CHAPTER VII.
BELLES AND BLACKBERRIES

In the first flush of Diana's distress that night, it had seemed to her that the sight of Lieut. Knowlton in all time to come could but give her additional distress. How could she look at him? But the clear morning light found her nerves quiet again, and her cheeks cool; and a certain sweet self-respect, in which she held herself always, forbade any such flutter of vanity or stir even of fancy as could in any wise ruffle the simple dignity of this country girl's manner. She had no careful mother's training, or father's watch and safeguard; the artificial rules of propriety were still less known to her; but innate purity and modesty, and, as I said, the poise of a true New England self-respect, stood her in better stead. When Diana saw Mr. Knowlton the next time, she was conscious of no discomposure; and he was struck with the placid elegance of manner, formed in no school, which was the very outgrowth of the truth within her. His own manner grew unconsciously deferential. It is the most flattering homage a man can render a woman.

Mrs. Starling had delivered her mind, and thereafter she was content to be very civil to him. Further than that a true record cannot go. The young officer tried to negotiate himself into her good graces; he was attentive and respectful, and made himself entertaining. And Mrs. Starling was entertained, and entertained him also on her part; and Diana watched for a word of favourable comment or better judgment of him when he was gone. None ever came; and Diana sometimes sighed when she and her mother had shut the doors, as that night, upon each other. For to her mind the favourable comments rose unasked for.

He came very often, on one pretext or another. He began to be very much at home. His eye used to meet her's, as something he had been looking for and had just found; and the lingering clasp of his hand said the touch was pleasant. Generally their interviews were in the parlour of Diana's home; sometimes he contrived an occasion to get her to drive with him, or to walk; and Diana never found that she could refuse herself the pleasure, or need refuse it to him. The country was so thinly settled, and their excursions had as yet been in such lonely places, that no village eyes or tongues had been aroused.

So the depth of August came. The two were standing one moonlight night at the little front gate, lingering in the moonlight. Mr. Knowlton was going, and could not go.

"Have you heard anything about the Bear Hill party?" he asked suddenly.

"O yes; Miss Delamater came here a week ago to speak about it."

"Are you going?"

"Mother said she would. So I suppose I shall."

"Where is it? and what is it?"

"The place? Bear Hill is a very wild, stony, bare hill – at least one side of it is bare; the other side is covered with trees. And the bare side is covered with blackberry bushes, the largest you ever saw; and the berries are the largest. We always go there every summer, a number of us out of Pleasant Valley, to get blackberries."

"How far is it?"

"Fifteen miles."

"That's a good way to go a-blackberrying," said the young man, smiling.

"People hereabouts must be very fond of that fruit."

"We want them for a great many uses, you know; it isn't just to eat them. Mother makes jam and wine for the whole year, besides what we eat at once. And we go for the fun too, as well as for the berries."

"So it is fun, is it?"

"I think so. We make a day of it; and everybody carries provisions; and we build a fire, and it is very pleasant."

"I'll go," said Mr. Knowlton. "I have heard something about it at home. They wanted me to drive them, but I wanted to know what I was engaging myself to. Well, I'll be there, and I'll take care our waggon carries its stock of supplies too. Thursday, is it?"

"I believe so."

"What time shall you go?"

"About eight o'clock – or half-past."

"Eight!" said the young officer. "I shall have to revive Academy habits. I am grown lazy."

"The days are so warm, you know," Diana explained; "and we have to come home early. We always have dinner between twelve and one."

"I see!" said the young man. "I see the necessity, and feel the difficulty. Well, I'll be there."

He grasped her hand again; they had shaken hands before he left the house, Diana remembered; and this time he held her fingers in a light clasp for some seconds after it was time to let them go. Then he turned and sprang upon his horse and went off at a gallop. Diana stood still at the gate where he had left her, looking down the road and listening to the diminishing sound of his horse's hoofs. The moonlight streamed tenderly down upon her and the elm trees; it filled the empty space where Knowlton's figure had been; it flickered where the elm branches stirred lightly and cast broken shadows upon the ground; it poured its floods of effulgence over the meadows and distant hills, in still, moveless peace and power of everlasting calm. It was one of the minutes of Diana's life that she never forgot afterwards; a point where her life had stood still – still as the moonlight, and almost as sweet in its broad restfulness. She lingered at the gate, and came slowly back again into the house.

"What are you going to take to Bear Hill, mother?" inquired Diana the next day.

"I don't know! I declare, I'm 'most tired of picnics; they cost more than they come to. If we could tackle up, now, and go off by ourselves, early some morning, and get what we want – there'd be some fun in that."

"It's a very lonely place, mother."

"That's what I say. I'm tired o' livin' for ever in a crowd."

"But you said you'd go?"

"Well, I'm goin'!"

"Then we must take something."

"Well; I'm goin' to. I calculated to take something."

"What?"

"Somethin' 'nother nobody else'll take – if I could contrive what that'd be."

"Well, mother, I can tell you. Somebody'll be sure to carry cake, and pies, and cold ham and cheese, and bread and butter, and cold chicken. All that's sure."

