Queechy Volume I Part 67

"Ah, but, fair, you know, I mean ? we speak ? in that sense ?

Mrs. Dougla.s.s, here is by far the most elegant offering that your hands will have the honour of receiving this day."

"I hope so," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, "or there wont be much to eat for the minister. Did you never take notice how elegant things somehow made folks grow poor?"

"I guess he'd as lieve see something a little substantial,"

said aunt Syra.

"Well, now," said the doctor, "here is Miss Ringgan, who is unquestionably ? a ?elegant! ? and I am sure n.o.body will say that she ? looks poor."

In one sense, surely not! There could not be two opinions. But with all the fairness of health, and the flush which two or three feelings had brought to her cheeks, there was a look as if the workings of the mind had refined away a little of the strength of the physical frame, and as if growing poor in Mrs.

Dougla.s.s's sense ? that is, thin, might easily be the next step.

"What's your uncle going to give us, Fleda?" said aunt Syra.

But Fleda was saved replying; for Mrs. Dougla.s.s, who, if she was sharp, could be good-natured too, and had watched to see how Fleda took the double fire upon elegance and poverty, could bear no more trial of that sweet gentle face. Without giving her time to answer, she carried her off to see the things already stored in the closet, bidding the doctor, over her shoulder, "be off after his goods, whether he had got 'em or no."

There was certainly a promising beginning made for the future minister's comfort. One shelf was already completely stocked with pies, and another showed a quant.i.ty of cake, and biscuits enough to last a good-sized family for several meals.

"That is always the way," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s; "it's the strangest thing that folks has no sense! Now, one half o' them pies 'll be dried up afore they can eat the rest; 't aint much loss, for Mis' Prin sent 'em down, and if they are worth anything, it's the first time anything ever come out of her house that was. Now look at them biscuit!"

"How many are coming to eat them?" said Fleda.

"How?"

"How large a family has the minister?"

"He ha'n't a bit of a family! He ain't married."

"Not!"

At the grave way in which Mrs. Dougla.s.s faced round upon her and answered, and at the idea of a single mouth devoted to all that closetful Fleda's gravity gave place to most uncontrollable merriment.

"No," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, with a curious twist of her mouth, but commanding herself, ? "he aint, to be sure, not yet. He ha'n't any family but himself and some sort of a housekeeper, I suppose; they'll divide the house between 'em."

"And the biscuits, I hope," said Fleda. "But what will he do with all the other things, Mrs. Dougla.s.s?"

"Sell 'em if he don't want 'em," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, quizzically. "Shut up, Fleda, I forget who sent them biscuit ?

somebody that calculated to make a show for a little, I reckon. My sakes! I believe it was Mis' Springer herself! she didn't hear me though," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, peeping out of the half-open door. "It's a good thing the world aint all alike; there's Mis' Plumfield ? stop now, and I'll tell you all she sent; that big jar of lard, there's as good as eighteen or twenty pound ? and that basket of eggs, I don't know how many there is ? and that cheese, a real fine one, I'll be bound, she wouldn't pick out the worst in her dairy; and Seth fetched down a hundred weight of corn meal, and another of rye flour; now, that's what I call doing things something like; if everybody else would keep up their end as well as they keep up their'n, the world wouldn't be quite so one-sided as it is. I never see the time yet when I couldn't tell where to find Mis'

Plumfield."

"No, nor anybody else," said Fleda, looking happy.

"There's Mis' Silbert couldn't find nothing better to send than a kag of soap," Mrs. Dougla.s.s went on, seeming very much amused; "I _was_ beat when I saw that walk in! I should think she'd feel streaked to come here by and by, and see it a- standing between Mis' Plumfield's lard and Mis' Clavering's pork ? that's a handsome kag of pork, aint it? What's that man done with your strawberries? I'll put 'em up here, afore somebody takes a notion to 'em. I'll let the minister know who he's got to thank for 'em," said she, winking at Fleda.

"Where's Dr. Quackenboss?"

"Coming, Ma'am!" sounded from the hall, and forthwith, at the open door, entered the doctor's head, simultaneously with a large cheese, which he was rolling before him, the rest of the doctor's person being thrown into the background in consequence ? a curious natural representation of a wheelbarrow, the wheel being the only artificial part.

"Oh! that's you, doctor, is it?" said Mrs. Dougla.s.s.

"This is me, Ma'am," said the doctor, rolling up to the closet door; "this has the honour to be ? a ? myself, ? bringing my service to the feet of Miss Ringgan."

" 'Tain't very elegant," said the sharp lady.

