Dumb Foxglove

ALL the golden October day we had been driving leisurely along through the Green Mountain country.

Everything was golden that fall. It had been a very dry season, and the leaves upon the maples and other forest trees, instead of ripening into brilliant hues of crimson and scarlet, had all taken on tints of yellow. Then, when the autumn winds arose, suddenly the whole earth was carpeted with saffron, daffodil, amber, and gold, a thick, soft, rustling carpet, and for days our horses trod upon it, and our wagon-wheels rolled over and through it. Somehow it had the effect of sunshine, and even in cloudy weather we were in the light. But the sun shone that day, and the air was soft and warm. There had been as yet no heavy frost, and the late flowers were still bright, while berry, seed-vessel, and nut were gay with red, blue, russet, and gold.

Goldenrod was massed by the roadside in tints to match every shade of our leafy carpet, making for it a gorgeous border of gold color, and asters contrasted or harmonized, with their hues of mauve, blue, purple, lavender, and white.

The twisted orchid, or lady’s-tresses, with its spike of frosted white bells, smelling of bitter almonds, clustered thickly in damp spots along the roadside ; Joe Pye weed, or pink boneset, stood stiffly erect, with flat-topped clusters of dull pink feathery blossoms, and sometimes a belated St. Johnswort added its yellow to the prevailing brightness. The witch-hazel bore on leafless brown boughs its strange flowers of straw color with their sickly sweet odor; and most abundant of all, grew, all along our way, the dark blue closed gentian.

There were so many berries ! The short, thick spike which jack-in-the-pulpit wears ; the sapphire-blue bear-plums; those of translucent garnet, growing like a bunch of ripe currants on the little smilacina; the crimson fruit of twistedstalk, hanging singly on slender stems ; the mountain holly’s rosy red ; mooseberries ; bunchberries ; the red cohosh and the white, the last like beads of white enamel strung upon red coral stalks, — all these we saw and gathered ere the day ended. We were climbing the steep turnpike road which crosses the mountains from Manchester to Landgrove and Chester, and we often left the wagon to walk by its side or linger behind it, in the soft air and warm sunshine. We gathered armfuls of maidenhair and ostrich ferns, wild flowers, berries, moss, and lichen. And many other things we brought back to the wagon unknowingly ; for hundreds of seed - vessels, of varied forms, prickly, bristly, sticky, barbed, or thorned, clung to our garments, as we scrambled through the tangle of plants and shrubs at the roadside, or strayed into the forests on either hand. The long, slender Spanish needles; the two-thorned fruit of the yellow bur - marigold; the agrimony seed-holders, looking like tiny green feather dusters ; the odd, flat, thin joints of the tick-trefoil pods; the small green burs of enchanter’s nightshade, — all these and scores of other fast-holding, close-clinging, little hindering things covered our clothing and pricked our fingers in our journey that day.

We were to spend the night at Peru, that quiet mountain village we knew so well, and among whose pleasant people we had many friends.

The bouquet we had gathered along the way was not a satisfactory one, and there was little of beauty about it when we reached our destination. The golden leaves, full of sunshine as they hung on the branches or lay in our paathway, were dried and shriveled now; the berries were crushed, or had fallen from their stems; the asters looked forlorn, with their rays twisted and drooping. But the closed gentians were unchanged, and we carried into the house with us a big bunch of the strange, undeveloped, budlike flowers of dark purple-blue. And it was the sight of these blossoms as they stood in the old cream ware pitcher on the sideboard, that evening, that made Aunt Eunice — every one in Peru called her by that name — tell the story.

“ Yes, I know it is n’t its real name, but that’s what I always call it, myself. Ma used to call it that, and so I do. And it’s a real good name, come to think of it, — dumb foxglove. For it’s a good deal like the foxglove that grows in the garden, you know, and it’s the dumbest flower, for a real full-growed one, that I know. Never opens out into real blowth, you see, and nothing can make it. Water or sunshine or rich soil, loosening the dirt round it, or transplanting, or anything, don’t make any difference ; it won’t open out. But pick it open and there ’t is, just like the prettiest posy in the world, streaked and painted and all, and nobody ever seeing it. It ’s dreadful queer why it’s that way, ain’t it ? If the pretty part’s all inside and hid and shut up, and is n’t ever to do anybody a mite of good, why, what’s it made that way for ? Why did n’t they leave the inside just plain, not finished off any, sort of skimped that part, you know, that wasn’t to show? But there! it is n’t half so queer and puzzling about posies as’t is about folks, is it, now ? For you know as well as I do, don’t you, there ’s lots of folks just that same way. They ’re all shut up tight, all in the dark and cold and lonesomeness, and never showing the pretty part inside that most of them’s got after all. I never see that dumb foxglove that I don’t think of Colossy Bragg. She lived just down the road there, in the house with so much of that wild-cucumber vine running over it, and the marigold bed in front.

