Moods
sure that the kind soul was pleasing herself in serving them, and
finding something very attractive in the place, the people, and their
own position. Abel, a staid farmer of forty, obeyed his mother's order
regarding the "men folks;" and Phebe, a buxom girl of sixteen, led
Sylvia to her own room, eagerly offering her best.
As she dried and redressed herself Sylvia made sundry discoveries,
which added to the romance and the enjoyment of the adventure. A smart
gown lay on the bed in the low chamber, also various decorations upon
chair and table, suggesting that some festival was afloat; and a few
questions elicited the facts. Grandpa had seven sons and three
daughters, all living, all married, and all blessed with flocks of
children. Grandpa's birthday was always celebrated by a family
gathering; but to-day, being the fiftieth anniversary of his wedding,
the various households had resolved to keep it with unusual pomp; and
all were coming for a supper, a dance, and a "sing" at the end. Upon
receipt of which intelligence Sylvia proposed an immediate departure;
but the grandmother and daughter cried out at this, pointed to the still
falling rain, the lowering sky, the wet heap on the floor, and insisted
on the strangers all remaining to enjoy the festival, and give an added
interest by their presence.
Half promising what she wholly desired, Sylvia put on Phebe's second
best blue gingham gown for the preservation of which she added a white
apron, and completing the whole with a pair of capacious shoes, went
down to find her party and reveal the state of affairs. They were
bestowed in the prim, best parlor, and greeted her with a peal of
laughter, for all were _en costume_. Abel was a stout man, and his
garments hung upon Moor with a melancholy air; Mark had disdained them,
and with an eye to effect laid hands on an old uniform, in which he
looked like a volunteer of 1812; while Warwick's superior height placed
Abel's wardrobe out of the question; and grandpa, taller than any of his
seven goodly sons, supplied him with a sober suit,--roomy,
square-flapped, and venerable,--which became him, and with his beard
produced the curious effect of a youthful patriarch. To Sylvia's relief
it was unanimously decided to remain, trusting to their own penetration
to discover the most agreeable method of returning the favor; and
regarding the adventure as a welcome change, after two days' solitude,
all went out to dinner prepared to enact their parts with spirit.
The meal being despatched, Mark and Warwick went to help Abel with some
out-door arrangements; and begging grandma to consider him one of her
own boys, Moor tied on an apron and fell to work with Sylvia, laying the
long table which was to receive the coming stores. True breeding is
often as soon felt by the uncultivated as by the cultivated; and the
zeal with which the strangers threw themselves into the business of the
hour won the family, and placed them all in friendly relations at once.
The old lady let them do what they would, admiring everything, and
declaring over and over again that her new assistants "beat her boys and
girls to nothin' with their tastiness and smartness." Sylvia trimmed the
table with common flowers till it was an inviting sight before a viand
appeared upon it, and hung green boughs about the room, with candles
here and there to lend a festal light. Moor trundled a great cheese in
from the dairy, brought milk-pans without mishap, disposed dishes, and
caused Nat to cleave to him by the administration of surreptitious
titbits and jocular suggestions; while Phebe tumbled about in every
one's way, quite wild with excitement; and grandma stood in her pantry
like a culinary general, swaying a big knife for a baton, as she issued
orders and marshalled her forces, the busiest and merriest of them all.
When the last touch was given, Moor discarded his apron and went to join
Mark. Sylvia presided over Phebe's toilet, and then sat herself down to
support Nat through the trying half hour before, as he expressed it,
"the party came in." The twelve years' boy was a cripple, one of those
household blessings which, in the guise of an affliction, keep many
hearts tenderly united by a common love and pity. A cheerful creature,
always chirping like a cricket on the hearth as he sat carving or
turning bits of wood into useful or ornamental shapes for such as cared
to buy them of him, and hoarding up the proceeds like a little miser for
one more helpless than himself.
"What are these, Nat?" asked Sylvia, with the interest that always won
small people, because their quick instincts felt that it was sincere.
"Them are spoons--'postle spoons, they call 'em. You see I've got a
cousin what reads a sight, and one day he says to me, 'Nat, in a book I
see somethin' about a set of spoons with a 'postle's head on each of
'em; you make some and they'll sell, I bet.' So I got gramper's Bible,
found the picters of the 'postles, and worked and worked till I got the
faces good; and now it's fun, for they do sell, and I'm savin' up a lot.
It ain't for me, you know, but mother, 'cause she's wuss'n I be."
"Is she sick, Nat?"
"Oh, ain't she! Why she hasn't stood up this nine year. We was smashed
in a wagon that tipped over when I was three years old. It done
somethin' to my legs, but it broke her back, and made her no use, only
jest to pet me, and keep us all kind of stiddy, you know. Ain't you seen
her? Don't you want to?"
"Would she like it?"
"She admires to see folks, and asked about you at dinner; so I guess
you'd better go see her. Look ahere, you like them spoons, and I'm
agoin' to give you one; I'd give you all on 'em if they wasn't promised.
I can make one more in time, so you jest take your pick, 'cause I like
you, and want you not to forgit me."
