Queechy by Susan Warner

S >> Susan Warner >> Queechy

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61

"There is no difficulty with aunt Lucy," said Fleda;--"and I guess I can
manage uncle Rolf--I'll try. _I_ like her very much."

"Barby is very poor," said Mrs. Plumfield; "she has nothing but her own
earnings to support herself and her old mother, and now I suppose her
sister and her child; for Hetty is a poor thing--never did much, and now I
suppose does nothing."

"Are those Finns poor, aunt Miriam?"

"O no--not at all--they are very well off."

"So I thought--they seemed to have plenty of everything, and silver spoons
and all. But why then do they go out to work?"

"They are a little too fond of getting money I expect," said aunt Miriam.
"And they are a queer sort of people rather--the mother is queer and the
children are queer--they ain't like other folks exactly--never were."

"I am very glad we are to have Barby instead of that Lucy Finn," said
Fleda. "O aunt Miriam! you can't think how much easier my heart feels."

"Poor child!" said aunt Miriam looking at her. "But it isn't best, Fleda,
to have things work too smooth in this world."

"No, I suppose not," said Fleda sighing. "Isn't it very strange, aunt
Miriam, that it should make people worse instead of better to have
everything go pleasantly with them?"

"It is because they are apt then to be so full of the present that they
forget the care of the future."

"Yes, and forget there is anything better than the present, I suppose,"
said Fleda.

"So we mustn't fret at the ways our Father takes to keep us from hurting
ourselves?" said aunt Miriam cheerfully.

"O no!" said Fleda, looking up brightly in answer to the tender manner in
which these words were spoken;--"and I didn't mean that _this_ is much of
a trouble--only I am very glad to think that somebody is coming
to-morrow."

Aunt Miriam thought that gentle unfretful face could not stand in need of
much discipline.

Chapter XXI.

Wise men alway
Affyrme and say,
That best is for a man
Diligently,
For to apply,
The business that he can.

More.

Fleda waited for Barby's coming the next day with a little anxiety. The
introduction and installation however were happily got over. Mrs.
Rossitur, as Fleda knew, was most easily pleased; and Barby Elster's quick
eye was satisfied with the unaffected and universal gentleness and
politeness of her new employer. She made herself at home in half an hour;
and Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda were comforted to perceive, by unmistakeable
signs, that their presence was not needed in the kitchen and they might
retire to their own premises and forget there was another part of the
house. Fleda had forgotten it utterly, and deliciously enjoying the rest
of mind and body she was stretched upon the sofa, luxuriating over some
volume from her remnant of a library; when the inner door was suddenly
pushed open far enough to admit the entrance of Miss Elster's head.

"Where's the soft soap?"

Fleda's book went down and her heart jumped to her mouth, for her uncle
was sitting over by the window. Mrs. Rossitur looked up in a maze and
waited for the question to be repeated.

"I say, where's the soft soap?"

"Soft soap!" said Mrs. Rossitur,--"I don't know whether there is
any.--Fleda, do you know?"

"I was trying to think, aunt Lucy. I don't believe there is any."

"_Where_ is it?" said Barby.

"There is none, I believe," said Mrs. Rossitur.

"Where _was_ it, then?"

"Nowhere--there has not been any in the house," said Fleda, raising
herself up to see over the back of her sofa.

"There ha'n't been none!" said Miss Elster, in a tone more significant
than her words, and shutting the door as abruptly as she had opened it.

"What upon earth does the woman mean?" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, springing
up and advancing towards the kitchen door. Fleda threw herself before him.

"Nothing at all, uncle Rolf--she doesn't mean anything at all--she
doesn't know any better."

"I will improve her knowledge--get out the way, Fleda."

"But uncle Rolf, just hear me one moment--please don't!--she didn't mean
any harm--these people don't know any manners--just let me speak to her,
please uncle Rolf!--" said Fleda laying both hands upon her uncle's
arms,--"I'll manage her."

Mr. Rossitur's wrath was high, and he would have run over or knocked down
anything less gentle that had stood in his way; but even the harshness of
strength shuns to set itself in array against the meekness that does not
_oppose_; if the touch of those hands had been a whit less light, or the
glance of her eye less submissively appealing, it would have availed
nothing. As it was, he stopped and looked at her, at first scowling, but
then with a smile.

"_You_ manage her!" said he.

