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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Some Say", by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "Some Say"
+       Neighbours in Cyrus
+
+Author: Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
+
+Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27251]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "SOME SAY" ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Diane Monico, and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (cover)]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (frontispiece)]
+
+
+
+
+"SOME SAY"
+
+NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
+
+
+BY
+
+LAURA E. RICHARDS
+
+Author of "Captain January," "Melody," "Queen Hildegarde,"
+"Five-Minute Stories," "When I Was Your Age,"
+"Narcissa," "Marie," "Nautilus," etc.
+
+
+TWELFTH THOUSAND
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BOSTON
+DANA ESTES & COMPANY
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1896_,
+
+BY ESTES & LAURIAT
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+Colonial Press:
+
+C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+Electrotyped by Geo. C. Scott & Sons
+
+
+
+
+"SOME SAY"
+
+
+
+
+TO MY
+Dear Sister,
+FLORENCE HOWE HALL,
+THIS VOLUME
+IS AFFECTIONATELY
+DEDICATED
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+"SOME SAY."
+
+
+
+
+Part I.
+
+
+"And some say, she expects to get him married to Rose Ellen before the
+year's out!"
+
+"I want to know if she does!"
+
+"Her sister married a minister, and her father was a deacon, so mebbe
+she thinks she's got a master-key to the Kingdom. But I don't feel so
+sure of her gettin' this minister for Rose Ellen. Some say he's so
+wropped up in his garden truck that he don't know a gal from a
+gooseberry bush. He! he!"
+
+The shrill cackle was answered by a slow, unctuous chuckle, as of a
+fat and wheezy person; then a door was closed, and silence fell.
+
+The minister looked up apprehensively; his fair face was flushed, and
+his mild, blue eyes looked troubled. He gazed at the broad back of his
+landlady, as she stood dusting, with minute care, the china ornaments
+on the mantelpiece; but her back gave no sign. He coughed once or
+twice; he said, "Mrs. Mellen!" tentatively, first low, then in his
+ordinary voice, but there was no reply. Was Mrs. Mellen deaf? he had
+not noticed it before. He pondered distressfully for a few moments;
+then dropped his eyes, and the book swallowed him again. Yet the sting
+remained, for when presently the figure at the mantelpiece turned
+round, he looked up hastily, and flushed again as he met his hostess'
+gaze, calm and untroubled as a summer pool.
+
+"There, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, cheerfully. "I guess that's done to
+suit. Is there anything more I can do for you before I go?"
+
+The minister's mind hovered between two perplexities; a glance at the
+book before him decided their relative importance.
+
+"Have you ever noticed, Mrs. Mellen, whether woodcocks are more apt to
+fly on moonshiny nights, as White assures us?"
+
+"Woodbox?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Why, yes, sir, it's handy by; and when
+there's no moon, the lantern always hangs in the porch. But I'll see
+that Si Jones keeps it full up, after this."
+
+Decidedly, the good woman was deaf, and she had not heard. Could those
+harpies be right? If any such idea as they suggested were actually in
+his hostess' mind, he must go away, for his work must not be
+interfered with, and he must not encourage hopes,--the minister
+blushed again, and glanced around to see if any one could see him.
+
+But he was so comfortable here, and Miss Mellen was so intelligent, so
+helpful; and this seemed the ideal spot on which to compile his New
+England "Selborne."
+
+He sighed, and thought of the woodcock again. Why should the bird
+prefer a moonshiny night? Was it likely that the creature had any
+appreciation of the beauties of nature? Shakespeare uses the woodcock
+as a simile of folly, to express a person without brains. Ha!
+
+The door opened, and Rose Ellen came in, her eyes shining with
+pleasure, her hands full of gold and green.
+
+"I've found the 'Squarrosa,' Mr. Lindsay!" she announced. "See, this
+is it, surely!"
+
+The minister rose, and inspected the flowers delightedly. "This is it,
+surely!" he repeated. "Stem stout, hairy above; leaves large, oblong,
+or the lower spatulate-oval, and tapering into a marginal petiole,
+serrate veiny; heads numerous; seeds obtuse or acute; disk-flowers, 16
+x 24. This is, indeed, a treasure, for Gray calls it 'rare in New
+England.' I congratulate you, Miss Mellen."
+
+"Late, sir?" said Mrs. Mellen, calmly. "Oh, no, 'tisn't hardly five
+o'clock yet. Still, 'tis time for me to be thinkin' of gettin'
+supper."
+
+"Don't you want I should make some biscuit for supper, mother?" asked
+Rose Ellen, coming out of her rapt contemplation of the goldenrod that
+Gray condescended to call rare, he to whom all things were common.
+
+Her mother made no answer.
+
+"Don't you want I should make a pan of biscuit?" Rose Ellen repeated.
+Still there was no reply, and the girl turned to look at her mother in
+some alarm.
+
+"Why, mother, what is the matter? why don't you answer me?"
+
+"Your mother's deafness," the minister put in, hurriedly, "seems
+suddenly increased: probably a cold,--"
+
+"Was you speakin' to me, Rose Ellen?" said Mrs. Mellen.
+
+"Why, yes!" said the girl, in distress.
+
+"Why, mother, how did you get this cold? you seemed all right when I
+went out."
+
+"Gettin' old!" cried Mrs. Mellen. "'Tis nothin' of the sort, Rose
+Ellen! I've took a cold, I shouldn't wonder. I went out without my
+shawl just for a minute. I expect 'twas careless, but there! life is
+too short to be thinkin' all the time about the flesh, 'specially when
+there's as much of it as I have. I've ben expectin' I should grow hard
+of hearin', though, these two years past. The Bowlers do, you know,
+Rose Ellen, 'long about middle life. There was your Uncle Lihu. I can
+hear him snort now, sittin' in his chair, like a pig for all the
+world, and with no idea he was makin' a sound."
+
+"But it's come on so sudden!" cried Rose Ellen, in distress.
+
+"That's Bowler!" said her mother. "Bowler for all the world! They take
+things suddin, whether it's hoarsin' up, or breakin' out, or what it
+is. There! you've heard me tell how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth come out
+with spots all over her face, when she was standin' up to be married.
+Chicken-pox it was, and they never knew where she got it; but my
+grand'ther said 'twas pure Bowler, wherever it come from."
+
+She gazed placidly at her daughter's troubled face; then, patting her
+with her broad hand, pushed her gently out of the room before her.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay's heard enough of my bein' hard of hearin', I expect,"
+she said, cheerfully, as they passed into the kitchen.
+
+"Don't you fret, Rose Ellen! You won't have to get a fog-horn yet
+awhile. I don't know but it would be a good plan for you to mix up a
+mess o' biscuit, if you felt to: Mr. Lindsay likes your biscuit real
+well, I heard him say so."
+
+"That's what I was going to do," said Rose Ellen, still depressed. "I
+wish't you'd see the doctor, mother. I don't believe but he could help
+your hearing, if you take it before it's got settled on you."
+
+"Well, I won't, certain!" said Mrs. Mellen. "The idea, strong and well
+as I be! Bowler blood's comin' out, that's all; and the only wonder is
+it hasn't come out before."
+
+All that day, and the next, the minister did not seem like himself. He
+was no more absent-minded than usual, perhaps,--that could hardly be.
+But he was grave and troubled, and the usual happy laugh did not come
+when Rose Ellen checked him gently as he was about to put pepper into
+his tea. Several times he seemed about to speak: his eye dwelt
+anxiously on the cream-jug, in which he seemed to be seeking
+inspiration; but each time his heart failed him, and he relapsed with
+a sigh into his melancholy reverie.
+
+Rose Ellen was silent, too, and the burden of the talk fell on her
+mother. At supper on the second day, midway between the ham and the
+griddle-cakes, Mrs. Mellen announced:
+
+"Rose Ellen, I expect you'd better go down to Tupham to-morrow, and
+stay a spell with your grandm'ther. She seems to be right poorly, and
+I expect it'd be a comfort to her to have you with her. I guess you'd
+better get ready to-night, and Calvin Parks can take you up as he goes
+along."
+
+Rose Ellen and the minister both looked up with a start, and both
+flushed, and both opened wide eyes of astonishment.
+
+"Why, mother!" said the girl. "I can't go away and leave you now, with
+this cold on you."
+
+Her mother did not hear her, so Rose Ellen repeated the words in a
+clear, high-pitched voice, with a note of anxiety which brought a
+momentary shade to Mrs. Mellen's smooth brow. The next moment,
+however, the brow cleared again.
+
+"I guess you'd better go!" she said again. "It'd be a pity if Mr.
+Lindsay and I couldn't get along for a month or six weeks; and I wrote
+mother yesterday that you would be up along to-morrow, so she'll be
+looking for you. I don't like to have mother disappointed of a thing
+at her age, it gives her the palpitations."
+
+"You--wrote--that I was coming!" repeated Rose Ellen. "And you never
+told me you was writing, mother? I--I should have liked to have known
+before you wrote."
+
+"Coat?" said Mrs. Mellen. "Oh, your coat'll do well enough, Rose
+Ellen. Why, you've only just had it bound new, and new buttons put on.
+I should take my figured muslin, if I was you, and have Miss Turner
+look at it and see how you could do it over: she has good ideas,
+sometimes, and it'd be a little different from what the girls here was
+doin', maybe. Anyway, I'd take it, and your light sack, too. 'Twon't
+do no harm to have 'em gone over a little."
+
+Rose Ellen looked ready to cry, but she kept the tears back
+resolutely.
+
+"I--don't--want to leave you, with this deafness coming on!" she
+shouted, her usually soft voice ringing like a bugle across the
+tea-table.
+
+"There! there! don't you grow foolish," her mother replied, with
+absolute calm.
