第65章

The seasons had changed very much since your father went to sea.

The winters used to be terrible in those days.When she went over to Springfield, in June, she saw the snow still on Watson's Ridge.

There were whole days when you couldn't git over to William Henry's, their next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away.It was that drefful winter that the Spanish sailor was found.You don't remember the Spanish sailor, Eliza Jane--it was before your time.

There was a little personal skirmishing here, which I feared, at first, might end in a suspension of maxillary functions, and the loss of the story; but here it is.Ah, me! it is a pure white winter idyl: how shall I sing it this bright, gay autumnal day?

It was a terrible night, that winter's night, when she and the century were young together.The sun was lost at three o'clock:

the snowy night came down like a white sheet, that flapped around the house, beat at the windows with its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close embrace.In the middle of the night, they thought they heard above the wind a voice crying, "Christus, Christus!" in a foreign tongue.They opened the door,--no easy task in the north wind that pressed its strong shoulders against it,--but nothing was to be seen but the drifting snow.The next morning dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape changed and obliterated with drift.

During the day, they again heard the cry of "Christus!" this time faint and hidden, like a child's voice.They searched in vain: the drifted snow hid its secret.On the third day they broke a path to the fence, and then they heard the cry distinctly.Digging down, they found the body of a man,--a Spanish sailor, dark and bearded, with ear-rings in his ears.As they stood gazing down at his cold and pulseless figure, the cry of "Christus!" again rose upon the wintry air; and they turned and fled in superstitious terror to the house.And then one of the children, bolder than the rest, knelt down, and opened the dead man's rough pea-jacket, and found--what think you?--a little blue-and-green parrot, nestling against his breast.It was the bird that had echoed mechanically the last despairing cry of the life that was given to save it.It was the bird, that ever after, amid outlandish oaths and wilder sailor-songs, that I fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle mistress, and brought scandal into the Jerseys, still retained that one weird and mournful cry.

The sun meanwhile was sinking behind the steadfast range beyond, and I could not help feeling that I must depart with my wants unsatisfied.I had brought away no historic fragment: I absolutely knew little or nothing new regarding George Washington.I had been addressed variously by the names of different members of the family who were dead and forgotten; I had stood for an hour in the past:

yet I had not added to my historical knowledge, nor the practical benefit of your readers.I spoke once more of Washington, and she replied with a reminiscence of Perkins.

Stand forth, O Josiah W.Perkins of Basking Ridge, N.J.Thou wast of little account in thy life, I warrant; thou didst not even feel the greatness of thy day and time; thou didst criticise thy superiors; thou wast small and narrow in thy ways; thy very name and grave are unknown and uncared for: but thou wast once kind to a woman who survived thee, and, lo! thy name is again spoken of men, and for a moment lifted up above thy betters.

End