Ishmael; Or, In the Depths Part 78

"Why, where did you get this escritoire, and all these books, Uncle Reuben?" he inquired, in surprise.

"Why, you see, Ishmael, the screwtwar, as you call it, was among the old furnitur' sent down from the mansion-house here, to fit up this place when I first came into it; you see, the housekeeper up there sends the cast-off furniture to the overseer, same as she sends the cast-off finery to the n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"But the books, Uncle Reuben; they are all law books," said the boy, examining them.

"Exactly; and that's why I was so fort'nate as to get 'em. You see, I was at the sale at Colonel Mervin's to see if I could pick up anything nice for Hannah; and I sees a lot of books sold--laws! why, the story books all went off like wildfire; but when it come to these, n.o.body didn't seem to want 'em. So I says to myself: These will do to fill up the empty shelves in the screwtwar, and I dare say as our Ishmael would vally them. So I up and bought the lot for five dollars; and sent 'em up here by Sam, with orders to put 'em in the screwtwar, and move the screwtwar out'n the sitting room into this room, as I intended for you."

"Ah, Uncle Reuben, how good you are to me! Everybody is good to me."

"Quite nat'rel, Ishmael, since you are useful to everybody. And now, my lad, I'll go and send Sam up with your box. And when you have freshed up a bit you can come down to supper," said Gray, leaving Ishmael in possession of his room.

In a few minutes after the negro Sam brought in the box that contained all Ishmael's worldly goods.

"Missus Gray say how the supper is all ready, sir," said the man, setting down the box.

As Ishmael was also quite ready, he followed the negro downstairs into the sitting room.

Hannah was already in her seat at the head of the table; while behind her waited a neat colored girl. Reuben stood at the back of his own chair at the foot of the table, waiting for Ishmael before seating himself. When the boy took his own place, Reuben asked a blessing, and the meal commenced. The tired travelers did ample justice to the hot coffee, broiled ham and eggs and fresh bread and b.u.t.ter before them.

After supper they separated for the night.

Ishmael went up to his room and went to bed, so very tired that his head was no sooner laid upon his pillow than his senses were sunk in sleep.

He was awakened by the caroling of a thousand birds. He started up, a little confused at first by finding himself in a strange room; but as memory quickly returned he sprang from his bed and went and drew up his blind and looked out from his window.

It was early morning; the sun was just rising and flooding the whole landscape with light. A fine, inspiring scene lay before him--orchards of apple, peach, and cherry trees in full blossom; meadows of white and red clover; fields of wheat and rye, in their pale green hue of early growth; all spreading downwards towards the banks of the mighty Potomac that here in its majestic breadth seemed a channel of the sea; while far away across the waters, under the distant horizon, a faint blue line marked the southern sh.o.r.e.

Sailing up and down the mighty river were s.h.i.+ps of all nations, craft of every description, from the three-decker East India merchantman, going or returning from her distant voyage, to the little schooner-rigged fishermen trading up and down the coast. These were the sights. The songs of birds, the low of cattle, the hum of bees, and the murmur of the water as it washed the sands--these were the sounds. All the joyous life of land, water, and sky seemed combined at this spot and visible from this window.

"This is a pleasant place to live in; thank the Lord for it!" said Ishmael fervently, as he stood gazing from the window. Not long, however, did the youth indulge his love of nature; he turned away, washed and dressed himself quickly and went downstairs to see if he could be useful.

The windows were open in the sitting room, which was filled with the refres.h.i.+ng fragrance of the lilacs. The breakfast table was set; and Phillis, the colored girl, was bringing in the coffee. Almost at the same moment Hannah entered from the kitchen and Reuben from the garden.

"Good-morning, Ishmael!" said Reuben gayly. "How do you like Woodside?

Woodside is the name of our little home, same as Tanglewood is the name of the judge's house, a half a mile back in the forest, you know. How do you like it by daylight?"

