Volume I Part 67 (2/2)
” 'Tain't very elegant,” said the sharp lady.
Fleda thought if his service was at her feet, her feet should be somewhere else, and accordingly stepped quietly out of the way, and went to one of the windows, from whence she could have a view both of the comers and the come; and by this time, thoroughly in the spirit of the thing, she used her eyes upon both with great amus.e.m.e.nt. People were constantly arriving now, in wagons and on foot; and stores of all kinds were most literally pouring in. Bags, and even barrels of meal, flour, pork, and potatoes; strings of dried apples, salt, hams, and beef; hops, pickles, vinegar, maple-sugar and mola.s.ses; rolls of fresh b.u.t.ter, cheese, and eggs; cake, bread, and pies, without end. Mr. Penny, the storekeeper, sent a box of tea.
Mr. Winegar, the carpenter, a new ox-sled. Earl Dougla.s.s brought a handsome axe-helve of his own fas.h.i.+oning; his wife, a quant.i.ty of rolls of wool. Zan Finn carted a load of wood into the wood-shed, and Squire Thornton another. Home-made candles, custards, preserves, and smoked liver, came in a batch from two or three miles off, up on the mountain. Half-a- dozen chairs from the factory-man; half-a-dozen brooms from the other storekeeper at the Deepwater settlement; a carpet for the best room from the ladies of the towns.h.i.+p, who had clubbed forces to furnish it ? and a home-made concern it was, from the shears to the loom.
The room was full now, for every one, after depositing his gift, turned aside to see what others had brought and were bringing; and men and women, the young and old, had their several circles of gossip in various parts of the crowd. Apart from them all Fleda sat in her window, probably voted ”elegant” by others than the doctor, for they vouchsafed her no more than a transitory attention, and sheered off to find something more congenial. She sat watching the people, smiling very often as some odd figure, or look, or some peculiar turn of expression or tone of voice, caught her ear or her eye.
Both ear and eye were fastened by a young countryman, with a particularly fresh face, whom she saw approaching the house.
He came up on foot, carrying a single fowl slung at his back by a stick thrown across his shoulder, and, without stirring hat or stick, he came into the room, and made his way through the crowd of people, looking to the one hand and the other, evidently in a maze of doubt to whom he should deliver himself and his chicken, till brought up by Mrs. Dougla.s.s's sharp voice.
”Well, Philetus, what are you looking for?”
”Do, Mis' Dougla.s.s!” ? it is impossible to express the abortive attempt at a bow which accompanied this salutation ?
”I want to know if the minister 'll be in town to-day.”
”What do you want of him?”
”I don't want nothin' of him. I want to know if he'll be in town to-day?”
”Yes; I expect he'll be along directly. Why, what then?”
” 'Cause I've got teu chickens for him here, and mother said they hadn't ought to be kept no longer, and if he wan't to hum, I were to fetch 'em back, straight.”
”Well, he'll be here, so let's have 'em,” said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, biting her lips.
”What's become o' t'other one?” said Earl, as the young man's stick was brought round to the table: ”I guess you've lost it, ha'n't you?”
”My gracious!” was all Philetus's powers were equal to. Mrs.
Dougla.s.s went off into fits, which rendered her incapable of speaking, and left the unlucky chicken-bearer to tell his story his own way, but all he brought forth was, ”Du tell! ? I _am_ beat!”
”Where's t'other one?” said Mrs. Dougla.s.s, between paroxysms.
”Why, I ha'n't done nothin' to it,” said Philetus, dismally; ”there was teu on 'em afore I started, and I took and tied 'em together, and hitched 'em onto the stick, and that one must ha' loosened itself off some way ? I believe the darned thing did it o' purpose.”
”I guess your mother knowed that one wouldn't keep till it got here,” said Mrs. Dougla.s.s.
The room was now all one shout, in the midst of which poor Philetus took himself off as speedily as possible. Before Fleda had dried her eyes, her attention was taken by a lady and gentleman who had just got out of a vehicle of more than the ordinary pretension, and were coming up to the door. The gentleman was young ? the lady was not; both had a particularly amiable and pleasant appearance; but about the lady there was something that moved Fleda singularly, and, somehow, touched the spring of old memories, which she felt stirring at the sight of her. As they neared the house she lost them; then they entered the room and came through it slowly, looking about them with an air of good-humoured amus.e.m.e.nt. Fleda's eye was fixed, but her mind puzzled itself in vain to recover what, in her experience, had been connected with that fair and lady-like physiognomy, and the bland smile that was overlooked by those acute eyes. The eyes met hers, and then seemed to reflect her doubt, for they remained as fixed as her own, while the lady, quickening her steps, came up to her.
”I am sure,” she said, holding out her hand, and with a gentle graciousness that was very agreeable, ”I am sure you are somebody I know. What is your name?”
”Fleda Ringgan.”
”I thought so!” said the lady, now shaking her hand warmly, and kissing her; ”I knew n.o.body could have been your mother but Amy Charlton! How like her you look! Don't you know me?
don't you remember Mrs. Evelyn?”
”Mrs. Evelyn!” said Fleda, the whole coming back to her at once.
”You remember me now? ? How well I recollect you! and all that old time at Montepoole. Poor little creature that you were!
<script>