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THE LAND OF LONG AGO

"'HERE'S A PICTURE O' HENRIETTA'S HOUSE, CHILD.'"
Frontispiece, See Page 119.[ToList]

The Land of
Long Ago

By

Eliza Calvert Hall

Author of

"Aunt Jane of Kentucky"

Illustrated by

G. Patrick Nelson
&
Beulah Strong

Boston
Little, Brown, & Company
1909

Copyright, 1907, 1908, 1909,
By Cosmopolitan Publishing Company.

Copyright, 1909,
By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved

Published, September, 1909

Printers
S.J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

TO
My Children,
MARGERY, ALEXANDER, THOMAS, AND CECILIA,
I Dedicate this Book

CHAPTERS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PROLOGUE

We are so near to those who dwell
In the dear land whereof I tell!
Sometimes when we are far astray,
Their spirit-hands may guide our way;
And if we would but pause to hear,
What whispered words of tender cheer
Might come on those fine airs that blow
From the strange Land of Long Ago!

The scenes are changed, but we and they
Are actors in the same old play.
Their blood is in our throbbing veins;
Their hopes and joys, their griefs and pains,
Bind us fore'er to squire or churl,
To stately dame or laughing girl,—
Those shades that wander to and fro
In the dim Land of Long Ago.

Then let the present hour go by.
Turn back awhile, and you and I
Through quiet garden paths may stray
Where blooms the rose of yesterday,
May meet brave men and women fair
[viii] Who sang life's song to simple air;
Mark how their homely virtues glow!—
O pleasant Land of Long Ago!

I

A RIDE TO TOWN

I

A RIDE TO TOWN[ToC]

"Make haste, child," called Aunt Jane; "there's mighty little time between dinner and sundown, and if we're goin' to town we'd better be startin'."

Aunt Jane came out of the house, drawing on a pair of silk gloves. She was arrayed in her best gown of black alpaca, a silk-fringed cape covered her shoulders, her poke bonnet was draped with a veil of figured lace, and under the lace her face shone with happy anticipation, for a lifetime of trips to town had not dulled her enjoyment of such an event.

The horse and buggy stood at the gate. The former had a pedigree as long as that of the penniless lass, and Aunt Jane could tell many wonderful tales of Nelly's spirit and speed in the days of her youth. Some remnant of this fire was supposed to smolder yet in the old thoroughbred, but as I looked at the drooping head and half-shut eyes, I saw there was good reason for Aunt Jane's haste, if we were expected to get back from town before nightfall.

"What are we going to town for?" I asked, as I stepped into the buggy and took up the reins.

Aunt Jane hesitated. "Well," she said, "I'm goin' to lay in a supply o' soda and cream o' tartar, and I may buy some gyarden seed and one thing or another. I ain't exactly out o' soda and cream o' tartar, and I could git the seed from some o' the neighbors. I reckon if the truth was told, I'm goin' to town jest to be a-goin'."

A certain English humorist, who is not so well known to this generation as Mark Twain, once wrote a page of gentle satire about those misguided people who leave their native land to travel in foreign countries. He finds but three reasons for their folly: "infirmity of body, imbecility of mind, and inevitable necessity"; and the whole circle of such travelers he classifies under the following heads: the Idle, the Inquisitive, the Lying, the Proud, the Vain, and the Splenetic. Had he gone a little farther into his subject, he might have written approvingly of the Innocent Traveler, who, on a May day, sets forth to go from his home in the country to the near-by town, all for the mere pleasure of traveling.

Why, indeed, should the desire for travel send one across oceans or over continents? Wherever we go we find only the old earth and the old sky, and, under varying forms of dress and complexion, the same old humanity of which we are a part. Does not the sun rise or set as splendidly over some blue Kentucky hill as over the Jungfrau? Is the daisy on Mars Hill any fairer than the daisy that opens its petals on any meadow of the New World? And if historic associations are the aim of your wanderings, turn the pages of some old school history, or send your memory on a backward pilgrimage to the olden days, and a country road may carry you into a past as glorious as that which lies along the Appian Way.

For a long time we rode in silence. On crowded streets and in towns one must talk; but out of doors in the country there is a Voice continually speaking in a language as old as the song of the morning stars, and if the soul hears that, human words are not needed.

Aunt Jane was the first to speak. "Ain't it sweet and peaceful this time o' the year!" she said. "I look at these pretty fields and woods all fenced in, with good roads runnin' alongside, and it don't seem like it could be jest a little more'n two generations between now and the time when this was the Dark and Bloody Ground, and the white men was fightin' with Indians and bears and wildcats to git possession of it. Why, right over there on that ridge o' hills is the place where Sam Amos's grandfather run the ga'ntlet when he was captured by the Indians. Sam used to have the old tow-linen shirt with the bloodstains and the cut on the shoulder where one o' the Indians struck him with a tomahawk. I ricollect Parson Page used to say that life was jest a runnin' of the ga'ntlet. There's enemies on each side of us, and every one of 'em is strikin' at us. And we can't run away, and we know that there's one stroke comin' some time or other that's certain to bring us down. And all we've got to do is to stand up and keep goin' right on, and be ready for the last blow, whenever it happens to fall. And here's Devil's Holler," she continued; "look down that bluff, and you'll see it."

I looked and saw a deep cup-shaped valley, dark with the shadows of overhanging rocks and trees, and luxuriant with ferns and underbrush that grew rankly out of soil made rich by the drifted leaves of a hundred autumns.

"Some folks say that the old stage road used to run past here, and a band o' robbers used to hide by the side o' the road and waylay the stage and rob the passengers, and maybe murder 'em and bury their bodies at the bottom o' the holler. And"—she lowered her voice—"some folks say the place is ha'nted. Sam Amos declared the devil come out o' that holler and chased him for half a mile one dark night when he was late comin' home from town. But I reckon the only devil that chased Sam was the devil in the bottom of his whiskey-jug, and Uncle Billy Bascom says there never was any stage line along this road within his ricollection. So there you are; don't know what to believe and what not to believe."

Just here the road made a steep, upward curve, and we looked down on the clear, green ripples of a river that wound between high rocky cliffs on one hand, and on the other vast fields of corn growing lustily in the deep, rich soil.

"Why should such a pretty little river be called the Barren River?" I asked. "There isn't anything barren about the river or the country around it."

Aunt Jane's eyes sparkled. She was capable of answering the question, for it touched a page of ancient history that was to her a twice-told tale. "You see all these trees, child?" she said impressively, waving her hand in the direction of the luxuriant masses of foliage. "Jest look at that tulip-tree yonder, eighty feet high, I reckon, and the flowers standin' up all over it like the gold candlesticks the Bible tells about. You wouldn't think all these trees could grow up since the first settlers come through here. But I've heard father tell about it many a time. He said the Indians used to set fire to the woods and the fields, and when the first settlers come through here, they called this the Barrens on account o' there bein' no trees, and they passed by all this good land and went further up on Gasper River, where there was springs comin' out o' the hills and plenty of trees. You see, there's two things a settler has to have: wood and water; and that's why the country up around Gasper was settled before this was, and this got the name of the Barrens, when there ain't a richer lot o' ground anywhere.

"And speakin' of names, honey, did I ever tell you how Kittle Creek got its name?

"Well, now, folks has been laughin' about that story for the last seventy-five years, and I reckon they'll keep on laughin' as long as there's a old man or a old woman like me livin' to tell it;" and Aunt Jane began laughing in advance of the story.

"The right name o' Kittle Creek is Clear Fork," she said, "but it's been Kittle Creek ever since old man Sam Stapleton give it that name. And this was the way of it. Old man Sam lived on the fur side o' the creek, and he was in the habit o' comin' to town every once in a while to lay in his groceries and such things, and every time he'd come to town he'd git his jug filled, of course, and drink all along the way home; but by the time he'd git to Clear Fork he wouldn't know where he was, or who he was, or which way he was goin'. He was a mighty good-hearted man, but that jug was his besettin' sin.

"Well, one evenin' he was comin' home the usual way, him and the jug, and he got to the creek and concluded he'd git off his horse and lay down and take a little nap. Some o' the women folks in that neighborhood had been doin' their washin' that day, and there was a big iron kittle on the bank set up on some stones where they'd b'iled their clothes. Old man Sam laid down by the kittle and went to sleep. Pretty soon he got awake and set up and rubbed his eyes, and took notice of the kittle, and says he,

"'Have I crossed this creek or not?' says he. 'It appears to me like I've seen this kittle before, but whether it was on this side o' the creek or the other, to save my life I can't tell.'

"Then he studied a while and says he,

"'Well, I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt.' So he crossed the creek, got off his horse and set down in the shade, and took a drink out o' the jug and fell asleep again. After a while he woke up and looked around, and says he: 'Here I am again, and here's the creek, and yonder's that old kittle jest as natural as life. But what I want to know is, am I agoin' to town, or am I comin' back home?' And he looked at the sun, and says he, 'Judgin' by the way that sun looks, it might be nine o'clock in the mornin', and it might be three o'clock in the evenin'; and not bein' a Solomon I ain't able to decide which it is, but I'll take my chances and go across the creek.'

"So across the creek he went, took another drink, and laid down and fell asleep right by the kittle. Pretty soon he woke up the third time, and says he: 'Well, if here ain't that old kittle again! Howdy, Mr. Kittle! Can you tell me which way I'm goin', and whether it's mornin' or evenin'?'

"Well, the kittle didn't answer; and the old man set there and thought a while, and then he crossed the creek and took another drink and another nap, and crossed again, and there was the same old kittle, and he looked at it and give it a kick, and says he: 'I never saw as many blame kittles in all my life as I've seen to-day. I reckon this must be Kittle Creek.'"

Aunt Jane paused to join in my laughter.

"I always thought it was a shame to laugh at a poor drunkard," she resumed, "but old man Sam told the Kittle Creek story on himself. I don't reckon he thought he was changin' the name of Clear Fork Creek, but from that time on nobody ever called it anything but Kittle Creek."

She stopped and peered over the side of the buggy. Her keen eyes had detected a change in the road. There had been no rain for a week, but the horse's hoofs and the wheels of our buggy had suddenly ceased to raise any dust.

"Looks like there'd been a shower here lately," she remarked; "but I don't see any sign o' rain except right here in the middle o' the road."

"Perhaps this is the oiled road, Aunt Jane," said I.

"That's jest what it is!" exclaimed Aunt Jane delightedly. "Uncle Billy Bascom was tellin' me about the new-fangled way they had of layin' the dust, but it didn't seem to me like oil'd mix with dust any more'n it will with water. That shows how little old folks knows. Well, ain't this nice! Ridin' along in dry weather and never raisin' a bit o' dust! Uncle Billy didn't approve o' the oiled roads. He says, says he, 'Jane, it looks to me like them town folks won't never git through circumventin' Providence.' Says he, 'They've got their gas and their 'lectricity, so's it don't make a bit o' difference whether the sun or the moon or the stars shines or not. And they've got their 'lectric fans, which makes 'em independent of the wind blowin', and now they're fixin' the roads so's they won't have to pray for rain.' Says he, 'It looks like they're tryin' to git rid of all sense o' dependence on the Almighty; but as for me,' says he, 'I've got my pegs sot, and I ain't goin' to have my brains all tore up follerin' after new ways.'

"That's jest like Uncle Billy. But all the time I'm ridin' along this road I'm feelin' thankful to Providence that he made the oil, and then made people with enough sense to know that oil would settle dust. There's no use stickin' to old ways unless they're better than the new ways."

Just then there was a whir of wings from a fence corner, and a moment later a liquid voice sounded over the clover field,

Bob White, is your wheat ripe?

Most birds have a song of but one season. The bluebird, for instance, sings only of spring; but in the two simple notes of the partridge there is the melody of falling water, a song of April's pale-green fields, a song of summer's golden grain, and another of autumn's scarlet leaf and frosty morning.

