The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 64, February, 1863

On the third figure and face the physiognomist might dwell longer,—but that rather because youth, hope, and inexperience had refused to make any of the life-marks that tell stories in faces. There was abundant room for imagination and prophecy.

A figure not too tall, but full of wavy lines,—two dark-blue eyes, whose full under-lids gave an expression of arch sweetness to the glance,—a delicate complexion of roses and lilies, as suggestive of fading as of blossoming,—features small, and not at all of the Greek pattern,—and the rather large head and slightly developed bust, typical of American rural beauty.

To this summary of youthful charms would be at once added the grace of motion before spoken of, which made Dorcas Fox a favorite with all the young men in Walton, and which gave her a reputation of beauty which in strictness she did not deserve. A little habitual ill-health, and the glamour is gone, with the roses and lilies and the music of motion. In our climate of fierce extremes, both field- and garden-flowers speedily wilt and chill. Dorcas herself had been a thousand times told she was the very picture of her mother at her age. And just to look now at Mrs. Colonel Fox!

A tall young man stood on the doorsteps of the meeting-house, as Dorcas went demurely behind her parents in at the open door. He looked at her with a quick, inquiring glance from his keen Yankee eyes, which she answered with an almost imperceptible nod of her graceful head. She dropped her eyes, and passed on. This young man was Henry Mowers, and he owned the Mowers farm. He was a very good, sensible fellow, and had "kept company," as the country-phrase is, with Dorcas Fox for the last few weeks, having, indeed, had his eye on her ever since the New-Year's sleigh-ride and ball.

After Dorcas had reached her seat in the pew, and adjusted her spotless Sunday chintz and the ribbon that confined her jaunty gypsy-hat over her sunny hair, she raised her eyes carelessly to a pew in a side-aisle. The Dorrs generally occupied it alone; but sometimes Swan Day, when he wasn't in the choir, sat there too.

Swan Day, or, as he might better have been called, Night Raven, kept the country-store in Walton. One naturally thought of afternoon rather than morning at seeing his olive complexion, dark eyes, and thick-clustering black curls. Such romance as was to be had in Walton, without the aid of a circulating library, certainly gathered about Swan Day. An orphan, born of a Creole mother and a British sergeant, he had been left early to his own resources. He had found them sufficient thus far, in a cordial neighborhood like Walton, when industry and temperance were cardinal virtues not carried to excess; and he was rather a favorite among the young women.

The peculiar languor and richness of his complexion,—the dark eyes, soft as an Indian girl's,—the mouth, melting and red as the grapes where under a tropical sun his foreign mother had lain, and, gathering them ripe, had dropped them lazily into his baby mouth: these were new and strange features in the Saxon community where he had accidentally been left on the death of his father, who was shot at Saratoga. The mother lingered awhile, and then dropped away, leaving Swan to thrive in the bracing air in which she had shivered to death.

Many Sundays before this, Swan had looked at Colonel Fox's pew, and, looking, loved.

Dorcas looked occasionally.

All the time, while the minister preached, she twiddled her caraway-stems, sometimes biting a seed in two very softly between her little teeth, and keeping, on the whole, an appearance of exemplary devoutness. When Father Boardman reached "sixthly," she raised her eyes, and saw Henry Mowers looking straight at her. Then she dropped her eyelids at once, sniffed delicately at her bouquet of southernwood, and, gaining strength from its pungency, applied herself to staring once more at the great pine pulpit, where, like a very old sparrow on the house-top, Father Boardman denounced and anathematized at leisure all who did not think as he did. By degrees, all the eyes in Dorcas's neighborhood that had been any length of time in the world were dozing and closing with the full leave of the spirit. Finally, when Father Boardman entered on the "improvement," Dorcas, who had not heard a word, looked again in the direction of the Dorr pew. Henry Mowers had succumbed to Morpheus half an hour before. Still there flamed on the deep, bewitching eyes of Day; and as all the rest in her neighborhood had gone to sleep, and the young girl had really nothing specially to keep herself awake with, she looked up, too, and then down, and then rosily, and timidly, and consciously, and then at him once more. By that time she blushed again, and a smile was just beginning to wake from its sleep in the corner of her mouth, when a rush, a rising, and a general clatter and banging of pew-seats announced the blessed news of suspended instruction.

