OVER AGAINST 
 GRE,E>L PEAie 
 
 ZEPHINE HUMPHREY 
 

 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 .Mrnh^ 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3515.U51609 
 
 Over against Green Peak.by Zephine Humph 
 
 3 1924 022 486 256 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022486256 
 
OVER AGAINST 
 GREEN PEAK 
 
 ZEPHINE HUMPHREY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 
 SP 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 U K< 1 II 
 
 
 ['KM VI |;f. |'i y 
 
 
 1 l.'UAUY ' 
 
7of//z> 
 
 Copyright, igoS, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 
 
 Published, April, 1908. 
 
 
 
TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF 
 
 Z. M. H. 
 
 AUNT SUSAN, JANE, AND I 
 DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTBR PAGE 
 
 I. The Persuasion 1 
 
 II. The Occupation 20 
 
 III. The Library 40 
 
 IV. Our Predecessors 62 
 
 V. Lorna 77 
 
 VI. The Automobile 100 
 
 VII. Housekeeping Experiments 126 
 
 VIII. The Garden 160 
 
 IX. The Orchard 184 
 
 X. The Community 204 
 
 XI. Beast Neighbors 224 
 
 XII. The Year 255 
 
 111 
 
OVER AGAINST GREEN PEAK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Zbe pereuasfon 
 
 TT is curious to consider just what it is 
 -*■ that works the final adjustment of Fate. 
 There stood the house through all those years, 
 tenantless and waiting ; there stood we without 
 any home ; and yet nothing happened. 
 
 We were building air-castles too all the time, 
 locating them in this meadow or that, on a 
 mountain-top, in a forest. There was not a 
 season, hardly a month, when some farmer did 
 not follow us, expectant, to his most sightly 
 point of land, forgiving our depredations in his 
 long grass by the way for the sake of the pur- 
 chase which we were now at last surely about 
 
 to make. Yet no deed was ever drawn, 
 i 
 
2 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 It was doubtless our very versatility of ap- 
 preciation which hampered us, and also some 
 slight romantic extravagance on my. part of 
 which I make humble confession. Thoreau's 
 Walden hut was a tame affair compared with 
 the wild remoteness of my aspirations. A 
 high-hung mountain cabin on a windy cliff; a 
 bungalow set fairly in the middle of a meadow, 
 with no means of access ; a forest-buried lodge. 
 Aunt Susan checked me gently in these reck- 
 less dreams, while sympathizing none the less 
 with the general desire. Aunt Susan is both 
 wise and kind and, more than all, herself pos- 
 sessed of romantic tendencies. 
 
 " I know, child," with a kindling eye, "it 
 would be beautiful. The view, the trees, the 
 little brook; all very lovely. But " 
 
 And, for the sake of the kindling eye, I ac- 
 cepted the " But." 
 
 It was, however, natural that, under these 
 soaring circumstances, I should take little heed 
 
The Persuasion 3 
 
 of an old white house beside the road in the 
 heart of the valley. 
 
 What was it all about, does one ask? Why 
 this mad domiciliary necessity? Where this 
 dear spot of earth? Where? Well, that is a 
 question. It would of course be easy to answer 
 by naming the state, the county, the township, 
 the exact distance from the village; but that 
 would not be a real answer. The place is much 
 more a realm of the spirit than a mere section 
 of Vermont. I hope every reader knows 
 Dorset. It is that place to which his thoughts 
 turn, leaping, when he pictures the day of 
 resurrection, with its glad return to the dear 
 earth. It is the spot, unique, peculiar, which is 
 clad for him with the light that never was. It 
 is the valley, the plain, the shore, which, when 
 he leaves it, recedes at once into the spirit 
 world, becomes the intangible, hovering vision 
 which it was always on the point of breaking 
 away into when he was with it, holding it with 
 
4 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 his eye and hand. It is the place which he loves 
 best, the local habitation of his dreams. And 
 if now the reader does not know where Dorset 
 is, I can never tell him, and we may as well 
 part company. 
 
 One may find Dorset described in almost any 
 book of poems, if one reads with discrimina- 
 tion, knowing just where to begin and where 
 to skip and stop. I, personally, almost never 
 take up a book of any kind that I do not find 
 my home in it. I have come to expect the 
 miraculous appearance now, to demand it of 
 every writer. Take this from the Earthly 
 Paradise : 
 
 "Then down into the vale he gazed, 
 And held his breath, as if amazed 
 By all its wondrous loveliness ; 
 For as the sun its depths did bless, 
 It lighted up from side to side 
 A close-shut valley, nothing wide, 
 But ever full of all things fair. 
 A little way the hill was bare, 
 Then clung to it a deep green wood. 
 
The Persuasion 5 
 
 A white way wound about its feet, 
 
 Beset with heavy-fruited trees 
 
 And cleaving orchards through ; midst these, 
 
 Each hemmed round with its flowery close, 
 
 The cottages and homesteads rose ; 
 
 But the hillside sprang suddenly 
 
 From level meadows " 
 
 The dashes indicate my discrimination. I 
 can hardly allow it to be supposed that the little 
 brooks which wander deviously through the 
 grasses of our meadows are any of them, or 
 even all of them put together 
 
 -" a noble stream 
 O'er which the morning haze did steam." 
 
 But listen once more. 
 
 " then rose again 
 
 The further hillsides, bright with grain, 
 And fair with orchard and close wood, 
 From whence at last the scarped cliffs stood ; 
 And clear now, golden in the morn, 
 Against the western sky upborne,'' 
 (only it should be eastern) 
 " Seemed like a guarded wall, lest care 
 Or unrest yet should creep in there." 
 
 Well, as for that last line, I do not know any 
 
 such potent cliff in the world. Green Peak 
 
6 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 certainly makes no such pretensions. Dorset is 
 quite human, thank God, and has cares and 
 difficulties enough to bring her out glorious in 
 the end, when she has fought her fight. For 
 the rest, William Morris has smoothed us 
 down, scanted our New England roughness a 
 little in the radiant workings of his beauty- 
 loving pen. Our cottages and homesteads are 
 not all such flowery affairs as he would have 
 one think. But perhaps it is the Ideal, the 
 Possible which he has in mind ; perhaps he sees 
 us as we shall be after another generation or 
 two of Woman's Hardy Gardening. Aunt 
 Susan would shake hands with him there. 
 Aunt Susan is a Hardy Woman of the most 
 approved. 
 
 The fact was then, the simple, all-sufficient 
 fact, that we loved Dorset and that we wanted 
 to establish our home in its midst. 
 
 A mile and a half from the village stood the 
 old white house. We passed it often in our 
 
The Persuasion 7 
 
 walks, and thought no more about it. Strange ! 
 While all the time my initials were written fair 
 on the gate in the largest hint of upright and 
 cross-bar which dull mortal ever ignored. It 
 had been a tavern in pre-Revolutionary days, 
 people said; Ethan Allen had slept there, and 
 a certain important Council of Safety had been 
 held beneath its roof. I mention these historic 
 associations, and affirm them to be true for 
 Aunt Susan's sake. The reader may believe 
 them at his peril. At any rate, it was a fine 
 old house, when all was said and done. Suc- 
 cessive occupants had dealt with it and kept it 
 in repair, so that, confessedly old though it 
 was (in that lay its dignity) it bore no touch 
 of decrepitude. Quite in the frank, old- 
 fashioned manner, it stood close to the road, 
 with only a strip of green and a picket fence 
 separating it from the highway. A square 
 white house, with a square pillared porch be- 
 fore the central front door, and a great maple 
 
8 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 tree spreading its shade on either hand. Then, 
 beside and behind it, climbing a little grassy 
 slope, an orchard of several acres, the most 
 beautiful orchard for sun and breeze and deep 
 grass and birds and butterflies and woodchucks 
 and mountain-glimpses and all that makes an 
 orchard, that I have ever seen. 
 
 Aunt Susan and Jane and I paused often in 
 our country walks to look at this old house. 
 We admired it, we wondered at its long va- 
 cancy, and then, as I have said before, we went 
 our ways. Incomprehensible blindness ! Once 
 we opened the gate and went in and sat in a 
 row on the marble step. The view before us 
 was one of the finest the valley affords. Be- 
 yond the fence and the country road a broad 
 meadow with elm trees in it swept away to the 
 foot of a broken range of hills, beautiful hills, 
 green and folding, hung with wonderful lights 
 and shadows, mystical, alluring. The signifi- 
 cant gate ejaculated behind us when we went 
 
The Persuasion 9 
 
 away from this session. It had not the patience 
 of the old house, it had not lived so long. I 
 make no doubt that they both knew what the 
 end must be. 
 
 The first actual step in our conversion — if 
 one may call it that — was of the nature of a 
 trespass. 
 
 " See, Aunt Susan," I said one day, as we 
 were returning from the hill, " one of the 
 windows of the old house is unfastened. I 
 could climb in as well as not, and open a door 
 somewhere, and let you in, and we could look 
 the place over. Wouldn't it be fun ? " 
 
 Not with any idea of ownership, mind you, 
 for I had just that morning mentally com- 
 pleted a more than usually successful shanty in 
 the woods up on West Mountain. Out of 
 curiosity merely, or else directed by Fate. 
 
 Now Aunt Susan is very law-abiding, and 
 therefore I think it must have been purely Fate 
 that caused her to yield to my suggestion. 
 
io Over Against Green Peak 
 
 There was even, if I remember rightly, a gleam 
 of dawning apprehension in her eye as I pushed 
 up the window and clambered in. Aunt 
 Susan is quicker than I. 
 
 The old house had been rented the summer 
 before to a " queer woman " from the city. 
 Manifestly she was queer. The furniture 
 which she had improvised for her establish- 
 ment still remained, forlorn in the big bare 
 rooms. I know there are plausible, nay per- 
 suasive, magazine articles which set forth the 
 attractions of barrel furniture in a manner to 
 make Grand Rapids shut down; but our 
 predecessor had not the requisite transforming 
 knack at this sort of thing. Or perhaps it was 
 the essential dignity of the old house which 
 made her efforts seem so grotesque, so shock- 
 ing ; they hurt the sense. There was one table 
 in particular which I remember well. It was a 
 barrel simple, unlabored, a barrel au naturel. 
 There could hardly have been a finer directness. 
 
The Persuasion 1 1 
 
 a rounder assertion of truth, let us say, than 
 that which this barrel displayed. But it was by 
 no means a barrel unadorned. The skirt of a 
 discarded ball-gown (white tulle with plenti- 
 ful spangles) had been gathered about the 
 head (waist, I feel that I should say) and stood 
 out over the swelling sides, reaching to the 
 floor. It gave one a curious detruncated feel- 
 ing to come across this airy fragment in one of 
 the silent, dusty rooms. Worse than a Blue- 
 beard disclosure by half! 
 
 I think I resent it all now a little, in my 
 later love and veneration for the fine old house. 
 Such affront of dignity! But, after all, it is 
 a poor dignity which cannot bear up under in- 
 sulting vicissitudes; and surely, if there is any 
 one trait which a life of a hundred years must 
 have fostered in an observing domicile, it is a 
 sense of humor. 
 
 Aunt Susan said very little that day, as she 
 went in and out through the echoing rooms, 
 
l± Over Against Green Peak 
 
 and down to the cellar, and up to the loft, but 
 her eyes had a musing look. She studied the 
 closets with special care, and returned to the 
 kitchen often. I, frankly, was not much im- 
 pressed. It is mortifying how slow I am to 
 understand the nudges of Destiny. I grew 
 tired at length, and went out into the orchard, 
 where I lay on my back in the deep sunny 
 grass, with the bright sky bending over me and 
 the swallows wheeling, calling. Ah, Aunt 
 Susan, did not your heart feel a warning 
 twinge even then as I flattened down your hay 
 crop? The woodchuck came out and looked 
 at me. Was he in the secret too ? 
 
 Aunt Susan said nothing for two or three 
 days ; Aunt Susan is very wise. But she made 
 careful inquiries, and by and by she suggested 
 to me that we rent the old house for a year. I 
 had by this time gotten hold of a sporting cata- 
 logue, and was fired with speculative enthu- 
 siasm over the possibilities of a tent. There 
 
The Persuasion 13 
 
 was, therefore, little response in the look of 
 surprise with which I answered Aunt Susan. 
 Said I not Aunt Susan was wise? She 
 dropped the subject quietly; dropped it like 
 a seed into my mind, where presently, 
 unbeknownst to me, it began to grow and put 
 forth leaves and take root in my attention. Be- 
 fore long it was not up mountain sides that I 
 was taking my daily walk, but out from the 
 village, across the fields, along the country 
 road, and halt ! before the old white house. It 
 must have smiled behind its closed blinds to see 
 me come, returning and returning, a little 
 troubled, a little uncertain, not knowing what 
 force drew me. Then, when I had entered the 
 tell-tale gate, it took me on its knee and talked 
 to me thus. 
 
 (I trust that I may be pardoned for applying 
 these human terms to the house. I have not 
 yet learned the plaster and mortar words for 
 the processes which I would describe.) 
 
14 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 " My child," it said, " I am older than you. 
 It may be that I know what you want 
 better than you know it yourself. I have 
 lived over a hundred years and I under- 
 stand that human life is at best but a 
 shifting affair. An element of steadiness in- 
 troduced somewhere is invaluable. There are 
 the mountains and here am I ; look at us, how 
 abiding! Come live with me and I will shield 
 you from the winds and the storms ; they can- 
 not surprise me any more, I know their ways 
 too well. I will not ask one thing of you — a 
 young house asks everything, you know. I am 
 old, I am long past that. I will study your 
 ways, and presently you will find yourself look- 
 ing back at you from me, yourself enriched by 
 a hundred years. Nothing that you can do 
 will startle me; not even your fretful moods 
 will annoy me." (I was going to resent this 
 inference, but then I thought better of it, and 
 leaned my cheek against the wooden pillar be- 
 
The Persuasion 15 
 
 side me.) "When your imagination permits 
 it, I will tell you stories out of the past, and 
 you shall laugh and cry. In other moods, the 
 sufficient present of the passing day shall con- 
 tent you, up in the orchard, under the sky, with 
 the mountains round about you. I will wel- 
 come your friends with open door." (That 
 was an excellent point. My friends ! I sat 
 up with a start and saw the dear procession 
 come up the road and in at the gate.) " You 
 shall truly abide with me, anchored on reality ; 
 yet you shall be quite free." 
 
 At this point the old house broke off ab- 
 ruptly. My freedom should begin at once, and 
 nothing more should be said. I dropped my 
 chin into my hand, and fell a-musing deeply. 
 The sunlight flickered through the leaves of 
 the maple trees on either side, and fell in little 
 swaying patches on the marble walk and the 
 green lawn. A vireo sang persistently. Up in 
 the orchard I heard a robin and a bluebird. 
 
1 6 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Otherwise it was very still. A farmer was 
 working in the broad meadow across the road. 
 It must be interesting, I thought, to watch the 
 changing face of a meadow like that from 
 season to season and year to year, the succes- 
 sion of the crops. Would it be possible to in- 
 tercede with a farmer to plant always corn or 
 oats or buckwheat before one's front door, 
 never potatoes ? I did not know the points of 
 country etiquette. As for the mountains, I 
 rested my eyes last and longest on them. The 
 range directly across the valley was very 
 irregular — curving slopes, long climbing lines, 
 sweeping folds and hollows. It caught the 
 light in a thousand shades, deepening, brighten- 
 ing, never the same. I foresaw (I had gotten 
 as far as that!) that I should have to simplify 
 my life if I came to live in this house because 
 so much time would of necessity go in mere 
 contemplation. To the south a level, massive 
 range, with one gorge cleft through it, cut 
 
The Persuasion ij 
 
 across the valley and lent the scene the touch 
 of monotony which I love, restful and satisfy- 
 ing. As I sat there, pondering, now and then 
 a wagon drove along the road. To my sur- 
 prise, this close passing of the world of men 
 was not unpleasant to me, even in the begin- 
 ning, when my mind was still fresh from its 
 wilderness plans; and by and by I began to per- 
 ceive that I liked it very much. It was in- 
 teresting to consider whither all these people 
 were bound, and what they were all so gravely 
 about — country people are very grave. The 
 road itself took on personality and became a 
 companion to me. There is great poetry in a 
 country road. As I think perhaps one or two 
 people may have remarked before me ! 
 
 Well, in the end who ever knows how im- 
 portant things come to pass? Imperceptibly 
 my fancies stole down from their impossible 
 mountain peaks and found the valley good. 
 The love of the old house gradually took pos- 
 
1 8 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 session of me. I grew older and graver along 
 with it. (There were reasons, known to the 
 Family Bible, why anyway, in the nature of 
 things, such transformation was due.) I 
 felt established instead of exhilarated, rested 
 instead of rapt. 
 
 " You see ! " said the old house, admonish- 
 ing. " And next year you'll be older still." 
 
 Aunt Susan, watching, still said nothing. 
 She was in the secret too by this time, along 
 with the gate and the woodchuck; she "knew 
 what the end was going to be. Not until the 
 summer drew towards its close and it was al- 
 most time for us to go away, did she broach 
 the subject again. Then, when she said, 
 " Well? " I answered slowly, " Yes." 
 
 Immediately my glance fell on the gate, and, 
 for the first time, I read my initials written 
 boldly there. All summer long I had looked at 
 them, yet had not seen them once. 
 
 I caught my breath, and then I laughed out. 
 
The Persuasion 19 
 
 The weighty importance of my slow " Yes," 
 of a minute ago was somewhat minimized by 
 my discovery, but I did not care, I was too 
 delighted. 
 
 " Aunt Susan, look ! " I cried. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 Gbe Occupation 
 
 \T 7"E moved in early in the spring. Rap- 
 * * turous season! The orchard was 
 bursting into snowy bloom, the air was sweet 
 to intoxication, the brooks were leaping, the 
 birds were singing, the green was running up 
 from the valley to gain the tops of the moun- 
 tains. Alas ! I have never learned to exult 
 the way of birds and brooks and trees without 
 shattering myself. I was glad enough to find 
 good hard work with which to relieve my 
 aching soul, longing after the impossible. 
 
 I found such work at once, never fear ; work 
 of which my city-trained mind had not con- 
 ceived before. What it means to move for 
 the first time into the country ! The city is a. 
 
The Occupation 21 
 
 domain of action, where things happen as a 
 matter of course; even inanimate objects re- 
 spond lightly to persuasion. But in the coun- 
 try passivity reigns, and that which transpires 
 must be wrested by sheer force from its native 
 inertness. 
 
 We had sent our furniture up ahead, and it 
 was waiting for us, piled to the ceiling of one 
 of the rooms of our new abode. I only won- 
 der that we were so little dismayed, as we 
 stood, on that first exciting evening, and re- 
 garded the ponderous crates and boxes. It was 
 the excitement itself that buoyed us, I suppose, 
 the wonder of coming at last into possession of 
 our country dream. I am the man of the 
 family in all emergencies; I went and laid a 
 tentative hand on the edge of one of the boxes. 
 No use ; I might as well have offered to disturb 
 Green Peak. Meantime the old house brooded 
 around us, offering no suggestion, the meadows 
 lay calm in the evening light, the hills stood 
 
22 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 unconcerned. It is difficult to convey in words 
 the baffling sense of inertia that confronted us 
 in that tranquil scene. He must be wilfully 
 determined who would make his home in the 
 country. 
 
 Fortunately we had taken rooms in a neigh- 
 boring farm-house for a few days; it was not 
 therefore incumbent on us that we immediately 
 coerce a bed into shape from those boxes. But 
 delay was no part of our eager plans, and the 
 next morning early we stood ready to go to 
 work. 
 
 " We must find a man," said Jane. 
 
 Aunt Susan is the wisdom of our family, the 
 wisdom and much else; but Jane is the prac- 
 tical common-sense. Without Jane, I think 
 very likely the whole airy fabric of Aunt 
 Susan and myself would fall to the ground and 
 become as naught. Jane had brought a duster 
 in her bag, and was longing to apply it. 
 
 Yes, without doubt, we must find a man. I 
 
The Occupation 23 
 
 went to the door and looked up and down the 
 road; there was no answer there. Only the 
 rejoicing spring-tide on every hand lay brim- 
 ming and beautiful. How sufficient unto itself 
 was every lusty thing! A phoebe-bird paused 
 in the curious process of insinuating her active 
 little body into the midst of a most unpromising 
 collection of sticks and straws on the edge of 
 one of the pillars, and cocked her head at me. 
 
 " You don't know how to settle your own 
 house? Well, you are a human! " said she. 
 
 Whereupon, out of my mortified inner con- 
 sciousness, the great determination came, the 
 need of which I have mentioned above; and, 
 since human dependence would have it so, I 
 went forth to find a man. The country road 
 lay non-committal and void before me, but I 
 was set to pursue it until I should find a man. 
 
 Fortunately the very first one upon whom 
 I came was, to all appearances, pat to my pur- 
 pose. (His name was James, however, and he 
 
24 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 was a Yankee if ever there was one in the 
 world.) He was sitting on the front steps of 
 a little white house not far from ours, tipped 
 back comfortably in his chair, and reading a 
 newspaper. I stopped before him cheerfully 
 and asked him if he would please come and 
 help us settle house. 
 
 The indiscretion — for such it was — even 
 from the point of view of my first ignorance, 
 was not a thing to be lightly condoned. I did 
 not understand, to be sure, that this man was a 
 master mechanic, lord of his trade, and that all 
 his work was gravely done according to large 
 contracts; neither did I realize just at first, 
 though it was soon borne in upon me, that no 
 more majestic a personage trod the county 
 roads. But I might have hesitated to prefer 
 my guileless claim to any stranger; there was 
 presumption there. I was promptly apprised 
 of some slip on my part by the slow regard 
 with which I was scanned, as the man before 
 
The Occupation 25 
 
 me lowered his chair to its proper level and 
 laid down his newspaper. He did not speak 
 for an instant or two ; then he told me, with a 
 certain severity in his tone, that he was very 
 busy. Abashed as I naturally was by this cold 
 reception, reason and need were still strong 
 within me, I glanced at his newspaper. Well, 
 — he unbent sufficiently to explain himself — 
 this was an off-day between two Contracts; 
 two Contracts, he dwelt on the word. There 
 are certainly some advantages in being as slow 
 as I am to catch immediate meanings. Per- 
 haps he could do all the work in one day, I 
 assured him hopefully. 
 
 In the end, he said me neither yea nor nay. 
 Still looking remotely over my head with his 
 grave blue eyes, he turned and retreated into 
 his house, leaving me standing alone. I 
 thought probably the act was one of final dis- 
 missal, and felt duly chagrined ; but, when one 
 is not certain of failure — as well as sometimes 
 
26 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 when one is ! — it is a good plan to hold by one's 
 original intention. Accordingly, I lingered a 
 moment by the roadside in front of the little 
 white house, making pretense of picking spring 
 flowers; and presently, to my great delight, 
 the lordly personage of my desire reappeared, 
 carrying his tools in his hand and followed by 
 another man as tall and dignified as himself, 
 his brother, to judge from resemblance. Two 
 men! What luck was this! They did not 
 signify their intention of coming to render the 
 assistance which I had requested ; speech was a 
 commodity, it appeared, for which the family 
 had small use. But, watching covertly, I per- 
 ceived that they bent their steps in the direction 
 of our house, and I was joyfully reassured. 
 Promptly then I scurried off to announce their 
 arrival to Aunt Susan and to warn her of the 
 awe-inspiring effect of their demeanor. Aunt 
 Susan, however, never needs warning. As if 
 she had been the hostess at an afternoon recep- 
 
The Occupation i.y 
 
 tion, she received the stately creatures present- 
 ing themselves at our humble door, and intro- 
 duced them to the boxes in a pretty ceremony. 
 Then the work began. 
 
 I find, looking back upon it now, that I have 
 the impression that we settled our house to 
 slow music. There was none of the usual sense 
 of hurry and confusion that associates itself 
 with such domestic crises, but the work went 
 on with despatch; even the slowest music goes 
 orderly and accomplishes more than the liveliest 
 jargon. Very little was said — a word here and 
 there, succinct and to the point ; a spirit of calm 
 pervaded the place, yet no longer the calm of 
 inertia. I caught the contagion of stateliness 
 myself after awhile, and swept my short skirt 
 and gingham apron as grandly as possible up 
 and down stairs and through the arranging 
 rooms. 
 
 Whether it were due to the compelling force 
 of majesty at work, aweing the boxes open and 
 
28 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the furniture into place, or whether the reason 
 lay in the fatal predestination, towards belief 
 in which I have such strong leanings, the fact 
 was indubitable that our chairs and tables ar- 
 ranged themselves in the rooms of the old 
 house almost of their own accord, and, no 
 sooner had they taken up their positions, than 
 they looked as if they had stood there always. 
 Various significant details may be furnished as 
 bearing out the theory towards which I incline. 
 Our three black walnut bookcases fitted so ex- 
 actly between the two doors of the library that 
 not an inch more or less could have been al- 
 lowed. Aunt Susan's bureau just escaped the 
 ceiling of her room. The parlor carpet was 
 too large to that precise degree that its worn 
 spots could be removed, leaving it as good as 
 new. When it comes to careful computations 
 like this last on the part of Destiny, one can 
 hardly remain unconvinced. 
 
 But it was the adjustment of the old mahog- 
 
The Occupation 29 
 
 any clock to its new surroundings which gave 
 us the most startling sense of intention. This 
 ancestral time-piece, when unboxed, proved to 
 be six inches too tall for any ceiling in the 
 house. I know, at first sight, the latter asser- 
 tion may seem directly to controvert the 
 former; but this was no obvious, easy signifi- 
 cance, like the fitting of Aunt Susan's mirror ; 
 in its very fineness and intricacy lay its con- 
 vincing power. Thoughtfully we stood 
 grouped about the space between the two 
 dining-room doors where we had intended to 
 place the clock, all of us suddenly at a stand- 
 still. 
 
 " We might break a hole in the ceiling, and 
 use the top of the clock as a foot-stool in the 
 room above," I put in after awhile. 
 
 But this flippant suggestion met with the 
 ignoring which it deserved, and one of our 
 grave assistants remarked, with an air of 
 finality, 
 
30 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 " I shall have to cut off its feet." 
 
 Aunt Susan started and put out her hands 
 in expostulating horror. Cut off the feet of 
 her. grandfather's clock! Never, while she 
 lived to prevent it! Then a deeper shade of 
 thoughtfulness stole over her face, and I saw 
 that she had something definite in mind. In a 
 minute, without saying a word, she turned and 
 disappeared from us, descending the cellar 
 stairs. Ah! yes, I began to understand. But 
 the full beauty of the situation was not made 
 clear until she returned, dusting her hands 
 triumphantly, and said, 
 
 " Since you must cut something, you may 
 cut a hole in the floor. A beam runs across in 
 that very place exactly six inches below the 
 floor. The clock can stand on that." 
 
 It is now for the candid observer to say 
 whether or not I am justified in my awed be- 
 lief in the fine calculations of Providence, 
 designing this house for us. The occult 
 
The Occupation 31 
 
 proceedings of prophecy have never despised 
 detail, it is known; there is no small nor great. 
 I suppose we had never enjoyed ourselves 
 more in our whole lives, Aunt Susan and Jane 
 and I, than we did during those busy days of 
 arranging the old house. There was an ex- 
 citement in every hour, in every turn and ex- 
 periment, as order grew under our hands. The 
 homelike look of the library when the lamp 
 was first lighted and we sat down to read 
 beside it! Sat down to read, I say, speaking 
 ideally rather than literally. The occupation 
 was that by which I tested the fitness of the 
 room, and found it not wanting at all ; but, as 
 a matter of fact, I was far too excited to give 
 myself over to any book. I felt myself under 
 the necessity of getting up every few moments 
 and going off to look back at the room from 
 various points of view. I even went out and 
 walked slowly up and down the road, passing 
 and re-passing the house, looking in through 
 
32 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the lamp-lit windows and thinking how cosy 
 Aunt Susan and Jane looked sitting there. It 
 is no slight occurrence to have a home — and 
 such a home ! — for the first time in many years. 
 The problem of the dining-room woodwork 
 I reserved for myself. This was partly out of 
 real diffidence on my part, hesitating to prefer 
 the claim to our benefactors, partly out of a 
 growing desire to serve the old house in some 
 way myself, to set my mark upon it. Other 
 country women painted and even papered their 
 homes; why should not I do likewise? The 
 problem, in itself, was this. Some fanciful pre- 
 decessor of ours, loving cheerfulness and color, 
 had painted the dining-room woodwork bright 
 pink. The shade was not bad at a passing 
 glimpse, but no one wants to have immitigable 
 sunset glared at him day in and day out. As 
 soon as the brothers Rose had taken their de- 
 parture, I bought some white paint and a 
 brush, covered the dining-room floor with old 
 
The Occupation 33 
 
 sheets, tied myself up in an apron, and, with a 
 delightful sense of new enterprise, started in 
 on my self-appointed task. The work was not 
 so easy, nor, to say truth, altogether such sport 
 as I had thought it might be. It took me four 
 hard toiling mornings to subdue that sunset. 
 Even then, to my dazzled eyes, it continued to 
 glow faintly behind the four layers of super- 
 induced white clouds. But Aunt Susan and 
 Jane assured me that, not by tipping their heads 
 and squinting their eyes ever so critically, could 
 they now discern anything but white where my 
 brush had been. Moreover, they were pleased 
 to observe that the work was very well done. 
 Moreover again — Jane heaved a sigh of relief, 
 examining under the sheets on the floor — I had 
 not spattered the paint. Altogether it was a 
 success, this experiment of mine. I had to clip 
 off the ends of my hair all around my face be- 
 fore I could rid myself of the halo attendant 
 on the signal achievement, and my apron was 
 3 
 
34 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 done for forever; but nothing could mar my 
 satisfaction in having actively put myself in ac- 
 cord with my new surroundings, in having 
 proved my right, by service, to live in the dear 
 old house. 
 
 The dear old house indeed! It was sur- 
 prising how soon the love of this place took 
 possession of us, claiming our loyal allegiance 
 as if we had lived there always. I perceived 
 that the excellent domicile was doing exactly 
 what it had promised to do when I sat on its 
 knee the summer before and it won me to it; 
 that is, it was fitting itself to our need with the 
 wise kindliness of age and experience, luring 
 us also insensibly to fit ourselves to it. 
 
 It is of course not every one who can live in 
 an old house; some must perforce build. I 
 hesitate therefore to indulge too freely in com- 
 parisons which may appear Ungracious. But, 
 as a warning to those who may choose, and as 
 a sympathetic congratulation to those who have 
 
The Occupation 35 
 
 already chosen the old, a few remarks on the 
 subject may not come amiss. 
 
 There is no more fallacious theory than that 
 which maintains that a man expresses his na- 
 ture in the construction of his new house, 
 builds himself out in plaster and mortar, 
 stands confessed in wall and turret. A young 
 house, like a young person, expresses only it- 
 self. If it did indeed express its builder, 
 heaven have mercy on the fantastic natures 
 which inhabit our city suburbs! Whereas, as 
 a matter of fact, we all know they are not 
 fantastic at all, but good, plain, honest people, 
 the plainer — by some odd working of things — 
 the more gimcracks there are on the roof. 
 " Come, look at me ! " the young house cries, 
 usurping all attention. " See my dumb-waiter, 
 my hardwood floors; hear my electric bell!" 
 Accordingly, meekly, the people come, greatly 
 depressed but obedient. They creep cautiously 
 over the polished floors, holding to chairs and 
 
36 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 tables; they admire the bath-rooms, and tell 
 great lies concerning the wall-papers. They 
 observe their hostess scarcely at all. She — 
 poor thing! — conducts them about with a 
 strangely weary expression. She has not sat 
 down for a peaceful chat with a friend in so 
 long that she has forgotten all but the terms 
 of ciceronage. Her life is a somewhat diffi- 
 cult one, rattling loosely in the midst of her 
 uncompromising environment, striving to fit, 
 to merge herself. All the work of adjust- 
 ment is hers; the environment, flaunting, 
 vainglorious, will not help her at all. 
 
