If this opinion had not been vigorously backed by a box on the ears and a violent shaking, it isnt likely that Hiram in his own mind would have felt deeply concerned at it. Reprobation is such a very long way off (especially when youre twelve years old), whereas a box on the ears is usually experienced in the present tense with remarkable rapidity. But Hiram was so well used to cuffing (for the deacon was a God-fearing man, who held it prime part of his parental duty to correct his child with due severity) that he didnt cry much or make a fuss about it. To say the truth, too, he was watching so eagerly to see what his father would do with the beloved sketch-book that he had no time to indulge in unnecessary sentiment. For if only that sketch-book were taken from him that poor, soiled, second-hand, half-covered sketch-book Hiram felt in his dim inarticulate fashion that he would have solved the pessimistic problem forthwith in the negative, and that life for him would no longer be worth living.
The deacon turned the leaves over slowly for some minutes more, with many angry ejaculations, and then deliberately took them between his finger and thumb, and tore the book in two across the middle. Next, he doubled the pages over again, and tore them a second time across, and so on until the whole lot was reduced to a mass of little fluttering crumpled fragments. These he tossed contemptuously among the boulders, and with a parting cuff to Hiram proceeded on his way, to ruminate over the singular mystery of reprobation, even in the children of regenerate parents. You jest mind you go in right thar an weed the rest of that peppermint, sonny, he said as he strode away. An be pretty quick about it, too, or else youll be more scart when you come home to-night than ever you was scart in all your life afore, you take my word for it.
As soon as the deacon was gone, poor Hiram sat down again on the heap of boulders and cried as though his little heart would fairly break. In spite of his fathers vigorous admonition, he couldnt turn to at once and weed the peppermint. Taint the lickin I mind, he said to himself ruefully, as he gathered up the scattered fragments in his hand, taint the lickin, its the picturs. Them thar picturs was pretty near the ony thing I liked best of anything livin. Wal, it wouldnt hev mattered much ef hed ony tore up the ones Id drawed: but when he tore up all my paper, so as I cant draw any more, that does make a feller feel reel bad. I never was so mad with him in my life afore. I reckon fathers is the onaccountablest and most miraclous creeturs in all creation. He might hev tore the picturs ef he liked, but what for. did he want to go tearin up all my paper?
As he sat there on the boulders, still, with that gross injustice rankling impotently in his boyish soul, he felt another shadow approaching once more, and looked up expecting to see his father returning. But it wasnt the gaunt long shadow of the deacon that came across the pile: it was a plump, round, thickset English shadow, and it was closely followed by the body of its owner, his fathers hired help, late come from Dorsetshire. Sam Churchill leant down in his bluff, kindly way, when he saw the little chap crying, and asked him quickly if he was ill.
Sick? Hiram answered, through his sobs, unconsciously translating the word into his own dialect. Sick? No, I aint sick, Mr. Sam; but Im orful mad with father. He kem right here just now and tore up my drawin book an that drawin book was most everything to me, it was and hes tore it up, a ravin an tearin like all possest, this very minnit.
Sam looked at the fragments sympathetically. I tellee, Hiram, he said gently, Ive got a brother o my own awver yonder in Darsetshire about your age, too as is turble vond of drawin. I was turble vond of it myself when I was a little chap at Ootton. Thik ther eagle is drawed first-rate, e be, an sos the squirl. Ive drawed squirls myself, manys the time, in the copse at Ootton, I mind: an Ive gone mitching, too, in summer, birds-nestin and that, all over the vields for miles around us. Your faathers a main good man, Hiram;e s a religious man, an a onest man, and I do love to ear un argify most turble vine about religion, an ell, an reprobation, an Enery Clay, and such like: butes aard man, tilers no denyin of it.Es tookis religion ot an ot, e as; an I do thinke do use ee bad sometimes, vor a little chap, an no mistake. Now, dont ee go an cry no longer, thers a good little vulla; dont ee cry, Hiram, vor I never could abare to zee a little chap or a woman a-cryin. Zee ere, Hiram, and the big hand dived deep into the recesses of a pair of very muddy corduroy trousers, eres a sixpence foree what do ee call it awver ere, ten cents, baint it? Ere, take it, take it young un; dont ee be aveard. Now, whatll ee buy wi it, eh? Lollipops, most like, I sim.
Lollipops! the boy answered quickly, taking the dime with a grateful gesture. No, Mr. Sam, not them: nor toffy, nor peanuts neither. I shall go right away to Wes Johnsons store, next time fathers in the city, an buy a new book, so as I can make a crowd more drawins. Thats what I like bettern anything. Its jest splendid.
