The romance of Fiddler's green

Front matter

2 RS he

THE ROMANGCE.OFP’.

| \ Se nm A dramahe and appealing. At ehiigh shadow. The love between the ie Junk Faayve es wi pt \Kent, and Myrtle Stcne, — his gatden ‘of oldtasle sgn baad eh eg oned flowers full of symbolic meanings, where the... a circle of bright-hued marigolds. stands for eternity, | Co Oe aaa Jand the lilies and larkspur for Purity and Wisdom — enn Jall bring the reader into the warm sunshine. But the Hamid iia \erux of the story is the birth of a soul in the handsome ne’er-do-weel of the countryside. Zeke Stone, Bite ins rutal, evasive, yet possessing a peculiar charm for — i he country maidens, jilts his bride-to-be — the pretttiest girl that danced on Fiddler’s Green — on the ery day of the wedding, and with such studied crue), elty as to cause her death. He escapes the revenge — planned for him by’ the infuriated villagers, and at) oe | he end of two Ye Ks he secretly returns under cover iN? ! a) pt night. Unde. @ influence of fear mixed with a _ jsudden emotion regret, a light dawns within him: jand leads up toa Climax that is vividly and force-| | ully ee

Preface

FippLER’s GREEN was the name of an old tavern in Bolton, Massachusetts, bordering the Nashua Valley, where an aged fiddler fiddled for the country folk.

The tavern has long since disappeared, but the author knows where it was situated, having been told of it by some of the oldest inhabitants.

In the character of Brother Simeon the symbolism of the old-time Shakers is portrayed, especially in the planting of the garden and in the potent meaning attributed to the true name.

Bt Ty et

‘CONTENTS

Introduction

. Tue DANcE AT FIpDLER’s GREEN

. Toe Weppine Day

. “THE TREES 0’ THE WOOD REJOICE” . PLANTING THE GARDEN 0’ DELIGHT . Tae PHAntom VoIcE

. Toe Return

. Myrtie’s Pricut

. THE DELEGATION FROM THE Mretinc-House . Tue Lost SHEEP

. Routine THE DEVIL

120 14] 157 182 204 228

INTRODUCTION»

FIppLER’s GREEN — verdant spot by the Nashua Valley — where the feet of those long since gone have danced to the fiddler’s tune! Happy hours of relaxation from daily toil; tender hours when hand pressed hand and lads with eager eyes sought a glance from their sweethearts! Young feet dancing — old feet joining in at slower pace; up and down the green and round and round they tread the measure. And the crescent moon looks down, and the pink glow behind the mountains fades. The evening shadows wrap themselves around the warm blossoming earth, the fireflies glimmer over the surface of the meadows and in and out of the pine woods, and over the smooth turf of Fiddler’s Green the feet of the dancers dance to the tune of the fiddle!

Days long passed, cramped old fingers pressing the strings and scraping the bow, quaint old tunes, happy laughter and merry voices and dancing feet — where have they gone?

The ardent love, the romance, the simple pleasures, the passions of youth and age, the leaping fires of joy, the searing flames of envy and hate, the steady glow of deep-rooted aspirations hidden in the hearts of the dancers — where have they gone?

_, They have not wholly gone.

Those who through quickened fancy can tune their x INTRODUCTION ears to the faint vibrations of former days will still feel the thrill of them and catch the sound of the receding voices.

If on a summer’s evening, dear Reader, when the air grows cool and the earth is giving forth her fragrance, you should chance to pass by Fiddler’s Green, who knows but you also might catch an echo from long-since broken fiddle-strings!

CLARA ENDICOTT SEARS

Chapter I The Dance At Fiddler’s Green

Hi! come, Susan and Annie and Jane! Twist about Nelly and turn me again! Skip down the center and point your toes plain! Twirl with your partner and bow to the same! Turn your partner about!

Shake your right foot out!

Turn your partner about!

All hands round !

THE dance was in full swing on Fiddler’s Green. Seed-sowing time was at its height and the moon was crescent. Year in and year out as the season returned, just after sundown if the weather was fine, hay carts filled with young folk, and farm wagons and sometimes a buggy or two filled with the older ones, could be seen driving over the country roads all heading for the Green. A rapid interchange of pleasantries shot from wagon to wagon as they passed on the road. It was: “Say, Rube, your old mare won’t get there in time — you'll lose the dance!”

