Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1874 — QU ALITY HILL. [ARTICLE]

QU ALITY HILL.

Mbs. Woodcock sat in the middle of the room, with her feet on the rug of the chair and her Angers in her ears. “I like to hear thunder well enough; I don’t know but what I do. I am not any afraid of that. Hut Ibe some scart of the lightning,” said she, starting as the heavens blazed over with a sheet of Aame in instant £lory, with a crash and roar that found Its way through her fat lingers and through two wads of cotton, bursting her ears like the trump of doom. “ Mercy on me!" shrieked Mrs. Woodcock, “ that struck. Now you may rely upon it, as true as you are a living creature, that struck!” Mr. Spoflerd’s old sorrel horse, the only living creature in sight, made no reply, but kept on nibbling away at the white clover on the groen before the door. He only turned his back to the driving rain, that Aew from the west to the east so fast and so heavy that it was more like a bank of fog than moving drops of water; and gave a passing shiver when the rainfall changed to hail, and rattled down in stones as large- as birds’ eggs- * But Mrs. Woodcock was above the blind trust, of the beast; so, pule and trembling, she pressed her hands tighter over her ears, and looked at a spider’s web in the darkest corner of the room as steadfastly as if she was sitting for her photograph. The thunder growled itself to sleep at. last, the lightning flashed its life aw ay and the sun broke out like a sudden smile on a baby’s face. Still the unconscious Mrs. Woodcock held on to her ears and gazed at the spider’s web until the outer door was flung open, and the chore boy shuffled in. He was a hempenliaircd, outtermilk-eyed lad of fifteen, who was either half-witted or half- ■ crazed—possibly both. “Ho! Aunt Prissy,” he cried, “wliat are you keeping Independence for, the day after the Fourth? It has all come off as clear as new cider, and you are wasting your time sitting there like a statue. You better be mending my pantaloons.” As he spoke, a sudden sunbeam darted through the western window flashed athwart the corner. “If there isn’t a cobweb right in my kitchen!” quoth Mrs. Woodcock,deliberately putting down her fingers and her feet, and going for a wing—a gray goose wing that hung by a strip of red calico op a nail behind the door. “ Oh, you come, Orson? Where did it strike?” she continued, appearing to discover the grinning boy. “The hail struck everywhere, particularly on Dr. Seacrcst’s"grapc-viues. I haven’t heard as the thunder struck at “ all, not even on some folks’ cars,” returned Orson, who was mainly composed of a pair of overgrown bare feet, blue cotton frock and overall, a set of broad, white teeth and a weather-beaten hat, with wide, slouching brim. “You don’t mean to sny the doctor’s grape-vines are hurt essentially, do you?”* queried Mrs. Woodcock, deaf to the impertinence as she had been to the thunder. “Don’t know nothing about no essences,” replied Orson, who was fond of long words, but not clear as to their use. “ But I can tell you one thing, though. You ought just to see the doctor's new grape-vines he sets so much by. The tendous and young grapes are fairly chewed to bits. Yes’m. I don’t expect SSOO in gold would put it back to w here it was an hour ago.” “How you talk!” gasped Mrs. Woodcock, who liked to have things happen, and the worse they happened the better she liked it. She was a very kindhearted soul, but something to talk over wus worth as much as her dinner. “ But is it so?” she continued, doubtfully. “ Really and truly, Orson? Now speak the truthgust exactly as it is.” Orson had as much ideu of the truth as he had of geology. . * “ Yes’m,” said he, getting bolder. “ The doctor said to me, * Orson Larely,’ said he, ‘ I wouldn’t have this diimagement done to my vintonage not if you had offered me a five hundred-do! lar bill right in my hand.’ And then lie looked as sober as anything and walked straight into the house. I saw Mrs. Seacrest through the oriol window, and she was crying like fury. You ought to take a look at it yourself. Aunt Prissy, if you don’t belieye me," he concluded, in hn aggrieved tone. Mrs.. Woodcock did not believe him entirely, to be sure, but there might be something worth seeing; so, after a little reflecting, she decided it would be handy to have a dose of salts.gnd senna in the house, and she might as well step> up to the doctor’s and get it then as any time. •' • • There was no need to wait for the grass to dry, for Mrs. Woodcock’s chocolate and white calico, guiltless of a panier and Innocent of a trail, did not even brush the broad plantain leaves and the firry speedwell blossoms bordering the *’ well-trodden footpath that led from her

