The day before yesterday

Contents

I. The Village ....

n. The New Gown ....

in. Show Day

CHAPTER I ^Ije tillage

Once upon a time there was a Village, which lives now only in the memory of a few grayhaired men and women, but which was in its day the fairest and the dearest spot the sun ever shone upon.

It has not been blotted out by any terrible elemental forces ; it has not been left behind in the swift onrush of life as it is lived in these latter days. Its name — its pretty French name, the legacy of the brave Jesuits who passed that way, long, long ago — still stands in the old place on the map — such a favored place ! Indeed, it stands there now in the heavy type by which the map-men pay their respects to places in which there are many railways, and where there is much traffic ; but the Village is lost, none the less, and when the old boys and girls go back to it, it is only now and then that their wistful eyes can find something they have remembered, or some one whom they knew long years ago.

In the lost years the Village lay in the hollow of the palm of the fair prairie, which held it right lovingly, knowing how precious it was. Green billows of waving corn, yellow shoals of bending wheat, gray-green drifts of foamy oats, and crimson tides of rippling clover flowed in to the very edge of the Addition, on whose trim streets the thrifty Germans dwelt apart. Great bur-oaks held themselves together, here and there, whispering of the old wild days they had known before the coming of the Palefaces, and so holding in scorn all petty things, by reason of the nobility of their own great natures, that under them grew no noxious weeds, but rather waving seas of blue-grass, tipped with dandelions, maybe, or with blue violets, or buttercups, —

"The little children's dower."

Like jewels a string of lakes and ponds cut by old glaciers, flashed and sparkled, green girdled by the woods. How clear and cool were the waters fed by their hidden springs ! How white, how golden, the lilies and the lotus that rocked in their leafy coves ! How free and fleet the fishes that darted through their pleasant depths! There were islets rising here and there, and on these stood the last of a mighty race of pine trees, long since fallen before the greed of man. Polypody grew there, and clubmosses, partridge berries, and pipsissewa, bronzed lichens, and mosses like hoar-frost — all unlike the growths of the mainland, and all long vanished now.

The Village was built as a village should be, with a long vertebral main street, from which, riblike, some cross-streets lost themselves in the prairies and in the ponds. Wide and cool lay the streets, shadowed from end to end by rows of sugar-maples, whose branches all but roofed them in, and bordered by pleasant cottages, each having behind its own white fence, its own garden. Now the fences are gone, and the lawns, trimmed by shrill, whirring machines, are all alike in the careful groupings of cannas, and scarlet sages, and coleus, and pink geraniums. Then every housewife expressed herself, not her neighbor, in her garden, and there was not a bedding-out plant within fifty miles of the borders wherein, under her loving care, grew the luxuriant bulbs and shrubs and perennials which she loved. To walk with one of these gentle gardeners through her plantings, was to know an epitome of her life. This rose-bush, with the loosely petalled blossoms offered to June and then withdrawn to wait for another Longest Day, was from a slip Great-grandfather had carried into the Western wilderness when he left the old home, soon after the Revolution, to make a new home for the girl he loved, and for whose sake he cherished it through all the widowed years he bore with cheerfulness and courage, until he went to join Great-grandmother, who had been fifty years in heaven. These great pink mallows were from seed brought into that fearful West before the Eighteenth Century had closed its sad drama of exile. The Sweet Williams were from Mary, who had been so long « away." The little rosy daisies, the tulips, the daffodils, the blue flags, the yellow cowslips, the pink rockets, the rose campion, the Japan quince bush, the Prairie Queen above the porch, the honeysuckles, the lilacs, the syringas, the heartsease, the sweet peas — each had its story. None had been bought with money ; each was the gift of love, and those were gardens to remember.

Of the Main Street the Court-house was the heart. Built after some dim suggestion of the ideas of Sir Christopher Wren, its pretty white bell tower rose above a colonnade of white pine pillars which showed between the green of many trees. Its bell was used on court days, for fires, for political meetings, and for news from the front in the terrible days of the Civil War, when almost every man capable of bearing arms was standing before the guns. Midnight or midnoon, if over the wires came tidings of victory or of defeat, the bell called the Villagers to hear the message. What tears fell, as a woman, whose heart was broken, turned amid the respectful silence of her neighbors who were his friends, to walk back to the home which was darkened forever! What shouts of joy arose when good news came, and how swiftly up to the top of the tall flag-staff went the most beautiful flag that floats ! Far over the Village trees the country folk could see the sign of triumph ; and the boy at the plough, or the old man at his window, could rejoice that peace was one day nearer to the land he loved, however dearly peace must cost.

