Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

  CHAPTER VI

  AS IT WAS WRITTEN

  The twilight had been long for April, as though the vivid sunset colorshad fairly dazzled night, but now it was fading. Oliver Gilbert satbefore his desk in the workshop. He was not looking at what was beforehim, but out of the window across road and fields to where a pearlymist, in which floated the crescent of the new moon, hung aboveMoosatuck. The rush of the river over the last dam that checked it abovethe mills was occasionally punctuated by the cry of a little screech-owlor the call of a robin shifting its perch, while the rhythmic chorus ofpeeping frogs insisted upon "sleep-sleep-sleep."

  That Gilbert was tired was apparent in the deepened lines of his faceand droop of his shoulders, but it was wholly fatigue of mind. Theadoption which had for a month filled his waking and sleeping thoughtswas a thing accomplished. A week before, when the matter hung in thebalance, possession of the child had seemed the finality. To-night itappeared as merely an open gate through which stretched a vista beyondken; across this many figures passed to and fro, but with faces inshadow or averted. A question asked by Satira Pegrim at supper had givenbirth to the entire throng.

  "Don't you calkerlate, Gilbert, it'll be best to lead her up to callingus aunty and uncle? Then byme-by, when she comes to know, as know shemust, there won't be such a mess o' unravellin' to do."

  Gilbert had answered hotly, chided her unreasonably, ending by sayingthat the child called him Daddy already, and that it could do no harm asshe grew up for the two white stones on the hillside to stand for Motherand little sister. Perhaps, God helping, she might not learn the truthuntil she was a woman and married. Then it need not hurt so much. ThusGilbert drugged himself reckless with hope, after the manner of us all.

  Darkness fell about him as he sat, his head fallen between his hands,the side rays of the post-office lamp only seeming to draw the shadowscloser. Presently he pulled himself together, lighted the other lamps inoffice and workshop, talking to himself in an argumentative strain as hewalked about. One man came in for a paper of tobacco and another forsome stamps, but seeing that the postmaster was preoccupied, they didnot linger.

  "That's just what I'll do," he said, as though after arguing with someone he had suddenly achieved a conclusion. Again seating himself beforethe desk and selecting a particular key from the chain he continued theconversation with the opponent who, being speechless, could notcontradict. "When I was a boy, I always was scheming to write a booksome day that should be printed out like them in Squire Oldys's study.The printing won't be compassed, but I can write out all that happensfrom _that night_ on concerning the child, and the village doings, so'sit'll be there plain and no hearsay when she comes to read it and I'mnot here perhaps. Yes, and I must not forget discretion in the doing ofit. Mr. Esterbrook lent me some books of Mr. Pepys's, his remarks on hisown and neighborhood doings. They were fine and edifying in parts, butlacked the discreetness and holding back I always find in Mr. Plutarch.I wonder anyhow, if in the beginning books weren't written just for thesake of talking to some one."

  After searching in a cupboard under the desk, Gilbert drew out a largeledgerlike volume, bound in sheep. The cover was worn merely by lyingfor years side by side with its shelf mates. The pages within were ofthick smooth paper, finely ruled. Gilbert tried several pens, quill andsteel, and finally brought a new one from the office; then slowly andpainfully he inscribed on the first page:--

  _As it was written--by Oliver G. Gilbert for Julia Poppea, beginningMarch 10, 1862._ Next he took his two precious Lincoln letters fromtheir drawer and fastened them between the first and second pages bycorner strips of gummed paper. Then began the diary.

  Two hours passed ere he had finished the first week, but as time wenton, he would naturally grow more brief--the more action the fewer words.

