THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER

Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these stories were written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was so close to you, who can tell from whence the thoughts came? I only know that when all the other trees in the orchard were barren, there were always stories to be found under your branches, and so it is our joint book, dear apple-tree. Your pink blossoms have fallen on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit has dropped into my lap; the sunshine streamed through your leaves and tipped my pencil with gold. The birds singing in your boughs may have lent a sweet note here and there; and do you remember the day when the gentle shower came? We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky all cried together while we wrote “The Fore-Room Rug.”

It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! it is not altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, and because I have strayed farther away from the heart of Mother Nature.

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

“Quillcote,” Hollis, Maine, August 12, 1895.

THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER

It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions when he brought “old Mis’ Bascom” a parcel from Saco.

Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful in the springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the great stone steps; or in the summer, when the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful shadow over the front door. The elm, indeed, was the only object that ever did cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her “front door ‘n’ entry never hed ben used except for fun’rals, ‘n’ she was goin’ to keep it nice for that purpose, ‘n’ not get it all tracked up.”

She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. Her high-backed rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch and its crocheted tidy, stood always by a southern window that looked out on the river. The river was a sheet of crystal, as it poured over the dam; a rushing, roaring torrent of foaming white, as it swept under the bridge and fought its way between the rocky cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, eddying, in its narrow channel, pulsing restlessly into the ragged fissures of its shores, and leaping with a tempestuous roar into the Witches’ Eel-pot, a deep wooded gorge cleft in the very heart of the granite bank.

But Lucinda Bascom could see more than the river from her favorite window. It was a much-traveled road, the road that ran past the house on its way from Liberty Village to Milliken’s Mills. A tottering old sign-board, on a verdant triangle of turf, directed you over Deacon Chute’s hill to the “Flag Medder Road,” and from thence to Liberty Centre; the little post-office and store, where the stage stopped twice a day, was quite within eyeshot; so were the public watering-trough, Brigadier Hill, and, behind the ruins of an old mill, the wooded path that led to the Witches’ Eel-pot, a favorite walk for village lovers. This was all on her side of the river. As for the bridge which knit together the two tiny villages, nobody could pass over that without being seen from the Bascoms’. The rumble of wheels generally brought a family party to the window,—Jot Bascom’s wife (she that was Diadema Dennett), Jot himself, if he were in the house, little Jot, and grandpa Bascom, who looked at the passers-by with a vacant smile parting his thin lips. Old Mrs. Bascom herself did not need the rumble of wheels to tell her that a vehicle was coming, for she could see it fully ten minutes before it reached the bridge,—at the very moment it appeared at the crest of Saco Hill, where strangers pulled up their horses, on a clear day, and paused to look at Mount Washington, miles away in the distance. Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at the bridge, and just there, too, the river road began its shady course along the east side of the stream: in view of all which “old Mis’ Bascom’s settin’-room winder” might well be called the “Village Watch-Tower,” when you consider further that she had moved only from her high-backed rocker to her bed, and from her bed to her rocker, for more than thirty years,—ever since that july day when her husband had had a sun-stroke while painting the meeting-house steeple, and her baby Jonathan had been thereby hastened into a world not in the least ready to receive him.

She could not have lived without that window, she would have told you, nor without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she could remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been born. Her mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, in that year when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had ever seen it,—the year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been carried away, and when the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of succumbing to the force of the freshet.

All the men in both villages were working on the river, strengthening the dam, bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams of logs; and with the parting of the boom, the snapping of the bridge timbers, the crashing of the logs against the rocks, and the shouts of the river-drivers, the little Lucinda had come into the world. Some one had gone for the father, and had found him on the river, where he had been since day-break, drenched with the storm, blown fro his dangerous footing time after time, but still battling with the great heaped-up masses of logs, wrenching them from one another’s grasp, and sending them down the swollen stream.

Finally the jam broke; and a cheer of triumph burst from the excited men, as the logs, freed from their bondage, swept down the raging flood, on and ever on in joyous liberty, faster and faster, till they encountered some new obstacle, when they heaped themselves together again, like puppets of Fate, and were beaten by the waves into another helpless surrender.

With the breaking of the jam, one dead monarch of the forest leaped into the air as if it had been shot from a cannon’s mouth, and lodged between two jutting peaks of rock high on the river bank. Presently another log was dashed against it, but rolled off and hurried down the stream; then another, and still another; but no force seemed enough to drive the giant from its intrenched position.

“Hurry on down to the next jam, Raish, and let it alone,” cried the men. “Mebbe it’ll git washed off in the night, and anyhow you can’t budge it with no kind of a tool we’ve got here.”

