"Now, there"s Miss Nancy! There"s been a heap of fun poked at me, first and last, for building my house in the shape I did. Though, for the life of me, I can"t see why I should be obleeged to live in a four-square box because every other man-Jack in Pow"tan County builds his in that way. Miss Nancy was always mighty nervous from the time she was a child; I knew it when I married her. Fact is, she says to me: "Cap"n Gates, I"m as nervous as a witch, and I"m afraid you"ll get out of patience with me sometimes, and I wouldn"t blame you if you did."
And, says I,--my hand right on my heart,--"Miss Nancy Miller! if you"ll take _me_ as I am, I"ll be proud and happy to take _you_ as you are, nerves and all!" says I. "The proudest man in the State of Virginia,"
says I. "Call it a bargain."
"And she did--bless her soul! It was the best bargain that ever I made, or ever expect to make, too. Some men marry Temper, and some Extravagant Notions, and some Vanity, and some Jealous, Suspicious Dispositions, and some, again, Stinginess--Good gracious! there"s no end to the disagreeable things men _do_ marry! I married _Nerves!_ and with them, the best and sweetest and, to my way of thinking, the prettiest woman in the County and State, and the Universe, and I"ve been thankful for it every day and every hour since--G.o.d bless her!"
I waited for him to say something more until I began to wonder, then to get impatient, that he let the horse jog along, the soft creak of the gig keeping time with the leisurely motions of the pampered beast, the master"s eyes fixed upon the wheel he was tapping with his whip, as if he had forgotten me entirely.
I made a bold effort to reopen the conversation.
"I suppose Cousin Nancy asked you to build your house round, instead of square?"
I had heard so many different stories about the odd structure which was one of the county curiosities that I was anxious to get at the truth.
He laughed low and pleasantly:--
"Ask me! Not she, bless your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. "Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn"t sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a b.u.mblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many"s the time I"ve heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull down the old house, anyhow. It was a rickety concern, and inconvenient as could be. So I got Miss Nancy to tell me how many rooms and closets and all that she"d like to have in a house that was to be built on purpose for her, and for n.o.body else, and I made a plan of it all on paper, and then I sent her up to stay with her mother in Buckingham County for six months, going up to see her myself every Sat.u.r.day to spend Sunday--like a n.i.g.g.e.r going to his "wife-house,""--here he stopped to laugh again--"until the last window-shutter was hung, and all the furniture put back and in order--Je_rew_salem! how I _did_ work! Then I brought her home. I wish you could have seen her face when we came in sight of the solid brick house--round as a cheese box--and I told her I had it built in that shape, so"s she should never be made sorrowful, nor kept awake again by the wind a-cutting up shines around sharp corners, so long as we both should live--Amen!"
He jerked a blazing red bandanna handkerchief out of his pocket, turning his face clear away from me to do it, and blew his nose until the woods rang as with the echoes of a foxhunter"s horn, then rolled the handkerchief into a ball and polished his face with it in the oddest possible fashion.
Most of the tales current about the round brick house had something to do with Cousin Nancy"s whims, especially with her dislike to hearing the wind blow around the corners. Young as I was, I felt, after hearing Cousin "Ratio"s story, that he had done a beautiful thing in planning the ingenious surprise for his delicate wife. It crossed my mind, too, that she might have thought the house as ridiculous as other people did, yet pretended to like it sooner than hurt his feelings. She must be a good and devoted wife. Furthermore, I got into my foolish head the notion that it was nice and interesting to have Nerves. I resolved to get a set of my own at an early opportunity and to work them well. To this end, I would watch Cousin Nancy"s ways and copy them as closely as a little girl could copy the behavior of a grown-up heroine.
She met us in the porch of the house, crying out with pleasure at sight of me.
"That"s a little lady, not to be afraid to come all by herself to see two quiet old folks!" she said as she kissed me. "I ought to have had a dozen girls and boys for you to play with by this time--but I haven"t a single one."
She laughed in saying it, yet with such sincere regret of face and accent that I answered, without taking time to think:--
"I"m mighty sorry you haven"t!" Catching myself up, I blundered on: "Not that you and Cousin "Ratio are not company enough for me. But it seems a pity that, in this pretty place, with so many peaches and watermelons and flowers--and pigeons--and chickens--and all that--there are not any children to eat, and to play with them--and keep you company. I"ve heard mother say, "Home wouldn"t be Home without the babies.""
"Your mother is right, child! Your mother is right!"
The words seemed to stick in her throat, and to sc.r.a.pe it as she got them out. Then, to my horror, she sank into a rocking-chair, and, throwing her hands over her face, began to cry, with queer little squeals between the sobs that shook her all over.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A TEA-PARTY IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE.
"Dovey appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream."]
Malviny, her mulatto maid, ran to her with a bottle of hartshorn, and Cousin "Ratio knelt upon the floor by her and put his arm about her, and fanned her with a turkey-tail fan, and another colored woman rushed off to the kitchen, and was back in a jiffy with a bunch of feathers all on fire, and making a dreadful smell, and stuck them under her mistress"s nose. I backed to the door with a wild notion of getting out of the way, and running back home, yet could not tear myself away from the unusual scene.
As soon as Cousin Nancy could speak, she laughed at sight of my face,--the tears still dripping all the way to her chin,--and held out her arms:--
"Poor little lammie! did I frighten the life out of her? You mustn"t mind my nervous turns, dear. They don"t mean anything."
"I was afraid I had said something I oughtn"t to," I faltered, on the verge of tears. "I"m sorry if I did!"
