Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Whether it were morning or afternoon, I do not know; nor, I think, did any of the parties know. But, as the day passed, Mrs. Worboise, standing on the door-steps, saw the approach, on the street, of a long express-wagon, crowded with little girls, frightened and crying, or sometimes dumb and stolid with terror. She rushed down to ask where they were going.

  “God knows!” said Jeff Fleming who was on the high seat, carefully driving. “They are going wherever there is something to eat, and a bed for the poor things to lie in.”

  By the divine instinct of his healthy life, Jeff, who had sought vainly all day for the “Greyford girls,” had lighted on these inmates of the orphan asylum.

  “Why the little darlings!” cried the good woman. “Bring them in-bring them in! We are all ready for them here. Bring them in.” And by this time Rachel and Mrs. Plinlimmon were at the tail of the wagon, and had each a child in her arms.

  “Why, Mrs. Worboise! who sent you here?”

  “Why, Mr. Fleming! is it you?”

  So Jeff Fleming deposited his charge with Mrs. Worboise. A moment more, and a fellow sovereign stopped to ask for the use of the wagon; and Jeff let him have it, on his promise to bring it back at nightfall. Jeff had hired it from he knew not who, for a hundred and fifty dollars down, on promise to return it next morning to he knew not where. Jeff had not tasted food since he left Cass Corners, twenty-four hours before; and he was not sorry to smell Rachel’s coffee, nor to cut into the good lady’s ham.

  “Dear Rachel,” said he, after the rage of hunger ger was a little satisfied, and after each child was in bed in some improvised night-dress, “how much has passed since I saw you!”

  Yes, indeed! how much had passed! And as the afternoon waned, and as the evening gathered, and as they turned back from this or that corner, how they two were revealed to themselves and to each other! How honest and brave and true Jeff seemed to Rachel, though he could not expound science like Horace, nor talk sentiment like Mark. Of course, she did not say it to herself; but what a perfect rest it was to sit and talk with this hearty, simple, loyal friend, and not to be in terror of one of Horace’s crotchets, or one of Mark’s flights into the sky. The evening passed on. There was an alarm about a prairie fire southward. What a mercy Jeff was here! The tokens of rain came; and Jeff returned: all was well! And he? He kept wondering, as Rachel did, where Nettie was; and he hoped the Bardles family were safe; Nettie, to whom he was betrothed, indeed; and Jane, to whom he had been assigned. Still, he did not go again to look for Nettie. Rachel wondered why. Perhaps he knew better than Rachel did. Anyway, he was determined, that, if danger came that night to Rachel, he would not be far away.

  Nine o’clock! Mr. Plinlimmon has come in. They say it is all done. There are patrols on the streets. Gen. Sheridan is in command. The children are all asleep; but no one else wants to go to bed. Half-past nine. A carriage wheels to the door. A sharp ring and knock, and the door flies open. The parlor door, of course, flies open too, and Mark Hinsdale almost lifts Nettie into the room.

  “Dear, dear Nettie! is it you? Lie right on the sofa here!” And Rachel is caring for Nettie with all the tenderness and sweetness of her own lovely life.

  “And where did you come from, Jeff? Dear old fellow! how are you?” This from Mark, without one thought that this dear Nettie, whom all day long he had fought for, worked for, lived for, and almost died for, was supposed by everybody to belong to the “dear old fellow” who stood before him. Nor do I know that Jeff thought of it more than he. The day had taught Mark a great deal. It had taught Nettie a great deal. I believe Jeff had learned his lesson too.

  How much they had to talk! There was every thing to tell. How much Mrs. Worboise made them drink! How much camphor she brought for Nettie’s forehead, where the bruise was a bad one. How Nettie made them laugh! And then, again, how she made them cry! Mrs. Worboise could do nothing with them. It was Mrs. Plinlimmon who appeared at midnight, and sent them all to bed.

