to “jawin’,” and which uttered only kind words during her brief span of married life. And there was precious little leisure for kissing at Pleasant River!
As Jabe had passed the store, a few minutes before, one of the boys had called out, facetiously, “Shet yer mouth when ye go by the deepot, Laigs; the train’s comin’ in!” But he only smiled placidly, though it was an ancient joke, the flavor of which had just fully penetrated the rustic skull; and the villagers could not resist titillating the sense of humor with it once or twice a month. Neither did Jabez mind being called “Laigs,” the local pronunciation of the word “legs;” in fact, his good humor was too deep to be ruffled. His “cistern of wrathfulness was so small, and the supply pipe so unready,” that it was next to impossible to “put him out,” so the natives said.
He was a man of tolerable education; the only son of his parents, who had endeavored to make great things of him, and might perhaps have succeeded, if he hadn’t always had so little time at his disposal,—hadn’t been “so drove,” as he expressed it. He went to the village school as regularly as he couldn’t help, that is, as many days as he couldn’t contrive to stay away, until he was fourteen. From there he was sent to the Academy, three miles distant; but his mother soon found that he couldn’t make the two trips a day and be “under cover by candlelight;” so the plan of a classical education was abandoned, and he was allowed to speed the home plough,—a profession which he pursued with such moderation that his father, when starting him down a furrow, used to hang his dinner-pail on his arm and, bidding him good-by, beg him, with tears in his eyes, to be back before sun-down.
At the present moment Jabe was enjoying a cud of Old Virginia plug tobacco, and taking in no more of the landscape than he could avoid, when Maria, having wound up to the top of Marm Berry’s hill, in spite of herself walked directly out on one side of the road, and stopped short to make room for the passage of an imposing procession, made up of one straw phaeton, one baby, one strange boy, and one strange dog.
Jabe eyed the party with some placid interest, for he loved children, but with no undue excitement. Shifting his huge quid, he inquired in his usual leisurely manner, “Which way yer goin’, bub,—t’ the Swamp or t’ the Falls?”
Timothy thought neither sounded especially inviting, but, rapidly choosing the lesser evil, replied, “To the Falls, sir.”
“Thy way happens to be my way, ‘s Rewth said to Naomi; so ‘f gittin’ over the road’s your objeck, ‘n’ y’ ain’t pertickler ‘baout the gait ye travel, ye can git in ‘n’ ride a piece. We don’t b’lieve in hurryin’, Mariar ‘n’ me. Slow ‘n’ easy goes fur in a day, ‘s our motto. Can ye git your folks aboard withaout spillin’ any of ‘em?”
No wonder he asked, for Gay was in such a wild state of excitement that she could hardly be held.
“I can lift Gay up, if you’ll please take her, sir,” said Timothy; “and if you’re quite sure the horse will stand still.”
“Bless your soul, she’ll stan’ all right; she likes stan’in’ a heap better ‘n she doos goin’; runnin’ away ain’t no temptation to Maria Cummins; let well enough alone ‘s her motto. Jump in, sissy! There ye be! Now git yer baby-shay in the back of the wagon, bubby, ‘n’ we’ll be ‘s snug ‘s a bug in a rug.”
Timothy, whose creed was simple and whose beliefs were crystal clear, now felt that his morning prayer had been heard, and that the Lord was on his side; so he abandoned all idea of commanding the situation, and gave himself up to the full ecstasy of the ride, as they jogged peacefully along the river road.
Gay held a piece of a rein that peeped from Jabe’s colossal hand (which was said by the villagers to cover most as much territory as the hand of Providence), and was convinced that she was driving Maria, an idea that made her speechless with joy.
Rags’ wildest dreams of squirrels came true; and, reconciled at length to cleanliness, he was capering in and out of the woods, thinking what an Arabian Nights’ entertainment he would give the Minerva Court dogs when he returned, if return he ever must to that miserable, squirrelless hole.
The meadows on the other side of the river were gorgeous with yellow buttercups, and here and there a patch of blue iris or wild sage. The black cherry trees were masses of snowy bloom; the water at the river’s edge held spikes of blue arrowweed in its crystal shallows; while the roadside itself was gay with daisies and feathery grasses.
In the midst of this loveliness flowed Pleasant River,
“Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and mills,”
but finding time, during the busy summer months, to flush its fertile banks with beauty.
Suddenly (a word that could seldom be truthfully applied to the description of Jabe Slocum’s movements) the reins were ruthlessly drawn from Lady Gay’s hands and wound about the whipstock.
“Gorry!” ejaculated Mr. Slocum, “ef I hain’t left the widder Foss settin’ on Aunt Hitty’s hoss-block, ‘n’ I promised to pick her up when I come along back! That all comes o’ my drivin’ by the store so fast on account o’ the boys hectorin’ of me, so ‘t when I got to the turn I was so kind of het up I jogged right along the straight road. Haste makes waste ‘s an awful good motto. Pile out, young ones! It’s only half a mile from here to the Falls, ‘n’ you’ll have to get there on Shank’s mare!”
So saying, he dumped the astonished children into the middle of the road, from whence he had plucked them, turned the docile mare, and with a “Git, Mariar!” went four miles back to relieve Aunt Hitty’s horse-block from the weight of the widder Foss (which was no joke!).
This turn of affairs was most unexpected, and Gay seemed on the point of tears; but Timothy gathered her a handful of wild flowers, wiped the dust from her face, put on the clean blue gingham apron, and established her in the basket, where she soon fell asleep, wearied by the excitements of the day.
Timothy’s heart began to be a little troubled as he walked on and on through the leafy woods, trundling the basket behind him. Nothing had gone wrong; indeed, everything had been much easier than he could have hoped. Perhaps it was the weariness that had crept into his legs, and the hollowness that began to appear in his stomach; but, somehow, although in the morning he had expected to find Gay’s new mothers beckoning from every window, so that he could scarcely choose between them, he now felt as if the whole race of mothers had suddenly become extinct.
Soon the village came in sight, nestled in the laps of the green hills on both sides of the river. Timothy trudged bravely on, scanning all the dwellings, but finding none of them just the thing. At last he turned deliberately off the main road, where the houses seemed too near together and too near the street, for his taste, and trundled his family down a shady sort of avenue, over which the arching elms met and clasped hands.
Rags had by this time lowered his tail to half-mast, and kept strictly to the beaten path, notwithstanding manifold temptations to forsake it. He passed two cats without a single insulting remark, and his entire demeanor was eloquent of nostalgia.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Timothy disconsolately; “there’s something wrong with all the places. Either there’s no pigeon-house, like in all the pictures, or no flower garden, or no chickens, or no lady at the window, or else there’s lots of baby-clothes hanging on the wash-lines. I don’t believe I shall ever find”—
At this moment a large, comfortable white house, that had been heretofore hidden by great trees, came into view. Timothy drew nearer