“ David and Lucy Ann Bragg were married a good while before they had any children, and they were dreadful pdeased when this one came. She was a nice, big baby, and they thought she was going to take after Grandma West, and be tall and fleshy and fine-looking. So they named her, out of a book, Colossa, but we called it — you know how they do with such names about here — Colossy. Poor child, it did n’t turn out a very suitable name for her. She was a healthy, nice little thing, rugged as any child, till she was about four year old. Then something took her, — the doctors never seemed to know what, exactly, — and she stopped growing. Her legs and arms were helpless like, and she could n’t walk or use her hands much. ’T was the pitifulest sight to see her. Her mind was all right; it was only the poor, pinchedup, pindling body that was wrong.

“ Her face was real pretty, sort of thin and white, but with such big, dark, purply-blue eyes, almost black by spells, — they made me think lots of times of the color of those dumb foxgloves, — and long black eye-winkers curling up at the ends. And her hair was long and soft and such a pretty yellow, and it curled all round her head. She used to sit all day in a big chair with pillows by the southwest window there, and every one for miles round Peru knew that pretty white face. ’T was terrible hard on her pa and ma, they’d set so much by her, and lotted so on what she’d be when she grew up. They learnt her to read, but that was about all. For she could n’t use her hands, so there was n’t any ciphering, or drawing pictures on her slate, or sewing patchwork, or any of the things girls did in those days. She never seemed to care much about story-books. To be sure, there wa’n’t many in those times; not what young ones call story-books nowadays, with redand-gold covers and painted pictures and all. But there was a few in the place, and folks was glad enough to lend them to poor little Colossy.

“ The Braggses owned Pilgrim’s Progress and Evenings at Home themselves, and I had Anna Ross and Dairyman’s Daughter. And here and in Landgrove and about there was Little Henry and his Bearer, and The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and some numbers of the Juvenile Miscellany, and there was some books about missionaries, and some travels. She had them all, one after another, and as long as she wanted them, but they did n’t interest her much. And there was n’t many things she could play. Puss-in-the-corner and tag and blindman’s-buff and trisket-a-trasket and all such running-about plays was out of the question, course, and even checkers and tit-tat-toe and fox-and-geese and set-down games like those she could n’t play at on account of her poor helpless hands. Why, she could n’t even put down her mite of a forefinger with the other children’s and say, ‘ Hinty minty cuty corn,’ to see who was ‘ it,’ as the youngsters used to say. She had a kind of weak, whisp’ry voice, so she could n’t even sing ; and she did n’t appear to care much about bearing tunes, neither. So you see she was nigh as much shut up and blind and dumb a little creatur’ as that flower there.

“ You would n’t have thought, when you saw her sitting in her high chair, bolstered up with pillows, her little drawedup hands all helpless in her lap, and a shawl wrapped round her poor feet and legs, — you would n’t have thought there was anything in the world to interest her or make her forget her troubles. But there was. There was just one thing that kept her up, occupied her mind, amused her all day long, and made her willing to live and be so different from the other children. How it came first into her head I don’t know, for ’t was the very last thing you’d ever expect would ’a’ got there, considering what she was, poor rickety little mite.

“ It was cooking ! Now, o’ course you know she could n’t cook with her own hands, little, limp, crooked things that they was, but some ways or other she ’d got the greatest faculty for making up dishes. ’T was all she really cared about, the only thing that made her little bleached-out face lighten up, and those queer, pretty purply eyes shine a speck. She was all the everlasting time composing, as you might say. But it was n’t verses or stories she made up, but things to eat, victuals. Where she got it all, as I said before, I never could see. There was n’t anything like it in the family, either side, Braggses or Wests. Her folks liked good, plain, filling food, and plenty of it, and Colossy had n’t ever seen anything different. But from the time she was a mite of a young one she was always making up the most beautiful receipts, and laying out the most fixed-up, company-looking dishes. To this day I often think over some of the victuals she talked about, and I can’t help wishing they could be tried; they’d make your mouth water, they sounded so good and tasty.

“ But somehow you could n’tmake them; there was always something or other to be put in that you could n’t get, even if you could afford it. And they were generally pretty expensive victuals, too. Real receipt books she did n’t care much about. Her mother had one all writ out nice, in a little book made of ruled paper. It came from Aunt Huldy West, her father’s sister. And it had real good receipts, too: baked Indian pudding, — the Wests was always great for that, — and crollers, and Aunt Jane’s tea rusk, and hard gingerbread, and huckleberry-holler, and composition cake, and lots of other things. But Colossy did n’t care to hear it much. She ’d get fidgety after a spell, when her ma was reading it, and then’s soon as she got a chance she’d begin something of her own. Some of the ingredients, as the cooking-books say, were the funniest things. She ’d come across them, I suppose, in stories and newspapers, in the missionary books and the travels, but most of all in the Bible. They were queer, outlandish, foreign things that could n’t be bought round this part of the world, if they could anywheres. But she’d tell them off till you ’d know, or think you did, just how they tasted, and what’s more, could see the whole thing dished up, too.