  Tuesday morning they all slept late. No wonder. “Dear children,” said Mrs. Worboise; “they shall have breakfast by themselves.” And in a little back parlor they four met, late in the morning. Still so much to tell! Nettie knew she must have a private talk with Jeff: she must tell the honest fellow how wicked and how foolish she had been. And Jeff knew he must have a private talk with Nettie. He must tell her that he could not, in honor to her, marry her. But Nettie and Rachel came into the room together, as fresh and neat as if there had never been any fire. And Jeff and Mark were there before them, and could not ask either of them to go away. And it was not awkward, after all. “Jeff is so good-natured,” said Nettie to herself. “He will not mind, and I can tell him by and by.”

  So they lingered over the breakfast, as surely no other four in Chicago lingered that morning, Did Mrs. Worboise guess? I do not know. I think she did. She loved Rachel with her heart’s love. She loved Horace too; and yet, as she washed one little orphan after another, she said again and again, even aloud to the orphans, “She will do a hundred times better with that honest Jeff Fleming than she would ever do with Horace.” And, though no one said this in the breakfast room, perhaps they all felt it too. And Nettie, guilty Nettie, pretty Nettie, flirting Nettie,-she had not gone through storm and fire without learning what she knew well enough before; only this time she knew it “perfect.” She knew that such a treasure as the love and life of Mark Hinsdale was not a treasure to be fooled with, or thrown away.

  No wonder that the coffee cooled, and the breakfast was long. But it ended. It ended when the door flew open, and Jane and Horace both rushed in. Jane all in tears, but handsomer than ever. Horace, tattered, worn, and dirty, but happier and prouder than he had ever been in his life.

  He had had a chance to tell Jane how he had sought for her from midnight of Sunday till sunrise of Tuesday,-sought her with tears and with prayers.

  And Jane had shown to him the one treasure she had saved from Erie Street. It was the little bear.

  Had these young people trusted to the first propinquities, had they let the people of Greyford pair them, they would have trusted wrong: they would have lived for misery.

  Had they trusted to the “propinquities” again, had they let the accidents of life pair them, they would have trusted wrong.

  A terrible crisis tore away all veils, all etiquettes, all falsehoods. For once they trusted to the divine instincts of their own hearts; and they are happy for this life, and for ever.

  THE END

  POGANUC PEOPLE: THEIR LOVES AND LIVES

  Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives was first published in 1878 and was influenced by Stowe’s experiences growing up in Litchfield Connecticut. The novel is set in the fictional village of Poganuc and it details the life, opinions and beliefs of this community in the early nineteenth century. Stowe displays nostalgia for New England before the great capitalist industrialisation and she creates a vivid picture of the different classes and ranks of society. The author chronicles important events in the year such as the Fourth of July celebrations, including the Declaration of Independence being read out by a Colonel that was a personal friend of Washington’s and a commander of troops during the Revolutionary War. Elements of the old aristocracy are shown to still be firmly in place and the importance of old ancestral traditions and preservation of a certain order is central to the upper echelons of society.

  Stowe also addresses the issue of religion in New England during this period and the organisational rivalries between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian forms of Church governance. Once again Stowe includes a minister as a prominent character in her novel, emphasising the influence and significance of religion to the author, but also to the lives of New Englanders in the early nineteenth century. Dr Cushing, the minister is depicted as an educated, erudite and cultured man that inspires and enthrals the congregation with his intellect and offers the chance for cross-denominational unity in the community. Stowe is keen to stress that the Christian faith can and should still be a force
for bringing Americans together and building strong integrated communities.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I. DISSOLVING VIEWS.

  CHAPTER II. DOLLY.

  CHAPTER III. THE ILLUMINATION.

  CHAPTER IV. DOLLY’S ADVENTURE.

  CHAPTER V. DOLLY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS DAY.

  CHAPTER VI. VILLAGE POLITICIANS.

  CHAPTER VII. THE DOCTOR’S SERMON.

  CHAPTER VIII. MR. COAN ANSWERS THE DOCTOR.

  CHAPTER IX. ELECTION DAY IN POGANUC.

  CHAPTER X. DOLLY’S PERPLEXITIES.

  CHAPTER XI. DOLLY AND NABBY INVITED OUT.

  CHAPTER XII. DOLLY GOES INTO COMPANY.

  CHAPTER XIII. COLONEL DAVENPORT RELATES HIS EXPERIENCES.

  CHAPTER XIV. THE PUZZLE OF POGANUC.

  CHAPTER XV. THE POGANUC PUZZLE SOLVED.