In the fashion of sixty years ago, the congregation waited reverently, until the pastor walked down the broad-aisle and out at the door, before a soul stirred. Then the men followed, and last of all the women. In the crowd, there were frequent opportunities for whispered words, all the sweeter for the stealing; and in the crowd, after he had seen Henry Mowers jump into the wagon and drive off his three sisters half a mile to their home, and after seeing Jenny Post ride off on a pillion behind her old brother, as in the gone-by days when wide roads and wagons were not, Swan sauntered carelessly towards Dorcas, and said, in a tone too low for her parents to hear, but very distinctly,—

"I must see you to-morrow night."

"I can't," was the murmured reply.

"For the last time, Dorcas! come down to the old pear-tree to-morrow, before sunset," he whispered, imploringly.

He was wise to turn suddenly away before her parents could hear him, touching on secular subjects, and before she could herself get up any new objection. Her objections, truly, were very faint and few, and, being tossed about awhile, finally settled out of sight. Henry would, she knew, come to his weekly wooing as soon as the setting sun proclaimed the Sabbath-day over. After that time she was safe. She could slip down the orchard to the pear-tree, and hear what was the important word, and what Swan meant by "the last."

Eight or ten persons, who lived at a distance from "meeting," were in the habit of partaking the hospitality of Colonel Fox, of a Sunday, as the hour's intermission gave them no opportunity to return to their distant homes. After the Puritan fashion, unlike enough to the present, families were restricted on Sunday to two meals, and those were provided with a Jewish regard to the fourth commandment. All labor was scrupulously anticipated or postponed, but such hospitality as consisted with the strict observance of the Sabbath was at the service of their friends.

On coming in at the door of the square room, with its sanded floor, its old desk, its spare bed in the corner, and its cherry table with wavy outlines, which had belonged to Colonel Fox's mother, Dorcas found the cloth already laid, and the bonnets and cardinals of half a dozen old friends on the bed.

In five minutes, early apples, old cider, and a plate of raised doughnuts, flanked by plates of mince- and apple-pie, rewarded the patience and piety of the company. Colonel Fox, solemnly, and as if he were quite accustomed to it, poured from a jug into large tumblers that held at least a pint, dropped three large lumps of loaf-sugar, filled the glass with water, grated some nutmeg on the top, and bade his guests refresh themselves with toddy, unless they preferred flip: if they did, they had only to say so: the poker was hot.

They all ate and drank, and by that time the bell rang again; and then they all went again. And if they heard Father Boardman at all, it was with utterly composed minds, when he told them it was their duty to be contented, even should their condemnation be eternally decreed, since it must, of course, be for the good of the whole, and for the glory of God. Hopkinsianism was in fashion then, and the minds of men in many parts of the country had accepted the logic of its founder, negatived as it was, in its practical application, by the sweetness of his Christian benevolence and his large humanity. Then the toddy helped them to swallow many doctrines that in our cold-water days are sharply and defiantly contested. The head is much clearer; whether hearts are better is doubtful.

After supper, and while yet the sun lingered smilingly over the Great Meadows and on the hills, behind which he sank, Dorcas, who had meanwhile adorned herself with Aunt Dorcas's bequest, broke the long silence, by whispering so low that her father's sleep should not be disturbed,—

"Mother, do you set much by this pin?"

"Of course I do, child! 'T was your Aunt Dorcas's," said Mrs. Fox, "your father's own sister."

"Yes, I know it, mother; but how did she come by it?"

All these years, and this was the first time Dorcas had asked the question! She colored a little, too, as if some secret thought or story were busy about her heart, as she looked at the ring.

"Well,—it was a man she 'xpected to 'a' bed. They was to 'a' ben merried, an' he was to 'a' gi'n up v'yagin'. But he was cast away, an' she never heerd nothin' about neither him nor the ship. He was waitin' to git means, an' he did, privateerin' an' so; but I 'xpect he was drownded," concluded Mrs. Fox, in a suitably plaintive tone.

And that was Aunt Dorcas's story.