  * * * * *

  By the first of May the reconstructed post-office household was acceptedas a matter of course, Satira Pegrim having leased her farm for a threeyears' term to 'Lisha Potts, and stored her furnishings in the emptyhalf hayloft of the post-office barn. When urged by Potts to sell herfarm, she had answered: "No, Gilbert or I either one of us may feelcalled to marry, then what's to do? 'Cause I wouldn't be number four toDeacon Green with his white chin whiskers, and his 'it's all for thebest' and other heartless sayings when number one, two, and three wastook, or, I claim, clean froze to death, isn't to say I'm set againstthe institution. To camp 'longside of an ice pond isn't marriage. Inever did like lizards, real or human, since brother Cotton Mather putone down my neck in Sunday-school the day sister Clarissy Harlow'sperienced religion and I screeched so folks thought I had it too."

  On May Day itself, Poppea emerged from the hands of Satira Pegrimclad in the first attempts for many a year of that good woman infashioning clothes for a child. The result was a sunbonnet ofbrown-and-white-checked gingham, a sack-shaped slip of the samematerial, reenforced by the species of extension-legged underwear calledpantalets, below which came a glimpse of sturdy ankles and feet shod instout ties. This being the universal garb of children of her age andstation all over Newfield County, the color of the gingham beingdiversified.

  Miss Emmy Felton had protested and begged to be allowed to keep thechild in dainty nainsook and dimities, ribbons, and flowery hats, butGilbert had stood firm that in clothing at least she must be like theneighborhood children, as he expressed it. Thus Poppea began life atHarley's Mills without pretence, having for guardian Mack, who was fastdeveloping into a brown-and-white hound of medium size, a trace ofsetter blood showing in the grain of his hair, and having theforethought and human intelligence that is more often found in dogs ofunknown parentage than in pampered thoroughbreds.

  The parapet that made a barrier between the Angus garden and Gilbert'shome acres was finished. A series of massive stone urns, filled withfoliage plants that topped it, seemed in the half light of night andmorning like seneschals in plumed helmets, keeping watch over the doingsof those humbly encamped below, whom they suspected, but might notdisplace. Yet what does Nature care for such distinctions andboundaries? She does not even stop to snap her fingers at them, butsimply keeps on surrounding, overlapping, or undermining all barriersthat oppose her plans.

  The wash of earth and water from Windy Hill was toward Gilbert'sorchard, with its trees of mossed-branch crannies and knot holes,beloved of robins, bluebirds, and woodpeckers, where the ample red cowflavored her cud with apple blossoms, meadow mint, or nips of the sweetcorn in the vegetable patch, according to season and the location andlength of her tether.

  Down through the ground gaps in the parapet, a combination ofarchitectural design and necessity, came the spirit of that other gardenthat the roseleaf wife had created, tended, and left to outlive her.From the bank presently there sprang a bunch of tulips here, a crimsonpeony there, a musk rose-bush in the debris put forth new branchesreaching toward the light, then came the matted green of violets, tuftsof velvet sweet william, a wand of madonna lilies. All through thisseason and others some deep-sleeping seed or bulb put forth,Johnny-jump-ups, prim quilled asters, and, with June, there swayed aflock of butterfly-winged poppies that in still other seasons wouldwander from their earth bank and alight among the plumes of orchardgrass to colonize all the sunny spaces. This was the child's playground,where she first rolled among the daisies, while Mack, led by his nose,made quest of ground-hog and cottontail; there she sucked clover honey,was stung by jealous bees, solved the first mystery of the nest andeggs, told time by puff-ball clocks, and by and by, through playingmake-believe, approached the real. Like the good fairy of a story whoalways comes to the christening to mend with her gift any evil thatothers have wrought, so at Poppea's naming, Nature the mother was theinvisible sponsor, who gave her three gifts: love of the beautifulthrough eye and ear, love of the best through a warm heart, and theprecious gift of the tears that cleanse the spirit.

