Chapter VII: Part 7

The Proctor house stood at the left of the road; there were some peach-trees in front of it, and their blossoms showed in a pink spray against the gray unpainted walls. On one side of the house was the great barn, with its doors wide open; on the other, a deep ploughed field, with the plough sticking in a furrow. John Proctor had been arrested and thrown into jail for witchcraft in April, before his spring planting was done.

Joseph Bayley reined in his horse opposite the Proctor house. “Ann,” he whispered, and his whisper was full of horror.

“What is it?” she returned, wildly.

“Ann, Goodman Proctor looks forth from the chamber window, and Goody Proctor stands outside by the well, and they are both in jail in Boston.” Joseph’s whole frame shook in a strange rigid fashion, as if his joints were locked. “Look, Ann!” he whispered.

“I cannot.”

“Look!”

Ann turned her head. “Why,” she said, and her voice was quite natural and sweet, it had even a tone of glad relief in it, “I see naught but a little maid in the door.”

“See you not Goodman Proctor in the window?”

“Nay,” said Ann, smiling; “I see naught but the little maid in the door. She is in a blue petticoat, and she has a yellow head, but her little cheeks are pale, I trow.”

“See you not Goodwife Proctor in the yard by the well?” asked Joseph.

“Nay, goodman; I see naught but the little maid in the door. She has a fair face, but now she falls a-weeping. Oh, I fear lest she be all alone in the house.”

“I tell you, Goodman Proctor and Goodwife Proctor are both there,” returned Joseph. “Think you I see not with my own eyes? Goodman Proctor has on a red cap, and Goodwife Proctor holds a spindle.” He urged on the horse with a sudden cry. “Now the prayers do stick in my throat,” he groaned. “I would we were out of this devil’s nest!”

“Oh, Joseph,” implored Ann, “prithee wait a minute! The little maid is calling ‘mother’ after me. Saw you not how she favored our little Susanna who died? Hear her! There was naught there but the little maid. Joseph, I pray you, stop.”

“Nay; I’ll ride till the nag drops,” said Joseph Bayley, with a lash. “This last be too much. I tell ye they are there, and they are also in jail. ’Tis hellish work.”

Ann said no more for a little space; a curve in the road hid the Proctor house from sight. Suddenly she raised a great cry. “Oh! oh!” she screamed, “’tis gone; ’tis gone from my foot!”

Joseph stopped. “What is gone?”

“My shoe; but now I missed it from my foot. I must alight, and go back for it.”

Joseph started the horse again.

Ann caught at the reins. “Stop, goodman,” she cried, imperatively. “I tell you I must have my shoe.”

“And I tell you I’ll stop for no shoe in this place, were it made of gold.”

“Goodman, you know not what shoe ’tis. ’Tis one of my fine shoes, in which I have never taken steps. They have the crimson silk lacings. I have even carried them in my hand to the meeting-house on a Sabbath, wearing my old ones, and only put them on at the door. Think you I will lose that shoe? Stop the nag.”

But Joseph kept on grimly.

“Think you I will go barefoot or with one shoe into Boston?” said Ann. “Know you that these shoes, which were a present from my mother, cost bravely? I trow you will needs loosen your purse strings well before we pass the first shop in Boston. Well, go on, an’ you will, when ’tis but a matter of my slipping down from the pillion and running back a few yards.”

Joseph Bayley turned his horse about; but Ann remonstrated.

“Nay,” said she; “I want not to go thus. I am tired of the saddle. I would like to feel my feet for a space.”

Her husband looked around at her with wonder and suspicion. Dark thoughts came into his mind.

She laughed. “Nay,” said she, “make no such face at me. I go not back to meet any black man nor sign any book. I go for my fine shoe with the crimson lacing.”

“’Tis but a moment since you were afraid,” said Joseph. “Have you no fear now?” His blue eyes looked sharply into hers.

She looked back at him soberly and innocently. “In truth, I feel no such fear as I did,” she answered. “If I mistake not, your bold front and your prayers drove away the evil ones. I will say a psalm as I go, and I trow naught will harm me.”

Ann slipped lightly down from the pillion, and pulled off her one remaining shoe and her stockings; they were her fine worked silk ones, and she could not walk in them over the rough road. Then she set forth very slowly, peering here and there in the undergrowth beside the road, until she passed the curve and the reach of her husband’s eyes. Then she gathered up her crimson taffeta petticoat and ran like a deer, with long graceful leaps, looking neither to right nor left, straight back to the Proctor house.

In the door of the house stood a tiny girl with a soft shock of yellow hair. She wore a little straight blue gown, and her baby feet were bare, curling over the sunny door-step. When she saw Ann coming she started as if to run; then she stood still, her soft eyes wary, her mouth quivering.

Ann Bayley ran up quickly, and threw her arms around her, kneeling down on the step. “What is your name, little maid?” said she, in a loving, agitated voice.

“Abigail Proctor,” replied the little maid, shyly, in her sweet childish treble. Then she tried to free herself, but Ann held her fast.

“Nay, be not afraid, sweet,” said she. “I love you. I once had a little maid like you for my own. Tell me, dear heart, are you all alone in the house?”

