Coniston

Front matter

9 62S vOLOO LLEZTE

Sta fe

Ole. © a Siac CONISTON

BOOK I The Clerk and the Locket

Enter a Great Man, Incognito . : The King is Dead! Long Live the King!

“Deep as First Love, and Wild with All Regret” .

« And Still the Ages roll, Unmoved”

“A Time to Weep, and a Time to Laugh” Mr. Wetherell descends into the Arena .

Tn which the Back Seats are Heard From

The Woodchuck Session . : ; “Cynthia loved You”. - : : .

Book II

Chiefly concerning the NationalGame . . Journeys to Go. :

“ Judge Bass and Party”.

An Amazing Encounter . ix

229 245 256 267 283 805 x OHAPTER VIII. Cynthia learns how to be Fashionable . IX. In which Mr. Merrill abandons a Habit X. Of an Unexpected Return XI. In which Miss Sadler writes a Letter XII. “In the Tannery Shed!”

XII. Cynthia becomes a Teacher .

XIV. In which the Lord of Brampton Retain XV. Containing a Dramatic Climax XVI. Miss Lucretia quotes Genesis XVII. When the Pie was Opened XVIII. A Biographical Episode: Hitherto Unpublished : XIX. Containing Free Transportation to Brampton XX. “To change the Name, and not the Letter” AFTERWORD . ‘ . . : . .

CONTENTS

PAGE

338 ©

. 489

508 517 582 ct

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

* As our story largely concerns him” .

“ Moses was a steady-going young man”

« And sat in the rear slip ”

“<T+’s not too good for Cynthy’”.

“Mr. Worthington was downright distinguished-looking under his gray beaver ”

“¢ All that distance’”

«You be always croakin’, Lysander’”

“Priest Ware, preaching in mittens” .

“¢J will tell you the story of Jethro Bass’”

“Led her, toddling, out into the sunny Common pe

««¢ M-may I call you Cynthy?’”

“He indicted no less than twenty of his fellow-townsmen”

i Mornin’, Dudley’”

t Deep in conversation with a boy”

Through the streets of the capital on Jethro’s arm”.

«Cynthia became a country girl”.

‘Tom Richardson unexpectedly embraced the schoolhouse stove ” LAL the rate of one hundred and eight words a minute” . ; t was, indeed, Miss Cassandra Hopkins ” . ; : : 5 Of their progress along Broadway aes

Peer smoking’ a-cigar? eG. > 3 oh Ne met Sy!

‘“T’ve been making up stories about you ee ee x1 eee

PAGE rah LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“¢ You know the Broke house in Washington Square, of course’” “¢ An’ him such a fine young gintleman!’”.

““¢T’m coming to see you the minute I get back’”

Mrs. Samuel Price

“Trooped with muddy boots into the meeting-house ”

“Then they trooped sadly on to school”

“ How stiffly Miss Lucretia sat in her chair”

“To chat with certain old friends”

CONISTON BOOK I

Chapter I On The Dangers Of Curiosity

First I am to write a love-story of long ago, of a time some little while after General Jackson had got into the White House and had shown the world what a real democracy was. The Era of the first six Presidents had closed, and anew Erahad begun. Iam speaking of political Eras. Certain gentlemen, with a pious belief in democracy, but with a tirmer determination to get on top, arose, —and got on top. So many of these gentlemen arose in the different states, and they were so clever, and they found so many chinks in the Constitution to crawl through and steal the people’s chestnuts, that the Era may be called — the Boss-Era. After the Boss came along certain Things without souls, but of many minds, and found more chinks in the Constitution: bigger chinks, for the Things were bigger, and they stole more chestnuts. But I am getting far ahead of my love-story —and of my book.

