Thankful Blossom | Page 4

the legend, "Thine Forever."
The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the farm-shed and
the open field beside it. Five minutes passed in fruitless expectancy.
Ten minutes! And then the rising moon slowly lifted herself over the
black range of the Orange hills, and looked at him, blushing a little, as
if the appointment were her own.
The face and figure thus illuminated were those of a strongly built,
handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in bearing that it needed not the
buff epaulets and facings to show his captain's rank in the Continental
army. Yet there was something in his facial expression that
contradicted the manliness of his presence,--an irritation and
querulousness that were inconsistent with his size and strength. This
fretfulness increased as the moments went by without sign or motion in
the faintly lit field beyond, until, in peevish exasperation, he began to
kick the nearer stones against the wall.
"Moo-oo-w!"
The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor that he had failed to
recognize in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested, half-drowsy
low of a cow, but that it was so near him--evidently just beside the wall.
If an object so bulky could have approached him so near without his

knowledge, might not she--
"Moo-oo!"
He drew nearer the wall cautiously. "So, Cushy! Mooly! Come up,
Bossy!" he said persuasively. "Moo"--but here the low unexpectedly
broke down, and ended in a very human and rather musical little laugh.
"Thankful!" exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a trifle uneasily
and affectedly as a hooded little head arose above the wall.
"Well," replied the figure, supporting a prettily rounded chin on her
hands, as she laid her elbows complacently on the wall,--"well, what
did you expect? Did you want me to stand here all night, while you
skulked moonstruck under a tree? Or did you look for me to call you by
name? did you expect me to shout out, 'Capt. Allan Brewster--'"
"Thankful, hush!"
"Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent," continued the
girl, with an affected raising of a low, pathetic voice that was, however,
inaudible beyond the tree. "Capt. Brewster, behold me,-- your obleeged
and humble servant and sweetheart to command."
Capt. Brewster succeeded, after a slight skirmish at the wall, in
possessing himself of the girl's hand; at which; although still struggling,
she relented slightly.
"It isn't every lad that I'd low for," she said, with an affected pout, "and
there may be others that would not take it amiss; though there be fine
ladies enough at the assembly halls at Morristown as might think it
hoydenish?"
"Nonsense, love," said the captain, who had by this time mounted the
wall, and encircled the girl's waist with his arm. "Nonsense! you
startled me only. But," he added, suddenly taking her round chin in his
hand, and turning her face toward the moon with an uneasy
half-suspicion, "why did you take that light from the window? What

has happened?"
"We had unexpected guests, sweetheart," said Thankful: "the count just
arrived."
"That infernal Hessian!" He stopped, and gazed questioningly into her
face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was as
sweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two inconstants
understood each other.
"Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian, but an exiled gentleman from
abroad,--a nobleman--"
"There are no noblemen now," sniffed the trooper contemptuously.
"Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal."
"But they are not, Allan," said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in her
brows: "even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was dropped last
night by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose mother come by
herself in a ship from Surrey? Do they look equal?"
"Titles are but breath," said Capt. Brewster doggedly. There was an
ominous pause.
"Nay, there is one nobleman left," said Thankful; "and he is my
own,--my nature's nobleman!"
Capt. Brewster did not reply. From certain arch gestures and wreathed
smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied her
statement, it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stood
before her was the nobleman alluded to. At least, he so accepted it, and
embraced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle clinging around
his neck. In this attitude they remained quiet for some moments,
slightly rocking from side to side like a metronome; a movement, I
fancy, peculiarly bucolic, pastoral, and idyllic, and as such, I wot,
observed by Theocritus and Virgil.
At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps her wits about

her much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal; and,
while the gallant captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips, Miss
Thankful distinctly heard the farm-gate click, and otherwise noticed
that the moon was getting high