Democrats were going to upset the whole State, for father said so."

Exactly what this meant, Dolly could not conceive; but, coupled with
her mother's sorrowful face and her father's prayer, it must mean
something dreadful. Something of danger to them all might be at hand,
and she said her "pray God to bless my dear father and mother" with
unusual fervor.

Revolving the matter on her pillow, she had a great mind, the next
time she met General Lewis with his smiling face, to walk boldly up
to him and remonstrate, and tell him to let her papa alone and not
upset the State!

Dolly had a great store of latent heroism and felt herself quite
capable of making a courageous defense of her father--and her heart
swelled with a purpose to stand by him to the last gasp, no matter
what came.

But sleep soon came down with her downy wings, and the great blue
eyes were closed, and Dolly knew not a word more till waked by the
jingling of sleigh bells and the creaking of sleds at early sunrise.

She sprang up, dressed quickly, and ran to the window. Evidently the
State had _not_ been upset during the night, for the morning was
clear, bright and glorious as heart could desire.

The rosy light of morning filled the air, the dreary snow wreaths lay
sparkling in graceful lines with tender hues of blue and lilac and
pink in their shadows, and merry sleigh bells were ringing and the
boys were out snow-balling each other in mere wantonness of boy life,
while Spring was barking frantically, evidently resolved to be as
frisky a boy as any of them.

[Illustration: HIEL IN HIS GLORY.

_"And wasn't you running to look at him?" asked Dolly._

_"Land o' Goshen, no!" said Nabby. "I jest wanted to see----well,
them horses he's got." ... "Oh" said Dolly._--p. 109.]

The fears and apprehensions of last night were all gone like a cloud,
and she hurried down into the kitchen to find Nabby stirring up her
buckwheat batter, and running to the window to see Hiel go by on
the stage, kissing his hand to her as he passed.

"I declare! the imperence of that cretur," said Nabby.

"What, Hiel?" asked Dolly.

"Yes, Hiel Jones! he's the conceitedest fellow that ever I did see.
You can't look out of a window but he thinks your running to look at
_him_."

"And wasn't you running to look at him?" asked Dolly.

"Land o' Goshen, no! What should I want to look at _him_ for? I jest
wanted to see--well, them horses he's got."

"Oh," said Dolly.

Upon reflection she added,

"I thought you liked Hiel, Nabby."

"You thought I liked Hiel?" said Nabby laughing. "What a young 'un!
Why, I can't bear the sight of him," and Nabby greased her griddle
with combative energy. "He's the saassiest fellow I ever see. _I cant
bear him!_"

Dolly reflected on this statement gravely, while Nabby dropped on the
first griddleful of cakes; finally she said,

"If you don't like Hiel, Nabby, what made you sit up so late with him
Christmas night?"

"Who said I did?" said Nabby, beginning to turn griddle-cakes with
velocity.

"Why, Will and Tom; they both say so. They heard when Hiel went out
the kitchen door, and they counted the clock striking twelve just as
he went. Will says he kissed you, too, Nabby. Did he?"

"Well, if ever I see such young 'uns!" said Nabby, flaming carnation
color over the fire as she took off the cakes. "That Bill is saassy
enough to physic a hornbug. I never see the beat of him!"

"But did Hiel stay so late, Nabby?"

"Well, yes, to be sure he did. I thought I never should have got him
out of the house. If I hadn't let him kiss me I believe in my soul
I'd a had to set up with him till morning; he said he wouldn't go
without. I've been mad at him ever since. I told him never to show
his face here again; but I know he'll come. He does it on purpose to
plague me."

"That is dreadful!" said Dolly, meditatively. "I wouldn't let him.
I'll tell you what," she added, with animation, "_I'll_ talk to him
and tell him he mustn't come here any more. Sha'n't I, Nabby?"

But Nabby laughed and said, "No, no; little girls mustn't talk so.
Don't you never say nothin' to Hiel about it; if you do I won't tell
you no more. Here, carry in this plate o' cakes, for they're eatin'
breakfast. I heard your pa askin' blessin' just after you came down.
You carry these in while I get on the next griddleful."

Dolly assumed her seat at table, but there again the trouble met her.
Her father and mother were talking together with sad, anxious faces.

"It is a most mysterious dispensation why this is allowed," said her
mother.

"Yes, my dear, 'clouds and darkness are round about Him,' but we must
have faith."

Here Spring varied the discourse by putting his somber black visage
over Dolly's arm and resting his nose familiarly on the table,
whereat she couldn't help giving him the half of a griddle-cake.

"How many times must I tell you, Dolly, that Spring is never to be
fed at the table?" said her mother. "I love dogs," she added, "but it
spoils them to be fed at table."

"Why, papa does it sometimes," pleaded Tom.

Mrs. Cushing was obliged to confess to the truth of this, for the
doctor when pursuing the deeper mazes of theology was sometimes so
abstracted that his soul took no note of what his body was doing,
and he had been more than once detected in giving Spring large
rations under the table while expounding some profound mysteries of
foreknowledge and free will.

Tom's remark was a home-thrust, but his mother said, reprovingly:

"Your father never means to do it; but he has so much to do and think
of that he is sometimes absent-minded."

A conscious twinkle might have been observed playing about the blue
eyes of the doctor, and a shrewd observer might have surmised that
the offense was not always strictly involuntary, for the doctor,
though a most docile and tractable husband, still retained here
and there traces of certain wild male instincts and fell at times
into singular irregularities. He had been known to upset all Mrs.
Cushing's nicely arranged yarn-baskets and stocking-baskets and
patch-baskets, pouring the contents in a heap on the floor, and
carrying them off bodily to pick up chestnuts in, when starting off
with the children on a nutting expedition. He would still persist at
intervals in going to hunt eggs in the barn with Dolly, and putting
the fruits of the search in his coat-tail pocket, though he had once
been known to sit down on a pocketful at a preparatory lecture, the
bell for which rung while he was yet on the hay-mow.

On this occasion, therefore, Spring made an opportune diversion in
the mournful turn the conversation was taking. The general tone of
remark became slightly admonitory on the part of Mrs. Cushing and
playfully defensive on the part of the doctor. In their "heart of
heart" the boys believed their father sometimes fed Spring when
he _did_ know what he was about, and this belief caused constant
occasional lapses from strict statute law on their part.

That morning, in prayers, their father read: "God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore will
we not fear, though the earth be removed; though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea;" and at those verses he stopped
and said: "There, my dear, there must be our comfort." And then they
sung:

    "Our God, our help in ages past,
      Our hope for years to come,
    Our shelter from the stormy blast,
      And our eternal home."

Then in prayer he plead for the Church--the Church of God, the vine
of his planting--and said:

"When the enemy cometh in like a flood, may Thy spirit lift up a
standard against them;" and again Dolly trembled and wondered. But
after prayers Bill suddenly burst back into the house.

"Oh! mamma, there _is_ a bluebird! Spring is come!"

"A bluebird! Impossible so early in March. You must be mistaken."

"No. Come to the door; you can hear him just as plain!"

And, sure enough, on the highest top of the great button-ball tree
opposite the house sat the little blue angel singing with all his
might--a living sapphire dropped down from the walls of the beautiful
city above. A most sanguine and imprudent bluebird certainly he must
have been, though the day was so lovely and the great icicles on
the eaves of the house were actually commencing to drip. But there
undoubtedly he was--herald and harbinger of good days to come.

"It is an omen," said the doctor, as he put his arms fondly round his
wife. "The Lord liveth, and blessed be our rock!"

And the boys and Dolly ran out, shouting wildly,

"There's been a bluebird. Spring is coming--spring is coming!"

CHAPTER XI.

DOLLY AND NABBY INVITED OUT.

Yes. Spring was coming; the little blue herald was right, though he
must have chilled his beak and frozen his toes as he sat there. But
he came from the great Somewhere, where things are always bright;
where life and summer and warmth and flowers are forever going on
while we are bound down under ice and snow.

There was a thrill in the hearts of all the children that day, with
visions of coming violets, hepaticas and anemones, of green grass and
long bright sunny rambles by the side of the Poganuc river.

The boys were so premature in hope as to get out their store of
fish-hooks, and talk of trouting. The Doctor looked over his box
of garden seeds, and read the labels. "Early Lettuce," "Early
Cucumbers," "Summer Squashes"--all this was inspiring reading, and
seemed to help him to have faith that a garden was coming round
again, though the snow banks yet lay over the garden-spot deep and
high. All day long it thawed and melted; a warm south wind blew and
the icicles dripped, so that there was a continual patter.

Two circumstances of importance in Dolly's horoscope combined on this
happy day: Hiel invited Nabby to an evening sleigh-ride after supper,
and Mrs. Davenport invited her father and mother to a tea-drinking at
the same time.

Notwithstanding her stout words about Hiel, Nabby in the most brazen
and decided manner declared her intention to accept his invitation,
because (as she remarked) "Hiel had just bought a bran new sleigh,
and Almiry Smith had said publicly that _she_ was going to have the
first ride in that air sleigh, and she would like to show Almiry that
she didn't know every thing." Nabby had inherited from her father a
fair share of combativeness, which was always bubbling and boiling
within her comely person at the very idea of imaginary wrongs; and,
as she excitedly wiped her tea-cups, she went on:

"That air Almiry Smith is a stuck-up thing; always turning up her
nose at me, and talking about my being a hired gal. What's the
difference? I live out and work, and she stays to home and works. I
work for the minister's folks and get my dollar a week, and she works
for her father and don't git nothin' but just her board and her
keep. So, I don't see why she need take airs over me--and she sha'n't
do it!"

But there was a tranquilizing influence breathing over Nabby's soul,
and she soon blew off the little stock of spleen and invited Dolly
into her bed-room to look at her new Leghorn bonnet, just home from
Miss Hinsdale's milliner-shop, which she declared was too sweet for
anything.

Now, Leghorn bonnets were a newly-imported test of station, grandeur
and gentility in Poganuc. Up to this period the belles of New England
had worn braided straw, abundantly pretty, and often braided by the
fair fingers of the wearers themselves, while they studied their
lessons or read the last novel or poem.

But this year Miss Hetty Davenport, and Miss Ellen Dennie, and the
blooming daughters of the governor, and the fair Maria Gridley had
all illuminated their respective pews in the meeting-house with
Leghorn flats--large and fine of braid, and tremulous with the
delicacy of their fiber. Similar wonders appeared on the heads of
the juvenile aristocracy of the Episcopal church; and the effect was
immediate.

Straw bonnets were "no where." To have a Leghorn was the thing;
and Miss Hinsdale imported those of many qualities and prices, to
suit customers. Nabby's was not of so fine a braid as that of the
governor's daughters; still it was a real Leghorn hat, and her soul
was satisfied. She wanted a female bosom to sympathize with her in
this joy, and Dolly was the chosen one.

Proud of this confidence, Dolly looked, exclaimed, admired, and
assisted at the toilette-trial--yet somewhat wondering at the
facility with which Nabby forgot all her stringent declarations of
the morning before.

"You don't suppose he would dare to kiss you again, Nabby?" Dolly
suggested timidly, while Nabby stood at the glass with her bonnet on,
patting her curls, shaking her head, pulling into place here a bow
and there a flower.

"Why, Dolly Cushing," said Nabby, laughing; "what a young 'un you are
to remember things! I never saw such a child!"

"But you said"----cried Dolly,--

"Oh, never mind what I said. Do you suppose I can't keep that fellow
in order? I'd just like to have him try it again--and see what he'd
get! There now, what do you think of that?" And Nabby turned round
and showed a general twinkle of nodding flowers, fluttering ribbons,
bright black eyes, and cheeks with laughing dimples which came and
went as she spoke or laughed.

"Nabby, I do declare, you are splendid," said Dolly. "Hiel said once
you was the handsomest girl in Poganuc."

"He did, did he? Well, I'll let him know a thing or two before I've
done with him; and Almiry Smith, too, with her milk-and-water face
and stringy curls."

"Did that bonnet cost a great deal?" asked Dolly.

"What do you mean, child?" asked Nabby, turning quickly and looking
at her.

"Nothing, only Mrs. Davenport said that hired girls were getting to
dress just like ladies."

Nabby flared up and grew taller, and seemed about to rise from the
floor in spontaneous combustion.

"I declare!" she said. "That's just like these 'ere stuck-up Town
Hill folks. Do they think nobody's to have silk gowns and Leg'orn
bonnets but them? Who 's a better right, I should like to know? Don't
we _work_ for our money, and ain't it _ourn_? and ain't we just as
good as they be? I'll buy just such clothes as I see fit, and if
anybody don't like it why they may lump it, that's all. I've a better
right to my bonnet than Hetty Davenport has to hers, for I earned the
money to pay for it, and she just lives to do nothing, and be a bill
of expense to her folks."

Dolly cowered under this little hurricane; but, Poganuc being a windy
town, Dolly had full experience that the best way to meet a sudden
gust is to wait for it to blow itself out, as she did on the present
occasion. In a minute Nabby laughed and was herself again; it was
impossible to be long uncomfortable with a flower garden on one's
head.

"I shall be lonesome to-night without you, Nabby," said Dolly; "the
boys talk Latin to me and plague me when I want to play with them."

"Oh, I heard Mis' Cushing say she was going to take you to the
tea-party, and that'll be just as good for you."

Dolly jumped up and down for joy and ran to her mother only to have
the joyful tidings confirmed. "I shall never leave Dolly alone in the
house again, with nobody but the boys," she said, "and I shall take
her with us. It will be a lesson in good manners for her."

It may have been perceived by the intimations of these sketches
hitherto that there were in the town of Poganuc two distinct circles
of people, who mingled in public affairs as citizens and in church
affairs as communicants, but who rarely or never met on the same
social plane.

