Chapter II: Part II: Waking (1)

"Good mornin', sir; can I sell you anything this mornin'?"

It was a strong, clear voice that broke rudely in upon Uncle Pinker's morning meditations as he sat in the doorway (the same setting that had framed Narcissa yesterday, but how different a picture!), smoking his short black pipe.

"Can I sell you anything?" repeated the voice, with an imperious intonation. Uncle Pinker looked up. The sound was a mere murmur in his ears; but when he saw the figure before him, he recognized it for one he had sometimes seen on the road, and knew instinctively what was wanted. "Ga-a-ah!" said Uncle Pinker.

This remark was a favorite one of the old gentleman's, and though no one knew its precise derivation, there was no doubt of its being the quintessence of scornful refusal. He used it constantly, but it never had such bitter force as when he was asked to spend money. "Ga-a-ah!" said Uncle Pinker again.

"What might you mean by that?" asked the newcomer, with some asperity. "That ain't no form of salutation ever I heard yet. Haven't you a civil tongue to use, old gentleman? You're ancient enough to have learned manners, if you'll excuse me sayin' so."

The old man snarled again. "I'm stone deef!" he said. "I don't hear nothin' you say, nor yet I don't want to hear. You needn't waste no time, fur as I'm concerned."

"Stone deef, be you?" returned the pedlar. "Well, that has its compensations, too. You wouldn't buy anything if you had the hearin' of ten, and now I can have the pleasure of tellin' you what I think of you. You skinny, starved old weasel, you're about the wickedest-lookin' piece I ever set eyes on. Real old screw, you are, if ever I saw one. Pity your folks, if you've got any; more likely you've starved 'em all off, though, and are skeered of dyin' yourself, fear of havin' another funeral to pay for. The Lord leaves folks like you for a warnin' to others, understand?--set up, kind of, to show how ugly a critter can be when he tries. Oh, you needn't snarl at me. I'm enjoyin' myself real well, I tell you. There's other ways to have a good time besides sellin', if it is my trade. Guess I'll set down a spell, uncle, sence you _are_ so pressin'."

Uncle Pinker was almost foaming with rage by this time. He could hear no distinct words, but the insulting nature of the stranger's speech was evident from look and gesture. He was just wondering whether his strength would suffice to throw himself on the intruder, when a new figure appeared on the scene,--Narcissa, who had been busy in the back kitchen, and catching some high note of the stranger's scornful speech, now came hurrying out to see what was the matter.

She found Uncle Pinker quivering in his chair, his lean, veined hands clutching the arms, his little red eyes starting from his head with impotent fury; and sitting on the doorstep, looking up into his face with a smile of calm amusement, was the strangest figure Narcissa had ever seen.

A person of middle age, with strongly marked features, and a countenance of keen intelligence, but dressed in a singular manner. A suit of brown cloth, rather worn, but well-brushed and neat; loose trousers, and an odd, long-skirted coat, reaching to the knees, both coat and trousers trimmed with rows of narrow black-velvet ribbon. The person's hair was cropped short; the person's head was surmounted by a curious structure, half cap, half helmet, like that worn by Miss Deborah in "Cranford," only of far humbler materials. Beside the person, on the doorstep, lay a bag, of the kind affected by pedlars, lank and shiny, and particularly unattractive in appearance.

Such was the individual at whom Narcissa White was now staring with eyes very wide open, her stare being returned by a quizzical gaze, half smiling, and wholly shrewd and observant.

"Mornin', young lady," said the strong, clear voice. "Wonderin' what I be, are ye? fish or flesh, or red herrin', or what, hey? Well, I'll put you out of your misery. I'm a woman, that's what I am; the folks calls me Bloomer Joe. Now, then, do you want to buy anything of me?"

Here her tone changed, and her voice rose and fell in a kind of chant, dwelling with dramatic emphasis on a telling phrase here and there.

"Buy any lace, threads, or needles, pins--_or_--essences? Here's a looking-glass to see your face in--prettiest face I've seen along the road! (I tell that to every girl I see, and most of 'em believe it; but you ain't that kind, so you shall have the joke instead.) Real celluloid ivory combs, fit for the President's wife, sure enough. Gold beads, stockin'-supporters, teeth-brushes,--_and_--stickin'-plaster."

Here she dropped back into a conversational tone, opening her bag as she did so, and drawing forth some of its treasures.

"Just look at this lace, young lady! strong enough to hang yourself with, if you was feelin' that way, or to hang the old gentleman here, if you was feelin' another. I know which way I'd feel, quick enough. Not your father, is he?" she added, seeing a look of distress in Narcissa's eyes.

"Oh, no," said Narcissa, speaking for the first time. "But--he's my uncle,--at least, my father's uncle; and I--guess you'd better not talk so, please."

"All right," said the stranger. "I won't, not if it is any trouble to you. It would be meat and potatoes and apple-pie for me, if he was my uncle, to hear him get his rights for once in a way; but I see you're one of the soft-hearted ones. Want any salve? Here's a kind that will cure corns, bunions, rheumatism, croup, sore-throat, backache, horse-ail, and colic; cure most anything except a broken heart, and won't do a mite of harm to that. But you don't need any salve, and the old gentleman, he's past it. Well, then, here's ribbons, all colors of the rainbow,--red, yeller, blue, see? handsome they are, and cheap as good counsel. Aha! you'd like to see them, hey?"