Sam looked at the little Yankee boy again with a certain faint moisture in his eyes; but he didnt reflect to himself that human nature is much the same all the world over, in Dorsetshire or in Geauga County. In fact, it would never have occurred to Sams simple heart to doubt the truth of that fairly obvious principle. He only put his hand on Hirams ragged head, and said softly: Well, Hiram, turn to now, an Ill help ee weed the peppermint.
They weeded a row or two in silence, and then Sam asked suddenly: What vor do un grow thik peppermint, Hiram?
To make candy, Mr. Sam, Hiram answered.
Good job too, Sam went on musingly. Seems to me they do want it turble bad in these ere parts. Sight too much corn, an not near enough candy down to Murrica; why cant deacon let the little vulla draw a squirl if es got a mind to? Thats what I wants to know. What do those varmers all around ere do? (Varmers they do call em; no better nor labourers, I take it.) Why, they buy a bit o land, an work, an slave thesselves an their missuses, all their lives long, what vor? To raise pork and corn on. What vor, again? To buy more land; to raise more corn an bacon; to buy more land again; to raise more corn an bacon; and so on, world without end, amen, for ever an ever. An in the tottal, what do ur all come to? Pork and flour, for ever an ever. Why, even awver yonder in old England, wed got something better nor that, and better worth livin vor. And Sams mind wandered back gently to Wootton Mandeville, and the old tower which he didnt know to be of Norman architecture, but which he loved just as well as if he did for all that: and then he borrowed Hirams pencil, and pulled a piece of folded paper from his pocket (it had inclosed an ounce of best Virginia), and drew upon it for Hirams wondering eyes a rough sketch of an English village church, with big round arches and dog-tooth ornament, embowered in shady elm-trees, and backed up by a rolling chalk down in the further distance. Hiram looked at the sketch admiringly and eagerly.
I wish I could draw such a thing as that, he said with delight. But I cant, Mr. Sam; I can only draw birds and musk-rats and things not churches. Thats a reel pretty church, too: reckon I never see such a one as that thar anywhere. Might that be whar you was raised, now?
Sam nodded assent.
Wal, that does beat everything. I should like to go an see something like that, sometime. Ef I git a book, will you learn me to draw a church same as you do, Mr. Sam?
Bless yer eart, yes, Sam answered quickly, and turned with swimming eyes to weed the rest of the peppermint. From that day forth, Sam Churchill and Hiram Winthrop were sworn friends through all their troubles.
CHAPTER II. RURAL ENGLAND
It was a beautiful July morning, and Colin Churchill and Minna Wroe were playing together in the fritillary fields at Wootton Mandeville. At twelve years old, the intercourse of lad and maiden is still ingenuous; and Colin was just twelve, though little Minna might still have been some two years his junior. A tall, slim, fair-haired boy was Colin Churchill, with deep-blue eyes more poetical in their depth and intensity than one might have expected from a little Dorsetshire peasant child. Minna, on the other hand, was shorter and darker; a gipsy-looking girl, black-haired and tawny-skinned; and with two little beady-black eyes that glistened and ran over every moment with contagious merriment. Two prettier children you wouldnt have found anywhere that day in the whole county of Dorset than Minna Wroe and Colin Churchill.
They had gathered flowers till they were tired of them in the broad spongy meadow; they had played hide-and-seek among the eighteenth-century tombstones in the big old churchyard; they had quarrelled and made it up again half a dozen times over in pure pettishness: and now, by way of a distraction, Minna said at last coaxingly: Do ee, Colin, do ee come down to the lake yonder and make I a bit of a vigger-ead.
Dont ee worrit me, Minna, Colin answered, like a young lady who refuses to sing, half-heartedly (meaning all the time that one should ask her again): Dont ee see I be tired? I dont want vor to go makin no vigger-eads vor ee, I tell ee.
But Minna would have one: on that she insisted: What a vinnid lad ee be, she cried petulantly, not to want to make I a vigger-ead. Now do ee, Cohn, thers a a good boy; do ee, an Ill gee ee arf my peppermint cushions, come Saturday.
I dont want none o your cushions, Minna, Colin answered, with a boys gallantry; but come along down to the lake if ee will: Ill make ee dree or vower vigger-eads, never vear, an them vine uns too, if so be as you want em.
