Evelyn Raymond - Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life

"Huh – huh – huh – huh-h-h!" responded the natural.

"I'm going home, Bonaparte. Good night. Thank you for the leaves. Mr. Metcalf, will you tell me the nearest way, please?"

Amy picked up the fallen bundle of boughs, which the superintendent had brought with him from the yard below, and laid them upon Pepita's back.

"These have given us some trouble, but they are still too beautiful to lose."

The gentleman directed her, courteously escorted her through the gateway, which bore another of those prohibitory "No Admittance" signs, and watched her walk briskly away, thinking what a bright feature of the landscape she made.

"Not a beautiful girl, by any means, yet one of the most wholesome, honest, and engaging ones who ever stepped foot within this old mill. Odd, too! A Kaye. I wonder if she will ever come again to what, if all had gone as was expected, might easily have been her own great property. Well, that was pretty to see: the way in which she wiped the face of poor 'Bony.' The lad grows sillier every day, it seems, and the 'boys' are making him worse by their nonsense. Where is he now? I'll have a talk with him and try to keep him out of the parades. They are not good for him," reflected Mr. Metcalf.

But the talk had to be postponed; for there was "Bony" already far along the road toward Fairacres, following doggedly in Amy's footsteps, though she repeatedly assured him that she could manage quite well without him and preferred to be alone.

"No, I'm going," he asserted; and when she could not dissuade him, she gave up trying to do so and led him to talk of himself – his most interesting subject. So that, by the time they had come to the front of the old mansion, she knew his simple history completely, and her pity had almost outgrown her aversion.

"See, Cleena! Cleena Keegan! See what I have brought!"

The shout summoned a large woman to the door, who threw up her arms with the answering cry: —

"Faith, an' I thought you was lost! Whatever has kept you such gait, Miss Amy?"

"Oh! adventures. Truly, Cleena. Real, regular adventures. See my leaves? See this lad! He got them for me. He is Bonaparte Jimpson."

"An' a curious spalpeen that same," casting a suspicious glance over the youth's strange attire.

"I'm Bonaparte Lafayette Jimpson," he explained gravely and, to Amy's surprise, timidly.

"The mischief, you be! An' what's Napoleon Bonyparty's gineral's pleasure at Fairacres, the night?"

"Cleena, wait. I'll tell you. Yes, you will have time enough. The train isn't due till after six, and they'll be a half-hour longer getting home from the station. Sit you down, Goodsoul, just for one little bit of minute. The scrubbing must surely be done by now. Isn't it?"

"Humph! The scrubbin's never done in this dirty world. Well, an' what is it? Be quick with you!"

Amy coaxed the old servant down upon the doorstep of the freshly cleaned kitchen, whither they had now gone, and speedily narrated her afternoon's experiences.

"So you see, dear old Scrubbub, that he must have a fine feast of the best there is in the house. Besides," and she pulled the other's ear down to her lips, "I'd just like to have father see him. He isn't pretty, of course, but he's new . I wonder, could he pose?"

"Pose, is it?" groaned Cleena, with a comical grimace. "Pose! Sure, it's I minds the time when the master caught me diggin' petaties an' kept me standin', with me foot on me spade, an' me spade in the ground, an' me body this shape," bending forward, "till I got such a crick in me back I couldn't walk upright, for better 'n a week. Posin', indeed! Well, he might. He looks fit for naught else."

"Pooh, Cleena! you know it's an honor. But, come now, I want to put all these leaves up in the dining room. Will you help me?"

"Will I what – such truck! No, me colleen, not a help helps Cleena the day."

"Oh, yes, you will. I'll bring the step ladder and hand them to you, while you put them over the doors and windows. We'll make the place a perfect bower of cheerfulness, and if our dears, when they come – Oh, Cleena! they may need the cheerfulness very much."

However, it was not Amy's habit to borrow trouble, and she ran lightly away, calling to the boy on the porch: —

"I'm going to put Pepita in the stable. If you'd like to see her brother, you can come with me."

"Sho! Ain't he black!" exclaimed "Bony," as they led Pepita into the great stables and he discovered Balaam.

Amid ample accommodations for a dozen horses, the two burros seemed almost lost; but they occupied adjoining box-stalls which, if rather time-worn and broken, were still most roomy and comfortable.

"Why, huckleberries! It's bigger 'n the mill sheds. And only them two. Will he swop?"

As he asked this question the lad pulled from his pocket a miscellaneous collection of objects, and invitingly displayed them upon the palm of his long hand.

"No, I think not. I fancy we are not a 'swopping' family. But I must choose some name for you besides that dreadful 'Bony.' Bonaparte is too long. So is Lafayette. Let me see. Suppose we make it just 'Fayette'? That is short and pleasant to speak, and I like my friends to have nice names. Would you like it?"

"Bully!"

"Why – why, Fayette! That doesn't sound well."

"Sho! Don't it? One all black an' t'other all white. Hum."

"Br-r-r-ray! Ah-umph – h-umph – umph – mph – ph – h-h-h!" observed Balaam to his sister.

Fayette laughed, so noisily and uproariously that the burros brayed again; and they kept up this amusing concert until Amy had brought each an armful of hay, and had directed her companion where to find a pail and water for their drink.

Then they returned to the house and beheld Cleena in the dining room, already mounted upon the step-ladder, trying to arrange the branches with more regard to the saving of time than to grace. But she made to the picture-seeing girl a very attractive "bit."

Indeed, Cleena Keegan was a person of sufficient importance to warrant a paragraph quite to herself. She was a woman of middle age, with a wealth of curling, iron-gray hair, which she tucked away under a plain white cap. Her figure was large and grandly developed. She wore a blue print gown, carefully pinned back about her hips, thus disclosing her scarlet flannel petticoat; both garments faded by time and frequent washings to a most "artistic" hue. Upon her shoulders was folded a kerchief of coarse white muslin, spotlessly clean; and as she stood, poised among the glowing branches, with the dying sunset light touching her honest face to unusual brightness, she was well worth Amy's eager wish: —

"Oh, Cleena! That father were only here to see and paint you just as you are this minute!"

"Humph! It's meself's glad he isn't."

"Why! That's not nice of you, Goodsoul. Yet it's a great pity that a body who is such a 'study' in herself can't fix those branches a bit more gracefully. You're jamming the leaves all into a little mess and showing the stems! Oh, Cleena, I wonder if I can't reach them."

"Truth, it's meself's willin' you should try. Belike I'd be handier at the pullin' them down nor the puttin' them up."

With head erect she descended from the ladder, and stood, arms akimbo, regarding the results of her labor. Even to her it suggested something not "artistic," and at Fairacres anything inartistic was duly frowned upon.

"Faith, it's not the way the master would do it, I see that, but – "

Before either she could finish her sentence or Amy mount the ladder, Fayette had run to its top and stood there rapidly pulling from the wall the branches Cleena had arranged. Thrusting all but one between his knees, he fastened that over the window-frame so deftly and charmingly that Amy clapped her hands in delight.

"Oh, that's lovely! Try another – and another!"