"That's a voice that won't be heard in the land much longer," remarked Aunt Jane; "and when it does stop, it'll be like missin' a voice from the church choir. The wild things are disappearin' one by one. The deer's all gone, and even squirrels are gittin' so skeerce the legislature'll have to pass a law to protect 'em. And I'm bound to say the first settlers is a good deal to blame for it all. Game was so plentiful in them early days that nobody thought about it ever givin' out. Every man was a hunter—he had to be to provide his family with meat—and I've heard father say that every boy in them days was born with a gun in his hand. Old Jonathan Petty, Silas's father, had nine sons, all of 'em sharpshooters. They used to shoot at squirrels for a mark, and if they hit the squirrel anywhere but in the head, old Jonathan'd give 'em a good whippin'. That sort o' trainin' was bound to make a boy a good marksman, but it was hard on the squirrels."

"I know the delicate differences and resemblances between the odors of individual roses"
Drawn by G. Patrick Nelson[ToList]

I had thought myself deeply learned in the lore of sweet odors. I know that the orient spells of sandal-wood can intoxicate like the opium-pipe or the draught of Indian hemp. I know the delicate differences and resemblances between the odors of individual roses. I know that when nature made the coarse hollyhock, she gave it the almond perfume that floats over the waves of the Hellespont from the petals of the patrician oleander growing on its banks. And I know that, in the same mood, she dowered the vulgar horseweed with the breath of the mignonette. Every odor is to me as a note of music, and I know the discords and harmonies in the long, long scale of perfume. I know that heliotrope and mignonette make a dissonance, and heliotrope and tea-roses a perfect third; that there is a chord of melody in heliotrope, tea-roses, and honeysuckle; and in the orange-blossom or tuberose a dominant note that is stronger than any symphony of perfume that can be composed from summer's garden-beds. There are perfumes as evanescent as the dreams of youth, and others as persistent as the memories of childhood. Go into the fields in February, gather the dead penny-royal that has stood through the rains and snows of a long winter, and you will find in its dry stems and shriveled leaves the same gracious scent the green plant has in June. A rose of last October is a poor deflowered thing; but turn to the ice-bound garden-walks where, a month before, the chrysanthemum stood in autumn splendor. The beautiful acanthus-like leaves and the once gorgeous blossoms hang in brown tatters, but still they hold the perfume of lavender and camphor, and from autumn to spring the plant stands embalmed in its own sweetness, like the body of a mummied Pharaoh wrapped in precious gums and spices. I know that the flowers called scentless have their hours when the spirit of perfume visits them and lends them, for a brief season, the charm without which a flower is only half a flower. I have found the fragrance of ripe cherries in the wood of the cherry parted a lifetime from the parent tree. I have marveled over the alchemy that gives to the bitter shriveled fruit of the wild crab-apple tree a fragrance as sweet as its blossom. The heart of a child beats in me at the scent of a green walnut or a handful of fresh hickory leaves; and I have cried out for words to express what I feel when the incense of the wild grape blossom rises from the woodland altars of late spring, and I stand, a lonely worshiper, at a shrine deserted "since the old Hellenic days." But what was that breath coming across the meadows on the sun-warmed air? Was it a lost breeze from the Indian Ocean, caught in some gulf-stream of the air and drifted down into the wind-currents that blow across Kentucky fields in May?

"Strawberries, strawberries, child," said Aunt Jane. "Didn't you ever smell strawberries when the evenin' sun's shinin' on 'em and ripenin' 'em, and the wind's blowin' over 'em like it's blowin' now? There's a ten-acre patch o' strawberries jest across that medder."

It was impossible to go on while that perfume came and went like a far-off, exquisite voice, and even Aunt Jane forgot her hurry to get to town, as we sat with our faces eagerly turned toward the unseen field of strawberries.

"I've heard folks say," said Aunt Jane, "that Kentucky is the natural home o' the strawberry, and I reckon it's so, for I ricollect how, when I was a child, the strawberries grew wild in the pastures, and the cows'd come home at night with their hoofs dyed red with the juice o' the berries they'd been treadin' on all day. Parson Page used to say there was some things that showed the goodness of the Lord, and some things, such as strawberries and grapes and apples and peaches, that showed the exceeding great goodness of the Lord. He'd never eat a strawberry without first holdin' it up and lookin' at it and smellin' it, and he'd say:

"'Now wouldn't you think it was enough to have a strawberry tastin' like it does? But here it is, the prettiest color in the world, pretty as any rose, and, besides that, smellin' like the sweetest flower that grows.'"

"What is the sweetest flower that grows?" I asked.

"Don't ask me such a question as that," said Aunt Jane with emphasis. "Every one's the sweetest while I'm smellin' it. But when Parson Page talked about the sweetest flower, he meant the calycanthus. There's mighty little difference between smellin' a bowl o' strawberries and a handful o' calycanthuses. Yes, the world's full o' sweet things, child, and you don't have to look in gyardens to find 'em, either. They're scattered around everywhere and free for everybody. Jest look yonder in that old fence corner. There's catnip and hoarhound and horsemint and pennyroy'l, and pretty soon there'll be wild life-everlastin'. Yes, it's a mighty sweet world. I'm glad I've lived in it this long, and heaven'll have to be somethin' mighty fine if it's any better'n this old earth. Now hurry up, child, or we won't have time to see the town sights before dark comes."

Within a mile of town I noticed a house barely visible at the end of an avenue so long that it made me think of the "lane that knows no turning."

"What house is that?" I asked.

Aunt Jane's eyes twinkled. "That's the house that was a weddin' fee," she said mysteriously.

"A wedding fee?" I echoed doubtfully.

"A weddin' fee," repeated Aunt Jane. "But don't ask me any questions about it now, for there ain't time to tell it before we git to town."

"But you'll tell it on the way back?" I urged eagerly.

"Yes, child, yes. But hurry up now. I don't believe you care whether we git to town or not."

I shook the lines over Nelly's back, tapped her gently with the whip, and on we went. Aunt Jane was impatient to get to town, but I—I wished for a longer road, a slower steed, and a Joshua to command the afternoon sun to stand still a while in the heavens. For it was the last day of May. Time stood reluctant on the border line between spring and summer, and in every bird-song and every whisper of the wind I seemed to hear,

"Farewell, farewell, to another spring!"

"You see that pretty farm yonder?" said Aunt Jane, pointing to the left. "Fields as level as a parlor floor and soil like a river-bottom? That farm belonged to Henry Amos, Sam Amos's youngest brother. Henry got the gold-fever back in '49, him and a lot of other young fellers, and nothin' would do but he must go to California. And here's Henry's farm, but where Henry is nobody knows. Every time I see the yeller wheat standin' in these fields, I think of how Henry's grandfather begged him not to go. Henry was his favorite grandchild, and it broke the old man's heart to see him leave. He took hold o' Henry's hand and led him to the front door and says he,

"'Son, do you think the Lord was so forgetful of his children as to put all the gold in the world out yonder in California?' Says he, 'That potato-patch over there is a gold-mine, and there's a gold-mine in that wheat-field, and another one in the corn-field. And if you'll go down in the orchard and gether a load o' them pippin apples and a few punkins, and haul 'em to town and sell 'em, you'll find there's some gold in them.' Says he, 'The whole earth's a gold-mine, if men jest have the patience to dig it out.' But Henry would go, and I reckon he couldn't help it, poor boy! Some folks are born to stay at home, and some are born with the wanderin' fever in their bones."

I looked at the fertile fields that were the dead man's heritage, and read again the old story of restless human ambition that loses the near and the familiar by grasping at the far-off and unknown.

We were nearing the town limits now. Instead of the infrequent farmhouses, we were passing rows of pretty suburban homes. Now and then a fine old elm by the roadside, or within some neat, flowery yard, spoke of the "forest primeval" vanishing before the stealthy march of a growing town.

Aunt Jane's face wore the look of the pilgrim who approaches the City Beautiful. She loved the country, and nature had kindly given her the power to love one thing without hating its antithesis. But, apart from Aunt Jane's company, going to town had no attraction for me, to whom a town is only one of those necessary evils whose sum total we call civilization. And while Aunt Jane took delighted notice of the street-cars, the newly laid concrete walks, the sprinkling-cart, and the automobile with its discordant warning voice, my heart turned back regretfully to the narrow wayside path bordered by dusty weeds and watered only by the dew and rain, to the old "dirt road," marked by the track of the lazy ox-team or the two-horse wagon, and hushed and bounded by the great silences of field and wood.

Aunt Jane was smiling and looking to right and left, and the children on the street were quick to respond with answering smiles, as the kind old face beamed on them. Chauffeurs and drivers of stylish carriages politely gave us the road, and so we jogged into the little square, the heart of the town. The park was in its spring raiment of young leaves and grass, and the waters of the fountain sparkled in the sunshine.

"It's the prettiest little town in the State," said Aunt Jane proudly.

"Where shall we go first?" I asked.

"There's one place in this town where all us country folks goes first," said Aunt Jane oracularly, "and that's the old drug-store on the corner yonder. Let the mare alone, and she'll go right there without guidin'."

And so she did, stopping at a corner of the square before a three-story brick building with none of the usual signs of a drug-store about it. Aunt Jane stepped out to make her purchases, and I stayed in the buggy to hold the horse, an unnecessary precaution, for old Nelly at once dropped her head in a drowsy, meditative way that showed she had no intention of leaving the familiar stopping-place.

I heard a cheery voice within giving Aunt Jane an old friend's greeting, and while she made her purchases and gossiped with the proprietor over the high, old-fashioned counter, I stared into the dark, dingy vista of the ancient store. The stone door-step, hollowed like the steps to the Blarney stone, had borne the steady tread of feet for sixty years, and the floor within was worn in the same way. At the far end of the store, I discerned a group of elderly men. Some were seated on packing-boxes, conveniently placed around the store for the use of those who desired to stay a while to rest and whittle; others reposed on the small of their backs in rickety, splint-bottomed chairs tilted against the wall, their feet on the rounds of the chairs, their knees on a level with their chins, and about them an air of profound repose that showed them to be as much a part of the store as the old iron stove. The window proclaimed the place the den of an archæologist, for it was filled with arrow-heads neatly mounted on pasteboard, Indian pottery, petrifactions, stone hammers, tomahawks, relics of aboriginal and prehistoric man that the mounds and caves of Kentucky yield up to the seeker of such buried treasure. Both within and without, the old store was like an embodiment of conservatism standing unmoved while the swift currents of modern progress were sweeping around it and beating against it.

While I was gazing and wondering, Aunt Jane came out. "I reckon you think this is a curious-lookin' place, honey," she said, as she stowed away her packages on the seat. "This old store is one o' the places that ain't changed in my memory. 'Stablished in 1847, and I don't reckon it's had a right good cleanin' from that day to this, but the best of everything a drug-store keeps is in them old dusty bottles and jars. It does me good to come to town and find one place lookin' jest like it did when me and Abram used to come on county-court days and circus days. And there's the old men sittin' around that stove. They've been there for the last twenty-five years, and they'll be there till death comes along and picks 'em up and carries 'em away. And now, child, give me the lines. I'm goin' to drive around a little while, and then we'll go home."

She took the lines and began what seemed to me an aimless ramble through the streets of the town. She grew strangely silent, and that look on her face—was it sadness or only joy in retrospect? I began to see the meaning of our ride to town. The garden-seed and other purchases were but a vain pretext. In reality, she had come to keep a tryst with the past. Now and then she remembered my presence, and would point to some place that was a link between to-day and yesterday. Here was the place in which General Buckner had made his headquarters during the Civil War; in that house Charles Sumner was once a guest; on yonder height stood a Confederate fortification, and on a similar elevation on the opposite side of town was another fort erected by a Federal commander, afterward a president; and—wondrous miracle!—the angel of peace had turned the old fort into a garden. As Aunt Jane spoke, the light of other days shone for me, too, and in its radiance the commonplace faded out of sight.

We traveled in a circle, and our ride ended where it had begun. As we paused at the drinking-fountain to let old Nelly quench her thirst, Aunt Jane leaned out of the buggy and looked wistfully up and down the square. I knew what was in her heart. She was thinking that, perhaps, this was the last time she would see the town.