  As soon as the wind-flowers starred the lowlands and the red bells ofthe columbine swung from their many shrines
in the rocky banks, OliverGilbert once more resumed his Sunday habit of taking a posy to Mary andMarygold in God's-acre on the hillside. When the afternoon was right,Poppea went with him, riding in the old chaise safe in the grasp ofDaddy's left arm. It was on one of the first of these visits thatGilbert began to train the five-fingered woodbine, that, creepingthrough the half-wild grass, clung to the two white stones and would notbe denied. Heretofore he had always pulled it away ruthlessly, but nowhe plucked a leaf here, a tendril there, coaxing it gently to make aliving frame about the names and date of day and month, but praying itto overgrow the _year_ that filled a sunken oval near the base of boththe stones.

  While he worked, he prattled unceasingly, as a child might, to thelittle one crawling in the mossy grass to gather the light-hued,short-stemmed violets and soft-pawed "pussy-toes." She neither pausednor seemed to heed, yet two sounds heard week after week lingered in herbrain until her tongue should one day release them, and these words were"Mother" and "Ma'gold."

  There was no Fourth of July celebration at Harley's Mills that year,--nopicnics, no speeches. The depressing summer of McClellan's fruitlessmeanderings, as well as lack of money, forbade crackers or fireworks, sothat the return of John Angus with his bride, the second week of themonth, was an event that helped to relieve the general tension.

  Mr. Binks, who saw Mrs. Angus on her arrival as she crossed the platformof the little station, reported:--

  "She's good-lookin', middlin' young 'n' dark haired with pale skin.She's a high stepper 'at knows which way she wants to go, 'n' mark mywords, if John Angus's goin' to foller like she 'spects him to, he'llhave to act freer and more quick'n he ever did for t'other one."

  Next day the village had a shock almost as great as if Lee had suddenlyentered Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Angus appeared, walking in the villagestreet, he holding her sunshade to the best advantage, while she let herflounced, fresh organdie gown brush the ground that she might clasp bothher hands over her husband's arm, the white roses on her wide chip hattickling his ear the while as she moved her head in talking.

  In and out of the half dozen shops they went marketing (John Angus hadhabitually marketed in Bridgeton), she chatting gayly. Presently, asthey reached the post-office, there was a pause. Then she was heard tosay, by a loiterer who sat upon the steps:--

  "Don't be tiresome, Jack; you mustn't expect me to help keep afloatsenseless old grudges. Please open the door, it hurts my hand. Oh, whata lovely child!" For though Angus did not actually enter with her, heheld the door back without further opposition.

  "I will take box fifteen," she said to Gilbert with decision. "I seethat it is vacant. Is that your little grandchild? No, your daughter?You must let your wife bring her up to see me some day. I'm devoted tolittle children."

  "I thought that he looked red and was getting mad," the witness said,"but when she come out, she stuck a big yaller rose she was wearing inher belt right under his chin, and says she, 'Jack, do you love butter?'Oh, Lordy, I thought I'd die, her callin' John Angus Jack, and ticklin'of his chin!"

  Quality Hill called immediately, both those who had previously knownMrs. Angus in New York as Miss Duane and those who had not. Meanwhilethe stern mansion on Windy Hill relaxed and bade fair to become a factorin the town, drawing its social life westward.

  There was much discussion among the village people as to Mrs. Angus'sage; at one of the Feltons' piazza days at home, Miss Emmy, by a processof calculation all her own, said thirty-six, but Mr. Esterbrookgallantly declared that as looks should be the only way of reckoningsuch matters, the lady could be barely twenty-five.

  When Mrs. Angus returned her calls, a trim footman in white tops seatedby the coachman on the box of the barouche, the first ever brought toHarley's Mills, the good folks stared and raised their hands. When shetook a pew at St. Luke's church, her husband escorting her to the dooreach Sunday, they lost their breaths completely. But when she invitedall to a garden party to see a new lawn game called _croquet_ that hadbeen sent her direct from London by a married sister, they found theirtongues again to wonder if the mastering of its fascinating mysterieswould in any way impeach their loyalty to the Declaration ofIndependence; then straightway succumbed as to an epidemic, grace hoops,battledore and shuttlecock, and even archery having to yield it place.

