Cape Cod Folks Part 17

Madeline used to remark, throwing a rare musical halo about her words: "These beans are better than they look. Ain't they, teacher?"

And I was wont to reply conscientiously enough, though with a sweetly wearied glance at the familiar dish; "Certainly, they do taste better than they look."

Occasionally we had what Harvey Dole called, "squash on the sh.e.l.l," an ingenious term for the last of the winter pumpkins boiled in halves, and served _au naturel_.

Grandpa, too, pined and put away his food. He used to look across the table at me, with a feeble appeal for sympathy in his expression.

Oftentimes he sighed deeply, and related anecdotes redolent of "red salmon" and "deer flesh," "strawberries as big as teacups" and "peaches as big as pint bowls," in places where he had sailed.

Once, he ventured to remark, apologetically, referring to the beans and pumpkins, that "bein' sich a mild winter, somehow he didn't hanker arter sech bracin' food, and he guessed he'd go over to Ware'am, and git some pork."

"Wall, thar' now, pa!" said Grandma; "seems to me we'd ought ter consider all the fruits o' G.o.d's bounty as good and relis.h.i.+n' in their season."

"I call that punkin out of season," said Grandpa, recklessly. "Strikes me so."

"I was talkin' about fruits. I wasn't talkin' about punkins," said Grandma, with derisive conclusiveness.

"Wall," said Grandpa, very much aroused, "if you call them tarnal white beans the fruits of G.o.d, I don't!"

"Don't you consider that G.o.d made beans, pa?"

"No, I don't!"

"Who, then--" continued Grandma, in an awful tone--"do you consider made beans, pa?"

Grandpa's eyes, as he glared at the dish, were large and round, and significant of unspeakable things.

"Bijonah Keeler!" Grandma hastened to say; "my ears have heard enough!"

As for Grandma, neither her appet.i.te, nor her spirits, flagged. In spite of her confirmed habit of tantalizing Grandpa--and this was from no malevolence of motive, but simply as the conscientious fulfilment of a sacred religious and domestic duty--she was the most delightful soul I ever knew.

At supper, it was a habit for her to sit at the table long after we had finished our meal, and to continue eating and talking in her slow, automatic, sublimely philosophical manner, until not a vestige of anything eatable remained, and then as she rose, she would remark, simply, with a glance at the denuded board:--

"It beats all, how near you guessed the vittles to-night, daughter!"

Then Grandma resorted to an occasional pastime, harmless and playful enough in itself, yet intended as a special means of discipline for Grandpa, and certainly, a source of great torment and anxiety to that poor old man.

Between the hours of eight and nine P.M., Grandma would deftly glide out of the family circle, and be seen no more that night. At bedtime, Grandpa would begin the search, while Madeline and I ungenerously retired.

In the privacy of my own chamber, I could hear the old Captain tramping desolately about the Ark, calling, "Ma! ma!" Could hear the outside door swung open, and imagine Grandpa's wild face peering into the darkness, while still he called; "Ma! ma! where be ye? It's half after ten!"

Then, from the foot of the stairs would arise his distressed, appealing cry; "Come, ma, where be ye? It's half after ten!" Silence everywhere.

With a mighty groan, Grandpa would come shuffling up the steep stairs, and what was most remarkable, Grandma was invariably found secluded amid the rubbish in the old garret. Then the whisperings that arose between those two would have pierced through denser substances by far than the little red door which separated me from the scene.

"How'd I know, ma, but what you'd gone out and broke yer leg, or somethin'? Come, ma--" with exasperated persuasiveness--"what do ye want to pester me this way for?"

"Why, pa," arose the calm, mellifluous accents of Grandma Keeler, "so't you might know how you'd feel if I should be took away!"

Next, the little staircase would resound with loud creaks and groans, as this reunited couple cautiously--and I have no doubt that they believed the whole affair had been conducted with the utmost secrecy--made their way down in their stocking feet.

Grandma--Heaven bless her, always devoted, though original--never saw a human ill that she did not long to alleviate. So, as Grandpa and I daily refused our food, she affirmed, as her opinion, that the one need of our deranged systems was a clarifier! And she forthwith prepared a mixture of onions and mola.s.ses, with various bitter roots, which latter she, upon her knees, had wrested from the frosty bosom of the earth in an arena immediately adjoining the Ark. Thus I beheld her one wintry day, and wondered greatly what she was at. When I came home from school at night, through a strangely permeated atmosphere, I beheld the clarifier simmering on the stove.

Grandpa already stood s.h.i.+vering over the fire. He smiled when I came in, but it was a faint and deathly smile--the smile of one who has returned, per force, to weak, defenceless infancy.

Grandma pressed me kindly to partake. I preferred to keep what ills I had, rather than fly to others that I knew not of. So I gently and firmly declined. But for several days in succession, Grandpa was made the victim of this ghastly remedy.

His sufferings went beyond the power of mad expostulation to express, and came nigh to produce upon his features the aspect of a saintly resignation.

Never shall I forget his appearance during this clarifying period--his occasional faint and fleeting attempts at wit--his usually hopeless and world-weary air. The wonder to me was that he did not then enter upon a celestial state of existence, being eminently fitted to go, as far as the attenuation of his mortal frame was concerned. It was at this time that I wrote home that I had never had such an appet.i.te before in my life as now in Wallencamp (which, in one sense, I felt to be perfectly true); that the food was of a most remarkable variety (which I also felt to be true); but that it was rather difficult to procure oranges and the like.

