told by barbara, the commuter’s wife
january—the hard moon
when christmas has passed it is useless to make believe that it is not winter, even if the snow has merely come in little flurries quickly disappearing in the leaves that now lie suppliant with brown palms curved upward.
early december is often filled with days that, if one does not compare the hours of the sun’s rise and setting, might pass for those of an early spring. sharp nights but soft noon air, meadow larks in voice down in the old fields, uneasy robins in the spruces, a song sparrow in the shelter of the honeysuckle wall, goldfinches feeding among the dry stalks of what two months gone was a scarlet flame of zinnias, or else in their rhythmic, restless flight binding the columns where the seeded clematis clings, in chains of whispered song.
all through the month the garden, thriftily trimmed, and covered according to its need, refused to sleep in peace and thrust forth its surprises. one day it was a pansy peeping from beneath a box bush, then a dozen sturdy russian violets for the man’s buttonhole, that, fading in an hour, were outlived by their perfume, while on the very eve of christmas itself, the frosted wall flowers yielded a last bouquet, just a bit pinched and drawn like reduced gentlefolks of brave heart, whose present garb is either cherished or overlooked from a half-reminiscent pleasure in their society.
many say that the ending of the year with christmas week is only an arbitrary time division, and so is meaningless. but this cannot be so. the natural year has ended and it begins anew, even though we do not at once see its processes, for intervals in nature there are none, and the first law of being is emergence from unseen sleep, wherein is stamped the pattern for the after-growth.
thus with christmas passed, we all must yield to winter. playtime with its dalliance outdoors is over for man, and the little beasts lie in their lairs, except when hunger prods.
the poor, god help them, drawing their heads down into their garments, prepare to endure. they have not two or three changes of raiment to match the graded weather from september to january—the relentless hard moon of the indian calendar. resistance is their final set of winter flannels, which must be worn sleeping or waking.
with january the rabbit season is over, and the sturdy dogs, the merry, tireless beagles, left to themselves, abandon the trail after a sniff or two, or else return from the run with stiff, wounded feet: for does not a spear lurk in every blade of frozen stubble? and, after nosing into the house, they lie in relaxed comfort by the kitchen stove. that is, unless the thaw from their hair-set foot-pads annoys the cook (and few recognize dog needs and rights as did martha corkle), in which case they slink out again sheepish under reproof, and, loping uphill to the cottage, charge at martha’s kitchen door until she opens it, protesting as usual at their lack of manners and the mess “the beasties” make. this, however, is wholly from principle, because protest against dirt in any form becomes a thrifty british housewife, even though transplanted to america.
in truth all the while her heart is swelling with pleasure at their recognition, voiced as it presently is in a baying chorus, heads well thrown back, throats swelling, tails held aloft and firm, for sweet as the voice of love is hound music to the people of the english hunting country, however far from it their lives have led them. then presently, after a meal of stew seasoned to each dog’s liking (for lark is fond of salt and likes to chew his biscuits dry and lap the gravy after, while cadence and old waddles, being scant of teeth, prefer to guzzle the softened food and like a pinch of sugar), they fall prone before the fire, their bellies replete, and round, pressing the floor as close as their heavy heads. whereupon martha heaves a sigh of deep content and seats herself in the window corner of the front room, behind her geranium pots, with her white needlework of scallop, sprig, and eyelet hole, a substantial old-time craft lately returned to favour.
this occupation also is a sign that it is winter without doubt, for not until the christmas puddings have been made and eaten and the results have worn away, does martha saunders (born corkle) sit in the bay window of her front room shedding abroad the light of her rosy face and her bright geraniums by day, while the gloom of night is pierced by her clear lamp with its gay shade, whereon an endless steeple-chase is portrayed against a screen of ruby isinglass. here in oaklands whoever sets a drinking trough before his door in summer-time to succour man and thirsty beasts receives so much a year from the town fathers. why should not those who, in the dark season, set a row of jovial red geraniums behind the window-pane by day or a well-trimmed light by night, be equally rewarded? is not the thirst for light, colour, and other home symbols as keen a desire of the winter wayfarer as his thirst for water in the torrid season?
the first new year callers were out before sunrise this morning while the hoar-frost lay thick on the porch of father’s office, for here, whirlpool customs to the contrary, the country doctor and his tribe expect a gentle drift of friendly visitors, as much as do the people at the parsonage, and often with them there come homespun good-will gifts.
