Queechy Volume I Part 9

"How many do you count upon securing to-day?" said Mr.

Carleton, gravely.

"I don't know," said Fleda, with a business face, ? "there are a good many trees, and fine large ones, and I don't believe anybody has found them out ? they are so far out of the way; there ought to be a good parcel of nuts."

"But," said Mr. Carleton, with perfect gravity, "if we should be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda, unless you have a broomstick in the service of fairydom."

"A broomstick!" said Fleda.

"Yes, ? did you never hear of the man who had a broomstick that would fetch pails of water at his bidding?"

"No," said Fleda, laughing. "What a convenient broomstick! I wish we had one. But I know what I can do, Mr. Carleton, ? if there should be too many nuts for us to bring home, I can take Cynthy afterwards and get the rest of them. Cynthy and I could go ? grandpa couldn't, even if he was as well as usual, for the trees are in a hollow away over on the other side of the mountain. It's a beautiful place."

"Well," said Mr. Carleton, smiling curiously to himself, "in that case I shall be even of more use than I had hoped. But shan't we want a basket, Miss Fleda?"

"Yes, indeed," said Fleda, ? "a good large one ? I am going to run down to the house for it as soon as we get to the turning- off place, if you'll be so good as to sit down and wait for me, Sir, ? I wont be long after it."

"No," said he; "I will walk with you and leave my gun in safe quarters. You had better not travel so fast, or I am afraid you will never reach the hickory-trees."

Fleda smiled, and said there was no danger, but she slackened her pace, and they proceeded at a more reasonable rate till they reached the house.

Mr. Carleton would not go in, placing his gun in an outer shelter. Fleda dashed into the kitchen, and after a few minutes' delay came out again with a huge basket, which Mr.

Carleton took from her without suffering his inward amus.e.m.e.nt to reach his face, and a little tin pail which she kept under her own guardians.h.i.+p. In vain Mr. Carleton offered to take it with the basket, or even to put it in the basket, where he showed her it would go very well; it must go nowhere but in Fleda's own hand.

Fleda was in restless haste till they had pa.s.sed over the already twice-trodden ground and entered upon the mountain road. It was hardly a road; in some places a beaten track was visible, in others Mr. Carleton wondered how his little companion found her way, where nothing but fresh-fallen leaves and scattered rocks and stones could be seen, covering the whole surface. But her foot never faltered, her eye read way- marks where he saw none; she went on, he did not doubt unerringly, over the leaf-strewn and rock-strewn way, over ridge and hollow, with a steady light swiftness that he could not help admiring. Once they came to a little brawling stream of spring water, hardly three inches deep anywhere, but making quite a wide bed for itself in its bright way to the lowlands.

Mr. Carleton was considering how he should contrive to get his little guide over it in safety, when quick, ? over the little round stones which lifted their heads above the surface of the water, on the tips of her toes, Fleda tripped across before he had done thinking about it. He told her he had no doubt now that she was a fairy, and had powers of walking that did not belong to other people. Fleda laughed, and on her little demure figure went picking out the way, always with that little tin pail hanging at her side, like ? Mr. Carleton busied himself in finding out similes for her. It wasn't very easy.

For a long distance their way was through a thick woodland, clear of underbrush and very pleasant walking, but permitting no look at the distant country. They wound about, now up hill and now down, till at last they began to ascend in good earnest; the road became better marked, and Mr. Carleton came up with his guide again. Both were obliged to walk more slowly. He had overcome a good deal of Fleda's reserve, and she talked to him now quite freely, without however losing the grace of a most exquisite modesty in everything she said or did.

"What do you suppose I have been amusing myself with all this while, Miss Fleda?" said he, after walking for some time alongside of her in silence. "I have been trying to fancy what you looked like as you travelled on before me with that mysterious tin pail."

"Well, what _did_ I look like?" said Fleda, laughing.

"Little Red Riding-Hood, the first thing, carrying her grandmother the pot of b.u.t.ter."

"Ah, but I haven't got any b.u.t.ter in this, as it happens,"

said Fleda; "and I hope you are not anything like the wolf, Mr. Carleton?"

"I hope not," said he, laughing. "Well, then, I thought you might be one of those young ladies the fairy-stories tell of, who set out over the world to seek their fortune. That might hold, you know, a little provision to last for a day or two till you found it."

"No," said Fleda, ? "I should never go to seek my fortune."

"Why not, pray?"

"I don't think I should find it any the sooner."

Mr. Carleton looked at her, and could not make up his mind whether or not she spoke wittingly.

Well, but after all, are we not seeking our fortune?" said he.

"We are doing something very like it. Now up here on the mountain-top perhaps we shall find only empty trees ? perhaps trees with a harvest of nuts on them."

"Yes, but that wouldn't be like finding a fortune," said Fleda; ? "if we were to come to a great heap of nuts all picked out ready for us to carry away, _that_ would be a fortune; but now if we find the trees full, we have got to knock them down, and gather them up, and shuck them."

"Make our own fortunes, eh?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Well! people do say those are the sweetest nuts. I don't know how it may be. Ha! that is fine. What an atmosphere!"

