inquired aunt Hannah, setting the gathers in a neck-gusset with the point of her needle, which she dashed in and out as if it had been a poniard, and that cotton cloth her enemy"s heart.
"You always. .h.i.t the nail right on the head when you do strike, aunt Hannah. She don"t want her gal to come here, nor your gal to come there; that"s the long and short on it."
"What for?" inquired uncle Nathan, moving uneasily in his great wooden chair. "Isn"t our little gal good enough?"
"Good enough, gracious me, I wonder if she thinks anybody in these parts good enough for her to wipe her silk slippers on? Why, she speaks of Judge Sharp as if he was n.o.body, and of the country here as if G.o.d hadn"t made it."
"But what has she against that poor child?" inquired aunt Hannah, sternly.
"She ain"t handsome, and she came from the Poor-House; isn"t that enough?" answered Salina, stretching forth her hand, and counting each word down with a finger into the palm of her hand as if it had been a coin. "She"s homely, she came from the poor-house, and more than all, she lives here."
"So she remembers us, then?" said aunt Hannah, resting the point of her needle in a gather while she steadied her hand.
"Yes, you are the only people she has asked about, and her way of doing it was snappish enough, I can tell you."
"I have not seen this woman in sixteen years," said aunt Hannah, thoughtfully, "we change a good deal in that time."
"She hasn"t changed much, though; fallen away a little; her red cheeks have turned to a kind of papery white; her mouth has grown thin and _meachen_; there"s something kind o" lathy and unsartin about her; as for temper that"s just the same, only a little more so, sharp as a muskeeters bill, tanterlizing as a green nettle. The rattlesnake is a king to her; there"s something worth while about his bite, it"s strong and in arnest, it kills a feller right off; but she keeps a nettling and harrering one about all the time, without making an end on"t, I wish you could see her with that poor little gal, dressing her up as if she was a rag-baby, scolding her one minute, kissing her the next, calling her here, sending her there, I declare to man, it"s enough to put one out of conceit with all womankind."
"Where is Mrs. Farnham"s son now?" inquired uncle Nathan, to whose genial heart the sharp opinions of his visitor came unpleasantly; "he ought to be a smart young fellow by this time."
"I don"t know who he"d take after then," observed the housekeeper, drily.
"His father was an enterprising man, understood business, knew how to take care of what he made," said uncle Nathan. "We never had many smarter men than Farnham here in the mountains."
"Farnham was a villain!" exclaimed aunt Hannah, whose face to the very lips had been growing white as she listened.
Uncle Nathan started as if a shot had pa.s.sed through his easy-chair.
"Hannah!"
The old woman did not seem to hear him, but lowering her face over her work sewed on rapidly, but the whiteness of her face still continued, and you could see by the unequal motion of the cotton kerchief folded over her bosom, that she was suppressing some powerful emotion.
Uncle Nathan was not a man to press any unpleasant subject upon another; but he seemed a good deal hurt by his sister"s strange manner; and sat nervously grasping and ungrasping the arm of his chair, looking alternately at her and Salina, while the silence continued.
"Well," said Salina, who had no delicate scruples of this kind to struggle with, "you do beat all, aunt Hannah; I hadn"t the least idea that there was so much vinegar in you. Now Mr. Farnham was a kind of father to me, and I"m bound to keep any body from raking up his ashes in the grave."
"Let them rest there--let them rest there!" exclaimed aunt Hannah, slowly folding up her work. "I did not mean to speak his name, but it is said, and I will not take anything back."
"Well, n.o.body wants you to, that I know of; it"s a kind of duty to defend one"s friends, especially when they can"t do it for themselves; but after all Mr. Farnham up and married that critter, I don"t know as it"s any business of mine, what you call him."
"I remember his mother," said uncle Nathan, striving to shake off the heavy feeling that his sister had created.
"I remember her well, for she took me for sort of company," said Salina. "I was a little gal then; Farnham hadn"t made all his money, and he was glad enough for me to settle down and do his work. But it was awful lonesome, I can tell you, after she was gone; and I used to go down into the grave-yard and set down by her head-stone for company, day after day. But it was afore this then your sister came to help spin up the wool--wasn"t she a harnsome critter?--your sister Anne."
Aunt Hannah seemed turning into marble, her face and hands grew so deathly white; but she neither moved nor spoke.