+
+"Why, I can hear ye as well as ever, when you raise your voice a mite,
+like that. I should admire to know why you should stay at home on my
+account. I suppose I know my way about the house, if I be losin' my
+hearing just a dite. It isn't going to spoil my cooking, that I can
+see; and I guess Mr. Lindsay won't make no opposition to your going,
+for any difference it'll make to him."
+
+Mr. Lindsay, thus appealed to, stammered, and blushed up to his eyes,
+and stammered again; but finally managed to say, with more or less
+distinctness, that of course whatever was agreeable to Mrs. and Miss
+Mellen was agreeable to him, and that he begged not to be considered
+in any way in the formation of their plans.
+
+"That's just what I was thinking!" said his hostess. "A man don't want
+no botheration of plans. So that's settled, Rose Ellen."
+
+Rose Ellen knew it was settled. She was a girl of character and
+resolution, but she had never resisted her mother's will, nor had any
+one else, so far as she knew. She cried a good deal over her packing,
+and dropped a tear on her silk waist, the pride of her heart, and was
+surprised to find that she did not care. "There's no one there to care
+whether I look nice or not!" she said aloud; and then blushed
+furiously, and looked around the room, fearfully, to be sure that she
+was alone.
+
+Early next morning the crack of a whip was heard, and Calvin Parks's
+voice, shouting cheerfully for his passenger. The minister, razor in
+hand, peeped between his shutters, and saw Rose Ellen come from the
+house, wiping her eyes, and looking back, with anxious eyes. A wave of
+feeling swept through him, and he felt, for the moment, that he hated
+Mrs. Mellen. He had never hated any one before in his innocent life;
+while he was pondering on this new and awful sensation, the pale,
+pretty face had sunk back in the depths of the old red-lined stage,
+the whip cracked, and Calvin drove away with his prey.
+
+Mrs. Mellen came out on the steps, and looked after the stage. Then,
+with a movement singularly swift for so stout a person, she made a few
+paces down the walk, and, turning, looked up at the windows of the
+houses on either side of her own. In both houses a figure was leaning
+from a window, thrown half out over the sill, in an attitude of eager
+inquiry. At sight of Mrs. Mellen they dodged back, and only a slight
+waving of curtains betrayed their presence. The good woman folded her
+arms deliberately, and stood for five minutes, absorbed in the distant
+landscape; then she turned, and went slowly back to the house.
+
+"There!" she said, as she closed the door behind her. "That'll keep
+'em occupied for one while!" and there was infinite content in her
+tone.
+
+Mr. Lindsay, coming in to breakfast, found his hostess beaming behind
+the teakettle, placid and cheerful as usual. He still hated her, and
+found difficulty in replying with alacrity to her remarks on the
+beauty of the morning.
+
+"I expect you and me'll have a right cozy time together!" she
+announced. "You no need to put yourself out to talk to me, 'cause I
+reelly don't seem to be hearing very good; and I won't talk to you,
+save and except when you feel inclined. I know an elder does love to
+have a quiet house about him. My sister married a minister, and my
+father was a deacon himself, so I'm accustomed to the ways of the
+ministry."
+
+Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea, gloomily. The words recalled to his mind
+those which had so disturbed him a day or two ago, just when all this
+queer business of the deafness had come on. He remembered the spiteful
+tones of the two neighbours, and recalled how the words had hissed in
+his ears. He had thought of going away himself, lest he should
+encourage false hopes in the breast of his gentle young friend--or her
+mother; surely Rose Ellen,--as he said the name to himself, he felt
+his ears growing pink, and knew that he had not said the name before,
+even to himself; straightway said it again, to prove the absurdity of
+something, he was not sure what, and felt his throat dry and hot. Now
+Rose Ellen herself was gone, and for an indefinite time. She had not
+gone willingly, of that he was sure; but it was equally evident that
+her mother had no such thoughts as those two harridans had suggested.
+He glanced up furtively, to meet a broad, beaming glance, and the
+question whether he felt feverish any.
+
+"You seem to flush up easy!" said Mrs. Mellen. "I should be careful,
+if I was you, Mr. Lindsay, and not go messing round ponds and such at
+this season of the year. It's just this time we commonly look for
+sickness rising in the air."
+
+Mr. Lindsay stirred his tea again, and sighed. His mind seemed
+singularly distracted; and that, too, when the most precious moments
+of the year were passing. He must put all other matters out of his
+head, and think only of his great work.
+
+Had the Blackburnian Warbler been seen in this neighbourhood, as he
+had been told? He could hardly believe in such good fortune. The shy,
+mistrustful bird, hunting the thickest foliage of the tallest forest
+trees,--how should his landlady's daughter have seen it when she was
+seeking for ferns? yet her description had been exactly that of the
+books: "Upper parts nearly uniform black, with a whitish scapular
+stripe and a large white patch in the middle of the wing coverts; an
+oblong patch--" but she had not been positive about the head. No, but
+she _was_ positive as to the bright orange-red on chin, throat, and
+forepart of the breast, and the three white tail-feathers. Ah! why was
+she gone? why was she not here to show him the way, as she promised,
+to the place where she had seen the rare visitor? He might possibly
+have found the nest, that rare nest which Samuels never saw, which
+only Audubon had described: "composed externally of different
+textures, and lined with silky fibres and thin, delicate strips of
+bark, over which lies a thick bed of feathers and horsehair."
+
+It should be found in a small fork of a tree, should it? five or six
+feet from the ground, near a brook? well, he might still search, the
+next time he went out; meanwhile, there were the ferns to analyze, and
+that curious moss to determine, if might be. "But mosses are almost
+hopeless!" he said aloud, with an appealing glance across the table,
+where he was wont to look for sympathy and encouragement.
+
+"Soap dish?" said Mrs. Mellen, with alacrity.
+
+"Well, I don't wonder you ask, Mr. Lindsay. Why, I found it full of
+frogs' eggs this very morning, and I hove 'em away and scalt it out.
+It's drying in the sun this minute, and I'll bring it right up to your
+room directly."
+
+She beamed on him, and left the room. Mr. Lindsay groaned; looked
+about him for help, but found none, and retired, groaning, to his
+study.
+
+
+
+
+Part II.
+
+
+The minister had had a delightful but exhausting afternoon. He had
+gone to look for the nest of a marsh-hen, which he had some reason to
+think might be in a certain swamp, about five miles from the village.
+He did not find the nest, but he found plenty of other things: his
+pockets bulged with mosses and roots, his hat was wound with a curious
+vine that might possibly be Clematis Verticillaris, and both hands
+were filled with specimens of every conceivable kind. Incidentally the
+mosquitoes and black flies had found him: his face was purple, and,
+like that of the lady at the Brick Lane Branch tea-party, "swellin'
+wisibly;" and blood was trickling down his well-shaped nose from a
+bramble-scratch. He had fallen down once or twice in the bog, with
+results to his clothes; and altogether he presented a singular figure
+to the view of his parishioners as he strode hastily through the
+street. Heads were thrust out of windows, staid eyes rolled in horror,
+but the minister saw nothing. He was tired, and absorbed in his new
+possessions. It was good to sit down in his study, and spread his
+treasures out on the broad table, and gloat over them. A clump of damp
+moss rested quietly on his new sermon, "The Slough of Despond," but he
+took no note. He was looking for a place to put this curious little
+lizard in, and after anxious thought selected the gilt celluloid box,
+lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on
+Christmas for his collars and cuffs. He felt, vaguely, that it was not
+the right place for the lizard, but there seemed to be nothing else in
+reach,--except the flitter-work pen-box, and Rose Ellen had made that
+for him. Ah! if Rose Ellen were here now, how much she could help him!
+it was so much easier for two to analyze than one. He at the
+microscope, and Rose Ellen corroborating, correcting from the
+textbook,--it was a perfect arrangement.
+
+The minister sighed heavily. Mrs. Mellen brought in his tea, for it
+was Wednesday evening, and he preferred an early cup of tea, and a
+modest supper after the meeting. Food distracted his mind, he was apt
+to say, from thought, a statement which his landlady treated with
+indulgent contempt, as she had never known him to remark the
+difference between "riz" bread and the soda article.
+
+She set the cup down before him, and he promptly dipped a fern root
+into it; then started back with a cry of dismay.
+
+"Well indeed, sir!" said Mrs. Mellen, "I should think so, truly! What
+did you do that for, and spoil your tea?"
+
+"The--tea--a--that is, it is of no consequence about the tea!" said
+Mr. Lindsay, hastily.
+
+"I fear I have injured the root. I thought it was water. Dear! dear!
+Miss Mellen was in the habit of bringing me a glass of water when I
+brought plants home."
+
+Mrs. Mellen said nothing, but brought the water, and a fresh cup of
+tea; but Mr. Lindsay had fallen into the depths of the moss, and took
+no notice of either.
+
+She left the room, but presently returned, knitting in hand, and
+stood, unnoticed, in the doorway, glancing from time to time at the
+minister. He certainly was "a sight to behold," as she said to
+herself. She may have thought other things beside, but her face gave
+no sign. Presently the bell began to ring for Wednesday evening
+meeting. Mrs. Mellen glanced again at the minister, but he heard
+nothing. The botany was open before him, and he was muttering strange
+words that sounded like witch-talk.
+
+"Stamens six, hypogenous! anthers introrse! capsule cartilaginous,
+loculicidally three-valved, scurfy-leaved epiphytic!" What did it all
+mean? A slow flush crept over the woman's broad, placid face; her
+eyelids quivered, her eye roamed restlessly about the room. She
+shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and breathed heavily,
+as if in distress; and still her eyes came back to the slender figure
+in the great chair, bent in absorbed interest over the table.
+
+Ding! dong! ding! the notes came dropping through the air, clear and
+resonant. Even a deaf person might hear them, perhaps. Mrs. Mellen was
+evidently struggling with herself. Once she opened her lips as if to
+speak; once she stepped forward with outstretched hand, as if to shake
+the man into wakefulness and attention; but she did not speak, and her
+hand dropped again; and presently the bell stopped, and Sophronia
+Mellen went away to her sitting-room, hanging her head.
