Poganuc People

CHAPTER XXXIX.

DOLLY'S SECOND LETTER

My Dear Parents: We had such a glorious Christmas morning – clear, clean white snow lying on the earth and on all, even the little branches of the trees. You know, Mamma, the great square garden back of the house. Every little tree there was glittering like fairy frost work. We all hung our stockings up the night before, and at breakfast examined our presents. I had lovely things – a beautiful prayer-book bound in purple velvet from Grandmamma, and a charming necklace of pearls from Uncle Israel, and a scarlet cloak trimmed with lace from Aunt Deborah, and a beautiful Chinese fan from cousin Alfred. Aunty has been putting up the usual Christmas bundle for you; so you will all share my prosperity.

I was waked in the morning by the old North chimes, which played all sorts of psalm tunes and seemed to fill the air with beautiful thoughts. It was very sweet to me to think of what it was all about. It is not necessary to believe that our Saviour really was born this very day of all others; but that he was born on some day we all know. So when we walked to church together, and the church was like one green bower, and the organ played, and the choir sung, it seemed as if all there was in me was stirred. I never heard the Te Deum before, and how glorious, how wonderful it is! It took me up to the very gates of heaven. I felt as if I was hearing the angels sing; and when I thought of the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, and the holy church of Christ throughout the world, I felt that I was one with them, and was happy to be one drop in that great ocean of joy. For though I was only a little one I felt in it, and with it, and a part of it, and all the joy and glory was mine. I trembled with happiness.

When the communion service came I went with Grandmamma and knelt at the altar. It seemed as if Christ himself was there giving me the bread and the wine. I never felt so near to Him. After church I went home. I was so full that I could not speak. No one else seemed to feel as I did – they were all used to it – but it was all new and wonderful to me, and made heavenly things so real that I felt almost averse to coming back to every day life. I wanted to go alone to my room and dwell on it. There was quite a company invited to dinner, and I did not feel like joining them, but I knew Aunty wanted me to make myself agreeable, and so I tried my best, and after a while took my part in the conversation, as gay as the rest of them. Only once in a while some of those noble words I had been hearing came back to me with a sudden thrill, and would bring tears to my eyes even while I was gayest.

Cousin Alfred noticed that I was feeling very much about something, and in the evening when we were alone for a few minutes he asked me about it, and then I told him all how the service affected me, and made me feel. He looked a little surprised at first, and then he seemed thoughtful; and when I said, "I should think those who hear and say such glorious things at church, ought to live the very noblest lives, to be perfect Christians," he said, "Cousin, I am sorry to say, it is not so with me. We hear these things from childhood; we hear them Sunday after Sunday, in all sorts of moods, and I'm afraid many of us form a habit of not really thinking how much they mean. I wish I could hear our service as you have done, for the first time, and that it would seem as real and earnest to me as it does to you."

We talked a good deal after this; he has a deep, thoughtful mind, and I wish you, my dear Father, could talk with him. I know you will like him. Isn't it pleasant to find relations that one can like and esteem so much? Cousin Alfred is like a brother to me already, and to-morrow we are going out to explore the antiquities of Boston. He seems as much interested in them as I do.

Dear Parents, this Christmas puts me in mind of the time years ago when they dressed the little church in Poganuc, and I ran away, over to the church, and got asleep under a great cedar-bush, listening to the Christmas music. It affected me then just as it has done now. Is it not beautiful to think we are singing words that Christians have been singing for more than a thousand years! It gives you the feeling of being in a great army – one of a great host; and for a poor little insignificant thing like me it is a joyful feeling.

You ought to see how delighted Aunt Deborah is that I take so kindly to the prayer-book and the service. She gives me little approving nods now and then, and taps me on the shoulder in a patronizing way and says there is good blood in my veins, for all I was brought up a Presbyterian! This is all very well, but when she goes to unchurching all our churches and saying there are no ordained ministers in the United States except the few in Episcopal pulpits, I am dreadfully tempted to run a tilt with her, though I know it would do no earthly good. I believe I should do it, however, if Cousin Alfred did not take up the argument on our side, and combat her so much better than I could that I am content to let her alone. She tells him that he is no Englishman and no churchman, but a very radical; and he tells her that he came to America to learn to use his common sense and get rid of old rubbish!

For all this they are excellent friends, and dear old Grandmamma always takes our part because she is so afraid Aunt Debby will hurt my feelings, though Aunty says that in her heart Grandmamma is a regular old Tory.

I asked Grandma about this one day, when we were alone, and she said she always loved and honored the king and royal family, and was grieved when they stopped praying for them in the churches. If she was a Tory she was so from love, and it is quite charming to hear her talk about the old times.

It seems to me no great change ever comes on this earth without grieving some good people.

But it is past midnight and I must not sit up writing any longer. Dear parents, I wish you a happy Christmas!

