In Exile and Other Stories

M >> Mary Hallock Foote >> In Exile and Other Stories

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"Dear father! How he has worked over that wood, early and late, to spare
us!"

We will not revive Dorothy's struggles with the farm-work, and with the
boys. They were an isolated family at the mill-house; their peculiar faith
isolated them still more, and they were twelve miles from meeting and the
settlement of Friends at Stony Valley. Dorothy's pride kept her silent
about her needs, lest they might bring reproach upon her father among the
neighbors, who would not be likely to feel the urgency of his spiritual
summons.

The summer heats came on apace and the nights grew shorter. It seemed
to Dorothy that she had hardly stretched out her tired young body and
forgotten her cares, in the low, attic bedroom, before the east was
streaked with light and the birds were singing in the apple-trees, whose
falling blossoms drifted in at the window.

One day in early June, Friend Barton's flock of sheep (consisting of nine
experienced ewes, six yearlings, and a sprinkling of close-curled lambs
whose legs had not yet come into mature relations with their bodies) was
gathered in a wattled inclosure, beside the stream that flowed into the
mill-head. It was supplied by the waste from the pond, and, when the gate
was shut, rambled easily over the gray slate pebbles, with here and there a
fall just forcible enough to serve as a douche-bath for a well-grown sheep.
The victims were panting in their heavy fleeces, and mingling their hoarse,
plaintive tremolo with the ripple of the water and the sound of young
voices in a frolic. Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the
best advantage. The two elder boys stood in midstream to receive the sheep,
which she, with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged to the bank.

The boys were at work now upon an elderly ewe, while Dorothy stood on the
brink of the stream braced against an ash sapling, dragging forward by the
fleece a beautiful but reluctant yearling. Her bare feet were incased in a
pair of moccasins that laced around the ankle; her petticoats were kilted,
and her broad hat bound down with a ribbon; one sleeve was rolled up, the
other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the sheep-pen. The new candidate
for immersion stood bleating and trembling with her forefeet planted
against the slippery bank, pushing back with all her strength while Jimmy
propelled from the rear.

"Boys!" Dorothy's clear voice called across the stream. "_Do_ hurry! She's
been in long enough, now! Keep her head up, can't you, and squeeze the wool
_hard_! You're not _half_ washing! Oh, Reuby! thee'll drown her! Keep her
_head_ up!"

Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,--Dorothy released
the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb, Reuby!" she
cried with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the yearling, that
had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an obstacle in its path,
which happened to be Jimmy. He was wailing now on the bank, while Dorothy,
with the ewe's nose tucked comfortably in the bend of her arm, was parting
and squeezing the fleece, with the water swirling round her. Her stout arms
ached, and her ears were stunned with the incessant bleatings; she counted
with dismay the sheep still waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! Do stop crying,
or else go to the house!"

"He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now Dorothy's
sole dependence.

"Oh yes, do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go and
come back quick."

The water had run low that morning in Evesham's pond. He shut down the
mill, and strode up the hills, across lots, to raise the gate of the lower
Barton pond, which had been heading up for his use. He passed the cornfield
where, a month before, he had seen pretty Dorothy Barton dropping corn with
her brothers. It made him ache to think of Dorothy with her feeble mother,
the boys as wild as preachers' sons proverbially are, and the old farm
running down on her hands; the fences all needed mending, and there went
Reuben Barton, now, careering over the fields in chase of a stray yearling.
His mother's house was big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he
thought of the "one ewe-lamb" he coveted out of Friend Barton's rugged
pastures.

As Evesham raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle
through the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with
its tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and the
bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts in
his blood; the distant bleating, the hot June sunshine and cloudless sky
did not suggest to him sheep-washing; but now came a boy's voice shouting
and a cry of distress, and he remembered with a thrill that Friend Barton
used the stream for that peaceful purpose. He shut down the gate and tore
along through the ferns and tangled grass till he came to the sheep-pen,
where the bank was muddy and trampled. The prisoners were bleating drearily
and looking with longing eyes across to the other side, where those who had
suffered were now straying and cropping the short turf through the lights
and shadows of the orchard.

There was no other sign of life, except a broad hat with a brown ribbon
buffeted about in an eddy among the stones. The stream dipped now below the
hill, and the current, still racing fast with the impetus he had given it,
shot away amongst the hazel thickets that crowded close to the brink. He
was obliged to make a detour by the orchard and to come out below at the
"mill-head," a black, deep pool with an ugly ripple setting across it to
the head-gate. He saw something white clinging there, and ran round the
brink. It was the sodden fleece of the old ewe, which had been drifted
against the head-gate and held there to her death. Evesham, with a
sickening contraction of the heart, threw off his jacket for a plunge, when
Dorothy's voice called rather faintly from the willows on the opposite
bank.