 Whereas, the old house — how different! It 
 makes no appreciable stir when the new human 
 life comes into it; but it wakes from its slum- 
 ber, and watches and waits, it is patiently 
 aware. The atmosphere of its long-past days 
 fills all the dusky rooms, so that, unfurnished, 
 it is not bare, and with six chairs it is better 
 provided than a new house with a dozen. 
 
The Occupation 37 
 
 There is nothing like the fine reserve with 
 which it keeps itself in the background, fashion- 
 ing forth the new occupants' mood to surprise 
 them presently withal. It can do this better 
 than they can themselves, for it knows them 
 better than they know themselves; it under- 
 stands the whole, of which they are but a part. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, I suppose, that 
 expression is a difficult thing, seldom to be 
 wrought alone, never consciously and de- 
 liberately. To body forth a man the sur- 
 rounding universe must conspire when he least 
 expects it. 
 
 " Surrounding universe " is a large term to 
 apply to an old house? Well, when I speak 
 of our old house, I mean of course the orchard 
 too. The orchard depends for much of its 
 meaning on the presence of the valley and 
 hills. The hills lean up against the sky. I 
 am not sure that there is not as much universe 
 in my home as there is anywhere. 
 
38 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 The spring had settled down into summer 
 by the time we had likewise settled down into 
 our new environment and into the reassumed 
 state of leisure which is our desired condition 
 of life. The green overflowed the top of West 
 Mountain about the first of June ; that seemed 
 to mark the culmination of the young year's 
 rhapsody. I, watching, drew a long breath 
 then, and knew that the stress and tumult 
 were over ; I could better endure the rest. Yet 
 there was hardly a phase of the poignant 
 season which I had missed, as it swept its 
 beauty by our front door, and we stood and 
 wondered. I suppose it is not too much to say 
 that we ran out fifty times a day on purpose 
 to behold, calling each other from our various 
 household tasks. Now it was a misty play of 
 sunlight on the hills across the valley, now it 
 was the bubbling song of the first bobolink. 
 Again a sunset summoned us, or a thunder- 
 storm. It was quite true, as I had foreseen, — 
 
The Occupation 39 
 
 life in Dorset would have to be shorn of all 
 superfluous occupations to leave room for the 
 great primal claim of the hills and sky. I 
 placed a straw mat on the front steps, back, 
 out of the way of the rain, commanding the 
 whole valley, and thither I repaired at all 
 hours, dropping my dust-cloth at my feet 
 while I pondered a few minutes. It seemed 
 increasingly wonderful to me to have a home 
 in the face of such beauty. Should I ever 
 grow used to it, I wondered, ever cease to 
 feel a sweet shock of surprise as I came out 
 and lifted my eyes upon it? Should I ever 
 even believe it quite, understand its full mean- 
 ing? 
 
 The phoebe-bird, sitting on her eggs, cocked 
 her head at me and regarded me with her 
 bright black eye. 
 
 " Silly ! " she commented briefly, though 
 not altogether unamiably. 
 
 Then I went back to work. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Hbe Xfbrare 
 
 ^ B ^HERE is one department of the house 
 -"- ordering which I have so far ignored 
 entirely, leaving it to a chapter by itself be- 
 cause of its importance. The significance of 
 the boxes of books appealed to me at once, 
 when we came across them in the midst of our 
 first investigations. 
 
 " Aunt Susan," I said, pausing to give the 
 goodly company thoughtful consideration, 
 " may I have all the care of these ? " 
 
 The demand was a grasping one, I confess, 
 seeking to usurp the only entirely interesting 
 task of the whole spring's experience, but 
 Aunt Susan is unselfish. 
 
 " Yes, child," she assented, smiling; and the 
 
 great boon was mine. 
 
 40 
 
The Library 41 
 
 I waited till all was in order first, the car- 
 pets laid, the empty bookcases ranged in place, 
 even the curtains hung. Books, I take it, like 
 quietness and decorum. Then one morning, 
 when Jane sat down to sew and Aunt Susan 
 to write letters, I repaired to the wood-shed 
 where the boxes stood, my pulses beating as at 
 the going forth to encounter one knows not 
 what dear friend. 
 
 And yet I knew what one chief friend I 
 hoped now at last to follow down in the 
 midst of the company he had kept, and touch 
 and hold securely. My scholar-uncle, whose 
 library these books represented, died when I 
 was a little child. I knew him scarcely at all 
 in terms of time or sense, but there has never 
 been any one in the two worlds whom I have 
 loved better. It has been part of the serious 
 business of my mature life to track his fleeing 
 spirit, holding fast by every clue, acting on 
 every hint, that so I may apprehend him at 
 
42 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 length and know him for that which I joyfully 
 guess. Not an easy pursuit, take it all in all, 
 when death and silence have intervened to 
 help a soul already sufficiently fugitive in it- 
 self ; I have often been sorely baffled. Whither 
 is the sweet mocker away that he never will 
 wait to let me catch up with him? Does he 
 not know that we needs must love each other ? 
 The portrait helped me wonderfully, turn- 
 ing up quite as a revelation among our things 
 at Dorset. I had lived with it as a child, to 
 be sure, but the eyes of youth are undiscern- 
 ing; I had never realized what an excellent 
 work it was. Aunt Susan and I unboxed it 
 together, then we stood back and looked in 
 silence. The grave and gentle young face of 
 long ago smiled quietly out at us — blue eyes 
 transfused with an inner light of wistfulness 
 and humor, oddly sad and whimsical at a 
 glance, a firm sweet mouth, and a dreaming 
 forehead. Over the features played the touch, 
 
The Library 43 
 
 vanishing, elusive, that was life itself, fragile 
 as a star-ray, persistent as the hills. My very 
 uncle, caught, arrested, when he knew it not, 
 when he would most have taken his leave, be- 
 ing most himself, fixed there for the world to 
 love — what a tender and beautiful kind of joke! 
 I wonder if the painter knew the fineness of his 
 triumph, and if he chuckled to himself — 
 " Ah-ha, there, trapped, thou fleeing one ! " I 
 should like to thank him for his great service, 
 but he too has now taken advantage of death. 
 We hung the picture — Aunt Susan and I — 
 over one of the bookcases in the library, where 
 we can most frequently be in its presence ; and, 
 when the afternoon sun strikes through the 
 orchard window, the thoughtful face lights 
 suddenly up and the blue eyes laugh outright. 
 With my uncle's books, as with his portrait, 
 I had been long familiar. But here again I 
 must plead the ignorance of youth. I remem- 
 bered,, indeed, that we owned the Waverley 
 
44 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Novels and Lorna Doone, an illustrated Lives 
 of the Saints adapted for Sunday beguilement, 
 a Pilgrim's Progress, a Household Book of 
 Poetry, and many tales of heterogeneous asso- 
 ciation; but, beyond this limited assurance, I 
 had no knowledge of what might lie awaiting 
 me in the boxes. It was with a double excite- 
 ment that I fared forth on my task of un- 
 packing. I was going to find my uncle be- 
 cause I was going to find dear mutual friends 
 hand in hand with him who would help to 
 make him known. Since the early days when 
 I had last seen this library, I had come to be- 
 lieve that there is nothing in all the world 
 quite so good as a good book. 
 
 The doors of the wood-shed stood wide to 
 the sunny lawn at the edge of the orchard, the 
 birds flew singing by. It was early June now, 
 and the world's chalice was brimming. Even 
 so brimmed at my feet the separate chalices of 
 the lives of the best of men, waiting only for 
 
The Library 45 
 
 me to lift and quaff. What a day I had before 
 me! 
 
 I began on the nearest box, at random, 
 trusting my stars as usual. At once I dis- 
 covered that the book-packer's method, what- 
 ever may be said for it from the point of view 
 of expediency, respects not persons at all. As 
 if one should settle a town by height — all six 
 foot people in this street, all five foot nine in 
 that — so these boxes had been filled ac- 
 cording to size of volume, relevancy of subject- 
 matter being quite ignored. The result was 
 somewhat bewildering to the investigating eye, 
 but I am not sure that the confusion did not 
 lend its own particular zest to the excitement 
 of the occasion. All was surprise, when 
 essays, novels, books of poetry, books of 
 science lay side by side indiscriminately, and 
 one could not possibly foretell what the next 
 dive of the eager hand might bring forth. 
 
 My uncle surely was aware of what was 
 
46 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 going forward; he lent himself to the spirit 
 game of hide-and-seek with his usual vanish- 
 ing quickness. Almost caught, never held! 
 Ah, come now, dear, it is no laughing matter ! 
 At first he encouraged me immensely, flattered 
 me with unlooked-for hope of an instant 
 union, came and sat on the box beside me and 
 said, " See here, and here ! " Emerson, 
 Browning, Hazlitt, Thoreau, Lamb, Words- 
 worth — with one accord they sprang up and 
 bade us join our hands and love each other 
 always. It almost took my breath away. I 
 was sure of him now. I held him, sitting 
 down on the floor with his battered Emerson 
 in my hand, reading after him. All my 
 favorite passages he had marked; in the 
 margin were comments written to which I 
 cried Amen. I had him, I had him; he was 
 here, waiting for me between the leaves of 
 the book which we both loved. It was only 
 because no meaner place was fit for the tarry- 
 
The Library 47 
 
 ing of his spirit that he had evaded me so 
 long. I looked up, glowing, and my glance 
 fell on a serried rank of books in an adjacent 
 box; uniform, these, because one set — Pres- 
 cott's histories ! Well, it was funny to observe 
 how flat my spirits fell. Even I thought it 
 was funny, and smiled. As for my uncle, I 
 heard his spirit laughter ring as clear as the 
 song of the oriole in the orchard. I got up 
 slowly, laying aside the kindly volumes who 
 had thought to make my way so easy, and 
 went and examined the history books. A 
 whole solid box of them, on my word! Pres- 
 cott and Gibbon and Milman and Hume and 
 all the dreary old fellows whom I have never 
 been able to read. My uncle had read them; 
 here were his marks and his comments running 
 along the margins in his fine scholarly hand, 
 denoting his thoughtful interest. But I — alas ! 
 — no, it was no use. I saw my beautiful, 
 hunted spirit, so nearly encountered in Emer- 
 
48 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 son's grove, retreating now along the broad 
 way of a dusty highroad whither I might not 
 follow, and I knew he was lost again. 
 
 The counter-check was useful in that it 
 brought me down to the work immediately at 
 hand. The morning was going, and the 
 shelves in the library were a-gape. Accept- 
 ing my failure — not forgetting, either, my 
 first success — I gathered the books in armfuls 
 and carried them through to the front of the 
 house, assorting them and depositing them in 
 piles on the library floor. My uncle flashed 
 joyously out at me once from an old volume 
 of Keats. That was a full-face encounter, be 
 sure, a clear straight shining from eye to eye, 
 convincing, penetrating. I averted my glance 
 from the history pile for some time after that. 
 
 The task of classification and arrangement 
 was by no means a simple one. I had not 
 realized that there would be so many subtle 
 considerations to be borne in mind. The great 
 
The Library 49 
 
 and generous souls with whom I was dealing 
 presented no claims of any kind, but their 
 very reticence put me on my mettle of honor 
 to do my best by them. 
 
 To begin with, there was the broad division 
 into the two rooms, north and south. The 
 north room is the library proper. My uncle's 
 picture hangs there, and there stand five of 
 the big bookcases. The windows look out 
 into the orchard, and the light is cool and 
 shaded. A very fit room, take it all in all, 
 for the grave presence of books. But the 
 south room is attractive too. The sunlight 
 streams in at its windows, and the green lawn 
 with flaunting flower-beds offers a cheery out- 
 look to the color-loving eye. To this latter 
 room I consigned the French books with no 
 hesitation, and also, after only some slight con- 
 sideration, the books on art. But just here — 
 in arranging the art bookcase — I made my 
 first mistake. Ruskin is one of my chief 
 4 
 
50 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 favorites in the world of letters, one of my 
 prophets, I may say. My uncle loves him too, 
 and deigned to make Modern. Painters a 
 resting-point from which to look back and 
 lure me on in my pursuit of him. Not for 
 anything in the world would I have failed to 
 meet the wishes of the great writer concerning 
 his dwelling-place with us. I considered the 
 matter carefully. Ruskin was a teacher, I 
 decided, a teacher of no less a subject than 
 life itself; he belonged among the philosophers 
 and essayists, rank by rank with Emerson, 
 Plato, Marcus Aurelius. Accordingly, I gave 
 him a place of honor in the corner bookcase 
 in the library, where the essayists stand. It 
 is curious how you feel at once a person's 
 state of mind. I knew that something was 
 not quite right before I had even finished 
 putting the volumes upon the shelf. It would 
 be impious to say that Ruskin sulked; but at 
 least he was not happy, something was on his 
 
The Library 51 
 
 mind. I pondered and deliberated, and at last 
 it flashed upon me — I am sure I do not know 
 how — that the great man thought he belonged, 
 not in the essay bookcase at all, but at the 
 head of the bookcase of art in the other room. 
 The change was not a promotion in my eyes, 
 but, since he would have it so, I obeyed, and 
 at once the volumes fell into place with a happy 
 air of authority; all was well with Ruskin. 
 
 With Carlyle also I had difficulties manifold 
 and tedious. This fiery scribe goes clad with 
 us most appropriately in a burning red; and, 
 wherever I left him, he set up warfare with all 
 sorts of harmless pink and magenta books of 
 the minor poetry and novel order. His place 
 was not quite ready for him in the essay book- 
 case ; I did think he might have a little patience 
 and trust me for his final disposal. But no, 
 he would not wait a minute. No sooner had 
 I rescued a shivering, livid pink novelette from 
 his overbearing presence, and turned about 
 
52 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 some other task, than, out of the tail of my 
 eye, I saw him at it again, vexing himself 
 purple in the face over some salmon poetry. 
 There was nothing for it finally but that I 
 should drop everything else and put the fierce 
 volumes where they belonged, on the shelf by 
 the dark green Emerson. Immediately what a 
 transformation! Ah, Emerson, friend of his 
 soul ! There were no more lurid glarings now, 
 but an instant out-shining of genial light, 
 warm, harmonious as you please, and, as with 
 Ruskin a short time ago, so now all was well 
 with Carlyle. 
 
 I was turning away from this happy con- 
 summation, when I caught a curious, whim- 
 sical protest proceeding from the upper shelf 
 of the bookcase beside me. The tone was 
 apologetic, laughing: 
 
 " Of course it's an interesting situation, 
 and therefore I can stand it; but really you 
 know—!" 
 
The Library 53 
 
 It was Cervantes speaking, and he was 
 glancing sideways, with comical, appealing de- 
 spair, at a rigid volume of Jonathan Edwards 
 which flanked him uncompromisingly. Would 
 never have made any trouble about it, pre- 
 served his native complexion unchanged; but 
 really — ! It was in truth a delightful situa- 
 tion. I am afraid I prolonged it a little for the 
 sake of my own enjoyment, glancing from one 
 to the other of the two uncongenial neighbors, 
 the one so stiff, the other so debonair, both so 
 ready to be gone. Then I carried Jonathan 
 Edwards away into another room, leaving a 
 place which has since been filled by The Gentle 
 Reader. 
 
 My uncle made another of his altogether in- 
 calculable appearances in connection with this 
 latter incident. Quite gravely he stood be- 
 fore me, as I was about to thrust the volume 
 of sermons somewhat unthinkingly away, and 
 bade me hold and beware. " Cervantes does 
 
54 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 all very well," he assured me ; " you do right 
 to consider him. But do not scorn Jonathan 
 Edwards, my child. He was a great good 
 man." I liked the note of authority in my 
 uncle's voice, even though his admonition 
 opened out new spirit-miles before me; and, 
 with great respect, I found a place of rank 
 and consideration for his stern old preacher 
 friend. 
 
 It will be seen that I was trying to be very 
 conscientious in this whole matter of dealing 
 with my uncle's library, to remember always 
 that it was his, not mine. One of my gravest 
 problems was the appropriation of the book- 
 case of honor beneath his portrait. 
 
 " Aunt Susan," I asked, emerging for 
 counsel from the elected solitude of my task, 
 " in what department of the library did my 
 uncle take most pride ? " 
 
 Aunt Susan looked up from her writing, 
 and considered a moment. 
 
The Library 55 
 
 " The histories, I think, on the whole," she 
 answered with an air of conviction. 
 
 Might I not have known this would be the 
 reply? I smiled, to establish my appreciation 
 of the jest in the eyes of all on-lookers ; then I 
 returned to the library and firmly arranged the 
 histories, row on row, in that case which I 
 coveted for the essayists. My uncle's eyes 
 beamed into mine every time I looked up from 
 my determined concession, and his face was 
 more tender than whimsical; he was touched 
 I think. As for the histories, I must say they 
 made a fine show for themselves. Bound for 
 the most part in reds and browns, leather- 
 backed, with gold tooling, they filled the book- 
 case impressively, and formed a fit setting of 
 dignity for the thoughtful face above them. 
 Were it not that I make a loyal distinction be- 
 tween love of books and backgammon-board 
 appreciation, I should honor the histories. I 
 
56 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 do honor them for my uncle's sake. Perhaps 
 some day I shall read them. 
 
 It is needless to say that all this work of 
 arrangement occupied many days, days of a 
 musing absorption and pleasure which I shall 
 not soon forget. I did not hurry ; I would not 
 lose one happy experience. There was hardly 
 an hour, half-hour, say, when I did not drop 
 down on the floor with some newly-discovered 
 dear book in my hand, and give myself over 
 to the spell of the master there abiding. I 
 often caught my uncle thus, fleeing through 
 the pages, surprised on some much pondered 
 paragraph where he had bemused himself, tak- 
 ing sudden flight on my coming, but leaving 
 his trail blazed for me. I should have him 
 yet, the mocker! I soon discovered that the 
 two writers in whose books I was most certain 
 of finding him were Emerson and Words- 
 worth, and I haunted their pages expectantly. 
 
The Library $7 
 
 What higher use can a book subserve than to 
 be a rendezvous of souls? 
 
 When at last all was in order, every re- 
 arrangement made, and as perfect a harmony 
 established as can prevail in such a diverse 
 multitude, I stood and realized my riches, 
 deeply gratified. There were some rare and 
 valuable books here, books which my uncle's 
 slender purse and thoughtful scholar's taste 
 would hardly have let him buy, but which good 
 friends had bestowed on him. Resplendent 
 volumes of Lacroix's Middle Ages, a curious 
 description of the Rosetta Stone, Moore's 
 poems in an exquisite setting over which I 
 fairly held my breath, fine collections of en- 
 gravings, a black-letter Wycliffe Bible — ex- 
 cellent treasures, these, and others, filling the 
 bookcase in the south room where Ruskin held 
 happy sway. I admired them truly, knowing 
 yet that it was not before them that my feet 
 would pause oftenest in the days to come. 
 
58 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 When I am banished to my desert island, 
 it will probably be the poetry bookcase which 
 I shall take with me. There are more than 
 ten volumes here, to be sure, but I can never 
 bring my mind to the ungracious supposition 
 of meager designs on the part of bountiful 
 Providence which the popular book-review 
 fancy delights in. One hundred volumes is 
 the last limitation which I can consent to tax 
 heaven withal. The poetry books, from 
 Shakespeare down, have my reasonable prefer- 
 ence over all the others in the house. The 
 highest of all human thinking is here, the very 
 quintessence of life. 
 
 And yet again the floor, though worn before 
 the poetry bookcase, will always have another 
 spot more marred. 
 
 When I enter the library now, after an 
 absence of any length, it is to the odd little 
 corner bookcase where the essays stand that 
 my eyes instinctively turn for greeting. All 
 
The Library 59 
 
 there, my hearties? Then all is well. The 
 assortment here is the least creditable, from a 
 book-collector's point of view, of any the 
 house contains. Odd, ragged volumes, mis- 
 mated, despoiled, vagabonds of the shelf, 
 merry survivors of statelier times when the 
 garments were at least stiff and new which 
 now hang about them so recklessly, they look 
 out into the room with a certain disreputable 
 good-cheer which is quite irresistible. Their 
 demoralization is completed by the fact that 
 there is never a time when some two or three 
 of them are not leaning confidingly across 
 space to take advantage of the temporary 
 absence of a next neighbor and have a chat 
 with a next neighbor but one. Dear comrades ! 
 they pour me the wine of life — better, the 
 golden sunlight — from the chalices of their 
 names. Malory, Cervantes, Montaigne, Wal- 
 ton, Bunyan, Addison, Goldsmith, Lamb, 
 Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Irving, 
 
60 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Emerson, Thoreau, Holmes, Stevenson, Croth- 
 ers, Henderson — is it not enough to name 
 them over to feel the heart refreshed? There 
 is hardly a doubt of the worth of life which 
 their bookcase cannot settle. 
 
 The old house received the old books with 
 its usual wise tranquillity. But their coming 
 must have been an event far more stirring to 
 it than the arrival of Aunt Susan and Jane 
 and me. It had sheltered many people before, 
 it knew them through and through ; I suppose 
 it had never in all its days seen a library like 
 my uncle's. I like to muse on the perfect 
 fitness of the intercourse thus established. 
 How, in the dead of night, they must confer 
 together, and in the long, cold winter when 
 we go away and leave them ! Doubtless, if the 
 house were questioned as to its inhabitants, it 
 would begin exultantly, " Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Bunyan," and one would have to wait a long 
 time before hearing a word about Aunt Susan 
 
The Library 61 
 
 and Jane and me. But I think we should not 
 resent this. 
 
 " Come, uncle," I said appealingly, when all 
 was done and I sat down by the window; 
 " come, meet me here among your books, there 
 could be no better place. Come, live with me, 
 and we will read all the day long together. 
 Emerson, Wordsworth " 
 
 Here my glance, turning to seek my uncle's 
 face, encountered the top row of history books, 
 and I stopped suddenly. It was late in the 
 afternoon, the sun was streaming down the 
 orchard hill, a long ray stole through the li- 
 brary window, and my uncle's eyes laughed 
 out. But he did not say me nay. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ©ur lPre&ecessors 
 
 /"\UR first year's occupation of the old 
 ^-^ house was supposed to be an experiment 
 merely. We had rented the place for six 
 months, and thought to hold ourselves as free 
 as in the old days of our summer-boarderhood. 
 But, as a matter of fact, there was very little 
 experiment about the matter; we knew at 
 once that the house must be ours to have and 
 to hold, that in it we must abide. 
 
 Destiny was as usual very adroit in drawing 
 the threads about us. To begin with, there 
 was our growing love, every day increasing 
 upon us. Then, as a wholesome fillip to this, 
 there was an occasional touch of jealous ap- 
 prehension. The old house, being open and 
 6a 
 
Our Predecessors 63 
 
 occupied, took on an attractiveness to the public 
 eye which, closed, it had not possessed. 
 Summer-boarders (we had too lately escaped 
 from the class not to despise it) walked out 
 from the village, and hung about, with that 
 speculative look in their eyes which we under- 
 stood too well. Impudence! how dared they? 
 Finally a gentleman came in a dashing turn- 
 out, his pockets bulging with sufficient ready 
 bills, and asked us politely over the fence if the 
 place was for sale. We drew ourselves up, all 
 three, dignified as if we stood on ancestral 
 ground — as indeed I presume by this time we 
 thought we did — and assured him, " No ! " 
 Then, when he was gone, we looked at each 
 other, and smiled for our word's significance. 
 We bought the place in the autumn. The 
 next summer we made it over, not changing 
 its character in the least, hardly indeed its 
 form, introducing a furnace and water merely, 
 lifting the roof over some of the rooms, add- 
 
64 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 ing a deep side piazza. Then we settled down 
 to live in good earnest, genuine country 
 folk. 
 
 At once it was curious to see how the past, 
 which had been put to flight by the noise and 
 novelty of our coming, driven startled into 
 corners, silently reasserted itself and stole back 
 upon us, now we were still, encompassing us 
 with shadows. Not in the present only may 
 he live who inhabits an old house. 
 
 I have always hoped that life would develop 
 in me a faculty for seeing ghosts. The state 
 of my mind is open and cordial towards the 
 interesting, if unsubstantial, creatures, and 
 one has only to appear to win my credence, I 
 think I may even promise, my regard. When 
 I read of experiences such as those recorded in 
 " John Percyfield," I am filled with desire and 
 envy. What is the matter that I, too, cannot 
 open my eyes and see? But since I have come 
 to live in Dorset, I have sadly yielded my 
 
Our Predecessors 65 
 
 expectations. Here, if anywhere, I might see 
 ghosts ; the vision is not in me. 
 
 I make no doubt that the air is full, indoors 
 and out, of the presences of those who have 
 lived here before us. I know it by the ex- 
 cellent test of " put yourself in his place." If 
 I were a ghost, would I not haunt here? 
 Assuredly. I would make my nest in the long 
 grass of the orchard (a ghost, I take it, is a 
 shy, wild thing like a bird) and I would 
 miss no single pulse of the sunrise or the 
 sunset, no phase of the passing year. I 
 should perhaps be freer to understand these 
 things than I am now. But it is evident that 
 the happy company does not desire my com- 
 panionship, for, though I have wooed them by 
 every traditional expedient of solitary moon- 
 light vigil, of midnight readings alone by the 
 lamp, of wide-eyed listening, I have never 
 caught a word or glimpse to tell me they are 
 
 there. 
 5 
 
66 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 One of our recent predecessors was a 
 Spiritualist. She could surely not have chosen 
 a more advantageous position. She lived in 
 the old house all alone, and there are many 
 stories about her current in the neighborhood. 
 For instance, it is asserted that every morn- 
 ing she used to open the front door and chase 
 evil spirits out with a broom. Ah, well, for 
 the matter of that, I think I know those evil 
 spirits myself. I wonder if she found them 
 on the floor under the sofa. But her other 
 proceedings mystify me. I remember how 
 taken aback I was one day soon after our 
 establishment when a neighbor, calling on us, 
 paused on the romantic threshold of what is 
 now our kitchen pantry, and shook her head 
 mysteriously. " Many's the seance I've at- 
 tended in there," she said. " Dear, dear, but 
 it was strange ! " I forebore to question her, 
 but I have wondered since what might happen 
 if I were to shut myself up some midnight 
 
Our Predecessors 67 
 
 among Bridget's pots and pans. I shall never 
 make the experiment because of its very 
 ridiculousness. It is this inexplicable tendency 
 on the part of ghosts to subject themselves to 
 undignified situations which distresses me in 
 the popular manifestations of the august class. 
 Either I shall receive my ghost worthily, with 
 a due respect, or I shall not receive him at all. 
 " Aunt Lorette " died herself some ten years 
 ago. It may be that she gathered all the 
 ghosts back with her to the spirit-world, but I 
 hope she left me a gentle shade or two to 
 bear me company, when I know it not, up in 
 the moonlit orchard. 
 
 Non-committal as our dead predecessors 
 might be, it was soon apparent that those who 
 still lived cherished no such reserve. Dead 
 and alive together, the name of them was 
 legion. It has been stated in the first chapter 
 that the old house was originally a tavern. 
 Whether a fatal tavern tendency was built 
 
68 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 into its walls, compelling its occupants to 
 move on after a little sojourn, I cannot say; 
 I hope, for our sakes, it is not so. But, 
 strangely, sadly, the fact remains that all those 
 who have lived here have first learned to love 
 the place most truly, and then, by some work- 
 ing of circumstance, have been obliged to leave 
 it, wandering forth with its hold on their 
 hearts to draw them, longing, backward. 
 During our first summer they began to ap- 
 pear, wistfully asking to " see the old place," 
 and now we have learned every season to ex- 
 pect them. We know them at once by the 
 look, apologetic yet self-assured — as of the 
 rightful owner, forsooth ! — with which they 
 approach us. 
 
 Say I am working in the garden. The 
 weeds are thick, and I am absorbed; I do not 
 notice that a carriage has stopped beyond the 
 fence. But my inner consciousness becomes 
 aware of an earnest scrutiny by and by, and I 
 
Our Predecessors 69 
 
 lift my eyes, and there he is, my revenant, re- 
 garding me with his complex stare. I know at 
 once now what to do. I rise and brush the 
 earth from my hands and come forward, as- 
 suming a cordial air of hostess and proprietor 
 as emphatically as possible. I have to assert 
 myself in this role, for, if I do not, I shall be 
 presently made to feel that I am an interloper. 
 
 " Won't you come in ? " 
 
 I open the gate {my gate, be it remem- 
 bered!) and motion towards the door within 
 which I see Aunt Susan approaching. Then 
 the stranger's eyes meet mine squarely, and 
 all of a sudden I read the love, the loyalty, 
 the strong homesickness which have wrought 
 in him hundreds of miles away to set him 
 questing back, and my little jealousy vanishes 
 in a burst of remorseful abnegation. 
 
 " I know," I almost anticipate his halting 
 explanation, " this is your house, you used to 
 live here, you like it, do come in." 
 
jo Over Against Green Peak 
 
 And, behold ! even in my own eyes, I am no 
 longer hostess, but a strange, ephemeral crea- 
 ture, resting impudently on the site of old 
 historic deeds. Would a twentieth century 
 lizard be upheld in its claim of proprietorship 
 over the Coliseum? 
 
 The revenant always plays me this trick of 
 superinduced humility. But I rescue myself 
 in the end by remembering that Aunt Susan is 
 the real proprietor of our home, and that 
 under no respectful consideration can I call 
 her a lizard. 
 
 The revenant commonly takes little heed 
 of Aunt Susan and Jane and me. That is 
 well; we bear him no grudge. Did we think 
 he had journeyed a thousand miles for the 
 pleasure of meeting us? We turn him loose 
 as soon as we can, and he wanders — every- 
 where. If peradventure we go to seek him 
 after protracted disappearance on his part, and 
 find him (though in this case it is more likely 
 
Our Predecessors 71 
 
 to be her) in one of our closets, we have 
 learned to take no offense. The closets are 
 new, Aunt Susan contrived them, they are 
 deeply interesting. The furnace, too, is a 
 popular wonder and the porcelain bath-tub. 
 But it is oftenest, after all, some odd unlikely 
 nook in the house, such as the kitchen pantry 
 mentioned above, which holds the revenant at 
 gaze, giving him dreams unspeakable. I re- 
 member well the dignified, elderly gentleman 
 in deep black who stood speechless before the 
 stuffed owl between the front library windows 
 until I was fain, being there surprised in the 
 orbit of his erratic return, to put him some 
 sporting question. But I hesitated long 
 enough to save myself — and him ; for, " We 
 were married on that spot," he said at last, and 
 strode out of the room. 
 
 The most charming revenant of them all 
 was, without doubt, the boy who came last 
 summer. He had a girl with him, pretty, 
 
72 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 young, her hair blown by the wind. They 
 were both of them almost breathlessly eager, 
 and their eyes were shining. Unfortunately 
 for their impatience, we were having afternoon 
 tea when they arrived, and, on our asking 
 them to join us, they had nothing for it but 
 to accept. They were quite irresistibly 
 gracious about it; for every reason under the 
 sun my heart went out to them. 
 
 " How does your husband take his tea ? " I 
 asked the girl, for the boy was talking to one 
 of our other guests. 
 
 " I really don't know," she hesitated, and 
 the color flew into her cheeks. 
 