these early guests were nameless, and left their gift upon the door-mat, where father found it. a pair of redheads, duck and drake by chance, such as the gunners at this season harvest from the still-water inside the lighthouse at the bayhead.
any one interested in following backward the tracks these callers left would have found that they began at the edge of the bare, drifted sand beach and followed the wavering fence of the shore road until the outline of that also disappearing, the footprints crossed the upland fields to the lower end of the village street, where many of the houses, old, sedate, and self-sufficient in their ancestry, were prouder in their garb of mossy shingles than the bluff cottages in all their bravery of new paint, and porches supported by stone pillars.
entering by the yard of one of the humbler of these houses, through the back garden, the footsteps meandered toward the side porch that served both as well-house and wood-shed; there the owners of the feet left a similar burden of ducks on the well-worn oak door-sill instead of on the door-mat, for that was thriftily housed within. to leave it out all night would be to incur the criticism of the misses falcon, dealers in village patronage and censors in chief, next door, a most disastrous thing for the single dweller in the house, whose livelihood depended upon the public, as announced by a quaint glass sign, lettered in black, that filled the right-hand lower corner of the foreroom window. c. hallet. tailoring, nursing, and accommodating, done with neatness and despatch. the last of the three accomplishments meaning that in the between seasons of her more serious work, charity hallet would accommodate her neighbours in any way, from putting up jellies and jams for the slothful to turning carpets, or setting a house solemnly to rights for a funeral.
after leaving the yard, also by the back gate, that no telltale prints might mar the plumpness of the front walk, or jar the white rime that made mammoth cakes of the box bushes on either side the door, the footprints took a short cut to the hill road and paused at our steps, evidently with some scuffing and stamping, and none of the precautions used in approaching the other door.
here the two sets of footprints, those of dog and man, alone told of who had come and gone, and yet we knew as plainly as if the social cardboard had been left. the overlapping, shifty human footprints, suggesting a limp or halting gait, were those of a rubber-booted man. the round pad-marks of a four-foot, with a dragging trail, spoke of a dog either old or weak in his hind quarters.
as i, answering father’s call, scanned the tracks, our eyes met and we said, as with one voice, “the markis and the major,” whereby hangs a pleasant winter’s tale. a comedy that was turned from tragedy merely by the blowing of the bitter northeast wind among the sedge grass. a simple enough story, like many another gleaned from between the leaves that lie along the village fences or the lanes and byways of the lonelier hill country.
down in a little hut, by the bay-side, lived the village ne’er-do-weel; this was a year ago. he was not an old man in action, but at times he looked more than his fifty odd years, for life had dealt grudgingly with his primitive tastes, and besides being well weathered by an outdoor life, both eyes and gait had the droop of the man of middle age who, lacking good food, has made up for it by bad drink. yet, in spite of a general air of shiftlessness, there was that about him still that told that he had once not only been nearly handsome, but had been possessed of a certain wild gypsy fascination coupled with a knack with the violin that had turned the heads, as well as the feet, of at least two of the village lassies of his day who, though rigidly brought up, had eyes and ears for something beyond the eternal sowings, hoeings, reapings, and sleepings of farm life. even in his boyhood he was looked upon as a detrimental, until, partly on the principle of “give a dog a bad name and he will earn it,” he absolutely earned one by default, so to speak, for the things that he left undone, rather than deeds committed.
he was side-branched from thrifty country stock; his father, a proxy farmer and the captain of a coastwise lumber schooner, had on a northbound trip married a comely canadian-french woman, half-breed it was whispered, who was possessed of the desire for liberty and the outdoor life, far beyond her desire to observe the village p’s and q’s. this new strain in the cool new england blood caused neighbourly bickerings, bred mischief, and had finally made the only child of the marriage a strolling vagabond, who instinctively shunned the inside of a schoolhouse, as a rat does a trap. so that after his mother died when he was sixteen, all his after days he had lived in the open by rod and gun, fish-net and clam fork, berry picking, or playing his fiddle at village picnics and other festivals.