"It's a curious thing, child," she said finally, "that while folks are growin' old, the towns they live in are growin' young. The town I ricollect when I was a young gyirl is the old town, and now, when I'm old, the town's young, and growin' younger and newer every day. Ain't it a pity folks can't grow young instead of growin' old?" She paused, and I felt the distance of a lifetime growing up between us.

Presently she came out of her reverie, smiling brightly. "We're lookin' at the same things, honey," she said, "but you see jest one thing, and I'm seein' double all the time. You see this square with the park in the middle and the fine four-and five-story buildin's all around it, and I see it, too; but back of it I can see the old square with the court-house in the middle of it and the scraggly locust-trees growin' around it and the market-house back of it. That market-house wasn't much to look at, but the meat they sold there was the sort a king can't git nowadays. And there was the clerk's office in front of the court-house, and the county clerk used to stand on the door-step and call out the names of the witnesses that was wanted when they was tryin' a case in court. I can see him now, holdin' up a piece o' paper to read the names off, and the sun shinin' on his gray head. And that three-story hotel over yonder on the corner—that used to be the old tavern in the days when there wasn't any railroad, and the stage'd come rumblin' up, and everybody'd come runnin' to their front doors to see who the passengers was.

"The town was so quiet in them days, child, that you could lay down in the court-house yard and go to sleep, and so little that if you put your head out o' the winder and hollered for John Smith, you'd be pretty certain to git John Smith. If he didn't hear you, some of his neighbors would, and they'd hunt him up for you. Things wasn't as well kept then as they are now. I ricollect the jimson-weeds growin' in the court-house yard, and one year the dog-fennel was so plentiful that Uncle Jim Matthews says to me, says he, 'It looks to me like the Smiths and the Joneses and the dog-fennel are about to take the town.'"

She laughed gaily and handed the reins to me. "And now, child, we've got to make tracks for home, unless we want to be out after sundown."

As we passed out of the square, our faces turned homeward, I noticed an old Gothic church on the corner of the street leading to the court-house.

"There's another thing that ain't changed much," said Aunt Jane, with great satisfaction in her voice. "The inside's all new, and there's a new congregation, for all the old congregation's lyin' out in the new cemetery or the old graveyard. But there's the same walls standin' and lookin' jest like they did when I used to come to town with father and mother. Makes me think of a body with a new soul in it. Wonder if the old bell's still up yonder in the steeple.

"Speakin' o' that bell reminds me o' Martin Luther Wilson and the time he kept it from ringin'. Now, wait till we're fairly outside o'town, and I'll tell you about it."

When all signs of town were fully half a mile behind us the story began.

"That church you saw back yonder, honey," she said, "was built when the Rev. Samuel Wilson was the pastor, and as soon as it was done and the bell put up in the belfry, Brother Wilson said that bell had to ring every Saturday mornin' to call the children of the congregation together in the basement o' the church to receive religious instruction. He'd been visitin' amongst the church-members, and he'd found out that some o' the children didn't know the Ten Commandments or the Shorter Catechism or the Lord's Prayer, and when he asked one child what a foreign missionary was, the little thing thought a minute and says she, 'Why, it's a rabbit, ain't it? 'Well, of course Brother Wilson was clean scandalized, and says he, 'Such a state of things is a disgrace to a civilized community. And,' says he, 'if the parents of the church haven't got time to instruct their children, I'll do it myself, for it's part of my pastoral duty to feed the lambs of this flock as well as the sheep.'

"Well, of course the parents had no objection to havin' the children taught. I ricollect old Mis' Zerilda Moore said that if Brother Wilson could teach her boy Joe to say the Ten Commandments, he was welcome to the job, for all her time was taken up tryin' to git Joe to keep a few of 'em. The little gyirls didn't mind goin' to Saturday-mornin' Sunday School, as they called it, but the boys objected mightily, especially Brother Wilson's boys, Martin Luther and John Calvin. And Martin Luther says, says he, 'It ain't fair to take a lamb's play-time away from it to feed it on such fodder as that Shorter Catechism.' Says he, 'Any healthy lamb can stand the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer; I can say 'em frontwards and backwards myself, but,' says he, 'when it comes to the catechism, there'll be some lambs missin' from this flock when Saturday mornin' comes.'

"Well, one mornin' not long after this, the old sexton went to ring the bell for the children to come to the church, and he pulled the rope and pulled the rope and couldn't make a sound; and while he was standin' lookin' up in the belfry and pullin' and wonderin', here come Brother Wilson wantin' to know why that bell hadn't been rung. Brother Wilson was a man that was always on time himself, and he hadn't any patience with folks that wasn't.

"And old Uncle Gloster says, 'Boss, I'm doin' my best, but it looks like somebody's done hoodooed this bell.' Says he, 'I'm jest gittin' over a spell o' rheumatism, and my old j'ints won't stand a climb up that ladder, and you'll have to git somebody that's young and spry to go up and see what's the matter.'

"Well, Brother Wilson started off to find somebody who could climb the ladder, and as soon as he got outside the church, he met Judge Grace and old Doctor Brigham, both of 'em members of the church, and he told 'em about the trouble with the bell, and they went in to see what they could do. By the time Brother Wilson had walked around the square, everybody in town knew that the Presbyterian bell wouldn't ring, and all the folks come flockin' to the church; but nobody wanted to risk their neck goin' up the old rickety ladder. While they was all standin' there stretchin' their necks and reckonin' about what was the matter, here come John Calvin, and says he, 'Gimme fifty cents, and I'll go up the ladder.'

"And Brother Wilson says, 'No child o' mine shall be hired to do his duty.' Says he, 'John Calvin, if that ladder was a green-apple tree, you'd be at the top of it in less than half a minute. Go up, sir, this instant, and find out what's the matter with that bell.'

"But Judge Grace and Doctor Brigham and the rest o' the men said they'd throw in and make up the fifty cents, and John Calvin put the money in his pocket and went up the ladder. As soon as he got to the top round he hollered down and says he:

"'No wonder the bell won't ring. Here's a yarn sock tied around the clapper.' And down he come with the sock in his hand, and handed it to his father. It turned out afterwards that him and Martin Luther had had a fallin' out that mornin', and he went up and got the sock jest to git even with his brother.

"Well, while they was passin' the sock around and speculatin' about it, old Mis' Maria Morris come along with her bag o' knittin' on her arm, goin' to spend the day with some of her friends. She stopped to see what was the matter, and when they told her she says, 'Let me look at the sock,' and she took it and looked at it right close and says she, 'That's Martin Luther Wilson's sock,' says she. 'I spent the day with Mis' Wilson three or four weeks ago, and I saw her round off the toe of this very sock.'

"Well, of course, Brother Wilson started off to look for Martin Luther, and as soon as he was out o' hearin', Judge Grace brought his cane down on the pavement, and says he, 'I hate to say such a thing of my own pastor's son, but they named that boy after the wrong man when they named him Martin Luther,' says he. 'They ought to 'a' named him Beelzebub. That's one good old Bible name,' says he, 'that'll fit a preacher's son nine times out of ten.'

"Brother Wilson went all around the square inquirin' for Martin Luther, and found out that Martin and the rest o' the boys had been seen goin' towards the river, all of 'em bleatin' like young lambs callin' for their mothers. So he come back to the church, and says he to Judge Grace, 'What mortifies me most in this matter is that a boy of mine should have so little sense as to tie his own sock on the bell. It was the act of a fool,' says he, 'and I shall see that it is properly punished.'

"So when Martin Luther got home late that evenin', his mother was standin' on the front door-step waitin' for him, and she took him by the hand and led him into his father's study. And Brother Wilson held up the sock, and says he, 'My son, can you tell me how this came to be tied on the clapper of the church bell?' And Martin Luther says, as prompt as you please, 'Yes, sir; I tied it on myself.' Martin's mother said Brother Wilson looked mighty pleased at that. And then he says, 'Well, didn't you know you'd be found out if you tied your own sock on?' And Martin Luther says, 'Yes, but I had to take my chances on that, for if I'd gone home to git a rag or anything like that, Uncle Gloster might 'a' had the church locked up before I could git back.' Mis' Wilson used to say that Brother Wilson laughed like he'd heard good news when Martin Luther said that, and says he, 'Well, I'm glad to know you are neither a liar nor a fool, but, all the same, I shall have to correct you severely for this offense.'

"Brother Wilson believed in Solomon's plan for raisin' children, and in them days preachers didn't try to explain away the meanin' of a Bible text like they do now. So he give Martin Luther a good old-fashioned whippin', and then he called for John Calvin, and says he, 'I know you were as deep in the mud as your brother was in the mire, and I understand now why you were so anxious to climb the ladder and see what was the matter with the bell: you only wanted to get your brother into trouble, so I shall give you a double punishment.'

"And besides the whippin', Martin Luther said they made him and John Calvin learn pretty near all the psalms. That's the way children was dealt with in old times. Martin Luther used to say, 'Boys, if I got all this for tyin' one sock on that old bell-clapper, what would it 'a' been if I'd tied a pair o' socks on it?'"

The old farmhouse was in sight, and Nelly's brisk gait showed what she could do if she would. Such inspiration is the thought of home, even to dumb animals. Suddenly I drew rein and assumed a look of deep dismay.

"Aunt Jane," I cried, "we have forgotten something."

"La, child, you don't say so," said Aunt Jane, turning over the parcels in her lap and hurriedly counting them. "Why, no we ain't. Here's the soda and the cream o' tartar and the gyarden seed all right."

"But you forgot to tell me the story of the house that was a wedding fee," said I with dramatic solemnity.

"Now did anybody ever!" laughed Aunt Jane. "Skeerin' me to death about a old yarn like that! Well, honey, that story's sixty years old already, and I reckon it'll keep a little longer yet. Some o' these days I'll tell you the story of that old house. I reckon I owe you another story for takin' me to town and bringin' me home so nice. I'm mighty glad I've seen the old place once more, for the next time I go to town maybe I'll go in the direction of the New Jerusalem."

After Nelly had been unharnessed and fed, I sat down on the porch to watch the passing of day. Ah! surely it is worth while to go to town now and then just for the pleasure of getting back to the country, to its purer air, its solitude, its blessed stillness. I lifted up my eyes unto the hills and let the sunset and the twilight hold me in their spells till Aunt Jane's voice called me in with a warning of the danger that lurks in falling dew; and when I closed my eyes in sleep that night, my brain was a panorama of strange scenes. Past and present were mingled, as a picture painted within a picture, for, through Aunt Jane's eyes, I, too, had seen double. I had gone to town over the old 'pike, but I had also traveled the road of dead years, and it had led me into the Land of Long Ago.

II

THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE

II

THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE[ToC]

It was September, the sad month of the year before I heard the promised story of the house that was a wedding fee; for it was Aunt Jane's whim that, as a dramatic sequence, a visit to the house should follow the telling of the tale, and it was hard to find a convenient time for the happening of both events. Meanwhile, I was tantalized by the memory of that half-seen house at the end of the long avenue, and again and again I tried by adroit questions to draw from Aunt Jane the story about which my imagination hovered like a bee about a flower.

"Well," she finally remarked with smiling resignation, "I see there ain't any peace for me till that story's told. Ain't that Johnny Amos goin' by on horseback? Holler to him, child, and ask him to stop here on his way back and hitch old Nelly to the buggy for me. Tell him I'll dance at his weddin' if he'll do that favor for me.

"And now, while we're waitin' for Johnny to come, I'll tell all I can ricollect about that old house. Fetch my basket o' cyarpet-rags, and we'll sit out here on the porch. Here's a needle for you, too, child. If I can sew and talk at the same time, I reckon you can sew and listen. Jest mix your colors any way you please. I never made a cyarpet except the hit-or-miss kind."

I took my needle and began to sew, first a black, then a red, then a blue strip, but Aunt Jane showed no haste to begin her story.

"Goin' back sixty years," she remarked meditatively, "is like goin' up and rummagin' around in a garret. You don't know what you'll lay your hands on in the dark, and you can't be certain of findin' what you went after. I'm tryin' to think whereabouts I'd better begin so as to git to that old house the quickest."

"No, Aunt Jane, please take the long, roundabout way," I urged.