doorstep straight into the world. And her heavy calf-skin shoes squeaked to scorn the idea of wetting through. So she tied on her log-cabin sunbonnet that had a pert calico bow prospecting from the top, took her crooked-handled green gingham umbrella, to act the double part of supporter and protector, nud Set out—not to seek her fortune, but seek somebody’s misfortune. r i he way to Dr. Seacrest’s was across the green away from the black cotton mills down by the river; away from the street of stiff white cottages, where the mill operators lived; away from the commonplace, two-story dwellings clustering around the church, the store, the blacksmith’s shop and the postofficc, to a bit of level slightly removed from “ The Hollow” by a sloping hill. Here was scattered a group of houses where the doctor, the mill-owner, the minister and two or three prosperous farmers lived. Lived, so the Hollow people said, “ stuck up” and apart from their neighbors. , But the aristocratic isolation was all the work of the Hollow, for, as Mrs. Woodcock often said: “ Folks can choose their own place in the world. If they have a mind to hold up their heads and be something they cab be, or they can be nobody or nothing. Either one.” Accordingly she held up her head and made herself somebody, equally in the kitchen of Mary Duffy, the Irish laundress; in Speck Lane, at the lowest dip of the Hollow, and in the parlors of the spacious mansion that crowned the top of Quality H?~ So now she went up the wide, flowerbordered walk leading to Dr. Seacrest’s stately doorway with the assurance of a welcome guest, and, tapping confidently on the open door, stepped in with a little nod and courtesy as much of respect to herself as of deference to Mrs. Seacrest and her daughter, Miriam, sitting sewing and looking as tranquil as though no storm had ever passed over either vineyard or spirit. “Dear me! Is it you,Mrs. Woodcock? How you started me! Come in. We were speaking of you not half an hour ago,” cried Mrs. Seacrest, who was a lively, cordial woman, as round and flushed as a poppy, and always sitting in the sunshine, no matter what clouds there might be in the sky. Mrs. Woodcock came in. “ Quite a shower we have had,” said she, dropping upon a velvet sofa with an air of being much at home on velvet. “ I noticed, as I came along, Mr. Hurlbert’s oats are beaten flat, and I shouldn’t wonder if a good deal of injury was done by the hail.” “Verylikely,” replied Mrs. Seacrest, serenely. “ The hailstones Were very large. But it has come off' beautifully now, and the air seems so much purer after the storm.” Some people might nave felt put aside nt this, “but- not Airs. Woodcock. She perceived that something lay under this placid surface, and, never being troubled by excess of delicacy, proceeded at/>nee to send out her blood-hounds. “How was it here?” said she, boldly. “Anything damaged about your grounds?” “The dahlias, some of them were brokenolf-.didn't father say?" responded Mrs. Seacrest, appealing to her daughter. “ And I think some glass was broken in the hot-house. The doctor has just ordered a different style of sash, so these are out of the way 'just in time.” Everything was always fish that came to Mrs. Seacrest’s net. “ ’Tisn’t that,” said Mrs. Woodcock to herself. “Something heavier than hailstones is on her mind.” So she started another trail. “Heard from Earnest lately?” she asked. ; “ Not very long since,” replied Mrs. Seacrest, carelessly, but with the faintest shadow of a shade slipping across her sunny face for an instafit. “ That is it,” said the visitor, inwardly nodding approvingly to herself. For it is not everybody who would have had the, skill to 'touch upon the sore spot so soon. Bht before she had decided on her next, question Mrs. Seacrest spoke again. “We are expecting him home soon, Mrs! Woodcock, with his wife.” “ His-wife!" cried Mrs. Woodcock. Even with her discerning foresight she was not prepared for this announcement, Earnest Seacrest being yet a junior in the State University. Miriam looked steadily upon her work, flushing with a look of painful annoyance, but her mother’s tone was as blithe as ever. “Yes,” said she; “Earnest is young, isn’t he? But, after all, he is as old as I was when I married. Our children take us by surprise coming to be men and women so much sooner than we expect.” “When do you looki for him*—them?” faltered Mrs. Woodcock, too