You see, my pretty cousin Peggy married Peter Smith, who owns paper-mills in Centreville, and has exiled herself into deep country for life; a circumstance I disapprove, because I like Peggy, and manufacturers always bore me, though Peter is a clever fellow enough; but madam was an old flame of mine, and I have a lingering tenderness for her yet. I wish she was nearer town. Just that year Peggy had been very ill indeed, and Kate, her sister, had gone up to nurse her. When I came home Peggy was getting better, and sent for me to come up and make a visitation there in June. I hadn't seen Kate for seven years,—not since she was thirteen; our education intervened. She had gone through that grading process and come out. By Jupiter! when she met me at the door of Smith's pretty, English-looking cottage, I took my hat off, she was so like that little Brazilian princess we used to see in the cortége of the court at Paris. What was her name? Never mind that! Kate had just such large, expressive eyes, just such masses of shiny black hair, just such a little nose,—turned up undeniably, but all the more piquant. And her teeth! good gracious! she smiled like a flash of lightning,—dark and sallow as she was. But she was cross, or stiff, or something, to me for a long time. Peggy only appeared after dinner, looking pale and lovely enough in her loose wrapper to make Peter act excessively like–a young married man, and to make me wish myself at an invisible distance, doing something beside picking up Kate's things, that she always dropped on the floor whenever she sewed. Peggy saw I was bored, so she requested me one day to walk down to the poultry-yard and ask about her chickens; she pretended a great deal of anxiety, and Peter had sprained his ankle.
"Kate will go with you," said she.
"No, she won't!" ejaculated that young woman.
"Thank you," said I, making a minuet bow, and off I went to the farm-house. Such a pretty walk it was, too! through a thicket of birches, down a little hill-side into a hollow full of hoary chestnut-trees, across a bubbling, dancing brook, and you came out upon the tiniest orchard in the world, a one-storied house with a red porch, and a great sweet-brier bush thereby; while up the hill-side behind stretched a high picket fence, enclosing huge trees, part of the same brook I had crossed here dammed into a pond, and a chicken-house of pretentious height and aspect,—one of those model institutions that are the ruin of gentlemen-farmers and the delight of women. I had to go into the farm-kitchen for the poultry-yard key. The door stood open, and I stepped in cautiously, lest I should come unaware upon some domestic scene not intended to be visible to the naked eye. And a scene I did come upon, fit for Retzsch to outline;—the cleanest kitchen, a dresser of white wood under one window, and the farmer's daughter, Melinda Tucker, moulding bread thereat in a ponderous tray; her deep red hair,—yes, it was red and comely! of the deepest bay, full of gilded reflections, and accompanied by the fair, rose-flushed skin, blue eyes, and scarlet lips that belong to such hair,—which, as I began to say, was puckered into a thousand curves trying to curl, and knotted strictly against a pretty head, while her calico frock-sleeves were pinned-back to the shoulders, baring such a dimpled pair of arms,—how they did fly up and down in the tray! I stood still contemplating the picture, and presently seeing her begin to strip the dough from her pink fingers and mould it into a mass, I ventured to knock. If you had seen her start and blush, Polder! But when she saw me, she grew as cool as you please, and called her mother. Down came Mrs. Tucker, a talking Yankee. You don't know what that is. Listen, then.
"Well, good day, sir! I'xpect it's Mister Greene, Miss Smith's cousin. Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be crawlin',—I'xpect too spry to be 'hulsome. Well, he tells me you've ben 'crost the water. 'Ta'n't jest like this over there, I guess. Pretty sightly places they be though, a'n't they? I've seen picturs in Melindy's jography, looks as ef 'twa'n't so woodsy over there as 'tis in these parts, 'specially out West. He's got folks out to Indianny, an' we sot out fur to go a-cousinin', five year back, an' we got out there inter the dre'fullest woodsy region ever ye see, where 'twa'n't trees, it was 'sketers; husband he couldn't see none out of his eyes for a hull day, and I thought I should caterpillar every time I heerd one of 'em toot; they sartainly was the beater-ee!"
"The key, if you please!" I meekly interposed. Mrs. Tucker was fast stunning me!
"Law yis! Melindy, you go git that 'ere key; it's a-hangin' up'side o' the lookin'glass in the back shed, under that bunch o' onions father strung up yisterday. Got the bread sot to rise, hev ye? well, git yer bunnet an' go out to the coop with Mr. Greene, 'n' show him the turkeys an' the chickens, 'n' tell what dre'ful luck we hev hed. I never did see sech luck! the crows they keep a-comin' an' snippin' up the little creturs jest as soon's they're hatched; an' the old turkey hen't sot under the grapevine she got two hen's eggs under her, 'n' they come out fust, so she quit—"
Here I bolted out of the door, (a storm at sea did not deafen one like that!) Melindy following, in silence such as our blessed New England poet has immortalized,—silence that
"—Like a poultice comes,
To heal the blows of sound."
Indeed, I did not discover that Melindy could talk that day; she was very silent, very incommunicative. I inspected the fowls, and tried to look wise, but I perceived a strangled laugh twisting Melindy's face when I innocently inquired if she found catnip of much benefit to the little chickens; a natural question enough, for the yard was full of it, and I had seen Hannah give it to the baby. (Hannah is my sister.) I could only see two little turkeys,—both on the floor of the second-story parlor in the chicken-house, both flat on their backs and gasping. Melindy did not know what ailed them; so I picked them up, slung them in my pocket-handkerchief, and took them home for Peggy to manipulate. I heard Melindy chuckle as I walked off, swinging them; and to be sure, when I brought the creatures in to Peggy, one of them kicked and lay still, and the other gasped worse than ever.
"What can we do?" asked Peggy, in the most plaintive voice, as the feeble "week! week!" of the little turkey was gasped out, more feebly every time.
"Give it some whiskey-punch!" growled Peter, whose strict temperance principles were shocked by the remedies prescribed for Peggy's ague.
"So I would," said Kate, demurely.
Now if Peggy had one trait more striking than another, it was her perfect, simple faith in what people said; irony was a mystery to her; lying, a myth,—something on a par with murder. She thought Kate meant so; and reaching out for the pretty wicker-flask that contained her daily ration of old Scotch whiskey, she dropped a little drop into a spoon, diluted it with water, and was going to give it to the turkey in all seriousness, when Kate exclaimed,—
"Peggy! when will you learn common sense? Who ever heard of giving whiskey to a turkey?"
"Why, you told me to, Kate!"
"Oh, give it to the thing!" growled Peter; "it will die, of course."
"I shall give it!" said Peggy, resolutely; "it does me good, and I will try."
So I held the little creature up, while Peggy carefully tipped the dose down its throat. How it choked, kicked, and began again with "week! week!" when it meant "strong!" but it revived. Peggy held it in the sun till it grew warm, gave it a drop more, fed it with bread-crumbs from her own plate, and laid it on the south window-sill. There it lay when we went to tea; when we came back, it lay on the floor, dead; either it was tipsy, or it had tried its new strength too soon, and, rolling off, had broken its neck! Poor Peggy!
There were six more hatched the next day, though, and I held many consultations with Melindy