"Don't jump! I'm here," she said. Evesham searched the willows and found
her seated in the sun, just beyond, half buried in a bed of ferns.

"I _shouldn't_ have called thee," she said shyly, as he sank pale and
panting beside her, "but thee looked--I thought thee was going to jump into
the mill-head!"

"I thought _you_ were there, Dorothy!"

"I was there quite long enough. Shep pulled me out; I was too tired to help
myself much." Dorothy held her palm pressed against her temple and the
blood trickled from beneath, streaking her pale, wet cheek.

"He's gone to the house to get me a cloak. I don't want mother to see me,
not yet," she said.

"I'm afraid you ought not to wait, Dorothy. Let me take you to the house,
won't you? I'm afraid you'll get a deadly chill."

Dorothy did not look in the least like death. She was blushing now, because
Evesham would think it so strange of her to stay, and yet she could not
rise in her wet clothes, that clung to her like the calyx to a bud.

"Let me see that cut, Dorothy!"

"Oh, it's nothing. I don't wish thee to look at it!"

"But I will! Do you want to make me your murderer, sitting there in your
wet clothes with a cut on your head?"

He drew away her hand; the wound, indeed, was no great affair, but he bound
it up deftly with strips of his handkerchief. Dorothy's wet curls touched
his fingers and clung to them, and her eyelashes drooped lower and lower.

"I think it was _very_ stupid of thee. Didn't thee hear us from the dam?
I'm sure we made noise enough."

"Yes, I heard you when it was too late. I heard the sheep before, but how
could I imagine that you, Dorothy, and three boys as big as cockerels, were
sheep-washing? It's the most preposterous thing I ever heard of!",

"Well, I can't help being a woman, and the sheep had to be washed. I think
there ought to be more men in the world when half of them are preaching and
fighting."

"If you'd only let the men who are left help you a little, Dorothy."

"I don't want any help. I only _don't_ want to be washed into the
mill-head."

They both laughed, and Evesham began again entreating her to let him take
her to the house.

"Hasn't thee a coat or something I could put around me until Shep comes?"
said Dorothy. "He must be here soon."

"Yes, I've a jacket here somewhere."

He sped away to find it, and faithless Dorothy, as the willows closed
between them, sprang to her feet and fled like a startled Naiad to the
house.

When Evesham, pushing through the willows, saw nothing but the bed of wet,
crushed ferns and the trail through the long grass where Dorothy's feet had
fled, he smiled grimly to himself, remembering that "ewe-lambs" are not
always as meek as they look.

That evening Rachel had received a letter from Friend Barton and was
preparing to read it aloud to the children. They were in the kitchen, where
the boys had been helping Dorothy in a desultory manner to shell corn for
the chickens; but now all was silence while Rachel wiped her glasses and
turned the large sheet of paper, squared with many foldings, to the candle.

She read the date, "'London Grove, 5th month, 22d.--Most affectionately
beloved.'" "He means us all," said Rachel, turning to the children with a
tender smile. "It's spelled with a small _b_."

"He means thee!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Thee's not such a very big
beloved."

There was a moment's silence. "I don't know that the opening of the letter
is of general interest," Rachel mused, with her eyes traveling slowly down
the page. "He says: 'In regard to my health, lest thee should concern
thyself, I am thankful to say I have never enjoyed better since years have
made me acquainted with my infirmities of body, and I earnestly hope that
my dear wife and children are enjoying the same blessing.

"'I trust the boys are not deficient in obedience and helpfulness. At
Sheppard's age I had already begun to take the duties of a man upon my
shoulders.'"

Sheppard giggled uncomfortably, and Dorothy laughed outright.

"Oh, if father only _knew_ how good the boys are! Mother, thee must write
and tell him about their 'helpfulness and obedience'! Thee can tell him
their appetites keep up pretty well; they manage to take their meals
regularly, and they are _always_ out of bed by eight o'clock to help me
hang up the milking-stool!"

"Just wait till thee gets into the mill-head again, Dorothy Barton! Thee
needn't come to _me_ to help thee out!"

"Go on, mother. Don't let the boys interrupt thee!"

