Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [bookreader txt] 📗

happier than to see Eve Effingham groaning

fairly in the spirit! That would teach her to take away the people's

Points."

 

"But, Miss Abbott, then she would become almost as good a woman as

you are yourself,"

 

"I am a miserable, graceless, awfully wicked sinner! Twenty times a

day do I doubt whether I am actually converted or not. Sin has got

such a hold of my very heart-strings, that I sometimes think they

will crack before it lets go. Rinaldo-Rinaldini-Timothy, my child, do

you toddle across the way, and give my compliments to Mrs. Hulbert,

and inquire if it be true that young Dickson, the lawyer, is really

engaged to Aspasia Tubbs or not? and borrow a skimmer, or a tin pot,

or any thing you can carry, for we may want something of the sort in

the course of the day. I do believe, Jenny, that a worse creature

than myself is hardly to be found in Templeton."

 

"Why, Miss Abbott," returned Jenny, who had heard too much of this

self-abasement to be much alarmed at it, "this is giving almost as

bad an account of yourself, as I heard somebody, that I won't name,

give of you last week."

 

"And who is your somebody, I should like to know? I dare say, one no

better than a formalist, who thinks that reading prayers out of a

book, kneeling, bowing, and changing gowns, is religion! Thank

Heaven, I'm pretty indifferent to the opinions of such people.

Harkee, Jenny; if I thought I was no better than some persons I could

name, I'd give the point of salvation up, in despair!"

 

"Miss Abbott," roared a rugged, dirty-faced, bare-footed boy, who

entered without knocking, and stood in the middle of the room, with

his hat on, with a suddenness that denoted great readiness in

entering other people's possessions; "Miss Abbott, ma' wants to know

if you are likely to go from home this week?"

 

"Why, what in nature can she want to know that for, Ordeal Bumgrum?"

Mrs. Abbott pronounced this singular name, however, "Ordeel."

 

"Oh! she _warnts_ to know."

 

"So do I _warnt_ to know; and know I will. Run home this instant, and

ask your mother why she has sent you here with this message. Jenny, I

am much exercised to find out the reason Mrs. Bumgrum should have

sent Ordeal over with such a question."

 

"I did hear that Miss Bumgrum intended to make a journey herself, and

she may want your company."

 

"Here comes Ordeal back, and we shall soon be out of the clouds. What

a boy that is for errands. He is worth all my sons put together. You

never see him losing time by going round by the streets, but away he

goes over the garden fences like a cat, or he will whip through a

house, if standing in his way, as if he were its owner, should the

door happen to be open. Well, Ordeal?"

 

But Ordeal was out of breath, and although Jenny shook him, as if to

shake the news out of him, and Mrs. Abbott actually shook her fist,

in her impatience to be enlightened, nothing could induce the child

to speak, until he had recovered his wind.

 

"I believe he does it on purpose," said the provoked maid.

 

"It's just like him!" cried the mistress; "the very best news-carrier

in the village is actually spoilt because he is thick-winded."

 

"I wish folks wouldn't make their fences so high," Ordeal exclaimed,

the instant he found breath. "I can't see of what use it is to make a

fence people can't climb!"

 

"What does your mother say?" cried Jenny repeating her shake, _con

amore_.

 

"Ma, wants to know, Miss Abbott, if you don't intend to use it

yourself, if you will lend her your name for a few days, to go to

Utica with? She says folks don't treat her half as well when she is

called Bumgrum, as when she has another name, and she thinks she'd

like to try yours, this time."

 

"Is that all!--You needn't have been so hurried about such a trifle,

Ordeal. Give my compliments to your mother, and tell her she is quite

welcome to my name, and I hope it will be serviceable to her."

 

"She says she is willing to pay for the use of it, if you will tell

her what the damage will be."

 

"Oh! it's not worth while to speak of such a trifle I dare say she

will bring it back quite as good as when she took it away. I am no

such unneighbourly or aristocratical person as to wish to keep my

name all to myself. Tell your mother she is welcome to mine, and to

keep it as long as she likes, and not to say any thing about pay; I

may want to borrow hers, or something else, one of these days,

though, to say the truth, my neighbours _are_ apt to complain of me

as unfriendly and proud for not borrowing as much as a good neighbour

ought."

 

Ordeal departed, leaving Mrs. Abbot in some such condition as that of

the man who had no shadow. A rap at the door interrupted the further

discussion of the old subject, and Mr. Steadfast Dodge appeared in

answer to the permission to enter. Mr. Dodge and Mrs. Abbott were

congenial spirits, in the way of news, he living by it, and she

living on it.

 

"You are very welcome, Mr. Dodge," the mistress of the house

commenced; "I hear you passed the day, yesterday, up at the

Effinghamses."

 

"Why, yes, Mrs. Abbott, the Effinghams insisted on it, and I could

not well get over the sacrifice, after having been their shipmate so

long. Besides it is a little relief to talk French, when one has been

so long in the daily practice of it."

 

"I hear there is company at the house?"

 

"Two of our fellow-travellers, merely. An English baronet, and a

young man of whom less is known than one could wish. He is a

mysterious person, and I hate mystery, Mrs. Abbott."

 

"In that, then, Mr. Dodge, you and I are alike. I think every thing

should be known. Indeed, that is not a free country in which there

are any secrets. I keep nothing from my neighbours, and, to own the

truth, I do not like my neighbours to keep any thing from me."

