2. After The Feast
When Roxy wended her way home that afternoon she found the streets full of people, many of whom had not limited their potations to hard cider. Flem Giddings, whose left arm had been shot away while he was ramming a cannon at a Fourth of July celebration, was very anxious to fight, but even his drunken companions were too chivalrous to fi^ht with a one-armed man. So the poor cripple went round vainly defying every man he met, daring each one to fight, and declaring that he " could lick any two-fisted coward in town, by thunder and lightning ! " A little further on, big Wash Jones kept staggering up to plucky little Dan HcCrea, declaring that Dan was a coward. But Dan, who was not quite so drunk, was unwilling to strike Wash until at last the latter slapped Dan in the face, upon which the fiery little fellow let his hard fist fly, doubling the big man against a wall. Roxy, terrified at the disorder, was hnrrvinsr bv at that moment ; she saw the blow and the fall of the bleeding man, and she uttered a little startled crv. Forgetting herself and Bobo, the excited girl pushed through the crowd and undertook to lift up the fallen champion. Dan looked ashamed of his blow and the rest crowding round felt cowed when Roxy, with tears on her face said: " What do you stand by for and let drunken men fight? Come, put poor Wash on his horse and send him home."
The men were quick enough now to lift up the sot and help him into his saddle. It was notorious that "Wash could hardly be so drunk that he could not ride. He balanced himself in the saddle with difficulty, and the horse, who had learned to adapt himself to his reeling burden, swayed from side to side.
"Psh-shaw!" stuttered the rider as the blood trickled upon his mud-bespattered clothes, "aint I a-a-a party eight ? To go home to my wife lookin' this a-way ! "
Whereupon he began to weep in a maudlin fashion and Lhe men burst into a guffaw, Jim Peters declaring that ho 'lowed Wash would preach his own funeral sermon when he was dead. But Roxy went home crying. For she was thinking of the woman whose probable sufferings she measured by her own sensibilities. And the men stood looking after her, declaring to one another that she was "a odd thing, to be sure."
When Roxy had passed the pump on her return, and had come into the quieter part of the village, Bobo, who had been looking at the flags, perceived that she was crying. He went directly in front of her, and taking out his handkerchief, began eagerly to wipe away the tears, saying in pitiful tones, " No, no ! Roxy mustn't cry ! Roxy mustn't cry!" But this sympathy only made the tears flow faster than ever, while Bobo still wiped them away, entreating her not to cry, until at last he began to cry himself, upon which Roxy, by a strong effort, controlled herself.
The house in which Roxy Adams lived was one of the original log-buildings of the village. It stood near the edge of the common, and some distance from the large, four-chimneyed brick which was the home of the half-witted Bobo, who was first cousin to Roxy on the mother's side. Roxy's father was the principal shoemaker of the village ; he could make an excellent pair of " rights and lefts," and if the customer insisted on having them, he would turn out the old-fashioned " evens" boots that would fit either foot, and which, by change from one foot to another, could be made to wear more economically. The old shoemaker was also quite remarkable for the stubborn and contentious ability with which he discussed all those questions that agitated the village intellect of the time.
When Roxy passed in at the gate with Bobo, she found her father sitting under the apple-tree by the door. He gave her a word of reproof for her tardiness not that she deserved it, but that, like other people of that day, he deemed it necessary to find fault with young people as often as possible. Roxy took the rebuke in silence, hastening to milk the old, black and white, spotted muley* cow, whose ugly, hornless head was visible over the back gate, where she stood in the alley, awaiting her usual pail of bran. Then supper had to be cooked in the widemouthed fire-place. The corn-dodgers or, as they called them on the Indiana side of the river, the " pones " were tossed from hand to hand until thry had assumed the correct oval shape. Then they were leposited in the iron Bkillet already heated on the fire, coals were put beneath,
* This word, like many of our most curious and widely prevalent Americanisms, is not in the dictionaries. In parts of New York Scato a hornless cow is called a " mully " cow. Scotch immigrants use the word in this form and say that the cows in the Island of Mull ar hornless. At the West " mully " has changed to " muley." and a shovelful of hot coals heaped on the lid or " led," as the Hoosiers called it, no doubt from a mistaken derivation of the word. The coffee was ground, and after being mixed with white of egg to "settle '' it was put into the pot; the singing iron tea-kettle hanging on the crane paid its tribute of hot water, and then the coffee-pot was set on the trivet, over the live coals.
By the time the tavern bell announced the arrival of the hour for eating, Roxy had called her father to supper, and Bobo, who found no place so pleasant as Hoxy's home, sat down to supper with them. While they ate, they could see through the front door troops of horsemen, who, warned by the tavern bell, had taken their last drink in honor of the hero of Tippecanoe, and started homeward in various stages of inebriety, some hurrahing insanely for Harrison and Tyler, many hurrahing for nothing in particular.
The pitiful and religious soul of Roxy saw not a particle of the ludicrous side of this grotesque exhibition of humanity in voluntary craze. She saw and exaggerated, perhaps the domestic sorrow at the end of their several roads, and she saw them as a procession of lost souls riding pell-mell into a perdition which she had learned to regard as a place of literal fiery torment.