"Well," said Rachel, rousing herself, "where was I? Oh, 'At Sheppard's
age'! Well, next come some allusions to the places where he has visited and
his spiritual exercises there. I don't know that the boys are quite old
enough to enter into this yet. Thee'd better read it thyself, Dorothy. I'm
keeping all father's letters for the boys to read when they are old enough
to appreciate them."

"Well, I think thee might read to us about where he's been preachin'. We
can understand a great deal more than thee thinks we can," said Shep in
an injured voice. "Reuby can preach some himself. Thee ought to hear him,
mother. It's almost as good as meetin'."

"I _wondered_ how Reuby spent his time," said Dorothy, and the mother
hastened to interpose.

"Well! here's a passage that may be interesting: 'On sixth day attended the
youths' meeting here, a pretty favored time on the whole. Joseph' (that's
Joseph Carpenter; he mentions him aways back) 'had good service in lively
testimony, while I was calm and easy without a word to say. At a meeting at
Plumstead we suffered long, but at length we felt relieved. The unfaithful
were admonished, the youth invited, and the heavy-hearted encouraged. It
was a heavenly time.' Heretofore he seems to have been closed up with
silence a good deal, but now the way opens continually for him to free
himself. He's been 'much favored,' he says, 'of late.' Reuby, what's thee
doing to thy brothers?" (Shep and Reuby, who had been persecuting Jimmy by
pouring handfuls of corn down the neck of his jacket until he had taken
refuge behind Dorothy's chair, were now recriminating with corn-cobs on
each other's faces.) "Dorothy, can't thee keep those boys quiet?"

"Did thee ever know them to be quiet?" said Dorothy, helping Jimmy to
relieve himself of his corn.

"Well now, listen." Rachel continued placidly, "'Second day, 27th' (of
fifth month, he means; the letter's been a long time coming), 'attended
their mid-week meeting at London Grove, where my tongue, as it were, clave
to the roof of my mouth, while Hannah Husbands was much favored and enabled
to lift up her voice like the song of an angel'"--

"Who's Hannah Husbands?" Dorothy interrupted.

"Thee doesn't know her, dear. She was second cousin to thy father's
stepmother; the families were not congenial, I believe, but she has a great
gift for the ministry."

"I should think she'd better be at home with her children, if she has any.
Fancy _thee_, mother, going about to strange meetings and lifting up thy
voice"--

"Hush, hush, Dorothy! Thy tongue's running away with thee. Consider the
example thee's setting the boys."

"Thee'd better write to father about Dorothy, mother. Perhaps Hannah
Husbands would like to know what she thinks about her preachin'."

"Well, now, be quiet, all of you. Here's something about Dorothy: 'I know
that my dear daughter Dorothy is faithful and loving, albeit somewhat quick
of speech and restive under obligation. I would have thee remind her that
an unwillingness to accept help from others argues a want of Christian
Meekness. Entreat her from me not to conceal her needs from our neighbors,
if so be she find her work oppressive. We know them to be of kindly
intention, though not of our way of thinking in all particulars. Let her
receive help from them, not as individuals, but as instruments of the
Lord's protection, which it were impiety and ingratitude to deny.'"

"There!" cried Shep. "That means thee is to let Luke Jordan finish the
sheep-washing. Thee'd better have done it in the first place. We shouldn't
have the old ewe to pick if thee had."

Dorothy was dimpling at the idea of Luke Jordan in the character of an
instrument of heavenly protection. She had not regarded him in that light,
it must be confessed, but had rejected him with scorn.

"He may, if he wants to," she said; "but you boys shall drive them over.
I'll have nothing to do with it."

"And shear them too, Dorothy? He asked to shear them long ago."

"Well, _let_ him shear them and keep the wool too."

"I wouldn't say that, Dorothy," said Rachel Barton. "We need the wool, and
it seems as if over-payment might not be quite honest, either."

"Oh, mother, mother! What a mother thee is!" cried Dorothy laughing and
rumpling Rachel's cap-strings in a tumultuous embrace.

"She's a great deal too good for _thee_, Dorothy Barton."

"She's too good for all of us. How did thee ever come to have such a
graceless set of children, mother?"

"I'm very well satisfied," said Rachel. "But now do be quiet and let's
finish the letter. We must get to bed some time to-night!"

