shawl and pillow for Rose. In three minutes they were in the carriage, but not till a kiss and a whispered apology from Hildegarde had driven the slight cloud--not of vexation, but of wondering sadness; it seemed such a strange thing, not to be ready and waiting when Dr. Abernethy came to the door--from Miss Wealthy"s kind face.
"Good-by, dear Cousin Wealthy!" and "Good-by, dear Miss Bond!" cried the two happy girls; and off they drove in high spirits, while Miss Wealthy went back to the piazza and picked up the French books, wiped them carefully, and then went upstairs and put them in the little bookcase in Hildegarde"s room.
"She is a very dear girl," she said, shaking her head; "a little heedless, but perhaps all girls are. Why, Mildred--oh! but Mildred was an exception. I suppose," she added, "they call me an old maid. Very likely. Not these girls,--for they are too well-mannered,--but people.
An old maid!" Miss Wealthy sighed a little, and put her hand up to the pansy breastpin,--a favorite gesture of hers; and then she went into the house, to make a new set of bags for the curtain-ta.s.sels.
Meanwhile the girls were driving along, looking about them, and enjoying themselves immensely. Jeremiah had given them directions for a drive "just about _so_ long," and they knew that they were to turn three times to the left and never to the right. And first they went up a hill, from the top of which they saw "all the kingdoms of the earth," as Rose said. The river valley was behind them, and they could see the silver stream here and there, gleaming between its wooded banks. Beyond were blue hills, fading into the blue of the sky. But before them--oh! before them was the wonder. A vast circle, hill and dale and meadow, all shut in by black, solemn woods; and beyond the woods, far, far away, a range of mountains, whose tops gleamed white in the sunlight.
"There is snow on them," said Rose. "Oh, Hildegarde! they must be the White Mountains. Jeremiah told me that we could see them from here.
That highest peak must be Mount Washington. Oh, to think of it!"
They sat in silence for a few moments, watching the mountains, which lay like giants at rest.
"Rose," said Hildegarde, at length, "the Great Carbuncle is there, hidden in some crevice of those mountains; and the Great Stone Face is there, and oh! so many wonderful things. Some day we will go there, you and I; sometime when you are quite, quite strong, you know. And we will see the Flume and the wonderful Notch. You remember Hawthorne"s story of the "Ambitious Guest"? I think it is one of the most beautiful of all.
Perhaps--who knows?--we may find the Great Carbuncle." They were silent again; but presently Dr. Abernethy, who cared nothing whatever about mountains or carbuncles, whinnied, and gave a little impatient shake.
"Of course!" said Hildegarde. "Poor dear! he was hot, wasn"t he? and the flies bothered him. Here is our turn to the left; a pine-tree at the corner,--yes, this must be it! Good-by, mountains! Be sure to stay there till the next time we come."
"What was that little poem about the Greek mountains that you told me the other day?" asked Rose, as they drove along,--"the one you have copied in your commonplace book. You said it was a translation from some modern Greek poet, didn"t you?"
"Yes," said Hildegarde; "but I don"t know what poet. I found it in a book of Dr. Felton"s at home."
She thought a moment, and then repeated the verses,--
""Why are the mountains shadowed o"er?
Why stand they darkened grimly?
Is it a tempest warring there, Or rain-storm beating on them?
""It is no tempest warring there, No rain-storm beating on them, But Charon sweeping over them, And with him the departed.""
"Look!" she cried, a few moments after. "There is just such a cloud-shadow sweeping over that long hill on the left. Is it true, I wonder? I never see those flying shadows without thinking of "Charon sweeping over them." It is such a comfort, Rose, that we like the same things, isn"t it?"
"Indeed it is!" said Rose, heartily. "But, oh! Hilda dear, stop a moment! There is some yellow clover. Why, I had no idea it grew so far north as this!"
"Yellow clover!" repeated Hildegarde, looking about her. "Who ever heard of yellow clover? I don"t see any."
"No, dear," said Rose; "it does not grow in the sides of buggies, nor even on stone-walls. If you could bend your lofty gaze to the ditch by the roadside, you might possibly see it."
"Oh, there!" said Hildegarde, laughing. "Take the reins, Miss Impudence, and I will get them." She sprang lightly out, and returned with a handful of yellow blossoms.
"Are they really clover?" she asked, examining them curiously. "I had no idea there were more than two kinds, red and white."
"There are eight kinds, child of the city," said Rose, "beside melilot, which is a kind of clover-cousin. This yellow is the hop-clover. Dear me! how it does remind me of my Aunt Caroline."
"And how, let me in a spirit of love inquire, does it resemble your Aunt Caroline? Is she yellow?"
