CHAPTER III.
THE HOME OF WEBSTER.
The days that followed were halcyon days to Ned and Dolly. Skipper Joe supplied them with an old punt to paddle about in; and as Mrs. Park insisted upon Dolly's learning to swim, if she and Ned were going about in a boat by themselves, Skipper Joe volunteered to teach her with Ned's help; for Ned was a perfect duck in the water, and could not have been a better swimmer even if he had had a Polynesian mother who had tossed him into the water when a baby, and so taught him to swim once for all by making him swim for his life.
Ned was slightly offended because his mother thought it best for Skipper Joe to superintend Dolly's swimming lessons.
"Just as if I couldn't teach Dolly to swim, mother! Just look here!" and he turned a somersault into the water and swam off, floating, plashing, leaping, and making as much commotion as a school of gambolling blue-fish.
"Yes, you are a fine swimmer, Ned," said his mother, consolingly; "but I shall feel safer about Dolly to have two with her when she is learning."
Dolly proved to be an apt pupil, and a very few lessons gave her confidence in her own powers; and when Mrs. Park saw her going through the water, looking in her flannel bathing-dress like a blue, brown-haired mermaid fresh from the "caverns of the deep," and as much at home, apparently, as the most accomplished mermaid could possibly be, she bade good-by to all anxiety, and saw with perfect equanimity the two paddle away day after day in the old punt, to which they had given the somewhat incongruous name of the Daisy.
The Daisy was a shallow, flat-bottomed boat, looking like nothing so much as a dripping-pan with one end pointed. But these two could not have got more fun out of her if she had been a thorough-rigged, well-victualled steam-yacht; not so much, in fact, for a steam-yacht could never have penetrated the narrow inlets and tiny streams that threaded these marshes like net-work.
So Dolly and Ned paddled about in great content, spearing crabs, catching cunners, dredging for shell-fish and sea-weed; sometimes sitting upon the edge of the Daisy, with their feet in the water, and disembarking now and then, when driven by hunger, to get up a private clam-bake. This was before the epoch of the Rhode Island clam-bake with which so many of us are familiar. But Dolly and Ned had read that delightful old book, "Robin's Journal among the Arabs," and knew the value of hot stones; so, with drift-wood they made a fire in a hole in the sand and heated their stones therein; then packed their clams and covered them with sea-weed, if not scientifically, yet with satisfactory results. And years after, when the grown-up Ned and Dolly did eat for the first time a real Rhode Island clam-bake, Ned paused as he was conveying his first clam to his mouth, and smiling roguishly said, "D' you remember, Dolly, our clam-bakes on the Marshfield 'ma'shes?'"
One day a couple of men came down from inland with a cart for menhaden. These are small fish that are often driven up into shallow water by sharks. Dolly watched the men as they hauled them in by the hundreds.
"Are they to eat?" she ventured to ask.
"Bless y'r soul, no," was the grinning reply. "We use 'em f'r manure. They're chock-full o' ile—tew greasy t' eat."
"The squire told 'em 'bout 'em. They'd never 'a found out," said Skipper Joe, contemptuously. (Dolly had learned by this time that the "squire" was Daniel Webster, whose farm lay near the marshes.) "They're fust-rate t' enrich the sile," he continued; "but the wust o' 'em is, they breed a swarm o' pesky green flies, 'n the folks call 'em 'Webster flies.' He [meaning Webster] is a master-hand f'r knowin' everything. Knows 'bout everything that's wuth knowin', I reckon."
It was one of these men who told Dolly the name of a queer-looking fish she saw one day prowling about in the shallow water, stirring up other tiny fish and swallowing them. It had a pair of wing-like fins attached just below its big head, and it ran about, apparently, on something that looked like orange-colored claws.
"Them?" said the man; "them's grunters; 'n some folks calls 'em sea-robins, 'n some Cape Cod ministers."
Dolly thought he was poking fun at her, though he spoke with the utmost gravity, but Skipper Joe assured her he was not.