Uncle Nathan did not speak either, but he pressed both hands down on the arms of his chair, and half rose; but he fell back as if the effort were too much, and with one faint struggle sat still, with the tears of a long-buried grief stealing down his cheeks.
"Well, what have I done wrong now?" asked Salina, looking from the old man to the pallid sister, and shaking her head till the horn comb rose like a crest among her fiery tresses.
"We haven"t mentioned Anne"s name between us in more than fifteen years; and it comes hard to hear it now," answered uncle Nathan, drawing first one plump hand and then another across his eyes.
"I didn"t mean any harm by it," answered the housekeeper, penitently, "she was a sweet, purty crittur as ever lived; and no one felt worse than I did when she died in that strange way."
"Hush!" said aunt Hannah, standing up, pale even to ghastliness. "It is you that rake up the ashes of the dead--ashes--ashes"--
The words died on her pale lips; she reached out her hands as if to lay hold of something, and fell senseless to the floor.
Salina seized a pitcher that stood on the table, rushed out to the water trough and back again, so like a spirit that the two little girls in the porch broke from each other"s arms and shrieked aloud.
But they recognized her when she came back and stood trembling by the door, while she dashed the contents of her pitcher both over the fainting woman and the kind old man that knelt by her.
It had no effect. Aunt Hannah opened her eyes but once during the next hour. Neither the chilly water nor the old brother"s terror had power to reach the numbed pulses of her life.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
AUTUMN IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The children gazed with a grateful thrill, "Twas a glorious sight I know-- Those cornfields sweeping o"er the hill-- Those meadow-slopes below!-- Tall mountain ridges rich with light, Broke up the crimson skies, Their refted blossoms burning bright, With autumn"s fervid dies.
It was fortunate for Isabel that Mrs. Farnham was unstable even in her petty oppressions. While the country was a novelty she would not allow the child out of her sight. But after a little her agent sent her up from the city a dashing carriage and a superb pair of grey horses, which she gloried in supposing excelled even the n.o.ble animals with which Judge Sharp had brought her over the mountains.
These new objects soon drove Isabel from her position as chief favorite, and she was allowed to run at large without much constraint.
This threw her a good deal with Salina Bowles, in whom she found a rough but true-hearted friend. What was far better than this, it left her free to visit Mary Fuller, and it was not long before the child was almost as much at home with dear old uncle Nat, as Mary herself.
It was pleasant to watch the two girls meet in the garden when Mary returned from school, and go about the household work together so cheerfully. That working-time was the sunny hour of Isabel"s day, she did so love the order and quiet of the old homestead.
But the autumn drew on, and Mrs. Farnham began to talk of returning to the city. It was time, she said, that Isabel should be placed at boarding-school, where all her old vulgar a.s.sociations might be polished away, and that she might be taught the dignity of her present position.
These threats, for they appeared to poor Isabel in this light, only made her cling more tenaciously to her friend, and every moment she could steal from the exactions of her benefactress was spent at the Old Homestead or among the hills where Mary wandered with a deeper and deeper interest as the autumn wore on.
One night, while the foliage was green and thrifty on the mountain ridges, there came a sharp frost, and in the morning all the hill-sides were in a blaze of gorgeous tints.
Never in their whole lives had the children seen anything like this.
It seemed to them as if the trees had laced themselves with rainbows that must melt away when a cloud came over the sun.
It was Sat.u.r.day. There was no school, and Uncle Nat insisted on doing all the "ch.o.r.es" himself, that the little girls might have a play-spell in the woods--but for this, I greatly fear the wild creatures would have run off without leave, they were so crazy to see what those gorgeous trees were like, close to.
Below Judge Sharp"s house, and near the bold sweep of the highway that led into the village, there was an abrupt hill, crested with a ledge of rocks, which formed a platform high above the road--and back of that the forest crowded up like an army in rich uniform--checked in battle array upon the eminence.
A footpath wound up the face of this hill, and under a shelf of the rocks that crowned it, gushed a spring of pure bright water, that lost itself in diamond drops among the gra.s.s and ferns that hung over it.
To this spot, which commanded a fine expanse of the valley, Mary and Isabel went for the first time, that Sat.u.r.day afternoon.
They were tired with mounting the hill and sat down by the spring to rest.