"Well," she laughed, "come to think about it, it don't make much difference which way I take, for if I start on the short road, it'll be roundabout before I git through with it. You know my failin', child. Well, I reckon the old church is as good a startin'-place as any. You ricollect me p'intin' it out to you the day we went to town, and tellin' you about Martin Luther and the bell. That buildin' was put up when Brother Wilson was pastor of the Presbyterian church. Before his time they'd been without a preacher for a good while, and things was in a run-down and gone-to-seed sort o' condition when he come up from Tennessee to take the charge.

"Brother Wilson's father and mother was Georgia people, and I ricollect one of his brothers comin' through here with all his slaves on his way to Mizzourah to set 'em free. The family moved from Georgia to Tennessee because there was better schools there, and they wanted to educate their children. They was the sort o' people that thought more of books and learnin' than they did of money. But before Brother Wilson got his schoolin', he took a notion he'd go into the army, and when he wasn't but sixteen or seventeen years old, he was fightin' under Gen. Andrew Jackson, and went through two campaigns. Then he come home and went to college, and the next thing he was preachin' the gospel.

"It's sort o' curious to think of a man bein' a soldier and a preacher, too. But then, you know, the Bible talks about Christians jest like they was soldiers, and the Christian's life jest like it was a warfare. The Apostle tells us to put on the whole armor of God, and when he was ready to depart he said, 'I have fought a good fight.' And I used to think that maybe Brother Wilson wouldn't 'a' been as good a preacher as he was if he hadn't first been a good soldier. He used to say, 'I come of fighting stock and preaching stock, and the fighting blood in me had to have its day.' The preachin' blood didn't seem to come out in Martin Luther and John Calvin, but the fightin' blood was there mighty strong. Folks used to say that one or the other of 'em had a fight every day in the week, and if they couldn't git up a fight with some other boy, they'd fight with each other. The druggist said that after Brother Wilson come, he sold as much court-plaster and arnica in a month as he used to sell in six months, and Mis' Zerilda Moore used to declare she never had seen Martin Luther but once when his eyes and nose was the natural shape and color. Some of the church-members was scandalized at havin' their preacher's sons set such a bad example to the rest o' the town boys, and they went to Brother Wilson to talk to him about it. But he jest laughed and says he, 'There's no commandment that says, "Thou shalt not fight," and I can't whip my boys for having the spirit of their forefathers on both sides of the house.' Says he, 'Their great-grandfather on their mother's side was a fighting parson in Revolutionary times. He was in his pulpit one Sunday morning when news was brought that the British were coming, and he stepped down out of his pulpit and organized a company from the men of his congregation, and marched out and whipped the British; and then he went back to the church and finished his sermon.' Says he, 'My boys can't help fighting like their mother's grandfather any more than they can help having their mother's eyes and hair.'

"Now here I am talkin' about Martin Luther Wilson's great-grandfather when I started out to tell you about the old church. Le's see if I can't git back to the straight road and keep on it the rest of the way.

"When Brother Wilson first come, the Presbyterian church was in the old graveyard in the lower part o' town. Maybe you ricollect seem' it the day we went to town. Mighty dismal-lookin' place, all grown up in weeds and underbrush. And he took a look at it and saw jest how things was, and says he, 'You've got your church in the right place. A dead church,' says he, 'ought to be in a graveyard. But,' says he, 'when the spirit of the Lord breathes over this valley of dry bones, I expect to see the dead arise, and we'll build a house of the Lord amongst the habitations of the living.' And bless your life, he went to work and got up a revival that lasted three months, and spread to all the churches—the Babtist and the Methodist and the Christian—till every sinner in town was either converted or at the mourners' bench. And before it was over in town, it started in the country churches and kept up till Sam Amos said it looked to him like the preachers would have to go out o' business for a while or move to some other place, for there wasn't any material in the county for 'em to work on. Mother used to say it was pretty near equal to the big revival they had 'way back yonder in 1830. She said every seat in a church then was a mourners' bench, and such shoutin' and singin' and prayin' never was heard before or since. Some o' the converts would fall in trances, and you couldn't tell whether they was dead or alive. Uncle Jim Matthews's father, Job Matthews, stayed in a trance for two days and nights, and mother said he never seemed like the same man after that. He never could tell what he'd seen when he was in the trance, and when folks'd question him about it, a sort of a wild look'd come into the old man's eyes and he'd say, 'I've seen things of which it is not lawful for me to speak.' He didn't take any more interest in his farmin' or the family affairs, and when his wife'd try to stir him up and persuade him to work like he'd been used to workin', he'd say: 'The things of this world are temporal, but the things of the other world are eternal. The soul of man is eternal, and this world can never content it. I've seen the abiding-place o' the soul,' he'd say, 'and I'm like a homesick child.' Mother said nobody appeared to understand the old man, and his wife'd be so fretted and outdone with him that she'd say that if a person went into a trance, they might as well stay in it, for Job hadn't been any use to the world since he come out of his.

"Well, when the revival was over, and all the converts had been received into the church, Brother Wilson called a meetin' o' the session and says he, 'There's two things to be done now. We've got to come up out of that old graveyard, and build a church in town that'll stand as a monument to this generation of Presbyterians long after their bodies have gone back to the old graveyard and moldered into dust; and while we're doing that,' says he, 'we must bring this congregation up to the standards the church has set for its members.' And he got the session to pass resolutions sayin' that all sinful and worldly pleasures like cyard-playin' and horse-racin' and dancin' was forbidden to church-members, and that the Sabbath day must be kept holy and no member of the church could ride or walk or take a journey on the Sabbath unless it was to do some work of necessity or mercy. Says he, 'This flock has been without a shepherd so long that the Good Shepherd himself could hardly tell which are the sheep and which are the goats. But,' says he, 'the time has come when every man has got to take his stand on the right hand or on the left, so the world can know what he is.'

"Well, of course these strict rulin's went mighty hard with some o' the church people, for, havin' been without a preacher so long, they'd got clean out of their religious ways. I ricollect they elected old Mr. Joe Bigsby superintendent of the Sunday-school, and the very first Sunday he was examinin' the children to see if their parents had taught 'em the things they ought to know, and he called on Johnny West to say the Lord's Prayer, and John was talkin' to the boy next to him and didn't hear. The old man was mighty quick-tempered, and he hollered out: 'John West! You John! Confound you, sir! Stand up and say the Lord's Prayer.' And then he ricollected himself, and he turned around to Brother Wilson, and says he, 'Now, I know that ain't any way for a Sunday-school superintendent to talk, but,' says he, 'jest give me a little time, and I'll git the hang o' this superintendent business.' Says he, 'When a Presbyterian's been without a church of his own for three years and been driftin' around loose amongst the Methodists and the Babtists, you've got to make some allowance for him.'

"Well, after he'd got the Sunday-school and the weekly prayer-meetin' started, and all the church-members comin' regular to preachin', and everything runnin' smooth, Brother Wilson set about havin' the church built.

"The way they build churches now, child, is mighty different from the way they used to build 'em. Now nobody gives anything but money. It's money, money, money, every which way you turn. But in the olden time the way they built a church was like the way the Israelites built the tabernacle. You ricollect the Bible says, 'Every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, brought an offering to the Lord.' The rich men brought gold and silver, and the rulers brought onyx stones and oil and incense, and the poor men brought wood for the tabernacle and goats' skins and rams' skins, and the women they spun and wove and made purple and scyarlet cloth and fine linen. There wasn't anybody so poor that he couldn't give somethin' if his heart and his spirit was willin'. And that's the way it was when that Presbyterian church was built in the old time.

"The folks that was called rich then would be called poor nowadays, and a man's riches wasn't always money. But if one man had a sand-bank, he'd give sand for the mortar, and if another had good clay for makin' bricks, he'd give the clay, and somebody else that owned slaves'd give the labor—so many days' work—and there'd be the bricks for the walls; and if a church-member was a cyarpenter, he'd give so much of his time and his work, jest like the 'wise-hearted men' that worked on the tabernacle and made the curtains and the cherubims and the sockets of silver and brass and all the rest of the things that Moses commanded 'em to make.

"I reckon that old subscription paper'd look mighty strange nowadays. I ricollect one of the members said he'd give fifty dollars in cotton yarn at the price it was sellin' at in the stores; another said he'd give a hundred acres o' land in Monroe County; and another one give a hundred acres o' land 'way up in Illinois. One o' the elders said he'd give twenty-five dollars in shingles, and when he'd gethered his corn the next fall, he promised to give twenty-five barrels o' corn; another elder paid fifteen dollars in pork, and one o' the deacons who had a two-horse wagon paid sixty dollars in haulin'; and the saddlers and the tailors paid their part in saddlery and tailorin'. It's many a day, honey, since they laid the corner-stone o' that church, and there ain't a crack in the walls yet. The only good work is the work that love does, and in them days folks loved their churches jest as they loved their homes, and the work that went into that church was good work. I ricollect the Sunday they dedicated it the first hymn was,

"'I love thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of thine abode,
The church our blest Redeemer saved
With his own precious blood.'

"Me and Abram was there, for the country churches and the town churches was friendlier then than they are now. If the Goshen church was without a preacher Brother Wilson'd come out every third Sunday and preach for us, and if the weather and the travelin' was good, the Goshen folks'd go to town to preachin'.

"Now here I am tellin' about the dedicatin' of the church before I git through with the buildin'.

"Well, when the church was about half done, things begun to go wrong amongst the congregation. Somebody give a dancin'-party at the tavern, and two o' Judge Grace's daughters was there, and the old judge himself dropped in and looked at the dancin' a while; and before folks'd got through talkin' about that, here come the news that Squire Schuyler had taken a journey on the Sabbath day, and, besides that, he'd been heard usin' profane language. Of course it all come to Brother Wilson's ears, and as soon as he heard it he didn't lose any time callin' a meetin' of the session, and they summoned the old judge and the squire to appear before 'em and answer to the charges that was brought against 'em.

"The session was in the habit o' meetin' in old Doctor Brigham's office, and when they come together Judge Grace was on hand, and he explained how he'd gone to the tavern to bring his daughters home, and the gyirls wasn't quite ready to go home, and he had to stay and wait for 'em; and says he, 'I acknowledge that I did go into the hall where the young folks was dancin', and I stood and looked at 'em a while. And,' says he, 'I might 'a' patted my foot, keepin' time to the music, for they was dancin' a Virginia reel, and it's mighty hard for me to keep my feet still when there's a Virginia reel goin' on. But,' says he, 'that was the head and front of my offendin'.'

"Then Brother Wilson asked him if his daughters danced at the party, and the old judge he looked over at one o' the elders and winked, and then he says, as solemn as you please, 'Not while I was there.' Says he, 'I forbid my children to dance, and if I had known the nature of that party I would 'a' forbidden 'em to go to it. But,' says he, 'I can't say that my forbiddin' 'em would 'a' kept 'em from goin', but not bein' church-members,' says he, 'my daughters can't be disciplined for dancin', and if you're going to discipline the parents for what the children do,' says he, 'there's some ministers that'll have to be summoned to appear before the session.'

"And with that everybody laughed, and Brother Wilson he j'ined in as hearty as anybody, for he liked a joke, even when it was on himself. And says he, 'Well, that's one case settled.' And then he looks around, and says he, 'It seems that Squire Schuyler has not received the message from the session. Let the clerk of the session send him another summons, and to make sure of its reaching him, let one of the session hand it to him next Monday; that's county-court day, and he's certain to be in town.' So they fixed up another summons, and Judge Grace was to hand it to him.

"Well, when Monday mornin' come, the old judge took his stand on the corner o' the street in front o' the church and watched for the squire, and pretty soon here he come on horseback, gallopin' as hard as he could, and five or six hounds lopin' at the horse's heels.

