Say and Seal Volume I Part 23

"He's coming out now!" said Reuben,--"or his wife is--and that's just as good."

And so it appeared; for a short vision of a red petticoat and blue jacket on the other bank, was followed by the ferryman himself,--the white sail rose up above the little boat, and she floated smoothly over. Then Mrs. Derrick drove carefully across the boat bridge, and long Tim pushed off into the stream. How pretty it was! the winding river above, with its woody banks, and villages, and spires; and its broader bends below, towards the Sound. They were about midway in the stream when Reuben suddenly cried out--

"Look, Miss Faith!"--

And there came the great wagon, at not the slowest possible rate, over the long marsh road.

The first sight of the ferryboat and her freight was the signal for a simultaneous shout from the whole wagon load--which long Tim took for a summons to himself.

"'Taint no sort o' use hollerin' like _that_," he said, with a little turn of his steering oar; "'cause I aint a goin' back till I get somewheres to go back _from_--nor then neither mabbe. I kin count dollars whar they kint count cents, neow."

And 'neow' the little wagon was beyond pursuit,--up the hill from the ferry, on over the farm road, drove Mrs. Derrick--somewhat at the quickest; until the old untenanted house rose just before them, and Reuben sprang down to take the reins and help the ladies out.

It was a pleasant old farmhouse that, in spite of its deserted condition. They went to the kitchen, bright with windows looking out to gra.s.s fields and trees. Mrs. Derrick stood at open door and window, recalling scenes and people she remembered there, or watching for the big wagon to make its appearance; while Reuben and Faith went to the outhouses, and finally by dint of perseverance found a supply of wood in an old rotten tumbled-down fence. Mrs. Derrick proclaimed that the wagon was coming, as the foragers returned; but there was a splendid blaze going up chimney before the aforesaid conveyance drew up at the door, and the whole first party turned out to see it unload.

The wagon was unloaded in the twinkling of an eye; then came rummaging for baskets; then so many boys and so many baskets hopped and hummed round, like a little bevy of wasps--with nothing at least of the bee business-character about them.

"Mr. Linden, be we going to stop here?"--

"Is here where the trees be, Mr. Linden?"--

"Mr. Linden, Joe Deacon aint behaving nohow!"

"Mr. Linden, will we leave our baskets and come back to the house? or will they be to go along?"--inquired a more sober tongue.

While others were giving their opinion in little asides that it was 'prime'--and 'fust-rate'--and arguing the comparative promise of chestnut and hickory trees. And one of the bigger boys of the party, _not_ distinguished for his general good qualities, sidling up to Reuben, accosted him under breath with a sly,

"So you druv Mr. Linden's sweetheart. Aint you spry!"

If Reuben had been in that line, he would probably have sent the offender head first down the bank,--as it was, he said quietly,

"I wouldn't let Mr. Linden hear me say that, Phil, if I was you."

"Don't mean ter. Aint you great! But I say,--Joe Deacon says you did."

"Joe Deacon's made a mistake for once in his life," said Reuben rather contemptuously--"and it isn't the first, by several."

"Reuben," said Mr. Linden approaching the group, "you may all go and find where the best trees are, and then come back and report to me. I put you in charge. Understand"--he added, raising his voice a little, "Reuben Taylor is leader of the search--whoever does not obey his orders, does not obey mine."--And in a minute the courtyard was clear.

Then Mr. Linden turned and walked up to the house.

"Now what are you ladies going to do with yourselves?" he said. "Will you come out and sit under the trees and look on--taking the chance of being hit by a stray nut now and then?"

"We can't go wrong to-day," said Faith, with whom the spirit of enjoyment was well at play. "When mother feels in the mood of it we'll come. We can find you--we know where to look. Weren't you obliged to us for doing the waiting at the ferry?"

"And for looking so picturesque in the distance,--it was quite a thing to be grateful for. I think you will have no difficulty in finding where we are--there will be noise enough to guide you. I hope you have not brought a book along, Miss Faith."

"Why, Mr. Linden?"

"The 'running' brooks are good letter-press," he said--"and the grey stones, and that white oak in the meadow. And is not that woodp.e.c.k.e.r a pretty ill.u.s.tration?"

