Читать книгу The Morgesons - Elizabeth Stoddard - Страница 8

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One afternoon in the following July, tired of walking in the mown fields, and of carrying a nest of mice, which I had discovered under a hay-rick, I concluded I would begin a system of education with them; so arranging them on a grape-leaf, I started homeward. Going in by the kitchen, I saw Temperance wiping the dust from the best china, which elated me, for it was a sign that we were going to have company to tea.

"You evil child," she said, "where have you been? Your mother has wanted you these hours, to dress you in your red French calico with wings to it. Some of the members are coming to tea; Miss Seneth Jellatt, and she that was Clarissa Tripp, Snow now, and Miss Sophrony G. Dexter, and more besides."

I put my mice in a basket, and begged Temperance to allow me to finish wiping the china; she consented, adjuring me not to let it fall. "Mis Morgeson would die if any of it should be broken." I adored it, too. Each piece had a peach, or pear, or a bunch of cherries painted on it, in lustrous brown. The handles were like gold cords, and the covers had knobs of gilt grapes.

"What preserves are you going to put on the table?" I asked.

"Them West Ingy things Capen Curtis's son brought home, and quartered quince, though I expect Mis Dexter will remark that the surup is ropy."

"I wish you wouldn't have cheese."

"We must have cheese," she said solemnly. "I expect they'll drink our green tea till they make bladders of themselves, it is so good. Your father is a first-rate man; he is an excellent provider, and any woman ought to be proud of him, for he does buy number one in provisions."

I looked at her with admiration and respect.

"Capen Curtis," she continued, pursuing a train of thought which the preserves had started, "will never come home, I guess. He has been in furen parts forever and a day; his wife has looked for him, a-twirling her thumb and fingers, every day for ten years. I heard your mother had engaged her to go in the new house; she'll take the upper hand of us all. Your grandfather, Mr. John Morgeson, is willing to part with her; tired of her, I spose. She has been housekeeping there, off and on, these thirty years. She's fifty, if she is a day, is Hepsy Curtis."

"Is she as stingy as you are?" I asked.

"You'll find out for yourself, Miss. I rather think you won't be allowed to crumble over the buttery shelves."

I finished the cup, and was watching her while she grated loaf-sugar over a pile of doughnuts, when mother entered, and begged me to come upstairs with her to be dressed.

"Where is Verry, mother?"

"In the parlor, with a lemon in one hand and Robinson Crusoe in the other. She will be good, she says. Cassy, you won't teaze me to-day, will you?"

"No, indeed, mother," and clapping my hands, "I like you too well."

She laughed.

"These Morgesons beat the dogs," I heard Temperance say, as we shut the door and went upstairs.

I skipped over the shiny, lead-colored floor of the chamber in my stockings, while mother was taking from the bureau a clean suit for me, and singing "Bonny Doon," with the sweetest voice in the world. She soon arrayed me in my red calico dress, spotted with yellow stars. I was proud of its buckram undersleeves, though they scratched my arms, and admired its wings, which extended over the protecting buckram.

"It is three o'clock; the company will come soon. Be careful of your dress. You must stand by me at the table to hand the cups of tea."

She left me standing in a chair, so that I might see my pantalettes in the high-hung glass, and the effect of my balloon-like sleeves. Then I went back to the kitchen to show myself to Temperance, and to enjoy the progress of tea.

The table was laid in the long keeping-room adjoining the kitchen, covered with a striped cloth of crimson and blue, smooth as satin to the touch. Temperance had turned the plates upside-down around the table, and placed in a straight line through the middle a row of edibles. She was going to have waffles, she said, and shortcake; they were all ready to bake, and she wished to the Lord they would come and have it over with. With the silver sugar-tongs I slyly nipped lumps of sugar for my private eating, and surveyed my features in the distorting mirror of the pot-bellied silver teapot, ordinarily laid up in flannel. When the company had arrived, Temperance advised me to go in the parlor.

