Reels and Spindles: A Story of Mill Life

Indeed, Cleena Keegan was a person of sufficient importance to warrant a paragraph quite to herself. She was a woman of middle age, with a wealth of curling, iron-gray hair, which she tucked away under a plain white cap. Her figure was large and grandly developed. She wore a blue print gown, carefully pinned back about her hips, thus disclosing her scarlet flannel petticoat; both garments faded by time and frequent washings to a most "artistic" hue. Upon her shoulders was folded a kerchief of coarse white muslin, spotlessly clean; and as she stood, poised among the glowing branches, with the dying sunset light touching her honest face to unusual brightness, she was well worth Amy's eager wish: —

"Oh, Cleena! That father were only here to see and paint you just as you are this minute!"

"Humph! It's meself's glad he isn't."

"Why! That's not nice of you, Goodsoul. Yet it's a great pity that a body who is such a 'study' in herself can't fix those branches a bit more gracefully. You're jamming the leaves all into a little mess and showing the stems! Oh, Cleena, I wonder if I can't reach them."

"Truth, it's meself's willin' you should try. Belike I'd be handier at the pullin' them down nor the puttin' them up."

With head erect she descended from the ladder, and stood, arms akimbo, regarding the results of her labor. Even to her it suggested something not "artistic," and at Fairacres anything inartistic was duly frowned upon.

"Faith, it's not the way the master would do it, I see that, but – "

Before either she could finish her sentence or Amy mount the ladder, Fayette had run to its top and stood there rapidly pulling from the wall the branches Cleena had arranged. Thrusting all but one between his knees, he fastened that over the window-frame so deftly and charmingly that Amy clapped her hands in delight.

"Oh, that's lovely! Try another – and another!"

He obeyed. His vacant face flushed with a glow of enthusiasm equalling, if not exceeding her own, and even Cleena spent some moments of her rarely wasted time in watching him.

Her own face had again become a "study," yet of a sort to provoke a smile, as her gaze roved from his handiwork, over the length of his ungainly person, to rest upon his bare and not too cleanly feet; then travelled slowly upward again, trying to settle once for all his rightful position in the social scale. Her thought might have been thus expressed: —

"His foot's heathen. His head's the same. His clothes – they're the heathenest of all. I'd disdain 'em. But, arrah musha! The hand of him! The master himself couldn't better them fixin's."

Then she hastened to her kitchen, and soon the appetizing odor of a well-cooked meal was in their nostrils, and the two young decorators realized that they were very hungry.

"There, that will do. It is perfect. Thank you ever and ever so much, Fayette."

"Shucks!"

"Now I'll light the candles. I always do when the people are coming home from town. They go there quite often; at least father does, though mother hasn't been before in months. The candles are terrible extravagance, Cleena says, but they're so pretty."

Fayette carried away the step-ladder, then returned to watch Amy as she set the old-fashioned candelabra upon the already daintily spread table. She had bordered the white cloth with some of the most dazzling-hued leaves, and when the wax tapers threw their soft radiance over the whole charming interior, poor Fayette felt his weak head grow dizzy and confused by the beauty of it all.

He dimly realized that he was in a new world, which soothed and appealed to his clouded nature as did the birds and the flowers. That impulse, which he could neither express nor understand, which sent him so constantly into the woods and solitudes, was gratified now. This was as delightful as his favorite pastime of lying upon the grass and gazing upward into the sunlit sky.

"Sho! It's pretty. I like it. I'm glad I come. I'll stay."

Amy had almost forgotten him.

"Yes, of course you'll stay till after supper. I'll – "

But a shadow fell across the threshold of the still open door, and looking up she saw a stranger, – an old man of rather forbidding aspect, whose glance passed swiftly from herself to the youth near the big fireplace.

There followed an instant of mutual and frowning recognition between these two; then Fayette disappeared through an inner doorway, while the newcomer remained at the entrance, his hat in his hand, and an assumed suavity in his manner.

Yet there was still a note of anger in the tone with which he observed: —

"I have called upon business with Cuthbert Kaye. Your father, I presume. Is he at home?"

"Not yet. He went to the city, yesterday, with my mother and brother. I expect them back on the next train. Will you come in?"

"Yes, thank you. I'll wait."

He accepted the great chair Amy rolled toward him, and let his gaze slowly sweep the cheerful apartment. Yet he knew it by heart, already, and his face brightened as he saw how little it had been changed since these many years. Apparently not one of its quaint and rich old furnishings was missing, and the passage of time had but added to the remembered charm of the place. Even the chair into which he sank had a familiar feel, as if his back had long ago fitted to those simple, comfortable lines. The antique candelabra – how often had he watched his grandmother's fingers polishing them to brilliancy.

But the girl was new. The only modern thing, save the freshly gathered leaves, – which also seemed but a memory of his childhood, – to remind him of the present and the errand upon which he had come.

"She's Kaye, though, to the bone. Dark, crisp hair. Those short curls are like a boy's. Her eyes are the Kaye eyes; and that toss of her head, like her great-grandmother come to life again. All our women had it. Ah, well. If things – hmm."

The visitor became absorbed in his thoughts, and his wandering gaze came home to rest, seemingly, upon the tips of his own boots, for he did not notice when Amy disappeared and Cleena entered.

"Alanna! But this is a smart decent piece of work, now, isn't it?"

At this sudden and derisive remark the gentleman looked up.

"Oh, ho! You, is it?"

"Faith an' it is. An' likin' to know what brings you this gait."

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, woman. I'm not to be put off this time by any false stories. Here I am, and here I shall stay until I see your master."

Steadily and silently confronting one another for some seconds, they measured each other's wills. The unwelcome guest was not sure but that the woman would lift him bodily and fling him out of doors. She looked ably strong and quite minded so to do; but, after a further reflection, she appeared to change her mind as well as her tone.

"Hmm – yes. There's no irreverence meant. Come in by, to the library yon. There's pictures to see, an' books a plenty. Leave the master be, like a gentleman now, as you was born, till he eats his meal in peace. A body can bear trouble better on a full stummick nor an empty. Come by."

To his own amazement, the caller rose and followed her. He told himself he was a simpleton to have left the cheery supper room and the certain presence of the man he wished to see for an hour of solitary waiting in an unknown place.

"Library." There had been none in his grandmother's time. But he knew it well – from the outside. A detached, strong little building, of hewn stone like the mansion; one of Cuthbert Kaye's many "follies." Planned with a studio on the second floor above the spacious book room on the first. Well, it made the property so much the more valuable. Yes, after all, he would better visit it while the coast was clear.

"Sure, sir, an' it's here the master do be spending all his time. Here an' above. You was never in the paintin' study, now was you?" she asked suggestively.

"No."

"Alanna! An' you two of the same blood!"

"Hmm – yes, of course I'll go, since I'm here."

So he followed her up the graceful staircase, with its softly covered steps, and into a room which rumor said was worth travelling far to see; and though thus prepared, its half-revealed beauty astonished him.

"Well, it is a fine apartment. It must have cost a power of money. And – it explains many things."

"Money, says you? It did that," echoed Cleena, with a pious sigh.

"Yes, yes. I suppose so. It's rather dark, however, for me to see as I would like. Isn't there a lamp here?"

"Lamp, is it? Askin' pardon for forgettin' me manners, but it's never a lamp will the master have left in this place. If one comes, indeed, 'tis himself brings it. Forby, on occasion like this, I'll fetch it an' take all the blame for that same. It's below. I'll step down;" and she departed hastily, leaving him alone.

CHAPTER IV.