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"Well," said Mis' Persis, "it was when I was a girl and lived over in Danbury. There's where I come from. My sister Polly and me, we went out to High Ledge one afternoon after huckleberries, and as we was makin' our way through some low bushes we heard the sharpest noise, jest like a locust screechin', right under foot, and jest then Polly she screams out, 'Oh, Sally,' says she, 'somethin's bit me!' and I looked down and saw a great rattlesnake crawlin' off through the bushes a great big fellow, as big as my wrist.
"'Well,' says I, 'Polly, I must get you home quick as I can;' and we set down our pails and started for home. It was a broilin' hot day, and we hed a'most a mile to walk, and afore we got home I hed to carry her. Her tongue was swelled so that it hung out of her mouth; her neck and throat was all swelled, and spotted like the snake. Oh, it was dreadful! We got her into the house, and on the bed, and sent for the Indian doctor there ain't nobody knows about them snake−bites but Indians. Well, he come and brought a bag of rattlesnake−weed with him, and he made poultices of it and laid all over her stomach and breast and hands and feet, and he made a tea of it and got some down her throat, and kep' a feedin' on it to her till she got so she could swallow. That's the way she got well."
"Oh, Mis' Persis," said Dolly, after a pause of awe and horror, "what is rattlesnake−weed?"
"Why, it's a worse poison than the snake−bite, and it kills the snake−poison 'cause it's stronger. Wherever the snakes grow, there the rattlesnake−weed grows. The snakes know it themselves, and when they fight and bite each other they go and eat the weed and it cures 'em. Here's some of it," she said, going to the wall of the room which was all hung round with dried bunches of various herbs "here's some I got over on Poganuc Mountain, if you ever should want any."
"Oh, I hope I never shall," said Dolly. "Nabby, only think! What if there had been a snake in those bushes!"
"Well, you can always know," said Mis' Persis, "if you hear somethin' in the bushes jest like a locust, sharp and sudden why, you'd better look afore you set your foot down. But we don't hev no rattlesnakes round this way. I've beat all these lots through and never seen tail of one. This 'ere ain't one o' their places; over to Poganuc Mountain, now, a body has to take care how they step."
"Do you suppose, Mis' Persis," said Dolly, after a few moments of grave thought, "do you suppose God made that weed grow on purpose to cure rattlesnake bites?"
"Of course he did," said Mis' Persis, as decidedly as if she had been a trained theologian, "that's what rattlesnake−weed was made fer; any fool can see that."
"It seems to me," said Dolly, "that it would have been better not to have the snakes, and then people wouldn't be bit at all wouldn't it?"
"Oh, we don't know everything," said Mis' Persis; "come to that, there's a good many things that nobody knows what they's made fer. But the Indians used to say there was some cure grew for every sickness if only our eyes was opened to see it, and I expect it's so."
"Come, Dolly," said Nabby, "the sun is gettin' pretty low; I must hurry home to get supper."
Just then the bell of the distant meeting−house gave three tolling strokes, whereat all the three stopped talking and listened intently.
Of all the old Puritan customs none was more thrillingly impressive than this solemn announcement of a death, and this deliberate tolling out of the years of a finished life.
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It was a sound to which every one, whether alone or in company, at work or in play, stopped to listen, and listened with a nervous thrill of sympathy.
"I wonder who that is?" said Nabby.
"Perhaps it's Lyddy Bascom," said Mis' Persis, "she's been down with typhus fever."
The bell now was rapidly tolling one, two, three, four, and all the company counted eagerly up to sixteen, seventeen, when Mis' Persis interposed.
"No, 'taint Lyddy; it's goin' on," and they counted and counted, and still the bell kept tolling till it had numbered eighty. "It's old Granny Moss," said Mis' Persis decisively; "she's ben lyin' low some time. Well, she's in heaven now; the better for her."
"Ah, I'm glad she's in heaven," said Dolly, with a shivering sigh; "she's all safe now."
