Book: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know

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His face lit up, as he entered, with that joyful sense of home so
instinctive in every true man and woman. He rubbed his hard hands
together, and catching Hannah as she came in at the shed door,
bestowed upon her a resounding kiss.

"You're the most of a little woman I ever see, Hannah, I swan to
man."

Hannah laughed like a swarm of spring blackbirds.

"I declare, John, you do beat all! Ain't it real pleasant here? Seems
to me I never saw things so handy."

Oh, Hannah, what if your prophetic soul could have foreseen the
conveniences of this hundred years after! Yet the shelves, the pegs,
the cupboard in the corner, the broad shelf above the fire, the great
pine chest under the window, and the clumsy settle, all wrought out of
pine board by John's patient and skilful fingers, filled all her
needs; and what can modern conveniences do more?

So they ate their supper at home for the first time, happy as
new-nested birds, and far more grateful.

John had built a sawmill on the brook a little way from the house, and
already owned a flourishing trade, for the settlement about the lake
from which Nepasset Brook sprung was quite large, and till John
Perkins went there the lumber had been all drawn fifteen miles off, to
Litchfield, and his mill was only three miles from Nepash village.
Hard work and hard fare lay before them both, but they were not
daunted by the prospect....

By and by a cradle entered the door, and a baby was laid in it....

One baby is well enough in a log cabin, with one room for all the
purposes of life; but when next year brought two more, a pair of stout
boys, then John began to saw lumber for his own use. A bedroom was
built on the east side of the house, and a rough stairway into the
loft--more room perhaps than was needed; but John was called in Nepash
"a dre'dful forecastin' man," and he took warning from the twins. And
timely warning it proved, for as the years slipped by, one after
another, they left their arrows in his quiver till ten children
bloomed about the hearth. The old cabin had disappeared entirely. A
good-sized frame house of one story, with a high-pitched roof, stood
in its stead, and a slab fence kept roving animals out of the yard and
saved the apple trees from the teeth of stray cows and horses.

Poor enough they were still. The loom in the garret always had its web
ready, the great wheel by the other window sung its busy song year in
and year out. Dolly was her mother's right hand now; and the twins,
Ralph and Reuben, could fire the musket and chop wood. Sylvy, the
fourth child, was the odd one. All the rest were sturdy, rosy,
laughing girls and boys; but Sylvy had been a pining baby, and grew up
into a slender, elegant creature, with clear gray eyes, limpid as
water, but bright as stars, and fringed with long golden lashes the
colour of her beautiful hair--locks that were coiled in fold on fold
at the back of her fine head, like wreaths of undyed silk, so pale was
their yellow lustre. She bloomed among the crowd of red-cheeked,
dark-haired lads and lasses, stately and incongruous as a June lily in
a bed of tulips. But Sylvy did not stay at home. The parson's lady at
Litchfield came to Nepash one Sunday, with her husband, and seeing
Sylvy in the square corner pew with the rest, was mightily struck by
her lovely face, and offered to take her home with her the next week,
for the better advantages of schooling. Hannah could not have spared
Dolly; but Sylvia was a dreamy, unpractical child, and though all the
dearer for being the solitary lamb of the flock by virtue of her
essential difference from the rest, still, for that very reason, it
became easier to let her go. Parson Everett was childless, and in two
years' time both he and his wife adored the gentle, graceful girl; and
she loved them dearly. They could not part with her, and at last
adopted her formally as their daughter, with the unwilling consent of
John and Hannah. Yet they knew it was greatly "for Sylvy's
betterment," as they phrased it; so at last they let her go.

But when Dolly was a sturdy young woman of twenty-five the war-trumpet
blew, and John and the twins heard it effectually. There was a sudden
leaving of the plow in the furrow. The planting was set aside for the
children to finish, the old musket rubbed up, and with set lips and
resolute eyes the three men walked away one May morning to join the
Nepash company. Hannah kept up her smiling courage through it all. If
her heart gave way, nobody knew it but God and John. The boys she
encouraged and inspired, and the children were shamed out of their
childish tears by mother's bright face and cheery talk.