+
+Half an hour later there was knocking at the door, and the sound of
+many voices, anxious voices, pitched high and loud, on account of Mrs.
+Mellen's deafness.
+
+"How's Mr. Lindsay? When was he took sick? Have ye had the doctor?"
+
+"Do you think it's ketchin', Mis' Mellen? Think of all the young
+children in this parish, if anythin' should get the rounds! My! it's
+awful!"
+
+"How does he look? Some say he was pupple in the face when they see
+him coming home through the street. Most everybody did see him, and he
+was a sight! Apoplexy, most likely!"
+
+"Has he ever had fits, think? he don't look fitty, but you never can
+tell."
+
+"Have ye sent for his folks? You'd feel better to, I sh'd think, if
+he's taken; some say he has a mother rollin' in wealth, down Brunswick
+way."
+
+"Well, some say he ain't nothin' of the sort. Christiana Bean saw an
+aunt of his once, and she hadn't flesh enough on her to bait a
+mouse-trap with, Christiana said so."
+
+"Does he know you, Mis' Mellen? it's awful to see folks out of their
+heads; I don't know how any one kin bear to see it; you'd better let
+me come in and spell you a bit; you look clean tuckered out with the
+fright you've had."
+
+Mrs. Mellen stood and looked quietly at the crowd of "members" that
+surged and cackled about her.
+
+"I could hear better if one'd speak at a time!" she said, mildly.
+
+"Did you want to see Elder Lindsay? it--it must be gettin' near
+meetin'-time, isn't it?"
+
+"Meetin'-time! meetin's over, and Mr. Lindsay never come nigh. Do you
+mean to say he ain't sick? do you mean to say--"
+
+"What _do_ you mean to say, Mis' Mellen?"
+
+Mrs. Mellen held the door in her hand, and still gazed quietly at the
+excited throng. At length,--
+
+"Whatever's the matter with Mr. Lindsay," she said, in clear incisive
+tones, "I ain't going to let in no lunatic asylum to drive him clean
+out of his mind. Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd, if you'll step this
+way, I presume Mr. Lindsay'll be pleased to see you. And if the rest
+of you 'ud go home quiet, mebbe it might seem more consistent. There
+has been a meetin', you say? the Baptists will be just about comin'
+out now."
+
+An hour later, the two deacons were taking their leave of Mr. Lindsay.
+They stood, hat in hand, and were looking at the young man with
+pitying eyes. They were elderly men, of kind disposition.
+
+"Well, Mr. Lindsay," Mr. Todd was saying; "I guess we've said about
+all there is to say. Of course 'twas a pity, and such things make
+talk; but 'twon't occur again, I dare say. Some say--"
+
+"It _may_ occur again," cried the young minister. He was sitting with
+his head in his hand, and despair in his face.
+
+"It may occur again! I seem to have no mind, no memory! I am unfit to
+be a minister of the Christian Church. My brethren, what shall I do?"
+
+The elder men exchanged glances: then Deacon Strong stepped forward
+and laid his hands on the young man's shoulder, for he loved him.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay," he said, kindly, "so far as I can see, there's only one
+thing the matter with you; you want a wife!"
+
+"A wife!" repeated Charles Lindsay. His tone suggested that he had
+never heard of the article.
+
+"A wife!" the deacon said again, with emphasis; and his fellow deacon
+nodded assent.
+
+"A sensible, clever young woman, who will help you in parish matters,
+and be a comfort to you in every way,--a--hem! yes, in every way." The
+deacon reddened through his beard, and glanced at Deacon Todd; but the
+latter was a kind man, and knew Mrs. Strong, and gazed out of the
+window.
+
+"And--and tell you when it was time for meeting. I don't know as you'd
+have to look more'n a hundred miles for the very young woman that
+would make the right kind of helpmeet for you, but you know best about
+that. Anyway, Mr. Lindsay, it is not good for man to be alone, we have
+Scripture for that: and it's quite evident that it's particularly bad
+for you to be alone, with your--a--your love of nature" (the deacon
+caught sight of the lizard, peering disconsolately out of the gilt
+celluloid box, and brought his remarks to a hasty conclusion). "And so
+we'll be going, Mr. Lindsay, and don't you fret about to-night's
+meeting, for we'll make it all right."
+
+Mr. Lindsay bowed them out, with vague thanks, and muttered
+expressions of regret. He hardly heard their adieux; the words that
+were saying themselves over and over in his head were,--
+
+"You want a wife!"
+
+Did he want a wife? Was that what was the matter with him? Was that
+why he went about all day and every day, these last weeks, feeling as
+if half of him were asleep? He had always been a strong advocate of
+the celibacy of the clergy, as far as his own case went. Nothing, he
+had always assured himself, should ever come between him and his work.
+A wife would be a perpetual distraction: she would want money, and
+amusement, and a thousand things that he never thought about; and she
+would interfere with his sermons, and with his collections, and--and
+altogether, he would never marry. But now,--
+
+And what was it that happened only the other day, here in the village?
+A man and his wife had been quarrelling, to the scandal of the whole
+congregation. They were an elderly couple, and when it came to
+smashing crockery and emptying pails of water over each other, the
+minister felt it his duty to interfere. So he called on the wife,
+intending to reason with her first alone, and then, when she was
+softened and convinced, to call in the husband and reconcile them, and
+perhaps pray with them, since both were "members." But before he had
+spoken a dozen of his well-arranged and logical sentences, he was
+interrupted by loud and tearful outcries.
+
+The lady never thought it would come to this, no, never! Some thought
+she had enough to bear without this, but she knew how to submit to
+the will of Providence, and no one should say she struv nor hollered.
+She knew what was due to a minister, even if he was only just in
+pants; she only hoped Mr. Lindsay wouldn't see fit to say anything to
+her husband. Take Reuben Meecher when he was roused, and tigers was
+tame by him: and if he should know that his wife was spoke to so, by
+them as wasn't born or thought of when they was married, and nobody
+couldn't say but they had lived respectable for forty years, and now
+to come to this! The lady was well used to ministers, and some of the
+most aged in the country, and she knew what was due to them; but for
+her part, she thought 'twas well for ministers, as well as others, to
+speak of what they'd had exper'ence in, and then there would be no
+feeling!
+
+The visit was not a success, nor did it cheer the minister to hear the
+old couple chuckling to each other as he went sadly away, and to feel
+that they were laughing at him.
+
+But he was very humble, and he laid the spiteful words to heart.
+
+What did he know? What had he to say to his people, when it came to
+the real, terrible things of life? What had he had in his whole life,
+save kindness and a sheltered home, and then study, and a little
+divinity, and a little science? He sat and gazed at the image of
+himself in his mind's glass, and found it a gibbering phantom, with
+emptiness where should be eyes, and dry dust where should be living
+waters.
+
+As he sat thus sadly pondering, the sound of voices struck upon his
+ear. The window was open, and now that his mind was awake, there was
+no question of his hearing, when the two next-door neighbours leaned
+out of their back windows, across Mrs. Mellen's back yard. He had
+grown to loathe the sound of those two voices, the shrill cackling
+one, and the fat chuckle that was even more hateful. What were they
+saying now?
+
+"You don't tell me she wants to git him for herself? speak jest a dite
+louder! She can't hear ye, and he's so muddled up he never heard the
+bell for meetin', some say; but there's others think he'd ben
+drinkin', and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd jest leagued together with
+Sophrony Mellen to hide it. He was black in the face when he came
+home, and reelin' in his walk, for I see him with these eyes."
+
+Charles Lindsay started as if stung by a venomous snake. He put out
+his hand to the window, but now the sharp voice broke in, anxious to
+have its turn.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't be a mite surprised if 'twas so, Mis' Bean, and
+you've had experience, I'm sure, in such matters, after what you
+suffered with Mr. Bean. But what I was sayin', some do say Phrony
+Mellen's bound to have the minister for herself, and that's why she
+sent Rose Ellen off, traipsin' way down to Tupham, when her grandma'am
+don't need her no more'n a toad needs a tail."
+
+"I want to know if they say that!" replied Mrs. Bean. "But you know,
+some say Rose Ellen's got a beau down to Tupham, and that's why she
+went off without askin' leave or license, and her ma deef and all. I
+see her go myself, and she went off early in the mornin', and if ever
+I see a person what you may call slink away secret, like she'd done
+somethin' to be 'shamed of, 'twas that girl. _She_ knew what she was
+goin' for, well enough. Rose Ellen ain't no fool, for all she's as
+smooth as baked custard. Now you mark my words, Mis' Peake,--"
+
+At this moment, the back door opened with a loud clang. Mrs. Mellen
+stood on the doorstep, and her eyes were very bright. She said
+nothing, but gazed calmly up and down the yard, as if considering the
+beauty of the night. Then, after a few minutes, she turned and
+scrutinized her neighbours' windows. Nothing was to be seen, only a
+white muslin curtain waved gently in the moonlight: nothing was to be
+heard, only a faint rustle, probably of the same curtain.
+
+"It's an elegant night!" said Mrs. Mellen, aloud. "I thought I heard
+voices, but my hearin' does play me such tricks, these days."
+
+Her calm, sensible voice fell like balm on the distracted ears of the
+minister. He was soothed, he knew not why. The horrors that those
+harpies suggested,--could there be truth in them? Rose Ellen with
+a--his mind refused to frame the detestable word! Was there anything
+true in the world? Was it all scandal and hatefulness and untruth?
+
+He rose and paced his study in anguish of mind, but his ears were
+still awake,--he thought he never should regain the joy of losing
+himself,--and now another sound came to them, the sound of wheels. Why
+did his heart stop, and then beat violently? What was there in the
+sound of wheels? It was the late stage, of course, and Calvin Parks
+was driving fast, as usual, to get to his home, five miles away,
+before ten o'clock at night. But that stage came from Tupham, and
+Tupham meant Rose Ellen. Rose Ellen, who was as smooth as baked
+custard, and who had a--the wheels were slacking; the steady beat of
+the horses' feet stopped; the stage had paused at the Widow Mellen's
+door.
