Susan Warner - Hills of the Shatemuc

S >> Susan Warner >> Hills of the Shatemuc

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

"The labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow are pretty
necessary though," said his father dryly; "we must eat, in the
first place. You must keep the body alive before the mind can
do much -- at least I have found it so in my own experience."

"But you don't think the less of the other kind of work, sir,
do you?" said Winthrop looking up; -- "when one can get at it?"

"No, my boy," said the father, -- "no, Governor; no man thinks
more highly of it than I do. It has always been my desire that
you and Will should be better off in this respect than I have
ever been; -- my great desire; and I haven't given it up,
neither."

A little silence of all parties.

"What are the things which 'really last,' Rufus?" said his
mother.

Rufus made some slight and not very direct answer, but the
question set Winthrop to thinking.

He thought all the evening; or rather thought and fancy took a
kind of whirligig dance, where it was hard to tell which was
which. Visions of better opportunities than his father ever
had; -- of reaching a nobler scale of being than his own early
life had promised him; -- of higher walks than his young feet
had trod: they made his heart big. There came the indistinct
possibility of raising up with him the little sister he held
in his arms, not to the life of toil which their mother had
led, but to some airy unknown region of cultivation and
refinement and elegant leisure; -- hugely unknown, and yet
surely laid hold of by the mind's want. But though fancy saw
her for a moment in some strange travestie of years and
education and circumstances, that was only a flash of fancy --
not dwelt upon. Other thoughts were more near and pressing,
though almost as vague. In vain he endeavoured to calculate
expenses that he did not know, wants that he could not
estimate, difficulties that loomed up with no certain outline,
means that were far beyond ken. It was but confusion; except
his purpose, clear and steady as the sun, though as yet it
lighted not the way but only the distant goal; _that_ was always
in sight. And under all these thoughts, little looked at yet
fully recognized, his mother's question; and a certain
security that _she_ had that which would 'really last.' He knew
it. And oddly enough, when he took his candle from her hand
that night, Winthrop, though himself no believer unless with
head belief, thanked God in his heart that his mother was a
Christian.

Gradually the boys disclosed their plan; or rather the elder
of the boys; for Winthrop being so much the younger, for the
present was content to be silent. But their caution was little
needed. Rufus was hardly more ready to go than his parents
were to send him, -- if they could; and in their case, as in
his, the lack of power was made up by will. Rufus should have
an education. He should go to College. Not more cheerfully on
his part than on theirs the necessary privations were met, the
necessary penalty submitted to. The son should stand on better
ground than the father, though the father were himself the
stepping-stone that he might reach it.

It had nothing to do with Winthrop, all this. Nothing was said
of him. To send one son to College was already a great stretch
of effort, and of possibility; to send _two_ was far beyond
both. Nobody thought of it. Except the one left out of their
thoughts.

The summer passed in the diligent companionship of the oxen
and Sam Doolittle. But when the harvests were gathered, and
the fall work was pretty well done; the winter grain in the
ground, and the November winds rustling the dry leaves from
the trees, -- the strongest branch was parted from the family
tree, in the hope that it might take root and thrive better on
its own stock elsewhere. It was cheerfully done, all round.
The father took bravely the added burden with the lessened
means; the mother gave her strength and her eyesight to make
the needed preparations; and to supply the means for them, all
pinched themselves; and Winthrop had laid upon him the
threefold charge of his own, his brother's, and his father's
duty. For Mr. Landholm had been chosen a member of the State
Legislature; and he too would be away from home all winter.
What sort of a winter it would be, no one stopped to think,
but all were willing to bear.

The morning came of the day before the dreaded Saturday, and
no one cared to look at another. It was a relief, though a
hated one, to see a neighbour come in. Even that, Winthrop
shunned; he was cleaning the harness of the wagon, and he took
it out into the broad stoop outside of the kitchen door. His
mother and brother and the children soon scattered to other
parts of the house.

"So neighbour," said Mr. Underhill, -- "I hear tell one of your
sons is goin' off, away from you?"

"Yes," -- said Mr. Landholm, pride and sorrow struggling
together in his manner, -- "I believe he is."

"Where's he goin'?"

"To Asphodel -- in the first place."

"Asphodel, eh? -- What's at Asphodel?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's he goin' there for?"

"To pursue his studies -- there's an Academy at Asphodel."

"An Academy. -- Hum. -- And so he's goin' after larnin' is he?
And what'll the farmer do without him to hum?"

