Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  After giving a look out of the window, to see that the children were within sight, she opened the big Bible at the story of the ten plagues of Egypt, and adjusting her horn spectacles with a sort of sideway twist on her little pug nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment after she looked up and said, “I don’t know but I must send a message by you over to Mis’ Deacon Badger, about a worldly matter, if ’tis Sunday; but I’ve been thinkin’, Mis’ Pennel, that there’ll have to be clothes made up for this ‘ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis’ Badger that we’ll come to her a Wednesday, and so she’ll have time to have that new press-board done, — the old one used to pester me so.”

  “Well, I’ll remember,” said Mrs. Pennel.

  “It seems a’most impossible to prevent one’s thoughts wanderin’ Sundays,” said Aunt Ruey; “but I couldn’t help a-thinkin’ I could get such a nice pair o’ trousers out of them old Sunday ones of the Cap’n’s in the garret. I was a-lookin’ at ’em last Thursday, and thinkin’ what a pity ’twas you hadn’t nobody to cut down for; but this ‘ere young un’s going to be such a tearer, he’ll want somethin’ real stout; but I’ll try and put it out of my mind till Monday. Mis’ Pennel, you’ll be sure to ask Mis’ Titcomb how Harriet’s toothache is, and whether them drops cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you’ll jist look in a minute at Major Broad’s, and tell ’em to use bayberry wax for his blister, it’s so healin’; and do jist ask if Sally’s baby’s eye-tooth has come through yet.”

  “Well, Aunt Ruey, I’ll try to remember all,” said Mrs. Pennel, as she stood at the glass in her bedroom, carefully adjusting the respectable black silk shawl over her shoulders, and tying her neat bonnet-strings.

  “I s’pose,” said Aunt Ruey, “that the notice of the funeral’ll be gin out after sermon.”

  “Yes, I think so,” said Mrs. Pennel.

  “It’s another loud call,” said Miss Ruey, “and I hope it will turn the young people from their thoughts of dress and vanity, — there’s Mary Jane Sanborn was all took up with gettin’ feathers and velvet for her fall bonnet. I don’t think I shall get no bonnet this year till snow comes. My bonnet’s respectable enough, — don’t you think so?”

  “Certainly, Aunt Ruey, it looks very well.”

  “Well, I’ll have the pork and beans and brown-bread all hot on table agin you come back,” said Miss Ruey, “and then after dinner we’ll all go down to the funeral together. Mis’ Pennel, there’s one thing on my mind, — what you goin’ to call this ‘ere boy?”

  “Father and I’ve been thinkin’ that over,” said Mrs. Pennel.

  “Wouldn’t think of giv’n him the Cap’n’s name?” said Aunt Ruey.

  “He must have a name of his own,” said Captain Pennel. “Come here, sonny,” he called to the child, who was playing just beside the door.

  The child lowered his head, shook down his long black curls, and looked through them as elfishly as a Skye terrier, but showed no inclination to come.

  “One thing he hasn’t learned, evidently,” said Captain Pennel, “and that is to mind.”

  “Here!” he said, turning to the boy with a little of the tone he had used of old on the quarter-deck, and taking his small hand firmly.

  The child surrendered, and let the good man lift him on his knee and stroke aside the clustering curls; the boy then looked fixedly at him with his great gloomy black eyes, his little firm-set mouth and bridled chin, — a perfect little miniature of proud manliness.

  “What’s your name, little boy?”

  The great eyes continued looking in the same solemn quiet.

  “Law, he don’t understand a word,” said Zephaniah, putting his hand kindly on the child’s head; “our tongue is all strange to him. Kittridge says he’s a Spanish child; may be from the West Indies; but nobody knows, — we never shall know his name.”

  “Well, I dare say it was some Popish nonsense or other,” said Aunt Ruey; “and now he’s come to a land of Christian privileges, we ought to give him a good Scripture name, and start him well in the world.”

  “Let’s call him Moses,” said Zephaniah, “because we drew him out of the water.”

  “Now, did I ever!” said Miss Ruey; “there’s something in the Bible to fit everything, ain’t there?”

  “I like Moses, because I had a brother of that name,” said Mrs. Pennel.

  The child had slid down from his protector’s knee, and stood looking from one to the other gravely while this discussion was going on. What change of destiny was then going on for him in this simple formula of adoption, none could tell; but, surely, never orphan stranded on a foreign shore found home with hearts more true and loving.

  “Well, wife, I suppose we must be goin’,” said Zephaniah.