There was the _haute noblesse_--very affably disposed, and perfectly
willing to _condescend_; and there was the proud democracy, prouder
than the noblesse, who wouldn't be condescended to, and insisted on
having their way and their say, on the literal, actual standpoint of
the original equality of human beings.

The sons and daughters of farmers and mechanics would willingly
exchange labor with each other; the daughters would go to a
neighboring household where daughters were few, and help in the
family work, and the sons likewise would hire themselves out where
there was a deficiency of man-power; but they entered the family as
full equals, sharing the same table, the same amusements, the same
social freedoms, with the family they served.

It was because the Town Hill families wished to hire _servants_,
according to the Old-World acceptation of the term, that it became
a matter of exceeding difficulty to get any of the free democratic
citizens or citizenesses to come to them in that capacity.

Only the absolute need of money reconciled any of them to taking such
a place, and then they took it with a secret heart-burning and a
jealous care to preserve their own personal dignity.

Nabby had compromised her pride in working for "the minister," for
the minister in early New England times was the first gentleman of
the parish, and a place in his family was a different thing from one
in any other.

Nevertheless, Nabby required to be guided with a delicate hand and
governed with tact and skill. There were things that no free-born
American girl would do, and Mrs. Cushing had the grace not to expect
those things. For instance, no Yankee girl would come at the ringing
of a bell. To expect this would, as they held it, be to place them
on a level with the negroes still retained as servants in some old
families. It was useless to argue the point. Nabby's cheeks would
flush, and her eyes flash, and the string of her tongue would be
loosed, and she would pour forth torrents of declamation if one
attempted to show that calling by a bell was no worse than calling by
the voice or sending out one of the children. Mrs. Cushing did not
try to do it.

Another point was the right to enter the house by the front door.
Now, as Nabby's work lay in the kitchen and as her sleeping-room
was just above, it was manifestly an inconvenience to enter by any
other than the kitchen door. Nevertheless, she had heard the subject
discussed among other girls, and had admired the spirit shown by her
intimate friend, Maria Pratt, when Mrs. Israel Deyter pointed out to
her the propriety of entering by the back door,--"Mrs. Deyter, do you
think there will be a back and a front door to heaven?"

But Mrs. Cushing avoided the solution of this theological problem
by looking on with a smile of calm amusement when Nabby very
conspicuously and perseveringly persisted in entering by the front
door the first week of her engagement with the family. As nothing was
said and nothing done about it, Nabby gradually declined into doing
what was most convenient--went the shortest way to her work and room.
Nabby was in her way and place a person worth making concessions
to, for she was a workwoman not to be despised. Her mother, Mrs.
Higgins, was one of those almost fabulous wonders of household genius
who by early rising, order, system, neatness and dispatch reduced
the seemingly endless labors of a large family to the very minimum
of possibility. Consequently there was little occasion for the
mistress of a family to overlook or to teach Nabby. When she entered
the household she surveyed the situation with trained eyes, took an
account of all work to be done, formed her system and walked through
it daily with energetic ease, always securing to herself two or three
hours of leisure every day in which to do her own cutting, fitting
and sewing. According to the maxims in which she had been brought
up, a girl that did not "do up her work in the morning," so as to
have this interval of leisure, was not mistress of her business. On
washing days Nabby's work began somewhere in the latter part of the
night, and daylight saw her flags of victory waving on the lines in
the shape of renovated linen, and Nabby with great composure getting
breakfast as on any other day.

She took all her appointed work as a matter of course. Strong, young,
and healthy, she scarcely knew what fatigue was. She was cheerful,
obliging, and good tempered, as thoroughly healthy people generally
are. There was, to be sure, a little deposit of gunpowder in Nabby's
nature, and anybody who chose to touch a match to her self-esteem,
her sense of personal dignity or independence, was likely to see a
pretty lively display of fireworks; but it was always soon over, and
the person making the experiment did not generally care to repeat it.

But Hiel Jones found this chemical experiment irresistibly
fascinating, and apparently did not care how often he burned his
fingers with it. Hiel was somewhat _blasé_ with easy conquests.

The female sex have had in all ages their spoiled favorites, who are
ungrateful just in proportion to the favors bestowed upon them; and
Hiel was in his circle as much courted and pursued with flattering
attentions as any spoiled tenor of the modern opera. For him did
Lucinda and Jane bake surreptitious mountains of sponge cake. Small
tributes of cream, butter, pies of various name and model, awaited
him at different stopping-places, and were handed him by fair hands
with flattering smiles. The Almira of whom Nabby discoursed with such
energetic vehemence had knit Hiel a tippet, worked his name on a
pocket-handkerchief with her hair, and even gone so far as to present
him with one of the long yellow curls which Nabby was pleased to call
"stringy." Nabby's curls certainly could not have merited any such
epithet, as every separate one of them had a will and a way of its
own, and all were to the full as mutinous as their mistress. Yet Hiel
would have given more for one of those rebellious curls than for all
Almira's smooth-brushed locks, and although a kiss from Nabby was
like a kiss from one on an electric stool, snapping and prickling at
every touch, yet somehow the perverse Hiel liked the excitement of
the shock.

Hiel's tactics for the subjugation of a female heart were in the
spirit of a poet he never heard of:

    "Pique her, and soothe in turns;
    Soon passion crowns thy hopes."

He instituted a series of regular quarrels with Nabby, varied by
flattering attentions, and delighted to provoke her to anger, sure
that she would say a vast deal more than she meant, and then, in the
reaction which is always sure to follow in the case of hot-tempered,
generous people, he should find his advantage.

So, when the stars looked out blinking and winking through a
steel-blue sky, Nabby, in the fascinating new bonnet, was handed
into the smart new sleigh, tucked in with Hiel under a profusion of
buffalo robes, and went jingling away. A supper and a dance awaited
them at a village tavern ten miles off, and other sleighs and other
swains with their ladies were on the same way, where we take our
leave of them to follow our little Dolly into the parlors of the
_haute noblesse_.

CHAPTER XII.

DOLLY GOES INTO COMPANY.

When Dolly found herself arrayed in her red dress and red shoes, her
hair nicely curled, she was so happy that, to speak scripturally,
she leaped for joy--flew round and round with her curls flying, like
a little mad-cap--till her mother was obliged to apply a sedative
exhortation.

"Take care, Dolly; take care. I can't take you, now, unless you are
good. If you get so wild as that I shall have to leave you at home.
Come here, and let me talk to you."

And Dolly came and stood, grave and serious, at her mother's knee,
who, while she made over and arranged some of the tumbled curls,
proceeded to fortify her mind for the coming emergency with suitable
precepts.

"It's a great thing for a little girl like you, Dolly, to be allowed
to sit up with grown people till nine o'clock, and to go out with
your mamma, and I want you to be very careful and behave as a good
little girl should. I take you, so that you may learn good manners.
Now, remember, Dolly, you mustn't speak to any of them unless you
are spoken to."

Dolly reflected on this precept gravely, and then said:

"Don't they speak to any one except when they are spoken to?"

"Yes, my dear, because they are grown-up people, and know when to
speak and what is proper to be said. Little girls do not; so they
must be silent. Little girls should be seen and not heard."

Dolly knew this maxim by heart already, and she no more questioned
the propriety of it than of any of the great laws of nature.

After an interval of serious reflection, she asked:

"But, if any of them should talk to me, then I may talk to them; may
I?"

"Yes, my dear; if any body talks to you, you must answer, but be
careful not to talk too long."

"Do you think, Mamma, that Judge Gridley will be there?"

"Yes, my dear, I presume so."

"Because I am acquainted with him," remarked Dolly gravely; "he
always talks to me. He meets me sometimes coming home from school and
talks to me. I am glad he will be there."

Mrs. Cushing smiled aside to her husband as she was tying on Dolly's
little hood, and then her father took her up in his arms and they
started.

Tea parties in the highest circles of Poganuc began at six and ended
at nine, and so when Dolly and her father and mother arrived they
found a room full of people. Col. Davenport was a tall, elegant man,
with an upright, soldierly carriage, his hair powdered white, and
tied in a queue down his back; his eyes of a clear, piercing blue,
looking out each side of a well-defined aquiline nose; his voice
deep and musical, with a sort of resonance which spoke of one used
to command. The Colonel was one of the most active members of the
church;--the one who in the absence of the pastor officiated as
lay-reader, and rendered the sermon and made the prayers, in the same
sonorous, military voice that suggested the field and the commander.
Mrs. Davenport, a lady of delicate and refined appearance, with a
certain high-bred manner toned down to a kind of motherly sweetness,
received the Doctor and Mrs. Cushing with effusion, kissed and patted
Dolly on the cheek, and remarked what a nice little girl she was
getting to be; and the Colonel stooped down and took her hand, like
an affable eagle making court to a little humming-bird, and hoped she
was quite well, to which Dolly, quite overcome with awe, answered
huskily: "Very well, I thank you, sir."

Then kind Mrs. Davenport busied herself in ordering to the front
a certain little chair that had a family history. This was duly
brought and placed for Dolly by old Cato, an ancient negro servitor
of the Colonel's, who had once served as his waiter in the army,
and had never recovered from the sense of exaltation and dignity
conferred by this experience. Dolly sat down, and began employing her
eyes about the high and dainty graces of the apartment. The walls
were hung with paper imported from France and ornamented with family
portraits by Copley. In the fire place, the high brass andirons
sustained a magnificent fire, snapping and sparkling and blazing in
a manner gorgeous to behold. Soon Cato came in with the tea on a
waiter, followed by Venus, his wife, who, with a high white turban
on her head and a clear-starched white apron in front, bore after
him a tray laden with delicate rolls, sandwiches, and multiplied and
tempting varieties of cake. Dolly spread her handkerchief in her
little lap, and comported herself as nearly as possible as she saw
the grand ladies doing, who, in satin and velvet and point lace, were
making themselves agreeable, and taking their tea with elegant ease.

The tea parties of Poganuc were not wanting in subjects for
conversation. It was in rule to discuss the current literature of the
day, which at that time came from across the water--the last articles
in the _Edinburgh Review_, the latest Waverley novel, the poetry of
Moore, Byron, Southey, and Wordsworth--all came under review and had
place of consideration.

In those days, when newspapers were few and scanty, when places were
isolated and travel was tedious and uncertain, the intellectual life
of cultivated people was intense. A book was an event in Poganuc. It
was heard of first across the ocean, and watched for, as one watches
for the rising of a new planet. While the English packet was slowly
laboring over, bearing it to our shores, expectation was rising, and
when the book was to be found in the city book stores an early copy
generally found its way to the élite circle of Poganuc.

Never in this day--generation of jaded and sated literary
appetite--will any one know the fresh and eager joy, the vivid
sensation of delight with which a poem like "The Lady of the Lake,"
a novel like "Ivanhoe," was received in lonely mountain towns by a
people eager for a new mental excitement. The young folks called the
rocks and glens and rivers of their romantic region by names borrowed
from Scott; they clambered among the crags of Benvenue and sailed on
the bosom of Loch Katrine.

The students in the law offices and the young ladies of the
first families had their reading circles and their literary
partialities--some being partisans of Byron, some of Scott,
etc.--and there was much innocent spouting of poetry. There were
promising youths who tied their open shirt collars with a black
ribbon, and professed disgust at the hollow state of human happiness
in general, and there were compassionate young ladies who considered
the said young men all the more interesting for this state of
mysterious desolation, and often succeeded in the work of consoling
them. It must be remarked, however, that the present gathering was a
married people's party, and the number of young men and maidens was
limited to the immediate family connections. The young people had
their parties, with the same general decorum, where the conversation
was led by them. In the elderly circles all these literary and
social topics came under discussion. Occasionally Judge Belcher, who
was an authority in literary criticism, would hold the ear of the
drawing-room while he ran a parallel between the dramatic handling
of Scott's characters as compared with those of Shakespeare, or gave
an analysis of the principles of the Lake School of Poetry. The
Judge was an admirable talker, and people in general liked to hear
him quite as well as he liked to hear himself, and so his monologues
proceeded _nem. con._

On this particular evening, however, literature was forgotten in
the eagerness of politics. The news from the state elections was not
in those days spread by telegraph, it lumbered up in stages, and was
recorded at most in weekly papers; but enough had come to light to
make the Poganuc citizens aware that the State of Connecticut had
at last been revolutionized, and gone from the Federalists to the
Democrats.

Judge Belcher declaimed upon the subject in language which made the
very hair rise upon Dolly's head.

"Yes, sir," he said, addressing Dr. Cushing; "I consider this as
the ruin of the State of Connecticut! It's the triumph of the lower
orders; the reign of 'sans culotte-ism' begun. In my opinion, sir, we
are over a volcano; I should not be surprised, sir, at an explosion
that will blow up all our institutions!"

Dolly's eyes grew larger and larger, although she was a little
comforted to observe the Judge carefully selecting a particular
variety of cake that he was fond of, and helping himself to a third
cup of tea in the very midst of these shocking prognostications.

Dolly had not then learned the ease and suavity of mind with which
both then and ever since people at tea drinkings and other social
recreations declare their conviction that the country is going
to ruin. It never appears to have any immediate effect upon the
appetite. Dolly looked at her father, and thought he assented with
somewhat of a saddened air; and Mrs. Davenport looked concerned; and
Mrs. Judge Gridley said it was a very dark providence why such things
were permitted, but a little while after was commending the delicacy
of the cake, and saying she must inquire of Venus about her peculiar
mode of confection.