“ It all comes back as I tell about it, and I can ’most hear Colossy’s croupy, hoarse voice saying over those things. ‘ Take a teacupful o’ anise an’ cummin,’ she ’d croak out, — ‘ an’ mind it’s a blue chiny teacup, not a plain white; put it into a yaller bakin’-dish, an’ pour on a pint o milk an’ honey. Beat it all up till it ’s white an’ bubbly and soapsudsy, an’ then add ten clusters o’ raisins. Stir for an hour an’ twelve ’n’ a half minutes by the settin’ - room clock. Then you chop up the peel o’ nineteen rorangers,’ — she always called them that, — ’an’ mix into the hull mess. An’ then — now listen, Aunt Eunice,’ she ’d say, so solemn an’ old-fashioned, ‘for this is the most partie’lerest thing in it — bile five an’ a half turtle-dove’s eggs kind o’ hard, take off the shell, an’ lay ’em over the puddin’, — for it’s goin’ to be a puddin’ this time, Aunt Eunice, — an’ bake half an hour in a quick oven.’

“ ‘ And what’s the name of that ? ’ I used to ask, just to please her and show I was listening.

“ ‘ Well,’ she says, slow, and stopping to think a little, ‘ well, that’s called jest a Plain, Fam’ly Puddin’. But here’s one for comp’ny,’ says she. ‘ I made it up last night, when I could n’t get to sleep, my back hurt so, and it’s the very nicest puddin’ — this is a puddin’, too — you never, never eat; an’ it’s so sightly to look at, an’ sets off the table so. Now listen, Aunt Eunice,’ she says. ‘ It’s called Comp’ny Puddin’. Take two pomygranites and crack ’em, an’ pick out the meats careful. Chop ’em fine, an’ sprinkle over ’em a pinch o’ frankincense and a teenty, teenty speck o’ myrrh. Wet it up with a little maple surrup. Then take some fresh breadfruit an’ toast a few slices brown, lay ’em on a green-spriggled chiny meat dish, an’ spread your pomygranite sass all over ’em. Then beat the whites of ten ostrich’s eggs for an hour ’n’ a half, an’ lay over the hull; sprinkle with light brown sugar, an’ dish up hot. Oh, Aunt Eunice ! ’ she ’d say, with her little thin face working and such a pitiful look in her big eyes, ‘ I wish I could try it my own self. I know I could do it, an’ oh, how I ’d like to beat up them ostrich’s eggs an’ spread ’em over, all sudsy an’ nice, an’ then sprinkle that light brown sugar on ! ’

“ ’What’s pomygranites, Colossy ? ’ I’d ask her, to divert her mind a little.

“ ‘ Why, it tells about ’em in the Bible,’ she says, ‘an’ Mr. Interpreter give some to Christiana, in Pilgrim’s Progress.’

“ Yon know I said ’t was this cooking or making up dishes that helped her along, and kept her amused and occupied. Well, it did, one way ; but another it made her uncomfortable, for she did want so bad to cook and bake and mix up things, to be over the fire, stirring and basting and baking and boiling. She ached to set the table and dish up the victuals, and make things look as they did in her mind when she composed them. She never fretted because she could n’t play about with the boys and girls, or hoppity-skip along the road, or slide, or run, or jump rope. But she did worry a good deal because she could n’t carry out the things she had in her head, nor mix a single one of the sightly and tasty dishes she was always making up. ‘ Course I like to think about ’em,’ she ’d say in her husky voice, ‘ but lots o’ times I think, What’s the good of it, anyway ? What’s the use o’ settin’ here an’ makin’ up receipts for puddin’s an’ cake an’ jells an’ all, an’ never try ’em, nor see ’em, nor taste the teentiest speck on ’em ? I’m tired settin’ here, an’ I ’m tired achin’ an’ keepin’ still an’ — Oh, I do jest want to have a bakin’-day of my own, an’ try some o’ them things! ’

“ ’T was pretty hard to know what to say to her for comfort. She was a good little thing, and she VI been trained right, for the Braggses were pious, church-going folks, and I really believe she was a Christian before she was ten year old. But that did n’t. make much difference as to the thing she was fretting about just then. ’T was n’t heaven and singing and all the glorious things we know there ’ll he there that the poor little thing was achin’ for, those times, but just a mite of fussing and messing and cooking before slie went away from this earth that was such a lonesome place for her. So I used to be at my wits’ ends to know what to tell her to comfort her up when she went on that way; and her pa and ma, they were just as bothered as me. But there was one person that had n’t any such scruples as wc had, and sometimes I was kind of glad there was. ’T was old Mrs. Peavy that lived next door ; Mother Peavy, as everybody called her. She was real old, a good deal over seventy anyway in those days, and I don’t know but she was a mite childish. But she was smart and spry for her age, and her eyesight and hearing were as good as ever. And she was a dreadful comfort to Colossy, that’s certain. For, as T said before, she had n’t any scruples ; that is, the kind the rest of us had. Maybe you ’ll think she was a heathen, or a heretic, or something of that sort, when I tell you what she used to say to the child, but I am sure she meant well, and it did seem to help Colossy lots.