  If Marcia Angus handled her husband somewhat dramatically, hissatisfaction seemed complete as it was deep. Only two in the place,Gilbert and Miss Emmy, ever whispered even to themselves that she wasplaying the sort of comedy that is only possible to a woman when somemotive of ambition rather than her affections has sway. So that it was arelief to both when, on the Anguses' return from town late the nextspring, the touch of nature that makes all women kin colored the villagegossip, and it was known that at last there would be a child born in thegreat house on Windy Hill. Satira Pegrim, who chatted often with thegardener's wife, though her brother had never let her take Poppea forthe oft-requested visit to the hill, repeated wild tales of the finenessof the cambric needlework and lace upon the little wardrobe; of the bluesilk draperies of the south room now fitted for a nursery; of the giltbassinet, with its pillow and spread of real lace, and bed, they said,of swan's-down.

  Finally a new rumor was whispered and then took visible shape. Harley'sMills, with its staff of competent women, single and widowed, who wereready and willing to "accommodate," was overlooked; an English headnurse of the brand accustomed to rear an infant from its birth andchosen by Mrs. Angus's sister, who had sent croquet, appeared in thestalwart person of a Mrs. Shandy.

  Then the village pursed its lips, folded its hands, and waited.

  * * * * *

  _Some random extracts from Oliver Gilbert's book, 1863, Jan. 1._--Threemillion slaves were freed to-day according to the promise of September.It had to be, but now I'm wondering what will become of them. Poppea maysee the working out of this, though I shall not. Having her, there'ssomebody ahead to hand out hopes and fears to. Without somebody ahead tokeep up with, old feet must stumble and get tired on the march.

  _July the 3._--Meade is in command and they're at it again hot and heavyaround Gettysburg. Morse's boy is there and his grandson, or they werewhen it began. We've all been living around the station for the lastthree days, just gasping for news like stranded fish for water, but halfthe time the operator can't get the wire, and then it's only thatthey're at it still, with Lee to the better last night.

  My head is on fire and seem's as if my hands can't feel. What if theyshould win--but they _can't while Lincoln's above ground_.

  _July 4._--We've won Gettysburg; but now the fight's over, the fieldsyonder are just seeded down with bodies, blue and gray together. TheUnion's safe, and all the town boys, big and little, are firing cannonsand muskets, there not being a store that's charging for powder! There'sbeen hallelujahs in the meeting-house, bell-ringings and speeches on thegreen. I've run up both the flags, one atop of t'other, and yet now it'snight and I've come in out of the crowd, it seems like I must put a bitof black out somewhere for _those others_! The picture of them in theglass looks darkly, but byme-by, when Poppea comes to read this, mebbeit'll shine up clear and be seen face to face. Joy and sorrow, there'salways the two around; the matter is _which of us gets which_.

  _July 5._--It's just come in by 'Lisha Potts that plucky Grant, who'sbeen meandering down-stream and in the marshes this long time, got safedown the river past the fort and in back of Pemberton's men, and throughbattering and starving, Vicksburg has given in! _Hallelujah forvictory!_ say I with the rest, yet I can't get the thought out of myhead of those famished women and children living in ground-holes andcaves to keep out of shot range. Maybe when Poppea is grown, there'll besome way of keeping peace and right _without this murder_. Perhaps itmight come about even through women themselves! Who knows?

  _July 7._--Joy and sorrow! Both amongst us in this village. John Angus'swife has borne him his long-wished-for son, but she is dead!

  Oh, God! what has he done to be so d
ealt with? He bent his willconsiderable through love of her, or maybe it was pride. Must it bealtogether broke? Or is it because he withered little Roseleaf? I hauledmy victory flags down just so soon as Dr. Morewood told me. Then I runthe little one back, halfway up. I wouldn't want Angus to think that Ibear malice or was aught but sorry; though if I told him so, he'd likelyread it as a taunt. Mrs. Angus was pleasant spoken to the child and me;mebbe some day Poppea can pass those kind words back _to the littleboy_.