Whereupon, I received from home a large box, containing all manner of pleasant fruits, and thus poor old Grandpa Keeler and I were enabled to take a new lease of life.

I found that it was considered indispensable to the proper discharge of my duties in Wallencamp that I should make frequent calls on the parents of my flock, throughout the entire community. If I failed in any measure in this respect, they reproached me with being "unsociable," and said; "Seems to me you ain't very neighborly, teacher."

I had called myself a student of human nature. It seemed to me, now, that in those dingy Wallencamp houses, I stood for the first time, awed and delighted before the real article. Sometimes the men sent out great volumes of smoke from their pipes, in the low rooms, that were not delightful; but as far as they knew, they exerted themselves to the utmost, men and women both, to make their homes pleasant and attractive to me.

G.o.dfrey Cradlebow's place was as small and poor as any. There was one room that served as kitchen, dining-room, and parlor, with a corresponding medley of furniture. A very finely chased gold watch hung against the loose brown boards of the wall--a reminder of G.o.dfrey Cradlebow's youth. But what distinguished this house from all the others, was the profusion of books it contained. There were books on the tables, books under the tables, books piled up in the corner of the room.

G.o.dfrey Cradlebow himself was confined in-doors much of the time with the rheumatism. He made nets for the fishermen. I used to like to watch his fingers moving deftly while he talked.

Things having gone wrong with him, and he having suffered much acute physical pain, besides--(that was evident from the manner in which his stalwart frame had been bent with his disease) he had "taken to drink,"

not excessively, but he seemed to be, most of the time, in a lightly inebriated condition. He was a strange and fluent talker, often ecstatic.

"It is commonly believed, Miss Hungerford," he said to me, once; "that we start on the summit of life, that we descend into the valley, that the sun is westering; but as for me, I seem to look far below there on the mists and dew of earlier years. I walk among the hills. The horizon widens. The air grows thin. I see the solemn streaks of dawn appearing through the gloom. Ah," he murmured, again; "weak and erring though I undoubtedly am, I have a kins.h.i.+p with the living Christ. Yes, even such kins.h.i.+p as human worthlessness may have with infinite perfection. People will say to you about here, Miss Hungerford; 'Oh, never mind G.o.dfrey Cradlebow. He's always being converted, why, he has been converted twenty times already!' very true, ay, and a hundred times, and I trust I shall taste the sweets of conversion many times more before I die. I do not believe the soul to be a barren tract, so far removed from the ocean of G.o.d's love, that it may be washed by the waves only once in a lifetime, and that, in case of some terrible flood. But I rejoice daily in the sweet and natural return of the tide. How the sh.o.r.es wait for it! Strewn with weeds and wreck, scorched by the sun, chilled by the night, how it listens for the sound of its coming! until it rushes in--ah! roar after roar--all-covering, all-hiding, all-embracing!"

G.o.dfrey Cradlebow shook his head rapturously, tears rolled down his cheeks, and all the while he went on rapidly with his netting.

He had the natural tact and grace of a gentleman, and was especially courteous to his wife. This brought down upon him the derision of the Wallencampers, whose conjugal relations were seldom more delicately implied than by a reference--"my woman thar'!" or "my man over thar'!"

with an accompanying jerk of the thumb.

Lydia, G.o.dfrey Cradlebow's wife, was tall and slight, with dark hair and eyes--a perfect face, though worn and sad. She invariably wore over her cotton gown, on occasions when she went out, a very fine, very thin old-fas.h.i.+oned mantilla, bordered with a deep black fringe. This pathetic remnant of gentility, borne rudely about by the Wallencamp winds, with Lydia's refined face and melancholy dark eyes, gave her a very interesting and picturesque appearance; though I never thought she wore the mantilla during the winter for effect. She was shy, though exceedingly gentle in her manners. At first, I had thought that she avoided me. But one time, when making the round of my parochial calls, I stopped at the Cradlebows', and Mr. Cradlebow discoursing fluently on the Phenomenon, recommended a severe method of discipline as best adapted to his case, I replied, laughingly, that he had better be cautious about making any suggestions of that sort, for Simeon and I were getting to be great friends; the mother, on whose heart I had had no design, took my hand at the door, when I went away, in a clinging, almost an affectionate way.

"You are good to my boys, teacher," she said; "and I thank you for it.

They make you a great deal of trouble."

"Oh, no," I answered lightly, returning with a sense of pleasure the pressure of her hand, and it was not until afterwards, walking slowly down the lane that I sighed gently, thinking of that troublesome boy who had told me he was going to sea.

Removed from the world of newspapers, the ordinary active interest in the affairs of church and state, there was a great deal of the lively gadding about, neighborly dropping in element in Wallencamp. This applied to the men equally as well as to the women. I remember that Abbie Ann once put out her was.h.i.+ng, and this fact kept the whole social element of Wallencamp on the _qui vive_ for a number of days.

The caller would appear at the door at anytime during the day with a good-natured matter-of-fact "I was a pa.s.sin' by, and thought I'd drop in a minit, jest to see how ye was gittin' along."

"Won't you set?" would be the cordial response. "Do set."

"Wall, I don't know how to spend the time anyway," the visitor would reply; "there's so many things a drivin' on me."

But this care-belabored victim of fate usually concluded by sitting quite complacently for any length of time.

When such visitations occurred out of school hours, and I remained up in my room, as I frequently did at first, the droppers in felt very much aggrieved, as though I had wittingly offended the instincts of good society.

Besides all which, seldom an evening pa.s.sed that the young people did not come to the Ark _en ma.s.se_ to sing.