stay, if she wants to; 'twon't hurt her; when folks want to sulk, I generally let 'em. She can stay."
He began to whistle "Yankee Doodle" and pitch hay energetically, while "Susan" was within hearing; but how would that dear woman's soul have floundered deeper and deeper in the fog that clouded it now, had she seen her grave husband sit down on one end of the hay-mow and laugh till the tears stood in his keen eyes, and then, drawing his coat-sleeve across the shaggy lashes, say to himself, "Poor child!" and begin his work with fresh strength!
So matters were all arranged. After dinner, the rusty, dusty, old carriage appeared at the door, with the farm-horses harnessed thereto, jingling, and creaking, and snapping, as if oil and use were strange to its dry joints and stiff straps. Mrs. Griswold mounted to the back seat, after kissing Lizzy with hearty regret and tenderness,—her old gray pelisse and green winter bonnet harmonizing with the useful age of her conveyance. "Father," in a sturdy great-coat and buckskin mittens, took the reins; and Sam, whose blue jacket was at that moment crushing his mother's Sunday cap in a bandbox that sat where Lizzy should have been, clambered over the front wheel, to the great detriment of the despised butternut suit, and, seizing the whip, applied it so suddenly to Tom and Jerry that they started off down the Coventry road at a pace that threatened a solution of continuity to bones and sinews, as well as wood and leather.
Lizzy turned away sadly from the door. Who can say that just at that minute she did not wish she had gone, too? But nobody heard her say so. She went up-stairs to her room, and tried to read, but couldn't attach any ideas to the words; she was half an hour over a page of a very good book, and then flung it upon the bed with an expression of disgust, as if it were the book's fault. Poor authors! toil your fingers off, and spin your brains out! be as wise as Solomon, or witty as Sheridan! your work is vanity and vexation of spirit, unless the reader's brain choose to receive and vivify the hieroglyphs of your ideas; think yourselves successful because a great man praises you, and to-morrow that man is twisted with dyspepsia, or some woman passes him without a smile, and your sparkling sketch, your pathetic poem are declared trash! Such is fame! Of which little homily the moral is,—Write for money! What a thing it is to be worldly-wise! So was not Lizzy; if she had been, she would now be at Coventry, kissed and caressed by grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins, and–But we won't anticipate.
Lizzy flung down the book, and went to her closet for another; but it was as good (or as bad) as Bluebeard's closet, for there hung the pretty crimson merino, with delicate lace at the throat and round the short sleeves, in which Miss Lizzy Griswold once intended to electrify Mr. John Boynton this very evening. True it is that short sleeves are not the most sensible things for November; but Lizzy was twenty, and had such round, white arms, that she liked to wear short sleeves, as any girl would; and who is going to blame her? Not I! A girl doesn't know her privileges who was never just a little vain,—just a little glad to be pretty when John is by. Lizzy looked at the crimson merino, and at the smart slippers on the door with a shining black bow on each instep. There, too, on a little low table, was a green box; somebody had left it open,—mother, perhaps,—so she saw on its cotton bed a red coral bracelet, that came from Roxbury, or thereabout, last year at this time. Lizzy shut up the box, and went down-stairs to get tea.
Chloe was indignant to think "Miss 'Lisbeth" thought she couldn't get supper without help, and Miss 'Lisbeth was vexed with Chloe for being cross. And then, when supper came, the tea seemed to be very unwilling to be swallowed, and the new bread was full of large lumps that choked a person, and the lamps didn't burn clearly at all,—and—and—when Chloe, still sulky, had cleared the table, Lizzy sat down on a low cricket beside her mother's stuffed rocking-chair, and had as good a cry as ever she had in her life, and felt much better for it.