Narcissa had indeed changed color at sight of the bright ribbons, and she now gave an anxious glance at Uncle Pinker, who was still fuming and snorting in his chair.

"You, Narcissy White, send this critter away, can't ye?" he snarled; "or else go into the house yourself, and go to work, not stand foolin' here, with the work all on the floor. Go 'long, d' ye hear? This woman, or feller, or whatever she calls herself, can talk till she's hoarse; she won't hurt me, nor she won't get nothin' out of me."

"Could I get a drink of water, do you s'pose?" the pedlar asked quietly, paying no attention to the angry old man. "Needn't trouble to bring it out; I'll go right into the house with you, if you've no objections."

She followed Narcissa into the house before the latter could make any remonstrance, and shut the door after her.

"He don't reelly disturb me," she said, "not a mite; but we can trade better in here. Let me try some of the ribbons on your hair. I don't often see such hair as this on my tramps, and that's no compliment, but the plain truth."

"Oh!" cried Narcissa, in distress. "You're real kind, but please don't. I haven't got any money to buy things with, and I couldn't take your time for nothing. They are handsome, ain't they? Oh, that yellow is just elegant, isn't it? It's like the buttons; I mean like the tansy blossoms. I thank you for showin' them to me, I'm sure, but it ain't any use for you to."

"Don't he pay you for workin' here?" asked the pedlar, with a sharp glance.

"Yes, he does pay me," Narcissa answered,--"a dollar and a half a week. But--but I don't get it very reg'lar, sometimes, and I'm saving up to buy me a dress. I need one bad, to wear to meetin'."

The pedlar frowned. It was against her principles to leave any house where she knew there was money, without selling at least a box of salve; but this seemed a hard case.

"A dollar and a half a week!" she muttered scornfully. "The old caraway seed! he'd better go and live in Rome, and be done with it. He'll find plenty of company there."

Narcissa looked up with wide-open eyes.

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because Rome is the skinniest place on this round earth," was the reply; "and I think 'twould suit your uncle down to the ground."

Still the girl gazed. "I guess you're mistaken," she said quietly. "I guess you never was there, was you?"

"Never till yesterday," replied the woman, "and never want to be there again. You see, this isn't my own country at all, as you may say. I belong in another part of the State, and most generally keep to my own beat, havin' my regular customers, understand? and goin' round amongst 'em. But oncet in a while the fancy takes me to roam a little, and see other parts; and so I come round through Damascus and Solon, and passed through Rome yesterday."

"Oh!" cried Narcissa, breathlessly. "You did? do tell me! and wasn't it elegant? I don't see how you could come away. Did you walk about, and see all them handsome buildings? and did you see the folks?"

The pedlar gazed at her in wonder. The girl's eyes were like stars, her whole face alight with enthusiasm. What did it mean?

"Handsome buildin's?" she repeated. "In Rome? I'll tell you what I saw, child, and then you'll know. I saw the forlornest place on this earth, I don't care where the next may be. I saw rocks and turkeys, and turkeys and rocks. The street (if you can call it a street; 'twould be called a hog-wallow, down where I come from) is solid rock where it ain't mud, and solid mud where it ain't rock. There's a house here and a house there, and they all look as if they was tryin' to get away from each other, but didn't darse to move for fear of fallin' down.

"The folks I saw were as lean as their own turkeys, and I can't say no further than that. I tried to sell 'em some of my salve; told 'em 'twould heal the skin where 'twas broke with the bones comin' through, but they was past jokin' with.

"I tell you, child, Rome is the--Why, what's the matter?" The good woman stopped suddenly, for Narcissa was trembling all over, and her face shone white in the dim, half-lighted room.

"I--I don't understand you!" she cried wildly. "There's some mistake; you went to the wrong place, and never saw Rome at all. Look here!" and she led the way swiftly across the hall, into the other room, the room into which she had taken Romulus Patten the day before. She almost ran up to the picture, and motioned the pedlar, with an imperious gesture, strange in so gentle a creature, to look at it. "That is Rome!" cried Narcissa. "You went to the wrong place, I tell you. This--this is Rome!"

The woman drew out a pair of spectacles, and fitted them on her nose with exasperating deliberation. She took a long look at the picture, and then turned to the trembling girl, with a kind light of pity in her eyes struggling with amusement.

"You poor--deluded--child!" she said at length. "Who ever told you that was Rome, I should like to know?"

"But it says so!" cried Narcissa. "Can't you read? 'ROME.' There it is, in plain letters; and I--don't--" she wanted to say "I don't believe you!" but the blue eyes that met hers steadily showed nothing but truth and kindness.

"So it is Rome, dear!" said the pedlar, speaking now very gently. "But it's ancient Rome, over in Europe; Italy, they call the country. Where the ancient Romans lived, don't you know? Julius Cæsar, and all those fellers who cut up such didoes, hundreds of years ago? Don't tell me you never went to school, nor learned any history."

"I--I went for a spell!" Narcissa faltered. "I had to leave when I was fourteen, because I was wanted to home, and we hadn't only got to the Battle of Lexington in history. I did hope to learn about the Revolution, to home, but father's wife didn't think much of readin', and she burned up the book."

