Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/535

1858.] pretty behaved; but she wasn’t no gret for beauty, anyhow, only I thought the world of her, and so did her old grandmother;—for her mother died when she wa’n’t but two year old, and she lived to old Miss Buel’s ’cause her father had married agin away down to Jersey.

“Arter a spell I got over bein’ so mighty sheepish about Hetty; her ways was too kindly for me to keep on that tack. We took to goin’ to singin’-school together; then I always come home from quiltin’-parties and conference-meetin’s with her, because ’twas handy, bein’ right next door; and so it come about that I begun to think of settlin’ down for life, and that was the start of all my troubles. I couldn’t take the home farm; for ’twas such poor land, father could only jest make a live out on’t for him and me. Most of it was pastur’, gravelly land, full of mullens and stones; the rest was principally woodsy,—not hickory, nor oak neither, but hemlock and white birches, that a’n’t of no account for timber nor firing, ’longside of the other trees. There was a little strip of a medder-lot, and an orchard up on the mountain, where we used to make redstreak cider that beat the Dutch; but we hadn’t pastur’ land enough to keep more’n two cows, and altogether I knew ’twasn’t any use to think of bringin’ a family on to’t. So I wrote to Parmely’s husband, out West, to know about Government lands, and what I could do ef I was to move out there and take an allotment; and gettin’ an answer every way favorable, I posted over to Miss Buel’s one night arter milkin’ to tell Hetty. She was settin’ on the south door-step, braidin’ palm-leaf; and her grandmother was knittin’ in her old chair, a little back by the window. Sometimes, a-lyin’ here on my back, with my head full o’ sounds, and the hot wind and the salt sea-smell a-comin’ in through the winders, and the poor fellers groanin’ overhead, I get clear away back to that night, so cool and sweet; the air full of treely smells, dead leaves like, and white-blows in the ma’sh below; and wood-robins singin’ clear fine whistles in the woods; and the big sweetbrier by the winder all a-flowered out; and the drippin’ little beads of dew on the clover-heads; and the tinklin’ sound of the mill-dam down to Squire Turner’s mill.

“I set down by Hetty; and the old woman bein’ as deaf as a post, it was as good as if I’d been there alone. So I mustered up my courage, that was sinkin’ down to my boots, and told Hetty my plans, and asked her to go along. She never said nothin’ for a minute; she flushed all up as red as a rose, and I see her little fingers was shakin’, and her eye-winkers shiny and wet; but she spoke presently, and said,—

“ ‘I can’t, Eben!’

“I was shot betwixt wind and water then, I tell you, Doctor! ’Twa’n’t much to be said, but I’ve allers noticed afloat that real dangersome squalls comes on still; there’s a dumb kind of a time in the air, the storm seems to be waitin’ and boldin’ its breath, and then a little low whisper of wind,—a cat’s paw we call ’t,—and then you get it real ’arnest. I’d rather she’d have taken on, and cried, and scolded, than have said so still, ‘I can’t, Eben.’

“ ‘Why not, Hetty?’ says I.

“ ‘I ought not to leave grandmother,’ said she.

“I declare, I hadn’t thought o’ that! Miss Buel was a real infirm woman without kith nor kin, exceptin’ Hetty; for Jason Buel he’d died down to Jersey long before; and she hadn’t means. Hetty nigh about kept ’em both since Miss Buel bad grown too rheumatic to make cheese and see to the hens and cows, as she used to. They didn’t keep any mon-folks now, nor but one cow; Hetty milked her, and drove her to pastur’, and fed the chickens, and braided bats, and did chores. The farm was all sold off; ’twas poor land, and didn’t fetch much; but what there was went to keep ’em in vittles and firin’. I guess Hetty ’arnt most of what they lived on, arter all.

“ ‘Well,’ says I, after a spell of thinkin’, ‘can’t she go along too, Hetty?’

“ ‘Oh, no, Eben! she’s too old; she