Chapter X: Some Bits of Poetry

Aunt Katharine’s maid of all work did not outstay her leave of absence, and at evening of the third day Esther came home to her grandfather’s. She insisted that she had had a good time, and strongly resented being regarded as a martyr who had sacrificed herself to a painful cause.

“Why, Aunt Katharine made it delightful for me,” she said, “and I liked her better and better all the time I stayed.”

“I hope she didn’t win you over to all her notions, especially that prejudice against getting married,” said Stella, with a laugh.

“She certainly didn’t argue me out of the belief that life might be worth living if one happened to stay single,” returned Esther, and though she said it lightly, the look in her eyes was sober.

But they did not talk long of Aunt Katharine. There was something of livelier interest to be discussed now. It had been the plan from the first that sometime during the summer they should visit Boston with Stella. The summer was wearing away, and it was time for the plan to mature. Moreover, a letter had come from a cousin, who had a cottage for the season at Nahant, inviting them all to spend a week with her there.

Kate was in raptures, and Stella was mapping out a fortnight’s touring which should include a circuit of pleasures, Boston and the seashore, with Concord and Cambridge, and perhaps Old Plymouth, thrown in. It was all delightful to think of. For the next few days their minds were full of it, and in the midst came that pleasant trip which had been planned with Mr. Philip Hadley.

He was punctual to his engagement, and appeared early on the appointed afternoon. But he was not on horseback now. He was in a stylish top buggy, behind a pair of high-stepping bays. Ruel Saxon had planned to take the two girls with him in the family carriage—Kate had other plans for the afternoon—but Mr. Hadley’s buggy changed all that.

“If one of the young ladies will ride with me I shall be delighted,” he said, glancing with a smile at Esther, who happened to be the only one of them in the room at the moment.

She returned the smile, then turning to her grandfather, settled the arrangement in just the right way. “Grandfather,” she said, “we must let Stella go with Mr. Hadley. That will be nice for them both, and then you and I will go together. I don’t want to be selfish, but I shan’t be here much longer, you know, and must make the most of my chances for riding with you.”

The old gentleman looked gratified, and Mr. Hadley smiled again. As for Stella, there was no doubt of her satisfaction with the arrangement when she came in a minute later. She was looking exceedingly stylish in a pale green dress, with hat and parasol to match, and quite the figure to sit with Mr. Hadley behind those handsome bays.

It was a perfect afternoon, and a light rain the night before had laid the dust in the country roads. It was the least frequented of them all, a track which was hardly more than a cart-path which led by the old Bridgewood place, and they tied their horses to a rail fence and climbed on foot to the top of the sharp knoll on which the house once had stood. There was no trace of it now. The walls on which their eccentric owner had once hung his verses in the wind had long ago dropped away, and the very stones of its foundation had been removed out of their place.

Even the tree which had been part of his “battery”—if indeed it survived the experience—could not be distinguished now in the thick grove of maple and chestnut and birch which covered the place. Only the view from the hilltop remained unchanged, and this, as Stella declared, sitting breathless at the end of the climb, justified the owner’s choice of a dwelling-spot, and must have inspired his muse.

From there to the old burying-ground was by a winding way, for Ruel Saxon was in historic mood, and guided his party past the lake haunted by the memory of conjuring Jane, who had been drowned there as a witch long, long ago; past the meadow where a little party of the early settlers, busy with making hay one summer afternoon, had fallen victims to the tomahawks of the Indians; and past the rock where Whitefield, shut out from the churches, had preached one Sabbath day to a crowd of spell-bound and weeping people.

Sometimes he drew Dobbin to the side of the road, and giving the buggy space beside him, paused while he set out the event which the scene called up with vivid description and trenchant comment. He was no mean chaperon in guiding others over the track of the past, and this afternoon he was at his best.

The old burying-ground lay on the edge of a pine wood, on the outskirts of the village. It was more than half a century since the sod had been disturbed, and grass and daisies possessed the paths which once lay plain between mounds which years had smoothed to almost the common level. There had been no encroachment of a growing town upon its borders to break its quiet with the noise and hurry of a strenuous life. It lay, an utter quietness, in the beauty of the summer afternoon, a spot in which it was impossible not to feel that a great peace must have infolded those whose bodies had mouldered to dust in its tranquil keeping.