There was a silence, and then the good-natured pedlar began fumbling in her bag.

"It's a livin' shame!" she cried indignantly. "Here--no, it ain't, neither. Well! I did think, much as could be, that I had two or three little books here, and I should have been pleased to give you one, dear, just for keeps, you know. But they don't seem to be here. Well, never mind! I was goin' to ask if you wouldn't like this piece of yeller ribbon you seemed to take to. It's a real good piece, and I should be pleased--I declare, child, I do feel bad to have spoiled your pretty notion of Rome. I s'pose you thought likely you'd go there some day, hey? well, well! sit down, and let me put this ribbon on your hair. You no need to be scairt of me. I act kind o' wild sometimes, like I did with your uncle, but it's four parts fun. I'm well known up our way, and anybody'll tell you I come of good stock, if I am crazy enough to wear sensible clothes, that don't hender me walkin' nor settin'. Mis' Transom, my name is. And he called you Narcissy, didn't he? Why, I had a cousin once, name of Narcissy; it's not a common name either, and I allers thought it was real pretty. Set down here, dear, and let's talk a spell."

Thus the kind woman rattled on, watching the girl keenly the while. She was making time for her, giving her a chance to recover from what was evidently a heavy blow.

But Narcissa scarcely heard her. She was dazed; her dream was shattered, her glorious city laid in ruins, the beauty and romance of her whole life dashed away, as a rude touch dashes the dew from the morning grass.

As she sat, trying to realize it, trying to think that it really was not so much, that there would be other pleasant things, perhaps, to fill the barren working days, and gild the grayness of the long lonely Sabbaths,--as she sat thus, a new thought flashed into her mind, piercing like the thrust of a sword.

Her friend, Romulus Patten! She had sent him off on a false scent, had lied to him about the place, the city--she could hardly bear even to think of its dishonored name now. He had gone there, thinking to find what she had told him about,--the stately houses, the arches, the soft sunshine gilding all. What would he think of her when he found it was all a cheat, a lie? He had been kind to her, had seemed to care about her as nobody had ever done in her forlorn young life; and this was how she had repaid him!

She started up, shrinking as if from some cruel sting. "I must go and tell him!" she cried. "I lied to him, though I didn't know it was a lie. I must go and find him, and tell him I didn't mean to."

"Tell who?" cried the pedlar, catching her by the arm. "What is it troubles you so, Narcissy? Who did you lie to, I should like to know? Don't believe she could tell a decent lie if 'twas to save her own soul," she added to herself.

But Narcissa did not heed her.

She had taken down her sunbonnet from a nail, and was tying it under her chin with trembling fingers, with a feverish haste that took no note of anything.

"Where are you going?" cried Mrs. Transom, now beginning to be frightened at the girl's distracted looks. "You're never going out of the house feeling like this? You'll have a fit of sickness, sure as you're alive, and then where'll you be? and 'tis all foolishness, too, I'll be bound. I can't understand a word you say. And there's a storm coming up, too. I see it as I was coming along, and was reckoning on finding shelter here when I fust stopped to speak to the old gentleman. There, hear the thunder this very minute! Narcissy! Why, good land of deliverance, she's gone!"

* * * * *

The storm came on very suddenly,--first, a low bank of cloud heaving in sight on the western horizon, long and misshapen, like the back of a kraken; then the whole monster revealed, rising across the sky, tossing monstrous arms about, showing ugly tints of yellow, ugly depths of purple and black.

There was no lightning at first, only low mutterings of thunder, and every now and then a pale lifting of the darkness, as if the monster were opening his cavernous jaws, showing glimpses of dim horror within. Then, of a sudden, with no note of warning, the whole sky sprang into flame, the whole air was a roar and a bellow, deafening the ears, stunning the senses,--and the storm broke over the road to Rome.

The rain struck aslant, driving a spray before it, as of a mountain stream. In five minutes no road was to be seen,--only a long stretch of brown water, hissing and writhing under the scourge of the rain and wind. A horse came plodding carefully along, crouching together as well as he could, picking his way through the water. The two men in the buggy behind him were crouching, too, and trying to hide behind the rubber boot. It was some comfort to think that they were trying to keep dry, though both knew that they were already drenched to the skin.

"It's lucky for me that I met you," said the younger of the two, shaking himself, and sending a shower of spray in all directions.

"P'r'aps 'tis just as well," replied the other man, with a chuckle. "You'd hardly have known yourself from a muskrat by this time, if you'd had to foot it from Rome here. Been stoppin' there?"

"Stopping as long as I cared to," said the youth, who was no other than our friend Romulus Patten. "I got there last night, and was good and ready to come away this morning. I'm travelling for Brown's Nurseries, and there don't seem to be any call for any of our goods in Rome. Stone-crop's the only plant they raise much of, I guess."

"Well, that's so," said the elder man. "That's so, every time. I never knew but one man that could make anything grow in Rome, and he carted all the dirt three miles, over from North Podley, before he could make a seed grow. Yes, sir, he did so. Mighty poor country up that way. Some say the Rome folks don't see any garden-truck from year's end to year's end, and that if you ask a Rome girl to cook you up a mess of string beans, she takes the store beans and runs 'em on a string, and boils 'em that way; but I dono. I'm from Vi-enny way myself."

