"It"s the only carriage we have to offer you," said Lois merrily. "For your sake, I wish we had a better; for my own, I like nothing so well as an ox cart. Mrs. Barclay, will you get in? and stimulate this lady"s courage?"
A kitchen chair had been brought out to facilitate the operation; and Mrs. Barclay stepped lightly in, curled herself down in the soft bed of straw, and declared that it was very comfortable. With an expression of face which made Lois and Madge laugh for weeks after when they recalled it, Mrs. Lenox stepped gingerly in, following, and took her place.
"Grandmother," said Lois, "this is Mrs. Lenox, whom you have heard me speak about. And these are my sisters, Madge and Charity, Mrs. Lenox.
And grandmother, this is Mr. Lenox. Now, you see the cart has room enough," she added, as herself and the gentleman also took their seats.
"Is that the hull of ye?" inquired now the man with the ox whip, coming forward. "And be all your stores got in for the v"yage? I don"t want to be comin" back from somewheres about half-way."
"All right, Mr. Sears," said Lois. "You may drive on. Mother, are you comfortable?"
And then there was a "whoa"-ing and a "gee"-ing and a mysterious flourishing of the long leathern whip, with which the driver seemed to be playing; for if its tip touched the shoulders of the oxen it did no more, though it waved over them vigorously. But the oxen understood, and pulled the cart forward; lifting and setting down their heavy feet with great deliberation seemingly, but with equal certain"ty, and swaying their great heads gently from side to side as they went. Lois was so much amused at her guests" situation, that she had some difficulty to keep her features in their due calmness and sobriety.
Mrs. Lenox eyed the oxen, then the contents of the cart, then the fields.
"Slow travelling!" said Lois, with a smile.
"Can they go no faster?"
"They could go a little faster if they were urged; but that would spoil the comfort of the whole thing. The entire genius of a ride in an ox cart is, that everybody should take his ease."
"Oxen included?" said Mr. Lenox.
"Why not?"
"Why not, indeed!" said the gentleman, smiling. "Only, ordinary people cannot get rid easily of the notion that the object of going is to get somewhere."
"That"s not the object in this case," Lois answered merrily. "The one sole object is fun."
Mrs. Lenox said nothing more, but her face spoke as plainly as possible, And you call _this_ fun!
"I am enjoying myself very much," said Mrs. Barclay. "I think it is delightful."
Something in her manner of speech made Mr. Lenox look at her. She was sitting next him on the cart bottom.
"Perhaps this is a new experience also to you?" he said.
"Delightfully new. Never rode in an ox cart before in my life; hardly ever saw one, in fact. We are quite out of the race and struggle and uneasiness of the world, don"t you see? There comes down a feeling of repose upon one, softly, as Longfellow says--
"As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight."
Only I should say in this case it was from the wing of an angel."
"Mrs. Barclay, you are too poetical for an ox cart," said Lois, laughing. "If we began to be poetical, I am afraid the repose would be troubled."
""Twont du Poetry no harm to go in an ox cart," remarked here the ox driver.
"I agree with you, sir," said Mrs. Barclay. "Poetry would not be Poetry if she could not ride anywhere. But why should she trouble repose.
Lois?"
"Yes," added Mr. Lenox; "I was about to ask that question. I thought poetry was always soothing. Or that the ladies at least think so."
"I like it well enough," said Lois, "but I think it is apt to be melancholy. Except in hymns."
"_Except_ hymns!" said Mrs. Lenox. "I thought hymns were always sad.
They deal so much with death and the grave."
"And the resurrection!" said Lois.
"They always make _me_ gloomy," the lady went on. "The resurrection! do you call that a lively subject?"
"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose," said her husband. "But, Miss Lothrop, I cannot recover from my surprise at your a.s.sertion respecting non-religious poetry."
Lois left that statement alone. She did not care whether he recovered or not. Mr. Lenox, however, was curious.
"I wish you would show me on what your opinion is founded," he went on pleasantly.
"Yes, Lois, justify yourself," said Mrs. Barclay.
"I could not do that without making quotations, Mrs. Barclay, and I am afraid I cannot remember enough. Besides, it would hardly be interesting."
"To me it would," said Mrs. Barclay. "Where could one have a better time? The oxen go so comfortably, and leisure is so graciously abundant."
"Pray go on, Miss Lothrop!" Mr. Lenox urged.
"And then I hope you"ll go on and prove hymns lively," added his wife.
The conversation which followed was long enough to have a chapter to itself; and so may be comfortably skipped by any who are so inclined.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
POETRY.
"Perhaps you will none of you agree with me," Lois said; "and I do not know much poetry; but there seems to me to run an undertone of lament and weariness through most of what I know. Now take the "Death of the Flowers,"--that you were reading yesterday, Mrs. Barclay--
"The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more."