"Squire Schuyler, honey, was a man different from any you see nowadays. As I look back on it now, it appears to me that he was the kind o' man that believed in gittin' all the pleasure he could out o' life. Nowadays everybody's tryin' so hard to make money, that they don't have time to enjoy life, and some of 'em wouldn't know how to enjoy it if they had the time. But Squire Schuyler was the kind that knows how to make the most out of everything that comes their way. The Schuyler family was a big family in Virginia 'way back in the time o' the first settlements. They had grants of land and lived high, and the two brothers that come to Kentucky had the same way of livin' and takin' things easy and makin' pleasure out o' life as they went along. Plenty o' money, plenty o' land, plenty o' slaves, fine horses, fine cattle, and a pack o' hounds—that's the way things was with the Schuylers, Meredith and Hamilton both. I can see Squire Meredith Schuyler now, the way he looked in that long overcoat made out o' dark green broadcloth with big brass buttons on it, ruffled shirt-bosom, high boots comin' 'way up to his knees, a broad-brimmed hat set back on his head and a ridin'-whip in his hand, and long leather gloves, and the hounds skulkin' along behind him.

"That's the way he looked when Judge Grace walked up to him and handed him the second summons. And he opened the paper and read it, and then he tore it in two and threw it on the ground. And says he, 'Does the Rev. Samuel Wilson think that he's the Pope of Rome?' Says he, 'You go to him and tell him for me that this is a free country and I'm a free member of the Presbyterian church, and the journeys I take and the language I use are a matter between me and my conscience and my God.' And with that he walked off and left Judge Grace standin' there. And the judge he picked up the pieces o' paper and went right straight to Brother Wilson's house and told him what had happened. And Brother Wilson he listened to it all, and he looked mighty stern and says he, 'Call the session together at three o'clock this evening.' Says he, 'This is something that concerns the honor of the church, and we can't let the sun go down on it.'

"Well, the session, they all got together at the app'inted time, and Brother Wilson says, says he, 'Brethren, there's a serious question to be settled, and before we begin let us ask for light and wisdom from on high.' And then he prayed a prayer askin' the Lord to guide them in all they said and did, and when that was over, he called on Judge Grace to tell the session jest how Squire Schuyler had acted and talked when he handed him the summons. And the judge told it all jest so. 'And now,' says Brother Wilson, 'I want you gentlemen to understand that what Squire Schuyler said and did is not an insult to me.' Says he, 'I am not summoning him to come before this session.' Says he, 'The Squire has broken the rules of the church, and when he refuses to appear before the session, he's resisting the authority of the church, and when a man does that, why, there's nothing,' says he, 'for the church to do but to cut him off from its membership.'

"Well, the session, they looked at each other, and they hemmed and hawed, and finally Doctor Brigham says, says he, 'Brother Wilson, I believe you are right about this thing; but,' says he, 'it looks like this might be a case that calls for a little of the wisdom of the serpent.' Says he, 'You know there's good Scriptural authority for bein' "wise as serpents."' Says he, 'I know the Lord is no respecter of persons; but,' says he, 'there's times when common sense tells us to stop and consider a man's standin' and influence. Here we are,' says he, 'in the midst of buildin' a church. There's none too much money comin' to us, and Squire Schuyler's subscription is two or three times as big as anybody's, and, besides, it's all in hard money, and if we turn him out o' the church, we'll run short o' funds and have to stop buildin'.' Says he, 'If it was any time but now, I'd say, "Go ahead, and we'll all stand by you," but as we're buildin' a church, why, it looks to me like the wrong time to turn people out o' the church.'

"And Brother Wilson jumped up and says he, 'That's exactly the point I'm aiming at. We're building a church, and that is the reason why I want Squire Schuyler, and all members like him, deprived of church privileges.' Says he, 'What is a church, anyway? Is it that pile of brick and mortar you're putting up out yonder?' Says he, 'That's the church building, but the church itself,' says he, 'no eye but the eye of God has ever seen it, for it is builded of the hearts and consciences of men and women that have known the power of the spirit. That's the real church,' says he, 'and if you've got that, it matters not whether you've got the house of brick and stone or not.' Says he, 'When the Pilgrim Fathers set foot on Plymouth Rock and sang a hymn and knelt down and prayed under the open sky, there was a living church of the living God, and not a hypocrite or a mammon-worshiper or a time-server in it.' Says he, 'You men are mighty particular about the house for the church to worship in. You are looking for the best stone, and the best brick, and the best mortar; but when it comes to the building of the church itself, you're ready to put in hay, straw, and stubble for the sake of a little filthy lucre.'

"And all the time Brother Wilson was talkin', he was poundin' the table with his fist till the pens and the papers that was on it jest danced around, and Judge Grace said afterwards that he believed Brother Wilson'd rather have hit some o' the session than that table.

"Well, he sort o' stopped to take his breath, and Doctor Brigham says, says he, 'I agree with you, Brother Wilson, with all my heart. But there's another thing to be thought of before we do anything rash,' says he. 'Squire Schuyler ain't only a big contributor to the buildin' of the church, but he's the mainstay of the church when it comes to raisin' the preacher's salary. You've got a family dependin' on you.' says he, 'and do you think you'd be doin' justice to them to take a step that would cut your salary down?'

"I reckon the old doctor thought he'd pacify Brother Wilson and bring him to his senses, but instead o' pacifyin' him, it made him madder. He doubled up his fist and brought it down on the table again, and says he, 'If a minister of the gospel has to neglect his duty in order to earn his salary and support his family, then it's time for honest men to get out of the pulpit and make room for scoundrels that'll sell their principles and their self-respect for a matter of a few dollars and cents.' Says he, 'No matter how poor I am, I've never been so poor that I couldn't afford to do right. I left the army for the church, and I can go from the church back to the army; for,' says he, 'I'd rather be a ragged, barefooted soldier in the ranks, living on half rations and fighting in a good cause, than a cowardly, skulking preacher dressed in broadcloth and sitting down on his conscience every time he opened his mouth.' And with that he took up his hat and went out o' the office, slammin' the door after him.

"And Judge Grace says to Doctor Brigham, 'Where do you reckon that preacher of ours got his notions of what's right and what's wrong?' And Doctor Brigham shook his head and says he, 'I reckon he got 'em from the Bible, for,' says he, 'such notions and such conduct might do in the days when preachers was fed by the ravens, but they don't fit into this day and generation when a preacher has to preach for his livin'.'

"Well, town news can travel to the country as fast as country news can travel to town, and of course Squire Schuyler wasn't long hearin' about the meetin' of the session, and as soon as he heard it he got on his horse and rode to town, and went right straight to Doctor Brigham's office—the doctor was the treasurer of the church—and says he, 'I understand that you gentlemen of the session are considering the question of turning me out of the church, and some of you think my subscription won't be paid if that's done. I want you to understand,' says he, 'that my word is better than any man's bond. I promised to give a thousand dollars toward the church buildin'; here's a check for fifteen hundred. Now turn me out if you want to. You've got nothing to lose by turning me out and nothing to gain by keeping me in.'

"That ain't exactly what Meredith Schuyler said, honey," remarked Aunt Jane, pausing in her story to make an explanatory note. "Jest exactly what he said it wouldn't be right for me or any Christian woman to tell, for Meredith Schuyler never opened his mouth, unless it was to eat his meals, that he didn't take the name o' the Lord in vain. But that was the sum and substance of it.

"Well, Doctor Brigham he went straight to Brother Wilson's house and showed him the check, and told him about meetin' the squire and all that had passed between 'em, and Brother Wilson he slapped his knee, and says he, 'Now we'll have a meeting of the session to-morrow and settle the matter right away.' So they all met again in the doctor's office, and Brother Wilson called the meetin' to order and says he, 'I have been asking the Lord to turn the hearts and minds of my session that they might see certain matters as I see them. I cannot tell whether my prayer has been answered,' says he, 'but, the thing that kept some of you from doing your duty last week has been providentially removed, and the way is clear before our feet. Squire Schuyler,' says he, 'has not only paid his subscription, but he has paid five hundred dollars more than his subscription. I move that Judge Grace be a committee of one to write the squire a letter accepting his gift, and thanking him for his liberality.'

"Well, they seconded the motion, and Judge Grace said he'd be glad to write the letter, and then Brother Wilson says, 'The payment of that money shows that Squire Schuyler is an open-hearted, open-handed gentleman. I wish I could say Christian gentleman,' says he, 'but the charges of profanity and Sabbath-breaking are still standing against him, and we must now do our duty and deprive him of the rights and privileges of church-membership.'

"Well, they said Doctor Brigham and Judge Grace both threw up their hands and begun talkin' at once, and says they, 'You don't mean to say you're goin' to turn the squire out now!' And Brother Wilson says, says he, 'Why not? Here are the charges against him: breaking the Sabbath, taking the name of the Lord in vain, and refusing to appear before the officers of the church when he's summoned.' And Doctor Brigham says, 'But he's paid his subscription.' And Brother Wilson says, 'That's no more than an honest man ought to do.' And Judge Grace says, 'But he's paid five hundred dollars besides.' And Brother Wilson says, 'A letter of thanks is all we owe him for that.' Says he, 'Here's a matter of church discipline, and here's a matter of money, and one has nothing whatever to do with the other. Can't you see that?' says he. And they all shook their heads and said they couldn't. And Judge Grace says: 'It looks to me like it's not treatin' a man exactly square to take his money to build the church, and then to turn him out o' the church. It looks like if a man's money's good enough to go into the church walls, the man's name's good enough to stay on the church rolls.' And the rest of the session, they agreed with the old judge. But Brother Wilson, he jumped up and says he, 'A man that sees things that way has a conscience that needs enlightening.' Says he, 'Money itself is neither good nor evil. Whether it's clean or unclean,' says he, 'depends on the way it's given and the way it's taken. The money that's given in fulfilment of a promise,' says he, 'is clean money: let it go into the walls of the church. Coming from Meredith Schuyler's hands the way it does,' says he, 'it's pure gold. He's not offering it as a bribe to us to keep him in the church, but if we take it as a bribe,' says he, 'the minute it gets into our hands it turns to base coin, and it's a dishonor to us who take it and an insult to him who gave it.'

"Well, the session set there and studied a while, and shook their heads, and said they couldn't see things that way. And Brother Wilson looked at 'em a minute or two, and then he jumped up and says he, 'Let us pray.' And then he offered up a prayer that God would send his spirit into the hearts and consciences of his servants, that they might see things in the right light, so that all they did might be for the glory of God and of his kingdom on earth. Then they all set down and waited a while, and Brother Wilson says, 'Brethren, are you still of the same mind?' And they all nodded their heads, and says he, 'Well, when the session thinks one way and the minister another, it's time for them to separate.' Says he, 'Here's my resignation by word of mouth, and as soon as I go home, I'll put it in writing.' And off he went, leavin' the session sittin' there.

"Well, of course the men went home and told their wives all about it, and before the next day everybody was talkin' about Brother Wilson resignin', and the church-members lined up, some on the squire's side and some on the preacher's side, jest like they did in Goshen church the time we got the new organ. There was the church walls goin' up, and both sides had put money into 'em, and neither side had money enough to buy the other side out, and neither side wanted to be bought out. And the squire's side, they'd say, 'We've got the money, and you can't have a church without money.' And the preacher's side, they'd say, 'But we've got the members and the preacher, and you can't have a church without church-members and a preacher.' And they had it up and down and back and forth, and the Methodists and Babtists, they took sides, and such quarrelin' and disputin' you never heard. Some o' the outsiders went to Brother Wilson, and says they, 'You Christian people are settin' a mighty bad example to us outsiders. Can't somethin' be done,' says they, 'to stop this wranglin' amongst the churches?'

"And Brother Wilson, he laughed at 'em, and says he, 'Open your Bibles and find out who it was said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword."' Says he, 'The word of the Lord is a two-edged sword, and all this disturbance means that the Lord is visiting his church and his spirit is striving with the spirit of man.'

"Well, matters was standin' in this loose, unj'inted way when all at once Squire Schuyler's weddin' invitations come out. Everybody knew he was waitin' on Miss Drusilla Elrod, but nobody expected the weddin' that soon, and folks begun speculatin' about who he'd have say the weddin' ceremony, and Judge Grace says: 'Now see what a man makes by havin' such curious ideas and bein' so rash in his speech. Here's a big weddin' fee that ought to go into a Presbyterian pocket, and instead o' that, it'll fall to some Babtist or Methodist preacher.'