"My gracious! what's that?"

The whole world had turned to livid white for a moment, dazzling and blinding them; but still they had seen something on the road, something like a human form, torn and buffeted by the wind and the furious rain, but staggering on towards them with uncertain steps.

"My God! it's a woman!" cried Romulus Patten. "Stop your horse, and let me get out. A woman, alone in this storm!"

He sprang to the ground, and holding his arm before his face to keep off the blinding rain, made his way towards the forlorn figure splashing through the water, now ankle deep in the road, stumbling, often on the point of falling.

"Hold up, lady!" he called out, in his cheery voice. "There's friends here! Hold up just a minute!"

At the sound of his voice the woman stopped and seemed to shudder and clasp her hands. "I never meant it!" she cried out wildly. "I can't see you, I'm most blind, but I know your voice. I never meant to lie to you about Rome. I--thought--'twas all true; and when I found out, I--came--to tell you. I never meant to send you there on a lie."

"Narcissa!" cried Romulus Patten. "Oh, Lord! Oh, you poor little thing! and you thought I didn't know? I'd ought to be shot, that's what I ought to be. Here, you poor little thing, let me take your hands! They're like wet ice, and you're shivering all over. Oh, dear me! come with me, and get right into this buggy out of the rain. Oh, Lord! and I let you go on thinking I didn't know!"

Half leading, half carrying her, he made his way to the buggy, and then fairly lifted her in his strong young arms to lay her on the seat; but here an obstacle was interposed in the shape of another arm as strong as his, and a good deal bigger. "Easy, there!" said the owner of the buggy. "Seems to me you're makin' yourself rather too free, young feller. Do you think I'm goin' to have that gal brought in here, runnin' all the rivers of Babylon? Who in Jerusalem is she, anyway? Some of your folks?"

Romulus Patten's face was streaming with cold rain, but he flushed as if a flame had swept over him.

"She's the young lady I'm going to marry," he said. "Will you take her in, or shall I carry her home this way?"

"Now you're talking!" the stranger said, removing his arm and making way. "Why didn't you speak up before, sonny? Here, give me a holt of her!" He lifted Narcissa gently into the buggy, and drew her close to his side, laying her head well up on his shoulder so that she could breathe easily. "Family man," he explained. "Gals of my own. Now you reach under the seat there, and bring out a shawl you'll find."

Romulus obeyed, and half angry, half pleased, watched the stranger as he deftly wrapped the shawl round the fainting girl, and put her dripping hair tenderly off her face.

"Allers take a shawl along," he explained further. "Wife enjoys poor health, and have to be ready for a change of wind. Comes in handy, don't it? Now get in, young feller, and tell me where to drive to. You needn't look down in the mouth, either, 'cause you don't know everything in creation yet. Time enough to learn, and you're likely to learn easy, I should say.

"And you rest comfortable, my dear," he added, speaking to Narcissa as if she were a small child. "Here's your friend alongside of you, and you're just as safe as you would be in the best stuffed chair in the settin'-room at home. Fetch your breath, like a good girl, and try to look about you."

But Narcissa heard never a word, for she had fainted.

An hour later, Romulus Patten and Mrs. Transom were sitting by Narcissa's bedside, watching her. She had fallen into a deep, childlike sleep, and their low voices did not disturb her.

"The old gentleman was so mad he was all cheesed up," the pedlar was saying. "There! I was fairly sorry for him, old weasel as he is; so I let him go on for a spell, till he was clean tuckered out, and then I e'en took him up and put him to bed, same as if he was a child. Glad enough he was to get there too, if he was mad. Then I took and made him some warm drink, and gave him to understand I'd stay by till Narcissy come back, and here I be. And now, young man," she added, fixing her keen blue eyes on Romulus's face, "I've got a word to say to you. You let fall something when you was bringin' this child in--I won't say that I wasn't mighty glad to see her, and you, too,--but you let on something about keepin' company with her. Now, I want to know right here, what you meant, and who you are, and all about it. Oh, you may look at my pants much as you're a mind to. I come of good folks, and I dress as seems fit to me, and I don't care in any way, shape, or manner what folks say or think. I've been snoopin' round some, since I put that old man to bed, and I found the family Bible; and this child is the lawful daughter of my cousin, Narcissy Merrill, that I haven't heard of this twenty years. Bein' so, I'm goin' to stand by her, as is right and proper; so, now I'll hear what you've got to say. I've as good a right to do for her as that old skimp-jack in there, if he is her father's uncle."

Romulus Patten spoke out frankly. He had "taken to" Narcissa from the first moment he saw her. When was that? Well, it wasn't long ago, it was true. It was only yesterday; but he wasn't one to change, and he had never seen a girl yet that he would look twice at. And when she came, in all that awful storm, just to tell him,--here the young man choked a little, and the woman liked him the better for it,--he made up his mind then, he went on, all in a minute, that she should be his wife; and she should, if so be she was willing. He would go back to the place and see if he could get a job in the garden; he might have had one now, but he was some tired and had thought it would rest him to travel a spell. He would quit travelling now, and had little doubt that he could have a good place.

