Volume II Part 5 (2/2)

”Come, ma,” said he; ”how much longer ye goin' to pester me in this way?”

”Why, pa,” Grandma rejoined calmly; ”until you git a proper understandin' of it. What tribe was it in sacred writ that wore bunnits?”

”Lordy!” exclaimed the old man. ”How d'ye suppose I know! They must 'a'

been a tarnal old womanish lookin' set anyway.”

”The tribe o' Judah, pa,” said Grandma, gravely. ”Now, how good it is, husband, to have your understandin' all freshened up on the scripters!”

”Come, come, ma!” said Grandpa, rising nervously. ”It's time we was startin'. When I make up my mind to go anywhere I always want to git there in time. If I was goin' to the Old Harry, I should want to git there in time.”

”It's my consarn that we shall git thar' before time, some on us,” said Grandma, with sad meaning, ”unless we larn to use more respec'ful language.”

I shall never forget how we set off for church that Sabbath morning, way out at one of the sunny back doors of the Ark: for there was Madeline's little cottage that fronted the highway, or lane, and then there was a long backward extension of the Ark, only one story in height. This belonged peculiarly to Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. It contained the ”parlor” and three ”keepin'” rooms opening one into the other, all of the same size and general bare and gloomy appearance, all possessing the same sacredly preserved atmosphere, through which we pa.s.sed with becoming silence and solemnity into the ”end” room, the sunny kitchen where Grandma and Grandpa kept house by themselves in the summer time, and there at the door, her very yellow coat reflecting the rays of the sun, stood f.a.n.n.y, presenting about as much appearance of life and animation as a pensive summer squash.

The carriage, I thought, was a fac-simile of the one in which I had been brought from West Wallen on the night of my arrival. One of the most striking peculiarities of this sort of vehicle was the width at which the wheels were set apart. The body seemed comparatively narrow. It was very long, and covered with white canvas. It had neither windows nor doors, but just the one guarded opening in front. There were no steps leading to this, and, indeed, a variety of obstacles before it. And the way Grandma effected an entrance was to put a chair on a mound of earth, and a cricket on top of the chair, and thus, having climbed up to f.a.n.n.y's reposeful back, she slipped pa.s.sively down, feet foremost, to the whiffle-tree; from thence she easily gained the plane of the carriage floor.

Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not less difficult route.

I sat with Grandpa on the ”front” seat--it may be remarked that the ”front” seat was very much front, and the ”back” seat very much back--there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-place for the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet were out, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on the shelf or let them hang off into s.p.a.ce.

Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off.

”All aboard! s.h.i.+p ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead thar', f.a.n.n.y!” shouted Grandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins and wielded the whip with a masterful air.

He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way--marvelous ones, and Grandma's reproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingled with the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him at all. Not that Grandma looked discomfited on this account, or in bad humor. On the contrary, as she sat back there in the ghostly shadows, with her hands folded, and her hair combed out in resplendent waves on either side of her head, she appeared conscious that every word she uttered was taking root in some obdurate heart. She was, in every respect, the picture of good-will and contentment.

But the face under Grandpa's antiquated beaver began to give me a fresh shock every time I looked up at him, for the light and the air were rapidly turning his rejuvenated locks and his poor, thin fringe of whiskers to an unnatural greenish tint, while his bushy eyebrows, untouched by the hand of art, shone as white as ever.

In spite of the old sea-captain's entertaining stories, it seemed, indeed, ”a long jaunt” to West Wallen.

To say that f.a.n.n.y was a slow horse would be but a feeble expression of the truth.

A persevering ”click! click! click!” began to arise from Grandma's quarter. This annoyed Grandpa exceedingly.

”Shet up, ma!” he was moved to exclaim at last. ”I'm steerin' this craft.”

”Click! click! click!” came perseveringly from behind.

”Dum it, ma! thar', ma!” cried Grandpa, exasperated beyond measure. ”How is this hoss goin' to hear anything that I say ef you keep up such a tarnal cacklin'?”

Just as we were coming out of the thickest part of the woods, about a mile beyond Wallencamp, we discovered a man walking in the distance. It was the only human being we had seen since we started.

”Hullo, there's Lovell!” exclaimed Grandpa. ”I was wonderin' why we hadn't overtook him before. We gin'ally take him in on the road. Yis, yis; that's Lovell, ain't it, teacher?”

I put up my gla.s.ses, helplessly.

”I'm sure,” I said, ”I can't tell, positively. I have seen Mr. Barlow but once, and at that distance I shouldn't know my own father.”

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