"Yes," said Fleda laughing, and now exerting her force she gently pushed
him back towards the seat he had quitted,--"yes, uncle Rolf--you've enough
else to manage--don't undertake our 'help.' Deliver over all your
displeasure upon me when anything goes wrong--I will be the conductor to
carry it off safely into the kitchen and discharge it just at that point
where I think it will do most execution. Now will you, uncle
Rolf?--Because we have got a new-fashioned piece of firearms in the other
room that I am afraid will go off unexpectedly if it is meddled with by an
unskilful hand;--and that would leave us without arms, you see, or with
only aunt Lucy's and mine, which are not reliable."

"You saucy girl!"--said her uncle, who was laughing partly at and partly
with her,--"I don't know what you deserve exactly.--Well--keep this
precious new operative of yours out of my way and I'll take care to keep
out of hers. But mind, you must manage not to have your piece snapping in
my face in this fashion, for I won't stand it."

And so, quieted, Mr. Rossitur sat down to his book again; and Fleda
leaving hers open went to attend upon Barby.

"There ain't much yallow soap neither," said this personage,--"if this is
all. There's one thing--if we ha'n't got it we can make it. I must get
Mis' Rossitur to have a leach-tub sot up right away. I'm a dreadful hand
for havin' plenty o' soap."

"What is a leach-tub?" said Fleda.

"Why, a leach-tub, for to leach ashes in. That's easy enough. I'll fix it,
afore we're any on us much older. If Mr. Rossitur'll keep me in good hard
wood I sha'n't cost him hardly anything for potash."

"I'll see about it," said Fleda, "and I will see about having the
leach-tub, or whatever it is, put up for you. And Barby, whenever you want
anything, will you just speak to me about it?--and if I am in the other
room ask me to come out here. Because my aunt is not strong, and does not
know where things are as well as I do; and when my uncle is in there he
sometimes does not like to be disturbed with hearing any such talk. If
you'll tell me I'll see and have everything done for you."

"Well--you get me a leach sot up--that's all I'll ask of you just now,"
said Barby good-humouredly; "and help me to find the soap-grease, if there
is any. As to the rest, I don't want to see nothin' o' him in the kitchen
so I'll relieve him if he don't want to see much o' me in the parlour.--I
shouldn't wonder if there wa'n't a speck of it in the house."

Not a speck was there to be found.

"Your uncle's pockets must ha' had a good hole in 'em by this time,"
remarked Barby as they came back from the cellar. "However, there never
was a crock so empty it couldn't be filled. You get me a leach-tub sot up,
and I'll find work for it."

From that time Fleda had no more trouble with her uncle and Barby. Each
seemed to have a wholesome appreciation of the other's combative qualities
and to shun them. With Mrs. Rossitur Barby was soon all-powerful. It was
enough that she wanted a thing, if Mrs Rossitur's own resources could
compass it. For Fleda, to say that Barby had presently a perfect
understanding with her and joined to that a most affectionate careful
regard, is not perhaps saying much; for it was true of every one without
exception with whom Fleda had much to do. Barby was to all of them a very
great comfort and stand-by.

It was well for them that they had her within doors to keep things, as she
called it, "right and tight;" for abroad the only system in vogue was one
of fluctuation and uncertainty. Mr. Rossitur's Irishman, Donohan, staid
his year out, doing as little good and as much at least negative harm as
he well could; and then went, leaving them a good deal poorer than he
found them. Dr. Gregory's generosity had added to Mr. Rossitur's own small
stock of ready money, giving him the means to make some needed outlays on
the farm. But the outlay, ill-applied, had been greater than the income; a
scarcity of money began to be more and more felt; and the comfort of the
family accordingly drew within more and more narrow bounds. The temper of
the head of the family suffered in at least equal degree.

From the first of Barby's coming poor Fleda had done her utmost to prevent
the want of Mons. Emile from being felt. Mr. Rossitur's table was always
set by her careful hand, and all the delicacies that came upon it were,
unknown to him, of her providing. Even the bread. One day at breakfast Mr.
Rossitur had expressed his impatient displeasure at that of Miss Elster's
manufacture. Fleda saw the distressed shade that came over her aunt's
face, and took her resolution. It was the last time. She had followed her
plan of sending for the receipts, and she studied them diligently, both at
home and under aunt Miriam. Natural quickness of eye and hand came in aid
of her affectionate zeal, and it was not long before she could trust
herself to undertake any operation in the whole range of her cookery book.
But meanwhile materials were growing scarce and hard to come by. The
delicate French rolls which were now always ready for her uncle's plate in
the morning had sometimes nothing to back them, unless the unfailing water
cress from the good little spring in the meadow. Fleda could not spare her
eggs, for perhaps they might have nothing else to depend upon for dinner.
It was no burden to her to do these things; she had a sufficient reward in
seeing that her aunt and Hugh eat the better and that her uncle's brow was
clear; but it _was_ a burden when her hands were tied by the lack of
means; for she knew the failure of the usual supply was bitterly felt, not
for the actual want, but for that other want which it implied and
prefigured.

