"But, Masser Neddy," pursued the old negro, "all this time, we have been calling Abram Hilliard 'Abram,' instead of saying squire. Only think of old Abram; he has been made a squire this good while, and marries people. After he move into him new house, he begun to get high, and took to putting on a clean shirt and shaving every day, which Rose says was a pretty tough job with him at first; but he parsewered. And he's apt to have fresh meat whenever it's to be got, and he won't eat stale pies: and so they have to do small bakings every day, instead of big ones twice a week. And sometimes he even go so far as to have geese took out of the flock, and killed and roasted, instead of saving 'em all for feathers. And he says that now he's clear of the world, he _will_ live as he likes, and have everything he wants, and be quite comfabull. And he made his old woman leave off wearing short gownds, and put on long gownds all the time, and quit calling him daddy, which Rose says went very hard with her for a while. The gals being young, were broke of it easy enough; and now they says pappy."
"Pshaw!" ejaculated Lindsay, whose regret at the general change which seemed to have come over the Hilliard family now amounted nearly to vexation.
"Now, Masser Neddy," continued Pharaoh, "we've got to the new house--there it stands, right afore you. An't you 'prised at it? I always am whenever I sees it. So please a jump off, and I'll take your hoss to the stable, and put him up, and tell the people at the barn that Masser Neddy's come; and you can go into the house and speak for you'mself."
Lindsay, at parting, put a dollar into the hand of the old negro. "What for this, Masser Neddy?" asked Pharaoh, trying to look very disinterested.
"Do whatever you please with it," answered Lindsay.
"Well, masser," replied the negro, "I never likes to hurt a gemplan's feelings by 'fusing him. So I'll keep it, just to 'blige you. But, I 'spect, to be sure, Masser Neddy'll step in some day at negor-man's cabin, and see old Binkey, and take part of him dollar out in cakes and beer. I'll let masser know when Binkey has a fresh baking."
Pharaoh then led off the horse, and Lindsay stood for a few moments to take a survey of the new residence of his old friends. It was a broad, substantial two-story stone house. There was a front garden, where large snow-ball trees
"Threw up their silver globes, light as the foamy surf,"
and where the conical clusters of the lilac, and the little May roses, were bursting into fragrance and beauty, and uniting their odours with those of the tall white lily, and the lowly but delicious pink. Behind the house ascended a woodland hill, whose trees at this season exhibited every shade of green, in tints as various as the diversified browns of autumn.
Lindsay found the front door unfastened, and opening it without ceremony, he entered a wide hall furnished with a long settee, a large table, a hat-stand, a hanging lamp, a map of the United States, and one of the world. There was a large parlour on each side of the hall, and Lindsay looked into both, the doors being open. One was carpeted, and seemed to be fitted up for winter, the other had a matted floor, and was evidently the summer sitting-room. The furniture in both, though by no means showy, was excellent of its kind and extremely neat; and in its form and arrangement convenience seemed to be the chief consideration.
Lindsay thought he had never seen more pleasant-looking rooms. In the carpeted parlour, on the hearth of the Franklin stove, sat a blue china jar filled with magnolia flowers, whose spicy perfume was tempered by the outer air that came through the venetian blinds which were lowered to exclude the sunbeams. One recess was occupied by a mahogany book-case, and there was a side-board in the other. The chimney-place of the summer parlour was concealed by a drapery of ingeniously cut paper, and the various and beautiful flowers that adorned the mantel-piece had evidently been cultivated with care. Shelves of books hung in the recesses, and in both rooms were sofas and rocking-chairs.
"Is it possible," thought Lindsay, "that this can be the habitation of Abraham Hilliard?" And he ran over in his mind the humble aspect of their sitting-room in the old farm-house, with its home-made carpet of strips of listing; its tall-backed rush chairs; its walnut table; its corner cupboard; its hanging shelves suspended from the beams that crossed the ceiling, and holding miscellaneous articles of every description.
