Chanticleer Part 2

"Well, what do you think; we were in lat.i.tude--no matter, you don't care about that--we had just come out of a great gale, which made the sea pitch-dark about us; when the first beam of the sun opened the clouds, we found ourselves along side a s.h.i.+p with the old stars and stripes flying like a bird at the mast-head. There was a sight, my hearties. We hailed her, she hailed us, we threw her papers, she threw us, and we parted forever."

"Is that all?"

"Not half. One of these was a list of pa.s.sengers; I run my eye up, and I run my eye down, and there, s.h.i.+ning out like a star amongst them all, I find, whose d'ye think--Elbridge Peabody--as large as life."

Miriam Haven staggered against the door-post, the widow fell upon her knees, "Thank G.o.d, my boy is heard from."

Little Sam Peabody darted from the Captain's knee and rushed upon the balcony, crying at the top of his lungs, "Grandfather, brother Elbridge is heard from."

"I don't believe it," said William Peabody; the poor old blind sorrel had disappeared from sight into a piece of woods near the orchard, and the merchant had quite recovered his usual way of speaking. "Never will believe it. You hav'nt heard of that youngster,--never will. Always knew he would run away some day--never come back again."

The Captain's story was rapidly explained by the different members of the family, who had followed little Sam, to repeat it to old Sylvester, each in her own way. Miriam and Hannah Peabody, who at sound of the commotion had come forth from an inner chamber, whither she had been retired by herself, joined the company of lookers on.

"What all amount to," he continued, in his peculiar clipped style of speech. "Expect to see him again, do you. Mighty fine chance--where going to?"

The Captain could'nt tell.

"One of the Captain's fine stories--no--no--if that boy ever comes back again, I'll--"

There was a deep silence to hear what the hard old merchant proposed.

"I'll hand over to him the management of his late father's property, he was always hankering after, and thought he could make so much more of than his hard-fisted old uncle."

This was a comfortable proposition, and little Sam Peabody, as though it were a great pear or red pippin that was spoken of, running to his mother, said,

"Mother, I'd take it."

"I do," said the widow, "and call you all to witness."

William Peabody smiled grimly on Margaret; his countenance darkened suddenly, and he was, no doubt, on the point of retracting his confident offer, when his wife uttered in an under tone, half entreaty, half authority, "William," at the same time turning on her husband the side of the countenance which wore the green shade. He stifled what he intended to utter, and s.h.i.+fting uneasily in his seat, he looked toward the city and was silent. Whatever the reason, it was clear that when they were seated at the table, partaking of the meal, it was Captain Saltonstall that had the best attention from every member of the household, (and the best of the dish,) from all save old Sylvester, who held himself erect, as usual, and impartial in the matter.

"The ways of Providence are strange," said old Sylvester. "Out of darkness he brings marvellous light, and from the frivolous acorn he spreads the branches wide in the air, which are a shelter, and a solace, and a shadowy play-ground to our youth and old age. We must wait the issue, and whatever comes, to Him must we give thanks."

With this sentiment for a benediction, the patriarch dismissed his family to their slumbers, which to each one of the household brought its peculiar train of speculation; to two, at least, Miriam and the widow Margaret, they brought dreams which only the strong light of day could disprove to be realities.

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST.

With the following day, (which was calm, gentle, and serene as its predecessor,) a little after the dispatch of dinner, the attention of the household was summoned to the clatter of a hurrying wagon, which, unseen, resounded in the distant country. Old Sylvester was the first to hear it--faintly at first, then it rose on the wind far off, died away in the woods and the windings of the roads, then again was entirely lost for several minutes, and at last growing into a portentous rattle, brought to at the door of the homestead, and landed from its ricketty and bespattered bosom Mr. Oliver Peabody, of Ohio; Jane his wife, a buxom lady of fair complexion, in a Quaker bonnet; and Robert, their eldest son, a tall, flat-featured boy, some thirteen years of age.

The countryman in a working s.h.i.+rt, who had the control of the wagon, and who had been beguiled by Oliver some five miles out of his road home, (to which he was returning from the market town,) under pretence of a wish to have his opinion of the crops--the poor fellow being withal a hired laborer and never having owned, or entertained the remotest speculation of owning, a rood of ground of his own,--with a commendation from Oliver, delivered with a cheerful smile, that "his observations on timothy were very much to the purpose," drove clattering away again. Mr.

Oliver Peabody, farmer, who had come all the way from Ohio to spend thanksgiving with his old father--of a ruddy, youthful and twinkling countenance--who wore his hair at length and unshorn, and the chief peculiarity of whose dress was a grey cloth coat, with a row of great horn-b.u.t.tons on either breast, with enormous woollen mittens, brought his buxom wife forward under one arm with diligence, drawing his tall youth of a son after him by the other hand--threw himself into the bosom of the Peabody family, and was heartily welcomed all round. He didn't say a word of half-horses and half-alligators, nor of greased lightning, although he was from the West, but he did complain most bitterly of the uncommon smoothness of the roads in these parts, the short gra.s.s, and the 'bominable want of elbow-room all over the neighborhood. It was with difficulty he could be kept on the straitened stage of the balcony long enough to answer a few plain questions of children and other matters at home; and immediately expressed an ardent desire to take a look at the garden.