+
+"Here we be!" said Calvin Parks. "Take my hand, Rosy! so, thar she
+goes! Hope ye'll find yer ma right smart! Give her my respects and
+tell her,--wal, I swan!"
+
+For the door flew open, and out ran the minister, torn and stained and
+covered with dust, and caught Rose Ellen by both hands and drew her
+almost forcibly into the house.
+
+"Mother!" cried the girl. "How is she? I--I got so scared, not hearing
+from her, I couldn't stay another day, Mr. Lindsay!"
+
+"Oh,--your mother?" said Mr. Lindsay, incoherently. "She--a--she seems
+to be in excellent health, except for her deafness. It is I who am
+ill, Rose Ellen: very ill, and wanting you more than I could bear!"
+
+"Wanting me?" faltered Rose Ellen, with lips wide, with blue eyes
+brimming over. "You, Mr. Lindsay, wanting me?"
+
+"Yes, Rose Ellen!" cried the minister. They were still standing in the
+passage, and he was still holding her hands, and it was quite absurd,
+only neither of them seemed to realize it.
+
+"I have always wanted you, but I have only just found it out. I cannot
+live at all without you: I have been only half alive since you went
+away. I want you for my own, for always."
+
+"Oh, you can have me!" cried Rose Ellen, and the blue eyes brimmed
+over altogether with happy shining tears. "Oh, I was yours all the
+time, only I didn't know you--I didn't know--"
+
+She faltered, and then hurried on. "It--it wasn't only that I was
+scared about mother, Mr. Lindsay. I couldn't stay away from--oh, some
+said--some said you were going to be married, and I couldn't bear it,
+no, I couldn't!"
+
+But when Charles Lindsay heard that, he drew Rose Ellen by both hands
+into the study, and shut the door. And only the lizard knew what
+happened next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a month later.
+
+There had been a wedding, the prettiest wedding that the village had
+ever seen. The whole world seemed turned to roses, and the sweetest
+rose of all, Rose Ellen Lindsay, had gone away on her husband's arm,
+and Deacon Strong and Deacon Todd were shaking hands very hard, and
+blowing peals of joy with their pocket-handkerchiefs. Mrs. Mellen had
+preserved her usual calm aspect at the wedding, and looked young
+enough to be her own daughter, "some said," in her gray silk and white
+straw bonnet. But when it was all over, the wedding party gone, and
+the neighbours scattered to their homes again, Sophronia Mellen did a
+strange thing. She went round deliberately, and opened every window of
+her house. The house stood quite apart, with only the two houses close
+beside it on either hand, and no others till you came quite into the
+street itself. She opened every window to its utmost. Then she took a
+tin pan, and a pair of tongs, and leaned out of the front parlour
+window, and screamed three times, at the top of her lungs, beating
+meanwhile with all her might upon the pan. Then she went to the next
+window, and screamed and banged again, and so on all over the house.
+There were twenty windows in her house, and by the time she had gone
+the round, she was crimson and breathless. Nevertheless, she managed
+to put her last breath into a shriek of such astounding volume that
+the windows fairly rang. One last defiant clang of the tongs on the
+tin pan and then she sat down quietly by the back parlour window, and
+settled herself well behind the curtain, and prepared to enjoy herself
+thoroughly. "They shall have their fill this time!" she murmured to
+herself; "and I shall get all the good of it."
+
+For some minutes there was dead silence: the event had been too awful
+to be treated lightly. At length a rustling was heard, and very
+cautiously a sharp nose, generously touched with colour, was protruded
+from the window of the left-hand house.
+
+"Mis' Bean," said the owner of the nose. "Be you there?"
+
+"Well, I should say I was!" was the reply; and Mrs. Bean's fat curls
+shook nervously out of her window.
+
+"Maria Peake, what do you s'pose this means? Ain't it awful? Why, I've
+got palpitations to that degree,--don't s'pose there's a robber in
+the house, do ye? with all them weddin' presents about, 'twould be a
+dreadful thing! 'Tain't likely he would spare her life, and she tryin'
+to give the alarm like that! Most likely she's layin' dead this
+minute, and welterin' in her--"
+
+"Sssssssh!" hissed Mrs. Peake, in a deadly whisper. "Melissa Bean, you
+won't let a person hear herself think. 'Tain't no robber, I tell ye!
+She's gone out of her mind, Phrony Mellen has, as sure as you're a
+breathin' woman!"
+
+"You don't tell me she has!" Mrs. Bean leaned further out, her eyes
+distended with awful curiosity, her fat lips dropping apart. She was
+not a pleasant object, the hidden observer thought; but she was no
+worse than the skinny cabbage-stalk which now stretched itself far out
+from the opposite window.
+
+"I tell ye," Mrs. Peake hissed, still in that serpent-whisper, the
+most penetrating sound that ever broke stillness, "She's as crazy as a
+clo'esline in a gale o' wind. Some say she's wore an onsettled eye for
+six weeks past, and she glared at me yesterday, when I run in to borry
+an egg, same as if I was one wild animal and she was another. Ssssh!
+'Tis Bowler, I tell ye! They go that way, jest as often as they git a
+chance! I call it an awful jedgment on Elder Lindsay, bein' married
+into that family. Some say his mother besought him on her bended
+knees, but he was clean infatooated. I declare to you, Mis' Bean, I'm
+terrified most to death, to think of you and me alone here, so near to
+a ravin' lunatic. I don't think nothin' of robbers, alongside o'
+madness. She might creep in while you're standin' there,--your house
+is more handy by than mine, 'count of there bein' no fence, and--"
+
+"Yah! bah! ha! ha! ha! hurrah!" sounded in sharp, clear tones from
+Mrs. Mellen's window. Two ghastly faces, white with actual terror,
+gazed at each other for an instant, then disappeared; and immediately
+after was heard a sound of bolts being driven home, and of heavy
+furniture being dragged about.
+
+But Mrs. Mellen sat and fanned herself, being somewhat heated, and
+gazed calmly at the beauty of the prospect.
+
+"I've enjoyed myself real well!" she said. "I couldn't free my mind,
+not while Rosy and Mr. Lindsay was round; I've had a real good time."
+
+She fanned herself placidly, and then added, addressing the universe
+in general, with an air of ineffable good will:
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if my hearin' improved, too, kind o' suddin, same
+as it came on. That's Bowler, too! It's real convenient, bein' a
+Bowler!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS
+
+
+
+
+NEIGHBOURS IN CYRUS.
+
+
+"Hi-Hi!" said Miss Peace, looking out of the window. "It is really
+raining. Isn't that providential, now?"
+
+"Anne Peace, you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish
+voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences
+are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I _should_ like
+to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village
+lottin' on goin', 'xcept those who _would_ like best to go and can't.
+I've been longin' for these two years to go to a picnic and it's never
+ben so's I could. And now, jest when I _could_ ha' gone, this
+affliction must needs come to me. And then to have you rejoicin'
+'cause it rains!"
+
+The speaker paused for breath, and Miss Peace answered mildly: "I'm
+real sorry for you, Delia, you know I am; and if the' was any way of
+getting you to the grove,--but what I was thinking of, you know I
+couldn't finish Jenny Miller's dress last night, do what I could; and
+seeing it raining now, thinks I, they'll have to put off the picnic
+till to-morrow or next day, and then Jennie can go as nice as the
+rest. She does need a new dress, more than most of the girls who has
+them. And she's so sweet and pretty, it's a privilege to do for her.
+That's all I was thinking, Delia."
+
+Mrs. Delia Means sniffed audibly, then she groaned.
+
+"Your leg hurting you?" cried Miss Peace, with ready sympathy.
+
+"Well, I guess you'd think so," was the reply. "If _you_ had red-hot
+needles run into your leg. Not that it's any matter to anybody."
+
+"Hi-hi," said Miss Peace, cheerily. "It's time the bandages was
+changed, Delia. You rest easy just a minute, and I'll run and fetch
+the liniment and give you a rub before I put on the new ones."
+
+Mrs. Means remaining alone, it is proper to introduce her to the
+reader. She and Miss Peace were the rival seamstresses of Cyrus
+Village; that is, they would have been rivals, if Mrs. Means had had
+her way; but rivalry was impossible where Anne Peace was one of the
+parties. She had always maintained stoutly that Delia Means needed
+work a sight more than she did, having a family, and her husband so
+weakly and likely to go off with consumption 'most any time. Many and
+many a customer had Anne turned from her door, with her pleasant
+smile, and "I don't hardly know as I could, though I should be pleased
+to accommodate you; but I presume likely Mis' Means could do it for
+you. She doos real nice work, and I don't know as she's so much drove
+just now as I am."
+
+Delia Case had been a schoolmate of Anne Peace's. She was a pretty
+girl, with a lively sense of her own importance and a chronic taste
+for a grievance. She had married well, as every one thought, but in
+these days her husband had lost his health and Delia was obliged to
+put her shoulder to the wheel. She sewed well, but there was a sigh
+every time her needle went into the cloth, and a groan when it came
+out.
+
+"A husband and four children, and have to sew for a living!"--this was
+the burden of her song; and it had become familiar to her neighbours
+since David Means had begun to "fail up," as they say in Cyrus.
+
+Anne Peace had always been the faithful friend of "Delia Dumps." (It
+was Uncle Asy Green who had given her the name which stuck to her
+through thick and thin--Uncle Asy believed in giving people their due,
+and thought "Anne made a dreffle fool of herself, foolin' round with
+that woman at all.") Anne had been her faithful friend, and never
+allowed people to make fun of her if she were present.