Having satisfied his curiosity by looking into the parlours, he proceeded through the hall to the back door, and there he found, in a porch canopied with honeysuckle, a woman busily engaged in picking the stems from a basket of early strawberries, as she transferred the fruit to a large bowl. Time had made so little change in her features, that, though much improved in her costume, he easily guessed her to be his old hostess Mrs. Hilliard. "Aunt Susan!" he exclaimed; for by that title he had been accustomed to address her in his boyhood. The old lady started up, and hastily snatched off her strawberry-stained apron.
"Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?" continued our hero, heartily shaking her hand.
She surveyed him from head to foot, till his identity dawned upon her, and then she ejaculated--"It is--it must be--though you are a gentleman, you _must_ be little Neddy--there--there, sit down--I'll be back in a moment."
She went into the house, and returned almost immediately, bringing with her a small coquelicot waiter, with cakes and wine, which she pressed Lindsay to partake of. He smiled as he recollected that one of the customs of Oakland Farm was to oblige every stranger to eat and drink immediately on his arrival. And while he was discussing a cake and a glass of wine, the good dame heaped a saucer with strawberries, carried it away for a few minutes, and then brought it back inundated with cream and sugar. This was also presented to Lindsay, recommending that he should eat another cake with the strawberries, and take another glass of wine after them.
On Edward's inquiring for her husband, Mrs. Hilliard replied that he was somewhere about the farm, and that the girls were drinking tea with some neighbours a few miles off; but she said she would send the carriage for them immediately, that they might be home early in the evening.
In a short time Abraham Hilliard came in, having seen Pharaoh at the barn, who had informed him of the arrival of "Master Neddy." The meeting afforded equal gratification to both parties. The old farmer looked as if quite accustomed to a clean shirt and to shaving every day; and Lindsay was glad to find that his manner of expressing himself had improved with his circumstances. Aunt Susan, however, had not, in this respect, kept pace with her husband, remaining, to use her own expression--"just the same old two and sixpence." Women who have not in early life enjoyed opportunities of cultivating their minds are rarely able at a late period to acquire much conversational polish.--With men the case is different.
Mrs. Hilliard now left her husband to entertain their guest, and, "on hospitable thoughts intent," withdrew to superintend the setting of a tea-table abounding in cakes and sweetmeats; the strawberry bowl and a pitcher of cream occupying the centre. This repast was laid out in the wide hall, and while engaged in arranging it, Mrs. Hilliard joined occasionally in the conversation which her husband and Lindsay were pursuing in her hearing, as they sat in the porch.
"Well, Edward," proceeded Mr. Hilliard, "you see a great alteration in things at the farm: and I conclude you are glad to find us in a better way than when you left us."
"Certainly," replied Lindsay.
"Now," said the penetrating old farmer, "that 'certainly' did not come from your heart.--Tell me the truth--you miss something, don't you?"
"Frankly, then," replied Lindsay, "I miss everything--I own myself so selfish as to feel some disappointment at the entire overthrow of all the images which during my long absence had been present to my mind's eye, in connexion with my remembrances of Oakland Farm. Thinking of the old farm house and its inhabitants, precisely as I had left them, and believing that time had passed over them without causing any essential change, I must say that I cannot, just at first, bring myself to be glad that it is otherwise. The happiness that seemed to dwell with the old house and the old-fashioned ways of its people, had been vividly impressed upon my feelings. And I fear--forgive me for saying so--that your family cannot have added much to their felicity by acquiring ideas and adopting habits to which they so long were strangers."
"There you are mistaken, my dear boy," answered the farmer. "I acknowledge that if, in removing to a larger house, and altering our way of living, we had in any one instance sacrificed comfort to show, or convenience to ostentation--which, unfortunately, has been the error of some of our neighbours--we should, indeed, have enjoyed far less happiness than heretofore. But we have not done so. We have made no attempts at mimicking what in the city is called style; and I have forbidden my daughters to mention the word fashion in my presence."
