Claribel put out one little brown hand, and timidly touched the other hat.
"This one," she said.
It was very plain, and very pretty; yet there were no flowers, and the modest white ribbon lay smoothly about the crown. Miss Lucindy gave a little cry, as if some one had hurt her.
"O!" she exclaimed, "O Claribel! you sure?" Claribel was sure.
"She"s got real good taste," put in Miss West. "Shall I wrop it up?"
"Yes," answered Lucindy, drearily. "We"ll take it. But I suppose if she should change, her mind before she wore it--" she added, with some slight accession of hope.
"Oh, yes, bring it right back. I"ll give her another choice."
But Claribel was not likely to change her mind. On the way home, she walked sedately, and carried her hat with the utmost care. At her grandmother"s gate, she looked up shyly, and spoke of her own accord,--
"Thank you, ever so much!"
Then she fled up the path, her bundle waving before her. That, at least, looked like spontaneous joy, and the sight of it soothed Lucindy into a temporary resignation; yet she was very much disappointed.
The next afternoon, Tiverton saw a strange and wondrous sight. The Crane boy led Old Buckskin, under an ancient saddle, into Miss Lucindy"s yard, and waited there before her door. The Crane boy had told all his mates, and they had told their fathers and mothers, so that a wild excitement flew through the village like stubble fire, stirring the inhabitants to futile action. "It"s like the "clipse,"
said one of the squad of children collected at the gate, "only they ain"t no smoked gla.s.s." Some of the grown people "made an errand" for the sake of being in the street, but those who lived near-by simply mounted guard at their doors and windows. The horse had not waited long when Miss Lucindy appeared before the gaze of an eager world. Her face had wakened into a keen excitement.
"Here!" she called to the Crane boy"s brother, who was lingering in the background grinding his toes on the gravel and then lifting them in sudden agony, "you take this kitchen chair and set it down side of him, so"t I can climb up."
The chair was placed, and Miss Lucindy essayed to climb, but vainly.
"Ann!" she called, "you bring me that little cricket."
Ann Toby appeared unwillingly, the little cricket in her hand. She was a tall, red-haired woman, who bore the reputation of being willing to be "tore into inch pieces" for Miss Lucindy. Her freckled face burned red with shame and anger.
"For Heaven"s sake, you come back into the house!" she whispered, with tragic meaning. "You jest give it up, an" I"ll scatter them boys. Sa.s.sy little peeps! what are they starin" round here for, I"d like to know!"
But Lucindy had mounted the cricket with much agility, and seated herself on the horse"s back. Once she slipped off; but the Crane boy had the address to mutter, "Put your leg over the horn!" and, owing to that timely advice, she remained. But he was to experience the grat.i.tude of an unfeeling world; for Ann Toby, in the irritation of one tried beyond endurance, fell upon him and cuffed him soundly. And Mrs.
Crane, pa.s.sing the gate at that moment, did not blame her.
"My! it seems a proper high place to set," remarked Lucindy, adjusting herself. "Well, I guess I sha"n"t come to no harm. I"ll ride round to your place, boys, when I get through, and leave the horse there." She trotted out of the yard amid the silence of the crowd.
The spectacle was too awesome to be funny, even to the boys; it seemed to Tiverton strangely like the work of madness. Only one little boy recovered himself sufficiently to ran after her and hold up a switch he had been peeling.
"Here!" he piped up, daringly, "you want a whip."
Lucindy smiled upon him benignly.
"I never did believe in abusin" dumb creatur"s," she said, "but I"m much obliged." She took the switch and rode on.
Now Mrs. Wilson had heard the rumor too late to admit of any interference on her part, and she was staying indoors, suffering an agony of shame, determined not to countenance the scandalous sight by her presence. But as she sat "hooking-in," the window was darkened, and involuntarily she lifted her eyes. There was the huge bulk of a horse, and there was Lucindy. The horsewoman"s cheeks were bright red with exercise and joy. She wore a black dress and black mitts. Her little curls were flying; and oh, most unbearable of all! they were surmounted by a bonnet bearing no modest sheaf of wheat, but blossoming brazenly out into lavender roses. The spectacle was too much for Mrs. Wilson.
She dropped her hook, and flew to the door.
"Well, I"ve known a good deal, fust an" last, but I never see the beat o" this! Lucindy, where"d you git that long dress?"
"It"s my cashmere," answered Lucindy, joyously. "I set up last night to lengthen it down."
"Well, I should think you did! Lothrop!"
Her husband had been taking a nap in the sitting-room, and he came out, rubbing his eyes. Mrs. Wilson could not speak for curiosity. She watched him with angry intentness. She wondered if he would take Lucindy"s part now! But Lothrop only moved forward and felt at the girth.
"You know you want to pull him up if he stumbles," he said; "but I guess he won"t. He was a stiddy horse, fifteen year ago."
"Lothrop," began his wife, "do you want to be made a laughin"-stock in this town--"
"I guess if I"ve lived in a place over sixty year an" hil" my own, I can yet," said Lothrop, quietly. "You don"t want to ride too long, Lucindy. You"ll be lame to-morrer."
"I didn"t suppose "twould jounce so," said Lucindy; "but it"s proper nice. I don"t know what "twould be on a real high horse. Well, good-by!" She turned the horse about, and involuntarily struck him with her little switch. Old Buckskin broke into a really creditable trot, and they disappeared down the village street. Lothrop sensibly took his way down to the shop while his wife was recovering her powers of speech; and for that, Jane herself mentally commended him.