"When you catch 'em they grunt," explained Skipper Joe, "'n that's why they call 'em grunters; 'n it's easy 'nough t' see why some folks call 'em sea-robins; but why they're called Cape Cod ministers 's more 'n I know. Some folks eat 'em, but some folks c'n eat anything," he added.
Meanwhile the haymakers cut the salt grass and carried it in gundalows to the high lands to be cured. These gundalows were clumsy boats or barges, as unlike the graceful gondola in appearance as in name. Dolly and Ned occasionally took a sail in one of these gundalows on top of the salt grass, from which expedition they always went back with fresh pleasure to their beloved dripping-pan of a Daisy.
Mrs. Park improved this bit of leisure out of her busy life with reading and sketching, and so the still sunny, early September days drifted by all too swiftly; and just two days before the end of the haying season an adventure which seemed a fitting close to this golden period, this cluster of red-letter days, befell our hero and heroine.
These marshes consisted in part of vast level plains, over which the damp sea-breezes swept and the shrieking sea-gulls flew to and fro. These salt plains were inhabited by the kingfisher, the quawk, and the heron. The quawk, a bird with slender yellow legs and a long beak, fished at low tide for minnows and tiny crabs. He scarcely moved as the Daisy paddled noisily by, only looking up with reproach in his fishy eyes as the waves made by the passing boat swept out of his reach some dainty bit of garbage.
These plains were varied with mounds, the work of the ocean in past ages, when these marshes were sandy beaches and fierce winds piled the sand in heaps. These heaps gradually hardened, and were held together by the roots of marine plants, and so in time became round, grassy hills. And while it might seem almost impossible for any one to be lost in the intricacies of the small streams which threaded these marshes, it was, after all, the easiest thing in the world, for they really formed a labyrinth as bewildering as the famous one of Crete. The tide ebbed and flowed in these narrow streams, and not a few times the Daisy was stranded on a muddy bottom and had to wait for the incoming tide. At such times, however, Mrs. Park felt no anxiety at their prolonged absence, for, as 'Zekle sensibly remarked, "Nobody c'd git drownded where there wa'n't no water."
Well, as I was saying, two days before the time fixed for their return to Byfield, Dolly and Ned went off after an early dinner for a row—a long afternoon row. "We must make the most of the time now, Dolly," said Ned, as they moved slowly along, Ned sculling, "for we shall have to go away day after to-morrow."
"How I wish we could take the Daisy with us!" said Dolly, patting the dingy old punt affectionately.
"'Twould be no good if we did," replied Ned. "Mother wouldn't let us go on the pond, an' she's too big for the brook. I say, Dolly, I'll make a raft when we get back. A raft 'll sail in the brook first-rate, for I've tried it. I sailed down once 'most to the saw-mill, an' came mighty near going over the dam. 'Most wish I had."
"Oh, there's an eel!" shrieked Dolly, and seizing the spear which they always carried in the boat, she made a lunge, lost her balance, and went over into the tide mud, much to the discomfiture of the eel, which squirmed off in company with a dozen spider-crabs, that, like itself, were feeding on a dead quawk. It was not an unusual thing to happen to Dolly, and Ned promptly helped her back into the boat, wiped off the mud with his pocket-handkerchief, and then, in an absent-minded fit, wiped his perspiring face on the same. Dolly's hat had tumbled off, and a fresh layer of mud was added to the accumulations of the previous ten days. The hat was originally white straw, trimmed with a pink ribbon, but the combined influences of sea-air and water, sun and mud, had sadly marred its pristine splendor. Dolly herself was as brown as a Marshpee Indian, and the clothes of the two were interesting as geological specimens with their daily deposits of varied dirt. Truly, an exceedingly grimy but very happy pair they looked.
As they sculled they came within view of the sea. It was of a pale blue, a tint so exquisite that Ned dropped his oar and let the Daisy drift while they looked. The blue water seemed a long way off, and just above the water-line, silhouetted against the silvery horizon, a ship sailed slowly along with every sail set, even to the graceful sky-sails.