 Ah, then, I stole a glance at Aunt Susan to 
 see if she had heard. Hands off surely in this 
 affair, no hint of ciceronage! I poured in 
 cream with a liberal hand, to cool the tea and 
 expedite matters; and in five minutes I had 
 the satisfaction of seeing a white dress dis- 
 appear up the hill into my orchard (h'm, well, 
 
Our Predecessors 73 
 
 my orchard?) and of hearing two young 
 voices laugh out gleefully from the general 
 direction of the woodchuck's hole. I was left 
 to a prolonged meditation, our other guests 
 having taken their leave, on the front steps, 
 my chin in my hand, my eyes clinging des- 
 perately to the reassuring gate. 
 
 When they came back, they sat down beside 
 me, frankly, confidingly; how their eyes 
 shone ! 
 
 " I wanted my wife to see the old place," 
 the boy explained, " I had told her so much 
 about it. The big rock up there — have you 
 noticed it? " (Had I noticed it!) " We drilled 
 those holes for a quarry when I was a kid, 
 and then we made a derrick and set it up. 
 It was sport, I tell you. As we drew near the 
 rock this afternoon, I said to my wife, ' A 
 woodchuck used to live there,' and, if you'll 
 believe it, there he was, sitting up at the mouth 
 of his hole." 
 
74 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 If I would believe it! Oh, forsooth, the 
 arrogance of the boy ! 
 
 " My father planted those elm trees," he 
 went on, always speaking rapidly. " My 
 mother named them after us children. I'm 
 that one there. I've done pretty well, I think, 
 on the whole." 
 
 Then he broke off and looked at the girl. 
 Truly he thought he had done very well in- 
 deed. 
 
 When they left us, I stood and looked 
 up at the house, a hateful, morbid apprehen- 
 sion gnawing at my heart. Was it sorry it 
 could not harbor that bright young dual 
 life? 
 
 " Well, you can't have 'em," I said aloud, 
 shaking my head defiantly, " and you'd just 
 better be pretty thankful that you have Aunt 
 Susan." 
 
 " Ah, child ! " the old house replied, with its 
 wise kind tolerance. And, though I did not 
 
Our Predecessors 75 
 
 know what it meant, I felt at the same time 
 rebuked and reassured. 
 
 One cannot of course live a hundred lives at 
 a time with any satisfaction. For everyday 
 purposes we sweep the horizon clear of our 
 predecessors, and establish ourselves, we three, 
 in unique ownership of our home. We are 
 the only people, the first and last. But the 
 atmosphere is always, there, hovering, waiting, 
 the mingled color, fragrance, what you will, 
 of the lives that have gone before us. It 
 makes existence very rich, very strange and 
 interesting. I ponder upon it in the dusk, 
 sitting on the side piazza which gives into the 
 orchard, watching the shadows gather and the 
 stars come out overhead, waiting to catch the 
 first sound of the brook which by day is in- 
 audible. Why, why, when they loved the 
 place so, did they all have to leave it? Was 
 it destiny in truth, tavern fatality? We, too, 
 shall we feel it then? My heart contracts, 
 
j6 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 and I rise and take my way over the dewy 
 grass, around to the front gate. There it 
 looms in the starlit darkness, upright and 
 cross-bar, my monogram, awkward enough, 
 but firm. 
 
 Am I really fatuous enough to believe that 
 this house was intended for me in the build- 
 ing ? I do not know but I am. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 3Lorna 
 
 \ S soon as we were definitely settled in 
 ■*■ our new life in Dorset, we found a 
 problem confronting us which only our in- 
 experience had prevented us^ from anticipating. 
 We are sufficiently humble folk, and it is not 
 written in the records that any of our ancestors 
 ever possessed a horse. As Aunt Susan sagely 
 put it, horses did not run in the family. But 
 city luxury is one thing, and country necessity 
 is another. Or, rather, no, in this application, 
 they are one and the same. We realized early 
 in our career that, for sheer convenience, if 
 nothing else, we must face the great equine en- 
 terprise hitherto untried, and we entered upon 
 
 it seriously, a little perturbed but courageous. 
 77 
 
j8 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 What was a life-long commonplace to each of 
 our Dorset neighbors was to us an adventure 
 fraught with difficulty and wonder. 
 
 We instituted inquiries. Did any one know 
 of a nice safe horse, fitted for unskilled women 
 to drive, who could be bought for a moderate 
 sum? (Note the personal pronoun who; we 
 stood in respect of the class.) Of course that 
 was not at all the way to set about the matter, 
 but I find it, looking back, quite delightfully 
 characteristic of our first innocence. How 
 should we know the proper conventions of 
 secrecy, oblique approach, ostentatious indif- 
 ference which hold in this most formally ex- 
 ploited transaction of country life ? 
 
 No sooner had we breathed our desire, than 
 the horses began to appear, trotting or plod- 
 ding up to our door in numbers inexplicable 
 as the instant crowd in a city street at an 
 alarm of fire. Such horses ! But their de- 
 bonair drivers were always possessed of a 
 
Lorna 79 
 
 genial courtesy of manner which began to 
 give me a new idea of the open-heartedness 
 possible to the New England race. Our 
 knightless condition appealed to them, it was 
 evident, touched the chivalry in their rough 
 hearts, made them fatherly and gentle. Al- 
 most with tears in their eyes they assured us 
 of the superlative merits of the beasts which, 
 at personal sacrifice and inconvenience quite 
 unparalleled, they stood ready to let us have. 
 For my part, I always met them half way. 
 (Aunt Susan had handed over to me the active 
 management of this affair, though she watched 
 with her sharper eye than mine, ready to warn 
 and counsel.) For instance, there was the 
 case of Prince. I do not remember a better 
 example with which to illustrate the whole 
 experience. 
 
 Prince was a large black horse, sleek and 
 demure, with a meditative gleam in the corner 
 of his eye. He put in an appearance at our 
 
80 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 gate early one morning, accompanied by the 
 most plausible jockey who had yet come our 
 way. 
 
 " Well, let me try him," I said at once, 
 mounting to the seat beside the driver. 
 
 " Certainly, Miss, that's what I say, only 
 give him a trial. You'll soon find out that 
 there ain't such a horse for a woman to drive 
 in the hull county, not to say state. He's as 
 gentle ! An' see how he goes ; no sleepin' 
 along for him. An' yet he minds me. Nice 
 Prince, there ! " 
 
 At which point in our happy intercourse, 
 bowling along the road, Prince stopped ab- 
 ruptly, cast out his heels in a reckless manner, 
 narrowly missing the dash-board, swayed up 
 and down for a moment or two, then turned 
 in his tracks and hastened back with immense 
 determination. It was very funny. I caught 
 my breath, recovering from my slight alarm, 
 and stole a glance at my companion. There 
 
Lorna 8 1 
 
 were curious lines about his mouth which it 
 seemed to me augured ill for the immediate 
 future of Prince, but the general effect of his 
 expression was one of great sorrow and patient 
 regret. 
 
 " Well, I never saw Prince do that before," 
 he assured me earnestly. (I discovered after- 
 wards that he had never seen the horse until 
 that morning, so he spoke the truth!) "I 
 wouldn't give him to you now. No, no, he's 
 not the horse for you. It's well we tried him, 
 ain't it, though ? I'm glad he done it, glad! " 
 
 Ah, Prince, did not your obstinate hide 
 shiver at that emphasis? 
 
 For the most part, it was not, however, any 
 extreme of skittishness with which we had to 
 contend in the horses that were offered for 
 our consideration. There was Festina Lente. 
 The nomenclature is Aunt Susan's, " Lenty " 
 being the familiar abbreviation. We rented 
 Lenty for a week, and drove her diligently 
 
82 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 every day. The process was an exhausting 
 one which I faint to remember now, but we 
 did our duty sternly. After the first essay, it 
 was found wise to institute a division of labor. 
 I held the reins, Jane plied the whip, and Aunt 
 Susan uttered a steady series of admonitory 
 clucks which caused her to resemble (your 
 pardon, dear aunt!) an exceedingly garrulous 
 hen. In this manner we covered a mile or 
 two of country every afternoon. But the ex- 
 periment, faithfully carried through to the 
 end, could hardly be called an entire success; 
 and at the end of the week we returned Lenty 
 to her unenvied owner, and sat back to rest, 
 quite worn out. 
 
 All this was not very encouraging to the 
 success of our great enterprise. I have in- 
 stanced two episodes, but there was a score 
 of them. The butcher, the baker brought 
 horses to us, the tin-peddler, the rag-man. 
 Every Yankee has in reserve, behind his legi- 
 
Lorna 83 
 
 timate occupation, this knack of dealing with 
 horse-flesh; he knows the trade as he knows 
 how to whittle. We grew quite downhearted 
 by and by, we had had so many impossible 
 creatures presented for our consideration; we 
 had not dreamed the matter would be so diffi- 
 cult of adjustment, we were minded to give 
 up. Then Lorna appeared on the scene, and 
 all our sky went clear. 
 
 It was cousin Joseph who brought her to us, 
 cousin Joseph Carter who lived next door, 
 and who was related to all the township. He 
 had kept a wary eye abroad since first he had 
 heard of our difficulties, and had held his 
 peace. He knew the conventions, did cousin 
 Joseph, and the way of wisdom. It was with 
 a fine triumphant negligence, a careless wave 
 of the hand, that he led Lorna up to us one 
 beautiful June morning, and told us her price 
 and her owner's name, and recommended her. 
 She stood and looked at us graciously while we 
 
84 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 hastened with lumps of sugar. I think we all 
 of us knew from that moment that the enter- 
 prise was accomplished. 
 
 It is not going to be easy for me fitly to 
 describe Lorna. The effect which she had 
 upon us at first was so altogether dazzling 
 that we could form no adequate judgment of 
 her; our reason was stupefied. Give a bank 
 clerk a stained glass window (to vary the 
 traditional white elephant a little) and see if 
 he will be able at once to enter upon a cool 
 criticism of its merits and defects. Lorna was 
 large and light brown — cafe-au-lait — with a 
 white mane and tail. These obvious points we 
 could seize at once. For the rest, she was A 
 Horse; the mystery of her class shrouded her 
 special traits. We consigned her to the barn 
 with an earnest seriousness of demeanor which 
 I have not seen excelled in the various crises 
 of our family history. Cousin Joseph put her 
 in her stall ; he knew about those things. Then 
 
Lorna 85 
 
 Aunt Susan and Jane and I went around on 
 the other side, where the manger opens into 
 the carriage-house, and silently stood at gaze. 
 Our new possession gazed back at us, atten- 
 tive-eyed, her ears pricked forward. I sup- 
 pose, in the light of my later knowledge, that 
 she was thinking of lumps of sugar, but I 
 gave her credit at the time for all sorts of wise 
 reflections. I even concluded after awhile that 
 she might presently be tempted to laugh at our 
 solemn scrutiny, and I therefore drew Jane 
 and Aunt Susan away; but I might have fore- 
 borne my delicate considerations, for, if there 
 is any one trait which Lorna preeminently has 
 not, it is a sense of humor. 
 
 Her name (I blush to confess the truth!) 
 we bestowed upon her ourselves. Yes, con- 
 sciously and deliberately, after long pondering. 
 I think I shall never again purchase anything 
 nameless of which convention requires a name, 
 the difficulties of adequate nomenclature are 
 
86 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 too great. We cudgelled our irresponsive 
 brains. Perhaps, if we had not cared so much, 
 if we had gone less strenuously to work, 
 the thing might have been easier. As one of 
 our friends pointed out afterwards, " Tues- 
 day " would have meant more (or less!) it 
 being on a Tuesday that we bought Lorna. 
 But Lorna it had to be. The determining 
 reason was, I suppose, a certain regard to 
 which we are all of us tenderly liable for the 
 literary enthusiasms of youth. And I must 
 say that, once the romantic designation had 
 become irrevocable, my mortification over its 
 serious inaptness gave way to a happy sense 
 of the fitness that lay in its sheer absurdity. 
 After all, there is great charm in the in- 
 congruous. To select a middle-aged horse, 
 sedate, a little " sot " when it pleases her, quite 
 literal-minded, angular in her joints and in 
 her views of life, and complacently name her 
 Lorna is a whimsical turn not to be despised 
 
Lorna 87 
 
 in this commonplace world of Dapples and 
 Stars and Dobbins. 
 
 Once established in our barn, with a " chore 
 boy " to take care of her, Lorna entered with 
 serene composure upon her career as chief 
 person in our family. It was really appalling 
 to perceive how she dominated us. Her very 
 presence was an oppression to our untutored 
 minds. A horse, a whole horse, for our use, 
 not by the hour, nor by the day, but even 
 the whole thing, all, forever; we could not 
 realize it. 
 
 Our ignorance was of course our bane. 
 How many miles was it safe to drive a horse 
 in a day, and at what rate of speed? When 
 a horse is tied to a post, waiting for the 
 boy to come and unharness her, should she be 
 blanketed or not? How many apples and 
 lumps of sugar may be reasonably employed to 
 quell a horse's imperative demand for atten- 
 tion, being thus tied and in waiting? "If a 
 
88 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 horse," was the formula with which all our 
 conversation began, and as the succeeding 
 queries were trustfully put to a great variety 
 of farmers, the information which we gathered 
 was fully as bewildering as the initial problem. 
 Forced to fall back on our own intuition, we 
 came very near spoiling Lorna; for intuition, 
 after all, has to have some sort of experience 
 for foundation, and an intuition of care, based 
 on babies and applied to horses, produces 
 strange results. It is quite literally true that I 
 have seen Aunt Susan cross the lawn under 
 an umbrella on a rainy afternoon, her hands 
 full of apples and sugar, going to comfort 
 Lorna in the loneliness of her day of inaction 
 in the barn. Returning from her charitable 
 errand, she has left the barn door half open, 
 that the horse might look out and be cheered. 
 As for myself, how many nights have I risen 
 wearily, roused by loud stampings in the barn, 
 . and put on my clothes and taken my lantern 
 
Lorna 89 
 
 and sallied forth to investigate! Colic, at the 
 least, I thought, or the poor beast was cast. 
 Lorna has always whinneyed at me cheerfully 
 when I have opened her door on these mid- 
 night visitations. " I thought you'd come if I 
 stamped hard enough," she has assured me 
 contentedly. " Now give me a mouthful of 
 hay, and sit down, and we'll have a friendly 
 chat." 
 
 Into the mysteries of the harness I should 
 have inquired at once. I realized that when 
 it was too late. But the business of driving 
 came first, and that absorbed me quite. I was 
 fired with vast ambitions in the matter of 
 turning around. I began on a circular drive- 
 way of course, trying not to cut the turf. 
 Then I took a wide place in the road — Aunt 
 Susan and Jane got out. Succeeding beyond 
 all the expectations of my foreboding heart, 
 I grew bold and committed myself one day, 
 with a fine abandon which I tingle to remem- 
 
90 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 ber, to a narrow barn-yard. Even Lorna her- 
 self was alarmed at this venture; she was so 
 accustomed to stopping outside in the straight- 
 ahead road while Jane ran in with the basket 
 for eggs. As for Aunt Susan and Jane, they 
 gasped. " There is no way out here. What 
 are you going to do?" "Turn around," I 
 answered serenely enough, though my heart 
 was palpitating. Well, I did turn around, to 
 be sure. I backed into the pump and broke a 
 spoke in my wheel, I caused the carriage to 
 tip and sway, I cut up the edge of the grass; 
 but I turned around — before the farmer could 
 reach me, too, charging madly to my assist- 
 ance as he saw his pump tottering. After this 
 there was simply no telling what I was going 
 to do; I could never foretell, myself. As 
 likely as not I would spy a lane out of the 
 tail of my eye as we drove along the highroad, 
 and would without reflection turn into it. A 
 twist of the hand — all the moralists know how 
 
Lorna 9 1 
 
 lightly the thing is done. Then I would have 
 to get out again, somehow or other get out. 
 Lorna, in spite of her matter-of-factness, 
 caught the spirit of the adventure herself by 
 and by and helped me cordially. Such delicate 
 manoeuvers as she instituted in the way of 
 backing and stopping and turning and begin- 
 ning all over again, when at the crucial 
 moment my courage failed and I could not 
 wheel her around into place! We became so 
 expert in the course of time that Aunt Susan 
 and Jane not only stayed in the carriage during 
 our experiments, but even ceased to lean for- 
 ward and clutch the back of my seat, rigid with 
 apprehension. 
 
 All this attainment did very well ; but mean- 
 time there was the harness, intricate mystery 
 unexplored, waiting my thoughtful study. 
 " One thing at a time," is an excellent rule, 
 but one wants to be sure that he sees his way 
 
92 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 clear to compass the next thing before it be 
 too late. 
 
 " To-morrow I think I shall have Billy teach 
 me how to harness Lorna," I said one day as 
 we drove home from our afternoon excursion. 
 I was flushed and warm with victory, having 
 safely explored a mountain road more than 
 usually rough and narrow. I cramped the 
 wheel adroitly to let Jane out; then, as Billy 
 did not come, I drove around to the barn. 
 
 "Oh, Miss!" 
 
 Bridget, wringing her hands, came running 
 to the fence. 
 
 " Billy's gone. He said his uncle wanted 
 him for a job in Stoneville. I couldn't make 
 him stay. He's gone. Whatever will you 
 do?" 
 
 Well, I paused one solemn moment to grasp 
 the situation. There was Lorna, fully, in- 
 scrutably clad. There was the barn. There 
 was — I ! 
 
Lorna 93 
 
 " Bridget," I said, " go into the house. Go 
 into the kitchen and shut the door. Don't 
 come out for — " I measured my task — " two 
 hours," I finished sternly. 
 
 " But, my dear " 
 
 It was Aunt Susan who spoke this time. 
 She and Jane had come likewise running, and 
 were looking quite unspeakable things at me 
 from behind the fence. 
 
 " Aunt Susan," — I unbuckled the ends of 
 the reins, I knew that was the way to begin — 
 " it's all right. But you must go in the house, 
 really you must. You mustn't look out of the 
 window either ; promise me, please. You must 
 go in the library and sit down. Then it will 
 be all right." 
 
 When we were quite alone, Lorna and I, we 
 went into the carriage-house. That was a 
 cramping necessity, for it seemed as if all out- 
 of-doors would be none too wide for the task 
 which lay before us, but the carriage must be 
 
94 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 disposed of. Dismounting from my seat, I 
 went around in front of Lorna and gazed up 
 earnestly into her face. I wanted to take a 
 survey of her harness, but also I wanted to 
 secure, if not her cordial cooperation, at least 
 her tolerance. Women were apt to make the 
 mistake, I thought I had heard some one scoff- 
 ingly say, of unbuckling all the straps of a 
 harness. Very well, I would not do that. 
 How did Billy look when he was setting about 
 the work which I had now in hand? What 
 motions did he go through? I had watched 
 him idly many a time; I conjured up his image 
 now, remembering desperately. He raised his 
 arms — I raised my arms. He laid hold — I 
 laid hold. He pulled — I pulled. Without un- 
 buckling a strap! After a long time, one ear 
 came out. No, mercifully, not out of the 
 head, but even out of the harness. I fell back, 
 breathless, to rest a moment, and Lorna gazed 
 at me pensively from amidst her gear rakishly 
 
Lorna 95 
 
 a-tilt over one eye. I cannot say that the ex- 
 cellent creature " had not turned a hair," for 
 she had indeed turned many hairs; but the 
 spirit of the phrase was quite true of her, for 
 she stood unmoved by all my ministrations. 
 The second ear was an easy conquest after 
 the freeing of the first, I had only to lend a 
 finger. But then came the eyes, and, truth to 
 say, they almost baffled me. I had never 
 looked upon eyes before in the light of ob- 
 stacles, I did not know how to deal with these 
 protuberances bulging from the head, on which 
 the harness rested secure as on a natural sup- 
 port. I pulled very gingerly, holding my 
 breath, fearful of doing irreparable harm. It 
 was Lorna who freed herself at last, giving a 
 vigorous shake of her head, so that the head- 
 stall fell in my hand. If I was relieved, what 
 must she have been, the poor long-suffering 
 horse? She blinked at me, still very pensive, 
 as I searched her eyes earnestly if I might 
 
96 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 find some trace of injury; then she philosoph- 
 ically reached her head to pluck a mouthful 
 of hay depending from the loft. I abandoned 
 my idea concerning the ignoring of buckles 
 and straps when it came to the rest of the 
 harness; and, with the use of a little common- 
 sense and a great deal of pondering, I suc- 
 ceeded in setting Lorna quite free, out of the 
 shafts and all. Then what next? A bare 
 horse is an unwieldy creature to the hand of 
 woman. Yet somehow or other this horse 
 must be guided out from the carriage-house, 
 around to the stable, and into her own stall. 
 I twisted my fingers in her mane tentatively. 
 The sensation I had was of a futility as if I 
 had tried to lift Green Peak by the grass. 
 Moreover, the creature was now eating hay, 
 stolidly content, it would seem, with the 
 carriage-house, quite indifferent towards her 
 stall. It was a quandary. But happily my in- 
 vention began at last to recover from the first 
 
Lorna 97 
 
 shock of encounter with its maternal ancestor, 
 and to come to my aid. I ran around into the 
 stable, took a measure of oats, and poured it 
 out into Lorna's manger. At the first musical 
 falling sound, the desired emotion took effect; 
 Lorna pricked up her ears, deserted her hay, 
 and started towards the door. I met her half- 
 way — with what definite purpose I scarcely 
 know, wishing at least to appear, I suppose, 
 to superintend the affair — and once more 
 twined my fingers in her mane. Together 
 thus we charged out of the door, Lorna strid- 
 ing ahead, I trailing after, my feet scarcely 
 touching the ground. It was a most rapid 
 transit. I caught a brief glimpse of three big- 
 eyed faces peering cautiously from one of the 
 windows of the house before we wheeled right- 
 about into the stable. " Dear," said Aunt 
 Susan later to me, " I don't want to criticize 
 your truly wonderful management of Lorna, 
 
 7 
 
98 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 but if you would lead her a little more slowly, 
 I should feel more comfortable." 
 
 The adjustment of the halter, of course, 
 was my next difficulty, a problem more be- 
 wildering than any heretofore. I shook the 
 thing and held it one way; I dropped it, 
 picked it up, and held it another. No use; 
 it refused to fall into position, it had no shape, 
 no beginning, no end, no sort of significance. 
 The trouble was doubly complicated by my 
 growing weariness and by Lorna's absorption 
 in oats; I had to drag her head up by main 
 force, clutching hair and skin together, that I 
 might experiment on her. But at last, quite 
 by accident, the mysterious straps slid into 
 place, and my long task was completed. I 
 hunted around for a bit of string, tied it for a 
 sign to the ascertained top of the halter, and 
 took my way to the house. 
 
 All these early experiences of awe and 
 struggle are overpast now, and it seems to us 
 
Lorna 90 
 
 quite natural to have a horse in the family. 
 The growing activities of the place have long 
 since demanded the constant presence of mas- 
 culinity, and Peter has been installed as 
 gardener, groom, and general assistant. Un- 
 der his friendly tuition I stand very expert in 
 points of the harness, so that I can make ready 
 for a sudden trip to the village almost as 
 quickly as he can. 
 
 But an inherited inaptitude is almost as per- 
 sistent, it seems, as an inherited aptitude. Our 
 family mind lacks the equine tradition. 
 
 " How much does your horse weigh ? " an 
 acquaintance asked me politely one day, as I 
 was descanting on the merits of Lorna. 
 
 " Well, I suppose about a hundred and fifty 
 pounds," I musingly replied. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 Zbe automobile 
 
 TJEFORE I leave the subject of Lorna, 
 *-" I may as well go on a little to discuss the 
 automobile. This ingenious contrivance of 
 modern enterprise, accepted to the ignoring 
 point in the city, still remains a serious factor 
 in the ordering of a country life, a thing to be 
 reckoned with gravely. Own a machine, and 
 you are a slave, at the mercy of impudent cogs 
 and brakes; do not own one, and you are — 
 what this chapter may perhaps faintly de- 
 lineate. 
 
 Mercifully we were left in peace during the 
 first two summers of our possession of Lorna. 
 We needed all our wits to wrestle with the 
 simple initial problem, Horse, unperplexed by 
 
The Automobile 101 
 
 complications. The fact seems inconceivable, 
 viewed in the light of later developments, but 
 it is quite true that Aunt Susan, catching the 
 contagion of horsemanship herself after 
 awhile, mounted the front seat of the carriage, 
 and took the reins, and drove gaily every- 
 where. Drove to Manchester, the enemy's 
 country, alone and undismayed! Nothing 
 short of Hercules driving Lenty could convey 
 Aunt Susan to Manchester now. But there 
 was no enemy in those days, those happy, 
 halcyon days of peace. We ambled along the 
 country roads, our minds given over entirely 
 to enjoyment of the hills and fields, our 
 dexterity of encounter taxed at the gravest by 
 a load of hay. Oh, beautiful, vanished days ! 
 The first summer saw us taking our way to 
 Manchester two and three times a week. 
 There were errands constantly to be done for 
 our new establishment, and we travelled the 
 six miles of thicket-and-meadow-bordered 
 
102 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 road, hill-surrounded and brook-crossed, till 
 we knew it quite by heart. I could almost say 
 there was not a creature, bird or plant or 
 brook, inhabiting anywhere by the way, 
 whom we did not know personally. We 
 watched the procession of the flowers, from 
 the delicate small things of the spring up and 
 up to the lusty splendor of the flaming autumn. 
 We knew where the Solomon's seal unfolded 
 its long graceful curve; we knew where the 
 wild bergamot lay like a splash of purple light 
 on the hillside; we knew the haunts of the 
 ladies' tresses; we knew — but that is a secret! 
 Wise, of a truth, we were that summer, Aunt 
 Susan and Jane and I (and Lorna?). Does it 
 not seem a pity that such content should be 
 interrupted by a ramping, snorting beast, rush- 
 ing at us on four fat wheels, backing and 
 whirring about our path, a monster if ever 
 there was one? 
 
 The first' note of warning came from Man- 
 
The Automobile 103 
 
 Chester itself. Et tu, Manchester! But we 
 need not have been altogether surprised at this 
 development. The town has always had a 
 decided leaning towards the things of the 
 world and the present age; it boasts a large 
 summer hotel, and golf links, and mansion 
 "cottages;" it is a resort, in short. When 
 therefore the new enthusiasm came careering 
 down the wind, what should it do but fall into 
 line and offer its well-kept roads? 
 
 " They say there's an automobile in Man- 
 chester." 
 
 The rumor laid hold arrestingly on our 
 apprehensive attention. We were too ignorant 
 on the subject to formulate our anxiety, but 
 we were quite surely aware, though vaguely, 
 of disquietude. Aunt Susan was, as usual, 
 the first to emerge from her troubled brooding 
 into explicit statement. 
 
 " I shall not go near Manchester this 
 summer," she announced with decision. " A 
 
104 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 nature like Lorna's — so nervous — I'm sure 
 there would be trouble to pay if she met an 
 automobile. You may do as you please of 
 course. I shall stay at home." 
 
 Jane and I took a bold resolve and held on 
 our way with Lorna with magnificent in- 
 trepidity. But our valor was somewhat com- 
 promised by the fact that nothing happened to 
 test it. The myth of the dragon took shape 
 indeed for one fleeting moment one afternoon, 
 and dashed furiously by our house. But there 
 was hardly enough of that experience to be 
 apprehended. We caught our breath, and said 
 behold! and there was nothing there. We 
 rubbed our eyes, and looked again; was it a 
 vision or a waking dream? Then we turned 
 with one accord and hastened to the barn. 
 The wide door of the carriage-house stood 
 open to the summer day; it might be that 
 Lorna had seen or heard; it would be in- 
 structive for us to learn her present state of 
 
The Automobile 105 
 
 mind. But, though we scrutinized her closely, 
 gazing into her placid eyes for any subtleties 
 of fear which she might be concealing there, 
 we could get no sign from her, she was quite 
 non-committal. It was not until late in the 
 autumn that any chance presented itself of 
 putting our vague trouble to the test, of finding 
 out once for all what attitude Lorna meant to 
 assume towards the automobile. Then at last 
 there came one famous day, and after that we 
 knew. 
 
 It was well on in October. The hotel in 
 Manchester had been closed for a matter of 
 three weeks, and the " season " was over. No 
 more glittering equipages went rolling past 
 our house, their occupants gazing with languid 
 interest at our primitive ways, and once or 
 twice paying us the compliment of stopping to 
 ask if we took boarders; the myth of the 
 dragon ceased to brood on our apprehensive 
 minds. Doubtless the Terror had been re- 
 
106 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 moved, along with the Fashion and Wealth. 
 Aunt Susan emerged from her safe retreat of 
 library and orchard, and once more trusted 
 herself to Lorna; our happy drives were re- 
 newed. 
 
 " Now that the danger is over," she said, " I 
 want to go to Salem." 
 
 Salem is a town some fifteen miles from 
 Dorset. Near relatives of ours lived and died 
 and are buried there, so that we feel identified 
 with its history, and every year it draws us on 
 a pilgrimage. 
 
 "All right, Aunt Susan," I replied, "I'll 
 drive you over any day. We'll have to take 
 the buggy of course on account of the moun- 
 tain ; that's rather hard on Jane." 
 
 But Jane consented cheerfully to be left 
 behind. Perhaps she had a foreboding sense. 
 
 It was as beautiful a morning as I have ever 
 seen. The air was crisp and sparkling; the sun 
 rode the autumn sky triumphant, leaping from 
 
The Automobile 107 
 
 Green Peak; color ran riot about the hills and 
 flamed in the valley swamps. Aunt Susan and 
 I were quite speechless with pleasure, and even 
 Lorna went with a will; the world was our 
 heritage. 
 
 Our way led at first along the valley, then 
 off to the left and up a climbing mountain road 
 through the rustling woods. The air was 
 pungent and good in there, warm with the 
 windless presence of the sun. Single trees 
 blazed beside our road, crimson and yellow, 
 barbaric in splendor against the bright blue 
 sky ; but the woods themselves were subdued in 
 tone, tawny and showing stripped here and 
 there, with the mountains looking through. A 
 chattering, golden-brown brook crossed the 
 road at intervals back and forth, a happy 
 companion of the way. It was all so lovely, 
 I let the reins lie loose on Lorna's back, 
 and Aunt Susan and I gave ourselves 
 over to silent contemplation. "Look!" was 
 
108 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 all the conversation we held; and again, 
 "Look!" 
 
 Well, I suppose that no later discomfort can 
 take that one care-free hour from us. 
 
 When we began to descend the mountain on 
 the other side, I roused myself and gathered 
 the reins closely in my hand. Lorna does not 
 like to go down a hill; she attacks it sideways, 
 shrinkingly, and has to be encouraged. The 
 descent is steep but short in that special place ; 
 before long we felt the new valley spreading 
 beneath us, and entered on territory which we 
 knew — which Lorna certainly knew at least — 
 before the day was over, to be the devil's own. 
 The tale of adventure which follows may very 
 likely not be believed, but, solemnly, with my 
 hand on my heart, I declare every word to 
 be true. 
 
 We saw it coming at the same moment, 
 Aunt Susan and I — the automobile, bearing 
 down upon us with a swiftness, the paralyzing 
 
The Automobile 109 
 
 effect of which I had never estimated. Aunt 
 Susan said not a word nor moved a muscle — 
 the staunch one! — , I clutched the reins and 
 reached for the whip. Lorna did not com- 
 prehend at all. I think her mind in a state of 
 repose seldom travelled ahead of her feet, or, 
 in other words, she carried her mind along 
 with her, which was a comfortable plan. There 
 was hardly time for a quickened heartbeat be- 
 fore — presto, flash ! a turn to the left, a 
 vanishing whir which made Lorna prick up 
 vaguely inquiring ears, and the danger was 
 over, the Thing had taken another road. 
 