Whereupon I was drawn close to her, and kissed three times to a.s.sure me that I was the "best little girl in the world, and that she wouldn"t give way again."
"But, you see, I had got so nervous because you were gone so long, and you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened,"
she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his bearded face against hers.
"That"s like you! Always thinking of other people, and never of yourself!" he said admiringly.
She thought a great deal of me for the rest of my visit, ordering Malviny to cut out and make a doll"s pelisse for me of a lovely piece of red silk, saying that she would have done it herself if sewing did not make her so nervous.
"I haven"t darned a sock or hemmed a pocket-handkerchief for Cap"n Gates in ten years. If he were not the best man on earth, he would have sent me packing long ago."
She despatched another servant to the garret for some toys her sister"s children had left with her last year, and gave me permission to pull all the flowers I wanted in the garden. I carried three maimed dolls, a headless horse, a three-legged cat, and a Britannia tea-set to a summer-house at the end of a long walk, and made believe that I was t.i.tania, the Queen of the Fairies, of whom I had read in a tattered copy of Shakespeare I found in a lumber closet. By and by, Malviny brought out to me a pretty china plate with four sugar cakes, shaped like ivy leaves, and a gla.s.s of very sweet lemonade. Awhile later, Dovey, a half-grown girl, appeared with a large saucer of peaches and cream, plentifully sugared.
"Mistis says you must eat "em all, for she knows you mus" be mighty thirsty, and peaches is coolin" for little ladies whar"s been sick."
There were still some cake crumbs and a spoonful of peaches left when I saw Cousin Nancy herself come sailing down the walk.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Chapter XV
Side-Blades & Water-Melons
My far-away cousin could never have been pretty except to a fond husband"s eyes. I should have liked to think her tolerably good-looking now, since he loved her so dearly and praised her so enthusiastically, and she was so much more than good to me. I could not help using and believing the eyes that showed me a tall, lean woman whose skin, once fair, was now nearly as yellow as the freckles spattered all over her forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. Nose and chin were long, her cheek-bones were high, her eyes were pale, the lashes so light and thin as to be scarcely visible at all, and her scanty flaxen hair was dragged tightly away from a high bony forehead. Her gown to-day was white cambric, as clean, as glossy, and as opaque as cream-laid letter-paper. Her head was bare, and she carried over it a green parasol which made her complexion livid. Her voice was soft and sweet, and her manners were liked by everybody. I was glad to think of these things, and to feel the charm of tone and manner, as she asked if I "would not like to pay a visit to the peaches and watermelons."
I should have preferred to stay where I was, having got very well acquainted with my attendant fairies, and eaten enough sweets to take the edge from my appet.i.te, even for ripe, fresh fruit. Still, I got up with a tolerable show of cordiality, comprehending that she meant to please me, took the hand she offered, and was soon out of the cool shade in the open field separating garden from orchard. Captain Gates was really as proud of his reputation as the most successful fruit-grower in the county as his wife was, although he affected to ridicule her weakness in the same direction. There were two acres of peach trees, most of them laden with fruit. When pressed to "eat all I could swallow," I managed to do away with three immense globes of crimson-and-gold, and then gave out, shamefacedly:--
"You see I am so little, and the peaches are so big!" I urged. "I hold just so many and no more."
"Of course, you comical little thing!" interrupted Cousin Nancy, highly amused. "By and by, on our way back from the watermelon patch, maybe there will be more room. I shan"t ask you to pick the melons from the vines and eat _them_ by the dozen. Come along!"
She did not seem to mind the heat that struck upon my face and head like the breath of an oven, as we crossed another open field, to that in which Captain Gates"s famous melons lay by the hundred, growing larger and more luscious in the August sunlight that warmed them through and through. Some were dark green, some light green, some were streaked and mottled with white-and-green.
"Oh, Cousin Nancy!" I cried, "I did not know there were so many in the world! What _will_ you do with them all?"
She led the way farther into the network of vines, the rank leaves and starry blossoms bobbing about her feet. The fruit and flowers of Cold Comfort did something toward filling the place left void in her heart by the lack of the children that had never come. She stood still and looked over the wide patch as if she had made every melon there, and meant to have the full credit for her work.
"Do with them, monkey! Why they are as good as a silver mine--the beauties! Every full-grown one stands for a quarter of a dollar. We send six wagon-loads to Richmond every week, and people come for them from every direction--as far as across the river in Goochland; and we give dozens away to our neighbors, and the negroes come at night to steal them--Oh! _oh!!_ OH!!!"
She gathered her skirts tightly and high above her ankles with both hands, letting the green parasol tumble, head foremost, to the ground, and screeched as if she had trod upon a yellow-jacket"s nest. She was going to have Nerves again, with no hartshorn, or burnt feathers, or turkey-tail fan, or Cousin "Ratio near. I started to run to the house for help, but she grabbed my frock frantically.
"If you budge one inch you are a dead child!" she wheezed, her pale eyes bulging from the sockets. "Cap"n Gates and the overseer came out here last night and just sowed all this patch with side-blades!"
(Scythe-blades.) "Edges up! Sharp as razors and thick as thieves!
Hundreds of them! To keep the negroes from stealing any more of them! I heard Cap"n Gates tell them he was going to do it, and the overseer told them this morning that they _had_ done it. And I haven"t an atom of an idea where a solitary one of the murderous things is! We are as good as dead if we try to get out. We might tread upon one, at the first step!
How could I forget it? Oh, how could I?"
I felt the blood drain away from my face, and I trembled as violently as she. Then a thought came to me, and I got it out between chattering teeth.
"We didn"t tread on any of them coming into the patch."