Or it was: “‘Look at Jennie with her hair all crimped and fixed up so’s to capture Si Whalen!” Then laughter would follow.

But when the Green that spread out in front of the tavern was reached and the horses were hitched to the trees near by, and the lantern which each guest was expected to bring was hung on a post so that the flickering rays might help to lighten the scene, a change came over the older members of the crowd in direct contrast to the jovial banter of the trip along the road. They entered the dance with restrained and sober deportment and with upper lips held firmly down as though denying all untoward inclinations toward frivolity. But behind this poor attempt at austerity lurked the keen anticipation of enjoyment, and with elaborate twistings and turnings and powerful elbow and knee motion respectable farmers with their attendant wives came prancing down the center of the “‘reel,’’ hand in hand, twirling with those at the right of them, and then with those at the left, then joining hands again and twirling each other. And in their wake followed the young folk, but the youth flowing in their veins refused to be held at bay, and the snatch of a song or a burst of merriment bubbled forth into the spring evening as back and forth, up and down, and round and round they circled Fiddler’s Green.

Turn your partner about!

Shake your right foot out!

Turn your partner about!

All hands round !

Old Abel Stone, the fiddler, shouting the measures and stamping his foot on the ground to mark the _time, sawed mercilessly upon his fiddle.

“Playing fine to-night, ain’t he!” exclaimed one of the onlookers — “and not to be wondered at neither, for that matter —”

**How’s that?” queried his neighbor.

“Have n’t you heard? Why, that rapscallion of a son o’ his— Zeke Stone—that ne’er-do-weel— that mischief-making good-for-nothing’s going to marry Reuben Gates’s daughter! The whole place is stirred up over it!”

“Zeke Stone! Going to marry that pretty girl! Ain’t he the lad the boys put into pretty bad shape once?”

“The very same,’”’ assented the first speaker, whose name was Asa Randall; “‘I guess he don’t forget it — ’t ain’t likely he does —”

“Treated him pretty bad, I should n’t wonder?” suggested his companion with some show of curiosity.

“It’s more’n a wonder he’s alive,” retorted Asa. *‘Seems as though you can’t kill them kind any more’n you can cats! Why, he’d been raising Cain round this neighborhood until folks were well-nigh worn out keeping their eyes on him! He was up to some deviltry from one week’s end to another, and there were n’t a soul here knew when they woke up in the morning what they’d find had happened overnight! There was old Miss Jarvis that lives in the yellow house with the big elm next it on the Still

River road. She found all her best setting hens strung up in a row on the clothes-line when she looked out 0’ her door one Monday morning! There was Deacon Willard, he found his newborn heifer calf dead as a door nail set up against the side o’ the barn with an old nightcap tied on its head and a couple o’ mittens on its front hoofs. More’n that— there was the Deacon’s top boots on the hind ones if you'll believe it! And though there ain’t a soul round here but knows it’s Zeke Stone does these things, you can’t catch him at it no more’n you could a flea — he’s so quick! Worse’n that, he takes notions to invent ways 0’ scaring folks most sick. He made a trap that might work as kind of a man trap, I take it, and he set it out in the pasture and who should get her foot caught in it but old Widow Barnes! She was held up there for one whole night — could n’t set nor yet stand, and she was found on her knees resting beast o burden fashion! It gave her nerves a shock and she was doctoring for months afterwards. Some say the devil’s got a hold o’ him, and others question whether his head ain’t touched.

*“But when he come to keeping company with a little girl named Lydia Davis that lives over Shirley way, and jilted her without so much as saying why, and she left with a sick mother to cry her eyes out and no relatives to stand back of her and see her done fairly by, the boys got their blood up, and one o’ the coldest nights in February, two or three years ago, they went to fiddler Stone’s house and took Zeke in his nightshirt to the graveyard, and dumped him into the snow and left him to get back as best he could. There ain’t many could ha’ stood it with the thermometer round zero, but he came out of it somehow—TI’ve heard, though, he appeared kind o’ seedy for some time after. *"T was hard on the fiddler, seeing he’s his only son; and it come hard on his mother and sister too — I’m told Zeke Stone’s the apple of his mother’s eye for all his deviltry. Seems she took on about it something terrible. “Tis strange how that kind have a way o’ getting round the women-folks — and Sarah Stone’s a hard woman too!” |

At that moment a third neighbor joined them. It was Josh Willis, the blacksmith.