Then she set them all to work. There was corn to plant, wheat to sow,
potatoes to set; flax and wool to spin and weave, for clothes would be
needed for all, both absent and stay-at-homes. There was no father to
superintend the outdoor work; so Hannah took the field, and marshalled
her forces on Nepasset Brook much as the commander-in-chief was doing
on a larger scale elsewhere. Eben, the biggest boy, and Joey, who came
next him, were to do all the planting; Diana and Sam took on
themselves the care of the potato patch, the fowls, and the cow; Dolly
must spin and weave when mother left either the wheel or loom to
attend to the general ordering of the forces; while Obed and Betty,
the younglings of the flock, were detailed to weed, pick vegetables
(such few as were raised in the small garden), gather berries, herbs,
nuts, hunt the straying turkeys' nests, and make themselves generally
useful. At evening all the girls sewed; the boys mended their shoes,
having learned so much from a travelling cobbler; and the mother
taught them all her small stock of schooling would allow. At least,
they each knew how to read, and most of them to write, after a very
uncertain fashion. As to spelling, nobody knew how to spell in those
days.... But they did know the four simple rules of arithmetic, and
could say the epigrammatic rhymes of the old New England Primer and
the sibyllic formulas of the Assembly's Catechism as glibly as the
child of to-day repeats "The House That Jack Built."

So the summer went on. The corn tasselled, the wheat ears filled well,
the potatoes hung out rich clusters of their delicate and graceful
blossoms, beans straggled half over the garden, the hens did their
duty bravely, and the cow produced a heifer calf.

Father and the boys were fighting now, and mother's merry words were
more rare, though her bright face still wore its smiling courage. They
heard rarely from the army. Now and then a post rider stopped at the
Nepash tavern and brought a few letters or a little news; but this was
at long intervals, and women who watched and waited at home without
constant mail service and telegraphic flashes, aware that news of
disaster, of wounds, of illness, could only reach them too late to
serve or save, and that to reach the ill or the dying involved a
larger and more disastrous journey than the survey of half the world
demands now--these women endured pangs beyond our comprehension, and
endured them with a courage and patience that might have furnished
forth an army of heroes, that did go far to make heroes of that
improvised, ill-conditioned, eager multitude who conquered the trained
bands of their oppressors and set their sons "free and equal," to use
their own dubious phraseology, before the face of humanity at large.

By and by winter came on with all its terrors. By night wolves howled
about the lonely house, and sprung back over the palings when Eben
went to the door with his musket. Joe hauled wood from the forest on a
hand-sled, and Dolly and Diana took it in through the kitchen window
when the drifts were so high that the woodshed door could not be
opened. Besides, all the hens were gathered in there, as well for
greater warmth as for convenience in feeding, and the barn was only to
be reached with snowshoes and entered by the window above the manger.

Hard times these were. The loom in the garret could not be used, for
even fingers would freeze in that atmosphere; so the thread was wound
off, twisted on the great wheel, and knit into stockings, the boys
learning to fashion their own, while Hannah knit her anxiety and her
hidden heartaches into socks for her soldier boys and their father.

By another spring the aching and anxiousness were a little dulled, for
habit blunts even the keen edge of mortal pain. They had news that
summer that Ralph had been severely wounded, but had recovered; that
John had gone through a sharp attack of camp-fever; that Reuben was
taken prisoner, but escaped by his own wit. Hannah was thankful and
grateful beyond expression. Perhaps another woman would have wept and
wailed, to think all this had come to pass without her knowledge or
her aid; but it was Hannah's way to look at the bright side of things.
Sylvia would always remember how once, when she was looking at Mount
Tahconic, darkened by a brooding tempest, its crags frowning blackly
above the dark forest at its foot and the lurid cloud above its head
torn by fierce lances of light, she hid her head in her mother's
checked apron, in the helpless terror of an imaginative child; but,
instead of being soothed and pitied, mother had only laughed a little
gay laugh, and said gently, but merrily:

"Why, Sylvy, the sun's right on the other side, only you don't see
it."

After that she always thought her mother saw the sun when nobody else
could. And in a spiritual sense it was true.

Parson Everett rode over once or twice from Litchfield that next
summer to fetch Sylvia and to administer comfort to Hannah. He was a
quaint, prim little gentleman, neat as any wren, but mild-mannered as
wrens never are, and in a moderate way kindly and sympathetic. When
the children had haled their lovely sister away to see their rustic
possessions, Parson Everett would sit down in a high chair, lay aside
his cocked hat, spread his silk pocket handkerchief over his knees,
and prepare to console Hannah.

"Mistress Perkins, these are trying times, trying times. There is a
sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees--h-m! Sea and waves
roaring of a truth--h-m! h-m! I trust, Mistress Perkins, you submit to
the Divine Will with meekness."

"Well, I don't know," replied Hannah, with a queer little twinkle in
her eye. "I don't believe I be as meek as Moses, parson. I should like
things fixed different, to speak truth."

