"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give anything for a house like that. Snug, isn"t it?"
She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of course," thought I, "she means that."
"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."
She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
Perhaps--
"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.
I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one"s self on sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation, looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me, whispered--
"That"s dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I"ll give you something nice."
"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of them--delicious!
The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. a.s.suredly my new acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is the Queen of England.
I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice, as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
"Look a-here," says she. "Isn"t this something nice?"
I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund impostor came toward me, beaming.
"There," says she, "take right hold. It"s first-rate Cognac."
All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.
Disappointment sharpened virtue"s indignation.
"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud--in Christian charity I will call it hospitable--on a New England lady, who looks upon temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws!
Well, every one to her taste."
Here she filled the gla.s.s again and held it out, smiling like a harvest moon.
"What, you won"t take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"
I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second gla.s.s as it went down that perfidious creature"s throat.
"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"
This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his hand.
There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!
THE END.