Then the child fell to crying again, and clung around Ann’s neck.

“Is there anybody in the house, sweet?” Ann whispered, fondling her, and pressing the wet baby cheek to her own.

“The constables came and took them,” sobbed the little maid. “They put my poppet down the well, and they pulled mother and Sarah down the road. They took father before that, and Mary Warren did gibe and point. The constables pulled Benjamin away too. I want my mother.”

“Your mother shall come again,” said Ann. “Take comfort, dear little heart, they cannot have the will to keep her long away. There, there, I tell you she shall come. You watch in the door, and you will see her come down the road.”

She smoothed back the little maid’s yellow hair, and wiped the tears from her little face with a corner of her beautiful embroidered neckerchief. Then she saw that the face was all grimy with tears and dust, and she went over to the well, which was near the door, and drew a bucket of water swiftly with her strong young arms; then she wet the corner of the neckerchief and scrubbed the little maid’s face, bidding her shut her eyes. Then she kissed her over and over.

“Now you are sweet and clean,” said she. “Dear little heart, I have some sugar cakes in my bag for you, and then I must be gone.”

The little maid looked at her eagerly, her cheeks were waxen, and the blue veins showed in her full childish forehead. Ann pulled some little cakes out of a red velvet satchel she wore at her waist, and Abigail reached out for one with a hungry cry. The tears sprang to Ann’s eyes; she put the rest of the cakes in a little pile on the door-stone, and watched the child eat. Then she gathered her up in her arms.

“Good-bye, sweetheart,” she said, kissing the soft trembling mouth, the sweet hollow under the chin, and the clinging hands. “Before long I shall come this way again, and do you stand in the door when I go past.”

She put her down and hastened away, but little Abigail ran after her. Ann stopped and knelt and fondled her again.

“Go back, deary,” she pleaded; “go back, and eat the sugar cakes.”

But this beautiful kind vision in the crimson taffeta, with the rosy cheeks and sweet black eyes looking out from the French hood, with the gleam of gold and delicate embroidery between the silken folds of her mantilla, with the ways like her mother’s, was more to little deserted Abigail Proctor than the sugar cakes, although she was sorely hungry for them. She stood aloof with pitiful determined eyes until Ann’s back was turned, then, as she followed, Ann looked around and saw her and caught her up again.

“My dear heart, my dear heart,” she said, and she was half sobbing, “now must you go back, else I fear harm will come to you. My goodman is waiting for me yonder, and I know not what he will do or say. Nay; you must go back. I would I could keep you, my little Abigail, but you must go back.” Ann Bayley put the little maid down and gave her a gentle push. “Go back,” she said, smiling, with her eyes full of tears; “go back, and eat the sugar cakes.”

Then she sped on swiftly; as she neared the curve in the road she thrust a hand in her pocket, and drew forth a dainty shoe with dangling lacings of crimson silk. She glanced around with a smile and a backward wave of her hand; the glowing crimson of her petticoat showed for a minute through the green mist of the undergrowth; then she disappeared.

The little maid Abigail stood still in the road, gazing after her, her soft pink mouth open, her hands clutching at her blue petticoat, as if she would thus hold herself back from following. She heard the tramp of a horse’s feet beyond the curve; then it died away. She turned about and went back to the house, with the tears rolling over her cheeks; but she did not sob aloud, as she would have done had her mother been near to hear. A pitiful conviction of the hopelessness of all the appeals of grief was stealing over her childish mind. She had been alone in the house three nights and two days, ever since her sister Sarah and her brother Benjamin had been arrested for witchcraft and carried to jail. Long before that her parents, John and Elizabeth Proctor, had disappeared down the Boston road in charge of the constables. None of the family was spared save this little Abigail, who was deemed too young and insignificant to have dealings with Satan, and was therefore not thrown into prison, but was left alone in the desolate Proctor house in the midst of woods said to be full of evil spirits and witches, to die of fright or starvation as she might. There was but little mercy shown the families of those accused of witchcraft.

“Let some of Goody Proctor’s familiars minister unto the brat,” one of the constables had said, with a stern laugh, when Abigail had followed wailing after her brother and sister on the day of their arrest.

“Yea,” said another; “she can send her yellow-bird or her black hog to keep her company. I wot her tears will be soon dried.”

Then the stoutly tramping horses had borne out of sight and hearing the mocking faces of the constables; Sarah’s fair agonized one turned backward towards her little deserted sister, and Benjamin raised a brave youthful clamor of indignation.

“Let us loose!” Abigail heard him shout; “let us loose, I tell ye! Ye are fools, rather than we are witches; ye are fools and murderers! Let us loose, I tell ye!”

Abigail waited long, thinking her brother’s words would prevail; but neither he nor Sarah returned, and the sounds all died away, and she went back to the house sobbing. The damp spring night was settling down in a palpable mist, and the woods seemed full of voices. The little maid had heard enough of the terrible talk of the day to fill her innocent head with vague superstitious horror. She threw her apron over her head and fled blindly through the woods, and now and then she fell down and bruised herself, and rose up lamenting sorely, with nobody to hear her.