+
+A week before my story opens, when Mrs. Means fell down and broke her
+leg, just as she was passing Miss Peace's house, the latter lady
+declared it to be a special privilege.
+
+"I can take care of her," she explained to the doctor, when he
+expressed regret at being obliged to forbid the sufferer's being moved
+for some weeks, "just as well as not and better. David isn't fit to
+have the care of her, and--well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it
+as well as I do, that Delia mightn't be the best person for David to
+have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can
+do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work's slack now,
+and there's nothing I'm specially drove with. I've been wishing right
+along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly.
+I'm kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos
+seem like a privilege, doesn't it?"
+
+The doctor growled. He was not fond of Mrs. Means.
+
+"If you can get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving
+Alley," he said, "it'll be a privilege for this village; but you can't
+do it, Anne. However, there's no use talking to you, you incorrigible
+optimist. You're the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven't
+the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I
+told you, and I'll call in the morning. Good day!"
+
+"My goodness me, what was he saying to you?" Mrs. Means asked as Anne
+went back into the bedroom. "You've got something that you'll never
+get well of? Well, Anne Peace, that does seem the cap sheaf on the
+hull. Heart complaint, I s'pose it is; and what would become of me, if
+you was to be struck down, as you might be any minute of time, and me
+helpless here, and a husband and four children at home and he failin'
+up. You did look dretful gashly round the mouth yisterday, I noticed
+it at the time, but of course I didn't speak of it. Why, here I should
+lay, and might starve to death, and you cold on the floor, for all the
+help I should get." Mrs. Means shed tears, and Anne Peace answered
+with as near an approach to asperity as her soft voice could command.
+
+"Don't talk foolishness, Delia. I'm not cold yet, nor likely to be.
+Here, let me 'tend to your leg; it's time I was getting dinner on this
+minute."
+
+It continued to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep
+up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a
+good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as
+being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling
+all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was
+disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw 'twas
+rainin'," she said, as she prepared to give her dress the final
+trying-on. "There, Miss Peace. I did try to feel for her, but I just
+couldn't, seems though. Oh, ain't that handsome? that little puff is
+too cute for anything! I do think you've been smart, Miss Peace. Not
+that you ever was anything else."
+
+"You've a real easy figure to fit, Jenny," Miss Peace replied,
+modestly. "I guess that's half the smartness of it. It doos set good,
+though, I'm free to think. The styles is real pretty this summer,
+anyhow. Don't that set good, Delia?"
+
+She turned to Mrs. Means, who was lying on the sofa (they call it a
+l'unge in Cyrus), watching the trying-on with keenly critical eyes.
+
+"Ye-es," she said. "The back sets good enough, but 'pears to me
+there's a wrinkle about the neck that I shouldn't like to see in any
+work of mine. I've always ben too particklar, though; it's time thrown
+away, but I can't bear to send a thing out 'cept jest as it should
+be."
+
+"It _don't_ wrinkle, Mis' Means!" cried Jenny, indignantly. "Not a
+mite. I was turning round to look at the back of the skirt, and that
+pulled it; there ain't a sign of a wrinkle, Miss Peace, so don't you
+think there is."
+
+Mrs. Means sniffed, and said something about the change in young
+folks' manners since she was a girl. "If I'd ha' spoke so to my
+elders--I won't say betters, for folks ain't thought much of when they
+have to sew for a livin', with a husband and four children to keer
+for--I guess I should ha' found it out in pretty quick time."
+
+"Hi-hi!" said Miss Peace, soothingly. "There, Delia, Jenny didn't mean
+anything. Jenny, I guess I'll have to take you into the bedroom, so's
+I can pull this skirt out a little further. This room doos get so
+cluttered with all my things round." She hustled Jenny, swelling like
+an angry partridge, into the next room, and closed the door carefully.
+
+"You don't want to anger Mis' Means, dear," she said gently, taking
+the pins out of her mouth for freer speech. "She may be jest a scrap
+pudgicky now and again, but she's seen trouble, you know, and she doos
+feel it hard to be laid up, and so many looking to her at home. Turn
+round, dear, jest a dite--there!"
+
+"I can't help it, Miss Peace," said Jenny. "There's no reason why Mis'
+Means should speak up and say the neck wrinkled, when anybody can see
+it sets like a duck's foot in the mud. I don't mind what she says to
+me, but I ain't goin' to see you put upon, nor yet other folks ain't.
+I should like to know! and that wrapper she cut for Tudie Peaslee set
+so bad, you'd think she'd fitted it on the pump in the back yard,
+Mis' Peaslee said so herself."
+
+"Hi-hi!" cried Anne Peace, softly, with an apprehensive glance toward
+the door; "don't speak so loud, Jennie. Tudie ain't so easy a form to
+fit as you, not near. And you say she was real put about, do ye, at
+the picnic being put off?"
+
+"She was so!" Jenny assented, seeing that the subject was to be
+changed. "She'd got her basket all packed last night, she made so sure
+'twas goin' to be fine to-day. Chicken sandwiches, she had, and baked
+a whole pan of sponge-drops, jest because some one--you know who--is
+fond of 'em." Miss Peace nodded sagely, with her mouth full of pins,
+and would have smiled if she could; "and now they've put it off till
+Saturday, 'cause the minister can't go before then, and every livin'
+thing will be spoiled."
+
+"Dear, dear!" cried Miss Anne, her kind face clouding over; "that does
+seem too bad, don't it? all those nice things! and Tudie makes the
+best sponge-cakes I ever eat, pretty nigh."
+
+Jenny smiled, and stretched her hand toward a basket she had brought.
+"They won't really be wasted, Miss Peace," she said. "Tudie thought
+you liked 'em, and I've got some of 'em here for you, this very
+minute. You was to eat 'em for your own supper, Tudie told me to tell
+you so."
+
+"Well, I do declare, if that isn't thoughtful!" exclaimed Miss Peace,
+looking much gratified. "Tudie is a sweet girl, I must say. Delia is
+real fond of cake, and she's been longing for some, but it doos seem
+as if I couldn't find time to make it, these days."
+
+"I should think not!" cried Jenny (who was something of a pepper-pot,
+it must be confessed), "I should think not, when you have her to take
+care of, and her work and yours to do, and all. And, Miss
+Peace,--Tudie meant the sponge-drops for _you_, every one. She told me
+so."
+
+"Yes, dear, to be sure she did, and that's why I feel so pleased, just
+as much as if I had eaten them. But bread _is_ better for me,
+and--why! if she hasn't sent a whole dozen. One, two, three--yes, a
+dozen, and one over, sure as I stand here. Now, that I call generous.
+And, I'll tell you what, dearie! Don't say a word, for I wouldn't for
+worlds have Tudie feel to think I was slighting her, or didn't
+appreciate her kindness; but--well, I _have_ wanted to send some
+little thing round to that little girl of Josiah Pincher's, that has
+the measles, and I do suppose she'd be pleased to death with some of
+these sponge-drops. Hush! don't say a word, Jenny! it would be a real
+privilege to me, now it would. And you know it isn't that I don't
+think the world of Tudie, and you, too; now, don't you?"
+
+Jenny protested, half-laughing, and half-crying; for Tudie Peaslee had
+declared herself ready to bet that Miss Peace would not eat a single
+one of the sponge-drops, and Jenny had vowed she should. But would she
+or would she not, before ten minutes were over she had promised to
+leave the sponge-drops at the Pinchers' door as she went by, for
+little Geneva. There was no resisting Miss Peace, Tudie was right; but
+suddenly a bright idea struck Jenny, just as she was putting on her
+hat and preparing to depart. Seizing one of the sponge-drops, she
+broke off a bit, and fairly popped it into Miss Peace's mouth, as the
+good lady was going to speak. "It's broke, now," she cried, in high
+glee, "it's broke in two, and you can't give it to nobody. Set right
+down, Miss Peace, and let me feed you, same as I do my canary bird."
+She pushed the little dressmaker into a chair, and the bits followed
+each other in such quick succession that Miss Peace could make no
+protest beyond a smothered, "Oh, don't ye, dear; now don't! that's
+enough!--my stars, Jenny, what do you think my mouth's made of?"
+(Crunch!) "There, dear, there! It is real good--oh, dear! not so fast.
+I _shall_ choke! Tell Tudie--no, dearie, not another morsel!"
+(Crunch.) "Well, Jenny Miller, I didn't think you would act so, now I
+didn't."
+
+The sponge-cake was eaten, and Jenny, with a triumphant kiss on the
+little rosy, withered-apple cheek, popped her head in at the parlour
+door to cry, "Good day, Mis' Means!" and flew laughing away with her
+victory and her cakes.
+
+"Well, Anne Peace," was Mrs. Means's greeting, as her hostess came
+back, looking flushed and guilty, and wiping her lips on her apron,
+"how you can stand havin' that Miller girl round here passes me. She'd
+be the death of me, I know that; but it's lucky other folks ain't so
+feelin' as I am, I always say. Of all the forward, up-standin' tykes
+ever I see--but there! it ain't to be supposed anybody cares whether
+I'm sassed or whether I ain't."
+
+Saturday was bright and fair, and Anne Peace stood at the window with
+a beaming smile, watching the girls troop by on their way to the
+picnic. She had moved Mrs. Means's sofa out of the corner, so that she
+could see, too, and there was a face at each window. Miss Peace was a
+little plump, partridge-like woman, with lovely waving brown hair, and
+twinkling brown eyes. She had never been a beauty, but people always
+liked to look at her, and the young people declared she grew prettier
+every year. Mrs. Means was tall and weedy, with a figure that used to
+be called willowy, and was now admitted to be lank; her once fair
+complexion had faded into sallowness, and her light hair had been
+frizzed till there was little left of it. Her eyebrows had gone up,
+and the corners of her mouth had gone down, so that her general effect
+was depressing in the extreme.