“We were talking about Zeke Stone marrying Eunice Gates,” explained Asa Randall, turning to him. “How'do you size it up, Josh, that a girl like that one can marry a good-for-nothing like Zeke?”

The blacksmith pursed up his mouth. “I don’t waste time doing head work over such matters,”’ he protested. “It’s beyond you and it’s beyond me. I’ve heard the girl’s daft about him — won’t listen to anything they try to tell her about him. Seems her mother and her brother Jason ha’ done all they could to keep ’em apart, but ’t was no use — the girl would have him, no matter what. They’re scared to go further cause she’s a delicate little thing — looks as though a breath o’ wind might blow her away. Look out —there’s Jason Gates now, looking as though he was mad clear through!”

The others turned to look at the young man as he passed. He did not appear to see them, as his attention was riveted upon the open door of the tavern. They watched him walk quickly toward it and lean up against a post close by as though waiting for some one.

Presently a loud, penetrating laugh rang out through the open windows. It dominated the sound of the fiddle and the noise made by the dancers, and almost immediately Zeke Stone appeared in the doorway.

He was hardly above medium height and he walked with a loose-jointed, slouching gait that invariably produced an unfavorable impression, but his face had a distinct claim to a certain kind of beauty, and there was no denying it. To a keen observer, however, the shifting, restless eyes revealed something irresponsible and unstable. There was a mocking look in the face and a certain slyness, but back of that was something more — something that was puzzling and disquieting; and it was this intangible something more than anything else about him that aroused the antagonism of the more direct and simple-minded lads of the countryside.

As animals will resent and take exception to something in one of their kind which man is not sensible of, and will turn on the creature to destroy it, so the men of the place felt when they came in contact with Zeke Stone. A wave of protest had swept through the neighborhood when it was learned that frail, sweet-faced Eunice Gates had given her heart to him.

As the men watched him pass out of the tavern, they noticed that Jason Gates turned and followed him.

““Come on nearer the dance,” said Asa Randall; and they moved close to fiddler Stone who was calling out the steps and scraping his bow on the worn-out strings of his old fiddle —

Hi! come, Susan and Annie and Jane, Twist about Nelly and turn me again! Skip down the center and point your toes plain! Twirl with your partner and bow to the same! Turn your partner about! * Shake your right foot out! —

A murmur of curiosity and excitement arose from the dancers and a faint clapping of hands was heard as down the center of the “‘reel’” came the sweet, dainty bride-to-be, delicate Eunice Gates, with one hand holding out her flowered muslin petticoat and the other held high in the clasp of her lover.

Tripping over the smooth grass with the lightness of a whisp of thistledown, her slender feet twinkling in time to the tune, she looked like a fairy born of a dream more than a maiden of flesh and blood.

Many a lad looked at her wistfully and felt a twinge of envy toward the lucky partner. But

Eunice looked up at Zeke as she danced and her eyes shone and her lips smiled.

It was spoken of many times afterwards.

“Say, look at Zeke Stone; you don’t take it he’s been drinking, do you?” Josh Willis asked the question suddenly.

“Why — no—I guess not,” answered Asa Randall, slowly scrutinizing the young man more closely; “I guess he’d be scared to do that so near the wedding day — seems as though he would — what made you ask?”

‘‘He don’t seem to be acting right somehow for a man who’s dancing with his bride-to-be! He don’t seem to be answering the sweet looks she’s giving him! He don’t act as though he saw ’em!”

What Josh Willis said was true— Zeke Stone’s manner was offhand and evasive. Not but that he danced with vim and energy, swinging his body rhythmically and throwing his legs out with skillful agility, but it was noticeable that his eyes wandered from the pretty, upturned face beside him to the other girls dancing in the reel, as though he sought their glances. A self-conscious vanity seemed to possess him, as though he imagined the notice of the crowd was focused on him instead of on his graceful partner.