 "Ah!" I let my muscles relax, feeling 
 suddenly quite limp. " Aunt Susan, what a 
 lucky escape! " 
 
 But Aunt Susan was very grave. 
 
 "It was more than that," she reproved me; 
 " it was Providential, my child. I do not know 
 what might have happened. I feel that we 
 
1 1 o Over Against Green Peak 
 
 have been saved from disaster, and that we 
 should be very thankful." 
 
 I accepted her view of the situation, and, 
 soberly grateful to Providence, we went on 
 our trusting way. We were even now not 
 apprehensive — particularly now. That which 
 had shielded us would still shield ; else why the 
 averted disaster at first ? Human logic reasons 
 confidently. 
 
 Two miles further on we saw it again. It 
 always seems the same one to me. Evil, in 
 its many forms, has the same cloven hoof, they 
 say. This time there was no escape. I will 
 not be so impious as to say that Providence de- 
 serted us ; rather, it stood back. " Work now," 
 it said, " defend yourselves, my children." 
 There was a smooth, level road ahead, with 
 no ditches or turns; what more could we 
 possibly ask? Ah, but Lorna, she asked the 
 world, and proceeded to try to take it. First 
 she made a mad plunge for the field to the 
 
The Automobile 1 1 1 
 
 right — never mind fences; then to the left; 
 then straight up into the fields of air, they were 
 the surest retreat after all, and a horse named 
 Pegasus had once established a volatile prec- 
 edent. If I had wanted to learn the effect of 
 an automobile on our cherished steed, I was 
 having my desire; most elaborate in her 
 explanations, she kindly left nothing undone to 
 show me exactly how she felt. The automobile 
 had stopped short in its tracks at the first 
 flourish of our performance, and the owner 
 came running to our assistance. Most grate- 
 fully do I testify here — and my testimony 
 counts — that the owners of automobiles, as I 
 know them, are courteous and considerate al- 
 most to a man. But I had employed a per- 
 suasive whip, and, before the dragon-rider 
 could reach us, Lorna had gathered herself to- 
 gether for a mad plunge in the only direction 
 which she had not yet tried, namely straight 
 ahead. Snorting, careering, she passed the 
 
1 1 2 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 dragon, check-rein broken, head high in air, 
 her driver clinging desperately, Aunt Susan 
 still saying never a word; and out along the 
 open road we flew like a Pegasus equipage in 
 truth. 
 
 Well ! I fell back beside Aunt Susan, shak- 
 ing a little, I must confess. I started to laugh, 
 but my voice quavered curiously, and I gave 
 up the attempt. Aunt Susan was quite matter- 
 of-fact. 
 
 " It's all right now," she said quietly. " You 
 managed that very well." 
 
 There could hardly have been a more 
 beautiful tact than that which was shown by 
 this remark. All the precarious management 
 had lain in Lorna's flying feet, and Aunt Susan 
 knew that very well; yet adroitly she soothed 
 me and stimulated to a possible real manage- 
 ment next time. It is the Aunt Susan kind of 
 person whom one needs in the crises of life. 
 
 " Next time," the reader observes I have 
 
The Automobile 113 
 
 said; and in truth it was not very long before 
 it began to be apparent what kind of a fateful 
 day was upon us, urging us to inexorable 
 encounter. Lorna forsook her fleeting paces a 
 little after awhile. The haste was so foreign 
 to her nature that she could not well continue 
 it beyond the stage of bewilderment that cloud- 
 ed her mind at first. It was interesting to 
 observe how at last she came to the point of 
 taking counsel with herself. " Hold now ! 
 what am I doing? " said she. " Running over 
 the ground like mad. But I never do that. It 
 tires me, and makes me very warm and wet. I 
 declare, I'm astonished; I'll stop at once." 
 And forthwith she began to relapse into a pace 
 that was something like her usual mild trot. 
 Ears pricked up and eyes attentive, touched 
 with suspicion all the same; she trusted not 
 this land. 
 
 The road swerved suddenly down with us 
 
 out of the open country, and fell into line with 
 8 
 
114 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the railroad track. It arrived just in the nick 
 of time to escort a freight train on its way. As 
 a matter of fact, I suppose it had planned the 
 friendly encounter, having heard the train's 
 whistle afar. Now Lorna does not usually 
 much mind trains; she regards them with a 
 certain scorn. But a glimpse at an orderly, 
 decorous station is one thing, and a dogged, 
 insistent intercourse out in a strange wild 
 region where one has already met demons, is 
 quite another. " Come, I don't care for it, I 
 will leave it," said Lorna, and made off. 
 
 The freight train was going — say at a rate 
 of ten miles an hour (my figures are not 
 dogmatic) and we at a rate of nine and three 
 quarters. The duration of the conflict may be 
 computed by any one who has the heart to 
 apply himself to the harrowing task. For 
 myself, I cannot even give an accurate account 
 of our meteoric progress. I only know that 
 Lorna did her very determined best to leave 
 
The Automobile 1 1 5 
 
 that freight train, and that the freight train, 
 hootingly, not disturbed at all, refused to be 
 left. Of course it outstripped us in the end, 
 but the end was so grudging and so protracted 
 that we were all three quite worn out when it 
 arrived. 
 
 Once more I fell back, when Lorna's tug on 
 the reins relaxed. 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Susan!" I breathed. 
 
 But Aunt Susan was sitting up straight and 
 calm, holding the carriage-rug in with both 
 hands, restraining my golf-cape from flight 
 into space. 
 
 " That's over," she counted composedly. 
 
 This was the woman, be it remembered, who 
 had secluded herself all summer, shrinking 
 from perilous circumstance, the imagined 
 terrors of which were as nothing beside the 
 appalling reality which beset us now. 
 
 Well, for a couple of miles there was peace ; 
 respite allowed us by the ironical gods of this 
 
1 1 6 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 day's fashioning. The freight train lumbered 
 heavily, slowly out of sight, still hooting at 
 us derisively. As soon as it became apparent 
 to Lorna that she was pursuing, not fleeing 
 from, the enemy, a perceptible change came 
 over the spirit of her dreams. It was evident 
 that again she paused and took counsel with 
 herself, and that her action, viewed calmly thus 
 in the light of reason, did not commend itself 
 to her; for abruptly she ceased from her mad 
 career and fell into a slower pace. She could 
 not of course quite rid herself of nervous 
 apprehension. She cast an appealing glance 
 around at me once, whether asking protection 
 and sympathy, or merely desiring to assure 
 herself that I had not been scorched away by 
 dragon breath, I could not decide. At any 
 rate her eyes were big and quite aghast with 
 horror. Aunt Susan and I then, touched with 
 pity, betook ourselves to such conversation as 
 we deemed most soothing under the circum- 
 
The Automobile 117 
 
 stances, and, by dint of assuring our poor horse 
 that it was " nothing, nothing, all quite right," 
 we succeeded in pacifying ourselves, though 
 the object of our ministrations remained quite 
 unconvinced. Then — 
 
 "Toot! Toot!" 
 
 I heard it behind us, and understood at once. 
 But, "What's that?" asked Aunt Susan. I 
 reined out to the side of the road, the extreme 
 right margin, as far as I could go. I looked 
 over my shoulder. " Hurry, please! " I called. 
 When the Thing went by, Lorna stood quite 
 still. The action (it was that rather than 
 inaction) looked ominous in her, and my heart 
 stood still to correspond. But after all what 
 could she do? One does not pursue an 
 automobile any more reasonably than one 
 pursues a freight train. Shaking in every limb 
 — poor beast! — she began to jump up and 
 down in the shafts, snorting, with a curious 
 sobbing sound in her throat which I think was 
 
1 1 8 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 pure hysteria; she was just at her wits' end. 
 Ah, it does all very well to smile, looking back 
 on that impossible day. There was amusement 
 there, in a certain grim degree, for Aunt Susan 
 and myself, but for Lorna the inexorable 
 happenings were nothing less than tragic. She 
 had been driven across the border of the 
 known and habitable world, out into strange 
 enchanted regions where demons ramped at 
 large. 
 
 We were now not very far from Salem. 
 
 " Hold on just a little longer," Aunt Susan 
 counselled me. " We are almost there ; think, 
 almost there! It will soon be over." 
 
 She straightened my hat for me deftly, and 
 pulled my collar into place. We know a good 
 many people in Salem, and we did not want to 
 present too wild an appearance as we drove up 
 the main street to the hotel. Our credit as 
 good horsewomen was sure to be irretrievably 
 lost at the first glimpse of Lorna's reeking 
 
The Automobile 1 1 9 
 
 flanks; that consummation we could not help. 
 But I did my best, in a long last pull of my 
 aching arms, to subdue our rate of progress a 
 little, and enter the village soberly. I suppose 
 there is only one adjective to describe the 
 effect which we produced, Aunt Susan and 
 Lorna and I, and that is — intoxicated. 
 
 " Around the corner there to the right," 
 Aunt Susan encouraged me, " and up to the 
 hotel." 
 
 With the end thus almost in sight, I allowed 
 myself a first small gasp of relief. I was so 
 tired, I was so glad! Nothing more could 
 happen now. 
 
 " It is just twelve o'clock," Aunt Susan 
 remarked, keeping up a casual conversation as 
 we approached the corner. She glanced at 
 the big clock in the tower of the Congregational 
 church. 
 
 Now Salem is a town of many factories. 
 It being, therefore, twelve o'clock, as Aunt 
 
1 20 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Susan had so pertinently stated, every bell, 
 every gong, every whistle in the place went off, 
 as we turned the corner, with a unity, an 
 abandon which I have never heard excelled in 
 all the world of sound. " Boom ! " went the 
 big clock above our heads, shattering tumult 
 down on us. Then again, after deliberation, 
 " Boom ! " So it must utter its voice yet ten 
 times more, we knew, immitigable as 
 the freight train in its unhurried pace. 
 " Wh-o-o-o-i-i-i-e-e-e ! " screamed the siren. 
 
 Stop at the hotel ? By no manner of means ! 
 We sped down the street, past the railroad 
 station, where our quondam companion, the 
 freight train, was reposing itself, across the 
 tracks, and away far, far into the outlying 
 suburbs of the little town. " Boom ! " called 
 the big clock after us; then more faintly — 
 faint, yet still pursuing — " Boom ! " 
 
 I was quite at the end of my powers now. 
 As soon as there came any slackening in our 
 
The Automobile 1 1 1 
 
 rate of speed, I tumbled out of the carriage, 
 somehow, anyhow, extricated with shaking 
 ringers the hitching-strap from among our 
 wraps, and tied Lorna to the first post which I 
 saw along the street. Then, my knees refusing 
 to bear up any longer beneath me, I sat down 
 on the edge of the sidewalk. Aunt Susan con- 
 tinued to sit in the carriage. We neither of us 
 spoke or moved for some five minutes. 
 
 One wonders what the owner of the post 
 and of the house adjoining it thought when he 
 came home to his dinner and found us sitting 
 there. I dare say his wife had been peering 
 at us in troubled apprehension from behind her 
 parlor curtains. I looked up as soon as I heard 
 the man's step. A man seemed suddenly to 
 represent to me all possible help and consola- 
 tion. I poured out our pitiful tale. 
 
 " I declare, it's a shame, a real plumb 
 shame ! " said the good soul earnestly. " Them 
 machines ought to be burnt, every one. You 
 
122 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 go along now to the hotel, and I'll blanket 
 your horse and bring her over after I've had 
 my dinner." 
 
 I have had cause to be grateful for kindness 
 many times in the course of my life, but to 
 no one do I owe such a unique appreciation as 
 to that unknown man. He lifted a burden 
 from my shoulders which I could feel depart. I 
 hope he understands my gratitude. I thanked 
 him heartily at the time, but such thanks 
 should be reiterated, and I have lost him now. 
 May all the ways of his life be blessed, and 
 may the foot of no horse be ever lifted up 
 against him ! 
 
 The terror of the day was thus suspended, 
 put aside for awhile; it could not of course 
 be over until we had taken our way back along 
 that highway possessed which lay between us 
 and our distant, dear, desired home. The 
 thought of our inexorable return lay like a 
 cloud on our spirits all the day, though we 
 
The Automobile 123 
 
 bravely talked of everything else. Finally said 
 Aunt Susan, 
 
 " I'll employ a man to drive us home if you 
 say so." 
 
 I rather astonished myself by the instant 
 warmth of my refusal. 
 
 "Well, of course I thought not," Aunt 
 Susan agreed, and we gave each the other a 
 trusting glance of endearment. 
 
 It may be as well to state once for all that 
 we met no dragons on the way home. Yet do 
 I verily believe that the drive was more of a 
 strain than all the adventures of the morning. 
 Aunt Susan sat up very straight on her side 
 of the carriage, gazing watchfully ahead. 
 
 " It's only a wagon," she burst out reassur- 
 ingly from time to time; or, " It's only a load 
 of hay." 
 
 A grocery-man, going his afternoon rounds, 
 protected us for a mile or two, though he knew 
 it not. There is another debt of gratitude 
 
124 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 which must remain forever unpaid. Perhaps 
 he noticed two serious women driving along 
 behind him, but he could hardly have sus- 
 pected, I think, that they lingered to let him 
 emerge from his brief excursions into farm- 
 yards and precede them as before. He stood 
 between us and the end of the world, that 
 innocent grocery-man. When at last he came 
 rattling merrily out of his final farm-yard, 
 and, instead of going ahead of us, turned and 
 passed us on his way back to Salem, indifferent 
 as you please, my heart went very low. 
 
 Lorna enjoyed that homeward drive as little 
 as anybody. She fairly ramped over the 
 ground, emulating the automobile in her snort- 
 ing speed. She held her head as high in the 
 air as if her check-rein was not broken (it 
 must have pained her afterwards to reflect on 
 this abuse of opportunity) and glanced fever- 
 ishly to right and left. It was only the 
 fortunate balance of objects fit to be shied at 
 
The Automobile i 25 
 
 on either side that kept our course from being 
 a very zig-zag affair. 
 
 But when we reached the foot of the moun- 
 tain, then abruptly our trouble ended. Tell 
 me that horses do not reason ! Primitive in- 
 stinct has peopled mountains with shapes of 
 gloom and terror. Lorna, unreasoning, might 
 have said, " The woe which has beset me all 
 day is now going to increase upon me. 
 Whither shall I flee?" But not so. She 
 knew that a mountain is no place for an auto- 
 mobile; she knew also that she had crossed 
 again the boundary of the world, and was back 
 on its safe and hither side, where sanity holds 
 sway. We descended the mountain in the 
 keen autumn dusk, very tired but very 
 peaceful. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 "Ibousefteeping Experiments 
 
 TT)EOPLE prate the world over, in these 
 -*- difficult, complex days, of the problem 
 of housekeeping. It is in fact the Problem, 
 deserving to be capitalized, of the feminine 
 age. One reads about it in every paper, hears 
 it discussed at every afternoon tea, over and 
 over and in and out, an engrossing subject. I 
 always listen with interest to the diatribes and 
 woes of my sisters, for I have the matter also 
 sufficiently at heart ; but I come away from the 
 stormy sessions, smiling ironically to myself. 
 Trouble in a New York apartment, with a gas- 
 stove and a dumb-waiter at hand, with markets 
 and restaurants around the corner, with In- 
 telligence Offices ready at call, seems somehow 
 126 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 127 
 
 unconvincing to one who has known trouble in 
 a New England country house with — nothing. 
 
 We took our meals at a neighboring farm- 
 house during the months of our first moving 
 into and altering our own house. The ar- 
 rangement was a happy one. A sense of home 
 was impossible for us anyway, in the midst of 
 hammering and confusion, tearing down and 
 building up; and the enforced change three 
 times a day into established surroundings was 
 good for us. But when we became ourselves 
 established, we desired our own table. 
 
 The adjustment looked sufficiently simple 
 and matter-of-course to me. I am one of those 
 irritatingly optimistic people who seldom see 
 trouble ahead. 
 
 " I will do the cooking, Aunt Susan," I said; 
 " I should like to very much. We are country 
 people now, you know, and we must do as 
 all the other women-folk do. They shame me 
 with their competence." 
 
128 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Aunt Susan looked at me thoughtfully, a 
 curious pucker about her lips. She said noth- 
 ing, but speech was not needed on top of that 
 look to make me burst out, as I rolled up my 
 sleeves, 
 
 "You think I can't. Ah, well then, I'll 
 show you. I just will. Make way ! " 
 
 And I headed for the kitchen. 
 
 There were, of course, any number of pre- 
 liminaries to be attended to before I could 
 start on my new career. Aunt Susan helped 
 me generously, making out lists of provisions 
 and dishes, ordering large stores from Man- 
 chester, counselling, warning, cheering me. It 
 is one of the great things about Aunt Susan 
 that, though her experienced wisdom bids her 
 sometimes beware of new enterprise, once the 
 enterprise is on, she throws her forebodings to 
 the winds — or locks them up in her secret 
 heart, which is a far finer thing to do — and 
 goes in for hope and enthusiasm with the 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 129 
 
 most abandoned. I could have thought her 
 as sure of my unhindered success, after a 
 few days, as I was myself; perhaps a little 
 surer. 
 
 When all was in readiness and the shelves 
 of the kitchen pantry shone with tin-ware, 
 bulged with brown jars of grains and various 
 condiments, stood solid with ranks of cereals 
 — a most alluring and suggestive sight, stir- 
 ring in me vague excitements harking back to 
 my mud-pie days — Aunt Susan paused and 
 stood with a hand on either side of the kitchen 
 door. 
 
 "Well?" she said. 
 
 I stood in silence a moment before her, feel- 
 ing somewhat grave. Then slowly I rose to 
 and laid hold upon the occasion. 
 
 " Yes," I answered deliberately, " we will 
 have dinner at home to-day." 
 
 " Do you want to be weighed, Aunt 
 Susan ? " I added, suddenly very humble as my 
 9 
 
130 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 responsibility presented itself menacingly be- 
 fore me. 
 
 Aunt Susan laughed. 
 
 " No, child," she said. " Jane and I will 
 risk it. Jane is getting too stout anyway. But 
 you — do you want any help? " 
 
 The generous soul had by this time merged 
 all her apprehensions in a sincere, enthusiastic 
 desire to be of use. Jane, too, was hovering in 
 the background. The domestic sphere, as a 
 matter of fact, is far more Jane's than mine; 
 she was doubtless longing to have a saving 
 finger in my unimaginable pie. But it is an 
 unpleasant trait of mine to desire to make my 
 experiments alone. My pie, such as it is, must 
 be evolved from my own inner consciousness 
 (shortly to return thither!) with the enlighten- 
 ing aid of a cook-book, just as my stories, 
 such as they are, must be likewise evolved with 
 the aid of English literature. 
 
 " No, thank you." I shook my head. " I 
 
Housekeeping Experiments i 3 1 
 
 had rather be left alone. You must please go 
 into the front of the house, and shut all the 
 doors, and stay there." 
 
 The request had an ungracious sound, but 
 Aunt Susan and Jane understood. 
 
 "At least you will let us set the table?" 
 Aunt Susan inquired over her shoulder. 
 
 My ambition was high to accomplish every 
 detail of my task myself, and thus take my 
 stand at once on a par with my sister country- 
 women, but I was wise enough to perceive the 
 folly of extravagant haste. One must mount 
 the ladder. 
 
 "Thank you," I answered; "that would 
 be a great help, and I should be glad 
 of it." 
 
 "Well, but—" Aunt Susan held the door 
 — " you must tell us what you are going to 
 have, and at what hour, you know." 
 
 What I was going to have ! Weighty deci- 
 sion that must be finally taken now, with no 
 
132 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 further chance for kindly delay and experi- 
 ment ! I paused a moment, then — 
 
 " Soup." I spoke solemnly. " Roast mut- 
 ton with vegetables. Salad. Apple-pie." 
 
 I had never cooked anything, it must be 
 known, before this notable dinner, except 
 molasses candy and fudge, and once, years 
 ago, I believe, some cookies which did not 
 turn out very well. Was I audacious, think 
 you? And were Jane and Aunt Susan trust- 
 ing? 
 
 Well, there is something exhilarating about 
 an abandon of enterprise, a fine launching forth 
 into the unknown, determined on consumma- 
 tion. I was all a-glow as I closed the door 
 and shut myself in to my new undertaking. 
 The fire was burning well in the range; I 
 had seen to that to begin with. The kettle 
 was drowsing, set back from the hob, a fine 
 mist of steam puffing gently from its spout. 
 The door was open, and through the wire 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 133 
 
 screen I caught glimpse of the summer 
 orchard, green and enclosing; a purple finch 
 was singing somewhere in it. A kitchen has 
 always had charm for me. I like its simplicity 
 and neatness, its quiet comfortable air of serv- 
 ice, its domesticity. I was going to be very 
 happy, I thought, as I sat down on a straight 
 wooden chair and surveyed my new domain. I 
 should enjoy living and working out here, so 
 secluded, so established. I leaned my elbows 
 on the table, and fell into a day-dream. 
 
 That was the last day-dream I had for a 
 matter of five weeks! 
 
 The clock aroused me. Ten already? And 
 I had promised dinner at one! I must be up 
 and doing. I clad myself in a blue-checked 
 apron, I gathered all the cook-books around 
 me, and, with my elbows still on the table, 
 though now I was doing anything but dream- 
 ing, I entered on the most strenuous morning 
 of my whole existence. 
 
134 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 I will not go into explicit details ; they were 
 too many, too harrowing. In about five 
 minutes I realized the magnitude of my under- 
 taking, and was broad awake to deal with it. 
 It is good to be wholly waked up for once, 
 even if it be only the preparation of a dinner 
 that works the vivifying process. 
 
 The cook-books contradicted each other; I 
 perceived that, promptly. Moreover, one of 
 them dealt with dark signs — " Tsp, tbsp, A, B, 
 C, dsp," — I had no time to give to the solu- 
 tion of such cabalistic mysteries. I eliminated 
 and simplified as speedily as possible, casting 
 all the books but one aside and cleaving to that 
 only. It was the oldest and most dog-eared 
 volume of the whole collection, behind the 
 times to disgrace, I dare say, hopelessly old- 
 fashioned. But it counselled me in a friendly 
 English which a child could understand, and I 
 gave it my allegiance. How faithfully it 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 135 
 
 stood by me that morning I cannot remember 
 with too great gratitude. 
 
 I have said I will not go into details. I 
 would only have the reader consider what it 
 meant to prepare a dinner, when one did not 
 know, for instance, how long it takes to boil a 
 potato nor by what sign to determine when the 
 vegetable is done; how many apples a pie can 
 accommodate, what is the accepted size of a 
 " pinch " of salt. I was soon so anxious and 
 absorbed that I lost all consciousness of time 
 and of any surroundings save those immediate 
 pertinent ones of cook-book and sauce-pan. I 
 hung over the potatoes in breathless suspense, 
 my spirit wholly concentrated on their white 
 and bobbing forms. How, unless I speared 
 them, should I know when they were inwardly 
 mealy enough to be eaten? And, if I speared 
 them too many times, behold, what havoc and 
 loss! I should never have dreamed that so 
 many steps could be taken in such a circum- 
 
136 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 scribed space as I took in that one small 
 kitchen. From pantry to refrigerator, from 
 refrigerator to stove, from stove to kitchen 
 table. This process of cooking, it appears, is 
 like a juggler's play with balls; once begin, 
 and you cannot stop. For something boils 
 over, or something congeals, or something 
 burns, or your pie-crust cracks. It is only a 
 pity you have not ten hands and five pair of 
 feet. As for the one poor superintending 
 head, it fairly reels with the multitude of its 
 essential duties. It must not forget one single 
 thing while it remembers another. 
 
 The result of all my application was that 
 the dinner which I had announced for one 
 o'clock was ready at a quarter of twelve. The 
 sudden discovery of this unexpected consum- 
 mation startled me not a little. I had not 
 seen it coming at all, I had been too absorbed. 
 
 " Aunt Susan ! " I burst into the library, 
 flushed, apologetic. " I am very sorry, but 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 137 
 
 dinner is ready. Do you think you could eat 
 it now? " 
 
 Jane was wandering in the orchard, but she 
 was promptly recalled, and we all fell to, and 
 set the table in energetic haste. We were none 
 of us very hungry of course (for that matter, 
 it soon appeared to me that I was never to 
 know the genial sensation of hunger again) 
 but we did justice to the meal out of sheer 
 curiosity. It was almost an intellectual in- 
 terest that we took in our viands; wonder 
 possessed our minds. 
 
 " And you made this soup ! " Aunt Susan 
 exclaimed. " It is really very good. This 
 meat is done to a turn." 
 
 Kindly forbearing to glance at the clock — 
 the considerate Aunt Susan ! — to indicate what 
 an early turn it was. 
 
 The apple-pie was the crowning touch. I 
 would, in all modesty, assert that I have never 
 eaten a better pie than that. I marvelled upon 
 
138 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 it silently, as I partook of it, not knowing in 
 the very least how I had come to make it. 
 Some hidden power had been at work, residing 
 within the flour-barrel, some genius of the 
 lard pail. 
 
 The dinner was not the reposeful' occasion 
 which modern hygiene recommends. If I 
 jumped up once from my place at the table, 
 I jumped up fifteen times. There were the 
 plates to be changed of course; I had counted 
 on that interruption. But also there were 
 endless delays which I had not anticipated. 
 The potatoes lingered behind the roast in ar- 
 riving at completion, and, though I urged the 
 recalcitrant vegetables with every device I 
 could think of, I was finally obliged to carry 
 the meat in unadorned. I believe, as a matter 
 of fact, that we ate the main course itself in 
 courses, first the mutton and then the potatoes. 
 
 Still, I think I can say, on the whole, that 
 my first dinner was a success. 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 139 
 
 Then afterwards — ! 
 
 Aunt Susan and Jane were very insistent 
 that I should now let them come into the 
 kitchen and lend a helping hand. The sink 
 and the table and some of the chairs were piled 
 high with dishes; I had emptied the pantry 
 shelves. But my refusal held firm. It would 
 be indeed an incomplete falling into line with 
 my sister country-women if I scanted the 
 drudgery which made their labor what it was ; 
 either I must carry the whole task through, or 
 count my experiment a mere dallying. 
 
 The kitchen fire was out, of course. I had 
 forgotten all about it in my many imminent 
 preoccupations connected with the serving of 
 dinner, and when I came to want it again, 
 there it was dull ashes. I felt the reproach 
 of ingratitude. 
 
 " Here I have labored and spent myself in 
 cooking your dinner for you, and you reward 
 me by going off and leaving me to die." 
 
140 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 I built the wronged thing up again as fast 
 as I possibly could; but the atonement was 
 insufficient, for after all it was not the fire of 
 the morning which leaped responsive to my 
 match, but another one new-born. The world 
 was as full of new life as ever, but the fire 
 which had served me and which I had 
 neglected was dead. 
 
 Oh, those dishes, those dishes ! It seemed to 
 me I should never come to the end of them. 
 I piled the dish-pan full, and soaped and 
 scrubbed and rinsed and wiped. Then I turned 
 about, and the table stood as crowded and 
 sticky as ever. I was so dully tired before 
 the task was completed that I could hardly 
 tell the teakettle from the frying-pan; I was 
 stupid with fatigue. Expect me not, oh, 
 querulous housewife, to sympathize with you 
 when you complain of Mary Ann's slackness 
 in leaving her pans unscoured. My sym- 
 pathies are all on the other side. My stove 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 141 
 
 remained unblacked that day and my kitchen 
 floor unswept. I did not even go into the 
 front of the house to inquire after Aunt Susan 
 and Jane when I had doffed my apron, but 
 crept wearily up the back-stairs and sought the 
 serenity of my room where, inert, I lay on 
 the bed the rest of the afternoon. I was com- 
 forted vaguely in my repose by the assurance 
 of dinner overpast, but I was still more 
 troubled by the menace immitigable of supper 
 yet to come. 
 
 My experiment lasted just five weeks. That 
 length of time was sufficient, I thought, to 
 serve as a thorough test. I saw my final deci- 
 sion afar, at the end of the first ten days, but 
 I held on grimly — what was ten days? — I 
 would admit nothing yet. The month, as I 
 look back on it, stands apart disjointedly from 
 the rest of my life, like a fragment of some- 
 body's else existence broken off and dropped 
 in. For this reason it is clear-cut, all its edges 
 
142 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 showing. We live our own lives so naturally 
 that half the time we do not realize them ; but 
 set us to live another's life, and we know what 
 we are doing at once. It is not a painless ex- 
 perience, but it is so salutary as a means of 
 stinging awake, quickening into a true appre- 
 hension, that, for my part, I am willing to 
 have it happen as often as, in this complex 
 world of interdependence and interaction, it 
 must of necessity transpire. The conflict lies 
 of course in the fact that our own lives nag 
 us, dog our heels, will not be definitely put by, 
 insist on recognition. There were the moun- 
 tains all that month, and there was the library. 
 I felt them vaguely, as troublous presences 
 about my absorbed, alien days, influences with 
 which I could not dispense but which yet I 
 could not recognize. It was a pain to look 
 out at the valley and feel nothing of its beauty 
 for very weariness. As for my vexatious 
 dashes at sunsets in the intervals of frying 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 143 
 
 eggs, I had rather have no sunsets at all; I 
 was ready to cry before them. I made one 
 attempt to combine poetry and cake by bring- 
 ing Shelley into the kitchen while a sponge- 
 cake was baking. But I might as well have 
 sat down to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. It 
 is mortifying to confess that Shelley had no 
 sort of show, for that cake held my whole 
 horizon. It should have been quite the other 
 way, I am painfully aware. In all high-souled 
 experience, from the days of Alfred down, that 
 cake would have burned to a cinder. But my 
 Puritan conscience held its own, and I do not 
 know now whether it was the West Wind or 
 the Skylark that I tried to read that day. 
 The cake was a great success. 
 
 That was the curious thing about the whole 
 experiment, objectively it was a success. My 
 bread was light, my sauces were smooth, my 
 pie-crust was unfailing. I did the work with 
 the mightiest effort, hating, hating it, and it 
 
144 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 smilingly succeeded for me. The case was not 
 in accordance with any philosophy the world 
 has ever formulated. But it was of course 
 quite in accordance with that independent 
 irony of affairs which has it for its high 
 pleasure to regard not philosophy. I was 
 docile enough to allow my Puritan conscience 
 to be troubled over the matter at first. Was 
 the kitchen my true sphere? Ought I to 
 abandon the pen for the spoon? But a chance 
 remark of Aunt Susan's one day flashed relief 
 across me. 
 
 " I have gained an excellent cook," she said, 
 looking a little wistfully, though playfully at 
 me, " but I have lost my child." 
 
 I would have stopped to kiss her on the spot 
 if it had not been that the teakettle was boil- 
 ing over. To be no longer oneself means, 
 in the very nature of things, not to be living 
 well. 
 
 After the first two or three days, the tension 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 145 
 
 of suspense relaxed, and I gave over keeping 
 Aunt Susan and Jane tethered to the house for 
 fear the next meal should unexpectedly become 
 ready in their absence. But the time element 
 was never really mastered by me. In my soar- 
 ing ambition, after awhile, I invited the 
 minister to tea. Half past six I set as the 
 hour, but I warned my guest of the uncertain- 
 ties attending my preparations, and advised 
 him to come promptly. Obligingly therefore, 
 he arrived at a quarter past six, and only by 
 superhuman efforts did I succeed in getting the 
 muffins out of the oven at ten minutes past 
 seven. 
 