_ The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in a few chapters, come to an end: and not to a happy end — stherwise there would be no book. Lest he should throw he book away when he arrives at this page, it is only fair > tell him that there is another and a much longer lovetory later on, if he will only continue to read, in which, t is hoped, he may not be disappointed. ;

The hills seem to leap up against the sky as I de-

B 1 scribe that region where Cynthia Ware was born, and the very old country names help to summon up the picture. Coniston Mountain, called by some the~Blue Mountain, clad in Hercynian forests, ten good miles in length, north and south, with its notch road that winds over the saddle behind the withers of it. Coniston Water, that oozes out from under the loam in a hundred places on the eastern slope, gathers into a rushing stream to cleave the very granite, flows southward around the south end of Coniston Mountain, and having turned the mills at Brampton, idles through meadows westward in its own green valley until it comes to Harwich, where it works again and tumbles into a river. Brampton and Harwich are rivals, but Coniston Water gives of its power impartially to each. From the little farm clearings on the western slope of Coniston Mountain you can sweep the broad valley of a certain broad river where grew (and grow still ) the giant pines that gave many a mast to King George’s navy as tribute for the land. And beyond that — river rises beautiful Farewell Mountain of many colors, now sapphire, now amethyst, its crest rimmed about at evening with saffron flame; and, beyond Farewell, the emerald billows of the western peaks catching the level light. A dozen little brooks are born high among the western spruces on Coniston to score deep, cool valleys in their way through Clovelly township to the broad river— valleys full of the music of the water and fresh with the odor of the ferns. ae To this day the railroad has not reached Coniston Vil=) lage — nay, nor Coniston Flat, four miles nearer Brampton. The village lies on its own little shelf under the forest-clad slope of the mountain, and in the midst of its dozen houses is the green triangle where the militia used to dri ul on June days. At one end of the triangle is the great ine mast that graced no frigate of George’s, but flew the stars and stripes on many a liberty day. Across the road is: Jonah Winch’s store, with a platform so high that a man _ may step off his horse directly on to it; with its checker- _ paned windows, with its dark interior smelling of coffee.

i ‘ and apples and molasses, yes, and of Endea rum — for this was before the days of the revivals.

How those checker-paned windows bring back the picture of that village green! The meeting-house has them, lantern-like, wide and high, in three sashes — white meeting-house, seat alike of government and religion, with its terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south. Behind it is the long shed, and in front, rising

~out of the milkweed and the flowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where many a pillion has left its burden in times agone. Honest Jock Hallowell built that second meeting-house — was, indeed, still building it at the time of which we write. He had hewn every beam and king post in it, and set every plate and slip. And Jock Hallowell is the man who, unwittingly, starts this chronicle. :

At noon, on one of those madcap April days of that Coniston country, Jock descended from his work on the stee-

“ple to perceive the ungainly figure of Jethro Bass coming toward him across the green. Jethro was about thirty years of age, and he wore a coonskin cap even in those days, and trousers tucked into his boots. He carried his ‘big head bent forward, a little to one side, and was not, at first sight, a prepossessing-looking person. As our story largely concerns him, and we must get started somehow, -it may be well to fix a little attention on him. “Heigho! ” said Jock, rubbing his hands on his leather ~ apron. < ; re H-how be you, Jock ?” said Jethro, stopping. _ ““Heigho!” cried Jock, “what's this game of fox and geese you're a-playin’ among the farmers? ” “(C-callate to git the steeple done before frost?” in- | _ quired Jethro, without so much as a smile. “ B-build it tight, Jock — b-build it tight.” * “Guess he'll build his’n tight, whatever it is,” said "Jock, looking after him as Jethro made his way to the little tannery near by.

Let it be known that there was such a thing as social rank in Coniston; and something which, for the sake of an te ae “

_ in this town think he be. They don’t take notice of him,

- President.”

advantageous parallel, we may call an Established Church. Coniston was a Congregational town still, and the deacons and dignitaries of that church were likewise the pillars of the state. Not many years before the time of which we write actual disestablishment had occurred, when the town ceased —as a town—to pay the salary of Priest Ware, as the minister was called. The father of Jethro Bass, Nathan the currier, had once, in a youthful lapse, permitted a Baptist preacher to immerse him in Coniston Water. This had been the extent of Nathan’s religion; Jethro had none at all, and was, for this and other reasons, somewhere near the bottom of the social scale.

“Fox and geese!” repeated Jock, with his eyes still on

_Jethro’s retreating back. The builder of the meeting-house rubbed a great, brown arm, scratched his head, and turned and came face to face with Cynthia Ware, ina poke bonnet.

Contrast is a favorite trick of authors, and no greater contrast is to be had in Coniston than that between Cynthia Ware and Jethro Bass.’ In the first place, Cynthia was the minister’s daughter, and twenty-one. I can summon her now under the great maples of the village street, a virginal figure, gray eyes that kindled the face shaded by the poke bonnet, and up you went above the clouds.