"Sit down, when you get there, and show less," she said. I went in softly, and stood behind mother's chair, slightly abashed for a moment in the presence of the party—some eight or ten ladies, dressed in black levantine, or cinnamon-colored silks, who were seated in rocking-chairs, all the rocking-chairs in the house having been carried to the parlor for the occasion. They were knitting, and every one had a square velvet workbag. Most of them wore lace caps, trimmed with white satin ribbon. They were larger, more rotund, and older than mother, whose appearance struck me by contrast. Perhaps it was the first time I observed her dress; her face I must have studied before, for I knew all her moods by it. Her long, lusterless, brown hair was twisted around a high-topped tortoise-shell comb; it was so heavy and so carelessly twisted that the comb started backward, threatening to fall out. She had minute rings of filigreed gold in her ears. Her dress was a gray pongee, simply made and short; I could see her round-toed morocco shoes, tied with black ribbon. She usually took out her shoestrings, not liking the trouble of tying them. A ruffle of fine lace fell around her throat, and the sleeves of her short-waisted dress were puffed at the shoulders. Her small white hands were folded in her lap, for she was idle; on the little finger of her left hand twinkled a brilliant garnet ring, set with diamonds. Her face was colorless, the forehead extremely low, the nose and mouth finely cut, the eyes of heavenly blue. Although youth had gone, she was beautiful, with an indescribable air of individuality. She influenced all who were near her; her atmosphere enveloped them. She was not aware of it, being too indifferent to the world to observe what effect she had in it, and only realized that she was to herself a self-tormentor. Whether she attracted or repelled, the power was the same. I make no attempt to analyze her character. I describe her as she appeared, and as my memory now holds her. I never understood her, and for that reason she attracted my attention. I felt puzzled now, she seemed so different from anybody else. My observation was next drawn to Veronica, who, entirely at home, walked up and down the room in a blue cambric dress. She was twisting in her fingers a fine gold chain, which hung from her neck. I caught her cunning glance as she flourished some tansy leaves before her face, imitating Mrs. Dexter to the life. I laughed, and she came to me.

"See," she said softly, "I have something from heaven." She lifted her white apron, and I saw under it, pinned to her dress, a splendid black butterfly, spotted with red and gold.

"It is mine," she said, "you shall not touch it. God blew it in through the window; but it has not breathed yet."

"Pooh; I have three mice in the kitchen."

"Where is the mother?"

"In the hayrick, I suppose, I left it there."

"I hate you," she said, in an enraged voice. "I would strike you, if it wasn't for this holy butterfly."

"Cassandra," said Mrs. Dexter, "does look like her pa; the likeness is ex-tri-ordinary. They say my William resembles me; but parients are no judges."

A faint murmur rose from the knitters, which signified agreement with her remark.

"I do think," she continued, "that it is high time Dr. Snell had a colleague; he has outlived his usefulness. I never could say that I thought he was the right kind of man for our congregation; his principals as a man I have nothing to say against; but why don't we have revivals?"

When Mrs. Dexter wished to be elegant she stepped out of the vernacular. She was about to speak again when the whole party broke into a loud talk on the subject she had started, not observing Temperance, who appeared at the door, and beckoned to mother. I followed her out.

"The members are goin' it, ain't they?" she said. "Do see if things are about right, Mis Morgeson." Mother made a few deviations from the straight lines in which Temperance had ranged the viands, and told her to put the tea on the tray, and the chairs round the table.

"There's no place for Mr. Morgeson," observed Temperance.

"He is in Milford," mother replied.

"The brethren wont come, I spose, till after dark?"

"I suppose not."

"Glad to get rid of their wives' clack, I guess."

From the silence which followed mother's return to the parlor, I concluded they were performing the ancient ceremony of waiting for some one to go through the doorway first. They came at last with an air of indifference, as if the idea of eating had not yet occurred, and delayed taking seats till mother urged it; then they drew up to the table, hastily, turned the plates right-side up, spread large silk handkerchiefs over their laps, and, with their eyes fixed on space, preserved a dead silence, which was only broken by mother's inquiries about their taste in milk or sugar. Temperance came in with plates of waffles and buttered shortcake, which she offered with a cut and thrust air, saying, as she did so, "I expect you can't eat them; I know they are tough."