"She was, poor dear!" replied Rose. "She has been dead now--oh! a long time. She was an aunt of Mother"s; and once she had the jaundice, and it seems to me she was always yellow after that. But that was not all, Hilda. There was an old handbook of botany among Father"s books, and I used to read it a great deal, and puzzle over the long words. I always liked long words, even when I was a little wee girl. Well, one day I was reading, and Aunt Caroline happened to come in. She despised reading, and thought it was an utter waste of time, and that I ought to sew or knit all the time, since I could not help Mother with the housework. She was very practical herself, and a famous housekeeper. So she looked at me, and frowned, and said, "Well, Pink, mooning away over a book as usual? Useless rubbish! yer ma"d ought to keep ye at work." I didn"t say anything; I never said much to Aunt Caroline, because I knew she didn"t like me, and I suppose I was rather spoiled by every one else being _too_ good to me. But I looked down at my old book, which was open at "Trefolium: Clover." And there I read--oh, Hilda, it is really too bad to tell!--I read: "The teeth bristle-form"--and hers did stick out nearly straight!--"corolla mostly withering or persistent; the claws"--and then I began to laugh, for it was _exactly_ like Aunt Caroline herself; she was _so_ withering, and _so_ persistent! And I sat there and giggled, a great girl of thirteen, till I got perfectly hysterical. The more I laughed, the angrier she grew, of course; till at last she went out into the kitchen and slammed the door after her. But I heard her telling Mother that that gal of hers appeared to be losing such wits as she had,--not that "t was any great loss, as fur as she could see. Wasn"t that dreadful, Hildegarde? Of course I was wheeled over to her house the next day, and begged her pardon; but she was still withering and persistent, though she said, "Very excusable!" at last."
"Why, Rose!" said Hildegarde, laughing. "I didn"t suppose you were _ever_ naughty, even when you were a baby."
"Oh, indeed I was!" answered Rose; "just as naughty as any one else, I suppose. Did I ever tell you how I came near making poor Bubble deaf?
That wasn"t exactly naughty, because I didn"t mean to do anything bad; but it was funny. I must have been about five years old, and I used to sit in a sort of little chair-cart that Father made for me. One day Mother was washing, and she set me down beside the baby"s cradle (that was Bubble, of course), and told me to watch him, and to call her if he cried. Well, for a while, Mother said, all was quiet. Then she heard Baby fret a little, and then came a queer sort of noise, she could not tell what, and after that quiet again. So she thought what a nice, helpful little girl I was getting to be; and when she came in she said, "Well, Pinkie, you stopped the baby"s fretting, didn"t you?"
""Oh, yes, Mother!" I said, as pleased as possible. "I roared in his ear!" You may imagine how frightened Mother was; but fortunately it did him no harm."
Here the road dipped down into a gully, and Dr. Abernethy had to pick his way carefully among loose stones. Presently the stone-walls gave place to a most wonderful kind of fence,--a kind that even country-bred Rose had never seen before. When the great trees, the giants of the old forest, had been cut, and the ground cleared for farm-lands and pastures, their stumps had been pulled up by the roots; and these roots, vast, many-branched, twisted into every imaginable shape, were locked together, standing edgewise, and tossing their naked arms in every direction.
"Oh, how wonderful!" cried Hildegarde. "Look, Rose! they are like the bones of some great monster,--a gigantic cuttlefish, perhaps. What huge trees they must have been, to have such roots as these!"
"Dear, beautiful things!" sighed Rose. "If they could only have been left! Isn"t it strange to think of people not caring for trees, Hilda?"
"Yes!" said Hilda, meekly, and blushing a little. "It is strange now; but before last year, Rose, I don"t believe I ever looked at a tree."
"Oh, before last year!" cried Rose, laughing. "There wasn"t any "before last year." I had never heard of Sh.e.l.ley before last year. I had never read a ballad, nor a "Waverley," nor the "Newcomes," nor anything.
Let"s not talk about the dark ages. You love trees now, I"m sure."
"That I do!" said Hildegarde. "The oak best of all, the elm next; but I love them all."
"The pine is my favorite," said Rose. "The great stately king, with his broad arms; it always seems as if an eagle should be sitting on one of them. What was that line you told me the other day?--"The pine-tree spreads his dark-green layers of shade." Tennyson, isn"t it?"
"Yes," replied Hildegarde. "But it was "Cranford" that made me think of it. And it isn"t "pine-tree," after all. I looked, and found it was "cedar." Mr. Holbrook, you remember,--Miss Matty"s old lover,--quotes it, when they are taking tea with him. Dear Miss Matty! do you think Cousin Wealthy is the least little bit like her, Rose?"
"Perhaps!" said Rose, thoughtfully. "I think--Oh, Hilda, look!" she cried, breaking off suddenly. "What a queer little house!"
Hildegarde checked Dr. Abernethy, who had been trotting along quite briskly, and they both looked curiously at the little house on their left, which certainly was "queer,"--a low, unpainted shanty, gray with age, the shingles rotting off, and moss growing in the c.h.i.n.ks. The small panes of gla.s.s were crusted with dirt, and here and there one had been broken, and replaced with brown paper. The front yard was a tangle of ribbon-gra.s.s and clover; but a tuft of straggling flowers here and there showed that it had once had care and attention. There was no sign of life about the place.
"Rose!" cried Hildegarde, stopping the horse with a pull of the reins; "it is a deserted house. Do you know that I have never seen one in my life? I must positively take a peep at it, and see what it is like inside. Take the reins, Bonne Silene, while I go and reconnoitre the position." She jumped out, and making her way as best she might through the gra.s.sy tangle, was soon gazing in at one of the windows. "Oh!" she cried, "it _isn"t_ deserted, Rose! At least?--well, some one has been here. But, oh, me! oh, _me_! What a place! I never, never dreamed of such a place. I--"