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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clover and Blue Grass, by Eliza Calvert Hall
+
+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: Clover and Blue Grass
+
+Author: Eliza Calvert Hall
+
+Illustrator: H. R. Ballinger
+
+Release Date: July 3, 2010 [EBook #33061]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLOVER AND BLUE GRASS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Asad Razzaki and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+CLOVER AND BLUE GRASS
+
+
+
+
+By Eliza Calvert Hall
+
+
+AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY
+
+THE LAND OF LONG AGO
+
+CLOVER AND BLUE GRASS
+
+TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH
+
+A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS
+
+
+[Illustration: How could a man find words to thank a mother for giving
+him her daughter? FRONTISPIECE. _See page 144._]
+
+
+
+
+CLOVER AND BLUE GRASS
+
+_by_
+
+Eliza Calvert Hall
+
+With a frontispiece by
+
+H. R. Ballinger
+
+
+Boston
+
+Little, Brown, & Company
+
+1916
+
+
+_Copyright, 1916_,
+
+BY LIDA CALVERT OBENCHAIN.
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+Published, September, 1916
+
+
+         TO
+   MARTHA CALVERT
+        AND
+ VAL CALVERT WINSTON
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+                                       PAGE
+  HOW PARSON PAGE WENT TO THE CIRCUS       1
+
+  MARY CRAWFORD'S CHART                   33
+
+  OLD MAHOGANY                            91
+
+  MILLSTONES AND STUMBLING-BLOCKS        115
+
+  "ONE TASTE OF THE OLD TIME"            157
+
+  ONE DAY IN SPRING                      207
+
+
+
+
+HOW PARSON PAGE WENT TO THE CIRCUS
+
+(The last of the "Aunt Jane" stories)
+
+
+    This story, the nineteenth and last of the "Aunt Jane" stories,
+    appeared in the _Cosmopolitan_, July 1910, after the
+    publication of _The Land of Long Ago_. Its publication in this
+    present volume completes the set of stories told by "Aunt Jane
+    of Kentucky."
+
+
+"I hear there's goin' to be a circus in town next week," said Aunt Jane,
+"and if it wasn't for the looks of the thing, jest for the sake of old
+times, I'd like to go to town and stand on the old drug-store corner and
+watch the procession go 'round the square, like me and Abram used to do
+in the days when we was young and the children growin' up around us."
+
+She broke off with a laugh relevant to some happy thought.
+
+"I never see a show bill," she said, "that I don't think o' the time
+Parson Page went to the circus. Times has changed so, I reckon a
+preacher could go to a circus nowadays and little or nothin' be said of
+it. I ricollect the last time the circus come to town Uncle Billy Bascom
+says to me, says he: 'Jane, they tell me the church members and their
+children was so thick in that tent to-day that you could 'a' held a
+meetin' of the session right there and organized a Sunday school of any
+denomination whatever.' But in my day all a church member or a church
+member's children could do on circus day was to stand on the street and
+watch the procession; and as for a minister, why, it wasn't hardly
+considered fittin' for him to even go a-fishin', much less go to a
+circus. Folks used to say a good many hard things about Parson Page for
+bein' so fond of fishin', but there wasn't anything that could keep him
+away from the river when spring come and the fish begun to bite. And
+when folks begun tellin' tales about the fishin' in Reelfoot Lake,
+Parson Page never rested till he got there.
+
+"I reckon, honey, you know all about Reelfoot Lake?" Aunt Jane looked
+questioningly at me over her glasses and waited for my answer.
+
+"Why, yes, it's a big lake where all the men go to fish," I answered
+hesitatingly.
+
+The vagueness of my answer was a sure indication of shameful ignorance,
+and Aunt Jane shook her head disapprovingly.
+
+"There's somethin' wrong with the schoolin' of children nowadays," she
+said gravely, "Knowin' what I do about Reelfoot Lake, it looks to me
+like the folks that make the geography books for children ought to put
+that lake down on the map in big letters and then tell all about it.
+Why, child, there ain't but one Reelfoot Lake in all the world, and
+every child ought to be able to tell all the hows and the wheres and the
+whens that concerns it. Schoolin's a mighty good thing, but every now
+and then there's somethin' you can't learn out o' books, and you've got
+to come to some old man like Uncle Billy Bascom or some old woman like
+me that can ricollect away back yonder. Not but what it's all hearsay
+with me, when it comes to Reelfoot Lake, for that was before my day; but
+many's the time I've heard father and Uncle Tandy Stevens tell about it.
+
+"Father used to say that when God created the world in six days, he
+forgot to make Reelfoot Lake, and when he finally did remember it, after
+goodness knows how many thousand years, he was so put out he didn't
+think about it bein' Sunday, and he jest ripped up the earth and made
+that lake as quick as he could. I've heard father name the day o' the
+month it happened, but like as not, if I tried to tell it jest so, I'd
+git it wrong. However, I ricollect it was back yonder in 1811, before
+the time o' railroads, and it must 'a' been about the middle o'
+December, for I ricollect hearin' father say that him and Uncle Tandy
+Stevens spent that Christmas on their flatboat in the middle o' the
+Mississippi River. They made the trip to New Orleens pretty near every
+year, floatin' down the Mississippi and sellin' their tobacco or
+hoop-poles or whatever they had to sell, and then they'd sell the
+flatboat and foot it back to Kentucky.
+
+"Maybe you think, child, I'm drawin' the long bow, tellin' about people
+walkin' from New Orleens to Kentucky, but that's the way it was in the
+old times before they had railroads everywhere. And it wasn't such a
+slow way of travelin', either. Father used to brag how he made the
+journey in jest thirteen days and a half. I reckon betwixt the dangers
+by land and the dangers by water a journey like that wasn't any light
+matter, but I've heard father say many a time that if the river wasn't
+too high or too low, and if the weather favored him, he'd rather go down
+to New Orleens in a flatboat than to go on the finest steamboat that
+ever was built. You know that Bible text that says, 'Behold, I make all
+things new.' Father said that text would come into his mind every time
+he went on one o' these trips. They'd float down the Little Barren River
+and come to the Ohio, and down that to the Mississippi, and father said
+when they'd make the turn and feel the current o' the big river under
+'em sweepin' 'em south, away from home and into a strange country, it
+was jest like a man professin' religion and goin' forward to a new and
+better life. And the slaves they'd take along to help manage the boat,
+they'd begin to sing 'Swing low, sweet chariot, bound for to carry me
+home,' and Uncle Tandy, he'd jest throw up his hat and holler every
+time.
+
+"Well, the time I'm tellin' you about, father and Uncle Tandy had a big
+load o' tobacco and a big drove o' turkeys to take down to New Orleens.
+Father said that every time he built a flatboat and loaded it up he
+thought about Noah and the ark, and this time, when he started down
+Barren River, it was cloudy and threatenin' rain, and the next day it
+begun showerin' and then clearin' off and then showerin' again, more
+like April than December. But when they struck the Ohio they found jest
+the right sort o' weather for flatboat journeyin', clear and frosty at
+night and sunshiny all day; and they'd been floatin' along all day and a
+good part of every night, as they was in a hurry to git to New Orleens
+and sell their tobacco before prices fell.
+
+"Well, the night o' the earthquake, father said it was his time to sit
+up and watch the fire and guide the boat, and he was glad of it; for he
+said there wasn't anything as peaceful and happy as the nights he'd
+spend on the river. With the moon and the stars over him and the big
+river under him it was like bein' in the hollow of God's hand. That
+night he was pretty busy up to twelve o'clock, lookin' out for snags and
+dangerous places; but about one o'clock they'd got to a place where he
+knew the channel was safe, and he was sittin' down leanin' against a
+pile o' tobacco and half dozin', when all at once he heard a rumblin'
+like thunder, and not a sign o' rain in the sky, and then a noise like
+the noise o' many waters, and the big waves begun lappin' around the
+boat, and the first thing father knew the boat was goin' up-stream
+faster than it ever had gone down. Uncle Tandy was wide awake by this
+time, and he called out to father to know what had happened, and father
+says: 'God only knows what's happened! The Mississippi River's flowin'
+north instead o' south.' And jest then they heard the rumblin' sound
+like thunder again, and Uncle Tandy says: 'The end o' the world's come,
+and we're travelin' up-stream to the New Jerusalem.' And while father
+and Uncle Tandy went floatin' up-stream half scared out o' their wits,
+the Goshen folks and the town folks was down on their knees prayin', and
+the church bells was ringin', and everybody thought the Judgment Day had
+come. Two or three people was so scared they professed religion.
+
+"Mother said she was awake when the earthquake happened. She never slept
+well when father was off on his river trips, and she was lyin' in bed
+wonderin' if he was safe, when the house begun to shake, and the dishes
+and pans rattled on the shelves, and there was father and Uncle Tandy
+travelin' back wards twelve miles; and when the earthquake was over and
+the river got to flowin' south again, they floated down past Cairo and
+saw the big lake, pretty near twenty-five miles long and four miles
+wide, right where there'd been nothin' but woods and dry land, and the
+tops o' some o' the biggest trees was stickin' up above the water, and
+folks from far and from near was comin' to see what the earthquake had
+done.
+
+"Father and Uncle Tandy never got through talkin' about the earthquake
+that Sunday mornin', and Parson Page never got tired listenin', and
+every time he'd come to see father, he'd manage to bring the talk around
+to fishin', and that'd start father to tellin' about the time the lake
+was made; and when father'd git through, Parson Page he'd draw a long
+breath and say: 'Well, that's wonderful! wonderful! It was a great
+privilege to be present at an act of creation, as it were, and something
+to be thankful for all your days.'"
+
+Aunt Jane's voice ceased suddenly, and a bewildered look came into her
+clear old eyes, the look of one who has lost connection with the present
+by lingering overtime in the past, "What was I talkin' about a while
+ago, child?" she asked helplessly.
+
+"Wasn't it circuses?" I suggested.
+
+The cloud of perplexity rolled away from Aunt Jane's face, "Why, of
+course it was," she ejaculated, with an accent of self-reproof for her
+forgetfulness. "Didn't I start out to tell you about Parson Page goin'
+to the circus, and here I am tellin' about the earthquake. I'm jest
+like an old blind horse; can't keep in the straight road to save my
+life. Some folks might say my mind was failin', but if you ever git to
+be as old as I am, child, you'll know jest how it is. A young person
+hasn't got much to remember, and he can start out and tell a straight
+tale without any trouble. But an old woman like me--why, every name I
+hear starts up some ricollection or other, and that keeps me goin' first
+to one side o' the road and then to the other."
+
+And having explained away her lapse of memory, Aunt Jane went cheerfully
+on.
+
+"I was talkin' about church members goin' to circuses, and I started out
+to tell about Parson Page the time Barnum's big show come to town. I
+don't reckon there ever was such a show as Barnum's, nor such show bills
+as he put up that spring. They was pasted up all along every road
+leadin' into town, and under the pictures of the animals they had Bible
+texts. There was the Arabian horses and that Bible text from Job, 'Thou
+hast clothed his neck with thunder.' And under the lion's picture they
+had, 'The lion and the lamb shall lie down together.' And the man that
+put up the show bills give out to everybody that this was a show that
+church members could go to and take their children to, because there'd
+be two kinds o' tickets, one for the animal show and one for the circus,
+and folks that didn't favor the circus needn't go near it; but
+everybody, he said, ought to see the animals, for they had pretty near
+every beast of the field and bird of the air that the Lord had created.
+
+"Well, us Goshen folks, we talked it over at home and in our Mite
+Society. We'd always been mighty strict about worldly amusements, all of
+us except Uncle Jimmy Judson. He used to say: 'As long as children ain't
+breakin' any of the ten commandments or any of their bones, let 'em
+alone, let 'em alone.' But the most of the children in our neighborhood
+never had seen the inside of a show tent, and of course every one of 'em
+was anxious to go to that show. We went to Parson Page about it, and he
+studied a while and says he: 'If the Lord made those animals, it surely
+cannot be sinful to go and see them; and I see no reason why every one
+in Goshen church should not attend the animal show.' Well, that was
+enough for us, and everybody in the church and out o' the church turned
+out to that show.
+
+"I reckon you know, child, how it is when a circus comes to town.
+Country folks has their own ways o' passin' the time and makin' pleasure
+for themselves, and town folks theirs, but a circus is one thing that
+brings all the country folks and all the town folks together. The
+country folks come to see the town and the circus, and the town folks,
+they turn out to see the circus and the country folks, and I reckon they
+got as much fun out of us as they did out o' the show, lookin' at our
+old-fashioned dresses and bonnets and laughin' at our old-fashioned
+ways.
+
+"Well, the time I'm tellin' about, the country folks turned out as they
+never had before, and there was people in town from all over the county.
+Some of 'em, they said, had traveled half the night to git in town
+bright and early. I ricollect the weather was more like June than May.
+It hadn't rained for a long time, and when the folks begun rollin' into
+town, the dust rose till you couldn't see the road before you, and there
+was so many carriages and buggies and two-horse wagons hitched around
+the streets it looked like there wouldn't be room for the procession to
+pass. Sam Amos was standin' on the drug-store corner with me and Abram
+when the music begun playin' 'way down by the depot, and all the boys
+and young folks broke and run down Main Street to meet the band-wagon,
+and Sam said he didn't believe they could run any faster if they was to
+hear the cry, 'Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!'
+
+"The procession reached clean from the depot to the Presbyterian church
+corner, and it was worth comin' to town jest to see the horses that
+pulled the chariots, some of 'em as white as milk and some coal black
+and holdin' their heads so high, and steppin' like fine ladies and
+lookin' so proud and so gentle, too, and so different from the horses
+that we drove to our own wagons and plows that you wouldn't know they
+was any kin to each other. Why, that night when I shut my eyes to go to
+sleep I could see the big gold chariot and the white horses, and all
+night long they went steppin' through my dreams.
+
+"Well, after the procession'd gone by, we went over in the courthouse
+yard and eat our dinner under the old locust trees, and then we went
+down toward the river where the tents was spread. There's some shows,
+honey, where there's more on the bills than there is under the tent.
+I've heard Sam Amos say that, and there was one show that he used to
+say was so blame bad it was right good. But Mr. Barnum's show was the
+kind where there was more under the tent than there was on the bills,
+and the sights us country folks saw that day give us somethin' to talk
+about for a long time to come. But jest as the animal show was about
+over, and people begun leavin', a big storm come up. I thought I heard
+the thunder rollin' while me and Abram and the children was lookin' at
+the fat woman, but of course we couldn't go home till we'd seen
+everything, and the first thing we knew the wind was blowin' a
+hurricane, and it got under the tent and lifted some o' the pegs out o'
+the ground, and somebody hollered out that the tent was about to fall
+down, and such a scatteration you never did see. We got out o' that tent
+a good deal quicker'n we got in, and started for town as fast as we
+could go, carryin' little children and draggin' 'em along by the hand;
+and the rain begun pourin' down, and everybody was wet to the skin
+before they could git to the drug store or the dry goods store or any
+place where folks'd take us in.
+
+"I ricollect Silas Petty said he reckoned it was a judgment on us church
+members for goin' to worldly amusements, and Abram said that couldn't
+be, because we'd prayed for rain the Sunday before. And--bless your
+life!--while the rest of us Goshen folks was standin' around in wet
+clothes and wishin' we could go home, Parson Page and Mis' Page was
+sittin' high and dry in the circus tent.
+
+"Parson Page said he never could tell how he got inside that circus
+tent. He said he set out to make a bee-line for town, intendin' to stop
+at the drug store till the rain was over, but the wind was blowin' and
+raisin' such clouds o' dust you couldn't keep your eyes open, and he was
+holdin' his hat on with one hand and tryin' to help Mis' Page with the
+other, and the crowd was kind o' carryin' 'em along, and all at once, he
+said, he found he was makin' straight for the door o' the big tent where
+the band was playin' and the circus was about to begin."
+
+Here Aunt Jane paused and laughed until laughter almost turned to tears.
