The Apparition of Gran'ther Hill

IT was near the middle of July, and haymaking in Danvis was well under way. Even Joseph Hill was hard at it, as he said, and about nine o’clock of a morning that promised an unbroken hay-day was walking at a leisurely pace along the shaven sward between the Standing grass on the left and the yet unwilted swath on his right. His hired help, Pelatiah Gove and Antoine Bisette, were mowing around a piece on the further side of the ten-acre meadow ; but he preferred to “ carry his swaths,” which gave his back long intervals of rest from bending, and afforded opportunities of sweetening toil with scraps of conversation when a neighbor passed along the highway, to whose border he returned, to strike in anew after the slow and restful walk. Now, as he sauntered along, his scythe hanging easily on his arm, he contemplated with a yeoman’s honest pride the broad, even path he had mown, and the straight, regular swath of herd’s-grass dappled with the yellow and white of daisies, and blushing with purple clover-heads and scarlet splashes of overripe strawberries. He kicked aside the swath to see if it was neatly “p’inted aout,” then stooped to pick up a tempting bunch of strawberries.

“ Sam Hill ! he exclaimed, nibbling them from the stem as he resumed his deliberate progress. “ Hain’t the’ snarls on ’em ! Why, M’ri’ an’ Ruby might gather a ten-quart pailf’l on ’em right aout’n the swaths, — seems’s ’ough they might, ’most. I snum, I’d stop an’ pick some on ’em myself, if I hed me a dish an’ wa’n’t so ’tarnal busy.”

When he reached the edge of the field, Pelatiah and Antoine began sharpening their scythes at the farthest corner of their lessening parallelogram, and as his ear caught the sound he dropped the end of his snath upon the ground, drew the emery-clad wooden “ rifle ” from the long pocket of his tow-cloth trousers, and, with intent eyes and a critical left thumb on the scythe’s edge, began whetting it from heel to point.

“ If they spend half o’ the’ time raspin’ the’ ol’ peahooks, guess I c’n ’ford tu tech up mine a leetle mite, seems ’s ’ougli,” he said, as his blade rang an echo to theirs. “ It’s a dollar a day, an’ no hangin’ for stealin’.”

The bobolinks were in their gay motley plumage, and as jolly as became such attire. Their songs mingled with the musical clangor of the whetted scythes, as the gay minstrels hung on vibrant wings above their brooding mates, or swayed on the nodding herd’s-grass heads. A meadow lark, perched on a haycock, turning his escutcheoned breast to the sun, uttered notes as metallic as those the scythes gave forth, hut less musical. Flashing through the foliage of a roadside elm, an oriole broke the sweet, plaintive cadence of his brief song with a discordant chatter, evoked perhaps by some intruder, perhaps by a disappointment over the unmusical promise of his unfledged offspring’s three lugubrious notes reiterated with tiresome monotony, while the silent mother came and went in an endless round of food gathering and delivering.

“ What ’s a-troublin’ of ye, this mornin’, Mr. Hangbird ? ” Joseph inquired, looking towards the elm. Presently he descried the canopy of a blue umbrella slowly rising above the crest of a hill. “Wal, I snore, if’t hain’t Mis’ Pur’n’t’n,” he declared, after a few moments’ study of the approaching figure as it became more fully revealed. “ Wonder where she’s a-shoolin’ tu. Up tu aour haouse, like’s not. Like ’nough up t’ Solon’s, I d’ know.” He laid down the scythe, and refreshed himself with a draught of switchel from a wooden canteen which he drew from its covering of grass in a shady fence corner. This once popular but now obsolete summer drink of temperate haymakers was compounded of molasses and water, with a dash of vinegar and a spice of ginger, and was supposed to be less hurtful than water to heated men. Therefore, Joseph, considering his liability to “ git het.” providently supplied himself with it. Having quenched his thirst, he rasped his face with a red-and-yellow cotton handkerchief carried in the crown of his palm-leaf hat, and leaned upon the fence to await the coming of the passer-by. Presently she waddled into short range of speech, her flushed face and labored breath seeming to diffuse added heat in the fervid atmosphere. Her eyes were intent on the smooth footpath between the ditch and the wheel-track, and she was not aware of Joseph’s presence till he accosted her.

“ Mornin’, Mis’ Pur’n’t’n. Where on this livin’ airth be you p’inted for, this hot mornin’ ? ”

“ Why, sakes alive! ” she gasped, coming to a ponderous, quaking halt. “ What’s the use o’ scarin’ anybody aouten the’ seben senses ? My, I never seen ye till I heard ye, an’ I putty nigh jumped aouten my shoes. I’m rwusted, an’ I ’m cornin’ over there int’ the shade. I was just a-thinkin’ I ’d ortu seddaown an’ rest me. Ther’ hain’t no bumblebees ner was’s nests ner nothin’, is the’ ? ”

“ Don’t seem tu be none,” said Joseph, after casual inspection of the premises.

With this assurance she descended into the dry ditch, and, assisting herself with a pudgy hand on her uplifted knee, climbed up the opposite bank, set her open blue umbrella upside down on the ferns and buttercups, and seated herself on a convenient cradle knoll in the shadow of the fence-side raspberry-bushes.

