THE SPINNING-WHEEL
Month after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships
of the merchants
Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn
for the Pilgrims.
All in the village was peace; the men were intent
on their labors,
Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and
with merestead,
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass
in the meadows,
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer
in the forest.
All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor
of warfare
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of
danger.
Bravely the stalwart Miles Standish was scouring the
land with his forces,
Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,
Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.
Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse
and contrition
Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate
outbreak,
Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush
of a river,
Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and
brackish.
Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation,
Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the
firs of the forest.
Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered
with rushes;
Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were
of paper,
Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were
excluded.
There too he dug a well, and around it planted an
orchard:
Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well
and the orchard.
Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and
secure from annoyance,
Raghorn, the snow-white steer, that had fallen to
Alden’s allotment
In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time
Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet
pennyroyal.
Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet
would the dreamer
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the
house of Priscilla,
Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of
fancy,
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance
of friendship.
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls
of his dwelling;
Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil
of his garden;
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible
on Sunday
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described
in the Proverbs,—
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in
her always,
How all the days of her life she will do him good,
and not evil,
How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh
with gladness,
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth
the distaff,
How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her
household,
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet
cloth of her weaving!
So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the
Autumn,
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous
fingers,
As if the thread she was spinning were that of his
life and his fortune,
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound
of the spindle.
“Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when
I see you spinning and spinning,
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of
others,
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed
in a moment;
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful
Spinner.”
Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and
swifter; the spindle
Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short
in her fingers;
While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief,
continued:
“You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner,
the queen of Helvetia;
She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of
Southampton,
Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley
and meadow and mountain,
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed
to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed
into a proverb.
So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel
shall no longer
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers
with music.
Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was
in their childhood,
Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla
the spinner!”
Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan
maiden,
Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose
praise was the sweetest,
Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her
spinning,
Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases
of Alden:
“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern
for housewives,
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of
husbands.
Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready
for knitting;
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed
and the manners,
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times
of John Alden!”
Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands
she adjusted,
He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended
before him,
She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread
from his fingers,
Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,
Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled
expertly
Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for
how could she help it?—
Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in
his body.
Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messenger
entered,
Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from
the village.
Yes; Miles Standish was dead!—an Indian
had brought them the tidings,—
Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front
of the battle,
Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of
his forces;
All the town would be burned, and all the people be
murdered!
Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts
of the hearers.
Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking
backward
Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted
in horror;
But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the
arrow
Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own,
and had sundered
Once and for ever the bonds that held him bound as
a captive,
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of
his freedom,
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what
he was doing,
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form
of Priscilla,
Pressing her close to his heart, as for ever his own,
and exclaiming:
“Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man
put them asunder!”
Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate
sources,
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks,
and pursuing
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and
nearer,
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in
the forest;
So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing
asunder,
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and
nearer,
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.
