“I take the side that isn’t took By them consarned teetotalers.”
In the same manner, Zeph’s neighbors were for the most part inclined in town meeting, irrespective of any other consideration, to take the side he didn’t take.
Hiel Jones had often been heard to express the opinion that, “Ef Zeph Higgins would jest shet up his gash in town-meetin’, that air school-house could be moved fast enough; but the minit that Dr. Cushing had been round, and got folks kind o’ slicked down and peaceable, Zeph would git up and stroke ’em all back’ards and git their dander up agin. Folks warn’t a-goin’ to be druv; and Zeph was allers fer drivin’.”
The subject of an approaching town-meeting was beginning to loom dimly in the discussions of the village. One characteristic of the Yankee mind, as developed in those days, was the slowness and deliberation with which it arrived at any purpose or conclusion. This was not merely in general movements, but in particular ones also. Did the Widow Brown contemplate turning her back buttery into a sink-room, she forthwith went over to the nearest matrons of her vicinity, and announced that she was “talkin’ about movin’ her sink,” and the movement in all its branches and bearings was discussed in private session. That was step No. 1. Then all the women at the next quilting, or tea-drinking, heard that Widow Brown was “talking about changing her sink,” and they talked about it. Then Seth Chickering, the neighborhood carpenter, was called into consultation, and came and investigated the premises, and reported — first to the widow and second to his wife, who told all the other women what “Seth, he said,” etc. The talking process continued indefinitely, unless some active Providential dispensation brought it to an end.
The same process was repeated when Mrs. Slocum thought of investing in a new winter cloak; the idea in those days prevailing that a winter cloak was a thing never but once in a life-time to be bought, and after that to endure for all generations, the important article must not be bought lightly or unadvisedly. When Deacon Dickenson proposed to build a new back parlor on his house and to re-shingle the roof, the talking and discussion lasted six months, and threw the whole neighborhood into commotion; carpenters came before daybreak and roosted on the fences, and at odd times as they found leisure, at all hours of the day, gathered together, and Seth Chickering took the opinions of Sam Parmelee and Jake Peters; and all Mrs. Dickenson’s female friends talked about it, till every shingle, every shingle-nail and every drop of paint had received a separate consideration, and the bargain was, so to speak, whittled down to the finest possible point.
Imagine the delicacies of a discussion, then, that attended the moving of a schoolhouse at the public expense — a schoolhouse in which everybody in the neighborhood had a private and personal claim — and how like the proceedings of a bull in a china shop was the advocacy of a champion like Zeph Higgins, and one may see how infinitely extended in this case might be the area of “talkin’ about movin’ that air schoolhouse,” and how hopelessly distant any decision. The thing had already risen on the horizon of Deacon Dickenson’s store, like one of those puzzling stars or fractiously disposed heavenly bodies that seem created to furnish astronomers with something to talk about.
The fateful period was again coming round; the spring town-meeting was at hand, and more than one had been heard to say that “Ef that air schoolhouse had to be moved, it oughter be done while the sleddin’ was good.”
In Deacon Dickenson’s store a knot of the talkers were gathered around the stove, having a final talk and warm-up previous to starting their sleds homeward to their supper of pork-and-beans and doughnuts.
Our mournful friend, Deacon Peasley, sat in his usual drooping attitude on a mackerel-keg placed conveniently by the stove; and then, like Beattie’s hermit,
“ . . . his plaining begun. Tho’ mournful his spirit, his soul was resigned.”
“I’m sure I hope I don’t wanter dictate to the Lord, nor nothin, but ef he should send a turn o’ rheumatism on Zeph Higgins, jest afore town-meetin’ day — why, seems to me ’twould be a marcy to us all.”
“I don’t see, fer my part,” said Tim Hawkins, “why folks need to mind what he says; but they do. He’ll do more agin a motion talkin’ fer it, than I can do talkin’ agin it fer a year. I never see the beat of him — never.”
“Aint there nobody,” said Deacon Peasley, caressing his knee, and looking fondly at the stove door, “that could kind o’ go to him, and sort o’ set it in order afore him how he henders the very thing he’s sot on doin’?”
“Guess you don’t know him as I do,” said Deacon Dickenson, “or you wouldn’t ‘a’ thought o’ that.”