As soon as she was in the house she shut the doors, and barred them with the great bars that had been made as protection against Indians, and now might wax useless against worse than savages, according to the belief of the colony.

All night long the little maid shrieked and sobbed, and called on her father and her mother and her sister and her brother. Men faring in the road betwixt Boston and Salem village heard her with horror, and fled past with psalm and prayer, their blood cold in their veins. They related the next day to the raging, terror-stricken people how at midnight the accursed Proctor house was full of flitting infernal lights, and howling with devilish spirits, and added a death-dealing tale of some godly woman of the village who outrode their horses on a broomstick and disappeared in the Proctor house.

The next day the little maid unbarred the door, and stood there watching up and down the road for her mother or some other to come. But they came not, although she watched all day. That night she did not sob and call out; she had become afraid of her own voice, and discovered that it had no effect to bring her help. Then, too, early in the night, she heard noises about the house which frightened her, and made her think that perchance the dreadful black beast of which she had heard them discourse was abroad.

The next morning she found that the two horses and the cow and calf were gone from the barn; also that there was left scarce anything for her to eat in the house. There had been some loaves of bread, some boiled meat, and some cakes; now they were all gone, and also all the meal from the chest, and the potatoes and pork from the cellar. But for that last she did not care, since she was not old enough to make a fire and cook. She had left for food only a little cold porridge in a blue bowl, and that she ate up at once and had no more, and a little buttermilk in a crock, which, she being not over-fond of it, served her longer. But that was all she had had for a day and a night, until Goodwife Ann Bayley gave her the sugar cakes. These she ate up at once on her return to the house. Then again she stood watching in the door, but nothing passed along the road save a partridge or a squirrel. It was accounted a bold thing for any solitary traveller to come this way, save a witch, and she, it was supposed, might find many comrades in the woods beside the road and in the Proctor house, which was held to be a sort of devils’ tavern. But now no witch came, nor any of her uncanny friends, unless indeed the squirrel and the partridge were familiar demons in disguise. Nothing was too harmless and simple to escape that imputation of the devil’s mask.

Abigail took her little pewter porringer from the cupboard, and got herself a drink of water from the bucketful that Goodwife Bayley had drawn; then she stood on a stone, and peered into the well, leaning over the curb. Her poppet was in there, her dear rag doll that Sarah had made for her, and dressed in a beautiful silver brocade made from a piece of a wedding-gown that was brought from England. One of the constables had caught sight of little Abigail Proctor’s poppet, and being straightway filled with suspicion that it was an image whereby Goody Proctor afflicted her victims by proxy, had seized it and thrown it into the well. The other constables had chidden him for such rashness, saying it should have been carried to Boston and produced as evidence at the trial; and little Abigail had shrieked out in a panic for her poppet.

She could see nothing of it now, and she went back to her watching-place in the door.

In the afternoon she felt sorely hungry again, and searched through the house for food; then she went out in the sunny fields behind the house, and found some honeysuckles on the rocks, and sucked the honey greedily from their horns. On her return to the house she found a corn-cob, which she snatched up and folded in her apron, and began tending. She sat down in the doorway in her little chair, which she dragged out of the keeping-room, and hugged the poor poppet close, and crooned over it.

“Be not afraid,” said she. “I’ll not let the black beast harm you; I promise you I will not.”

That night she formed a new plan for her solace and protection in the lonely darkness. All the garments of her lost parents and sister and brother that she could find she gathered together, and formed in a circle on the keeping-room floor; then she crept inside with her corn-cob poppet, and lay there hugging it all night. The next day she watched again in the door; but now she was weak and faint, and her little legs trembled so under her that she could not stand to watch, but sat in her small straight-backed chair, holding her poppet and peering forth wistfully.

In the course of the day she made shift to creep out into the fields again, and lying flat on the sun-heated rocks, she sucked some more honey drops from the honeysuckles. She found, too, on the edge of the woods, some young wintergreen leaves, and she even pulled some blue violets and ate them. But the delicate, sweet, and aromatic fare in the spring larder of nature was poor nourishment for a human baby.

Poor little Abigail Proctor could scarcely creep home, still clinging fast to her poppet; scarcely lift herself into her chair in the door; scarcely crawl inside her fairy-ring of her loved ones’ belongings at night. She rolled herself tightly in an old cloak of her father’s, and it was a sweet and harmless outcome of the dreadful superstition of the day, grafted on an innocent childish brain, that it seemed to partake of the bodily presence of her father, and protect her.

All night long, as she lay there, her mother cooked good meat and broth and sweet cakes, and she ate her fill of them; but in the morning she was too weak to turn her little body over. She could not get to her watching-place in the door, but that made no difference to her, for she did not fairly know that she was not there. It seemed to her that she sat in her little chair looking up the road and down the road; she saw the green branches weaving together, and hiding the sky to the northward and the southward; she saw the flushes of white and rose in the flowering undergrowth; she saw the people coming and going. There were her father and mother now coming with store of food and presents for her, now following the constables out of sight. There was that fine pageant passing, as she had seen it pass once before, of the two magistrates, their worshipful masters John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, with the marshal, constables, and aids, splendid and awe-inspiring in all their trappings of office, to examine the accused in the Salem meeting-house. There were the ministers Parris and Noyes coming, with severe malignant faces, to question her mother as to whether she had afflicted Mary Warren, their former maid-servant, who was now bewitched. There went Benjamin, clamoring out boldly at his captors. There came Sarah with the poppet, which she had drawn out of the well, shaking the water from its silver brocade.