“So you ’re a-hayin’ of it, be ye?” she said, peeping between the rails into the meadow. “Wal, he is tew. Ho, hum, sussy day! I allers du dread hayin’ dretf’I. it does make sech a lot o’ work for the women folks; men folks does eat so, an’ so many on ’em ! Haow’s your father? We heerd las’ night ’at he was kinder failin’, an’ I told him I’d got tu gwup an’ see fer myself ; an’ so this mornin’ I told Sis she ’d got tu git along some way, an’ I jest put on my things, an’ off I come ; for I knowed if I could n’t du nothin’ much wi’ my han’s, feeble’s I be, I c’ld chirk him up some, an’ Mis’ Hill, which she must hev her han’s putty nigh full an’ anxious in her mind. Haow’d ye say he was ? ”

“ Oh, wal,” said Joseph slowly, embracing the first opportunity to answer, “ father hain’t not tu say sick, an’ then agin he hain’t ezackly what you might call well. He’s ben a lee-tle mite off’m the hooks tew three days ; the hot weather ’s kinder took a holt on him, I guess. I don’t b’lieve but what he ’ll come raound all right agin in a day er tew.”

Mrs. Purington’s sunbonnet shook with funereal solemnity, and she heaved a deep sigh.

“ Don’t flatter yourself. At his time o’ life, he’s lierble tu go any minute ; an’ givin’ way tu his temper the way he does, I don’t ’spect nothin’ but what he’ll go in a fit o’ the arteplack. It’ll be terrible onpleasant tu hev him pass away right in hayin’, a fun’r’l does break things up so. But we can’t order sech things. My sakes, if there hain’t a ripe rosb’ry!” as she spied the first ripe berry of its kind and reached forth to secure it. “ Who’d ever ha’ thought o’ rosb’ries gittin’ ripe ? Ho, hum, haow time does fly, an’ aour lives is but a span! I urns’ send Sis aout tu see ’f she c’n git ’nough fer a mess. I s’pose you give your father bwunset ? An’ prarbably you’ve bed him the darkter ? ”

“ Wal, he’s took some hisself,” Joseph answered. “ Ye can’t ezackly give him nothin’. He won’t let ye. No, he won’t hev no darkter erless he ’ll bleed him, which there don’t seem no sense in, seems ’s ’ough there wa’n’t, ’cause, ye see, he hain’t full-blooded. It don’t seem’s if he’d hev the arteplack, sca’cely.”

“You can’t never tell,” Mrs. Purington sighed. “ It tackles fat an’ lean. Time cuts daown all, bwutb gre’t an’ small. Is your grass tol’able good ? His’n is.”

“ Bunkum,” Joseph declared with unwonted decision, which he hastened to qualify. “Leastways, consid’able more ’n middlin’, for all the’ ’s lots o’ stob’ries, which hain’t a sign o’ heavy grass. If it’s baries ye want, you c’ld pick up a bushil aouten the swaths. I d’ know as a bushil, ezackly ; fo’, five, half dozen quarts, mebby. Say, I swan. Mis’ Pur’n’t’n, the’ is a was’s nes right in under the — le’ me see — one, tew, three, fo’, five — the fif’ rail f’m the top, on the len’th right behind ye. Don’t, ye git scairt; go kinder easy, an’ not wake ’em up.”

She hesitated not on tlie manner of her departure, but rolled off her seat to the verge of the ditch, into which she dropped her feet, and, scrambling up the further bank on all fours, regained the road. There, resuming an upright position, she began vigorously to shake her skirts and cuff tlie sides of her sunbonnet.

“ Wal, I b’lieve the’ hain’t none in my clo’s ner nothin’ ! ” she exclaimed at last. “ But wa’n’t I scairt, though ? I be dretf’l ’feard o’ was’s an’ bees, they swell up so on me. I do’ know but I ’xposed some o’ my limbs, but you ’ll hafter ’xcuse me on ’caount o’ the was’s nes’ an’ your father’s health. Naow. if you c’n git a holt o’ my umbrel, an’ tost it tu me, mebby I c’n git away ’thaout gittin’ stung tu death.”

Joseph grunted as he reached far across the fence to perform this service, and then, having recovered his breath, he said, “If you see bub, you jest tell him tu hurry up an’ come an’ shake aout this ’ere grass, an’ fer him tu fetch a fork, ’cause the’ hain’t none here. I do’ know why in tunket he don’t come, fer the dew’s ben off an haour.”

“ Prarbably his mother’s a-keepin’ on him tu send fer the darkter or the neighbors. An’ I s’pose Josier begretclies ev’y minute away f’m his gran’ther. He ‘11 miss him more ’n ’most any of ye.” Then sheltering herself under the umbrella, Mrs. Purington resumed her laborious progress.

“ Gosh, what a woman ! ” Joseph ejaculated when he had watched her a moment. “Won’t father give her hail Columby, though, if she gits tu mournin’ over him ! ” Then his eyes wandered to the flat-pressed herbage of the cradle knoll and the inverted gray cone beneath the adjacent fence rail, and he chuckled wheezily, “ I guess it’s an ol’ last year’s one, arter all. My, if it hed n’t ’a’ ben ! Wal, I s’pose I must buckle tu.” So after trimming out the fence corner with a few short strokes, he struck into his swath with long, regular sweeps whose graceful movement was strangely in contrast to his ordinary turtle-like motions.