 As for the steady pervading gloom of ut- 
 most seriousness which held my mind during 
 that month, it was a dreary pall. Aunt Susan 
 would have poked fun at me if she had dared ; 
 but when she peered through the kitchen win- 
 dow and saw me gravely intent on a pudding, 
 she only shook her head whimsically and went 
 
 10 
 
146 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 away. I would riot again for anything be so 
 earnest, on such slight ground, as I was that 
 month. 
 
 The difficulties to which I referred at the 
 beginning of the chapter, whereby housekeep- 
 ing in the country is at a disadvantage, are, 
 many of them, obvious enough. The stove 
 breaks, and there is no hardware shop within 
 seven miles. There comes a cold snap, and the 
 pipes freeze, and there is no plumber at hand. 
 I remember at one time there was not a drop 
 of running water in our house for two weeks. 
 Moreover, nothing helps itself by ingenious 
 contrivance, as in the city. All the fires have 
 to be built, all the dishes have to be carried, 
 everything is inert. 
 
 But the great problem which beset us at our 
 starting out was the simple, imperative, prim- 
 itive one of supplying the raw material of 
 food. Who would have thought it would be 
 so hard for three women, with demands not 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 147 
 
 too exacting, with money sufficient in their 
 purse, to find their way to be fed? 
 
 The New England nature is sometimes en- 
 terprising enough. Sometimes, on the other 
 hand, it is given over to habit, and travels 
 persistently in a rut, be it invoked never so 
 persuasively to come out. The meat-peddlers, 
 whose route of traffic lay along our road, be- 
 longed to the latter class. For years our house 
 had stood closed to them, first because it was 
 unoccupied, then because we were taking our 
 meals next door; and they could not now 
 realize any other mode of procedure than the 
 old familiar one of driving by our gate at a 
 rapid trot. We could never manage to see 
 them coming, that was one hampering circum- 
 stance. Unpunctuality at least is an abiding 
 New England trait. We would watch and 
 watch. " Well, he is not coming," Jane would 
 sigh at length — poor Jane ! with her neck stiff 
 from leaning over the gate — " I thought it was 
 
148 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 his day, but I must have been mistaken. Shall 
 we have dried beef again? I'll go in and set 
 the table." Whereupon, no sooner were we all 
 within doors, than there would come a quick 
 rumble and dash, a gleam of white canvas 
 along the road, and we, running pell-mell, 
 would stretch out impotent hands, appealing, 
 after the rear of a butcher's cart disappearing 
 over the hill. 
 
 One distressing occasion of this sort I re- 
 member with special poignancy. We had had 
 two dinners in ten days — two dinners deserv- 
 ing the name, that is — and we were somewhat 
 hungry. But it was Friday, and no butcher's 
 cart had ever been known to pass us on that 
 day. So we had resigned our minds to dried 
 beef — dried beef repeated, dried beef ever 
 faithful, but dried beef monotonous — and I 
 was deep in the cook-book, trying to discover 
 some alleviating dessert, when a distant 
 familiar rumble swelled upon my ear. With- 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 149 
 
 out stopping to think — vicissitude had taught 
 me alacrity — I sprang from my chair, rushed 
 like a whirlwind through the house and out 
 of the front door, dashed open the gate, and 
 leaped to the middle of the road, where I took 
 my stand. I might be run over, I might be 
 killed, but I would stop that butcher's cart. 
 The horses came to a standstill of course, and 
 the driver regarded me, mildly surprised, but 
 very amiable. 
 
 " What kind of meat have you ? " I de- 
 manded, fiercely defensive in my tone. Such 
 a primitive, desperate need as hunger develops 
 the temper, I have been told. Witness the 
 young Orlando. 
 
 " Sho, now, ain't that a pity? " the peddler 
 replied, shaking his head in a real regret. " I 
 ain't got a scrap o' meat to-day. Monday's 
 my reg'lar day, you know. I'll take your 
 order for next Monday." 
 
 I could have wept, in the gnawing vexation 
 
150 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 of the moment, to which a three days distant 
 hope afforded small consolation, but I gave my 
 order and returned sadly to present dried beef. 
 
 Late in the afternoon a neighbor dropped in 
 to see us. 
 
 " Wasn't that nice fish Simpkins brought to- 
 day ? " she inquired, with the sleek comfort- 
 able air of one who has dined well. 
 
 "Fish!" 
 
 It was a heart-felt cry, three-fold, of lamen- 
 tation. That peddler had had a cart full of 
 fish before my very eyes. We glanced at each 
 other, and inward laughter caught us suddenly 
 unaware. But Aunt Susan, as usual, rose to 
 the occasion and delivered herself of an an- 
 cient joke, whereby our mirth was turned into 
 an obvious legitimate channel and our family 
 reputation was saved. We were not yet 
 actually on the town in our destitution. 
 
 This curious lack of 'business instinct on the 
 part of the meat-peddler was exemplified in 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 151 
 
 another manner by himself and others of his 
 class two or three years later in our career as 
 country housekeepers. The incident belongs 
 not in time, but in subject relevance, to the 
 present chapter. I had given over my early 
 ambition to fall into line with the farmers' 
 wives, and Bridget had been invoked to our 
 aid, dear Bridget, angel of healing and com- 
 fort, at whose gracious advent I had first sat 
 down on a kitchen chair and dropped tears of 
 joy on my red marred hands, and then had fled 
 far up the hillside with a volume of Shelley 
 under one arm and of Keats under the other. 
 It had by this time gradually dawned on the 
 peddling mind that our house was open to 
 negotiation, and four meat wagons stopped 
 regularly at our gate. Now of course that is 
 the way of life, first to deny you utterly and 
 then to overwhelm you. But, even with the 
 best intentions of gratitude in the world, four 
 women cannot patronize, each a whole meat 
 
152 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 wagon. So we considered the situation with 
 care, and elected one butcher to serve us. The 
 rest we dismissed courteously, explaining the 
 reasonable case to them ; we thought they must 
 surely understand. The arrangement worked 
 happily for one summer. Mr. Andrews served 
 us faithfully, and we were not once in want. 
 The other carts fell easily back into their old 
 ways of bowling rapidly past our gate, and 
 we, innocent, did not suspe_ct at all the feelings 
 of animosity which they harbored towards us. 
 That is so exasperating an attitude, to be 
 scorned and never know it! I think I would 
 sooner apologize to all people in the world who 
 have slighted me without my knowledge than 
 to any whom I have slighted. But the next 
 summer we were to know what our real 
 opprobrium was. When we came back early 
 in the spring, Mr. Andrews had gone out of 
 business, and — none of the other butchers 
 would have anything to do with us ! Oh, we 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 153 
 
 watched and lay in wait for them, we ran out 
 when we saw them coming ; our last state was 
 worse than our first with them, we were quite 
 desperate. But all our allurements availed not 
 at all; they proudly ignored our existence. 
 Either they whipped up their horses as they ap- 
 proached our house, and went by at a tearing 
 gallop, or they turned aside into a lane and did 
 not pass us at all. Aunt Susan was finally re- 
 duced to the point — since one must even prefer 
 humble pie to nothing — of haunting the village 
 street until such time as the lofty butcher put 
 in his appearance, and there in public coercing 
 him to sell her of his goods. He coldly parted 
 with a couple of chickens and a steak to her, 
 since she would have it so, but her further 
 orders he promptly forgot. It was a matter of 
 weeks in time and of a determined patience in 
 tactful management before Aunt Susan could 
 win her way through the difficulty, and we 
 
1 54 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 could place any sort of dependence on our 
 fluctuating larder. 
 
 One interesting device of country economy 
 I must mention before I close this domestic 
 chapter. A farmer drove up to our gate one 
 day, and inquired in the nonchalant manner 
 peculiar to his race if we would like to buy 
 half a lamb. We were just then suffering the 
 throes of one of our exigencies of starvation, 
 but nevertheless we opened our eyes. A whole 
 half a lamb ! 
 
 " What can we do with the rest of it while 
 we make a beginning? " we asked. 
 
 The farmer glanced at us critically; dis- 
 paraging our powers perhaps? 
 
 " Wal, you might bury it in the ice-house," 
 he suggested indifferently. 
 
 Happy idea ! We looked at each other, 
 charmed with the unthought-of disclosure of 
 new possibilities. We bought the half lamb, 
 requesting the farmer to cut it up ; we reserved 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 155 
 
 a moderate portion for immediate consump- 
 tion, and then we went out and buried the rest 
 deep in the icy sawdust — the operation being 
 one of unparalleled interest. 
 
 " How rich and comfortable I feel ! " sighed 
 Aunt Susan, dusting her hands and emerging 
 into the light. " I believe now I'll have com- 
 pany to dinner. I've wanted to for ever so 
 long, but I haven't dared. We'll ask the Kil- 
 burns, and we'll have roast lamb and ice- 
 cream." 
 
 The Kilburns came to spend the day. Of 
 course; that is what country dinner means. 
 It was quite an exciting occasion to us, we had 
 not had company in so long. We issued our 
 last injunctions to Bridget, we received our 
 guests and ushered them out to the orchard 
 piazza, all in a pleasing flutter. Conversation 
 was in full swing, we were having a beautiful 
 time, when I caught a sharp and agonized 
 whisper from behind the long French door. 
 
156 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 "Miss Jane! Miss Jane!" 
 
 " Yes, Bridget." 
 
 Jane lent her ear, and so did I, apprehending 
 trouble. 
 
 " I've dug and dug and dug, Miss Jane, and 
 I can't find that lamb anywhere ! " 
 
 Ah ; it would have taken more just then than 
 Aunt Susan's eye upon me to prevent the 
 laughter with which I hailed this tragic an- 
 nouncement. Then, still avoiding Aunt 
 Susan's eye, as soon as I could control my 
 voice, I proceeded to lay the sad complication 
 before our guests. It is a point which Aunt 
 Susan and I discuss with frequent ardor, this 
 of a hostess's attitude towards her guests, I 
 maintaining that any guest who is not compli- 
 mented to be received informally into the 
 family councils is not worthy of the name. 
 The Kilburns certainly proved themselves all 
 that genial frankness could ask. Mr. Kilburn 
 was rendered helpless a moment through his 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 157 
 
 appreciative laughter; but, as soon as he had 
 recovered himself, he sprang to his feet and 
 volunteered his services as mining engineer. 
 We repaired to the ice-house, he and I, fol- 
 lowed by anxious Bridget, on whom the humor 
 of the occasion had not yet convincingly 
 dawned; and there we mapped out a scientific 
 campaign. For some fifteen minutes we sur- 
 veyed and explored, following definite lines of 
 research; and at last, just as I was despairingly 
 adjusting my mind to dried beef again, up 
 came Mr. Kilburn from the depths, bearing 
 the desired bundle swathed in a white cloth. 
 Bridget fell upon it with a cry. 
 
 " It's the hind-quarter, and I wanted the 
 fore," she exclaimed ; " but never mind." 
 
 And she hurried off. 
 
 As for Mr. Kilburn and me, we sat for some 
 time in the ice-house door — being already 
 about as dusty as we could become — looking 
 up into the orchard and conversing with a 
 
158 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 freedom and ease which could be rendered 
 possible only by circumstances as informal as 
 those which we had just encountered. 
 
 The upshot of the whole matter is, the con- 
 clusion of the chapter, that to keep house in 
 the country is no light and easy task. One 
 must be prepared for vicissitude of every im- 
 agined and unimagined kind. One must know 
 for a surety that in the spring the house will 
 be sluggish and hard to rouse from its long 
 winter sleep; that some pipe will be burst, or 
 some plaster fallen, or some clapboard rent with 
 frost. One must stand alert to lend one's hand 
 at any moment to any task, no matter whether 
 a previous knowledge smooth the way or not. 
 Primitive labor does not know the politeness 
 of specialized civilization. Not, " Do you 
 know how to do me?" it asks — "Oh, well, 
 then, I'll find someone else." But, " Do me or 
 die ! " it exclaims at your throat. And you 
 straightway do it. 
 
Housekeeping Experiments 159 
 
 It is all worth while; so well worth while 
 that I hesitate to dwell on the fact of difficulty 
 at all. The payment of struggle is only fair. 
 In the city what greater price does one pay, 
 of light and space and serenity for mechanical 
 convenience! Country privilege, city price; 
 city privilege, country price — thus runs the 
 adjusting order. And surely, measuring price 
 by price, that of mountains and sky and silence 
 is heavier for a soul to pay than that of a gas- 
 stove. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 Zbe <5at&en 
 
 TT is Aunt Susan who should write the 
 ■*- chapter on the garden. The department 
 has been definitely handed over to her now, by 
 her own desire, and by common consent of 
 Jane and me, who respect her superior wis- 
 dom. But I will try to write carefully, con- 
 sulting the voice of authority on each difficult 
 point. 
 
 Perhaps the reader marvels a little to hear 
 me speak with such diffidence; but, if so, she is 
 not a Hardy Reader, she has not observed, even 
 from the outside, the high mysteries of the 
 cult of those who till the lawn; she is not 
 initiate. 
 
 I began the thing a little myself, the first 
 160 
 
The Garden 161 
 
 year of our residence. I bought a trowel, and 
 scratched up some old beds at the side of the 
 house, and planted a random collection of 
 seeds. That was my idea of a garden, and it 
 succeeded very well. The poppies flamed and 
 the bachelor's buttons grew into a blue bush, 
 the heart's ease blossomed all over the ground, 
 the mignonette was delicious. I weeded per- 
 haps once a month, and I let the sky do all 
 the watering for me it would. The result was 
 that I truly enjoyed that garden, loved it, 
 delighted in it, with no backaching reserva- 
 tions at all. Alas ! its day is fled. 
 
 Why is it no longer possible to do the happy 
 irresponsible thing under the eye of Science? 
 Must we then be awed in spite of our better 
 frivolity and abandon? Even in the midst of 
 that halcyon summer I heard the command go 
 forth. A friend came to see me, a gentle 
 friend, whom I, unsuspecting, hailed with 
 
 much innocent pleasure. He entered the gate, 
 ii 
 
1 62 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 debonair enough, but, at his first glance across 
 the lawn, he developed, beneath my bewildered 
 eyes, into that rare but possible and very posi- 
 tive thing, a Hardy Man. 
 
 " Your nasturtiums need thinning badly,"' 
 he said, and down he went on his knees. 
 
 My poor nasturtiums! Their luxuriant 
 growth had sheltered many a happy toad, 
 many a fairy for aught I knew, in a cool and 
 deep seclusion. I had loved to look at the 
 rich shining mass of their leaves against the 
 fence. They were budded too; yes, pruning 
 laws to the contrary, garden manual defied, 
 my lush nasturtiums were budded. And now 
 they were being cast out by the handful, sud- 
 denly cut short in their fullness and thrown 
 aside to die. I arrested my friend's devasta- 
 ting hand as soon as I possibly could, and, 
 gathering up my uprooted plants, repaired 
 with them, in an eloquent silence, to another 
 section of the fence, where I replanted them. 
 
The Garden 163 
 
 There were tears of vexation in my eyes, but 
 the Hardy Man recked not of that. 
 
 " You haven't the gardener's instinct, I 
 fear," he admonished me. 
 
 He was perfectly right. I have not the 
 gardener's instinct. I am undeniably super- 
 ficial in the whole matter, and do not deserve 
 that a single plant should flourish for me. I 
 make humble confession, frankly. 
 
 But Aunt Susan — there is a Hardy Woman 
 for you, combining all the zeal and the 
 patience, all the perseverance and hope pecu- 
 liar to the class, with a good many virtues of 
 her own which embellish the situation. Toler- 
 ance, for instance. Not all Hardy People have 
 that. 
 
 The call came upon her one day in July. It 
 was her birthday, and among her presents was 
 " A Woman's Hardy Garden." She sat down 
 on the piazza after dinner, with the book in 
 hfer hand, carelessly to glance through it; her 
 
164 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 rocking-chair came to a gradual pause, her 
 look grew concentrated, she did not stir for an 
 hour or so, and — Destiny had spoken. 
 
 Later in the afternoon I saw her wandering 
 about the grounds, with that musing, calcul- 
 ating expression which I was to know so well 
 by and by. She paced off several yards of turf 
 in a mysterious fashion; she stood at gaze 
 here, there, over yonder; what was she think- 
 ing about? I ran out and slipped my arm 
 through hers. "A penny," I began; but she 
 generously forestalled me. 
 
 " We must have a garden, child," she said. 
 " A hardy garden," catching my glance of 
 reference toward the poppy bed, " that will 
 bloom from year to year. The annuals are 
 beautiful too, but I have been reading " 
 
 And here she went off in a dissertation 
 which I could by no means understand, and 
 which brought vague trouble upon my spirit, 
 prophetic of coming toil. 
 
The Garden 165 
 
 In a week we were in for it in good earnest. 
 Nursery catalogues lay strewn all over the 
 library table, type-written letters, with order- 
 blanks, dominated the daily mail, lists of 
 flowers fell out of books, and charts and 
 diagrams emerged even from the daily paper. 
 I was filled with wonder in face of all this; 
 my own garden proceedings had been so 
 simple. Emulous after sympathy with my be- 
 loved aunt, I sat down and applied myself to 
 the perusal of her manuals. But I was only 
 further confounded. I remember one book 
 in particular which advocated the arrangement 
 of flowers in great sequences of color, so that 
 the entire garden should be given over, now to 
 masses of blue, now to a blaze of scarlet, anon 
 to floods of shining yellow; never, never, on 
 any account, should a jarring note be per- 
 mitted. I stole out after reading this, and 
 looked quite humbly at my magenta phlox 
 warring joyously with my tiger lily. 
 
1 66 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 " Darlings," I whispered, " fight while you 
 can ; have at each other. The hour has struck, 
 peace and decorum are at hand. You will 
 pine for each other next year." 
 
 September was the time appointed for the 
 great work to begin. Fall gardening, it ap- 
 pears, has now the accepted advantage over 
 the old-fashioned methods of spring. Aunt 
 Susan's possession could not have come at a 
 more opportune time. With careful fore- 
 thought, Peter's work was planned to leave 
 him a whole week free, that he might apply 
 himself to his spade with undiverted ardor. 
 The necessity of this precaution was at first a 
 puzzle to me; but so many things in our daily 
 life were now mysteries that I had learned to 
 conduct myself with a wise humility, question- 
 ing not at all. I helped Aunt Susan mark out 
 the beds; to that extent I was useful. Then 
 we stood aside, Jane dropping her sewing to 
 join us from the piazza, and, with bated 
 
The Garden 167 
 
 breath, we looked on while Peter took the 
 center of the scene and solemnly broke ground. 
 After this it was two weeks before the ex- 
 cavation of flower-beds ceased to dominate our 
 lives. Peter toiled with streaming brow. For- 
 tunately the excellent lad had caught Aunt 
 Susan's enthusiasm in a genuine contagion, 
 and was in grim earnest a Hardy Boy; other- 
 wise I do not see how he would have found 
 patience to wrestle with the stones and 
 boulders that emerged in companies of hun- 
 dreds from that one small plot of ground. 
 Emerged, I say, as if they came out of their 
 own accord! I only wish they had. They 
 presented themselves of their own accord, 
 crowding upward during the night; but, once 
 they had shown their sleek rounded sides, they 
 stuck fast, clinging, determined. I have seen 
 poor Peter topple off the end of his crow-bar 
 in his earnest arguments with them. Mean- 
 time, of course, all other forms of activity 
 
1 68 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 about the place were in partial abeyance. 
 Hesitating to interrupt the arduous enterprise 
 on the lawn — Aunt Susan presiding in white 
 sunbonnet, Peter leaping in and out of his 
 slowly deepening trench — I frequently went 
 without a drive which I very much desired, or 
 else harnessed Lorna myself. There seemed, 
 for the time, no other interest but the garden 
 worth considering. 
 
 It was pleasant to observe the wonder of 
 our neighbors and of all chance passers-by, as 
 they viewed our earth-works thrown up. They 
 would come to a pause in the road and stare; 
 then they would go on slowly, shaking their 
 heads and looking back over their shoulders. 
 We did not enlighten them. I am afraid we 
 enjoyed waiting to see how long they could 
 bear the pangs of their curiosity. It is an alert 
 community, and likes to understand all that is 
 going on. Finally we began to be hailed jocu- 
 larly from over the fence. 
 
The Garden 169 
 
 " You ain't startin' a subway, are you ? 
 Looks like suthin' pretty big. What is it any- 
 way?" 
 
 " Guess! " we challenged. 
 
 The answers came in a variety amusingly 
 indicative of the different natures that prof- 
 fered them. The more commonplace sug- 
 gested drainage. The romantic summer- 
 boarder said, a moat of course. One fore- 
 boding lady shook her head and said she feared 
 it was a grave preparing for the whole family, 
 Lorna included, when the automobile should 
 have done its perfect work. No one divined 
 the truth, I think ; so that when we announced, 
 " It is a flower-bed," we had the pleasure of 
 receiving a look of quite incredulous surprise, 
 amused sometimes, sometimes disgusted, very 
 funny to observe. I presume it did seem the 
 height of folly to hard-working farmers that 
 we should put all this extravagant effort into a 
 few feet of posies. 
 
170 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 The bed was dug down to a depth of two 
 feet, then filled up according to rule. All 
 Hardy Readers understand the process, and 
 the other readers do not care. Aunt Susan 
 planted it with her own hands. The pro- 
 ceeding was an intricate one, requiring the 
 silence and solitude essential to concentration; 
 so Jane and I absented ourselves, only noting 
 from the window how anxiously the chart 
 lying on the garden bench was consulted, and 
 how thoughtfully the bulbs and plants were ar- 
 ranged, first on the surface of the ground, 
 then popped under by Peter's skilful fingers, 
 exactly where they lay. 
 
 " Blue, white, purple, gold," Aunt Susan 
 went murmuring to herself; "June, July, 
 August. Four feet, two feet, eighteen inches. 
 Spreading, slender, bushy." 
 
 When the task was completed, the long cur- 
 ving strip of moist brown earth fairly bristled 
 with sticks. Each buried group had its own 
 
The Garden 171 
 
 family monument bearing its name in full. 
 The rains and winds and suns of time might 
 work oblivion before the day of resurrection, 
 but she who had seen to the hopeful interment 
 had at least done her best. They who rise at 
 the day of resurrection are, for the matter of 
 that, I suppose, their own monuments. They 
 push their stones aside. 
 
 Well, it was exciting, to be sure, to come 
 back that next spring. We had left the new 
 bed so carefully covered that, thinking about 
 it during the winter, on every warm day we 
 had had grave fears that the plants would 
 smother, or else would burst into premature 
 life. But winter in New York is one thing 
 and in Dorset is quite another. There were no 
 signs of life pricking up through the deep bed 
 of leaves when I ran out across the cold 
 ground to look, on the day of our arrival. I 
 knelt down and poked with a tentative finger, 
 there where I knew the narcissi were. Ah, 
 
172 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 wonder ! a flash of green. I was even about to 
 brush off the leaves in handfuls and come at 
 the revelation at once, when it occurred to me 
 what I was doing. A pretty kind of a person 
 in truth, who escapes all the labor of prepara- 
 tion, all the drudgery and forethought, and 
 then, when the happy result arrives, the crisis 
 which every drone must admit to be interest- 
 ing, rushes at it and snatches it, preempting 
 another's right! This was Aunt Susan's 
 garden. I returned to the house, penitent but 
 glowing. 
 
 " Aunt Susan, come out, come out ! " I 
 cried. " There's something in your garden." 
 
 We knelt, all three in a row, beside the pun- 
 gent, leaf-heaped bed, and Aunt Susan, with a 
 certain High Priestess air which became her 
 very well, removed the covering from the 
 narcissi. There they were, pushing up from 
 the soil their slender vivid shafts of green, 
 already long enough to shine quite across the 
 
The Garden 173 
 
 lawn. It was truly wonderful to behold them. 
 Even I, undeserving, felt the thrill, the inti- 
 mate pang, of the gardener's rapture. Bounti- 
 ful Nature, who sheds her grace on the un- 
 worthiest ! I had not deserved joy, but never 
 mind; there was joy on hand just at present so 
 much more than enough to go around that my 
 little cup might be brimmed and flow over 
 just as well as not. The blue-birds called in 
 the apple-trees, a robin was building her nest 
 near by, the whispering meadows, all bare to 
 the sky, lay open and shining and wide, there 
 was a light haze about the hills, the wind sang 
 soft in the budding trees; ah, spring, and the 
 country, and home again! There is nothing, 
 nothing in all the world like this first return to 
 Dorset. 
 
 I am thankful to say at least that I had the 
 grace to be ashamed of my former indolence 
 in the face of all this rebuking bounty ; and the 
 very next day I took a spade and started for 
 
174 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the garden. My self-congratulation, however, 
 is a purely subjective and somewhat limited 
 affair; for my impulse, though well-meant, 
 was grossly ignorant. Fortunately Aunt 
 Susan saw me and divined my intent. 
 
 " You are never going to touch that bed ! 
 Child, don't you know that I hardly dare lay 
 a finger on it, and shan't for weeks? Why, 
 all those little things coming up, you might 
 bruise them, even cut off their heads. My 
 dear, what a narrow escape ! " 
 
 And the dear woman fairly shivered at the 
 averted danger. As for me, I cast my spade 
 aside, and confessed myself humbly a stupid 
 dunce, a worthless cumberer of the ground 
 which I had not the wit to till. It was only 
 the dogged consciousness of an honest inten- 
 tion which communicated to me the obscure 
 relief mentioned above, and enabled me to face 
 with assurance the new excitement of the days. 
 
 They were exciting days, to be sure. Every 
 
The Garden 175 
 
 morning we ran out across the lawn and 
 dropped on our knees to investigate. It was 
 no mere glance which we gave, but a scrutiny, 
 eager, sustained, explicit, testing each pebble, 
 each little stick, laying our cheeks to the 
 ground and hunting, as one in childhood is 
 taught to lie on the nursery floor and hunt for 
 lost toys, the smallest object looming large to 
 such a level vision. There was hardly a day 
 without some surprise. Now the yellow lilies 
 were up, now the phlox was springing, now 
 the larkspur put forth its leaves. And, once 
 there, how they grew ! 
 
 As Aunt Susan would not have the garden 
 touched, the bed lay in all its winter rough- 
 ness, quite unkempt and ragged. There was a 
 sort of primitive rudeness, a dash of the ele- 
 mental savage in that careless, vigorous, 
 teeming soil which refreshed the observing, 
 civilized heart. Thus the earth was in the days 
 of creation, thus God left it for ages. Later 
 
176 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 came stroking and smoothing down into 
 decorous shape, after all the real work was 
 done, real work which is wild and free. A 
 garden is such a conventional thing in its 
 general appearance, so docile and demure, that 
 to see it breaking loose thus once a year — 
 when matters really depend on it, and the 
 gardener stands helpless — rousing itself to the 
 task in hand with an abandon of recklessness, 
 sending up its shoots where it will, in order or 
 no order, delaying, hastening, pleasing itself, 
 lying gladly, shamelessly in disorder, exulting 
 in very roughness — is to feel the fibers of the 
 heart stirred with responsive wildness, and, all 
 through the summer, to respect the posy-plot 
 the more. Ah, hypocrite garden! It does all 
 very well to play the decorous part of July, to 
 sue and subserve so prettily, knowing the 
 watering-pot in our hands. You will let us do 
 with you what we will, you have no intentions 
 of your own, not you! We may prune and 
 
The Garden 177 
 
 transplant and discard at pleasure ; what desire 
 have you but ours? We do not forget, fair- 
 seeming one, how you acted in the spring ; how 
 you sent up a lily in the very midst of the bee- 
 balm, how you pushed the pinks across the 
 perilous path of a frost, and delayed the 
 auratum lilies so long that Aunt Susan began 
 to give out dark references to the probable 
 bulb-eating habits of my woodchuck in the 
 orchard. The heart of you, garden, is wild 
 and free, underneath your conventional order. 
 And so is the heart of the well-mapped world, 
 and so — God help us ! — is the heart of us all. 
 My burst of enthusiasm held out long 
 enough to set me charging emulously at my 
 poppy bed, my " bed of annuals " Aunt Susan 
 called it now. I had Peter bring his spade, 
 and dig and enrich here too. But by the time 
 my lavish seeds were up — ten thousand 
 million little plants, all headed close together, 
 
 each one accompanied by an artful under-study 
 12 
 
178 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 of a weed — and by the time the first drought 
 was on, my transient zeal began to cool, and 
 it was only a stern sense of duty that kept me 
 to the care of my vegetable offspring. In 
 this one trait of conscientiousness only was I 
 better than the ostrich. 
 
 Aunt Susan, however, stood every test, right 
 straight through the summer. I think she 
 gloried in each chance to prove her loyalty. 
 On how many a quiet summer evening, sitting 
 musing on the steps in the gathering dusk, 
 have I heard the sound of water gushing into a 
 watering-pot around at the side of the house 
 where the garden is, and, rousing myself from 
 my revery, have gone to find Aunt Susan, with 
 skirts gathered close, moving dimly among 
 her flowers. 
 
 " No, child," she has told me then ; " thank 
 you, but you need not help. The work is not 
 strictly necessary even. But I love to do it." 
 
 She kept a garden diary in which she re- 
 
The Garden 179 
 
 corded the first blossoming of each plant and 
 the total number of flowers which it eventually- 
 put forth. I think she knew all these flowers 
 individually and intimately. I have heard her 
 describe to a friend in the village the markings 
 of a certain iris as if she had it even then be- 
 fore her. She told me once how a Star of 
 Bethlehem bud opened as she was looking 
 down at it — " suddenly and quite silently, 
 spreading its petals wide." Silently — that was 
 the point which seemed strange to us both. 
 Perhaps, if she had been on her knees, she 
 would have heard at least a whisper, a little 
 sigh to the sun. 
 
 And now, I dare say, the Hardy Reader, 
 chafing at my vagueness of statement, would 
 like to have me describe once for all the ar- 
 rangement of our garden, and have done with 
 my chapter. The explicitness is what I have 
 dreaded, seeking to avoid its necessity as long 
 as possible, but seeing it coming inevitably. It 
 
180 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 must be remembered that I am not one of the 
 Order. How dare I commit Aunt Susan to 
 my irresponsible statements? Boldly, how- 
 ever, these are the facts, as they look to me, 
 and as I have gathered their names from much 
 patient intercourse with Hardy Visitors: 
 
 Over the picket fence in front of the house, 
 for two or three sections on either side of the 
 gate, tumbles a mass of scarlet beans. I am 
 sure of this fact, for I always plant the beans 
 myself — they are very easy of culture! 
 Farther along, where the picket fence gives 
 way to a wire bordering the orchard, is a 
 length or two of clematis, trained day by day 
 by Aunt Susan's fingers, most delicate and 
 graceful. Banked up close against the house, 
 all along underneath the windows, are ferns 
 which have been brought down from the 
 woods, various kinds, from tall slender fronds 
 to low and feathery clouds of green. At one 
 corner of the house, in the angle of the fence, 
 
The Garden 1 8 1 
 
 and beside the front gate, are hollyhocks, tall 
 and very stately. They lend a sentinel air to 
 the place. Then the beds — they lie on both 
 sides of the house, to the number of ten or 
 twelve, big beds, little beds, full to overflow- 
 ing, threatening to increase on our hands. 
 There will soon be no lawn left, I know it 
 well; Aunt Susan will have had it all spaded 
 up. The beds on, the orchard side of the house 
 are given over entirely to perennials. There 
 are lilies, pinks, many kinds of irises (Aunt 
 Susan delights in irises), foxglove, larkspur, 
 rockets, Canterbury bells, valerian, a delicate 
 Japanese bell-flower, sea holly, a white ane- 
 mone, many other things. The climbing hill 
 of the orchard forms a beautiful background to 
 the masses of color and the single tall and 
 bending stalks, especially when the grass is 
 deep and soft in June. On the other side of 
 the house the beds are largely a-flame with 
 annuals; a-flame, that is, after the middle of 
 
I 8 2 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 July, for it takes them about two months to get 
 into action. Poppies, marigolds, bachelor's 
 buttons, mignonette, candytuft — these and 
 others riot in bloom together, while a row of 
 sweet-peas brings up the rear, and nasturtiums 
 flank the show. Roses there are too, on this 
 lawn, white and yellow and pink and red, rich 
 with warm sun-steeped fragrance. Also there 
 is a certain choice bed given over to plants of 
 Solomon's seal, which Aunt Susan and Peter 
 have fetched home from the roadside. A 
 tangle of wild things — bushes and plants — in 
 the corner where the woodshed joins the house 
 at right angles completes, I think, the in- 
 ventory of Aunt Susan's garden. 
 
