The Country of the Pointed Firs

The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm, sunshiny air was of some ethereal northern sort, with a cool freshness as it came over new-fallen snow. The world was filled with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor. It was so still and so early that the village was but half awake. I could hear no voices but those of the birds, small and great,—the constant song sparrows, the clink of a yellow-hammer over in the woods, and the far conversation of some deliberate crows. I saw William Blackett’s escaping sail already far from land, and Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed by, watching for some one who never came. I tried to speak to him, but he did not see me. There was a patient look on the old man’s face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.

XVII. A Country Road

WHATEVER DOUBTS and anxieties I may have had about the inconvenience of the Begg’s high wagon for a person of Mrs. Blackett’s age and shortness, they were happily overcome by the aid of a chair and her own valiant spirit. Mrs. Todd bestowed great care upon seating us as if we were taking passage by boat, but she finally pronounced that we were properly trimmed. When we had gone only a little way up the hill she remembered that she had left the house door wide open, though the large key was safe in her pocket. I offered to run back, but my offer was met with lofty scorn, and we lightly dismissed the matter from our minds, until two or three miles further on we met the doctor, and Mrs. Todd asked him to stop and ask her nearest neighbor to step over and close the door if the dust seemed to blow in the afternoon.

“She’ll be there in her kitchen; she’ll hear you the minute you call; ‘twont give you no delay,” said Mrs. Todd to the doctor. “Yes, Mis’ Dennett’s right there, with the windows all open. It isn’t as if my fore door opened right on the road, anyway.” At which proof of composure Mrs. Blackett smiled wisely at me.

The doctor seemed delighted to see our guest; they were evidently the warmest friends, and I saw a look of affectionate confidence in their eyes. The good man left his carriage to speak to us, but as he took Mrs. Blackett’s hand he held it a moment, and, as if merely from force of habit, felt her pulse as they talked; then to my delight he gave the firm old wrist a commending pat.

“You’re wearing well; good for another ten years at this rate,” he assured her cheerfully, and she smiled back. “I like to keep a strict account of my old stand-bys,” and he turned to me. “Don’t you let Mrs. Todd overdo to-day,—old folks like her are apt to be thoughtless;” and then we all laughed, and, parting, went our ways gayly.

“I suppose he puts up with your rivalry the same as ever?” asked Mrs. Blackett. “You and he are as friendly as ever, I see, Almiry,” and Almira sagely nodded.

“He’s got too many long routes now to stop to ‘tend to all his door patients,” she said, “especially them that takes pleasure in talkin’ themselves over. The doctor and me have got to be kind of partners; he’s gone a good deal, far an’ wide. Looked tired, didn’t he? I shall have to advise with him an’ get him off for a good rest. He’ll take the big boat from Rockland an’ go off up to Boston an’ mouse round among the other doctors, one in two or three years, and come home fresh as a boy. I guess they think consider’ble of him up there.” Mrs. Todd shook the reins and reached determinedly for the whip, as if she were compelling public opinion.

Whatever energy and spirit the white horse had to begin with were soon exhausted by the steep hills and his discernment of a long expedition ahead. We toiled slowly along. Mrs. Blackett and I sat together, and Mrs. Todd sat alone in front with much majesty and the large basket of provisions. Part of the way the road was shaded by thick woods, but we also passed one farmhouse after another on the high uplands, which we all three regarded with deep interest, the house itself and the barns and garden-spots and poultry all having to suffer an inspection of the shrewdest sort. This was a highway quite new to me; in fact, most of my journeys with Mrs. Todd had been made afoot and between the roads, in open pasturelands. My friends stopped several times for brief dooryard visits, and made so many promises of stopping again on the way home that I began to wonder how long the expedition would last. I had often noticed how warmly Mrs. Todd was greeted by her friends, but it was hardly to be compared with the feeling now shown toward Mrs. Blackett. A look of delight came to the faces of those who recognized the plain, dear old figure beside me; one revelation after another was made of the constant interest and intercourse that had linked the far island and these scattered farms into a golden chain of love and dependence.

