Queechy | Page 4

laugh. "Well, dear!" said he, "it shall grow till it's as big as the house, if it will."
"It won't do that," said Fleda. "But I am very glad I have got this bittersweet--this is just what I wanted. Now if I can only find some holly--"
"We'll come across some, I guess, by and by," said Mr. Ringgan; and Fleda settled herself again to enjoy the trees, the fields, the roads, and all the small handiwork of nature, for which her eyes had a curious intelligence. But this was not fated to be a ride of unbroken pleasure.
"Why what are those bars down for?" she said as they came up with a field of winter grain. "Somebody's been in here with a wagon. O grandpa! Mr. Didenhover has let the Shakers have my butternuts!--the butternuts that you told him they mustn't have."
The old gentleman drew up his horse. "So he has!" said he.
Their eyes were upon the far end of the deep lot, where at the edge of one of the pieces of woodland spoken of, a picturesque group of men and boys in frocks and broad-brimmed white hats were busied in filling their wagon under a clump of the now thin and yellow leaved butternut trees.
"The scoundrel!" said Mr. Ringgan under his breath.
"Would it be any use, grandpa, for me to jump down and run and tell them you don't want them to take the butternuts?--I shall have so few."
"No, dear, no," said her grandfather, "they have got 'em about all by this time; the mischief's done. Didenhover meant to let 'em have 'em unknown to me, and pocket the pay himself. Get up!"
Fleda drew a long breath, and gave a hard look at the distant wagon where her butternuts were going in by handfuls. She said no more.
It was but a few fields further on that the old gentleman came to a sudden stop again.
"Ain't there some of my sheep over yonder there, Fleda,--along with Squire Thornton's?"
"I don't know, grandpa," said Fleda,--"I can't see--yes, I do see--yes, they are, grandpa; I see the mark."
"I thought so!" said Mr. Ringgan bitterly; "I told Didenhover, only three days ago, that if he didn't make up that fence the sheep would be out, or Squire Thornton's would be in;--only three days ago!--Ah well!" said he, shaking the reins to make the mare move on again,--"it's all of a piece.--Every thing goes--I can't help it."
"Why do you keep him, grandpa, if he don't behave right?" Fleda ventured to ask gently.
"'Cause I can't get rid of him, dear," Mr. Ringgan answered rather shortly.
And till they got to the post-office he seemed in a disagreeable kind of muse, which Fleda did not choose to break in upon. So the mile and a half was driven in sober silence.
"Shall I get out and go in, grandpa?" said Fleda when he drew up before the house.
"No, deary," said he in his usual kind tone; "you sit still. Holloa there!--Good-day, Mr. Sampion--have you got any thing for me?" The man disappeared and came out again.
"There's your paper, grandpa," said Fleda.
"Ay, and something else," said Mr. Ringgan: "I declare!--Miss Fleda Ringgan--care of E. Ringgan, Esq.'--There, dear, there it is."
"Paris!" exclaimed Fleda, as she clasped the letter and both her hands together. The butternuts and Mr Didenhover were forgotten at last. The letter could not be read in the jolting of the wagon, but, as Fleda said, it was all the pleasanter, for she had the expectation of it the whole way home.
"Where are we going now, grandpa?"
"To Queechy Run."
"That will give us a nice long ride. I am very glad. This has been a good day. With my letter and my bittersweet I have got enough, haven't I, grandpa?"
Queechy Run was a little village, a very little village, about half a mile from Mr. Ringgan's house. It boasted however a decent brick church of some size, a school-house, a lawyer's office, a grocery store, a dozen or two of dwelling-houses, and a post-office; though for some reason or other Mr. Ringgan always chose to have his letters come through the Sattlersville post-office, a mile and a half further off. At the door of the lawyer's office Mr. Ringgan again stopped, and again shouted "Holloa!"--
"Good-day, sir. Is Mr. Jolly within?"
"He is, sir."
"Will you ask him to be so good as to step here a moment? I cannot very well get out."
Mr. Jolly was a comfortable-looking little man, smooth and sleek, pleasant and plausible, reasonably honest too, as the world goes; a nice man to have to do with, the world went so easy with his affairs that you were sure he would make no unnecessary rubs in your own. He came now fresh and brisk to the side of the wagon, with that uncommon hilarity which people sometimes assume when