“What about fox and geese, Jock ?” said Cynthia.

“Jethro Bass,” said Jock, who, by reason of his capa bility, was a privileged character. ‘“ Mark my words, Cynthy, Jethro Bass is an all-fired sight smarter than folk because he don’t say much, and stutters. He hain’t be’n eddicated a great deal, but I wouldn’t be afeard to warrant he’d make a racket in the world some of these days.” _ “Jock Hallowell!” cried Cynthia, the gray eyes begin- _~ ning to dance, “I suppose you think Jethro’s going to bes “ All right,” said Jock, “ you can lau r tal i with J sti ae ! zi ah ee Oe

“I’ve hardly spoken two words to him in my life,” she | a

‘‘ As our story largely concerns him.”

6 : CONISTON m replied. And it was true, although the little white parsonage was scarce two hundred yards from the tannery house. 4

“ Jethro’s never ailed much,” Jock remarked, having ~ reference to Cynthia’s proclivities for visiting the sick. “T’ve seed a good many different men in my time, and I tell you, Cynthy Ware, that Jethro’s got a kind of power you don’t often come acrost.. Folks don’t suspicion i

In spite of herself, Cynthia was impressed by the ring of sincerity in the bnilder’s voice. Now that she thought of it, there was rugged power in Jethro’s face, especially when he took off the coonskin cap. She always nodded a greeting when she saw him in the tannery yard or on the road, and sometimes he nodded back, but oftener he had not appeared to see her. She had thought this failure to nod stupidity, but it might after all be abstraction.

“What makes you think he has ability?” she asked, picking flowers from a bunch of arbutus she held.

“‘ He’s rich, for one thing,” said Jock. He had not intended a dissertation on Jethro Bass, but he felt bound to defend his statements. :

am teien).”?

“Wal, he hain’t poor. He’s got as many as thirty mortgages round among the farmers— some on land, and —

- some on cattle.”

“How did he make the money?” demanded Cynthia, _ in surprise.

‘“‘ Hides an’ wool an’ bark—turned ’em over an’ swep” - in. Gits a load, and Lyman Hull drives him down to — - Boston with that six-hoss team. Lyman gits drunk, ' Jethro keeps sober and saves.”

_ Jock began to fashion some wooden pegs with his knife, for nails were scarce in those days. Still Cynthia lingered, --picking flowers from the bunch. 3 5

“What did you mean by ‘fox and geese,’ Jock?” she _ said presently. ‘a

Jock laughed. He didnot belong to the Establishment, — _ but was a Universalist ; politically he admired General i Rec ietarwme ny i ; Sr.

- build a church,” said Cynthia, as she walked away. The :

Jackson. ‘“ What’d yousay if Jethro was Chairman of the next Board of Selectmen ?” he demanded.

No wonder Cynthia gasped. Jethro Bass, Chairman of the Board, in the honored seat of Deacon Moses Hatch, the perquisite of the church in Coniston! The idea was heresy. Asa matter of fact, Jock himself uttered it as a playful exaggeration. Certain nonconformist farmers, of whom there were not a few in the town, had come into Jonah Winch’s store that morning; and Jabez Miller, who lived on the north slope, had taken away the breath of the orthodox by suggesting that Jethro Bass be nominated for town office. Jock Hallowell had paused once or twice on his work on the steeple to look across the tree-tops at Coniston shouldering the sky. He had been putting two and two together, and now he was merely making five out of it, instead of four. He remembered that Jethro Bass had for some years been journeying through the town, buying his hides and wool, and collecting the interest on his mortgages.

Cynthia would have liked to reprove Jock Hallowell, and tell him there were some subjects which should not ~ be joked about. Jethro Bass, Chairman of the Board of |

Selectmen!

“Well, here comes young Moses, I do believe,” said .

Jock, gathering his pegs into his apron and preparing to ascend once more. “Callated he’d spring up pretty a soon.”