"Look, look, Ned!" exclaimed Dolly. "It sails in the air! What is it? Is it the Flying Dutchman? Is it a ghost of a ship?"
"I think," replied Ned, slowly, "it must be a mirage. I've heard Skipper Joe talk about 'em, and don't you remember Robins saw 'em in the desert?—not ships, but palms and springs, where there weren't no palms or springs. It's only a reflection, that's what it is. The real ship!—look quick, Dolly!" and Dolly, following the direction of Ned's finger, saw suspended high up in the air a big square-rigged vessel, and just above it another exactly like it, only inverted, the top-masts of the one touching the top-masts of the other.
"Oh, it's like the enchanted horse in the 'Arabian Nights!' only it would be ever so much nicer to sail than to ride," said Dolly.
"I think I'd rather sail in the Daisy," said Ned, picking up his oar; and then they waited till the mirage had faded, and nothing was to be seen but the pale-blue sea and the silvery horizon.
Fleetest-footed of all those perfect days seemed this one, and before they were aware the sun was low in the west and it was time to go home. But when they began to take their bearings, and tried to decide in which direction the old Marchant House lay, they were completely puzzled. Ned went up on a mound to look, but he could see nothing save what appeared to be an endless reach of similar mounds. They hallooed, but nothing replied. Only the screams of the sea-gulls could be heard, and even these grew faint as the sun sank and they flew swiftly past to their nesting-place on some distant island. The two looked blankly at each other.
"Well, this is a jolly go!" was Ned's remark.
"Do you think we shall have to stay all night on the marsh?" asked Dolly, trying to look anxious, but really thinking it would not be such a bad thing, after all.
"It looks like it," replied Ned, "unless Skipper Joe finds us: an' I don't see how he can find us any better than we can find him."
"The sand is nice and soft, and it won't hurt our clothes to sleep on it," said Dolly, looking herself over critically.
"And I say, Dolly," put in Ned, "I can turn the Daisy over you bottom side up, to keep you warm, you know."
"Oh, wouldn't that be fun!" exclaimed Dolly, clapping her hands, brown with tan and grimy with the experiences of the day.
But it wasn't her destiny to spend the night on the "ma'sh," with the Daisy for a blanket. Even while they were talking they heard footsteps. A hat was seen rising over a sand-hill near by—a big slouched hat—and this was followed by a tall man bearing a gun on his shoulder, and carrying a pouch of game at his side, while an English pointer followed close by his heels.
At the same instant Dolly whispered, "It's the man with the head like the State-house dome;" and Ned, in a still more subdued tone with a shade of awe in it, "Halloo, Dolly, it's Daniel Webster!" Webster stopped as he caught sight of the pair. It was a queer group to come upon at dusk in these lonely marshes—the old punt, the tall, frank-faced, blue-eyed boy, the slender, girlish figure, with the clustering brown hair, nut-brown cheeks, and hazel eyes—queer but picturesque, flushed with the rosy hues of the after-glow.
Webster looked an instant and then spoke. "Good-evening," he said. "May I ask who you are, and can I do anything for you? Have you lost your way?"
"I am Edward Park, sir," replied Ned, manfully, "and this is my cousin, Dorothea Winslow."
"Ah!"—and a sunny smile beamed forth from the cavernous black eyes—"then you are the son of my friend Park, of Byfield, and this"—turning to Dolly, and raising his old slouched hat with the same graceful deference he might have shown to a Russian princess or an English court lady—"and this is the little lady who attended our convention, and who so bravely frightened off the thieves. But may I ask how you chance to be here?"
"We've got lost," replied Ned. "We're at the old Marchant House with my father and mother and the haymakers. Dolly and I are out with the boat. We've been out every day, but we never got lost before. Can you tell us which way to go and how far it is?"