About the Court-house stood the little shops where the ladies went in the Spring and Fall to buy the heavy black silks for state occasions, or the warm brown merinos or delicate prints and fine cotton stuflFs with which their simple tastes were pleased in those simple days. The dressmaker who made their gowns and the milliner who trimmed their velvet or net bonnets, or decorated the flapping hats which adorned the heads of their children, were ladies themselves, and quite incapable of smiling at the little economies of making over gowns, or of freshening up bonnets with a new rose or a new plume. What beautiful French roses those were, and what rich plumes ! The ladies of the Village tolerated nothing but the best, and would have stood aghast at the offerings of a modern bargain counter. There are no ladies now like those who wore those delicate undersleeves and collars of convent needlework, and in whose glossy hair were such lovely combs of tortoise-shell.

On the side streets stood the Churches with green blinded windows, and with rows of posts outside to which country horses were tied during the long hours of service. Not to go to Church was a thing not to be dreamed of among people of standing, or even of no standing at all.

0 pleasant summer Sabbaths, when all the Village bells rang in brotherly chimings regardless of doctrinal differences and the Village folk fared forth into the shady streets ! O pleasant sound of holy hymns, wafted through the open windows ! O fervent voices lifted in fervent prayer, and in the long expositions of the texts ! O sweet stillness of the sunshine, so different in its aspect from everyday sunshine that even without the bells and the stiffly starched collars and petticoats the youngest child must have known that it was Sunday, and O the long, long blossomy Sunday afternoons !

Schoolhouses ? Certainly there were Schoolhouses, but these were melancholy, uninteresting places whither one was forced to go for long, unprofitable hours, but of which no normal child would willingly think directly those hours were over. There were so many things to do that were really important, it was hardly to be expected that any one would cherish any affection for those daily prisons ; so in the children's minds they did not stand for a tithe of what the smallest workshop, where things were made, stood for.

By a great good fortune the nicest workingmen in the whole world chose the Village as the scene of their beneficent lives — a really very superior race of workingmen, whom all children loved. There were, first of all, the Blacksmiths whose shop was just across the street from Oak House, where the Doctor lived. Glowing iron was beaten there into whatever form the strong-armed smith willed — cling, clang, the hammer fell rhythmically on the anvil, while arms, strong and black, worked at the bellows in the murky depths of the smithy in which fires glowed with a glow unknown to other fires. There was nothing particular to be gotten from the Blacksmith's, although sometimes the boys secured an old horse-shoe, or a few thickish nails which they did not know exactly what to do with. In general, the Village children had the primal acquisitiveness of their race, and frankly liked people or went to places with an honest eye for what they hoped to receive ; but from the forge they asked only the smoking fire, the clangor of hammer and anvil, and the pleasant consciousness of the strength of Smiths themselves who ranked high in their regard.

There was the foundry, which had a shrill whistle by which the workman's hours were measured. Children might not cross the foundry threshold, however agreeable they might have found it to look at the great shafts and boilers that were making, or to watch the whirl of belts and wheels. Now and then some grimy Foundryman was thoughtful enough to bring out a gift of long coils of steel shavings, — fascinating, desirable above all things, — but not really very useful after all ; or, better by far, he would give the boys a lump of moulding clay. Marbles could be rolled of this, and baked in the kitchen stove, if the cook were willing ; and although these never came to anything, and the boys had plenty of marbles without them, few things do fulfil the expectations formed for them. In this life it is the game which is the great thing, not the winning. The Foundrymen were, therefore, persons to be held in great esteem, and there could be no greater pleasure than to watch the flare of the furnace flames as they were unfurled in fiery banners above the tall chimneys, or the swarms of sparks — the fire-flies of Winter — whirl out of the black funnels, and die out in the cold night air.

A very delightful set of Carpenters also inhabited the Village. Under their benches were shavings, so fine and soft that it was a pity one had hair at all, such fine wigs could have been made of them. Among the shavings the Carpenters were wont to throw bits of wood, squares, triangles, oblongs, sometimes even bits that had been turned on a lathe, and were curled or beaded; and all these treasures the kindly craftsmen made free to the children, who might fill hats and aprons and pockets to-day, and come back to-morrow for fresh stores if they liked. Hammers and saws, augurs and chisels and gimlets, and all sorts of interesting shiny things hung against the shop wall. One was even allowed sometimes to hold the spirit-level, and watch the bubble of imprisoned air come and go. That was not often, for one was taught at home not to ask questions, or to be troublesome ; but how could one help loving the Carpenters who knew how to use the curious tools, and who were so kind ? The children had heard often and often of a Boy who, long, long ago, had worked in the carpenter shop of Joseph, and sometimes they almost expected, in the dim halfknowledge through which children grope, that He might come in, and that they might see Him take the plane, and curl the wood into white shavings as He made a yoke which should be easy for the oxen to wear.