All this the little maid Abigail Proctor saw through her half-delirious fancy as she lay weakly on the keeping-room floor, but she saw not the reality of her sister Sarah coming about four o’clock in the afternoon.

Sarah Proctor, tall and slender, in her limp bedraggled dress, with her fair severe face set in a circle of red shawl, which she had pinned under her chin, came resolutely down the road from Boston, driving a black cow before her with a great green branch. She was nearly fainting with weariness, but she set her dusty shoes down swiftly among the road weeds, and her face was as unyielding as an Indian’s.

When she came in sight of the Proctor house she stopped a second. “Abigail!” she called; “Abigail!”

There was no answer, and she went on more swiftly than before. When she reached the house she called again, “Abigail!” but did not wait except while she tied the black cow, by a rope which was around her neck, to a peach-tree. Then she ran in, and found the little maid, her sister Abigail, on the floor in the keeping-room.

She got down on her knees beside her, and Abigail smiled up in her face waveringly. She still thought herself in the door, and that she had just seen her sister come down the road.

“Abigail, what have they done to you?” asked Sarah, in a sharp voice; and the little maid only smiled.

“Abigail, Abigail, what is it?” Sarah took hold of the child’s shoulders and shook her; but she got no word back, only the smile ceased, and the eyelids drooped faintly.

“Are you hungry, Abigail?”

The little maid shook her head softly.

“It cannot be that,” said Sarah, as if half to herself; “there was enough in the house; but what is it? Abigail, look at me; how long is it since you have eaten? Abigail!”

“Yesterday,” whispered the little maid, dreamily.

“What did you eat then?”

“Some posies and leaves out in the field.”

“What became of all the bread that was baked, and the cakes, and the meat?”

“I--have forgot.”

“No, you have not. Tell me, Abigail.”

“The black beast came in the night and did eat it all up, and the cow, and calf, and the horses, too.”

“The black beast!”

“I heard him in the night, and in the morning ’twas--gone.”

Sarah sprang up. “Robbers and murderers!” she cried, in a fierce voice; but the little maid on the floor did not start; she shut her eyes again, and looked up and down the road.

Sarah got a bucket quickly, and went out in the yard to the cow. Down on her knees in the grass she went and milked; then she carried in the bucket, strained the milk with trembling haste, and poured some into Abigail’s little pewter porringer. “She was wont to love it warm,” she whispered, with white lips.

She bent close over the little maid, and raised her on one arm, while she put the porringer to her mouth. “Drink, Abigail,” she said, with tender command. “’Tis warm--the way you love it.”

The little maid tried to sip, but shut her mouth, and turned her head with weak loathing, and Sarah could not compel her. She laid her back, and got a spoon and fed her a little, by dint of much pleading to make her open her mouth and swallow.

Afterwards she undressed her, and put her to bed in the south-front room, but the child was so uneasy without the ring of garments which she had arranged, that Sarah was forced to put them around her on the bed; then she fell asleep directly, and stood in her dream watching in the door.

Sarah herself stood in the door, looking up and down the road. There was the sound of a galloping horse in the distance; it came nearer and nearer. She went down to the road and stood waiting. The horse was reined in close to her, and the young man who rode him sprang off the saddle.

“It is you, Sarah; you are safe home,” he cried, eagerly, and would have put his arm about her; but she stood aloof sternly.

“For what else did you take me--my apparition?” she said, in a hard voice.

“Sweetheart!”

“Know you that I have but just come from the jail in Boston, where I have lain fast chained for witchcraft? See you my fine apparel with the prison air in it? Know you that they called me a witch, and said that I did afflict Mary Warren and the rest? I marvel not that you kept your distance, David Carr; I might perchance have hurt you, and they might have accused you, since you were in fellowship with a witch. I marvel not at that. I would have no harm come to you, though far greater than this came to me, but wherefore did you let my little sister Abigail starve? That can I not suffer, coming from you, David.”

The young man took her in his arms with a decided motion; and indeed she did not repulse him, but began to weep.

“Sarah,” said he, earnestly, “I was in Ipswich. I knew naught of you and Benjamin being cried out upon until within this hour, when I returned home, and my mother told me. I knew not you were acquitted, and was on my way to Boston to you when I saw you at the gate. And as for Abigail, I knew naught at all; and so ’twas with my mother, for she but now wept when she said the poor little maid had been taken with the rest. But you mean not that, sweetheart; she has not been let to starve?”

“They stole away the food in the night,” said Sarah, “and the horses and the cow and calf. I found the cow straying in the woods but now, on my way home, and drove her in and milked her; but Abigail would take scarce a spoonful of the warm milk. She has had but little to eat for three days, and has been distracted with fear, being left alone. She has ever been but a delicate child, and now I fear she has a fever on her, and will die, with her mother away.”

