I was over at parson Holland's, playing with his boys.
I had been rooting a peg out of the ground and my face was very dirty. We were under a cherry tree by a private hedge. Presently Miss Holland came out and began, girl-like, to pluck and eat the half ripe cherries. The wind rustled her white dress and lifted the gold floss of her wonderful hair. The birds chattered and sang all round us; the white clouds lingered overhead like puffs of steam vanishing against the splendid blue of the sky. The fragrance of leaf and fruit and bloom was heavy on the air. The girl in white, the quiet glory of the day, the murmur of the unsteady wind stream flowing among the dark leaves of the orchard and hedge, the charm of the temperature, and over all, the delicious sound of running water from the brook hard by, all harmonized, and in a tender childish mood I quit the game and lolled at full length on the ground, watching the fascinating face of the young lady as she drifted about the pleasant places of the orchard. Suddenly I saw her fix her eyes in a surprised way in a certain direction. I looked to see what had startled her, and there, half leaning over the hedge, stood Blodgett.
His face was ghastly in its pallor, and deep furrows ran down his jaws. His gray eyes had in them a look of longing blended with a sort of stern despair. It was only for a moment that his powerful frame toppled above the hedge, but he is indelibly pictured in my memory just as he then appeared.
How dismally hollow his voice sounded! Ah! it was pitiful. I neither saw nor heard of him after that. Years have passed since then. Blodgett is, likely, in his grave, but I never think of him without a sigh.
Yesterday I was in the old neighborhood, and, to my surprise, learned that the old log school house was still standing. So I set out alone to visit it. I found it rotten and shaky, serving as a sort of barn in which a farmer stows his oats, straw and corn fodder. The genius of learning has long since flown to finer quarters. The great old chimney had been torn down or had fallen, the broad boards of the roof, held on by weight poles, were deeply covered with moss and mould, and over the whole edifice hung a gloom--a mist of decay.