“ Jock, you do talk foolishly for a man who is able to young Moses referred to was Moses Hatch, Junior, son of the pillar of the Church and State, and it was an open

_* Moses,” said the girl, when they came in sight of the elms that shaded the gable of the parsonage, “ what do you think of Jethro Bass?” a - “Jethro Bass !” exclaimed honest Moses, “ whatever — put him into your head, Cynthy?” Had she mentioned, — | secret that he was madly in love with Cynthia. Let it be _ said of him that he was a steady-going young man, and that he sighed for the moon.

perhaps, any other young man in Coniston, Moses would have been eaten with jealousy.

“ Oh, Jock was joking about him. What do you think of him?” i,

“ Never thought one way or t’other,” he answered.

“ Jethro never had much to do with the boys. He’s always in that tannery, or out buyin’ of hides. He does make a sharp bargain when he buys a hide. We always goes shares on our’n.”

Cynthia. was not only the minister’s daughter, — distinction enough, —- her reputation for learning was spread through the country roundabout, and at the age of twenty she had had an offer to teach school in Harwich. Once a week in summer she went to Brampton, to the Social - library there, and sat at the feet of that .Miss Lucretia Penniman of whom Brampton has ever been so proud — Lucretia Penniman, one of the first to sound the clarion note for the intellectual independence of American women ; who wrote the “ Hymn to Coniston” ; who, to the awe of her townspeople, went out into the great world and became editress of a famous woman’s journal, and knew Longfellow and Hawthorne and Bryant. Miss Lucretia _ it was who started the Brampton Social Library, and filled it - with such books as both sexes might read with profit.

_ Never was there a stricter index than hers. Cynthia, — - Miss Lucretia loved, and the training of that mind was — the pleasantest task of her life. : ; Curiosity as a factor has never, perhaps, been given its | _ proper weight by philosophers. Besides being fatal to a - certain domestic animal, as an instigating force it has ' brought joy and sorrow into the lives of men and women, and made and marred careers. And curiosity now laid hold of Cynthia Ware. Why in the world she should ever have been curious about Jethro Bassis a mystery to many, — for the two of them were as far apart as the poles. Cynthia, - _ of all people, took to watching the tanner’s son, and listen- . ing to the brief colloquies he had with other men at Jonah & inch’s store, when she went there to buy things for _ the parsonage ; and it seemed to her that Jock had not $

Rulon ne

*“ Moses was a steady-going young man.”’

been altogether wrong, and that there was in the man an indefinable but very compelling force. And when a woman begins to admit that a man has force, her curiosity usually increases. On one or two of these occasions Cynthia had been startled to find his eyes fixed upon her, and though the feeling she had was closely akin to fear, she found something distinctly pleasurable in it.

May came, and the pools dried up, the orchards were pink and white, the birches and the maples were all yellowgreen on the mountain side against the dark pines, and Cynthia was driving the minister’s gig to Brampton. Ahead of her, in the cafion made by the road between the

- great woods, strode an uncouth but powerful figure—coonskin cap, homespun breeches tucked into boots, and all. The gig slowed down, and Cynthia began to tremble with that same delightful fear. She knew it must be wicked, because she liked it so much. Unaccountable thing ! She felt all akin to the nature about her, and her blood was coursing as the sap rushes through a tree. She would not speak to him; of that she was sure, and equally sure that he would not speak to her. The horse was walking now, and suddenly Jethro Bass faced around, and her heart stood still.

“ H-how be you, Cynthy ?” he said.

“ How do you do, Jethro?” 4

A thrush in the woods began to sing a hymn, and they ~ listened. After that a silence, save for the notes of an- — swering birds quickened by the song, the minister’s horse nibbling at the bushes. Cynthia herself could not have explained why she lingered. Suddenly he shot a question at her.

“ Where be you goin’?”

“To Brampton, to get Miss Lucretia to change this book,” and she held it up from her lap. It was a very

-~ large book.

_ «Wh-what’s it about?” he demanded. a “¢ Napoleon Bonaparte.” SA *“ Who was he?” | : “He was a very strong man. He began life poor and —

Po | Yr = unknown, and fought his way upward until he conquered the world.”

“‘C-conquered the world, did you say? Conquered the world?” -

S Vea)

Jethro pondered.

“Guess there’s somethin’ wrong about that book — somethin’ wrong. Conquer the United States?”

Cynthia smiled. She herself did not realize that we were not a part of the world, then.

