The picnic over, we played games until the early falling dusk, and then we went with Uncle Alec to the back field to burn the potato stalks—the crowning delight of the day.
The stalks were in heaps all over the field, and we were allowed the privilege of setting fire to them. ’Twas glorious! In a few minutes the field was alight with blazing bonfires, over which rolled great, pungent clouds of smoke. From pile to pile we ran, shrieking with delight, to poke each up with a long stick and watch the gush of rose-red sparks stream off into the night. In what a whirl of smoke and firelight and wild, fantastic, hurtling shadows we were!
When we grew tired of our sport we went to the windward side of the field and perched ourselves on the high pole fence that skirted a dark spruce wood, full of strange, furtive sounds. Over us was a great, dark sky, blossoming with silver stars, and all around lay dusky, mysterious reaches of meadow and wood in the soft, empurpled night. Away to the east a shimmering silveryness beneath a palace of aerial cloud foretokened moonrise. But directly before us the potato field, with its wreathing smoke and sullen flames, the gigantic shadow of Uncle Alec crossing and recrossing it, reminded us of Peter’s famous description of the bad place, and probably suggested the Story Girl’s remark.
“I know a story,” she said, infusing just the right shade of weirdness into her voice, “about a man who saw the devil. Now, what’s the matter, Felicity?”
“I can never get used to the light way you mention the—the—that name,” complained Felicity. “To hear you speak of the Old Scratch any one would think he was just a common person.”
“Never mind. Tell us the story,” I said curiously.
“It is about Mrs. John Martin’s uncle at Markdale,” said the Story Girl. “I heard Uncle Roger telling it the other night. He didn’t know that I was sitting on the cellar hatch outside the window, or I don’t suppose he would have told it. Mrs. Martin’s uncle’s name was William Cowan, and he has been dead for twenty years; but sixty years ago he was a young man, and a very wild, wicked young man. He did everything bad he could think of, and he never went to church, and he laughed at everything religious, even the devil. He didn’t believe there was a devil at all. One beautiful summer Sunday evening his mother pleaded with him to go to church with her, but he would not. He told her that he was going fishing instead, and when church time came he swaggered past the church, with his fishing rod over his shoulder, singing a godless song. Half way between the church and the harbour there was a thick spruce wood, and the path ran through it. When William Cowan was half way through it SOMETHING came out of the wood and walked beside him.”
I have never heard anything more horribly suggestive than that innocent word, “something,” as enunciated by the Story Girl. I felt Cecily’s hand, icy cold, clutch mine.
“What—what—was IT like?” whispered Felix, curiosity getting the better of his terror.
“IT was tall, and black, and hairy,” said the Story Girl, her eyes glowing with uncanny intensity in the red glare of the fires, “and IT lifted one great, hairy hand, with claws on the end of it, and clapped William Cowan, first on one shoulder and then on the other, and said, ‘Good sport to you, brother.’ William Cowan gave a horrible scream and fell on his face right there in the wood. Some of the men around the church door heard the scream, and they rushed down to the wood. They saw nothing but William Cowan, lying like a dead man on the path. They took him up and carried him home; and when they undressed him to put him to bed, there, on each shoulder, was the mark of a big hand, burned into the flesh. It was weeks before the burns healed, and the scars never went away. Always, as long as William Cowan lived, he carried on his shoulders the prints of the devil’s hand.”
I really do not know how we should ever have got home, had we been left to our own devices. We were cold with fright. How could we turn our backs on the eerie spruce wood, out of which SOMETHING might pop at any moment? How cross those long, shadowy fields between us and our rooftree? How venture through the darkly mysterious bracken hollow?
Fortunately, Uncle Alec came along at this crisis and said he thought we’d better come home now, since the fires were nearly out. We slid down from the fence and started, taking care to keep close together and in front of Uncle Alec.
“I don’t believe a word of that yarn,” said Dan, trying to speak with his usual incredulity.
“I don’t see how you can help believing it,” said Cecily. “It isn’t as if it was something we’d read of, or that happened far away. It happened just down at Markdale, and I’ve seen that very spruce wood myself.”