"Dear me! Dear me--h-m! h-m! My good woman, the Lord reigneth. You
must submit; you must submit. You know it is the duty of a vessel of
wrath to be broken to pieces if it glorifieth the Maker."

"Well, mebbe 'tis. I don't know much about that kind o' vessel. I've
got to submit because there ain't anything else to do, as I see. I
can't say it goes easy--not'n' be honest; but I try to look on the
bright side, and to believe the Lord'll take care of my folks better'n
I could, even if they was here."

"H-m! h-m! Well," stammered the embarrassed parson, completely at his
wit's end with this cheerful theology, "well, I hope it is grace that
sustains you, Mistress Perkins, and not the vain elation of the
natural man. The Lord is in His holy temple; the earth is His
footstool--h-m!" The parson struggled helplessly with a tangle of
texts here; but the right one seemed to fail him, till Hannah
audaciously put it in:

"Well, you know what it says about takin' care of sparrers, in the
Bible, and how we was more valerable than they be, a lot. That kind o'
text comes home these times, I tell ye. You fetch a person down to the
bedrock, as Grandsir Penlyn used to say, and then they know where they
be. And ef the Lord is really the Lord of all, I expect He'll take
care of all; 'nd I don't doubt but what He is and does. So I can fetch
up on that."

Parson Everett heaved a deep sigh, put on his cocked hat, and blew his
nose ceremonially with the silk handkerchief. Not that he needed to:
but as a sort of shaking off of the dust of responsibility and ending
the conversation, which, if it was not heterodox on Hannah's part,
certainly did not seem orthodox to him.... He did not try to console
her any more, but contented himself with the stiller spirits in his
own parish, who had grown up in and after his own fashion.

Another dreadful winter settled down on Nepasset township. There was
food enough in the house and firewood in the shed; but neither food
nor fire seemed to assuage the terrible cold, and with decreased
vitality decreased courage came to all. Hygienics were an unforeseen
mystery to people of that day. They did not know that nourishing food
is as good for the brain as for the muscles. They lived on potatoes,
beets, beans, with now and then a bit of salt pork or beef boiled in
the pot with the rest; and their hearts failed, as their flesh did,
with this sodden and monotonous diet. One ghastly night Hannah almost
despaired. She held secret council with Dolly and Eben, while they
inspected the potato bin and the pork barrel, as to whether it would
not be best for them to break up and find homes elsewhere for the
winter. Her father was old and feeble. He would be glad to have her
with him and Betty. The rest were old enough to "do chores" for their
board, and there were many families where help was needed, both in
Nepash and Litchfield, since every available man had gone to the war
by this time. But while they talked a great scuffling and squawking in
the woodhouse attracted the boys upstairs. Joe seized the tongs and
Diana the broomstick. An intruding weasel was pursued and slaughtered;
but not till two fowls, fat and fine, had been sacrificed by the
invader and the tongs together. The children were all hungry, with
the exhaustion of the cold weather, and clamoured to have these
victims cooked for supper. Nor was Hannah unmoved by the appeal. Her
own appetite seconded. The savoury stew came just in time. It aroused
them to new life and spirits. Hannah regained courage, wondering how
she could have lost heart so far, and said to Dolly, as they washed up
the supper dishes:

"I guess we'll keep together, Dolly. It'll be spring after a while,
and we'll stick it out together."

"I guess I would," answered Dolly. "And don't you believe we should
all feel better to kill off them fowls--all but two or three? They're
master hands to eat corn, and it does seem as though that biled hen
done us all a sight o' good to-night. Just hear them children."

And it certainly was, as Hannah said, "musical to hear 'em." Joe had a
cornstalk fiddle, and Eben an old singing book, which Diana read over
his shoulder while she kept on knitting her blue sock; and the three
youngsters--Sam, Obed, and Betty--with wide mouths and intent eyes,
followed Diana's "lining out" of that quaint hymn "The Old
Israelites," dwelling with special gusto and power on two of the
verses:

"We are little, 'tis true,
And our numbers are few,
And the sons of old Anak are tall;
But while I see a track
I will never go back,
But go on at the risk of my all.

"The way is all new,
As it opens to view,
And behind is the foaming Red Sea;
So none need to speak
Of the onions and leeks
Or to talk about garlics to me!"