it was at one of these festivities that he first met charity hallet, called in those days cheery from her disposition that fairly bubbled over with happiness. a fiery sort of wooing followed; that is, fiery and unusual for a staid new england town, where sitting evening after evening by the best room lamp or “buggy dashing” through the wild lanes of a moonlight night or of a sunday afternoon were considered the only legitimate means of expression. alack! this man possessed neither horse nor buggy, or the means of hiring one, and the door of the hallets’ best room was closed to him, as well as every other door of the house. what would you have? swift dances snatched when some one else relieved the fiddler; meetings by stealth in the woods, intricate journeys through the winding marsh watercourses where, hidden by tall reeds, a duck boat slipped in and out, holding a half-anxious, half-happy girl, while a tall, bronzed youth either poled the craft along or sometimes pushed it as he strode beside it waist deep in water, his eyes fixed upon the merry ones beside him.
of course discovery came at last, and charity’s father sent her to spend a winter with an aunt in another state and “finish” school there.
meanwhile for half a dozen years the youth followed the sea and on his return found charity an orphan in possession of the house and a snug income, and though she was still unmarried, a vein of prudence or a change of heart, just as one happens to view it, had at least diluted her romance.
“get some employment with a name to it; i couldn’t stand an idle man hanging about,” she had said when man and dog (there had always been and always would be a dog following at this man’s heels) for the first time entered the hallet front door and prepared, without ceremony, to resume the boy and girl footing as a matter of course.
the man, of primitive instincts and no responsibility, had looked at her dumbly for a minute, and then the light of her meaning breaking upon him he jumped to his feet and bringing his heels sharply together, said, “i thought you were fond o’ me, cheery, and that women sort o’ liked somebody they were fond of hanging around ’em,” and without further ado he called the dog, and closing door and gate carefully behind him, turned from the village street to the shore road with easy, swinging gait; but from that day his fiddle never played for the village dancers.
the thrifty half of charity hallet congratulated the half that was longing to open door and heart to man, dog, and violin in the face of prudence and the village, upon its escape. but sometimes prudence and the wind race together, for the next year the most trusted man in the township, under cover of decorous business, made way with all of charity’s little property, except the house; and the glass sign, once used by a great aunt, was rescued from the attic rafters, placed in the foreroom window; and at twenty-five charity, who had been sought far and near, and had been wholly independent in action, began the uphill road of being a self-supporting old maid.
the man’s feet never again turned toward her front gate, though the dog’s did, and many a bone and bit did he get there, for the dog who grew old, evidently bequeathed knowledge of charity’s hospitality to his puppy successor, and so the years went. if mysterious heaps of clams, big lobsters from the deep fishing, delicate scallops or seasonable game appeared in the morning under the well house, no word was spoken.
five, fifteen, twenty years went by, and the very face of the country itself had changed and cheery hallet had almost forgotten how to smile. the man’s natural hunting grounds being largely reclaimed from wildness, the game becoming scarcer and the laws of season and selling close drawn, like many an indian brother of old, too unskilled to work, too old to learn, he found himself absolutely facing extinction, while in these years the drink habit had gradually crept upon and gripped him.
a few days after christmas he was sitting outside his shore hut, that, lacking even the usual driftwood fire, was colder than the chilly sunshine, facing hunger and his old red setter dog, the major, who gazed at him with a brow furrowed by anxiety and then laid his gaunt, grizzled muzzle against his master’s face that rested on his hands. the turkey won at the raffle in corrigan’s saloon had been devoured,—flesh, bones, skin, and i had almost said feathers,—so ravenous had been the pair, for charity hallet being ill was tended by a neighbour, who would rather burn up plate scraps than feed tramp dogs, as she designated the major, who as usual had come scratching at the kitchen door, and so for many days he had crept away empty.
a few days only remained of the upland open season, but for that matter the sportsmen speeding from all quarters in their motors to the most remote woodlands and brush lots had changed the luck and ways of foot hunting, and what birds remained had been so harried that they huddled and refused to rise. his duck boat was rotten to the danger point, while the clam banks that had meant a certain weekly yield had the past season been ruthlessly dug out by the summer cottagers, who herded in a string of cheap and gaudy shore houses and knew no law.
this was the plight of marquis lafayette burney, fantastically christened thus at his mother’s command, and called from his youth “the markis,” in well-understood derision.
feeling the dog’s caress, the man raised his head and gazed at his solitary friend, then out upon the water. the wind that ruffled the sand into little ridges raised the hair upon the dog’s back, plainly revealing its leanness. out on the bay beyond the bar the steel-blue tide chafed and fretted; within the protecting arm lay still-water without a trace of ice on it, while in and out among the shallows the wild ducks fed and at night would bed down inside the point.
along the beach itself there was no life or sound, a wide band of dull blue mussel shells thrown up by a recent storm only intensified the look of cold, while the gulls that floated overhead carried this colour skyward, and cast it upon the clouds.