  About a stone’s throw from the open door, the little fishing-craft lay courtesying daintily on the small tide-waves that came licking up the white pebbly shore. Mrs. Pennel seated herself in the end of the boat, and a pretty placid picture she was, with her smooth, parted hair, her modest, cool, drab bonnet, and her bright hazel eyes, in which was the Sabbath calm of a loving and tender heart. Zephaniah loosed the sail, and the two children stood on the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant little wind carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound of Zephaniah’s Sunday-morning psalm: —

  “Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear

  My voice ascending high;

  To thee will I direct my prayer,

  To thee lift up mine eye.

  “Unto thy house will I resort.

  To taste thy mercies there;

  I will frequent thy holy court,

  And worship in thy fear.”

  The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there with the white sails of other little craft bound for the same point and for the same purpose. It was as pleasant a sight as one might wish to see.

  Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long breath, took a consoling pinch of snuff, sang “Bridgewater” in an uncommonly high key, and then began reading in the prophecies. With her good head full of the “daughter of Zion” and the house of Israel and Judah, she was recalled to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, accompanied by a general flutter and cackling among the hens.

  Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door saw the little boy perched on the top of the hay-mow, screaming and shrieking, — his face the picture of dismay, — while poor little Mara’s cries came in a more muffled manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she was found to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow into the nest of a very domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors at the invasion of her family privacy added no little to the general confusion.

  The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness as to anything unpleasant about her pretty person we have seen, was lifted up streaming with tears and broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously injured, having fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic hopes.

  “Well, now, did I ever!” said Miss Ruey, when she had ascertained that no bones were broken; “if that ar young un isn’t a limb! I declare for’t I pity Mis’ Pennel, — she don’t know what she’s undertook. How upon ‘arth the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I’m sure I can’t tell, — that ar little thing never got into no such scrapes before.”

  Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse of conscience, the little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having repaired the damages of little Mara’s toilet, she essayed the good old plan of shutting him into the closet. He fought and struggled so fiercely that Aunt Ruey’s carroty frisette came off in the skirmish, and her head-gear, always rather original, assumed an aspect verging on the supernatural. Miss Ruey thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the other terrible people she had been reading about that morning, and came as near getting into a passion with the little
elf as so good-humored and Christian an old body could possibly do. Human virtue is frail, and every one has some vulnerable point. The old Roman senator could not control himself when his beard was invaded, and the like sensitiveness resides in an old woman’s cap; and when young master irreverently clawed off her Sunday best, Aunt Ruey, in her confusion of mind, administered a sound cuff on either ear.

  Little Mara, who had screamed loudly through the whole scene, now conceiving that her precious new-found treasure was endangered, flew at poor Miss Ruey with both little hands; and throwing her arms round her “boy,” as she constantly called him, she drew him backward, and looked defiance at the common enemy. Miss Ruey was dumb-struck.

  “I declare for’t, I b’lieve he’s bewitched her,” she said, stupefied, having never seen anything like the martial expression which now gleamed from those soft brown eyes. “Why, Mara dear, — putty little Mara.”

  But Mara was busy wiping away the angry tears that stood on the hot, glowing cheeks of the boy, and offering her little rosebud of a mouth to kiss him, as she stood on tiptoe.

  “Poor boy, — no kie, — Mara’s boy,” she said; “Mara love boy;” and then giving an angry glance at Aunt Ruey, who sat much disheartened and confused, she struck out her little pearly hand, and cried, “Go way, — go way, naughty!”

  The child jabbered unintelligibly and earnestly to Mara, and she seemed to have the air of being perfectly satisfied with his view of the case, and both regarded Miss Ruey with frowning looks. Under these peculiar circumstances, the good soul began to bethink her of some mode of compromise, and going to the closet took out a couple of slices of cake, which she offered to the little rebels with pacificatory words.

  Mara was appeased at once, and ran to Aunt Ruey; but the boy struck the cake out of her hand, and looked at her with steady defiance. The little one picked it up, and with much chippering and many little feminine manœuvres, at last succeeded in making him taste it, after which appetite got the better of his valorous resolutions, — he ate and was comforted; and after a little time, the three were on the best possible footing. And Miss Ruey having smoothed her hair, and arranged her frisette and cap, began to reflect upon herself as the cause of the whole disturbance. If she had not let them run while she indulged in reading and singing, this would not have happened. So the toilful good soul kept them at her knee for the next hour or two, while they looked through all the pictures in the old family Bible.

  The evening of that day witnessed a crowded funeral in the small rooms of Captain Kittridge. Mrs. Kittridge was in her glory. Solemn and lugubrious to the last degree, she supplied in her own proper person the want of the whole corps of mourners, who generally attract sympathy on such occasions. But what drew artless pity from all was the unconscious orphan, who came in, led by Mrs. Pennel by the one hand, and with the little Mara by the other.