"Oh, yes, she's better off," said Nabby, getting up and shaking her dress as if to shake off the very thought of death. A warm, strong, glowing creature she was, as full of earth−life as the fire−lilies they had been gathering. She seemed a creature made for this world and its present uses, and felt an animal repulsion to the very thought of death.
"Come, Dolly," she said, briskly, as she counted the last toll, "we can't wait another minute."
"Well, Dolly," said Mis' Persis, "tell your mother I'm a comin' this year to make up her candles for her, and the work sha'n't cost her a cent. I've been tryin' out a lot o' bayberry wax to put in 'em and make 'em good and firm."
"I'm sure you are very good," said Dolly, with instinctive politeness.
"I want to do my part towards supportin' my minister," said Mis' Persis, "and that's what I hev to give."
"I'll tell my mother, and I know she'll thank you," answered Dolly, as they turned homeward.
The sun was falling lower and lower toward the west. The long shadows of the two danced before them on the dusty road.
After walking half a mile they came to a stone culvert, where a little brawling stream crossed the road. The edges of the brook were fringed with sweet−flag blades waving in the afternoon light, and the water gurgled and tinkled pleasantly among the stones.
"There, Dolly," said Nabby, seating herself on a flat stone by the brook, "I'm goin' to rest a minute, and you can find some of them sweet−flag 'graters' if you want." This was the blossom−bud of the sweet flag, which when young and tender was reckoned a delicacy among omnivorous children.
"Why, Nabby, I thought you were in such a hurry to get home," said Dolly, gathering the blades of sweet−flag and looking for the "graters."
"No need to hurry," said Nabby, "the sun's an hour and a half high," and she leaned over the curb of the bridge and looked at herself in the brook. She took off her sun−bonnet and fanned herself with it. Then she put a bright spotted fire−lily in her hair and watched the effect in the water. It certainly was a brilliant picture, framed by the brown stones and green rushes of the brook.
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"Oh, Nabby," cried Dolly, "look! There's the stage and Hiel coming down the hill!"
"Sure e−nough!" said Nabby, in a tone of proper surprise, as if she had expected anything else to happen on that road at that time of the afternoon. "As true as I live and breathe it is Hiel and the stage," she added, "and not a creature in it. Now, we'll get a ride home."
Nabby's sun−bonnet hung on her arm; her hair fell in a tangle of curls around her flushed cheeks as she stood waiting for Hiel to come up. Altogether she was a picture.
That young man took in the points of the view at once and vowed in his heart that Nabby was the handsomest girl upon his beat.
"Waitin' for me to come along?" he said as he drew up.
"Well, you're sort o' handy now and then," said Nabby. "We've been huckleberrying all the afternoon, and are tired."
Hiel got down and opened the stage door and helped the two to get in with their berries and their flowers.
"You owe me one for this," said Hiel when he handed in Nabby's things.
"Well, there's one," said Nabby, laughing and striking him across the eyes with her bunch of lilies.
"Never mind, miss. I shall keep the account," said Hiel; and he gathered up the reins, resumed his high seat, made his grand entrance into Poganuc, and drew up at the parson's door.
For a week thereafter it was anxiously discussed in various circles how Nabby
and Dolly came to be in that stage. Where had they been? How did it happen? The obscurity of the event kept Hiel on the brain of several damsels who had nothing better to talk about.
And the day closed with a royal supper of huckleberries and milk. So went a specimen number of Dolly's Saturday afternoons.
CHAPTER XX. GOING "A−CHESTNUTTING."
THE bright days of summer were a short−lived joy at Poganuc. One hardly had time to say "How beautiful!"
before it was past. By September came the frosty nights that turned the hills into rainbow colors and ushered in autumn with her gorgeous robes of golden−rod and purple asters. There was still the best of sport for the children, however; for the frost ripened the shag−bark walnuts and opened the chestnut burrs, and the glossy brown chestnuts dropped down among the rustling yellow leaves and the beds of fringed blue gentians.