He knew of a pleasant rent--in that part of the country a hired tenement is known as a "rent"--with four rooms, that belonged to a friend of his, and he could get that, he guessed. In short, the sooner Narcissa got away from Uncle Pinker the better, in his opinion, and he was ready to take her, the first day she would go. That was all he had to say for himself; but he presumed Mr. Brown would give him a character if he was asked. He had worked for Browns three years, and had no reason to think they weren't satisfied with him.

When Romulus had finished his little speech, which left him flushed and tremulous, yet with a brave light in his eyes, and a tender look as he glanced towards his love where she lay sleeping quietly, Mrs. Transom gazed at him for a while in silence; then she held out her hand and grasped his heartily.

"I guess you'll do," she said. "I guess you're the right sort. Now, I'll tell you what. You go along and get your place, and see about your rent. Don't engage it, but get the refusal of it, if it belongs to a friend, as you say. Then you come back here and find your girl all well and peart again, and you say your say, and let her say hers. You don't want to take advantage of her being sick and weakly now--now, you no need to flare up! I say you don't want to, and I mean it. You'll need a box of my salve, if you're so thin-skinned as all that comes to.

"You go along, I say, and when you come back, come over to my place, Tupham Corner, third house from the cross-road, white house with a yeller door. Everybody knows Mis' Transom's house. You'll find your gal there, and you'll marry her there, with her mother's cousin to stand up with her. There, don't be scairt! Pity some gals haven't got the trick of blushin' as you have, young man. I've got as good a black silk as any in Tupham or Cyrus, and nobody's goin' to say 'Bloomer Joe' round where my own folks live, you'd better believe. What say? Like my idee, or have you got a better one yourself?"

"You're real good!" Romulus cried. "Poor little Narcissa! It does seem as if she had found all her friends at once, and she never having any in her life before, as you may say. I tell you, Mis' Transom, I'll treat her as well as I know how. If she was a queen, she shouldn't have any more care than what I'll give her. I--I think a sight of her!" he added simply. "Seems as if she always belonged to me, somehow."

"That's right!" said Mrs. Transom, who was as romantic as any lady in silk and satin. "That's right, young man. We'll get her away from this old rathole, and then I guess it'll be a good while before either you or I travels this way again, hey?"

"I don't know as I have anything to say against the country," said Romulus Patten, with another loving look at the sleeper. "It isn't exactly the place to sell trees, but yet there's good things to be found on this road,--the road to Rome."

IN VERONA.

IN VERONA.

First of all, let me correct the mistaken impression that my title cannot fail to make upon the patient reader. On reading the words, "In Verona," his mind instantly conjures up a vision of white palaces; of narrow streets across which the tall houses nod at each other, hinting at the mysteries they dare not reveal; of ancient fountains, embowered in myrtle and laurel; finally, of Juliet's tomb, and a thousand memories of the immortal lovers.

All this is natural, but it will not do. Here in Verona are no fountains, but half a dozen old well-sweeps, and all the rest cucumber-wood pumps; no palaces, but neat white houses with green blinds, and flowers in their front-yards; no laurel, but good honest sunflowers instead; finally, no tomb of Juliet, for our Juliet did not die; briefly, and to have done with mystery, our Verona is in the State of Maine.

I have often wondered what manner of men they were, who named the towns in the good old State. Lyceum teachers for the most part, one would think,--men who had read books, and whose hearts yearned for the historic glories of the old world, glories which their narrow lives might never see. So, disagreeing with this same Juliet in the matter of names, they did what they could, and not being able to go to Europe, did their best to bring Europe over into their own new country. So we have here in Maine Rome and Paris, Palermo and Vi-enny (miscalled "Vienna" by pedants, and those thinking themselves better than other people), Berlin Falls and South China,--in fact, half the continent to choose from, all in our own door-yard, as it were.

You may not find Verona on the county-map; you certainly will not see it as you flash by on the Maine Central Railway, on your way to Bar Harbor. But if you travel for a certain length of time on a certain quiet road, grass-grown for the most part, and with only a few straggling cottages dotting it here and there,--if, as I say, you travel long enough, and do not get out of patience and turn back towards Vi-enny, you will come suddenly round a bend of the road, and there will be Verona before you, all white and smiling, tucked away under the great hill-shoulder that curls lovingly round it. The cleanest, freshest, sleepiest little New England village! No myrtle, no laurel, not the faintest suggestion of a fountain! Yet here lived and loved, not so very long ago, Romeo and Juliet.

They were simple young people; they did not even know their own names, for Juliet answered to the name of Betsy Garlick, while Romeo was known only as Bije Green; and they worked for the Bute girls.

It is well known that the Bute girls--who might better be spoken of, if the custom of the country allowed it, as the Misses Bute--did not speak to each other. They lived in two white cottages, side by side, on the Indiana road; and though they could not avoid seeing each other every day, no communication had taken place between them since the time of their mother's death, some ten years ago. Old Mrs. Bute had been partly responsible, all the neighbors thought, for this unfortunate state of things. She was a masterful woman, and never allowed her daughters to call their souls their own, even when they were middle-aged women. Though both gifted with strong wills, they lived in absolute subjection to the small withered autocrat who hardly ever stirred from her armchair in the chimney-corner.