“Now, we mustn’t stop again if we can help it,” insisted Mrs. Todd at last. “You’ll get tired, mother, and you’ll think the less o’ reunions. We can visit along here any day. There, if they ain’t frying doughnuts in this next house, too! These are new folks, you know, from over St. George way; they took this old Talcot farm last year. ‘Tis the best water on the road, and the check-rein’s come undone—yes, we’d best delay a little and water the horse.”

We stopped, and seeing a party of pleasure-seekers in holiday attire, the thin, anxious mistress of the farmhouse came out with wistful sympathy to hear what news we might have to give. Mrs. Blackett first spied her at the half-closed door, and asked with such cheerful directness if we were trespassing that, after a few words, she went back to her kitchen and reappeared with a plateful of doughnuts.

“Entertainment for man and beast,” announced Mrs. Todd with satisfaction. “Why, we’ve perceived there was new doughnuts all along the road, but you’re the first that has treated us.”

Our new acquaintance flushed with pleasure, but said nothing.

“They’re very nice; you’ve had good luck with ‘em,” pronounced Mrs. Todd. “Yes, we’ve observed there was doughnuts all the way along; if one house is frying all the rest is; ‘tis so with a great many things.”

“I don’t suppose likely you’re goin’ up to the Bowden reunion?” asked the hostess as the white horse lifted his head and we were saying good-by.

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and I, all together.

“I am connected with the family. Yes, I expect to be there this afternoon. I’ve been lookin’ forward to it,” she told us eagerly.

“We shall see you there. Come and sit with us if it’s convenient,” said dear Mrs. Blackett, and we drove away.

“I wonder who she was before she was married?” said Mrs. Todd, who was usually unerring in matters of genealogy. “She must have been one of that remote branch that lived down beyond Thomaston. We can find out this afternoon. I expect that the families’ll march together, or be sorted out some way. I’m willing to own a relation that has such proper ideas of doughnuts.”

“I seem to see the family looks,” said Mrs. Blackett. “I wish we’d asked her name. She’s a stranger, and I want to help make it pleasant for all such.”

“She resembles Cousin Pa’lina Bowden about the forehead,” said Mrs. Todd with decision.

We had just passed a piece of woodland that shaded the road, and come out to some open fields beyond, when Mrs. Todd suddenly reined in the horse as if somebody had stood on the roadside and stopped her. She even gave that quick reassuring nod of her head which was usually made to answer for a bow, but I discovered that she was looking eagerly at a tall ash-tree that grew just inside the field fence.

“I thought ‘twas goin’ to do well,” she said complacently as we went on again. “Last time I was up this way that tree was kind of drooping and discouraged. Grown trees act that way sometimes, same’s folks; then they’ll put right to it and strike their roots off into new ground and start all over again with real good courage. Ash-trees is very likely to have poor spells; they ain’t got the resolution of other trees.”

I listened hopefully for more; it was this peculiar wisdom that made one value Mrs. Todd’s pleasant company.

“There’s sometimes a good hearty tree growin’ right out of the bare rock, out o’ some crack that just holds the roots;” she went on to say, “right on the pitch o’ one o’ them bare stony hills where you can’t seem to see a wheel-barrowful o’ good earth in a place, but that tree’ll keep a green top in the driest summer. You lay your ear down to the ground an’ you’ll hear a little stream runnin’. Every such tree has got its own livin’ spring; there’s folk made to match ‘em.”

I could not help turning to look at Mrs. Blackett, close beside me. Her hands were clasped placidly in their thin black woolen gloves, and she was looking at the flowery wayside as we went slowly along, with a pleased, expectant smile. I do not think she had heard a word about the trees.

“I just saw a nice plant o’ elecampane growin’ back there,” she said presently to her daughter.

“I haven’t got my mind on herbs to-day,” responded Mrs. Todd, in the most matter-of-fact way. “I’m bent on seeing folks,” and she shook the reins again.

I for one had no wish to hurry, it was so pleasant in the shady roads. The woods stood close to the road on the right; on the left were narrow fields and pastures where there were as many acres of spruces and pines as there were acres of bay and juniper and huckleberry, with a little turf between. When I thought we were in the heart of the inland country, we reached the top of a hill, and suddenly there lay spread out before us a wonderful great view of well-cleared fields that swept down to the wide water of a bay. Beyond this were distant shores like another country in the midday haze which half hid the hills beyond, and the faraway pale blue mountains on the northern horizon. There was a schooner with all sails set coming down the bay from a white village that was sprinkled on the shore, and there were many sailboats flitting about it. It was a noble landscape, and my eyes, which had grown used to the narrow inspection of a shaded roadside, could hardly take it in.