"I'm afraid it's a long way to the old Marchant House, too far for you to go at this late hour, and I doubt, with the evening coming on, if you could find it. The best thing for you to do will be to leave your boat here and go home with me. My house is not far, and I will send a man to Mrs. Park to let her know you are safe. Then you shall spend the night with me, and I count myself happy to have the opportunity of entertaining the son and niece of my old friend," he added, with that cordial hospitality which always put every one, old and young, at their ease.
"Thank you," replied Ned, with a shade of hesitation in his voice. He was not quite sure it was the thing to do, but what else could he do? And as to Dolly, she glanced distressfully at her soiled frock, and was painfully conscious of her battered hat. But Webster did not wait.
"This is the way," he said, walking on, "and, as I said, it is only a short distance."
As they walked away, Dolly turned to look at the Daisy, where she lay high and dry, as the tide had left her while they were trying to find the direction of the Marchant House. It was like saying "farewell" to an old friend, for Dolly had a presentiment that she would never see the Daisy again.
"Good-by, dear old Daisy," she whispered to herself, as she hurried on after the two, who had got in advance of her while she lingered.
They entered the house by a side door, and Dolly was at once consigned to a maid, who took her to a bedroom and assisted her in her toilet. She bathed her face and hands, brushed out her tangled curls into a fluffy mass of ringlets, and after having her shoes brushed and her dusty frock well shaken, she contemplated with much satisfaction her renovated figure in the tall pier-glass which enabled her to see herself from top to toe. The fresh lace in her frock, which Mrs. Park always insisted should go in every morning, whether Dolly was to pass the day in the parlor or in the woods, gave a lady-like finish to her dress.
"Yes, I think I'll do, after all," she said to herself, with a sigh of relief.
Ned had passed through very much the same experience in the hands of the personal attendant of his host, and the two, as they met in the parlor, exchanged smiles of congratulation.
"You look first-rate," whispered Ned to Dolly, as they bent their heads together above a group of Japanese figures in ivory. "How did you manage it? girls have such a knack!"
"I don't look a bit nicer than you," replied Dolly. "It must be the brushing."
"And the soap and water," added Ned, and then they followed their host out to dinner.
The dining-room was long and low-ceiled, with a circular sideboard of mahogany inlaid with holly. There were a few guests besides the family. Webster was very merry all through dinner. He had had a good day's shooting, and gave the history of his shots in detail, and told how he had met with two salt-haymakers with whom he had conversed a short time, and after he had turned away he heard one of them say, "Quite a sensible old fellow, ain't he?" The speaker had evidently not known him, and was struck by so much intelligence combined with such shabby clothes. Ned tried to imagine what his surprise might be should he ever learn that the "sensible old fellow" was the "great Webster."
Just before helping to the joint of mutton which he had himself carved, Webster looked inquiringly at Ned's right-hand neighbor, a young man addressed as "Port."
"Yes, my name is Leathers," said Port, promptly sending up his plate.
"And so is mine," said his opposite neighbor, Jackson.
Webster, catching Ned's look of surprise, laughed as heartily as a boy, and then told the story which has since grown so familiar through his biographies: how a family named Leathers, living in New Hampshire, for some good office rendered to the town, were each to have a pound of tobacco and a pint of rum by calling for them. The family was a very large one, but at last, so great was the number of applicants for the tobacco and rum, it was thought best to put the question, "Is your name Leathers?" to each fresh applicant. The phrase had been adopted as a favorite byword with the Webster family and their familiar guests.
After dinner Ned and Dolly, with the younger guests, went through the numerous rooms, looking at the choice bits of bric-à-brac and the pictures on the walls. The Webster mansion was—we speak of it in the past tense, as unhappily it was burned a few years ago—a rambling house, put together piecemeal, the fine library having been built by Webster and planned with the help of his daughter Julia. On the crowded walls Dolly espied a silhouette portrait in a small plain frame. This kind of portrait was made by cutting the outlines of the head and face from paper, and framing the paper so cut over a bit of black silk. These portraits were of an era preceding that of daguerreotypes and photographs. Under this silhouette was written, "My dear Mother. D. W." Dolly wondered a little that so plain and simple a portrait should have a place among such fine paintings, not having yet learned that our most valued possessions are often the portraits, however simple, of those who have loved us.