“Oh, I suppose William Cowan got a fright of some kind,” conceded Dan, “but I don’t believe he saw the devil.”
“Old Mr. Morrison at Lower Markdale was one of the men who undressed him, and he remembers seeing the marks,” said the Story Girl triumphantly.
“How did William Cowan behave afterwards?” I asked.
“He was a changed man,” said the Story Girl solemnly. “Too much changed. He never was known to laugh again, or even smile. He became a very religious man, which was a good thing, but he was dreadfully gloomy and thought everything pleasant sinful. He wouldn’t even eat any more than was actually necessary to keep him alive. Uncle Roger says that if he had been a Roman Catholic he would have become a monk, but, as he was a Presbyterian, all he could do was to turn into a crank.”
“Yes, but your Uncle Roger was never clapped on the shoulder and called brother by the devil,” said Peter. “If he had, he mightn’t have been so precious jolly afterwards himself.”
“I do wish to goodness,” said Felicity in exasperation, “that you’d stop talking of the—the—of such subjects in the dark. I’m so scared now that I keep thinking father’s steps behind us are SOMETHING’S. Just think, my own father!”
The Story Girl slipped her arm through Felicity’s.
“Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I’ll tell you another story—such a beautiful story that you’ll forget all about the devil.”
She told us one of Hans Andersen’s most exquisite tales; and the magic of her voice charmed away all our fear, so that when we reached the bracken hollow, a lake of shadow surrounded by the silver shore of moonlit fields, we went through it without a thought of His Satanic Majesty at all. And beyond us, on the hill, the homelight was glowing from the farmhouse window like a beacon of old loves.
XXXII
The Opening of the Blue Chest
November wakened from her dream of May in a bad temper. The day after the picnic a cold autumn rain set in, and we got up to find our world a drenched, wind-writhen place, with sodden fields and dour skies. The rain was weeping on the roof as if it were shedding the tears of old sorrows; the willow by the gate tossed its gaunt branches wildly, as if it were some passionate, spectral thing, wringing its fleshless hands in agony; the orchard was haggard and uncomely; nothing seemed the same except the stanch, trusty, old spruces.
It was Friday, but we were not to begin going to school again until Monday, so we spent the day in the granary, sorting apples and hearing tales. In the evening the rain ceased, the wind came around to the northwest, freezing suddenly, and a chilly yellow sunset beyond the dark hills seemed to herald a brighter morrow.
Felicity and the Story Girl and I walked down to the post-office for the mail, along a road where fallen leaves went eddying fitfully up and down before us in weird, uncanny dances of their own. The evening was full of eerie sounds—the creaking of fir boughs, the whistle of the wind in the tree-tops, the vibrations of strips of dried bark on the rail fences. But we carried summer and sunshine in our hearts, and the bleak unloveliness of the outer world only intensified our inner radiance.
Felicity wore her new velvet hood, with a coquettish little collar of white fur about her neck. Her golden curls framed her lovely face, and the wind stung the pink of her cheeks to crimson. On my left hand walked the Story Girl, her red Cap on her jaunty brown head. She scattered her words along the path like the pe
arls and diamonds of the old fairy tale. I remember that I strutted along quite insufferably, for we met several of the Carlisle boys and I felt that I was an exceptionally lucky fellow to have such beauty on one side and such charm on the other.
There was one of father’s thin letters for Felix, a fat, foreign letter for the Story Girl, addressed in her father’s minute handwriting, a drop letter for Cecily from some school friend, with “In Haste” written across the corner, and a letter for Aunt Janet, postmarked Montreal.
“I can’t think who that is from,” said Felicity. “Nobody in Montreal ever writes to mother. Cecily’s letter is from Em Frewen. She always puts ‘In Haste’ on her letters, no matter what is in them.”
When we reached home Aunt Janet opened and read her Montreal letter. Then she laid it down and looked about her in astonishment.
“Well, did ever any mortal!” she said
“What in the world is the matter?” said Uncle Alec.
“This letter is from James Ward’s wife in Montreal,” said Aunt Janet solemnly. “Rachel Ward is dead. And she told James’ wife to write to me and tell me to open the old blue chest.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Dan.