"Do the best I can -- send for you, neighbour Underhill."

"Ha, ha! -- well, I reckon I've got enough to do to attend to
my own."

"I guess you don't do much but fish, do you? -- there under the
mountain?"

"Well, you see, I hain't a great deal of ground. You can't run
corn _straight_ up a hill, can you? -- without somethin' to stand
on?"

"Not very well."

"There be folks that like that kind o' way o' farming -- but I
never did myself."

"No, I'll warrant you," said Mr. Landholm, with a little
attempt at a laugh.

"Well -- you say there's an Academy at Asphodel; then he aint
going to -- a -- what do you call it? -- Collegiate Institution?"

"No, not just yet; by and by he'll go to College, I expect. --
That's what he wants to do."

"And you want it too, I suppose?"

"Yes -- I'll do the best I can by my children. I can't do as I
would by them all," said the father, with a mixture of pride
expressed and pride not expressed, -- "but I'll try to make a
man of Will!"

"And t'other'll make a man of himself," said Mr. Underhill, as
he saw Winthrop quit the stoop. "_He'll_ never run a plough up
the side of a house. But what kind of a man are you going to
make of Will? -- a great man?"

"Ah, I don't know!" said Mr. Landholm with a sigh. "That must
be as Providence directs."

"Hum -- I should say that Providence directs you to keep 'em
both to hum," said Mr. Underhill; -- "but that's not my affair.
Well, I'm going. -- I hear you are goin' to be in Vantassel
this winter?"

"Yes -- I'm going to make laws for you," Mr. Landholm answered
laughing.

"Well --" said Mr. Underhill taking his hat, -- "I wish they'd
put you up for President -- I'd vote for you!"

"Thank you. Why?"

"'Cause I should expect you'd give me somethin' nother and
make a great man of _me!_"

With a laugh at his own wit, Mr. Underhill departed.

CHAPTER III.

But who shall so forecast the years,
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
TENNYSON.

The day came.

The farewell dinner was got ready -- the best of the season it
must be, for the honour of all parties and the love of one;
but it mocked them. Mrs. Landholm's noble roast pig, and sweet
chickens, and tea and fine bread; they were something to be
remembered, not enjoyed, and to be remembered for ever, as
part of one strong drop of life's bittersweet mixture. The
travellers, for Mr. Landholm was to accompany his son, had
already dressed themselves in their best; and the other eyes,
when they could, gazed with almost wondering pride on the very
fine and graceful figure of the young seeker of fortune. But
eyes could do little, and lips worse than little. The pang of
quitting the table, and the hurried and silent good-byes, were
over at last; and the wagon was gone.

It seemed that the whole household was gone. The little ones
had run to some corner to cry; Winthrop was nowhere; and the
mother of the family stood alone and still by the table in the
kitchen where they had left her.

An old black woman, the sole house servant of the family,
presently came in, and while taking up two or three of the
plates, cast looks of affectionate pity at her mistress and
friend. She had been crying herself, but her sorrow had taken
a quiet form.

"Don't ye!" she said in a troubled voice, and laying her
shrivelled hand timidly on Mrs. Landholm's shoulder, -- "don't
ye, Mis' Landholm. He's in the Lord's hand, -- and just you let
him be there."

Mrs. Landholm threw her apron over her face and went out of
the kitchen into her own room. The old woman continued to go
round the table, gathering the plates, but very evidently busy
with something else; and indeed humming or talking to herself,
in a voice far from steady,

"'There is a happy land,
Where parting is unknown --'"

She broke off and sat down and put her face in her hands and
wept.

"Oh Lord! -- oh good Lord! -- I wish I was there! -- Be still
Karen -- that's very wicked -- wait, wait. 'They shall not be
ashamed that wait for him,' he said, -- They will not be
ashamed," she repeated, looking up, while the tears streamed
down her cheeks. "I will wait. But oh! -- I wisht I had
patience! I want to get straight out of trouble, -- I do. Not
yet, Karen, -- not yet. 'When _he_ giveth quietness, then who can
make trouble?' That's it -- that's my way."

She went about her business and quietly finished it.