Everybody, however, accepted both. She then handed round the preserves, and went out to bake more waffles.

By this time the cups had circled the table, but no one had tasted a morsel.

"Do help yourselves," mother entreated, whereat they fell upon the waffles.

"Temperance is as good a cook as ever," said one; "she is a prize, isn't she, Mis Morgeson?"

"She is faithful and industrious," mother replied.

All began at once on the subject of help, and were as suddenly quenched by the reappearance of Temperance, with fresh waffles, and a dish of apple-fritters.

"Do eat these if you can, ladies; the apples are only russets, and they are kinder dead for flavoring. I see you don't eat a mite; I expected you could not; it's poor trash." And she passed the cake along, everybody taking a piece of each kind.

After drinking a good many cups of tea, and praising it, their asceticism gave way to its social effect, and they began to gossip, ridiculing their neighbors, and occasionally launching innuendoes against their absent lords. It is well known that when women meet together they do not discuss their rights, but take them, in revealing the little weaknesses and peculiarities of their husbands. The worst wife-driver would be confounded at the air of easy superiority assumed on these occasions by the meekest and most unsuspicious of her sex. Insinuations of So and So's not being any better than she should be passed from mouth to mouth, with a glance at me; and I heard the proverb of "Little pitchers," when mother rose suddenly from the table, and led the way to the parlor.

"Where is Veronica?" asked Temperance, who was piling the debris of the feast. "She has been in mischief, I'll warrant; find her, Cassandra."

She was upstairs putting away her butterfly, in the leaves of her little Bible. She came down with me, and Temperance coaxed her to eat her supper, by vowing that she should be sick abed, unless she liked her fritters and waffles. I thought of my mice, while making a desultory meal standing, and went to look at them; they were gone. Wondering if Temperance had thrown the creatures away, I remembered that I had been foolish enough to tell Veronica, and rushed back to her. When she saw me, she raised a saucer to her face, pretending to drink from it.

"Verry, where are the mice?"

"Are they gone?"

"Tell me."

"What will you do if I don't?"

"I know," and I flew upstairs, tore the poor butterfly from between the leaves of the Bible, crushed it in my hand, and brought it down to her. She did not cry when she saw it, but choked a little, and turned away her head.

It was now dark, and hearing a bustle in the entry I looked out, and saw several staid men slowly rubbing their feet on the door-mat; the husbands had come to escort their wives home, and by nine o'clock they all went. Veronica and I stayed by the door after they had gone.

"Look at Mrs. Dexter," she said; "I put the mice in her workbag."

I burst into a laugh, which she joined in presently.

"I am sorry about the butterfly, Verry." And I attempted to take her hand, but she pushed me away, and marched off whistling.

A few days after this, sitting near the window at twilight, intent upon a picture in a book of travels, of a Hindoo swinging from a high pole with hooks in his flesh, and trying to imagine how much it hurt him, my attention was arrested by a mention of my name in a conversation held between mother and Mr. Park, one of the neighbors. He occasionally spent an evening at our house, passing it in polemical discussion, revising the prayers and exhortations which he made at conference meetings. The good man was a little vain of having the formulas of his creed at his tongue's end. She sometimes lost the thread of his discourse, but argued also as if to convince herself that she could rightly distinguish between Truth and Illusion, but never discussed religious topics with father. Like all the Morgesons, he was Orthodox, accepting what had been provided by others for his spiritual accommodation. He thought it well that existing Institutions should not be disturbed. "Something worse might be established instead." His turn of mind, in short, was not Evangelical.

"Are the Hindoos in earnest, mother?" and I thrust the picture before her. She warned me off.

"Do you think, Mr. Park, that Cassandra can understand the law of transgression?"

An acute perception that it was in my power to escape a moral penalty, by willful ignorance, was revealed to me, that I could continue the privilege of sinning with impunity. His answer was complicated, and he quoted several passages from the Scriptures. Presently he began to sing, and I grew lonesome; the life within me seemed a black cave.

"Our nature's totally depraved— The heart a sink of sin; Without a change we can't be saved, Ye must be born again."

Temperance opened the door. "Is Veronica going to bed to-night?" she asked.