“Why, it’s the upper bay,” said Mrs. Todd. “You can see ‘way over into the town of Fessenden. Those farms ‘way over there are all in Fessenden. Mother used to have a sister that lived up that shore. If we started as early’s we could on a summer mornin’, we couldn’t get to her place from Green Island till late afternoon, even with a fair, steady breeze, and you had to strike the time just right so as to fetch up ‘long o’ the tide and land near the flood. ‘Twas ticklish business, an’ we didn’t visit back an’ forth as much as mother desired. You have to go ‘way down the co’st to Cold Spring Light an’ round that long point,—up here’s what they call the Back Shore.”

“No, we were ‘most always separated, my dear sister and me, after the first year she was married,” said Mrs. Blackett. “We had our little families an’ plenty o’ cares. We were always lookin’ forward to the time we could see each other more. Now and then she’d get out to the island for a few days while her husband’d go fishin’; and once he stopped with her an’ two children, and made him some flakes right there and cured all his fish for winter. We did have a beautiful time together, sister an’ me; she used to look back to it long’s she lived.

“I do love to look over there where she used to live,” Mrs. Blackett went on as we began to go down the hill. “It seems as if she must still be there, though she’s long been gone. She loved their farm,—she didn’t see how I got so used to our island; but somehow I was always happy from the first.”

“Yes, it’s very dull to me up among those slow farms,” declared Mrs. Todd. “The snow troubles ‘em in winter. They’re all besieged by winter, as you may say; ‘tis far better by the shore than up among such places. I never thought I should like to live up country.”

“Why, just see the carriages ahead of us on the next rise!” exclaimed Mrs. Blackett. “There’s going to be a great gathering, don’t you believe there is, Almiry? It hasn’t seemed up to now as if anybody was going but us. An’ ‘tis such a beautiful day, with yesterday cool and pleasant to work an’ get ready, I shouldn’t wonder if everybody was there, even the slow ones like Phebe Ann Brock.”

Mrs. Blackett’s eyes were bright with excitement, and even Mrs. Todd showed remarkable enthusiasm. She hurried the horse and caught up with the holiday-makers ahead. “There’s all the Dep’fords goin’, six in the wagon,” she told us joyfully; “an’ Mis’ Alva Tilley’s folks are now risin’ the hill in their new carry-all.”

Mrs. Blackett pulled at the neat bow of her black bonnet-strings, and tied them again with careful precision. “I believe your bonnet’s on a little bit sideways, dear,” she advised Mrs. Todd as if she were a child; but Mrs. Todd was too much occupied to pay proper heed. We began to feel a new sense of gayety and of taking part in the great occasion as we joined the little train.

XVIII. The Bowden Reunion

IT IS VERY RARE in country life, where high days and holidays are few, that any occasion of general interest proves to be less than great. Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England nature that, once given an outlet, it shines forth with almost volcanic light and heat. In quiet neighborhoods such inward force does not waste itself upon those petty excitements of every day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires break through the granite dust in which our souls are set. Each heart is warm and every face shines with the ancient light. Such a day as this has transfiguring powers, and easily makes friends of those who have been cold-hearted, and gives to those who are dumb their chance to speak, and lends some beauty to the plainest face.

“Oh, I expect I shall meet friends today that I haven’t seen in a long while,” said Mrs. Blackett with deep satisfaction. “‘Twill bring out a good many of the old folks, ‘tis such a lovely day. I’m always glad not to have them disappointed.”

“I guess likely the best of ‘em’ll be there,” answered Mrs. Todd with gentle humor, stealing a glance at me. “There’s one thing certain: there’s nothing takes in this whole neighborhood like anything related to the Bowdens. Yes, I do feel that when you call upon the Bowdens you may expect most families to rise up between the Landing and the far end of the Back Cove. Those that aren’t kin by blood are kin by marriage.”