"Yes--yes," said Mrs. Hilliard, "I hope we have been wiser than the Newman family over at Poplar Plains. As soon as they got a little up in the world, they built a shell of a house that looks as if it was made of white pasteboard; and figured it all over with carved work inside and out; and stuck posts and pillars all about it with nothing of consequence to hold up; and furnished the rooms with all sorts of useless trumpery."
"Softly--softly--wife!" interrupted old Abraham--and turning to our hero, he proceeded--"well, as I was telling you, Edward, I endeavour to enjoy what I have worked so hard to acquire, and to enjoy it in a manner that really improves our condition, and renders it in every respect better. You know, that in former times, though I had very little leisure to read, I liked to take up a book whenever I had a few moments to spare, if I was not too tired with my work; and when I went to town with marketing, I always bought a book to bring home with me. Also, I took a weekly paper. As soon as I could afford it, I brought home more than one book, and took a daily paper. I gave my children the benefit of the best schooling that could be procured without sending them to town for the purpose; but at the same time, I was averse to their learning any showy and useless accomplishments."
"Well," rejoined Mrs. Hilliard, "we were certainly wiser than the Newmans, who sent their girls to a French school in Philadelphia, and had them taught music, both guitar and piano. And the Newman girls mix up their talk with all sorts of French words that sound very ugly to me.
Instead of 'good night' they say _bone swear_;[77] and a 'trifle' they call a _bagtau_;[78] and they are always talking about having a _Gennessee Squaw_;[79] though what they mean by that I cannot imagine; for, I am sure I never saw any such thing in this part of the country.
And the tunes they play on the piano seem to me like no tunes at all, but just a sort of scrambling up and down, that nobody can make either head or tail of. And when they sing to the guitar, it sounds to me just like moaning one minute, and screaming the next, with a little tinkling between whiles."
[Footnote 77: Bonsoir.]
[Footnote 78: Bagatelle.]
[Footnote 79: Je ne sais quoi.]
"Wife--wife," interrupted Abraham, "you are too severe on the poor girls."
"Well--well," proceeded Mrs. Hilliard, "I'll say nothing more, only this: that the airs they take on themselves make them the talk of the whole country--And then they've given up all sorts of work. The mother spends most of her time in taking naps, to make up, I suppose, for having had to rise early all the former part of her life. The girls sit about all day in stiff silk frocks, squeezed so tight in them that they can hardly move. Or they go round paying morning visits, interrupting people in the busy part of the day. And they invite company to their house, and give them no tea; and say they're having a _swearey_.[80] To be sure it's a shame for me to say so, but it's well known that they never have a good thing on their table now, but pretend it's genteel to live on bits and morsels that have neither taste nor substance. And no doubt that's the reason the whole family have grown so thin and yellow, and are always complaining of something they call dyspepsy."
[Footnote 80: Soiree.]
"_They_ have certainly changed for the worse," remarked Lindsay. "I remember the Newmans very well--a happy, homely family living in a long, low, red frame house, and having everything about them plain and plentiful."
"So had we in our former dwelling," said Mr. Hilliard, "yet I think we are living still better now."
"I have many pleasant recollections of the old house," said Lindsay.
"For you," observed the farmer, "our old house and the manner in which we then lived, owed most of their charms to novelty, and to the circumstance that children are seldom fastidious. I doubt much, if you had found everything in _statu quo_, and the old house and its inhabitants just as you left them, whether you could have been induced to make us as long a visit as I hope you will now."
"My husband," said Mrs. Hilliard, "is different from most men of his age. Instead of dwelling all the while upon old times, he stands up for the times we live in, and says everything now is better than it used to be. And he's brought me to agree with him pretty much--I never was an idle woman, and I keep myself busy enough still, but I do think it is pleasanter to keep hired people for the hard work than to have to help with it myself, as you know I used to. Though I never complained about it, still I cannot say, now I look back, that there was any great pleasure in helping on washing-days and ironing-days, or in making soft soap, and baking great batches of bread and pies--to be sure, my soft soap was admired all over the country, and my bread was always light, and my pie-crust never tough. Neither was there much delight in seeing my two eldest girls paddling to the barn-yard every morning and evening, through all weathers, to milk the cows; or setting them at heavy churnings, and other hard work. And then at harvest-time, and at killing-time, and when we were getting the marketing ready for husband to take to town in the wagon, we were on our feet the whole blessed day.