“ ‘ Oh, Mother Peavy,’ the young one would say, ‘ won’t I never, never have no chance to try ’em ? If I’m real good an’ patient, an’ say my prayers an’ my catechis’ an’ my hymns, an’ do ’s I’d be done by, an’ all, won’t I, oh, won’t I never be let to try a single one o’ them receipts ? Jest not even the b’iled dish, with coriander seeds for flav’rin’, an’ thickened up with fine flour mingled with ile ? Oh, won’t I, Mother Peavy ? ’

“ ‘ Yes. yes, you poor little cosset,’ Mother Peavy ’d say ; ‘don’t you worry an’ fret over that. If you want to mess an’ cook an’ try receipts when you get up there, you ’ll be let to do it. An’ you ’ll be able to then, you know, for you ’ll be strong an’ well an’ rugged ; for there ain’t a single inhabitant up there that ever says “ I’m sick,” an’ there won’t be any more pain. An’ your poor little drawedup fingers will be straight an’ sound, an’ your legs strong and limber. An’ you ’ll lift up the hands that’s a-hangin’ down now, and the feeble knees, as the Bible says, an’ then if you ’re set on cookin’ an’ dishin’ up they ’ll let you try, you see if they don’t.’

“ ‘ But, Mother Peavy,’ Colossy ’d whisper in her hoarse, short-breathing way, ‘ be you certain sure they ’ve got things to do with up there ? There’s harps, an’ crowns, an’ books to sing out on, an’ a sea o’ glass, an’ golden streets, an’ all them pretty, pretty things, but mebbe they don’t have the kind o’ things you ’d oughter have for cookin’ an’ dishin’ up. Mebbe it’s bad to want ’em, Mother Peavy, but — oh, I jest do sometimes ! ’

“ ‘ No, ’t ain’t bad, you poor young one ; they understand up there, an’ they make ’lowances. That’s what they ’re great at in that place, you know, makin’ ’lowances ; must be the principal thing they do, these times, anyway. An’ if they see they ain’t no other means o’ settin’ your poor little mind easy an’ showin’ you there’s more satisfy in’, fillin’ things than victuals, why, they ’ll give you your way an’ let you try. An’ as for there not bein’ any eatable things there, why, the Bible tells about twelve kinds o’ fruit, an’ about olive-trees an’ oil an’ wine. An’ there’s that hymn you like so much, about

Take my word for it, Colossy, there won’t be no lack o’ things to do with, if you want ’em bad.’

“ An’ the child would take a dreadful lot of comfort out of all her talk, and always stop fretting, at least for a spell.

“ Now I know it was n’t right; we all knew it. The way was to show her how much better things there were than what she was set on, — spiritual food that she did n’t dream of, poor, stunted, shut-up little soul. But Mother Peavy always made out that there was n’t any harm in it ; that she did n’t really say there would be cooking and dishing up there, but only that if Colossy was still set on that kind of amusement after she got there, she ’d be let to try it. ‘ But she won’t want it then, you see,’ she ’d say. ‘ She ’ll have better work there, more satisfyin’. So it don’t do any harm, an’ it does go against me to see her fret, the dear lamb.’

“ So they were great cronies, she and Colossy, and had long confabs together. ’T was mighty queer talk to listen to, I can tell you, and you’d get all mixed up and confused to know whether’t was real flesh-and-blood food of this world they was dwelling on, or the spiritual, heavenly sort. For ’t would he manna and milk and honey and angels’ food and unleavened bread and balm of Gilead and all that, which might be just figurative or speaking parables like. But again ’t would be cakes and puddings and stews, with spices and oil and spikenard and leeks and onions and almonds and turtle-doves and melons, till your mouth watered.

“ But it really beat all how much that child found about victuals in the Bible, tilings none of us ever knew was there till she brought them into her receipts. And then we ’d look them up and find they were really there. And to this day I recollect them, and time and again, as I come across them in reading a chapter, I think of poor little Colossy and her talk : fish and summer fruit and wheat and barley and millet and apples and butter and broth and nuts and vinegar and parched corn and grapes and raisins and figs and — why, I can’t tell half of them now. Why, once, I know, she told about some dish or other, and there was to be a pound of pannag. We thought she ’d made that up, sure. But come to look it up, there’t was in Ezekiel, and there ’t is to this day, though I have n’t the least idea what ’t is or where it comes from.

“ Poor little creatur’, she looked for that kind of thing, and of course she found it. There’s everything folks want in that book. And she got a good deal of a real different sort of comfort out of it, too. She ’d be turning over the leaves of the big Bible on the table, as well as she could with her little twisted bony fingers, looking for new ‘ ingrejunts,’ as she called them, for her dishes, and you ’d see such a pretty look come on her white face. An’ she ’d draw a long breath as if she was resting after a hard job, and look up with her big purply eyes all soft and wet, and say over something she’d found there. ’T was something generally about getting rest, or casting your burdens off, or being carried or comforted as a mother comforteth, or having tears wiped away, or something like that. No, it was not all victuals she found there. But it’s the victuals part of the story I ’m telling you now.