They had reached a height of the mountain that cleared them a view, and over the tops of the trees they looked abroad to a very wide extent of country undulating with hill and vale, ?

hill and valley alike far below at their feet. Fair and rich, ? the gently swelling hills, one beyond another, in the patchwork dress of their many-coloured fields, ? the gay hues of the woodland softened and melted into a rich autumn glow, ?

and far away, beyond even where this glow was sobered and lost in the distance, the faint blue line of the Catskill ? faint, but clear and distinct, through the transparent air. Such a sky! ? of such etherialized purity as if made for spirits to travel in, and tempting them to rise and free themselves from the soil; and the stillness, ? like nature's hand laid upon the soul, bidding it think. In view of all that vastness and grandeur, man's littleness does bespeak itself. And yet, for every one, the voice of the scene is not more humbling to pride than rousing to all that is really n.o.ble and strong in character. Not only "What thou art," ? but "What thou mayest be!" What place thou oughtest to fill ? what work thou hast to do, ? in this magnificent world. A very extended landscape, however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind. One seems to emerge from the narrowness of individual existence, and take a larger view of Life as well as of Creation.

Perhaps Mr. Carleton felt it so, for, after his first expression of pleasure, he stood silently and gravely looking for a long time. Little Fleda's eye loved it too, but she looked her fill, and then sat down on a stone to await her companion's pleasure, glancing now and then up at his face, which gave her no encouragement to interrupt him. It was gravely, and even gloomily thoughtful. He stood so long without stirring, that poor Fleda began to have sad thoughts of the possibility of gathering all the nuts from the hickory- trees, and she heaved a very gentle sigh once or twice; but the dark blue eye which she with reason admired, remained fixed on the broad scene below, as if it were reading, or trying to read there a difficult lesson. And when at last he turned and began to go up the path again, he kept the same face, and went moodily swinging his arm up and down, as if in disturbed thought. Fleda was too happy to be moving to care for her companion's silence; she would have compounded for no more conversation, so they might but reach the nut-trees. But before they had got quite so far, Mr. Carleton broke the silence, speaking in precisely the same tone and manner he had used the last time.

"Look here, Fairy," said he, pointing to a small heap of chestnut burs piled at the foot of a tree ? "here's a little fortune for you already."

"That's a squirrel!" said Fleda, looking at the place very attentively. "There has been n.o.body else here. He has put them together, ready to be carried off to his nest."

"We'll save him that trouble," said Mr. Carleton. "Little rascal! he's a Didenhover in miniature."

"Oh, no!" said Fleda; "he had as good a right to the nuts, I am sure, as we have, poor fellow. ? Mr. Carleton ?"

Mr. Carleton was throwing the nuts into the basket. At the anxious and undecided tone in which his name was p.r.o.nounced, he stopped, and looked up at a very wistful face.

"Mightn't we leave these nuts till we come back? If we find the trees over here full, we shan't want them; and if we don't, these would be only a handful ?"

"And the squirrel would be disappointed?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "You would rather we should leave them to him!"

Fleda said yes, with a relieved face, and Mr. Carleton, still smiling, emptied his basket of the few nuts he had put in, and they walked on.

In a hollow, rather a deep hollow, behind the crest of the hill, as Fleda had said, they came at last to a n.o.ble group of large hickory-trees, with one or two chestnuts standing in attendance on the outskirts. And, also, as Fleda had said, or hoped, the place was so far from convenient access, that n.o.body had visited them; they were thick hung with fruit. If the spirit of the game had been wanting or failing in Mr.

Carleton, it must have roused again into full life at the joyous heartiness of Fleda's exclamations. At any rate, no boy could have taken to the business better. He cut, with her permission, a stout long pole in the woods; and swinging himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and knew it just as well before they reached the hickory-trees as she did afterwards.

When one of the trees was well stripped, the young gentleman mounted into another, while Fleda set herself to hull and gather up the nuts under the one first beaten. She could make but little headway, however, compared with her companion; the nuts fell a great deal faster than she could put them in her basket. The trees were heavy laden, and Mr. Carleton seemed determined to have the whole crop; from the second tree he went to the third. Fleda was bewildered with her happiness; this was doing business in style. She tried to calculate what the whole quant.i.ty would be, but it went beyond her; one basketful would not take it, nor two, nor three, ? it wouldn't _begin to_, Fleda said to herself. She went on hulling and gathering with all possible industry.

After the third tree was finished, Mr. Carleton threw down his pole, and resting himself upon the ground at the foot, told Fleda he would wait a few moments before he began again..

Fleda thereupon left off her work too, and going for her little tin pail, presently offered it to him temptingly stocked with pieces of apple-pie. When he had smilingly taken one, she next brought him a sheet of white paper, with slices of young cheese.

"No, thank you," said he.

"Cheese is very good with apple-pie," said Fleda, competently.

"Is it?" said he laughing. "Well ? upon that ? I think you would teach me a good many things, Miss Fleda, if I were to stay here long enough."

"I wish you would stay and try, Sir," said Fleda, who did not know exactly what to make of the shade of seriousness which crossed his face. It was gone almost instantly.

"I think anything is better eaten out in the woods than it is at home," said Fleda.

"Well, I don't know," said her friend. "I have no doubt that is the case with cheese and apple-pie, and especially under hickory trees which one has been contending with pretty sharply. If a touch of your wand, Fairy, could transform one of these sh.e.l.ls into a goblet of Lafitte, or Amontillado, we should have nothing to wish for."