Is it strange, therefore, that when Mr. Whittaker, the Presbyterian minister, came in after supper, she should ask him earnestly and abruptly why God, who was full of love, should make this world, in which there was so awful a preponderance of sorrow ? It was in vain that the minister tried to answer her by shifting the responsibility to the shoulders of man, who committed sin in Adam," the federal head of the race;" it was in vain that He took refuge in the sovereignty of God and the mystery of His existence. The girl saw only that God brought multitudes of people into life whose destiny was eternal sorrow and whose destiny must have been known to Him from the beginning. She did not once venture to doubt the goodness of God ; but her spirit kept on wounding itself with its own questioning, and Mr. Whittaker, with all his logic, could give her no relief. For feeling often evades logic, be it never so discriminating. Whittaker, however, kept up the conversation, glad of any pretext for talk with Roxy. The shoemaker was pleased to see him puzzled by the girl's cleverness ; but he seemed to side with Whittaker.
It was not considered proper at that day for a minister to spend so much time in the society of the unconverted as Whittaker did in that of Roxy's father; but the minister found him, in spite of his perversity, a most interesting sinner. Whittaker liked to sharpen his wits against those of the shoe-maker, who had read and thought a good deal in an eccentric way. The conversation was specially pleasant when the daughter listened to their discussion, for the minister was not yet quite twenty-five years of age, and what young man of twenty-five is insensible to the pleasure of talking, with a bright girl of seventeen for a listener?
When the minister and her father seated themselves nnder an apple-tree, it cost Roxy a pang to lose the pleasure of hearing them talk ; but Bobo was exacting, and she sat down to amuse him with a monotonous play of her own devising, which consisted in rolling a marble roimd the tea-tray. Whittaker was not quite willing to lose his auditor ; he asked Mr. Adams several times if the light air was not bad, but the shoe-maker was in one of his perverse moods, and refused to take the hint.
At last the time came for Roxy to lead Bobo home, and as she came out the door, she heard her father say, in the most disputatious tone :
" I tell you, Mr. Whittaker, Henry the Eighth was the greatest monarch England ever had. He put down popery."
" But how about the women whose heads he cut off ? I asked the preacher, laughing.
" That was a mere incident a mere incident in his glorious career, sir," said the other, earnestly. " Half-adozen women's heads, more or less, are nothing to what he did for civil and religious liberty."
" But suppose one of the heads had been Roxy's ? " queried Whittaker, watching Roxy as she unlatched the gate.
" That's nothing to do with it," persisted Adams. " Roxy's head is as light as the rest."
Roxy was a little hurt by her father's speech ; but she knew his love of contradiction, and neither she nor anv one else could ever be quite sure when he was in earnest. His most solemn beliefs were often put forth in badinage and he delighted to mask his jests under the most vehement assertions. I doubt if he himself ever quite knew the difference between his irony and his convictions.
But after Roxy had gone the father relented a little. He confessed that the girl's foolishness was different from that of other girls. But it was folly none the less. For if a girl isn't a fool about fine clothes and beaux and all that, she's sure to make up for it by being a fool about religion. Here he paused for Whittaker to reply, but he was silent, and Adams could not see in the darkness whether or not he was rendered uncomfortable by his remark. So, urged on by the demon of contradiction, he proceeded :
" Little or big, young or old, women are all fools. But Roxy had it rather different from the rest. It struck in with her. She was only ten years old when old Seth Lumley was sent to jail for stealing hogs, and his wife and three little children were pretty nigh starving. That little fool of a Roxy picked blackberries three Saturdays hand-running and brought them into town three miles, and sold them and gave all the money to the old woman. But the blackberry-briers tore more off her clothes than the berries came to. The little goose did it because she believed the Bible and all that about doing; good to the poor and so on. She believes the Bible yet. She's the only person in town that's fool enough to think that all the stuff you preachers say is true and meant to be carried out. The rest of you don't believe it at least nobody tries to do these things. They were just meant to sound nicely in church, you know."
Again he paused to give Whittaker a chance to contradict.
" I tell you," he went on, " I don't believe in over-pious folks. Roxy would take the shoes off her feet to give them to some lazy fool that ought to work. She will take care of Bobo, for instance. That gives Bobo's mother lime to dress and run 'round. Now what's the use in Roxy 's being such a fool ? It's all because you preachers harp on self-denial so much. So it goes. The girls that are not fools are made fools by you preachers."
Adams had not meant to be so rude, but Whittaker'g meekness under his stinging speeches was very provoking. Having set out to irritate his companion he became irritated at his own failure and was carried further than he intended. Whittaker thought best not to grow angry with this last remark, but laughed at it as pleasantry, The old shoe-maker's face, however, did not relax. Ho only looked sullen and fierce as though he had seriously intended to insult his guest.
" Preachers and talking cobblers are a demoralizing set, I grant," said Whittaker, rising to go.
" It is the chief business of a talking cobbler to protect people from the influence of preachers," answered Adams.