“« He conquered Europe, where all the kings and queens are, and became a king himself — an emperor.”

“JT want to know!” said Jethro. ‘You said he was a poor boy?”

* Why don’t you read the book, Jethro?” Cynthia answered. “Iam sure I can get Miss Lucretia to let you have it.”

“ Don’t know as I’d understand it,” he demurred.

“Tll try to explain what you don’t understand,” said Cynthia, and her heart gave a bound at the very idea.

“ Will you?” he said, looking at her eagerly. “ Will you? You mean it?”

“ Certainly,” she answered, and blushed, not knowing

| why. “I—TI must be going,” and she gathered up the reins.

“ When will you give it to me?”

“]’ll stop at the tannery when I come back from Bramp-

_ ton,” she said, and drove on. Once she gave a fleeting

- glance over her shoulder, and he was still standing vie she had left him.

When she returned, in the yellow afternoon light ‘that flowed over wood and pasture, he came out of the tannery door. Jake Wheeler or Speedy Bates, the journeyman

_tailoress, from whom little escaped, could not have said it

‘was by design—thought nothing, indeed, of that part , of it.

“ As I live!” cried Speedy from the window to’ Aunt

Lucy Prescott in the bed, “if Cynthy ain’t givin’ him a book as big as the Bible!”

|Aunt Lucy hoped, first, that it was the Bible, and second, that Jethro would read it. Aunt Lucy, and Established Church Coniston in general, believed in snatching brands from the burning, and who so deft as Cynthia at this kind of snatching! So Cynthia herself was a hypocrite for once, and did not know it. At that time Jethro’s sins were mostly of omission. As far as rum was concerned, he was a creature after Aunt Lucy’s own heart, for he never touched it: true, gaunt Deacon Ira Perkins, tithing-man, had once chided him for breaking the Sabbath — shooting at a fox.

To return to the book. “As long as he lived, Jethro looked back to the joy of the monumental task of mastering its contents. In his mind, Napoleon became a rough Yankee general; of the cities, villages, and fortress he formed as accurate a picture as a resident of Venice from Marco Polo’s account of Tartary. Jethro had learned to read, after a fashion, to write, add, multiply, and divide. He knew that George Washington and certain barefooted companions had forced a proud Britain to her knees, and much of the warring in the book took color from Captain Timothy Prescott’s stories of General Stark and his campaigns, heard at Jonah Winch’s store. What Paris looked like, or Berlin, or the Hospice of St. Bernard — though imaged by a winter Coniston—troubled Jethro not at all; the thing that stuck in his mind was that Napoleon

— for a considerable time, at least— compelled men to dé his bidding. Constitutions crumble before the Strong.

Not that Jethro philosophized about constitutions. Exist- ‘ ing conditions presented themselves, and it occurred to him that there were crevices in the town system, and ways into power through the crevices for men clever enough to find them.

A week later, and in these same great woods on the way to Brampton, Cynthia overtook him once more. It was characteristic of him that he plunged at once into the subject uppermost in his mind.

- place.” ple &.

“Not a very big place, this Corsica —not a very big i

= ; > Fr ye hal .% &

* A little island in the Mediterranean,” said Cynthia.

“Hum. Country folks, the Bonapartes — country folks?”

Cynthia laughed.

*T suppose you might call them so,” she said. “They were poor, and lived out of the world.”

“He was asmart man. But he found things goin’ his way. Didn’t have to move ’em.”

‘“ Not at first,” she admitted; “but he had to move mountains later. How far have you read?”

“One thing that helped him,” said Jethro, in indirect answer to this question, “he got a smart woman for his wife —a smart woman.”

Cynthia looked down at the reins in her lap, and she felt again that wicked stirring within her, —incredible stirring of minister’s daughter for tanner’s son. Coniston believes, and always will believe, that the social bars are strong enough. So Cynthia looked down at the reins, | “Poor Josephine! ” she said, “I always wish he had not ~ cast her off.”

“C-cast her off?” said Jethro. “Cast her off! Why did he do that?”

_« After a while, when he got to be Emperor, he needed

a wife who would be more useful to him. Josephine had become a drag. He cared more about getting on in the world than he did about his wife.”