  CHAPTER XVI. THE POGANUC PARSONAGE.

  CHAPTER XVII. SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST.

  CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY’S “FOURTH.”

  CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

  CHAPTER XX. GOING “A-CHESTNUTTING.”

  CHAPTER XXI. DOLLY’S SECOND CHRISTMAS.

  CHAPTER XXII. THE APPLE-BEE.

  CHAPTER XXIII. SEEKING A DIVINE IMPULSE.

  CHAPTER XXIV. “IN SUCH AN HOUR AS YE THINK NOT.”

  CHAPTER XXV. DOLLY BECOMES ILLUSTRIOUS.

  CHAPTER XXVI. THE VICTORY.

  CHAPTER XXVII. THE FUNERAL.

  CHAPTER XXVIII. DOLLY AT THE WICKET GATE.

  CHAPTER XXIX. THE CONFLICT.

  CHAPTER XXX. THE CRISIS.

  CHAPTER XXXI. THE JOY OF HARVEST.

  CHAPTER XXXII. SIX YEARS LATER.

  CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DOCTOR MAKES A DISCOVERY.

  CHAPTER XXXIV. HIEL AND NABBY.

  CHAPTER XXXV. MISS DEBBY ARRIVES.

  CHAPTER XXXVI. PREPARATIONS FOR SEEING LIFE.

  CHAPTER XXXVII. LAST WORDS.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOLLY’S FIRST LETTER FROM BOSTON.

  CHAPTER XXXIX. DOLLY’S SECOND LETTER.

  CHAPTER XL. ALFRED DUNBAR TO EUGENE SINCLAIR.

  CHAPTER XLI. FINALE.

  CHAPTER I. DISSOLVING VIEWS.

  THE scene is a large, roomy, clean New England kitchen of some sixty years ago. There was the great wide fireplace, with its crane and array of pot-hooks; there was the tall black clock in the corner, ticking in response to the chirp of the crickets around the broad, flat stone hearth. The scoured tin and pewter on the dresser caught flickering gleams of brightness from the western sunbeams that shone through the network of elm-boughs, rattling and tapping as the wind blew them against the window. It was not quite half-past four o’clock, yet the December sun hung low and red in the western horizon, telling that the time of the shortest winter days was come. Everything in the ample room shone with whiteness and neatness; everything was ranged, put up, and in order, as if work were some past and bygone affair, hardly to be remembered. The only living figure in this picture of still life was that of a strapping, buxom Yankee maiden, with plump arms stripped to the elbow and hands plunged deep in the white, elastic cushion of puffy dough, which rose under them as she kneaded.

  Apparently pleasant thoughts were her company in her solitude, for her round, brown eyes twinkled with a pleased sparkle, and every now and then she broke into fragments of psalmody, which she practiced over and over, and then nodded her head contentedly, as if satisfied that she had caught the tune.

  Suddenly the outside door flew open and little Dolly Cushing burst into the kitchen, panting and breathless, her cheeks glowing with exercise in face of the keen winter wind.

  In she came, noisy and busy, dropping her knitting-work and spelling-book in her eagerness, shutting the door behind her with a cheerful bang, and opening conversation without stopping to get her breath:

  “Oh, Nabby, Nabby! do tell me what they are doing up at your church. I’ve seen ’em all day carrying armfulls and armfulls — ever so much — spruce and pine up that way, and Jim Brace and Tom Peters told me they were going to have a ‘lumination there, and when I asked what a ‘lumination was they only laughed at me and called me a Presbyterian. Don’t you think it’s a shame, Nabby, that the big boys will laugh at me so and call me names and won’t tell me anything?”

  “Oh, land o’ Goshen, Dolly, what do you mind them boys for?” said Nabby; “boys is mostly hateful when girls is little; but we take our turn by and by,” she said with a complacent twinkle of her brown eyes. “I make them stand around, I bet ye, and you will when you get older.”

  “But, Nabby, what is a ‘lumination?”

  “Well now, Dolly, you jest pick up your book, and put up your knittin’ work, and sweep out that snow you’ve tracked in, and hang up your bonnet and cloak, and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Nabby, taking up her whole cushion of dough and letting it down the other side with a great bound and beginning kneading again.