It had long been done, and the afternoon was wearing well on,
when Mrs. Landholm came into the kitchen again. Karen had
taken care of the children meanwhile. But where was Winthrop?
The mother, now quite herself, bethought her of him. Karen
knew he was not about the house. But Mrs. Landholm saw that
one of the big barn doors was open, and crossed over to it. A
small field lay between that and the house. The great barn
floor was quite empty, as she entered, except of hay and
grain, with which the sides were tightly filled up to the top;
the ends were neatly dressed off; the floor left clean and
bare. It oddly and strongly struck her, as she saw it, the
thought of the hands that had lately been so busy there; the
work left, the hands gone; and for a few moments she stood
absolutely still, feeling and putting away the idea that made
her heart ache. She had a battle to fight before she was
mistress of herself and could speak Winthrop's name. Nobody
answered; and scolding herself for the tone of her voice, Mrs.
Landholm spoke again. A little rustling let her know that she
was heard; and presently Winthrop made his appearance from
below or from some distant corner behind the hay, and came to
meet her. He could not command his face to his mother's eyes,
and sorrow for Will for a moment was half forgotten in sorrow
for him. As they met she put both hands upon his shoulders,
and said wistfully, "My son?" -- But that little word silenced
them both. It was only to throw their arms about each other
and hide their faces in each other's neck, and cry strange
tears; tears that are drawn from the heart's deepest well.
Slight griefs flow over the surface, with fury perhaps; but
the purest and the sweetest waters are drawn silently.

Winthrop was the first to recover himself, and was kissing his
mother with manly quietness before she could raise her head at
all. When she did, it was to return his kisses, first on one
cheek and then on the other and then on his forehead, parting
the hair from it with both hands for the purpose. It seemed as
if she would have spoken, but she did not, then, not in words.

"My boy," she said at last, "you have too hard measure laid on
you!"

"No, mother -- I don't think it so; -- there is nothing to make
me sorry in that."

"Will has got his wish," she observed presently.

"Don't you approve of it mother?"

"Yes --" she said, but as if there were many a thought before
and behind.

"_Don't_ you approve of it, mother?" Winthrop asked quickly.

"Yes, yes -- I do, -- in itself; but you know there is one wish
before all others in my mind, for him and for you, Winthrop."

He said nothing.

"Come," she said a moment after more cheerfully, "we must go
in and see how cosy and sociable we can make ourselves alone.
We must practise," -- for next winter, she was going to say,
but something warned her to stop. Winthrop turned away his
face, though he answered manfully.

"Yes mother -- I must just go over to the bank field and see
what Sam Doolittle has been at; and I've got to cut some wood;
then I'll be in."

"Will you be back by sundown?"

"I'll not be long after."

The mother gave a look towards the sun, already very near the
high western horizon, and another after Winthrop who was
moving off at a good pace; and then slowly walked back to the
house, one hand clasping its fellow in significant expression.

Karen was sitting in her clean kitchen with little Winifred on
her knees, and singing to her in a very sweet Methodist tune,

"There fairer flowers than Eden's bloom,
Nor sin nor sorrow know.
Blest seats! -- through rude and stormy seas,
I onward press to you."

The mother stooped to take up the child.

"What put that into your head, Karen?"

"Everything puts it in my head, missus," said the old woman
with a smiling look at her; "sometimes when I see the sun go
down, I think by'm-by I won't see him get up again; and times
when I lose something, I think by'm-by I won't want it; and
sometimes when somebody goes away, I think by'm-by we'll be
all gone, and then we'll be all together again; only I'd like
sometimes to be all together without going first."

"Will you get down, Winnie?" said her mother, "and let mamma
make a cake for brother Winthrop?"

"A cake? -- for Governor?"

"Yes; get down, and I'll make one of Governor's hoe-cakes."

The spirit of love and cheerfulness had got the upper hand
when the little family party gathered again; at least that
spirit had rule of all that either eyes or ears could take
note of. They gathered in the 'keeping-room,' as it was
called; the room used as a common sitting room by the family,
though it served also the purpose of a sleeping chamber, and a
bed accordingly in one corner formed part of the furniture.
Their eyes were accustomed to that. It did not hurt the
general effect of comfort. There the supper-table was set this
evening; the paper window-curtains were let down, and a
blazing fire sparkled and crackled; while before it, on the
approved oaken barrel-head set up against the andirons, the
delicate rye and indian hoe-cake was toasting into sweetness
and brownness. Asahel keeping watch on one side of the fire,
and Winifred at the other burning her little fair cheek in
premature endeavours to see whether the cake was ready to be
turned.

"What's going on here!" said Winthrop, catching her up in his
arms as he came in.