  _July 10._--To-day they buried her up in God's-acre on the hill. Theflowers and singing were beautiful,--'specially the little boys fromMr. Latimer's church that he teaches music. Hughey Oldys sang one pieceall alone about flying away on the wings of a dove to find rest. It tookme straight up after it and set me down far away, wondering where littleRoseleaf lies and if any bedded her with flowers and singing.

  The women folks brought home satisfaction from the funeral anyhow, forthere on a graven silver plate was the age out plain--"In herthirty-seventh year."

  * * * * *

  _1864, July 13._--Early tried to get into Washington yesterday, but hedidn't. What a terrible year it's been so far, and only half over. Bloodit seems everywhere, in earth and sky and sea. Our boys dropping down atmore'n a thousand a day, week in and week out. Can we hold out? Yes, tothe end, with patience; for Lincoln says, "Victory will come, but itcomes slowly."

  There's nobody else left to go soldiering from this town. 'Lisha Pottswas the last likely one and went yesterday. His mother has come down towidow Baker's and they've sold most of their stock,--fodder and laborboth being so high. Three dollars a day for a man at haying. Tough bullbeef at thirty cents the pound; sack flour taken over from the Mills isat the rate of seventeen dollars a barrel, and taxes up to eight millsfrom five, they say, to help pay the war debt; things look pretty bluein my purse. Did I do wrong in keeping the child from those who could dobetter by her?

  Sister Satira is all shook up by 'Lisha's going. I never suspicionedbefore that they were courting. But she claims ever since he hired herfarm it sort of seems as if she belonged with it, and he claims eversince she left and shut the door more'n half the place is missing.Satira isn't in any hurry, even if 'Lisha hadn't enlisted, for she saysshe had less than a month's courting before and poor quality at that, sonow she means to make it last.

  I pray she does. What would become of us?

  _Nov. 12._--_The Union is safe for Lincoln is reelected!_

  * * * * *

  _1865, Feb. 10._--Lincoln wanted to pay the owners something for theslaves set free, but the cabinet would not let _him_! Others wanted tohang the chief Rebel leaders, but he would not let _them_. So it goes. Iwant the child by and by to think of this every time she sees thoseletters that he wrote her Daddy, so's she'll remember what times anddoings she came into to make her loyal to the land and the folks thatstand next her.

  This month the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed thatcuts out slavery from every State and Territory. So help us, God! thatevery soul of us on this soil may be free forever more, black or white,man, woman, or child. Keep us from bondage to ourselves, for slaveryisn't only the body being bought and sold.

  _March 5._--Yesterday, Lincoln took oath again.

  _March 12._--'Lisha Potts came home to-day, honorably discharged andwounded some, but not past mending. He's been in three battles, andlooks old enough to count out those four years that he's younger thanSatira. Dave Morse came with him, but little Davy lies at Gettysburg.It seems as if we ones behind can't keep our hands from touching andfeeling of the flesh of them that was there, or our eyes from searchingthe eyes of them that have seen!

  _April 5._--Yesterday, Lee surrendered and Richmond fell. This ends thewar. Yet woe is still upon the land. What martyrs' blood must be shed tocleanse it?

  _April 15._--_He is dead! Assassinated! None else would suffice!_

  _April 24._--To-morrow we are going to see them take him home, thechild and I. The Fennimans have made me free of their front porch; theyhave a house on Union Square, New York. He will pass that way. Theneighbors think I'm crazy to take a child of four or five. She may notunderstand, but she will see, and byme-by, some day, it will come backto her, and she'll be glad that Daddy took her with him.