“ The minister that time was Mr. Robbins. He was a real good man, and terrible sorry for Colossy. He used to go and see her a good deal, and try to help her, and teach her, and raise her thoughts higher. But when she got on that favorite topic of hers, why, he did n’t know just what to say. ’T was a sight to see his face, after he ’d been reading and talking and praying with her a spell, and she ’d been so sweet and good, and seemed in such a promising state of mind, — when she ’d look up so pitiful just before he went away and croak out, ‘ Oh, Mr. Robbins, won’t you jest listen to one single one o’ my receipts now ? ’

“ He generally did, for he was a goodnatured man and had children of his own, but he’d try to put on a moral at the end and draw some kind of a lesson from it all. ‘ Now hear this, Mr. Robbins,’ she says one time, speaking slow and plain as if she was reading from a receipt-book. ‘ Di-rec-tions for ma-king a mess of pottage.’

“ ‘ Yes, yes, my little girl.’ he says, ‘ I ’ll hear it; but be careful lest you part with your own heavenly birthright for a mess of pottage,’ he says.

“ ‘Yes, sir.’ says Colossy very quick, for she was in a hurry to go on with her receipt, ‘ I ’ll be careful. Take one fatted calf ’ — and on she ’d go, till Mr. Robbins’s face was just a picture, kind of puzzled, and sort of amused, too.

“ Or she ’d tell off a receipt for ‘ raising unleavened bread,’ poor little cosset, and the minister’d remind her that ‘ man shall not live by bread alone.’ Again ’t would be some sort of a savory meat stew, and he’d counsel her to labor not for the meat that perisheth. But he was always good and kind to the child, and she was real fond of him to the last.

“Poor little thing, she took it all out in making up and telling about victuals, for she hardly eat anything herself. Whether it was her made-up, make-believe dishes was so good it took away her taste for common every-day food, I don’t know, but she did n’t eat enough to keep a robin alive, and so of course she did n’t get very strong or rugged. Fact is, you could n’t want her to stay on here, suffering and shut up and helpless as she was, and as she’d got to be all her days. And we all saw pretty soon that she was n’t going to be here much longer. Her little scrap of a face got thinner and whiter, and the purple eyes bigger, and the little hands more than ever like bird’s - claws ; and her poor little body was wasted away and weak. She was real patient, but the aclie in her back was pretty bad, and she seemed to be tired the whole living time. ‘ I’m terrible tired,’ she ’d say in her croupy voice, — ‘ tired when I lay down, an’ tired when I set up, an’ nothin’ don’t seem to rest me any. Seems’s if I ’d feel better if I could only walk round a mite, an’ get out the dishes an’ sasspans, an’ grease the bakin’-plates, an’ stone some raisins, an’ chop some citron, an’ — Oh, Aunt Eunice, I do want so bad jest to dish up a dinner once, — only once, Aunt Eunice.’

“I didn’t quite dare to do as Mrs. Peavy did, and tell her she’d have her chance some day, but I did go so far sometimes as to refer her over to Mother Peavy. ‘ What does she tell you, Colossy, when you talk so ? ’ I said.

“ Her face brightened up a little, and she answers, ‘ Oh, Mother Peavy says, when I get up there, if I ’m set on messin’ an’ mixin’ an’ cookin’ things, why, they ’ll let me try my hand at it. They ’ll know I ain’t had no chance down in Peru, ’cause o’ my hands an’ my legs an’ my back, you know, an’ they ’ll make ’lowanees. That ’s what they ’re allers a-doin’ up there, Mother Peavy says, makin’ ’lowances for folks. She says she don’t think I ’ll want to do any dishin’ an’ bakin’ up there, there’s such splendid things to do that I don’t know nothin’ about now. She says nobody ain’t never heerd nor seed, an’ it ain’t come into nobody’s head to guess at sech things as they’ve got up there for folks that’s good an’ patient an’ lovin’. But I don’t know; I’d like jest to try my hand a little, if they don’t mind, seems’s if. An’ if I do try, why, I’m goin’ to see if they won’t let me send down some o’ my very fust cookin’ to Mother Peavy. But if that can’t be done, I mean to let her know, ’t any rate, that she was right, an’ they’ve let me try my hand.’

“ She ’d take some of the commonest, plainest kinds of food to experiment on, and she ’d have a receipt for it with something in it you never dreamed of putting in before. Doughnuts, I know, she ’d always say there was to be the third part of a hin of olive oil in them. ‘ What’s a hin ? ’ I’d ask her ; and she’d say, ‘ Well, about a coffee - cup full, I guess, more nor less.’ And there was to be honey from the honeycomb in her doughnuts, too. And in her apple dumplings there ’d always got to be ‘ jest the teentiest pinch of aloes.’ And all these victuals were to be fixed up in the tastiest way, and on the queerest kind of dishes. To hear the solemn little oldfashioned young one tell about ‘butter in a lordly dish,’ and meat cooked in a caldron or in a flesh-pot, or sodden in iron pans, and about brazen pots and earthen pitchers, was dreadful odd.