Winifred laughed and kissed him, and then with an earnest slap
of her little hand on his cheek requested to be set down, that
she might see, "if that side wasn't done."

"Yes, to be sure it's done," said Asahel. "Where's mamma to
turn it?"

"Here," said Winthrop, taking up the barrel cover, -- "do you
think nobody can turn a cake but mamma?"

"_You_ can't," said Asahel, -- "you'll let it fall in the ashes,
-- you will! --"

But the slice of half baked dough was cleverly and neatly
slipped off the board and happily put in its place again with
the right side out; and little Winifred, who had watched the
operation anxiously, said with a breath of satisfaction and in
her slow utterance,

"There -- Governor can do anything!"

There were several cakes to take the benefit of the fire, one
after the other, and then to be split and buttered, and then
to be eaten; and cakes of Winthrop's baking and mamma's
buttering, the children pronounced "as good as could be."
Nothing could have better broken up the gloom of their little
tea party than Winthrop's hoe-cakes; and then the tea was so
good, for nobody had eaten much dinner.

The children were in excellent spirits, and Winthrop kept them
in play; and the conversation went on between the three for a
large part of the evening. When the little ones were gone to
bed, then indeed it flagged; Winthrop and his mother sat
awhile silently musing, and then the former bade her good
night.

It was long before Mrs. Landholm thought of going to bed, or
thought of anything around her; the fire was dead and her
candle burnt out, when at length she roused herself. The cold
wind made itself felt through many a crevice in the wooden
frame house; and feeling too much of its work upon her, she
went into the kitchen to see if there were not some warmth
still lingering about the covered-up fire. To her surprise,
the fire was not covered up; a glow came from it yet; and
Winthrop sat there on the hearth, with his head leaning
against the jamb and his eyes intently studying the coals. He
started, and jumped up.

"Winthrop! --what are you here for, my dear?"

"I came out to warm myself."

"Haven't you been to bed?"

"No ma'am."

"Where have you been?"

"Only in my room, mother."

"Doing what, my son?"

"Thinking --" he said a little unwillingly.

"Sit down and warm yourself," said his mother placing his
chair again; -- "Why, your hands are warm now?"

"Yes ma'am -- I have been here a good while."

He sat down, where she had put his chair in front of the
fireplace; and she stood warming herself before it, and
looking at him. His face was in its usual calmness, and she
thought as she looked it was an excellent face. Great strength
of character -- great truth -- beneath the broad brow high
intellectual capacity, and about the mouth a certain sweet
self-possession; to the ordinary observer more cool than
sweet, but his mother knew the sweetness.

"What are you thinking about, Winthrop?" she said softly,
bending down near enough to lay a loving hand on his brow.

He looked up quickly and smiled, one of those smiles which his
mother saw oftener than anybody, but she not often, -- a smile
very revealing in its character, -- and said,

"Don't ask me, mamma."

"Who should ask you, if not I?"

"There is no need to trouble you with it, mother."

"You can't help that -- it will trouble me now, whether I know
it or not; for I see it is something that troubles you."

"You have too good eyes, mother," he said smiling again, but a
different smile.

"My ears are just as good."

"Mamma, I don't want to displease you," he said looking up.

"You can't do that -- you never did yet, Winthrop, my boy," she
answered, bending down again and this time her lips to his
forehead. "Speak -- I am not afraid."

He was silent a moment, and then mastering himself as it were
with some difficulty, he said,

"Mamma, I want to be somebody!"

The colour flushed back and forth on his face, once and again,
but beyond that, every feature kept its usual calm.

A shadow fell on his mother's face, and for several minutes
she stood and he sat in perfect silence; he not stirring his
eyes from the fire, she not moving hers from him. When she
spoke, the tone was changed, and though quiet he felt the
trouble in it.

"What sort of a somebody, Winthrop?"

"Mamma," he said, "I can't live here! I want to know more and
to be more than I can here. I can, I am sure, if I only can
find a way; and I am sure I can find a way. It is in me, and
it will come out. I don't want anybody to give me any help,
nor to think of me; I can work my own way, if you'll only let
me and not be troubled about me."

He had risen from his chair to speak this. His mother kept her
face in the shadow and said quietly,

"What way will you take, Winthrop?"

"I don't know, ma'am, yet; I haven't found out."

"Do you know the difficulties in the way?"

"No, mother."

It was said in the tone not of proud but of humble
determination.