"We got somefin' to show thar, Mas'r Oliver," said Mopsey, who had stood by listening, with open mouth and eyes, to the strong statements of the western farmer, "we haint to be beat right-away no how!"

Old Sylvester rose with his staff, which he carried more for pleasure than necessity, and led the way. As they approached there was visible through all the plants, shrubs and other growths of the place, whatever they might be--a great yellow sphere or ball, so disposed, on a little slope by itself, as to catch the eye from a distance, s.h.i.+ning out in its golden hue from the garden, a sort of rival to the sun himself, rolling overhead.

"Dere, what d'ye tink of dat, Oliver," Mopsey asked, forgetting in the grandeur of the moment all distinctions of cla.s.s or color, "I guess dat's somefin."

"That's a pumpkin," said Mr. Oliver Peabody, calmly.

"Yes, I guess it is--_de tanksgivin punkin_!"

She looked into the western farmer's face, no doubt expecting a spasm or convulsion, but it was calm--calm as night. Mopsey condescended not another word, but walking or rather shuffling disdainfully away, muttered to herself, "Dat is de very meanest man, for a white man, I ever did see; he looked at dat 'ere punkin which has cost me so many anxious days and sleepless nights--which I have watched over as though it had been my own child--which I planted wid dis here hand of my own, and fought for agin the June bugs and the white frost, and dat mouse dat's been tryin to eat it up for dis tree weeks and better--just as if it had been a small green cowc.u.mber. I don't believe dat Oliver Peabody knows it is tanksgivin'. He's a great big fool."

"I see you still keep some of the old red breed, father," said Oliver when they were left alone in the quiet of the garden, pointing to the red rooster, who stood on the wall in the sun.

"Yes," old Sylvester answered, "for old times' sake. We have had them with us now on the farm for better than a hundred years. I remember the day the great grandfather of this bird was brought among us. It was the day we got news that good David Brainard, the Indian missionary, died--that was some while before the revolutionary war. He died in the arms of the great Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton; their souls are at peace."

"I recollect this fellow," Oliver continued, referring to the red rooster, "When I was here last he was called Elbridge's bird, that was the year before last."

"There is no Elbridge now," said the old grandfather.

"I know all," said Oliver, "I had a letter from Margaret, telling me the story and begging me to keep a watch for her boy."

"A wide watch to keep and little to be got by it, I fear," old Sylvester added.

"Not altogether idle, perhaps; we have sharp eyes in the West and see many strange things. Jane is confident she saw our Elbridge, making through Ohio, but two months after he left here; he was riding swiftly, and in her surprise and suddenness she could neither call nor send after him."

"You did not tell us of that," said the old man.

"No, I waited some further discovery."

"Be silent now, you may easily waken hopes to be darkened and dashed to the ground. Which way made the boy?"

"Southward."

During this discourse, as though he distinguished the sound of his young master's name and knew to what it related, Chanticleer walked slowly, and as if by accident or at leisure, up and down the garden-wall, keeping as near to the speakers as was at all seemly. When they stopped speaking he leaped gently to the ground and softly clapped his wings.

A moment after there came hurrying into the garden, in a wild excitement, and all struggling to speak first, little Sam Peabody in the lead, Robert, the flat-featured youth of thirteen, and Peabody Junior, (who, it should be mentioned, having found his way into a pantry a couple of minutes after his arrival with the Captain, and appropriated to his own personal use an entire bottle of cherry brandy, had been straightway put to bed, from which he had now been released not more than a couple of hours), and to announce as clamorously as they respectively could, that Brundage's Bull had just got into "our big meadow."

"n.o.body hurt?" asked old Sylvester.

"n.o.body hurt, grandfather, but he's ploughing up the meadow at a dreadful rate," said little Sam Peabody.

"Like wild," Peabody Junior added.

This statement, strongly as it was made, seemed to have no particular effect on old Sylvester. Oliver Peabody, on the other hand, was exceedingly indignant, and was for proceeding to extremities immediately, the expulsion of the Brundage bull, and the demanding of damages for allowing his cattle to cross the boundary line of the two farms.

Old Sylvester listened to his violence with a blank countenance; nor did he seem to comprehend that any special outrage had been committed, for it must be acknowledged that the only indication that the grandfather had come to his second childhood was, that, with his advancing years, and as he approached the shadow of the other world, he seemed to have lost all idea of the customary distinctions of rank and property, and that very much like an old apostle, he was disposed to regard all men as brethren, and boundary lines as of very little consequence.

He therefore promptly checked his son Oliver in his heat, and discountenanced any further proceedings in the matter.

"Brundage," he said, "would, if he cared about him, come and take his bull away when he was ready; we are all brethren, and have a common country, Oliver," he added, "I hope you feel that in the West, as well as we do here."