"Oh, very much, indeed, uncle. Don't you like it, Aunt Hannah? Isn't it pleasant?" exclaimed the youth, appealing to Mrs. Gray.

"Very pleasant, indeed, Ishmael!" she said. "Ah, Reuben," she continued, turning to her husband, "you never let me guess what a delightful home you were bringing me to! I had no idea but that it was just like the cottages of other overseers that I have known--a little house of two or three small rooms."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Gray, "I knew you too well, Hannah! I knew if I had let you know how well off I was, you would never have taken me; your pride would have been up in arms and you would have thought besides as how I was comfortable enough without you, which would have been an idee as I never could have got out of your head! No, Hannah, I humored your pride, and let you think as how you were marrying of a poor, miserable, desolate old man, as would be apt to die of neglect and privations if you didn't consent to come and take care of him. And then I comforted myself with thinking what a pleasant surprise I had in store for you when I should fetch you here. Enjoy yourself, dear woman! for there isn't a thing as I have done to this house I didn't do for your sake!"

"But, Reuben, how is it that you have so much better a house than other men of your station ever have?"

"Well, Hannah, my dear, it is partly accident and partly design in the judge. You see, this house used to be the mansion of the planters theirselves, until the present master, when he was first married, built the great house back in the woods, and then, 'stead of pulling this one down, he just 'pointed it to be the dwelling of the overseer; for it is the pleasure of the judge to make all his people as comfortable as it is possible for them to be," answered Reuben. As he spoke, Phillis placed the last dish upon the table, and they all took their seats and commenced breakfast.

As soon as the meal was over, Ishmael said:

"Now, Uncle Reuben, if you will give me those farm books you were wanting me to arrange, I will make a commencement."

"No, you won't, Ishmael, my lad. You have worked yourself nearly to death this winter and spring, and now, please the Lord, you shall do no more work for a month. When I picked you up for dead that day, I promised the Almighty Father to be a father to you; so, Ishmael, you must regard me as such, when I tell you that you are to let the books alone for a whole month longer, until your health is restored. So just get your hat and come with us; I am going to show your aunt over the place."

Ishmael smiled and obeyed. And all three went out together. And oh! with how much pride Reuben displayed the treasures of her little place to his long-loved Hannah. He showed her her cows and pigs and sheep; and her turkeys and geese and hens; and her beehives and garden and orchard.

"And this isn't all, either, Hannah, my dear! We can have as much as we want for family use, of all the rare fruits and vegetables from the greenhouses and hotbeds up at Tanglewood; and, besides that, we have the freedom of the fisheries and the oyster beds, too; so you see, my dear, you will live like any queen! Thank the Lord!" said Reuben, reverently raising his hat.

"And oh, Reuben, to think that you should have saved all this happiness for me, poor, faded, unworthy me!" sighed his wife.

"Why, law, Hannah, who else should I have saved it for but my own dear old sweetheart? I never so much as thought of another."

"With all these comforts about you, you might have married some blooming young girl."

"Lord, dear woman, I ha'n't much larnin', nor much religion, more's the pity; but I hope I have conscience enough to keep me from doing any young girl so cruel a wrong as to tempt her to throw away her youth and beauty on an old man like me; and I am sure I have sense enough to prevent me from doing myself so great an injustice as to buy a young wife, who, in the very natur' of things, would be looking for'ard to my death as the beginning of her life; for I've heard as how the very life of a woman is love, and if the girl-wife cannot love her old husband--Oh, Hannah, let us drop the veil--the pictur' is too sickening to look at. Such marriages are crimes. Ah, Hannah, in the way of sweethearting, age may love youth, but youth can't love age. And another thing I am sartin' sure of--as a young girl is a much more delicate cre'tur' than a young man, it must be a great deal harder for her to marry an old man than it would be for him to marry an old woman, though either would be horrible."

"You seem to have found this out somehow, Reuben."

