Pembroke | Page 2

what they think of him or themselves.
Unless he is a man of the broadest and most democratic tendencies, to
whom culture and the polish of society is as nothing beside humanity,
and unless he returns, as faithfully as the village birds to their nests, to
his summer home year after year, he cannot see very far below the

surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is typical. Quite naturally,
when the surfaces are broken by some unusual revelation of a strongly
serrate individuality, and the tale thereof is told at his dinner-table with
an accompaniment of laughter and exclamation-points, he takes that
case for an isolated and by no means typical one, when, if the truth
were told, the village windows are full of them as he passes by.
However, this state of things must necessarily exist, and has existed, in
villages which, like Pembroke, have not been brought much in contact
with outside influences, and have not been studied or observed at all by
people not of their kind by birth or long familiarity. In towns which
have increased largely in population, and have become more or less
assimilated with a foreign element, these characters do not exist in such
a large measure, are more isolated in reality, and have, consequently,
less claim to be considered types. But there have been, and are to-day
in New England, hundreds of villages like Pembroke, where nearly
every house contains one or more characters so marked as to be
incredible, though a writer may be prevented, for obvious reasons, from
mentioning names and proving facts.
There is often to a mind from the outside world an almost repulsive
narrowness and a pitiful sordidness which amounts to tragedy in the
lives of such people as those portrayed in Pembroke, but quite
generally the tragedy exists only in the comprehension of the observer
and not at all in that of the observed. The pitied would meet pity with
resentment; they would be full of wonder and wrath if told that their
lives were narrow, since they have never seen the limit of the breadth
of their current of daily life. A singing-school is as much to them as a
symphony concert and grand opera to their city brethren, and a sewing
church sociable as an afternoon tea. Though the standard of taste of the
simple villagers, and their complete satisfaction therewith, may
reasonably be lamented, as also their restricted view of life, they are not
to be pitied, generally speaking, for their unhappiness in consequence.
It may be that the lack of unhappiness constitutes the real tragedy.
Chapter I

At half-past six o'clock on Sunday night Barnabas came out of his
bedroom. The Thayer house was only one story high, and there were no
chambers. A number of little bedrooms were clustered around the three
square rooms--the north and south parlors, and the great kitchen.
Barnabas walked out of his bedroom straight into the kitchen where the
other members of the family were. They sat before the hearth fire in a
semi-circle--Caleb Thayer, his wife Deborah, his son Ephraim, and his
daughter Rebecca. It was May, but it was quite cold; there had been
talk of danger to the apple blossoms; there was a crisp coolness in the
back of the great room in spite of the hearth fire.
Caleb Thayer held a great leather-bound Bible on his knees, and was
reading aloud in a solemn voice. His wife sat straight in her chair, her
large face tilted with a judicial and argumentative air, and Rebecca's
red cheeks bloomed out more brilliantly in the heat of the fire. She sat
next her mother, and her smooth dark head with its carven comb arose
from her Sunday kerchief with a like carriage. She and her mother did
not look alike, but their motions were curiously similar, and perhaps
gave evidence to a subtler resemblance in character and motive power.
Ephraim, undersized for his age, in his hitching, home-made clothes,
twisted himself about when Barnabas entered, and stared at him with
slow regard. He eyed the smooth, scented hair, the black satin vest with
a pattern of blue flowers on it, the blue coat with brass buttons, and the
shining boots, then he whistled softly under his breath.
"Ephraim!" said his mother, sharply. She had a heavy voice and a slight
lisp, which seemed to make it more impressive and more distinctively
her own. Caleb read on ponderously.
"Where ye goin', Barney?" Ephraim inquired, with a chuckle and a grin,
over the back of his chair.
"Ephraim!" repeated his mother. Her blue eyes frowned around his
sister at him under their heavy sandy brows.
Ephraim twisted himself back into position. "Jest wanted to know

where he was goin'," he muttered.
Barnabas stood by the window brushing his fine bell