“I am confident it was built by the M. B.’s,” I replied. “They tramped, you know, extensively through the State, burying axes and leaving every now and then a mastodon behind them.”
“Well, if the Mound-Builders selected this site they showed good taste,” said Erminia, refusing, in her afternoon indolence, the argumentum nonsensicum with which we were accustomed to enliven our conversation. It was, indeed, a lovely spot,—the little meadow, smooth and bright as green velvet, the brook chattering over the pebbles, and the hills, gay in red and yellow foliage, rising abruptly on all sides. After some labor we swung open the great gate and entered the yard, crossed the brook on a mossy plank, and followed the path through the grass towards the lonely house. An old shepherd-dog lay at the door of a dilapidated shed, like a block-house, which had once been a stable; he did not bark, but, rising slowly, came along beside us,—a large, gaunt animal that looked at us with such melancholy eyes that Erminia stooped to pat him. Ermine had a weakness for dogs; she herself owned a wild beast of the dog kind that went by the name of the “Emperor Trajan”; and, accompanied by this dignitary, she was accustomed to stroll up the avenues of C——, lost in maiden meditations.
We drew near the house and stepped up on the sunken piazza, but no signs of life appeared. The little loophole windows were pasted over with paper, and the plank door had no latch or handle. I knocked, but no one came. “Apparently it is a haunted house, and that dog is the spectre,” I said, stepping back.
“Knock three times,” suggested Ermine; “that is what they always do in ghost-stories.”
“Try it yourself. My knuckles are not cast-iron.”
Ermine picked up a stone and began tapping on the door. “Open sesame,” she said, and it opened.
Instantly the dog slunk away to his block-house and a woman confronted us, her dull face lighting up as her eyes ran rapidly over our attire from head to foot. “Is there a sulphur-spring here?” I asked. “We would like to try the water.”
“Yes, it ’s here fast enough in the back hall. Come in, ladies; I ’m right proud to see you. From the city, I suppose?”
“From C——,” I answered; “we are spending a few days in the Community.”
Our hostess led the way through the little hall, and throwing open a back door pulled up a trap in the floor, and there we saw the spring,—a shallow well set in stones, with a jar of butter cooling in its white water. She brought a cup, and we drank. “Delicious,” said Ermine. “The true, spoiled-egg flavor! Four cups is the minimum allowance, Dora.”
“I reckon it ’s good for the insides,” said the woman, standing with arms akimbo and staring at us. She was a singular creature, with large black eyes, Roman nose, and a mass of black hair tightly knotted on the top of her head, but pinched and gaunt; her yellow forehead was wrinkled with a fixed frown, and her thin lips drawn down in permanent discontent. Her dress was a shapeless linsey-woolsey gown, and home-made list slippers covered her long, lank feet. “Be that the fashion?” she asked, pointing to my short, closely fitting walking-dress.
“Yes,” I answered; “do you like it?”
“Well, it does for you, sis, because you ’re so little and peaked-like, but it would n’t do for me. The other lady, now, don’t wear nothing like that; is she even with the style, too?”
“There is such a thing as being above the style, madam,” replied Ermine, bending to dip up glass number two.
“Our figgers is a good deal alike,” pursued the woman; “I reckon that fashion ud suit me best.”
Willowy Erminia glanced at the stick-like hostess. “You do me honor,” she said, suavely. “I shall consider myself fortunate, madam, if you will allow me to send you patterns from C——. What are we if not well dressed?”
“You have a fine dog,” I began hastily, fearing lest the great, black eyes should penetrate the sarcasm; “what is his name?”
“A stupid beast! He ’s none of mine; belongs to my man.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes, my man. He works in the coal-mine over the hill.”
“You have no children?”
“Not a brat. Glad of it, too.”
“You must be lonely,” I said, glancing around the desolate house. To my surprise, suddenly the woman burst into a flood of tears, and sinking down on the floor she rocked from side to side, sobbing, and covering her face with her bony hands.