 It has all been so far, on the whole, a very 
 happy success. There have been individual 
 failures of plants; what else could one expect? 
 Perhaps they were winter-killed, or perhaps 
 my woodchuck killed them ! But Aunt Susan 
 has learned to retrieve her hardy losses by 
 
The Garden 183 
 
 having recourse to the annual, the obedient, 
 cheerful annual, not to be despised, and every 
 summer our house is set in a very glory of 
 bloom. 
 
 It is most beautiful, I must confess, my 
 Aunt Susan's garden. One should see it on a 
 late afternoon, when the shadows lie long 
 across the grass and the sunlight drifts down 
 through the orchard. The colors glow then, 
 and the bees and the humming-birds fly close. 
 The fragrance on the pulsing air is like a 
 touch, a sound. Aunt Susan wanders in her 
 white dress. She is not doing much ; picking a 
 leaf off here and there, lifting a drooping 
 flower-head. But the look on her face is at 
 one with the peace and the brightness and the 
 beauty. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 Cbe ©rcbarfc 
 
 ' I ^HE orchard is a garden too, the garden 
 -*■ in which I — indolent one! — do most 
 luxuriously delight. From May to November 
 it blossoms for us, either aloft on the boughs 
 or below in the grass; and the rain and the 
 sun look after it, and the great warm hill 
 which bears it. It is quite the feature of our 
 place, the unique and distinguishing beauty. I 
 think I have already remarked that I have 
 never anywhere seen a more perfect fulfilment 
 of all that an orchard should be. 
 
 It closes down very near to the house, be- 
 hind and at one side. In fact its veteran repre- 
 sentative, a gnarled old centenarian tree, stands 
 
 with its wrinkled boughs outspread above the 
 184 
 
The Orchard 185 
 
 piazza roof, dropping apples upon the 
 shingles with an ever increasing volume of 
 sound, from the patter of early June to 
 October's resounding thump. Sitting on the 
 piazza, one looks across the strip of lawn and 
 the flaunting flower-beds into the deep, cool, 
 shaded realm — sunny, too, and visited by 
 winds and birds — where dark apple-tree 
 boughs cross and re-cross the waving grass in 
 a fantastic intricacy, and little motions come 
 and go all through a summer's day. There is 
 character in an apple-tree. Taken by itself, it 
 stands for a certain homeliness and humor, 
 both sturdy and whimsical ; one loves it, laugh- 
 ing a little. But it is not meant to be viewed 
 alone. It is essentially gregarious, and only 
 in companies does the soul of it find its way 
 into that expression of poetry and dreams 
 which is an orchard's life. 
 
 I seldom go out into the orchard in a 
 straight line from the house, but almost al- 
 
1 86 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 ways up into it, mounting the little hill. 
 I like the surprise (a real surprise is as 
 good, I take it, at the hundredth time as the 
 first, rather better in fact, for one is not then 
 so bewildered) of the sudden falling away of 
 the trees around the central open space which 
 holds the top of the hill. All bare to 
 the sky and the wind it lies; how grandly the 
 mountains look in from all sides, how the birds 
 stretch their wings ! I have a bench and an old 
 steamer-chair on the further edge of this open 
 space, just where the trees begin again, and 
 thither I repair by the hour, by the afternoon, 
 by the day. It is a good place for receiving 
 callers. People talk more freely out of doors 
 than in the house ; more truly, too, let us hope, 
 for there are the mountains ready to test each 
 word, each yet unspoken thought as it rises — 
 " Worthy, thou, or false ? " 
 
 That is a very nice idea. But it is not true. 
 I have probably told as many lies, struggling 
 
The Orchard 187 
 
 hard after sincerity, in the presence of Green 
 Peak as I have told anywhere. Truth being a 
 matter of deeper knowledge, wider experience 
 than I have yet attained. 
 
 However, I certainly do my best in the light 
 of my present wisdom, and many a theory 
 spreads itself on bolder wings than those of 
 the robin, as my friend and I sit on the bench, 
 and the afternoon passes above our heads, 
 there in the quiet orchard, the shadows creep- 
 ing out from our feet across the open space. 
 At a certain point I am wise enough to ter- 
 minate discussion. The call of a beautiful 
 thing to be seen is always more potent than 
 any amount of intellectual interest. " Come, 
 see West Mountain," I say. So then we drop 
 all our arguments, and follow the shadows out 
 into the heart of the open space, and there, 
 turning to the southwest, we see the most 
 beautiful manifestation, take it all in all, of the 
 ever-beautiful valley life, abounding in hourly 
 
1 88 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 vision. The massive mountain across the way 
 stands clothed in misty light. From behind it 
 the dense sunlight streams, crossing its 
 shoulder in a wide band and striking athwart 
 the purple shadow which brims its eastern 
 hollow. Its crest is crowned with luminous 
 haze, its sides are wrapped in softness; it is a 
 very dream of a mountain, yet so majestic, so 
 established, that we know it to be an affair 
 of the ages and rest on it satisfied. When 
 Jane's head appears, moving up the hill, to 
 summon us to the piazza to tea, we go down 
 hand in hand, my friend and I, closer because 
 of that mountain's silence than because of all 
 our talking. 
 
 I often go up into the orchard alone on still, 
 moonlit evenings, or when the gusty wind 
 from the south sets the heavens reeling with 
 clouds. I drag my steamer-chair out into the 
 center of the open space, and, lying- back with 
 my face upturned, let go my hold on my in- 
 
The Orchard 1 89 
 
 dividual life. It is curious what a revelation 
 it is to fall back thus into the arms of the 
 Whole. One did not know one was tired 
 before. " As the river to the sea ; " there is no 
 other symbol so good. So profound is the 
 hush, that the universe seems brooding through 
 it to the birth of a new kind of speech; in an- 
 other moment it must come; one waits and 
 holds the breath. It is this sort of experience, 
 among other things, that gives me such faith 
 in death. 
 
 Again at noon I seek the orchard. I have 
 been shut up in my room all the morning, fol- 
 lowing the lure of the mischievous, evasive 
 sprite who lives in my ink-bottle, and I am 
 quite consciously tired now. I climb the hill 
 and lie down on its slope, with my arms wide- 
 spread and my face buried close in the grass. 
 In the language of my childhood days, I " let 
 myself fall through to China," which phrase 
 has always signified to me complete relaxation. 
 
190 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 ( Let anyone who cannot sleep at night try this 
 attitude, mental and physical, of utter aban- 
 donment to gravitation, and, before he has 
 demolished the bed beneath him in his crushing 
 descent Orientward, he will be asleep.) The 
 summer noon broods over me. It is not very 
 hot, only benignly, drowsily warm. Nobody 
 else is resting except myself; but then nobody 
 else has been working so ridiculously hard. 
 The birds and the bees and the butterflies have 
 been quietly going about their business for the 
 last eight or nine hours, and they are quietly 
 going about it now ; the air is vibrant with the 
 hum of their unhurried activity. Last night I 
 expanded gloriously into the universe, shook 
 my thoughts out like a flight of birds, and so 
 lost myself, scattered abroad. Now I fold my- 
 self in on myself, growing smaller and smaller, 
 a shrunken pool, till I disappear quietly in the 
 grass and am swallowed up. If Jane did not 
 come to call me to dinner, I dare say I 
 
The Orchard 191 
 
 should pass once for all into the clod beneath 
 me. 
 
 These spiritual uses of our orchard I men- 
 tion first, partly because, in the nature of 
 things, they are chiefly important, partly 
 because — there are no other uses. 
 
 The unpractical consummation of our farm- 
 ing enterprise signified in this last admission 
 was far from our original expectation. 
 
 " I think," Aunt Susan had once remarked, 
 casting a speculative eye about our new 
 domain, " that we ought to defray all the im- 
 mediate expenses of the place through our hay 
 and apples." 
 
 Forthwith, she had urged me to confine my 
 rambles in the orchard to a certain path, and 
 to try, if possible, to brush straight again in 
 returning those blades of timothy which my 
 going had laid low. It is not an easy process, 
 this last, even when the wind helps one out; 
 and I fear my devious, winding path only 
 
192 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 serves to furnish the July mowers with a 
 darkly hinted excuse when they do not leave 
 the orchard quite so smooth as Aunt Susan 
 thinks they should. " Wal, if there wan't 
 no trampin' down of the grass; but your 
 niece there — of course it's all right, she do like 
 to see things, don't she? " 
 
 Niece and woodchuck to the contrary not- 
 withstanding — those two vagabonds ! — our hay 
 crop has always been a success. It has 
 nourished Lorna, and in the spring some loads 
 have been left over to sell. We have there no 
 cause for regret. It is the apple crop that 
 appals us, that even yet is our unsolved prob- 
 lem ; so that, as I write, I look forward with a 
 certain despair to the coming October and 
 wonder what we are going to do>; last year was 
 the blessed " off season." 
 
 We anticipated our first autumn tranquilly 
 enough. The apple-blossoms had been lavish 
 
The Orchard 193 
 
 in May; the season was a good one, over 
 which we knew no better than to rejoice. 
 
 " No," said Aunt Susan, " we will not pick 
 the blossoms and bring them into the house; 
 that would not be husbandman-like." 
 
 And I agreed with her perfectly. It seemed 
 to me then even somewhat wicked to pick an 
 apple-blossom. Whereas it seems now, in my 
 later wisdom, a prudent and generous fore- 
 thought. 
 
 We collected barrels all through the summer. 
 That was Aunt Susan's prevision; she cer- 
 tainly has the farmer's instinct. A few from 
 this " store," a few from that, as the flour 
 dealers could let us have them; the pile grew 
 high in the woodshed, communicating to us 
 already an exciting sense of rustic opulence. 
 Meantime it was good to see how the apples 
 swelled and reddened on the trees; they were 
 doing their very best to promote this first har- 
 vest of ours. As soon as the grass was cut, 
 13 
 
194 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Aunt Susan took to roaming over her domain, 
 with ' the speculative look beneath her white 
 sunbonnet which betokened prudent anticipa- 
 tion. I cannot say that she counted all the 
 apples, but she certainly understood pretty well 
 the condition of each tree. 
 
 By the middle of August that lavish pro- 
 ceeding which is an orchard's fruition was on. 
 What a purely human contrivance frugality is, 
 to be sure! I wonder that we put such faith 
 in it, seeing it based apparently on ho uni- 
 versal law. Nature at least will have none of 
 it. When she gives, she overwhelms, and 
 there is small possibility of gathering all her 
 favors. Those delicious early apples lay strew- 
 ing the ground in fair companies, fragrant 
 and shining, beneath the trees which offered 
 yet more and more. We were in despair about 
 them. A person cannot very well eat a hun- 
 dred apples a day. Moreover we could not 
 give them away, for all our neighbors had 
 
The Orchard 195 
 
 orchards too, and everywhere the season was 
 good. It is an excellent training in open- 
 handedness to live with an orchard like ours. 
 One stands suppliant to the universe — " Come 
 and take, come and take! " It was a relief to 
 me, I remember, when I noticed how the fallen 
 apples were almost all of them pecked or 
 nibbled by birds or insects or other creatures, 
 very daintily and fastidiously, one bite out of 
 this rosy cheek — scamper, away — another bite 
 out of that. The method was very graceful 
 and pretty. I compared it with our thorough- 
 going habit of selecting one apple and eating 
 it all up, and I must say the advantage of 
 wisdom lay not with my plodding kind. I 
 used to delight myself after this by following 
 up my friend the yobin and setting my single 
 bite beside his in an apple's cheek, sharing 
 with him thus in a mystic communion the dew- 
 drenched morning's life, then throwing the 
 spent fruit away, a broken chalice, a loving- 
 
196 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 cup which should grace no other feast. Robin, 
 did you understand? 
 
 When October came, and the winter fruit 
 was ready for the picking, there was a fort- 
 night of strenuous toil which pressed us all 
 into service. Peter thought he could do all the 
 work alone; Peter always thinks that, ex- 
 cellent boy ! But when Jane and I had waited 
 some days without being able ever to tell from 
 the look of the orchard where the lad had be- 
 gun his work and where he had left off, though 
 a row of brimming barrels in the woodshed 
 testified to his application, we armed ourselves 
 with ladders and likewise set to work. 
 
 It is really a very nice problem, this of 
 gathering apples. To calculate with discrim- 
 ination the planting of your ladder beneath a 
 fine rosy-cheeked group, not too widely 
 scattered, to insinuate your head carefully 
 among the boughs, lest you hang like Absalom, 
 to keep your balance as you reach hither and 
 
The Orchard 197 
 
 yon and back and forth, yearning always after 
 the just-beyond, to cultivate a stern self- 
 control, so that, failing of some single much- 
 desired apple from your present standpoint, 
 you shall not let yourself dismount and labor- 
 iously move the ladder to compass that one 
 end, but shall rather abandon it and attack a 
 wider field — there are many points in 
 philosophy which an apple picker must bear in 
 mind. I had thought at first that my sur- 
 roundings of autumn orchard and mountains 
 and sky would give me constant delight in my 
 work, but I very soon found that, so great 
 was my need of concentration, I could see 
 nothing but apples. Once in a while, when I 
 dropped to the top of the ladder again from 
 my perilous, soaring up-reach among the 
 boughs, and started to descend with my full 
 basket, the brilliant day would break in upon 
 me, dazzling me with a sudden flash of vivid 
 mountains and sky. Then I would reel dizzily, 
 
198 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 closing my eyes against the too intense realiza- 
 tion. It is almost a painful experience when 
 the world takes the mind thus at unawares, 
 stunning it with fact. 
 
 If we had felt opulent in the face of our 
 empty barrels in September, how did we feel 
 when, by mid-October, the same barrels stood 
 heaped with fruit, filling the woodshed with 
 color and fragrance, It was a royal sight. 
 Ten times a day we went out to look, Aunt 
 Susan and Jane and I, standing in the wide 
 door and folding our hands and saying softly, 
 " My ! " By which harmless interjection we 
 probably meant to express our wonderful sense 
 .of possession, not proud but very humble. 
 
 A New York agent had undertaken to man- 
 age our fruit for us. " Wait," he wrote us. 
 " The market is flooded, prices are low ; wait 
 till I tell you to send." 
 
 We waited at first with composure enough. 
 This foreign dealing was not the Dorset way 
 
The Orchard 199 
 
 of disposing of harvests ; our farmer neighbors 
 sold for the most part to travelling agents who 
 came through the region and bought up entire 
 orchards. But their profits were confessedly 
 small; nobody ever seemed to expect to make 
 much from an apple crop. We, for our part, 
 were going to show the country people what 
 it was to have a little enterprise. 
 
 October passed, and the first Indian summer 
 days of November, and the early cold was upon 
 us. The apples still filled the woodshed. We 
 wrote to the agent, inquiring. 
 
 " Wait," he replied; " I have not forgotten; 
 the time is not yet come." 
 
 It afforded us now perhaps not quite so 
 much pleasure as aforetime to go out and 
 survey our hoard. We were not misers after 
 all, content with merely gathering. Moreover 
 the woodshed was very cold. We hunted out 
 old blankets and quilts to cover the barrels 
 withal, anxiety stirring within us. 
 
200 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Finally, " Send ! " wrote the New York 
 agent. 
 
 Everything was in readiness, and we sent, 
 despatching the barrels to the railroad station 
 in a few hours time. 
 
 That night the first heavy frost of the year 
 closed in upon us, and when we received 
 acknowledgment of our fruit's reception in 
 New York it was with the rueful admission, 
 " Frozen and quite worthless." 
 
 So much for the first grand enterprise of the 
 new apple farmers. I believe we spent seven- 
 teen dollars that year for the mere pleasure of 
 our pains. 
 
 The next season, with tacit consent, we 
 abandoned our purpose of instructing the coun- 
 try people in the ways of the world of trade, 
 and very humbly fell into line with their es- 
 tablished methods. We sold our apples to a 
 travelling agent. The experiment brought us 
 in a clear gain of some thirty or forty dollars 
 
The Orchard 201 
 
 (fifty cents on the barrel, I believe) and, com- 
 paring the outcome with that of last year, we 
 felt quite satisfied. But when we took our 
 way to New York and found apples no better 
 than ours selling for three and four dollars a 
 barrel, our triumph was somewhat dashed. 
 
 The final truth of the matter is that, from 
 a commercial point of view, an apple orchard 
 in Vermont is a doubtful investment. We 
 have quite abandoned now our high expecta- 
 tions of our orchard, and have ceased to sup- 
 pose, or even desire, that it will enrich us. 
 What business had we, after all, to ask such a 
 sordid thing of it ? 
 
 But there is another side of the question 
 which has not been considered. Supposing 
 the orchard's duty towards us to be amply 
 fulfilled in its very being, its beautiful pres- 
 ence about the house, its lavish early fruit, 
 what shall we say of our duty towards it, to 
 save it from waste and failure? The respon- 
 
202 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 sibility is not slight when such a full, abound- 
 ing life blossoms and gives forth into your 
 hand, leaving ultimate issues to you. All that 
 joyous beginning, that slow, patient growth, 
 that shining, complete fulfilment — what then? 
 Neglect and chagrin and decay? I have al- 
 most wept at the sight of the piles of discarded 
 apples left on the ground when the harvesting 
 is over. " Dear orchard, don't! " I have said 
 in the spring, when I have seen the vigorous 
 buds setting themselves, determined as ever. 
 Will it hold its course, reckless, forever? 
 
 Of a surety it will, the fine mettlesome 
 creature, rebuking my poor misgivings. It 
 knows for what end it was created — to live 
 and to be and to do, to put forth its might in 
 whole-hearted endeavor, calculating not means 
 to ends, expecting, rather, the largest ends, 
 working to feed the world. Better a slighted 
 fruition than none, better a superabundant life 
 than any sort of stinting, better a failure than 
 
The Orchard 203 
 
 no attempt; our orchard has perfect wisdom. 
 Prudence is perhaps as vain a human con- 
 trivance as the vaunted frugality which I 
 mentioned a few pages back. 
 
 " Aunt Susan," I suggested one day, Oct- 
 ober being half spent and no purchaser having 
 yet been found for the season's apples, " sup- 
 pose a great wind were to come and sweep the 
 orchard away." 
 
 Aunt Susan gave a funny little sigh. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be nice? '' she said. 
 
 " Well," I went on, pondering, " what 
 would you plant in place of the apple-trees ? " 
 
 The bright look faded from my aunt's face. 
 I could see her mentally picturing the de- 
 nuded hill, and studying it to learn its need 
 as a feature of landscape-gardening. She 
 smiled at last in a rueful fashion. 
 
 " Apple-trees," she answered. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 ttbe Community 
 
 TT is time that something should be said 
 
 -*- concerning the community of which Aunt 
 
 Susan and Jane and I became members when 
 
 we came to live in Dorset. There is a cutJ'K'S 
 
 mistake abroad among urban intelligences that 
 
 one retires to the country to escape the world, 
 
 to vegetate in the companionship of trees and 
 
 grass, with a few super-subtle animals as 
 
 one's sufficient flesh-and-blood kind. No such 
 
 unsociable matter ! As a fact, one advances to 
 
 the country to meet the world as God made it, 
 
 to deal with human nature uncloaked, to get 
 
 down to the heart of things. One may float 
 
 on the great tide of New York; one must row 
 
 or swim in Dorset. 
 
 204 
 
The Community 205 
 
 We had known the Dorset people for years, 
 ever since we had first come to board in the 
 village. But it makes all the difference in the 
 world whether one boards or lives in a place. 
 Were we ever " summer boarders " ? I smile 
 incredulously, looking back to those half- 
 forgotten days. Yes, I remember, I had a 
 hammock in which I used to lie and read 
 novels; an aggressive shade hat had I too, and 
 a short skirt and a walking stick, and all the 
 harmless paraphernalia peculiar to the recreat- 
 ing class. We used to " walk around the 
 square " in those days, Aunt Susan and Jane 
 and I, tramping industriously, with, I dare say, 
 that same expression of cordial appreciation 
 which so flatters Green Peak any fine day dur- 
 ing July and August. Toiling and struggling, 
 we would return to the hotel, laden with vege- 
 table matter — flowers, vines, whole bushes per- 
 chance — and then would never know what in 
 the world to do with our languishing treasures, 
 
2o6 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the pitchers and tooth-mugs in our rooms be- 
 ing already crowded. Yes, we were summer 
 boarders. There was even one famous exploit 
 of Aunt Susan's, never-to-be-forgotten, which 
 placed her for a week or two in the front rank 
 of flagrancy. I must relate it here. 
 
 I had undertaken to " trim the church " on 
 a certain Sunday. The task was one per- 
 formed in succession by all the summer 
 boarder young women during the summer 
 months. Aunt Susan, taking her Saturday 
 walk — alone, as it happened — with my respon- 
 sibility on her mind, came suddenly on a 
 luxurious tangle of hop vines growing over a 
 wall. There was a small house across the 
 road, but Aunt Susan, possessed with enthu- 
 siasm, connected not in any way the decorative 
 possibility before her with a human use. Sure 
 of her purpose, she stripped the wall, and came 
 back to me, twined in fantastic wreaths which 
 
The Community 207 
 
 gave her a somewhat Bacchic appearance, even 
 the sober Aunt Susan. 
 
 " I looked out of the window and shook my 
 fist," the bereft hop owner has told us since — 
 now one of our friendliest neighbors — " and 
 I said, ' Is there anything those summer 
 boarders won't do ? ' " 
 
 I had some misgivings, I must confess, when 
 Aunt Susan made her triumphant appearance, 
 but they had to do with the subtle contrast 
 between the festive suggestion of the hop vines 
 and the sacred use to which they were to be 
 put; I had no apprehension of our true guilt 
 as trespassers and marauders. We were busily 
 draping the pulpit next day, quite given over 
 to our delight in unique artistic effects, when 
 the sexton came in and told us gravely, hesi- 
 tating a little, that some one had made off 
 with all Mrs. Wilson's hop vines the day be- 
 fore, and that the poor woman was greatly 
 distressed, having lost all her winter's supply 
 
208 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 of yeast. I think I see yet Aunt Susan's face 
 of horror and remorse, as she paused in the 
 act of twining one guilty tendril of her booty 
 about the pulpit Bible, and realized her deed. 
 The bell was already beginning to ring, 
 the people were coming in; there was nothing 
 for it but that we should complete our in- 
 felicitous decoration and slink down hastily 
 into our pew, hiding our diminished heads. 
 Suppressed laughter took me suddenly when 
 Mrs. Wilson entered the church and saw her 
 ravished property confronting her brazenly 
 from the very topmost crest of sanctity itself. 
 If ever there was smug insult added to cold 
 injury, it was here manifest. But Jane's sad 
 eye admonished me. Jane was deeply morti- 
 fied. " To think of your having taken the 
 bread right out of that poor woman's mouth ! " 
 she whispered to Aunt Susan. 
 
 It all seems very incredible now, this early 
 crass ignorance of ours. We have so long and 
 
The Community 209 
 
 so ably defended the scarlet runner on our 
 fence that our own devastations are reasonably 
 to be ignored and forgotten. 
 
 Our attitude towards the community 
 changed entirely from the day when we 
 bought the old white house. It was strange 
 how the vision altered at once; we seemed to 
 be looking with different eyes. Before, we 
 had studied the country people as characters, 
 oddities, types, smiling at them, though not 
 unkindly, viewing them at long range; now, 
 on a sudden, they were our people, or rather 
 we were suing to be admitted as their people; 
 love was born in us. I dare say, for their 
 part, their view of us underwent reciprocal al- 
 teration. The summer boarder is a strange 
 type to the rustic mind. Not all at once did 
 our neighbors open out the heart of their 
 kindly favor to us; they had need to wait a 
 little and see what manner of people we were, 
 to test our sincerity. That was well. I think 
 
210 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 we liked them the better for their careful re- 
 serve. We might have stood on probation long 
 if it had not been for Lorna. But if there is 
 any one thing which your genuine Yankee 
 cannot resist it is a funny situation; and, be- 
 fore we knew it, Lorna had broken the way 
 for us into the laughing consideration of the 
 community. The tale of our luckless adven- 
 tures was noised up and down the country- 
 side, and dwelt upon with relish. It is a lesson 
 Worth learning early in this curious life that 
 one must have the hardihood to be ridiculous 
 now and then, either in the cause of humor 
 or in that of sincerity. We serenely remained 
 ridiculous now, and presently pity and good- 
 will gushed out of the laughter-smitten hearts 
 of the Dorset people towards us. My earnest 
 efforts to place myself in the laboring ranks of 
 the women-folk furthered our cause a little, 
 and my failure did even more to help. A poor 
 incompetent creature I was, but evidently well- 
 
The Community 211 
 
 meaning, handicapped at the very start by my 
 city education; I must be visited, counselled, 
 condoned. Thus much for our indirect allies 
 of human sentiment. Our most potent sesame 
 all the time was of course just Aunt Susan. 
 No one can resist her long. 
 
 It was a most sweet experience when we — 
 how shall I put it? — beheld the circle of Dorset 
 life concave instead of convex, felt ourselves 
 within. There is no circle in New York. Any 
 number of circles, it may be declared ; but they 
 mix and blend and shift and change in such a 
 bewildering fashion that boundary-loving in- 
 dividuals — of whom there yet exist one or two 
 in this restless age — are driven back on them- 
 selves for limitation. And that is a narrow 
 outcome. Suppose a soul to desire bounds 
 (sweet bounds for the deepening daily life!) 
 it is better to seek them in a community than 
 in its own soul-self. 
 
 We felt a new civic importance and dignity 
 
212 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 when our neighbors began to talk over with us 
 the problems, social and economic, of the 
 Dorset life. There were many strange forces 
 at work here, it seemed. I, listening, opened 
 my eyes. Not in all my years of urban exist- 
 tence had. I seemed to touch so nearly the 
 springs of reality. Love, hate, ambition, 
 courage, devotion, selfishness, penuriousness, 
 religious ecstasy and faith — their direct work- 
 ing startled me, fairly took my breath away. 
 I suppose it was gossip which we were hear- 
 ing in those days of our initiation, far-famed, ' 
 opprobrious country gossip, the recognized 
 shame of all small towns. Well, then, I must 
 say I think the offense is exaggerated in the 
 public estimation, the opprobrium not all de- 
 served. By far the greater part of the com- 
 ments which country people make on each 
 other are kindly, compassionate, sincere. They 
 talk of each other because, the world over, the 
 proper study of mankind is man; but their 
 
The Community 213 
 
 judgments are often less harsh, less unfair 
 than those of the city drawing-room. 
 
 Nor yet is a country life one of such narrow 
 interests as is commonly supposed. The 
 natural working of tendency here, as compared 
 with that in the city, seems to me quite in the 
 other direction. A large city is a place of 
 specialization. One chooses two or three in- 
 terests — say, half a dozen — and lets the other 
 ten thousand go, out of sheer necessity. 
 Whereas, in the country, all the interests there 
 are make their forceful, direct appeal to every 
 individual; willy nilly, he is concerned and he 
 must attend. Not only so, but, there being al- 
 ways more interests than there are individuals 
 — an untedious arrangement — the people must 
 all lend versatile hands in every sort of direc- 
 tion. The result is a community life so closely 
 fashioned in texture that, sooner or later, every 
 thread crosses every other thread, and a tough 
 unity is attained which wears exceeding well. 
 
214 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 If a woman is not your Sunday School teacher, 
 she is at the head of the library committee 
 of which you are a member; or, if still you 
 miss her there, she is a famous hand for 
 helping out your tea-parties. A man may fur- 
 nish you with eggs, play the organ for you 
 in church, take photographs of the moun- 
 tains for you — in some way he touches your 
 life and makes his presence felt. The logical 
 outcome of all this is a statement by which I 
 do not hesitate to stand, with tradition fair 
 against me : in point of broad, vital activity 
 the country has advantage over the city. In 
 my own experience, I know that I go away 
 from Dorset to rest me of the imperiousness 
 of human interest, and that when I come back 
 again in the spring I feel life taking actual 
 hold upon me, shaking me out of my absorp- 
 tion, compelling me to listen. 
 
 Dorset is no worse, I am sure, and perhaps 
 no better than any other New England village. 
 
The Community 215 
 
 But it is surprising how many problems it 
 manages to originate in the course of a year. 
 It is not my place to enter here into particulars ; 
 the disclosure would be disloyal. Suffice it to 
 say that tragedies of the somberest cast have 
 run their inexorable course beneath our eyes, 
 failing to shatter us only because they were so 
 simple, so plain, so near. Comedies have 
 played themselves out to our delighted ap- 
 plause. Careers have developed from obscure 
 seeds of talent unsuspected. Struggles fought 
 have been lost and won. So interesting, all 
 so interesting ! We have watched with breath- 
 less attention. I have heard the complaint 
 from time to time that it is not pleasant to 
 have one's affairs scrutinized too closely. No, 
 doubtless; but the reluctance is not the most 
 manly attitude. Not to itself is any one life, 
 but to God is society. And since we all owe 
 so much to each other — incalculable influence! 
 — we should not shut away the processes by 
 
216 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 which we make use of our loans and appro- 
 priations. 
 
 It is curious what attraction there seems to 
 be always in remote, small places for the waifs 
 and the vagabonds of mankind. Or is this in 
 truth not so? Are the sticks which drift in 
 the quiet pools really no odder than those 
 which go careering down the stream, and is it 
 merely repose and isolation which makes them 
 appear so? Men are all queer enough, heaven 
 knows. Surely, however, it would appear 
 that the world can contain no stranger people 
 than those who put in an appearance in Dorset 
 unaccountably now and then. Where do they 
 come from? What do they want? Who di- 
 rected them hither? As a rule they are quite 
 non-committal about their mysterious affairs. 
 They arrive, they take rooms, they settle down, 
 and that is all there is to it. Little by little, 
 perhaps, it transpires that such a one is a 
 philosopher, brooding a new theory, such an- 
 
The Community 217 
 
 other a circus acrobat laid aside for repairs, 
 a third a young poet, a fourth a school-teacher, 
 tired and disappointed, a fifth the Wandering 
 Jew. But scant is the direct information or 
 confidence vouchsafed. Dorset's attitude to- 
 wards these strays seems to me all that is 
 admirable in its broad tolerance. It receives 
 them kindly, asking no questions, speculating 
 a little it may be, but obtruding no curiosity. 
 It lets them alone, if they so desire; or, if, on 
 the other hand, they display social tendencies, 
 it spreads the board, and, with a hospitality 
 refreshingly undiscriminating, invites them all 
 to supper at once. Prate to me not of your 
 " picked dinner-parties," orderly and har- 
 monious. Better to me is the memory of one 
 of those Dorset teas, where, seated between the 
 acrobat and the philosopher, I held unimagined 
 discourse, novel and quite absorbing. It was 
 not harmonious, no. If I remember well, the 
 philosopher hammered his fist on the table 
 
21 8 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 until the glasses rang — in the manner of 
 philosophers. But we were all very much 
 alive, and the boundaries of our minds were 
 enlarged when we rose up to go. Denizens of 
 the little places learn perforce one invaluable 
 lesson — to take people for the best there is in 
 them. It is only the city that can afford any 
 protracted dislike. 
 