With a like movement, yet each with a distinctive if slight difference, the tall angular young American and the lithe and graceful little Canadian swung their scythes in unison, with one croppingswish of the cutting stroke that piled half a summer’s growth of stalk, leaf, and blossom in a lengthening line of common ruin, and disturbed labor and revel of busy bee and idle moth. With one faint ring like bells of fairyland, the two scythes swung back to the standing grass. There was no break in these regularly recurrent sounds, except when a corner was reached, or the scythes were whetted, or there was brief decisive battle with a swarm of bumblebees that made the air seethe with their angry murmur, and hot with the pungent odor of their wrath. Angry buzz and burnt honey incense faded out when the bees were trampled to death, and the conquerors sucked their meagre spoils out of the brown combs.

Thus an hour or more passed with the haymakers, while the bobolinks sang their jubilant medley, the oriole mingled music with scolding, the meadow lark struck his brief metallic notes, and the kingbird uttered sharp, accelerated monotony of clatter as he poised in rapid survey of the grassy coverts or swooped upon his insect game. Then there came a sudden untimely blast of a dinnerhorn, sounding an imperative call in its first note, prolonged to a wail of distress, and ending in sputtering failure of breath and tense lips.

Antoine stopped at the end of a stroke, and turned inquiring eyes and ears toward the house, while Pelatiah, in the lead, conscientiously carried out his swath before he stopped to look and listen in the direction of the unexpected signal.

“ Bah gosh ! ” Antoine exclaimed, letting out his restrained breath after a moment of silence. “ All guess Marri got hees clock go too fas’, prob’ly, or less de bee was swarmin’, an’t he prob’ly ? ”

“ Wal, ’t ain’t nowher’s nigh noon,” Pelatiah said, looking up to the sun. “ If it’s bees, they hain’t wuth fussin’ with.

1 A swarm in July hain’t wtith a fly.’ Wonder what the rip is ? ”

“ Boys, did ye hear the horn ? ” their employer asked anxiously, as he came wading through the grass toward them. “ Le’s hyper up tu the haouse. I’m afeard the’ ’s suthin’ the matter.”

Pelatiah at once slipped his scythe under the swath and was ready to accompany him, but Antoine whetted his scythe and again struck in.

“ Hain’t ye goin’ with us I ” Joseph asked.

“ No,” he answered, with abrupt decision. “ Ah ’ll an’t never wan’ go where anybody sick, an’ if dey goin’ to dead, oh ! mon Dieu, no ! ” and he applied himself to his work with nervous diligence, while the others went their way.

Joseph Hill’s usually cheerful face was shadowed by a cloud of anxiety, as he set forth toward the house at his best pace across the intervening strip of cleared meadow, where the new-fangled, half-distrusted revolving horse-rake, just from Morrison’s shop, lay in idle conspicuity, with its double rows of wooden teeth shining in the sun. Its owner gave it but a passing glance that brought no thrill of proud possession, but rather a twinge of remorse for having bought it against the will of his father, who spurned it as a “ consarned flippertyflop, rattle-trap, Tory thingum - a-jig, with teeth a - p’intin’ both ways.” It seemed to Joseph that his legs were never so short nor the stubble so slippery, especially when his active companion quickly overtook him.

“Father’s hed a wuss spell, I ’ll bet ye what’s the matter,” he panted, struggling to keep abreast of Pelatiah. “ He did n’t git mad nary oncte this mornin’, which it showed he wa’n’t a-feelin’ jest right someways. I ’d a grea’ deal livser hev him ’an tu not tu. Lord, haow I should miss him if he should be took away ! ” Joseph was obliged to get the cotton handkerchief from his hat and wipe the sweat from his eyes, for the house, though now only ten rods off, was swimming in a watery haze that made doors and windows indistinguishable.

Mrs. Purington toiled up the path leading to the kitchen door of the Hill homestead, bestowing a glance of severe disapproval on the ill-timed efflorescence of the hollyhocks and the gorgeousness of the tiger lilies, then lowered her umbrella as a shield against the attack of an old hen who charged upon her furiously through a brood of frightened chicks, more endangered by defender than by invader.

“There, there, you plagued ol’ fool, you,” she addressed her baffled adversary, who was now making a prodigious fuss of scratching and clucking to collect her scattered brood, one member of which had been nearly trampled to death under her own feet. “ You see what comes o’ not tendin’ t’ y’ own business.” Mrs. Purington moved forward, running a critical eye over a flock of older chickens now in the ugliness and imbecility of half - growth, and uttering yelps of perpetual discontent when they were not making awkward sallies in pursuit of a moth or a grasshopper. “ They hain’t no forreder ’n aourn, nor no more on ’em,” she remarked as she reached the door, and, furling her umbrella, she bent forward to look and listen before she entered.