Suspecting the growing annoyance of his companion, Adams relented and began to cast about for some words with which to turn his savage and quite insincere speech into pleasantry. But the conversation was interrupted just then by the racket of two snare-drums, and one bassdrum, and the shrill screaming of a fife. The demonstrations of the day were being concluded by a torch-light procession. Both Whittaker and Adams were relieved by the interruption, which gave the minister a chance to say good-night and which gave Adams the inscriptions to read. The first one was a revolving transparency which had upon its first side " Out of" then upon the second was the picture of a log-cabin ; on the third, the words " into the ; " on the fourth, a rude drawing of the " presidential mansion," as we republicans call it ; so that it read to all beholders: "Out of a log-cabin into the White House." There were many others denouncing the administration, calling the president a " Dutchman," and reciting the military glories of the hero of Tippecanoe. Of course the changes were rung upon " hard cider," which was supposed to be General Harrison's meat and drink.
At the very rear of the procession came a company oi young fellows with a transparency inscribed : " For Representative, Mark Bonamy the eloquent young Whig."
Meantime Roxy stood upon the steps of her aunt's house with Bobo, who was transported at seeing the bright display. She herself was quite pleased with the inscription which complimented Mark.
She handed little Bonaparte Hanks over to his mother, Baying,
" Here's Bobo. He's been a good boy. He saw the torches, Aunt Henrietta."
" Saw the torches, Aunt Henrietta," said the lad, for ho had lived with Roxy until he had come to style his mother as she did.
Aunt Henrietta did not pay much attention to Bobo. She sent him off to bed, and said to Roxy :
" He must be great company to you, Roxy. I like to leave him with you, for I know it makes you happy. And he thinks so much of you."
And then, when Roxy had said good-night and gone away home, Aunt Henrietta turned to Jemima, her " help," and remarked, with great benignity, that she did not know what that poor, motherless girl would do for society and enjoyment if it were not for Bo. And with this placid shifting of the obligation to the side most comfortable to herself, Mrs. Henrietta Hanks would fain have dismissed the subject. But social distinctions had not yet Secome well established in the West, and Jemima, who had been Mrs. Hanks' school-mate in childhood, and who still called hei " Ilenriette," was in the habit of having her " say" in all discussions.
"You air rale kind, Ilenriette," she answered, with a laugh; "it must be a favor to Roxy to slave herself for that poor, simple child. And as he don't hardly know one hand from t'other, he must be lots of compony for the smartest girl in Luzerne," and Jemima Dumbleton laugl ed aloud.
Mrs. Hanks would have been angry, if it had not been that to get angry was troublesome the more so that the indispensable Jemima was sure to keep her temper and get the best of any discussion. So the mistress only flushed a little, and replied :
" Don't give me any impertinence, Jemima. You haven't finished scrubbing the kitchen floor yet."
" I'm much obleeged," chuckled Jemima, half aloud, " it's a great privilege to scrub the floor. I'll have to git right down on my knees to express my gratitude," and down she knelt to resume her scouring of the floor, singing as she worked, with more vigor than melody, the words of an old chorus :
" Oh, hender me not, fer I will serve the Lord,
And I'll praise Him when I die."
As Roxy walked home beneath the black locust-trees that bordered the sidewalk, she had an uncomfortable sense of wrong. She knew her aunt too well to hope for any thanks for her pains with Bobo ; but she could not quite get over expecting them. She had taken up the care of the boy because she saw him neglected, and because he was one of " the Bible iittle ones," as she phrased it. Her attentions to him had their spring in pure benevolence and religious devotion ; but now she began to rebuke herself sternly for " seeking the praise of men." She offered an earnest prayer tbat this, her sin, might be forgiven, and she resolved to be more kind than ever to Bobo.
As she entered the path that led out of the street to the edge of the common in which stood their house and garden-patch, she met the minister going home. He paused a moment to praise her for her self-denying kindness to hei unfortunate cousin, then wished her good-night, and passed on. Spite of all Roxy's resolutions against caring for the praise of men, she found the appreciative words very sweet in her ears as she went on home in the stillness of the summer night.
When she came to the house, her father stood by the gate which led into the yard, already reproaching himself for his irascibility and his almost involuntary rudeness to Mr. Whit taker ; and since he was discordant with himself, he was cross with Roxy.
" Much good you will ever get by taking care of Bobo," he said. " Your aunt won't thank you, or leave you a 6hoe-string when she dies."
Roxy did not reply, but went off to bed annoyed not, however, at what her father had said to her. She was used to his irritability, and she knew, besides, that if she were to neglect Bobo, the crusty but tender-hearted father would be the first to take him up. But from his mood she saw that he had not parted pleasantly with Whittaker. And as she climbed the stairs she thought of Whittaker's visit and wondered whether he would be driven away by her father's harshness. And mingling with thoughts oi the slender form of Whittaker in her imagination, there came thoughts of the fine presence of Mark Bonamy, and of his flowing speech. It was a pleasant world, after all. She could afford to put out of memory Aunt Ilenriatta'a ingratitude and herfather's moods.
Mark, on his part, was at that very moment drinking to the success of the log-cabin candidate, and if Roxy could have seen him then, the picture with which she pleased herself of a high-toned and chivalrous young man would doubtless have lost some of the superfluous color which the events of the day had given it.