“And now he’s gone in with the Democrats, and agin Parson Cushing and the church it’ll be worse’n ever,” remarked Tim Hawkins.
“Now, there’s Mis’ Higgins,” said the Deacon; “she can’t do nothin’ with him; he won’t take a word from her; she hez to step round softly arter him, a-settin’ things right. Why, Widder Brown, that lives up by the huckleberry pastur’-lot, was a-tellin’ my wife, last Sunday, how Zeph’s turkeys would come a-trampin’ in her mowin’, and all she could say and do he wouldn’t keep ’em to hum. And then when they stole a nest there, Zeph he took the eggs and carried ’em off, ‘cause he said the turkeys was hisn. Mis’ Higgins, she jest put on her bonnet, and went right over, that arternoon, and took the turkey eggs back to the widder. Mis’ Brown said Mis’ Higgins didn’t say a word, but she looked consid’able — her eyes was a-shinin’ and her mouth sort o’ set, as ef she’d about come to the eend [sic] of her patience.”
“Wal,” said Deacon Peasley, “I rather wonder she durst to do it.”
“Wal,” said Tim, “my wife sez that there is places where Mis’ Higgins jest takes her stand, and Zeph has to give in. Ef she gets her back agin a text in the Bible, why, she won’t stir from it ef he killed her; and when it comes to that Zeph hez to cave in. Come to standin’ — why she kin stand longer’n he kin. I rather ‘xpect he didn’t try to git back them turkey eggs. Ef he did, Mis’ Higgins would ‘a’ stood right in the road, and he’d ‘a’ hed to ‘a’ walked over her. I ‘xpect by this time Zeph knows what he kin make her do and what he can’t.”
“Wal,” said Hiel Jones, who had just dropped in, “I tell ye Zeph’s screwed himself into a tight place now. That air ‘Piscopal parson, he’s gret on orderin’ and commandin’, and thinks he didn’t come right down from the ‘Postles for nothin’. He puts his new folks through the drills lively, I tell ye; he’s ben at old Zeph ‘cause he don’t bow to suit him in the creed — Zeph’s back is stiff as a ramrod, and he jest hates it. Now, there’s Mis’ Higgins; she’ll allers do any thing to ‘blige anybody, and if the minister wants her to make a curtsey, why she does it the best she’s able, and Nabby and the boys, they take to it; but it gravels Zeph. Then all this ‘ere gittin’ up and sittin’ down aggravates him, and he comes out o’ church as cross as a bull in fly-time.”
Of course, the laugh was ready at this picture of their neighbor’s troubles, and Hiram added:
“He’ll put it through, though; he won’t go back on his tracks, but it’s pikery and wormwood to him, I tell ye. I saw him t’other day, after Parson had been speaking to him, come out o’ church, and give his hoss such a twitch, and say ‘Darn ye!’ in a way I knew wa’n’t meant for the critter. Zeph don’t swear,” added Hiel, “but I will say he can make darn sound the most like damn of any man in Poganuc. He’s got lots o’ swear in him, that ole feller hez.”
“My mother says she remembers when Polly Higgins (that is) was the prettiest gal in all the deestrict,” said Deacon Peasley. “She was Polly Adams, from Danbury. She came to keep the deestrict school, and Zeph he sot his eyes on her, and hev her he would; he wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer; he didn’t give her no peace till he got her.”
“Any feller can get a gal that way,” said Hiel, with a judicial air. “A gal allers says ‘No’ at fust — to get time to think on’t.”
“Is that the way
with Nabby?” asked the Deacon, with a wink of superior intelligence. Whereat there came a general laugh, and Hiel pulled up his coat collar, and, looking as if he might say something if delicacy did not forbid, suddenly remembered that “Mother had sent him for a quarter of a pound o’ young Hyson.”
Definite business at once broke up the session, and every man, looking out his parcels, mounted his sled and wended his way home.
CHAPTER XV. THE POGANUC PUZZLE SOLVED.
ZEPH Higgins had the spirit of a general. He, too, had his vision of an approaching town-meeting, and that evening, sitting in his family circle, gave out his dictum on the subject:
“Wal — they’ll hev a town-meetin’ afore long, and hev up that air old school’us’ bizness,” he said, as he sat facing the blaze of the grand kitchen fire.