CHAPTER II

If anybody is curious to know why there should be mystery or secrecy connected with Swan Day's meeting with Dorcas, or why they should meet under a pear-tree, instead of her father's roof-tree, in a rational way, it might be a sufficient answer, that there never was and never will be anything direct and straightforward about Cupid or his doings. But the real and more important reason was, that Colonel Fox did not like Swan, and had said, in so many words, that "he wouldn't have Swan Day a-hangin' round, no how!—that he was a poor kind of a shote,—that he wished both him and his clutter well out o' town,—and that he needn't think to make swans out of his geese, no time!"

In the first and last sentence, Colonel Fox indicated the ground of his dislike to the handsome young store-keeper, and his dread that Swan's eyes would somehow interfere with his own cherished plans of a union between the Fox and Mower farms. Whatever Colonel Fox determined on was done or to be done. He had anticipated the French proverb; and the "impossibility" made not the slightest difference. Therefore Dorcas had no notion of disobedience in her head, permanently. She solaced herself by the occasional luxury of departure from set rules, and she intended to depart in that way to-morrow,—for just five minutes,—just to hear what that foolish fellow wanted of her; and what could it be? and why was it the last time?—would he give her up?

Dorcas pondered the matter while the sun still crowned the heights, and glanced at her sleeping father in silence. Why should Colonel Fox dislike Swan so very much because he was a Britisher? All that was done with, long ago, and why not be peaceable? Just then her father drew the breath sharply between his teeth, as if in pain. It was the old wound, that had never been healed since the Battle of Bennington. He had lain on the ground,—Dorcas had often heard him tell the tale,—and had striven to slake his deathly thirst with the blood that he scooped up in the hollow of his hand from the ground about him. So terrible was the carnage where he lay. "A d–d Britisher had shot him,—another had driven his horse over him, and afterwards, while he lay half-dead, had tried to rob him!" Would he ever forget it? He would have continued, on the contrary, to fire and hack till the present day, but for the wound in his knee, which had disabled him for life, long before a peace was patched up with the mother-country. So he had retired to Walton, and before Continental money had depreciated more than half had bought acres by the thousand, and become generalissimo of flocks and herds. Through the admiration of his townsmen for his wounds, he rapidly and easily attained the rank of Colonel, without the discomfort of fighting for it; and from his excellent sense and the executive ability induced by military habits, became, in turn, justice of the peace, deacon of the church, town-clerk, and manager-general of Walton.

Nobody—that is to say, nobody in the family—spoke, when Colonel Fox was in the house, unless first spoken to,—not even Dorcas. Such were the domestic tactics of the last century, and Colonel Fox held fast to old notions.

The social ones were far more liberal,—so very liberal, indeed, so very free and easy, in the rural districts especially, that only a knowledge of the primitive conditions under which such manners grew up could possibly reconcile with them any impressions of purity and discretion. In hearing of manners, therefore, it is always necessary to remember that the children of country Puritans are and were wholly different in the grain from Paris or London society of the same period,—as different, for example, as the Goddess of Reason from our first mother, though at first glance one might think those two similar. New-England parents had the utmost confidence in their daughters, and almost no restraint was laid on social intercourse. Their personal dignity and propriety wore presupposed, as matters of course. Religion and virtue needed only to point, not to restrain.

The Colonel, on his part, took little heed of Dorcas's movements in the way of balls and sleigh-rides. Content that her face showed health and enjoyment, he never thought or cared what passed in her mind. If only the hay-crop proved abundant, and the Davis lot yielded well,—if neither wheat got the blight, nor sheep the rot,—if it were better to buy Buckhorn for milk, or sell the Calico-Trotter,—these thoughts so filled his soul that there was very little room to let in any nonsense about Dorcas, only "to have Swan Day shet up before he begins," for, as he often said, "he wouldn't give the snap of his thumb for as many Swan Days as could stand between this and Jerusalem!"

She had met him twice before, and both times rather accidentally, as she supposed, under the pear-tree,—both times, when she went to the well for water. He had drawn the water, and had talked some with his tongue, but more, far more, with his eyes of Oriental depth and fascination. Dorcas thought and meant no harm in meeting Swan. Even if her nature had been more wakened and conscious,—even if she had had either the habit or the power of analyzing her own sensations,—even if she had seen her soul from without, as she certainly did not within,—she would have recoiled from the thought of deliberate coquetry.