Few of the onlookers stopped to*consider him, however. It was Eunice Gates they were looking at,

—pretty, frail, delicate Eunice Gates,— and the bright flush on her cheeks and the brilliancy of her eyes betrayed her childlike delight in being the center of attraction.

Turn your partner about!

All hands round / shouted fiddler Stone, exultantly happy. Every one joined hands —and a circle of eager dancers swung round and round over the green and again round and round until they nearly dropped, exhausted and breathless.

When the music stopped, they formed in line to begin the reel again. At that moment a young girl broke away from the others and ran up to Eunice to kiss her cheek.

“That’s Myrtle Stone, the fiddler’s daughter,” remarked Asa Randall, as though the others did not know her and had not seen her from childhood up.

After watching the two girls for a moment Josh Willis turned his head toward his companions:

“Strange how two born o’ the same folks ’Il come so different,” he remarked. “Myrtle Stone’s as sweet and sightly a girl as you’d find anywhere. You’d never know her for Zeke Stone’s sister. I guess likely fiddler Stone takes comfort in her.”

While the friends were thus talking about her, Myrtle was squeezing Eunice’s hands and whispering in her ear:

“Oh, Eunice, only a few days more and you'll be my sister! Oh, Eunice, you'll be the loveliest bride any one ever saw — you will, indeed, and, oh my! won’t Zeke be proud! He’s the luckiest man alive! — Is the wedding gown ready?”

**All but the sleeves!” answered Eunice excitedly, her pretty dimples showing in her cheeks. “ Wait till you see how pretty it is, Myrtle! — and the veil has come! — it came in a box this morning! My fingers trembled so when I opened it I could hardly get the string untied!”

She laughed as she said this and the laugh turned into a cough that shook her slender frame from head to foot.

“The slippers came too,” she added when she had recovered herself — “‘and they fit fine! Aunt Johanna Priest is coming over to-morrow with the wreath o” orange blossoms — and then I guess I’ll be all ready.”

A cloud of anxiety swept over Myrtle’s face when she heard the cough.

“You go home now, Eunice— don’t stay here! You’re tired from working so hard to get the gown ready. You want to feel fine on the wedding day — remember that!”

“Oh, I shall—never you fear,” laughed the pretty bride-to-be, showing her dimples again. The color in her cheeks was heightened and her eyes were very brilliant. Myrtle felt the girl’s pulse jumping under the hand she had laid on her wrist.

“You go home now and rest yourself, Eunice darling,” she urged insistently. But Eunice laughed again.

‘““I want to enjoy every moment now —I don’t want to lose any bit of it. You just wait till your turn comes and you’ll feel the same, Myrtle, — see if you don’t!”” And she flashed a smile at Zeke and drew him into the dance again.

The reel was just starting afresh and the fiddle strings were almost snapping from the energy with which fiddler Stone scraped his bow.

Hi! come, Susan and Annie and Jane! Twist about Nelly and turn me again! Skip down the center and point your toes plain! Twirl with your partner and bow to the same! Turn your partner about!

Shake your right foot out! — and down the center of the reel came the pretty little fairylike Eunice Gates again, flushed and radiant and pointing her toes, with her hand held high in the clasp of the lad she was going to marry.

From the group of onlookers Jason Gates’s eyes were fixed on Zeke Stone. |

Father,’ whispered Myrtle in the fiddler’s ear sometime later, — ‘‘father — come home now — it’s late, and Eunice is still dancing— and her cough sounds bad. She’ll be ill if she don’t rest — and the wedding so near! Father, come home—there’s a good father!”

But when the fiddler stopped, the dancers would not let him go— it must be one more dance! — and then just one more! They surged around him protesting until he would give in and start again.

Turn your partner about!

Shake your right foot out!

Turn your partner about!

All hands round !

And then the circle of dancers, all holding hands, would sway and whirl up and down the green and round and round until exhausted, laughing louder now as the hours flew by and the pleasure of the dance sifted into the blood.

“Is there aught amiss, Myrtle? — You’ve come out o’ the reel!”