Jethro looked away contemplatively. _ “ Wa-wahn’t the woman to blame any?”’ he said. - “Read the book, and you'll see,” retorted Cynthia, flicking her horse, which started at all gaits down the road. Jethro stood in his tracks, staring, but this time he did not see her face above the hood of the gig. Presently he trudged on, head downward, pondering upon another problem than Napoleon’s. Cynthia, at length, irrived in Brampton Street, in a humor that puzzled the yood Miss Lucretia sorely.

niga’

Chapter II @n The Wisdom Of Charity

THE sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving Coniston in amethystine shadow, and the last bee had flown homeward from the apple blossoms in front of Aunt Lucy Prescott’s window, before Cynthia returned. Aunt Lucy was Cynthia’s grandmother, and eighty-nine years of age. Still she sat in her window beside the lilae bush, lost in memories of a stout, rosy lass who had followed a stalwart husband up a broad river into the wilderness some seventy years agone in Indian days — Weathersfield Massacre days. That lass was Aunt Lucy herself, and in just such a May had Timothy’s axe rung through the Coniston forest and reared the log cabin, where six of her children were born. Likewise in review passed the lonely months when Timothy was fighting behind his rugged General Stark for that privilege more desirable to hi kind than life —self-government. Timothy Presco would pull the forelock to no man, would have such God-fearing persons as he chose make his laws for him.

Honest Captain Timothy and his Stark heroes, Aunt Lucy and her memories, have long gone to rest. Little did they dream of the nation we have lived to see, straining at her constitution like a great ship at anchor in a gale, with funnels belching forth smoke, and a new race of men thronging her decks for the mastery. Coniston i As ' there still behind its mountain, with its rusty fireloesy and its hillside graves. 5

‘Cynthia, driving back from Brampton in the gig, smiles at Aunt Lucy in the window, but she did not so much as glance at the tannery house farther on.

aa house, be it known, was the cottage where Jethro dwelt, and which had belonged to Nathan, his father; and the tannery sheds were at some distance behind it, nearer Coniston Water. Cynthia did not glance at the tannery house, for a wave of orthodox indignation had Swept over her: at any rate, we may call it so. In other words, she ‘was angry with herself: pitied and scorned herself, if the truth be told, for her actions —an inevitable mood.

In front of the minister’s barn under the elms ‘on the hill Cynthia pulled the harness from the tired horse with an energy that betokened activity of mind. She was not one who shrank from self-knowledge, and the question put itself to her, “ Whither was this matter tending ?” The fire that is in strong men has ever heen a lure to women; and many, meaning to play with it, have been burnt thereby since the world began. But to turn the fire to some use, to make the world better for it or stronger for it, that were an achievement indeed! The horse munching his hay, Cynthia lingered as the light fainted above the ridge, with the thought that this might be woman’s province, and Miss Lucretia Penniman might go on leading her women regiments to no avail. Nevertheless she was angry with Jethro, not because of what he had said, but because of what he was.

_ The next day is Sunday, and there is mild excitement in Coniston. For Jethro Bass, still with the coonskin cap, but in a brass-buttoned coat secretly purchased in Brampbon, appeared at meeting! It made no difference that he entered quietly, and sat in the rear slip, orthodox Conison knew that he was behind them: good Mr. Ware knew t, and changed a little his prayers and sermon: Cynthia snew it, grew hot and cold by turns under her poke bonvet. Was he not her brand, and would she not get the edit of snatching him? How willingly, then, would he have given up that credit to the many who coveted it -if it were a credit. Was Jethro at meeting for any’ eligious purpose ? _Jethro’s importance to Coniston lay in his soul, and hat soul was numbered at present ninety and ninth.

When the meeting was over, Aunt Lucy Prescott hobbled out at an amazing pace to advise him to read chapter seven of Matthew, but he had vanished : via the horse sheds, if she had known it, and along Coniston W ater to the house by the tannery, where he drew breath in a state of mind not to be depicted. He had gazed at the back did not say much to his face; what they did say gave

them little satisfaction. Grim Deacon Ira stopped him _ as he was going to buy hides, and would have prayed over _ him if Jethro had waited ; dear Aunt Lucy did pray, but in private. In six days orthodox Coniston came to the _ conclusion that this ninety and ninth soul were better left _ to her who had snatched it, Cynthia Ware.