+"There's three ways o' tellin' this story, child," she said, as she
+regained her breath. "Parson Page used to tell it his way, and Sam Amos
+would tell it his way, and Mis' Page had her way o' tellin' it. She used
+to laugh fit to kill over Parson Page sayin' he didn't know how he got
+into the circus tent. Says she: 'Lemuel may not know how he got into
+the circus, but I know, I had hold of his arm, and the wind was blowin'
+the dust in my eyes, too, but I knew exactly which way I was goin', and
+I was guidin' him.' Says she: 'I had on my best silk dress, and I'd jest
+turned it and made it over, and I didn't intend to have that dress
+ruined for lack of a little shelter.' She said she never once thought
+about tickets, and there was such a crowd, and the wind was blowin'
+things every which way and there was lightnin' and the noise o' thunder,
+and while the folks in front of her was givin' up their tickets, the
+folks behind was pressin' and pushin', and between the two there wasn't
+anything for her to do but go into the tent, whether she wanted to or
+not. And she said for her part she didn't mind it a bit, for that circus
+tent was the cheerfulest, happiest place she ever was in. She said the
+music made you feel like laughin' and steppin' lively, and folks was
+eatin' peanuts and drinkin' lemonade, and the bareback riders was
+tearin' around the ring, and jest as they got fairly inside, the rain
+begun beatin' down on the tent, and she thanked her stars she wasn't
+outside. She said it took Parson Page some little time to find out where
+he was, and when he did find it out, he wanted to start right home in
+the rain, and she told him he could go if he wanted to, but she was
+goin' to stay there till the rain was over. And while they was arguin'
+the matter, Sam Amos come along, and Parson Page begun explainin' how he
+got in by accident and wanted to git out. Sam said nobody but a frog or
+a fish or a Presbyterian minister would object to stayin' under a circus
+tent in such a rain as that, and he might as well make himself
+comfortable. So he found a seat for Mis' Page and the parson, and he
+used to say he got more fun out o' Parson Page than he did out o' the
+circus, and he couldn't hardly see what was goin' on in the ring for
+watchin' the parson's face. He had his gold-headed cane between his
+knees and his hands on top o' the cane and his head bowed over his hands
+like he was engaged in prayer, and he set there as solemn as if he was
+at a funeral, while everybody around was laughin' and hollerin' at the
+clown's jokes.
+
+"But Mis' Page she took things fair and easy. She said she knew the
+Presbytery couldn't do anything with her, and she made up her mind, as
+she was in there and couldn't git out, she'd see all there was to be
+seen. The next meetin' o' the Mite Society she told us all about it,
+and she said if the gyirls' skyirts had jest been a little longer, there
+wouldn't 'a' been a thing amiss with that circus. But she said what they
+lacked in length they made up in width, and the jumpin' and ridin' was
+so amazin' that you forgot all about the skyirts bein' short.
+
+"Parson Page said that circus seemed as long to him as a Sunday service
+used to seem when he was a boy. His conscience hurt him so, and he kept
+thinkin' what on earth he would say, if the Presbytery heard about it,
+and he felt like everybody in the tent was lookin' at him, and he never
+was as glad in his life as he was when Sam told him the show was over
+and he got up to leave.
+
+"Mis' Page said they was edgin' their way out through the crowd, and all
+at once Parson Page stopped and threw up his hands like he always did
+when somethin' struck him all at once, and says he: 'Bless my soul! I've
+been to this circus and didn't pay my way in.' Says he: 'That makes a
+bad matter worse, and I can't leave this tent till I've paid for myself
+and my wife.' And Sam Amos he laughed fit to kill, and says he: 'It
+looks to me like you'll be makin' a bad matter worse if you do pay,
+for,' says he, 'as long as you don't pay for seein' the show, you can
+say it was an accident, but if folks know you paid your way, you can't
+make 'em believe it was accidental.'
+
+"Parson Page looked mighty troubled, and he thought a while, and says
+he: 'Maybe you're right. My payin' won't help the looks of things any,
+but I know I'll have a better conscience all my life if I pay as other
+people have done. I haven't looked at the show,' says he, 'but I've
+heard the music, and I've had a shelter from the storm and a comfortable
+seat, and in all common honesty I ought to pay.' So they started out to
+find the man that sold tickets. But the ticket stand was gone, and they
+stood there lookin' around, the mud nearly ankle-deep, and Mis' Page
+said she was holdin' up her silk dress and wishin' to goodness they
+could git started toward town.
+
+"Sam said he knew Parson Page's conscience would hold him there on the
+show-ground till he'd paid that money, so he says: 'You and Mis' Page
+wait here; I'll see if I can find the man you want.' And Sam hunted all
+over the grounds till he found the head man of the circus, and he
+brought him around to where Parson Page and Mis' Page was waitin' for
+him. Mis' Page said he was as fine lookin' and well-mannered a man as
+she ever had seen; and he shook hands with her so friendly it seemed
+like she'd known him all her life, and then he says to Parson Page, as
+kind as you please: 'Well, my friend, what can I do for you?'
+
+"And Parson Page he explained how he'd got into the show tent by
+accident when the storm was comin' up, and how he wanted to pay; and the
+showman listened mighty polite, and when the parson got through he says:
+'Put up your purse, sir. You don't owe me a cent.' Says he: 'The
+obligation's all on my side, and it's an honor to this circus to know
+that we had a minister of the gospel in our audience, to-day.' The
+parson he insisted on payin', but the showman he wouldn't hear to it.
+Says he: 'If Mr. Barnum was to hear that I'd charged a preacher anything
+for seein' his show, I'd lose my place before you could say "Jack
+Robinson!"' And Parson Page said: 'Is that really so?' And the showman
+said: 'Upon my word and honor, it is. There's no such thing as a
+preacher payin' his way into one o' Mr. Barnum's circuses.'
+
+"Well, Parson Page put his purse back in his pocket and thanked the
+showman for his kindness, but he said he felt as if he wanted to make
+some sort of a return, and he begun searchin' around in his pockets to
+see if he didn't have a tract or somethin' o' that sort to give him, and
+he come across a Shorter Catechism that he'd been questionin' the
+children out of the Sunday before. And he pulled it out and says he:
+'Sir, I would like to leave this little book with you as a token of
+remembrance.' Sam said the showman took it and looked at it and turned
+over the pages right slow, and at last he says: 'Great Jehosaphat! This
+carries me back forty years, to the time when I was a little shaver,
+goin' to church Sunday mornin' and listenin' to old Brother Bodley
+preach from the day of creation down to the day of judgment, and sittin'
+on the old horsehair sofa in the parlor all Sunday evenin' wrestlin'
+with this very catechism and prayin' for the sun to go down and wishin'
+I could cut all the Sundays out o' the almanac.' And he turned over the
+pages o' the catechism and says he: 'Yes, here's all my old friends,
+"Santification" and "Justification" and "Adoption."' Sam said he laughed
+to himself, but there was a curious look in his eyes like he might cry,
+too. And says he: 'Parson, I know you won't believe me, but there ain't
+a question in this catechism that I can't answer.'
+
+"And Parson Page, he looked amazed, as anybody would, and says he: 'Is
+it possible?' And the showman handed him the book, and says he: 'I bet
+you five dollars I can answer any question you ask me.' Well, of course,
+Parson Page hadn't any notion of bettin' with the showman, but he took
+the catechism and says he, jest as earnest as if he was hearin' a
+Sunday-school class: 'What is sanctification?' And the showman says:
+'Sanctification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardoneth all
+our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight only for the
+righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.'
+
+"And Parson Page looked mighty pleased, and says he: 'That's a perfectly
+correct answer, but that's justification, and I asked you what
+sanctification is.' And the showman he thought a minute, and says he:
+'You're right! You're right! I always did have trouble with
+justification and sanctification, and I remember how mother'd say: "Now,
+Samuel, can't you get it fixed in your mind that justification is an
+act and sanctification is a work of God's free grace?" I thought I did
+get it fixed one o' them Sunday evenin's when mother was workin' with
+me, but I see now I didn't.'
+
+"And then he pulled out his purse,--Mis' Page said she never saw as much
+money at one time in all her life,--and he handed Parson Page a
+five-dollar gold piece. Parson Page didn't make any motion toward takin'
+it; jest looked first at the showman and then at Sam in a kind o'
+puzzled way, and the showman says: 'Here's your money, Parson. You won
+it fair and square.'
+
+"And Parson Page says: 'Sir, I don't understand you,' and he stepped
+back to keep the showman from puttin' the money in his hand--pretty
+much, I reckon, the way Brother Wilson did when Squire Schuyler was
+tryin' to make him take the deed to the house that was a wedding fee;
+and the showman says: 'Why, didn't I bet you five dollars I could answer
+any question in this catechism, and didn't I lose my bet?' And Parson
+Page says: 'Sir, I hadn't the slightest intention of betting with you. I
+am a minister of the gospel.' And the showman he says: 'Well, Parson,
+you may not have intended bettin' any more than you intended goin' to
+the circus, but you did bet, and there's no gettin' around it. I bet I
+could answer any question, and you took up the bet and asked the
+question; and I lost, and you won.'
+
+"Sam Amos said he never could forgit the look on Parson Page's face when
+he begun to see that he'd not only been to the circus, but that he'd
+been bettin' with the circus man. And he says: 'Sir, there's a great
+misunderstanding somewhere. Surely a minister of the gospel can ask a
+catechism question without being accused of betting.' And the showman he
+laughed, and says he: 'Well, we won't argue about that, but here's your
+money,' And Parson Page says: 'Sir, I shall not take it.' And the
+showman he looked mighty solemn and says he: 'Do you think it's right,
+Parson, to keep a fellow man from payin' his just debts?' And Parson
+Page studied a while, and says he: 'That's a hard question. I never had
+to deal with just such a matter before, and I hardly know what to say.'
+And the showman he says: 'I've got a conscience the same as you; my
+conscience tells me to pay this money, so it must be right for me to pay
+it; and if it's right for me to pay it, it can't be wrong for you to
+take it.'
+
+"Well, Parson Page studied a minute, and says he: 'Your reasoning
+appears to be sound, but, still, my conscience tells me that I ought not
+to take the money, and I will not take it.' And the showman says: 'Well,
+if it goes against your conscience to keep it, put it in the
+contribution box next Sunday,' Says he: 'I haven't been to church since
+I was a boy, and there may be a good many changes since then, but I
+reckon they're still passin' the contribution box around.' And the
+parson he drew back and shook his bead again, and the showman says:
+'Well, you can give it to foreign missions; maybe the heathen won't
+object to takin' a showman's money.' And the parson says: 'Sir, I
+appreciate your generosity, but on the whole I think it best not to take
+the money.'
+
+"Sam said the showman looked at Parson Page a minute, and then he
+slapped him on the shoulder, and says he: 'Parson, you may not know it,
+but we're pardners in this game. If it wasn't for the church, we
+wouldn't need the circus, and if it wasn't for the circus, we wouldn't
+need the church.' Says he: 'You belong to the church, and I belong to
+the circus; but maybe, after all, there ain't so very much difference
+betwixt an honest preacher and an honest showman.' And then he bowed to
+Mis' Page like she'd been a queen, and took Parson Page by the hand, and
+the next minute he was gone like he had a heap o' business to see to.
+And Sam Amos laughed, and says he: 'Well, Parson, circus-goin' and
+bettin' is enough for one day. You and me'd better go home now, before
+the world, the flesh, and the devil lay hold of you again.'
+
+"So they all started for town, Parson Page talkin' about how kind and
+polite the showman was, and how his conscience was clear since he'd
+offered to pay for his seat, and how glad he was that he hadn't taken
+the five dollars the showman wanted him to take. Sam said he waited till
+they got to the drug store, and then he told Parson Page to put his hand
+in his coat pocket,--he had on a black luster coat with the pocket
+outside,--and Parson Page put his hand in, and there was the five-dollar
+gold piece. Sam said that while the showman was shakin' hands he slipped
+the money in the pocket as quick as lightnin', and of course Sam
+wouldn't tell on him, because he was glad to git another joke on Parson
+Page.
+
+"Well, it was all Mis' Page and Sam could do to keep him from goin' back
+to the show grounds to try to find the showman and give him back his
+money. Mis' Page told him it was gittin' on toward night, and they had
+to go home, and Sam told him that the show was most likely on its way to
+the depot. But Parson Page shook his head, and says he: 'I can't go home
+with this money in my possession.' And Mis' Page reached out and took
+the gold piece out o' his hand and slipped it into her reticule, and
+says she: 'Well, now you can go home. That gold piece won't bother you
+any more, for it's in my possession, and I'm goin' to put it in the
+treasury of our Mite Society,' and that's what she did the very next
+meetin' we had.
+
+"Mis' Page said that Parson Page could hardly git to sleep that night,
+he was so troubled and so upset, and he kept talkin' about the things
+he'd done because he thought they was right, and how they'd led him into
+doin' wrong, and says he: 'This morning when I set out for town, I
+thought I knew exactly what was right and what was wrong, but now I'm so
+turned and twisted,' says he, 'that if anybody asked me whether the ten
+commandments ought to be observed, I believe I'd stop and think a long
+time before I answered, and then like as not I'd say, "Sometimes they
+ought, and sometimes they oughtn't."'
+
+"Well, of course the news went all over the country that Parson Page had
+gone to the circus, and everywhere Brother Page went he was kept busy
+explainin' about the rain and the crowd and how he got in by accident
+and couldn't git out, and by the time the Presbytery met, all the
+preachers had got wind of the story, and some of 'em laughed about it,
+and some of 'em said it was a serious matter. Brother Robert McCallum
+did more laughin' than anybody. He used to say that next to savin' souls
+he enjoyed a good joke more than anything in the world, and Sam Amos
+used to say that if Brother McCallum ever wanted to change his business,
+he could be the end man in a nigger minstrel show without any trouble.
+
+"Brother McCallum and Parson Page 'd been schoolmates, so they both felt
+free to joke with one another; and the minute they'd shook hands,
+Brother McCallum begun laughin' about Parson Page goin' to the circus,
+and says he: 'Brother Page, I wish I'd been in your place.' Says he:
+'I've always thought a man loses a heap by bein' a preacher. If anybody
+ought to be allowed to go to the circus,' says he, 'it looks like it
+ought to be us preachers, that's proof against temptation and that's
+strong to wrestle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Instead o'
+that we send the poor, weak sinners into the temptation and lead the
+preachers away from it.' Says he: 'I went to that very show, but I
+wasn't so lucky as you, for it was clear weather, and I didn't have a
+chance to see anything but the animals.'
+
+"And then, after sayin' all that, what did Brother McCallum do but git
+up the last day of Presbytery and read a paper with a lot of 'whereases'
+and 'be it resolveds', chargin' Brother Page with conduct unbecoming to
+a minister and callin' on him to explain matters. And Parson Page he had
+to own up to everything and explain again jest how he happened to git
+caught in the circus tent, and says he: 'It was a strange place for a
+minister of the gospel to be in, but my rule is to see what I can learn
+from every experience that comes to me, and I believe I learned from the
+circus something that, maybe, I could not learn anywhere else.' Says he:
+'As I lay that night on a sleepless pillow, the Lord gave me an insight
+into the great mystery of predestination. I traced up the events of the
+day one after another. There was my betting with the showman, and I felt
+sorry for that. But that would not have happened if I had not sought out
+the showman to pay my just debt to him, and that was a right act and a
+right intention, yet it led me into wrong; and I saw in a flash that our
+own acts predestine us and foreordain us to this thing or to that. We
+are like children, stumbling around in the dark, taking the wrong way
+and doing the wrong thing, but over us all is the pity of the Father who
+"knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust."'
+
+"Says he: 'I went into that tent a Pharisee, and I wrapped the mantle of
+my pride around me and thought how much holier I was than those poor
+sinful show people. But,' says he, 'I talked with the showman, and I
+found as much honesty and kindness of heart as I ever found in any
+church member, and I left the show grounds with a wider charity in my
+heart than I'd ever felt before, for I knew that the showman was my
+brother, and I understood what the Apostle meant when he said: "Now are
+they many members; yet but one body."'
+
+"And Brother McCallum he got up, and says he: 'Well, that's more than I
+ever learned from any of Brother Page's sermons,' and everybody laughed,
+and that ended the matter so far as the Presbytery was concerned.
+
+"But Sam Amos never got through teasin' Parson Page, and every time he'd
+see him with a passel o' church members, he'd go up and tell some story
+or other, and then he'd turn around and say: 'You ricollect, Parson,
+that happened the day you and me went to the circus.'"