"Well, yes, my dear; it was along of a rich old fellow, hereaway, as fell in love with my little Kitty's rosy cheeks and black eyes, and wanted to make her Mrs. Barnabas Winterberry. And I saw how that girl was at the same time tempted by his money and frightened by his age; and how in her bewitched state, half-drawn and half-scared, she fluttered about him, for all the world like a humming-bird going right into the jaws of a rattlesnake. Well, I questioned little Kitty, and she answered me in this horrid way--'Why, brother, he must know I can't love him; for how can I? But still he teases me to marry him, and I can do that; and why shouldn't I, if he wants me to?' Then in a whisper--'You know, brother, it wouldn't be for long; because he is ever so old, and he would soon die; and then I should be a rich young widow, and have my pick and choose out of the best young men in the country side.' Such, Hannah, was the evil state of feeling to which that old man's courts.h.i.+p had brought my simple little sister! And I believe in my soul it is the natural state of feeling into which every young girl falls who marries an old man."

"That is terrible, Reuben."

"Sartinly it is."

"What did you say to your sister?"

"Why, I didn't spare the feelings of little Kitty, nor her doting suitor's nyther, and that I can tell you! I talked to little Kitty like a father and mother, both; I told her well what a young traitress she was a-planning to be; and how she was fooling herself worse than she was deceiving her old beau, who had got into the whit-leathar age, and would be sartin' sure to live twenty-five or thirty years longer, till she would be an old woman herself, and I so frightened her, by telling her the plain truth in the plainest words, that she shrank from seeing her old lover any more, and begged me to send him about his business. And I did, too, 'with a flea in his ear,' as the saying is; for I repeated to him every word as little Kitty had said to me, as a warning to him for the futur' not to go tempting any more young girls to marry him for his money and then wish him dead for the enjoyment of it."

"I hope it did him good."

"Why, Hannah, he went right straight home, and that same day married his fat, middle-aged housekeeper, who, to tell the solemn truth, he ought to have married twenty years before! And as for little Kitty, thank Heaven!

she was soon sought as a wife by a handsome young fellow, who was suited to her in every way, and who really did love her and win her love; and they were married and went to Californy, as I told you. Well, after I was left alone, the neighboring small farmers with unprovided daughters, seeing how comfortable I was fixed, would often say to me--'Gray, you ought to marry.' 'Gray, why don't you marry?' 'Gray, your nice little place only needs one thing to make it perfect, a nice little wife.' 'Why don't you drop in and see the girls some evening, Gray? They would always be glad to see you.' And all that. I understood it all, Hannah, my dear; but I didn't want any young girls who would marry me only for a home. And, besides, the Lord knows I never thought of any woman, young or old, except yourself, who was my first love and my only one, and whose whole life was mixed up with my own, as close as ever warp and woof was woven in your webs, Hannah."

"You have been more faithful to me than I deserved, Reuben; but I will try to make you happy," said Hannah, with much emotion.

"You do make me happy, dear, without trying. And now where is Ishmael?"

inquired Reuben, who never in his own content forgot the welfare of others.

Ishmael was walking slowly and thoughtfully at some distance behind them. Reuben called after him:

"Walk up, my lad. We are going in to dinner now; we dine at noon, you know."

Ishmael, who had lingered behind from the motives of delicacy that withheld him from intruding on the confidential conversation of the newly-married pair, now quickened his steps and joined them, saying, with a smile:

"Uncle Reuben, when you advised me not to study for a whole month you did not mean to counsel me to rust in idleness for four long weeks? I must work, and I wish you would put me to that which will be the most useful to you."

"And most benefital to your own health, my boy! What would you say to fis.h.i.+ng? Would that meet your wishes?"

"Oh, I should like that very much, if I could really be of use in that way, Uncle Reuben," said the youth.

"Why, of course you could; now I'll tell you what you can do; you can go this afternoon with Sam in the sailboat as far down the river as Silver Sands, where he hopes to hook some fine rock fish. Would that meet your views?"