  _April 25._--We left at daybreak. As it was raw and threatening, thechild wore a little blue cloak and cap like a soldier's that Satira madeto please her last winter. It being eight years since I've seen thecity, I was forced to ask my way, but Mr. Esterbrook being at thestation to meet some friends, he counselled me. Carrying Poppea, for thestreets were thronged, I went out to Madison Square and so down to FifthAvenue. Black on every side, hanging from roof to street, black-bandedflags, black bands on people's arms, the great clock shrouded in black.There were no public stages on the streets that I could see, so I walkeddown Fifth Avenue to Seventeenth Street, then eastward to Union Square,and so down to Fourteenth Street.

  One large building in particular was covered with black from the dormersdown to the street, with all the windows hid by black-trimmed flags. Iasked a passer-by whose house it was, and he told me that it was thehome of a society called the Union League, formed by the best men ofthis city for the upholding of the Union.

  We got to the house at half after one o'clock. I don't know how long wewaited, bells tolling. A groan ran up and down the street, and then agreat silence. From where I stood out by the fence, the porch andverandy being crowded, I could see the black-covered horses swinginground the corner from Broadway, and after them the car. Down the streetit came, from the corner seemed an hour. I lifted Poppea to the ironfence post by the walk. The groan rose once more, and then silence, withall hats off. When the car passed, it seemed as though the world wasdead, and that after the minute guns would follow the last trump!

  Gazing before her at the car, the child pulled her little soldier capoff, then whispered to me, drawing my head down, "I don't see him,Daddy. Is he going to heaven in that bed asleep?" "Yes, yes," I said."'N' when he wakes up, will he see muvver and Ma'gold and tell 'em wewas here?"

  A band struck up a dirge, so I didn't have to answer. I can't but thinkperhaps he'll find _her_ mother, and tell her that there's an old fellowwho couldn't fight, that just lives to right her wrongs.

  After the car a stream of faces followed, men and more men of high-upsocieties and committees. I was looking at them without seeing, untilone man passed and looked back as he went, at us I thought. It was JohnAngus! My suz, but he's aged or something. His face was drawn as if bypain or anger, I can't judge which.

  Poppea saw him too, and as he passed she waved her hand, she's such aneye for faces. Then she turned her mind to some cakes the ladies gaveher, with pink tops. It's wonderful how nature eases things forchildren.

  _May 10._--The Anguses are back, and folks say that Philip is not well,does not keep his footing as a boy should who is turning three. Satirasaw him yesterday, sitting in his little coach behind the parapet, andshe says he looks old and tired across the eyes.

  Some doctors are coming from New York to-night to see him. Morewood onlyshakes his head when asked, as much as saying, _I know_, but he will notbelieve _me_.

  _May 12._--Mrs. Shandy came down to Satira last evening crying, andblurted out that Philip has a twist or something in hisbackbone,--Pott's disease they call it. He will be a hunchback. "An'when he looks at me so lovin' with those big gray eyes of his, it seemsthat I can't bear it," she sobbed right on Satira's shoulder.

  "What did his father say?" asked she.

  "Mr. Angus? Well he was hard struck and stayed above stairs allyesterday. But this morning he came down and says to us help standingby, 'Do all the doctors say, but never mention to my son or to me thathe is different from other boys. Who breaks my order--goes.' Ah! Mrs.Pegrim, but he's got an awful pride and will; I have my _doubts if Godhimself could break it_."

  * * * * *

  _1867, May._ Poppea is past si
x now and the Misses Felton think sheshould have lessons. She knows her letters from her blocks, and HugheyOldys reads fairy books to her, but it's the hill-country speech thatworries me, and also the Felton ladies. When I talk, I talk like those Ilive among, but when I put pen to paper, I do better, and write morelike those I've met in reading.

  Miss Emmy wants to learn her every day so when she's eight she can go tothe Academy, and being a lady baby as she was, not shame her breeding.For manners, she's catching them already, and Stephen Latimer says shehas a great ear for music, and can sing anything she hears Hugh sing inSunday-school; not out loud, of course, but soft and strange, like ayoung bird that's trying.