Say and Seal, Volume I

There was a general shout and rush at this, which made Faith give way before it. The burrs disappeared fast; the brown nuts gathered into an immense heap. That tree was done.

"Hurrah! for Mr. Simlins!" shouted all the boys, throwing up their caps into the air,—then turning somersets, and wrestling, and rolling over by way of further relief to their feelings.

"The chestnut beyond that red maple for him," said Mr. Linden, flinging a little stone in the right direction; at which with another shout the little tornado swept away.

"Will you follow, Miss Faith? or are you tired?"

"No, I'm not tired yet. I must do something for Mr. Simlins."

"Well don't handle those burrs—" he said. "They're worse than darning needles."

"Have you seen Kildeer river yet, Mr. Linden?"

"I have had a bird's eye view."

Faith looked a little wistfully, but only said,

"We must look at it after the nutting is done. That's a bit of reading hereabout you ought not to pass over."

"I mean to read 'everything I can,' too," he said with a smile as they reached the tree.

"Now Mr. Linden," said Joe Deacon, "this tree's a whapper! How long you suppose it'll take you to go up?"

"About as long as it would you to come down—every-one knows how long that would be. Stand out of my way, boys—catch all the burrs on your own heads and don't let one fall on Miss Derrick." And amidst the general laugh Mr. Linden swung himself up into the branches in a way that made his words good; while Joe Deacon whistled and danced 'Yankee Doodle' round the great trunk.

Half at least of Mr. Linden's directions the boys obeyed;—they caught all the burrs they well could, on their own heads. Faith was too busy among them to avoid catching some on her own bright hair whenever her sunbonnet declined to stay on, which happened frequently. The new object lent this tree a new interest of its own, and boys being an untiring species of animals the sport went on with no perceptible flagging. But when this tree too was about half cleared, Faith withdrew a little from the busy rush and bustle, left the chestnuts and chestnut burrs, and sat down on the bank to rest and look. Her eye wandered to the further woodland, softest of all in hazy veils; to the nearer brilliant vegetation; the open fallow; the wood behind her, where the trees closed in upon each other; oftenest of all, at the 'whapper' of a tree in which Mr. Linden still kept his place, and at the happy busy sight and sound of all under that tree.

And so it happened, that when in time Mr. Linden came down out of Mr.Simlins' chestnut, besides the boys he found nobody there but Mr.Simlins himself.

"Well!"—said that gentleman after a cordial grasp of the hand,—"I reckon, in the matter of nuts you're going to reduce me to penur'ousness! How you like Neanticut?"

"It's a fine place," said Mr. Linden.—"And for the matter of nuts, you need not take the benefit of the bankrupt act yet, Mr. Simlins."

"Over here to see a man on business," Mr. Simlins went on in explanation,—"and thought I'd look at you by the way. Don't you want to take this farm of me?"

"I might want to do it—and yet not be able," was the smiling reply; while one of the smallest boys, pulling the tail of the grey coat which Mr. Simlins wore 'on business,' and pointing to the heap of nuts, said succinctly,

"Them's yourn!"

"Mine!" said Mr. Simlins. "Well where's yourn? What have you done withMiss Faith Derrick?"

"Why we hain't done nothin' to her," said the boy—"she's done a heap to us."

"What has she done to you, you green hickory?"

"Why—she's run round, firstrate," said little Rob,—"and she's helped me shuck."

"So some o' you's thanked her. 'Twan't you. Here, you sir," said Mr. Simlins, addressing this time Joe Deacon,—"what have you been doing with Miss Faith Derrick?"

"I bain't Sam," was Joe's rather cool rejoinder, with a slight relapsing into Yankee Doodle.

"Hollo!" said Mr. Simlins—"I thought you'd learned all school could teach you, and give up to come?"

"Only the last part is true, Mr. Simlins," said Mr. Linden, who whileJoe spoke had been himself speaking to one of the other boys.

Mr. Simlins grunted. "School ain't all 'nuts to him,'" he said with a grim smile. "Well which of you was it?—'twas a fellow about as big as you here, you sir!"—addressing in a more assured tone another boy who was swaggering near,—"you! what have you been doing to Miss Faith? It was you."

"'Twan't me, nother!" said the boy surlily; "nor I hain't done nothin'! but minded my own business."

In a tone which implied that Mr. Simlins was not acting on the same laudable principle.

"What has been done?" said Mr. Linden. And certainly his tone implied that he was minding his own business.

"Well," said Mr. Simlins, "I don't know as they've done much of anything; but I guessed they'd been givin' her some sass or vexin' her somehow; and as she's a kind o' favour_ite_ o' mine it riled me. I was too fur to hear what 'twas."

"Where was she?

"She was round yonder—not fur—There had been some sort of a scrimmage, I guess, between two of 'em, a little one and this fellow; and she parted 'em. She had hold o' this one when I see 'em first—you couldn't have done it better," said Mr. Simlins with a sly cast of his eye;—"you can set her to be your 'vice' when you want one. I was comin' up from the river, you see, and came up behind 'em, and I couldn't hear what they said; but when she let him go, I see her give a kind o' sheer look round this way, and then she put up her hand to her cheek and cleared for home like—a gazetteer!"—said Mr. Simlins, who had given this information in an undertone. "Made straight tracks for the house, I tell ye!"

"A little one and which one?" was the next inquiry.

Mr. Simlins went peering about among the crowd and finally laid hold on the identical shoulder of little Johnny Fax.

"Ain't it you?" said Mr. Simlins. "Ain't that red basket yourn?"

Johnny nodded.

"I knowed the basket," said Mr. Simlins returning. "That's about all that makes the difference between one boy and another! what sort of a basket he carries. The other fellow is the one I was speakin' to first—I can swear to him—the big one."

Mr. Linden took out his watch.

"Thank you, Mr. Simlins," he said. "Boys—it is half past four,—get your nuts and baskets and bring them up to the house. Reuben Taylor—do you see that it is done." With which words Mr. Linden also 'made tracks' for the house—and 'straight' ones, but with not too much notice-taking of the golden leaves under his feet.

The truth about Faith was this. While sitting on the grass, taking the pleasure of the place and time, the peace was at length broken by discordant sounds in her neighbourhood; sounds of harsh voices, and scuffling. Looking round for the cause and meaning of all this, she found that the voices came from behind a thicket of sumach and laurel at her back, and belonged to some of the boys. Faith went round the thicket. There were a big boy and a little boy tugging at a casket, both tugging; the little fellow holding to it with all his might, while the big boy, almost getting it from him with one hand, was laying the other very freely about his ears and shoulders. Faith heard the little one say, "I'll tell—"

And the other, a boy whose name Faith had learned only that morning, shouted in answer,

"You tell! You tell if you dare! You tell and I'll kill you!—Leave hold!"—

A round blow was given with the words, which told, but the little boy still held on to his basket.

"For shame, Phil Davids! you a big boy!"—said Faith.

There was a stay of proceedings while they looked at her, both parties keeping fast hold however, and both tongues at once combating for hearing and belief. The little boy, Johnny Fax himself, said the nuts were his; which the elder denied.

"Let him have his nuts, Phil," said Faith gently. "He must have them—they belong to him."

"He aint a goin' ter, though," said Davids,—"and you can't do nothin', if you air Mr. Linden's sweetheart. You air—Joe Deacon says you be. Leave hold, you!"—