Myrtle Stone looked up quickly into the face of a tall lad with honest brown eyes that were earnestly questioning hers.

“John,” she answered — “John Kent —I don’t know what'll happen to Eunice if father don’t stop fiddling! Seems as though she’d got a-going and could n’t stop her feet from dancing, and she’s most ‘ready to drop! And — I don’t know what to make of Zeke — I can’t think why he don’t see she’d ought to go home! She can’t laugh but she starts to coughing — and they close onto the wedding day!”’

John laughed reassuringly. “‘ Maybe she’s so happy she can’t keep still, Myrtle, — some feel like that. I’m told she’s plumb daft over Zeke! Don’t you worry, Myrtle — she'll be all right. ’T is strange what a girl can stand when her heart’s full o’ happiness — some day you’ll feel the same.”

But Myrtle shook her head. “That’s what Eunice says, but ’t would n’t be that way with me. Maybe I’m too serious minded — folks have told me so; but I was born that way and it can’t be helped. I’d want to be quiet and understand my happiness — that’s the way I’d feel. Where’s Jason Gates? He’d ought to take Eunice home if Zeke don’t!”

John looked over at the dancers. “I’ve seen him go up to her and beg her to stop, but she and Zeke turned their backs on him. It don’t do to interfere with sweethearts. You get naught but trouble for your pains, take my word for it.”” And John laughed again as though trying to reassure her.

Just then two women passed by who were talking of the approaching wedding. They did not see Myrtle, who was standing in the shadow of the tavern.

*“‘I hope she knows the risk she’s running — poor thing!” said one. “He ain’t to be trusted, no matter what. I can’t help thinking to-night of Lydia Davis —’t was only two years ago she looked to him for happiness — but she did n’t get it —”

They passed on, and Myrtle caught her breath as the chance remark stabbed her like a knife. She turned impulsively toward John Kent — “Zeke loves Eunice with all his heart, John — you wait and see how good he’ll be to her. Zeke’ll be all right when he settles down and leaves off trying to plague folks. We look to Eunice to make a fine man o’ him. Oh, I want every one to see how good and fine he’ll be — poor Zeke!”’

The words choked in Myrtle’s throat as she uttered them, but she managed to speak them out, nevertheless. Her evident distress appealed to John Kent’s heart. “’T’ was mighty mean you heard what that woman said —I swear it was,” he asserted, to show his sympathy. ‘‘Women-folk’ll talk wherever you find °em —there’s no way o’ stopping ‘em. But they don’t mean half they say. Here comes Eunice now!”

Jason Gates was half supporting his sister on one side while Zeke Stone held her other elbow as they came away from the dance. The girl was as white now as the anemones growing in the woods near by, and her graceful head drooped on one side like a flower on the delicate stem of her throat. But she laughed defiantly as Myrtle ran up to her and questioned her anxiously.

“It’s nothing at all, you silly thing—I just danced my feet off — that’s all—and I’m glad I did! —I want to enjoy every moment! I don’t want one to pass by without I enjoy it! — I’ve got all to-morrow to rest in.”

Myrtle glanced up at Jason’s face. His mouth was firmly set and an expression of intense dislike was in his eyes as he looked across at Zeke Stone.

“You can’t go up against her—there’s no use trying,” he muttered in a low voice to Myrtle. “‘She’s bound to have her own way — I’ve said all I could!”’ As he said this, Eunice drooped still more, but she recovered herself almost immediately.

**Zeke and I are going to have a wonderfully happy time when we’re married,” she said, glancing quickly from one to the other — “‘Zeke’s so funny and has such queer notions — he makes me laugh all the time — don’t you, Zeke?”’ And she leaned her head confidingly against his shoulder.

As he did not answer, Myrtle looked at her brother —a, startled expression sweeping over her face. Zeke’s eyes had a cunning look in them and it was evident that his thoughts were absorbed by something quite outside the present situation. She felt a sudden contraction around her heart.

“Why, Zeke— whatever ails you? Don’t you hear Eunice talking about how ’t will be when you’re man and wife?”’ Her voice sounded almost harsh as she asked the question in order to cover over his unseemly abstraction.