In the library a wood-fire burned in the open fireplace, and through the window over the mantle Webster pointed out the ancient burial-ground, or "God's acre," where, as he told them, Peregrine White is buried—Peregrine White, the baby born on the Mayflower, whose shivering little figure you may see to-day in the painting of the Landing of the Pilgrims, in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. There, too, lies Edward Winslow, one of the early governors of Plymouth, "who is my ancestor," said Dolly, with pardonable pride. Webster smiled upon her as she said it, and said himself that "a noble ancestry was a better inheritance than priceless gems." He told her that he had caused the trees to be cut and trimmed so as to give him this view of the distant burial-ground, which Dolly thought a queer thing to do, though of course she did not say so.
On either side the chimney hung life-size, full-length portraits of Webster and Lord Ashburton. Lord Ashburton, one of the guests told Dolly as he saw her looking at him attentively, was associated with Webster in the defining of boundaries between Canada and the United States, and Dolly "made a note of it," like Captain Cuttle, and secretly resolved to read more history.
That was a marvellous evening, one never to be forgotten by our Dolly and Ned. The firelight played over the walls of the spacious library, making fantastic shadows, while the guests listened to the voice which had held spellbound so many thousands. Webster talked a good deal about the older English writers with one of his guests, a distinguished literary gentleman, and recited in his wonderful voice almost the whole of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village;" and Dolly dates from that evening a love for those older writers which has proved a solace under many adverse circumstances.
"And now," said Webster, the next morning after they had breakfasted, "we'll go out to the barn and look at the cattle."
The night before, what with the dusk and the embarrassment of their arrival, Dolly and Ned had scarcely noticed the outside of the house. As they stepped out into the gravelled walk, and looked about them, it seemed very pleasant and home-like in the morning sunlight, with its many gables and cosey verandas. At one corner of the house stood a magnificent elm of great girth and height, whose pendent branches swept the green turf. In its shade was a rustic chair, a favorite seat of Webster's.
Dolly uttered a cry of delight as they entered the breezy, hay-scented barn, and Webster turned with a smile of pleasure as he heard her.
"So you like barns and cattle as well as I do," he said, and Dolly blushed and dimpled to be placed in the same category with so distinguished a man, if it were only as a lover of cattle.
The beautiful cattle, with their soft, beseeching eyes and sleek coats, were standing patiently in their stalls. (The Greeks knew what beautiful eyes were, and they called their great goddess the ox-eyed Juno.) As Webster pulled down from the mows handfuls of succulent corn-fodder and fed them, calling attention to their fine points, he said to Ned, humorously, "As I tell Fletcher, they are the best of company, a good deal better than any I find in the Senate Chamber." And any one could see that he had a genuine love for the fine creatures.
They lingered long in the barn, for the master seemed loath to go, although the young Jackson and Port waxed impatient to be gone on their fishing trip to Cut River, for which the boat on the pond in the rear of the house was being got ready. But Webster had to take a look at his hens, and count the eggs laid during the morning. At last they went out again into the sunshine, and Webster pointed out to Dolly the hill where his favorite horses were buried—"with all the honors of war," he said, "standing upright, with halters and shoes on." One of these horses was named "Wilmot Proviso."
When word had been sent to Mrs. Park of the whereabouts of Dolly and Ned, a message had also been added that they would be returned the next morning. So in due time the barouche, with its span of black horses, was brought to the door, and the last glimpse of Webster, as they went down the drive, showed him in the act of taking a flying leap over the fence in competition with the young Port.
To this charming adventure there was just one drawback. As she had feared, Dolly never saw the Daisy again; but a water-color of it, executed at a later day from memory, now hangs in her cosey of coseys.