One peculiarity of the Puritan New England regime is worthy of special notice, and that is the generosity and liberality of its dealing in respect to the spontaneous growths of the soil. The chestnuts, the hickory−nuts, the butternuts no matter upon whose land they grew were free to whoever would gather them. The girls and boys roamed at pleasure through the woods and picked, unmolested, wherever they could find the most abundant harvest. In like manner the wild fruits grapes, strawberries, huckleberries, and cranberries were for many years free to the earliest comer. This is the more to be remarked in a community where life was peculiarly characterized by minute economy, where everything had its carefully ascertained money−value.
Every board, nail, brad, every drop of paint, every shingle, in house or barn, was counted and estimated. In making bargains and conducting domestic economies, there was the minutest consideration of the CHAPTER XX. GOING "A−CHESTNUTTING."
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money−value of time, labor and provision. And yet their rigidly parsimonious habit of life presented this one remarkable exception, of certain quite valuable spontaneous growths left unguarded and unappropriated.
Our Fathers came to New England from a country where the poor man was everywhere shut out from the bounties of nature by game−laws and severe restrictions. Though his children might be dying of hunger he could not catch a fish, or shoot a bird, or snare the wild game of the forest, without liability to arrest as a criminal; he could not gather the wild fruits of the earth without danger of being held a trespasser, and risking fine and imprisonment. When the Fathers took possession of the New England forest it was in the merciful spirit of the Mosaic law, which commanded that something should always be left to be gathered by the poor.
From the beginning of the New England life till now there have been poor people, widows and fatherless children, who have eked out their scanty living by the sale of the fruits and nuts which the custom of the country allowed them freely to gather on other people's land.
Within the past fifty years, while this country has been filling up with foreigners of a different day and training, these old customs have been passing away. Various fruits and nuts, once held free, are now appropriated by the holders of the soil and made subject to restriction and cultivation.
In the day we speak of, however, all the forest hills around Poganuc were a free nut−orchard, and one of the chief festive occasions of the year, in the family at the Parsonage, was the autumn gathering of nuts, when Dr.
Cushing took the matter in hand and gave his mind to it.
On the present occasion, having just finished four sermons which completely cleared up and reconciled all the difficulties between the doctrines of free agency and the divine decrees, the Doctor was naturally in good spirits. He declared to his wife, "There! my dear, that subject is disposed of. I never before succeeded in really clearing it up; but now the matter is done for all time." Having thus wound up the sun and moon, and arranged the courses of the stars in celestial regions, the Doctor was as alert and light−hearted as any boy, in his preparations for the day's enterprise.
"Boys," he said, "we'll drive over to Poganuc Ledge; up there are those big chestnuts that grow right out of the rock; there's no likelihood of anybody's getting them but I noticed the other day they were hanging full."
"Oh, father, those trees are awful to climb."
"Of course they are. I won't let you boys try to climb them mind that; but I'll go up myself and shake them, and you pick up underneath."
No Highland follower ever gloried more in the physical prowess of his chief than the boys in that of their father. Was there a tree he could not climb a chestnut, or walnut, or butternut, however exalted in fastnesses of the rock, that he could not shake down? They were certain there was not. The boys rushed hither and thither, with Spring barking at their heels, leaving open doors and shouting orders to each other concerning the various pails and baskets necessary to contain their future harvest. Mrs. Cushing became alarmed for the stability of her household arrangements. "Now, father, please don't take all my baskets this time," pleaded she, "just let me arrange "
"Well, my dear, have it all your own way; only be sure to provide things enough."
"Well, surely, they can pick in pails or cups, and then they can be emptied into a bag," said Mrs. Cushing.
"You won't get more than a bushel, certainly."
"Oh yes, we shall three or four bushels," said Will triumphantly.
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"There's no end of what we shall get when father goes," said Bob. "Why, you've no idea how he rattles 'em down."
