Opening a Chestnut Burr | Page 9

have you got to do with them? and
why should you care?"
"Now look here, stranger, you're an infernal mean cuss to ask such
questions. Ain't John Walton my neighbor? and a good neighbor, too?
D'ye suppose a well-meanin' man like myself would stand by and see a
neighbor robbed? and of all others, John Walton? Don't you know that
robbin' a good man brings bad luck, you thunderin' fool?"
"But I've always had bad luck, so I needn't stop on that account,"
retorted Gregory, from the fence.

"I believe it, and you allers will," vociferated the old man, "and I'll tell
yer why. I know from the cut of yer jib that yer've allers been eatin'
forbidden fruit. If yer lived now a good square life like 'Squire Walton
and me, you'd have no reason to complain of yer luck. If I could get a
clip at yer with this crutch I'd give yer suthin' else to complain of. If yer
had any decency yer wouldn't stand there a jibin' at a lame old man."
Gregory took off his hat with a polite bow and said: "I beg your pardon;
I was under the impression that you were doing the 'cussing.' I shall
come and see you soon, for somehow it does me good to have you
swear at me. I only wish I had as good a friend in the world as Mr.
Walton has in you." With these words he sprung from the fence on the
orchard side, and made his way to the hill behind the Walton residence,
leaving the old man mumbling and muttering in a very profane manner.
"Like enough it was somebody visitin' at the Walton's, and I've made
a--fool of myself after all. What's worse, that poor little Miss Eulie will
hear I've been swearin' agin, and there'll be another awful prayin' time.
What a cussed old fool I be, to promise to quit swearin'! I know I can't.
What's the good o' stoppin'? It's inside, and might as well come out.
The Lord knows I don't mean no disrespect to Him. It's only one of my
ways. He knows well enough that I'm a good neighbor, and what's the
harm in a little cussin'?" and so the strange old man talked on to
himself in the intervals between long pulls at his pipe.
By the time Gregory reached the top of the hill his strength was quite
exhausted, and, panting, he sat down on the sunny side of a thicket of
cedars, for the late afternoon was growing chilly. Beneath him lay the
one oasis in a desert world.
With an indescribable blending of pleasure and pain, he found himself
tracing with his eye every well-remembered path, and marking every
familiar object.
Not a breath of air was stirring, and it would seem that Nature was
seeking to impart to his perturbed spirit, full of the restless movement
of city life and the inevitable disquiet of sin, something of her own
calmness and peace. The only sounds he heard seemed a part of

nature's silence,--the tinkle of cowbells, the slumberous monotone of
water as it fell over the dam, the grating notes of a katydid, rendered
hoarse by recent cool nights, in a shady ravine near by, and a black
cricket chirping at the edge of the rock on which he sat-- these were all.
And yet the sounds, though not heard for years, seemed as familiar as
the mother's lullaby that puts a child to sleep, and a delicious sense of
restfulness stole into his heart. The world in which he had so greatly
sinned and suffered might be another planet, it seemed so far away.
Could it be that in a few short hours he had escaped out of the hurry
and grind of New York into this sheltered nook? Why had he not come
before? Here was the remedy for soul and body, if any existed.
Not a person was visible on the place, and it seemed that it might thus
have been awaiting him in all his absence, and that now he had only to
go and take possession.
"So our home in heaven awaits us, mother used to say," he thought,
"while we are such willing exiles from it. I would give all the world to
believe as she did."
He found that the place so inseparably associated with his mother
brought back her teachings, which he had so often tried to forget.
"I wish I might bury myself here, away from the world," he muttered,
"for it has only cheated and lied to me from first to last. Everything
deceived me, and turned out differently from what I expected. These
loved old scenes are true and unchanged, and smile upon me now as
when I was here