Lucindy kept on out of the village and along the country road. The orioles were singing in the elms, and the leaves still wore the gloss of last night"s shower. The earth smiled like a new creation, very green and sweet, and the horse"s hoofs made music in Lucindy"s mind. It seemed to her that she had lost sight both of youth and crabbed age; the pendulum stood still in the jarring machinery of time, the hands pointing to a moment of joy. She was quite happy, as any of us may be who seek the fellowship of dancing leaves and strong, bright sun. She turned into a cross-road, hardly wider than a lane, and bordered with wild rose and fragrant raspberry. There was but one house here,--a little, time-stained cottage, where Tom McNeil lived with his wife and five children. Perhaps these were the happiest people in all Tiverton, though no one but themselves had ever found it out. Tom made shoes in a desultory fashion, and played the fiddle earnestly all winter, and in summer, peddled essences and medicines from a pack strapped over his shoulders. Sometimes in the warm summer weather Molly, his wife, and all the children tramped with him, so that the house was closed for weeks at a time,--a thing very trying to the conventional sensibilities of Tiverton. Tom might have had a "stiddy job o" work" with some of the farmers; Molly might have helped about the churning and ironing. But no! they were like the birds, nesting happily in summer, and drawing their feet under their feathers when the snow drifted in. The children--lank, wild-eyed creatures--each went to school a few months, and then stopped, unable to bear the cross of confinement within four dull walls. They could not write; it was even rumored that they had never learned to tell time. And, indeed, what good would it have done them when the clock was run down and stood always at the hour of noon?
But they knew where thoroughwort grows, and the wholesome goldthread; they gathered cress and peppermint, and could tell the mushroom from its noisome kindred. Day after day, they roamed the woods for simples to be distilled by the father, and made into potent salves and ointments for man and the beasties he loved better.
When Lucindy came in sight of the house, she was glad to find it open.
She had scarcely gone so far afield for years, and the reports concerning this strange people had reached her only by hearsay. She felt like a discoverer. In close neighborhood to the house stood a peculiar structure,--the half-finished dwelling McNeil had attempted, in a brief access of ambition, to build with his own hands. The chimney, slightly curving and very ragged at the top, stood foolishly above the unfinished lower story. Lucindy remembered hearing how Tom had begun the chimney first, and built the house round it. But the fulfilment of his worldly dream never came to pa.s.s; and perhaps it was quite as well, for thereby would the unity of his existence have been destroyed. He might have lived up to the house; he might even have grown into a proud man, and acc.u.mulated dollars. But the bent of birth was too much for him. A day dawned, warm and entrancing; he left his bricks and boards in the midst, and the whole family went joyfully off on a tramp. To Tiverton, the unfinished house continued to serve as an immortal joke, and Tom smiled as broadly as any. He always said he couldn"t finish it; he had mislaid the plan.
A little flower-garden bloomed between the two houses, and on the gra.s.s, by one of its clove-pink borders, sat a woman, rocking back and forth in an ancient chair, and doing absolutely nothing. She was young, and seemed all brown; for her eyes were dark, and her skin had been tanned to the deep, rich tint sweeter to some eyes than pure roses and milk. Lucindy guided Buckskin up to the gate, and Molly McNeil looked up and smiled without moving.
"How do?" she said, in a soft, slow voice. "Won"t you come in?"
Lucindy was delighted. It was long since she had met a stranger.
"Well, I would," she answered, "but I don"t know as I can get down.
This is new business to me."
"Ellen," called Mrs. McNeil, "you bring out somethin" to step on!"
A little girl appeared with a yellow kitchen chair. Mrs. McNeil rose, carried it outside the gate, and planted it by Buckskin"s side.
"There!" she said, "you put your hand on my shoulder and step down. It won"t tip. I"ve got my knee on it."
Lucindy alighted, with some difficulty, and drew a long breath.
"I"ll hitch him," said Molly McNeil. "You go in and sit down in that chair, and Ellen"ll bring you a drink of water."
Ellen was barelegged and barefooted. Her brown hair hung over her dark eyes in a pleasant tangle. Her even teeth were white, and her lips red.
There was no fault nor blemish in her little face; and when she had brought the dipper full of water, and stood rubbing one foot against its neighboring leg, Lucindy thought she had never seen anything so absolutely bewitching. Molly had hitched the horse, in manly and knowing fashion, and then seated herself on the kitchen chair beside Lucindy; but the att.i.tude seemed not to suit her, and presently she rose and lay quietly down at full length on the gra.s.s. She did it quite as a matter of course, and her visitor thought it looked very pleasant; possibly she would have tried it herself if she had not been so absorbed in another interest. She was watching the little girl, who was running into the house with the dipper.
"Ain"t she complete!" she said. "Your oldest?"
"She ain"t mine at "all." Mrs. McNeil rose on one elbow, and began chewing a gra.s.s stem.
It was very restful to Lucindy to see some one who was too much interested in anything, however trivial, to be interested in her. "You know about the Italian that come round with the hand-organ last month?
He was her father. Well, he died,--fell off a mow one night,--and the town sold the hand-organ and kept Ellen awhile on the farm. But she run away, and my boys found her hidin" in the woods starved most to death.