Part 23 (2/2)

”Now, Prudence,” Uncle Asahel would reply, ”the catechism says a lie is a story told with intention to deceive, and when I told these girls that I drove the oxen home with the last load of hay so fast that I got it into the barn before a drop of water fell, while it was raining so hard behind me that Watch, who was following the wagon, actually _swam_ all the way up from the medder--when I told 'em that, I cal'late I didn't deceive 'em; I was only cultivating their imaginations.”

Aunt Prue groaned in spirit, and began to sing, in a high, cracked voice.

”False are the men of high degree, The baser sort are vanity; Weighed in the balance, both appear Light as a puff of empty air.”

While at The Maples we made an excursion to c.u.mmington, formerly Bryant's home. We sat in the library, shut in by a thick grove, where he composed his translations of the Odyssey and Iliad, and we played with a little pet dog of which he had been very fond. Not far from the estate is a fine library, Bryant's gift to the little town. ”Bryant's River” is a brawling little stream which flows through a very picturesque region.

We amused ourselves by fancying that we recognized spots described in several of his poems.

There was a grand old oak upon the place which might have inspired his lines--

”This mighty oak-- By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem Almost annihilated--not a prince In all that proud Old World beyond the deep E'er wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which Thy hand has graced him.”

The scenery about c.u.mmington and Hawley tempted us to a frequent use of our sketching-materials. Mr. Stillman, too, found several birds new to him, and took some beautiful landscape photographs. Miss Sartoris gave him new ideas about choosing views where mountain and cloud, trees and reflections, composed well, and his photographs became much more artistic. He began to talk about the importance of placing his darkest dark here, and his highest light there, of balancing a steeple in this part of his picture by a human interest in the foreground, of ma.s.sing his shadows, of angular composition, of tone and harmony, and the rest of the cant of the studio. Nor was it all cant; Miss Sartoris had taught him to see more in nature than he had ever seen before, and while his ambition had hitherto been to secure sharp photographs of instantaneous effects--mere feats of mechanical skill--his aim was now to produce pictures satisfying to highly cultivated tastes. He acknowledged that all this was due to Miss Sartoris, who had opened a new world to him, though it seemed to me that he really owed quite as much to Miss Prillwitz, but for whose influence he would never have taken up photography. I was a little jealous for our princess, and felt that, though Miss Sartoris was young and fair, and Miss Prillwitz old and wrinkled, this was no reason why honor should not be rendered where honor was due.

There was a pond with a bit of swamp land on uncle's farm, which he considered the blot on the place, but which Miss Sartoris declared was a real treasure-trove for a picture. One end was covered with lily-pads, and great waxy pond-lilies were opening their alabaster lamps here and there on the surface, while the yellow cow-lilies dotted the other end with their b.u.t.ter-pats. Cat-tails and rushes grew in the shallower portions, and here was to be found the rare moccasin-flower, a pink and white orchid of exquisite shape. Miss Sartoris painted a beautiful picture here. She said it reminded her of the pond which Ruskin describes with an artist's insight and enthusiasm.

”A great painter sees beneath and behind the brown surface what will take him a day's work to follow; and he follows it, cost what it will.

He sees it is not the dull, dirty, blank thing which he supposes it to be; it has a heart as well as ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees and their quivering leaves, and all the hazy pa.s.sages of suns.h.i.+ne, the blades of the shaking gra.s.s, with all manner of hues of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; and the bottom seen in the clear little bits at the edge, and the stones of it, and all the sky. For the ugly gutter that stagnates over the drain-bars in the heart of the foul city is not altogether base. It is at your will that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street or the image of the sky; so it is with many other things which we unkindly despise.”

We all regretted when our short visit at The Maples came to an end, but Miss Prillwitz felt that she must be hastening back to the Home, and we had already transgressed the bounds which we had set to our outing. We decided to vary our journey by returning through Berks.h.i.+re. We drove, the first day, to Pittsfield, a flouris.h.i.+ng little city, and now for the first time we felt ourselves out of place in the peddler's carts.

Nowhere else had we attracted any special attention. It was a common thing for tin-peddlers to take their feminine relatives with them on their jaunts, and as we dressed very plainly, and conducted ourselves with gravity, no one gave us a second look.

At Pittsfield, however, we came in contact once more with ”society,” and the loungers on the hotel veranda gave us a broadside of astonished looks as we alighted. ”It is very disagreeable to be stared at in this way,” Winnie remarked to Miss Prillwitz as we entered.

”My tear,” replied the good lady, ”it takes four eyes to make a stare.”[A]

[A] A remark once made by Professor Maria Mitch.e.l.l to a student of Va.s.sar College who had made a similar complaint.

Winnie colored deeply, for she knew that if she had been less self-conscious she would not have felt the curious and impertinent gaze.

We left Pittsfield so early the next morning that none of the hotel loungers were on the piazza to comment on our appearance.

We drove, that day, over the lovely Lenox hills, once covered by stony pastures, dotted here and there by lonely farm-houses, but now a succession of beautiful parks and aristocratic villas and mansions. Mr.

Stillman had his camera out, and photographed a number of the handsome residences as we pa.s.sed, and one of the gay little village-carts driven by a young woman dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, and presided over by a footman in livery.

”That does not seem to me a sensible way of going into the country,”

said Winnie. ”I don't believe she has half the fun that we have in this old caravan.”

”Perhaps not,” I replied, ”but I presume that Adelaide and Milly are driving about in much the same style; and we know that better-hearted girls never lived.”

We picnicked near ”Stockbridge Bowl,” a lovely lake, blue as Geneva and encircled by beautiful hills. As father brought out the lunch-hamper I noticed a queer expression on his face. ”What do you suppose I have found stowed away in the back part of the cart?” he asked.

”Not the soldering furnace?” we all replied, in unison.

He smiled grimly, and, instead of replying, placed it before us. ”That Deerfield landlord must have packed it up without your knowledge,” said Miss Sartoris. ”Its reappearance is becoming really amusing; let us make one grand final effort to get rid of it by sinking it in the middle of the lake.”

”Will you do it?”

”Certainly.”

<script>