“Donald King,” said his mother severely, “Rachel Ward was your relation and she is dead. What do you mean by such behaviour?”
“I never was acquainted with her,” said Dan sulkily. “And I wasn’t hurrahing because she is dead. I hurrahed because that blue chest is to be opened at last.”
“So poor Rachel is gone,” said Uncle Alec. “She must have been an old woman—seventy-five, I suppose. I remember her as a fine, blooming young woman. Well, well, and so the old chest is to be opened at last. What is to be done with its contents?”
“Rachel left instructions about them,” answered Aunt Janet, referring to the letter. “The wedding dress and veil and letters are to be burned. There are two jugs in it which are to be sent to James’ wife. The rest of the things are to given around among the connection. Each member is to have one, ‘to remember her by.’ ”
“Oh, can’t we open it right away this very night?” said Felicity eagerly.
“No, indeed!” Aunt Janet folded up the letter decidedly. “That chest has been locked up for fifty years, and it’ll stand being locked up one more night. You children wouldn’t sleep a wink to-night if we opened it now. You’d go wild with excitement.”
“I’m sure I won’t sleep anyhow,” said Felicity. “Well, at least you’ll open it the first thing in the morning, won’t you, ma?”
“No, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” was Aunt Janet’s pitiless decree. “I want to get the work out of the way first—and Roger and Olivia will want to be here, too. We’ll say ten o’clock to-morrow forenoon.”
“That’s sixteen whole hours yet,” sighed Felicity.
“I’m going right over to tell the Story Girl,” said Cecily. “Won’t she be excited!”
We were all excited. We spent the evening speculating on the possible contents of the chest, and Cecily dreamed miserably that night that the moths had eaten everything in it.
The morning dawned on a beautiful world. A very slight fall of snow had come in the night—just enough to look like a filmy veil of lace flung over the dark evergreens, and the hard frozen ground. A new blossom time seemed to have revisited the orchard. The spruce wood behind the house appeared to be woven out of enchantment. There is nothing more beautiful than a thickly growing wood of firs lightly powdered with new-fallen snow. As the sun remained hidden by gray clouds, this fairy beauty lasted all day.
The Story Girl came over early in the morning, and Sara Ray, to whom faithful Cecily had sent word, was also on hand. Felicity did not approve of this.
“Sara Ray isn’t any relation to our family,” she scolded to Cecily, “and she has no right to be present.”
“She’s a particular friend of mine,” said Cecily with dignity. “We have her in everything, and it would hurt her feelings dreadfully to be left out of this. Peter is no relation either, but he is going to be here when we open it, so why shouldn’t Sara?”
“Peter ain’t a member of the family yet, but maybe he will be some day. Hey, Felicity?” said Dan.
“You’re awful smart, aren’t you, Dan King?” said Felicity, reddening. “Perhaps you’d like to send for Kitty Marr, too—though she does laugh at your big mouth.”
“It seems as if ten o’clock would never come,” sighed the Story Girl. “The work is all done, and Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger are here, and the chest might just as well be opened right away.”
“Mother said ten o’clock and she’ll stick to it,” said Felicity crossly. “It’s only nine now.”
“Let us put the clock on half an hour,” said the Story Girl. “The clock in the hall isn’t going, so no one will know the difference.”
We all looked at each other.
“I wouldn’t dare,” said Felicity irresolutely.
“Oh, if that’s all, I’ll do it,” said the Story Girl.
When ten o’clock struck Aunt Janet came into the kitchen, remarking innocently that it hadn’t seemed anytime since nine. We must have looked horribly guilty, but none of the grown-ups suspected anything. Uncle Alec brought in the axe, and pried off the cover of the old blue chest, while everybody stood around in silence.
Then came the unpacking. It was certainly an interesting performance. Aunt Janet and Aunt Olivia took everything out, and laid it on the kitchen table. We children were forbidden to touch anything, but fortunately we were not forbidden the use of our eyes and tongues.