Hannah's face grew brighter still. "We'll stay right here!" she said,
adding her voice to the singular old ditty with all her power:

"What though some in the rear
Preach up terror and fear,
And complain of the trials they meet,
Tho' the giants before
With great fury do roar,
I'm resolved I can never retreat."

And in this spirit, sustained, no doubt, by the occasional chickens,
they lived the winter out, till blessed, beneficent spring came again,
and brought news, great news, with it. Not from the army, though.
There had been a post rider in Nepash during the January thaw, and he
brought short letters only. There was about to be a battle, and there
was no time to write more than assurances of health and good hopes for
the future. Only once since had news reached them from that quarter. A
disabled man from the Nepash company was brought home dying with
consumption. Hannah felt almost ashamed to rejoice in the tidings he
brought of John's welfare, when she heard his husky voice, saw his
worn and ghastly countenance, and watched the suppressed agony in his
wife's eyes. The words of thankfulness she wanted to speak would have
been so many stabs in that woman's breast. It was only when her eight
children rejoiced in the hearing that she dared to be happy. But the
other news was from Sylvia. She was promised to the schoolmaster in
Litchfield. Only to think of it! Our Sylvy!

Master Loomis had been eager to go to the war; but his mother was a
poor bedrid woman, dependent on him for support, and all the
dignitaries of the town combined in advising and urging him to stay at
home for the sake of their children, as well as his mother. So at home
he stayed, and fell into peril of heart, instead of life and limb,
under the soft fire of Sylvia's eyes, instead of the enemy's
artillery. Parson Everett could not refuse his consent, though he and
madam were both loth to give up their sweet daughter. But since she
and the youth seemed to be both of one mind about the matter, and he
being a godly young man, of decent parentage, and in a good way of
earning his living, there was no more to be said. They would wait a
year before thinking of marriage, both for better acquaintance and on
account of the troubled times.

"Mayhap the times will mend, sir," anxiously suggested the
schoolmaster to Parson Everett.

"I think not, I think not, Master Loomis. There is a great blackness
of darkness in hand, the Philistines be upon us, and there is moving
to and fro. Yea, Behemoth lifteth himself and shaketh his mane--h-m!
ah! h-m! It is not a time for marrying and giving in marriage, for
playing on sackbuts and dulcimers--h-m!"

A quiet smile flickered around Master Loomis's mouth as he turned
away, solaced by a shy, sweet look from Sylvia's limpid eyes, as he
peeped into the keeping-room, where she sat with madam, on his way
out. He could afford to wait a year for such a spring blossom as that,
surely. And wait he did, with commendable patience, comforting his
godly soul with the fact that Sylvia was spared meantime the daily
tendance and care of a fretful old woman like his mother; for, though
Master Loomis was the best of sons, that did not blind him to the fact
that the irritability of age and illness were fully developed in his
mother, and he alone seemed to have the power of calming her. She
liked Sylvia at first, but became frantically jealous of her as soon
as she suspected her son's attachment. So the summer rolled away.
Hannah and her little flock tilled their small farm and gathered
plenteous harvest. Mindful of last year's experience, they raised
brood after brood of chickens, and planted extra acres of corn for
their feeding, so that when autumn came, with its vivid, splendid
days, its keen winds and turbulent skies, the new chicken yard, which
the boys had worked at through the summer, with its wattled fence, its
own tiny spring, and lofty covered roofs, swarmed with chickens,
ducks, and turkeys. Many a dollar was brought home about Thanksgiving
time for the fat fowls sold in Litchfield and Nepash; but dollars
soon vanished in buying winter clothes for so many children, or
rather, in buying wool to spin and weave for them. Mahala Green, the
village tailoress, came to fashion the garments, and the girls sewed
them. Uncouth enough was their aspect; but fashion did not yet reign
in Nepash, and if they were warm, who cared for elegance? Not Hannah's
rosy, hearty, happy brood. They sang and whistled and laughed with a
force and freedom that was kin to the birds and squirrels among whom
they lived; and Hannah's kindly, cheery face lit up as she heard them,
while a half sigh told that her husband and her soldier boys were
still wanting to her perfect contentment.