Mrs. Higgins sat by in her little splint-bottomed rocking-chair, peacefully clicking her knitting-needles. Abner sat at her right hand, poring over a volume of “Rollin’s Ancient History.” Abel and Jeduthun were playing fox-and-goose with grains of corn in the corner, and Tim was whittling a goose-poke.
All looked up at the announcement of this much-bruited subject.
“They never seem to come to anything on that subject,” said Mrs. Higgins. “I wish the school-house was better situated; a great many are kept from the prayer meetings there that would come if it wasn’t for that windy, slippery hill. The last time I went, it was all I could do to get up,” she said; “and I thought I caught a cold.”
“There’s not the least doubt on’t,” said Zeph, “and the children are allers catchin’ colds. Everybody knows where that air school’us’ ought to be. Confounded fools they be, the hull lot on ‘em; and, for my part, I’m tired o’ this ‘ere quarrelin’ and jawin’, and I ain’t a-goin’ to stan’ it no longer. It’s a shame and it’s a sin to keep up these ‘ere quarrels among neighbors, and I’m a-goin’ to put a stop to it.”
It may be imagined that this exordium caused a sensation in the family circle.
Mrs. Higgins opened her meek blue eyes upon her husband with a surprised expression; the two boys sat with their game suspended and their mouths open, and the goose-poke and “Rollin’s History” were alike abandoned in the pause of astonishment.
“To-morrow’s Saturday,” said Zeph; “and Saturday afternoon there won’t be no school, and I’ll jest take the boys, both yoke of oxen and the sleds, and go up and move that air school’us’ down to the place where’t orter be. I’ll wedge it up and settle it good and firm, and that’ll be the end on’t. Tain’t no sort o’ use to talk. I’m jest a-goin’ to do it.”
Zeph looked as if he meant it, and his family had ceased to think anything impossible that he took in hand to do. If he had announced his intention of blowing up the neighboring crag of Bluff Head, and building a castle out of the fragments, they would have expected to see it done.
So Zeph took the family Bible, and, in a high-pitched and determined voice, read the account of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza, repeated his evening prayer, ordered all hands to bed, raked up the fire, had all snug and quiet, and stepped into bed just as the last stroke of the nine o’clock bell was resounding.
At four o’clock the next afternoon, as Hiel Jones was coming in on his high seat on the Poganuc stage, whistling cheerily, a sudden new sensation struck him. Passing over North Poganuc hill, he bethought him of the schoolhouse question, and lifted up his eyes, and lo! no schoolhouse was there. For a moment Hiel felt giddy. What was the matter with his head? He rubbed his eyes, and looked on all the other familiar objects; there was the old pine tree, there the great rock, but the schoolhouse was gone. The place where it had stood was disturbed by tramping of many feet, and a broad, smooth trail led down the hill.
“Wal, somebody hez gone and ben and done it,” said Hiel, as he whipped up his horses to carry the news.
Farther on, in a convenient spot at the junction of three roads, under the shelter of a hill, stood the schoolhouse — serene as if it had grown there; while Zeph Higgins and his son Abner were just coming forward on the road toward Hiel, Zeph triumphantly whipping his oxen and shouting the word of command in an elevated voice.
Hiel drew to one side, and gave a long whistle. “Je-ru-salem,” he exclaimed, “ef you hain’t ben and done it!”
Zeph lifted his head with an air of as much satisfaction as his hard features could assume, and, nodding his head in the direction of the school-house, said:
“Yis — there ’tis!”
Hiel laid his head back, and burst into a loud, prolonged laugh, in which he was joined by Abner and the boys.
“Don’t see nothin’ to laugh at,” said Zeph, with grim satisfaction. “Fact is, I can’t hev these ‘ere quarrels — and I won’t hev ‘em. That air’s the place for that school’us’, and it’s got to stand there, and that’s the eend on’t. Come, boys, hurry home; mother’s beans will be a-gettin’ cold. Gee — g’lang!” and the black whip cracked over the back of the ox-team.
Hiel was a made man. He had in possession an astounding piece of intelligence, that nobody knew but himself, and he meant to make the most of it. He hurried first to Deacon Peasley’s store, where quite a number were sitting round the stove with their Saturday night purchases. In burst Hiel:
“Wal, that air North Poganuc school’us’ is moved, and settled down under the hills by the cross-road.”
