fact is, I did stay with Nabby Christmas evening, as they call it. Nabby and me's allers ben good friends, you know. You know, Mother, you think lots of Nabby's mother, Mis' Higgins, and it ain't her fault nor Nabby's ef she hez to leave our meetin'. It's old Zeph that makes 'em."
"O yis. I ha'n't nothin' agin Mis' Higgins. Polly Higgins is a good woman as is goin'. I don't want no better; but as to Nabby, why, she's light and triflin', and she's goin' right into all these 'ere vanities; and I don't want no son of mine to get drawn away arter her. You know how 'twas in old times, it was the Moabitish women that allers made mischief."
"Oh land o' Goshen, Mother, jes as ef it would do any harm for me to set up with Nabby in the minister's own kitchen. Ef she don't pisen the minister's boys and Dolly she won't pisen me; besides, I wanted to see what was in that air bundle Mis' Cushing's folks sent to her from Boston. Of course I knew you'd be a wantin' to know."
"Wal, did you see?" said the widow, snapping at once at the bait so artfully thrown.
"I rather reckon I did. Dolly she got a red frock and red shoes, and she was so tickled nothing would do but she must bring her red frock and red shoes right out to show to Nabby. They think all the world of each other, Nabby and Dolly do."
"Was the dress made up?" said the widow.
"Oh, yis; all made up, ready to put right on."
"Red, did you say?"
"Yes, red as a robin, with little black sprigs in't, and her shoes red morocco. I tell you she put 'em on and squeaked round in 'em lively! Then there was six silk pocket-handkerchers for the Doctor, all hemmed, and his name marked in the corner; and there was a nice book for each o' them boys, and a bonnet-ribbin for Miss Cushing."
"What color was it?" said the widow.
"Wal, I don't know – sort o' sky-blue scarlet," said Hiel, tired of particulars. "I never know what women call their ribbins."
"Wal, reely now, it's a good thing for folks to have rich relations," soliloquized the widow. "I don't grudge Mis' Cushing her prosperity – not a grain."
"Yis, and the doctor's folks was glad enough to get them things, if they was Christmas presents. The Christmas didn't pisen 'em, any way; Mis' Cushing's folks up to Boston 's 'Piscopals, but she thinks they're pretty nice folks, if they be 'Piscopals.
"Now, Hiel," said the widow, "Nabby Higgins is a nice girl – a girl that's got faculty, and got ambition, and she's handsome. I expect she's prudent and laid by something out of her wages" – and here the widow paused and gazed reflectively at the sparks on the chimney-back.
"Wal, Mother, the upshot on't is that if I and Nabby should want to make a team together there wouldn't be no call for wailin' and gnashin' of teeth. There might wuss things happen; but jes now Nabby and I's good friends – that's all."
And with this settlement the widow Jones, like many another mother, was forced to rest contented, sure that her son, in his own good time, would – do just as he pleased.
CHAPTER IX.
ELECTION DAY IN POGANUC
The month of March had dawned over the slippery, snow-clad hills of Poganuc. The custom that enumerates this as among the spring months was in that region the most bitter irony. Other winter months were simple winter– cold, sharp and hard enough – but March was winter with a practical application, driven in by winds that pierced through joints and marrow. Not an icicle of all the stalactites which adorned the fronts of houses had so much as thought of thawing; the snow banks still lay in white billows above the tops of the fences; the roads, through which the ox-sleds of the farmers crunched and squeaked their way, were cut deep down through heavy drifts, and there was still the best prospect in the world for future snow-storms; but yet it was called "spring." And the voting day had come; and Zeph Higgins, full of the energy of a sovereign and voter, was up at four o'clock in the morning, bestirring himself with a tempestuous clatter to rouse his household and be by daylight on the way to town to exercise his rights.
The feeble light of a tallow dip seemed to cut but a small circle into the darkness of the great kitchen. The frost sparkled white on the back of the big fire-place, where the last night's coals lay raked up under banks of ashes. An earthquake of tramping cowhide boots shook the rafters and stairs, and the four boys appeared on the scene of action. Backlog and forestick were soon piled and kindlings laid, and the fire roared and snapped and crackled up the ample chimney. Meek, shadowy Mrs. Higgins, with a step like a snow-flake, and resignation and submission in every line of her face, was proceeding to cut off frozen sausages from the strings of the same that garnished the kitchen walls. The tea kettle was hung over the blaze, and Zeph and the boys, with hats crowded down to their eyes, and tippets tied over their ears, plowed their way to the barn to milk and feed the stock.
When they returned, while the tea-kettle was puffing and the sausages frying and sizzling, there was an interval in which Zeph called to family prayers, and began reading the Bible with a voice as loud and harsh as the winds that were blowing out of doors.
Zeph always read the Bible straight along in course, without a moment's thought or inquiry as to the sense of what he was reading, which this morning was from Zechariah xi., as follows: "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled. Howl, O ye oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled." Zeph rendered the whole chapter with his harshest tones, and then, all standing, he enunciated in stentorian voice the morning prayer, whose phrases were an heir-loom that had descended from father to son for generations.
The custom of family worship was one of the most rigid inculcations of the Puritan order of society, and came down from parent to child with the big family Bible, where the births, deaths and marriages of the household stood recorded.
In Zeph's case the custom seemed to be merely an inherited tradition, which had dwindled into a habit purely mechanical. Yet, who shall say?
Of a rugged race, educated in hardness, wringing his substance out of the very teeth and claws of reluctant nature, on a rocky and barren soil, and under a harsh, forbidding sky, who but the All-Seeing could judge him? In that hard soul there may have been thus uncouthly expressed a loyalty for Something Higher, however dimly perceived. It was acknowledging that even he had his master. One thing is certain, the custom of family prayers, such as it was, was a great comfort to the meek saint by his side, to whom any form of prayer, any pause from earthly care and looking up to a Heavenly Power, was a blessed rest. In that daily toil, often beyond her strength, when she never received a word of sympathy or praise, it was a comfort all day to her to have had a chapter in the Bible and a prayer in the morning. Even though the chapter were one that she could not by possibility understand a word of, yet it put her in mind of things in that same dear book that she did understand; things that gave her strength to live and hope to die by, and it was enough! Her faith in the Invisible Friend was so strong that she needed but to touch the hem of his garment. Even a table of genealogies out of his book was a sacred charm, an amulet of peace.
Four sons – tall, stout and ruddy, in different stages of progression – surrounded the table and caused sausages, rye and Indian bread, and pork and beans, rapidly to disappear. Of these sons two only were of the age to vote. Zeph rigorously exacted of his boys the full amount of labor which the law allowed till their majority; but at twenty-one he recognized their legal status, and began giving them the wages of hired men. On this morning he longed to have his way as to their vote; but the boys had enough of his own nature in them to have a purpose and will of their own, and how they were to vote was an impenetrable secret locked up in the rocky fastnesses of their own bosoms.
As soon as there were faint red streaks in the wintry sky, Zeph's sled was on the road, well loaded up with cord-wood to be delivered at Colonel Davenport's door; for Zeph never forgot business nor the opportunity of earning an honest penny. The oxen that drew his sled were sleek, well-fed beasts, the pride of Zeph's heart, and as the red sunlight darted across the snowy hills their breath steamed up, a very luminous cloud of vapor, which in a few moments congealed in sparkling frost lines