"But—bless your life!—the day before the weddin', Squire Schuyler's carriage drove up to the parsonage, and the coachman got out and knocked at the door and handed in a letter with a big red seal, and it was from the squire, askin' Brother Wilson to say the weddin' ceremony over him, and promisin' to send his carriage to bring him and Mis' Wilson to the weddin'.

"Well, that weddin' was the talk o' the town and the country for many a day before and after it happened. They had cyarpet spread from the gate to the front door, and they burned over a hundred wax candles before the evenin' was over, and folks said it looked like they had ransacked the heavens above and the earth beneath and the waters under the earth for somethin' to put on that supper-table. Brother Wilson said a mighty nice ceremony over 'em, and when they went out to supper the preacher and his wife set on the right hand of the bride and groom.

"Well, when Brother Wilson got ready to leave, he went up to Squire Schuyler to shake hands and say good night, and the squire pulled a long paper out o' the breast pocket of his coat, and he bowed, and says he, 'Will you do me the honor, sir, to accept this?' Squire Schuyler had a mighty grand way of talkin', honey, and you don't see any such manners nowadays as the Schuylers and the Elrods used to have. And says he, 'Don't open it till you get home.' And Brother Wilson, he says, 'I'm not the man to look a gift horse in the mouth, but,' says he, 'I must see the gift horse before I accept it.' With that he opened the paper, and what do you reckon it was, honey? It was a deed to that house I p'inted out to you the day we went to town—Schuyler Hall, they call it—and I don't know how many acres of land along with it.

"Brother Wilson he looked at it and looked at it, and it seemed as if he couldn't take it in. And says he, 'There must be some mistake about this. You surely do not mean to deed me a house and land?'

"And the squire he bows again, and says he, 'There's no mistake. The house and the land are yours to have and to hold while you live and to will as you please when you die.'

"And Brother Wilson held out the paper and says he, 'Sir, it's a princely gift, but I can't take it. It's no suitable fee for a poor preacher like myself.'

"And the squire he folded his arms and stepped back to keep Brother Wilson from puttin' the deed into his hands, and says he, 'It takes a princely gift to suit an occasion like this.' Says he, 'I want the wedding fee to match the worth of my bride and the worth of my minister, but, not being a prince, this is the best I can do.' And all the time he was talkin', Brother Wilson was shakin' his head and tryin' to make him take back the paper, and sayin', 'I can't take it, I can't take it.'

"And the squire says: 'Sir, you'll have to take it. The deed has passed from my hands to yours, and a Schuyler never takes back a gift.' And Brother Wilson, he says, 'But the gift will be of no use to me. I've handed in my resignation,' says he, 'and the presbytery will shortly send me to another field of usefulness.'

"And the squire he ripped out a terrible oath, and says he, 'I beg your pardon, sir, for swearing in your presence. I've heard,' says he, 'of the doings of that session; but,' says he, 'if I have influence enough to keep myself in the church, I have influence enough to keep you in, too; and if I can't do that,' says he, 'I'll build you a church and pay you a salary for life.' Says he, 'There's nothing too good for a man that refuses to bow down and worship the golden calf.'

"Honey," said Aunt Jane, lowering her voice, "considerin' it was his weddin' night and him talkin' to a preacher, the language Squire Schuyler used was far from fittin'. What he said was all right, but the way he said it was all wrong.

"Well, they argued back and forth, and it ended by Brother Wilson goin' home with the deed in his pocket. And the next Saturday Squire Schuyler come before the session and acknowledged the error of his ways. 'And,' says he, 'I promise in future to keep the Sabbath day holy, but as to the profane language,' says he, 'it comes as natural to me to swear and fight as it does to the Rev. Mr. Wilson to pray and fight, and all I can promise about that,' says he, 'is that hereafter I'll try to do the most of my swearing in private, so my example won't hurt the church I'm a member of.'

"And Sunday mornin', child, here come Squire Schuyler and his bride, as fine as a fiddle, walkin' down the church aisle arm in arm, and the squire j'ined in the hymns, and when the contribution plate was passed around he dropped a gold piece on it as unconcerned as if it was a copper cent. And Brother Wilson, he moved out to the house the squire had give him, and there never was anybody as happy as he appeared to be. He'd walk around under the trees and look at his gyarden on one side and his clover-fields on the other side, and he'd say: '"Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." I've always wanted a home in the country, and the Lord has given me one of the desires of my heart.'

"But he didn't live to enjoy it very long, poor man. He died before his prime, and his tombstone's standin' now in the old graveyard yonder in town. They had a Bible text cyarved on it, 'For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of God, and much people was added unto the Lord.'

"And now, child, put on your hat. I see Johnny Amos comin' with the buggy, and we'll go over and see the old house."

Suppose a child should read the story of Beauty and the Beast, and straightway a fairy godmother should appear, saying, "Now, let us go to the palace of the Beast." If you can fancy that child's feelings, you will know how I felt when I stepped into the old buggy to go to Schuyler Hall.

It was a gray September afternoon. The air was warm and still, and the earth lay weary, thirsty, and patient under a three-weeks drouth. Dust was thick over the grass, flowers, and trees along the roadside, and on the weed-grown fields that had brought forth their harvest for the sons of men and now, sun-scorched and desolate, seemed to say, "Is this the end, the end of all?"

Over the horizon there was a soft haze like smoke from the smoldering embers of summer's dying fires, and in the west gloomed a cloud from which the thunder and the lightning would be loosed before the midnight hour; and after the rain would come a season of gentle suns, cool dews, and frosts scarce colder than the dew—not spring, but a memory of spring—when the earth, looking back to her May, would send a ripple of green over the autumn fields, and, like thoughts of youth in the heart of age, the clover and the dandelion would spring into untimely bloom.

"Things look sort o' down-hearted and discouraged, don't they?" said Aunt Jane, echoing my thought. "But jest wait till the Lord sends us the latter rain, and things'll freshen up mightily. There's plenty o' pretty weather to come betwixt now and winter-time. Now, child, you jump out and open the gate, like I used to do in the days when I was young and spry."

Old Nelly crept lazily up the long avenue, and my eyes were fixed on the house of legend that lay at its end.

"Houses and lands are jest like pieces o' money," observed Aunt Jane. "They pass from one hand to another, and this old place has had many an owner since Brother Wilson's day. The man that owns it now is a great-nephew of old Peter Cyartwright, and him and his wife's mighty proud of the place."

"Do they object to strangers coming to see it?" I asked as we neared the giant cypress-tree in front of the porch.

"La, child," laughed Aunt Jane. "Ain't this Kentucky? Who ever heard of a Kentuckian objectin' to folks goin' through his house! We'll jest walk in at the front door and out at the back door and see all that's to be seen, up-stairs and down."

As she spoke we heard the voice of the hostess bidding us welcome to Schuyler Hall, and, fresh from the fairy-land of Aunt Jane's memories, I walked into one of the scenes of the story, the house that was a wedding fee.

There was a hint of baronial grandeur in the lofty ceilings, the heavy walnut wainscoting and oaken floors, the huge fireplaces with their tall mantels; and underneath the evident remodeling and repairing one saw the home and the taste of a vanished generation, the same that had witnessed the building of Monticello, for the hand that wrote the Declaration of Independence had drawn the plans for the house that was a wedding fee.

From room to room I went, pleasing myself with fancies of the man who had never bowed the knee to Mammon. My feet were on the floors that he had trod. By this worn hearthstone he had knelt, night and morn, to the God who had given him the desire of his heart. From this doorway he had looked upon the broad acres that were his by grace of a generous adversary, the tribute of one noble nature to another. In the long, low-ceiled bedchamber above the stately lower rooms he had slept the sleep of one whose conscience is void of offense toward God and his fellow man, and through the dormer-window that looked toward the rising of the sun his soul had passed out in its flight to the stars.

Dusty and flowerless, the garden paths wandered to right and left, but not one did I miss in my pilgrimage; for who could know what shrines of remembrance might lie hidden in that drift of leaves, withered and fallen before their time? Perhaps the minister's hand had planted the clump of tansy and the bed of sage, and well I knew that here in the night hours he had met his Maker, and his garden had been to him as that paradise where Adam walked with God.

Near the house was a spring to whose waters came the Indian and the deer before the foot of the pioneer had touched Kentucky soil. Rising from sources too deep to be affected by the weather of earth, no drouth ever checks its flow, no flood increases it, and here I knelt and drank to the memory of a day that is not dead nor can ever die.

Again on the threshold of the old house I paused and looked back into the shadowy hall. Ah, if the other world would for a moment give up its own that I might see them "in their habit as they lived," the Cavalier squire, the Puritan minister, the bride whose womanly worth was but faintly shadowed forth in the princely gift of a house and land! But no presence crossed the dim perspective within, and the only whisper I heard was the wind in the cypress-tree. The past had buried its dead, and soon their habitation, like themselves, would be but a memory and a name.

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared,
The stranger feasted at his board.

Fair and stately are the dwellings that shelter this latest generation, and by their side such mansions as Schuyler Hall seem only moldering, ghost-haunted reminders of the past. But those who dwelt in them are immortal, and though walls of flesh and walls of stone alike crumble to dust, there shall never lack a heart to treasure and a pen to record the virtues of the men and women of those early times, who, in reverence and in honor, founded and built the "old Kentucky home."

III

THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS

III

THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS[ToC]

"It's curious," said Aunt Jane meditatively, "how, when old people go to lookin' back on the way things was when they was young, it appears like everything was better then than it is now. Strawberries was sweeter, times was easier, men was taller, and women prettier. I ain't say in' a word against your looks, child; you're as good-lookin' as the best of 'em nowadays, but I reckon there ain't any harm in me sayin' that you don't quite come up to Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis. I git to thinkin' about them two, and I wish I could see 'em by the side o' the women that folks call pretty nowadays so I could tell whether they really was prettier or whether it's jest an old woman's notion."

"Who was Miss Amaryllis?" I asked. "If she matched her name she must have been a beauty."

Aunt Jane smiled delightedly and gave an assenting nod. "Miss Amaryllis was Miss Penelope's sister," she said. "They was first cousins to Dick Elrod, that married Annie Crawford, and their father was Judge Elrod, Squire Elrod's brother. The old judge was a mighty learned sort of a man. He spent most of his time readin' and writin', and he had a room in his house with nothin' in it but books, clear from the floor to the ceilin', and some of 'em he never allowed anybody but himself to touch, he thought so much of 'em. And next to his books it was his two daughters. Folks used to say that the judge's wife was right jealous of his books and of Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis.

"Maybe you know, child, where the old judge got the names for his daughters. The only names I'm used to are the good old family names that come out o' the Bible, and some people said Penelope and Amaryllis couldn't be called Christian names, because they sounded so heathenish, and the judge's wife she objected to 'em because, she said, they was too long for folks to say. But the old judge wouldn't hear to anybody's shortenin' the children's names. Says he, 'If you give a child a plain name it'll be likely to turn out a plain man or a plain woman. But,' says he, 'I've given my children fine names, and I expect them to grow up into women that'll become their names.' And I reckon they did, for two prettier women you never saw, and their names seemed to suit 'em exactly. And as for their bein' too long, I always liked to say 'em and hear people say 'em. Penelope and Amaryllis—why, they're jest as easy to say as Mary and Marthy, and I always thought they sounded like fallin' water or the singin' of a bird, Amaryllis especially."

Aunt Jane paused here and laid down her work. She had reached a difficult point in the story, and there must be time for thought.