The circle looked for a moment perfectly astounded and stupefied.
“You don’t say so!”
“Dew tell!”
“Don’t believe ye.”
“Wal, ye kin all go and see. I came by, jest half an hour ago, and see it with my own eyes, and Zeph Higgins and his boys a-drivin’ off with their sleds and oxen. I tell ye that air thing is jest done. I’m a-goin’ to tell Dr. Cushing’s folks.”
Poganuc People had something to talk about now, in good earnest.
Hiel stopped his stage at the parson’s door, and Dr. Cushing, expecting some bundle from Boston, came out to the gate.
“Doctor, thought I’d jest stop and tell ye that the North Poganuc school’us’ hez ben moved to the cross-roads, down under the hill — thought ye’d like to hear it.”
The Doctor’s exclamation and uplifted hands brought to the door Mrs. Cushing and Dolly and the two boys, with Nabby. Hiel was in his glory, and recounted all the circumstances with great prolixity, the Doctor and Mrs. Cushing and all his audience laughing at his vigorous narrative.
“Yis,” said Hiel, “he said he wa’n’t a-goin’ to hev no more quarrelin’ about it; everybody knew the school’us’ ought to be there, and there ’twas. It was all wedged up tight and stiddy, and the stove in it, and the pipe stickin’ out o’ the winder, all nateral as could be, and he jest goin’ off home, as ef nothin’ hed happened.”
“Well, if that ain’t jest like father!” exclaimed Nabby, with an air of pride. “If he wants a thing done he will do it.”
“Certainly this time he has done a good thing,” said the Doctor; “and for my part I’m obliged to him. I suppose the spirit of the Lord came on him, as it did on Samson.”
And for weeks and months thereafter, there was abundance of talking and every variety of opinion expressed as to the propriety of Zeph’s coup d’etat, but nobody, man, woman, or child, ever proposed to move the schoolhouse back again.
CHAPTER XVI. THE POGANUC PARSONAGE.
THE parsonage was a wide, roomy, windy edifice that seemed to have been built by a succession of after-thoughts. It was at first a model New England house, built around a great brick chimney, which ran up like a light-house in the center of the square roof. Then came, in course of time, a side-wing which had another chimney and another suite of rooms. A kitchen grew out on another side, and out of the kitchen a sink-room, and out of the sink-room a wood-house, and out of the wood-house a carriage-house, and so on with a gradually lessening succession of out-buildings.
New England houses have been said by a shrewd observer to be constructed on the
model of a telescope; compartment after compartment, lessening in size, and all under one cover.
But in the climate where the business of one half of the year is to provide fuel for the other half, such a style of domestic architecture becomes convenient. During the long winter months everything was under cover, giving grand scope for the children to play.
When the boys were graciously disposed to Dolly, she had a deal of good fun with them in the long range of the divers sheds. They made themselves houses, castles and fortresses in the wood-pile, and played at giving parties and entertainments, at which Spring and the cat also assisted in silent and subsidiary parts.
Sometimes they held town-meetings or voting-days, in which the Democrats got their dues in speeches that might have struck terror to their souls had they heard them. At other times they held religious meetings, and sung hymns and preached, on which occasions Dolly had been known to fall to exhorting with a degree of fervor and a fluency in reciting texts of Scripture which for the time produced quite an effect on her auditors, and led Nabby, who listened behind the door, to say to Mrs. Cushing that ‘that air child was smarter than was good for her; that she’d either die young or else come to suthin’ one of these days’ — a proposition as to which there could not rationally be any difference of opinion.
The parsonage had also the advantage of three garrets — splendid ground for little people. There was first the garret over the kitchen, the floors of which in the fall were covered with stores of yellow pumpkins, fragrant heaps of quinces, and less fragrant spread of onions. There were bins of shelled corn and of oats, and, as in every other garret in the house, there were also barrels of old sermons and old family papers. But most stimulating to the imagination of all the features of this place was the smoke-house, which was a wide, deep chasm made in the kitchen chimney, where the Parson’s hams and dried beef were cured. Its door, which opened into this garret, glistened with condensed creosote, a rumbling sound was heard there, and loud crackling reverberated within. Sometimes Dolly would open the door and peer in fearfully as long as her eyes could bear the smoke, and think with a shudder of a certain passage in John Bunyan, which reads:
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 441