Meanwhile Mrs. Cushing and Nabby were packing a hamper with bread−and−butter, and tea−rusks, and unlimited ginger−bread, and doughnuts crisp and brown, and savory ham, and a bottle of cream, and coffee all ready for boiling in the pot, and tea−cups and spoons everything, in short, ready for a gipsy encampment, while the parson's horse stood meekly absorbing an extra ration of oats in that contemplative attitude which becomes habitual to good family horses, especially of the ministerial profession. Mrs. Cushing and the Doctor, with Nabby and Dolly, and the hamper and baskets, formed the load of the light wagon, while Will and Bob were both mounted upon "the colt" a scrawny, ewe−necked beast, who had long outgrown this youthful designation. The boys, however, had means best known to themselves of rousing his energies and keeping him ahead of the wagon in a convulsive canter, greatly to the amusement of Nabby and Dolly.
Our readers would be happy could they follow the party along the hard, stony roads, up the winding mountain−paths, where the trees, flushing in purple, crimson and gold, seemed to shed light on their paths; where beds of fringed gentian seemed, as the sunlight struck them, to glow like so many sapphires, and every leaf of every plant seemed to be passing from the green of summer into some quaint new tint of autumnal splendor. Here and there groups of pines or tall hemlocks, with their heavy background of solemn green, threw out the flamboyant tracery of the forest in startling distinctness. Here and there, as they passed a bit of low land, the swamp maples seemed really to burn like crimson flames, and the clumps of black alder, with their vivid scarlet berries, exalted the effect of color to the very highest and most daring result. No artist ever has ventured to put on canvas the exact copy of the picture that nature paints for us every year in the autumn months. There are things the Almighty Artist can do that no earthly imitator can more than hopelessly admire.
As to Dolly, she was like a bird held in a leash, full of exclamations and longings, now to pick "those leaves,"
and then to gather "those gentians," or to get "those lovely red berries;" but was forced to resign herself to be carried by.
"They would all fade before the day is through," said her mother; "wait till we come home at night, and then, if you're not too tired, you may gather them." Dolly sighed and resigned herself to wait.
We shall not tell the joys of the day: how the Doctor climbed the trees victoriously, how the brown, glossy chestnuts fle
w down in showers as he shook the limbs, and how fast they were gathered by busy fingers below. Not merely chestnuts, but walnuts, and a splendid butternut tree, that grew in the high cleft of a rocky ledge, all were made to yield up their treasures till the bags were swelled to a most auspicious size.
Then came the nooning, when the boys delighted in making a roaring hot fire, and the coffee was put on to boil, and Nabby spread the table−cloth and unpacked the hamper on a broad, flat rock around which a white foam of moss formed a soft, elastic seat.
The Doctor was most entertaining, and related stories of the fishing and hunting excursions of his youth, of the trout he had caught and the ducks he had shot. The boys listened with ears of emulation, and Dolly sighed to think she never was to be a man and do all these fine things that her brothers were going to do.
But in the midst of all came Abel Moss, a hard−visaged farmer from one of the upland farms, who, seeing the minister's wagon go by, had come to express his mind to him concerning a portion of his last Sunday's sermon; and the Doctor, who but a moment before had thought only of trout and wild ducks, sat down by the side of Abel on a fragment of rock and began explaining to him the difference between the laws of matter and the laws of mind in moral government, and the difference between divine sovereignty as applied to matter and to mind.
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The children wandered off during the discussion, which lasted some time; but when the western sunbeams, sloping through the tree−trunks, warned them that it was time to return, the Doctor's wagon might have been seen coming down the rough slope of the mountain.
"There, my dear, I've set Moss right," he said. "There was a block in his wheels that I've taken out. I think he'll go straight now. Moss has a good head; when he once sees a thing, he does see it, and I think I've clinched the nail with him to−day."
CHAPTER XXI. DOLLY'S SECOND CHRISTMAS.