“There are the pink and gold vases Grandmother King gave her,” said Felicity, as Aunt Olivia unwrapped from their tissue paper swathings a pair of slender, old-fashioned, twisted vases of pink glass, over which little gold leaves were scattered. “Aren’t they handsome?”
“And oh,” exclaimed Cecily in delight, “there’s the china fruit basket with the apple on the handle. Doesn’t it look real? I’ve thought so much about it. Oh, mother, please let me hold it for a minute. I’ll be careful as careful.”
“There comes the china set Grandfather King gave her,” said the Story Girl wistfully. “Oh, it makes me feel sad. Think of all the hopes that Rachel Ward must have put away in this chest with all her pretty things.”
Following these, came a quaint little candlestick of blue china, and the two jugs which were to be sent to James’ wife.
“They are handsome,” said Aunt Janet rather enviously. “They must be a hundred years old. Aunt Sara Ward gave them to Rachel, and she had them for at least fifty years. I should have thought one would have been enough for James’ wife. But of course we must do just as Rachel wished. I declare, here’s a dozen tin patty pans!”
“Tin patty pans aren’t very romantic,” said Story Girl discontentedly.
“I notice that you are as fond as any one of what is baked in them,” said Aunt Janet. “I’ve heard of those patty pans. An old servant Grandmother King had then gave them to Rachel. Now we are coming to the linen. That was Uncle Edward Ward’s present. How yellow it has grown.”
We children were not greatly interested in the sheets and tablecloths and pillow-cases which now came out of the capacious depths of the old blue chest. But Aunt Olivia was quite enraptured over them.
“What sewing!” she said. “Look, Janet, you’d almost need a magnifying glass to seek the stitches. And the dear, old-fashioned pillow-slips with buttons on them!”
“Here are a dozen handkerchiefs,” said Aunt Janet. “Look at the initial in the corner of each. Rachel learned that stitch from a nun in Montreal. It looks as if it was woven into the material.”
“Here are her quilts,” said Aunt Olivia. “Yes, there is the blue and white counterpane Grandmother Ward gave her—and the Rising Sun quilt her Aunt Nancy made for her—and the braided rug. The colours are not faded one bit. I want that rug, Janet.”
Underneath the linen were Rachel Ward’s wedding clothes. The excitement of the girls waxed red ho
t over these. There was a Paisley shawl in the wrappings in which it had come from the store, and a wide scarf of some yellowed lace. There was the embroidered petticoat which had cost Felicity such painful blushes, and a dozen beautifully worked sets of the fine muslin “undersleeves” which had been the fashion in Rachel Ward’s youth.
“This was to have been her appearing out dress,” said Aunt Olivia, lifting out a shot green silk. “It is all cut to pieces—but what a pretty soft shade it was! Look at the skirt, Janet. How many yards must it measure around?”
“Hoopskirts were in then,” said Aunt Janet. “I don’t see her wedding hat here. I was always told that she packed it away, too.”
“So was I. But she couldn’t have. It certainly isn’t here. I have heard that the white plume on it cost a small fortune. Here is her black silk mantle. It seems like sacrilege to meddle with these clothes.”
“Don’t be foolish, Olivia. They must be unpacked at least. And they must all be burned since they have cut so badly. This purple cloth dress is quite good, however. It can be made over nicely, and it would become you very well, Olivia.”
“No, thank you,” said Aunt Olivia, with a little shudder. “I should feel like a ghost. Make it over for yourself, Janet.”
“Well, I will, if you don’t want it. I am not troubled with fancies. That seems to be all except this box. I suppose the wedding dress is in it.”
“Oh,” breathed the girls, crowding about Aunt Olivia, as she lifted out the box and cut the cord around it. Inside was lying a dress of soft silk, that had once been white but was now yellowed with age, and, enfolding it like a mist, a long, white bridal veil, redolent with some strange, old-time perfume that had kept its sweetness through all the years.
“Poor Rachel Ward,” said Aunt Olivia softly. “Here is her point lace handkerchief. She made it herself. It is like a spider’s web. Here are the letters Will Montague wrote her. And here,” she added, taking up a crimson velvet case with a tarnished gilt clasp, “are their photographs—his and hers.”
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