+
+
+
+
+MARY CRAWFORD'S CHART
+
+
+"With this chart, madam," said the agent, "you are absolutely
+independent of dressmakers and seamstresses. After the instructions I
+have just given, a woman can cut and fit any sort of garment, from a
+party gown for herself to a pair of overalls for her husband, and the
+chart is so scientific in its construction, its system of measurement so
+accurate, that anything cut by it has a style and finish seldom seen in
+home-made garments. I have handled many things in the course of my ten
+years' experience as a traveling salesman, but this chart is the most
+satisfactory invention of all. I've been handling it now about eight
+months, and in that time I've sold--well, if I were to tell you how many
+hundred, you wouldn't believe me, so what's the use?--and I have yet to
+hear of anybody who is dissatisfied with the chart. The last time I
+talked with the general manager of the International Dressmaking Chart
+Company, I said to him, said I: 'Mr. Crampton, you could safely give a
+guarantee with every one of these charts--offer to refund the money to
+any one who is dissatisfied, and,' said I, 'I believe the only result of
+this would be an increased sale. You'd never have to refund a dollar.
+About a year ago I sold one to Mrs. Judge Graves in Shepherdsville; you
+may know her. Her husband's county judge, and they are two of the finest
+people you ever saw. The judge has a brother right here in town,
+Campbell Graves, the grocer. Your husband knows him, I'm sure. Well, I
+sold Mrs. Graves this chart a year ago, and I stopped there again on
+this trip just to say 'how d'ye do' and see how the chart was holding
+out. And she said to me: 'Mr. Roberts, this chart has saved me at least
+fifty dollars worth of dressmaker's bills in the last year. My husband
+thought, when I bought it, that five dollars was a good deal to pay for
+a thing like that, but' says she, 'he says now it was the best
+investment he ever made.' I had intended to make a thorough canvass of
+this neighborhood, but at twelve o'clock to-day, just as I was sitting
+down to my dinner, I got a telegram from the house telling me to go
+immediately to Shepherdsville. But I'd already ordered the horse and
+buggy, so I ate my dinner as quickly as I could, and said I: 'I'll drive
+three miles out into the country and stop at the first house I come to
+on the right-hand side of the road beyond the tollgate, and if I sell a
+chart there, I won't feel that I ran up a livery bill for nothing. And
+the first house on the right-hand side of the road beyond the tollgate
+happened to be yours, and that's how I came to give you all this
+trouble."
+
+Here the agent paused with a pleasant laugh. He realized that the
+psychological moment was approaching, and he began gathering up the
+various parts of the chart with an air of extreme preoccupation. The
+gleam of a ruby ring on his little finger caught Mary Crawford's eye,
+and she noticed how white and well-formed his hands were, the hands of
+one who had never done any manual labor. She stood irresolute,
+fascinated by the gleam of the red jewel, and thinking of her little
+hoard up-stairs in the Japanese box in the top bureau drawer. Five
+dollars from thirteen dollars and sixty-five cents left eight dollars
+and sixty-five cents. It would be three weeks before John's birthday
+came. The hens were laying well, the young cow would be "fresh" next
+week, and that would give her at least two pounds more of butter per
+week. Then, the agent was such a nice-mannered, obliging young man; he
+had spent an hour teaching her how to use the chart, and she hated to
+have him take all that trouble for nothing.
+
+She looked over at her husband, and her eyes said plainly: "Please help
+me to decide."
+
+But John was blind to the gentle entreaty. He had fixed ideas as to what
+was a man's business and what a woman's; so he tilted his chair back
+against the wall and chewed a straw while he gazed out of the open door.
+His mental comment was: "If that agent fellow could work his hands just
+half as fast as he works his jaw, he'd be a mighty good help on a farm."
+
+The agent looked up with a cheery smile. He had folded the chart, and
+was tying the red tape fastenings.
+
+"I've got to get back to town in time to catch that four o'clock train
+for Shepherdsville. I'm a thousand times obliged to you, Madam, for
+letting me show you the working of the chart. Sometimes I have a good
+deal of difficulty in getting ladies to understand the _modus operandi_
+of the thing. Unless a woman remembers the arithmetic she learned when
+she was a schoolgirl, she is apt to have trouble taking measurements.
+But it's a pleasure to show any one who sees into it as readily as you
+do. Most married women seem to give up their mathematical knowledge just
+as they give up their music. But you've got yours right at your
+fingers' ends. Well, good afternoon to you both, and the next time I
+come this way--"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Mary. "I'll take the chart. Just sit down and wait
+till I go up-stairs and get the money."
+
+The agent made a suave bow of acquiescence, and then stroked his
+mustache to conceal an involuntary smile of triumph.
+
+"You have a fine stand of wheat, sir," he said, turning to John and
+gesturing gracefully towards the field across the road, where the sun
+was shimmering on the silvery green of oats.
+
+John made no reply. He scorned to talk about farming matters with a raw
+city fellow who did not know oats from wheat, and he was laboriously
+counting out a handful of silver.
+
+"Here's your money, young man," he said dryly. "Now skip out, if you
+can, before Mary gets back."
+
+The agent gave a quick glance at the coins and thrust them into his
+pocket. He seized his hat and valise, darted out of the house, and was
+climbing into his buggy when Mary appeared at the door, breathless and
+distressed.
+
+"Come back!" she cried. "You've forgotten your money."
+
+John was standing just behind Mary, smiling broadly, and making emphatic
+gestures of dismissal with both hands. The agent understood the humor of
+the situation and laughed heartily as he lifted his hat and drove away.
+Mary started to the gate, blushing scarlet with vexation and perplexity,
+but John held her back.
+
+"I have heard of agents forgettin' to leave the goods," said he, "but I
+never heard of one forgettin' to collect his money. Go and put your
+money back, Mary; I paid the man."
+
+"Then you must let me pay you," cried Mary. "I really mean it, John. You
+must let me have my way. I know you're hard run just now, and I never
+would have bought the chart, if I had not intended paying for it
+myself."
+
+She tried to open John's hand to put the money in it, but John took hold
+of her hand and gave her a gentle shove toward the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Go on and put up your money, Mary," he said. "If half that agent fellow
+said is true, I'm in about a hundred and fifty dollars. Before long, I
+reckon, you'll be makin' my coats and pants and the harness for the
+horses by this here chart."
+
+And Mary went, but her gentle protestations could be heard even after
+she reached her room and had dropped the money back into the little box
+that was her savings bank.
+
+She hurried through her after-supper tasks, her mind full of the cutting
+and fitting she wanted to do before bed-time. Hers was a soul that found
+its highest happiness in work, and she unfolded the chart with the
+delight of a child who has a new toy. The agent's tribute to her
+knowledge of mathematics was no idle flattery. Her quick brain had
+comprehended at once the system of the chart, and she flushed with
+excitement and pleasure as she bent over her scale and found that her
+measurements and calculations were resulting in patterns of unmistakable
+correctness and style. It was like solving the fifth proposition of
+Euclid. She laid aside her work that night with a reluctant sigh, but a
+happy anticipation of the sewing yet to come. The anticipation was
+fulfilled next day by the completion of a shirt waist so striking in
+design and fit that even John noticed its beauty and becomingness and
+acknowledged that the chart was "no humbug."
+
+"You must wear that waist Monday when we go to town," he declared. "I
+never saw anything fit you as pretty as that does," and Sally McElrath
+echoed John's opinion when she and Mary met at the linen counter of
+Brown and Company's dry goods store; and Mary told her of the wonderful
+chart as they both examined patterns and qualities of table linen and
+compared experiences as to wearing qualities of bleached and unbleached
+damask.
+
+There is a system of communication in every country neighborhood that is
+hardly less marvelous than the telegraph and telephone; and before Mary
+could put her chart to a second test, all Goshen knew that Mary Crawford
+had a chart that would cut anything from a baby sacque to a bolero, and
+that she was willing to lend it to any one who was inclined to borrow.
+
+Sally McElrath was the first applicant for the loan of the chart.
+Whatever the enterprise, if it had the feature of novelty, Sally was its
+first patron and promoter. But her promptness ended here, and her
+friends declared that Sally McElrath was always the first to begin a
+thing, and the last to finish it.
+
+Accompanying the chart was a set of explicit rules for its use, and Mary
+read these to Sally, explaining all the difficult points just as the
+agent had explained them to her.
+
+"Now if I were you, Sally," she said warningly, "I would try some simple
+thing first, a child's apron, or something like that, so that you won't
+run the risk of ruining any expensive goods. Everything takes practice,
+you know."
+
+"Oh," said Sally confidently, "I'm goin' to make a tea jacket out of a
+piece of China silk I got off the bargain counter the last time I was in
+town."
+
+"What's a tea jacket?" asked Sally's husband, who had been listening
+intently, with a faint hope that some new shirts for himself might be
+the outcome of Sally's interest in the chart.
+
+"It's a thing like this, Dan," said Sally, producing a picture of the
+elegant garment in question.
+
+"Why do they call it a tea jacket?" demanded Dan.
+
+"Oh, I don't know; I reckon they wear 'em when they drink tea," said
+Sally.
+
+"But we drink coffee," said Dan argumentatively.
+
+"Well, call it a coffee jacket, then," retorted Sally. "But whatever you
+call it, I'm goin' to have one, if I don't do another stitch of spring
+sewin'."
+
+Dan was gazing sadly at the picture of the tea jacket with its flowing
+oriental sleeves, lace ruffles, and ribbon bows.
+
+"I can't figger out," he said slowly, "what use you've got for a thing
+like that."
+
+"I can't either," snapped Sally, "and that's the very reason I want it.
+The only things I've got any use for are gingham aprons and kitchen
+towels, and they're the things I don't want; and the only things I want
+are things that I haven't got a bit of use for, like this tea jacket
+here, and I'm goin' to have it, too."
+
+"All right, all right," said Dan soothingly. "If you're pleased with the
+things that ain't of any use, why, have 'em, of course. Me and the
+children would like right well to have a few things that are some use,
+but I reckon we can get along without 'em a while longer. However, it
+looks to me as if that chart calls for a good deal of calculatin', and
+it's my opinion that you'd better get out your old _Ray's Arithmetic_
+and study up awhile before you try to cut out that jacket."
+
+"Maybe you're right," laughed Sally. "Arithmetic always was my stumbling
+block at school. I never could learn the tables, and the first year I
+was married I sold butter with just twelve ounces to the pound, till
+Cousin Albert's wife told me better. She'd been takin' my butter for a
+month, and one Saturday morning she said to me: 'Cousin Sally, I hate to
+mention it, and I hope you won't take offence, but your butter's short
+weight.' Well, of course that made me mad, but I held my temper down,
+and I said: 'Cousin Ella, I think you're mistaken, I weigh my butter
+myself, and I've got good true scales, and there's twelve ounces of
+butter and a little over in every pound I sell.' And Cousin Ella laughed
+and says: 'I know that, Cousin Sally, but there ought to be sixteen
+ounces in a pound of butter. You're usin' the wrong table.' And she
+picked up little Albert's arithmetic and showed me the two tables, one
+for druggists and one for grocers; and there I'd been using druggist's
+weight to weigh groceries. Well, we had a good laugh over it, and I put
+twenty ounces of butter to the pound 'till I made up all my short
+weight. I never did learn all the multiplication table, and all the
+arithmetic I'm certain about now is: one baby and another baby makes two
+babies, and twelve things make a dozen. I wouldn't remember that if it
+wasn't for countin' the eggs and the napkins. But maybe Dan can help me
+out with the chart."
+
+"Don't depend on me," said Dan emphatically; "my arithmetic is about
+like yours. I know how many pecks of corn make a bushel and how many
+rods are in an acre, but that sort o' knowledge wouldn't be much help in
+cuttin' out a woman's jacket." And early the next morning Sally returned
+the chart, acknowledging that its mathematical complexities had baffled
+both herself and Dan. "And besides," she added, "I don't believe there's
+enough of my China silk to cut anything. I'll have to match it and get
+some more the next time I go to town."
+
+One after another the neighbors borrowed Mary's chart, and each came
+back with the same story,--there was too much arithmetic about it, but
+if they brought their goods some time this week or next, would not Mary
+show them how to use it?
+
+Of course she would. When did Mary Crawford ever refuse to help a
+neighbor?
+
+"Come whenever you please," said she cordially. "It will not be a bit of
+trouble, and you'll find the chart is easy enough, after I've given you
+a little help on it."
+
+They came, sometimes singly, sometimes by twos and threes, and Mary
+straightway found herself at the head of a dressmaking establishment
+from which every business feature except the hard work had been
+completely eliminated. The customers sometimes brought their children,
+and often stayed in friendly fashion to dinner or supper, as the
+exigencies of the work demanded a prolonged visit. Mary played the part
+of the gracious hostess while she cut and tried on, and planned and
+contrived and suggested, slipping away now and then to put another stick
+of wood in the kitchen stove, or see that the vegetables were not
+scorching, or mix up the biscuits, or make the coffee, or set the table,
+using all her fine tact to keep the guest from feeling that she was
+giving trouble.
+
+Mary was social in her nature, and the pleasure of entertaining her
+neighbors and her unselfish delight in bestowing favors kept her from
+realizing at once the weight of the burden she had taken on herself. But
+she was a housekeeper who rarely saw the sun go down on an unfinished
+task, and when she took a retrospective view of the week, she was
+dismayed by the large arrears of housework and sewing; and all her
+altruism could not keep back a sigh of relief as she saw Mandy Harris's
+rockaway disappear down the road late Saturday afternoon. She sat up
+till half-past ten sewing on a gingham dress for Lucy Ellen and a linen
+blouse for little John, and the next day she knowingly and wilfully
+broke the Sabbath by sweeping and dusting the parlor and dining-room.
+
+Monday dawned cool and cloudy, more like March than April, and when the
+rain began to come down in slow, steady fashion, she rejoiced at the
+prospect of another day unbroken by callers. By Tuesday morning April
+had resumed her reign. A few hours of wind and sunshine dried up the mud
+and put the roads in fine condition, and an extra number of visitors and
+children came in the afternoon. Lucy Ellen and little John were expected
+to entertain the latter. But Lucy Ellen and John were by this time
+frankly weary of company, and they had a standard of hospitality that
+differed essentially from their mother's. It seemed to them that hosts
+as well as guests had some rights, and they were ready at all times to
+stand up and battle for theirs. Lucy Ellen could not understand why she
+should be sent an exile to the lonely spare-room up-stairs, merely
+because she had slapped Mary Virginia Harris for breaking her favorite
+china doll; and little John was loudly indignant because he was
+reprimanded for calling Jimmie Crawford names, when Jimmy persisted in
+walking over the newly-planted garden. For the first time, both children
+had hard feelings toward their gentle stepmother, and she herself longed
+for the departure of the guests that she might take John's children in
+her arms and explain away her seeming harshness.
+
+Wednesday repeated the trials of Tuesday with a few disagreeable
+variations, and Thursday was no better than Wednesday. By Thursday night
+Mary had abandoned all hope of finishing her own sewing before May
+Meeting Sunday. Her one aim now was to do a small amount of housework
+each day and get three meals cooked for John and the children, and even
+this work had to be subordinated to the increasing demands of the
+dressmaking business. At times she had a strange feeling in her head,
+and wondered if this was what people meant when they spoke of having
+headache; but sleep, "the balm of every woe", seldom failed to come
+nightly to her pillow, and all day long her sweet serenity never failed,
+even when the trying week was fitly rounded out by a simultaneous visit
+from Sally McElrath and Ma Harris. Sally had just "dropped in", but Ma
+Harris came, as usual, with intent to find or to make trouble.
+
+Ma Harris was John Crawford's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side",
+as Dave Amos phrased it, and it was the opinion of the neighbors that if
+John and his second wife had not been the best-natured people in the
+world, they never could have put up with Ma Harris and her "ways."
+
+She had exercised a careful supervision over John's domestic affairs
+during the first wife's lifetime. When Sarah died, she redoubled her
+vigilance, and when his second marriage became an impending certainty,
+Ma Harris's presence and influence hung like a dark cloud over the
+future of the happy pair.
+
+"There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Mary," said honest John. "I know
+you'll get along all right with me and the children, but I don't know
+about Ma Harris; I'm afraid she'll give you trouble."
+
+"Don't you worry about that," said Mary cheerily. "I've never seen
+anybody yet that I couldn't get along with, and Ma Harris won't be the
+exception."
