Hills of the Shatemuc | Page 6

does it matter, Will?" said his mother.
"It's hanging out of doors, on the handle of the grindstone."
"It ain't!"
"Yes it is; -- on the grindstone."
"No it isn't," said Winthrop coming in, "for I've got it here. There -- see to it, Asahel. Mamma, papa's come. We've done ploughing."
And down went his hat, but not on the floor.
"Look at Winifred, Governor -- she has been calling for you all day."
The boy turned to a flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked, little toddling thing of three or four years old, at his feet, and took her up, to the perfect satisfaction of both parties. Her head nestled in his neck and her little hand patted his cheek with great approval and contentment.
"Mamma," said Asahel, "what makes you call Winthrop Governor? -- he isn't a governor."
"Ask your father. And run and tell him tea's just ready."
The father came in; and the tea was made, and the whole party sat down to table. A homely, but a very cheerful and happy board. The supper was had in the kitchen; the little remains of the fire that had boiled the kettle were not amiss after the damps of evening fell; and the room itself, with its big fireplace, high dark-painted wainscoting, and even the clean board floor, was not the least agreeable in the house. And the faces and figures that surrounded the table were manly, comely, and intelligent, in a high degree.
"Well, -- I've got through with that wheat field," said Mr. Landholm, as he disposed of a chicken bone.
"Have you got through sowing?" said his wife.
"Sowing! -- no! -- Winthrop, I guess you must go into the garden to-morrow -- I can't attend to anything else till I get my grain in."
"Won't you plant some sweet corn this year, Mr. Landholm? -- it's a great deal better for cooking."
"Well, I don't know -- I guess the field corn's sweet enough. I haven't much time to attend to sugar things. What I look for is substantials."
"Aren't sweet things substantial, sir?" said Winthrop.
"Well -- yes, -- in a sort they are," said his father laughing, and looking at the little fat creature who was still in her brother's arms and giving him the charge of her supper as well as his own. "I know some sweet things I shouldn't like to do without."
"Talking of substantials," said Mrs. Landholm, "there's wood wanting to be got. I am almost out. I had hardly enough to cook supper."
"Don't want much fire in this weather," said the father, "However -- we can't get along very well without supper. -- Rufus, I guess you'll have to go up into the woods to-morrow with the ox-sled -- you and Sam Doolittle -- back of the pine wood -- you'll find enough dead trees there, I guess."
"I think," said Rufus, "that if you think of it, what are called substantial things are the least substantial of any -- they are only the scaffolding of the other."
"Of what other?" said his father.
"Of the things which really last, sir, -- the things which belong to the mind -- things which have to do with something besides the labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow."
"The labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow are pretty necessary though," said his father dryly; "we must eat, in the first place. You must keep the body alive before the mind can do much -- at least I have found it so in my own experience."
"But you don't think the less of the other kind of work, sir, do you?" said Winthrop looking up; -- "when one can get at it?"
"No, my boy," said the father, -- "no, Governor; no man thinks more highly of it than I do. It has always been my desire that you and Will should be better off in this respect than I have ever been; -- my great desire; and I haven't given it up, neither."
A little silence of all parties.
"What are the things which 'really last,' Rufus?" said his mother.
Rufus made some slight and not very direct answer, but the question set Winthrop to thinking.
He thought all the evening; or rather thought and fancy took a kind of whirligig dance, where it was hard to tell which was which. Visions of better opportunities than his father ever had; -- of reaching a nobler scale of being than his own early life had promised him; -- of higher walks than his young feet had trod: they made his heart big. There came the indistinct possibility of raising up with him the little sister he held in his arms, not to the life of toil which their mother had led, but to some airy unknown region of cultivation and refinement and elegant leisure; -- hugely unknown, and yet surely laid hold of by the mind's want. But though