“ She grew weak very fast near the end. She did n’t go to bed, for it hurt her more to lie down, and they bolstered her up in her chair with the pillows, and made her as comfortable as they could. Her voice got more and more husky and low, down to a whisper, ’most, but she’d talk a little by spells up to the very last. She’d make up receipts still, but they were pretty short, and we could n’t always understand what she said. I stayed there all I could, and Mr. Robbins came a good deal, and old Mrs. Peavy hardly left her for days. She liked to bear verses about resting, and being carried, and made to lie down in green pastures, and having her tears wiped away, and about how the weary are at rest and the sick made well. But by spells she ’d think about what she’d always set her little heart on, and she’d turn towards Mother Peavy and whisper, ‘ An’ mebbe I ’ll be let to try makin’ some of them things ? ’Cause you know I’ve never had any chance down here, an’ they ’ll make ’lowances for that.’

“ And Mrs. Peavy’d say, stroking her yellow hair, ‘Yes, lovey, they’ll make ’lowances fast enough. And you ’ll be let to do it certain sure, if you hanker bad after it ; don’t worry about that.’ And then she ’d say over to her, in her thin old voice, her favorite piece about

and another old-fashioned hymn all about milk and honey and wine and heavenly manna, till Colossy ’d drop off to sleep like a lamb.

“ She went off that way at the last, bolstered up in the big chair by the window, her poor white face resting against the pillows, and her pretty yellow hair like a light all round her head. David and Lucy Ann, Mr. Robbins, Mother Peavy, and me were all there. We loved her dearly every one of us, but somehow not one could be exactly sorry when the tired look slipped off her little thin face, and the bits of fingers stopped twitching, and the hoarse, short breathing was all still. I never thought as much of Mr. Robbins as I did at that funeral. It seemed as if he knew just the right things to say that day, — mostly verses from Scripture, or a line or two of a hymn. I can hear him now, speaking in his soft, pleasant way about the ‘ bread that came down from heaven,’ ‘ meat to eat that ye know not of,’ ‘ whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; ’ and those comforting verses about how ‘ they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more,’ and how ‘ blessed are those that are called to the marriage supper.’ And then he led off in his nice, clear voice : —

“ Well, ’t was about a week after we put the little girl to rest in the graveyard over there, I met Mrs. Peavy one day. We stopped, and naturally we fell to talking about Colossy. Glad as I was to have the child at rest, I missed her lots, and I said so.

“ ‘ You were real good to her, Mother Peavy,’ I said. ‘ I often think how you used to comfort her, and tell her that maybe she’d have a chance to try her receipts up there, if she wanted to. Dear little thing, she understands better now, and don’t trouble her head about those earthly things.’

“Now, I’d always thought that Mrs. Peavy told the child that about having her chance up there just to chirk her up and please her, and not because she ever dreamt such a thing could really be. So I must say I was took aback when she shook her head now, and answered in a queer, knowing sort of way, ‘ She ain’t found out the better things yet, that’s certain. She’s got her chance, and she ’s a-makin’ use of it right along ; leastways, up to yesterday she was.’

“ ‘ Why, what do you mean ? ’ I says. ‘ What makes you say that ? ’

“ And then she went on and told me the oddest story. She said she ’d been thinking and thinking about Colossy, and trying to picture her all well, and rested, and happy in heaven ; but for the life of her she could n’t see her in her mind as singing and praising and doing all the things the saints and angels are said to do. The poor young one’s talk about her wanting to dish up and mess kept coming into her head to spoil everything. One day she was sitting at her dinner. She lived all alone, and did her own work. And that day she had what every one in these parts calls ‘ b’iled dish.’ You know what I mean, — beef and potatoes and carrots and turnips and all. And she says: —

“ ‘ I’d jest helped myself, and was going to taste of it, when I smelt a queer kind of spicy smell. I could n’t think where it come from, or rec’lect jest what ’t was like. Then I took up a little of the meat and put it in my mouth, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d made that b’iled dish that day with my own hands, just as I’d made it all my life, an’ my mother before me. But this partic’ler one was n’t any more like mine or ma’s or any Vermont b’iled dish I ever see than — anything. It was tastier, more flavory somehow, and above all there was that cur’us spicy kind o’ physicky smell and taste. “ What can it be?” thinks I to myself. “Is it cloves or saxifrax ? Did I spill any nutmeg or ginger into the pot while ’t was b’ilin’ ? No, ’t ain’t like any of them. It’s more like that rhubarb jellup I used to make after old Dr. Phelps’s receipt. Lemme see, what did I put in ? Rhubarb root an’ — why, it’s coriander seed ; that’s what it tastes of.” And in a jiffy I rec’lected Colossy, and how she used to always say in her receipt for b’iled dish, “ Add a little coriander seed brayed in a mortar.”

“ ‘ Well, I did n’t know what to think,’ she went on. ‘ It seemed ’most too sing’lar to believe in. But to save my life I could n’t help surmisin’ that maybe — jest maybe they’d let her try, to show her how unsatisfyin’ it was compared to other things up there. And she ’d always said, if they did, she’d try to send some of the victuals down to me, the blessed young one !

