The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

"All right, Sandy; we'll settle some other time," whispered Miss Dinsmore, quite aware that I should scarcely like to make so public a presentation of my gift, and quietly concealing it in a sheet of wrapping-paper, while Annie, surprised and pleased at seeing me, approached the counter.

"Bless your sweet face, it isn't often I see it of an evenin'," was Miss Dinsmore's welcome to her favorite.

"Beauty's but a witherin' flower," said Mr. Purdo, by way of professional improvement of the occasion, and pointing the remark by a glance at Miss Dinsmore, whose early bloom he undoubtedly remembered. "Still it's cause for great gratitude, Sary, that your cheeks are so rosy,"—here a general laugh warned him of the dangerous admission, and he added,—"it shows you're healthy, and that's a most aboundin' blessin'."

"That's so!" exclaimed Tracy Waters. "You're mighty pretty now, Sary Ann; and it a'n't no use to look ahead to the time when you won't be, is it?"

Annie's cheeks glowed more deeply still now. She was accomplishing her errand as quickly as possible; and while Miss Dinsmore tied up her parcel, Tracy Waters bent over her, whispering. It may have been only that "innate gallantry" alluded to by Miss Darry that made me reprove his evidently unwelcome admiration.

"Annie is a shy little thing. Don't you see, Tracy, that she doesn't like flattery?" I exclaimed, angrily approaching them.

"I see pretty plain that you don't want her to have it from any other fellow than yourself," he answered, roughly. "Miss Annie," he added, in imitation of my manner, "supposin' I see you home?"

But I pushed past him and went out of the store with her.

"He says I am to be his little wife by-and-by," said Annie, a most unusual expression of disgust and alarm ruffling the quiet serenity of her face; "but that can never be, unless I wish it, can it, Sandy?"

"I should think not, indeed," I answered, smiling at her earnestness. "When he speaks of it again, tell him I want you myself."

"That would be a good way to stop him," she replied, accepting graciously this solution of her present difficulty.

CHAPTER VI

Miss Darry, knowing I could borrow books at Hillside, and that those which I already possessed were the old English classics, bought for me in the city only a Greek Grammar, through whose intricacies she proposed to be my guide, and a box of water-colors, and brought to me some lives of the old painters from Miss Merton's library.

She bewildered my mind by telling me of all there was in store for it in the way of work and study. Her interest in my progress seemed to have received a new impetus from her visit in town. She described the rooms where were casts of legs and arms, heads and groups of figures, to which I might one day have access, with the privilege of copying; and in return I showed her two crayon sketches I had made in her absence. Michel Angelo might have relished the knotty, muscular development of the arm I showed her first. If there is beauty and satisfaction in coarse brute strength, this member of my master's body was worthy of all praise. On another sheet I had drawn, by way of contrast, Annie's delicately small and fair, but round, arm and hand, which might have served in her infancy as models for those of one of Raphael's cherubs. She liked them both, and said that I should do as well, perhaps, in the school of Nature as anywhere, for the present.

She desired me to become a sculptor, for form appealed more strongly to her nature than color; and it seemed to be tacitly decided between us that Art was to be my vocation. She thought that my strong hands, accustomed to labor, could hew my own idea out of the marble for the present, and save the expense of workmen. And then she described to me the beautiful marbles she had seen abroad, where the artist's inspiration was so chastely uttered by the purity of his material, declaring that a subject which coloring would debase might be worthily treated by the chisel. And when I exclaimed, that Autumn, with her glowing palette, was as pure an artist as the old sculptor Winter, chiselling in unvaried white, she reminded me that Nature was infinite, handling all themes with equal power and purity; but that man, in copying, became, as she thought some of the Preraphaelites had done, a caricaturist, in attempting to follow her too closely. I was unconvinced by her arguments, but held my newly bought color-box as a means of proving to her the wisdom of my choice.

When I was about to leave, she said,—

"Sandy, pray don't make an enemy of Tracy Waters on account of any words you had the other evening about the blacksmith's little girl. He's a rough, but kind fellow, and your superiority and desire to rise in life will stir up envy enough of themselves. Why not let him show his admiration of the child, if he wanted to?"