Judge Gridley--a white-haired, lively old gentleman with bright
eyes, who wore the old-fashioned small-clothes, knee-buckles, silk
stockings and low shoes--had fixed his eyes upon Dolly for some time,
and now crossing the room drew her with him into a corner, saying:
"Come, now, Miss Dolly, you and I are old friends, you know. What do
you think of all these things?"

"Oh, I'm so glad you came," said Dolly, with a long sigh of relief.
"I hoped you would, because mamma said I mustn't talk unless somebody
spoke to me, and I do so want to know all about those dreadful
things. What is a volcano? Please tell me!"

"Why, my little Puss," he said, lifting her in his lap and twining
her curls round his finger, "what do you want to know that for?"

"Because I heard Judge Belcher say that we were all over a volcano
and it would blow us all up some day. Is it like powder?"

"You dear little soul! don't you trouble your head about what Judge
Belcher says. He uses strong language. He only means that the
Democrats will govern the state."

"And are they so dreadfully wicked?" asked Dolly. "I want to tell
you something"--and Dolly whispered, "Bessie Lewis's father is a
Democrat, and yet they don't seem like wicked people."

"No, my dear; when you grow up you will learn that there are good
people in every party."

"Then you don't think Bessie's father is a bad man?" said Dolly. "I'm
so glad!"

"No; he's a good man in a bad party; that is what I think."

"I wish you'd talk to him and tell him not to do all these dreadful
things, and upset the state," said Dolly. "I thought the other night
_I_ would; but I'm only a little girl, you know; he wouldn't mind
me. If I was a grown-up woman I would," she said, with her cheeks
flushing and her eyes kindling.

Judge Gridley laughed softly to himself and stroked her head.

"When you are a grown-up woman I don't doubt you can make men do
almost anything you please, but I don't think it would do any good
for _me_ to talk to General Lewis; and now, little Curly-wurly, don't
bother your pretty head about politics. Neither party will turn the
world upside down. There's a good God above us all, my little girl,
that takes care of our country, and he will bring good out of evil.
So now don't you worry."

"I'm afraid, Judge Gridley, that Dolly is troubling you," said Mrs.
Cushing, coming up.

"Oh, dear me! madame, no; Miss Dolly and I are old acquaintances. We
have the best possible understanding."

But just then, resounding clear and loud through the windy March air,
came the pealing notes of the nine o'clock bell, and an immediate
rustle of dresses, and rising, and shaking of hands, and cutting
short of stories, and uttering last words followed.

For though not exactly backed by the arbitrary power which enforced
the celebrated curfew, yet the nine o'clock bell was one of the
authoritative institutions of New England; and at its sound all
obediently set their faces homeward, to rake up house-fires, put out
candles, and say their prayers before going to rest.

Old Captain Skeggs, a worn-out revolutionary soldier, no longer good
for hard service, had this commanding post in Poganuc, and no matter
how high blew the wind, how fiercely raged the storm, the captain in
his white woolen great coat, with three little capes to it, stamped
his way through the snow, pulled valiantly on the rope, and let
all the hills and valleys of Poganuc know that the hour of rest had
come. Then, if it were a young people's party, each young man chose
out his maiden and asked the pleasure of seeing her home; and in the
clear frosty night and under the silent stars many a word was said
that could not be said by candle-light indoors:--whereof in time came
life-long results.

CHAPTER XIII.

COLONEL DAVENPORT RELATES HIS EXPERIENCES.

A few days after the tea-party, Colonel and Mrs. Davenport came to
take tea at the parsonage. It was an engagement of long standing, and
eagerly looked forward to by the children, who with one accord begged
that they might be allowed to sit up and hear the Colonel's stories.

For, stories of the war it was known the Colonel could tell; the
fame of them hovered in vague traditions on the hills and valleys of
Poganuc, and whenever he was to be in the circle it was always in the
programme of hope that he might be stimulated and drawn out to tell
of some of the stirring scenes of his camp-life.

In a general way, too, the children were always glad to have company.
The preparations had a festive and joyous air to their minds. Mrs.
Cushing then took possession of the kitchen in person, and various
appetizing and suggestive dainties and condiments stood about in
startling profusion. Dolly and the boys stoned raisins, pounded
cinnamon, grated nutmegs and beat eggs with enthusiasm, while Nabby
heated the oven and performed the part of assistant priestess in high
and solemn mysteries. Among her many virtues and graces, Mrs. Cushing
had one recommendation for a country minister's wife which commanded
universal respect: she could make cake. Yea, more, she could make
_such_ cake as nobody else could make--not even Colonel Davenport's
Venus.

So the children had stoned raisins, without eating more than the
natural tribute to be expected in such cases; they had been allowed
in perquisites a stick of cinnamon apiece; and the pound-cake, the
sponge-cake, the fruit-cake and the tea-rusks were each in their kind
a perfect success.

During tea-time every word uttered by the Colonel was eagerly watched
by attentive and much-desiring ears; but as yet no story came. The
vivacity imparted by two or three cups of the best tea was all spent
in denunciations of the Democrats, their schemes, designs and dangers
to the country, when the Colonel and Dr. Cushing seemed to vie with
each other in the vigor and intensity of their prognostications of
evil.

But after tea there came the genial hour of the social sit-down in
front of the andirons, when the candles were duly snuffed, and the
big fore-stick had burned down to glowing coals, and the shadows
played in uncertain flashes up and down the walls of the fire-lighted
room; and then the Colonel's mind began traveling a road hopeful to
his listening auditors.

From Democracy to Jefferson, from Jefferson to France and the French
Revolution, the conversation led by easy gradations, and thence
to the superior success of our own Revolution--from La Fayette to
Washington.

Now, the feeling of the Doctor and of his whole family for General
Washington was to the full as intense as that of the ancient
Israelites for Moses. They were never tired of hearing the smallest
particular about him--how he looked; how he walked; what he wore; the
exact shade of his eyes; the least word that ever dropped from his
lips.

"You have no doubt whatever that the General was a religious man?"
said the Doctor, propounding what was ever his most anxious inquiry
with regard to one who had entered on the Invisible Verities.

"Not a doubt, sir," was the Colonel's reply, in those ringing and
decisive tones which were characteristic of him.

"I have always heard," pursued the Doctor, "that he was eminently a
man of prayer."

"Eminently so," said the Colonel. "The General, sir, was a
communicant in the Episcopal Church, a firm believer in
Christianity, and I think he was sustained in all the trying
emergencies of the war by his faith in his God. That, sir, I have not
a doubt of."

"That has always been my belief," said the Doctor; "but I am glad to
hear you say so."

"Yes, sir," added the Colonel with energy; "his influence in the
army was openly and decidedly that of a Christian. You recollect
his general order at one time, excusing soldiers and sailors from
fatigue-duty on Sunday, that they might have time to attend religious
service, and his remarks upon the custom of profane swearing in the
army; how he reminded both officers and men that 'We could have but
little hope of the blessing of Heaven upon our arms, if we insult it
by impiety.'"

"Yes, I remember all that," said the Doctor. "Nothing could have been
better worded. It must have had an immense influence. But does it
not seem astonishing that a military man, going through the terrible
scenes that he did, should never have been tempted to profanity? I
declare," said the Doctor, musingly, "I would not answer for myself.
There were times in that history when without preventing grace I am
quite sure _I_ could not have held myself in."

"Well, sir, since you speak on that subject," said the Colonel, "I
am free to say that, on one occasion I saw our General carried
beyond himself. I have often thought I would like to tell you the
circumstances, Doctor."

There was a little edging towards the Colonel, both of the Doctor and
Mrs. Cushing, as the Colonel, looking dreamily far into the hickory
coals, said:

"Yes, sir; that was one of those critical times in our war, when it
turned on the events of a few hours whether we had been the nation we
are now, or trodden down under the British heel; whether Washington
had been made President of the United States, or hanged for treason.
It was at the time of the Long Island retreat."

"And you were there?" asked Dr. Cushing. The Doctor knew very well
that the Colonel was there, and was eager to draw him out.

"There? Sir, indeed I was," answered the Colonel. "I shall never
forget it to my dying day. We had been fighting all day at terrible
odds, our men falling all around us like leaves, and the British
pressing close upon us; so close, that when it grew dark we could
hear every movement in their camp, every sound of pick, or shovel,
or gun. Our men had got behind their intrenchments, and there the
enemy stopped pursuing. What a night that was! We were deadly
tired--dispirited as only fellows can be that have seen their friends
shot down about them; no tents, no shelter, and the sentries of the
victorious enemy only a quarter of a mile from our lines. Nearly two
thousand, out of the five thousand men we had in the fight, were
killed, wounded, or missing. Well, it was a terribly anxious night
for Washington; for what had we to expect, next day? He went round at
four o'clock in the morning to see to us and speak a word of cheer
here and there. It was a cold, drizzling, gloomy, rainy morning,
but we could see through the fog a large encampment; and they were
intrenching themselves, though the rain drove them into their tents.
The day advanced, continuing rainy and stormy, and they made no
move to attack us. Our scouts, that were out watching the motions
of the enemy down at Red Hook, got a peep at the shipping at Staten
Island and saw at once that there was a movement and bustle there,
as if there were something on foot; and they got the idea that the
enemy were planning at turn of tide to come up behind us in the East
River, and cut us off from the army in New York. Sir, that was just
what they were meaning to do; and, if they had, we should have been
caught there like rats in a trap, the war would have been ended, and
Washington hanged. The party hurried back to tell the General. A
council of war was held, and it was decided that we all must cross to
New York that very night. There it was; nine thousand men, with all
our baggage and artillery, to steal away in the night from that great
army, and they so near that we could hear every dog that barked or
man that whistled among them."

"How wide was the place to be crossed?" asked the Doctor.

"Full three-quarters of a mile, sir, and with a rapid tide sweeping
through. As the Lord's providence would have it, Colonel Glover had
just come in that day with his Marblehead regiment--thirteen hundred
fishermen and sailors, such as the world cannot equal."

"Glorious!" exclaimed the Doctor. "God bless the Marblehead boys!"

"Yes, they saved us, under God and the General; we never could have
crossed without them.

"Well, the General sent to the Quartermaster to impress all the boats
and transports of every kind that could be got, and have them ready
by evening. By eight o'clock they were all at Brooklyn, and under the
management of the Marblehead regiment. Word was given out in the army
to be prepared for a night attack, and the poor fellows, tired as
they were, were all up and ready to move on order.

"Then Washington ordered Gen. Mifflin's brigade, including what
remained of our regiment, to stay and keep the intrenchments with
guards and patrols and sentinels posted, to make the enemy believe
we were there, while the rest all moved down to the water and
embarked.

"Now I tell you, sir, it was a good deal harder to stand there
than to be moving just then. We were wide awake and we counted the
minutes. It is always longer to those who wait than to those who
work. The men were true as steel, but, poor fellows, there is a limit
to human endurance, and they got pretty restive and nervous. So,
between you and me, did we officers too. Standing still in such a
danger is a thousand times worse than fighting.

"Finally the men began to growl and mutter; it was all we could do to
hold them; they were sure the army had crossed--word _must_ have been
sent to them! So, finally, when Washington's aid misunderstood his
order and came running to say that we were to move down, we started
on the double-quick and got to the shore. There we found that the
tide had turned, a strong north-east wind was blowing, the boats had
been brought without oars enough to convey the troops, the sail-boats
were unable to make head against wind and tide, and full half the
army were still on Long Island shore!

"Washington stood there amid the confusion and perplexity--when, in
the midst of his troubles, down we all came.

"Sir, I never saw a mortal being look as Gen. Washington looked at
us. He ordered us back with a voice like thunder, and I never heard
such a terrific volley of curses as he poured out upon us when the
men hesitated. Sir, that man was so dreadful that we all turned and
ran. We had rather face the judgment-day than face him. Upon my soul,
I thought when I turned back that I was going straight into eternity,
but I had rather face death than him."

"And he swore?"

"Indeed he did--but it was not profane swearing; it was not taking
God's name in vain, for it sent us back as if we had been chased by
lightning. It was an awful hour, and he saw it; it was life or death;
country or no country."

"Sir," said Dr. Cushing, starting up and pacing the room, "it was the
oath of the Lord! It would be profane to call it swearing."

"Yes, sir," said the Colonel, "you remember that one time Moses threw
down both tables of the law and broke them, and the Lord did not
reprove him."

"Exactly," answered the Doctor; "he saw his nation going to ruin and
forgot all else to save them. The Lord knows how to distinguish."

"But, sir," said the Colonel, "I never tell this except to the
initiated. No man who saw Washington then dared ever to allude
to it afterward. He was habitually so calm, so collected, so
self-contained, that this outburst was the more terrific. Whatever he
felt about it was settled between him and his Maker. No man ever took
account with him."

Then followed a few moments of silence, when Dolly emerged from a
dark corner--her cheeks very much flushed, her eyes very wide and
bright--and, pressing up to the Colonel's knee, said eagerly: "But,
oh please, sir, what became of you and the men?"

The Colonel looked down and smiled as he lifted Dolly on his knee.
"Why, my little girl, here I am, you see; I wasn't killed after all."

"But did you really go clear back?" asked Dolly.

"Yes, my dear, we all went back and staid two or three hours; and
when it came morning we made believe to be the whole army. We made
our fires and we got our breakfasts and we whistled and talked and
made all the stir we could, but as the good Lord would have it there
was such a thick fog that you could not see your hand before your
face. You see that while the fog hung over the island and covered us,
it was all clear down by the river."

"Why, that's just the way it was when they crossed the Red Sea," said
Dolly, eagerly; "wasn't it, Papa?"

"Something so, my dear," said her father; but her mother made her a
sign not to talk.