* * * * *

The wild clematis was in blossom now; the fences were white with it, and
the rusty cedars were crowned with virgin wreaths; but the weeds were thick
in the garden and in the potato patch. Dorothy, stretching her cramped
back, looked longingly up the shadowy vista of the farm-lane that had
nothing to do but ramble off into the remotest green fields, where the
daisies' faces were as white and clear as in early June.

One hot August night she came home late from the store. The stars were
thick in the sky; the katydids made the night oppressive with their rasping
questionings, and a hoarse revel of frogs kept the ponds from falling
asleep in the shadow of the hills.

"Is thee very tired to-night, Dorothy?" her mother asked, as she took her
seat on the low step of the porch. "Would thee mind turning old John out
thyself?"

"No, mother, I'm not tired. But why? Oh, _I_ know!" cried Dorothy with
a quick laugh. "The dance at Slocum's barn. I thought those boys were
uncommonly helpful."

"Yes, dear, it's but natural they should want to see it. Hark! we can hear
the music from here."

They listened, and the breeze brought across the fields the sound of
fiddles and the rhythmic tramp of feet, softened by the distance. Dorothy's
young pulses leaped.

"Mother, is it any harm for them just to see it? They have so little fun,
except what they get out of teasing and shirking."

"My dear, thy father would never countenance such a scene of frivolity, or
permit one of his children to look upon it; through our eyes and ears the
world takes possession of our hearts."

"Then I'm to spare the boys this temptation, mother? Thee will trust _me_
to pass the barn?"

"I would trust my boys, if they were thy age, Dorothy; but their resolution
is tender like their years."

It might be questioned whether the frame of mind in which the boys went to
bed that night under their mother's eye, for Rachel could be firm in a case
of conscience, was more improving than the frivolity of Slocum's barn.

"Mother," called Dorothy, looking in at the kitchen window where Rachel was
stooping over the embers in the fireplace to light a bedroom candle, "I
want to speak to thee."

Rachel came to the window, screening the candle with her hand.

"Will thee trust me to look at the dancing a little while? It is so very
near."

"Why, Dorothy, does thee want to?"

"Yes, mother, I believe I do. I've never seen a dance in my life. It cannot
ruin me to look just once."

Rachel stood puzzled.

"Thee's old enough to judge for thyself, Dorothy. But, my child, do not
tamper with thy inclinations through heedless curiosity. Thee knows thee's
more impulsive than I could wish for thy own peace."

"I'll be very careful, mother. If I feel in the least wicked I will come
straight away."

She kissed her mother's hand that rested on the window-sill. Rachel did
not like the kiss, nor Dorothy's brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks, as
the candle revealed them like a fair picture painted on the darkness. She
hesitated, but Dorothy sped away up the lane with old John lagging at his
halter.

Was it the music growing nearer that quickened her breathing, or only the
closeness of the night shut in between the wild grapevine curtains swung
from one dark cedar column to another? She caught the sweetbrier's breath
as she hurried by, and now a loop in the leafy curtain revealed the pond,
lying black in a hollow of the hills with a whole heaven of stars reflected
in it. Old John stumbled along over the stones, cropping the grass as he
went. Dorothy tugged at his halter and urged him on to the head of the
lane, where two farm-gates stood at right angles. One of them was open and
a number of horses were tethered in a row along the fence within. They
whinnied a cheerful greeting to John as Dorothy slipped his halter and shut
him into the field adjoining. Now should she walk into temptation with her
eyes and ears open? The gate stood wide, with only one field of perfumed
meadow-grass between her and the lights and music of Slocum's barn. The
sound of revelry by night could hardly have taken a more innocent form than
this rustic dancing of neighbors after a "raisin' bee," but had it been the
rout of Comus and his crew, and Dorothy the Lady Una trembling near, her
heart could hardly have throbbed more quickly as she crossed the dewy
meadow. A young maple stood within ten rods of the barn, and here she
crouched in shadow.

The great doors stood wide open and lanterns were hung from the beams,
lighting the space between the mows where a dance was set, with youths and
maidens in two long rows. The fiddlers sat on barrel-heads near the door;
a lantern hanging just behind projected their shadows across the square
of light on the trodden space in front, where they executed a grotesque
pantomime, keeping time to the music with spectral wavings and noddings.
The dancers were Dorothy's young neighbors, whom she had known, and yet not
known, all her life, but they had the strangeness of familiar faces seen
suddenly in some fantastic dream.