At last they were all housed snugly for winter. The woodpile was
larger than ever before, and all laid up in the shed, beyond which a
rough shelter of chinked logs had been put up for the chickens, to
which their roosts and nest boxes, of coarse wicker, boards nailed
together, hollow bark from the hemlock logs, even worn-out tin pails,
had all been transferred. The cellar had been well banked from the
outside, and its darksome cavern held good store of apples, pork, and
potatoes. There was dried beef in the stairway, squashes in the
cupboard, flour in the pantry, and the great gentle black cow in the
barn was a wonderful milker. In three weeks Thanksgiving would come,
and even Hannah's brave heart sank as she thought of her absent
husband and boys; and their weary faces rose up before her as she
numbered over to herself her own causes for thankfulness, as if to
say: "Can you keep Thanksgiving without us?" Poor Hannah! She did her
best to set these thankless thoughts aside, but almost dreaded the
coming festival. One night, as she sat knitting by the fire, a special
messenger from Litchfield rode up to the door and brought stirring
news. Master Loomis's mother was dead, and the master himself, seeing
there was a new levy of troops, was now going to the war. But before
he went there was to be a wedding, and, in the good old fashion, it
should be on Thanksgiving Day, and Madam Everett had bidden as many of
Sylvy's people to the feast as would come.

There was great excitement as Hannah read aloud the madam's note. The
tribe of Perkins shouted for joy, but a sudden chill fell on them when
mother spoke:

"Now, children, hush up! I want to speak myself, ef it's a possible
thing to git in a word edgeways. We can't all go, fust and foremost.
'Tain't noways possible."

"Oh, Mother! Why? Oh, do! Not go to Sylvy's wedding?" burst in the
"infinite deep chorus" of youngsters.

"No, you can't. There ain't no team in the county big enough to hold
ye all, if ye squeeze ever so much. I've got to go, for Sylvy'd be
beat out if mother didn't come. And Dolly's the oldest. She's got a
right to go."

Loud protest was made against the right of primogeniture, but mother
was firm.

"Says so in the Bible. Leastways, Bible folks always acted so. The
first-born, ye know. Dolly's goin', sure. Eben's got to drive, and I
must take Obed. He'd be the death of somebody, with his everlastin'
mischief, if I left him to home. Mebbe I can squeeze in Betty, to keep
him company. Joe and Sam and Dianner won't be more'n enough to take
care o' the cows and chickens and fires, and all. Likewise of each
other."

Sam set up a sudden howl at his sentence, and kicked the mongrel
yellow puppy, who leaped on him to console him, till that
long-suffering beast yelped in concert.

Diana sniffed and snuffled, scrubbed her eyes with her checked apron,
and rocked back and forth.

"Now, stop it!" bawled Joe. "For the land's sake, quit all this noise.
We can't all on us go; 'n' for my part, I don't want to. We'll hev a
weddin' of our own some day!" and here he gave a sly look at Dolly,
who seemed to understand it and blushed like an apple-blossom, while
Joe went on: "Then we'll all stay to 't, I tell ye, and have a right
down old country time."

Mother had to laugh.

"So you shall, Joe, and dance 'Money Musk' all night, if you want
to--same as you did to the corn huskin'. Now, let's see. Betty, she's
got that chintz gown that was your Sunday best, Dolly--the flowered
one, you know, that Dianner outgrowed. We must fix them lawn ruffles
into 't; and there's a blue ribbin laid away in my chest o' drawers
that'll tie her hair. It's dreadful lucky we've got new shoes all
round; and Obed's coat and breeches is as good as new, if they be made
out of his pa's weddin' suit. That's the good o' good cloth. It'll
last most forever. Joe hed 'em first, then Sam wore 'em quite a spell,
and they cut over jest right for Obey. My black paduasoy can be fixed
up, I guess. But, my stars! Dolly, what hev' you got?"

"Well, Mother, you know I ain't got a real good gown. There's the
black lutestring petticoat Sylvy fetched me two years ago; but there
ain't any gown to it. We calculated I could wear that linsey jacket to
meeting, under my coat; but 'twouldn't do rightly for a weddin'."

"That's gospel truth. You can't wear that, anyhow. You've got to hev
somethin'. 'Twon't do to go to Sylvy's weddin' in linsey woolsy; but I
don't believe there's more'n two hard dollars in the house. There's a
few Continentals; but I don't count on them. Joe, you go over to the
mill fust thing in the morning and ask Sylvester to lend me his old
mare a spell to-morrer, to ride over to Nepash, to the store."

"Why don't ye send Doll?" asked Joe, with a wicked glance at the girl
that set her blushing again.

"Hold your tongue, Joseph, 'n' mind me. It's bedtime now, but I'll
wake ye up airly," energetically remarked Hannah. And next day,
equipped in cloak and hood, she climbed the old mare's fat sides and
jogged off on her errand; and by noon-mark was safe and sound home
again, looking a little perplexed, but by no means cast down.

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