Yet perhaps Esther was the only one of the little company who felt the pensive influence of the place, and she had never stood before in an old New England burying-ground. Even she did not keep it long, for Ruel Saxon was full of a bustling eagerness to find the graves they had come to seek, and the quaintness of the mortuary devices and inscriptions on the low gray stones soon claimed her whole attention.

“Your great-great-grandfather made up a good many of these epitaphs,” observed the old gentleman to Mr. Hadley. “He was a wonderful hand for that. Folks were always going to him when their relations died—those that wanted anything except verses of scripture under the names. Here’s his own grave now!” he exclaimed, pausing in his rapid searching, and not a little pleased with himself that he had so quickly found a spot which he had not seen in many years:—

“‘Sacred to the memory of
JABEZ BRIDGEWOOD.
Born Aug. 1, 1735—died Nov. 12, 1810.’

“That’s his stone, and no mistake.”

Mr. Hadley was bending over it now. Below the inscription which the old man had read were four lines which the creeping moss had almost obliterated. He took a knife from his pocket and scraped a few words.

“Ah,” he said, lifting his head, “there is evidently one he didn’t write:—

“‘Oh Friends, seek not his merits to disclose,
Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.’”

“No,” said Ruel Saxon, who did not recognize the slightly changed familiar lines, “he didn’t write that. But he picked it out, and left word in writing to have it put on his stone. I remember hearing my grandfather talk about it. Some folks thought ’twas queer he didn’t write his own epitaph. It always tickled him so when he got a chance to do it for other folks.”

“Poor man,” said Mr. Hadley, with a smile, “it was probably his only chance of publication. Think what that must have meant to him! But I’m glad he recognized a superior poet. It’s a mark of greatness.”

They separated a little now, moving about among the headstones, and reading, as they could, the old inscriptions. Some of them were provocative of an amusement which must have its way even in this hallowed spot.

There was one which ran:—

“Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit,
Ye son of Mr. Jonas Boot,
And Mrs. Jemima Boot his wife named Jonathan.”

“I rather hope my ancestor didn’t write that,” said Mr. Hadley. Then, noting the date of the said Jonathan’s death, 1748, he added, with a shake of his head, “But he might; it’s possible, if his poetic genius blossomed early.”

There was another close by which Stella was reading now. It was inscribed to a girl of sixteen:—

“Too good for earth, God in His love,
Took her to dwell with saints above.”

“Poor little thing!” she said, under her breath. “I wonder if she liked living with the saints half as well as with her own girl friends. It’s to be hoped that she found some there.”

There was dignity in one over which Esther was bending now:—

“Let not ye dead forgotten lye,
Lest men forget that they must die;”

and a touch of real tenderness was in the one which stood beside it under the name of a little child:—

“She faltered by the wayside,
And the angels took her home.”

But this, which came next, was not so felicitous:—

“God took him to His Heavenly home,
No more this weary world to roam.”

This, to a babe of six months, certainly indicated a paucity of rhymes on the part of the composer, and Mr. Hadley pointed in triumph to a year marked on the little gray slab which plainly antedated his ancestor.

But the stone which by the consent of all was pronounced the most unique was inscribed to Keziah, a “beloved wife who put on immortality” at the age of thirty-five. Below the name and date was carved an emblem suggestive of a chrysalis, with the words, “Keziah as she was;” and under this appeared the head of a cherub, with the wings of a butterfly sprouting from its swollen cheeks, and the words, “Keziah as she is.”

Stella hovered around this for some time in convulsed admiration. “I’m so glad there were artists as well as poets in those days,” she said; and then she added, with a levity she could not repress, “it reminds one for all the world of the advertisements, ‘Before and after taking.’”

There was another erected to the memory of a wife which called forth almost as much admiration. The virtues of the deceased were set forth with unusual fulness, and the record of her long services to society, the church, and her family, ended with the words, “She lived with her husband sixty years, and died in the hope of a better life.”

Even Deacon Saxon chuckled over this, and then added, “I don’t b’lieve my sister Katharine ever heard of that, or she’d have thrown it up to me before this.”

