The Country of the Pointed Firs

S >> Sarah Orne Jewett >> The Country of the Pointed Firs

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

XVII

A Country Road

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our new acquaintance flushed with pleasure, but said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"She resembles Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about the forehead," said
Mrs. Todd with decision.

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

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

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

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

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

"I just saw a nice plant o' elecampane growin' back there,"
she said presently to her daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XVIII

The Bowden Reunion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't he do well?" answered Mrs. Todd with satisfaction.

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

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

"Stim'lates," she explained scornfully.

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

"I expect you're near right," said Mrs. Caplin, a little
crestfallen and apologetic.

"I be right," insisted Mrs. Todd with much amiability. "'Twas
most too bad to cramp him down to his peaceful trade, but he's a
most excellent shoemaker at his best, an' he always says it's a
trade that gives him time to think an' plan his maneuvers. Over to
the Port they always invite him to march Decoration Day, same as
the rest, an' he does look noble; he comes of soldier stock."

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