"Oh, have they been telling you about that, Miss Darry?" I answered, awkwardly. "If you knew Annie Bray, you would not ask me why I didn't let him bend his great rough face over hers. She's only a child in years, to be sure; but she has a woman's modesty."

"Oh, well, if she shrank from it, of course, as a gentleman, you were bound to take her part; but don't spoil your chances in life, Sandy, I beg, by any entanglement with these villagers of which you may repent. A pretty country lassie to smile when you look at her would doubtless be a comforting companion in your struggles. But once attain what you long for in other ways, and you will crave an intelligent friend, whose gaucheries shall not forever put you to the blush."

Miss Darry, in her appreciation of my abilities, sometimes forgot my lack of attainment. I was not always familiar with her quotations, but now I was more disturbed by her regarding so seriously my brotherly devotion to Annie Bray, and by the depreciating estimate which she held of her.

"I did not know you looked down so entirely upon our villagers. The only way in which I could expect to differ from them is through my talent for painting, if I prove to have any. My mother was a good woman, gentle and quiet in her ways, but only a farmer's daughter; and though my father was the village doctor, he studied his profession without any regular training, and I suppose knew less of chemistry and anatomy than you, Miss Darry. Annie Bray is as much a lady, in her childish way, as Miss Merton; only she is the stone in its native soil, and Miss Merton has been set by the jeweller."

I was irritated and had spoken warmly, but the bright smile did not leave Miss Darry's face, as she answered,—

"Sandy, you have unmistakably the poetic temperament; but use your brush on the canvas, and don't color every human being you see. I never could comprehend why the practical affairs of life should not be ruled by judgment and reason,—why the mental mansion should not have every needful arrangement for comfort, though a hundred illusions may fresco its ceilings. Every child is charming because it is a child, as every bud is charming because it is a bud, though it may open a poppy or a rose. I haven't a doubt but this little friend of yours will develop some qualities of her ignorant ancestors to remove her in a few years far from your ideal of womanhood. The rare gift of genius is as often bestowed on the child of common parentage as on any other; but the refinement which makes a woman a congenial companion is a mingling of birth, education, and associations, in my opinion. It seems from your own account, that poverty, not choice, apprenticed you to Amos Bray."

Her good-nature shamed me, and her unselfish labor for my improvement touched me more deeply. So, though we did not agree about my profession or friendship, I said no more.

CHAPTER VII

As I have said, Miss Darry and I differed about Annie Bray. Yet her words, having the weight of her greater knowledge of the world, and really strong, though prejudiced mind, made their impression upon me. Instead of regarding Annie with the old brotherly interest, I looked critically now to see if any sign of rude origin betrayed itself in look or speech. I found only the wayside bloom and sweetness quite peculiar to herself, and many a quaint, rare fancy born of lonely rambles in field and wood; but at fourteen, with no outward stimulus to act upon her life, she was an undeveloped being, a child to be loved and petted, but no friend for my growing and restless manhood.

In the evenings I worked hard, endeavoring both to improve myself intellectually and to progress in my art. I was supplied with constant reading from the Hillside library; but I had never been there since the evening when I had driven Miss Darry home. The impression made upon me at that time by Mr. Lang had not been wholly pleasant. Notwithstanding his words at the forge, I felt as though he had in some way contended for making me feel the drawbacks of my position.

One mild day in April, the Spring sun lay warm upon the earth, and the wind brought from the woods the delicious scent of early flowers. I had worked very steadily for several days in sole charge of the smithy; for Mr. Bray had been away to visit a sister who lived some thirty miles off. I had handed him quite large profits that morning; so I ventured to ask for a half-holiday. It was granted, and after dinner I went up to my room to prepare for it. I had practised in water-colors for the last few weeks, and intended to surprise Miss Darry with a picture from Nature as the result of the afternoon's work. So I thrust my paint-box into the pocket of my portfolio, took a tin cup for water, and ran down stairs.

Annie was sitting on the door-step studying Gray's Botany, which at odd moments in the winter I had attended to with her. My heart smote me for that egotistic contemplation of myself and my prospects which had led me to neglect her.