"How long did it take to do the whole thing?"

"Well, thanks to those Marblehead boys, by daybreak the greater part
of the army were safe on the New York side. A little after daylight
we marched off quietly and went down to the ferry. Washington was
still there, and we begged him to go in the first boat; but no, he
was immovable. He saw us all off, and went himself in the very last
boat, after every man was in."

"What a glorious fellow!" said the Doctor.

"Please, sir," said Will, who, with distended eyes, had been
listening, "what did the British say when they found out?"

The Colonel laid his head back and gave a hearty laugh.

"They had a message sent them, by a Tory woman down by the ferry,
what was going on. She sent her black servant, and he got through
our American lines but was stopped by the Hessians, who could not
understand his gibberish, and so kept him till long after all
was over. Then a British officer overhauled him and was pretty
well amazed at his story. He gave the alarm, and General Howe's
aid-de-camp, with a body of men, climbed over the intrenchments and
found all deserted. They hurried down to the landing just in time to
see the rear boats half way across the river."

"Well, that is _almost_ like the crossing of the Red Sea," said the
Doctor.

"Oh, weren't the British furious!" cried Bill.

"Yes, they did fire away at the boats, and one straggling boat they
hit and forced the men to return; but it turned out only three
vagabonds that had come to plunder."

It was after the nine o'clock bell had dismissed the Colonel and his
lady that the Doctor noticed the wide and radiant eyes of little
Dolly and his boys.

"My children," he said, "to use the name of the great God solemnly
and earnestly for a great and noble purpose is not to 'swear.'
Swearing is taking God's holy name in vain, in a trifling way, for a
trivial purpose--a thing which our great and good general never did.
But this story I would rather you would never repeat. It might not be
understood."

"Certainly," said Bill, with proud gravity; "common boys wouldn't
understand--and, Dolly, don't _you_ tell."

"Of course I shouldn't," said Dolly. "I never shall tell even Nabby,
nor Bessie, nor anybody."

And afterwards, in the family circle, when General Washington was
spoken of, the children looked on one another with grave importance,
as the trusted depositaries of a state secret.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PUZZLE OF POGANUC.

Notwithstanding the apparition of the blue-bird and the sanguine
hopes of the boys, the winter yet refused to quit the field. Where
these early blue-birds go to, that come to cheer desponding hearts
in arctic regions like Poganuc, is more than one can say. Birds'
wings are wonderful little affairs, and may carry them many hundred
southward miles in a day. Dolly, however, had her own theory about
it, and that was that the bird went right up into heaven, and there
waited till all the snow-storms were over.

Certain it was that the Poganuc people, after two promising days of
thaw, did not fall short of that "six weeks' sledding in March" which
has come to be proverbial.

The thaw, which had dripped from icicles and melted from snow-banks,
froze stiffer than ever, and then there came a two days'
snow-storm--good, big, honest snow-feathers, that fell and fell all
day and all night, till all the houses wore great white night-caps,
the paths in front of all the house-doors had to be shoveled out
again, and the farmers with their sleds turned out to break roads.

The Doctor was planning a tour in his sleigh to fulfill his monthly
round of visiting the schools.

Schools there always were in every district, from the time the first
log school-house had been erected in the forests, down to the days
when, as now, the school-house is a comfortable, well-furnished
building.

In the Doctor's day the common schoolhouses were little, mean
shanties, built in the cheapest possible manner, consisting of one
small room and a vestibule for hanging bonnets, hats, and dinner
baskets. In winter, a box-stove, the pipe of which passed through one
of the windows, gave warmth. Blackboards were unknown. The teacher's
care was simply to hear reading in the Bible and the "Columbian
Orator;" to set copies in ruled copy-books; to set "sums" from
"Daboll's Arithmetic;" to teach parsing from "Murray's Grammar;"
to mend pens, and to ferule and thrash disorderly scholars. In the
summer months, when the big boys worked in the fields, a woman
generally held sway, and taught knitting and sewing to the girls. On
Saturday all recited the "Assembly's Catechism," and once a month the
minister, and sometimes his wife, came in to hear and commend the
progress of the scholars.

One of the troubles of a minister in those times was so to hold the
balance as to keep down neighborhood quarrels;--not an easy matter
among a race strong, opinionated, and who, having little variety in
life, rather liked the stimulus of disagreements. A good quarrel was
a sort of moral whetstone, always on hand for the sharpening of their
wits.

Such a quarrel had stood for some two or three years past in
regard to the position of the North Poganuc schoolhouse. It had
unfortunately been first located on a high, slippery, windy hill,
very uncomfortable of access in the winter months, and equally hot
and cheerless in summer. Subsequently, the building of several new
farm-houses had carried most of the children a considerable distance
away, and occasioned increased sense of inconvenience.

The thing had been talked of and discussed in several successive
town-meetings, but no vote could be got to change the position of the
school-house. Zeph Higgins was one of the most decided in stating
what ought to be done and where the school-house ought to stand;
but, unfortunately, Zeph's mode of arguing a question was such as
to rouse all the existing combativeness in those whom he sought to
convince. No more likely mode to ruin a motion in town-meeting than
to get Zeph interested to push it. In Poganuc, as elsewhere, there
were those in town-meeting that voted on the principle stated by the
immortal Bird o' Freedom Sawin:

    "I take the side that isn't took
    By them consarned teetotalers."

In the same manner, Zeph's neighbors were for the most part inclined
in town meeting, irrespective of any other consideration, to take the
side he didn't take.

Hiel Jones had often been heard to express the opinion that, "Ef
Zeph Higgins would jest shet up his gash in town-meetin', that air
school-house could be moved fast enough; but the minit that Dr.
Cushing had been round, and got folks kind o' slicked down and
peaceable, Zeph would git up and stroke 'em all back'ards and git
their dander up agin. Folks warn't a-goin' to be druv; and Zeph was
allers fer drivin'."

The subject of an approaching town-meeting was beginning to loom
dimly in the discussions of the village. One characteristic of
the Yankee mind, as developed in those days, was the slowness and
deliberation with which it arrived at any purpose or conclusion.
This was not merely in general movements, but in particular ones
also. Did the Widow Brown contemplate turning her back buttery into
a sink-room, she forthwith went over to the nearest matrons of her
vicinity, and announced that she was "talkin' about movin' her sink,"
and the movement in all its branches and bearings was discussed in
private session. That was step No. 1. Then all the women at the next
quilting, or tea-drinking, heard that Widow Brown was "talking about
changing her sink," and _they_ talked about it. Then Seth Chickering,
the neighborhood carpenter, was called into consultation, and came
and investigated the premises, and reported--first to the widow and
second to his wife, who told all the other women what "Seth, he
said," etc. The _talking_ process continued indefinitely, unless some
active Providential dispensation brought it to an end.

The same process was repeated when Mrs. Slocum thought of investing
in a new winter cloak; the idea in those days prevailing that a
winter cloak was a thing never but once in a lifetime to be bought,
and after that to endure for all generations, the important article
must not be bought lightly or unadvisedly. When Deacon Dickenson
proposed to build a new back parlor on his house and to re-shingle
the roof, the talking and discussion lasted six months, and threw the
whole neighborhood into commotion; carpenters came before daybreak
and roosted on the fences, and at odd times as they found leisure,
at all hours of the day, gathered together, and Seth Chickering
took the opinions of Sam Parmelee and Jake Peters; and all Mrs.
Dickenson's female friends talked about it, till every shingle,
every shingle-nail and every drop of paint had received a separate
consideration, and the bargain was, so to speak, whittled down to the
finest possible point.

Imagine the delicacies of discussion, then, that attended the moving
of a schoolhouse at the public expense--a schoolhouse in which
everybody in the neighborhood had a private and personal claim--and
how like the proceedings of a bull in a china shop was the advocacy
of a champion like Zeph Higgins, and one may see how infinitely
extended in this case might be the area of "talkin' about movin' that
air schoolhouse," and how hopelessly distant any decision. The thing
had already risen on the horizon of Deacon Dickenson's store, like
one of those puzzling stars or fractiously disposed heavenly bodies
that seem created to furnish astronomers with something to talk about.

The fateful period was again coming round; the spring town-meeting
was at hand, and more than one had been heard to say that "Ef that
air schoolhouse hed to be moved, it oughter be done while the
sleddin' was good."

In Deacon Dickenson's store a knot of the talkers were gathered
around the stove, having a final talk and warm-up previous to
starting their sleds homeward to their supper of pork-and-beans and
doughnuts.

Our mournful friend, Deacon Peasley, sat in his usual drooping
attitude on a mackerel-keg placed conveniently by the stove; and
then, like Beattie's hermit,

                  " ... his plaining begun.
    Tho' mournful his spirit, his soul was resigned."

"I'm sure I hope I don't wanter dictate to the Lord, nor nothin, but
_ef_ he should send a turn o' rheumatism on Zeph Higgins, jest afore
town-meetin' day--why, seems to me 'twould be a marcy to us all."

"I don't see, fer my part," said Tim Hawkins, "why folks need to mind
what he says; but they do. He'll do more _agin_ a motion talkin'
_fer_ it, than I can do talkin' agin it fer a year. I never see the
beat of him--never."

"Aint there nobody," said Deacon Peasley, caressing his knee, and
looking fondly at the stove door, "that could kind o' go to him, and
sort o' set it in order afore him how he henders the very thing he's
sot on doin'?"

"Guess you don't know him as I do," said Deacon Dickenson, "or you
wouldn't 'a' thought o' that."

"And now he's gone in with the Democrats, and agin Parson Cushing
and the church, it'll be worse 'n ever," remarked Tim Hawkins.

"Now, there's Mis' Higgins," said the Deacon; "she can't do nothin'
with him; he won't take a word from her; she hez to step round softly
arter him, a-settin' things right. Why, Widder Brown, that lives up
by the huckleberry pastur' lot, was a-tellin' my wife, last Sunday,
how Zeph's turkeys would come a-trampin' in her mowin', and all she
could say and do he wouldn't keep 'em to hum. And then when they
stole a nest there, Zeph he took the eggs and carried 'em off, 'cause
he said the turkeys was hisn. Mis' Higgins, she jest put on her
bonnet, and went right over, that arternoon, and took the turkey eggs
back to the widder. Mis' Brown said Mis' Higgins didn't _say_ a word,
but she _looked_ consid'able--her eyes was a-shinin' and her mouth
sort o' set, as ef she'd about come to the eend of her patience."

"Wal," said Deacon Peasley, "I rather wonder she durst to do it."

"Wal," said Tim, "my wife sez that there _is_ places where Mis'
Higgins jest takes her stand, and Zeph has to give in. Ef she gets
her back agin a text in the Bible, why, she won't stir from it ef
he killed her; and when it comes to that Zeph hez to cave in. Come
to standin'--why she kin stand longer 'n he kin. I rather 'xpect he
didn't try to git back them turkey eggs. Ef he did, Mis' Higgins
would 'a' stood right in the road, and he'd 'a' hed to 'a' walked
over her. I 'xpect by this time Zeph knows what he kin make her do
and what he can't."

"Wal," said Hiel Jones, who had just dropped in, "I tell ye Zeph's
screwed himself into a tight place now. That air 'Piscopal parson,
he's gret on orderin' and commandin', and thinks he didn't come right
down from the 'Postles for nothin'. He puts his new folks through the
drills lively, I tell ye; he's ben at old Zeph 'cause he don't bow to
suit him in the creed--Zeph's back is stiff as a ramrod, and he jest
hates it. Now, there's Mis' Higgins; _she'll_ allers do any thing to
'blige anybody, and if the minister wants her to make a curtsey, why
she does it the best she's able, and Nabby and the boys, they take to
it; but it gravels Zeph. Then all this 'ere gittin' up and sittin'
down aggravates him, and he comes out o' church as cross as a bull in
fly-time."

Of course, the laugh was ready at this picture of their neighbor's
troubles, and Hiram added:

"He'll put it through, though; he won't go back on his tracks, but
it's pikery and wormwood to him, I tell ye. I saw him t'other day,
after Parson had been speaking to him, come out o' church, and give
his hoss such a twitch, and say 'Darn ye!' in a way I knew wa'n't
meant for the _critter_. Zeph don't swear," added Hiel, "but I will
say he can make _darn_ sound the most like _damn_ of any man in
Poganuc. He's got lots o' swear in him, that ole feller hez."

"My mother says she remembers when Polly Higgins (that is) was the
prettiest gal in all the deestrict," said Deacon Peasley. "She was
Polly Adams, from Danbury. She came to keep the deestrict school, and
Zeph he sot his eyes on her, and hev her he would; he wouldn't take
'No' for an answer; he didn't give her no peace till he got her."

"Any feller can get a gal that way," said Hiel, with a judicial air.
"A gal allers says 'No' at fust--to get time to think on't."

"Is that the way with Nabby?" asked the Deacon, with a wink of
superior intelligence. Whereat there came a general laugh, and Hiel
pulled up his coat collar, and, looking as if he might say something
if delicacy did not forbid, suddenly remembered that "Mother had sent
him for a quarter of a pound o' young Hyson."

Definite business at once broke up the session, and every man,
looking out his parcels, mounted his sled and wended his way home.

CHAPTER XV.

THE POGANUC PUZZLE SOLVED.

Zeph Higgins had the spirit of a general. He, too, had his vision of
an approaching town-meeting, and that evening, sitting in his family
circle, gave out his dictum on the subject:

"Wal--they'll hev a town-meetin' afore long, and hev up that air old
school'us' bizness," he said, as he sat facing the blaze of the grand
kitchen fire.