“it’s come jest ter this, maje,” the markis muttered, “there’s nothin’ ter eat! nothin’ ter eat! do you sense that, old man? come fust o’ the year, if we hold out to then, we’ll hev to make other arrang’ments, you and me! town farm’s a good place fer the winter, some say, and some say bad, certain sure we won’t be over het up there, that’s what i dre’d in gettin’ in out o’ the air!” then as a new thought struck him, he cried aloud, “god! suppose they won’t take you in along o’ me!” and the markis started back aghast at the thought and then peered about with blinking eyes that he shielded with a shaking hand, for the major had disappeared.
the markis whistled and waited. presently from behind the dunes loped the major carrying something in his mouth; with a cheerful air of pride he laid before his master a turkey drumstick, sand-covered and dry, the last bone in the dog’s ground larder; then, stepping back with a short, insistent bark, he fixed his eyes on the markis with lip half raised in a persuasive grin.
as the man slowly realized the meaning of the bone, his bleared eyes filled and the knotting of his throat half stopped his breath. pulling the slouch hat that he always wore still lower to hide his face, though only gulls were near to see, he drew the major close between his knees and hugged him. who dares say that any man o’ersteps salvation when a dog yet sees in him the divine spark that he recognizes and serves as master?
into the hut went the markis, took down his gun from its rest above a tangle of shad nets that he had been mending before cold weather, picked up a pair of skilfully made duck decoys, and looked at them regretfully, saying, “a couple o’ dollars would fix that boat in shape, but where’s a couple o’ dollars?” the last coin he had fingered having gone to pay the major’s license on instalments, the final quarter being yet due, and only two days of grace.
still rummaging he picked up some bits of fish line and flexible wire; these he dropped into a ragged pocket together with a handful of unhulled buckwheat. then he padlocked the door of the cabin carefully, threw his gun over his shoulder, and set off along the road that led up country, with his slow slouching gait, the major to heel, muttering to himself,—“i hain’t never done it before, i allers hunted square, but time’s come when i’ll jest hev ter set a couple o’ snares and see what’ll turn up. i know where i can place a pair o’ grouse for two dollars at this time o’ year, and two dollars means another week together for us,—yes, another week!”
two hours later the markis and the major crept out of the lane that ran between a brush lot and stubble field on the lonetown side of the ridge. both master and dog were footsore and weary, while the markis wore a shifting, guilty look; for he had spoken truly: pot-hunter he had always been, but never a setter of snares, except for mink or muskrat. to be sure he would come to the front door to offer berries that he frankly said were gathered in one’s own back lot, but this day was the first time that he had thought to set a loop to catch a partridge by the neck instead of shooting it in fair hunting.
straightening himself for a moment he glanced shoreward down the rolling hills, while the major dropped upon a heap of dry leaves and dozed with twitching limbs. the sun came from behind the wind clouds with which he had been running a race all day, and suddenly the face of nature melted as with a smile and grew more tender. a big gray squirrel ran along the stone fence, a blue jay screamed, but the markis started nervously and once more looked shoreward.
what was that flickering and glimmering far away upon the beach? merely the sunlight flashing upon the single window of his cabin? no, a puff of smoke was running along the dry grasses from the inlet of the creek, where the men who watch the oyster grounds had beached their boat and kindled a bit of fire to heat their coffee.
another puff, and the smoke arose in a cone the shape of the markis’s cabin that the hungry flames were devouring!
with a harsh cry the man dropped his half-made snare and fled impotently, for now indeed were the markis and the major homeless vagabonds!
when father, being sent for by a farmer of the marsh road who said that both man and dog had doubtless perished in the hut, reached the shore a little before sunset, he stumbled over the markis lying among the broken sedge and seaweed, numb with cold and despair, the major keeping watch beside.
