Volume I Part 9 (2/2)
”Yes, but that wouldn't be like finding a fortune,” said Fleda; ? ”if we were to come to a great heap of nuts all picked out ready for us to carry away, _that_ would be a fortune; but now if we find the trees full, we have got to knock them down, and gather them up, and shuck them.”
”Make our own fortunes, eh?” said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
”Well! people do say those are the sweetest nuts. I don't know how it may be. Ha! that is fine. What an atmosphere!”
They had reached a height of the mountain that cleared them a view, and over the tops of the trees they looked abroad to a very wide extent of country undulating with hill and vale, ?
hill and valley alike far below at their feet. Fair and rich, ? the gently swelling hills, one beyond another, in the patchwork dress of their many-coloured fields, ? the gay hues of the woodland softened and melted into a rich autumn glow, ?
and far away, beyond even where this glow was sobered and lost in the distance, the faint blue line of the Catskill ? faint, but clear and distinct, through the transparent air. Such a sky! ? of such etherialized purity as if made for spirits to travel in, and tempting them to rise and free themselves from the soil; and the stillness, ? like nature's hand laid upon the soul, bidding it think. In view of all that vastness and grandeur, man's littleness does bespeak itself. And yet, for every one, the voice of the scene is not more humbling to pride than rousing to all that is really n.o.ble and strong in character. Not only ”What thou art,” ? but ”What thou mayest be!” What place thou oughtest to fill ? what work thou hast to do, ? in this magnificent world. A very extended landscape, however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind. One seems to emerge from the narrowness of individual existence, and take a larger view of Life as well as of Creation.
Perhaps Mr. Carleton felt it so, for, after his first expression of pleasure, he stood silently and gravely looking for a long time. Little Fleda's eye loved it too, but she looked her fill, and then sat down on a stone to await her companion's pleasure, glancing now and then up at his face, which gave her no encouragement to interrupt him. It was gravely, and even gloomily thoughtful. He stood so long without stirring, that poor Fleda began to have sad thoughts of the possibility of gathering all the nuts from the hickory- trees, and she heaved a very gentle sigh once or twice; but the dark blue eye which she with reason admired, remained fixed on the broad scene below, as if it were reading, or trying to read there a difficult lesson. And when at last he turned and began to go up the path again, he kept the same face, and went moodily swinging his arm up and down, as if in disturbed thought. Fleda was too happy to be moving to care for her companion's silence; she would have compounded for no more conversation, so they might but reach the nut-trees. But before they had got quite so far, Mr. Carleton broke the silence, speaking in precisely the same tone and manner he had used the last time.
”Look here, Fairy,” said he, pointing to a small heap of chestnut burs piled at the foot of a tree ? ”here's a little fortune for you already.”
”That's a squirrel!” said Fleda, looking at the place very attentively. ”There has been n.o.body else here. He has put them together, ready to be carried off to his nest.”
”We'll save him that trouble,” said Mr. Carleton. ”Little rascal! he's a Didenhover in miniature.”
”Oh, no!” said Fleda; ”he had as good a right to the nuts, I am sure, as we have, poor fellow. ? Mr. Carleton ?”
Mr. Carleton was throwing the nuts into the basket. At the anxious and undecided tone in which his name was p.r.o.nounced, he stopped, and looked up at a very wistful face.
”Mightn't we leave these nuts till we come back? If we find the trees over here full, we shan't want them; and if we don't, these would be only a handful ?”
”And the squirrel would be disappointed?” said Mr. Carleton, smiling. ”You would rather we should leave them to him!”
Fleda said yes, with a relieved face, and Mr. Carleton, still smiling, emptied his basket of the few nuts he had put in, and they walked on.
In a hollow, rather a deep hollow, behind the crest of the hill, as Fleda had said, they came at last to a n.o.ble group of large hickory-trees, with one or two chestnuts standing in attendance on the outskirts. And, also, as Fleda had said, or hoped, the place was so far from convenient access, that n.o.body had visited them; they were thick hung with fruit. If the spirit of the game had been wanting or failing in Mr.
Carleton, it must have roused again into full life at the joyous heartiness of Fleda's exclamations. At any rate, no boy could have taken to the business better. He cut, with her permission, a stout long pole in the woods; and swinging himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and knew it just as well before they reached the hickory-trees as she did afterwards.
When one of the trees was well stripped, the young gentleman mounted into another, while Fleda set herself to hull and gather up the nuts under the one first beaten. She could make but little headway, however, compared with her companion; the nuts fell a great deal faster than she could put them in her basket. The trees were heavy laden, and Mr. Carleton seemed determined to have the whole crop; from the second tree he went to the third. Fleda was bewildered with her happiness; this was doing business in style. She tried to calculate what the whole quant.i.ty would be, but it went beyond her; one basketful would not take it, nor two, nor three, ? it wouldn't _begin to_, Fleda said to herself. She went on hulling and gathering with all possible industry.
After the third tree was finished, Mr. Carleton threw down his pole, and resting himself upon the ground at the foot, told Fleda he would wait a few moments before he began again..
Fleda thereupon left off her work too, and going for her little tin pail, presently offered it to him temptingly stocked with pieces of apple-pie. When he had smilingly taken one, she next brought him a sheet of white paper, with slices of young cheese.
”No, thank you,” said he.
”Cheese is very good with apple-pie,” said Fleda, competently.
”Is it?” said he laughing. ”Well ? upon that ? I think you would teach me a good many things, Miss Fleda, if I were to stay here long enough.”
”I wish you would stay and try, Sir,” said Fleda, who did not know exactly what to make of the shade of seriousness which crossed his face. It was gone almost instantly.
”I think anything is better eaten out in the woods than it is at home,” said Fleda.
”Well, I don't know,” said her friend. ”I have no doubt that is the case with cheese and apple-pie, and especially under hickory trees which one has been contending with pretty sharply. If a touch of your wand, Fairy, could transform one of these sh.e.l.ls into a goblet of Lafitte, or Amontillado, we should have nothing to wish for.”
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