Hills of the Shatemuc Part 25

"I dare say. Every place is."

"Pshaw! don't be obstinate, -- when you think just as I do."

"I never did yet, about anything," said Elizabeth.

"Well, how do _you_ like eating in a room with a great dresser of tin dishes on one side and the fire where your meat was cooked on the other? -- in June?"

"I didn't see the tin dishes; and there wasn't any fire, of consequence."

"But did you ever see such a gallant old farmer? Isn't he comical? didn't he keep it up?"

"Not better than you did," said Elizabeth.

"But isn't he comical?"

"No; neither comical nor old. I thought you seemed to like him very well."

"O, one must do something. La! you aren't going to get up yet?"

But Elizabeth was already at the south window and had it open.

Early it was; the sun not more than half an hour high, and taking his work coolly, like one who meant to do a great deal before the day was ended. A faint dewy sparkle on the gra.s.s and the sweetbriars; the song sparrows giving good-morrow to each other and tuning their throats for the day; and a few wood thrushes now and then telling of their shyer and rarer neighbourhood. The river was asleep, it seemed, it lay so still.

"Lizzie! -- you ought to be in bed yet these two hours -- I shall tell Mr. Haye, if you don't take care of yourself."

"Have the goodness to go to sleep, and let me and Mr. Haye take care of each other," said the girl dryly.

Her cousin looked at her a minute, and then turning her eyes from the light, obeyed her first request and went fast asleep.

A little while after the door opened and Elizabeth stood in the kitchen. It was already in beautiful order. She could sec the big dresser now, but the tin and crockery and almost the wooden shelves shone, they were so clean. And they shone in the light of an opposite fire; but though the second of June, the air so early in the morning was very fresh; Elizabeth found it pleasant to take her stand on the hearth, near the warm blaze. And while she stood there, first came in Karen and put on the big iron tea-kettle; and then came Mrs. Landholm with a table-cloth and began to set the table. Elizabeth looked alternately at her and at the tea-kettle; both almost equally strange; she rather took a fancy to both. Certainly to the former. Her gown was spare, shewing that means were so, and her cap was the plainest of muslin caps, without lace or bedecking; yet in the quiet ordering of gown and cap and the neat hair, a quiet and ordered mind was almost confessed; and not many glances at the calm mouth and grave brow and thoughtful eye, would make the opinion good. It was a very comfortable home picture, Elizabeth thought, in a different line of life from that she was accustomed to, -- the farmer's wife and the tea-kettle, the dresser and the breakfast table, and the wooden kitchen floor and the stone hearth. She did not know what a contrast _she_ made in it; her dainty little figure, very nicely dressed, standing on the flag-stones before the fire. Mrs. Landholm felt it, and doubted.

"How do you like the place, Miss Haye?" she ventured.

To her surprise the answer was an energetic, "Very much."

"Then you are not afraid of living in a farm-house?"

"If I don't like living in it, I'll live out of it," said Elizabeth, returning a very dignified answer to Winthrop's 'good-morning' as he pa.s.sed through the kitchen.

"Are you going down to Cowslip's mill, Governor?" said Mrs.

Landholm.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You will lose your breakfast."

"I must take the turn of the tide. Never mind breakfast."

"Going down after my trunks?" said Elizabeth.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'll go too. Wait a minute!"

And she was in her room before a word could be said.

"But Miss Haye," said Mrs. Landholm, as she came out with bonnet and shawl, "you won't go without your breakfast? It will be ready long before you can get back."

"Breakfast can wait."

"But you will want it."

"No -- I don't care if I do."

And down she ran to the rocks, followed by Asahel.

There was a singular still sweetness in the early summer morning on the water. The air seemed to have twice the life it had the evening before; the light was fair, beyond words to tell. Here its fresh gilding was upon a mountain slope; there it stretched in a long misty beam athwart a deep valley; it touched the broken points of rock, and glanced on the river, and seemed to make merry with the birds; fresh, gladsome and pure as their song. No token of man's busy life yet in the air; the birds had it. Only over Shahweetah valley, and from Mr. Underhill's chimney on the other side of the river, and from Sam Doolittle's in the bay, thin wreaths of blue smoke slowly went up, telling that there, -- and there, -- and there, -- man was getting ready for his day's work, and woman had begun hers! Only those, and the soft stroke of Winthrop's oars; but to Elizabeth that seemed only play. She sat perfectly still, her eye varying from their regular dip to the sunny rocks of the headland, to the coloured mountain heads, the trees, the river, the curling smoke, -- and back again to the oars; with a grave, intent, deep notice-taking. The water was neither for nor against them now; and with its light load and its good oars the boat flew. Diver's Rock was pa.s.sed; then they got out of the suns.h.i.+ne into the cool shadow of the eastern sh.o.r.e below the bay, and fell down the river fast to the mill. Not a word was spoken by anybody till they got there.

Nor then by Elizabeth, till she saw Mr. Cowslip and Winthrop bringing her trunks and boxes to the boat-side.

"Hollo! you've got live cargo too, Governor," said the old miller. "That aint fair, -- Mornin'! -- The box is safe."

"Are you going to put those things in here?" said Elizabeth.

"Sartain," said Mr. Cowslip; -- "book-box and all."

"But they'll be too much for the boat?"

"Not at all," said Winthrop; "it was only because the tide was so low last night -- there wasn't water enough in the bay. I am not going in the bay this morning."

"No," said Mr. Cowslip, -- "tide's just settin' up along sh.o.r.e -- you can keep along the edge of the flats."

"You have load enough without them. Don't put 'em in here, sir!" Elizabeth exclaimed; -- "let them go in the other boat -- your boat -- you said you had a boat -- it's at home now, isn't it?"

"Sartain," said Mr. Cowslip, "it's to hum, so it can start off again as soon as you like. My boy Hild can fetch up the things for you -- if you think it's worth while to have it cost you a dollar."

"I don't care what it costs," said Elizabeth. "Send 'em up right away, and I'll pay for it."

So Winthrop dropped into his place again, and lightly and swiftly as before the boat went on her way back towards the blue smoke that curled up over Shahweetah; and Elizabeth's eyes again roved silently and enjoyingly from one thing to another. But they returned oftener to the oars, and rested there, and at last when they were about half way home, she said,

"I want to learn how to manage an oar -- will you let me take one and try?"

Winthrop helped her to change her seat and put an oar into her hand, and gave her directions. The first attempts took effect upon nothing but Asahel's face, which gave witness to his amus.e.m.e.nt; and perhaps Winthrop's dress, which was largely splashed in the course of a few minutes. But Elizabeth did not seem to heed or care for either; she was intent upon the great problem of making her oar _feel_ the water; and as gravely, if not quite so coolly, as Winthrop's instructions were delivered, she worked at her oar to follow them. A few random strokes, which did not seem to discriminate very justly between water and air, and then her oar had got hold of the water and was telling, though irregularly and fitfully, upon the boat. The difficulty was mastered; and she pulled with might and main for half the rest of the way home; Winthrop having nothing to do with his one oar but to keep the two sides of the boat together, till her arm was tired.

"Next time I'll take both oars," she said with a face of great satisfaction as she put herself back in her old seat. Asahel thought it would cure her of wearing pale cheeks, but he did not venture to make any remark.

Rose was waiting for them, sitting crouched discontentedly on the rocks.

"It's eight o'clock!" -- said she, -- "and I'm as hungry as a bear!"