She persisted in treating her daughters, either of whom could have picked her up with one hand and set her on the mantelpiece, as if they were little children; and they accepted the position with meekness.

It was even said that when Mrs. Bute felt called on to die, as we say in Verona, she insisted on having her daughters' mourning made and tried on in her presence, that she might be sure of its being respectable, and fitting properly. "Neither one of you has sense to know when a gown wrinkles in the back," she said. "I couldn't lay easy in my grave, and you going round all hitched up between the shoulders."

So the village dressmaker cut the clothes (black stuff dresses, and black cambric pelisses lined with flannel), and came in fear and trembling to try them on. It must have been a grim scene: the two gaunt, middle-aged women standing meekly before the bed, turning this way and that at command; the dying woman issuing, in halting whispers, her directions for "seam and gusset and band," while death had her by the throat, fitting her for the straight white garment which was making in the next room. Not till she had seen her daughters arrayed in the completed costumes, with bonnet and veil to match, would Eliza Bute turn her face to the wall and go, feeling that she had done her duty.

Perhaps it was hardly to be wondered at, if, so soon as the iron grasp was loosened which had held them all their days, the two women went to the other extreme, and could brook no suggestion of authority from any one, least of all from each other. Perhaps each was sure that Mother (awful shade, still hovering on the borders of their life!) would be of her way of thinking; however it was, the two sisters quarrelled the day after the funeral. The will was read, and it was found that the property was to be evenly divided between them. Evenly divided! It was a dangerous phrase. Miss Duty had her idea of what "even" meant, and Miss Resigned Elizabeth had hers; and neither was likely to give up to the other. They listened in grim silence as the lawyer read the will; and each decided that she knew what Mother meant, and 'twasn't likely the other did.

The strife that followed was grim, though not loud. No wrangling was heard; no neighbor was called in to keep the peace; but after three days, Miss Resigned Elizabeth sent for a man and a wheelbarrow, and removed with all her goods and chattels to the house next door, which was hers by right of inheritance from her grandmother.

A neighbor calling on Miss Duty the day after the separation, found her in the spare chamber, seated before the bed, on which were spread out divers articles of the personal property which had been her mother's. There was one black lace mitt, six white stockings and six gray ones, half of an embroidered apron, ditto of a nankeen waistcoat in which Father Bute had been married; item, one infant's sock; item, three left-hand shoes. Here, on what was evidently the half of a green veil, lay a slender store of trinkets: one mosaic earring, one garnet one, half of a string of gold beads, and--piteous sight!--half of a hair bracelet, its strands, roughly cut, already half unbraided, and sticking out in silent protest against the inhuman treatment they had received.

The neighbor broke out into indignant inquiry, but was quickly silenced. Miss Duty was satisfied, and so was her sister; that being so, she didn't know that the neighbors had any call to be distressed. Good Mrs. Dill went home in high indignation, and before night all Verona knew how "ridiklous" the Bute girls had behaved, and joined with Mrs. Dill in thinking that Old Ma'am Bute had better have left them a "gardeen," if that was all they knew about how to treat good stuff, as had cost more money than ever they were likely to earn.

When Bije Green came to work for Miss Duty Bute, he knew nothing of the feud between the two houses. He was not a Veronese, but came from that mysterious region known as "out back," meaning the remote country. When, working in the garden, he saw on the other side of the fence an old woman (any person above thirty was old to Bije) who looked almost exactly like the old woman who had hired him, it seemed the proper thing to say "hullo!" to her, that being the one form of salutation known to Bije; but instead of an answering "hullo!" he met a stony stare, which sent him back in confusion to his potatoes. "She's deef!" said Bije to himself, charitably. "And my old woman's nigh about dumb,--quite an asylum between 'em." And he whistled "Old Dog Tray" till Miss Duty came and told him to stop that racket!

Poor Bije! he found life dull, at first, on the Indiana road. He was shy, and not one to make acquaintances easily, even if Miss Duty had approved of his running down to the village, which she did not. But he was used to cheerful conversation at home, and felt the need of it strongly here. His innocent attempts at entertaining Miss Duty were generally met with a "H'm!" which did not encourage further remarks. "Nice day!" he would say in a conciliating manner, when he brought in the wood in the early morning. "H'm!" Miss Duty would reply, with a frosty glance in his direction.

"Havin' nice weather right along!"

If he met with any reply to this suggestion, it would be a "H'm!" even more forbidding; while a third remark, if he ever ventured on one, would be answered by swift dismissal to the woodshed, with the admonition not to be "gormin' round here, with all the work to do."

These things being so, Bije was sad at heart, and pined for a certain corner of the fence at home, and his sister Delilah leaning over it, talking while he hoed. Delilah was only a girl, but she could be some company; and what was the use of having a tongue, if you never used it, 'cept just to jaw people? Jawing never did no good that he could make out, though he didn't know but he'd ruther be jawed than hear nothing at all from get up to go to bed.

Such thoughts as these were in Bije's mind one morning, as he wrestled with the witch-grass on the strip of green near the fence which divided Miss Duty's lot from her sister's. He did not like witch-grass; he never could see the use of the pesky stuff. Delilah was always saying that there was use for everything; Bije wished she were here, to tell him the use of witch-grass. He guessed--At this moment the tail of his eye caught a flutter, as of a petticoat, beyond the dividing fence. Now Miss Resigned Elizabeth's petticoats never fluttered; they were not full enough. Bije looked up, and saw--a girl.

