: The Romance of an Old Fool by Field Roswell Martin - Fiction; Love stories

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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wo miles to the village. Every foot of the country I had played over as a boy. Here was the field where Deacon Skinner did his "hayin'"; just beyond the deacon raised his tobacco crop. That roof over there, which I once detected as the top of Jim Pomeroy's barn, reminded me of the day of the raisin', when I sprained my ankle and thereby saved myself a thrashing for running away. Here was Pickerel Pond, the scene of many miraculous draughts, and now I crossed Peach brook which babbled along under the road just as saucily and untiringly as if it had slept all these years and was just awaking to fresh life. A hundred rods up the brook was the Widow Parsons's farm, and I knew that if I went through the side gate, cut across the barnyard, and kept down to the left, I should find that same old stump on which Bill Howland sat the day he caught the biggest dace ever pulled out of the quiet pool.

The sun was going down behind Si Thompson's planing mill as I stopped at the little red covered bridge that marked the boundary of the village. Silas had been dead for twenty years, but it seemed to me that it was only yesterday that I heard his nasal twang above the roar of the machinery: "Sa-ay, you fellers want to git out o' that!" The little bridge had lost much of its color and most of its impressiveness, for I remembered when to my boyish fancy it seemed a greater triumph of engineering than the Victoria bridge at Montreal. And the same old thrill went through me as I started to run--just as I did when a boy--and felt the planks loosen and creak under my feet. Here was a home-coming worth the while.

Hank Pettigrew kept the village tavern. The memory of man, so far as I knew, ran not back to the time when Hank did not keep the tavern. So I was not in the least surprised, as I entered, to see the old man, with his chair tilted back against the wall, his knees on a level with his chin, and his eyes fixed on a chromo of "Muster Day," which had descended to him through successive generations. He did not move as I advanced, or manifest the slightest emotion of surprise, merely saying, "Hullo, Johnny," as if he expected me to remark that mother had sent me over to see if he had any ice cream left over from dinner. It probably did not occur to Hank that I had been absent twenty-five years. If it had occurred to him, he would have considered such a trifling flight of time not worth mentioning.

With the question of lodging and supper disposed of, and with the modest bribe of a cigar, which Hank furtively exchanged for a more accustomed brand of valley leaf, it was not difficult to loosen the old landlord's tongue and secure information of my playmates. What had become of Teddy Grover, the pride of our school on exhibition day? Could we ever forget the afternoon he stood up before the minister and the assembled population and roared "Marco Bozzaris" until we were sure the sultan was quaking in his seraglio? And how he thundered "Blaze with your serried columns, I will not bend the knee!" To our excited imaginations what dazzling triumphs the future held out for Teddy.

"Yep; Ted's still a-beout. Three days in the week he drives stage coach over to Spicerville, and the rest o' the time he does odd jobs--sort o' tendin' round."

And Sallie Cotton--black-eyed, curly-haired, mischievous little sprite, the agony of the teacher and the love and admiration of the boys! Who climbed trees, rattled to school in the butcher wagon, never knew a lesson, but was always leading lady in the school colloquies, and was surely destined to rise to eminence on the American stage if she did not break her neck tumbling out of old Skinner's walnut tree?

"Oh, Sal; she married the Congregational minister down to Peterfield, and was 'lected president of the Temperance Union and secretary of the Endeavorers. Read a piece down at Fust Church last week on 'Breakin' Away from Old Standards,' illustratin' the alarmin' degen'racy of children nowadays."

And George Hawley, our Achilles, our Samson, our ideal of everything manly and courageous! Strong as an ox and brave as a lion! Our champion in every form of athletic sports! Who looked with contempt on girls and disdained their maidenly advances! Who thought only of deeds of muscular prowess, and who seemed to carry the assurance of a force that would lead armies and subdue nations! What of George?

"Wa-al, George was a-beout not long ago. Had your room for his samples. Travellin' for a house down in Boston, and comes here reg'lar. Women folks say his last line o' shirt waists war the best they ever see."

Oh, the times that change, and change us! Alas, the fleeting years, good Posthumus, that work such havoc with our childhood dreams and hopes and aspirations!

It was a relief, after the shattering of these idols, to leave the society of the communicative Mr. Pettigrew and wander into the moonlight. Save as adding beauty to the scenery, the moon was comparatively of no assistance, for so well was the little village stamped on my memory, and so little had it changed in the quarter of a century, that I could have walked blindfolded to any suggested point. Naturally I turned my steps toward the home of my youth, and as I drew near the old-fashioned, many-gabled house, with its settled, substantial air, austere yet inviting, its large yard with the huge elms, and the big lamp burning in the library or "sittin'-room," where I first dolefully studied the geography that told me of a world outside, it seemed to bend toward me rather frigidly as if to say reproachfully: "You sold me! you sold me!" True, dear old home; in my less prosperous days I was guilty of the crime of selling the house that faithfully sheltered my family for a hundred years. But have I not repented? And have I not returned to buy you back, and to make such further reparation as present conditions and true repentance demand? Is this less the pleasure than the duty of wealth?

With what sensations of delight I walked softly about the grounds, taking note of every familiar tree and bush and stump. I could have sworn that not a twig, not a blade of grass, had been despoiled or had disappeared in the years that marked my absence. I paused reverently under the old willow tree and affectionately rubbed my legs, for from this tree my parents had cut the instruments of torture for purposes of castigation, and its name, the weeping willow, was always associated in my infant mind with the direct results of contact with my unwilling person. On a level with the top of the willow was the little attic room where I slept, and the more sweetly when the crickets chirped, or the summer rain beat upon the roof, and where the song of the birds in the morning is the happiest music God has given to the country. Back of the woodshed I found the remains of an old grindstone, perhaps the same heavy crank I had so often perspiringly and reluctantly turned. Indeed my reviving memories were rather too generously connected with the strenuousness and not the pleasures of youth, but I thought of the well-filled lot in the old burying-ground on the hillside, and of those lying there who had said: "My boy, I am doing this for your good." I doubted it at the time, but perhaps they were right. At all events the memories were growing pleasanter, for a stretch of thirty-five years has many healing qualities, and our childhood griefs are such little things in the afterglow.

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