There was a sound of water briskly splashed and a squeaky breaking of leaf stalks, of quick footsteps moving intermittently to and fro mingled with a cautious clatter of the stove and the contented bubbling of a boiling pot that exhaled a savory odor of cooking pork, which the visitor sniffed with satisfaction when she saw that Ruby Hill was washing beet greens at the sink. She mentally formulated the bill of fare and a declaration of intention : —

“ B’iled pork an’ beet greens! I ’m goin’ tu stay tu dinner, if it is hayin’.” Then she wheezily announced herself.

“Mornin’, Marier ! Wal, here I be, what the’ is left on me, arter br’ilin’ in sun, tu say nothin’ o’ raslin’ wi’ was’s. My, if’t ain’t hot ! ” Gran’ther Hill’s great splint-bottomed chair received her unaccustomed weight with a protesting creak as Maria turned from the stove to her guest, her face changing from the frown of heat-battling to an expression of surprise, while Ruby cast a frightened glance, a nod, and a murmured salutation over her shoulder.

“ Why, for all this work ! ” said Maria. “ That’s right, set ri’ daown and rest ye. Le’ me take your bunnit. Pretty well, be ye, an’ all of ’em at hum ? ”

“No, you need n’t take my bunnit. I ’ll jest hang it on the cheer,” said Mrs. Purington with the air of a martyr, as she fumbled at her bonnet - strings. “ I don’t s’pose I c’n stop long erless it seems ne’ssary; but it did seem’s if I mus’ come, if ’t wa’n’t only tu call. Be you feelin’ putty scrumptious, Ruby ? I should n’t s’pose you would, a-growin’ so. It hain’t healthy tu grow so fast. I should think you ’d let aout the tuck in her dress, Marier. My sakes, if there hain’t a beet half ’s big as a hen’s aig! An’ we hain’t hed us a mess yit. No, sir, not a green, sence caowslops an’ dand’lierns went by. I s’pect aour beets hain’t ben wed as they ’d ortu ben. He hain’t no hand for a garding, like your father Hill. Ho, hum, sussy day ! But I s’pose he’s goddone wi’ all that. You won’t hev no sech beets next year. Haow does he ’pear tn be ? ” sinking her voice to a gasping whisper. “ I come up a puppus tu enquire. We heard yist’day ’at he was terrible mis’able.”

“ Why, no,” Maria answered in a lowered voice, seating herself in front of her visitor and adjusting the tall comb in her back hair, “ he don’t seem tu he bad off. He hed a kinder poor turn day ’fore yist’day, an’ he’s ben keepin’ consid’able quiet sence. He ’s ben sleepin’ ’most all the mornin’. Bub’s in there a-keepin’ the flies off of him.”

Mrs. Purington shook her head solemnly, and slowly lifted herself by the arms of the chair. Then, with a cautionary hand raised to enjoin silence, she waddled carefully across to the bedroom door and peered in long and anxiously. Then she disappeared within, to come forth presently in haste, with an awe-stricken countenance, and in a voice befitting it she said, “ Marier Hill, he ’s a dyin’ man! He lays there julluk a lawg, an’ he’s slipped daown in the bed ; an’ I took a holt o’ one o’ his feet, an’ it’s jest as cold as a stun, an’ bloated up jest as hard as a stick o’ wood. I tell ye he hain’t long for this world ! You jest come an’ look at him ! ”

Maria followed her in a tremor of alarm, and poor Ruby, sick with horror of the mysterious presence which seemed about to confront her, hovered close in the rear, afraid to follow and afraid to be left alone.

“ You c’n see for yourself,” Mrs. Purington whispered, with constrained calmness. “ You see that ’ere fly a-walkin’ on his nose, an’ him never a-winkin’. You see haow his fingers keeps a-workin’, an’ he’s all slid daown in the bed, an’ his feet as col’ as chunks o’ ice. I tell ye he’s struck wi’ death, an’ you hed n’t ortu lose a minute a-callin’ in Joseph an’ ’mongst ’em, if they ’re tu see him a livin’ man. It ’s arteplack ; jest what I told Joseph ’ould take his father, as I come along.”

The grim face of the veteran was umvontedly serene as he lay breathing heavily in the deep sleep of age, and now a smile flickered across it like a glint of sunlight on the wintry ruggedness of a mountain, as if he had pleasant dreams or happy visions. His favorite grandson and namesake sat beside him idly brushing the flies away with a feathery asparagus stalk, tired of his inactive duty, and wishing his grandfather would awake and tell a story. But now he turned a wondering, scared face toward the visitor; then, as he comprehended the awful import of her words, he dropped the brush across the bed, and, lightly touching the nearest brown and withered old hand with his browner, grimy young fingers, he buried his face in the patchwork quilt, repeating silently again and again a fervent, untaught prayer, amid smothered, choking sobs : “ O God, don’t let gran’tker die ! Don’t ye ! Don’t ye ! ”

He did not hear Mrs. Purington’s whispered errand : “ Josier, your father tol’ me tu tell you tu come ri’ daown int’ the medder, an’ go tu shakin’ aout the swaths, but I hain’t the heart tu.” He heard his mother’s rapidly retreating footsteps click on the doorstone, and then the untimely blast of the dinnerhorn smote his ear like a funeral knell.