“What can be the matter with her?” I said in alarm; and, in my agitation, I dipped up some sulphur-water and held it to her lips.
“Take away the smelling stuff,—I hate it!” she cried, pushing the cup angrily from her.
Ermine looked on in silence for a moment or two, then she took off her neck-tie, a bright-colored Roman scarf, and threw it across the trap into the woman’s lap. “Do me the favor to accept that trifle, madam,” she said, in her soft voice.
The woman’s sobs ceased as she saw the ribbon; she fingered it with one hand in silent admiration, wiped her wet face with the skirt of her gown, and then suddenly disappeared into an adjoining room, closing the door behind her.
“Do you think she is crazy?” I whispered.
“O no; merely pensive.”
“Nonsense, Ermine! But why did you give her that ribbon?”
“To develop her æsthetic taste,” replied my cousin, finishing her last glass, and beginning to draw on her delicate gloves.
Immediately I began gulping down my neglected dose; but so vile was the odor that some time was required for the operation, and in the midst of my struggles our hostess reappeared. She had thrown on an old dress of plaid delaine, a faded red ribbon was tied over her head, and around her sinewed throat reposed the Roman scarf pinned with a glass brooch.
“Really, madam, you honor us,” said Ermine, gravely.
“Thankee, marm. It ’s so long since I ’ve had on anything but that old bag, and so long since I ’ve seen anything but them Dutch girls over to the Community, with their wooden shapes and wooden shoes, that it sorter come over me all ’t onct what a miserable life I ’ve had. You see, I ain’t what I looked like; now I ’ve dressed up a bit I feel more like telling you that I come of good Ohio stock, without a drop of Dutch blood. My father, he kep’ a store in Sandy, and I had everything I wanted until I must needs get crazy over Painting Sol at the Community. Father, he would n’t hear to it, and so I ran away; Sol, he turned out good for nothing to work, and so here I am, yer see, in spite of all his pictures making me out the Queen of Sheby.”
“Is your husband an artist?” I asked.
“No, miss. He ’s a coal-miner, he is. But he used to like to paint me all sorts of ways. Wait, I ’ll show yer.” Going up the rough stairs that led into the attic, the woman came back after a moment with a number of sheets of drawing-paper which she hung up along the walls with pins for our inspection. They were all portraits of the same face, with brick-red cheeks, enormous black eyes, and a profusion of shining black hair hanging down over plump white shoulders; the costumes were various, but the faces were the same. I gazed in silence, seeing no likeness to anything earthly. Erminia took out her glasses and scanned the pictures slowly.
“Yourself, madam, I perceive,” she said, much to my surprise.
“Yes, ’m, that ’s me,” replied our hostess, complacently. “I never was like those yellow-haired girls over to the Community. Sol allers said my face was real rental.”
“Rental?” I repeated, inquiringly.
“Oriental, of course,” said Ermine. “Mr.—Mr. Solomon is quite right. May I ask the names of these characters, madam?”
“Queen of Sheby, Judy, Ruth, Esthy, Po-co-hon-tus, Goddessaliberty, Sunset, and eight Octobers, them with the grapes. Sunset ’s the one with the red paint behind it like clouds.”
“Truly a remarkable collection,” said Ermine. “Does Mr. Solomon devote much time to his art?”
“No, not now. He could n’t make a cent out of it, so he ’s took to digging coal. He painted all them when we was first married, and he went a journey all the way to Cincinnati to sell ’em. First he was going to buy me a silk dress and some ear-rings, and, after that, a farm. But pretty soon home he come on a canal-boat, without a shilling, and a bringing all the pictures back with him! Well, then he tried most everything, but he never could keep to any one trade, for he ’d just as lief quit work in the middle of the forenoon and go to painting; no boss ’ll stand that, you know. We kep’ a going down, and I had to sell the few things my father give me when he found I was married whether or no,—my chany, my feather-beds, and my nice clothes, piece by piece. I held on to the big looking-glass for four years, but at last it had to go, and then I just gave up and put on a linsey-woolsey gown. When a girl’s spirit ’s once broke, she don’t care for nothing, you know; so, when the Community offered to take Sol back as coal-digger, I just said, ‘Go,’ and we come.” Here she tried to smear the tears away with her bony hands, and gave a low groan.