In the nature even of a coquette there is not necessarily either cruelty or hardness. It cannot be a fine nature, and must be deficient in the tact which appreciates the feelings of another, and the sympathy that shrinks from injuring them. It may be called selfishness, which is another term for thoughtlessness or want of consideration or perception, but it is not deliberate selfishness. This last is often found with fine perceptions and intuitive tact. It is rather a natural obtuseness, a want of thought on the subject. Such persons remember and connect their own sensations with the object, thinking little or nothing of the feelings they may themselves excite by the heedlessness of their manner.

If Dorcas had once thought of the value of the hearts she played with, and as it were tossed from hand to hand,—if she had even weighed one against another, she might have had some sorrow in grieving either. But having no standard of delicacy and tenderness in her own nature by which to judge theirs, Dorcas cannot be accused of intentional injustice, which is generally understood by coquetry. On the contrary, if she had been able to express her emotions,—

"How happy could I be with either!"

would have done so. Dorcas was very young in experience.

In those days of freedom there was no such word as "engaged"; least of all, did the parties concerned violate all their own notions of decorum by "announcing an engagement." The lists were free to all to enter, and the bravest won the day. After weeks and months of shy "company-keeping," it was "expected it would be a match" by the keen-sighted or deeply interested. Sometimes the dissolution of an engagement was mentioned as "a shame! after keeping company so many years, and she had got all her quilts made and everything!" But best of all was for the parties to be married outright, by a justice of the peace, without a word of public warning, and then to enjoy the pleasure of outwitting the neighbors, and coming down like a thunderclap on a social sunshine unsuspicious of banns, which had been published on some three literally public days, but when nobody was hearing. That was something worth doing, and very much worth remembering!

The sun set. The Sabbath was done. The Colonel heaved a sigh of relief. The Colonel's wife took her knitting-work; and the Colonel's daughter looked up with a shy smile at Henry Mowers fastening his horse by the corn-barn. It was time Sunday was over, indeed! Such a long supper! but it must end sometime!—and then prayers, and then Dorcas had amused herself with Bel and the Dragon and Tobit awhile. All would not do, and the family had been obliged to resort to the sweet restorer for the last ten minutes. Now they could think their own thoughts in peace, and talk of what interested them,—cattle, people, and the like. Poor Dorcas! what with Father Boardman's preaching, and the Westminster Catechism, she associated religion with all that was dull and inexplicable, though she did not doubt it was good in case of dying. In the Nature and life that surrounded her she had not seen God, but a refuge from Him. In the crimson floods of sunshine, in the brilliant moonrise, or the pulsating stars of a winter night, she found a sort of guilty relief from the dulness of what she supposed was Revelation. But she never thought of questioning or doubting any teachings, in the pulpit or out. A woman cannot, like a man, fight a subject down. Her intellect shrinks from being tossed and pierced on the pricks of doctrine. She is gentle and cowardly. She sets the matter aside, and is contented to wait till she dies to find out. But the men in Walton were all theologians, and sharp at polemics. In the bar-room the spirit of liberty throve, which was crushed in the pulpit. In that small New-England town, where, like a great white sheep, Father Boardman now led his docile flock to the fold, whoever looked long enough would see many new folds and many new shepherds. Every shape of religious thinking will have its exponent, and the widest liberty be claimed and enjoyed. Though he slept through Father Boardman's sermons, it is doubtful if Henry Mowers did not in his dreams lay the corner-stone of the new meeting-house on the hill.

Monday, and the hurly-burly of washing over. Dorcas had nearly finished her "stent" on the little wheel. As she sat by the open door, diligently trotting her foot, and softly pulling the last flax from her distaff, her glance went hastily and often towards the setting sun. She could see beyond the sloping orchard, no longer loaded with fruit, the Great Meadows, extending along the banks of the Connecticut. She could see on the eastern side great white mountains, that went modestly by the name of hills, and that came in after-years to draw pilgrims from the ends of the earth. They were white-capped and solemn-looking, and girdled by majestic forests; while the Green Mountains, that lay along the horizon, not so high as "the Hills," were crowned with verdure to the very top, and flaming with autumn dyes. As far as the eye reached, beyond the immediate view rose an immense solitude of forest that had lasted through centuries.