Then from the shore came a boy’s voice calling, “There’s a baby up to your house!” And the men repeated in stentorian tones, “Baby up to your house, Raish! Leggo the log; you’re wanted!”

“Boy or girl?” shouted the young father.

“Girl!” came back the answer above the roar of the river.

Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied himself with his pick and taking a hatchet from his belt, cut a rude letter “L” on the side of the stranded log.

“L’s for Lucindy,” he laughed. “Now you log if you git’s fur as Saco, drop in to my wife’s folks and tell ‘em the baby’s name.”

There had not been such a freshet for years before, and there had never been one since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, “Lucindy’s log” was left in peace, the columbines blooming all about it, the harebells hanging their heads of delicate blue among the rocks that held it in place, the birds building their nests in the knot-holes of its withered side.

Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, from the time when she was only “Raish Dunnell’s little Lou,” to the years when she was Lucinda Bascom, wife and mother, she had wandered down by the river side, and gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked with an “L” on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear of the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show its age. Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, like her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from the opposite bank wondered if, after all, it would hold out as long as “old Mis’ Bascom.”

She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, though she was “all skin, bones, and tongue,” as the neighbors said; for nobody needed to go into the Bascoms’ to brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, or take her the news; one went in to get a bit of brightness, and to hear the news.

“I should get lonesome, I s’pose,” she was wont to say, “if it wa’n’t for the way this house is set, and this chair, and this winder, ‘n’ all. Men folks used to build some o’ the houses up in a lane, or turn ‘em back or side to the road, so the women folks couldn’t see anythin’ to keep their minds off their churnin’ or dish-washin’; but Aaron Dunnell hed somethin’ else to think about, ‘n’ that was himself, first, last, and all the time. His store was down to bottom of the hill, ‘n’ when he come up to his meals, he used to set where he could see the door; ‘n’ if any cust’mer come, he could call to ‘em to wait a spell till he got through eatin’. Land! I can hear him now, yellin’ to ‘em, with his mouth full of victuals! They hed to wait till he got good ‘n’ ready, too. There wa’n’t so much comp’tition in business then as there is now, or he’d ‘a’ hed to give up eatin’ or hire a clerk. … I’ve always felt to be thankful that the house was on this rise o’ ground. The teams hev to slow up on ‘count o’ the hill, ‘n’ it gives me consid’ble chance to see folks ‘n’ what they’ve got in the back of the wagon, ‘n’ one thing ‘n’ other. … The neighbors is continually comin’ in here to talk about things that’s goin’ on in the village. I like to hear ‘em, but land! they can’t tell me nothing’! They often say, ‘For massy sakes, Lucindy Bascom, how d’ you know that?’ ‘Why,’ says I to them, ‘I don’t ask no questions, ‘n’ folks don’t tell me no lies; I just set in my winder, ‘n’ put two ‘n’ two together,—that’s all I do.’ I ain’t never ben in a playhouse, but I don’t suppose the play-actors git down off the platform on t’ the main floor to explain to the folks what they’ve ben doin’, do they? I expect, if folks can’t understand their draymas when the’re actin’ of ‘em out, they have to go ignorant, don’t they? Well, what do I want with explainin’, when everythin’ is acted out right in the road?”

There was quite a gathering of neighbors at the Bascoms’ on this particular July afternoon. No invitations had been sent out, and none were needed. A common excitement had made it vital that people should drop in somewhere, and speculate about certain interesting matters well known to be going on in the community, but going on in such an underhand and secretive fashion that it well-nigh destroyed one’s faith in human nature.

The sitting-room door was open into the entry, so that whatever breeze there was might come in, and an unusual glimpse of the new foreroom rug was afforded the spectators. Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema was a housekeeper of the type fast passing away. The great coal stove was enveloped in its usual summer wrapper of purple calico, which, tied neatly about its ebony neck and portly waist, gave it the appearance of a buxom colored lady presiding over the assembly. The kerosene lamps stood in a row on the high, narrow mantelpiece, each chimney protected from the flies by a brown paper bag inverted over its head. Two plaster Samuels praying under the pink mosquito netting adorned the ends of the shelf. There were screens at all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted nervously when a visitor came in the mosquito netting door, for fear a fly should sneak in with her.

On the wall were certificates of membership in the Missionary Society; a picture of Maidens welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria, in a frame of cucumber seeds; and an interesting document setting forth the claims of the Dunnell family as old settlers long before the separation of Maine from Massachusetts,—the fact bein’ established by an obituary notice reading, “In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, daughter of Abiathar Dunnell, two months old of Fits unbaptized.”