It has been said that picket-fences stood along the Village streets, but it has not been told why they were there to guard the pretty frontyards. It was because of the cows. Everybody had a cow, and after the morning milking — a function usually performed at the side gate where the border of grass was cropped close by the waiting creatures — they were turned forth, and were free to wander whither their own wills led them, until nightfall brought them back to the milking-pails once more. It was pleasant for the cows, so pleasant that the boys had often to lay aside very important things in order to hunt and to harry home delinquent beasts ; but it was not so pleasant for the Villagers, who, although taking their own share in the privilege, only permitted the custom because of the German Vote, — an unseen thing, greatly desired and greatly feared, and which depended largely upon the German cows. The cows themselves seemed quite conscious of their political importance, and thought nothing of staring the stateliest ladies in the face, or of being quite grumpy if the Minister or the Judge poked them in the sides with canes. To the children the cows were of all creatures the most fearsome, and in the adventures of their quiet lives figured much as lions might in those of small Numidians. Dark stories were told of certain animals supposed to be of a peculiarly vicious and hooky nature. The boys told these tales, and so frightened the little girls that to them all cows were hooky, and the Old Orchard as terrible as the Inferno.

Now it was in the Old Orchard that the cows did mostly congregate, — and no wonder. The Old Orchard was an unf enced tract, whereon grew some rows of ancient cherry and apple trees. In the Springtime these were veritable Bowres of Blisse, for as soon as the April sunshine gave them leave, the cherry trees hid themselves in garments of bloom so white, so sweet, that it was not strange that every bee for miles around came singing to the feast they offered, and murmured in the snowy flower-cups a song so won. derful that only the smallest children had hearts pure enough to understand it. And they never told it, and if they had no Grown-up could have known what it meant.

After the cherries had shaken down their bloom in showers of perfumed snow, the apple trees took up the joyful task of making the old orchard into a fairy-land. For the most of the year they relied upon gray lichens or green leaves to deck themselves withal ; but when May came laughing over the prairie, they had their week of enchanted youth once more. They were white, they were gray, they were pink, they were silver-green in a wonderful varying scale of color which no other apple trees ever knew. Nobody expected any fruit from them ; the little they did bear was too hard and knotty for even the hardiest, hungriest boy, so the boughs could be rifled of their bloom at will, and there might not have been a pink petal left to fall on the close-cropped sward below but for the cows, who lay in the pleasant shade, and by their mere presence kept the children at bay.

Sometimes there were sheep, but not often, and when there were sheep it was Summer. Where they came from, whither they went, who knew ? There would be a cry, « Sheep ! sheep ! " and the picket-fences would straightway be alive with perching children. There would be a thick cloud of dust in the distance, then a sound of bleating in many tones of complaint, from the loud one of the old horned patriarch who led the flock, to the sorrowful, soft ba-a-ing of the weaklegged lambs. Then there would be the sound of many feet ; then the full view of a closely packed drove of many hot, woolly bodies ; the slow calls of the men who guided the flock ; the sharp barkings of the anxious sheep-dog ; the warm scent of the tired animals, a diminishing scale of soft minor sounds ; the gradual disappearance of the dust cloud, a thick-quilted pattern wrought by a multitude of little feet in the deep midsummer's dust, and then the children would vanish also, and the deep peace of the day fall once more upon the place.

One's own relations and particular friends were, of course, of the first importance in one's view of the inhabitants of the Village ; but besides these there were no end of interesting people who lived in odd corners. Perhaps had the children known these persons, they would not have been so wonderful as they were when they only looked at them, and thought about them, and spoke of them to one another. There was the old gentleman who was called the Major. He was tall and spare, his hair and whiskers were very white, and the skin on his delicate old face was very pink. Was it always, or only sometimes, that he wore an Indian suit of white buckskin ? It seemed to be always, but maybe it was only sometimes, just as it seemed as if it were always that pink damask roses bloomed under his old wife's window. Anyhow, there were leathern fringes around his blouse and down the legs of his trousers, and on the blouse there was a belt and many pockets. He wore a wide felt hat and looked very fierce and warlike, although the only occupation of his life seemed to be going once a day to the Postofiice to get his paper.