“ ‘ I tried to get it out of my head and swallow my dinner ; but deary me, every mouthful choked me, and I salted the gravy with my cryin’ into it, thinking of that poor little soul. Well, the next day was Saturday, and I fried some doughnuts. The taste o’ coriander seed bein’ all out of my mouth now, I begun to think I’d conceited the whole thing and ’t was all foolishness. But when I set down to supper and took a doughnut, I had n’t more ’n bit into it than I see ’t was n’t one o’ my doughnuts, Aunt Maria’s receipt, sech as I’d made for more ’n forty year. These was rich an’ light, and sort o’ iley, and there was a strong taste o’ honey about ’em, a thing I never use in cookin’. Oh, Aunt Eunice, then I knowed, I knowed they was lettin’ that poor child have her way for a spell, jest to learn her a lesson. “ Fine olive ile an’ honey from the honeycomb.”she used to say in her receipt for doughnuts. And when the gingerbread tasted o’ spikenard, and the apple dumplings was jest a little bittery like aloes, and everything I made — or thought I made — was different from any Peavy cooking ever done in the family, then I see plain I was right. And it’s only yesterday I made — or thought I made — some one-two-three-four cake, the old plain receipt; and it came out the most cur’us, spicy, milk-an’-honeyish, balmy, minty thing — oh, you never did ! ’

“ I tell you, as Mother Peavy went on I began to think she was really crazy. She’d always been a little peculiar, and she was growing old, and Colossy’s death had weighed on her mind, and I thought it had fairly upset her now. I tried to reason with her, and show her how such a thing as she thought of could never be. But I could n’t make any impression. I told her it was dreadful to think of heaven in that way, and that dear little girl losing all the light and glory and all, for such earthly, gross kind of employments. I could n’t bear to think of it. Mrs. Peavy looked sort of mournful, and she says, ‘ ’T is dreadful, I know. I did hope Colossy’d put it all out of her little head, once she got there. But there can’t be any mistake. If I am old, I ain’t lost my faculties, leastways my taste, and I know what I’ve been eating all this week. They’ve got some good reason for it up there, take my word for that, but oh, I do wish she’d learn about the better things there is.’

“Well, I meant to go over and see the old lady next day and taste some of her victuals myself, to show her what a mistake she was making. But I took a bad cold that night, and did n’t go outside the door for ’most a week. The first day I was well enough I started, but I met Mrs. Peavy coming over to my house. It upset me to see her, she looked so terrible white and changed and old.

“ ‘ Oh, Aunt Eunice,’ she says, ‘ it’s dreadful, dreadful. That poor little tiling ’s at it still. She ’s turning my sody biscuits into unleavened bread, and my pies into pottage; there’s lentils in my corn - beef hash, and fitches in my johnny-cake ; and oh deary, deary me, there’s mint, anise, and cummin in every bit of victuals that comes on the table. Poor ignorant little soul, what can she be thinking of! It jest breaks my heart, Aunt Eunice, for — oh, ’t was I done it, I done it! ’ and she just wrung her hands.

“ It seemed she’d got it into her head that her tell in’ Colossy she’d have a chance and they ’d let her try things had made the poor child beg for it ; and now she liked it so well, after never having had anything of the sort all her days, that she could n’t give it up. It, seems a crazy idea. I know, but’t was terrible real to her, and as she said herself, it ’most broke her heart.

“ ‘ I thought ’t would be sech a comfort,’ she went on, ‘ to think of that child among the blessed ones, all straight and well and rested, all dressed in clean white robes, praising and worshiping and loving, walking along the banks of the river or down the streets o’ gold. And now to think of her keepin’ on and on this way. — oh, ’t ain’t right, ’t ain’t right.’

“ I saw she needed some one wiser and better than me, and I went that night to Mr. Robbins with the whole story. I’d calculated he ’d be very much put out by such foolishness, and think it was wicked and making light of sacred things. But when I got through I saw his eyes looked kind of moist, and he had to cough and clear out his throat before he could say anything. So I spoke again to give him time, and I says, ‘ Mother Peavy’s growing old and she’s getting childish.’

“ ‘ Well,’ says he, ‘ that ’s what we ’ve all got to be to get at the truth of things. “ Except ye become as little children,” you know ; and childish and unreasonable as the good old soul’s idea is, there ’s a lesson in it. Let us go and see her.’

“ And we did ; but he could n’t do her much good. She had got so upset and shaky that she could n’t do anything but cry and bewail her having put things into little Colossy’s head and spoiled her heaven for her.