 The Dorset people themselves, be it known, 
 are not untouched with eccentricity. Perhaps 
 they have sympathetic reasons for tolerating 
 and understanding peculiarities. But their 
 strangeness is derived from the soil, and there- 
 fore seems part of the order of things. New 
 England breeds a certain oddness — madness, I 
 was going to say — as naturally as rocks. 
 
 During three or four months of the year 
 the Dorset life is quickened, transformed 
 through the presence of the summer boarder. 
 I trust I have not appeared to mock, in my 
 previous pages, at the ways of this excellent 
 
The Community 219 
 
 personage. Believe me, it was only the ebulli- 
 tion of my pride of recent graduation from the 
 good but unstable class into that of landed 
 proprietor, that provoked my jesting com- 
 ment. I like well the summer boarder. At 
 her advent (I apply the pronoun advisedly) a 
 change comes over Dorset. The quiet green 
 wakes from its sunny repose in the center of 
 the maple-edged street of the little village, and 
 blossoms out into white dresses; the marble 
 walks echo to sauntering feet; the steps of the 
 old white houses bear laughing, chattering 
 groups. The effect is electric upon the Dorset 
 people. Some of them it sends flying into re- 
 mote corners of the hills, there to remain until 
 the invasion is overpast ; some of them, on the 
 other hand, it draws out to meet on the equal 
 footing of peers these strangers from the more 
 populous world beyond and far away. We, 
 driving in from our out-lying home, feel the 
 two influences. Accustomed to solitude and 
 
220 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 seclusion, we are bewildered, almost alarmed, 
 at what seems to us a vast crowd of people — 
 fifteen or twenty perhaps ! Lorna starts 
 nervously at the flash of so many white dresses 
 across her path; the brooding equine mind is 
 disturbed at the checkering of its open road. 
 Our first impulse undoubtedly is to turn and 
 flee. But then we catch sight of interesting 
 faces, kindly eyes, quick inviting smiles; and, 
 knowing that real human intercourse is a thing 
 worth having, we nerve ourselves to endure 
 the strain of a social afternoon. I put Lorna 
 in the church shed, safe from all sight or 
 sound of disquiet — save such as she herself in- 
 stitutes, calling loudly, imperiously after me at 
 frequent intervals — and Aunt Susan and Jane 
 and I make calls. They are very brief calls; 
 our object is to invite people to visit us. As 
 soon as I can, I fetch Lorna again (how the 
 welkin rings with her salutation as she hears 
 my step!) and we positively speed out of the 
 
The Community 221 
 
 village, helped in our somewhat ungracious 
 departure by the hill which declines from the 
 end of the street. That is an unfortunate hill 
 for us. It obliges us to approach our kind 
 with an apparent plodding reluctance, and 
 fairly to rush away. But I trust that those 
 who take the trouble to find their way across 
 the meadows and through the woods to our 
 distant home know that we have our genial 
 side. There is no social pleasure so sweet as 
 that of looking up from a book, on the front 
 steps, of a fine afternoon, and seeing a friendly 
 face at the gate, waiting for recognition. Be 
 the book Shakespeare, be it Charles Lamb, it 
 falls on the instant unnoticed. Open the gate, 
 fling the door wide; welcome, welcome, my 
 friend! Sometimes we take our way to the 
 orchard, as I said in a previous chapter ; some- 
 times we consort on the side piazza with Aunt 
 Susan and Jane ; sometimes I have Lorna har- 
 nessed into the buggy and we drive up among 
 
222 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 the hills beside the hurrying brooks. Always 
 there is the whole afternoon of companionship, 
 mirth, and pleasure; a happier intercourse is 
 there none in the whole wide world. When 
 people accuse me of not liking society, and I 
 deny the charge, stoutly asserting a contrary 
 predilection, I have always in mind some such 
 afternoon. Is that not society? By your 
 leave, I know my friends; it is the best in the 
 world. 
 
 There is a dearness about life in Dorset, 
 when all is said and done, that cannot be esti- 
 mated. So close to each other we all stand, in 
 the woven bonds of our interaction, that we 
 are a part of each other's lives and of the one 
 whole life. Love and loyalty are the result in 
 no common measure. It sounds absurd to out- 
 siders sometimes to hear us praise our valley, 
 our hills, our village, our church, our com- 
 munity, as if there were no other such perfect 
 dwelling-place on the earth. But in truth we 
 
The Community 223 
 
 are honest about it. Meet a Dorseter in New 
 York, say to him casually, " Green Peak," and 
 see the answering gleam in his eye, quick and 
 wistful, a little strange with a touch of the 
 fanatic's fire. Green Peak — there you have 
 him! 
 
 When shall I become a native of Dorset? 
 Jacob sold his birthright. Might I not 
 earn one then by faithful, loyal service ? After 
 how many years of occupation does a house 
 becomes a homestead? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 JBeast IWdgbbors 
 
 \\ 7" HAT of the furry and feathered folk 
 
 * ™ who inhabit our orchard and garden 
 with us? Are they not of the community too? 
 Shall they not be recognized? I came across 
 a quaint saying once in a daily paper which 
 has ever since lingered in my mind, pleasing 
 me with its whimsical humor. " Which is the 
 greatest of all the animals? Man. Yes, but 
 who says so? Man." In truth, it does all 
 very well to boast of your farmers, your 
 villagers, your enthusiastic women occupying 
 your old white houses, your human upstarts of 
 every kind ; theirs is a modern title to valley : 
 and hills compared to the ancient inherited 
 
 right of woodchuck and song-sparrow. Let 
 
 224 
 
Beast Neighbors 225 
 
 no one attempt to argue with me on the point. 
 I will listen to no one — unless it be to some 
 squirrel or bobolink. I should like well the 
 latter 's point of view. Does he plume himself 
 and then laugh at himself too a little, I won- 
 der ? " Which is the greatest of all the 
 animals? The bird. Yes, but who says so? 
 The bird." Well, our universal self-satisfac- 
 tion must tickle the sides of the gods. 
 
 It will be remembered that the old white 
 house had stood empty for several years be- 
 fore Aunt Susan and Jane and I came to 
 occupy it. I suppose the birds and the chip- 
 munks thought that the place had been made 
 over to them definitely by humanity; at any 
 rate they had taken possession in riotous mul- 
 titudes. Their air of injured surprise and re- 
 sentment when we put in our appearance was 
 a manifestation that bears me out in my 
 attribution to them of a race complacency equal 
 to ours. They rushed head-foremost at us 
 15 
 
226 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 down the trees and hung midway, screaming 
 invectives. 
 
 The old apple-tree which stands nearest the 
 house, out from the edge of the orchard, is the 
 finest bird tenement on the place, being full of 
 holes and notches. Its rooms were all occupied 
 when we arrived, that spring of our first 
 residence; the birds had committed themselves 
 for the season to the extent of four and five 
 eggs a family, there was nothing for it but 
 that they should stand by their domestic en- 
 gagements. But how indignant they were at 
 us for our unexpected intrusion ! The largest 
 hole, looking out towards the house, was occu- 
 pied by a flicker. He cocked his red crest 
 angrily when he flew up and found us standing 
 in an admiring row beneath his front door. 
 
 " Well, of all the proceedings ! " he said 
 quite plainly. " Who are you, then, to come 
 and stare at a gentleman's private residence? 
 What right have you here anyway ? Yes, I am 
 
Beast Neighbors 227 
 
 a flicker and this is my home. Wonderful, is 
 it not, to be sure ? My wife is within, but she 
 begs, if you please, that you will excuse her 
 to-day." 
 
 And, with a mocking laugh and a flirt of 
 his beautiful golden wings, he vanished from 
 us within his hole. 
 
 I fear that we led the resentful creature a 
 life of it during the next few weeks. Not that 
 we interfered with him in the least — his in- 
 terests were soon quite as dear to us as our 
 own — but that we simply could not curb our 
 curiosity. Seeing how it annoyed him to have 
 us stand beneath the apple-tree, we took to 
 watching him from the windows of the house, 
 armed with opera-glasses. That last insult 
 was really worse than the first, but it had 
 the deceitful advantage of being largely un- 
 noticed. Mrs. Flicker's rare appearances were 
 hailed by us with great interest. Aunt Susan 
 thought the poor thing looked worn, and no 
 
228 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 wonder, sitting cramped over those eggs ; what 
 a long strain the hatching process must be! 
 We were greatly relieved when one day it ap- 
 peared, from the dartings and flutterings back 
 and forth of both father and mother together, 
 that the nestlings' shells were broken. Now 
 stretch yourselves, good mother-wings, that so 
 long have brooded close. Ah, well, for the 
 matter of that, no fear of lack of exercise! 
 We were presently quite as much appalled at 
 the activity of our good housewife neighbor 
 as we had previously been at her quiescence. 
 Never two birds worked harder than that in- 
 dustrious pair. The strong, wide in-sweep of 
 their wings — a very noble flight — was the 
 regular pulse-beat of the summer day, there on 
 the edge of the orchard, steady, unhurried, un- 
 interrupted, hour after hour. 
 
 " If I could only help! " sighed Aunt Susan. 
 " I could catch plenty of flies for them ; but I 
 
Beast Neighbors 229 
 
 dare say they wouldn't accept them, they're so 
 independent." 
 
 It was a great eVent, to us as well as to the 
 parent birds, when the boldest nestling first 
 struggled up to the mouth of the hole and 
 clung there a moment, looking out, upheld by 
 who knows what precarious support of 
 rebellious little brothers' backs squirming 
 underneath? His expression was guileless, in- 
 quiring, thoroughly well-pleased. He dropped 
 abruptly, and there was heard an obscure 
 murmur within the tree betokening argument ; 
 but the first step towards emancipation had 
 been taken, and after this there was not a day 
 when some baby face did not climb to look out 
 innocently on the world. 
 
 I remember well the early June day on 
 which it became apparent that the Flicker chil- 
 dren would fly before night if all things went 
 well. The father and mother hovered near, 
 anxious, pleased, excited; they even forgot to 
 
230 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 resent our presence and to fling gibes at us. 
 We, for our part, hardly dared to leave the 
 library window a moment; with opera-glasses 
 glued to our eyes, we stood watching, breath- 
 less. We were at the topmost pitch of our 
 excitement, and the hardiest fledgling was 
 actually tottering on the edge of the hole, when 
 — a caller entered the library, politely coming 
 to pay his respects upon us in our new home. 
 What did we do? Extended, each of us, a 
 hand behind us, turning not from the window. 
 " How do you do ? Very glad to see you. 
 Won't you come and watch the young birds 
 fly?" It was a test of the quality of our 
 caller, and he stood it well. Silently he ac- 
 cepted a place beside me in the window, and 
 not another word was spoken, save breathless 
 ejaculations from time to time, till the brown 
 and unkempt-looking baby suddenly roused 
 himself from his sad abstraction, the center of 
 all eyes, and recklessly committed himself to 
 
Beast Neighbors 231 
 
 the air, rowing crookedly off on his wings. 
 Then, "Ah!" we said, with a long-drawn 
 breath, and returned to our duties as hostesses. 
 The phoebe-bird who had her nest just in- 
 side the porch was a gentler neighbor than the 
 flaunting flicker; but she was a no less hardy 
 soul, as experience proved. She greeted us 
 pleasantly when we arrived, in no way dis- 
 concerted, it seemed, by our near approach. 
 With her head on one side, she peered down 
 at us from the midst of her half-made nest, 
 as she wriggled and patted it into shape with 
 her slender little feet. We, for our part, were 
 charmed enough with her friendly little pres- 
 ence. We watched her each day, as, happy, 
 absorbed, she completed her preparations, and 
 guessed by the certain — thoughtfulness, shall 
 I call it ? — which came over her by and by that 
 her eggs were laid. Then she settled down to 
 her mother-brooding and we went softly be- 
 neath her. 
 
232 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 Consider my horror one day when I went as 
 usual to look out at the nest before I sat down 
 to breakfast, and — the whole thing was gone! 
 Aunt Susan and Jane were very grave. They 
 had preceded me downstairs, and had learned 
 at once the mournful news that the carpenter, 
 in touching up with a little paint the pillars 
 of the porch, had removed, as a matter of 
 course, the somewhat untidy bird's nest. 
 " Didn't think you'd want that messy thing 
 there," he defended himself. 
 
 I am not ashamed to say that I shed tears 
 into my breakfast napkin that morning; the 
 tragedy seemed too cruel. The phoebe-bird, 
 however — weep? not she! She fluttered dis- 
 tractedly back and forth for an hour or two, 
 looking in upon our woe. " Never mind," her 
 kind little pinions told us. ." It wasn't your 
 fault; you couldn't help it. It will all come 
 right ; you see ! " Then she stopped to take 
 counsel with herself, and, before the morning 
 
Beast Neighbors 233 
 
 was over, she had set to work on another nest 
 on the opposite pillar of the same porch. 
 
 The courage and generosity of this imme- 
 diate act stirred us not a little. We had failed 
 in our obvious capacity of protectors, yet we 
 were being trusted again with no slightest 
 hesitation. Eager to prove ourselves worthy 
 now, eager to help in some little way, we ran- 
 sacked the house for materials possibly fit for 
 nest-building. Ravelings, scraps of cotton 
 and silk, bits of our own hair — with these 
 things we strewed the marble flag at the foot 
 of the pillar, and proud was the moment when 
 we saw any offering accepted. Never was nest 
 built in such hot haste. The phoebe-bird 
 scarcely stopped to eat. We guarded her well. 
 As a matter of fact, she could not have done a 
 better thing in point of worldly wisdom than 
 to continue her home with us, for if anybody 
 was now to be trusted, we were. Even 
 fiercely defensive, we stood between our little 
 
234 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 brown neighbor and any possible harm. When 
 once more the busy wings were furled over the 
 reasserted hope, the dear, invincible, sacred 
 hope that could not be destroyed, and the 
 bright eyes looked hourly down on us, we 
 bound ourselves to any number of cautious 
 considerations. I forebore to come leaping in 
 at the side of the porch under the nest-crowned 
 pillar, but went carefully by the way of the 
 steps (as, indeed, a decorous person should!) 
 for I found that sudden near motions alarmed 
 the gently brooding mother. Aunt Susan did 
 not hesitate to ask a visitor to change the posi- 
 tion of his chair if she suspected that his 
 strange presence at the foot of the pillar dis- 
 turbed the little heart above; and Jane has 
 often stopped rocking and sewing and has 
 held her breath while the little friend has flown 
 in from one of her brief excursions. 
 
 'Tis a dauntless birdling in very truth. We 
 have meditated often with profit on the strange 
 
Beast Neighbors 235 
 
 kind of courage it manifests. All the wild 
 natural fears are there, vibrant within its 
 breast. I have seen our phoebe hang fluttering 
 at the side of the porch when several people 
 were present, unable to make up her mind to 
 enter. Again and again she has given up the 
 undertaking as quite impossible, and has re- 
 treated to an adjoining tree, wagging her tail 
 up and down in a curious balancing motion — 
 " Dare I, dare I not ? " Then another quick 
 dash — almost in this time — we sat motionless 
 as statues; no use, courage failed her again, 
 and she was off once more. Aunt Susan has 
 risen to these occasions with her usual tact, and 
 has delicately diverted attention to the moun- 
 tains beyond the porch or to a new rose-bush, 
 thus enabling the frightened bird to regain her 
 nest unnoticed. But why, when the creature 
 has such fears in the wild heart of her, does 
 she deliberately choose to come and make her 
 home with us? Faith greater than fear is 
 
236 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 there, and love greater than all. I had a 
 guilty feeling that year when I noticed young 
 phoebe-birds everywhere on the wing while our 
 porch companion was still tied down to mater- 
 nal cares. But she made no sort of complaint. 
 Cheerful as ever, she seemed to ignore the fact 
 that her brood was tardy. A generous spirit, 
 hers. 
 
 It would be of course too much to expect 
 that we should know on terms of personal in- 
 timacy every bird who lives on our place. 
 There are robins and bluebirds and song- 
 sparrows, orioles, bobolinks, fly-catchers, wax- 
 wings, goldfinches, nuthatches, woodpeckers, a 
 kingbird sometimes, a purple-finch, once on a 
 time a cuckoo, owls always, meadow-larks, 
 various kinds of sparrows, vireos, catbirds — 
 through the long day the orchard vibrates with 
 song and flight, and life is overflowing. 
 
 The meadow-lark was for some time " a 
 wandering voice " to me. I had not happened 
 
Beast Neighbors 237 
 
 to know his song before we came to Dorset, 
 and I never could manage to hunt him down 
 in the midst of the long grass. The piercing 
 sweetness of that long call, sad as a soul bereft ! 
 I would run to the edge of the meadow and 
 gaze, there where it surely must be at my feet, 
 but I could see nothing at all. Before my very 
 eyes, staring hard, the voice would shift its 
 place, fade away, " past the near meadows, over 
 the still stream," and I could see nothing move. 
 Truly did I wake or sleep ? I rubbed my eyes, 
 perplexed. It was a ghost, I decided at last, 
 with no little satisfaction, a sweet sad spirit set 
 to haunt the length of summer days, an Ariel, 
 only it was too plaintive, a dear heart-smitten 
 thing. I gave over hunting then, of course, and 
 was glad with the joy at last realized of listen- 
 ing thrillingly every day to a voice from the 
 unseen world. It is too late to rob me now 
 of that gratification; the thing once done is 
 done. I have consciously listened to a spirit, 
 
238 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 and that the voice turned out after all to belong 
 to a large brown bird does not affect in the 
 slightest way the quality of my listening. 
 Marvelous, is it not, for a fact, how such a 
 large bird can lurk so shyly in such open places ? 
 I wonder sometimes if it does not possess a 
 ventriloquial power not yet understood by bird 
 students, and thus is enabled to throw its voice 
 across the meadows, hither and yon, like a 
 silver ball. But why the heart-ache? More 
 secret than Philomel's are these woes, a legend 
 uninterpreted by our New England ears. 
 
 If I were asked to name the bird most dis- 
 tinctive of our region, I should hesitate be- 
 tween the song-sparrow and the swallow. 
 Homely presences are they both, but, save for 
 occasional flights of sentiment, we are homely 
 people. The sparrow sings, and the swallow 
 flies — two apparently quite absorbingly satis- 
 factory methods of self-expression. It is al- 
 ways winged by the wheeling motion of 
 
Beast Neighbors 239 
 
 swallows that I see our house and our orchard 
 when I call them up to remembrance in my 
 city exile. Light as the wind and untiring, 
 they soar and circle and dip and skim over the 
 open space in the orchard when the sun is set. 
 I lie in the grass and look up at them, feeling 
 them almost brush my face, catching their 
 faint twitterings. " And gathering swallows 
 twitter in the skies " — that is just it, Keats. 
 The chimney-loving variety does not pass us 
 by, though in truth I almost wish he would. I 
 like to hear how, as Lowell puts it, he " rolls 
 his distant thunders night and day in the wide- 
 throated chimneys," but I do not like the threat 
 of ever-impending calamity which his presence 
 above our open fire constantly suggests. It 
 brings the heart too often into the mouth when 
 the flame leaps up. 
 
 Next to the birds, the chipmunks rank in 
 number and sociability about our old white 
 house. They are indeed the most aggressive 
 
240 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 neighbors we have. In point of downright 
 impudence I have never known creatures to 
 excel them. To be sure, the perfection of 
 sauciness to which they have arrived with us 
 is largely my own fault, for I misapprehended 
 their nature at first and deliberately woed them 
 to intimacy. They played a coy, reluctant 
 game, scampering up the nearest tree at any 
 glimpse of us, quivering, shrinking — the timid 
 souls ! — making haste to hide in the notch of 
 some limb from which they might peer down 
 at us with their bright engaging eyes. For a 
 week or two my sole knowledge of them was 
 furnished by these quick dashes and scamper- 
 ings, over before I could catch my breath, yet 
 leaving a strongly marked picture with me of a 
 lithe little graceful body in full careering 
 motion. Piquancy, grace, aloofness — what 
 qualities more alluring ? There is nothing like 
 a vanishing element to tempt the questing 
 mind. Then one afternoon, as I sat musing 
 
Beast Neighbors 241 
 
 alone on the steps, my glance, wandering from 
 the mountains, fell on the grass at my feet, 
 and there I saw the funniest little figure in 
 the world, erect, watching me. There is no 
 telling how long he had been there, quite mo- 
 tionless, his eyes on my face, waiting for me 
 to perceive him. His expression was the most 
 artful mixture of terror and interest, faith and 
 distrust that an actor could assume. From 
 time to time little shivers ran through his 
 exquisite body, causing his teeth to chatter, 
 yet he held his ground. " See," ran his mute, 
 convincing appeal, " I am frightened almost to 
 death. Don't you notice the haggard look in 
 my eyes? Don't you see how I tremble? I 
 am limp with terror, and yet I have come be- 
 cause you interest me." 
 
 Well, I suppose I had never felt more 
 flattered in my life. I cautiously rose and 
 went into the house after a bag of English 
 
 walnuts which I dare say the chipmunk had 
 16 
 
242 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 seen me bring home that morning. When I 
 returned, he had taken flight and was peering 
 at me from behind a picket of the fence. But 
 he consented, little by little, to be lured out to 
 the lawn again ; and the enterprise was soon in 
 full swing which for days thereafter I reported 
 boastingly to my friends as the process of 
 taming a chipmunk, and which he reported to 
 his friends — likewise boasting, and with better 
 reason — as the process of fooling a human. 
 How wonderful I thought it when, with in- 
 finite shrinkings and hesitations, precipitate re- 
 treatings, he advanced at last to take a section 
 of nut from my fingers ! I might have sur- 
 mised, had I been less fatuous, that his fear 
 was only skin-deep, for carnal appetite over- 
 came his wiliness as soon as he held the nut in 
 his paws, and, forgetting his role of timidity, 
 he sat down close beside my hand and gave 
 himself over to degustation. But I was only 
 the further flattered. What a pretty tribute of 
 
Beast Neighbors 243 
 
 trust! Afraid to withdraw my out-stretched 
 hand, I sat patiently, stiffly motionless in an 
 arrested gesture which, little by little, became 
 absurd, while the chipmunk, with infinite slow- 
 ness, finished his nut and regarded me out of 
 his sidelong eyes. His good wife meantime sat 
 overhead ^and shook her tree-twig with 
 laughter. 
 
 Ah, well, these pretty fooleries do not last 
 forever. Sooner or later the wool is brushed 
 from too fatuous eyes. When I discovered my 
 shy chipmunk making free one day with the 
 provisions in our cellar, I began to doubt his 
 sincerity in so gratefully, so reluctantly accept- 
 ing his daily nut from me. And, as soon as 
 pear season was under way, all pretenses were 
 laid aside, all cajoleries omitted. We have 
 none too many pears on the place, but all that 
 we have the chipmunks appreciate to the full. 
 Merrily, with whole-hearted abandon, they 
 scamper up the slim wrinkled trees, their shy- 
 
244 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 ness changed into adroit evasion, their 
 piquancy into effrontery. And there on the 
 limbs they sit all day, cleaving pear after pear 
 to get at the seeds, dropping the rest of the 
 fruit discarded, our preserving kettle's cher- 
 ished hope gone as their slighted refuse. 
 
 Aunt Susan and I, in sympathy on almost 
 every subject, fall out when it comes to the 
 question of how to bear ourselves toward 
 tyrannical creatures, such as the brazen chip- 
 munk. Aunt Susan has reason on her side. 
 She says that the chipmunk must be sup- 
 pressed, that there is no sort of logic by which 
 his usurpation can be defended, that she is 
 willing to show him her deed to the place. She 
 maintains her right to the privacy of her cellar 
 and the repletion of her preserving kettle; and, 
 argument proving of no avail, she condones 
 the shotgun. Myself, I am too faint-hearted 
 by far. I do not quite know why I defend the 
 arrogant chipmunk so warmly. Perhaps there 
 
Beast Neighbors 245 
 
 is in me a lingering bent towards submission 
 to him who has fooled me once, a respectful 
 tenderness. At any rate, defend him I do, and 
 my intercession has taken effect to such an ex- 
 tent that now, when he grows too overbearing, 
 he is harmlessly trapped and carried off to a 
 certain stone wall several miles away, out in 
 the open country, where he is turned loose to 
 begin again, let us hope, a more sober life. 
 
 Domestic animals have we none, save only, 
 absorbingly, Lorna. But all our neighbors see 
 kindly to it that we do not lack the companion- 
 ship which the loan of their barn-folk may give 
 us. At night and morning the cows go by, 
 striving with a guilty clumsiness which is 
 fortunately not often effective, to snatch 
 mouthfuls of scarlet-runner. And all day long 
 chickens wander free and happy in the orchard. 
 They apparently go home to lay, these thrifty, 
 conscientious feathered folk, with a sense of 
 duty towards their nominal owners more nice 
 
246 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 than generous; but, that function performed, 
 they return to devote their pensive leisure to 
 us. We do not object; they are harmless 
 souls, if they keep away from the garden. 
 
 There was once a rabbit — oh, tragic tale 
 that rises to my remembrance! I must relate 
 it in full. 
 
 I was thoroughly pleased when I first dis- 
 covered the little form crouched upon the lawn 
 in the summer dusk. Here was a loan more 
 picturesque than chickens. But I had mis- 
 givings, I suppose, for I did not communicate 
 the news of the arrival to Aunt Susan. For 
 two or three days I enjoyed the presence of 
 my new twilight companion, leaping so softly, 
 with waving ears, crouching so round and still. 
 Then one morning I came upon Aunt Susan 
 and Peter in dark consultation, Peter half con- 
 cealing a gun, while Bridget, eager-eyed, 
 hovered near, a game recipe book in her hand. 
 I apprehended the situation, and drew myself 
 
Beast Neighbors 247 
 
 up immediately in magnificent silent inquiry. 
 I am sure I have not the least idea why I 
 should have taken it on myself to regard all 
 measures of discipline on Aunt Susan's domain 
 as personal offenses. Aunt Susan burst out 
 indignantly : 
 
 " That rabbit was eating the new shoots of 
 my Canterbury bells; I saw him early this 
 morning. Oh, really, my dear " 
 
 And she proceeded to set her cause forth 
 with a convincing persuasiveness which I could 
 not dispute. 
 
 " Well " — I came down from my high horse 
 — " I'll go and see Mr. Wilson at once. I'll 
 tell him to come and get his rabbit. Of course 
 we can't have the garden destroyed. Only do 
 please, Bridget, for pity's sake, put away that 
 awful book ! " 
 
 Mr. Wilson was prompt to respond. The 
 rabbit .belonged to his small son, Tommy, and 
 was a household pet. But it seems that one 
 
248 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 cannot just " come and get " a rabbit, as one 
 might a wheelbarrow or a hoe, for the rabbit 
 himself generally has active, contrary views on 
 the subject. Mr. Wilson brought with him a 
 trap, a slender and harmless looking contriv- 
 ance, intended merely to nip Bunny's leg and 
 hold him in place a moment or two until he 
 could be picked up. This trap Peter set. 
 Whether he did not fasten' it securely enough 
 to the ground, or whether the rabbit's prowess 
 proved beyond all reasonable estimation, I 
 suppose we shall never know. But while we 
 were sitting at supper that night, there came a 
 scampering and a squealing, a horrid, 
 dragging, scraping retreat beneath the side 
 piazza, and, dropping our napkins, we gazed at 
 each other, appalled by the realization that, 
 trap and all, the rabbit was gone beyond all 
 possible reach. 
 
 Well, then there ensued a twenty-four 
 hours! The inside of the piazza floor is 
 
Beast Neighbors 249 
 
 scarcely a foot from the ground. I could see 
 nothing by peering in, but I spent the evening 
 lying close to the hole of the rabbit's entrance, 
 calling, coaxing, offering leaves of our most 
 succulent lettuce. No use. I finally went to 
 bed, sorrow in my heart, and dreamed dis- 
 tractedly all night long of that horrid rasping 
 dragging. 
 
 The next day early I summoned Tommy. 
 
 " You must go under and get him," I said. 
 
 Tommy is a very small boy. The better for 
 the purpose in hand. But the worse for his 
 young courage. The most hardy adventurer in 
 the world does not enter dark subterranean 
 regions entirely unappalled. He gazed at me 
 with big eyes. 
 
 " Yes," I insisted, " here is a hoe ; you can 
 dig your way out in front of you if there isn't 
 room enough. Oh, Tommy ! " — I broke off 
 suddenly in an earnest appeal — " I'd go my- 
 
250 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 self if I could, you know, but I'm quite too 
 big." 
 
 The gallant Tommy! He flattened himself 
 without another word, and slowly edged his 
 tortuous way in beneath the piazza floor. His 
 head disappeared, his shoulders, the tail of his 
 little coat ; then he paused. 
 
 " Say ! " he called back in a muffled voice. 
 
 That was exactly what he meant. He had 
 nothing to say for his part, being preoccupied 
 altogether beyond conversational bounds. But 
 the gravelike silence in the gravelike place 
 weighed upon his spirits, and he would fain 
 have me " say " something. I straightway be- 
 gan a monologue, cheerful, uninterrupted, and 
 had the satisfaction of seeing the small boots 
 slowly draw out of sight before me as I talked. 
 
 What happened to Tommy beneath the 
 porch I have never rightly known. He came 
 scrambling out in a minute or two, backing so 
 furiously that his clothes and his features and 
 
Beast Neighbors 251 
 
 his hair were all brushed up the wrong way. 
 He jumped to his feet and shook himself, 
 looking around on the sunny world with an 
 eager relief. 
 
 " Did you see him ? " I asked breathlessly. 
 
 " Yes, but I couldn't reach him nohow. 
 He's way in under the steps." 
 
 He had the mysterious air of one who had 
 glimpsed things dark and strange, and I fore- 
 bore to urge him again to the cavernous enter- 
 prise. 
 
 By this time Mr. Wilson had put in an 
 appearance again, accompanied by Tommy's 
 brothers and sisters ; Aunt Susan and Jane and 
 Bridget and Peter were gathered on the lawn ; 
 passers-by turned their heads to stare at the 
 unusual concourse. Not too many people 
 were there, however, to help in the lifting of 
 the steps, which task was the next expedient in 
 our rescuing efforts. Heaving and tugging, 
 we strove together. " Is my house going to be 
 
252 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 pulled down? ". murmured poor Aunt Susan. 
 The steps gave a little, Tommy lay flat, ready 
 to reach and clutch, when once more the 
 horrid dragging sound gave notice that Bunny 
 was in motion, scurrying off toward the end 
 of the porch where he had come in. Stand 
 away, people! Give him room! If he sees 
 us, all is lost. We stood away, all of us, hold- 
 ing our breath, and out came the rabbit, hob- 
 bling, stumbling over the trap — alas, poor 
 soul ! But in a flash, before we could take one 
 step toward him, he had made off across the 
 lawn and was gone beneath the woodshed ! 
 