"My boy, they are greater than you think for, or than I like
to think of at all."

"I dare say, mother."

"I don't see how it is possible for your father to do more
than put Will in the way he has chosen."

"I know that, mother," Winthrop replied, with again the calm
face but the flushing colour; -- "he said yesterday -- I heard
him --"

"What?"

"He said he would try to make a man of Rufus! I must do it for
myself, mother. And I will."

His mother hardly doubted it. But she sighed as she looked,
and sighed heavily.

"I ought to have made you promise not to be troubled, mamma,"
he said with a relaxing face.

"I am more careful of my promises than that," she answered.
"But, Winthrop, my boy, what do you want to do first?"

"To learn, mamma!" he said, with a singular flash of fire in
his usual cool eye. "To get rid of ignorance, and then to get
the power that knowledge gives. Rufus said the other day that
knowledge is power, and I know he was right. I feel like a man
with his hands tied, because I am so ignorant."

"You are hardly a man yet, Winthrop; you are only a boy in
years."

"I am almost sixteen, mother, and I haven't taken the first
step yet."

What should the first step be? A question in the minds of
both; the answer -- a blank.

"How long have you been thinking of this?"

"Since last spring, mother."

"Didn't Will's going put it in your head?"

"That gave me the first thought; but it would have made no
difference, mother; it would have come, sooner or later. I
know it would, by my feeling ever since."

Mrs. Landholm's eye wandered round the room, the very walls in
their humbleness and roughness reminding her anew of the
labour and self-denial it had cost to rear them, and then to
furnish them, and that was now expended in keeping the inside
warm. Every brown beam and little window-sash could witness
the story of privation and struggle, if she would let her mind
go back to it; the associations were on every hand; neither
was the struggle over. She turned her back upon the room, and
sitting down in Winthrop's chair bent her look as he had done
into the decaying bed of coals.

He was standing in the shadow of the mantelpiece, and looking
down in his turn scanned her face and countenance as a little
while before she had scanned his. Hers was a fine face, in
some of the finest indications. It had not, probably it never
had, the extreme physical beauty of her first-born, nor the
mark of intellect that was upon the features of the second.
But there was the unmistakable writing of calm good sense, a
patient and possessed mind, a strong power for the right,
whether doing or suffering, a pure spirit; and that nameless
beauty, earthly and unearthly, which looks out of the eyes of
a mother; a beauty like which there is none. But more; toil's
work, and care's, were there, very plain, on the figure and on
the face, and on the countenance too; he could not overlook
it; work that years had not had time to do, nor sorrow
permission. His heart smote him.

"Mamma," he said, "you have left out the hardest difficulty of
all. -- How can I go and leave you and papa without me?"

"How can you? My child, I can bear to do without you in this
world, if it is to be for your good or happiness. There is
only one thing, Winthrop, I cannot bear."

He was silent.

"I could bear anything -- it would make my life a garden of
roses -- if I were sure of having you with me in the next
world."

"Mamma -- you know I would --"

"I know you would, I believe, give your life to serve me, my
boy. But till you love God as well as that, -- you may be my
child, but you are not his."

He was silent still; and heaving a sigh, a weary one, that
came from very far down in her heart, she turned away again
and sat looking towards the fireplace. But not at it, nor at
anything else that mortal eyes could see. It was a look that
left the things around her, and passing present wants and
future contingencies, went beyond, to the issues, and to the
secret springs that move them. An earnest and painful look; a
look of patient care and meek reliance; so earnest, so intent,
so distant in its gaze, that told well it was a path the mind
often travelled and often in such wise, and with the self-same
burden. Winthrop watched the gentle grave face, so very grave
then in its gentleness, until he could not bear it; her cheek
was growing pale, and whether with cold or with thinking he
did not care to know.

He came forward and gently touched his cheek to the pale one.

"Mamma, do not look so for me!" he whispered.

She pulled him down beside her on the hearth, and nestled her
face on his shoulder and wrapped her arms round him. And they
strained him close, but he could not speak to her then.

"For whom should I look? or for what do I live? My boy! I
would die to know that you loved Christ; -- that my dear Master
was yours too!"

The gently-spoken words tied his tongue. He was mute; till she
had unloosed her arms from about him and sat with her face in
her hands. Then his head sought her shoulder.

"Mamma, I know you are right. I will do anything to please you
-- anything that I can," he said with a great force upon
himself.