+
+Popular sentiment declared that Ma Harris took her son-in-law's second
+marriage much harder than she had taken her daughter's death. Her
+lamentations were loudly and impartially diffused among her
+acquaintances; but it was evident that the sympathies of the community
+were not with John's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side."
+
+"I reckon old Mis' Harris won't bother me again soon," said Maria
+Taylor. "She was over here yesterday with her handkerchief to her eyes,
+mournin' over John marryin' Mary Parrish, and I up and told her that she
+ought to be givin' thanks for such a stepmother for Sarah's children,
+John Crawford was too good a man, anyhow, to be wasted on a pore,
+shiftless creature like Sarah, and her death was nothin' but a blessin'
+to John and the children."
+
+Ma Harris soon found that she had never given herself a harder task than
+when she undertook to find fault with John for his treatment of Mary, or
+with Mary for her treatment of the children. It vexed her soul on
+Sundays to see John ushering Mary into his pew as if she had been a
+princess, but what could she say? Did not all the inhabitants of Goshen
+know that John had carried "pore Sarah" into the church in his strong
+arms as long as she was able to be carried, and nursed her faithfully at
+home until the day of her death? Then the children fairly adored Mary;
+and Mary, being a genuine mother, and having none of her own, was free
+to spend all her love on John's little ones. Not only this, but she
+treated Ma Harris with such respect and kindness that complaint was
+well-nigh impossible. Altogether, Ma Harris began to realize that the
+way of the fault-finder is sometimes as hard as that of the
+transgressor.
+
+"Well, Mary," she said, as she dropped heavily into a rocking-chair, "I
+heard yesterday that you had a new dressmakin' chart and all the
+neighbors was usin' it, and says I to Maria, 'I reckon Mary's forgot me,
+and I'll have to go up and remind her that Ma Harris is still in the
+land of the livin' and jest as much in need of clothes as some other
+folks.'" And she threw a withering glance in Sally's direction.
+
+"Why, Ma Harris!" said Mary. "Didn't John give you my message? I sent
+you word about the chart last week, and I've been looking for you every
+day."
+
+Ma Harris's face brightened, for Mary's words were as a healing balm to
+her wounded self-love.
+
+"There, now!" she exclaimed, "I didn't think you'd slight me that-a-way,
+Mary. So it was John's fault, after all. Well, I might a' known it. It's
+precious few men that can remember what their wives tell 'em to do, and
+I used to tell Joel that if I wanted to send a message I'd send it by
+the telegraph company before I'd trust him with it."
+
+Mary breathed a breath of deep relief. Peace was restored between Ma
+Harris and herself, but she knew that between her two guests there
+yawned a breach that time and frequent intercourse only widened and
+deepened. Once in an uncharitable moment Sally had likened Ma Harris to
+Dan's old wall-eyed mare, and more than once Ma Harris had made
+disparaging remarks about Sally's cooking. The bearer of tales had
+attended to her work, and thereafter the two seldom met without an
+interchange of hostile words. Mary was of those blessed ones who love
+and who make peace, and for the next hour she stood as a buffer between
+two masked batteries. If a sarcastic remark were thrown out, she caught
+it before it could reach its mark, and took away its sting by some
+kindly interpretation of her own. If a challenge were given, she took it
+up and laughed it off as a joke. If the conversation threatened to
+become personal, she led its course into the safe channel of
+generalities; and for once the two enemies were completely baffled in
+their efforts to bring about a quarrel. But only Mary knew at what cost
+peace had been purchased, when she lay down on the old sofa in the hall
+for a moment's rest before going to the kitchen to cook supper and make
+tea-cakes for the May Meeting basket. After supper she sewed buttons on
+Lucy Ellen's frock and little John's blouse and, being a woman and
+young, she thought of the pale blue dimity she had hoped to wear to the
+May Meeting, because pale blue was John's favorite color.
+
+But in the matter of women's clothes, John was not quick to distinguish
+between the new and the old, and there was nothing but loving admiration
+in his eyes the next morning as he stood at the foot of the stairs and
+looked up at Mary in a last year's gown of dark blue linen with collar
+and cuffs of delicate embroidery. He helped her into the carriage, and
+away they went down the elm-shaded road. The carriage was shabby, but
+there was a strain of noble blood in the horse, that showed itself in a
+smooth, even gait, and Mary's eyes brightened, and the color came into
+her face, as she felt the exhilaration that swift motion always brings.
+
+The poet who sang the enchantment of "midsummer nights" might have sung
+with equal rapture of May mornings, when there is a sun to warm you
+through, and a breeze to temper the warmth with a touch of April's
+coolness; when the flowers on the earth's bosom, touched by the
+sunshine, gleam and glow like the jewels in the breastplate of the high
+priest, and the heart beats strong with the joy of winter past and the
+joy of summer to come.
+
+Mary leaned back with the long, deep sigh of perfect happiness. Of late
+she had been striving with "a life awry", but now her soul
+
+    "Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll,
+     Freshening and fluttering in the wind."
+
+It was May Meeting Sunday. Nobody could come to use the chart, and she
+and John were riding together. A redbird carolled to its mate in the top
+of a wayside elm, and she laughed like a child.
+
+"Listen to that sweet bird!" she exclaimed. "Why, it can almost talk.
+Don't you hear the words it's singing?
+
+    "'Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!
+        _With_ you!
+        _With_ you!'"
+
+"Smart bird," said John. "Sees you and me together and makes a song
+about it." And Mary laughed and blushed as her eyes met John's.
+
+"Oh!" she sighed, "I almost wish we could ride on and on and never come
+to the church. It seems a pity to lose any of this sunshine and wind."
+
+"Just say the word," said John, "and we'll keep right on and have a May
+Meetin' all to ourselves out at Blue Spring, or anywhere else you say.
+May Meetin's just a Sunday picnic, anyway."
+
+But Mary's conscience forbade such Sabbath breaking. It was all right to
+have a picnic after you had been to preaching, but to have the picnic
+without the previous church-going was not to be thought of.
+
+It was a Sunday of great events. Not only was it May Meeting Sunday, but
+the Sawyer twins were to be baptized, and Sidney Harris and his bride
+were to make their first appearance in public that day. Sidney had
+married a young girl from the upper part of the State, and it was
+rumored that her wedding clothes had been made in New York, that they
+were worth "a small fortune." One costume in particular, it was said,
+had cost "a cool hundred", and every woman in the church had a secret
+hope of seeing the gown at the May Meeting.
+
+According to custom, every one wore her freshest, newest raiment in
+honor of the day and the month. Mary usually felt an innocent pleasure
+in looking at the new apparel of her friends, but to-day, as she glanced
+around, she was moved by a strange feeling of irritation, weariness, and
+dissatisfaction. That she was wearing old clothes while every one else
+wore new ones gave her little concern; but just in front of her sat
+Ellen McElrath in the blue and white gingham waist that she and Ellen
+had cut out that dreadful afternoon when the sponge cake burnt up, and
+Ellen's little boy pulled up all her clove pinks. The back of the waist
+was cut on the bias, and the stripes did not hit. How she had worked and
+worried over those stripes and lain awake at night, wondering if she
+ought not to buy Ellen enough goods to cut a new back. She turned away
+her eyes, and there, across the aisle, was little May Johnson in the
+pink blouse that recalled the morning when Mary had left her churning
+and baking six times to show May's mother the working of that mysterious
+chart. And there was Aunt Amanda Bassett, ambling heavily down to the
+"amen corner" in the black alpaca skirt that would wrinkle over her
+ample hips in spite of all the letting out and taking up that had been
+done for it that hot afternoon when the bread burned to a crisp, while
+Mary was down on the floor turning up Aunt Amanda's hem and trying to
+make both sides of the skirt the same length. And here came Annie
+Matthews in the brown and white shirt waist, that was an all-around
+misfit because Annie had thought that three fourths of sixteen inches
+was eight inches, Mary blamed herself for not staying by Annie and
+watching her more closely. And was that a wrinkle in the broad expanse
+of gingham across Nanny McElrath's shoulders? It was; and Mary knew
+there would be some ripping and altering next week.
+
+Oh! if she could only shut out the sight of those hateful garments! How
+could she ever get herself into a reverent frame of mind surrounded by
+these dismal reminders of all the work and worry of the past month?
+
+She glanced over at the old Parrish pew and Aunt Mary's countenance of
+smiling peace rebuked her. If Aunt Mary could smile, sitting lonely in
+the old church thronged with memories of her dead, surely, with John by
+her side and the heart of youth beating strong in her breast, she ought
+not to feel like crying, especially at May Meeting service.
+
+The church was filling rapidly, and every new arrival roused a fresh
+train of vexatious memories. There was a rustle and flutter all over
+the church, a great turning of heads, and good cause for it; for down
+the aisle came Sam and Maria Sawyer, Sam bearing the twins, one on each
+arm, their long white clothes reaching far below his knees and giving
+him the appearance of an Episcopal clergyman in full vestments. And
+close behind these came Sidney and his bride, the latter smiling and
+blushing under a hat of white lace trimmed with bunches of purple
+violets, and gowned in a suit of violet cloth, whose style carried to
+every mind the conviction that it was indeed the hundred-dollar gown.
+
+Mary touched John on the arm. She tried to speak, and could not; but
+there was no need for speech. John understood the pallor of her face and
+the imploring look in her eyes. He whispered a word to the children,
+then he and Mary rose and passed out unnoticed.
+
+"What's the matter?" said John in a low voice, as soon as they were
+fairly outside the door.
+
+But Mary only shook her head and walked faster toward the old rockaway,
+which was standing in the shade of a tall chestnut tree. There she sank
+on the ground and began laughing and sobbing, while John, thoroughly
+alarmed, knelt by her, patting her on the back and saying: "There,
+there, Honey; don't cry," as if he were talking to a frightened child.
+
+The touch of his kind hands and the fresh, sweet air on her face were
+quick restoratives, and in a moment or two Mary was able to speak.
+
+"Don't look so scared, John," she gasped faintly. "There's nothing much
+the matter; I'll be all right in a minute or two. I haven't been feeling
+very well lately, and I'm afraid I ought to have stayed at home to-day.
+It was too warm in the church; and I got to looking at the clothes the
+people had on, and nearly everything new was cut out by my chart, and it
+seemed so funny, and I felt all at once as if I wanted to cry or laugh,
+I didn't know which, but I'm better now."
+
+John was listening with keen attention. Nearly all the new clothes in
+the church made by Mary's chart, and she so tired and nervous that she
+could not stay inside the church! His face grew grave and stern, but
+when he spoke, his voice had its usual gentleness.
+
+"You come along with me, Mary," he said, "We'll have our Sunday meetin'
+out of doors, after all."
+
+He lifted the cushions and robes from the rockaway and started towards
+the woods at the back of the church, Mary following with the docility
+of utter weariness. It was wrong, of course, to miss the May Meeting
+sermon, but how could she worship God with that striped shirt waist in
+front of her? Her temples throbbed, and there was a queer feeling at the
+back of her head.
+
+John laid the cushions on the ground and folded the robes into a pillow.
+
+"Now, Mary, lay right down here," he commanded. "Sunday's a day of rest,
+and you've got to rest. Don't you worry about the children. If they get
+tired listenin' to the sermon, they've got sense enough to get up and
+come out here; and nobody's goin' to know whether you and me are in
+church or not. They're too much taken up with the baptizin' and the
+bride."
+
+And with these assurances Mary closed her eyes, and surrendered herself
+to the sweet influence of the day and hour. The sunshine lay warm on her
+shoulders and hands, the breath of May fanned her aching head, and John,
+like a strong angel, was watching beside her. She heard the twitter of
+birds in the top branches of the giant oaks, the voices of the choir
+came to her softened by the distance, and her brain took up the rhythm
+of the hymn they were singing:
+
+    "This is the day the Lord hath made,
+     He calls the hours his own;
+     Let heaven rejoice, let earth be glad,
+     And praise surround the throne."
+
+But before the last stanza had been sung, the tension of brain and body
+relaxed. John saw that she slept and thanked God. He looked at her
+sleeping face, and the anxiety in his own deepened. For five years he
+had borne the cross of a peevish, invalid wife, and then he had known
+the bliss of living with a perfectly sound woman. He had never analyzed
+the nature of his love for Mary,--as soon would he have torn away the
+petals of Mary's budding roses to see what was at their heart,--and he
+did not know that the charm that had drawn him to her and kept him her
+lover through three years of married life, was not alone her sweet,
+unselfish nature, but the exquisite health that made work a pleasure,
+the perfect equilibrium of nerve and brain that kept a song on her lips,
+that made her step like a dance, and her mere presence a spell to soothe
+and heal. His heart sank at the thought of her losing these. He had
+always shielded her from the heavy drudgery that farm life brings to a
+woman, and now he called memory to the witness stand and sternly
+questioned her concerning the cause of this sudden change. She had been
+having a good deal of company lately, but then Mary enjoyed company. She
+had never complained about the unusual number of callers, but who ever
+heard Mary complain about anything? She was not the complaining kind.
+John was not a psychologist, and could not know the danger to nerve and
+brain that lies in enforced--even self-enforced--submission to
+unpleasant circumstances, but his brow darkened as he thought of her
+words: "Nearly everything new was cut out by my chart." And yet, what
+right had he to blame the neighbors for their thoughtlessness? If he,
+Mary's husband, had not been considerate of her health and happiness,
+why should he expect the neighbors to be so?
+
+"It's all my fault at last," he thought remorsefully, as he leaned over
+the sleeping woman and brushed away an insect that had lighted on her
+gold-brown hair.
+
+Yes, there were faint lines around her mouth and under her eyes, and the
+contour of her cheek was not as girlish as it had been a month ago.
+
+"If that chart was at the bottom of the trouble--" But again why should
+he blame the chart or the agent, when the main fault was his?
+
+Taking off his coat, he laid it gently over her shoulders and seated
+himself so that the shadow of his body would screen her from a ray of
+sun that lay across her closed eyelids.
+
+The minister's voice rose and fell in earnest exhortation. He was
+preaching an unusually long sermon that morning, and John was glad, for
+the longer his sermon, the longer would be Mary's sleep. As for himself,
+he needed no sermon within church walls. He was listening to the voice
+of his conscience preaching to him of things undone and of judgment to
+come.
+
+"It's curious," he said to himself, "that a man can't see a thing that's
+goin' on right under his own eyes and in his own house and that concerns
+his own wife."
+
+Suddenly a new sound was heard from the church, a duet of infant wails
+that drowned the minister's words, the voices of two young protestants
+making known their objections to the rite of infant baptism. John smiled
+as he pictured the scene within.
+
+"I wouldn't be in Sam Sawyer's place now for ten dollars," he mentally
+declared; "holdin' them squallin' young ones, and everybody in church
+laughin' in their sleeves."
+
+The lamentations of the twins gradually subsided. The notes of the organ
+sounded, and the choir sang joyfully. There was a hush, then the moving
+of many feet as the congregation rose for the benediction; another hush,
+then a murmur of voices growing louder as the little crowd crossed the
+threshold of the church, and came into the freedom of God's great
+out-of-doors.
+
+Mary opened her eyes and started up with an exclamation of self-reproach
+at the sight of John in his shirt sleeves and the realization that she
+had slept all through the minister's sermon.
+
+"Take it easy," said John, smiling at her and putting on his coat with
+more than his usual deliberation. "Your hair's all right, and you look
+fifty per cent brighter than you did an hour ago. You needed that nap
+worse'n you need Brother Smith's sermon. Now sit still and let me do the
+talkin' and explainin'."
+
+"Yes, Mis' Morrison," as the neighbors came hastening up with kindly
+inquiries, "Mary wasn't feelin' very well when we started this mornin',
+but she's all right now. She's been workin' a little too hard lately,
+and I'm afraid I haven't been as careful of her as I ought to 'a'
+been."
+
+"Bless her soul!" said Aunt Tabby McElrath, giving Mary a motherly pat
+on the head. "You did just right to come out here. There's nothin' like
+a hot church for makin' a body feel faint; and a day like this it'd be
+better for us all if we'd have the preachin' outdoors as well as the
+eatin'. Now, don't you stir, Mary. You're always waitin' on other
+people; let other people wait on you for once. And, John, you come with
+me, and I'll give you a waiter of nice things for Mary. Nobody can cook
+better'n Mary; that I know. But when a person ain't feelin' very well,
+they'd rather eat somebody else's cookin' than their own."