Gran’ther Hill half opened his eyes in an unseeing stare, then closed them and lapsed again into quiet sleep.

“ He don’t take no noticte o’ nothin’,” Mrs. Purington sighed.

Before long Josiah heard the guarded clump of his father’s and Pelatiah’s boots upon the kitchen floor; then, by the restrained, labored breathing and whispered inquiries and responses, he knew that they were crowded into the little bedroom whose narrow confines Mrs. Purington’s portly presence had seemed to fill already to their utmost capacity.

It was not apparent to Joseph that any great change had occurred in his father’s condition, but Mrs. Purington having become an authority on mortuary affairs through frequent attendance at death-beds and funerals, he had no idea of questioning her opinions.

“ It seems ’s ’ough I ’d got tu speak tu him,” he whispered, his face working with painfully restrained emotion.

“The’ hain’t no use o’ disturbin’ his last moments,” Mrs. Purington whispered authoritatively; and Joseph tried to appease his filial yearning by a clumsy, mannish adjustment of the quilt, which was viewed with severe toleration by Mrs. Purington. Pelatiah heaved a few sympathetic sighs, and retired to the kitchen, emphasizing each careful footfall by a downward sway of head and body, till he reached a chair, and carefully lowered himself into it. After a vain attempt to engage his mind in the study of the almanac which hung by the clock, he tried the better plan of doing something helpful, and made separate, supposedly noiseless journeys to the well and cistern to replenish the water-pails, although he had found neither empty. With the same purpose, Ruby strove to employ herself, wondering if it would be decorous to begin setting the table, and wishing she might be sent to summon the younger children home from school, to help her bear the misery of this awful waiting, until both were called into the bedroom by an imperative gesture of Mrs. Purington.

There was crowded standing-room for the solemn company between the bedstead, the oilcloth - covered light-stand, and the cherry-wood chest of drawers, whereon lay the worn and ancient family Bible, open at one of the stormiest chapters of the Old Testament. It might have seemed to some that a recently developed turn for Biblical research was one of the most alarming symptoms of Gran’ther Hill’s illness. In an unstable position on the edge of the chest there was an unfinished axe-helve awaiting the last touches of the veteran’s hands. Last night’s candle stood on the stand, the extinguisher half revealing a portentous winding-sheet which had formed during the last burning; and even while Mrs. Purington silently called attention to this ominous sign still another was given. A phœbe - bird hovered a moment at the open window, then flew in and caught a fly in an airy loop of flight that ended in a misjudged dash against the raised sash. In attempting to wallow her way around from the foot of the bed to expel the fluttering intruder, Mrs. Purington struck an end of the axe-helve, and it fell to the floor with a sharp, resonant clatter that aroused the old man.

With wide-opened eyes he cast a glance of stern inquiry around upon the sadfaced group. “ What in time be ye all a-gawpin’ at ? ” he sternly demanded in a strong voice. “ Be ye all dumb, or why don’t ye answer ? ”

Mrs. Purington ventured to take upon herself the office of spokeswoman, and said, with awful solemnity, “ Capting Hill, we thought you was a-dyin’, an’ I hed Marier call the men folks.”

“Ye did, hey? An’ wliat if I was? Did n’t you s’pose I c’ld ’tend tu it ? Called in the men folks from hayin’ ? If I’d ha’ got killed tu Hubbar’t’n or Bennin’t’n, du you s’pose they’d ha’ quit fightin’ an’ stood ’raound tu gawp at me a-dyin’ ? An’ ’t would ha’ ben a ’tarnal sight more consequence then ’an ’t is naow.”

“ Your feet was jes’ as cold as stuns,” Mrs. Purington added, as she ran a groping hand beneath the bedclothes, “an’ so they be naow.”

“ You hain’t got a holt o’ no foot,” Gran’ther Hill chuckled hoarsely. “ It’s a freestun Marier put in tu warm ’em las’ night.” And, drawing up his knee, he gave a vigorous kick that tumbled the stone out with a dull thud upon Mrs. Purington’s fat foot, and drew from her an agonized shriek. “ I’m glad on’t, I swear I be, ye ol’ carri’n crow ! ” the old man roared in savage rejoicing. “Clear aouten here, the hull b’ilin’ on ye ! No, you don’t wanter go,” he added in a softer tone to Josiah, who was crying now for joy at the sudden and promising change in his grandfather’s symptoms.

“ It’s awful, dretful! A man at your time o’ life, wi’ one foot in tlie grave! ” Mrs. Purington whimpered, as she limped out of the bedroom in the rear of the departing company.

“ I hain’t a man o’ my time o’ life, an’ I hain’t nary foot in nothin’,” he growled after her, and, suiting action to his last words, he sat upright, and threw his sturdy old legs out of bed.

“ Gi’ me my breeches, bub. Why. the ’tarnal fools scairt ye, did n’t they ? ” He put an unwontedly gentle band on the tousled, sun-faded tow head. “There, don’t ye cry, sonny. They won’t git no fun’al aouten yer ol’ gran’ther till he’s larnt ye tu shoot an’ tu ketch a traout, an’ hev lots o’ fun wi’ ye.”