She was standing in the porch, polishing the milk-pails. She had curly, fair hair, which she kept shaking back out of her eyes,--blue eyes, as bright as the little pond at home, when the sun shone on it in the morning. The red-and-white of her cheeks was so pure and clear, that Bije thought at once of a snow-apple; and his hand made an instinctive movement towards his pocket, though it was not near the time for "snows." There was not much wind, and yet this girl's things seemed "all of a flutter;" her pink calico gown, her blue-checked apron, her flying curls,--all were full of life and dancing motion. The milk-pails twinkled in the morning sun, catching fresh gleams as she turned them this way and that. They were not common milk-pails, it appeared, but pure silver, or they could not twinkle so. Also, the sun was brighter than usual. Bije stood gazing, with no knowledge that his mouth was open and his brown eyes staring in a very rude way. The witch-grass took breath, and rested from the fierce assaults of the hoe. Bije knew nothing of witch-grass. He had never heard of such a thing. There were only two things in the whole world, so far as he knew: a milk-pail and Betsy Garlick.

When Betsy looked up, as of course she did in a moment, she saw no fairy vision, but only a boy: a brown boy, in brown overalls, with his mouth open, staring as if he had never seen a girl in his life before. Betsy had seen plenty of boys, and she was not in the least afraid of them; so she returned Bije's stare with a calm survey which took him all in, from his conscious head to his awkward heels, and then, with a toss of her curls and a click of pails, disappeared into the house.

All that day, Bije went about in a dream. When Miss Duty asked him what he had been doing all the morning, he answered "Milk-pails;" and when she asked what they used to keep off potato-bugs out his way, he could only say "Pink calico." At this atrocious statement, Miss Duty turned sharply on him. "Bijah Green," she said, "if you are goin' loony, I'll thank you to take yourself off home. I don't want no naturals round here, so now you know."

Bije was terribly frightened at this. Yesterday it would have been rather a good joke to be discharged by the old lady, and go home to the farm with a month's wages in his pocket; to-day, it seemed the most dreadful calamity that could happen to him; and he hastened to give such an eloquent description of the potato-bug war, as carried on in West Athens (pronounced Aythens) that Miss Duty was mollified, and reckoned she must try paris green herself. When evening came, Bije went early for his cow, and milked that good beast with undue haste and trepidation. Then, having carried the brimming pails into the kitchen, he returned to the shed, and looked about him with gleaming eyes. Yes, there it was! the knot-hole that he had found the other day, when he was brushing down the cobwebs,--just opposite the back-porch of the house across the way. She would be coming out again in a minute; it wasn't likely that she had done milking yet. He drew up a broken stool, and seating himself on it, flattened his face against the rough boards of the shed, and waited. The door of the house across the way opened, and Miss Resigned Elizabeth came slowly out. She was younger than Miss Duty, but she looked older, being near-sighted, and walking with a stoop and a shuffle. She was rather good-looking, with soft brown hair, and a little autumnal red in her thin cheeks; but to Bije's distorted vision, she seemed the most horrible old hag that had ever darkened the earth. Her scant gray skirt (made out of her half of a dress of Mother Bute's, who wore her skirts full), her neck-handkerchief, her carpet slippers, all were an offence to him; and he could hardly resist the impulse to call out to her to take herself out of his field of vision, and leave it clear for the desired one. The dreadful old woman! how she stood round, as if folks wanted to see her, instead of wishing she was in Jericho. She was actually sitting down, taking out her old knitting! Such things ought not to be allowed. There ought to be a law against ugly women--Hark! what was that? Miss Resigned Elizabeth was calling to somebody,--to somebody in the house. "Betsy! Betsy Garlick! come out here, will you?"

Why, this was not such a horrid old lady after all. Now he thought of it, she was rather nice-looking, for an old one. The door was opening, opening wider. There she came with her pails. The wonderful girl! not flashing and sparkling, as in the morning light, but with the softness of twilight in her eyes and her lovely waving hair. What was it the other lad said, over there in the old Verona, at a minute like this?

"Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear!"

and so on, in his glowing, tropical way. But Bije could not say anything of that sort. His heart was as high as Borneo's, and seemed to be beating in his throat, as he gazed at the fair vision; but he knew nothing of language, and if he had tried to put his thoughts into words, he would only have said: "Ain't she slick!" A most un-Shakespearian Bije! an ordinary, good country-boy! But no fiery gallant of them all was ever thrilled with purer fire than burned now in his veins. He wanted to do something, something wonderful, for this girl. What did all those fellers do, in the story-books Delilah was everlastingly reading? He wished he had read some of the stories, instead of laughing at them for girl's fool-talk. She was smiling now; did anybody ever smile like that before? Of course not! He wished he were Miss Resigned Elizabeth, to be smiled at in that way; he wondered what it felt like. But no! the poor old lady was deef! (she was not in the least deaf, be it said, by the way). Deef, and that girl talking to her! Poor old lady! It was a dreadful thing to be deef.