+
+"Well, it depends on who the somebody is," said her niece, Sally
+McElrath. "I'd rather eat anybody else's cookin' than my own, whether
+I'm feelin' well or not; but for mercy's sake don't get anything from my
+basket on that waiter you're fixin' up for Mary. My cake ain't as light
+as it might be, and the icin' didn't cook long enough; and when it comes
+to bread, you all know a ten-year-old child could beat me."
+
+The May Meeting dinners in Goshen neighborhood had long been famous.
+Town people who were so fortunate as to partake of one were wont to talk
+of it for years afterward, for the standards of housewifery in this
+part of the country were of the highest, and the consciences of the
+housewives made them live sternly up to their ideals, all but Sally. Her
+cooking and her housekeeping were always below the mark. But she had the
+wisdom to ward off censure by a prompt and cheerful admission of her
+failures, and none but a professional critic like Ma Harris cared to
+find fault with the delinquent who frankly said of herself the worst
+that could be said.
+
+May Meeting in the country is like Easter Sunday in town, a gala
+occasion, and it was an idyllic scene around the little country church
+as the congregation gathered under the trees. Stalwart men, matronly
+women, and youth and maiden clad in fresh apparel that matched the garb
+of Nature. They had worshipped God in prayer and song within church
+walls, and now they were to enjoy the gifts of God under the arch of his
+blue sky and in the green aisles of his first temple. The old earth had
+yielded a bountiful tribute to man's toil, and on the damask cloths
+spread over the sward lay the fruits and grains of last year's harvest,
+changed by woman's skill into the viands that are the symbols of
+Southern hospitality, as salt is the symbol of the Arab's.
+
+The minister stood, and turning his face heavenward, said grace, his
+words blending with the soft twitter of birds and the murmur of wind in
+the young leaves. Then arose a crescendo of voices, the bass of the men,
+the treble of the women, and the shrill chatter of children, glad with
+the gladness of May, but softened and subdued because it was Sunday. And
+now and then the Sawyer twins lifted up their voices and wept, not
+because there was any cause for weeping, but because weeping was as yet
+their only means of communication with the strange new world into which
+they had lately come. The Master who proclaimed that the Sabbath was
+made for man, and who walked through the cornfield on that holy day,
+might have been an honored guest at such a feast.
+
+When John returned with the laden tray, Mary was holding a little levee,
+and her sparkling eyes and happy smile told of rested nerves and brain
+refreshed. "For so He giveth to His beloved while they are sleeping."
+The minister had come up to shake hands with her and tell her that he
+had missed her face from the congregation. Sidney had brought his bride
+over and introduced her, and Mary was getting a near view of the violet
+dress. Her spirits mounted as she ate the delicious food Aunt Tabby had
+selected for her. She was surprised to find that she could look at the
+stripes in Ellen McElrath's shirt waist without wanting to cry, and when
+the meal was over she insisted on helping to clear off the tables.
+
+"My goodness!" said Aunt Tabby McElrath, as she placed in her basket the
+remains of her bread, ham, chicken, pickles, cake, pie, and jelly. "It
+looks to me like there'd been another miracle of the loaves and fishes,
+for I'm surely takin' home more'n I brought here. What a pity there
+ain't some poor family around here that we could give all this good food
+to."
+
+"I don't know as we'd be called a poor family," said Sally McElrath,
+"but if you've got more than you know what to do with, just hand it over
+to me. It'll save me from cookin' supper to-night."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Tabby," said Dan, "don't be afraid to offer us some of the
+leavin's. Jest cut me a slab o' that jelly-cake and one or two slices o'
+your good bread. I ain't forgot the supper I had last May Meetin'
+Sunday. Sally had a sick headache and couldn't cook a thing, and all I
+could find in the basket was a pickle and a hard boiled egg."
+
+There was a general laugh, in which Sally joined heartily. Aunt Tabby
+made generous contributions from her basket to Sally's, Dan watching the
+operation with hungry eyes, and then she looked around for a convenient
+tree trunk against which she might rest her ample back and bear a part
+in the general conversation.
+
+In rural communities the church is the great social center. After the
+period of worship, though the hours are God's own, it is not deemed a
+profanation of the day to spend a little time in friendly intercourse,
+and only the unregenerate youth of the congregation consider it a
+hardship to listen to a second sermon in the afternoon.
+
+"Now look yonder, will you?" exclaimed an elderly matron; "them young
+folks are fixin' to go off ridin' instead of stayin' to second service.
+You, Percival! You, Matty! Don't you stir a step from here, Preachin's
+goin' to begin again before you can get back."
+
+Matty's right foot was on the step. Her right hand grasped the top of
+the buggy, and her left was firmly held by a handsome youth whose
+energies were divided between helping her into his "rig" and managing
+his horse.
+
+"You, Matty!" The second warning came in strong tones and with a
+threatening accent.
+
+Matty turned with a bird-like motion of the head. She darted a glance
+and a smile over her shoulder; the glance was for her mother, the smile
+for the young man. The latter had failed twice in Greek and Latin, but
+he understood the language of the eye and lip, and the delicate pressure
+of the girl's fingers on his. He, too, threw a glance and a smile
+backward, and the next instant the two were spinning down the road in
+the direction of the Iron Bridge.
+
+There was a burst of good-natured laughter from the fathers. They
+remembered the days of their youth and rather wished themselves in the
+young man's place. "Pretty well done," chuckled Uncle Mose Bascom. "I've
+always said that when it comes to holdin' a spirited horse and at the
+same time helpin' a pretty girl into a buggy, a man ought to have four
+hands, but Percival did the thing mighty well with jest two."
+
+The young girls who lacked Matty's daring looked down the road with envy
+in their eyes. How much better that ride in the wooded road to the
+bridge than another dull sermon in that hot church! But the mothers of
+the virtuous damsels smiled complacently, thanking God that their
+daughters were not as other women's, and Ma Harris "walled" her eyes and
+sighed piously.
+
+"In my day," she said, "children honored their parents and obeyed 'em."
+
+"No, they didn't," retorted Matty's mother, her face crimson with shame
+and vexation. "Children never honored their parents in your day nor in
+Moses's day, either. If they had, there wouldn't be but nine
+commandments. Didn't your mother run off and marry, and haven't I heard
+you say that that youngest boy o' yours was bringin' your gray hairs in
+sorrow to the grave? Matty's headstrong, I know, but she ain't a bit
+worse than other girls."
+
+"That's so," said Sally McElrath, whose own girlhood gave her a fellow
+feeling for the absent Matty. "I say, let the young folks alone. We all
+were young once. For my part, I wish I was in Matty's place. Here, Dan,
+can't you take me ridin' like you used to do before we got married?"
+
+"I can take you ridin' all right, Sally," agreed Dan placidly. "Yonder's
+the same old buggy and the same old horse and the same old road, but the
+ridin' would be mighty different from the ridin' we had before we got
+married. Before we started, we'd have to canvass this crowd and find
+somebody to take care of the children, and after we started, we'd both
+be wonderin' if Sarah wasn't drowned in the creek, and if Daniel hadn't
+been kicked by somebody's horse, and I don't believe there'd be much
+pleasure in such a ride."
+
+"I reckon you're right," said Sally, laughing with the rest. "And that's
+why I say let young people alone; they're seein' their best days. Dan
+courted for me six months, and if I had to live my life over again, I'd
+make it six years."
+
+Sally was one of those daring spirits who do not hesitate to say what
+others scarce venture to think.
+
+"Maybe I wouldn't 'a' held out," observed Dan. "Courtin's mighty wearin'
+work, and I ain't a Jacob by any manner o' means."
+
+"Well, if you hadn't held out," said Sally recklessly, "somebody else
+would 'a' taken it up where you left off. Oh! you women needn't say a
+word. If you want to pretend you like dish-washin' and cookin' and
+mendin' better than courtin', you're welcome to do it. But if I was just
+young again, I wouldn't get married till I was too old to be courted,
+for courtin' time's the only time a woman sees any peace and happiness.
+You, Daniel! You, Sally! Get up out of that dusty road."
+
+"Mary," said John Crawford, in a low voice, "you get your things
+together, and we'll follow Matty's example."
+
+Mary hesitated. Conscience said, "Stay to preaching"; but the laughing
+and talk had grown wearisome to her, and the strange feeling in her head
+had returned. So before the hour for the second service came, they stole
+quietly away, their rockaway wheels cutting the trail left by the erring
+young people who had gone before them.
+
+The way to the bridge was a shady avenue, the trees in that rich
+alluvial soil growing to extraordinary height and grandeur, and in the
+comfortable homes and well-tilled farms there was a cheerful presentment
+of the legendary "Man with the Hoe." Only one melancholy spot by the
+roadside marred the traveler's pleasure. It was a country graveyard,
+walled around with stone, surmounted with an iron railing to protect it
+from the desecrating tread of beast or man. Nearly a century ago the
+hand of some woman had planted on one of the graves a spray of myrtle
+and a lily of the valley, and Nature had laid her leveling touch on
+each grassy mound and changed the place outwardly to a garden of
+flowers. But neither spring's white glory of lilies and azure of myrtle,
+the rich foliage of summer, the crimson splendor of autumn, nor winter's
+deepest snow could hide from the passer-by the secret of the place.
+Young lovers like Matty and Percival might go by with laughter and
+smiles unchecked; not yet for them the thought of death. But John
+touched the horse to a quicker pace and looked to the other side of the
+road where sunny fields of grain spoke of life more abundantly, and Mary
+drew closer to John's side, saying in her heart: "I wish there was no
+death in this world."
+
+In the middle of the bridge they paused for a moment to look up and down
+the shining river, and John recalled the tale, still told by the oldest
+inhabitants, of the spring of '65, when the river rose forty-five feet
+in nine hours and washed the bridge away. Beyond the bridge the road
+turned to the right, following the stream in a friendly way, and
+terminating at a fording place opposite a large sand bar known as "The
+Island." A giant sycamore in the middle cast a welcome shadow in the
+brilliant sunshine, and a fringe of willows encircled it. Under these,
+near the water's edge, lay heaps of mussel shells,--white, pink, yellow,
+and purple,--the gift of the river to the land, and a reminder of the
+April freshet. The carriage wheels grated on the sand-bar, and as they
+caught sight of the treasures the children gave a cry of delight, for no
+shells from a tropic ocean are more beautiful in color than the common
+mussel shells of Kentucky rivers, and not infrequently a pearl is found
+within the tinted casket.
+
+"Now, gather all the shells you want," said John, "while your mother and
+me sit down here and rest in the shade."
+
+Again he made a bed of the cushions from the carriage, and closing her
+eyes Mary fell into blissful half-consciousness. The minister had read
+David's psalm of rejoicing at the morning service, and one line of it,
+"He leadeth me beside the still waters; He restoreth my soul," floated
+through her brain like a slumber song, with an obbligato of rippling
+water and the faint whispering of willows. Once she drifted to the very
+shores of sleep, to be gently called back by the laughter of the
+children; and when they turned homeward in the late afternoon, she felt
+strong for the next day's burden, only she hoped that no one would come
+to use the chart, until she had time to finish the spring cleaning. She
+wanted to get back into the old peaceful routine of work, in which each
+day had its duties and every duty brought with it time and strength for
+its performance.
+
+Monday morning passed without any interruption, and by half-past twelve
+o'clock the work belonging to the day was done and dinner was over. But
+just as she began washing the dishes, there was a noise of wheels on the
+'pike. Mary gave a start and almost dropped the dish she was holding.
+
+"Oh, John!" she exclaimed, "see who it is." John stepped out on the back
+porch and looked up the road. "It looks like Sally and Dan McElrath and
+the two children," he said, coming back into the kitchen.
+
+Mary compressed her lips to keep back a sigh of dismay. "Yes," she said
+quietly, "Sally told me yesterday she would be over some time this week
+to cut out a tea jacket by my chart, but I didn't expect her this soon.
+I was just thinking I'd go up-stairs and take a nap as soon as I got
+through with the dishes. But it's all right. You put a stick of wood in
+the stove, John, to keep my dish-water hot, and I'll go out and ask
+Sally in."
+
+John was looking at her very earnestly.
+
+"Honey," he said, "your hair looks as if you hadn't combed it to-day.
+You run up-stairs and fix yourself, and I'll see to Sally and Dan."
+
+And while Mary darted up the back stairs, John hurried softly into the
+parlor. He could hear Sally's high, clear voice, and the wagon was
+almost at the gate. It was a bold emprise on which he was bent, and the
+time was short. On the top shelf of the old cherry secretary that had
+belonged to Mary's grandfather lay the chart. Looking fearfully around,
+he seized it, tiptoed to the kitchen, opened the stove door, and dropped
+the hateful thing on a bed of glowing hickory coals. Then he put in a
+stick of wood, according to Mary's behest, and the next moment he was at
+the front door, placing chairs on the porch and calling out a welcome to
+the alighting guests.
+
+"Come right in, Dan. Glad to see you both. Mary's been looking for you.
+Sit down here on the porch where it's cool. Here, Lucy Ellen, here's
+Sarah and Daniel come to play with you."
+
+"What on earth did John mean by saying my hair needed combing?"
+soliloquized Mary up-stairs, as she looked in the glass at the shining
+braids of her hair; "I fixed it just before dinner, and it's as smooth
+and nice as it can be." She hurried down to see that her guests lacked
+no attention demanded by hospitality. John was likely to be forgetful
+about such matters.
+
+"I was just saying, Mary," Sally called out as soon as she caught sight
+of her hostess, "that Dan was on his way to town, and I'm going to stay
+here with the children till he comes back. But I want to lay the chart
+on my goods right away, for I'm afraid I've got a scant pattern for that
+tea jacket, and if I have, I can give Dan a sample of the goods, and he
+can bring me an extra yard from town. And if you'll bring the chart out,
+I'll lay off my goods right here and now, so Dan won't lose any time on
+my account."
+
+"Oh! never mind about me," said Dan, with the air and accent of one who
+has suffered long and given up hope. "I've been losin' time on your
+account for the last fifteen years, and this trip ain't goin' to be an
+exception."
+
+Every one laughed, for Sally's weakness was known of all men. Aunt Tabby
+McElrath once said that if the road from Dan's place to town was ten
+miles long, and there was a house every quarter of a mile, Sally would
+make just forty visits going and coming.
+
+"Get the chart, John," said Mary, "and it won't take us two minutes to
+find out whether there's enough goods. It's on the top shelf of the old
+secretary in the parlor."
+
+John went obediently. "Where did you say that chart was?" he called
+back.
+
+"On the old secretary. I saw it there just before dinner," answered
+Mary.
+
+"I saw it there, too," responded John, "but it ain't there now."
+
+Mary hastened to the parlor. "Why no, it isn't here," she exclaimed in
+dismay. "Who could have taken it?"
+
+"Ask the children," suggested Sally from the porch, where she sat
+cheerfully rocking and fanning herself. "Whenever there's anything
+missing at our house, some of the children can tell who's mislaid it."
+But Lucy Ellen and little John with one voice made haste to defend
+themselves against the visitor's accusation. By this time Dan had come
+into the parlor, and the three stood looking at each other in silent
+perplexity.
+
+Dan was openly worried over the delay, Mary was sympathetically
+distressed, and John's face expressed nothing but the deepest concern
+over the situation.
+
+"Maybe it's up-stairs," he said. "Suppose you and Sally run up there and
+search while Dan and myself'll search down here. That'll save time."
+
+"What sort of a lookin' thing is that chart?" asked Dan, as he got down
+on his knees and made a dive under the sofa.
+
+"Well, I'd recognize it if I saw it," said John, "but, come to think of
+it, I don't know as I could tell anybody exactly how it looks. It's
+something done up in a roll and tied with red tape."
+
+"Done up in a roll and tied with red tape," repeated Dan, meditatively,
+opening closet doors and peering into corners, while he tried to keep in
+his mind an image of the lost chart as described by his fellow searcher.
+"Is this it?"
+
+"Well, now that's something like it," said John. "I'll ask Mary. Here,
+Mary, is this it?"
+
+Mary leaned over the railing with hopeful expectancy in her glance.
+
+"Why, John, that's my gossamer case with the gossamer in it. I thought
+you knew my chart better than that. Tell the children to look, too.