+
+"There go Tudie and Jenny!" cried Miss Peace, in delight. "If they
+ain't a pretty pair, then I never saw one, that's all. Jenny's dress
+doos set pretty, if I do say it; and after all, it's her in it that
+makes it look so well. There comes the minister, Delia. Now I'm glad
+the roses are out so early. He doos so love roses, Mr. Goodnow does.
+And the honeysuckle is really a sight. Why, this is the first time you
+have fairly seen the garden, Delia, since you came. Isn't it looking
+pretty?"
+
+"I never did see how you could have your garden right close 't onto
+the street that way, Anne," was the reply. "Everybody 't comes by
+stoppin' and starin', and pokin' their noses through the fence. Look
+at them boys, now! why, if they ain't smellin' at the roses, the
+boldfaced brats. Knock at the winder, Anne, and tell 'em to git out.
+Shoo! be off with you!" She shook her fist at the window, but,
+fortunately, could not reach it.
+
+"Hi-hi!" said Anne Peace. "You don't mean that, Delia. What's roses
+for but to smell? I do count it a privilege, to have folks take
+pleasure in my garden." She threw up the window, and nodded pleasantly
+to the children. "Take a rose, sonny, if you like 'em," she said.
+"Take two or three, there's enough for all. Whose little boys are
+you?" she added, as the children, in wondering delight, timidly broke
+off a blossom or two. "Mis' Green's, over to the Corners! Now I want
+to know! have you grown so 't I didn't know you? and how's your
+mother? Jest wait half a minute, and I'll send her a little posy.
+There's some other things besides roses, perhaps she'd like to have a
+few of."
+
+She darted out, and filled the boys' hands with pinks and mignonette,
+pansies and geraniums.
+
+It was not a large garden, this of Anne Peace's, but every inch of
+space was made the most of. The little square and oblong beds lay
+close to the fence, and from tulip-time to the coming of frost they
+were ablaze with flowers. Nothing was allowed to straggle, or to take
+up more than its share of room. The roses were tied firmly to their
+neat green stakes; the crown-imperials nodded over a spot of ground
+barely large enough to hold their magnificence; while the phlox and
+sweet-william actually had to fight for their standing-room.
+
+It was a pleasant sight, at all odd times of the day, to see Miss
+Peace bending over her flowers, snipping off dead leaves, pruning, and
+tending, all with loving care.
+
+Many flower-lovers are shy of plucking their favourites, and I recall
+one rose-fancier, whose gifts, like those of the Greeks, were dreaded
+by his neighbours, as the petals were always ready to drop before he
+could make up his mind to cut one of the precious blossoms; but this
+was not the case with Anne Peace. Dozens of shallow baskets hung in
+her neat back entry, and they were filled and sent, filled and sent,
+all summer long, till one would have thought they might almost find
+their way about alone. It is a positive fact that her baskets were
+always brought back, "a thing imagination boggles at;" but perhaps
+this was because the neighbours liked them better full than empty.
+
+"Makin' flowers so cheap," Mrs. Means would say, "seems to take the
+wuth of 'em away, to my mind; but I'm too feelin', I know that well
+enough. Anne, she's kind o' callous, and she don't think of things
+that make me squinch, seem's though."
+
+Weeks passed on, the broken leg was healed, and Mrs. Means departed to
+her own house. "I s'pose you'll miss me, Anne," she said, at parting,
+"I shall you; and you have ben good to me, if 't _has_ ben kind o'
+dull here, so few comin' and goin'." (Miss Peace's was generally the
+favourite resort of all the young people of the village, and half the
+old ones, but the "neighbouring" had dropped off, since Mrs. Means
+had been there.) "Good-by, Anne, and thank you for all you've done. I
+feel to be glad I've been company for you, livin' alone as you do,
+with no husband nor nothin' belongin' to you."
+
+"Good-by, Delia," replied Anne Peace, cheerfully. "Don't you fret
+about me. I'm used to being alone, you know; and it's been a
+privilege, I'm sure, to do what I could for you, so long as we've been
+acquainted. My love to David, and don't forget to give him the syrup I
+put in the bottom of your trunk for him."
+
+"'Twon't do him any good!" cried Mrs. Means, as the wagon drove away,
+turning her head to shout back at her hostess. "He's bound to die,
+David is. He'll never see another spring, I tell him, and then I shall
+be left a widder, with four children and--"
+
+"Oh, gerlang! gerlang, _up_!" shouted Calvin Parks, the stage-driver,
+whose stock of patience was small; the horse started, and Mrs. Means's
+wails died away in the distance.
+
+In this instance the predictions of the doleful lady seemed likely to
+be verified; for David Means continued to "fail up." Always a slight
+man, he was now mere skin and bone, and his cheerful smile grew
+pathetic to see. He was a distant cousin of Anne Peace's, and had
+something of her placid disposition; a mild, serene man, bearing his
+troubles in silence, finding his happiness in the children whom he
+loved almost passionately. He had married Delia Case because she was
+pretty, and because she wanted to marry him; had never known, and
+would never know, that he might have had a very different kind of
+wife. Perhaps Anne Peace hardly knew herself that David had been the
+romance of her life, so quickly had the thought been put away, so
+earnestly had she hoped for his happiness; but she admitted frankly
+that she "set by him," and she was devoted to his children.
+
+"Can nothing be done?" she asked the good doctor one day, as they came
+away together from David's house, leaving Delia shaking her head from
+the doorsteps. "Can nothing be done, doctor? it doos seem as if I
+couldn't bear to see David fade away so, and not try anything to stop
+it."
+
+Doctor Brown shook his head thoughtfully. "I doubt if there's much
+chance for him, Anne," he said kindly. "David is a good fellow, and if
+I saw any way--it might be possible, if he could be got off to Florida
+before cold weather comes on--there is a chance; but I don't suppose
+it could be managed. He has no means, poor fellow, save what he
+carries in his name."
+
+"Florida?" said Anne Peace, thoughtfully; and then she straightway
+forgot the doctor's existence, and hurried off along the street, with
+head bent and eyes which saw nothing they rested on.
+
+Reaching her home, where all the flowers smiled a bright welcome,
+unnoticed for once, her first action was to take out of a drawer a
+little blue book, full of figures, which she studied with ardour. Then
+she took a clean sheet of paper, and wrote certain words at the top of
+it; then she got out her best bonnet.
+
+Something very serious was on hand when Miss Peace put on her best
+bonnet. She had only had it four years, and regarded it still as a
+sacred object, to be taken out on Sundays and reverently looked at,
+then put back in its box, and thought about while she tied the strings
+of the ten-year-old velvet structure, which was quite as good as new.
+Two weddings had seen the best bonnet in its grandeur, and three
+funerals; but no bells, either solemn or joyous, summoned her to-day,
+as she gravely placed the precious bonnet on her head, and surveyed
+her image with awestruck approval in the small mirror over the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"It's _dreadful_ handsome!" said Miss Peace, softly. "It's too
+handsome for me, a great sight, but I want to look my best now, if
+ever I did."
+
+It was at Judge Ransom's door that she rang first; a timid, apologetic
+ring, as if she knew in advance how busy the judge would be, and how
+wrong it was of her to intrude on his precious time. But the judge
+himself opened the door, and was not at all busy, but delighted to
+have a chance to chat with his old friend, whom he had not seen for a
+month of Sundays. He made her come in, and put her in the biggest
+armchair (which swallowed her up so that hardly more than the bonnet
+was visible), and drew a footstool before her little feet, which
+dangled helplessly above it; then he took his seat opposite, in
+another big chair, and said it was a fine day, and then waited, seeing
+that she had something of importance to say.
+
+Miss Peace's breath came short and quick, and she fingered her
+reticule nervously. She had not thought it would be quite so dreadful
+as this. "Judge," she said--and paused, frightened at the sound of her
+voice, which seemed to echo in a ghostly manner through the big room.
+
+"Well, Miss Peace!" said the judge, kindly. "Well, Anne, what is it?
+How can I serve you? Speak up, like a good girl. Make believe we are
+back in the little red schoolhouse again, and you are prompting me in
+my arithmetic lesson."
+
+Anne Peace laughed and coloured. "You're real kind, judge," she said.
+"I wanted--'twas only a little matter"--she stopped to clear her
+throat, feeling the painful red creep up her cheeks, and over her
+brow, and into her very eyes, it seemed; then she thought of David,
+and straightway she found courage, and lifted her eyes and spoke out
+bravely. "David Means, you know, judge; he is failing right along, and
+it doos seem as if he couldn't last the winter. But Doctor Brown
+thinks that if he should go to Florida, it might be so 't he could be
+spared. So--David hasn't means himself, of course, what with his poor
+health and his large family, and some thought that if we could raise a
+subscription right here, among the folks that has always known David,
+it might be so 't he could go. What do you think, judge?"
+
+The judge nodded his head, thoughtfully.
+
+"I don't see why it couldn't be done, Miss Peace," he said, kindly.
+"David is a good fellow, and has friends wherever he is known; I
+should think it might very well be done, if the right person takes it
+up."
+
+"I--I've had no great experience," faltered Anne Peace, looking down,
+"but I'm kin to David, you know, and as he has no one nearer living, I
+took it upon myself to carry round a paper and see what I could raise.
+I came to you first, judge, as you've always been a good friend to
+David. I've got twenty-five dollars already--"
+
+"I thought you said you came to me first," said the judge, holding out
+his hand for the paper. "What's this? A friend, twenty-five dollars?"
+
+"Yes," said Anne Peace, breathlessly. "They--they didn't wish their
+name mentioned--"
+
+"Oh, they didn't, didn't they?" muttered the judge, looking at her
+over his spectacles. Such a helpless look met his--the look of
+hopeless innocence trying to deceive and knowing that it was not
+succeeding--that a sudden dimness came into his own eyes, and he was
+fain to take off his spectacles and wipe them, just as if he had been
+looking through them. And through the mist he seemed to see--not Miss
+Anne Peace, in her best bonnet and her cashmere shawl, but another
+Anne Peace, a little, brown-eyed, slender maiden, sitting on a brown
+bench, looking on with rapture while David Means ate her luncheon.