“I will go for my mother, sweetheart,” said David Carr, eagerly.

“Bring her under cover of night, then,” said Sarah; “else she may be suspected if she come to this witch tavern, as they call it. Oh, David, think you she will come? I am in a sore strait.”

“I will bring her without fail, sweet, and a flask of wine also, and needments for the little maid,” cried David. “Only do you keep up good heart. Perchance, sweet, the child will amend soon, and the others be soon acquit. Nay, weep not, poor lass! poor lass! Thou hast me, whatever else fail thee, poor solace though that be, and I will fetch thee my mother right speedily. She has ever set great store by the little maid, and knows much about ailments; and I doubt not they will be soon acquit.”

“They say my mother will,” answered Sarah, tearfully; “and Benjamin is acquit now, but had best keep for a season out of Salem village. But my father will not be acquit; he has spoken his mind too boldly before them all.”

“Nay, sweetheart,” said David Carr, mounting, “’twill all have passed soon; ’tis but a madness. Go in to the little maid, and be of good comfort.”

Sarah went sobbing into the house, but her face was quite calm when she stood over little Abigail. The child was still asleep, and she could arouse her only for a moment to take a few spoonfuls of milk; then she turned her head on her pillow with weary obstinacy, and shut her eyes again. She still held the poor corn-cob poppet fast.

Sarah washed herself, braided her hair, and changed her prison dress for a clean blue linen one; then she sat beside Abigail, and waited for David Carr and his mother, who came within an hour. Goodwife Carr was renowned through Salem village for her knowledge of medicinal herbs and her nursing. She had a gentle sobriety and decision of manner which placed her firmly in her neighbors’ confidences, they seeing how she abode firmly in her own, and arguing from that. Then she had too the good fortune to have made no enemies, consequently her ability had not incurred for her the suspicion of being a witch.

Goodwife Carr brought a goodly store of healing herbs, of bread and cakes and meat, and she brewed drinks, and bent her face, pale and soberly faithful, in her close white cap, untiringly over Abigail Proctor. But the little maid never arose again. A fever, engendered by starvation and fright and grief, had seized upon her, and she lay in the bed with her little corn-cob baby a few days longer, and then died.

They made a straight white gown for her, and dressed her in it, after washing her and smoothing her yellow hair; and she lay, looking longer and older than in life, all set about with flowers--pinks and lilacs and roses--from Goodwife Carr’s garden, until she was buried. And they had the Ipswich minister come for the funeral, for David Carr cried out in a fury that Minister Parris, who had prosecuted this witchcraft business, was her murderer, and blood would flow from her little body if he stood beside it, and that it was the same with Minister Noyes; and Sarah Proctor’s pale face had flushed up fiercely in assent.

The morning after the little maid Abigail Proctor was buried, Joseph Bayley and his wife Ann came riding down the road from Boston, and they were in brave company, and needed to have but little fear of witches; for the great minister Cotton Mather rode with them, his Excellency the Governor of the colony, two worshipful magistrates, and two other ministers--all on their way to a witch trial in Salem.

And as they neared the Proctor house there was much discourse concerning it and the inmates thereof, many strange and dreadful accounts, and much godly denunciation. And as they reached the curve in the road they came suddenly in sight of a young man and a tall fair maid standing together at the side by some white-flowering bushes. And Sarah Proctor, even with her little sister Abigail dead and her parents in danger of death, was smiling for a second’s space in David Carr’s face, for the love and hope in tragedy that make God possible, and the selfishness of love that makes life possible, were upon her in spite of herself.

But when she saw the cavalcade approaching, saw the gleam of rich raiment, and heard the tramp and jingling, the smile faded straightway from her face, and she stood behind David in the white alder bushes. And David stood before her, and gazed with a stern and defiant scowl at the gentry as they passed by. And the great Cotton Mather gazed back at that beautiful white face rising like another flower out of the bushes, and he speculated with himself if it were the face of a witch.

But Goodwife Ann Bayley thought only on the little maid at the door. And when they came to the Proctor house she leaned eagerly from the pillion, and she smiled and kissed her hand.

“Why do you thus, Ann?” her husband asked, looking about at her.

“See you not the little maid in the door?” she whispered low, for fear of the goodly company. “I trow she looks better than she did. The roses are in her cheeks, and they have combed her yellow hair, and put a clean white gown on her. She holds a little doll, too.”

“I see nobody,” said Joseph Bayley, wonderingly.

“Nay, but she stands there. I never saw aught shine like her hair and her white gown; the sunlight lies full in the door. See! see! she is smiling! I trow all her griefs be well over.”

The cavalcade passed the Proctor house, but Goodwife Ann Bayley’s sweet face was turned backward until it was out of sight, towards the little maid in the door.

LYDIA HERSEY, OF EAST BRIDGEWATER

Lydia Hersey sat out on the porch carding flax. She had taken her work out there that she might not litter the house. It was Saturday afternoon, and she had set every room in fine order for the Sabbath.