Mrs. Higgins sat by in her little splint-bottomed rocking-chair,
peacefully clicking her knitting-needles. Abner sat at her right
hand, poring over a volume of "Rollin's Ancient History." Abel and
Jeduthun were playing fox-and-goose with grains of corn in the
corner, and Tim was whittling a goose-poke.

All looked up at the announcement of this much-bruited subject.

"They never seem to come to anything on that subject," said Mrs.
Higgins. "I wish the school-house was better situated; a great many
are kept from the prayer meetings there that would come if it wasn't
for that windy, slippery hill. The last time I went, it was all I
could do to get up," she said; "and I thought I caught a cold."

"There's not the least doubt on't," said Zeph, "and the children are
allers catchin' colds. Everybody knows where that air school'us'
ought to be. Confounded fools they be, the hull lot on 'em; and, for
my part, I'm tired o' this 'ere quarrelin' and jawin', and I ain't
a-goin' to stan' it no longer. It's a shame and it's a sin to keep up
these 'ere quarrels among neighbors, and I'm a-goin' to put a stop to
it."

It may be imagined that this exordium caused a sensation in the
family circle.

Mrs. Higgins opened her meek blue eyes upon her husband with a
surprised expression; the two boys sat with their game suspended and
their mouths open, and the goose-poke and "Rollin's History" were
alike abandoned in the pause of astonishment.

"Tomorrow's Saturday," said Zeph; "and Saturday afternoon there won't
be no school, and I'll jest take the boys, both yoke of oxen and
the sleds, and go up and move that air school'us' down to the place
where't orter be. I'll wedge it up and settle it good and firm, and
that'll be the end on't. Tain't no sort o' use to talk. I'm jest
a-goin' to _do_ it."

Zeph looked as if he meant it, and his family had ceased to think
anything impossible that he took in hand to do. If he had announced
his intention of blowing up the neighboring crag of Bluff Head, and
building a castle out of the fragments, they would have expected to
see it done.

So Zeph took the family Bible, and, in a high-pitched and determined
voice, read the account of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza,
repeated his evening prayer, ordered all hands to bed, raked up the
fire, had all snug and quiet, and stepped into bed just as the last
stroke of the nine o'clock bell was resounding.

At four o'clock the next afternoon, as Hiel Jones was coming in on
his high seat on the Poganuc stage, whistling cheerily, a sudden new
sensation struck him. Passing over North Poganuc hill, he bethought
him of the schoolhouse question, and lifted up his eyes, and lo!
no schoolhouse was there. For a moment Hiel felt giddy. What was
the matter with his head? He rubbed his eyes, and looked on all the
other familiar objects; there was the old pine tree, there the great
rock, but the schoolhouse was gone. The place where it had stood was
disturbed by tramping of many feet, and a broad, smooth trail led
down the hill.

"Wal, somebody hez gone and ben and done it," said Hiel, as he
whipped up his horses to carry the news.

Farther on, in a convenient spot at the junction of three roads,
under the shelter of a hill, stood the schoolhouse--serene as if
it had grown there; while Zeph Higgins and his son Abner were just
coming forward on the road toward Hiel, Zeph triumphantly whipping
his oxen and shouting the word of command in an elevated voice.

Hiel drew to one side, and gave a long whistle. "Je-_ru_-salem," he
exclaimed, "ef you hain't ben and done it!"

Zeph lifted his head with an air of as much satisfaction as his hard
features could assume, and, nodding his head in the direction of the
schoolhouse, said:

"Yis--there 'tis!"

Hiel laid his head back, and burst into a loud, prolonged laugh, in
which he was joined by Abner and the boys.

"Don't see nothin' to laugh at," said Zeph, with grim satisfaction.
"Fact is, I can't hev these 'ere quarrels--and I won't hev 'em. That
air's the place for that school'us', and it's _got_ to stand there,
and that's the eend on't. Come, boys, hurry home; mother's beans will
be a-gettin cold. Gee--g'lang!" and the black whip cracked over the
back of the ox-team.

Hiel was a made man. He had in possession an astounding piece of
intelligence, that nobody knew but himself, and he meant to make the
most of it.

He hurried first to Deacon Peasley's store, where quite a number were
sitting round the stove with their Saturday night purchases. In burst
Hiel:

"Wal, that air North Poganuc school'us' is _moved_, and settled down
under the hills by the cross-road."

The circle looked for a moment perfectly astounded and stupefied.

"You don't say so!"

"Dew tell!"

"Don't believe ye."

"Wal, ye kin all go and see. I came by, jest half an hour ago, and
see it with my own eyes, and Zeph Higgins and his boys a-drivin' off
with their sleds and oxen. I tell ye that air thing is jest _done_.
I'm a-goin' to tell Dr. Cushing's folks."

Poganuc People had something to talk about now, in good earnest.

Hiel stopped his stage at the parson's door, and Dr. Cushing,
expecting some bundle from Boston, came out to the gate.

"Doctor, thought I'd jest stop and tell ye that the North Poganuc
school'us' hez ben moved to the cross-roads, down under the
hill--thought ye'd like to hear it."

The Doctor's exclamation and uplifted hands brought to the door Mrs.
Cushing and Dolly and the two boys, with Nabby. Hiel was in his
glory, and recounted all the circumstances with great prolixity, the
Doctor and Mrs. Cushing and all his audience laughing at his vigorous
narrative.

"Yis," said Hiel, "he said he wa'n't a-goin' to hev no more
quarrelin' about it; everybody knew the school'us' ought to be there,
and there 'twas. It was all wedged up tight and stiddy, and the stove
in it, and the pipe stickin' out o' the winder, all nateral as could
be, and he jest goin' off home, as ef nothin' hed happened."

"Well, if that ain't jest like father!" exclaimed Nabby, with an air
of pride. "If he wants a thing done he will do it."

"Certainly this time he has done a good thing," said the Doctor; "and
for my part I'm obliged to him. I suppose the spirit of the Lord came
on him, as it did on Samson."

And for weeks and months thereafter, there was abundance of talking
and every variety of opinion expressed as to the propriety of Zeph's
_coup d'état_, but nobody, man, woman, or child, ever proposed to
move the schoolhouse back again.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE POGANUC PARSONAGE.

The parsonage was a wide, roomy, windy edifice that seemed to have
been built by a succession of after-thoughts. It was at first a model
New England house, built around a great brick chimney, which ran up
like a light-house in the center of the square roof. Then came, in
course of time, a side-wing which had another chimney and another
suite of rooms. A kitchen grew out on another side, and out of the
kitchen a sink-room; and out of the sink-room a wood-house, and
out of the wood-house a carriage-house, and so on with a gradually
lessening succession of out-buildings.

New England houses have been said by a shrewd observer to be
constructed on the model of a telescope; compartment after
compartment, lessening in size, and all under one cover.

But in the climate where the business of one half of the year
is to provide fuel for the other half, such a style of domestic
architecture becomes convenient. During the long winter months
everything was under cover, giving grand scope for the children to
play.

When the boys were graciously disposed to Dolly, she had a deal of
good fun with them in the long range of the divers sheds. They made
themselves houses, castles and fortresses in the wood-pile, and
played at giving parties and entertainments, at which Spring and the
cat also assisted in silent and subsidiary parts.

Sometimes they held town-meetings or voting-days, in which the
Democrats got their dues in speeches that might have struck terror to
their souls had they heard them. At other times they held religious
meetings, and sung hymns and preached, on which occasions Dolly had
been known to fall to exhorting with a degree of fervor and a fluency
in reciting texts of Scripture which for the time produced quite an
effect on her auditors, and led Nabby, who listened behind the door,
to say to Mrs. Cushing that 'that air child was smarter than was good
for her; that she'd either die young or else come to suthin' one of
these days'--a proposition as to which there could not rationally be
any difference of opinion.

The parsonage had also the advantage of three garrets--splendid
ground for little people. There was first the garret over the
kitchen, the floors of which in the fall were covered with stores
of yellow pumpkins, fragrant heaps of quinces, and less fragrant
spread of onions. There were bins of shelled corn and of oats, and,
as in every other garret in the house, there were also barrels of
old sermons and old family papers. But most stimulating to the
imagination of all the features of this place was the smoke-house,
which was a wide, deep chasm made in the kitchen chimney, where the
Parson's hams and dried beef were cured. Its door, which opened into
this garret, glistened with condensed creosote, a rumbling sound was
heard there, and loud crackling reverberated within. Sometimes Dolly
would open the door and peer in fearfully as long as her eyes could
bear the smoke, and think with a shudder of a certain passage in John
Bunyan, which reads:

"Then I saw in my dream that the shepherds had them to another place,
in a bottom, where was a door in the side of a hill; and they opened
the door and bid them look in. They looked in, therefore, and saw
that within it was dark and smoky; they also thought that they heard
a rumbling noise as of fire and a cry of some tormented, and that
they smelt the scent of brimstone. Then said Christian, What means
this? The shepherds told them, This is a by-way to Hell, a way that
hypocrites go in at, namely, such as sell their birthright with Esau;
such as sell their Master with Judas; such as lie and dissemble with
Ananias and Sapphira his wife."

Dolly shivered when she thought of this, and was glad when Nabby
would come up behind and, with her strong hands, seize and whirl her
away, remarking,

"Dolly Cushing, _what_ won't you be into next, I want ter know?"
And then she would proceed to demonstrate the mundane and earthly
character of the receptacle by drawing from it a very terrestrial and
substantial ham.

Garret number two was over the central portion of the original
house. There were vast heaps of golden corn on the cob, spread
upon sheets. There were piles of bed-quilts and comforters, and
chests of blankets. There were rows and ranges of old bonnets and
old hats, that seemed to nod mysteriously from their nails. There
were old spinning-wheels, an old clock, old armchairs, and old
pictures, snuffy and grim, and more barrels of sermons. There also
were the boys' cabinets of mineralogical specimens; for the Academy
teacher was strong on geology, and took his boys on long tramps with
stone-hammers on their shoulders, and they used to discuss with great
unction to Dolly of tourmaline, and hornblende, and mica, and quartz,
and feldspar, delighted to exhibit before her their scientific
superiority.

This garret was a favorite resort of the children, and the laws
of the Parsonage requiring everything to be always in order were
conveniently mitigated and abridged in favor of this one spot, where
it was so convenient to let the whole noisy brood range when their
presence disturbed the order below.

There the boys whittled and made windmills and boats, and
rabbit-traps, and whistles with which they whistled grievously at
unexpected and startling moments, and this always led to their mother
telling them that she was "astonished" at them, or to her asking, How
many times she must say whistling was _not_ allowed in the house?

Perhaps among other subjects of speculative inquiry it may have
occurred to Mrs. Cushing to wonder why nature, having gifted boys in
their own proper lungs with such noise-producing power, should also
come to their assistance with so many noise-producing instruments.
There were all the squash-vines in the garden offering trumpets ready
made; there was the elder-bush, growing whistle-wood by the yard; and
then the gigantic whistles that could be manufactured from willow,
and poplar, and black alder were mysteries distressing to contemplate.

One corner of the garret was reserved safe from the rummaging of the
children, and there hung in order the dried herbs, which formed
the pharmacopoeia of those early days. There were catnip, and
boneset, and elder-blow, and hard-hack, and rosemary, and tansy, and
pennyroyal, all gathered at the right time of the moon, dried and
sorted and tied in bundles, hanging from their different nails--those
canonized floral saints, which when living filled the air with odors
of health and sweetness, and whose very mortal remains and dry bones
were supposed to have healing virtues. Some of Dolly's happiest hours
were those long sunny, joyous, Saturday afternoons in which many of
these stores were gathered, when she rushed through the lush, long
grass, along the borders of mossy old stone fences, and pulled down
starry constellations of elder blossoms, and gathered pink spires
of hard-hack, till her little arms could scarcely clasp around the
bundle. Then she would rush home panting and energetic, with torn
dress, her sunbonnet off on her shoulder, and curls all tangled
from the wrestles with blackberry bushes which had disputed the way
with her. This corner of the garret always filled Dolly's head with
visions and longings for the late, slow-coming spring, which seemed
far off as the dream of Heaven.

Then those barrels of sermons and old pamphlets! Dolly had turned
and turned them, upsetting them on the floor, and pawing helplessly
with her little pink hands and reading their titles with amazed
eyes. It seemed to her that there were some thousands of the
most unintelligible things. "An Appeal on the Unlawfulness of a
Man's Marrying his Wife's Sister" turned up in every barrel she
investigated, by twos or threes or dozens, till her soul despaired
of finding an end. Then there were Thanksgiving sermons; Fast-day
sermons; sermons that discoursed on the battle of Culloden; on the
character of Frederick the Great; a sermon on the death of George the
Second, beginning, "George! George! George is no more." This somewhat
dramatic opening caused Dolly to put that one discourse into her
private library. But oh, joy and triumph! one rainy day she found at
the bottom of an old barrel a volume of the "Arabian Nights," and
henceforth her fortune was made. Dolly had no idea of reading like
that of our modern days--to read and to dismiss a book. No; to read
was with her a passion, and a book once read was read daily; always
becoming dearer and dearer, as an old friend. The "Arabian Nights"
transported her to foreign lands, gave her a new life of her own;
and when things went astray with her, when the boys went to play
higher than she dared to climb in the barn, or started on fishing
excursions, where they considered her an incumbrance, then she found
a snug corner, where, curled up in a little, quiet lair, she could at
once sail forth on her bit of enchanted carpet into fairy land.