“There used to be an old story goin’ about when I was a girl,” said Mrs. Blackett, with much amusement. “There was a great many more Bowdens then than there are now, and the folks was all setting in meeting a dreadful hot Sunday afternoon, and a scatter-witted little bound girl came running to the meetin’-house door all out o’ breath from somewheres in the neighborhood. ‘Mis’ Bowden, Mis’ Bowden!’ says she. ‘Your baby’s in a fit!’ They used to tell that the whole congregation was up on its feet in a minute and right out into the aisles. All the Mis’ Bowdens was setting right out for home; the minister stood there in the pulpit tryin’ to keep sober, an’ all at once he burst right out laughin’. He was a very nice man, they said, and he said he’d better give ‘em the benediction, and they could hear the sermon next Sunday, so he kept it over. My mother was there, and she thought certain ‘twas me.”

“None of our family was ever subject to fits,” interrupted Mrs. Todd severely. “No, we never had fits, none of us; and ‘twas lucky we didn’t ‘way out there to Green Island. Now these folks right in front; dear sakes knows the bunches o’ soothing catnip an’ yarrow I’ve had to favor old Mis’ Evins with dryin’! You can see it right in their expressions, all them Evins folks. There, just you look up to the crossroads, mother,” she suddenly exclaimed. “See all the teams ahead of us. And, oh, look down on the bay; yes, look down on the bay! See what a sight o’ boats, all headin’ for the Bowden place cove!”

“Oh, ain’t it beautiful!” said Mrs. Blackett, with all the delight of a girl. She stood up in the high wagon to see everything, and when she sat down again she took fast hold of my hand.

“Hadn’t you better urge the horse a little, Almiry?” she asked. “He’s had it easy as we came along, and he can rest when we get there. The others are some little ways ahead, and I don’t want to lose a minute.”

We watched the boats drop their sails one by one in the cove as we drove along the high land. The old Bowden house stood, low-storied and broad-roofed, in its green fields as if it were a motherly brown hen waiting for the flock that came straying toward it from every direction. The first Bowden settler had made his home there, and it was still the Bowden farm; five generations of sailors and farmers and soldiers had been its children. And presently Mrs. Blackett showed me the stone-walled burying-ground that stood like a little fort on a knoll overlooking the bay, but, as she said, there were plenty of scattered Bowdens who were not laid there,—some lost at sea, and some out West, and some who died in the war; most of the home graves were those of women.

We could see now that there were different footpaths from along shore and across country. In all these there were straggling processions walking in single file, like old illustrations of the Pilgrim’s Progress. There was a crowd about the house as if huge bees were swarming in the lilac bushes. Beyond the fields and cove a higher point of land ran out into the bay, covered with woods which must have kept away much of the northwest wind in winter. Now there was a pleasant look of shade and shelter there for the great family meeting.

We hurried on our way, beginning to feel as if we were very late, and it was a great satisfaction at last to turn out of the stony highroad into a green lane shaded with old apple-trees. Mrs. Todd encouraged the horse until he fairly pranced with gayety as we drove round to the front of the house on the soft turf. There was an instant cry of rejoicing, and two or three persons ran toward us from the busy group.

“Why, dear Mis’ Blackett!—here’s Mis’ Blackett!” I heard them say, as if it were pleasure enough for one day to have a sight of her. Mrs. Todd turned to me with a lovely look of triumph and self-forgetfulness. An elderly man who wore the look of a prosperous sea-captain put up both arms and lifted Mrs. Blackett down from the high wagon like a child, and kissed her with hearty affection. “I was master afraid she wouldn’t be here,” he said, looking at Mrs. Todd with a face like a happy sunburnt schoolboy, while everybody crowded round to give their welcome.

“Mother’s always the queen,” said Mrs. Todd. “Yes, they’ll all make everything of mother; she’ll have a lovely time to-day. I wouldn’t have had her miss it, and there won’t be a thing she’ll ever regret, except to mourn because William wa’n’t here.”