Three tall Lombardy poplar-trees stood in a row on the road line, and their long shadows, like the shadows of giant men, fell athwart the gray unpainted house and the broad grassy yard. At the south of the house was a flower bed of pinks and honeysuckles and thyme, and also a vegetable garden. Beyond that were three beehives in a row, with little black clouds of bees around them. Lydia carded assiduously, and never looked up. Her long black lashes lay against her pink cheeks, her full lips were half-smiling, as if she were saying some pleasant thing to herself. Lydia wore her black hair in a braided knot at the back of her head; in front she combed it smoothly down over her ears, then looped it up behind them in two clusters of soft curls. Her flowered chintz gown was cut low in the neck, and she wore a string of gold beads around her long white throat.

Lydia sat very erect as she carded; her shoulders never wavered with the clapping motion of her hands; she even sat well forward in her chair, and did not come in contact with its straight back.

Lydia Hersey was noted for the majesty of her carriage as well as her beauty, and was talked of as far as Boston. Young men had been known to come from other villages and walk past her house on the chance of seeing her at a window, although they dared not address her, nor do more than halt and stand for a second with their hats raised like school-boys before the parson or the squire, and that might have been accounted poor reward for a long journey. But there were for these New-Englanders no great pictures by old masters and no famous statues, and Lydia Hersey’s beautiful living face, set like a jewel for a moment in a window of the gray old Hersey house, served them instead. The young Abington men, the North Bridgewater men, and the Canton men would go home with their love of beauty all aflame, and never forget Lydia’s face in the window; indeed, it would turn towards them like a portrait, whichever way they moved, through their whole lives. Years afterwards, when these admirers were old men and heard some young beauty praised, they would look scornful and say, “You ought to have seen Lydia Hersey, of East Bridgewater.”

A bumblebee flew with a loud buzz past Lydia’s head, and she started a little. He flew straight into the open window of the keeping-room. “That’s a sign of company,” she thought, and she thought also complacently how nicely the house was set in order, and she did not care who came.

The doors were all open as well as the windows. She heard the bee buzzing and striking against the ceiling of the keeping-room. Presently she heard another sound that made her drop her cards in her lap and listen intently. It came from down the street, and sounded like an irregular chorus of horns, a medley of harsh, hollow screeches. Lydia frowned. The sounds grew louder; there were also great shouts of laughter and clamorous voices. Soon a company of young men came in sight; there were a dozen of them, and they had great conch shells at their mouths, which they blew between their laughter and merry calls.

Lydia stood up. She laid the cards down on the chair, folded the linen cloth which she had spread on the porch floor carefully over the fluffy heap of carded flax, and brushed all the shreds that she could from her gown. Then she walked, carrying her beautiful head high, down to the road. There was a sudden hush when the young men saw her. They took their conch shells from their lips, and saluted her respectfully. One young man, who came foremost of the troop, colored high. One of his comrades nudged him, and he thrust his elbow back angrily in response. Lydia took no notice of the other young men, she walked straight up to this one. He stopped, and all the others halted at his back.

“Where are you going, Freelove?” said she.

“Not far,” he returned, evasively.

“Where?” she demanded.

The young man turned towards his companions. “Move on, lads,” he said, in an imperious voice, which he tried to make good-natured, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

His handsome face was burning. The young men trooped on; there was a subdued chuckle. Freelove Keith looked Lydia full in the face, and his blue eyes were as haughty as her black ones.

“We’re going down to see Abraham White and Deborah,” said he.

Lydia stared back at him scornfully. “You are going down there with those loafers to blow those conch shells under the windows?” said she.

“Squire Perkins’s son is one of ’em,” returned Freelove, defiantly.

“The more shame to him!” said Lydia. “And the more shame to you, Freelove Keith!”

It seemed as if her bright scornful eyes, full on Freelove’s face, could see all the weaknesses that he hid from himself behind his own consciousness, but he did not flinch.

“I don’t know what you call shame,” he said. “’Tis what the young fellows in East Bridgewater have always done when they have not been asked to a wedding.”

“Asked to a wedding,” repeated Lydia, contemptuously. “A pretty wedding! Deborah Belcher marrying Abraham White, when he’s twice as old as she is, and his wife not dead six months. No wonder she asked nobody to the wedding, marrying old Abraham White for his silver teaspoons and tankard, and his wife’s silk gowns and satin pelisse!”

“You don’t know that she married him for any such thing,” protested Freelove, stoutly, although he had started on this very expedition with a gay contempt for Deborah White. She was a very pretty girl, and once, before he had dared address Lydia Hersey, people had coupled his name with hers. He had gone home with her from singing-school, and kissed her once at a husking.

“Stand up for a girl like that if you want to,” said Lydia. She had always had a lurking jealousy of Deborah Belcher. Deborah’s hair was very fair, and she had a delicate evanescent bloom like a wild rose. Lydia had often wondered if Deborah were not prettier than she herself, and if men did not love fair hair better than black.