To be sure, they were used to it, but I often felt sorry for Abraham and the boys, when they came home from the field in a warm evening, so tired with work they could hardly speak, and were glad to wash themselves, and get their supper, and go to bed at dark. And the girls and I were always glad enough, too, to get our rest as soon as we had put away the milk and washed the supper things; knowing we should have to be up before the stars were gone, to sweep the house and do the milking, and get the breakfast, that the men might be off early to work."
"I remember all this very well," said Lindsay.
"To be sure you do," pursued Mrs. Hilliard. "Then don't you think it's pleasant for us now not to be overworked during the day, so that in the evening, instead of going to bed, we can sit round the table in a nice parlour, and sew and knit; or read, for them that likes it. Husband and the girls always did take pleasure in reading--and, for my part, now I've time, I'm beginning to like a book myself. Last winter, I read a good deal in the second volume of the Spectator. In short, I have not the least notion of grieving after our way of living at the old house."
"Nor I neither," added Abraham; "and I really find it much more agreeable to superintend my farm, than to be obliged to labour on it myself."
"And now let us proceed with our tea," said Mrs. Hilliard; "and, Neddy, if you do not eat hearty of what you see before you, I shall think you are fretting after the mush and milk, and sowins, and pie and cheese, that we use to have on our old supper table, and which I do not believe you could eat now if they were before you. Come, you must not mind my speaking out so plainly. You know I always was a right-down sort of woman, and am so still."
Edward smiled, and pressed her hand kindly, acknowledging that all she had said was justified by truth and reason.
The carriage--they kept a very plain but a very capacious one--brought home the girls shortly after candle-light. Lindsay ran out to assist them in alighting, and was glad to find that on hearing his name they retained a perfect recollection of him, though they were in their earliest childhood at the time of his departure for Europe. When they came into the light, he found them both very pretty. Their skins had not been tanned by exposure to the sun and wind, nor their shoulders stooped, nor their hands reddened by hard work; as had been the case with their two elder sisters. They were dressed in white frocks, blue shawls, and straw bonnets with blue ribbons; neatly, and in good taste.
The evening passed pleasantly, and Lindsay soon discovered that the daughters of his host were very charming girls. Ellen, perhaps, had a little tinge of vanity, but Lucy was entirely free from it. Diffidence prevented her from talking much, but she listened understandingly, and when she did speak, it was with animation and intelligence. Lindsay felt that he should not have liked her so well had she looked, and dressed, and talked as he remembered her elder sisters.
When he retired for the night, his bed and room were so well furnished, and looked so inviting, that he could not regret the little low apartment with no chimney and only one window, that he had occupied in the old farm-house; and he slept quite as soundly under a white counterpane as he had formerly done under a patch-work quilt.
We have no space to enter more minutely into the details of our hero's visit, nor to relate by what process he speedily became a convert to the fact that even among country-people the march of improvement adds greatly to their comfort and happiness; provided always, that they do not mistake the road, and diverge into the path of folly and pretension.
Suffice it to say, that he protracted his stay to a week, during which he broke the girls of the habit of saying "pappy," substituting the more sensible and affectionate epithet of "father." When Pharaoh announced the proper time, he made a visit to the refectory of old Binkey, whom he afterwards desired the Candyville storekeeper to supply at his charge, with materials for her cakes and beer, _ad libitum_, during the remainder of her life.
The visit of Edward Lindsay to Oakland was in the course of the summer so frequently repeated, that no one was much surprised when, early in October, he conducted Lucy Hilliard to Philadelphia as his bride: acknowledging to himself that he could never have made her so, had she and her family continued exactly as he had known them at the OLD FARM-HOUSE.