  The simple rite of baptism administered to the wondering little creature so strongly recalled that other scene three years before, that Mrs. Pennel hid her face in her handkerchief, and Zephaniah’s firm hand shook a little as he took the boy to offer him to the rite. The child received the ceremony with a look of grave surprise, put up his hand quickly and wiped the holy drops from his brow, as if they annoyed him; and shrinking back, seized hold of the gown of Mrs. Pennel. His great beauty, and, still more, the air of haughty, defiant firmness with which he regarded the company, drew all eyes, and many were the whispered comments.

  “Pennel’ll have his hands full with that ar chap,” said Captain Kittridge to Miss Roxy.

  Mrs. Kittridge darted an admonitory glance at her husband, to remind him that she was looking at him, and immediately he collapsed into solemnity.

  The evening sunbeams slanted over the blackberry bushes and mullein stalks of the graveyard, when the lonely voyager was lowered to the rest from which she should not rise till the heavens be no more. As the purple sea at that hour retained no trace of the ships that had furrowed its waves, so of this mortal traveler no trace remained, not even in that infant soul that was to her so passionately dear.

  CHAPTER X

  THE MINISTER

  Mrs. Kittridge’s advantages and immunities resulting from the shipwreck were not yet at an end. Not only had one of the most “solemn providences” known within the memory of the neighborhood fallen out at her door, — not only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred for three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she was still further to be distinguished in having the minister to tea after the performances were all over. To this end she had risen early, and taken down her best china tea-cups, which had been marked with her and her husband’s joint initials in Canton, and which only came forth on high and solemn occasions. In view of this probable distinction, on Saturday, immediately after the discovery of the calamity, Mrs. Kittridge had found time to rush to her kitchen, and make up a loaf of pound-cake and some doughnuts, that the great occasion which she foresaw might not find her below her reputation as a forehanded housewife.

  It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral train turned away from the grave. Unlike other funerals, there was no draught on the sympathies in favor of mourners — no wife, or husband, or parent, left a heart in that grave; and so when the rites were all over, they turned with the more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast of its freshness with those shadows into which, for the hour, they had been gazing.

  The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers who preserved the costume of a former generation, with something of that imposing dignity with which, in earlier times, the habits of the clergy were invested. He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted coat, knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles of the ancient costume. There was just a sufficient degree of the formality of olden times to give a certain quaintness to all he said and did. He was a man of a considerable degree of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had been held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates of Harvard University. But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father in Harpswell.

  His parish included not only a somewhat scattered seafaring population on the mainland, but also the care of several islands. Like many other of the New England clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous different offices for the benefit of the people whom he served. As there was neither lawyer nor physician in the town, he had acquired by his reading, and still more by his experience, enough knowledge in both these departments to enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a very healthy and peaceable people.

  It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances in his parish were in his handwriting, and in the medical line his authority was only rivaled by that of Miss Roxy, who claimed a very obvious advantage over him in a certain class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman, which was still further increased by the circumstance that the good man had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate. “So, of course,” Miss Roxy used to say, “poor man! what could he know about a woman, you know?”

  This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising; but when spoken to about it, he was accustomed to remark with gallantry, that he should have too much regard for any lady whom he could think of as a wife, to ask her to share his straitened circumstances. His income, indeed, consisted of only about two hundred dollars a year; but upon this he and a very brisk, cheerful maiden sister contrived to keep up a thrifty and comfortable establishment, in which everything appeared to be pervaded by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness.

  In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his way, and all the springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles, despite the gravity of the pulpit and the awfulness of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself with the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his visitings among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded
people.

  There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or sympathy — nay, it often exists most completely with people of the tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books.

  Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a quiet pleasure in playing upon these simple minds, and amusing himself with the odd harmonies and singular resolutions of chords which started out under his fingers. Surely he had a right to something in addition to his limited salary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to make up the balance for his many labors.

  His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsuspicious of the class of female idolaters, and worshiped her brother with the most undoubting faith and devotion — wholly ignorant of the constant amusement she gave him by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck him with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting to him to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and stockings, and Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtle distinctions which she would draw between best and second-best, and every-day; to receive her somewhat prolix admonition how he was to demean himself in respect of the wearing of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman, and held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had been handed down in the Sewell family, and which afforded her brother too much quiet amusement to be disturbed. He would not have overthrown one of her quiddities for the world; it would be taking away a part of his capital in existence.