much bewildered for her usual aptness of questioning. “Almost at anytime; I shall not be surprised if they come to-day,” answered Mrs. Seacrest, not abljMo conceal some nervous dread. Not a dread that the married pair might arrive before Mrs. Woodcock should-go away with her long ears, deep eves and broad tongue. Oh, no! Mrs. Woodcock would have scorned herself with contemptuous scorning if such an unworthy jealousy had crossed her selfassured mind. So she sat, and sat,- and sat, while Mrs. Seacrest sewedj and sewed, and sewed and sewed. Miriam, evidently unable to bear the slow torture, soon found an errand to her chamber, and found no reason for returning. “Wasn’t your son’s marriage a little sudden to you?” asked Mrs. Woodcock, as soon as she had collected her ideas, “ Somewhat. But it is so much better for a young man to settle upon some one than to fall into the habit of flirting," replied Mrs. Seacrest, with cheerful satisfaction. “And I have always been in favor of early marriages. When people wait till their habits are crystallized it is much harder ndapting themselves—” Mrs. Seacrest’s sentence was brought to an untimely end by the stoppage of a carriage at the gate—the doctor’s carriage, too, with the doctor himself to drive. “So it seems she knew All the time they were coming this very day, though she made it so vague. Ana there was I, ■%s my good fortune would have it, right in the midst of the home-coming,” said Mrs. Woodcock afterward, in relating the story to Mademoiselle Widger. ► Mademoiselle Widger was the milliner who lived only three doors front Mrs. Woodcock’s, and said “ Mon Dieu," to appear like a French woman. She was equally fond of a cup of tea and a dish of

gossip, and made all Mrs. Woodcock’s bonhet's'for nothing. “So there I sat and saw it all,” pursued Mrs. Woodcock. “ And what do you think, Mademoiselle, but Earnest came in with a lady on his arm older than his mother. ‘My wife,’ said he, and you might have knocked me over with one of your feather poppies. There never was such a surprise in Throckmorton before.” “Mon Dieu!” cried mademoiselle,with a little foreign scream. “Did you learn how it happened?” “ No more than the dead,” replied Mrs. Woodcock, solemnly. “Mrs. Seacrest tried to pass it oft with her smooth-it-away manner, but she couldn’t deceive me. I could see she had hard work to keep her feeling in. But there she poured the tea and passed the cake to that old thing as smiling as a moon. She is such a hand to cover up and make as everything is just right that happens to her.” “ So you staid to lunch?” queried mademoiselle, helping herself to a third cup of beverage from Mrs. Woodcock’s round black pot as she spoke. “ Yes, they asked me and I didn’t wait to be deenea. I thought it would be a good chance to see the bride, how she looked and how she appeared.” “ Well, how was it?” asked the milliner, between her sips of tea. “ She appeared well enough, as far as that went, if she hadn’t seemed old enough to be his grandmother. You know Earnest is master young-looking for his years, and I don’t suppose lie is a day over twenty.” “ But dicln’t you have any surmise how it happened to take place?” pursued mademoiselle. “ Well, I suppose she must have been worth property,” returned Mrs. Woodcock, who, like a wise general, never acknowledged a defeat. “ But for all that I don’t commend it-in him, and I had as lief tell him so at his dinner-table.” While thus the hidden affairs of the doctor’s family were being discussed and stirred up in the Hollow, as a hen stirs among dead leaves, on the hill they were being covered over like the lost babes in the wood. It was never the Seacrest fashion to parade the family skeletons like the family jewels. So they ate and drank and laughed, and tried to look at the elderly bride without shuddering. But the age was not the worst of it. She was homely. And her homeliness was not the worst; she was stiff and unattractive in person. And it was hardly the consolation that perhaps it should have been to perceive the unlimited fondness that the boy bridegroom had for his aged companion. For it is really a comfort, though a small one, to see our friends chafe under degradation. Accepting slavery with contentment makes the captive twice a. slave. However, the less the family felt like saying sweet things, the more they pressed the sugared cake, the ice-cream and strawberries upon their new member. But all this time there was something in the background waiting to be brought forward, and it was the bride who had the courage first to touch