One of these resorts was furnished by the third garret of the house,
which had been finished off into an arched room and occupied by her
father as a study. High above all the noise of the house, with a
window commanding a view of Poganuc Lake and its girdle of steel-blue
pines, this room had to her the air of a refuge and sanctuary. Its
walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly, quiet
faces of books, and there stood her father's great writing-chair,
on one arm of which lay open always his "Cruden's Concordance" and
his Bible. Here Dolly loved to retreat and niche herself down in a
quiet corner, with her favorite books around her. She had a kind of
sheltered, satisfied feeling as she thus sat and watched her father
writing, turning his books, and speaking from time to time to himself
in a loud, earnest whisper. She vaguely felt that he was about some
holy and mysterious work above her little comprehension, and she was
careful never to disturb him by question or remark.

The books ranged around filled her, too, with a solemn awe. There
on the lower shelves were great enormous folios, on whose backs she
spelled in black letters, "Lightfooti Opera," a title whereat she
marveled, considering the bulk of the volumes. And overhead, grouped
along in friendly and sociable rows, were books of all sorts and
sizes and bindings, the titles to which she had read so often that
she knew them by heart. "Bell's Sermons," "Bonnett's Inquiries,"
"Bogue's Essays," "Toplady on Predestination," "Boston's Fourfold
State," "Law's Serious Call," and other works of that kind she had
looked over wistfully, day after day, without getting even a hope
of something interesting out of them. The thought that her father
could read and could understand things like these filled her with a
vague awe, and she wondered if ever she should be old enough to know
what it was all about. But there was one of her father's books which
proved a mine of wealth to her. It was a happy hour when he brought
home and set up in his book-case Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," in a new
edition of two volumes. What wonderful stories these! and stories,
too, about her own country, stories that made her feel that the very
ground she trod on was consecrated by some special dealing of God's
providence.

When the good Doctor related how a plague that had wasted the Indian
tribes had prepared the room for the Pilgrim Fathers to settle
undisturbed, she felt nowise doubtful of his application of the
text, "He drave out the heathen and planted them."

But who shall describe the large-eyed, breathless wonder with which
she read stories of witchcraft, with its weird marvels of mysterious
voices heard in lonely places, of awful visitations that had
overtaken sinners, and immediate deliverances that had come in answer
to the prayers of God's saints? Then, too, the stories of Indian
wars and captivities, when the war-whoop had sounded at midnight,
and little children like her had awakened to find the house beset
with legions of devils, who set fire to the dwellings and carried
the people off through dreary snow and ice to Canada. No Jewish
maiden ever grew up with a more earnest faith that she belonged to a
consecrated race, a people especially called and chosen of God for
some great work on earth. Her faith in every word of the marvels
related in this book was full as great as the dear old credulous Dr.
Cotton Mather could have desired.

But the mysterious areas of the parsonage were not exhausted with
its three garrets. Under the whole house in all its divisions
spread a great cavernous cellar, where were murky rooms and dark
passages explored only by the light of candles. There were rows
of bins, in which were stored the apples of every name and race
harvested in autumn from the family orchard: Pearmains, Greenings,
Seek-no-furthers, Bristers, Pippins, Golden Sweets, and other
forgotten kinds, had each its separate bin, to which the children
at all times had free access. There, too, was a long row of cider
barrels, from whence, in the hour of their early sweetness, Dolly had
delighted to suck the cider through straws for that purpose carefully
selected and provided.

Not without a certain awe was her descent into this shadowy Avernus,
generally under the protecting wing of Nabby or one of the older
boys. Sometimes, with the perverse spirit which moves the male
nature to tyrannize over the weaker members, they would agonize her
by running beyond her into the darker chambers of the cellar, and
sending thence Indian war-whoops and yells which struck terror to her
soul, and even mingled their horrors with her dreams.

But there was one class of tenants whose influence and presence in
the house must not be omitted--and that was the rats.

They had taken formal possession of the parsonage, grown, bred, and
multiplied, and become ancient there, in spite of traps or cats or
anything that could be devised against them.

The family cat in Dolly's day, having taken a dispassionate survey of
the situation, had given up the matter in despair, and set herself
quietly to attending to her own family concerns, as a sensible cat
should. She selected the Doctor's pamphlet closet as her special
domestic retreat. Here she made her lair in a heap of old sermons,
whence, from time to time, she led forth coveys of well-educated,
theological kittens, who, like their mother, gazed on the rats with
respectful curiosity, and ran no imprudent risks. Consequently, the
rats had a glorious time in the old parsonage. Dolly, going up the
kitchen stairs into the back garret, as she did on her way bedward,
would see them sitting easy and _dégagés_ on the corners of boxes and
bins, with their tails hanging gracefully down, engaged in making
meals on the corn or oats. They ramped all night on the floor of the
highest garret over her sleeping room, apparently busy in hopping
with ears of corn across the garret and then rolling them down
between the beams to their nests below. Sometimes Dolly heard them
gnawing and sawing behind the very wainscot of her bed as if they had
set up a carpenter's shop there, and she shrunk apprehensively for
fear they were coming through into her bed. Then there were battles
and skirmishes and squealings and fightings, and at times it would
appear as if whole detachments of rats rolled in an avalanche down
the walls with the corn they had been stealing. And when the mighty
winter winds of Poganuc Mountain were out, and rumbled and thundered,
roaring and tumbling down this chimney, rattling all the windows and
creaking all the doors, while the beams of the house wrenched and
groaned like a ship at sea, and the house seemed to shake on its very
foundations,--then the uproar among the rats grew higher and jollier,
and, with all put together, it is not surprising that sometimes Dolly
put the bed-clothes over her head in fear, or ran and jumped into
Nabby's warm arms for protection.

We have dwelt thus long on the old parsonage because it was a silent
influence, every day fashioning the sensitive, imaginative little
soul that was growing up in its own sphere of loneliness there.

For Mrs. Cushing had, besides Dolly, other children who engaged her
thoughts and care. The eldest a son, studying for the ministry;
the second a daughter, married and settled in a distant part of
the state; another son working as teacher to pay his past college
expenses; another son in college, whose bills, clothing, books, and
necessary expenses formed constant items of thought, study, and
correspondence; so that, with the two boys in the academy and our
little Dolly, she had heart and hands full, and small time to watch
all the fancies and dreams that drifted through that little head as
clouds through summer skies. Satisfied that the child was healthy,
and that there was no positive danger or harm to be fallen into,
she dismissed her from her thoughts, except in the way of general
supervision.

Yet every day, as the little maiden grew, some quaint, original touch
was put to the forming character by these surroundings.

As to Dolly's father, he was a worthy representative of that wise and
strong Connecticut clergy that had the wisdom immediately to face a
change in the growth of society, to lay down gracefully a species of
power they could no longer wield, and to take up and exercise, and
strengthen themselves in, a kind of power that could never be taken
from them. Privileged orders of society are often obstructionists,
because they do not know, in the day of it, the things that belong to
their peace.

The Connecticut and New England clergy did not thus err. When the
theocracy had passed away, they spent no time lamenting it. They let
the cocked hat, gold-headed cane, gown and bands go down stream;
they let all laws protecting their order go by; and addressed
themselves simply to the work of leading their people, as men with
men, only by seeking to be stronger, wiser, and better men. To know
more, to have more faith in the Invisible and Eternal, to be able
to argue more logically to convince and to persuade--these were now
their ambition. Dr. Cushing was foremost in this new crusade of
earnestness. He determined to preach more and preach better than
ever he had done before, and consequently in his wide parish, which
covered a square of about ten miles, he was every day preaching,
visiting, attending prayer-meetings. Often his wife was with him,
and this gave Dolly many hours when she was free to follow her own
little pursuits, and to pick up at the chimney-corner some of the
traditionary lore of the period.

CHAPTER XVII.

SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST.

But at last--at last--spring did come at Poganuc! This marvel and
mystery of the new creation _did_ finally take place there every
year, in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Long after the
blue-bird that had sung the first promise had gone back into his own
celestial ether, the promise that he sang was fulfilled.

Like those sweet, foreseeing spirits, that on high, bare tree-tops of
human thought pour forth songs of hope in advance of their age and
time, our blue-bird was gifted with the sure spirit of prophecy; and,
though the winds were angry and loud, though snows lay piled and deep
for long weeks after, though ice and frost and hail armed themselves
in embattled forces, yet the sun behind them all kept shining and
shining, every day longer and longer, every day drawing nearer and
nearer, till the snows passed away like a bad dream, and the brooks
woke up and began to laugh and gurgle, and the ice went out of the
ponds. Then the pussy-willows threw out their soft catkins, and the
ferns came up with their woolly hoods on, like prudent old house
mothers, looking to see if it was yet time to unroll their tender
greens, and the white blossoms of the shad-blow and the tremulous
tags of the birches and alders shook themselves gaily out in the
woods. Then under brown rustling leaf-banks came the white waxy
shells of the trailing arbutus with its pink buds, fair as a winter's
dawn on snow; then the blue and white hepaticas opened their eyes,
and cold, sweet white violets starred the moist edges of water
courses, and great blue violets opened large eyes in the shadows,
and the white and crimson trilliums unfurled under the flickering
lace-work shadows of the yet leafless woods; the red columbine
waved its bells from the rocks, and great tufts of golden cowslips
fringed the borders of the brooks. Then came in flocks the delicate
wind-flower family: anemones, starry white, and the crow foot, with
its pink outer shell, and the spotted adder's tongue, with its
waving yellow bells of blossom. Then, too, the honest, great green
leaves of the old skunk cabbage, most refreshing to the eye in its
hardy, succulent greenness, though an abomination to the nose of the
ill-informed who should be tempted to gather them. In a few weeks
the woods, late so frozen--hopelessly-buried in snow drifts--were
full of a thousand beauties and delicacies of life and motion, and
flowers bloomed on every hand. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they
are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth."

And, not least, the opening season had set free the imprisoned
children; and Dolly and the boys, with Spring at their heels, had
followed the courses of the brooks and the rippling brown shallows
of Poganuc River for many a blissful hour, and the parsonage had
every where been decorated with tumblers and tea-cups holding floral
offerings of things beautiful at the time they were gathered, but
becoming rather a matter of trial to the eye of exact housekeeping.
Yet both Mrs. Cushing and Nabby had a soft heart for Dolly's
flowers, sharing themselves the general sense of joy for the yearly
deliverance of which they were the signs and seals. And so the work
of renewing the face of the earth went on from step to step. The
forest hills around Poganuc first grew misty with a gentle haze of
pink and lilac, which in time changed to green and then to greener
shades, till at last the full-clothed hills stood forth in the joy
of re-creation, and, as of old, "all the trees of the field clapped
their hands."

Poganuc in its summer dress was a beautiful place. Its main street
had a row of dignified white houses, with deep door-yards and large
side-gardens, where the great scarlet peony flamed forth, where were
generous tufts of white lilies, with tall spires of saintly blossoms,
and yellow lilies with their faint sweet perfume, and all the good
old orthodox flowers of stately family and valid pretensions. In
all the door-yards and along the grassy streets on either side were
overshadowing, long-branching trees, forming a roof of verdure, a
green upper world from whose recesses birds dropped down their songs
in languages unknown to us mortals. Who shall interpret what is meant
by the sweet jargon of robin and oriole and bobolink, with their
endless reiterations? Something wiser, perhaps, than we dream of in
our lower life here.

Not a bit, however, did Hiel Jones trouble his head on this subject
as he came in on his high stage seat in lordly style on the evening
of the third of July. Far other cares were in Hiel's head, for
to-morrow was the glorious Fourth--the only really secular fête known
to the Yankee mind--and a great celebration thereof had been resolved
on by the magnates of Poganuc, and Hiel was captain of the "Poganuc
Rangers"--a flourishing militia company which was to be the ornament
of the forthcoming celebration.

It had been agreed for that time to drop all political distinctions.
Federalists and Democrats, Town Hill folk and outside folk, were all
of one mind and spirit to make this a celebration worthy of Poganuc
Center and the great cause of American Independence. A veritable
cannon had been hauled up upon the village green and fired once or
twice to relieve the bursting impatience of the boys and men who had
helped put it there. The flag with its stars and stripes was already
waving from the top of the Court-house, and a platform was being put
up in the Meeting-house, and people were running this way and that,
and standing in house-doors, and talking with each other over fences,
in a way that showed that something was impending.

Hiel sprang from his box, and, after attending to his horses,
speedily appeared on the green to see to things--for how could the
celebration to-morrow be properly presented without Hiel's counsels?

"Look here, now, boys," he said to the group assembled around the
cannon, "don't be a burnin' out yer powder. Keep it for to-morrow.
Let her be now; ye don't want to keep bangin' and bangin' afore the
time. To-morrow mornin' we'll let 'er rip bright and early, and wake
all the folks. Clear out, now, and go home to yer suppers, and don't
be a blowin' yerselves up with powder so that ye can't see the show
to-morrow."

Hiel then proceeded into the Meeting-house and criticised proceedings
there.

"Look here, Jake, you jest stretch that air carpet a leetle forrard;
ye see, ye want the most out in front where't shows; back there, why,
the chairs and table 'll kiver it; it ain't so much matter. Wonder
now ef them air boards is firm? Wouldn't do, lettin' on 'em all down
into the pews in the midst on't. Look here, Seth Chickering, ye need
another prop under there; ye hain't calkerlated for the heft o' them
fellers--governors and colonels and ministers weighs putty heavy, and
there ain't no glory in a gineral smash-up, and we're a goin' in for
glory to-morrow; we're goin' to sarve it out clear, and no mistake."

Hiel was a general favorite; his word of criticism was duly accepted,
and things were pretty comfortably adjusted to his mind when he went
home to eat his supper and try on his regimentals.