Freelove Keith did not continue the dispute; he looked uneasily after his comrades, who were nearly out of sight, even at their slow lingering pace. Now and then the note of a conch shell was heard. “I must go,” said he. “Good-day, Lydia.”

“Do you mean that you are really going with that noisy crew to blow conch shells under Abraham White’s windows, Freelove Keith?”

“Yes, I am going, Lydia Hersey,” returned the young man, hotly; “and if you thought I’d be ordered back by you before them all, like a whipped puppy, you were mightily mistaken.”

Lydia stared at him, she was so full of proud amazement that she would say nothing; this Freelove Keith had often fretted beneath her rule, but never before openly resisted it.

“Go back to your flax-carding, Lydia,” said Freelove, in a softer tone. “See, the flax is blowing all over the yard. I shall be up to see you after supper.”

Then Lydia found her tongue. “You haven’t been asked to come that I know of,” said she. “I don’t know as I care to keep company with young men that go blowing horns and shouting through the street, and disturbing decent people.”

“Then you needn’t,” retorted Freelove.

He went quickly down the road after his companions. He was dressed like a farmer, in slouching homespun, but there was a certain jaunty grace about him, and a free swing in his gait, which did not accord with his appearance. He had followed the sea for a living, going as mate on a merchantman, and had been home only for a year and a half, since his father’s death, managing the farm.

Lydia went back to the house. She stepped as if she bore a crown on her head instead of a tortoise-shell comb, and had a train to her cotton gown. The wind had indeed stirred the linen cloth, and bits of flax were floating about the yard, but she ignored that. She would not so far unbend her dignity as to gather it up, even with nobody but herself for witness. She folded the linen cloth firmly over the remaining flax, and placed her foot in its buckled shoe on it when she sat down. She fell to work with the cards again. The wild clamor of horns, which she had heard break forth when Freelove joined his comrades, died away in the distance.

Lydia sat there steadily carding flax, as if imbued by nature with the single instinct of industry, like a bee out in the garden. Her lips were tight shut, and no longer smiling; her heart was anxious, but she still made her store of linen as unquestioningly as the bee its honey.

In about an hour the troop of young men with the conch shells returned. Lydia heard them at a distance, and long before they reached the house she sat with stiffer majesty, keeping her eyes so closely upon her work that the flax became a silvery blur. However, she need not have taken the trouble, for Freelove Keith swung past with as scornful a lift of his head as she, and never once glanced her way. And, indeed, the young men all passed very decorously and quietly, and only a few dared raise their eyes towards the queenly figure on the porch, and then only for a second. One of them was Abel Perkins, Squire Perkins’s son. He was home from college on a vacation, and was quite looked up to by the village youth, as he was the only collegian among them. Abel Perkins was slight and pale, and walked with a nervous strut; but he wore broadcloth and a fine flowered waistcoat, and carried a gold watch. He even gave a hesitating glance back at Lydia on the porch, turning his little face over his shoulder; but she did not see it. She did not look up from her work until long after the company had passed.

A half-hour later the stage went by, with the four horses at a gallop. A fair face overtopped by white plumes looked out of the surging window. Lydia turned her head hastily, and the red in her cheeks deepened. It was the bride, Deborah White, going with her new husband to spend the honeymoon with his relations in Abington. There was a nice little hair trunk strapped on behind the stage. Lydia eyed it contemptuously when Deborah could no longer see her. She thought, “Maybe his first wife’s satin pelisse is in there.”

A man emerged from the cloud of dust in the wake of the stage. He was old, and wore his white hair in a queue. He had on a green double cloak, although the day was warm, and walked with a stick, to whose height he accommodated himself at every step with a downward motion of his shoulders. He did not seem to need its support.

When he approached the house, Lydia stood up and courtesied low.

“Good-day, Lydia,” said he, in a solemn voice.

“Good-day, sir,” she returned, with stately deference; and she ushered the minister, Elihu Eaton, into the fore room, and placed the rocking-chair with the feather cushion for him.

The fore room was close and cool, for the windows had been shut all day to keep out the flies. There was a smell of mint and lavender. The great testered bedstead, with its chintz valance and curtains, stood in one corner. There was a high chest of drawers and a splendid carved oak linen chest, which Lydia’s grandmother had brought over from England. On one side of the fireplace was a great cupboard with panelled doors, and that was filled with gallipots. Lydia’s father had been a doctor.

Lydia sat beside the window, opposite the minister. There was a restrained defiance in the lift of her chin. Now and then she picked a bit of the flax from her gown.

She knew well why the minister had come. Aunt Nabby Keith had warned her. It was ten months since her banns with Freelove had been published, and she held herself aloof, and would not marry him out of sheer wilfulness and coquetry, the neighbors said. Freelove’s aunt Nabby had come to see her only the day before, and talked seriously with her.

“You ain’t livin’ up to your professions,” the old woman had said, “and I’m going to speak plain. If you let this year go by and don’t marry Freelove according to your banns, you’ll have a good deal to answer for.”

“Well, I’ll ask nobody else to answer for me,” Lydia returned.

“The parson says he’s coming to reason with you, Lydia Hersey.”

“Let him come,” said Lydia; and her head tossed up like a rose in a wind.