CHAPTER XL.

ALFRED DUNBAR TO EUGENE SINCLAIR

Dear Old Fellow: Here I am in America – in Boston – and every day I spend here makes me more and more satisfied with my change of situation. The very air here is free and inspiring, full of new hope and life. The old world with all its restraints and bounds, its musty prejudices, its time-honored inconveniences and hindrances, is a thing gone by; it is blue in the dim distance, and I see before me a free, generous, noble country that offers everything equally to all. I like Massachusetts; I like Boston; and more and more I feel that I am a fortunate fellow to have been selected by my uncle for this lot.

He is all that is kind and generous and fatherly to me, and I should be an ungrateful cur if I did not give him the devotion of a son. He is so amiable and reasonable that this is not at all a hard task.

We are spending our Christmas holidays with his mother and sister; after that he will go to housekeeping in his own house. He wants me to get married with all convenient dispatch, but I am one that cannot enter into the holy state simply to furnish a housekeeper to my uncle or to place a well-dressed, well-mannered woman at the head of my own table.

You at home called me fastidious and romantic. Well, I am so to this degree, that I never shall marry unless I see the woman I cannot live without. The feast of matrimony may be well appointed, the oxen and fatlings be killed, and all things ready, but I never shall accept unless some divine power "compels" me to come in; – and up to this day I have felt no such call.

Mark me, I say, up to this day; for I am by no means certain I shall say as much a month hence. To be frank with you, there is spending the Christmas holidays under the same roof with me a very charming girl whom I am instructed by my Aunt Deborah to call "Cousin Dolly."

Now, in point of fact, this assumption of relationship is the most transparent moonshine. I am, I believe, second or third cousin to my "Uncle Israel," who is real uncle to this Miss Dolly. Of course my cousinship to her must be of a still more remote and impalpable nature; but if it is agreed that we call each other "cousin," certainly it is not I that am going to object to the position and its immunities – oh, no! A cousin stands on a vantage-ground; all sorts of delightful freedoms and privileges are permitted to him!

I "take the good the gods provide" me, and so Cousin Dolly and I have become the best of friends, and we have been busy making wreaths and crosses and Christmas decorations under the superintendence of Aunt Deborah, in the most edifying and amicable way. This Aunt Deborah is the conventional upright, downright, good, opinionated, honest, sincere old Englishwoman, of whom there are dozens at every turn in the old country, but who here in America have the interest that appertains to the relics of a past age. But she is vigorously determined that in her domains the old customs shall be in full force, and every rule of Christmas-keeping observed.

Of course I put up mistletoe in all the proper places, and I found my new cousin, having grown up as a New England Congregational minister's daughter, knew nothing of its peculiar privileges and peculiarities, so that when the kissing began I saw a bright flush of amazement and almost resentment pass over her face; though when it was explained to be an old Christmas custom she laughed and gave way with a good grace. But I observed my young lady warily inspecting the trimmings of the room, and quietly avoiding all the little green traps thereafter.

It is quite evident that, though she has all the gentleness of a dove, she has some of the wisdom of the serpent, and possesses very definite opinions as to what she likes and does not like. She impresses me as having, behind an air of softness and timidity, a very positive and decided character. There is a sort of reserved force in her; and one must study her to become fully acquainted with her. Thus far I hope I have not lost ground.

I find she is an enthusiast for her country, for her religion, for everything high and noble; and not one of the mere dolls that have no capability for anything but ribbons and laces. She has promised to show me the antiquities of Boston and put me in the way of knowing all that a good American ought to know; you see our time for the holidays is very agreeably planned out in advance.

And now, my dear old fellow, I see you shake your head and say, What is to come of all this?

Wait and see. If it should so happen that I should succeed in pleasing this little American princess – if, having gained her ear as Cousin, I should succeed in proving to her that I am no cousin at all, but want to be more than cousin or brother or the whole world together to her – if all this should come to pass, why – there have stranger things happened in this world of ours.

But I am running before my time. Miss Dolly is yet an unknown quantity and there may be a long algebraic problem to be done before I can know what may be; and so, good-night for the present.

CHAPTER XLI.

FINALE

After reading the preceding letters, there is no one who has cared to follow Dolly's fortunes thus far that is not ready to declare the end of the story.

One sees how the Christmas holidays stretched on and on; how Aunt and Grandmamma importuned Dolly to stay longer; how Dolly staid, and how she and Cousin Alfred walked and talked and studied New England history, and visited all the shrines in Boston and Cambridge and the region round about; how Aunt Debby plumed herself on the interesting state of things evidently growing up, but wisely said nothing to either party; how at last when spring came, and April brought back the mayflower buds, and Dolly felt that she could stay no longer but must go home to her parents, "Cousin Alfred" declared that he could not think of her taking a three days' journey alone, that he must go with her and protect her, and improve the opportunity to make the acquaintance of his relations in the country.