The dry, hard, colorless life of a Yankee boy in those days found
some relief in the periods called "training-days," when the militia
assembled in uniform and marched and drilled to the sound of fife and
drum. Hiel had expended quite a round sum upon his uniform and was
not insensible to the transformation which it wrought in his personal
appearance.

The widow Jones kept his gold-laced cocked-hat, his bright gold
epaulets, his whole soldier suit in fact, enveloped in many papers
and napkins, and locked away in one of her most sacred recesses; but
it was with pride that she gave him up the key, and when he came out
before her, all in full array, her soul was inly uplifted. Her son
was a hero in her eyes.

"It's all right, Mother, I believe," said Hiel, surveying himself
first over one shoulder and then the other, and consulting the
looking-glass fringed with gilt knobs that hung in the widow's
"keeping-room."

"Yes, indeed, Hiel, it's all right. I've kep' camphor gum with it to
keep out the moths, and wrapped it up to save the gold, and I don't
see that it's a grain altered since it came home new. It's just as
new as ever 'twas."

Hiel may be pardoned for smiling somewhat complacently on the image
in the glass--which certainly was that of a very comely youth--and
when he reflected that Nabby would to-morrow see him at the head of
his company his heart swelled with a secret exultation. It is not
alone the privilege of the fair sex to know when things are becoming
to them, and Hiel knew when he looked well, as surely as if any one
had told him. He gave himself a patronizing wink and whistled a
strain of "Yankee Doodle" as he turned away from the glass, perhaps
justly confiding in the immemorial power which military trappings
have always exercised over the female heart.

It was with reluctance that he laid aside the fascinating costume,
and set himself to brightening up here and there a spot upon his
sword-hilt or blade that called for an extra touch.

"We must have breakfast early to-morrow, Mother; the boys will be
here by sunrise."

"Never you fear," said the widow. "I've got everything ready, and
we'll be all through by that time; but it's as well to get to bed
now."

And so in a few minutes more the candles were out and only the
sound of the frogs and the whippoorwills broke the stillness of the
cottage. Long before the nine o'clock bell rung Hiel and his mother
were happy in the land of dreams.

In the parsonage, too, there had been an effort of discipline
to produce the needed stillness and early hours called for by
to-morrow's exactions.

The boys, who had assisted at the dragging in of the cannon and
heard its first reverberation, were in a most inflammatory state
of patriotism, longing wildly for gunpowder. In those days no
fire-crackers or other vents of the kind had been provided for the
relief of boys under pressure of excitement, and so they were forced
to become explosive material themselves, and the walls of the
parsonage rang with the sound. Dolly also was flying wildly around,
asking Nabby questions about to-morrow and running away before she
got her answer, to listen to some new outburst from the boys.

Nabby, however, had her own very decisive ways of putting things,
and settled matters at last by putting her to bed, saying as she did
so, "Now, Dolly Cushing, you just shut up. You are crazier than a
bobolink, and if you don't be still and go to sleep I won't touch
to take you with me to see the trainers to-morrow. Your ma said you
might go with me if you'd be good; so you just shut up and go to
sleep;" and Dolly shut her eyes hard and tried to obey.

We shall not say that there were not some corresponding movements
before the glass on the part of Nabby before retiring. It certainly
came into her head to try on her bonnet, which had been thriftily
re-trimmed and re-arranged for summer use since the time of that
sleigh-ride with Hiel. Moreover, she chose out her gown and sorted
a knot of ribbons to go with it. "I suppose," she said to herself,
"all the girls will be making fools of themselves about Hiel Jones
to-morrow, but I ain't a going to." Nevertheless, she thought there
was no harm in looking as well as she could.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DOLLY'S "FOURTH."

Bang! went the cannon on the green, just as the first red streak
appeared over Poganuc hills, and open flew Dolly's great blue eyes.
Every boy in town was out of bed as if he had been fired out of a
pop-gun, and into his clothes and out on the green with a celerity
scarcely short of the miraculous. Dolly's little toilet took more
time; but she, too, was soon out upon the scene with her curls in a
wild, unbrushed tangle, her little breast swelling and beating with a
great enthusiasm for General Washington and liberty and her country,
all of which were somehow to be illustrated and honored that day in
Poganuc.

As the first rays of the rising sun struck the stars and stripes
floating over the Court-house, and the sound of distant drum and fife
announced the coming in of the Poganuc Rangers, Dolly was so excited
that she burst into tears.

"What in the world are you crying for, Dolly?" said Bill rather
impatiently. "I don't see any thing to cry about."

"I can't help it, Will," said Dolly, wiping her eyes, "it's so
glorious!"

"If that isn't just like a girl!" said Bill. Contempt could go no
farther, and Dolly retreated abashed. She was a girl--there was no
help for that; but for this one day she envied the boys--the happy
boys who might some day grow up and fight for their country, and do
something glorious like General Washington. Meanwhile, from mouth to
mouth, every one was giving in advance an idea of what the splendors
of the day were to be.

"I tell ye," said Abe Bowles, "this 'ere's goin' to be a reel
slam-bang, this 'ere is. Colonel Davenport is a goin' to review the
troops, and wear the very same uniform he wore at Long Island.

"Yes," said Liph Kingsley, "and old Cæsar's goin' to wear his uniform
and wait on the colonel. Tell ye what, the old snowball is on his
high heels this morning--got a suit of the colonel's old uniform.
Won't he strut and show his ivories!"

"Hulloa, boys, there's going to be a sham fight; Hiel told me so,"
said Bob Cushing. "Some are going to be British and some Americans,
and the Americans are going to whip the British and make 'em run."

"Tell ye what," said Jake Freeman, "there'll be a bangin' and
poppin'! won't there, boys!"

"Oh," said Dolly, who irrepressibly was following her brothers into
the throng, "they won't _really_ shoot anybody, will they?"

"Oh no, they'll only fire powder, of course," said Bill majestically,
"don't you know that?"

Dolly was rebuked and relieved at once.

"I say, boys," said Nabby, appearing suddenly among the throng, "your
ma says you must come right home to breakfast this minit; and you,
Dolly Cushing, what are you out here for, round among the fellers
like a tom-boy? Come right home."

"Why, Nabby, I wanted to see!" pleaded Dolly.

"Oh yes, you're allers up to everything and into everything, and your
hair not brushed nor nothin'. You'll see it all in good time--come
right away. Don't be a-lookin' at them trainers, now," she added,
giving herself, however, a good observing glance to where across the
green a knot of the Poganuc Rangers were collecting, and where Hiel,
in full glory of his uniform, with his gold epaulets and cocked hat,
was as busy and impressive as became the situation.

"Oh, Nabby, do look; there's Hiel," cried Dolly.

"Yes, yes; I see plain enough there's Hiel," said Nabby; "he thinks
he's mighty grand, I suppose. He'll be conceiteder'n ever, I expect."

Just at that moment Hiel, recognizing Nabby, took off his gold-laced
hat and bowed with a graceful flourish.

Nabby returned a patronizing little nod, and either the morning dawn,
or the recent heat of the kitchen fire, or _something_, flushed her
cheeks. It was to be remarked in evidence of the presence of mind
that distinguishes the female sex that, though she had been sent out
on a hurried errand to call the children, yet she had on her best
bonnet, and every curl of her hair had evidently been carefully and
properly attended to that morning.

"Of course, I wasn't going to look like a fright," she soliloquized.
"Not that I care for any of 'em; but looks is looks any time o' day."

At the minister's breakfast-table the approaching solemnities
were discussed. The procession was to form at the Court-house at
nine o'clock. Democrats and Federalists had united to distribute
impartially as possible the honors of the day. As Col. Davenport,
the only real live revolutionary officer the county boasted, was an
essential element of the show, and as he was a staunch Federalist,
it was necessary to be conciliatory. Then there was the Federal
ex-Governor to sit on the platform with the newly elected Democratic
Governor. The services were in the Meeting-house, as the largest
building in town; and Dr. Cushing was appointed to make the opening
prayer. As a compliment to the Episcopal Church the Federal members
of the committee allotted a closing prayer to the Reverend Simeon
Coan.

That young man, however, faithful to the logic of his creed, politely
declined joining in public services where his assisting might be held
to recognize the ordination of an unauthorized sectarian preacher,
and so the Rev. Dr. Goodman, of Skantic, was appointed in his place.

Squire Lewis was observed slightly to elevate his eye-brows and shrug
his shoulders as he communicated to the committee the grounds of his
rector's refusal. He was in fact annoyed, and a little embarrassed,
by the dry, amused expression of Sheriff Dennie's countenance.

"Oh, speak it all out; never fear, Lewis," he said. "I like to see
a man face the music. Your minister is a logical fellow, and keeps
straight up to what he teaches. You old Episcopalians were getting
loose in your ideas; you needed cording up."

"There's such a thing as cording too tight and breaking a string
sometimes," muttered the Squire, who was not well pleased at the
scruple that kept his church unrepresented in the exercises.

The domestic arrangements for the parson's family were announced at
the breakfast table. The boys were endowed with the magnificent sum
of six cents each and turned loose for the day, with the parting
admonition to keep clear of powder--a most hopeless and unnecessary
charge, since powder was the very heart and essence of all the glory
of the day.

At an early hour the bell of the Meeting-house rang out over all the
neighboring hills and valleys; the summons was replied to by streams
of wagons on the roads leading to Poganuc for a square of ten miles
round. Not merely Poganuc--North, South, East, West, and Center--was
in motion, but several adjacent towns and villages sent forth their
trainers--bands of militia, who rose about midnight and marched till
morning to be on time.

By nine o'clock nominally (but far nearer to ten really) the
procession started from the Court-house with drum and fife and
banners. Dolly had been committed for the day to the charge of Nabby,
who should see that she took no harm, and engineer for her the best
chances of seeing all that went on; while Mrs. Cushing, relieved of
this care, took her seat quietly among the matronage of Poganuc and
waited for the entrance of the procession. But Dolly saw them start
from the Court-house, with beat of drum and peal of fife; and Dolly
saw the banners, and saw Colonel Davenport with his white hair and
splendid physique, now more splendid in the blue and gold of his
military dress; and they all marched with majestic tread towards the
meeting-house. Then Nabby hurried with her charge and got for her
a seat by herself in the front singers' seat in the gallery, where
she could see them all file in and take their seats on the platform.
Nabby had been one of the flowers of this singers' seat before her
father's change of base had transferred her to the Episcopal Church,
and her presence to-day was welcomed by many old friends--for Nabby
had a good, strong clear voice of her own, and was no small addition
to the choral force.

The services opened by the national Puritan psalm:

    "Let children hear the mighty deeds
    Which God performed of old,
    Which in our younger years we saw
    And which our fathers told.

    "Our lips shall teach them to our sons,
    And they again to theirs,
    That generations yet unborn
    May teach them to their heirs.

    "That they may learn, in God alone
    Their hope securely stands;
    That they may ne'er his laws forget,
    But practice his commands."

The wild warble of "St. Martin's," the appointed tune whose wings
bore these words, swelled and billowed and reverberated through the
house, carrying with it that indefinable thrill which always fills a
house when deep emotions are touched--deepest among people habitually
reserved and reticent of outward demonstration. It was this solemn
undertone, this mysterious, throbbing sub-bass of repressed emotion,
which gave the power and effect to the Puritan music. After the
singing came Dr. Cushing's prayer--which was a recounting of God's
mercies to New England from the beginning, and of his deliverances
from her enemies, and of petitions for the glorious future of
the United States of America--that they might be chosen vessels,
commissioned to bear the light of liberty and religion through all
the earth and to bring in the great millennial day, when wars should
cease and the whole world, released from the thraldom of evil, should
rejoice in the light of the Lord.

The millennium was ever the star of hope in the eyes of the New
England clergy: their faces were set eastward, towards the dawn of
that day, and the cheerfulness of those anticipations illuminated
the hard tenets of their theology with a rosy glow. They were
children of the morning. The Doctor, however, did not fail to make
use of his privilege to give some very decided political hits, and
some petitions arose which caused sensation between the different
parties. The New England clergyman on these occasions had his
political antagonists at decided advantage. If he could not speak
at them he could pray at them, and of course there was no reply to
an impeachment in the court of heaven. So when the Doctor's prayer
was over, glances were interchanged, showing the satisfaction or
dissatisfaction, as might be, of the listeners.

And now rose Colonel Davenport to read the Declaration of
Independence. Standing square and erect, his head thrown back, he
read in a resonant and emphatic voice that great enunciation upon
which American national existence was founded.

Dolly had never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea
of what was meant by some parts of it; but she gathered enough
from the recital of the abuses and injuries which had driven her
nation to this course to feel herself swelling with indignation,
and ready with all her little mind and strength to applaud that
concluding Declaration of Independence which the Colonel rendered
with resounding majesty. She was as ready as any of them to pledge
her "life, fortune and sacred honor" for such a cause. The
heroic element was strong in Dolly; it had come down by "ordinary
generation" from a line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it swelled
her little frame and brightened her cheeks and made her long to do
something, she scarce knew what; to fight for her country or to make
some declaration on her own account.

But now came the oration of the day, pronounced by a lively young
Virginia law student in the office of Judge Gridley. It was as ornate
and flowery, as full of patriotism and promise, as has been the
always approved style of such productions. The bird of our nation
received the usual appropriate flourishes, flew upward and sun-ward,
waved his pinions, gazed with undaunted eye on the brightness, and
did all other things appointed for the American Eagle to do on the
Fourth of July. It was a nicely-written classical composition, and
eminently satisfactory to the audience; and Dolly, without any very
direct conception of its exact meaning, was delighted with it, and so
were all the Poganuc People.