Through tears and smiles, as in a shower and sunshine, the boy had a bright vision of his reënthroned idol.

“ I ruther guess me an’ Pelatiah hed better hev us a cold bite,” Joseph said in a subdued voice, as he took a longing sniff of the fragrance of the boiling greens. k’ We can’t sca’cely ’ford tu wait for dinner, an’ it won’ ezackly pay tu come up a puppus for ’t quite so soon, it don’t seem ’s ’ongh. An’ we ’ll take suthin’ long for Antwine. The pork an’ greens ’ll be fust chop for supper.”

“ Men folks hed ortu hev a su’stantial warm dinner, an’ so hed anybody ’at’s ben ex’cisin’ a-walkin’,” said the visitor.

But the two men began eating their lunch standing at the pantry shelf where it was set by Maria, and, quickly finishing it, went afield. No move was made toward getting dinner, and an angry growl was heard issuing from the bedroom. Casting a regretful look upon the boiling pots, Mrs. Purington hastily departed, with the umbrella under her arm, tying her sunbonnet as she walked down the path.

With but little help from his grandson, Gran’ther Hill donned his suit of homespun, and, with convincing thumps of his staff, stamped forth into the kitchen. His face wore a genial expression, nevertheless triumphant and defiant; and Josiah, following close at his heels, was radiant with joy, in spite of the fear that he might now be sent to the hayfield.

Maria and her daughter had set the untasted dishes of pork, greens, and potatoes to cool on the draughtiest shelf of the pantry, and were sitting in a bewilderment of unexpected rest, when the old man entered.

“ Wal, naow you hain’t never ben tu dinner, Marier ? ” he demanded, looking sharply at the clock, the cleared stove, and empty table. “ So I skeered them back int’ the lot, did I ? ” he chuckled, when his daughter-in-law had explained the situation. “ An’ that ’ere Pur’n’t’n womern, hes she cleared aout tew ? Wal, I done almighty well. By the Lord Harry, I won’t furnish no fun’als for that ol’ carri’n crow’s long’s I c’n help it! An’ mind ye, Marier, if ever I du die, don’t ye let her know it for a week. I want tu cheat her aouten that fun. Lord, it always makes me swearin’ mad tu see her a-lookin’ at corpses as if she owned ’em ! ‘ Viewin’ the re-mains,’ she calls it. Hunh! Or’n’ry, every-day dead folks hain’t remains. All ‘at ever you could see is there just’s it allers was. If she ’d ha’ ben tu Hubbar’t’n er Bennin’t’n er where Injins hed ben hellin’ raound, she’d ha’ seen remains. Folks blowed all tu flinders, an’ women wi’ the’ skelps tore off. Them’s remains. Remains ! The cussed ol’ fat fool! ” He shook out the words in a bass tremolo of anger, and then in a milder voice declared, “ I smelt greens a-b’ilin’, an’ I want some on ’em. In the butt’ry, be they ? No, you jes’ keep yer settin’, Marier, an’ me an’ bub ’ll help aourselves. Come on, bub.”

“ Seems ’s ’ougli it’s most tew hearty victuals for anybody ’at’s feeble,” Maria suggested timidly.

“ Sho, Marier ! Gardin sass’s the healthiest victuals the’ is. Don’t woo’chucks eat it ? An’ did you ever hear tell o’ a woo’chuck’s dyin’ erless he was killed ? Who’s feeble ? If bub is, he need n’t eat none ’thout he’s a min’ ter.”

The pantry door closed behind the grandsire and grandson, who at once gave themselves up so entirely to the business in hand that no sound was heard from that quarter but the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of the vinegar cruet, and an occasional clearing of Gran’ther Hill’s throat when it was too liberally irrigated with an overdose of vinegar. When at last they came forth, with satisfied faces and wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands, Josiah the younger at once went to roost on the edge of a chair, with his feet on the top round, and began to settle into torpid contentment. He was not long permitted to enjoy it, for his grandfather, after taking his own hat from its peg and putting it on, drew the boy’s tattered straw hat toward him from its latest place of deposit, with the point of his staff, and thrust it upon the owner’s head with such force that the surprised youngster barely saved himself from pitching headlong upon the floor. When half-way across the room he halted a stumbling run, and turned to stare with dazed eyes between parted crown and brim on the grimly amused face of his grandfather.

“ I s’pect your father wants ye daown ’n the medder,” his mother suggested.

“ He hain’t a-goin’ daown intu no medder erless I tell him tu. He ’s a-goin’ along wi’ me,” the aged autocrat announced, as he stamped and thumped his way to the door ; and Josiah hoped that they might be going fishing, though the blazing beat promised no success.

“ Why, father, you hain’t never goin’ aout in the heat o’ the day, be ye ? Where be you goin’ ? You hed n’t ortu, old as you be an’ sick as you ’ve ben.”