“Groaning probably relieves you,” observed Ermine.
“Yes, ’m. It ’s kinder company like, when I ’m all alone. But you see it ’s hard on the prettiest girl in Sandy to have to live in this lone lorn place. Why, ladies, you might n’t believe it, but I had open-work stockings, and feathers in my winter bunnets before I was married!” And the tears broke forth afresh.
“Accept my handkerchief,” said Ermine; “it will serve your purpose better than fingers.”
The woman took the dainty cambric and surveyed it curiously, held at arm’s length. “Reg’lar thistle-down, now, ain’t it?” she said; “and smells like a locust-tree blossom.”
“Mr. Solomon, then, belonged to the Community?” I asked, trying to gather up the threads of the story.
“No, he did n’t either; he ’s no Dutchman, I reckon, he ’s a Lake County man, born near Painesville, he is.”
“I thought you spoke as though he had been in the Community.”
“So he had; he did n’t belong, but he worked for ’em since he was a boy, did middling well, in spite of the painting, until one day, when he come over to Sandy on a load of wood and seen me standing at the door. That was the end of him,” continued the woman, with an air of girlish pride; “he could n’t work no more for thinking of me.”
“Où la vanité va-t-elle se nicher?” murmured Ermine, rising. “Come, Dora; it is time to return.”
As I hastily finished my last cup of sulphur-water, our hostess followed Ermine towards the door. “Will you have your handkercher back, marm?” she said, holding it out reluctantly.
“It was a free gift, madam,” replied my cousin; “I wish you a good afternoon.”
“Say, will yer be coming again to-morrow?” asked the woman as I took my departure.
“Very likely; good by.”
The door closed, and then, but not till then, the melancholy dog joined us and stalked behind until we had crossed the meadow and reached the gate. We passed out and turned up the hill; but looking back we saw the outline of the woman’s head at the upper window, and the dog’s head at the bars, both watching us out of sight.
In the evening there came a cold wind down from the north, and the parlor, with its primitive ventilators, square openings in the side of the house, grew chilly. So a great fire of soft coal was built in the broad Franklin stove, and before its blaze we made good cheer, nor needed the one candle which flickered on the table behind us. Cider fresh from the mill, carded gingerbread, and new cheese crowned the scene, and during the evening came a band of singers, the young people of the Community, and sang for us the song of the Lorelei, accompanied by home-made violins and flageolets. At length we were left alone, the candle had burned out, the house door was barred, and the peaceful Community was asleep; still we two sat together with our feet upon the hearth, looking down into the glowing coals.
“Ich weisz nicht was soll es bedeuten
Dasz ich so traurig bin,”
I said, repeating the opening lines of the Lorelei; “I feel absolutely blue to-night.”
“The memory of the sulphur-woman,” suggested Ermine.
“Sulphur-woman! What a name!”
“Entirely appropriate, in my opinion.”
“Poor thing! How she longed with a great longing for the finery of her youth in Sandy.”
“I suppose from those barbarous pictures that she was originally in the flesh,” mused Ermine; “at present she is but a bony outline.”
“Such as she is, however, she has had her romance,” I answered. “She is quite sure that there was one to love her; then let come what may, she has had her day.”
“Misquoting Tennyson on such a subject!” said Ermine, with disdain.
“A man ’s a man for all that and a woman ’s a woman too,” I retorted. “You are blind, cousin, blinded with pride. That woman has had her tragedy, as real and bitter as any that can come to us.”
“What have you to say for the poor man, then?” exclaimed Ermine, rousing to the contest. “If there is a tragedy at the sulphur-house, it belongs to the sulphur-man, not to the sulphur-woman.”