A little old Englishwoman was also a very delightful person. Where did she live ? The children never knew. Out of the sunshine she came, and into it she went — that was all. Ages before the era of short skirts, her skirts were so short that they showed her neat prunella shoes and a glimpse of spotless hose. A shawl of the same black stuff as her gown was pinned over her shoulders in such a way as to display the fine lawn kerchief crossed on her bosom. On her head was a close little black poke bonnet with a little white frill inside, and a stiff little cape behind. She walked with the daintiest steps, and when she saw one's mother she dropped a courtesy. No one in all the Village did this homage but this tiny, dainty English body, and that one bit of Old World manners would have given her distinction even without the basket, which gave her more. A strong, light basket with a cover and a handle. From under the cover the edges and corners of a snowy-white napkin could be seen. What was in the basket ? The children never knew, but it was a subject for endless speculation, and it was generally conceded that something to eat, of a more than earthly flavor, was hidden by that lid.

The little German-French woman, whom they all called " Grossmutter," was no stranger to any child, but was the friend of all. In her garden, beside the flowers and vegetables they knew, were good-smelling herbs of many strange kinds. She always carried a bit folded in with her best handkerchief inside her hymn book when she went to Church, and she let the little visitors help themselves to the fragrant sprigs whenever they would. A willow grew beside her well, the best willow for whistle-making that ever grew anywhere, and she let the boys climb and cut among its branches as much as they liked while she sat below with her little spinningwheel, and whirled and drew the thread in the sunshine. Her large dark eyes and brown skin, her nervous motions and her quick sympathies, were " made in France," but her speech was of Germany. She had some charming stories of her native Alsace, and could even remember the great Napoleon and his army when they marched through the province in 1814. Her mother hid her and her pretty elder sister in the flax that was drying in a smoky loft above the cottage kitchen, and Grossmutter could remember taking her turn in peeping through a knot-hole in the floor, and seeing her mother bending over the fire as she cooked for the hungry soldiers who came and went during all the long hours of her imprisonment.

Sometimes the streets were enlivened by pageants that lived long in memories which had not much to remember. A Circus might come to town, or the Firemen might have a parade, or, best of all, there were the political processions that always came in October, Of course those of the political party to which one was affiliated was of the more vital interest, and the small politicians were deeply versed in the proper number of bands, the representations from various country neighborhoods and election precincts, and the general amount of enthusiasm proper on such occasions. To have one more band playing the national airs ; a dozen more horseback-riders, or even an extra illustrative " float " than could be shown by the opposing faction, was essential to the honor of the candidates one was supporting with frantic wavings of the flag, and jeering flings at boys of the " other side " who stood on corners with tongues derisively extended, or sneering smiles and pointing, scornful fingers. On election days, which seemed shortl}'^ to follow in the wake of a Parade, — when little girls were compelled to walk to school by way of back streets, in order to avoid the highly interesting fights sure to occur about the polls, — it was almost a law that each child have a printed ballot pinned to its jacket or pinafore, and many and scathing were the taunts flung next day at the adherents of the cause that was lost.

The Village itself is lost now, and almost all of the men and women — yes — and the children, too, who lived there in the sweet old days, have fared for the last time over the long roadway that leads to the still God's-acre, and have crept under the green coverlet into the silence where they have found all they ever longed for. Before it is too late, one of them w^ould fain hand on to another generation some of the brightness of longlost years, and so, without further preface begins the story of a little group of children who lived in the Village of the Day before Yesterday.

Chapter II

To Rachel the Village was the whole of the great, round world. There were, she knew, other places to which people sometimes went, and from which they sometimes came, but they were vague and unimportant. Father went to them sometimes, and Mother had been, but not often, and not since Rachel could remember. Perhaps it was because they had no time for travel ; perhaps it was because they liked staying in the Village best : this was the more probable reason, since it was, undoubtedly, place enough for any sensible person. Still there was Virginia, where Grandmother had been a little girl, and of which her stories were so many and so fascinating, and there was Ohio, which had been the family stepping-stone for a generation, in its following of the sun. These, first and best. Then there were France and Holland, where other and older grandparents had been born ;