"Come, Annie," I said, "bring your Botany into the woods. We will find plenty of wild-flowers there, and you shall help me, besides, to paint my first picture."

The little face which had looked so dull a moment before brightened at once. She gained her mother's permission, and was soon walking by my side.

On the slope of the hill which led to the stone house where so many of my dreams centred, we found innumerable bloodroot and anemone blossoms, with a few buds of trailing arbutus just blushing at their edges.

Annie had a wonderful fellowship with Nature, liking even its wildest, most uncouth forms. The snakes, with shining skin and sinuous movement, glistening like streams of water, or lying coiled like stagnant pools amid the rank luxuriance of grass and flowers, were as eagerly watched by her as the most brilliant butterfly that ever fanned a blossom. She had a faculty for tracing resemblances in the material creation, akin to that, perhaps, which causes many to see points of likeness in faces, so that they, as it were, carry their home about with them, and see their friends in the new costume of every land.

Childhood and genius alike look through and over the lattice-work which separates the regions of the natural and the supernatural. She had firm faith in midnight revels in the woods, held by those elves, fairies, and satyrs who come down to us from the dim and shaded life of earlier ages, and whose existence she had eagerly accepted when I hinted its possibility. Her theory of the mutability of species exceeded Darwin's; for she fancied that the vegetable world was occasionally endowed with animal life, and that the luxuriant and often poisonous vines, which choked by their rude embrace so many tenderer forms of life, waked up, under some unknown influence, into the snakes, of which she felt as little fear.

As for me, I encouraged this tangle of woodland dreams across her brain, and liked to think she dwelt apart, blind and deaf to all contamination through its simple power.

Annie was to-day, therefore, most happy that Spring was reorganizing her dreamland again; and while I seated myself on a stone to arrange my materials, she ran to fill the tin cup with water from the brook below. Then she helped me with my paints, and watched curiously all my preparations. When these were completed, I said,—

"Now, Annie, prepare a little scene for me, and I will paint it."

At first she was reluctant to make the attempt; but I insisted, and she did so.

The tiny thread which fed the stream below trickled over a stone beside us, making rich with its silver beads of moisture a cushion of moss beneath. On this Annie heaped bloodroots and anemones, a few early violets, and one or two arbutus-sprays, and then looked up to see if I was satisfied.

"Yes," I said, "if you will sit on that tree-stump, and leave your hand there."

She laughed merrily, pleased to be in my first painting. I drew out my paper, and rapidly sketched the outlines. Then I took my brush; the pale spring beauties grew beneath its touch, and lay with careless grace on the soft, damp moss.

Annie had resumed her Botany as the afternoon wore on, reaching forward occasionally to note my progress; and her hand lay relaxed, the fingers loosely clasping the last violets laid down.

I was giving most affectionate pats of my camel's-hair to the last little pink nail, feeling more elated at this first attempt than at many a better picture since, when I heard the tramp of horses' feet in the road to the left of the meadow where we sat. I was too intent upon my work to raise my eyes, and Annie sat with her face turned toward the woods, so that I thought nothing more of it until we were startled by a voice at a little distance.

"Well, my young friend, I suppose this studio is open to visitors?"

I looked up, and saw Miss Merton and Mr. Lang.

"We were riding, and called at the forge," said Miss Merton, with a wondering glance at Annie, whose astonishment had not admitted of a change of position; "and as Mr. Lang heard there you were off on an excursion, we have been expecting to see you, and caught our first glimpse as the horses walked up the hill. Won't you introduce us to your young friend, Mr. Allen?"

"This is Annie Bray, my master's daughter," I stammered, with a keen and very unpleasant remembrance of Miss Darry's remarks.

Annie rose, and returned with natural ease Miss Merton's smile and kindly greeting, while Mr. Lang bent over to look at my painting.

"Alice, look here. This is as pretty a bit of water-color as I've ever seen. A young girl's hand is a gratifying possession, but I am not sure that I should have stopped with it in the present instance." And he looked admiringly at Annie's modest beauty.

Miss Merton walked round the stump, and stood behind me.