+
+It was the judge's turn to clear his throat.
+
+"Well, Anne," he said, keeping his eyes on the paper, "this--this
+unknown friend has set a good example, and I don't see that I can do
+less than follow it. You may put my name down for twenty-five, too."
+
+"Oh, judge," cried Miss Peace, with shining eyes. "You are too good. I
+didn't expect, I'm sure--well, you _are_ kind!"
+
+"Not at all! not at all!" said the judge, gruffly (and indeed,
+twenty-five dollars was not so much to him as it was to "them," who
+had made the first contribution).
+
+"You know I owe David Means something, for licking him when he--"
+
+"Oh, don't, Dan'el--judge, I should say," cried Anne Peace, in
+confusion. "Don't you be raking up old times. I'm sure I thank you a
+thousand times, and so will Delia, when she--"
+
+"No, she won't," said the judge. "Tell the truth, Anne Peace! Delia
+will say I might have given fifty and never missed it. There! I won't
+distress you, my dear. Good day, and all good luck to you!" and so
+ended Miss Peace's first call.
+
+With such a beginning, there was no doubt of the success of the
+subscription. Generally, in Cyrus, people waited to see what Judge
+Ransom and Lawyer Peters gave to any charity, before making their own
+contribution. "Jedge Ransom has put down five dollars, has he? Well
+he's wuth so much, and I'm wuth so much. Guess fifty cents will be
+about the right figger for me:" this is the course of reasoning in
+Cyrus. But with an unknown friend starting off with twenty-five
+dollars and Judge Ransom following suit, it became apparent to every
+one that David Means must go to Florida, whatever happened. The dollar
+and five-dollar subscriptions poured in rapidly, till, one happy day,
+Anne Peace stood in her little room and counted the full amount out on
+the table, and then sat down (it was not her habit to kneel, and she
+would have thought it too familiar, if not actually popish) and
+thanked God as she had never found it necessary to thank Him for any
+of the good things of her own life.
+
+So David Means went to Florida, and his wife and two children went
+with him. This had been no part of the original plan, but at the bare
+idea of his going without her, Mrs. Means had raised a shrill cry of
+protest. "What? David go down there, and she and the children stay
+perishing at home? she guessed not. If Florida was good for David, it
+was good for her, too, and she laid up ever sence spring, as she might
+say, and with no more outing than a woodchuck in January. Besides, who
+was to take care of David, she'd like to know? Mis' Porter's folks,
+who had a place there? She'd like to know if she was to be beholden to
+Jane Porter's folks for taking care of her lawful husband, and like
+enough laying him out, for she wasn't one to blind herself, nor yet to
+set herself against the will of Providence." Doctor Brown stormed and
+fumed, but Anne Peace begged him to be quiet, and "presumed likely"
+she could raise enough to cover the expenses for Delia and the two
+older children. 'Twas right and proper, of course, that his wife
+should go with him, and David wouldn't have any pleasure in the trip
+if he hadn't little Janey and Willy along. He did set so by those
+children, it was a privilege to see them together; he was always one
+to make of children, David was.
+
+She did raise the extra money, this sweet saint, but she ate no meat
+for a month, finding it better for her health. Joey and Georgie Means,
+however, never wanted for their bit of steak at noon, and grew fat and
+rosy under Miss Peace's kindly roof.
+
+It was a pathetic sight when the sick man took leave of the little
+group of friends and neighbours that gathered on the platform at the
+station to bid him farewell. He had lost courage, poor David; perhaps
+he had not very much to start with, and things had gone hard with him
+for a long time. He knew he should never see these faces again, this
+homely, friendly place. He gazed about with wistful eyes, noting every
+spot in the bare little station. He had known it all by heart, ever
+since he was a child, for his father had been station-master. He could
+have built the whole thing over, with his eyes shut, he thought, and
+now he should never see it again. Yet he was glad to go, in a way,
+glad to think, at least, that he should die warm, as his wife
+expressed it, and that his tired eyes were going to look on green and
+blossoming things, instead of the cold, white beauty which meant
+winter to him.
+
+He had scarcely ever left Cyrus for more than a day or two; he had a
+vague idea that it was not creditable to go to the other world, and be
+able to give so little account of this one. Now, at least, he should
+be able to look his seafaring grandfather and his roving uncle in the
+face, if so be he should happen to meet them "over yender."
+
+He stood on the platform with his youngest child clasped close in his
+arms. This was the hardest part of all, to leave the children. His
+wife and the two older children had already taken their places in the
+car, and the good-natured conductor stood with his watch in his hand,
+willing to give David every second he conscientiously could. He came
+from East Cyrus himself, and was a family man.
+
+Anne Peace stood close by, holding fast the hand of little Joey.
+Strange sounds were in her ears, which she did not recognize as the
+beating of her own heart; she kept looking over her shoulder, to see
+what was coming. Her eyes never left David's face, but they were
+hopeful, even cheerful eyes. She thought he would come back much
+better, perhaps quite well. Doctor had said there was a chance, and
+she did hear great things of Florida.
+
+And now the conductor put up his watch and hardened his heart. "Come,
+David, better step inside now. All aboard!"
+
+"Good-by, David!" cried Doctor Brown, waving a friendly hand.
+
+"Good-by, David!" cried Anne Peace, lifting little Joey in her arms,
+though he was far too heavy for her.
+
+"Look at father, Joey dear, throw a kiss to father; good-by, good-by,
+David!" The train moved out of the station, but David Means, his eyes
+fixed on the faces of his children, had forgotten to look at Anne
+Peace.
+
+Winter came, and a bitter winter it was. No one in Cyrus could
+remember such steady cold, since the great winter of sixty years ago,
+when the doctor's grandfather was frozen to death, driving across the
+plains to visit a poor woman. The horse went straight to the place,
+his head being turned that way and his understanding being good; but
+when the farmer came out with his lantern, there sat the old doctor
+stiff and dead in his sleigh. Those were the days when people, even
+doctors, had not learned how to wrap up, and would drive about all
+winter with high, stiff hats and one buffalo robe, not tucked in, as
+we have them nowadays, but dropping down at their feet. There was
+small chance of our Doctor Brown's freezing to death, in his
+well-lined sleigh, with his fur cap pulled down over his nose and his
+fur coat buttoned up to his chin and the great robes tucked round him
+in a scientific manner. Still, for all that, it was a bitter winter,
+and a good many people in Cyrus and elsewhere, who had no fur coats,
+went cold by day and lay cold by night, as one good lady pathetically
+expressed it. There was little snow, and what there was fell in
+wonderful crystals, fairy studies in geometry, which delighted the
+eyes of Joey and Georgie Means, as they trotted to school, with Miss
+Peace's "nuby" over one little head and her shawl over the other.
+Every morning the sun rose in a clear sky, shining like steel; every
+evening the same sky glowed with wonderful tints of amethyst and
+tender rose, fading gradually, till all was blue once more, and the
+stars had it all their own way, throbbing with fierce, cold light.
+
+It was a great winter for Joey and Georgie! They never thought of its
+being too cold, for every morning their toes were toasted over the
+fire before schooltime, as if they had been muffins, and they were
+sent off nice and hot, with a baked potato in each pocket, in case
+their hands should be cold through the two pairs of thick mittens
+which Aunt Peace had provided.
+
+Then, when they came home, dinner was waiting, such a dinner as they
+were not in the habit of having; a little mutton pie, or a smoking
+Irish stew, with all the dumplings and gravy they wanted (and they
+wanted a great deal), and then pancakes, tossed before their very
+eyes, with a spoonful of jam in the middle of each, or blanc-mange
+made in the shape of a cow, which tasted quite different from any
+other blanc-mange that ever was. Also, they had the freedom of the
+corn-popper, and might roast apples every evening till bedtime.
+Doctor Brown shook his head occasionally, and told Anne Peace she
+would unfit those children for anything else in life than eating good
+things; but it was very likely that was jealousy, he added, for
+certainly his medicines had never given the children these rosy cheeks
+and sparkling eyes.
+
+And when bedtime came, and the two little brown heads were nestled
+down in the pillows of the big four-poster in the warm room, Anne
+Peace would humbly give thanks that they had been well and happy
+through another day, and then creep off to the cold, little room which
+she had chosen this winter, "because it was more handy." Often, when
+awakened in the middle of the night by the sharp, cracking frost
+noises, which tell of intensest cold, she would creep in to feel of
+the children, and make sure that they were as warm as two little
+dormice, which they always were. I do not know how many times she took
+a blanket or comforter off her own bed to add to their store; but I do
+know that she would not let Jenny Miller go into her room to see. She
+almost rejoiced in the excessive cold, saying to herself with
+exultation, "Fifteen below! well, there! and I s'pose it's like summer
+in Florida, this minute of time!" And then she fancied David sitting
+under an orange-tree, fanning himself, and smiled, and went meekly to
+work to break the ice in her water-butt.
+
+Every week letters came from David Means to his children, telling them
+of the beauty all around him and wishing they were there. He said
+little of his health, but always assured them that Janey and Willy
+were real smart, and sent his love to Anne Peace and his remembrance
+to all friends at home.
+
+The letters were short, and each time they grew a little shorter, till
+by and by it was only a postal card, written in a faint and trembling
+hand, but saying that the weather was fine, and father was so glad to
+get their little letter, and he would write more next time, but was
+very busy just now. When she read one of these, Anne Peace would go
+away into her little cold room for a while, and then would come back
+smiling and say that now they must write a real _good_ letter to
+father, and tell him how well they were doing at school.
+
+At last came a week when there was no postal card; another week, and
+there came a letter edged with black and written in Mrs. Means's hand.
