Who Would Have Thought It?. María Ruiz de Burton
added Mr. Hackwell.
"For yourself, since it comes from one of the pillars of your congregation," answered Mr. Hammerhard, laughing, Mr. Hackwell too joining in the laugh, and touching up the horse, which tripped as he always did when pretending to trot, and the quickened motion caused the crazy vehicle to join in also with a series of squeaks, which made Mr. Hackwell's blood curdle, and set his teeth on edge, although a philosopher.
Whilst the two divines thus beguiled their way to the depot, the subject of their conversation-Mrs. Cackle-made hers laboriously towards home, thinking what pretext she could invent to be at Dr. Norval's when he arrived.
"I would give worlds to know his version of his conduct. Maybe – like Mr. Hackwell — he won't admit that the native Californians are savages; of course not, being foreigners. Mrs. Norval, though, will soon show him we ain't to be fooled."
Hi! hi! hi! she heard; and the squint and the lolling tongue of the parson's horse passed by her, as if in derisive triumph.
"The aggravating beast!" exclaimed Mrs. Cackle, -meaning the horse,-just as Mr. Hackwell bowed to her most politely. "Going for the doctor?" said she to the divines, as if she thought the turn-out needed physic; but the answer was lost in the squeaking of the wagon. "I know they are. I'll go and let Mrs. Norval know it," said the old lady, and walked briskly on.
Jack Sprig—Miss Lavinia Sprig's poodle-sat bolt upright upon Mrs. Norval's front doorsteps, watching the shadows of coming events whilst supper was cooking, as Mrs. Cackle came sneaking by the picket-fence. Jack was happy, sporting a new blue ribbon around his white neck, and the fragrance of broiled chicken and roasted turkey came gratefully to his nostrils, whilst to his memory came the triumphant recollection that he had helped to catch that turkey who was now roasting, and who had been his bitter enemy, pecking at him unmercifully whenever he dared venture into the chicken-yard. Jack wagged his tail, thinking the turkey could peck never more, when lo! the round face of Mrs. Cackle, like a red full moon in heated atmosphere, peered over the picketfence. Jack's tail dropped. Then a growl arose to his swelling throat. Would that he could put Mrs. Cackle beside the turkey! And who has not felt like Jack? He was a good hater, and ever since he could remember there had existed between himself and Mrs. Cackle a "magnetism of repulsion," of such peculiar strength that, after going to the very extreme, it curled back on itself, and from a repulsion came out an attraction, which made Mrs. Cackle's feet almost dance with longing to kick Jack, and made Jack's mouth water to bite the well-fed calves of Mrs. Cackle.
"There is that miserable poodle, with his wool all washed up white, adorned with a new ribbon!" exclaimed Mrs. Cackle, holding to the pickets to catch breath, for she had walked fast. That old maid Lavvy Sprig, I suppose, has decked her thousand cats and her million canary-birds all with ribbons, like her odious poodle." And Mrs. Cackle looked towards the house; but she saw no decked cats there, though the hall-door and all the windows were open. In a few moments, however, she espied Ruth Norval — eldest daughter of Dr. Norvalsitting by one of the parlor windows, rocking herself in a chair, reading a fashion magazine.
"There is Ruth, as usual, studying the fashions. If her father's funeral was coming, she would do the same," said Mrs. Cackle, and peered at the other window. "Who is there?" said she, putting her fat chin over the pickets to take a better view. She then distinguished a face so flattened against the window-pane that it had lost all human shape. But she rightly conjectured that the face belonged to Mattie Norval,-youngest daughter of Dr. Norval, inasmuch as Mrs. Norval was too dignified to go and mash her face against the window-glass, and Lavinia's high nose would have presented the same obstruction as her sister's dignity. Mrs. Cackle saluted the flattened mass, but it "gave no token," only it looked more flattened than ever, as now Mattie riveted her gaze more intently in the direction of the railroad depot, saying to her sister Ruth,
"Don't look up, Rooty; study the fashions. There is old Cackler's moon-face on the pickets saluting, but I don't see it. 'Deed I don't. I am looking down the road."