and Ireland and Scotland, which had been home to others; and there was Boston, where an everso-many-years-ago great-grandfather had been whipped at the cart's tail for being a Quaker. Rachel was very glad the family had left off being Quakers. She liked dear Mother's white horsehair bonnet trimmed with lace, and with cherries of a most wonderful cherryness, far better than the plain head-gear old Mrs. Dale wore, and she would have cried her eyes out to see dear Father whipped at the cart's tail ; so the family religion suited her, as did, in all things, that place in life to which it had pleased God to call her. The other places were, moreover, probably not very far off, — Bagdad, the Sand-hills of Jutland, the Alhambra, the Island of Cyprus, and all the adventurous, glittering, perfumed blossomy fairy-land in which her thoughts spent most of their time. The people who walked about the quiet Village streets were hardly more real to her than the knights and ladies, the trolls and witches, the giants and fairies, of her imagination, and were, indeed, by that same imagination invested with attributes and characters, and bidden to perform deeds by her wild fancies of which they were wholly unaware. Many staid and respectable men figured before her as monsters of a most monstrous wickedness, and were attainted by her of crimes of magnitude ; and many poor but pretty girls were decked out, in her eyes, in jewels of price and robes of regal magnificence ; while to wear ugly clothes and have unlovely manners were quite enough to relegate anybody at all to the realm of witchcraft.

It was, therefore, with feelings of horror that Rachel heard her doom.

" My dear," said the Doctor's Wife, " I have taken my changeable silk dress to the Misses Tucker to be made over for you. They will be ready to try it on you at ten o'clock this morning, and you must start by half-past nine. Mind you do not play along the street, and behave prettily and quietly while you are there,"

The Misses Tucker ! Didn't dear Mother know that they were the worst of all the witches ? Even Sophy Jane was afraid of them, and Sophy Jane was almost twelve.

« Oh, Mother, won't you go with me ? "

" No, my dear ; I cannot spare the time.'*

« Mayn't Dick and Daffy go ? "

Dick interposed : —

« To the Miss Tucker-Girls ? Not much ! "

" Daffy may go if you will not make the little thing run, or let her fall down. Now, Rachel, stop frowning. You are to go, and you are to go properly. I do not wish to hear anything more about it."

At half-past nine Rachel's hat was firmly adjusted to her head, and the elastic cord that held it on was snapped into place by the relentless Tutu. Tutu was the nurse. Daffy's pretty curls w^ere twitched into place by the same tiring-maid but with gentler hands. The gum string that held on her hat was too tight, and marked her round throat with a deep crease. The ringlets were adjusted in a way that tickled her ears in a manner very distasteful to the little girl. She never thought of protesting. Tutu always did things so ; probably there was no other way. Daffy was not speculative ; she was only patient.

Tutu opened the front door. Just inside the gate stood the Cousins. Molly held a note in her hand.

" We've come to stay until twelve o'clock," they announced. "Mother sent this letter to Aunt Kitty, and everybody is invited to the Old

House to spend the day to-morrow. There's going to be a Show in the Old Orchard."

The Cousins lived in the Old House with Grandfather and Grandmother and the Aunts. The other grandparents, those who lived at Linwood, were called Grandpa and Grandma, and though the Doctor's children loved all of the dear old people most tenderly, it was to Grandmother and Grandpa that their hearts turned for the kindliest sympathy and the readiest aid in time of trouble. So to go to Grandpa's at Linwood, or to Grandmother's at the Old House, was an event of most joyful importance.

"Oh, Tutu," gasped Rachel, "do you suppose the Miss Tucker-Girls will have my new dress done by then ? "

" Indeed they won't, and if they did, do you think I'd let you go gallivanting about all day with it on your back ? It'll be your Sunday-goto-meeting for one long day, and Daffy's after you've outgrown it if there's anything left of it but rags, which there mostly isn't of your things," said the severe Canadian, who would have died cheerfully for any one of her charges (especially Dick, and especially Daffy), but w^ho felt it to be part of her duty toward them to keep their feet set sternly in the narrow way. " Run along now, all of you. I am going to make pies this morning, and you shall each have a little turnover when you come back, if you're good,"

That sounded encouraging, and four were better than two if an assault on the witches' den were inevitable ; so they set off rather cheerfully, after all.

It was a long way to the little cottage. It had but one story, but it had two front doors : one for use, and one before which was no doorstep, no path, and no gate, and which was never opened — a most mysterious door. A row of small-paned windows stretched between these doors, and over these grew mouldy lilac bushes shutting out the northern light from the clean little rooms within. Even now, when the year was at high lilac-tide, only a few pale clusters bloomed on the ancient bushes, and the fragrance of these was shut out from the house by the firmly closed sashes. How could people shut out the scent of the lilacs?