when, after being shaken awake and some stimulant hastily forced between his lips, the markis started up muttering a plea to be left alone, and saw who was bending over him, he whispered, for his voice was hoarse and uncertain, “it’s you, doc, is it? well, i’d ruther you’n another! for it’s all up this time; it’s either go to the town farm to-night, or be a stiff, and i’m near that now. we thought mebbe we could pull through till the next shad run, maje and me, but now the nets and all hev gone!” then, sitting up and pulling himself together with an effort, “would you—i wouldn’t ask it of any other man—would you house the maje, doc, until maybe he’d drop off comfortable and quiet, or i get round again? and once in a time jest say, quick like, ‘maje, where’s the markis?’ to keep me in mind?”
this time the markis made no effort to hide the tears that washed roadways down his grimy cheeks.
“but there is no need of this,” father replied, as, clearing his throat and wiping his nose, he tried to look severe and judicial, (dear dad! how well i know this particularly impossible and fleeting expression of yours)—“i got you the promise of work at mrs. pippin’s only last week, to do a few light errands and keep her in split kindlings for three square meals a day, and pay in money by the hour for tinkering and carpentering, and you only stayed one morning! man alive! you are intelligent! why can’t you work? the day is over when hereabout men can live like wild-fowl!”
“doctor russell,” said the markis, speaking slowly and raising a lean forefinger solemnly, “did you ever try to keep mis’s pippin in kettlewood for three square meals a day, likewise her opinion o’ you thrown in for pepper, and talk o’ waiting hell fire for mustard, with only one door to the woodshed and her a-standin’ in it? not but the meals was square enough, that was jest it,—they was too square, they wouldn’t swaller! give me a man’s job and i’ll take a brace and try it for the major here, but who takes one of us takes both, savvy? beside, when mis’s pippin was luella green she liked to dance ter my fiddlin’, and now she don’t like ter think o’t and seein’ me reminds her!”
here father broke down and laughed, he confesses, and with the change of mood came the remembrance that the son of the rich van camps of the bluffs, whose sporting possessions dot the country from canada to florida, needed a man to tend his boat house that lay further round the bay, and to take him occasionally to the ducking grounds at the crucial moment of wind and weather. thus far, though several landsmen had attempted it, no one had kept the job long owing to its loneliness, and the fact that they lacked the outdoor knack, for the pay was liberal.
in a few words father told of the requirements. shaking the sand from his garments the markis stood up, new light in his eyes,—“what! that yaller boat house round the bend, with all the contraptions and the tankboat painted about ’leven colours that jason built? i’d better get to work smart in the mornin’ and weather her up a bit, it ’ud scare even a twice-shot old squaw the way it is! the weather is softenin’; come to-morrow there’ll be plenty o’ birds comin’ in and we’ll soon learn him how to fetch home a show of ’em, which is what most o’ them city chaps wants more’n the eatin’,—won’t we, maje? yes, doc, i’ll take the ockerpation straight and honourable and won’t go back on you! go home with you for supper and the night? that’s kindly, we air some used up, that’s so! and something in advance of pay to-morrow? and he’ll let me raise a shingle and pick up what i can takin’ other folks fishin’ and shootin’ when he don’t need me? and he’ll most likely supply me clothes,—a uniform like a yacht sailor’s, you say? well, i suppose these old duds are shabby, but me and they’s kept company this long time and wild-fowl’s particular shy o’ new things, and the smell of them i reckon! weathered things is mostly best to my thinkin’, likewise friends, doc!”
when young van camp, arriving at the shore one day at dawn for his first expedition, saw his new employee and his aged dog, he shuddered visibly and for a moment inwardly questioned father’s sanity; but having been about with half-breed guides too much to judge the outdoor man by mere externals, he laughed good-naturedly and abandoned himself to the tender mercies of the markis and the major, saying lightly as he glanced at the faded sweater and soft hat, “it’s cold down here; i’m sending you a reefer and some better togs to-morrow.”
so the three went out across the still-water to the ducking grounds and brought back such a bunch before the fog closed in the afternoon that van camp clapped the markis on the back and declared the major must be a mascot, and that he deserved the finest sort of collar!