Dorcas's eyes rested and roamed alternately over these massive natural features. She felt dimly in her heart the effect of the solemn aspect of these great wastes,—these sublime possibilities, concealed and waiting for the energy of man to discover them. A melancholy, sweet and soft, composed partly of the effect of the view, and partly of the languor of the Indian-summer weather, diffused itself over her. She accused herself of various sins,—of levity, vanity, and not knowing her own mind. Soon, however, feeling her unskilfulness to steer, she abandoned the bark, and left it to drift. She must see Swan Day.

"And as to Henry!"—here Dorcas set back the little wheel,—"and as to Henry!"—and here Dorcas threw her apron over her face,—"why, what harm is there? I'm only going to see what he wants."

Under the apron rippled and rushed a thousand warm blushes, that contradicted every word Dorcas said to herself. They made her remember how, only the evening before, Henry had said words to her, which, although she pretended not to understand him, had made her heart beat proudly and tenderly; and how she had thought whoever was chosen to be Henry's wife would be a happy woman! How many times had he said, as they stood parting on the stoop, how sorry he was to go, and she, like Juliet, had whispered, 't was "not yet day"! Yes, of course Henry Mowers would be her husband, and she would tell Swan Day so, if—if–But then, perhaps, there was no such nonsense in Swan's head, after all.

Why could not the gypsy be satisfied with her almost angelic happiness? But no. She shivered a little as the sun went down, and exchanged her working-dress of petticoat and short-gown for something warmer.

Because Cely Temple was cutting apples and pumpkins, and stringing them across the kitchen and pantry to dry, and because black Dinah was making the "bean-porridge" for supper, it came to pass that the daughter of the house was called on to lay the table. Dorcas bit her lip, as she hastily did the duty, and postponed the pleasure.

The laboring-season is nearly over, the eight hired men reduced to two, and the family-table is spread in the kitchen. How is the table spread for supper in the house of Colonel Fox, one of the richest farmers in Walton?

This is the way.

Dorcas brushes a scrap from the long table, scoured as white as snow, but puts no linen on it. On the buttery-shelves, a set of pewter rivals silver in brightness, but Dorcas does not touch them. She places a brown rye-and-Indian loaf, of the size of a half-peck, in the centre of the table,—a pan of milk, with the cream stirred in,—brown earthen bowls, with bright pewter spoons by the dozen,—a delicious cheese, whole, and the table is ready. When Dinah appears, with her bright Madras turban, and says she is ready to dish the "bean-porridge, nine days old," Dorcas tells her she is going down beyond the cider-mill, to bring up the yarn, and, throwing a handkerchief over her head, is out of sight before Dinah has finished blowing the tin horn that summons to supper.

In five minutes, she was beyond the cider-mill, beyond the well, and standing under the old pear-tree. Behind her, hiding her from the house, is the corn-barn, stuffed and laden with the heavy harvest of maize and wheat, and the cider-mill, where twenty bushels of apples lie uncrushed on the ground, ready for the morrow's fate. A long row of barrels already filled from the foaming vat stand ready to be taken to the Colonel's own cellar, for the Colonel's own drinking, and as far as one can see in one direction is the Colonel's own land. The heiress of all would still be sought for herself.

Dorcas stood in the departing light, and leaned against the pear-tree. Not yet come? A flush went up to her forehead, as, dropping her handkerchief, she raised her hand to her eyes and glanced hastily about her. Her chestnut curls were fastened with a blue ribbon on the side of her head, and the floating ends fell on her shoulder.

This was the one departure from the severe simplicity of her dress, for neither bright-hued calicoes nor muslins found their way to Walton. Once in a long while, a print, at five times the present prices, was introduced into the social circles of Walton by an occasional peddler, or possibly by the adventurous spirit of Swan Day. But these were rare instances.

Flannel of domestic manufacture, pressed till you could almost see your face in it, stood instead of the French woollen fabric of modern days. It left the jimp little waist as round and definite as the eye could ask, while the full flow of the skirt exposed the neat foot, deftly incased in stout Jefferson shoes. A plaited lawn, technically termed a "modesty-piece," was folded over the bosom, and concealed all but the upper part of the throat. Above that rose a face full of delicacy and healthy sweetness. Eyes full of sparkles, and dimples all about the cheeks, chin, and rather large mouth. Youth, and the radiance of a happy, unconscious nature, of the capabilities or possibilities of which she was as ignorant as the robin on the branch above her, whose evening song had just closed, and who has just shut his coquettish eyes.