 

"Then you'll hardly like the Effinghams, for I never yet met with a

more close-mouthed family. Although I was so long in the ship with

Miss Eve, I never heard her once speak of her want of appetite; of

sea-sickness, or of any thing relating to her ailings even: no? can

you imagine how close she is on the subject of the beaux; I do not

think I ever heard her use the word, or so much as allude to any walk

or ride she ever took with a single man. I set her down, Mrs. Abbott,

as unqualifiedly artful!"

 

"That you may with certainty, sir, for there is no more sure sign

that a young woman is all the while thinking of the beaux, than her

never mentioning them."

 

"That I believe to be human nature; no ingenuous person ever thinks

much of the particular subject of conversation. What is your opinion,

Mrs. Abbott, of the contemplated match at the Wigwam?"

 

"Match!" exclaimed Mrs. Abbott.--"What, already! It is the most

indecent thing I ever heard of! Why, Mr. Dodge, the family has not

been home a fortnight, and to think so soon of getting married! It is

quite as bad as a widower's marrying within the month."

 

Mrs. Abbott made a distinction, habitually, between the cases of

widowers and widows, as the first, she maintained, might get married

whenever they pleased, and the latter only when they got offers; and

she felt just that sort of horror of a man's thinking of marrying too

soon after the death of his wife, as might be expected in one who

actually thought of a second husband before the first was dead.

 

"Why, yes," returned Steadfast, "it is a little premature, perhaps,

though they have been long acquainted. Still, as you say, it would be

more decent to wait and see what may turn up in a country, that, to

them, may be said to be a foreign land."

 

"But, who are the parties, Mr. Dodge."

 

"Miss Eve Effingham, and Mr. John Effingham"

 

"Mr. John Effingham!" exclaimed the lady, who had lent her name to a

neighbour, aghast, for this was knocking one of her own day-dreams in

the head, "well this is too much! But he shall not marry her, sir;

the law will prevent it, and we live in a country of laws. A man

cannot marry his own niece."

 

"It is excessively improper, and ought to be put a stop to. And yet

these Effinghams do very much as they please."

 

"I am very sorry to hear that; they are extremely disagreeable," said

Mrs. Abbott, with a look of eager inquiry, as if afraid the answer

might be in the negative.

 

"As much so as possible; they have hardly a way that you would like,

my dear ma'am; and are as close-mouthed as if they were afraid of

committing themselves."

 

"Desperate bad news-carriers, I am told, Mr. Dodge. There is Dorindy

(Dorinda) Mudge, who was employed there by Eve and Grace one day; she

tells me she tried all she could to get them to talk, by speaking of

the most common things; things that one of my children knew all

about; such as the affairs of the neighbourhood, and how people are

getting on; and, though they would listen a little, and that is

something, I admit, not a syllable could she get in the way of

answer, or remark. She tells me that, several times, she had a mind

to quit, for it is monstrous unpleasant to associate with your

tongue-tied folks."

 

"I dare say Miss Effingham could throw out a hint now and then,

concerning the voyage and her late fellow-travellers," said

Steadfast, casting an uneasy glance at his companion.

 

"Not she. Dorindy maintains that it is impossible to get a sentiment

out of her concerning a single fellow-creature. When she talked of

the late unpleasant affair of poor neighbour Bronson's family--a

melancholy transaction that, Mr. Dodge, and I shouldn't wonder if it

went to nigh break Mrs. Bronson's heart--but when Dorindy mentioned

this, which is bad enough to stir the sensibility of a frog, neither

of my young ladies replied, or put a single question. In this respect

Grace is as bad as Eve, and Eve is as bad as Grace, they say. Instead

of so much as seeming to wish to know any more, what does my Miss Eve

do, but turn to some daubs of paintings, and point out to her cousin

what she was pleased to term peculiarities in Swiss usages. Then the

two hussies would talk of nature, 'our beautiful nature' Dorindy says

Eve had the impudence to call it, and, as if human nature and its

failings and backsliding wore not a fitter subject for a young

woman's discourse, than a silly conversation about lakes, and rocks,

and trees, and as if she _owned_ the nature about Templeton. It is my

opinion, Mr. Dodge, that downright ignorance is at the bottom of it

all, for Dorindy says that they actually know no more of the

intricacies of the neighbourhood than if they lived in Japan."

 

"All pride, Mrs. Abbott; rank pride. They feel themselves too great

to enter into the minutiae of common folks' concerns. I often tried

Miss Effingham coming from England; and things touching private

interests, that I know she did and must understand, she always

disdainfully refused to enter into. Oh! she is, a real Tartar, in her

way; and what she does not wish to do, you never can make her do!"

 

"Have you heard that Grace is under concern?"

 

"Not a breath of it; under whose preaching was she sitting, Mrs.

Abbott?"

 

"That is more than I can tell you; not under the church parson's,

I'll engage; no one ever heard of a real, active, regenerating, soul-

reviving, spirit-groaning and fruit-yielding conversion under _his_

ministry."

 

"No, there is very little unction in that persuasion generally. How

cold and apathetic they are, in these soul-stirring times! Not a

sinner has been writhing on _their_ floor, I'll engage, nor a wretch

transferred into a saint, in the twinkling of an eye, by _that_

parson. Well, _we_ have every reason to be grateful, Mrs. Abbott."

 

"That we have, for most glorious have been our privileges! To be sure

that is a sinful pride that can puff up a wretched, sinful being like

Eve Effingham to such a pass of conceit, as to induce her to think

she is raised above thinking of, and taking an interest in the

affairs of her neighbours. Now, for my part, conversion has so far

opened _my_ heart, that I do actually feel as if I wanted to know all

about the meanest creature in Templeton."

 

"That's