They went together down to the brook at the corner of the meadow (called a lake in the Dorsetshire dialect); and there, at a spot where the plastic clay came to the surface in a little cliff at a bend of the stream, Colin carved out a fine large lump of shapeless raw material from the bank, which he forthwith proceeded to knead up with his hands and a sprinkling of water from the rill into a beautiful sticky consistency. Minna watched the familiar operation with deepest interest, and added from time to time a word or two of connoisseur criticism: Now theest got it too wet, Colin; or, Take care thee dont putt in too much of thik there blue earth yonder; or, Thats about right vor the viggeread now, Im thinkin; theed better begin makin it now avore the clay gets too dried up.
As soon as Colin had worked the clay up to what he regarded as the proper requirements of his art, he began modelling it dexterously with his fingers into the outer form and fashion of a ships figure-head: Whatll ee ave virst, Minna? he asked as he roughly moulded the mass into a bold outward curve, that would have answered equally well for any figure-head in the whole British merchant navy.
Ill ave the Mariar-Ann, Minna answered with a nod of her small black head in the direction of the mouth in the valley, where the six petty fishing vessels of Wootton Mandeville stood drawn up together in a long straight row on the ridge of shingle. The Mariar-Ann was the collier that came monthly from Cardiff, and its figure-head represented a gilded lady, gazing over the waves with a vacant smile, and draped in a flowing crimson costume of no very particular historical period.
Cohn worked away at the clay vigorously for a few minutes with fingers and knife by turns, and at the end of that time he had produced a very creditable figure-head indeed, accurately representing in its main features the gilded lady of the Mariar-Ann.
Oh, how lovely! Minna cried, delighted. Thiks the best theest made, Colin. Lets bake un and keep un always.
Take un ome an bake un yourself, Minna, the boy answered. We aint got no vire ere. Whatll I make ee now? Nother vigger-ead?
No! Minna cried, with a happy inspiration.
Make myself, Colin.
The boy eyed her carefully from head to foot. I dont spose I can do ee, Minna, he answered after a pause. Howsonedever, Ill try; and he took a fresh lump of the kneaded clay, and began working it up loosely into a rough outline of the girls figure. It was his first attempt at modelling from life, and he went at it with careful deliberation. Minna posed before him in her natural attitude, and Colin called her back every minute or two when she got impatient, and kept his little sitter steadily posed till the portrait statuette was fairly finished. Critical justice compels the admission that Colin Churchills first figure from life was not an entirely successful work of sculpture. Its expression was distinctly feeble; its pose was weak and uncertain; its drapery was marked by a frank disregard of folds and a bold conventionalism; and, last of all, it ended abruptly at the short dress, owing to certain mechanical difficulties in the way of supporting the heavy body on a pair of slender moist clay legs. Still, it distinctly suggested the notion of a human being; it remotely resembled a little girl; and it even faintly adumbrated, in figure at least, if not in feature, Minna Wroe herself.
But if the work of art failed a little when judged by the stern tribunal of adult criticism, it certainly more than satisfied both the young artist and the subject of his plastic skill. They gazed at the completed figure with the deepest admiration, and Minna even ventured to express a decided opinion that anybody in the world would know it was meant for her. Which high standard of artistic portraiture has been known to satisfy much older and more exalted critics, including many ladies and gentlemen of distinction who have wasted the time of good sculptors by having their busts taken.
Meanwhile, down in the village by the shore, Geargey Wroe, Minnas father, was standing by a little garden gate, where Sam Churchill the elder was carefully tending his cabbages and melons. Zeen our Minna, Sam! he asked over the paling. Whers er to, dost know? Off zumwhere with yer Colin, Ill be bound, Sammy. Theyre always off zumwhere together, them two is, I vancy. Es up to is drawin or zummat down to lake there. Such a lad vor drawin an that I never did zee. Ows bisness, Sammy?
Purty good, Geargey, purty good. Volks be a-comin in now an takin lodgins, wantin garden stuff and such like. First-rate family from London come yesterday down to Walkers. Turble rich volk I should say by the look o un. Ordered a power o fruit and zum vegetables.Ows vishin, Geargey? Bad, Geargey answered, shaking his head ominously: as bad as ur could be. Towns turble empty still: nobody come ceptin a lot o good-vor-nothin meetingers. Ootton aint wot it ad used to be, Sammy, zince these ere rail-rawds. Wot we wants is the rail-rawd to come ere to town, so volks can get ere aisy, like they can to Sayton. Then wed get zum real gintlevolk who got money in their pockets to spend, anll spend it vree and aisy to the tradesmen, and the boatmen, and the vishermen; thats wot we wants, dont us, Sammy?