+They'd know it if they saw it."
+
+"I'm lookin' as hard as I can," piped Lucy Ellen from the closet under
+the stairs, while little John seized a long stick, ran to the henhouse,
+poked the setting hens off their eggs, and searched diligently in every
+nest for Mother's lost chart.
+
+"Don't stand on ceremony, Dan. Open every door you come to," commanded
+John, as he rummaged in the sideboard and tumbled the piles of snowy
+damask. Thus encouraged, Dan walked into the pantry and gazed helplessly
+at the jars of preserves and jelly on the top shelf. He lifted the top
+from Mary's buttermilk jar. No chart there.
+
+"Done up in a roll and tied with red tape," he muttered, opening a tin
+box and disclosing a loaf of bread and a plate of tea-cakes.
+
+"Here, John," he exclaimed, "this prowlin' around in other people's
+houses don't suit me at all. Makes me feel like a thief and a robber.
+I'll go out and see to my horses, and you keep on lookin'."
+
+And John continued to look, as the shepherd looked for the lost sheep,
+as the woman looked for the piece of silver. Now and then he uttered an
+ejaculation of wonder and regret, and raised his voice to inquire of
+Mary if the lost had been found.
+
+Mary's search up-stairs was greatly hindered by Sally's digressions.
+Some minds move in straight lines, others in curves, but Sally's mental
+processes were all in the nature of tangents.
+
+"You look in the closet, Sally," said Mary, "and I'll go through the
+bureau drawers."
+
+But the novelty of being up-stairs in Mary's house made Sally forget the
+cause of her being there.
+
+"Gracious! Mary, how do you keep your room so nice? This is what I call
+a young girl's room. I used to be able to have things clean and pretty
+before I was married, but Daniel and Sarah make the whole house look
+like a hurrah's nest. And there's your great-grandmother's counterpane
+on the bed, white as the driven snow, too. I wonder how many generations
+that's going to wear. My, what a pretty view you've got from this
+window. Ain't that Pilot Knob over yonder, just beyond that clump of
+cedars? Yes, that must be old Pilot. I've heard my grandfather tell many
+a time how his father camped at the foot of the knob, and sat up all
+night to keep the bears and wolves away."
+
+Mary was opening doors and drawers in a hasty but conscientious search.
+
+"You'd better help me look for the chart, Sally," she said gently. "Two
+pairs of eyes are better than one, and you know Dan's in a hurry." But
+Sally did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the purple haze that hung
+over old Pilot, and her mind was lost in memories of her grandfather's
+legends.
+
+"Dan's always in a hurry," she remarked placidly. "I tell him he gets
+mighty little pleasure out of life, rushin' through it the way he does.
+That white spot over on that tallest knob must be the stone quarry. If
+it was a clear day, I believe you could see the big rocks. And here
+comes a locomotive. How pretty the white smoke looks streamin' back and
+settlin' in the valleys."
+
+"We might as well go down," said Mary. "There's no use looking in the
+spare room; that hasn't been opened for a week."
+
+"Sally!" cried Dan, putting his head in at the front door and giving a
+backward glance at his restless horse, "if that note I've got in the
+bank is protested, you and your jacket'll be to blame. It's after two
+o'clock, and I can't wait any longer."
+
+"All right," said Sally, "me and the children will go to town with
+you."
+
+"Where are the children?" asked Mary.
+
+"My gracious! have we lost the chart and the children, too?" laughed
+Sally. "No, there they are, 'way down by the duck pond. Sarah! Daniel!
+Come right here! We're goin' to town."
+
+"Hurry up!" shouted their father, "or I'll leave you here."
+
+The prospect of a trip to town and the fear of being left behind doubled
+the children's speed and brought them breathless and excited to the
+front gate. Dan tossed them into the wagon, as if each had been a sack
+of meal, and Sally clambered in without assistance.
+
+"As soon as I find the chart, Sally, I'll send it over to you by the
+first person that passes," said Mary. The loss of the chart seemed a
+breach of hospitality, a discourtesy to her guest, and she wanted to
+make amends.
+
+"That wouldn't be a bit of use," said Sally, "for I can't tell head nor
+tail of the thing unless you show me. I'll drop in again in a day or so
+and do my cuttin' and fittin' here."
+
+"Yes," said John heartily, "that'll be the best way. If Mary was to send
+you the chart, the person she sent it by might lose it, and that'd be a
+pity, as it's the only one in the neighborhood. You come over and bring
+the children with you and spend the day, and you and Mary can have a
+good time sewin' and talkin'."
+
+"That's what I'll do. Look for me day after to-morrow or the day after
+that. I reckon the chart'll certainly turn up by that time."
+
+"I'm sure it will," said John, "for I'm goin' to spend all my spare time
+lookin' for it."
+
+Dan clucked to the horse and shook the reins over its back.
+
+"Well, good-by," cried Sally blithely, "I'll be certain to--"
+
+But the rest of her words were drowned in the rattle of wheels and
+clatter of hoofs, for Dan was laying on the whip in a desperate resolve
+to get to town before the bank closed.
+
+Mary stood silent with a hurt look on her face. How could John ask Sally
+to spend the day when he knew how tired she was? It was all she could do
+to keep the tears back.
+
+"It's my opinion," said John, "that we'll never see that chart again. I
+believe it's gone like grandfather Ervin's beaver hat."
+
+Mary knew the story of the beaver hat. It was a family legend of the
+supernatural that John was fond of telling. But she had little faith
+that her chart had gone the way of grandfather Ervin's hat, and she went
+back to the kitchen, wondering how John could have been so thoughtless,
+and dreading the day after to-morrow that would bring Sally and those
+troublesome children. John followed her, and opening the stove door, he
+gently stirred the ashes within, thus effacing the last trace of the
+chart; then he took his way to the barn, where he sank down on a pile of
+fodder and laughed till the tears ran down his face.
+
+"Edwin Booth couldn't 'a' done it better," he gasped. "I reckon I'll
+have to quit farmin' and go on the stage. Didn't know I was such a born
+actor. It was actin' a lie, too, but it's put a stop to Mary's troubles,
+and I don't feel like repentin' yet. I reckon you might call it a lie of
+'necessity and mercy', like the work that's allowed on the Sabbath day."
+
+And at that precise moment Sally was saying to Dan:
+
+"Did you ever see a man so put out over anything as John Crawford was
+over not findin' that chart? If he'd lost his watch or his purse, he
+couldn't have put himself to more pains to find it. There never was a
+more accommodatin' neighbor than Mary, and John's just like her. You
+don't often see a couple as well matched. Generally, if one's
+accommodatin' and neighborly, the other's stingy and mean. But Mary
+wasn't a bit more anxious to find that chart for me than John was."
+
+That night after supper John seated himself on the front porch. The warm
+spring air was sweet with the perfume of May bloom, and from every pond
+there was a chorus of joy over the passing of winter. He heard the
+voices of his children and his wife talking together as Mary washed the
+dishes, Lucy Ellen wiped them, and little John placed them on the table.
+Home, wife, children, and the spring of the year! The heart of the man
+was glad and he smiled at the thought of the deed he had done that
+afternoon.
+
+"John," said Mary, coming out on the porch with the dish towel over her
+arm, "hadn't you better be looking for that chart? You know you promised
+Sally, and I don't want her to be disappointed again."
+
+The light from one of the front windows shone full on John's face, and
+something about his eyes and mouth gave Mary a sudden revelation.
+
+"John," she said severely, "do you know where that chart is?"
+
+John returned her gaze with unflinching eyes. "Mary," he said slowly and
+deliberately, "I do not know where that chart is."
+
+Another lie? Oh, no! When a thing is dust and ashes, who knows where it
+is?
+
+But the answer did not satisfy Mary. She continued to look at him as a
+mother might look at a naughty child.
+
+"John," she said, "did you--I believe--yes, I know you did. Oh, John!
+How could you? What made you do it?"
+
+"Yes, I did, and I'd do it again," said John doggedly. "Do you think I'm
+goin' to have the neighbors tormentin' the life out of you on account of
+that--"
+
+He stopped short, for a damp towel was against his face, and Mary's bare
+arms were around his neck.
+
+"Oh, John! And that was the reason you asked Sally to come back. I've
+been feeling so hurt, for I thought it looked as if you didn't care for
+me. I might have known better. Please forgive me. I'll never think such
+a thing of you again."
+
+There was something damp on the other side of his face now, and reaching
+around John drew the tired wife down on the bench beside him and let her
+sob out her joy and her weariness on his shoulder.
+
+"But it was a help," she sighed at last, wiping her eyes on her kitchen
+apron. "And I don't know how I'm going to do my spring sewing without
+it."
+
+John stretched out his right leg, thrust his hand into his pocket, and
+pulled out a ragged leather purse, not too well filled.
+
+"What's mine's yours, Mary," he said, tossing it into her lap. "Get a
+seamstress to do your sewing. If I catch you at that machine again, I'll
+make kindlin' wood and old iron out of it, and if that agent ever comes
+on the place again with his blamed charts, there's a loaded shotgun
+waitin' for him."
+
+
+
+
+OLD MAHOGANY
+
+
+"Come in, Maria Marvin, come in. No, it ain't too early for visitors.
+I've jest finished sweepin' and dustin', and that's exactly the time I
+want to see company; and when company comes at exactly the right time,
+they get a double welcome from me. Have this chair, and I'll lay your
+bonnet right here on the table.
+
+"Yes, I've been refurnishin' some. Got rid o' all the old plunder that
+'d been accumulatin' under this roof ever since Noah built his ark, and
+bought a spick and span new outfit, golden oak every bit of it, and
+right up to day before yesterday, and to-day, and day after to-morrow,
+when it comes to style. I reckon Mother and grandmother and
+great-grandmother have turned over in their graves, but I can't help it.
+That old mahogany furniture has been my cross, and I've borne it
+faithfully from a child up, and when I saw a chance o' layin' it down, I
+didn't stop to think what my ancestors would say about it; I jest
+dropped the cross and drew one good, long breath.
+
+"You'd think I'd hate to part with the family belongin's? Well, you
+wouldn't think so if you knew how much trouble these same belongin's
+have been to me all my born days. You know everybody has idols. Some
+women make idols of their children, and now and then you'll find a woman
+bowin' down and worshippin' her husband, but Mother's idols were chairs
+and tables and bedsteads. You've noticed, haven't you, that there's
+always one child in a family that'll get nearly everything belongin' to
+the family? They'll claim this and that and the other, and the rest o'
+the children will give in to 'em jest to keep from havin' a quarrel.
+Well, Mother was the claimin' one in our family, and whatever she
+claimed she got, and whatever she got she held on to it. If Mother'd
+been content with the things that her mother handed down to her, it
+wouldn't 'a' been so bad, but there never was a member o' the family
+died that Mother didn't manage to get hold o' some of the belongin's. If
+there was a sale, she was the first one there, and she'd take her seat
+right under the auctioneer's hammer, and if she made up her mind to have
+an old chair or an old table, why, nobody ever could outbid her; and in
+the course o' time the house got to be more like an old junk shop than
+a home. I used to tell Mother she got everything belongin' to her dead
+kinfolks except their tombstones, and I wouldn't 'a' been surprised any
+day to come home and find one or two nice old gravestones settin' up on
+the mantel-piece for ornaments, or propped up handy in a corner.
+
+"And every piece of that old mahogany, Maria, was polished till you
+could see your face in it. The first thing after breakfast, Mother'd get
+a piece o' chamois skin or an old piece o' flannel, and she'd go around
+rubbin' up her chairs and tables and lookin' for scratches on 'em; and
+as soon as I was old enough to hold a rag, I had to do a certain amount
+o' polishin' every day, and when Mother's rheumatism settled in her
+arms, all the polishin' fell to me. It looked like the furniture was on
+Mother's mind night and day, and it was: 'Samantha, have you polished
+your grandfather's secretary?' 'Samantha, don't forget to rub off the
+parlor center-table.' No matter what I wanted to do, I couldn't do it
+till that old furniture was attended to. When I look back, Maria, it
+seems to me I've been livin' all my life in the valley of the shadow of
+old mahogany. You know how it is when the sun comes out after a long
+spell of cloudy weather. Well, that's jest the way it was the day that
+old mahogany furniture went out o' the house, and this pretty yellow
+furniture came in. I really believe that was the happiest day of my
+life.
+
+"Yes, there's a heap of associations connected with old furniture, and
+Mother's old furniture had more associations than most anybody's. I
+believe there was enough associations to 'a' filled every one o' the
+bureau drawers, and if you'd put the associations on the tables or on
+the beds, there wouldn't 'a' been room there for anything else. And
+that's exactly why I wanted to get rid o' that mahogany furniture. I
+believe I could 'a' stood the furniture, if it hadn't been for the
+associations. What good did it do me to look at that old four-poster
+that used to stand in the front room up-stairs and think o' the time I
+laid on that bed six mortal weeks, when I had typhoid fever? What
+pleasure could I get out o' that old secretary that used to stand
+yonder, when every time I looked at it I could see Grandfather Stearns
+sittin' there writin' a mile-long sermon on election and predestination,
+and me--a little child then--knowin' I'd have to sit up in church the
+next Sunday and listen to that sermon, when I wanted to be out-doors
+playin'?
+
+"And besides my own associations, there was Mother's. She'd point out
+that old armchair that used to stand by the west window and tell how
+Uncle Abner Stearns set in that chair for six years after he was
+paralyzed; and that old haircloth sofa,--you remember that, don't
+you?--she'd tell how Grandmother Stearns was sittin' on that when she
+had her stroke o' apoplexy; and betwixt the furniture and the
+associations, it was jest like livin' in a cemetery. I told Mother one
+day that I was tired o' sittin' in my great-grandfather's chairs, and
+sleepin' on my great-grandfather's bed, and eatin' out o' my
+great-grandmother's china and silver, and Mother says: 'Samantha, you
+never did have proper respect for your family.' But, Maria Marvin, I
+tell you as I told Mother, I'm somethin' more than a Member of the
+Family: I'm Myself, and I want to live my own life, and I've found out
+that if people live their own lives, they've got to get from under the
+shadow of their ancestors' tombstones.
+
+"What did I do with the old mahogany? Sold it. That's what I did. And if
+you've got any old stuff up in the garret or down in the cellar or out
+in the woodshed, get it out right away, for no matter how old and
+battered and broken up it is, you can sell it for a good price. They
+tell me, Maria, that new-fashioned things is all out o' fashion, and
+old-fashioned things is in the fashion. Curious, ain't it? All my life I
+been findin' fault with Mother because she was always hoardin' up old
+family relics, and now all the rich folks are huntin' around in every
+crack and corner for old mahogany and old cherry and old
+walnut,--anything, jest so it's old.
+
+"You've heard about that rich lady that's bought the old Schuyler place?
+Here's her card with her name on it:
+
+    _Mrs. Edith A. Van Arnheim._
+
+"Well, last Monday mornin' about this time, jest as I was finishin' up
+my mornin' work, I heard a knockin' at the front door, and when I opened
+it there stood a strange lady all dressed in silks and satins and a
+young girl with her. I said 'Good mornin',' and she said: 'Does Miss
+Samantha Mayfield live here?' And I says: 'It's Samantha Mayfield
+you're talkin' to.' And she says: 'I'm Mrs. Van Arnheim. I beg your
+pardon for calling so early, but--have you any old furniture?' And I
+says; 'Old furniture? Why, I haven't got anything but old furniture.'
+And they both smiled real pleasant, and the young girl said: 'Oh, please
+let us look at it! I do love old furniture.' And I says: 'Walk right in,
+and look all you please. Furniture never was hurt by bein' looked at.'
+
+"Well, they both walked in and looked around, and for a minute neither
+one of 'em spoke; and then the young girl drew a long breath, and says
+she: 'Did you _ever_ see _anything_ so _perfectly gorgeous_?'
+
+"And she rushed up to Great-grandfather Stearns's secretary like she was
+goin' to hug it, and says she: 'Heppelwhite! Genuine Heppelwhite! Look
+at those lovely panes of glass!' And then she flew over to that old
+bow-legged chair that stood yonder, and says she: 'Chippendale! Upon my
+word! Was there ever anything as exquisite as those legs!'