"Now, how in the world am I goin' to tell you how Miss Amaryllis looked?" she said, with an accent of gentle despair. "Why, it's as hard as tryin' to tell about that yeller rose that grew in old lady Elrod's gyarden. There never was such a rose as that, and there never was such a gyirl as Miss Amaryllis, or Miss Penelope either, for that matter. The judge was always havin' their pictures painted, and there was one, no bigger around than that, set in gold. If I jest had it to show you! But I reckon that picture o' Miss Amaryllis is lyin' in a grave somewhere on the other side o' the ocean. Mighty near every woman has somethin' pretty about her; one'll have pretty eyes and another'll have a pretty color, but Miss Amaryllis was pretty every way. I ricollect once I was passin' along Main Street, one County Court day, and the old judge's carriage was standin' in front o' Tom Barker's dry-goods store, and Miss Amaryllis was leanin' back against the cushions, and her hand was layin' on the carriage door, and she had a ring on one of her fingers with a yeller stone in it; the sun was shinin' on it and, I declare to goodness, from that day to this I never see a white lily with the yeller heart and the dust like grains o' gold inside of it that I don't think o' Miss Amaryllis's hand and Miss Amaryllis's ring.

MISS PENELOPE AND MISS AMARYLLIS.
Page 80.[ToList]

"They both had golden hair, Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis, but Miss Penelope had gray eyes like a dove's, and Miss Amaryllis had brown ones with dark lashes. I reckon it was Miss Amaryllis's eyes and hair that made her what she was. You can find plenty o' women with brown eyes and brown hair, but when you find one with brown eyes and golden hair, why, it's somethin' to ricollect. And then, there was her voice. You've heard me tell many a time about Miss Penelope's voice, and Miss Amaryllis had one that was jest as sweet, but hers was low and deep where Miss Penelope's was clear and high. Miss Amaryllis played on the guitar, and summer nights they'd sit out on the portico and sing together, and the old judge used to say that when his gyirls sung the very mockin'-birds stopped to listen.

"Many a woman has hard work to find one man to love her, and many a woman can't find even one, but Miss Amaryllis had more beaus on her string, and more strings to her bow, than any fiddler, in the state; and she danced with 'em and sung to 'em and played with 'em like a cat plays with mice, and then, when she got ready, she'd send 'em on their way, and she'd go on hers. And as fast as one went another'd come. The judge's wife used to shake her head and say, 'My daughter, there's such a thing as a woman sayin' "No" once too often.' And Miss Amaryllis she'd say, 'Yes, and there's such a thing as a woman sayin' "Yes" a little too soon;' and the old judge he'd laugh and say, 'Let her alone; one of these days she'll find her master.' And sure enough she did. They said it was love at first sight on both sides when Miss Amaryllis and Hamilton Schuyler met each other at a big party at Squire Elrod's, and before long the weddin' day was set, and everybody was sayin' that Miss Amaryllis had found her match at last.

"Hamilton Schuyler was as handsome as Miss Amaryllis was pretty, and when it come to family he had as much to brag of as she had. He was a first cousin to Squire Meredith Schuyler, and all the Schuylers had fine houses and plenty o' land. Rich folks in that day had a way of namin' their places jest as rich folks do now. The Elrod place was called The Cedars, and Hamilton Schuyler had a big house on the same 'pike, and that was Schuyler Court. The Schuylers was mighty proud o' their blood, and I used to hear folks talk about the coat of arms that the squire had hangin' in his front hall. Abram was there once to see about some land the squire was havin' cleared, and he said he took particular notice of the coat of arms, but to save his life he couldn't see why they called it that, for there wasn't any coat or any arms on it that he could see, jest a curious colored thing, red and blue and black, and on top of it some kind of a beast standin' on its hind legs.

"The Elrods come of plain people at the start, but they could hold up their heads with the best, for they had plenty o' money and plenty o' learnin', too, and the judge's wife was as blue-blooded as any Schuyler and twice as proud of her blood, in the bargain. She had pictures, and silver things, and dishes that'd been in the family for generations, and her great-great-grandfather was a Fairfax.

"There's some people, child, that'll tell you that one person's as good as another, and all blood's alike, and all of it red. And maybe they are right. And when it comes to kindness and right principles and all that, why, Squire Schuyler and the judge's wife wasn't a bit better'n Abram and me. But when it come to their manners and their language, they had somethin' we didn't have. Abram was jest as polite a man as Squire Schuyler, but he couldn't take off his hat to a lady the way the squire could, and I couldn't bow and smile like the judge's wife, and I reckon that's where the blue blood comes in.

"I ricollect talkin' to Parson Page once about this very thing, and he says, 'The Lord hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and in His sight there is neither high nor low according to blood.' Says he, 'The Lord looks at the life and the conscience of a man to tell whether he's high or low; and,' says he, 'in His sight there's little difference between the good man who is born in the high places of the earth and the good man who walks in lowly paths. Both are pure gold, but one's been shaped and stamped by goin' through the mint, and the other's rough in the nugget.'

"Now, what was I startin' out to tell you, child, before I got to talkin' about blue blood? Oh, yes, I ricollect now.

"Well, everybody was lookin' for Miss Amaryllis's weddin' cyards, when, all at once, her and Hamilton had a quarrel, and the match was broke off then and there. It was a long time before anybody knew what had happened betwixt the two, but at last it come out that they'd quarreled about where they'd live after they married. Of course he expected to take his bride to his own house, and of course any right-minded woman would 'a' been willin' to go with her husband; but when he happened to say somethin' about the time when she'd be livin' at Schuyler Court, she give him to understand that she couldn't leave The Cedars, and that whoever married her would have to live at her father's house.

"Now it's my belief, honey, that Miss Amaryllis hadn't any idea of makin' Hamilton Schuyler leave Schuyler Court and come and live at The Cedars. She was jest foolin' when she said that. She'd been used to twistin' the men round her little finger all her life, and she wanted to see if Hamilton was like all the rest. But Hamilton took it all in earnest, and he said whoever heard of a man givin' up his own home and goin' to live with his father-in-law, and did she want him to be the laughin'-stock of the whole country? And she said that if he cared more for his house than he cared for her he could stay at Schuyler Court and she'd stay at The Cedars. And he said it wasn't Schuyler Court he cared for; he'd leave Schuyler Court and build her another house anywhere she wanted to live, but if she wouldn't leave her father's house, then he'd have to believe that she cared more for The Cedars than she cared for him. And they had it up and down and back and forth, and at last she give him back his ring and sent him away jest like she'd sent the others.

"The judge and his wife was terribly upset about it. They both loved Hamilton like he was their own son, and the old lady said that Miss Amaryllis had thrown away her best chance, and maybe her last one, and she grieved mightily, for in that day, honey, an old-maid daughter wasn't considered a blessin' by any means. They tried their best to git Hamilton and Miss Amaryllis to make up, but he said he was certain she didn't love him as well as a woman ought to love the man she was goin' to marry, and she said a man who wouldn't try to please a woman before marriage wouldn't be likely to try to please her after they married; and he said he'd be willin' to give up his way, if he was only certain she loved him right, and she said how could a woman love a man that put his pleasure before hers? And the longer the old people argued with her, the more contrairy it made Miss Amaryllis, and finally they had to give it up.

"Of course all her old beaus come flockin' back as soon as they heard that Miss Amaryllis had give Hamilton his walkin'-papers, and things was as gay as ever at The Cedars. But Hamilton, he settled down at Schuyler Court, and it looked like all the pleasure he had in life was gone. Some men, if they can't git the woman they want, they'll take one they don't want and manage to put up with her tolerable well. But Hamilton wasn't that sort. With him it was the woman he loved or nobody.

"Well, the judge dropped off right sudden with paralysis, and in a year or two the old lady followed him, and Miss Penelope married, and there was Miss Amaryllis all alone in the big house with jest the housekeeper, Miss Sempronia Davis, and the family servants; and there was Hamilton off yonder in Schuyler Court, pale and thin and quiet, and the years passin', and both of 'em lovin' each other more every day, and losin' their happiness and wastin' their lives all on account of a foolish little quarrel.

"They said the judge always felt hard towards Miss Amaryllis for disapp'intin him so, but he divided the property even betwixt her and Miss Penelope and give her The Cedars. 'I give and bequeath to my daughter Amaryllis The Cedars, since she seems to care more for this than for anything else in the world'—that was the way the will was.

"I reckon most women would 'a' lost their beauty livin' the way Miss Amaryllis did, everything goin' wrong with her, and old age certain to come, but it looked like all that time could do to her was to make her prettier, and there wasn't a young gyirl in the country that could hold a candle to her.

"I don't exactly ricollect how long things went on this way, but I reckon death would 'a' found 'em holdin' out against each other if Schuyler Court hadn't burned.

"They said Hamilton had been lookin' over old papers and letters durin' the day, and he'd thrown a lot of 'em into the fireplace and put a match to 'em, and the chimney bein' old and the mortar between the bricks crumbled away in places, some o' the sparks must 'a' got to the rafters, and before they found it out the roof was pretty near ready to fall. The slaves worked hard to save the furniture and things down-stairs, but they said Hamilton didn't seem to keer whether anything was saved or not. He'd lost the woman he loved, and the house was partly the cause of it; and so I reckon the loss of the house was a small matter. He jest stood with his arms folded and watched the walls crumble and fall, and then he walked over to the little cabin where the overseer had his office, and he set down and dropped his head in his hands and never stirred nor spoke all the rest of the night. And the next day he was still sittin' there when one of Miss Amaryllis's slaves come in and handed him a letter. He took it and read it, and they said he acted like somebody raised from the dead. He rushed to the stable and saddled his horse and got to The Cedars ahead of the slave that'd brought the letter, and when he got there every servant on the place was standin' at the gate bowin' and scrapin' and sayin': 'Howdy, mahster! Howdy, mahster!' and Miss Sempronia met him at the door and says she: 'Walk up-stairs, sir. Your room is ready. Miss Amaryllis herself fixed it for you.' And Hamilton followed her, not knowin' what it all meant, and expectin' every minute to see Miss Amaryllis; and when they got up-stairs Miss Sempronia showed him his room and handed him another letter, and then she went on down-stairs, leavin' him to read the letter.

"And what do you reckon Miss Amaryllis had done? Why, she'd given him The Cedars—the house and everything in it and all the slaves that belonged to the place. I reckon Hamilton was like Brother Wilson when he got his weddin' fee from the squire. He couldn't take it in at first, and when he begun to see what she'd done he run out o' the room and down-stairs callin' her name: 'Amaryllis! Amaryllis!' And the housekeeper, she met him at the bottom o' the stairs, and says she, 'Miss Amaryllis is not here.' And says he, 'Not here? Then where is she?' And Miss Sempronia says, 'That's something that nobody knows. You know Miss Amaryllis is not in the habit of giving an account of herself to other people, and all I know is that she left The Cedars early this morning on horseback, but where she went I can't say, and as to her coming back,' says she, 'the place belongs to you now, and it wouldn't be proper for her to be here.'

"'Which way did she go?' says Hamilton. 'Tell me that.'

"'She went towards town,' says Miss Sempronia. And before the words was out of her mouth, Hamilton was out o' the front door and on his way to town. They said he stopped everybody he met on the road and asked if they'd seen Miss Amaryllis, and when he got to town, he found out that Miss Amaryllis had been seen gettin' into the stage and goin' in the direction of Bell's Tavern. So he set out for the tavern. I reckon you've heard o' Bell's Tavern, child. That was a great stoppin'-place in your grandfather's day. Folks was always sure of a good meal when they got to that tavern, and the drinks Uncle Billy mixed was famous all over the State.

"Well, Hamilton come gallopin' up to the gate and jumped off and threw his bridle to the boy that looked after the travelers' horses. He rushed into the tavern, and says he, 'I'm looking for Miss Amaryllis Elrod. Has she been this way?'

"Uncle Billy was sittin' in a big hickory chair with one of his feet all bandaged and propped up on another chair. The old man suffered a heap from rheumatism. He had a bottle and a tumbler and a bowl of honey on the table by him, and he was mixin' one of his peach-and-honey toddies—peach-brandy sweetened with honey instead of sugar. Well, he didn't even look up, bein' so used to people comin' in and goin' out. He jest went on stirrin' his toddy and puttin' in a little more honey and a little more peach. And at last he says, 'Yes, she's been this way.'

"And Hamilton says: 'Where is she? Where is she?' right quick and sharp. And Uncle Billy went on stirrin', and at last he says, 'I don't know.' And Hamilton says: 'Is she here? Has she gone? Which way did she go?' And Uncle Billy says: 'Maybe it's my time to ask a few questions. What's your name, and who are you, anyway?' And Hamilton says, 'My name's Hamilton Schuyler, at your service, sir, if you'll tell me which way the lady went.'