“At last Mr. Robbins said, ‘Well, Mrs. Peavy, suppose we lay this before the Lord and ask his aid,’ and then he prayed. I never shall forget that prayer. You see nobody but Catholics ever prayed for dead-and-gone folks then, and I suppose they don’t now; and our church was always strong against it. of course. And I’d heard Mr. Robbins himself preach a powerful discourse about it from the text, ‘ Where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' But I suppose he saw now it was a time for strong measures, and, scruples or no scruples, he must quiet this good old soul. So he prayed for Colossy ! I can’t help thinking he meant that prayer more to help Mother Peavy than to do Colossy any good, but’t was beautiful, ‘t any rate. Of course I can’t remember just the very words. But he asked that the child might rest in peace and have light given unto her, that she might with the other little ones always behold the face of her Father. And he asked that she might drink of the water of life, clear as crystal, and eat of the heavenly manna and be satisfied. And he ended up by asking that her friends here below might be given the full assurance of the little one’s peace and rest. In all the years he was settled in Peru I never heard him pray so earnest, and I was certain sure in my own heart he’d be heard. Then he asked Mrs. Peavy if he and I could come over next day and eat dinner with her. ‘ And you must have one of your good old-fashioned dinners for us, Mrs. Peavy,’ he says, ‘ and we ’ll tell you just what we think of it.’

“ So we went. She’d made b’iled dish, and it looked real tempting and just like her old way of making it, for she was a real good cook. But she was all shaky and trembly, her face looked drawn up and old, and she could hardly sit up to the table without help. Mr. Robbins asked a blessing, and then the dinner was helped. I ’ll own up I was a little nervous. The queerer the ideas, you know, the more catching they are. And I ’d thought so much of what the old lady had said of the tastes and smells in her cooking lately that I felt almost creepy with being afraid I should find it that way myself. ‘ Oh dear,’ I says to myself. ‘ if there should be a corianderseed flavor ! ’ But there was n’t. Mr. Robbins began first, and I followed right away. It was the same good, well-seasoned Peru b’iled dish I ’d eat dozens of times before at that table. Mrs. Peavy did n’t taste of hers, at first. I really don’t think she could raise her spoon to her mouth, she shook so. But she fixed her eyes on our faces, first one, then the other, leaning ’way over and looking and looking, as if she was hoping, but scared.

“ Well,’ speaks up Mr. Robbins, ‘ this is good indeed. One of your best oldfashioned dishes, Mrs. Peavy. I should know that this is a Peru b’iled dish if I was a hundred miles away,’and he went on eating it.

“ ‘ Yes,’I says, following his example, ‘ I always liked Mrs. Peavy’s way of making it: just the pepper and salt seasoning, and no flavors, as some folks use.’

“ She looked real earnest at us, and then she says, low and quivery, ‘ Don’t you — take notice — of a leetle — coriander-seed taste — just a leetle ? ’

“ And we both hurried up to say there was n’t one bit of that,— not a suspicion, Mr. Robbins said.

“ She did n’t look quite satisfied, though just a mite more comfortable. Then she took some of the gravy in a spoon with her shaking hand and put it to her mouth. She spilt some and she could hardly swallow any, but I see her face clear up a little, and she sort of whispered to herself, ‘ She’s let that alone, anyway.’

“ Then we had some apple dumplings, and’t was the same way. Mother Peavy waited and watched, half hoping, half frightened, till Mr. Robbins led off, eat some and praised them up, and I followed on.

“ ‘ An’ — there — don’t appear — to be — anything — a speck — bittery ? ’ she says, leaning across to us and asking so solemn, — ‘ not enough to — spile ’em, but — something like — aloes ? ’

“ And again we hurried on to tell her there was n’t a taste of such a thing, not a taste. Then she managed to swallow a little herself, and again I saw her features light up a mite, and she whispers to herself again, ‘ An’ she ain’t meddled with them.’

“ After that came doughnuts and cheese with our cup of tea, and that was just the same. After Mr. Robbins had praised them up, and I had done it after him, and she’d asked us in the same scared, nervy way if we was sure we could n’t taste a flavor o’ olive ile or honey, we told her decided there was n’t anything at all like that; they were just good, old - fashioned Peavy doughnuts. They were the last thing on the table; she ’d tried all the rest, and I saw she was more scared now than any time before, when she took one in her trembling fingers and tried to lift it up to her mouth. I thought for a minute I should have to do it for her, but she managed it somehow, and got a piece between her poor shaking, twitching lips. I thought I was prepared for anything, worked up as I was over this. But I did break down like a baby when the good old soul burst out, the tears running down her wrinkled face in a shower, and the heavenliest smile shining through them like a rainbow, ‘ She’s found it out, — oh, bless the Lord, she’s found it out at last! No more messin’ an’ fussin’ with earthly things for Colossy Bragg. She’s looked up higher, and seen the light at last. Oh, thank the Lord, thank the Lord ! ’

“We both went over to her. Seems to me now, as I look back, we was both crying, but I disremember all about that. We got her quiet after a spell, but for a long time she kept sobbing out, ‘ I’m so glad, I’m so glad. Your praying done it, Mr. Robbins. They’ve took the blessed child up higher now, and they’ve sent me word.’

“ Well, there was a story went around the whole county, after that, that Mr. Robbins was on the road to Rome, as they said. Maybe you ’ve heard it. It all came from that prayer he made at Mrs. Peavy’s in behalf of little Colossy Braggs’s soul. But as I said before, it’s my opinion that prayer was meant more to help the living than the dead, and somehow, some ways, it answered its purpose.”

Annie Trumbull Slosson.