On the first dismissal of Donohan Fleda hoped for a good turn of affairs.
But Mr. Rossitur, disgusted with his first experiment, resolved this
season to be his own head man; and appointed Lucas Springer the second in
command, with a posse of labourers to execute his decrees. It did not work
well. Mr. Rossitur found he had a very tough prime minister, who would
have every one of his plans to go through a kind of winnowing process by
being tossed about in an argument. The arguments were interminable, until
Mr. Rossitur not unfrequently quit the field with, "Well, do what you like
about it!"--not conquered, but wearied. The labourers, either from want of
ready money or of what they called "manners" in their employer, fell off
at the wrong times, just when they were most wanted. Hugh threw himself
then into the breach and wrought beyond his strength; and that tried Fleda
worst of all. She was glad to see haying and harvest pass over; but the
change of seasons seemed to bring only a change of disagreeableness, and
she could not find that hope had any better breathing-time in the short
days of winter than in the long days of summer. Her gentle face grew more
gentle than ever, for under the shade of sorrowful patience which was
always there now its meekness had no eclipse.

Mrs. Rossitur was struck with it one morning. She was coming down from her
room and saw Fleda standing on the landing-place gazing out of the window.
It was before breakfast one cold morning in winter. Mrs. Rossitur put her
arms round her softly and kissed her.

"What are you thinking about, dear Fleda?--you ought not to be
standing here."

"I was looking at Hugh," said Fleda, and her eye went back to the window.
Mrs. Rossitur's followed it. The window gave them a view of the ground
behind the house; and there was Hugh, just coming in with a large armful
of heavy wood which he had been sawing.

"He isn't strong enough to do that, aunt Lucy," said Fleda softly.

"I know it," said his mother in a subdued tone, and not moving her eye,
though Hugh had disappeared.

"It is too cold for him--he is too thinly clad to bear this exposure,"
said Fleda anxiously.

"I know it," said his mother again.

"Can't you tell uncle Rolf?--can't you get him to do it? I am afraid Hugh
will hurt himself, aunt Lucy."

"I did tell him the other day--I did speak to him about it," said Mrs.
Rossitur; "but he said there was no reason why Hugh should do it,--there
were plenty of other people--"

"But how can he say so when he knows we never can ask Lucas to do anything
of the kind, and that other man always contrives to be out of the way when
he is wanted?--Oh what is he thinking of?" said Fleda bitterly, as she saw
Hugh again at his work.

It was so rarely that Fleda was seen to shed tears that they always were a
signal of dismay to any of the household. There was even agony in Mrs.
Rossitur's voice as she implored her not to give way to them. But
notwithstanding that, Fleda's tears came this time from too deep a spring
to be stopped at once.

"It makes me feel as if all was lost, Fleda, when I see you do so,"--

Fleda put her arms about her neck and whispered that "she would not"--that
"she should not"--

Yet it was a little while before she could say any more.

"But, aunt Lucy, he doesn't know what he is doing!"

"No--and I can't make him know. I cannot say anything more, Fleda--it
would do no good. I don't know what is the matter--he is entirely changed
from what he used to be--"

"I know what is the matter," said Fleda, now turning comforter in her turn
as her aunt's tears fell more quietly, because more despairingly, than her
own,--"I know what it is--he is not happy;--that is all. He has not
succeeded well in these farm doings, and he wants money, and he is
worried--it is no wonder if he don't seem exactly as he used to."

"And oh, that troubles me most of all!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "The farm is
bringing in nothing, I know,--he don't know how to get along with it,--I
was afraid it would be so;--and we are paying nothing to uncle Orrin--and
it is just a dead weight on his hands;--and I can't bear to think of
it!--And what will it come to!--"

Mrs. Rossitur was now in her turn surprised into shewing the strength of
her sorrows and apprehensions. Fleda was fain to put her own out of sight
and bend her utmost powers to soothe and compose her aunt, till they could
both go down to the breakfast table. She had got ready a nice little dish
that her uncle was very fond of; but her pleasure in it was all gone; and
indeed it seemed to be thrown away upon the whole table. Half the meal was
over before anybody said a word.

"I am going to wash my hands of these miserable farm affairs," said
Mr. Rossitur.

"Are you?" said his wife.