 I will not harrow any further my aching 
 memory by dwelling on the ensuing details of 
 this domestic crisis. Suffice it to say that the 
 woodshed floor was torn up and the founda- 
 tion stones displaced, until Aunt Susan wrung 
 her hands and looked for the walls to totter. 
 Finally, in despair, I sat back; nothing more 
 could be done. This was the conclusion for 
 
Beast Neighbors 253 
 
 which the rabbit had waited of course. As 
 soon as he had been let alone one whole day, 
 he issued forth in a calm midnight, and took 
 his way home. Mr. Wilson, finding him the 
 next morning, removed the trap, smoothed 
 down the fur which he said was a little 
 roughened, and there was a rabbit as good as 
 new, sadder and wiser perhaps. Not even 
 torn, his poor little leg, his tough little, 
 excellent leg! 
 
 The moral of this instructive tale is not far 
 to seek. A beast in trouble should be let alone 
 to take care of itself. 
 
 A word for my friend the woodchuck, the 
 hoary old veteran of the place, and I will close 
 this lengthening chapter. I seldom see him; 
 he is a recluse, a hermit of the orchard. Yet 
 his presence dominates for me the hill; he 
 seems the rightful proprietor. When I find 
 him erect at the mouth of his hole in the 
 twilight which he loves, I go cautiously a long 
 
254 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 way around lest I trouble his meditations. He 
 gravely ignores me, holding his own with mo- 
 tionless dignity. It is altogether my own 
 assumption — presumption, call it rather — 
 which has established any sort of companion- 
 ship between us. I wonder what he does all 
 the day long, down in the depths of the earth. 
 Judging from the many holes scattered about 
 the orchard, he has extensive apartments 
 below, and probably lives quite at his ease, 
 with sitting-room, dining-room, store-room, 
 bedroom. How one would like to see ! 
 
 Does it take two to make a friendship? Not 
 always, in this incomplete world, where one 
 must take odds and ends as they come, and 
 piece out the whole with imagination, dauntless 
 and determined. The orchard woodchuck and 
 I are friends, whether he knows it or not. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 Gbe Kear 
 
 T^7"HEN all the obvious companions of a 
 * * country life have been reckoned and 
 discussed, there still remains an intimate pres- 
 ence, more close, more constant than aught 
 else, more changing, more abiding, and that 
 is — the Year. To this strong, yet all so deli- 
 cate, patient, yet so whimsical, woven, moving, 
 growing spirit one must be every day alive, 
 for no gift of the out-of-doors is finer than its 
 manifestation, and none more subtle of accept- 
 ance. 
 
 It would seem, at the first thought of the 
 thing, that, by no inattention could one miss 
 the leisurely unfolding which season makes to 
 
 season. There is time to look and dream and 
 
 2 S5 
 
256 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 forget and look and dream again. But the real 
 truth of the matter is that one would have 
 to sit night and day, week in and week out, 
 watching with all his senses alert, if he would 
 follow the great unobtrusive progress, noting 
 all the important instants, the fatal crucial 
 seconds of change. It is wonderful that any- 
 thing so big as the Year can be so delicate, 
 anything so obviously lavish 'and open to all 
 mankind can be so secret, so shy in its work- 
 ings. The publicity of the valley and sky is 
 given to the seasons, yet who can trace their 
 footsteps ? 
 
 We come upon the Year " just awake, in 
 its cradle on the brake " when we return to 
 Dorset. Late April is with us what February 
 was to Shelley. There is hardly a hint of 
 green as yet, save down in the swamp where 
 the skunk cabbage grows. There may even 
 be rough, broken sheets of old snow, cracking 
 and shrinking on the brown fields, and sullen 
 
The Year 257 
 
 drifts are still certainly piled in the hollows 
 of the hills. How cold it is ! We shiver and 
 run for warmer wraps than we have needed all 
 winter long in the city. But we cannot stay in 
 the house. There is a sweetness in the keen 
 air, a wideness, an elation; the bare valley 
 wears a clear-swept look, with the song- 
 sparrow's note ringing over it; among the 
 gray boughs of the trees overhead, softly 
 etched against the sky, runs a thrill, a promise 
 which takes the breath; startled, we look and 
 listen. Not all the lavish abundance of May 
 has, to me, the intimate, joy-giving power of 
 these April days, in which there is nothing, 
 yet everything, infinite promise and hope. 
 
 Little by little, the patches of snow recede 
 into themselves and disappear, the brown fields 
 lie shining and wide in the sun, whispering 
 moisture and smelling sweet, and the march 
 of the green begins. Out from the heart of 
 the old mother swamp, primeval fosterer of us 
 17 
 
258 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 all, leader of ages and seasons, into the valley 
 meadows it comes, gradual as a tide. The old 
 brown stubble is over-run; so stiff and un- 
 yielding it appeared, what has become of it in 
 the advance of this fresh young tender life? 
 Now is the time to turn Nebuchadnezzar. Not 
 only the cowslips and dandelions, but even the 
 very blades of grass are succulent to eat. 
 
 The clear winter outline of the trees is 
 dimmed first by the swelling of buds; most 
 exquisite foliage, that, of all, a faint and blur- 
 ring haze, a very spirit which hovers and 
 hangs about the slender twigs. What is it? 
 The spirit of each leaf informing it before its 
 birth ? We see a similar cloudy aspect in 
 autumn treetops after the leaves have fallen. 
 There are then leaf ghosts, it appears ? 
 
 The voice of the wind in the treetop lyre is 
 one of the surest recorders of the progress of 
 the season. It takes a secret to tell a secret. 
 At first the sound is keen and shrill, a whistling 
 
The Year 259 
 
 vibration ; then, slowly, a certain density creeps 
 into its quality, a birth of under and over- 
 tones, a long-drawn sighing which does not 
 cease at once on the evening air. That is the 
 breath of the little leaves, singing ere yet they 
 are born. When they burst their bonds and 
 spread themselves, a deeper cadence comes into 
 the chant, a fuller harmony. Stronger and 
 richer and wider it grows, increasing from day 
 to day, until, in the perfect fulfilment of June, 
 it breaks into the great diapason of the many- 
 voiced summer. The song of one tree will fol- 
 low the Year closely through its changes. 
 
 When the green has covered the floor of the 
 valley and begun to climb the hills, the swamp 
 sends out another propulsion, like another 
 ripple in the tide; its bushes burst into leaf. 
 Forthwith, all the bushes in the' valley, along 
 the streams, in the roadside thickets, likewise 
 hang pennants out. Then the saplings, then 
 the slender trees, then the elms and maples — 
 
260 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 how quick runs the common thrill ! Meantime, 
 the grass climbs the sides of the mountains, 
 gathering speed as the bushes and trees press 
 hard on it from behind. There is an acceler- 
 ated pace everywhere apparent. If it was diffi- 
 cult to keep track of the doings of April, 
 what shall be said of the rush of mid-May 
 when everything happens at once? Birds ar- 
 rive, half a dozen kinds in a single day. 
 Rather, in a single night; for they love to 
 steal in on us unawares and surprise us in the 
 morning. " Oh, Jane, listen, an oriole ! Aunt 
 Susan, the orioles have come. That never was 
 a catbird — there! — I believe it was. Listen! 
 Listen ! Yes — no — yes — it is a bobolink ! " 
 Thus we, in the early morning, calling ex- 
 citedly back and forth, summoned from our 
 sleep. 
 
 It is this exuberant season that is my de- 
 spair. How is one small human heart to 
 grapple with such joy? All the birds singing, 
 
The Year 261 
 
 all the brooks leaping, every breath from the 
 blossoming orchard laden with perfume which 
 the nose — most fleetingly blessed of the organs 
 of sense — is loath to relinquish at the com- 
 mand of the ever-restless, still unsatisfied 
 lungs; flowers up-starting from the ground, 
 leaves unfolding themselves in the light which 
 they hasten to turn into pleasant shade, soft 
 winds caressing the earth. The days are so 
 long too, what Charles Lamb calls " these all 
 day long days." One might have strength 
 for an hour of rapture ; but this early and late 
 proceeding, with a slow summer sunset and 
 then a moonrise, weaving intricate, dreamy 
 young shadows among the trees and over 
 the pulsing meadows — " Aunt Susan, Aunt 
 Susan," I often cry, " I must go and sit in 
 the cellar ! " 
 
 Which remark, Aunt Susan declares, is pre- 
 eminently foolish; and I quite agree with her. 
 
 I think the objective point of the season, the 
 
262 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 goal of the panting stress, is the covering of 
 the tops of the mountains with the tide of 
 green. All the valleys lend themselves to this 
 effort, pushing hard with the gathered force of 
 their woods and meadows. Obscurely they 
 feel each other at work, there with the hills 
 between them, and they strive towards the 
 mystical meeting aloft beneath the summer 
 sky. Higher and higher; the ancient swamp 
 is in full luxuriant leafage now, teeming with 
 life, sending out its force in wide, vibrating 
 circles. Perhaps it is the blossoming of the 
 pink azalea that gives the final impulse. At 
 any rate, one day the valleys all round about 
 toss high their hands and clasp each other on 
 the peaks. Ah ! it is good, that consummation. 
 I fancy I hear the Year draw a long sigh, and 
 settle down into the calm of the summer. 
 
 Not that the work is by any means over; it 
 is in fact only begun. But to beginnings tur- 
 moil belongs, not to steady, continued effort. 
 
The Year 263 
 
 By the first of June all the crops are started, 
 the little hard green apples are set, the grass in 
 the meadows is well under way, many birds 
 are out of their shells. A succession of flowers 
 has come and gone, so that the Year has al- 
 ready a past to steady itself withal. The 
 valley takes on from day to day a certain staid- 
 ness and gravity. The bobolinks rollick above 
 the deep grass, but the madness has gone out 
 of their song; they drop down suddenly to 
 their nests, bubbling upward single sweet 
 notes, preoccupied and tender. The tree by 
 the door is no lyre now, but a deep-toned organ 
 from which the wind draws swelling har- 
 monies. Its utterance is multitudinous, 
 whisper climbing to whisper among its intri- 
 cate, swaying boughs, beginning nowhere, 
 ending nowhere, a universal sound. It is not 
 like an organ after all. It is like a great con- 
 gregation praying — one prayer, yet what 
 different voices, faint and strong and quick 
 
264 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 and slow, confident, uncertain, marking no 
 time, beginning, leaving off when they will, 
 yet filling the church with a mighty rushing 
 which is the voice of the wind of God. 
 
 Now is the time of the thunder-storms, 
 glorious manifestations, in which the wildness 
 at the Year's heart still finds vent for itself. 
 From how many a dinner have I been torn by 
 the imperative northward rumble, high sum- 
 mons which I never neglect ! Out in the road 
 in front of the house, out in the meadow if the 
 grass is cut, I stand, facing the north. A 
 solid, blue-black wall of cloud fills all the end 
 of the valley, a terrible portentous thing, rush- 
 ing up the zenith. Its broken edges lick up 
 the sky, swallowing the sunshine. Through 
 the body of it the lightning plays, leaping, 
 thrusting, quivering; and its heart glows 
 a lurid pink where the bursting storm is 
 withheld. There is nothing to me like the 
 fierce exultation of this swift advance. I 
 
The Year 265 
 
 stand on tiptoe and lift my arms, longing to 
 be a tree. The wind begins far up the valley, 
 coming, coming; the distance murmurs. I 
 can see the trees on the furthest hillsides sud- 
 denly bend and sway. Nearer, louder, the 
 village now is blown upon with tumult, the 
 valley rings with sound. Already long gray 
 veils of rain are sweeping across the hills, and 
 the end of the valley is blotted from sight by 
 the solid advancing wall. Yet all around me 
 how still it is! The single elm-tree holds itself 
 in tense, shuddering calm, bending its head a 
 little. Then, with a leap, the wind is upon it, 
 bowing it, shaking it, and the storm bursts 
 grandly into the meadow. I retreat to the 
 front steps, and shelter myself as well as I 
 can in the corner. Suddenly I am startled to 
 see, turning my face from the wild north, to 
 whose gloom I have been quite given over, 
 how serene lies the southern end of the valley, 
 bathed in golden sunlight, blue sky smiling 
 
266 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 above it still — a contrast which almost shocks 
 the sense in its vivid abruptness. But the fair 
 vision is not for long. The hungry cloud licks 
 up that sky too, and the sunlight is extinct. 
 Then in truth the furies are let loose. The 
 lightning leaps in the midst of the valley, the 
 thunder crashes and tears its way in and out 
 among the mountains, till it seems that new 
 gorges must be rent behind the folding clouds, 
 the rain comes down with a rush and a pour, 
 driven in long, sweeping, billowing lines, like 
 gray, fleeing ghosts, across the dim meadows, 
 rank after rank; they wring their pale hands 
 and tear their streaming hair. It does all very 
 well to assert that the Year is grown decorous, 
 staid in these maturer days; such demonstra- 
 tion of fire and might speaks of wildness still. 
 Yet, for all that, it is perfectly true that 
 sobriety increases. The stress goes out of the 
 common day early in July, and the strong re- 
 pose at the heart of things once more makes 
 
The Year 267 
 
 itself felt. Dreams begin to hover. Spring 
 does not seem to me the fit season of dreams; 
 it is too strenuous. Season of vision it is per- 
 haps, but quick and eager; it does not ponder 
 long. Autumn is the mother of dreams. So 
 that when, as I said, dreams begin to hover 
 on the dim blue August horizon, sailing aloft 
 on those great vague clouds that pile up white 
 and slow, one may know that Autumn is 
 putting forth her first touch of enchantment. 
 Truly a woven thing indeed is the life of a 
 Year. Season reaches to season, and so 
 anticipates, clasps, intermingles, that no one 
 watching can tell in the least where is end, 
 where beginning. I would fain be abroad to 
 receive the first dream of the autumn. But 
 how can I possibly know ? Perhaps it arrived 
 one April midnight, and has ever since 
 been hidden away on West Mountain, 
 waiting. 
 
 However it may be, from August on, I am 
 
268 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 quite at peace with the Year. Such a brood- 
 ing calm comes over the valley, voiced by the 
 wild, lonely scream of the hawk as he soars 
 on his motionless pinions high above the mown 
 fields and the misty blue hills, in the hazy sky. 
 Blue, blue — that is the color; not bright, but 
 all sorts of blending shades of gray-blue, violet- 
 blue, azure, amethyst, opal lights, exquisite, 
 caressing. Every ridge and fold of the moun- 
 tains is shown by this subtle shading as no 
 direct glare of the sun ever makes them mani- 
 fest. In delicacy and reserve and silence lies 
 the utmost truth, it would seem, giving itself 
 up to tenderness where it flees a broader treat- 
 ment. 
 
 What a Year we have with us now, what a 
 glorious, stately creature! The work of her 
 youth is all performed, her maturity is passing 
 on to that great climax which awaits her, the 
 call of which, ringing over the hills, the sum- 
 moning crimson call of October, has given her 
 
The Year 269 
 
 such thoughtful pause, here in her mown 
 meadows. The slow procession of the days 
 paces the valley from east to west, eloquent 
 days, though the birds are mute, and even the 
 winds are hushed. There is hardly a sound in 
 all the world. The silent sky, which keeps 
 aloof from all sort of tumult, comes down now 
 to the silent earth, and the two are one. Peace 
 — pause — musing! There is no hurry any 
 more, no reason why all things that be, should 
 not go on with quiet feet to their destined 
 goals. 
 
 Meantime the ancient swamp again, that 
 mother of the seasons, has held the first red 
 signal out, first bright September branch. At 
 once there runs that common thrill of quick- 
 ened expectation which the young spring 
 knew. So, it is coming, it begins ; prepare, ye 
 hills and meadows! A slower progress than 
 the spring's is the stately autumn's. For six 
 full weeks the pageant draws its length from 
 
270 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 swamp to mountain-top, and not until the very 
 end is there a quickened motion. 
 
 The dreams fall back a little, though, in the 
 cool September. The sky beams clear, the hills 
 stand out, the hale Year shakes herself from 
 musing; no decrepitude for her! The days 
 leap, sudden, from the crest of Green Peak, 
 and go exulting on their shortened, shining 
 way. The swamp burns like a heart of fire, 
 with little forks and tongues of flame licking 
 up from it. It sets the nearest woods ablaze, 
 they fling their sparks out to the hills, and 
 once more a march begins up the mountain 
 side, a march of fire and death this time, de- 
 stroying what the spring achieved. High- 
 hearted seasons are they all, who will effect 
 their consummation only on mountain-tops. 
 
 It is strange that one can support the glory 
 of the autumn better than that of the spring. 
 It may be because of the sense of repose deep 
 underneath it all, the past which steadies the 
 
The Year 27 1 
 
 i 
 
 present. There is a significant grandeur, too, 
 in the exultant march to death, which sobers 
 and lifts the spirit. Not in the sensuous, lavish 
 delight of beginning, lies the soul's best good, 
 but even in the immolation of fulfilment. 
 
 The slow conflagration spreads gradually 
 through the September days, kindling little by 
 little. But the first of October, as I have said, 
 feels a quickened impulse. " Come now, let 
 us finish ! " cries the Year, and snatches her 
 torch and runs down the valley, touching hill 
 after hill. How the peaks blaze up then 
 against the sky ! And all the broad flanks are 
 over-run with a sudden crimson glory. The 
 trees on the edges of lower woods, especially 
 slender, lonely trees, are transformed into what 
 is even more the quality than the hue of flame. 
 They flicker and vibrate before the eye, seem- 
 ing always in tremulous motion, their sub- 
 stance dissolved in color. Day after day 
 presses hard along, with its tribute of glory 
 
272 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 to glory ; even the hours work magical change, 
 weaving the swift, many-colored web; the 
 climax is near at hand. 
 
 Then, when at last the whole world is 
 aflame, come the best days of all. Days? It 
 may be only one day. But it is the best in the 
 year. The glory pauses, caught at its height, 
 arrested by a silence profound, which knows 
 no limitation. The very rushing of color along 
 the tops of the mountains has seemed to give 
 forth a clamorous note during the last week. 
 But now what a wide, wide hush ! Is it the 
 smoke of the burning hills that spreads such a 
 blue haze over the valley? The mountains 
 themselves glow obscurely through it, looming 
 like great opal fragments of an imagined 
 world. There is no slightest breath of wind, 
 but from the maple beside the door fall wide- 
 circling golden leaves, slowly, silently. With 
 the faintest whisper they touch the ground, the 
 merest little sigh. All the dreams have come 
 
The Year 273 
 
 thronging back, dreams and dreams and 
 dreams. The dim air is full of their waving 
 pinions, their music is the only sound, their 
 "unheard melodies," their "ditties of no 
 tune." From dawn to dusk I sit on the steps, 
 " The Lotus Eaters " open in one hand, 
 Richard Burton's "October" in the other. 
 But I do not read much. 
 
 " Now is the world a-muse, and earth and sky 
 Are in a pact of uttermost content." 
 
 Well, after this there come storm and de- 
 struction, the raving of the " wild west wind," 
 the flying of sear leaves all abroad beneath the 
 lowering sky. Great ragged masses of cloud 
 scud by across the purple-black mountains. 
 The stripped tree beside the door becomes once 
 more a lyre, and moans and shrieks through its 
 denuded boughs. The grandeur at the heart 
 of the Year is fully manifest, and those who 
 watch are awed and lifted by her mood into a 
 
 terror which is not fear, a somber exultation, 
 18 
 
274 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 What greatness of destiny is this which calls 
 such greatness of being forth ! 
 
 It would seem that the end must surely come 
 now, the heralded winter, without delay. But 
 no. The year, being sure of her course, can 
 afford delays and whimsical turns. It is only 
 a progress not quite sure which feels that it 
 must rush at once to conclusion, hit the goal 
 now or never. In the midst of her sternness of 
 desolation, the Year turns aside from her 
 lowering mountains, sits down in the valley, 
 and calls her dreams back, flocking in multi- 
 tudes. Indian summer holds the land in its 
 brief spell of magic. All around the valley 
 the soft gray hills loom against the soft blue 
 sky. There are no birds left to flutter or sing. 
 There are no flowers, no falling leaves; there 
 is even no color to stir the sense, nothing but 
 silence and peace — peace. The old gray 
 swamp lies quiescent and brooding, relapsed 
 into ancient calm. Let those who will choose 
 
The Year 275 
 
 the stress of the year, its abounding rapture 
 
 and effort ; for me the pause and the silence are 
 
 best, letting God's face through. 
 
 Once more hear Richard Burton : 
 " There is a time of subtle browns, and grays 
 That run to silverings, and tremulous greens. 
 And russet tints, and ash-pale pools of leaves ; 
 Of ghostly mosses and elusive grass 
 That's neither lush nor dead ; of naked trees 
 Ineffably harmonious with the sky 
 That stretches vast and neutral, tone on tone, 
 Not to be called a color, but a thought. 
 To some this is a barren time, a sleep 
 Between the winter and the spell of spring ; 
 To me it is the heart's own time and tide, 
 Being hidden from the heedless eye that lusts 
 For flaring lights and sunset dyes, yet charged 
 With secrets rare, and blendings into dreams, 
 And ecstasies divine that shadow forth 
 A mystery, the Selah of the Soul." 
 
 The final coming of the great end, the 
 
 destiny of the seasons, which has summoned 
 
 them on through their woven changes, is 
 
 oftentimes wrought in the night, in silence, 
 
 with the Year's own secrecy. The earth goes 
 
 to sleep bare and comfortless; it wakes (or 
 
 does it not wake perchance?) clothed in a 
 
276 Over Against Green Peak 
 
 mantle of softest white, blinded, muffled by 
 whirling flakes, bound in obscurity. The 
 winter is on it, that great season which must 
 be acknowledged the priest-king of all, since 
 to it all tend, and from it all arise again, 
 purified, submissive. Mighty in strength and 
 beauty it is, a right glorious time. We miss 
 much who go away when the first snow falls, 
 and shelter ourselves with our kind in the 
 crowded city. 
 
 Thus the Year in its general outline, the 
 merest sketch of its progress. Everyone 
 knows it, fortunately; there is no companion 
 more universal in the good round world. Yet 
 people have been known to speak of the loneli- 
 ness of a country life! Lonely with a Year 
 for a comrade? When I find one Year that is 
 like another, that does not keep me on the alert 
 to follow its moods and changes, or when one 
 single season betrays me, then I may grow 
 lonely in Dorset. 
 
"THE RETURN OF THE ESSAY" 
 
 OVER AGAINST GREEN PEAK 
 
 By Miss Zefhine Humphrey 
 
 The homely experiences of a bright young woman and her 
 Aunt Susan, not to mention the "hired girl," in New England 
 country life. 
 
 Publishers' readers, if good, seldom indulge in prophecies, and are seldom 
 surprised at anything that happens. So it is not strange that one of them 
 reports that he "will not be surprised if this book takes aplace with those 
 humorous and poetic records of country life which have made some authors 
 famous." He farther says : "If the last chapter, not to speak of some of 
 the other chapters, is not both ' nature study ' and ' literature ' of a high 
 order, I don't know where to look for either." 
 
 COMMENTS OF BAGSHOT 
 
 By J. A. Spender, editor of " The Westminster Gazette." 
 $1.25 net ; by mail, $1.33. 
 
 Delightful comments upon a great range of subjects, including 
 "Friendship," "Bores," "The Eleventh-Hour Man," "Shy- 
 ness," "Wealth," "Poverty," " The Needy and the Greedy," 
 " Women's Morality," etc. 
 
 The Spectator (London)—" While affording the easiest of reading, never- 
 theless touches deep issues deeply and fine issues finely. Not only thinks 
 himself, but makes you think . . . wise and witty. . . . Whether dealing 
 with death and immortality, or riches and Socialism, he always contrives 
 to be pungent and interesting and yet urbane, for there is no attempt 
 either at flashy cynicism or cheap epigram. . . . We advise our readers to 
 read carefully the admirable passage about Socialism and Bagshot's defence 
 of Aristotle's ' magnificent man.' " 
 
 WORDS TO THE WISE— AND OTHERS 
 
 By Miss Ellen Burns Sherman. $1.50 net ; by mail, $1.60. 
 
 The Root and Foliage of Style— When Steel Strikes Punk— 
 Our Kin and Others — At the End of the Rainbow — Modern 
 Letter Writing, with various actual examples— Our Comedie 
 Humaine — The Slain That Are Not Numbered. 
 
 Boston Transcript— "A freshness and piquancy wholly delightful. . . 
 Opens fresh doors into delightful thoughts and fancies." 
 
 San Francisco Chronicle—" Some of these essays are among the best in 
 the English language." 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald—" Considered in connection with countless other 
 excellent works of the crowded literary season it resembles ' an oasis green 
 in deserts dry.' " 
 
 TAPER LIGHTS 
 
 By Miss Ellen Burns Sherman. $1.25 net; by mail, $1.34. 
 
 Springfield Repvblican—" The first satisfactory stopping-place is the last 
 page. ... A second and even a third reading is pretty likely to end at the 
 same place." 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY p §gwK§S 
 
FIVE DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES 
 
 POEMS FOR TRAVELERS 
 
 Compiled by Mary R. J. DuBois. 16mo. 
 
 Covers France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and 
 Greece in some three hundred poems (nearly one-third of them 
 by Americans) from about one hundred and thirty poets. All 
 but some forty of these poems were originally written in English. 
 
 The three following books are uniform, with full gilt 
 flexible covers and pictured cover linings. 16mo. Each, cloth, 
 $1.50 ; leather, $2.50. 
 
 THE POETIC OLD WORLD 
 
 Compiled by Miss L. H. Humphrey. 
 
 Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium and the British Isles, 
 in some two hundred poems from about ninety poets. Some 
 thirty, not originally written in English, are given in both the 
 original and the best available translation. 
 
 THE OPEN ROAD 
 
 A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by E. V. Lucas. 
 
 Some 125 poems from over 60 authors, including Fitzgerald, 
 Shelley, Shakespeare, Kenneth Grahame, Stevenson, Whitman, 
 Browning, Keats, Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, 
 William Morris, Maurice Hewlett, Isaak Walton, William 
 Barnes, Herrick, Dobson, Lamb, Milton, Whittier, etc., etc. 
 
 "A very charming book from cover to cover."— Dial. 
 
 THE FRIENDLY TOWN 
 
 A little book for the urbane, compiled by E. V. Lucas. 
 
 Over 200 selections in verse and prose from 100 authors, 
 including : James R. Lowell, Burroughs, Herrick, Thackeray, 
 Scott, Vaughn, Milton, Cowley, Browning, Stevenson, Henley, 
 Longfellow, Keats, Swift, Meredith, Lamb, Lang, Dobson, 
 Fitzgerald, Pepys, Addison, Kemble, Boswell, Holmes, Walpole, 
 and Lovelace. 
 
 ' Would have delighted Charles Lamb."— The Nation. 
 
 A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN 
 
 Over 200 poems representing some 80 authors. Compiled by 
 E. V. Lucas. With decorations by F. D. Bedford. Revised 
 edition. $2.00. Library edition, $1.00 net. 
 
 "We know of no other anthology for children so complete and well 
 
 arranged." — Critic. 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY ^wsorI 
 
ARTHUR COLTON'S 
 
 HARPS HUNG UP IN BABYLON 
 
 Some forty poems, many of which first appeared in The Atlantic, Century, 
 Scrilmer's, etc. They include The Captive. Allah's Tent, The Shepherd and 
 the Knight, One Hour, Let Me No More a Mendicant, Curare Sepultos, The 
 Water Lily, The Roman Way, Folly, An Idyl of the Wood, Phyllis and 
 Corydon, and Twenty Years Hence. $1.25 net; by mail, $1.30. 
 
 " His opening lyric is as lovely a bit of melody as one will find in recent 
 poetry ... an extraordinary charm both of tone and phrasing . . . his 
 sense of cadence is unfailing. Neither is he beguiled by the mere seduction 
 of rhythm, but keeps back the one word more. Other poems give brief, 
 happily-fashioned records of a mood. . . . ' The Canticle of the Road ' is 
 perhaps more delightful, with its marching measure and breath of ozone. 
 Mr. Colton's work . . . hasa touch of its own and a charm of personality."— 
 Miss Jessie B. Rittenhouse in Putnam's Monthly. 
 
 ** He has grace, scholarship — his adaptations of Horace are excellent — and 
 unfailing optimism." — The Spectator (London). 
 
 " In many ways a noteworthy volume."— Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED GREAT POEMS 
 
 Selected by R. J. Cross, editor of Selections from Dante's Divina 
 Commedia. A dainty pocket volume. Cloth, $1.25 net. Full Morocco, 
 $3.00 net. 
 
 "He has made his selections with good taste ... an excellent book of 
 reference for the busy reader." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 "A neat little book of which the type . . . and the contents are both 
 pleasing." — The Athenatum (London). 
 
 "From Shakespeare to Swinburne ... all that is finest in literature 
 . . . will be a favorite pocket companion for those who enjoy good 
 poetry."— San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 LA YARD (CEO. SOMES) 
 
 SHIRLEY BROOKS OF PUNCH 
 
 His Life, Letters, and Diaries, 12mo. 500 pp., with initial letters and 
 eight illustrations. Gilt top. $3.50 net; by mail, $3.65. 
 
 " The time has yet to come when the world will tire of hearing good 
 things of Tennyson and Swinburne, Disraeli and Gladstone, Leech, Tenniel 
 and Whistler, and of Dickens and Thackeray . . . highly entertaining, 
 and a book for which we should be grateful." — Putnam's. 
 
 " Shirley Brooks' apt chronicles and witty reminiscences have a perma- 
 nent value." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 "Very well worth making . . . the memorials that he left of himself 
 made material for a most entertaining biography." — New York Times 
 Review. 
 
 " Shirley Brooks was an admirable letter-writer; almost as admirable as 
 Thackeray, and in much the same whimsical vein . . . few of even his 
 shortest notes were without a story, an epigram or sentence worth preserv- 
 ing." — The Bookman. 
 
 *** If the reader will send his name and address, the publishers will send, 
 from time to time, information regarding their new books. 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S SOMEHOW GOOD 
 
 After years of separation from his wife, the hero, during a 
 complete suspension of memory and loss of identity, accidentally 
 finds shelter in her home. This situation seems very simple, but 
 the developments are far from simple, and form a story of com- 
 plicated motives and experiences which holds the reader closely. 
 
 An almost grown-up daughter, ignorant of the situation, 
 heightens the tension of the plot, and furnishes her share of two 
 charming stories of young love. 
 
 " Somehow Good " is, in the unanimous opinion of the pub- 
 lishers' readers, an advance upon anything of Mr. De Morgan's 
 yet publisht.. $1.75. 
 
 WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S ALICE-FOR-SHORT 
 
 The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends 
 and family, with some decidedly dramatic happenings. Sixth 
 printing. $1.75. 
 
 " ' Joseph Vance ' was far and away the best novel of the year, and of 
 many years. . . . Mr. De Morgan's second novel . . . proves to be no less 
 remarkable, and equally productive of almost unalloyed delight. . . . The 
 reader ... is hereby warned that if he skims 'Alice-for-Short * it will be 
 to his own serious loss. ... A remarkable example of the art of fiction at 
 its noblest."— Dial. 
 
 "Really worth reading and praising . . . will be hailed as a masterpiece. 
 If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a quarter 
 century, or even a decade, that writer is William De Morgan."— Bottom, 
 Transcript. 
 
 WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE 
 
 A novel of life near London in the 50's. Sixth printing. 
 $1.75. 
 
 " The book of the last decade; the best thing in Action since Mr. Meredith 
 and Mr. Hardy; must take its place, by virtue of its tenderness and pathos, 
 its wit and humor, its love of human kind, and its virile characterization, 
 as the first great English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century." 
 —Lewis Melville in New York Times Saturday Eeview. 
 
 "A perfect piece of writing."— New York Tribune. 
 
 *** If the reader will send his name and address, the publishers will send, 
 from time to time, information regarding their new books. 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
If