Hills of the Shatemuc | Page 4

effect. The contrast between the faces was striking, even now when both were in repose.
The elder was the first to break silence, speaking slowly and without moving his eye from its bent.
"Governor, -- what do you suppose lies behind those mountains?"
"What?" -- said Winthrop quickly.
The other smiled.
"Your slow understanding can make a quick leap now and then."
"I can generally understand you," said his brother quietly.
Rufus added no more for a little, and Winthrop let him alone.
"We've got the farm in pretty good order now," he remarked presently in a considerate tone, folding his arms and looking about him.
"Papa has," observed Winthrop. "Yes -- if those stumps were out once. We ought to have good crops this year, of most things."
"I am sure I have spent four or five years of my life in hard work upon it," said the other.
"Your life ain't much the worse of it," said Winthrop, laughingly.
Rufus did not answer the laugh. He looked off to the hills again, and his lips seemed to close in upon his thoughts.
"Papa has spent more than that," said the younger brother gravely. "How hard he has worked -- to make this farm!"
"Well, he has made it."
"Yes, but he has paid a dozen years of his life for it. And mamma! --"
"It was a pretty tough subject to begin with," said the elder, looking about him again. "But it's a nice farm now; -- it's the handsomest farm in the county; -- it ought to pay considerable now, after this."
"It hasn't brought us in much so far," observed Winthrop, "except just to keep along; -- and a pretty tight fit at that."
"The house ought to be up here," said Rufus, considering the little distant brown speck; -- "it would be worth twice as much."
"What would?"
"Why! -- the farm!"
"The house wouldn't," said Winthrop, -- "not to my notions."
"It's confoundedly out of the way, down there, a mile off from the work."
"Only a quarter of that, and a little better," said Winthrop calmly.
"A little worse! -- There's a great loss of time. There would be twice as much work done if the house was up here."
"I couldn't stand it," said Winthrop. "How came it the house was put down there?"
"Papa bought the point first and built the house, before ever he pushed his acquirements so far as this. He would be wise, now, to let that, and build another up here somewhere."
"It wouldn't pay," said the younger brother; "and for one, I'm not sorry."
"If the farm was clear," said the elder, "I'd stand the chance of it's paying; it's that keeps us down."
"What?"
"That debt."
"What debt?"
"Why, the interest on the mortgage."
"I don't know what you are talking of."
"Why," said Rufus a little impatiently, "don't you know that when papa bought the property he couldn't pay off the whole price right down, and so he was obliged to leave the rest owing, and give security."
"What security?"
"Why, a mortgage on the farm, as I told you."
"What do you mean by a mortgage?"
"Why, he gave a right over the farm -- a right to sell the farm at a certain time, if the debt was not paid and the interest upon it."
"What is the debt?"
"Several thousands, I believe."
"And how much does he have to pay upon that every year?"
"I don't know exactly -- one or two, two or three hundred dollars; and that keeps us down, you see, till the mortgage is paid off."
"I didn't know that."
They sat silent a little time. Then Winthrop said,
"You and I must pay that money off, Will."
"Ay -- but still there's a question which is the best way to do it," said Rufus.
"The best way, I've a notion," said Winthrop looking round at his cattle, -- "is not to take too long noon-spells in the afternoon."
"Stop a bit. Sit down! -- I want to speak to you. Do you want to spend all your life following the oxen?"
Winthrop stopped certainly, but he waited in silence.
"I don't!"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know -- something --"
"What is the matter, Will?"
"Matter?" -- said the other, while his fine features shewed the changing lights and shadows of a summer day, -- "why Winthrop, that I am not willing to stay here and be a ploughman all my life, when I might be something better!"
The other's heart beat. But after an instant, he answered calmly,
"How can you be anything better, Will?"
"Do you think all the world lies under the shadow of Wut-a- qut-o?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think all the world is like this little world which those hills shut in?"
"No," -- said Winthrop, his eye going over to the blue depths and golden ridge-tops, which it did not see; "-- but --"
"Where does that river lead to?"
"It leads to Mannahatta. What of that?"
"There is a world there, Winthrop, -- another sort of world,