+
+"And she peeped into the dining-room and give a little scream, and
+called her mother to come and see that old battered-up thing that
+great-aunt Matildy used to keep her china and glass in, and she called
+it 'a real Sheraton cabinet', and she went on over 'the grain of the
+wood' and the 'color of the wood' till you'd 'a' thought that old press
+was somethin' that'd come straight down from heaven. The lady didn't say
+much, but she looked mighty pleased, and she went around touchin' things
+with the tips of her fingers and examinin' the legs and arms and backs
+of things to see if they were in good repair. Pretty soon she turned
+around to me and says sort o' wishful and hesitatin': 'I suppose there's
+no use asking you if you'd sell any of this furniture, Miss Mayfield.'
+And I says: 'What makes you suppose that?' And she says: 'Because people
+are always very much attached to their old family furniture, and even if
+they don't care for it and are not using it, I find they don't care to
+let any one else have it.' And I says: 'Well, there's nothin' of the dog
+in the manger about me, ma'am, and I'm not attached to my old furniture;
+it's been attached to me, and I'd be thankful to anybody that would help
+me get loose from it.'
+
+"She laughed real hearty, and the young girl says: 'How perfectly
+lovely!' And then we went through the parlor and the hall and the
+dining-room, they pickin' out the furniture they wanted, while I set
+the prices on it. And when we got through the young girl says: 'Would
+you let us go up-stairs?'
+
+"So up-stairs we went, and there wasn't a four-poster bed or a rickety
+table or a broken-legged chair that she didn't say was 'darling' or
+'dear' or 'gorgeous' or 'heavenly'; and they wanted pretty near
+everything that was up-stairs. When we got through pricin' these, the
+lady says: 'Is this all the old mahogany you have, Miss Mayfield?' and
+then I happened to think o' the garret. I hadn't set foot up there for
+ten years or more, but I remembered there was a lot o' old truck that
+Mother didn't have room for down-stairs, and it'd been stored away there
+ever since goodness knows when. So up to the garret we went, they
+holdin' up their silk skirts, and me apologizin' for the dirt. They
+peered around, and didn't seem to mind a bit when they got their kid
+gloves all soiled handlin' the old junk that was settin' around in every
+hole and corner. And the young girl, she'd give a little scream every
+time she dragged out a table or a chair, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield,
+this is the most interesting place I ever was in.' And I says: 'If
+you're interested in dirt and rubbish, I reckon this is an interestin'
+place.'
+
+"Well, if you'll believe me, Maria Marvin, they wanted everything in
+that garret, even down to the old pewter warmin'-pan that used to belong
+to Mother's sister Amanda, and that she got from her husband's family,
+the Hicks. And the young girl looked out o' the gable window at the
+south end, and says she: 'Oh! what a lovely old gyarden!' And the lady
+dropped the old candlestick she was lookin' at, and come and looked over
+the young girl's shoulder. The gyarden did look mighty pretty with the
+roses and honeysuckles and pinks all in bloom, and the lady said: 'Oh!
+how beautiful! How beautiful!' and all the rest of the time we were up
+in the garret, she stood there at the window and leaned out and looked
+at the gyarden, and after that she didn't seem to care much about the
+furniture. She jest let the young girl do the buyin' and the talkin',
+and once I heard her sigh a long, deep sigh, jest as if she was thinkin'
+about somethin' that happened a long time ago. And when we went
+down-stairs, she asked me to give her some roses and honeysuckles; and
+while I was gatherin' a big bunch of Mother's damask roses for her, she
+was walkin' up and down the paths, gatherin' a flower here and a leaf
+there, but to look at her face, Maria, you'd 'a' thought that she was
+walkin' in a graveyard and every flower-bed was a grave; and once, when
+she stooped down and broke off a piece of ambrosia and smelt it, I could
+see there was tears in her eyes. Well, Maria, they were jest as crazy
+about old-fashioned flowers as they were about old-fashioned furniture.
+I pulled a big bunch o' damask roses for both of 'em, and they said they
+wanted roots of all the old flowers,--Mother's hundred-leaf rose and the
+Maiden's Blush and the cinnamon rose, and all the spring flowers and
+even the tansy and sage. The lady said they could buy all these things,
+but that she believed the flowers you got out of old-fashioned gyardens
+like mine smelled sweeter and bloomed better than anything you'd buy.
+And she's goin' to give me a lot of new-fashioned flowers to freshen up
+my old gyarden, and with new furniture in my house and new flowers in my
+gyarden, why, I feel like I'm takin' a new start in life. Why, actually,
+Maria, I've been jest as tired of the old flowers as I've been of the
+old beds and tables,--the same old crocuses and buttercups and hyacinths
+and chrysanthemums comin' up every spring in the same old place, in the
+same old beds, and the same old weeds to be pulled up every year.
+
+"Maybe you think it's wicked in me, Maria, to feel the way I do about
+old things. Mother always thought so, and I remember once hearin' her
+tell the minister that Samantha was jest like the Athenians in the
+Bible, always runnin' after some new thing; and she was always sighin'
+and sayin': 'Samantha, you have no reverence in your nature.' And
+finally, one day, I said to her: 'Mother, I've got jest as much
+reverence as you have. The difference between us is that you reverence
+old things, and I reverence new ones.'
+
+"But I mustn't forget to tell you about the old cradle, Maria. That
+cradle was Mother's special idol. It was a little, heavy, wooden thing,
+so black with age that you couldn't tell what kind o' wood it was made
+out of, and Mother said the first Stearnses that ever come to this
+country brought that cradle with 'em in the ship they sailed in. Well,
+that little old cradle was sittin' way back in the garret on top o' the
+old oak bed-clothes chest that Grandmother Stearns packed her quilts in,
+when she moved from Connecticut and come to Ohio. And the young girl
+spied that cradle, and says she: 'Oh! What a darling cradle!' And then
+she stopped and blushed as red as a rose, and the lady jest smiled and
+says: 'Would you sell me the little cradle, Miss Mayfield?' And I says:
+'You may have it and welcome. If there is anything an old maid hasn't
+any use for, it's a cradle.'
+
+"They say the young girl is goin' to be married soon, and I reckon some
+day that pretty young thing's children'll be lyin' in the old Stearns
+cradle; and a lot o' that old mahogany, they tell me, goes to the
+furnishin' of her room. Maybe she'll be writin' her letters at
+Grandfather's secretary, and sleepin' on Grandmother's old canopy bed.
+It don't seem right, Maria, for a pretty young bride to be beginnin'
+life with a lot o' dead folks' furniture; but then, she won't have the
+associations, and it's the associations that make old furniture so
+unhealthy to have around the house.
+
+"I reckon I must be some kin to the tribe o' Indians I was readin' about
+in my missionary paper last Sunday. Every time anybody dies, they burn
+everything that belonged to the dead person, and then they burn down the
+place he died in and build a new one. That seems right wasteful, don't
+it, Maria? But it's a good deal wholesomer to do that way, than to
+clutter up your house with dead folks' belongin's like we do. And that's
+why I'm gettin' so much pleasure out o' this new oak furniture. It's
+mine, jest mine, and nobody else's. It didn't come down to me from my
+great-grandmother; I went to the store and picked it out myself. No dead
+person's hands ever touched it, and there's not a single association
+hangin' anywheres around it.
+
+"Yes, Maria, I got a good price for everything I sold. Because I didn't
+want it, that's no reason why I should give it away. I could see the
+lady wanted it mighty bad, so I valued it accordin' to what I thought
+it'd be worth to her, and when I saw how willin' she was to pay my
+price, I was right sorry I hadn't asked more.
+
+"She was one o' the high-steppers, that lady was, but as sweet-talkin'
+and nice-mannered as you please, and when she wrote out the check and
+handed it to me, she says: 'When can I get the furniture?' 'Right now,'
+says I, 'if you want it right now.' 'But,' says she, 'what will you do
+without furniture? Hadn't you better get in your new beds and chairs and
+tables before I take the old ones away?' And I says: 'Don't you worry
+about me, ma'am; it's only four miles from here to town, and by the
+time you get this old mahogany rubbish out, I'll have my new golden oak
+things in; so don't you hold back on my account.'
+
+"And she looked at me in a curious sort o' way, and says she: 'Don't you
+mind givin' up this old mahogany? Would you just as soon have new golden
+oak furniture?' And I says: 'No, I wouldn't jest as soon; I'd a good
+deal rather have it.'
+
+"And she laughed real pleasant, and says she: 'I'm so glad you feel that
+way about it. I always feel guilty when I buy old furniture that the
+owner is unwilling to part with, no matter how good a price I pay for
+it.' And I says: 'Well, you can have a clear conscience in the matter of
+buyin' my old furniture. This check and the golden oak I'm goin' to buy
+with it is perfectly satisfactory to me.'
+
+"And what do you reckon I'm goin' to do with that money, Maria? I reckon
+people think that because I've lived here all my life I've enjoyed doin'
+so. But I haven't. I've been jest as tired of Goshen neighborhood as I
+ever was of my old mahogany,--the old roads and the old fences and the
+old farms,--yes, and the old people, too. Maria, I get tired of
+everything, even myself, and now I'm goin' to travel and see the world,
+that's what I'm goin' to do. What's the use in livin' sixty or seventy
+years in a world like this and never seein' it. Why, you might as well
+be a worm in a hickory nut. And, Maria, I take out my old geography
+sometimes, when I'm sittin' here alone in the evenin', and I look at the
+map of North America, and there's the big Atlantic ocean on one side and
+the big Pacific ocean on the other; and all the big rivers and lakes in
+between flowin' down to the big Gulf of Mexico; and here I am stuck fast
+in this little old place, and the most water I've ever seen is Drake's
+Creek and Little Barren River! And I look on the map at the mountains
+runnin' up and down this country, the Rocky Mountains and the
+Alleghanies and all the rest of 'em, and the highest ground I've ever
+seen is Pilot Knob! I'm not afraid to die, Maria, but when I think of
+all the things that's to be seen in this world, and how I'm not seein'
+'em, I just pray: 'Lord, don't let me go to the next world till I've
+seen somethin' of this one.' And now my prayer's answered. I don't know
+whether I'll go east or west or north or south; but I'm goin' to see the
+ocean, and I'm goin' to see the mountains before I die, all on account
+o' that mahogany furniture; I never supposed the day would come when
+I'd be thankful for that old plunder; but sometimes, Maria, the things
+we don't want turn out to be our greatest blessin's.
+
+"I reckon it's mighty poor taste on my part to want new furniture in
+place o' that old mahogany. All the time I was showin' 'em around, the
+lady and her daughter kept sayin': 'How artistic!' 'What classic lines!'
+and I reckon the reason they looked at me so curious when I said I'd
+rather have this golden oak, was that they was pityin' me for not
+knowin' what's 'artistic.' Now, I may not be artistic, Maria, but I've
+got a taste of my own, and what's the use in havin' a taste of your own
+unless you use it? I might jest as well try to use somebody else's eyes
+as to use somebody else's taste. That old mahogany pleased my
+grandmother's taste and my mother's taste, but it don't please mine; and
+I'm no more bound to use my grandmother's old furniture than I am to
+wear my grandmother's old clothes.
+
+"Don't go, Maria. Sit down a minute longer, for I haven't told you the
+best part of the story yet. After the lady had said good-by and was out
+of the door, she turned back, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield, when I get
+the furniture in order, I'm going to send my carriage for you, and you
+must come over and see if you can recognize your old friends in their
+new dress and their new home.' I never believed she was goin' to send
+_her_ carriage for _me_, Maria, but she did. And she took me all over
+the house, and they've made it over the same as you'd make over an old
+dress; and it ain't a house any longer, it's a palace. Don't ask me to
+tell you how it looks, for I can't. I've always wondered what sort of
+places kings and queens lived in, and now I know. There wasn't a room
+that didn't have some of my old mahogany in it, but at first I couldn't
+believe it was the same furniture I'd sold the lady. She'd had all the
+varnish scraped off, and it was as soft and shiny-lookin' as satin, even
+that little, old black cradle, and the lady said that when the furniture
+man began to scrape that, he found it was solid rosewood. We went into
+the library, and there was Grandfather's old secretary, lookin' so fine
+and grand, Maria, it took my breath clean away. There wasn't a dent or a
+scratch on it, and it shone in the light jest like a piece of polished
+silver, and the prettiest curtains you ever saw fallin' on each side of
+it. It looked exactly like it belonged in that room. And it does belong
+there. Why, as I was standin' there lookin' at it, I thought if that old
+secretary could speak, it would say: 'I've found my place at last.' And
+it come over me all at once, Maria, that the doctrine of foreordination
+holds good with things as well as people. That old mahogany never
+belonged to me nor to Mother. It jest stopped over a while with us,
+while it was on its way to the lady, and it was hers from the very day
+it was made. I tell you, Maria, things belong to the folks that can
+appreciate 'em. That furniture was jest chairs and tables and bedsteads
+to Mother and me; but the lady knew all about it, when it was made and
+where it was made, and the name of the man that first made it. And after
+we'd looked at everything in the house, she took me out to see the
+gyarden. Such a gyarden! She said it was jest like one she'd seen over
+in England, and she was plantin' the same kind of flowers in it. The
+beds were all sorts of shapes, and there was a pool of water in the
+middle with water-lilies in it, and right by the pool was somethin' that
+tells the time of day pretty near as well as a clock, jest by the shadow
+on it. There was a hedge planted all around the gyarden, and the
+gyardner was settin' out all kinds of flowers, and there was one bed of
+pansies and another of geraniums in full bloom, and I said: 'I don't
+know why you wanted my old-fashioned flowers, when you've got such a
+gyarden as this.' And she smiled and looked down at the geraniums, and
+says she: 'These flowers don't mean anything to me. But your roses and
+honeysuckles and pinks mean everything; they are joy and sorrow and love
+and youth,--everything I have had and lost.' Hearin' her talk, Maria,
+was jest like readin' a book. And then, she took me around to another
+gyarden at the back of the house, and showed me a bed, and all the roots
+and slips that she'd got from me were growin' in it. The gyardner 'tends
+to the rest of the flowers, but he never touches this bed; the lady
+weeds it and waters it with her own hands. Now, I don't want anything
+around me that reminds me of what I've had and lost, but she's one of
+the kind that loves associations.
+
+"No, I haven't re-furnished all the up-stairs rooms, Maria. What's the
+use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look
+pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many
+years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty
+spots about the house. Every house ought to have one or two empty
+rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on.
+
+"Yes, I did keep one piece o' the family furniture, but it wasn't
+mahogany. It was that little plain rockin'-chair with the oak-split
+bottom; there it sets in the corner. Mother used to sit in that chair
+when she washed and dressed us children and rocked the baby to sleep.
+She liked it because it was low and hadn't any arms for the baby's head
+to get bumped on. I can look at it and see Mother holdin' the baby in
+her arms and rockin' and singin':
+
+    'Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,'
+
+and I'd rather have that common little chair than all the old mahogany
+that belonged to my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. There
+ain't an unpleasant association connected with that chair, and
+furthermore, I don't have to polish it.
+
+"Yes, this dress is rather gay, Maria, but don't you think it matches
+the golden oak furniture? I always like to have things in keepin' with
+each other, and as long as I had to live in the midst o' old mahogany,
+it seemed natural and proper to wear brown and black and gray. But now I
+feel like mixin' in a little blue and red and yellow with the brown and
+black and gray, and when your feelin's and your clothes and your
+furniture correspond, it certainly does make a comfortable condition for
+you.
+
+"I'll be gettin' married next? Well, maybe I will, Maria Marvin, maybe I
+will. Gettin' rid o' that old mahogany seems to 'a' taken about fifty
+years off my shoulders, and if I should happen to find a man that'd
+match up with my new furniture and suit me as well as that golden oak
+dresser does, I may get married, after all.
+
+"Do you have to go? Well, come again, Maria, and if you happen to meet
+any o' the neighbors, tell 'em to drop in and take a look at my golden
+oak furniture."
+
+
+
+
+MILLSTONES AND STUMBLING-BLOCKS
+
+
+"I do believe that's Margaret Williams!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin,
+thrusting aside the curtain and peering through the tangle of
+morning-glory vines that shaded her parlor window. She turned away and
+began arranging the chairs and straightening the table cover with the
+nervous haste of a fastidious housekeeper unprepared for company.
