"Poor Hannah," murmured the good old man, "poor Hannah, she's got a hard row to hoe and always had, I'd help her out with the weeds, if some one would only tell me how, but she will work by herself."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE FARNHAMS' RETURN FROM ABROAD.

There is fruit from the orchard and corn from the field, For old mother earth gives a bountiful yield; There is light in the kitchen and fire on the hearth, The Homestead is ready for feasting and mirth.

It was the day before uncle Nathan's husking-frolic. All the corn was housed and stacked upon the barn floor, which had been swept and garnished for the occasion; for after the husking was to come a dance--not in the house, aunt Hannah had some old-fashioned prejudices about that--and uncle Nat shrunk from the idea of having a frolic in the out-room where poor Anna had died; so as the barn was large and the room sufficient, the play usually ended where the work began, upon the barn floor, which was always industriously cleared from the corn-stalks as the husking went on.

Of course it was a busy day at the old house. Salina came early, and was in full force among the culinary proceedings of the occasion. Aunt Hannah received a slight exhilaration of life; she moved about the kitchen more briskly, let her cap get somewhat awry, and twice in the course of the morning was seen to wear a grim smile, as Mary, in her active desire to please, brought the flour-duster and nutmeg-grater to her help, before the rigid lady had quite found out that they were wanted.

Uncle Nat, too, acted in a very excited and extraordinary manner, all day running in from the porch, asking breathlessly if he could do anything, and then subsiding back in his old arm-chair before aunt Hannah could force her thin lips into a speaking condition.

As for Salina, though her tongue was always ready, she had found the old man too dull of comprehension for any thought of taking help at his hands; and when he meekly offered to cut up a huge pumpkin for her, she paused, with her knife plunged deep into its golden heart, and informed dear, unconscious uncle Nathan, that she did not require help from the face of man, not she.

With that, she cut down into the pumpkin with a ferocity quite startling, and split the two halves apart with a jerk that made the horn-comb reel among her fiery tresses, and sent uncle Nat quite aghast through the back door.

Salina looked after him with a smile of grim triumph, snuffed the air like a victorious race-horse, and after forcing the half-dislodged comb into her hair with both hands, she proceeded to cut up the pumpkin into great yellow hoops, with another toss of her head, which denoted intense satisfaction.

It is possible that Salina would have been a little provoked, had she seen with what composure uncle Nat took the rebuff, and how quietly he settled down to a basket of large potatoes by the barn door, which he softly cut in twain, scooping each half out in the centre, and cutting off the bottoms with mysterious earnestness. As each potatoe was finished, uncle Nat fastened it to the edge of a new hogshead-hoop that lay on the floor beside him, till the whole circle was dotted with them.

When this mysterious circle was completed, uncle Nat tied a cord to the four divisions of the hoop, and with the aid of a stout ladder, suspended it between two high beams in the centre of the barn. Having descended to the floor and taken a general observation of the effect, he was about to mount the ladder again, when Mary Fuller ran in, eager to make herself useful.

"Stop, stop, uncle Nathan, let me go up, while you set down on the corn-stalks and tell me if I place them right. Here, now, hand up the candles," she continued, stooping down from the ladder after she had mounted a round or two.

Uncle Nathan drew a bundle of candles from his capacious coat-pocket and reached them up.

"I hope there'll be enough," he said, regretfully, "but somehow Hannah is getting rather close with her candles."

"Plenty--plenty," answered Mary Fuller, "we'll scatter them about, you know; besides, Salina brought over half a dozen nice sperm ones."

"Did she?" said uncle Nathan, heaving a deep sigh, "that's very good of her, especially as she seems to be a little out of sorts lately with us--don't you think so, Mary?"

"Not at all," said Mary, laughing blithely from the top of the ladder, as she settled the candles each into the potatoe socket prepared for it. "Salina's cross sometimes, but then it amounts to nothing."

The old man sat down on a bundle of corn-stalks, and quietly gazed upon Mary as she proceeded with her task; but all at once the folding-door was softly opened, and a broad light flooded the barn.

"Jump down--jump down, Mary!" cried uncle Nat, "some one is coming."

"Oh! it's only me, don't mind me, you know," said a sharp, little weasel-eyed man gliding through the opening; "yes, I see, preparing for the husking frolic. All right, just the thing, labor gives value to everything--of course corn is worth more with the husks off."

At first uncle Nathan seemed a little startled by this abrupt entrance, and Mary came down the ladder with an anxious look, for this man was the village constable, and with a vague sense of debts that they did not comprehend, both the old man and girl received him with something like apprehension. But he clasped both hands under his coat behind, and looked so complacently first at the corn-stalks, then at uncle Nathan, that it quite a.s.sured the old man; though Mary, who had glided down the ladder, and stood close by his side, still bore an apprehensive look in her eyes.