He shook himself and looked embarrassed. ‘‘Eunice dances like a fairy — I always said she did!”’ he remarked hastily and with a certain bravado.

“Why, Zeke!” protested Myrtle — but Eunice gave a little laugh, full of confidence — his praise of - her dancing delighted her.

“Oh, yes,’ she asserted again, nodding her small, tired head — “‘we’re going to be wonderfully happy.”

The hours had sped swiftly by and the dancers were beginning to disperse. Here and there lanterns were being unhooked from the posts and the creaking of departing vehicles and the sound of retreating voices mingled with the music of the fiddle. A few moments later, Myrtle stood watching Jason Gates lift Eunice into a buggy while Zeke held the horse by the bit. She noticed that the girl seemed to collapse into a little crumpled heap from the effort she made to reach the seat, but her feverish desire for enjoyment arose unquenched, surmounting the apparent physical weakness which had assailed her.

**Zeke’ll drive me home, Jason— you can walk; you won’t mind walking—there’s a good boy. Zeke’ll put the horse in the barn all right.”

A group of young men stood near enough to witness the scene, and to see the flash of anger and antipathy that swept Jason’s face when she mentioned ‘her lover’s name. He swung round suddenly and looked straight at him. His attitude was unmistakably threatening — and Myrtle noticed his fist close as he spoke:

' “You see here, Zeke Stone,” he said, bringing his words out sharply — “‘you are going to marry my sister — God knows how you ever got her to want such a one as you! — but I'll say right here now, if you don’t act square by her or if you don’t treat her kindly, or if any harm or sorrow comes to her through you, I’ll see to it that you answer for it — so help me God!”

The group of young men silently moved nearer and stood behind Jason as though pledging their support. The strangely elusive sly expression of Zeke Stone’s eyes intensified perceptibly and he grew pale.

John Kent had involuntarily moved forward with the other fellows to stand back of Jason, but the look on Myrtle’s white face checked him, and he was about to return to her side when she sprang forward and stood beside her brother.

“You need n’t fear for Eunice, eee Gates!” she cried, her eyes searching the faces of the young men standing there — “Zeke loves Eunice with all his heart, and he’ll love her dearly all the rest of his days —won’t you, Zeke?”’ She laid her hand on his shoulder tenderly — ‘‘And he isn’t the first one to sow wild oats before settling down — you all know that as well as any one does! — Zeke’s my brother, and I know he’ll make a good husband to Eunice — and — and I’ll stand up for him against you all!” Her voice shook with agitation.

The young men fidgeted with embarrassment. They had not expected this outburst. One and all admired Myrtle Stone and often danced upon the green with her. She was so utterly different in character and seemed so far above this undesirable member of the community that for the moment they had overlooked her relationship to him and had ignored her presence.

The tenseness of the situation was broken into by Eunice who clapped her small hands feebly.

“That’s right, Myrtle!” she cried —the words ending in a cough — “that’s right! You know him better than Jason does — Jason don’t understand him — he’s hot-tempered — don’t heed him. Come, Zeke — come, drive me home.”

As he got into the buggy, quite unexpectedly Zeke Stone’s handsome mouth emitted a loud, rasping shout — that rang out into the night. It came out so suddenly that every one present was startled and looked at each other askance. It had a mirthless and sardonic ring to it.

Before they could recover from their astonishment, and as he took the reins, he leaned far out of the buggy and snapped his fingers in Jason’s face!

The horse started off at a gallop, leaving the little group standing gaping and open-mouthed at the effrontery of the act.

“‘Father,’’ whispered Myrtle, when at last she was helping him tie his fiddle up in an old bandana handkerchief preparatory to going home— “‘Father—I’m _ worried —I can’t help it — Zeke’s acted queer to-night; it looks as though he’d got his mind on something — and Jason Gates was ugly to him!”

Fiddler Stone turned sharply and looked anxiously into his daughter’s face — “‘Got his mind on something,” he repeated in a low tone — “he ain’t planning to plague us, I hope, just as we’re so happy, Myrtle child! I’ve felt all full o’ happiness to-night thinking of the luck that’s come to my boy Zeke!” The sudden anxiety made his voice shake a little.