“He is not a sulphur-man, he is a coal-man; keep to your bearings, Ermine.”
“I tell you,” pursued my cousin, earnestly, “that I pitied that unknown man with inward tears all the while I sat by that trap-door. Depend upon it, he had his dream, his ideal; and this country girl with her great eyes and wealth of hair represented the beautiful to his hungry soul. He gave his whole life and hope into her hands, and woke to find his goddess a common wooden image.”
“Waste sympathy upon a coal-miner!” I said, imitating my cousin’s former tone.
“If any one is blind, it is you,” she answered, with gleaming eyes. “That man’s whole history stood revealed in the selfish complainings of that creature. He had been in the Community from boyhood, therefore of course he had no chance to learn life, to see its art-treasures. He has been shipwrecked, poor soul, hopelessly shipwrecked.”
“She too, Ermine.”
“She!”
“Yes. If he loved pictures, she loved her chany and her feather-beds, not to speak of the big looking-glass. No doubt she had other lovers, and might have lived in a red brick farmhouse with ten unopened front windows and a blistered front door. The wives of men of genius are always to be pitied; they do not soar into the crowd of feminine admirers who circle round the husband, and they are therefore called ‘grubs,’ ‘worms of the earth,’ ‘drudges,’ and other sweet titles.”
“Nonsense,” said Ermine, tumbling the arched coals into chaos with the poker; “it ’s after midnight, let us go up stairs.” I knew very well that my beautiful cousin enjoyed the society of several poets, painters, musicians, and others of that ilk, without concerning herself about their stay-at-home wives.
The next day the winds were out in battle array, howling over the Strasburg hills, raging up and down the river, and whirling the colored leaves wildly along the lovely road to the One-Leg Creek. Evidently there could be no rambling in the painted woods that day, so we went over to old Fritz’s shop, played on his home-made piano, inspected the woolly horse who turned his crank patiently in an underground den, and set in motion all the curious little images which the carpenter’s deft fingers had wrought. Fritz belonged to the Community, and knew nothing of the outside world; he had a taste for mechanism, which showed itself in many labor-saving devices, and with it all he was the roundest, kindest little man, with bright eyes like a canary-bird.
“Do you know Solomon the coal-miner?” asked Ermine, in her correct, well-learned German.
“Sol Bangs? Yes, I know him,” replied Fritz, in his Würtemberg dialect.
“What kind of a man is he?”
“Good for nothing,” replied Fritz, placidly.
�
��Why?”
“Wrong here”; tapping his forehead.
“Do you know his wife?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What kind of a woman is she?”
“Too much tongue. Women must not talk much.”
“Old Fritz touched us both there,” I said, as we ran back laughing to the hotel through the blustering wind. “In his opinion, I suppose, we have the popular verdict of the township upon our two protégés, the sulphur-woman and her husband.”
The next day opened calm, hazy, and warm, the perfection of Indian summer; the breezy hill was outlined in purple, and the trees glowed in rich colors. In the afternoon we started for the sulphur-spring without shawls or wraps, for the heat was almost oppressive; we loitered on the way through the still woods, gathering the tinted leaves, and wondering why no poet has yet arisen to celebrate in fit words the glories of the American autumn. At last we reached the turn whence the lonely house came into view, and at the bars we saw the dog awaiting us.
“Evidently the sulphur-woman does not like that melancholy animal,” I said, as we applied our united strength to the gate.
“Did you ever know a woman of limited mind who liked a large dog?” replied Ermine. “Occasionally such a woman will fancy a small cur; but to appreciate a large, noble dog requires a large, noble mind.”
“Nonsense with your dogs and minds,” I said, laughing. “Wonderful! There is a curtain.”
It was true. The paper had been removed from one of the windows, and in its place hung some white drapery, probably part of a sheet rigged as a curtain.
Constance Fenimore Woolson Page 7