It was queer what oddities of thought and expression had got themselves cut in some of these stones, and there were commonplaces which occurred over and over:—

“Friends nor physicians could not save
This loving ——”

Was father, mother, husband, the needed title? Alas, all were easily supplied, and then followed the inevitable “from the grave.”

There was one with a harsh creditor accent, before which light-hearted readers could hardly help shrinking a little:—

“Death is a debt to Nature due,
I’ve paid it now, and so must you.”

But there was another, carved more than once, which might well cause a deeper shudder. It ran:—

“Beneath this stone Death’s prisoner lies,
Ye stone shall move, ye prisoner rise,
When Jesus, with Almighty word,
Calls his dead Saints to meet their Lord.”

“Dreadful theology, don’t you think?” Mr. Hadley said, turning with a little shiver to the girls, and their grandfather added his assent to theirs with emphasis. “Yes, Jesus hasn’t got any dead saints. They or’ to have remembered what He said Himself, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

But by far the greater number of these ancient headstones were marked with texts of scripture, and however mirth might be provoked by sentiment or phrase from other sources, the simple dignity of the book of books always brought back seriousness and reminded on what word the hearts of men had leaned, through the long generations, to endure the old, old sorrow of death. The faith of the fathers, not their fashions, was the thought which one must bear away in the end from such a spot.

They had paused longest by the graves of Ruel Saxon’s people, and again as they left the place he lingered for a moment by the low gray line of stones. “They were God-fearing men and women, all of them,” he said, with tender reverence in his voice; then, lifting his face, he added, with inexpressible pride and solemnity:—

“My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth,
But higher far my proud pretensions rise—
The son of parents passed into the skies.”

That was the last word spoken before they let down the bars in the old stone wall and made their way back to their horses. Possibly the young man, who was so anxious to establish his family record, may have caught, at that moment, a new thought of ancestral honors.

It had been a full afternoon, and it was a late one when they reached the farmhouse. Mr. Hadley would have mounted to his buggy at once after helping Stella down, but the deacon interposed.

“Why, it’s high time for supper,” he said, “and you mustn’t drive back to Hartridge without having a bite to eat, you or your horses either.”

“Of course not,” said Stella, cordially. “We count on your staying to supper.” And then she added archly, “I really think you ought, for the sake of your great-great-grandfather.”

“Whom your great-great-grandmother could never get rid of?” he replied, laughing. “I’m not sure but on his account I ought to go, to convince you that his descendants at least can turn their backs on pleasure.”

But he did not insist on doing it, and it is extremely doubtful whether Jabez Bridgewood ever enjoyed a meal under the old roof more than Philip Hadley enjoyed the one that followed. The fact was, both Stella and her mother had foreseen that the delays and digressions of the old gentleman in showing his party around would consume the afternoon, and bring the young man back at about this time. They had conferred carefully as to the setting of the table in the best old-fashioned china, with a pretty mingling of Stella’s hand-painted pieces; the menu had been settled to a nicety in advance, and the delicate French salad, which Mr. Hadley pronounced the best he had ever tasted, had been compounded by Stella herself before leaving the house.

Tom and Kate, who were just in from a tramp to a distant pasture, had their places with the others. Tom had objected at first to sitting down with “the nabob,” as he called their guest, but Kate’s persuasions and his own curiosity finally overcame him.

The meal was a social one. The girls talked of their intended outing, and Mr. Hadley, who was much interested, made some capital suggestions.

Then a question or two drew him out in regard to his own summer, and he talked quite charmingly of a yachting trip in July. There was a plan for the White Mountains early in September. He had succeeded better than usual in killing time this summer, he said; to which he added gracefully, that he believed no other day of it had been as pleasant as this which was just ending.

This brought them back to the excursion of the afternoon, and Esther in particular grew quite eloquent over the delights of it.

“That’s what it is to live in an old country,” she said wistfully. “You feel as if you belonged to the past as well as the present when you stand in the places where the things you’ve read of really happened. I think it’s beautiful to have historic associations.”

