Hills of the Shatemuc Part 27

The party landed and scattered with cries of delight far and near over the valley. Even Elizabeth's composure gave way. For a little while they did nothing but scatter; to sit still and pick was impossible; for the novelty and richness of the store seemed made for the eye as much as for anything else, and be the berries never so red in one place they seemed redder in another. Winthrop and Asahel, however, were soon steadily at work, and then little Winifred; and after a time Miss Cadwallader found that the berries were good for more than to look at, and Rufus had less trouble to keep in her neighbourhood. But it was a good while before Elizabeth began to pick either for lip or basket; she stood on the viney knolls, and looked, and smelled the air, and searched with her eye the openings in the luxuriant foliage that walled in the valley. At last, making a review of the living members of the picture, the young lady bethought herself, and set to work with great steadiness to cover the bottom of her basket.

In the course of this business, moving hither and thither as the bunches of red fruit tempted her, and without raising an eye beyond them, she was picking close to one of the parties before she knew whom she was near; and as they were in like ignorance she heard Asahel say,

"I wish Rufus would pick -- he does nothing but eat, ever since he came; he and Miss Rose."

"You don't expect _her_ to pick for you, do you?" said Winthrop.

"She might just as well as for me to pick for her," said Asahel.

"Do you think we'll get enough for mamma, Governor?" said little Winifred in a very sweet, and a little anxious, voice.

"We'll try," said her brother.

"O you've got a great parcel! -- but I have only so many, -- Governor?"

"There's more where those came from, Winnie."

"Here are some to help," said Elizabeth coming up and emptying her own strawberries into the little girl's basket. Winifred looked down at the fresh supply and up into the young lady's face, and then gave her an "Oh thank you!" of such frank pleasure and astonishment that Elizabeth's energies were at once nerved. But first of all she went to see what Miss Cadwallader was about.

Miss Cadwallader was squatting in a nest of strawberries, with red finger-ends.

"Rose -- how many have you picked?"

"I haven't the least idea. Aren't they splendid?"

"Haven't you any in your basket?"

"Basket? -- no, -- where is my basket?" said she looking round.

"No, to be sure I haven't. I don't want any basket."

"Why don't you help?"

"Help? I've been helping myself, till I'm tired. Come here and sit down, Bess. Aren't they splendid? Don't you want to rest?"

"No."

Miss Rose, however, quitted the strawberries and placed herself on a rock.

"Where's my helper? -- O yonder, -- somebody's got hold of him.

Lizzie, -- who'd have thought we should be so well off for beaux here in the mountains?"

The other's brow and lip changed, but she stood silent.

"They don't act like farmer's sons, do they? I never should have guessed it if I had seen them anywhere else. Look, Lizzie, -- now isn't he handsome? I never saw such eyes."

Elizabeth did not look, but she spoke, and the words lacked no point that lips could give them.

"I am thankful, Rose, that my head does not run upon the things that yours does!"

"What does yours run upon then?" said Rose pouting. "The other one, I suppose. That's the one you were helping with your strawberries just now. I dont think it is the wisest thing Mr.

Haye has ever done, to send you and me here; -- it's a pity there wasn't somebody to warn him."

"Rose!" -- said the other, and her eyes seemed to lighten, one to the other, as she spoke, -- "you know I don't like such talk -- I detest and despise it! -- it is utterly beneath me. You may indulge in all the nonsense you please, and descend to what you please; -- but please to understand, _I will not hear it_."

Miss Cadwallader's eye fairly gave way under the lightning.

Elizabeth's words were delivered with an intensity that kept them quiet, though with the last degree of clear utterance; and turning, as Rufus came up, she gave him a glare of her dark brown eyes that astonished him, and made off with a quick step to a part of the field where she could pick strawberries at a distance from everybody. She picked them somehow by instinct; she did not know what she was doing; her face rivalled their red bunches; and she picked with a kind of fury. That being the only way she had of venting her indignation, she threw it into her basket along with the strawberries. She hadn't worked so hard the whole afternoon.

She edged away from the rest towards a wild corner, where amid rocks and bushes the strawberry vines spread rich and rank and the berries were larger and finer than any she had seen. She was determined to have a fine basketful for Winifred.

But she was unused to such stooping and steady work, and as she cooled down she grew very tired. She was in a rough grown place and she mounted on a rock and stood up to rest herself and look.

Pretty -- pretty, it was. It was almost time to go home, for the sun was out of their strawberry patch and the woody walls were a few shades deeper coloured than they had been; while over the river, on the other side, the steep rocks of the home point sent back a warm glow yet. The hills beyond them stood in the sun, and in close contrast was the little deep green patch of fore-ground, lit up with the white or the gay dresses of the strawberry pickers. The sweet river, a bit of it, in the middle of the picture, half in suns.h.i.+ne, half in shade. It was like a little nest of fairy-land; so laughed the suns.h.i.+ne, so dwelt the shade, in this spot and in that one. Elizabeth stood fast. It was bewitching to the eyes. And while she looked, the shadow of Wut-a-qut-o was creeping over the river, and now ready to take off the warm browns of the rocky point.

She was thinking it was bewitching, and drinking it in, when she felt two hands clasp her by the waist, and suddenly, swiftly, without a word of warning, she was swung off, clear to another rock about two yards distant, and there set down, "all standing." In bewildered astonishment, that only waited to become indignation, she turned to see whom she was to be angry with. n.o.body was near her but Winthrop, and he had disappeared behind the rock on which she had just been standing. Elizabeth was not precisely in a mood for cool judgment; she stood like an offended brood-hen, with ruffled feathers, waiting to fly at the first likely offender. The rest of the party began to draw near.

"Come Lizzie, we're going home," said her cousin.

"I am not," said Elizabeth.

"Why?"

"Because I am not ready."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing -- only I am not ready."

"The sun's out of Bright Spot now, Miss Haye," said Rufus, with a somewhat mischievous play of feature.

Elizabeth was deaf.

"Winthrop has killed a rattlesnake!" exclaimed Asahel from the rock; -- "Winthrop has killed a rattlesnake!"

And Winthrop came round the bushes bringing his trophy; a large snake that counted nine rattles. They all pressed round, as near as they dared, to look and admire; all but Elizabeth, who stood on her rock and did not stir.

"Where was it? where was it?" --

"When I first saw him, he was curled up on the rock very near to Miss Haye, but he slid down among the bushes before I could catch him. We must take care when we come here now, for the mate must be somewhere."

"_I'll_ never come here again," said Miss Cadwallader. "O come!

-- let us go!"

"Did _you_ move me?" said Elizabeth, with the air of a judge putting a query.

Winthrop looked up, and answered yes.

"Why didn't you ask me to move myself?"

"I would," said Winthrop calmly, -- "if I could have got word to the snake to keep quiet."