And now the parson had come. It was some little space before he opened on the subject in hand. In truth, he stood somewhat in awe, although he did not know it, of this beautiful high-spirited young woman. There had been always a brisk feminine rule in his own house. Even now he sweltered under the weight of the green double cloak which his wife Sarah had hoisted upon his slender shoulders because she thought he had taken cold. The waistcoat, which she had made to suit her own ideas and not his requirements, bound his back; his neckcloth, which she had wound with ardor, half choked him and fretted his chin.

When at length he reasoned with Lydia Hersey on the matter of her non-fulfilment of the marriage banns, and the report that she was about to let the lawful year go by and jilt Freelove Keith, it was with circumspect solemnity. Lydia’s cheeks flamed redder and redder, but her black eyes never left his face.

“Did you meet Freelove Keith with that noisy crew, who ought to have been at home at work in the middle of the afternoon, shouting and blowing conch shells under Mr. Abraham White’s windows?” she demanded.

The minister admitted that he had, and had remonstrated with them.

“It would make a better text for a discourse than some others that meddlesome folks set,” said Lydia, for she had no fear of any one before another, not even the minister or the squire. She stood up. The minister Elihu Eaton’s sober peaked face rising out of his great capes, which shrugged to his ears, looked up at her. “Either,” said she, in a masterful way, and yet with a remembering sweetness, for the minister looked suddenly very old to her--“either Freelove Keith has got to do as I say or I have got to do as he says before we are married, if the banns have been cried a thousand years.”

Then she went out into the keeping-room, and presently returned with a tray, on which were set out a decanter of West India Rum, a little silver bowl of loaf-sugar, a tumbler, and a plate of pound-cake.

When the minister had partaken of these refreshments, he offered a prayer and took his leave. Lydia courtesied when he went out the door, but her lips were tightly shut again, for Elihu Eaton, in his appeal to the Lord, had spoken with more fire concerning her affairs than he had dared use towards her. “O Lord, make this, Thy handmaiden, to keep to the vows which she has spoken, and let not a froward mind lead her aside into strange paths,” the minister had said, and more, and Lydia could not expostulate.

She went into the keeping-room and got supper ready. Lydia Hersey had lived alone ever since her father’s death. All the more reason, people thought, why she should fulfil her marriage contract with Freelove Keith. There was she, living all alone in a large house, with a comfortable income, and there was Freelove, who was no longer so necessary at home since his sister had married and taken her husband there to live, and who could easily manage his farm and live in the Hersey house. There was Freelove, whom everybody liked, yet felt a certain anxiety about, because he had been to sea, and might have seen much evil in foreign ports, going too often to the tavern, people said, and neglecting his farm to go on junketings with idle young men, to Abington or Braintree, and once even over to Boston, and to be away all night. It looked no better, people said, because Squire Perkins’s son went with him, and he was college-learned. It was generally conceded that Abel was not as reliable, and would not make as smart a man, as the old squire.

Lydia Hersey saw Abel Perkins again that night. After supper she strolled down the road a little way. She was mindful that Freelove had said he was coming, and she wondered if her rebuff would quite drive him away. Before she started she stood hesitating a moment in the doorway. The evening was cool, and she had put a yellow blanket over her head and bare shoulders.

She thought, angrily, that she would not stay at home and watch for Freelove Keith, when he might not come; but, on the other hand, she did not want to go away and never know if he had called.

Finally she pulled some sprigs of mint from the bank under the keeping-room windows, and she shut the house door, and stuck them carefully under the sill. Then she went on down the road, and soon she met Abel Perkins. He stood about, and took off his hat in a way he had learned in college, and Lydia courtesied gravely. Abel was considerably younger than she, and she had always had a certain disdain for him, in spite of his being the squire’s son. Still it was quite evident that he humbly admired her, and some deference was due him for that.

So when he asked humbly if he might walk with her a way, she said yes, and they went on together. Alder-trees, faintly sweet in a pale mist of bloom, stood beside the road; there were distant peals of laughter, tinklings of cow bells, and a hubbub of nestward birds. Lydia stepped proudly along beside the little anxiously smiling squire’s son; her beautiful face looked out of her yellow blanket as if it were a frame of gold.

Abel Perkins kept glancing up at her and blushing. “If you had told me that you didn’t want me to go to Abraham White’s, I wouldn’t have gone, Lydia,” he said, after a while.

“I don’t approve of any such goings on,” Lydia returned, severely.

“I don’t know as they are very becoming,” said Abel Perkins.

They sauntered on slowly. The sunset light lay in red-gold patches on the dusty road, some elm-trees ahead swayed in a mystical, rosy, smokelike incense. Presently at the right of the road showed the red walls of Aunt Nabby Keith’s house out of a thicket of purple-topped lilac-bushes. Freelove suddenly appeared in the road. When he saw Lydia he started, then went on with a jauntier swing. He scarcely nodded as he went by. Lydia held her head like a statue.

“Is he huffy?” whispered Abel.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Lydia, coldly. But in a second she faced about. “I must go home,” said she. “It is getting damp.”