The William Henry Letters. Diaz Abby Morton
Summer Sweeting trees, that had pretty nigh done bearing. He said there used to be Summer Sweeting trees growing all about there; and that when he took part of the place, and built him a house, he cut down the ones on his land, and set out Baldwins and Tallmans and Porters; but his mother kept her's for the good they had done, and for the sake of what few apples they did bear, to give away to the children.
The houses had their backs towards me, and I was glad of that, for I always like back doors better than front ones.
Uncle Jacob whistled, and I saw a blind fly open, and a handkerchief wave from an upper window, where two girls were sitting. Uncle Jacob's wife stepped to the door and waved a sunbonnet, and then stepped back again.
"Here, Tommy," said Uncle Jacob, "you carry in the magazine to Lucy Maria, and here's Matilda's gum-arabic. I don't see where Towser is."
I jumped out, and said I guessed I would keep on; for I began to feel bashful about seeing so many women-folks.
"Where you going to keep on to?" Uncle Jacob asked. "This road don't go any farther."
I said I would walk across the fields to the next village and find a hotel.
"O no," said he, "stay here. Grandmother'll be glad enough to hear about the contrabands. She'll knit stockings, and pick up a good deal about the house to send off. And I want to ask much as five hundred questions more about matters and things myself. Come, stay. Yes, we'll give you a good supper, a first-rate supper. Don't be afraid. My wife'll – There! I forgot her errand, now! But if you – Whoa! whoa! Georgiana, take this pattern in to your Aunt Phebe, and tell her I forgot to see if I could match it; but I don't believe the man had any like it."
Georgiana was a nice little girl that just then came running across the garden, – William Henry's sister, as I learned afterwards.
Just then Aunt Phebe stepped to the door again.
"Here are two hungry travellers," said Uncle Jacob, "and one of us is bashful."
"Well," said Aunt Phebe, very cheerily, "if anybody is hungry, this is just the right place. How do you do, sir? Come right in. We live so out of the way we 're always glad of company. Father, can't you introduce your friend?"
"Well – no – I can't," said he. "But I guess he's brother to the President!"
I said my name was Fry.
Aunt Phebe said her father had a cousin that married a Fry, and asked what my mother's maiden name was. I told her my mother was a Young, and that I was named for my father and mother both, —Silas Young Fry.
I heard a tittering overhead, behind a pair of blinds, where I guessed some girls were peeping through. And afterwards, when I was sitting on the piazza, I heard one tell another, not thinking I was within hearing, that a young fry had come to supper.
When we all sat round the table the girls seemed full of tickle, which they tried to hide, – and one of them asked me, – I think it was Hannah Jane, – with a very sober face, —
"Mr. Fry, will you take some fried fish?"
I laughed and said, "No, I never take anything fried."
Then we all laughed together, and so got acquainted very pleasantly; for I have observed that a little ripple of fun sets people nearer together than a whole ocean of calm conversation.
After supper Uncle Jacob read the paper aloud, while the girls washed up the dishes. All were eager to hear; and I found they kept the run of affairs quite as well as townspeople. When there was too much rattling of dishes for Uncle Jacob to be heard, and the girls lost some important item, he was always willing to read it over. Little Tommy was rolled up in a shawl and set down in the rocking-chair (that cushion did come out of it) while his mother mended his clothes. This was the way he usually got punished for tearing them. He was done up in a shawl, arms and all, and kept in the rocking-chair while the clothes were being mended, and he was obliged to remain pretty quiet, or the chair would tip. Aunt Phebe said Tommy was so careless, something must be done, and keeping him still was the worst punishment he could have.
When the girls finished their dishes and took out their sewing, and were going to light the large lamp, their mother said that we mustn't think of settling ourselves for the evening. She said we must all go in to grandmother's, for she'd be dreadful lonely, missing Billy so.
Then Aunt Phebe told me how her nephew, Billy, a ten-year old boy, had gone away to school only the day before, and how they all missed him.
"Isn't he pretty young to go away to school?" I asked.
"That's what I told his father," said she.
"His father sent him away to keep him," said Uncle Jacob. "Grandmother was spoiling him."
"Ruining the boy with kindness?" said Lucy Maria.
"Well," said Aunt Phebe, "I suppose 't was so. I know 't was so. But we did hate to have Billy go!"
Uncle Jacob then took me across the garden, and introduced me to Mr. Carver, the father of William Henry, and to Grandmother, – old Mrs. Carver, as the neighbors called her.
She was a smiling, blue-eyed old lady, though with a little bit of an anxious look just between the eyes. I thought there was no doubt about her being a grandmother that would spoil boys.
"Why, there's Towser, now?" said Uncle Jacob. "He didn't come to meet me to-night."
"He's been there, off and on, pretty much all day," said grandmother. "You see what he's got his head on don't you?"
"Billy's old boots!" said Uncle Jacob.
"Yes. He set a good deal by Billy. I haven't put the boots away yet," she said, with a sigh.
"Here, Towser! come here, sir!" cried Uncle Jacob.
Towser was a big, shaggy, clever-looking dog. He got up slowly, sniffed at my trousers, then walked to Uncle Jacob, then round the room, then to the door, then up stairs and down again, and then back he went and lay down by the boots.
"He misses my grandson," said grandmother to me, trying to smile about it.
The little girl, Georgiana, sat on a cricket, holding a kitten, tying and untying its ribbon. A square of patchwork had fallen on the floor. She stooped to pick it up and dropped her spool. That rolled away towards the door, and kitty jumped for it and soon got the thread in a tangle. The door opened so suddenly that she hopped up about two feet into the air and tumbled head over heels.
It was Lucy Maria who opened the door. The other girls came soon after; and when Tommy was asleep Aunt Phebe came too. We had a very sociable time. I don't call myself a talker, but I didn't mind talking there, they seemed so easy, just like one's own folks. I told grandmother many things about the contrabands, and about Southern life, and Southern people, and about soldier life and battles and rations and making raids, and the Washington hospitals, and how needy the contrabands were, and about my barrel. "Poor creatures!" said she. "I must look up some things for them to-morrow." Aunt Phebe thought there might be a good many things lying about that would be of use to folks who hadn't anything.
"Billy's boots!" cried Hannah Jane.
"Why, yes," said her mother, "no use keeping boots for a growing boy."
This and other remarks brought us back to William Henry again, and grandmother seemed glad of it. She liked to keep talking about her boy.
"I shall feel very anxious," she said. "I hope he will write soon as he gets there. I told him he'd better write every day, so I could be sure just how he was. For if well one day, he mightn't be the next."
"O grandmother, that's too bad!" said Lucy Maria. "'T is cruel to ask a boy to write every day!"
"I wouldn't worry, mother," said Aunt Phebe. "Billy's always been a well child."
"These strong constitutions," said grandmother, "when they do take anything, 't is apt to go hard with 'em."
"He's taken pretty much everything that can be given to him already," said Aunt Phebe.
"I suppose they'll put clothes enough on his bed," said grandmother. "I can't bear to think of his sleeping