"Fine corn!" said the constable, breaking off an ear, and stripping the husk carelessly from the golden grain, "the rows are even as a girl's teeth, the grain plump and full as her heart I say, uncle Nathan, why didn't you invite me to the husking? I'm great on that sort of work."

"Didn't Hannah invite you?" answered uncle Nat, blushing at this implied charge of inhospitality. "If she didn't, I'll do it now, of course we should be glad to have you come--why not?"

"Of course--why not? If I can't dance like some of the young fellows at a regular strife, I'll husk more corn than the best on 'em. See if any of 'em has as big a heap as I do after the husking. Oh, yes, I'll come!"

"What are you coming for?" inquired Mary, in her low, quiet way, fixing her clear eyes on his face.

"To dance with you, of course and to drink the old man's cider--what else should I come for, little bob-o'-link?"

"I don't know," answered Mary, with a faint sigh, which uncle Nat did not hear, for he was busy gathering himself up from his low seat on the bundle of stalks.

"Won't you step in and take a drink of cider now?" said the kind old man to his visitor.

"No, thank you; but this evening, you may depend on it, I'll be among you."

As he said this, constable Boyd put on his hat, settled it a little on one side, and thrusting a hand into each pocket of his coat, walked with a great dignity toward the door.

A yoke of oxen, fat, sleek, Old Homestead animals, lay in the gra.s.s a little distance from the barn.

"Fine yoke of cattle," said the constable, sauntering toward them, "fat enough to kill a'most, ain't they?"

"I fed them myself," answered uncle Nathan, patting a white star on the forehead of the nearest animal, as he lay upon his knees half buried in the rich aftergrowth. "Isn't he an old beauty?"

"Kind in the yoke?" questioned the constable.

"I should think so!" answered uncle Nat, with a mellow laugh. "Come go in and see how the women folks get along."

"No, thank you, I'll just take a short cut across the garden; but you may depend on me to-night--good day."

"Good day," said uncle Nat; with his usual hearty manner, and picking up a fragment of pine, he moved with it toward the porch.

A barrel of new cider had been mounted on the cheese-press. It was evidently just beginning to ferment, for drops were foaming up from the bung, and creaming down each side the barrel in two slender rivulets.

Uncle Nathan drove the bung down with his clenched hand. Then seating himself comfortably in the old arm-chair, took a double-bladed knife from his pocket, and began with great neatness to whittle out a spigot from the fragment of pine, sighing heavily now and then, as if some unaccountable pressure were on his mind.

Aunt Hannah crossed the porch once or twice on her way to the milk-room, and at each time uncle Nat ceased whittling and gazed wistfully after her. Once he parted his lips to speak, but that moment Salina came to the kitchen door with a quant.i.ty of apple-parings gathered up in her ap.r.o.n, and called out, "Miss Hannah, do come along with that colander, the pumpkin sa.r.s.e will be biled dry as a chip--where on arth is Mary Fuller?"

"Here," answered Mary, in a low voice, coming down from her chamber.

Had Salina looked up she might have seen that Mary's eyes were heavy and moist, as if she had been weeping, but the strong-minded maiden had emptied her ap.r.o.n, and sat with a large earthen bowl in her lap, beating a dozen eggs tempestuously together, as if they had given her mortal offence, and she were taking revenge with every dash of her hand.

"Throw a stick or two of wood into the oven, Mary, that's a good girl, then take these eggs and beat them like all possessed, while I roll out the gingerbread and cut some brake leaves in the pie crust. Aunt Hannah now always will cut the leaves all the way of a size, as if any one with half an eye couldn't see that it isn't the way they grow by nature, but broad at the bottom and tapering off like an Injun arrow at the top. Besides, Mary, it's between us, you know, aunt Hannah never does make her thumb-marks even about the edges, but Nathan, now I dare say, don't know the difference between her work, and a leaf like that."

Salina had resigned her bowl while speaking, and was now lifting up the transparent upper crust of a pie, where she had cut a leaf, through which the light gleamed as if it had been lace-work.

"Look a-there, now, Mary Fuller, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he never noticed the difference between this and that outlandish concern;" here Salina pointed, with a grim smile, to a neatly-covered pie which aunt Hannah had left ready for the oven, and added, with a profound shake of the head, which arose from that want of appreciation which is said to be the hunger of genius, "there's no use of exerting one's self when n.o.body seems to mind it."

With these words Salina spread down the crust of her pie, and lifting the platter on one hand cut around it with a flourish of the case-knife, and began a pinching the edges with a determined pressure of the lips, as if she had quite made up her mind that every indentation of her thumb should leave its fellow on uncle Nat's insensible heart.

"There," she said, pushing the pie against that of aunt Hannah's, "see if any one knows the difference between that and that--I know they won't--there now!"