"Tell your mother I heard the whistle bawled out the old lady, holding to the pickets.
"I wish she had heard the last trumpet," said Ruth. "Don't answer her, Mattie; she wants to be invited in. Why don't she go home? I see all the young Cacklers in their ‘setting-room,'—as she very properly calls it,-all watching for papa's coming, to begin their cackling."
"Ruth, I have told you not to make puns on Mrs. Cackle's name. It is very unkind to do so, and in very bad taste," said Mrs. Norval, from the corner.
"In bad taste!" replied Ruth. "La, ma! the exquisite Mr. Hackwell makes puns all the time. I asked him why he kept 'The Comic Blackstone' among his theological books, and he answered, 'In abjuring all that pertains to the worldly profession of the law, I permitted myself the privilege of keeping this innocent punster. And the 'innocent punster' Mr. Hackwell the divine keeps between Kant and Calvin,-above Martin Luther, ma!"
"Here he is!" screamed Mattie, interrupting her sister, and all flocked to the window. A light wagon, followed by another so heavily loaded that four strong horses could hardly pull it up, approached the gate.
"What upon earth is he bringing now?" exclaimed Mrs. Norval, looking at the light wagon in alarm.
"More rocks and pebbles, of course; but I don't know where he is to put them: the garret is full now," said Ruth, looking at the large wagon.
"He will store them away in the barn-loft, where he keeps his bones and petrified woods. He brings quite a load. It is a government wagon," added Lavinia, also looking at the large wagon.
"I don't mean the boxes in the large wagon. I mean the-the-that-the red shawl," stammered Mrs. Norval. And now the three other ladies noticed for the first time a figure wrapped in a bright plaid shawl, leaning on the doctor's breast, and around which he tenderly encircled his arm.
CHAPTER II.
THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL.
So astonished were the ladies at the sight of that red shawl, that not one of them-not even Mattie, who was more impulsive than the others, and had looked for her father's coming with more affectionate impatience-thought of answering the doctor's nods and salutations which he began to send them, full of smiles, as he approached the gate.
The light wagon stopped in front of the gate; the large one behind it. The Rev. Mr. Hackwell alighted, then the Rev. Mr. Hammerhard: the divines, in consideration for the doctor's feelings, had left their own carriage at the depot and ridden with him. The doctor alighted next, and then the mysterious figure in the bright-red shawl, which was handed carefully to the doctor by the driver from the wagon. Then all proceeded towards the gate, the doctor again tenderly throwing his arm around the female in the shawl,—for it was a female: this fact Mrs. Norval had discovered plainly enough.
The meeting with his family, after an absence of four years, would have been cold and restrained enough for the doctor, who had felt nothing but misgivings since he passed Springfield, fearing, like a runaway boy, that even the fact of his return might not get him a pardon. Not a single smile of welcome did he see in the scared faces of his daughters or the stern features of his stately wife. But a happy and unexpected agency broke the spell of that ominous gloom and scattered the gathering storm. And this potent agency, this mighty wizard, waving no wand, only wagging his woolly tail, was no other than Jack Sprig, who, unable to contain himself any longer in the midst of so much excitement, ran out as Mrs. Norval's champion to bark at the red shawl. The female screamed, frightened, and clung to the doctor for protection; in her fright she dropped the obnoxious shawl, and then all the ladies saw that what Mrs. Norval's eyes had magnified into a very tall woman was a little girl very black indeed.
Goodness! what a specimen! A nigger girl!" exclaimed Mattie; whereupon all the ladies laughed and went out to the hall to meet the doctor.
When the first salutations were over, and the first cross-very cross-questioning done by Mrs. Norval, the doctor ran out to see about bringing in his big boxes from the large wagon. They proved to be so heavy