All this came to pass, and one fine evening, just at sunset, Hiel drove into Poganuc in glory, and deposited Dolly and her little hair trunk and her handsome attendant at the Parsonage door.

There was a bluebird singing on the top of the tall buttonwood tree opposite, just as he used to sing years before; and, as to Hiel, he returned home even better content with himself than ordinarily.

"There now, Nabby! didn't I tell ye what would happen when Dolly went to Boston? Wal, I've just set her down to the Doctor's with as fine a young sprig as you'd wish to see, who came all the way from Boston with her. I tell you, that air young man's eyes is sot; he knows what he's come to Poganuc fer, ef no one else don't."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Nabby and Mother Jones, both rushing to the window simultaneously with the vain hope of getting a glimpse.

"Oh, there's no use lookin'!" said Hiel; "they're gone in long ago. Doctor and Mis' Cushing was standin' in the door-way when I come up, and mighty glad they was to see her, and him too, and shook hands with him. Oh, thet air's a fixed-up thing, you may depend."

"Dear me, what is he?" queried Mother Jones. "Do you know, Hiel?"

"Of course I know," said Hiel; "he's a merchant in the Injy trade up there to Boston. I expect he makes lots o' money."

"Dear me! I hope they won't set their hearts on worldly prosperity," said Mother Jones in a lugubrious tone; "this 'ere's a dyin' world."

"For all that, Mother," said Hiel as they sat down to the tea-table, "you enjoy a cup o' hot tea as well as any woman livin', and why shouldn't the parson's folks be glad o' their good things?"

"Wal, I don' know," answered Mother Jones, "but it allers kind o' scares me when everything seems to be goin' jest right fer folks. Ye know the hymn says:

I remember poor Bill Parmerlee fell down dead the very week he was married!"

"Well, Nabby and I neither of us fell down dead when we was married," said Hiel, "and nobody else that ever I heerd on, so we won't weep and wail if Dolly Cushing hez got a rich, handsome feller, and is goin' to live in Boston."

But, after all, Dolly and Alfred Dunbar were not yet engaged. No decisive word had been spoken between them; though it seemed now as if but a word were wanting.

It was after a week of happy visiting, when he had made himself most charming to all in the house, when Dolly and he had together explored every walk and glen and waterfall around Poganuc, that at last the young man found voice to ask the Doctor for what he wanted; and, armed with the parental approval, to put the decisive question to Dolly. Her answer is not set down. But it is on record that in the month of June there was a wedding at Poganuc which furnished the town with things to talk about for weeks.

It was a radiant June morning, when the elms of Poganuc were all alive with birds, when the daisies were white in the meadows, and the bobolink on the apple-tree was outdoing himself, that Hiel drove up to the door of the Parsonage to take Dolly and her husband their first day's journey towards their new home. There were the usual smiles and tears and kissing and crying, and then Hiel shut the stage-door, mounted his box, and drove away in triumph. It was noticed that he had ornamented his horses with a sprig of lilac blossoms over each ear, and wore a great bouquet in his button-hole.

And so our Dolly goes to her new life, and, save in memories of her childhood, is to be no longer one of the good people of Poganuc.

Years have passed since then. Dolly has held her place among the matronage of Boston; her sons have graduated at Harvard, and her daughters have recalled to memory the bright eyes and youthful bloom of their mother.

As to Poganuc, all whom we knew there have passed away; all the Town-Hill aristocracy and the laboring farmers of the outskirts have gone, one by one, to the peaceful sleep of the Poganuc graveyard. There was laid the powdered head, stately form, and keen blue eye of Colonel Davenport; there came in time the once active brain and ready tongue of Judge Belcher; there, the bright eyes and genial smile of Judge Gridley; there, the stalwart form of Tim Hawkins, the gray, worn frame of Zeph Higgins. Even Hiel's cheery face and vigorous arm had its time of waxing old and passing away, and was borne in to lie quiet under the daisies. The pastor and his wife sleep there peacefully with their folded flock around them.

A village of white stones stands the only witness of the persons of our story. Even the old meeting-house is dissolved and gone.

Generation passeth, generation cometh, saith the wise man, but the earth abideth forever. The hills of Poganuc are still beautiful in their summer woodland dress. The Poganuc river still winds at their feet with gentle murmur. The lake, in its steel-blue girdle of pines, still reflects the heavens as a mirror; its silent forest shores are full of life and wooded beauty. The elms that overarch the streets of the central village have spread their branches wider, and form a beautiful walk where other feet than those we wot of are treading. As other daisies have sprung in the meadows, and other bobolinks and bluebirds sing in the tree-tops, so other men and women have replaced those here written of, and the story of life still goes on from day to day among the Poganuc People.