Mrs. Blackett having been properly escorted to the house, Mrs. Todd received her own full share of honor, and some of the men, with a simple kindness that was the soul of chivalry, waited upon us and our baskets and led away the white horse. I already knew some of Mrs. Todd’s friends and kindred, and felt like an adopted Bowden in this happy moment. It seemed to be enough for anyone to have arrived by the same conveyance as Mrs. Blackett, who presently had her court inside the house, while Mrs. Todd, large, hospitable, and preeminent, was the centre of a rapidly increasing crowd about the lilac bushes. Small companies were continually coming up the long green slope from the water, and nearly all the boats had come to shore. I counted three or four that were baffled by the light breeze, but before long all the Bowdens, small and great, seemed to have assembled, and we started to go up to the grove across the field.

Out of the chattering crowd of noisy children, and large-waisted women whose best black dresses fell straight to the ground in generous folds, and sunburnt men who looked as serious as if it were town-meeting day, there suddenly came silence and order. I saw the straight, soldierly little figure of a man who bore a fine resemblance to Mrs. Blackett, and who appeared to marshal us with perfect ease. He was imperative enough, but with a grand military sort of courtesy, and bore himself with solemn dignity of importance. We were sorted out according to some clear design of his own, and stood as speechless as a troop to await his orders. Even the children were ready to march together, a pretty flock, and at the last moment Mrs. Blackett and a few distinguished companions, the ministers and those who were very old, came out of the house together and took their places. We ranked by fours, and even then we made a long procession.

There was a wide path mowed for us across the field, and, as we moved along, the birds flew up out of the thick second crop of clover, and the bees hummed as if it still were June. There was a flashing of white gulls over the water where the fleet of boats rode the low waves together in the cove, swaying their small masts as if they kept time to our steps. The plash of the water could be heard faintly, yet still be heard; we might have been a company of ancient Greeks going to celebrate a victory, or to worship the god of harvests, in the grove above. It was strangely moving to see this and to make part of it. The sky, the sea, have watched poor humanity at its rites so long; we were no more a New England family celebrating its own existence and simple progress; we carried the tokens and inheritance of all such households from which this had descended, and were only the latest of our line. We possessed the instincts of a far, forgotten childhood; I found myself thinking that we ought to be carrying green branches and singing as we went. So we came to the thick shaded grove still silent, and were set in our places by the straight trees that swayed together and let sunshine through here and there like a single golden leaf that flickered down, vanishing in the cool shade.

The grove was so large that the great family looked far smaller than it had in the open field; there was a thick growth of dark pines and firs with an occasional maple or oak that gave a gleam of color like a bright window in the great roof. On three sides we could see the water, shining behind the tree-trunks, and feel the cool salt breeze that began to come up with the tide just as the day reached its highest point of heat. We could see the green sunlit field we had just crossed as if we looked out at it from a dark room, and the old house and its lilacs standing placidly in the sun, and the great barn with a stockade of carriages from which two or three care-taking men who had lingered were coming across the field together. Mrs. Todd had taken off her warm gloves and looked the picture of content.

“There!” she exclaimed. “I’ve always meant to have you see this place, but I never looked for such a beautiful opportunity—weather an’ occasion both made to match. Yes, it suits me: I don’t ask no more. I want to know if you saw mother walkin’ at the head! It choked me right up to see mother at the head, walkin’ with the ministers,” and Mrs. Todd turned away to hide the feelings she could not instantly control.

“Who was the marshal?” I hastened to ask. “Was he an old soldier?”

“Don’t he do well?” answered Mrs. Todd with satisfaction.

“He don’t often have such a chance to show off his gifts,” said Mrs. Caplin, a friend from the Landing who had joined us. “That’s Sant Bowden; he always takes the lead, such days. Good for nothing else most o’ his time; trouble is, he”—

I turned with interest to hear the worst. Mrs. Caplin’s tone was both zealous and impressive.

“Stim’lates,” she explained scornfully.

“No, Santin never was in the war,” said Mrs. Todd with lofty indifference. “It was a cause of real distress to him. He kep’ enlistin’, and traveled far an’ wide about here, an’ even took the bo’t and went to Boston to volunteer; but he ain’t a sound man, an’ they wouldn’t have him. They say he knows all their tactics, an’ can tell all about the battle o’ Waterloo well’s he can Bunker Hill. I told him once the country’d lost a great general, an’ I meant it, too.”