And so on, and so on: Ossa on Pelion of rapture and young delight and wonder, when suddenly a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder. The boy started as if he had been shot. Miss Duty Bute whirled him round, away from the opening into Paradise,--I should say the knot-hole,--and stooping down, applied her eye to the aperture.

The little scene on the porch of the opposite house had no special charm for Miss Duty: she only saw her sister, Resigned Eliz, as she had called her in former days, and her hired girl. The butcher had told her that Resigned Eliz had hired a girl; also, she, Miss Duty, had rheumatism in her joints, which made stooping painful to her. Therefore, when she straightened her poor back, and turned once more upon the trembling Bije, her mood was none of the softest.

Briefly, he was told that if ever she caught him spying upon the other house, whensoever or howsoever, he would pack off that moment of time. He had no more to do with the other house than he had with the Plagues of Egypt, she'd have him to know; and when she wanted spying done, she could do it herself, without hiring no shif'less, long-legged, trifling boys to do it for her. Finally, was she to have any kindling-wood split that night, or was she not?

This was very dreadful, and for some days Bije hardly dared to look over the fence, much less to loiter in the shed for an instant. But what says the old song, the Lover's song, that perhaps (who knows?) may have been sung in the streets when Will Shakespeare was a little naughty boy?

"Over the mountain,
And over the waves;
Under the fountains,
And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way."

This being so, what could two elderly ladies, who seldom stirred from their own door-yards, save to go to meeting--what were they to do against the all-conquering little god, or against Abijah Green, his soldier and slave? Bije found out the way, unconscious of any fluttering wings about him, any mischievous, rosy imp with bow and arrow.

A posy laid on the fence; then an apple, polished on the coat-sleeve till it shone again; then two more apples and a posy beside them, to show that there could be no mistake about it.

Betsy was only eighteen, and if life was dull at Miss Duty's, it was not exciting at Miss Resigned Elizabeth's. She, too, had been cautioned to have nothing to do with "that bold-lookin' boy over t' the other house!" But Betsy did not think the boy was bold-looking. Anyhow, she hoped (but her hopes were not expressed aloud) she had manners enough to say thank you, when any one was pretty-behaved. So she said thank you, first with her eyes (because Miss Resigned Elizabeth was close by, watering the flower-beds), then with her lips; and it became evident to Bije that she had the sweetest voice that ever was heard in the world. The flowers were real pretty! Betsy thought a sight o' flowers. They had lots of pansies to home, and she did miss 'em, so these seemed real homelike. Did Mr.--well, there! some might think 'twas queer for her to be talkin' to him, and never knowin' what his name was! Bijah Green? Betsy wanted to know! Why, she had an uncle named Green, over to South Beulah. Not her own uncle--he married her aunt Phrony; real nice man, he was. She wondered if he was any relation. But what she was goin' to say? She didn't suppose Mr. Green cared for southernwood. There was a great root of it round by the back-door here; 'twas dretful sweet, and she had to set it over, Miss Bute said. He could have a piece off the root, just as well as not; only she didn't s'pose he cared for such common doin's as southernwood.

It appeared that southernwood had been Mr. Green's favorite plant from his cradle, as one might say. If there was one thing he did hanker after, it was southernwood; but he couldn't see her grubbin' up things that way. If he knew where the bush was, he could get it himself, just as easy--

Betsy would not hear of that! Besides, _she_ was dretful pernickety about folks comin' into the yard. There! Betsy didn't know what she'd say this minute, if she was to see her talkin' to him; but for her, Betsy's, part, she had allers been brought up to be neighborly. Bije chimed in eagerly. 'Twas dretful lonesome, specially come evenin's. To see her ("her" in this case meant Miss Duty) settin' there, knittin' for dear life, and never a word to say to any one--'twas enough to make any one feel homesick. Not but what she was good, in her way, only 'twas a tormentin', up-stiff kind o' way. Drivin' the cow, too! It did seem as though he should fly, sometimes, drivin' that critter all alone from pasture. His sister allers went with him, to home; he s'posed that's why it seemed so lonesome now. Where did _she_ (oh, New England! oh, poor little hard-worked pronouns! this "she" was Miss Resigned Elizabeth),--where did she keep her cow? Seem's though--

Seems, Bijah? Nay, it is!

What are cows and country roads made for, I should like to know, save for the pleasure of youths and maidens? Miss Duty's cow was kept in the humplety field, as the children called it, a mile and more from Cuttyhunk, the pasture where Miss Resigned Elizabeth's good Brindle spent her peaceful days; yet it was strange to see the intimacy that sprung up between these two creatures in the next few weeks.

At a certain turn of the road, Brindle would stop and fall to cropping the grass by the road-side, swinging her body about and switching the flies off comfortably; while her driver, loitering a few steps behind, pulled the early golden-rod or plaited sweet rushes together, apparently absorbed in her task, and only from time to time casting shy glances down the other road, which led off, over hill and dale, to Cuttyhunk. But, by-and-by, down this other road would come another cow,--not a happy, leisurely cow like Brindle, but a breathless and much-tormented beast who had been hurried out of all nature ever since she left the pasture, absolutely goaded along the way by urgent word and gesture, by shakings of her tail, and apostrophes most unreasonable.