"I have looked at them often," said Faith. "I don't know how to _read_ them as you do. There isn't any brook here, though, that I know of, but Kildeer river. You'll like Neanticut, Mr. Linden. I'm so glad you let us come. I'll read everything--that I can."

"I don't know how long everything'll last you, child--at the rate you've gone on lately," said Mrs. Derrick who stood in the doorway.

Faith smiled again, and shook her head a little at the same time as her eye went from the woodp.e.c.k.e.r to the green leaves above his head, then to the bright red of some pepperidge trees further off, to the lush gra.s.s of the meadow, and on to the soft brownish, reddish, golden hues of distant woodland. Her eye came back as from a book it would take long to read thoroughly.

"I am so glad it is such a day!" she repeated.

"I see my boys are coming back," Mr. Linden said, with a smile which hardly belonged to them,--"I must go and get their report. Au revoir, Miss Faith." And he went forward into the midst of the little swarm--so manageable in his hands, so sure to sting anybody else.

"Child," said Mrs. Derrick, looking over Faith's head from her more elevated position of the door-sill (looking _at_ it too); "Child, why don't you get--" and there, for the first and last time in her life, Mrs. Derrick stopped short in the middle of a sentence.

"What, mother?"

But Mrs. Derrick replied not.

"What do you want me to get, mother?"

"I don't know as I want you to get anything,--child you've got enough now for me. Not that he wouldn't like it, either," said Mrs. Derrick musingly--"because if he wouldn't, _I_ wouldn't give much for him. But I guess it's just as well not." And Mrs Derrick stroked her hand fondly over Faith's head, and told her that if she stood out there without a bonnet she would get sunburnt.

"But mother!" said Faith at this enigmatical speech, "what do you mean?

_Who_ wouldn't like _what?_"

"What does it signify, child?--since I didn't say it?"

"But mother," persisted Faith gently, "what had I better get that I haven't?"

"I don't know as you _had_ better get it, child--and I never said he wouldn't like it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Derrick with a little self-vindication.

"Who, mother?"

"Why--n.o.body," said Mrs. Derrick,--"who's talking of anybody?"

"Dear mother," said Faith, "don't you mean to tell me what you mean?"

"I guess it's just as well not," her mother repeated. "The fact that he'd like it don't prove anything."

Faith looked at her, coloured a little, laughed a little, and gave up the point.

The morning pa.s.sed on its pleasant way in quietness; at least with the old farmhouse and its two occupants. Mrs. Derrick was not without her knitting, and having come from the door sat comfortably click-clacking her needles together--and her thoughts too perhaps--before the cheerful blaze of the fence sticks. Faith _had_ a book with her--a little one--with which she sat in the kitchen doorway, which looked towards the direction the nut party had taken; and apparently divided her attention between that volume and the one Mr. Linden had recommended.

For she looked down at the one and looked off at the other by turns, in a sort of peaceful musing and note-taking, altogether suited to the October stillness and beauty. Now and then she got up to replenish the fire. And then the beauty and her musing got the better of the reading, and Faith sat with her book in her hand, looking out into the dream-provoking atmosphere. No sound came from the far-off nut trees; the crickets and gra.s.shoppers and katydids alone broke the stillness of the unused farm. Only they moved, and the wind-stirred leaves, and the slow-creeping shadows.

When these last were but an hour's length from the tree stems, Faith proposed an adjournment to the nut trees before the party should come back to lunch. The fire was mended, the pot of coffee put on to warm; and they locked the door and set out.

It was not hot that day, even under the meridian sun. They crossed an orchard, and one or two farm fields, on the skirts of which grew single trees of great beauty. White oaks that had seen hundreds of years, yet stood in as fresh and hale green youth as the upstart of twenty; sometimes a hemlock or a white pine stretching its lithe branches far and wide and generously allowed to do so in despite of pasture and crops. Then came broken ground, and beyond this a strip of fallow at the further border of which stood a continuous wall of woodland, being in fact the crest of the bank of the little river Faith had referred to.

And now, and truly for one or two fields before, the shouts and cries of the nut-hunters rang through the air. For just edging, and edging into, the border of trees last spoken of, were the great chestnuts and hickories; and underneath and among them many little dark spots were flying about; which spots, as Mrs. Derrick and Faith came up, enlarged into the familiar outlines of boys' caps, jackets, and trowsers, and ran about on two legs apiece.