"Exactly. I could have told you as much myself, Diana. What I want to know is, somethin' nobody'll take."

"Green corn to boil, mother?"

"Well!" said Mrs. Starling, musing, "that is an idea. How'd you boil it?"

"Must take a pot – or borrow one."

"Borrow! Not I, from any o' the Bear Hill folks. I couldn't eat corn out o' their kettles. It's a sight o' trouble anyhow, Diana."

"Then, mother, suppose I make a chicken pie?"

"Do what you've a mind to, child. And there must be a lot o' coffee roasted. I declare, if I wasn't clean out o' blackberry wine, I'd cut the whole concern. There'll be churning just ready Thursday; and Josiah had ought to be sent off to mill, we're 'most out o' flour, and he can't go to-morrow, for he's got to see to the fence round the fresh pasture lot. And I want to clean the kitchen this week. There's no sittin' still in this world, I do declare! I haven't set a stitch in those gowns o' mine since last Friday, neither; and Society comes here next week. And if I don't catch Josiah before he goes out to work in the morning and get the stove cleaned out – the flues are all choked up – it'll drive me out o' the house or out o' my mind, with the smoke; and Bear Hill won't come off then."

Bear Hill did "come off," however. Early on the morning of Thursday, Josiah might be seen loading up the little green waggon with tin kettles and baskets, both empty and full. Ears of corn went in too, for the "idee" had struck Mrs. Starling favourably, and an iron pot found its way into one corner. Breakfast was despatched in haste; the house locked up and the key put under the door-stone for Josiah to find at noon; and the two ladies mounted and drove away while the morning light was yet fresh and cool, and the shadows of the trees lay long in the meadow. August mornings and evenings were seldom hotter than was agreeable in Pleasant Valley.

For some miles the road lay through the region so denominated. Then it entered the hills, and soon the way led over them, up and down steep ascents and pitches, with a green woodland on each side, and often a look-out over some little meadow valley of level fields and cultivation bordered and encircled by more hills. The drive was a silent one; Mrs. Starling held the reins, and perhaps they gave her thoughts employment enough; Diana was musing about another waggonful, and wondering whereabouts it was. Till at a turn of the road she discerned behind them, at some distance, a vehicle coming along, and knew, with a jump of her heart, the colour of the horse and the figure of the driver. Even so far off she was sure of them, and turned her sun-bonnet to look straight forward again, hoping that her mother might not by any chance give a look back. She did not herself again; but Diana's ears were watching all the while after that for the sound of hoofs or wheels coming near; and her eyes served her to see nothing but what was out of her field of vision. The scenery grew by degrees rough and wild; cultivation and civilisation seemed as they went on to fall into the rear. A village, or hamlet, of miserable, dirty, uncomely houses and people, was passed by; and at last, just as the morning was wakening up into fervour, Mrs. Starling drew rein in a desolate rough spot at the edge of a woodland. The regular road had been left some time before, since when only an uncertain wheel track had marked the way. Two or three farm waggons already stood at the place of meeting; nobody was in them; the last comer was just hitching his horse to a tree.

"Here's Mis' Starling," he called out. "Good day! good-day to 'ye. Hold on, Mis' Starling – I'll fetch him up. Goin' to conquer all Bear Hill, ain't ye, with all them pails and kettles? Wall – blackberries ain't ripe but once in the year. I've left all my business to attend upon the women folks. What's blackberries good for, now, when you've got 'em?"

"Don't you like a blackberry pie, Mr. Selden?"

"Bless you!" said the farmer, "I kin live without it; but my folks can't live 'thout comin' once a year to Bear Hill. It is a wonder to me why things warn't so ordered as that folks could get along 'thout eatin'. It'd save a sight o' trouble. Why, Mis' Starlin', we're workin' all the time to fill our stomachs; come to think of it, that's pretty much what life is fur. Now I'll warrant you, they'll have a spread by and by, that'll be worth all they'll get here to-day."

"Who's come, Mr. Selden?"

"Wall, they ain't all here yet, I guess; my folks is up in the lot, hard to work, I s'pose. Mis' Seelye's gals is here; and Bill Howe and his wife; and the Delamaters; that's all, I guess. He's safe now, Mis' Starlin'."

This last remark had reference to the horse, which farmer Selden had been taking out of the shafts and tethering, after helping the ladies down. Mrs. Starling got out her pails and baskets destined for the berry-picking, and gave some of them to her daughter.

"They'll be all flocking together, up in the thickest part of the lot," she whispered. "Now, Diana, if you'll sheer off a little, kind o', and keep out o' sight, you'll have a ventur'; and we can stand a chance to get home early after dinner. I'll go along ahead and keep 'em from comin' where you are – if I can."

Diana heard with tingling ears, for she heard at the same time the sound of the approaching waggon behind her. She did not look; she caught up her pail and basket and plunged into the wood path after her mother and Mr. Selden; but she had not gone three yards when she heard her name called.

"You are not going to desert us?" cried young Knowlton, coming up with her. "We don't know a step of the way, nor where to find blackberries or anything. I have been piloting myself all the way by your waggon. Come back and let me make you friends with my sister."