“ Old as I be ? ” he growled scornfully. “ I ’m younger ’n any on ye. Sick ? I hain’t ben sick. Hot ? Don’t ye s’pose a man ’at’s lived in V’mont ever sence white folks come tu stay knows a leetle suthin’ ’baout what sort o’ weather he c’n gwaout in? ’T ain’t hot. It’s jest comf’t’ble, an’ I hain’t grease ner pitch. I guess I sha’n’t melt. Where be I a-goin’ ? Mebby I’m a-goin’ tu bary myself, an’ mebby I’m a-goin’ tu look up a good place tu. Come on, bub.”

With his grandson at his heels, he marched down the dooryard path, supremely indifferent to the attack of the Dominique Amazon who charged at his lean shanks only to be poked contemptuously aside by a two-handed thrust of his staff; and his daughter-in-law, ready to cry with worry, watched him to the corner from which the road ran past the hayfield, where he was hidden by a group of cherry-trees, in which a throng of jealous robins and a pair of red-headed woodpeckers were bickering for the first reddening fruit.

“ He ’ll git het or sunstruck, an’ everybody’ll blame it ontu me,” she sighed, turning wearily away, and taking her apron from a chair-back with one hand, while with the other she groped for a pin on the bosom of her gown.

“ I tell ye, bub,” Gran’ther Hill con-, fided to his grandson, as he slackened his pace for his escort to come beside him, “ I’m a-goin’ daown int’ the medder tu show ’em haow tu hay it. Folks naowerdays do’ know haow, erless they won’t, but I ’ll show ’em, or I ’ll make ’em, bub.” He stopped, and bent an impressive glance upon the boy’s upturned face. “ It ’ll be suthin’ for ye tu tell on, when ye git growed up, haow ’t your gran’ther was a-dyin’ in the fo’noon, an’ went an’ pitched hay in the art’noon.” He chuckled hoarsely, and, after giving the idea time for digestion, continued, as he began an abstracted search in his pockets, “ They hain’t no kind of a team, your father an’ that ’ere Gove boy an’ that ’ere Frenchman. I don’t see what Jozeff was a-thinkin’ on tu hire him. They hain’t goo’ for nothin’. I know ’em. Blast ’em ! When we went tu Canerdy an’ fit for ’em, they jest humped up tu hum, ov’ their pea soup an’ inions, an’ let us freeze an’ starve an’ du the fightin’. Ye could n’t stir ’em up tu no patri’tism no more ’n ye could stir up a chunk o’ ice wi’ a puddin’-stick, blast ’em! Oh, if a man won’t fight for his natyve land for the love on’t, he won’ du much a-hayin’ for wages, you may depend on ’t ! Say, bub, I come off an’ lef’ my pipe on the manteltree shelf, an’ I ’d ortu smuk. You clipper back an’ git it, an’ fill it wi’ terbacker; an’ ye can’t light it, — it ’ould make ye sick ; so you fetch me three four o’ them hell-fire matches. The’ hain’t half so good as flint an’ steel, but the’ hain’t no punk in the hull dumb, shif’less liaouse. Naow clipper like a whitehead, an’ I ’ll just wait. An’ don’t ye let your ma’am know where we ’re a-goin’; she ’ll jes’ tew,” he called after Josiah, while he watched his agile steps with critical admiration, and commented to himself, “ He ’s a chip o’ the ol’ block ! Jo zed took arter his mother in bein’ slow an’ easy. But she hed judgment, and Jozeff — wal — She hed ’straor’nary judgment when she was a gal. Why, she wa’n’t on’y sebenteen when she took me. Twenty year she’s ben gone ! Twenty year, an’ me a-hengin’ on yit, julluk an’ oak-leaf in winter, o’ no use for nothin’.” His slow thoughts followed his slow, half-wistful gaze to the sumactented burying-ground, and far beyond to the pale, sunlit sky above the mounain tops, and then wandered wearily back. “ But I ’m wuth a dozen naowerdays young folks yit,” he declared, straightening himself energetically, and walking toward the corner of the road. Turning it, he came suddenly in view of Antoine, who was coming up the road, a few rods away.

It was not yet noon when Joseph and Pelatiah reached the hayfield, where Antoine had exchanged a scythe for a fork, and was tossing the swaths as if they were caught in the eddies of a sweetly odorous whirlwind. He took his luncheon in silence, with his employer’s laconic remark that “ the women folks wa’n’t a-goin’ tu git no reg’lar dinner tu-day,” imagining in Joseph’s sober face he read an answer to the question he would ask. If he wondered that the bereaved son should return to labor, when he had so good an excuse for a respite from it, he accounted for this by the fact that toil blunts the edge of grief. The far-resounding dinner-calls of conchs and horns at distant farmsteads faded out in the hot air to the silence which had held languorous sway since the bobolinks’ riot of melody had ceased. The song of the oriole was hushed, with the monotonous plaint of his offspring : the sharp, brief note of the meadow lark, like an arrow of sound, was no longer shot athwart the noontide heat, and there was no noisier stir of life than the drowsy boom of the bumblebee swelling above, and lapsing again to the voiceless level as the liveried gold-and-black forager blundered homeward or afield.