  The little maiden speedily complied with all her requisitions and came and stood, eager and breathless, by the bread bowl.

  And a very pretty picture she made there, with her rosy mouth just parted to show her little white teeth, and the afternoon sunshine glinting through the window brightness to go to the brown curls that hung over her round, white forehead, her dark blue eyes kindling with eagerness and curiosity.

  “Well, you see,” said Nabby, “to-morrow’s Christmas; and they’ve been dressin’ the church with ground pine and spruce boughs, and made it just as beautiful as can be, and they’re goin’ to have a great gold star over the chancel. General Lewis sent clear to Boston to get the things to make it of, and Miss Ida Lewis she made it; and to-night they’re going to ‘luminate. They put a candle in every single pane of glass in that air church, and it’ll be all just as light as day. When they get ’em all lighted up you can see that air church clear down to North Poganuc.”

  Now this sentence was a perfect labyrinth of mystery to Dolly; for she did not know what Christmas was, she did not know what the chancel was, she never saw anything dressed with pine, and she was wholly in the dark what it was all about; and yet her bosom heaved, her breath grew short, her color came and went, and she trembled with excitement. Something bright, beautiful, glorious, must be coming into her life, and oh, if she could only see it!

  “Oh, Nabby, are you going?” she said, with quivering eagerness.

  “Yes, I’m goin’ with Jim Sawin. I belong to the singers, and I’m agoin’ early to practice on the anthem.”

  “Oh, Nabby, won’t you take me? Do, Nabby!” said Dolly, piteously. “Oh, land o’ Goshen! no, child; you mustn’t think on’t. I couldn’t do that noways. Your pa never would hear of it, nor Mis’ Cushing neither. You see, your pa don’t b’lieve in Christmas.”

  “What is Christmas, Nabby?”

  “Why, it’s the day Christ was born — that’s Christmas.”

  “Why, my papa believes Christ was born,” said Dolly, with an injured air; “you needn’t tell me that he don’t. I’ve heard him read all about it in the Testament.”

  “I didn’t say he didn’t, did I?” said Nabby; “but your papa ain’t a ‘Piscopal, and he don’t believe in keeping none of them air prayer-book days — Christmas, nor Easter, nor nothin’,” said Nabby, with a generous profusion of negatives. “Up to the ‘Piscopal church they keep Christmas, and they don’t keep it down to your meetin’ house; that’s the long and short on’t,” and Nabby turned her batch of dough over with a final flounce, as if to emphasize the statement, and, giving one last poke in the middle of the fair, white cushion, she proceeded to rub the paste from her hands and to cover her completed batch with a clean white towel and then with a neat comforter of quilted cotton. Then, establishing it in the warmest corner of the fireplace, she proceeded to wash her hands and look at the clock and make other movements to show that the conversation had come to an end.

  Poor little Dolly stood still, looking wistful and bewildered. The tangle of brown and golden curls
on the outside of her little head was not more snarled than the conflicting ideas in the inside. This great and wonderful idea of Christmas, and all this confusion of images, of gold stars and green wreaths and illuminated windows and singing and music — all done because Christ was born, and yet something that her papa did not approve of — it was a hopeless puzzle. After standing thinking for a minute or two she resumed:

  “But, Nabby, why don’t my papa like it? and why don’t we have a ‘lumination in our meeting-house?”

  “Bless your heart, child, they never does them things to Presbyterian meetin’s. Folks’ ways is different, and them air is ‘Piscopal ways. For my part I’m glad father signed off to the ‘Piscopalians, for it’s a great deal jollier.”

  “Oh, dear! my papa won’t ever sign off,” said Dolly, mournfully.

  “To be sure he won’t. Why, what nonsense that is!” said Nabby, with that briskness with which grown people shake off the griefs of children. “Of course he won’t when he’s a minister, so what’s the use of worryin’?” You jest shet up for now, for I’ve got to hurry and get tea; ‘cause your pa and ma are goin’ over to the lecture to-night in North Poganuc school-house and they’ll want their supper early.”

  Dolly still hung about wishfully.

  “Nabby, if I should ask papa, and he should say I might go, would you take me?” said Dolly.