Sylvia chose Saint John, because it resembled Moor, she thought; bespoke
and paid for a whole set, and privately resolved to send tools and rare
woods to the little artist that he might serve his mother in his own
pretty way. Then Nat took up his crutches and hopped nimbly before her
to the room, where a plain, serene-faced woman lay knitting, with her
best cap on, her clean handkerchief and large green fan laid out upon
the coverlet. This was evidently the best room of the house; and as
Sylvia sat talking to the invalid her eye discovered many traces of that
refinement which comes through the affections. Nothing seemed too good
for "daughter Patience;" birds, books, flowers, and pictures were
plentiful here though visible nowhere else. Two easy-chairs beside the
bed showed where the old folks oftenest sat; Abel's home corner was
there by the antique desk covered with farmers' literature and samples
of seeds; Phebe's work-basket stood in the window; Nat's lathe in the
sunniest corner; and from the speckless carpet to the canary's clear
water-glass all was exquisitely neat, for love and labor were the
handmaids who served the helpless woman and asked no wages but her
comfort.
Sylvia amused her new friends mightily, for finding that neither mother
nor son had any complaints to make, any sympathy to ask, she exerted
herself to give them what both needed, and kept them laughing by a
lively recital of her voyage and its mishaps.
"Ain't she prime, mother?" was Nat's candid commentary when the story
ended, and he emerged red and shiny from the pillows where he had
burrowed with boyish explosions of delight.
"She's very kind, dear, to amuse two stay-at-home folks like you and me,
who seldom see what's going on outside four walls. You have a merry
heart, miss, and I hope will keep it all your days, for it's a blessed
thing to own."
"I think you have something better, a contented one," said Sylvia, as
the woman regarded her with no sign of envy or regret.
"I ought to have; nine years on a body's back can teach a sight of
things that are wuth knowin'. I've learnt patience pretty well I guess,
and contentedness ain't fur away, for though it sometimes seems ruther
long to look forward to, perhaps nine more years layin' here, I jest
remember it might have been wuss, and if I don't do much now there's all
eternity to come."
Something in the woman's manner struck Sylvia as she watched her softly
beating some tune on the sheet with her quiet eyes turned toward the
light. Many sermons had been less eloquent to the girl than the look,
the tone, the cheerful resignation of that plain face. She stooped and
kissed it, saying gently--
"I shall remember this."
"Hooray! There they be; I hear Ben!"
And away clattered Nat to be immediately absorbed into the embraces of a
swarm of relatives who now began to arrive in a steady stream. Old and
young, large and small, rich and poor, with overflowing hands or trifles
humbly given, all were received alike, all hugged by grandpa, kissed by
grandma, shaken half breathless by Uncle Abel, welcomed by Aunt
Patience, and danced round by Phebe and Nat till the house seemed a
great hive of hilarious and affectionate bees. At first the strangers
stood apart, but Phebe spread their story with such complimentary
additions of her own that the family circle opened wide and took them in
at once.
Sylvia was enraptured with the wilderness of babies, and leaving the
others to their own devices followed the matrons to "Patience's room,"
and gave herself up to the pleasant tyranny of the small potentates, who
swarmed over her as she sat on the floor, tugging at her hair, exploring
her eyes, covering her with moist kisses, and keeping up a babble of
little voices more delightful to her than the discourse of the flattered
mammas who benignly surveyed her admiration and their offspring's
prowess.
The young people went to romp in the barn; the men, armed with
umbrellas, turned out _en masse_ to inspect the farm and stock, and
compare notes over pig pens and garden gates. But Sylvia lingered where
she was, enjoying a scene which filled her with a tender pain and
pleasure, for each baby was laid on grandma's knee, its small virtues,
vices, ailments, and accomplishments rehearsed, its beauties examined,
its strength tested, and the verdict of the family oracle pronounced
upon it as it was cradled, kissed, and blessed on the kind old heart
which had room for every care and joy of those who called her mother. It
was a sight the girl never forgot, because just then she was ready to
receive it. Her best lessons did not come from books, and she learned
one then as she saw the fairest success of a woman's life while watching
this happy grandmother with fresh faces framing her withered one,
daughterly voices chorusing good wishes, and the harvest of half a
century of wedded life beautifully garnered in her arms.
The fragrance of coffee and recollections of Cynthia's joyful
aberrations at such periods caused a breaking up of the maternal
conclave. The babies were borne away to simmer between blankets until
called for. The women unpacked baskets, brooded over teapots, and kept
up an harmonious clack as the table was spread with pyramids of cake,
regiments of pies, quagmires of jelly, snow-banks of bread, and gold
mines of butter; every possible article of food, from baked beans to
wedding cake, finding a place on that sacrificial altar.
Fearing to be in the way, Sylvia departed to the barn, where she found
her party in a chaotic Babel; for the offshoots had been as fruitful as
the parent tree, and some four dozen young immortals were in full riot.
The bashful roosting with the hens on remote lofts and beams; the bold
flirting or playing in the full light of day; the boys whooping, the
girls screaming, all effervescing as if their spirits had reached the
explosive point and must find vent in noise. Mark was in his element,
introducing all manner of new games, the liveliest of the old and