"And with that Uncle Billy took a good look at him and says he, 'Why, Hamilton, is this you? I reckon that last toddy must 'a' gone to my eyes for me not to know you, when I knew your mother and your father before you.' Says he, 'You've been chasin' Miss Amaryllis for five years or more. How does it happen you haven't caught up with her yet? I beg your pardon for talkin' so short a while ago, but,' says he, 'when a man comes along askin' me which way a woman went, I've got to know somethin' about the man before I tell him what he wants to know.' Says he, 'Sit down and have a toddy with me.' And Hamilton, he thanked him and says he, 'No toddy for me, Uncle Billy. Tell me which way the lady went, and I'm off.'

"Uncle Billy he laughed and stirred his toddy, tryin' to make the honey and the brandy mix, and says he, 'That's the way with you young fellers. I've seen the day when a toddy couldn't 'a' stopped me from follerin' after a gyirl; but now,' says he, 'I'd hate to have to choose betwixt a woman and this here peach and honey.' And Hamilton, he was tappin' his boot with his ridin'-whip and walkin' the floor, and Uncle Billy jest kept on talkin' and stirrin'. 'You're young and strong,' says he, 'and I'm old and feeble. It's half-past ten in the mornin' with you, and it's half-past eleven at night with me. You're on the big road, and jest before you there's a gyirl with yeller hair and brown eyes, and you'll ketch up with her maybe before night, and here I am in my old hickory chair and nothin' before me but my old lame foot and my peach and honey. But,' says he, 'son, take an old man's advice: don't be in too big a hurry to ketch up with that yeller-haired gyirl.' Says he, 'You know the old sayin' about a bird in the hand bein' worth two in the bush, but from long experience,' says he, 'I've learned that it's the other way with women. A woman in the bush is worth two in the hand, so keep her in the bush as long as you can.'

"Well, they said Hamilton burst out laughin', and seein' that the old man was too far gone to give him any information, he called up all the servants on the place, and he pulled out a handful o' silver and threw it around amongst 'em, and by questionin' this one and that one he found out which way Miss Amaryllis had gone, and away he went after her as hard as he could gallop. And, to make a long story short, he hunted around over the biggest half of Warren County, and he wore out two or three horses, before he found Miss Amaryllis.

"She'd gone to a big country place where one of her cousins on the Elrod side lived, and when Hamilton got there early one mornin', he found there was goin' to be a party that night, and everybody for miles around was to be there. So he rode back to town and went to the county clerk's office and got his license, and then he found out where the Presbyterian minister lived, and he went there and told him who he was and what he'd come for. The minister he thought a minute and says he, 'I don't know what my congregation will say about me going to a dance to perform a wedding ceremony. Can't you wait till to-morrow morning?' They said Hamilton stamped his foot and swore—swearin' was a Schuyler failin'—and says he, 'I've waited five years, and here you ask me to wait till to-morrow morning.' Says he, 'Is there water or milk in your veins?'

"And the minister laughed, and says he, 'No, there's blood in my veins, the same as there is in yours, and I'm a man before I'm a preacher. I'll go with you, dancing or no dancing, and see the thing through.' And Hamilton laughed, and says he, 'It's not a dance you're going to; it's a wedding.'

"Well, he and the young preacher set out for the country place where Miss Amaryllis was stayin', and got there jest as the fiddlers was tunin' up for the first dance and all the men was choosin' their partners. Hamilton had on his ridin'-clothes, but no matter what kind o' clothes he had on, he always had a grand sort of a look, and they said when he come into the big room, everybody turned around and stopped talkin'. And he stood still a minute, lookin' for Miss Amaryllis, and as soon as he saw her, he walked straight up and took hold of her hand, and says he, 'The next dance is mine.' And the young man that was standin' by Miss Amaryllis he fired up and says he, 'You're mistaken. Miss Amaryllis has promised me this dance.' And Hamilton, he bowed and says he, 'Five years ago, sir, she promised me the next dance, and I've been traveling night and day for a week to have that promise kept.' And he looks down at Miss Amaryllis and says he, 'Isn't that so?' And she smiles at the young man and nods her head, and jest then the music struck up and she danced off with Hamilton.

"And when the dance was over he kept hold of her hand and led her over to where her cousin was standin', and says he, 'Madam, the minister is in the next room, and with your leave there'll be a wedding here to-night.' And Miss Amaryllis tried to pull her hand out of his, and she was laughin' and blushin', and everybody come crowdin' around to see what was the matter, and she says, 'Let go my hand, Hamilton. Wait till I go home, and I'll marry you.' And he laughed and says he, 'You haven't any home to go to. The Cedars belongs to me, and we might as well be married here.' And she says, 'Well, let me go up-stairs and put on a white dress.'

"They said she had on a yeller silk, jest the color of her hair, with white lace on the waist and sleeves and a string o' pearls around her neck. And Hamilton jest held on to her hand still tighter. And she says, 'Hamilton, you hurt my hand; please let go.' And he says, 'I wouldn't hurt you for worlds, but I'm going to hold your hand till the minister pronounces us man and wife.' And he put his thumb and finger together, jest so, around her wrist like a bracelet, and says he, 'That can't hurt you. Now choose your bridesmaids, and we'll call the minister in and be married at once.' Says he, 'I always intended that my bride should wear yellow silk.' And one o' the gyirls says, 'But she must take off the pearl necklace; pearls at a wedding mean tears.' And Hamilton says, 'Let it alone; every pearl stands for a tear of joy.' And then he looked around and says he, 'I want four groomsmen.' And the young man that Miss Amaryllis was about to dance with when Hamilton come in, he spoke up and says he, 'I'd rather be the bridegroom, but if I can't be that, I'll be first groomsman.' And three other young men, they said they'd be groomsmen, too. And they all stood up, and the preacher come in, and he married 'em jest as solemn as if they'd been in church.

"They said it was right curious, how they'd been fiddlin' and dancin' and carryin' on, but the minute the preacher stepped into the room everybody was as still as death. I've heard folks say that they always felt like laughin' when they oughtn't to laugh, at a funeral or a communion service or a babtizin', but, child, when a man and a woman stands up side by side and the preacher begins to say the words that binds 'em together for life, nobody ever feels like laughin' then. A weddin', honey, is the solemnest thing in the world, and they said before the preacher got through sayin' the ceremony over Hamilton and Miss Amaryllis, there was tears in nearly everybody's eyes, and when he stooped down to kiss the bride, it was so still you could hear the little screech-owls in the woods at the side o' the house. And Hamilton turned around and bowed to the first groomsman and says he, 'Sir, I robbed you of your partner a while ago, now I give her back to you for the next dance'; and he took hold o' the first bridesmaid's hand and motioned to the fiddlers to begin playin', and they struck up a tune and everybody went to dancin' as if life wasn't made for anything but pleasure. And the next mornin', Hamilton and his bride started for home, ridin' horseback and stoppin' along the way as they come to taverns or their friends' houses, and folks said they looked like they'd found the pot of gold at the foot o' the rainbow."

Aunt Jane began rolling up her knitting, a sure sign that the story was ended. But even the tales of childhood went farther than this. It was not enough to know "and so they were married"; I must hear also how they "lived happily ever afterward."

"Oh! go on," I cried; "this can't be the end of the story."

"Sometimes it's best not to know the end of a story," said Aunt Jane gravely.

But I heeded not the warning. I must know more of this girl who drew to herself the love of men as the ocean draws the rivers. "Tell me a little more about Miss Amaryllis," I pleaded.

But Aunt Jane was silent, and her eyes were sad. "There's mighty little more to tell," she said at last, her words coming slowly and reluctantly. "Miss Amaryllis died when her baby was born. The baby died, too, and they buried both of 'em in the same grave. It was the dead o' winter, and one o' the coldest winters we'd had for years. The ground was froze solid as a rock, and the snow was nearly a foot deep. It's hard enough, child, to lay the dead in the ground when the sun's shinin' and the earth's warm and there's plenty of sweet flowers and green sod to cover the grave with. But when it comes to cuttin' a grave in the snow and the ice and layin' away the body of a child that's bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, or maybe a husband or a wife that's nearer and dearer yet, why, there's no words, I reckon, that can tell what a trial that is. I always used to pray that my funerals might come in the spring or summer when everything was warm and pretty, and, child, my prayer was answered. I never had a winter funeral. I ricollect my baby brother dyin' when I was jest a little child. It was towards the end o' winter, and the first night after the funeral it rained, a hard, cold, beatin' rain, and mother walked the floor all night and wrung her hands and cried at the thought of her child's body lyin' in the grave and the cold rain fallin' on it; and she never got riconciled to the child's death and able to sleep right, till spring come and the grass got green, and she could carry flowers and put 'em on its little grave.

"And that's the way Hamilton Schuyler was, only worse. He had the body dressed in the dress she was wearin' at the dance the night he married her, and when they put the corpse in the coffin in the big parlor, he stayed by it for three days and nights, leanin' over and whisperin' and smilin' and smoothin' her hair and pattin' the little dead baby on its hands and face. Every time they'd say anything about buryin' the body, he'd throw his arms around the coffin and carry on so terrible that there was nothin' to do but let him have his way. He kept sayin', 'Maybe she's not dead. She may be sleepin' like the baby, and to-morrow they'll both wake up.' And then he'd say, 'If it was only summer-time! Can't you find some roses? She ought to have her hands full of roses.'

"And as soon as dark come, he'd have all the wax candles lighted in the parlor, and they said it made your flesh creep to hear him talkin' and laughin' with the dead all night long, and the whole room blazin' with light jest like there was a weddin' goin' on.

"Well, when the third day come, they said the funeral had to be, and they dug the grave in the family buryin'-ground and cut branches of cedar and pine and lined it so you couldn't see the frozen earth anywhere, and they covered the coffin with ivy off the walls o' the old house. It was one o' these clear, sunshiny winter days, when the sky's soft and blue jest like it is in May or June, but the air was bitter cold, and there was a crust of ice on top o' the snow and the frozen ground under it. Hamilton had got kind o' quiet by this time, and he was so weak from loss o' sleep and not eatin' anything that they thought they wouldn't have any more trouble, but when they let the coffin down into the ground and the first clod fell on it, it took the strength of three men to keep Hamilton from throwin' himself into the grave."

Alas, the sad, sad story, beginning with love and spring and youth, and ending beside an open grave under wintry skies! Aunt Jane was wiping her glasses, and my tears were flowing fast.

"Death has mighty few terrors when it comes at the right time, honey," said Aunt Jane tremulously. "You know the Bible says 'We all do fade as a leaf; and when a person's lived out his app'inted time, three score years and ten, or maybe four score, why, his death is jest like the fallin' of a leaf. It's had its spring and its summer, and it's nothin' to cry about when the frost comes and touches it, and it falls to the ground to make room for the new leaves that'll come next spring. But jest suppose that the leaves fell as soon as the trees got green and pretty in the springtime, and suppose all the roses died in the bud. Wouldn't this be a sorrowful world, if things was that way? There ain't any bitterness in the tears that's shed over old folks' coffins, but when I think o' Miss Amaryllis dyin' the way she did, before she'd lived her life and had the happiness she ought to 'a' had, I feel like questionin' the ways o' Providence. And then, again, I think maybe she had as much happiness in that one year as most folks has in a lifetime. It ain't often a man loves a woman so much that he can't live without her, but that's the way Hamilton Schuyler loved Miss Amaryllis, and that's the main reason why I ricollect her so well after all these years. Her hair and her eyes would keep me from forgittin' her outright, and when I think of how she looked and how Hamilton Schuyler loved her, it seems like she was different from all the other women that ever I've known."

"Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes!" sings the poet; but "Love and beauty! Love and beauty!" answers the soul. And thus, doubly immortalized, and radiant as when she played with the hearts of men in her golden youth, this maiden more beautiful than her name shall live in the tale I tell as it was told to me.