Diana. Warner Susan
assure you," said Mr. Knowlton expressively, as he stirred it, "I have appreciation for better things than coffee. I always want the best, in every kind; and I know the thing when I see it."
"I make no doubt you can have it," said Diana coolly, turning away.
"Hullo, Diany!" said Mr. Carpenter on the other side, – "you're coming it strong to-day. Got no one to help ye? Sha'n't I fetch 'Lizy? she's big enough to do som'thin'. I vow I want another cup. You see, it's hard work, is picking blackberries. I ain't master here; and my wife, she keeps me hard at it. Can't dewolve the duty on no one, neither; she sees if I ain't got my pail filled by the time she's got her'n, and I tell you! I catch it. It makes me sweat, this kind of work; and that makes me kind o' dry. I'll be obleeged to you for another cup. You needn't to put no milk into it!"
"It's strong, Mr. Carpenter."
"Want it, I tell you! working under orders this way makes a man feel kind o' feeble."
"How do you think we women get along, Mr. Carpenter?" said Mrs
Boddington, coming up with her cup.
"How, Mis' Boddington?"
"Yes, I'm asking that. A little more, Diana; it's first-rate, and so's the corn. It takes you and your mother! – How do you think we women feel, under orders all the time?"
"Under orders!" said Mr. Carpenter.
"Yes, all the time. How d'you think we feel about it?"
"Must be uncommon powers of reaction," said the farmer. "My wife a'n't anywheres near killed yet."
"Think any one'll ever get that piece of mantua-making under orders?" said Mrs. Boddington, looking towards the place where the frills and rufflings of Miss Masters' drapery stirred in the breeze, with the long light tresses of her unbound hair. The breeze was partly of her own making, as she stirred and turned and tossed her head in talking with Mr. Knowlton; the only one of the company whom she would talk with, indeed. The farmer took a good look at her.
"Wall," said he, – "I should say it was best to do with that kind of article what you would do with the steam from your tea kettle; let it go. 'Tain't no use to try to utilize everything, Mis' Boddington."
"Evan Knowlton acts as if he thought differently."
"Looks is enough, with some folks," said the farmer; "and she's a pretty enough creatur', take the outside of her. Had ought to be; for I guess that sort o' riggin' costs somethin' – don't it, Mis' Boddington?"
"Cost?" said the lady. "Evan Knowlton is a fool if he lets himself be caught by such butterfly's wings. But men are fools when women are pretty; there's no use reasoning against nature."
"Wall, Diany," exclaimed Joe Bartlett, now drawing near with his coffee cup, – "how comes you have all the work and other folks all the fun?"
"Want some coffee, Joe?"
"Fact, I do; that is, supposin' you have got any."
"Plenty, Joe. That's what I am here for. Hold your cup. Who are you picking for to-day?"
"Wall, I ain't here for fun," said Joe; "there's no mistake about that. I b'lieve in fun too; I do sartain; but I don't b'lieve in scratchin' it into you with blackberry brambles, nor no other. Thank'e, Diany; maybe this'll help me get along with the afternoon."
"I never thought you would mind blackberry thorns, Joe."
"No more I don't, come in the way o' business," said Joe, sipping his coffee. "Guess I kin stand a few knocks, let alone scratches, when I calculate to have 'em. But I don' know! my notion of pleasure's sun'thin' soft and easy like; ain't your'n? I expect to take scratches – bless you! but I don't call 'em fun. That's all I object to."
"Then how come you here, Joe?"
"Wall, – " said Joe slowly, – "I've got an old mother hum."
"And she wanted some berries?"
"She wanted a lot. What the women does with 'em all, beats me. Anyhow, the old lady'll have enough this time for all her wants."
"How is she, Joe, to-day?"
"Days don't make no difference to my mother, Diany. You know that, don't ye? There don't nothin' come wrong to her. I vow, I b'lieve she kind o' likes it when things is contrairy. I never see her riled by no sort o' thing; and it's not uncommon for me to be as full's I kin hold; but she's just like a May mornin', whatever the weather is. There ain't no scarin' her, either; she'd jest as lieves die as live, I b'lieve, any day."
"I daresay she would," said Diana, feeling at the moment that it was not so very wonderful. Life in this world might be so dull as to be not worth living for.
"It's a puzzle to me," Joe went on, "which is right, her or the rest on us. Ef she is, we ain't. And her and the rest o' the world ain't agreed on nothin'. But it is hard to say she ain't right, for she's the happiest woman that ever I see."
Diana assented absently.
"Wall," said Joe, "I'm a little happier for that 'ere cup o' coffee. I'll go at it agin now. Who's that 'ere little bundle o' muslin ruffles, Diany? she's a kind o' pretty creatur', too. She hain't sot down this hull noonspell. Who is it?"
"Miss Masters."
"She ain't none o' the family o' our parson?"
"A cousin, I believe."
"Cousin, eh," said Joe. "She hain't set down once. I guess she's afeard o' gettin' the starch out somewhere. The captain's sweet on her, ain't he? I see he tuk a deal o' care o' her eatin'."
"Mr. Knowlton is not a captain yet, Joe; he is only a lieutenant."
"Want to know," said Joe. "Wall, I kin tell ye, she likes him."
And Joe strolled off, evidently bent on doing his best with the blackberry bushes. So must Diana; at least she must seem to do it. There was a lull with the coffee cups; lunch was getting done; here and there parties were handling their baskets and throwing their sun-bonnets on. The column of smoke had thinned now to a filmy veil of grey vapour, slowly ascending, through which Diana could look over to the round hill-tops, with their green leaves glittering in the sun; and farther still, to the blue, clear vault of ether, where there was neither shine nor shadow, but the changeless rest of heaven. Earth with its wildness of untrodden ways, its glitter and flutter; heaven, – how did that seem? Far off and inscrutable, though with an infinite depth of repose, an infinite power of purity. The human heart shrank before both.
"And I had thought to-day would be a day of pleasure," Diana said to herself. "If I could get into the waggon and go home – alone – and get the fire started and the afternoon work done ready for supper before mother comes! – They will not need me to pilot them home at any rate."
But things have to be faced, not run away from, in life; and trials take their time and cannot be lopped into easier length. Diana did what she could. She caught up her basket very quietly, carrying it and her sun-bonnet in one hand, and slipped away down the hill under cover of the trees till she was out of sight of everybody; then plunged into the forest of high bushes and lost herself. She began to pick vigorously; if she was found, anybody should see what she was there for. It was a thicket of thorns and fruit; the berries, large, purple, dewy with bloom, hung in quantities, almost in masses, around her. It was only needful sometimes to hold her basket underneath and give a touch to the fruit; and it dropped, fast and thick, into her hands. But she felt as if the cool soft berries hurt her fingers. She wondered whereabouts was pretty Miss Masters now, making believe pick, and with fingers at hand to supplement her, and looks and words to make labour sweet, even if it were labour. "But she will never do any work," said Diana to herself; "and he will be quite willing that she should not." And then she noticed her own fingers; a little coarsened with honest usefulness they were – a little; and a little embrowned with careless exposure. Not white and pearly and delicate like those of that other hand. And Diana remembered that Mr. Knowlton's own were delicate and white; and she could understand, she thought, that a man would like in a woman he loved, all daintinesses and delicacies, even although they pertained to the ornamental rather than to the useful. It was the first time Diana had ever wished for white hands;