Antoine retired to the shade to rest and refresh himself. While he munched the generous but dry ration of bread and cold meat, he also slowly chewed the cud of meditation concerning the long life which he supposed had just come to a close, and his thoughts, addressed to himself, shaped themselves in his accustomed French-English speech: —

“ De gran’pere was gat great many hol’. More as mos’ bonded prob’ly, All guess. Wen All ’ll gat so much hol’ prob’ly, Ah ’ll been dead great many year. Ah ’ll hope so if Ah ’ll goin’ be so hugly like he was ! He so hugly Ah ’ll was ’fraid of it, me! An’ Ah ’ll guess, seh, dis worl’ was be more peaceably, for gat de hoi’ man aout of it! What dey goin’ do where he gone prob’ly, hein ? Wal, All ’ll be glad dey gat it, an’ Ah ’ll hope dey an’t send it back.”

An overlarge mouthful of bread stuck in his throat, and he was seized with a sudden fear that a judgment had overtaken him. He struggled against it manfully, and, after several gasping elongations of his neck, got the better of the choking morsel, and cried out in bravado, “ Yas, sah, Ah ’ll glad dat hol’ hugly was go. me, an’ Ah ’ll hope dey an’t let it come back! ” He could not help casting a scared glance behind him, but he saw only the serene landscape: the shorn meadow dotted with cocks and rumpled with spread hay ; the standing grass waving in the fitful gusts of the wind, and tossing the dandelion heads like foam bells on the waterless gray-green billows ; the open-doored, gray barn with a row of silent swallows bickering on the ridge ; the tasseled cornfield ; the rough pasture, and its idle groups of sheep and kine nooning in the shade of scattered trees; and beyond all, the green boundary of the mountain wall shimmering in the glare of sunlight. If the scene revealed naught to him of its serene beauty but the excellence of an ideal hay-day, there was nothing in it to alarm him, and, after a tepid draught of switchel, he gave himself the crowning consolation of a pipe. The last spark was quenching itself in the moist dregs when he was aroused by Joseph’s moderate call.

“ Wal, Antwine, I guess like ’nough, if you ‘re a min’ ter, you may gwup an’ git the bosses an’ the hay-riggin’, an’ ye can hitch the ol’ mare on behind an’ tow her long daown for tu hitch on the rake, if you ’re a min’ ter; guess the cult ’ll foller all right! ” The call came to him in a deliberate, monotonous tone whose high pitch was maintained with effort.

Antoine knocked the ashes out from his pipe on the toe of his moccasin, and, arising, set forth toward the house, not without some unwillingness to go alone into the dread precincts which, as he approached, seemed the more pervaded by an awed silence. As he turned the corner, he saw the subject of his thoughts materialize before him, and doubted not for an instant that the gaunt, tall figure and stern, pallid face were those of a being now belonging to another world. The recollection of his recent defiance of such a visitation surged back upon him in an overwhelming wave that seemed to drown his heart’s life out of him. For an instant he felt Ids legs weakening and bending beneath him like thawing props of ice. He thought himself dying without time for prayer, and powerless to make the sign of the cross.

Then, with a sudden accession of strength, without force of will, but by mere instinct, he turned and ran as he never ran before. He marveled how and why he could go so swiftly with such terror withering him, even wondered if he were not standing still, while trees, fences, and breeze were streaming past him, with the dread form motionless behind him, or drawing nearer, nearer, with noiseless steps, and already reaching out to clutch him with cold fingers. But he was assured by the dull pain that the pebbles inflicted on his moccasined feet, and he thanked the Virgin and every saint he could remember for the unasked aid that was invisibly bearing him onward.

The meadow fence was no barrier to his flight ; his hand touched the top rail and his feet flew over like two hounding balls, and on he went, never slacking his pace, till he came to where Joseph and Pelatiah stood agape with wonder at his speed, and apprehensive of woeful tidings. Then he dropped upon his knees and began a prayer, whose fervor was not interrupted by the indrawing and outgoing of his labored breath, and rapidly made the sign of the cross.

“ Du for land o’ massy’s sake, Antwine. stop your dumb foolin’, an’ tell a feller wlmt’s the matter. Can’t ye, or can’t ye ? ” Joseph demanded in a flutter of anxiety. But he could get no answer till lie shook Antoine roughly by the shoulder, and said sharply, “ Come, naow, quit your prayin’ long ’nough tu tell what ye want, so ’t someb’dy nuther c’n understand. What is’t? Is father wuss ? ”

“ Oh, oui, oui, oui, wus as loup garou. Hees ghos’ come at me on de road. Oh, he scare me dead. Oh, mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! Oh, what for you fader an’ let me ’lone wen he ’ll dead ! He chase me on de road ! Oh, he was awf’ly hugly hol’ ghos’! ”

A smile of enlightenment dawned upon Joseph’s bewildered face after a survey of Antoine’s recent course.

“ Oh, Sam Hill. Antwine ! ” his words shaken with laughter. “ Father hain’t half so dead as you be ; don’t look’s ’ough he was. ’Tain’t no aperregotion. He’s cornin’ daown the road naow along wi’ hub, smokin’ his pipe as carm as a clock. Come, naow. This grass is all a-burnin’ up,” and he picked up a rustling wisp of hay, twisting it with both hands, while the parched clover leaves drifted out of it in a shower of fragments.

Rowland E. Robinson.