“a mascot! that’s what he is, in addition to being the wisest smell-dog on the shore!” affirmed the markis solemnly, the eyelid on the off side drooping drolly. “all he has to do is to smell the tide when it turns flood, and he knows jest where the ducks’ll bed next night!” all of which van camp, junior, believed, because it seemed suitable that the dog he hired with the man should be superlatively something; and next day there arrived, together with the reefer, a yacht captain’s cap, a set of oil-skins, and a great tin of tobacco,—a broad brass-studded collar, such as bull-dogs wear, but an ornament unknown to self-respecting “smell-dogs” even if, like the major, they were bar sinister.
the morrow was new year’s day, and the day after, just at evening, the markis, clad in a trim sailor suit from cap to trousers, was seen sauntering down the village street toward the cross-roads at the centre, where his tangled trails to and from the two saloons had before-times often puzzled the major’s acute sense of smell. behind the markis loped the major with drooping tail and the heavy collar, too large for his lean neck, hanging about his ears. but had not his master fastened the hateful thing upon him? that was reason enough for wearing it, at least for the time being!
slowly the markis passed the two saloons and nonchalantly entered the market, where he carefully selected a whole bologna and a ham! crossing to the grocery he bought a month’s provisions to be sent to “van camp’s boat house, for capt’n burney!” then pulling on a fresh corn-cob pipe in leisurely fashion he stopped at the paint shop, from whence he took a sign board, that he carried, letters toward him; next he repassed the saloons and gradually gained the wooded lane that skirts the marsh meadows.
once under cover he pulled off the new reefer, wrapped it around the board, and began to run, never pausing until he gained the boat house.
throwing open the door he quickly stripped off the new stiff, confining garments, and slipped eel-like into loose trousers and the gray sweater that made him one with the seaweed and the sands. then drawing the old soft hat well down to his very eyes he opened the tool chest that stood under the window and, taking therefrom gimlet, screw eyes, and hooks, he mounted an empty box, and proceeded to fasten the sign he had brought over the door. when it hung exactly even and to his liking, he walked backward, slowly surveying his handiwork, talking to the dog meanwhile. “what do you think of that, maje? you and me hev got a business, we hev! employment with a name to it! don’t yer remember what she said? no, you wasn’t the dog, though; ’twere old dave, yer granddad! there’ll be jest two o’ us in the business, man and dog. you know the saying as two’s a company. onct maybe i’d chose a woman partner! when they’re young wimmen’s prettier, but fer age give me er dog! dogs is more dependable, likewise they don’t talk back, eh, maje?”
on the swinging white board, edged with bright blue, in blue letters he read these words aloud, slowly, and with deep-drawn satisfaction:—
the markis and the major.
decoys and fishing tackle to rent.
sailing, gunning, fishing and retrieving done with neatness
and dispatch.
re?ntering the boat house he gazed about with a sigh of perfect content, dropped into the ship-shaped bunk that was his bed, hat still on his head, and stretching himself luxuriously, said to the major, who crouched beside, “i reckoned we’d hev ter make a change long first o’ the year, and i reckon we hev!” the coffee-pot upon the new stove in the far corner brooded comfortably and gave little gasps before being fully minded to excite itself to boiling, while the wild blood, even a few drops of which often makes its owners think such long, long thoughts that stretch back to the dawn of things, coursed evenly on its way until a delicious sleep, such as had been unknown for months, laid its fingers on the eyelids of the markis.
cautiously the major rose to his feet, looked about the room narrowly, sniffed the floor and then the air, shook his head and pawed persistently until the heavy new collar slipped over his ears and clattered to the floor. for a moment, minded to lie down again, he paused, sniffed the fresh air from the open window in the corner, then lifting the offending collar carefully in his mouth he gripped it firmly and crossed the room, jumped for the open sash, missed, tried again, and disappeared in the boat house shadows.
a loon laughed far out on the water, and the major trembled guiltily. gaining the beach crest he kept on to tide-water mark, where, digging deep, he buried the offending bit of leather, covering it well, kicking backward at it, dog fashion, with snorts of contemptuous satisfaction. then trotting gaily back he entered by the window, and soon two rhythmic snores, added to the bubbling of the overboiling coffee-pot, told that the markis and the major slept the peaceful winter sleep, while the sharp crescent moon of january slipped past the window, lingering over still-water to cover the bedded wild-fowl with a silver sheet.