Surely that was Nancy Slocum in the bright pink gown heading the line of
girls, and that was Luke Jordan's sunburnt profile leaning from his place
to pluck a straw from the mow behind him. They were marching, and the
measured tramp of feet keeping solid time to the fiddles set a strange
tumult vibrating in Dorothy's blood; and now it stopped, with a thrill, as
she recognized that Evesham was there, marching with the young men, and
that his peer was not among them. The perception of his difference came
to her with a vivid shock. He was coming forward now with his light, firm
step, formidable in evening dress and with a smile of subtle triumph in his
eyes, to meet Nancy Slocum in the bright pink gown. Dorothy felt she hated
pink of all the colors her faith had abjured. She could see, in spite of
the obnoxious gown, that Nancy was very pretty. He was taking her first by
the right hand, then by the left, and turning her gayly about; and now they
were meeting again for the fourth or fifth time in the centre of the barn,
with all eyes upon them, and the music lingered while Nancy, holding out
her pink petticoats, coyly revolved around him. Then began a mysterious
turning and clasping of hands, and weaving of Nancy's pink frock and
Evesham's dark blue coat and white breeches in and out of the line of
figures, until they met at the door, and, taking each other by both hands,
swept with a joyous measure to the head of the barn. Dorothy gave a little
choking sigh.

What a senseless whirl it was. She was thrilling with a new and strange
excitement, too near the edge of pain to be long endured as a pleasure.
If this were the influence of dancing she did not wonder so much at her
father's scruples, and yet it held her like a spell.

All hands were lifted now, making an arch through which Evesham, holding
Nancy by the hands, raced, stooping and laughing. As they emerged at the
door, Evesham threw up his head to shake a brown lock back. He looked
flushed and boyishly gay, and his hazel eye searched the darkness with that
subtle ray of triumph in it which made Dorothy afraid. She drew back behind
the tree and pressed her hot cheek to the cool, rough bark. She longed
for the stillness of the starlit meadow, and the dim lane with its faint
perfumes and whispering leaves.

But now suddenly the music stopped and the dance broke up in a tumult of
voices. Dorothy stole backward in the shadow of the tree-trunk, until it
joined the darkness of the meadow, and then fled, stumbling along with
blinded eyes, the music still vibrating in her ears. Then came a quick rush
of footsteps behind her, swishing through the long grass. She did not look
back, but quickened her pace, struggling to reach the gate. Evesham was
there before her. He had swung the gate to and was leaning with his back
against it, laughing and panting.

"I've caught you, Dorothy, you little deceiver! You'll not get rid of me
to-night with any of your tricks. I'm going to take you home to your mother
and tell her you were peeping at the dancing."

"Mother knows that I came; I asked her," said Dorothy. Her knees were
trembling and her heart almost choked her with its throbbing.

"I'm so glad you don't dance, Dorothy. This is much nicer than the barn,
and the katydids are better fiddlers than old Darby and his son. I'll open
the gate if you will put your hand in mine, so that I can be sure of you,
you little runaway."

"I will stay here all night, first," said Dorothy, in a low, quivering
voice.

"As you choose. I shall be happy as long as you are here."

Dead silence, while the katydids seemed to keep time to their heart-beats;
the fiddles began tuning for another reel, and the horses, tethered near,
stretched out their necks with low, inquiring whinnies.

"Dorothy," said Evesham softly, leaning toward her and trying to see her
face in the darkness, "are you angry with me? Don't you think you deserve a
little punishment for the trick you played me at the mill-head?"

"It was all thy fault for insisting." Dorothy was too excited and angry to
cry, but she was as miserable as she had ever been in her life before. "I
didn't want thee to stay. People that force themselves where they are not
wanted must take what they get."

"What did you say, Dorothy?"

"I say I didn't want thee then. I do not want thee now. Thee may go back
to thy fiddling and dancing. I'd rather have one of those dumb brutes for
company to-night than thee, Walter Evesham."

"Very well; the reel has begun," said Evesham. "Fanny Jordan is waiting to
dance it with me, or if she isn't she ought to be. Shall I open the gate
for you?"

She passed out in silence, and the gate swung to with a heavy jar. She made
good speed down the lane and then waited outside the fence till her breath
came more quietly.

"Is that thee, Dorothy?" Rachel's voice called from the porch. She came out
to meet her daughter and they went along the walk together. "How damp thy
forehead is, child. Is the night so warm?" They sat down on the low steps
and Dorothy slid her arm under her mother's and laid her soft palm against
the one less soft by twenty years of toil for others. "Thee's not been
long, dear; was it as much as thee expected?"

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