it. “Earnest,” she began, with the dominant air of an elderly aunt, “ an explanation is due your father and mother—and sister,” she added, glancing sharply at Miriam, who was fairly seasick with disgust and Sorrow and mortification. “Yes, Lily, tell them,” answered Earnest, looking at her as though she were sugar candy. The idea of calling that old, black, greasy thing “ Lily.” “ The truth is, then,” said Lily, turning her withered face away from Earnest, as though it cost her an “by the will of the uncle Yrom whom I had my money, unless I married before a certain date I lost it all. And a kinsman, who was heir-at-law, was very anxious to inherit it.” “The old cur wanted Lily himself,” interposed Earnest, “and he thought if he got her money he would be sure to get her. At any rate, he was resolved to have that. This was why we had to be so secret.” Mirinm fairly gronned; and even fairyhearted Mrs. Seacrest dropped her nap-kin-ring on the floor, and came up from stooping for it with wet eyelashes. To think that Earnest has sold himself for this woman’s gold! So Mrs. Woodcock down in the Hollow was right afterall. But, as though she suspected the nature of their thoughts, Lily went on. “Iliad some trouble in persuading Earnest,” she said., looking at him fondly through her blue gjasses, while she patted her gray curls and settled her cap. (“I knew you had,” ejaculated Miriam, inaudibly.) “He had a foolish notion.of waiting till after I had lost my property. But I had a right to it and I wanted to keep it." “We had a jolly time, though, dodging old Drymar. He is about discovering now, Lily, that he isn’t so smart as he thought he was,” said Earnest, bursting into a joyous laugh, and nobody felt the heart to join in. Then he took from his pocket the marriage certificate, dated that very day. It seemed he had telegraphed to his father to meet him and his wife at the. station not more than five minutes after she became liis wife. * “ We had to turn pretty sharp corners to keep out of Drymar’s way,” continued Earnest, still chuckling. “He thought he had Lily safely lockod in her room, while he sent for a justice, thinking he would frighten her into a marriage with him, or, at any rate, keep her away from ot her men till the day had gone by. But was better at picking locks than he thought; and she came to me, poor thing, so out of breath and frightened.” Earnest’s voice grew tenderer and pitiful at the thought, and lie took Lily’s hand in his with a caressing gesture. “ I loved her ever since I have been in college, and she knew it, but we had to keep it to ourselves on old Drymar’s account. And I was dying to marry her, but I didn’t like the idea of marrying for money exactly. However, '’there wasn’t any help for it then, mother, you see. Drymar was her legal guardian until she married, or was of a certain age. So chum and I fixed her up in her bridal dress, and here we are!” Upon that the irrepressible bridegroom got up and kissed his bride, then led her* from the room, saying over his shoulder; “ We will be back directly." When they were gone, a sorrowful sigh bubbled out of the mother’s soul. “Poor boy!” said she,; “his heart is all right, ana I cannot blame him.” “ I blame him for falling in love with his grandmother, in the first place,” said Miriam, severely. “And hfcr having the money makes if all the more horrible. It seems so sordid, even though we may know better.” , i < ) Almost before they had done speaking

they heard Earnest’s step on the stairs, and liis voice in such loving, happy tones that it sent fresh pain through the listeners. Then he appeared with his bright, curling head and his sunny eyes like his mother’s. But with him came, instead of the wrinkled old bride, a fair-faced, blushing girl, with a shower of golden hair, and all the beauty of youth and happiness on her sweet face. A lily truly, beautiful and pure. ' “We had to fix her up that way, chum and I, for fear old Drymar would meet us,” cried Earnest, with a burst of boyish delight at the astonished and relieved faces of the family; “and it has been such fun to watch Miriam this evening. Father and mother keep in better.” “Mon Dieu! Do you call that little creature old enough to be Earnest’s grandmother?” whispered Mademoiselle Widger to Mrs. Woodcock, leaning over her pew railing on the next Sabbath, as the Seacrests came into church. Mrs. Woodcock looked, took off her glasses, wiped them, and looked again “Mercy on me! And I sat as near to her on that day as I am to the minister now! How a body’s eyes will deceive them!” she cried.