“He may be goin’ to marry Eunice, and he may not,” observed Almira Berry; “though what she wants of Reuben Hobson is more ‘n I can make out. I never see a widower straighten up as he has this last year. I guess he’s been lookin’ round pretty lively, but couldn’t find anybody that was fool enough to give him any encouragement.”

“Mebbe she wants to get married,” said Hannah Sophia, in a tone that spoke volumes. “When Parson Perkins come to this parish, one of his first calls was on Eunice Emery. He always talked like the book o’ Revelation; so says he, ‘have you got your weddin’ garment on, Miss Emery?’ says he. ‘No,’ says she, ‘but I ben tryin’ to these twenty years.’ She was always full of her jokes, Eunice was!”

“The Emerys was always a humorous family,” remarked Diadema, as she annihilated a fly with a newspaper. “Old Silas Emery was an awful humorous man. He used to live up on the island; and there come a freshet one year, and he said he got his sofy ‘n’ chairs off, anyhow!” That was just his jokin’. He hadn’t a sign of a sofy in the house; ‘t was his wife Sophy he meant, she that was Sophy Swett. Then another time, when I was a little mite of a thin runnin’ in ‘n’ out o’ his yard, he caught holt o’ me, and says he, ‘You’d better take care, sissy; when I kill you and two more, thet’ll be three children I’ve killed!’ Land! you couldn’t drag me inside that yard for years afterwards. … There! she’s got a fire in the cook-stove; there’s a stream o’ smoke comin’ out o’ the kitchen chimbley. I’m willin’ to bet my new rug she’s goin’ to be married tonight!’

“Mebbe she’s makin’ jell’,” suggested Hannah Sophia.

“Jell’!” ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. “Do you s’pose Eunice Emery would build up a fire in the middle o’ the afternoon ‘n’ go to makin’ a jell’, this hot day? Besides, there ain’t a currant gone into her house this week, as I happen to know.”

“It’s a dretful thick year for fol’age,” mumbled grandpa Bascom, appearing in the door with his vacant smile. “I declare some o’ the maples looks like balls in the air.”

“That’s the twentieth time he’s hed that over since mornin’,” said Diadema. “Here, father, take your hat off ‘n’ set in the kitchen door ‘n’ shell me this mess o’ peas. Now think smart, ‘n’ put the pods in the basket ‘n’ the peas in the pan; don’t you mix ‘em.”

The old man hung his hat on the back of the chair, took the pan in his trembling hands, and began aimlessly to open the pods, while he chuckled at the hens that gathered round the doorstep when they heard the peas rattling in the pan.

“Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that’s all,” remarked the Widow Buzzell, as one who had given the matter some consideration.

“I should think he did,” rejoined old Mrs. Bascom. “Those children ‘bout git their livin’ off the road in summer, from the time the dand’lion greens is ready for diggin’ till the blackb’ries ‘n’ choke-cherries is gone. Diademy calls ‘em in ‘n’ gives ‘em a cooky every time they go past, ‘n’ they eat as if they was famished. Rube Hobson never was any kind of a pervider, ‘n’ he’s consid’able snug besides.”

“He ain’t goin’ to better himself much,” said Almira. “Eunice Emery ain’t fit to housekeep for a cat. The pie she took to the pie supper at the church was so tough that even Deacon Dyer couldn’t eat it; and the boys got holt of her doughnuts, and declared they was goin’ fishin’ next day ‘n’ use ‘em for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth Eunice Emery does. She’s about as much of a doshy as Rube is. She’ll make tea that’s strong enough to bear up an egg, most, and eat her doughnuts with it three times a day rather than take the trouble to walk out to the meat or the fish cart. I know for a fact she don’t make riz bread once a year.”

“Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do,” said the Widow Buzzell. “My husband always said, give him buttermilk bread to work on. He used to say my riz bread was so light he’d hev to tread on it to keep it anywheres; but when you’d eat buttermilk bread he said you’d got somethin’ that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. … For massy sake! there’s the stage stoppin’ at the Hobson’s door. I wonder if Rube’s first wife’s mother has come from Moderation? If ‘t is, they must ‘a’ made up their quarrel, for there was a time she wouldn’t step foot over that doorsill. She must be goin’ to stay some time, for there’s a trunk on the back o’ the stage. … No, there ain’t nobody gettin’ out. Land, Hannah Sophia, don’t push me clean through the glass! It beats me why they make winders so small that three people can’t look out of ‘em without crowdin’. Ain’t that a wash-boiler he’s handin’ down? Well, it’s a mercy; he’s ben borrowin’ long enough!”