"Yes,--of all personal concern in them, that is. I am wearied to death
with the perpetual annoyances and vexations, and petty calls upon my
time--life is not worth having at such a rate! I'll have done with it."

"You will give up the entire charge to Lucas?" said Mrs. Rossitur.

[Illustration: "O uncle Rolf, don't have anything to do with him."]

"Lucas!--No!--I wouldn't undergo that man's tongue for another year if
he would take out his wages in talking. I could not have more of it in
that case than I have had the last six months. After money, the thing
that man loves best is certainly the sound of his own voice; and a most
insufferable egotist! No,--I have been talking with a man who wants
to take the whole farm for two years upon shares--that will clear me of
all trouble."

There was sober silence for a few minutes, and then Mrs. Rossitur asked
who it was.

"His name is Didenhover."

"O uncle Rolf, don't have anything to do with him!" exclaimed Fleda.

"Why not?"

"Because he lived with grandpa a great while ago, and behaved very ill.
Grandpa had a great deal of trouble with him."

"How old were you then?"

"I was young, to be sure," said Fleda hanging her head, "but I remember
very well how it was."

"You may have occasion to remember it a second time," said Mr. Rossitur
dryly, "for the thing is done. I have engaged him."

Not another word was spoken.

Mr. Rossitur went out after breakfast, and Mrs. Rossitur busied herself
with the breakfast cups and a tub of hot water, a work she never would let
Fleda share with her and which lasted in consequence long enough, Barby
said, to cook and eat three breakfasts. Fleda and Hugh sat looking at the
floor and the fire respectively.

"I am going up the hill to get a sight of aunt Miriam," said Fleda,
bringing her eyes from the fire upon her aunt.

"Well, dear, do. You have been shut up long enough by the snow. Wrap
yourself up well, and put on my snow-boots."

"No indeed!" said Fleda. "I shall just draw on another pair of stockings
over my shoes, within my India-rubbers--I will take a pair of Hugh's
woollen ones."

"What has become of your own?" said Hugh.

"My own what? Stockings?"

"Snow-boots."

"Worn out, Mr. Rossitur! I have run them to death, poor things. Is that a
slight intimation that you are afraid of the same fate for your socks?"

"No," said Hugh, smiling in spite of himself at her manner,--"I will lend
you anything I have got, Fleda."

His tone put Fleda in mind of the very doubtful pretensions of the socks
in question to be comprehended under the term; she was silent a minute.

"Will you go with me, Hugh?"

"No dear, I can't;--I must get a little ahead with the wood while I can;
it looks as if it would snow again; and Barby isn't provided for more than
a day or two."

"And how for this fire?"

Hugh shook his head, and rose up to go forth into the kitchen. Fleda went
too, linking her arm in his and bearing affectionately upon it, a sort of
tacit saying that they would sink or swim together. Hugh understood it
perfectly.

"I am very sorry you have to do it, dear Hugh--Oh that wood-shed!--If it
had only been made!--"

"Never mind--can't help it now--we shall get through the winter by and
by."

"Can't you get uncle Rolf to help you a little?" whispered Fleda;--"It
would do him good."

But Hugh only shook his head.

"What are we going to do for dinner, Barby?" said Fleda, still holding
Hugh there before the fire.

"Ain't much choice," said Barby. "It would puzzle anybody to spell much
more out of it than pork and ham. There's plenty o' them. _I_ shan't
starve this some time."

"But we had ham yesterday and pork the day before yesterday and ham
Monday," said Fleda. "There is plenty of vegetables, thanks to you and me,
Hugh," she said with a little reminding squeeze of his arm. "I could make
soups nicely, if I had anything to make them of!"

"There's enough to be had for the catching," said Barby. "If I hadn't a
man-mountain of work upon me, I'd start out and shoot or steal something."

"_You_ shoot, Barby!" said Fleda laughing.

"I guess I can do most anything I set my hand to. If I couldn't I'd shoot
myself. It won't do to kill no more o' them chickens."

"O no,--now they are laying so finely. Well, I am going up the hill, and
when I come home I'll try and make up something, Barby."

"Earl Douglass'll go out in the woods now and then, of a day when he
ha'n't no work particular to do, and fetch hum as many pigeons and
woodchucks as you could shake a stick at."

"Hugh, my dear," said Fleda laughing, "it's a pity you aren't a hunter--I
would shake a stick at you with great pleasure. Well, Barby, we will see
when I come home."

"I was just a thinkin," said Barby;--"Mis' Douglass sent round to know if
Mis' Rossitur would like a piece of fresh meat--Earl's been killing a
sheep--there's a nice quarter, she says, if she'd like to have it."