So she sat there, with her head on the arm of the chair, rather tired with the cry, rather downhearted for want of the supper she hadn't eaten, and making pictures in the fire, when all of a sudden it came into her head to wonder what they were doing at Coventry. There was grandfather, no doubt, in the keeping-room, telling his never-tiring stories of Little Robby, and Old Bose, and the Babes in the Wood; of singing the ever-new ditty of
"Did you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,"—
and so on, ad infinitum, till you got to—
"See a man eat a whale?"
to some half dozen children; while sweet Aunt Lizzy, serenely smiling, rocked the fair little baby that fifteen cousins had kissed for welcome that day; and Uncle Boynton trotted the baby's brother on his knee, inviting him persistently to go to Boston and buy a penny-cake, greatly to little Eben's aggravation, who would end, Lizzy knew, by crying for the cake, and being sent to bed. Then there were Sam, and Lucy Peters, and Jim Boynton, up to all sorts of mischief in the kitchen,—Susan Boynton and Nelly James cracking nuts and their fingers on the hearth,—father and mother up-stairs in grandmother's room; for grandmother was bedridden, but kindly, and good, and humorous, and patient, even in her hopeless bed, and nobody was dearer to the whole family than she. Then, of course, there was a fire in the best parlor, and there were all the older cousins, telling conundrums and stories, and playing grown-up games, and some two, or four, may-be, looking out in couples at the moonshine, from behind the curtains,—Sue James, perhaps, and John. Sue was so pretty!
Lizzy's head bent lower on the arm of the chair; her thoughts travelled back over a great many Thanksgivings,—years ago, when she wore short frocks, and used to go with John to see the turkeys fed, and be so scared when they gobbled and strutted with rage at her scarlet bombazette;—how they used to pick up frozen apples and thaw them in the dish-kettle; how she pounded her thumb, cracking butternuts with a flat-iron, and John kissed it to make it well,—only it didn't! And then how they slid down-hill before church, and sat a long two hours thereafter in the square pew, smelling of "meetin'-seed," and dinted with the kicks of weary boys in new boots; and finally, after the first anthem and the two hymns and the three prayers and the long sermon were over, came home to dinner, where the children had their own table at the end of the grown people's board, and Lizzy always took the head and John the foot,—till, exhausted by the good things they had eaten, and tantalized by the good things they couldn't eat, they crept away to the fire and their picture-books for a quiet hour, winding up the day with all the plays that country and city children alike delight in.
Then came recollections of later days, when John was a young man, and Lizzy still a little girl,—when long talks banished turkeys and apples and sliding,—when new books or sleigh-rides crowded out the old games,—when the two days of John's yearly visit were half-spent in the leafless, sunny woods, gathering mosses and acorn-cups, delicate fern leaves, and clusters of fire-moss, and red winter-green berries, for the pretty frames and baskets Lizzy's skilful fingers fabricated,—when he shook hands at coming and going, instead of kissing her;—but it seemed just the same, somehow. Dear me! those days were all gone! John didn't care about her any more! he was in love with a beautiful Boston lady. Why should he care about a homely little country cousin? He would go to live in Boston in a great big house, and he'd be a great man, and people would talk about him, and she should see his name in the papers, but he never would come to Coventry any more! And he'd acted as if he did love her, too!—that was men's way,—heartless things! If John had a good time, what did he care if Lizzy did grow into a gray-haired, puckered-up old maid, like Miss Case, with nobody to love her, or take care of her, or ask about her, or—or—kiss her?—The climax was too much for Lizzy; great big tears ran down on the arm of the stuffed chair, and she would have sobbed out loud, only Chloe opened the door, to put up the tea-things, I suppose, and Lizzy wouldn't cry before her. But, for all that, she didn't hear Chloe come to the fireplace; she only felt her sit down in the big chair, and, simultaneously, a pair of strong arms lifted Miss Lizzy on to John Boynton's knee, and held her there. It wasn't Chloe.
I declare, one gets out of patience with these men! they do astonish a person so sometimes, one doesn't know what to do or say. Lizzy had been thinking to herself, not two minutes ago, with what cool and smiling reserve she should meet John Boynton, how dignified and kindly distant she would be to him,—and now,—well! it was so sudden,—and then, as I said before, these men do get round one so,—if you happen to love them.—Lizzy forgot, I suppose; at any rate, she wasn't dignified, or reserved, or proper, or anything of the kind, for she just hid her pretty head on his square shoulder, and said, "Oh, John!"—"slowly, and