Then came the singing of an elaborate anthem, on which the choir had
been practicing for a month beforehand and in which the various parts
ran, and skipped, and hopped, and chased each other round and round,
and performed all sorts of unheard-of trills and quavers and musical
evolutions, with a heartiness of self-satisfaction that was charming
to witness.

Then, when all was over, the procession marched out--the magnates on
the stage to a dinner, and the Poganuc military to refresh themselves
at Glazier's, preparatory to the grand review in the afternoon.

Dolly spent her six cents for ginger-bread, and walked unwearyingly
the rounds of sight-seeing with Nabby, her soul inly uplifted with
the grandeur of the occasion.

In the afternoon came the military display; and Colonel Davenport
on his white horse reviewed the troops; and just behind him, also
mounted, was old Cato, with his gold-laced hat and plume, his buff
breeches and long-tailed blue coat. On the whole, this solemn
black attendant formed a striking and picturesque addition to the
scene. And so there were marching and counter-marching and military
evolutions of all kinds, and Hiel, with his Poganuc Rangers, figured
conspicuously in the eyes of all.

It was a dangerous sight for Nabby. She really could not help feeling
a secret awe for Hiel, as if he had been wafted away from her into
some higher sphere; he looked so very determined and martial that
she began to admit that he might carry any fortress that he set
himself seriously to attack. After the regular review came the sham
fight, which was in fact but an organized military frolic. Some of
the West Poganuc youth had dressed themselves as Indians, and other
companies, drawn by lot, were to personate the British, and there was
skirmishing and fighting and running, to the wild and crazy delight
of the boys. A fort, which had been previously constructed of bushes
and trees, was furiously attacked by British and Indians, and set on
fire; and then the Americans bursting out scattered both the fire and
the forces, and performed prodigies of valor.

In short, it was a Day of days to Dolly and the children, and when
sober twilight drew on they came home intoxicated with patriotism and
sight-seeing.

On her way home Dolly was spied out by her old friend Judge Gridley,
who always delighted to have a gossip with her.

"Ha, my little Dolly, are you out to-day?"

"To be sure, sir," said Dolly; "indeed I'm out. Oh, hasn't it been
glorious! I've never been so happy in my life. I never heard the
Declaration of Independence before."

"Well, and what do you think of it?" asked the Judge.

"I never heard anything like it," said Dolly. "I didn't know before
how they did abuse us, and wasn't it grand that we wouldn't bear it!
I never heard anything so splendid as that last part."

"You would have made a good soldier."

"If I were a man I would. Only think of it, Colonel Davenport fought
in the war! I'm so glad we can see one man that did. If we had lived
then, I know my papa and all my brothers would have fought; we would
have had 'liberty or death.'"

Dolly pronounced these words, which she had heard in the oration,
with a quivering eagerness. The old Judge gave her cheek a friendly
pinch.

"You'll do," he said; "but now you must let Nabby here get you home
and quiet you down, or you won't sleep all night. Good by, Pussy."

And so went off Dolly's Fourth of July.

But Hiel made an evening call at the parsonage in his full
regimentals; and stayed to a late hour unreproved. There were
occasions when even the nine o'clock bell did not send a young fellow
home. This appeared to be one of them.

CHAPTER XIX.

SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

So passed Dolly's Fourth of July; a confused dream of glory and
patriotism, of wonderful sights and surprises--but, like a dream, it
all melted away.

New England life was too practical and laborious to give more than
one day to holiday performances, and with the night of the Fourth
the whole pageant vanished. Hiel's uniform, with its gold lace and
feathers, returned to the obscurity of Mother Jones's pillow-cases
and camphor-gum, and was locked away in secret places; and Hiel was
only a simple stage-driver, going forth on his route as aforetime.
So with the trappings of the Poganuc Rangers--who the day before had
glittered like so many knights-errant in the front of battle--all
were laid by in silent waiting, and the Poganuc Rangers rose at four
o'clock and put on their working clothes and cow-hide shoes, and
were abroad with their oxen. The shoe-maker and the carpenter, who
yesterday were transfigured in blue and gold, to-day were hammering
shoe-soles and planing boards as if no such thing had happened. In
the shadows of the night the cannon had vanished from the village
green and gone where it came from; the flag on the Court-house was
furled, and the world of Poganuc Center was again the same busy,
literal, work-a-day world as ever. Only Liph Kingsbury, who had
burned his hand with gunpowder in consequence of carrying too much
New England rum in his head, and one or two boys, who had met with a
sprain or bruise in the excitement of the day, retained any lasting
memorials of the celebration.

It is difficult in this our era of railroads and steam to give any
idea of the depths of absolute stillness and repose that brooded
in the summer skies over the wooded hills of Poganuc. No daily
paper told the news of distant cities. Summer traveling was done in
stages, and was long and wearisome, and therefore there was little
of that. Everybody staid at home, and expected to stay there the
year through. A journey from Poganuc to Boston or New York was more
of an undertaking in those days than a journey to Europe is in
ours. Now and then some of the great square houses on the street
of Poganuc Center received a summer visitor, and then everybody in
town knew it and knew all about it. The visitor's family, rank,
position in life, probable amount of property, and genealogy to
remote ancestors, were freely discussed and settled, till all Poganuc
was fully informed. The elect circle of Poganuc called on them, and
made stately tea-parties in their honor, and these entertainments
pleasantly rippled the placid surface of society. But life went on
there with a sort of dreamy stillness. The different summer flowers
came out in their successive ranks in the neatly-kept garden; roses
followed peonies, and white lilies came and went, and crimson and
white phloxes stood ranged in midsummer ranks, and the yellow tribes
of marigolds brought up the autumnal season. And over on the woody
hills around the town the spring tints deepened and grew dark in
summer richness, and then began breaking here and there into streaks
and flecks of gold and crimson, foretelling autumn. And there were
wonderful golden sunsets, and moonlight nights when the street of
Poganuc seemed overshot with a silver network of tracery like the
arches of some cathedral. The doors and windows of the houses stood
innocently open all night for the moon to shine in, and youths and
maidens walked and wandered and sentimentalized up and down the long,
dewy street, and nobody seemed to know how fast the short, beautiful
summer of those regions was passing away.

As to Dolly, summer was her time of life and joy; but it was not by
any means a joy unmixed.

Dolly's education was conducted on the good old-fashioned principle
that everyone must do his little part in the battle of life, and
that nobody was pretty enough or good enough to be kept merely for
ornamental purposes.

She was no curled darling, to be kept on exhibition in white dresses
and broad sashes, and she had been sedulously instructed in the
orthodoxy of Dr. Watts, that

    "Satan finds some mischief still
    For idle hands to do."

It was the duty of the good house-mother of those days to be so
much in advance of this unpleasant personage that there should be
no room for his temptations. Accordingly, any part of the numerous
household tasks of the Parsonage that could be trusted to a little
pair of hands were turned over to Dolly. In those days were none
of the thousand conveniences which now abridge the labors of the
housekeeper. Everything came in the rough, and had to be reduced to a
usable form in the household.

The delicate, smooth white salt which filled the cellars at the table
was prepared by Dolly's manipulation from coarse rock-salt crystals,
which she was taught to wash and dry, and pound and sift, till it
became of snowy fineness; and quite a long process it was. Then there
were spices to be ground, and there was coffee to be browned to the
exact and beautiful shade dear to household ideality; and Dolly could
do that.

Being a bright, enterprising little body, she did not so much object
to these processes, which rather interested her, but her very soul
was wearied within her at the drill of the long and varied sewing
lessons that were deemed indispensable to her complete education.
Pounding salt, or grinding spice, or beating eggs, or roasting
coffee, were endurable; but darning stockings and stitching
wristbands, and "scratching" gathers, were a weariness unto her
spirit. And yet it was only at the price of penances like these, well
and truly performed, that Dolly's golden _own_ hours of leisure were
given.

Most of her household tasks could be performed in the early morning
hours before school, and after school Dolly measured the height of
the afternoon sun with an avaricious eye. Would there be time enough
to explore the woody hills beyond Poganuc River before sundown? and
would they let her go?

For oh, those woods! What a world of fairyland, what a world of pure,
untold joy was there to Dolly! When she found her face fairly set
towards them, with leave to stay till sundown, and with Spring at her
heels, Dolly was as blissful, as perfectly happy, as a child can ever
be made by any one thing.

The sense of perfect freedom, the wonder, the curiosity, the vague
expectation of what she might find or see, made her heart beat
with pleasure. First came the race down through the tall, swaying
meadow-grass and white-hatted daisies to the Poganuc River--a brown,
clear, gurgling stream, wide, shallow, and garrulous, that might be
easily crossed on mossy stepping-stones. Here was a world of delight
to Dolly. Skipping from stone to stone, or reclining athwart some
great rock around which the brown waters rippled, she watched the
little fishes come and go, darting hither and thither like flecks of
silver. Down under the shade of dark hemlocks the river had worn a
deep pool where the translucent water lay dark and still; and Dolly,
climbing carefully and quietly to the rocky side, could lean over and
watch the slim, straight pickerel, holding themselves so still in the
water that the play of their gossamer fins made no ripple,--so still,
so apparently unwatchful and drowsy, that Dolly again and again
fancied she might slily reach down her little hand and take one out
of the water; but the moment the rosy finger-tips touched the wave,
with a flash, like a ray of light, the coveted prize was gone. There
was no catching a pickerel asleep, however quiet he might appear.
Yet, time after time, Dolly tried the experiment, burning with the
desire to win glory among the boys by bringing home an actual and
veritable pickerel of her own catching.

But there were other beauties, dryad treasures, more accessible. The
woods along the moist margin of the river were full of the pink and
white azalea, and she gathered besides the fragrant blossoms stores
of what were called "honeysuckle apples" that grew upon them--fleshy
exudations not particularly nice in flavor, but crisp, cool, and
much valued among children. There, too, were crimson wintergreen
berries, spicy in their sweetness, and the young, tender leaves of
the wintergreen, ranking high as an eatable dainty among little folk.
Dolly's basket was sure to fill rapidly when she set herself to
gathering these treasures, and the sun would be almost down before
she could leave the enchanted shades of the wood and come back to
real life again.

But Saturday afternoon was a sort of child's Paradise. No school was
kept, and even household disciplinarians recognized a reasonably
well-behaved child's right to a Saturday afternoon play-spell.

"Now, Dolly," had Nabby said to her the week before, "you be sure and
be a good girl, and do up all your stitching and get the stockings
mended afore Saturday comes, and then we'll take Saturday afternoon
to go a-huckleberrying up to Pequannock Rock; and we'll stop and see
Mis' Persis."

This, let it be known, was a programme to awaken Dolly's ambition.
Pequannock Rock was a distance which she never would be permitted
to explore alone, and Mis' Persis was to her imagination a most
interesting and stimulating personage. She was a widow, and the
story ran that her deceased husband had been an Indian--a story
which caused Dolly to regard her with a sort of awe, connecting her
with Cotton Mather's stories of war-whoops and scalping-knives, and
midnight horrors when houses were burned and children carried off to
Canada.

Nevertheless, Mis' Persis was an inoffensive and quite useful member
of society. She had her little house and garden, which she cultivated
with energy and skill. She kept her cow, her pig, her chickens, and
contrived always to have something to sell when she needed an extra
bit of coin. She was versed in all the Indian lore of roots and
herbs, and her preparations of these for medicinal purposes were
much in request. Among the farming population around, Mis' Persis
was held in respect as a medical authority, and her opinions were
quoted with confidence. She was also of considerable repute among
the best families of Poganuc as a filler of gaps such as may often
occur in household economy. There was nothing wanted to be done
that Mis' Persis could not do. She could wash, or iron, or bake,
or brew, or nurse the sick, as the case might require. She was, in
fact, one of the reserved forces of Poganuc society. She was a member
of Dr. Cushing's church, in good and regular standing, and, in her
way, quite devoted to her minister and church, and always specially
affable and gracious to Dolly.

This particular Saturday afternoon all the constellations were
favorable. Dolly was pronounced a good girl, her week's tasks well
performed; and never were dinner-dishes more rapidly whirled into
place than were Nabby's on that same afternoon; so that before three
o'clock the pair were well on their way to the huckleberry-field.
There, under the burning August sun, the ground shot up those ardent
flower-flames well called fire-lilies, and the wild roses showered
their deep pink petals as they pushed through the thickets, and the
huckleberry-bushes bent low under the weight of the great sweet
berries; and Dolly's cheeks were all a-flame, like the fire-lilies
themselves, with heat and enthusiasm as she gathered the purple
harvest into her basket. When the baskets were filled and Dolly had
gathered fire-lilies and wild roses more than she knew how to carry,
it was proposed to stop a little and rest, on the homeward route, at
Mis' Persis's cottage.

They found her sitting on her door-step, knitting. A little wiry,
swart, thin woman was she, alert in her movements, and quick and
decided of speech. Her black eyes had in them a latent fiery gleam
that suggested all the while that though pleased and pleasant at the
present moment Mis' Persis might be dangerous if roused, and Dolly
was always especially conciliatory and polite in her addresses to her.

On the present occasion Mis' Persis was delightfully hospitable. She
installed Dolly in a small splint-bottomed rocking-chair at the door,
and treated her to a cup of milk and a crisp cooky.

"Why, what a little girl you are to be so far from home!" she said.

"Oh, I don't mind," said Dolly; "I am never tired. I could pick
berries all day."

"But, sakes alive! ain't you afraid of snakes?" said Mis' Persis.
"Why, my sister got dreadfully bit by a rattlesnake when she wa'n't
much older 'n you," and Mis' Persis shook her head weirdly.

"Oh, dear me! Did it kill her?" said Dolly, in horror.

"No; she lived many a year after," said Mis' Persis, with a reticent