Fleda thought if his service was at her feet, her feet should be somewhere else, and accordingly stepped quietly out of the way, and went to one of the windows, from whence she could have a view both of the comers and the come; and by this time, thoroughly in the spirit of the thing, she used her eyes upon both with great amus.e.m.e.nt. People were constantly arriving now, in wagons and on foot; and stores of all kinds were most literally pouring in. Bags, and even barrels of meal, flour, pork, and potatoes; strings of dried apples, salt, hams, and beef; hops, pickles, vinegar, maple-sugar and mola.s.ses; rolls of fresh b.u.t.ter, cheese, and eggs; cake, bread, and pies, without end. Mr. Penny, the storekeeper, sent a box of tea.

Mr. Winegar, the carpenter, a new ox-sled. Earl Dougla.s.s brought a handsome axe-helve of his own fas.h.i.+oning; his wife, a quant.i.ty of rolls of wool. Zan Finn carted a load of wood into the wood-shed, and Squire Thornton another. Home-made candles, custards, preserves, and smoked liver, came in a batch from two or three miles off, up on the mountain. Half-a- dozen chairs from the factory-man; half-a-dozen brooms from the other storekeeper at the Deepwater settlement; a carpet for the best room from the ladies of the towns.h.i.+p, who had clubbed forces to furnish it ? and a home-made concern it was, from the shears to the loom.

The room was full now, for every one, after depositing his gift, turned aside to see what others had brought and were bringing; and men and women, the young and old, had their several circles of gossip in various parts of the crowd. Apart from them all Fleda sat in her window, probably voted "elegant" by others than the doctor, for they vouchsafed her no more than a transitory attention, and sheered off to find something more congenial. She sat watching the people, smiling very often as some odd figure, or look, or some peculiar turn of expression or tone of voice, caught her ear or her eye.

Both ear and eye were fastened by a young countryman, with a particularly fresh face, whom she saw approaching the house.

He came up on foot, carrying a single fowl slung at his back by a stick thrown across his shoulder, and, without stirring hat or stick, he came into the room, and made his way through the crowd of people, looking to the one hand and the other, evidently in a maze of doubt to whom he should deliver himself and his chicken, till brought up by Mrs. Dougla.s.s's sharp voice.

"Well, Philetus, what are you looking for?"

"Do, Mis' Dougla.s.s!" ? it is impossible to express the abortive attempt at a bow which accompanied this salutation ?

"I want to know if the minister 'll be in town to-day."

"What do you want of him?"

"I don't want nothin' of him. I want to know if he'll be in town to-day?"

"Yes; I expect he'll be along directly. Why, what then?"

" 'Cause I've got teu chickens for him here, and mother said they hadn't ought to be kept no longer, and if he wan't to hum, I were to fetch 'em back, straight."

"Well, he'll be here, so let's have 'em," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, biting her lips.

"What's become o' t'other one?" said Earl, as the young man's stick was brought round to the table: "I guess you've lost it, ha'n't you?"

"My gracious!" was all Philetus's powers were equal to. Mrs.

Dougla.s.s went off into fits, which rendered her incapable of speaking, and left the unlucky chicken-bearer to tell his story his own way, but all he brought forth was, "Du tell! ? I _am_ beat!"

"Where's t'other one?" said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, between paroxysms.

"Why, I ha'n't done nothin' to it," said Philetus, dismally; "there was teu on 'em afore I started, and I took and tied 'em together, and hitched 'em onto the stick, and that one must ha' loosened itself off some way ? I believe the darned thing did it o' purpose."

"I guess your mother knowed that one wouldn't keep till it got here," said Mrs. Dougla.s.s.

The room was now all one shout, in the midst of which poor Philetus took himself off as speedily as possible. Before Fleda had dried her eyes, her attention was taken by a lady and gentleman who had just got out of a vehicle of more than the ordinary pretension, and were coming up to the door. The gentleman was young ? the lady was not; both had a particularly amiable and pleasant appearance; but about the lady there was something that moved Fleda singularly, and, somehow, touched the spring of old memories, which she felt stirring at the sight of her. As they neared the house she lost them; then they entered the room and came through it slowly, looking about them with an air of good-humoured amus.e.m.e.nt. Fleda's eye was fixed, but her mind puzzled itself in vain to recover what, in her experience, had been connected with that fair and lady-like physiognomy, and the bland smile that was overlooked by those acute eyes. The eyes met hers, and then seemed to reflect her doubt, for they remained as fixed as her own, while the lady, quickening her steps, came up to her.

"I am sure," she said, holding out her hand, and with a gentle graciousness that was very agreeable, "I am sure you are somebody I know. What is your name?"

"Fleda Ringgan."

"I thought so!" said the lady, now shaking her hand warmly, and kissing her; "I knew n.o.body could have been your mother but Amy Charlton! How like her you look! Don't you know me?

don't you remember Mrs. Evelyn?"

"Mrs. Evelyn!" said Fleda, the whole coming back to her at once.

"You remember me now? ? How well I recollect you! and all that old time at Montepoole. Poor little creature that you were!