There was an approving murmur over this sentiment, but Kate did not join in it. There was no mistaking its implied suggestion of a point in which New England had the advantage over her native state. She might possibly have let it pass if Tom had not had the indiscretion at that moment to press her foot under the table. Up to this point her part in the conversation had been mostly questions, but now she advanced an opinion boldly.

“Well, I must say I never wanted to live in an old country on that account,” she said. “I remember when mother used to read Child’s History of England to us, I was always glad that our country began later, and that we didn’t have those cruel times, when people were beheaded for nothing, and princes’ eyes put out by their wicked uncles, in our history at all. Those things you’ve been hearing about this afternoon—there wasn’t anything very beautiful about some of them. That poor old thing they drowned—I don’t suppose she was any more a witch than I am. And that rock where Whitefield preached—it was a mean bigoted thing to keep him out of the churches, and I should think good people would be ashamed every time they looked at the rock.”

There was silence for a minute when she ended. Then Mr. Hadley said, with a smile, “In other words, if you have historic associations at all, you want those of the very best sort.” To which he added, lifting his eyebrows a trifle, “I presume you wouldn’t object to Bunker Hill and Lexington!”

Kate took a swallow of water before speaking. Then she said with dignity: “I have never regarded Bunker Hill and Lexington as local affairs. I think they belong to the whole country!”

Mr. Hadley made her a bow across the table. “Capital!” he said. “I surrender.”

“If you knew how my cousin Kate stands up for everything connected with her own part of the country, you’d surrender in advance any attempt to impress her with the beauties of ours,” said Stella, laughing. “Talk of loyalty to one’s home!”

“Well, you certainly have a remarkably fine section of country out your way,” said Mr. Hadley, graciously. “My father was there buying grain one summer, and I remember he came back perfectly enthusiastic over everything except the ague, which he brought home with him, and had hard work to get rid of. I suppose you’ll admit that you do have some chills and fever lying round in your low lands.”

“Oh, people have to have something,” said Kate, carelessly, “but ague isn’t the worst thing that ever was. People very seldom die of it, and it’s really the most interesting disease in the world. I could give you a list as long as my arm of the ingenious ways country people have of curing it; and some of them are perfectly fascinating, they’re so queer. You ought to hear my father talk about ague.”

There was an explosion of laughter at this. “Kate,” cried Stella, “you’re as bad as the old woman who was challenged to find a good quality in his Satanic majesty, and immediately said there was nothing like his perseverance. But really, if one must discuss chills and fever, don’t you think they’re a little, just a little plebeian?”

“Oh,” said Kate, “anything’s plebeian—if you’ve a mind to call it so—that keeps people moping and ailing. But there are lots of things more ‘ornary’ than chills. It was when they were all coming down with them, don’t you know, that Mark Tapley found the first chance he ever had to be ‘jolly’ when ’twas really a credit to him!”

The laughter took a note of applause now from Mr. Hadley. “Miss Saxon,” he exclaimed, turning to Stella, “don’t let’s press her any further; she’s positively making a classic of the ague. If she says much more, we shall all be wanting to go out there for the express purpose of getting it.”

“But ten chances to one you wouldn’t get it, if you did,” said Kate. “As a matter of fact, we don’t have much of it nowadays. It was part of the newness of the country, and draining the land has carried most of it off.”

There was nothing to be said to this. She was in possession of the field at both ends, and they retreated from the subject with a last volley of laughter.

After supper Tom told Kate confidentially that she had “done ’em up in good style. Though I’ll warrant,” he added severely, “that you’d brag as much as anybody if you had some of the old places we have out your way.” And then he observed that the nabob wasn’t half bad. He didn’t know as ’twas strange that the girls had taken such a fancy to him.

As it happened, Esther was thinking of him at that very moment. She had just finished reading a letter from Morton Elwell,—a letter written, as he happened to mention, before five one morning of a day that was to be full of work. How well she knew that it was one of many—days that followed each other without break or pause save for the Sabbath’s rest! And then she thought of Mr. Philip Hadley with his summer devices for “killing time.” She wondered why life should be so easy for some, so strenuous for others; and, for the first time, she thought of it with a sort of resentment that Morton Elwell should work so hard and have no summer pleasuring.