+The children were at school when it came, and Jenny Miller, coming in
+by chance to bring a pot of head-cheese of her mother's making, found
+Miss Peace crouching in the corner of the sofa, weeping quietly, with
+the letter lying on her lap.
+
+"Why, Miss Peace," cried Jenny, frightened at the sight of tears in
+those steadfast eyes, "What is the matter? Do tell me, dear! Why,
+you're real cold in here. I do believe the fire has gone out. You've
+had bad news, Miss Peace, have you? Do tell me, that's a dear soul,
+and don't cry."
+
+"Yes," said Anne Peace. "The fire is out, Jenny, and David is dead."
+
+She held out the letter, saying something about
+"privilege--think--rest;" but Jenny Miller was already on her knees,
+putting kindlings into the stove at a reckless rate. Then, when the
+fire was crackling merrily, she ran to fetch a shawl and wrapped it
+round the poor trembling shoulders, and chafed the cold hands in her
+own warm, young fingers. But soon Miss Peace grew uneasy; she was not
+used to being "done for," having only the habit of doing for others.
+She pointed eagerly to the letter. "Read it, Jenny," she said,
+anxiously. "I--I am all right, dear. It's come rather sudden, that's
+all, and those poor little children--but read the letter." The words
+died away, and Jenny, sitting down beside her, took the paper and
+read.
+
+It began "Friend Anne," and went on to say that the writer's poor
+husband died yesterday, and she was left, as she always knew she
+should be, a widow with four children. It did seem to her as if he
+might have been let die to home, instead of being carted all the way
+down there and then have to send the remains back. She had to promise
+him she would send them back, though it did seem a pity with the
+beautiful "semetary" they had there, and full of Northern folks as it
+would hold and the undertaker a perfect gentleman, if she ever saw
+one. But the widow hoped she knew her duty, and she would not wish to
+be thought wanting in anything.
+
+Now she supposed they would want to know how David passed away, though
+she had no "strenth" to write, not having had her clothes off for days
+or, you might say, weeks, nor slep' one consektive hour the last ten
+nights. Well, he had seemed to gain a little when they first came, but
+it wasn't no real gain, for he lost it all again and more too. The
+pounds just fell off from that man, it seemed as if you could see them
+go. The last month he fairly pined away, and she thought right to let
+the folks at home know that he was called to depart, but he wouldn't
+hear to it. "He said, Delia, he said, if you want me to die easy, he
+said, don't let on to no one at home but what I'm doing all right." So
+she set by and held her peace, though it went against her conscience.
+Last Monday he couldn't leave his bed, and she said, "David, she said,
+you never will leave it till you're carried," and he said, p'raps
+'twas so, but yet he wouldn't allow it, for fear of scaring the
+children. So that night he sat up in bed and his arms went out and he
+said "Home!" just that word, two or three times over, and dropped
+back and was gone. There she was, a widow with four small children,
+and what she should do she didn't know.
+
+Away there in a strange land as you might say, if it _was_ all one
+country, it did seem as if them as sent them might have thought of
+that and let them stay at home among their own folks. Not but what
+there was elegant folks there. Everybody hed been as kind as could be;
+one lady who was in "morning" herself had lent her a bonnet to wear to
+the funeral (for she wasn't one to send the remains off without
+anything being said over them); it was a real handsome bonnet, and she
+had taken a pattern of it, to have one made for herself. The lady was
+from New York way, and real stylish.
+
+Mrs. Means intended to stay on a spell, as the money was not all gone,
+and her strength needed setting up, after all she had been through.
+Mr. Tombs, the undertaker, said he never saw any one bear afflicktion
+so; she told him she was used to it. He was a perfect gentleman, and a
+widower himself, so he could feel for her. Miss Peace might be
+thankful that she was never called on to bear afflicktion, with no one
+but herself to look out for; not but what 'twas lonesome for her, and
+Mrs. Means supposed she'd be glad enough to keep Georgie and Joey on
+a spell longer for company. Tell them they are poor orphans now, with
+no father to earn their bread. The writer wished her husband's remains
+to be buried in his father's lot, as she had no money to buy one. Miss
+Peace might see if any one felt to put up a moniment for David; he
+hadn't an enemy in the world, and he never begredged a dollar when he
+had it to give, for anything there was going. If he had thought a
+little more about her, and less about everybody's cat and dog, she
+might have something now to put bread in her children's mouths, let
+alone her own. Not that she had any appetite, a flea wouldn't fatten
+on what she ate. Lawyer Peters was his mother's third cousin if she
+was living. He spent more on those girls of his than would clothe the
+writer and her children for a year.
+
+The remains went by the same boat with this letter, so Miss Peace
+would know when to expect them. Mrs. Means looked to her to see that
+David had a decent funeral; a handsome one she couldn't expect, folks
+in Cyrus were close enough about all that didn't go on their own
+backs, though she shouldn't wish it said.
+
+So now there was no more, from Miss Peace's unfortunate friend, "the
+Widow Means."
+
+After reading this precious epistle, Jenny Miller found herself,
+perhaps for the first time in her life, with nothing to say. She
+could only sit and press her friend's hand, and thrill, as a girl
+will, at the touch of a sorrow which she only now began dimly to
+guess. It was Miss Peace who broke the silence, speaking in her usual
+quiet tone.
+
+"Thank you, Jenny, dear! I'm sure it was a privilege, having you come
+in just now. David Means was kin to me, you know, and I always set by
+him a great deal; and then the poor little children!" she faltered
+again for an instant, but steadied her voice and went on: "You'd
+better go home now, dear, for the fire is going beautiful, and I don't
+need anything. I--I shall have to see to things for the funeral, you
+know. And don't forget to thank your mother for the cheese. It looks
+real good, and Georgie doos like it the best of anything for
+breakfast. I guess I'll get on my bonnet, and go to see Abel Mound,
+the sexton."
+
+But here Jenny found her voice, and protested. Miss Peace should not
+have anything at all to do with all that. 'Twasn't fitting she should,
+as the nearest kin poor Mr. Means had in Cyrus. Her father would see
+to it all, Jenny knew he would, and Doctor Brown would help him. She
+would go herself and speak to the doctor this minute. Miss Peace would
+have to be here to tell the children when they came home from school,
+poor little things! and that was all she should do about it.
+
+Anne Peace hesitated; and then Jenny had an inspiration, or, as she
+put it in telling Tudie Peaslee afterwards, "a voice spoke to her."
+
+"Miss Peace," she said timidly, "I--I don't suppose you would feel to
+pick those flowers you were going to send over to Tupham for the
+Sunday-school festival? I know they kind o' lot on the flowers you
+send, 'cause they're always so fresh, and you do them up so pretty.
+But if you don't feel to do it, I can send them word, or ask some one
+else"--
+
+"The idea!" cried Anne Peace, brightening up. "I forgot the flowers,
+Jenny, I did so! I should be pleased to pick them, and I'll do it this
+minute. There--there isn't anything I should like so well. And I do
+thank you, dear, and if you really think your father wouldn't mind
+seeing--I am sure it is a privilege to have such neighbours, I always
+say. There couldn't anybody be more blessed in neighbours than I have
+always been."
+
+In ten minutes Miss Peace was at work in her garden, cutting,
+trimming, tying up posies, and finding balm for her inward wound in
+the touch of the rose-leaves, and in the smell of mignonette, David's
+favourite flower. No one in Cyrus had such mignonette as Miss Peace,
+and people thought she had some special receipt for making it grow and
+blossom luxuriantly; but she always said no, it was only because she
+set by it. Folks could most always grow the things they set most
+store by, she thought.
+
+So the Sunday-school festival at Tupham Corner was a perfect blaze of
+flowers, and the minister in his speech made allusion to generous
+friends in other parishes, who sent of their wealth to swell our
+rejoicings, and of their garden produce to gladden our eyes; but while
+the eyes of Tupham were being gladdened, Anne Peace was brushing
+Joey's and Georgie's hair, and tying black ribbons under their little
+chins, smiling at them through her tears, and bidding them be brave
+for dear father's sake, who was gone to the best home now, and would
+never be sick any more, or tired, or--or sad.
+
+It was a quiet funeral: almost a cheerful one, the neighbours said, as
+they saw the little room filled with bright flowers (they all seemed
+to smell of mignonette, there was so much of it hidden among the
+roses), and the serene face of the chief mourner, who stood at the
+head of the coffin, with a child in either hand. It was an unusual
+thing, people felt. Generally, at Cyrus funerals, the mourners stayed
+up-stairs, leaving the neighbours to gather round the coffin in the
+flower-scented room below; but it did not seem strange in Anne Peace,
+somehow, and, after the first glance, no one could fancy any one else
+standing there. The old minister, who had christened both David and
+Anne on the same day, said a few gentle, cheering words, and the choir
+sang "Lead, kindly Light;" then the procession went its quiet way to
+the churchyard, and all was over.
+
+Jenny Miller and the doctor followed Miss Peace home from the
+churchyard, but made no attempt to speak to her. She seemed
+unconscious of any one save the children, to whom she was talking in
+low, cheerful tones. The doctor caught the words "rest," "home,"
+"happiness;" and as she passed into the house he heard her say
+distinctly: "Blessed privilege! My children now, my own! my own!"
+
+"So they are!" said Doctor Brown, taking off his glasses to clear
+them. "So they are, and so they will remain. I don't imagine Delia
+will ever come back, do you, Jenny?"
+
+"No," said Jenny, "I don't. She'll marry the undertaker before the
+year is out."
+
+And she did.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Original spelling and punctuation have been preserved except for the
+joining of common contractions.
+
+Page 8: Added closing quotes: (you seemed all right when I went out.")
+
+Page 9: Phoebe had oe ligature in original book. (you've heard me tell
+how my Aunt Phoebe 'Lizabeth)
+
+Page 56: Removed extra quotation mark before I: ("You are too good. I
+didn't expect, I'm sure--well, you are kind!")
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's "Some Say", by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
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