"A quarter of mutton?"--said Fleda,--"I don't know--no, I think not,
Barby; I don't know when we should be able to pay it back again.--And
yet--Hugh, do you think uncle Rolf will kill another sheep this winter?"

"I am sure he will not," said Hugh;--"there have so many died."

"If he only knowed it, that is a reason for killing more," said Barby,--"
and have the good of them while he can."

"Tell Mrs. Douglass we are obliged to her, but we do not want the
mutton, Barby."

Hugh went to his chopping and Fleda set out upon her walk; the lines of
her face settling into a most fixed gravity so soon as she turned away
from the house. It was what might be called a fine winter's day; cold and
still, and the sky covered with one uniform grey cloud. The snow lay in
uncompromising whiteness thick over all the world; a kindly shelter for
the young grain and covering for the soil; but Fleda's spirits just then
in another mood saw in it only the cold refusal to hope and the barren
check to exertion. The wind had cleared the snow from the trees and
fences, and they stood in all their unsoftened blackness and nakedness,
bleak and stern. The high grey sky threatened a fresh fall of snow in a
few hours; it was just now a lull between two storms; and Fleda's spirits,
that sometimes would have laughed in the face of nature's soberness,
to-day sank to its own quiet. Her pace neither slackened nor quickened
till she reached aunt Miriam's house and entered the kitchen.

Aunt Miriam was in high tide of business over a pot of boiling lard, and
the enormous bread-tray by the side of the fire was half full of very
tempting light-brown cruller, which however were little more than a kind
of sweet bread for the workmen. In the bustle of putting in and taking out
aunt Miriam could give her visitor but a word and a look. Fleda pulled off
her hood and sitting down watched in unusual silence the old lady's
operations.

"And how are they all at your house to-day?" aunt Miriam asked as she was
carefully draining her cruller out of the kettle.

Fleda answered that they were as well as usual, but a slight hesitation
and the tell-tale tone of her voice made the old lady look at her more
narrowly. She came near and kissed that gentle brow and looking in her
eyes asked her what the matter was?

"I don't know,--" said Fleda, eyes and voice wavering alike,--"I am
foolish, I believe,--"

Aunt Miriam tenderly put aside the hair from her forehead and kissed it
again, but the cruller was burning and she went back to the kettle.

"I got down-hearted somehow this morning," Fleda went on, trying to steady
her voice and school herself.

"_You_ down-hearted, dear? About what?"

There was a world of sympathy in these words, in the warmth of which
Fleda's shut-up heart unfolded itself at once.

"It's nothing new, aunt Miriam,--only somehow I felt it particularly this
morning,--I have been kept in the house so long by this snow I have got
dumpish I suppose.--"

Aunt Miriam looked anxiously at the tears which seemed to come
involuntarily, but she said nothing.

"We are not getting along well at home."

"I supposed that," said Mrs. Plumfield quietly. "But anything new?"

"Yes--uncle Rolf has let the farm--only think of it!--he has let the farm
to that Didenhover."

"Didenhover!"

"For two years."

"Did you tell him what you knew about him?"

"Yes, but it was too late--the mischief was done."

Aunt Miriam went on skimming out her cruller with a very grave face.

"How came your uncle to do so without learning about him first?"

"O I don't know!--he was in a hurry to do anything that would take the
trouble of the farm off his hands,--he don't like it."

"On what terms has he let him have it?"

"On shares--and I know, I know, under that Didenhover it will bring us in
nothing, and it has brought us in nothing all the time we have been here;
and I don't know what we are going to live upon."--

"Has your uncle nor your aunt no property at all left?"

"Not a bit--except some waste lands in Michigan I believe, that were left
to aunt Lucy a year or two ago; but they are as good as nothing."

"Has he let Didenhover have the saw-mill too?"

"I don't know--he didn't say--if he has there will be nothing at all left
for us to live upon. I expect nothing from Didenhover,--his face is
enough. I should have thought it might have been for uncle Rolf. O if it
wasn't for aunt Lucy and Hugh I shouldn't care!--"

"What has your uncle been doing all this year past?"

"I don't know, aunt Miriam,--he can't bear the business and he has left
the most of it to Lucas; and I think Lucas is more of a talker than a
doer. Almost nothing has gone right. The crops have been ill managed--I do
not know a great deal about it, but I know enough for that; and uncle Rolf
did not know anything about it but what he got from books. And the sheep
are dying off--Barby says it is because they were in such poor condition
at the beginning of winter, and I dare say she is right."

"He ought to have had a thorough good man at the beginning, to get
along well."