+
+But there was no need for haste. The expected caller paused at the gate
+and seemed to be making a critical survey of the house and premises. Her
+air was that of a person examining a piece of property with a view to
+purchasing it. She walked slowly along the garden path, gazing up at the
+sloping roof and the dormer windows, and on the first step of the porch
+she paused and looked around at the tidy front yard, with its clumps of
+shrubbery, fine old trees, and beds of blossoming flowers. Within, Mrs.
+Martin was nervously awaiting her visitor's knock. She had taken off her
+kitchen apron and smoothed her hair down with her hands. But no knock
+was heard, for Mrs. Williams placidly continued her survey of the house
+and its surroundings, until the voice of her hostess interrupted her.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Williams! Have you been standin' out here all this time? I
+must be losin' my hearin' when I can't hear a person knockin' at the
+door."
+
+"Nothin's the matter with your hearin'," responded Mrs. Williams,
+following her hostess into the shady parlor; "I hadn't knocked."
+
+She seated herself in a rocking-chair that suited her generous
+proportions and began looking at the inside of the house with the same
+business-like scrutiny she had given the outside.
+
+"We're havin' some pleasant weather now," said Mrs. Martin, by way of a
+conversational beginning.
+
+"Mighty pleasant weather," said Mrs. Williams, "but I came here this
+mornin' to talk about somethin' a good deal more important than the
+weather."
+
+Long acquaintance had never wholly accustomed Mrs. Martin to the
+straightforward bluntness that was known as "Sarah Williams' way", and a
+look of apprehension and faint alarm crossed her worn, delicate face.
+
+"Oh! I hope there's nothin' wrong," she said.
+
+Apparently Mrs. Williams did not hear the gently uttered words. There
+was a look of stern determination on her face, and she drove straight on
+toward an objective point unknown to her listener.
+
+"Do you know, Mrs. Martin," she asked, "how long your Henry has been
+courtin' my Anna Belle?"
+
+Mrs. Martin looked bewildered.
+
+"Why, no," she said, hesitatingly. "I don't believe I ever thought about
+it."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Williams with grave emphasis, "it's exactly one year
+and a month, come next Wednesday. I know, because the first time Henry
+ever come home from prayer-meetin' with Anna Belle was the day after I
+fell down the cellar stairs and broke my wrist, and I'm not likely to
+forget when that was. One year and one month! Now, of course, I know a
+certain amount of courtin' is all right and proper. It's just as
+necessary to court before you marry as it is to say grace before you
+eat; but suppose you sit down to the table and say your grace over and
+over again, till mealtime's past, and it's pretty near time for the next
+meal? Why, when you open your eyes and start to eat, everything 'll be
+cold, and most likely you won't have any appetite for cold victuals,
+and you'll conclude not to eat at all till the next meal comes round.
+And that's the way it is with these long courtin's. Folks' feelin's cool
+just like a meal does. Many a couple gets tired of each other after
+they're married, and there's such a thing as gettin' tired of each other
+before you're married."
+
+Mrs. Martin was listening with rapt intentness. The gift of fluent
+speech was not hers. She could only think and feel, but it was a delight
+to listen to one who knew how to express thoughts and feelings in
+language that went straight to the mark.
+
+"I've always thought that way," she said with gentle fervor, as her
+visitor paused for breath.
+
+"Well," continued Mrs. Williams, "I made up my mind some time ago that
+Henry and Anna Belle had been sayin' grace long enough, and it was time
+for them to marry, if they ever intended to marry. And I also made up my
+mind to find out what was the matter. Of course I couldn't ask Anna
+Belle why Henry didn't marry her. There's some things that no mother's
+got a right to speak of to her child, and this is one of 'em; and I
+couldn't say anything to Henry, for that would 'a' been a thousand
+times worse, but I says to myself: 'I've got a right to know what's the
+matter, and I'm goin' to know.'"
+
+Mrs. Martin was leaning forward, listening breathlessly. There was a
+faint flush on her cheek, and her eyes were the eyes of a young girl who
+is reading the first pages of a romance. Her son's love affair had been
+the central point of interest in her life for a year past. But Henry was
+a taciturn youth, and her delicacy forbade questioning; so, in spite of
+the deep affection between the two, the rise and progress of her son's
+courtship was an unknown story to her. Two nights in every week Henry
+would take his way to the home of the girl he loved, and as she sat
+alone waiting for his return, and living over the days of her own
+courtship, she had felt a wistful, unresentful envy of Mrs. Williams
+because of her nearness to the lovers. The long wooing had been a
+mystery to her also, and now the mystery was about to be explained.
+
+"I've wondered, myself, why they didn't marry," she said hesitatingly.
+
+Mrs. Williams hitched her chair nearer to her hostess.
+
+"And what do you reckon I did?" she asked, dropping her voice to a husky
+whisper.
+
+"I can't imagine," responded Mrs. Martin, repressed excitement in her
+voice and face.
+
+Mrs. Williams leaned forward, and her voice dropped a tone lower.
+
+"It's somethin' I never thought I'd do," she whispered, "and before I
+tell you, I want you to promise you'll never tell a soul."
+
+"Of course I won't," said Mrs. Martin with gentle solemnity, and as she
+promised, her thoughts went back to that period of her schoolgirl life
+when every day brought its great secret, with that impressive oath: "I
+cross my heart and point my finger up to God." She bent her head in a
+listening way toward her caller. But the telling of a secret was too
+delightful a task to be hastily dispatched, and having worked her
+audience up to the desired point of interest, Mrs. Williams was in no
+hurry to reach the climax of the story. She leaned back in her chair and
+resumed her natural tone of voice.
+
+"The way I happened to think there was somethin' wrong," she continued,
+"was this: Anna Belle had been doin' a good deal of sewin' and
+embroiderin' ever since Henry begun to keep company with her, and, all
+of a sudden, she stopped work and put everything away in the bottom
+bureau drawer. Well, that set me to thinkin'. If she'd put the things in
+the top bureau drawer, I wouldn't have noticed it, for the top drawer is
+the place where you keep the things you expect to finish and the things
+you're usin' now. But when you fold a thing up and put it in the bottom
+drawer, it means you haven't any use for it right now, and you don't
+intend to finish it for some time to come. At first I thought that maybe
+Henry and Anna Belle had had a fallin' out. But the next Wednesday night
+here comes Henry just as usual, and he's never stopped comin'; but still
+Anna Belle never took her things out of the bottom drawer; and the other
+day I happened to pass by her room, and the door was halfway open, and I
+saw her kneelin' down by the drawer, lookin' at the things and smoothin'
+them down. I couldn't see her face, but I know just how she looked as
+well as if I'd been in front of her instead of behind her."
+
+Mrs. Martin gave a sympathetic murmur, wholly unheard by Mrs. Williams,
+who went blithely on with her narrative.
+
+"When your Henry comes to see my Anna Belle, Mrs. Martin, I always make
+it a point to go as far away from 'em as possible, for courtin' can't be
+rightly done if there's folks lookin' and listenin' around. So in the
+winter time I have a fire in my room the nights Henry comes, and sit
+there, and in summer I generally go out on the back porch and let Henry
+and Anna Belle have the front porch, and I can truthfully say that I
+never interfered with Henry's courtin'. But, as I said a while ago, I
+made up my mind to find out what was the matter. Well, the next time
+Henry come, they sat out on the front porch, and I was on the back porch
+as usual. But I had to go into the front room once or twice after
+somethin' I left there, and it was so dark in the hall, I had to grope
+my way across right slow, and I heard Anna Belle say: 'I'm all mother
+has in the world,' and Henry said somethin' I couldn't hear, but I
+reckon he said that he was all his mother had, and Anna Belle says: 'It
+wouldn't be right and I never could be happy, thinkin' of your mother
+and my mother all alone.' Well, by that time I was in the front room and
+got what I went for and started back; and, as I said, the hall was dark
+and I had to go slow, and I dropped my pocket handkerchief, and when I
+stopped to pick it up, I couldn't help hearin' what Anna Belle and Henry
+was talkin' about."
+
+She leaned comfortably back in her chair and chuckled heartily as she
+recalled the scene.
+
+"I reckon I might as well own up that I didn't hurry myself pickin' up
+that handkerchief and gettin' out o' the hall. I know eavesdroppin' is a
+disgraceful thing, and this is a plain case of eavesdroppin', but I
+trust you never to tell this to anybody as long as you live."
+
+"You can trust me," said Mrs. Martin firmly. "I never broke a promise in
+my life."
+
+"Well," resumed Mrs. Williams, "as I was savin', I stood there in the
+hall pickin' up my pocket handkerchief, and I heard your Henry give a
+sigh,--I could hear it plain,--and says he: 'Well, Anna Belle, I suppose
+there's nothin' for us to do but wait,' and Anna Belle says: 'I'll wait
+for you, as long as you'll wait for me, Henry, and longer.' And then
+they stopped talkin' for awhile, and I knew exactly how they felt,
+sittin' there in the dark, lovin' each other and thinkin' about each
+other, and all their plans come to a dead stop, and nothin' ahead of 'em
+but waitin'. Now, what do you think of that, Mrs. Martin? They're
+waitin'. Waitin' for what? Why, for us to die, of course. They don't
+know it, and if we accused 'em of it, they'd deny it hard and fast, for
+they're good, dutiful children, and they love us. But we're
+stumblin'-blocks in their way, and they're waitin' for us to die."
+
+She paused dramatically to let her words have their full weight with the
+listener. Mrs. Martin was leaning forward, her delicate hands tightly
+clasped, and her face alight with intense feeling. The visitor's words
+were like great stones thrown into the placid waters of her mind, and in
+the turmoil of thought and emotion she found no word of reply. Nor was
+any needed. The situation was an enjoyable one for Mrs. Williams. The
+chair in which she sat was a springy rocker, the room was cool, her own
+voice sounded pleasantly through the quiet house, and the look on the
+face of her hostess was an inspiration to further speech.
+
+"Now, I don't know how you feel about it, Mrs. Martin," she continued,
+"but I never could do anything if somebody was standin' around waitin'.
+If I know there's anybody waitin' for dinner, I'll burn myself and drop
+the saucepans and scorch every thing I'm cookin'. If I'm puttin' the
+last stitches in a dress, and Anna Belle's waitin' to put the dress on,
+I have to send her out of the room so I can manage my fingers and see to
+thread the needle. And if Anna Belle and Henry are waitin' for me to
+die, I verily believe I'll live forever."
+
+This declaration of possible immortality in the flesh was made with such
+vehemence that the speaker had to pause suddenly to recover breath,
+while Mrs. Martin sat expectant, awaiting the next passage in the
+romance.
+
+"Mrs. Martin," resumed Mrs. Williams solemnly, "if there's anything I do
+hate, it's a stumblin'-block. I've had stumblin'-blocks myself, people
+that got in my way and kept me from doin' what I wanted to do, and I
+always bore with them as patient as I could. But when it comes to bein'
+a stumblin'-block myself, I've got no manner of patience. If I'm in
+anybody's way, I'll take myself out as quick as I can, and if I can't
+get out of the way, I'll fix it so they can manage to walk around me,
+for I never was cut out to be a stumblin'-block."
+
+"Nor me," said Mrs. Martin with tremulous haste, "especially when it's
+my own child I'm standin' in the way of. Why, I never dreamed that I
+was interfering with Henry's happiness. There ain't a thing on earth I
+wouldn't do for him--my only child."
+
+Mrs. Williams nodded approvingly. "I'm glad you feel that way," she said
+warmly, "for this is a case where it takes two to do what has to be
+done. And that reminds me of somethin' I saw the other day: I was
+sittin' by the window, and here comes a big, lumberin' old wagon and two
+oxen drawin' it and an old man drivin'. They were crawlin' along right
+in the middle of the road, and just behind the wagon there was a young
+man and a pretty girl in a nice new buggy and a frisky young horse
+hitched to it, and the horse was prancin' and tryin' to get by the
+ox-team, but there wasn't room enough to pass on either side of the
+road."
+
+She paused and looked inquiringly at Mrs. Martin to see if the meaning
+of the allegory was plain to her. But Mrs. Martin's face expressed only
+perplexity and distress.
+
+"Don't you see," said Mrs. Williams persuasively, "that you and me are
+just like that old ox-team? There's happiness up the road for Henry and
+Anna Belle, but we're blockin' the way, and they can't get by us. Now,
+what are we goin' to do about it?"
+
+This direct question was very disconcerting to gentle Mrs. Martin. A
+flush rose to her face, and she clasped and unclasped her hands in
+nervous embarrassment.
+
+"Why--I'm sure--I don't know--I never thought about it," she stammered.
+
+The guest did not press the question. Instead, she settled herself more
+comfortably in her chair, waved her palm-leaf fan, and went calmly on
+with her monologue. Apparently Mrs. Williams was merely a fat,
+middle-aged woman making a morning call on a friend, but in reality she
+was an ambassador from the court of a monarch by whose power the world
+is said to go round, a diplomat in whose diplomacy the destinies of two
+human beings were involved. Her words had been carefully chosen before
+setting out on her envoy, and she was craftily following a line of
+thought leading up to a climax beyond which lay either victory or
+defeat. That climax was at hand, but she was not yet ready for it. There
+was some preliminary work to be done, a certain mental impression to be
+made on her hearer, before she dared "put it to the touch."
+
+"I don't know how it is with you, Mrs. Martin," she continued, "but I'm
+not one of the kind that thinks children are made for the comfort and
+convenience of their parents. I've been hearin' sermons all my life
+about the duty of children to their parents, and I never heard one about
+the duty of parents to their children." She broke off with a reminiscent
+laugh.
+
+"That reminds me of my Uncle Nathan, and what he said to the preacher
+once. You know, Uncle Nathan wasn't a church member, and he had his own
+way of lookin' at religious matters and he was mighty free-spoken. Well,
+one day the preacher was makin' a pastoral call at Mother's, and he
+asked for a glass of water, and when Mother brought it to him and he'd
+drunk it, he set the glass down, and says he to Mother: 'Did you ever
+think, Sister Brown, how kind it is in the Lord to give us such a good
+and perfect gift as pure, fresh water?' Says he: 'We're not half
+grateful enough for these gifts of the Lord.' And Uncle Nathan says:
+'Well, now, Parson, it never struck me that way.' Says he: 'God made us
+with a need for water, and if he gives us water, why, it's no more than
+he ought to do.' And that's the way it is with parents and children. We
+bring 'em into the world, and there's certain things they have to have,
+and if we give 'em those things, it's no more than we ought to do."
+
+"Of course not," exclaimed Mrs. Martin warmly.
+
+"Every child ought to have a chance for happiness," said Mrs. Williams.
+
+"Of course he ought," said Mrs. Martin. It was uncertain to what
+conclusion the current of her visitor's remarks was carrying her, but
+Mrs. Williams' statements were so obviously true that dissent was
+impossible.
+
+"And if you and me are standin' in the way of our children's happiness,
+we must get out of the way, mustn't we?" pursued Mrs. Williams.
+
+"Indeed, we must," said Mrs. Martin. There was a tremor in her voice,
+and in her heart a growing self-reproach that she should have to be
+reminded of her duty to her son.
+
+"Well, as I said before," remarked Mrs. Williams, "I'm not cut out to be
+a millstone or a stumblin'-block, and neither are you, and now
+somethin's got to be done."
+
+She paused. Mrs. Martin did not reply. There was a silence that
+threatened to become awkward. She cleared her throat and looked as
+nervous and confused as her hostess, then bravely resumed the charge.
+
+"Of course they might live with one of us, but if they lived with me,
+you'd be jealous, and rightly so, too. And if they lived with you, I'd
+be jealous. And Anna Belle wouldn't be willin' to have me to live alone,
+and Henry wouldn't leave you alone; and then there's the mother-in-law
+question. Did you ever live with your mother-in-law, Mrs. Martin?"
+
+Mrs. Martin hesitated a moment, "Yes, I did," she said, as if confessing
+to a misdemeanor.
+
+"Did you enjoy it?" questioned Mrs. Williams.
+
+"No, I didn't," replied Mrs. Martin with a decisive promptness that she
+rarely exhibited.
+
+"Neither did I," echoed Mrs. Williams. "There never was but one Ruth and
+Naomi, and they lived so long ago nobody knows whether they ever did
+live. I guess Henry and Anna Belle feel just as we do about
+mothers-in-law, and, as I said before, what are we goin' to do about
+it?"
+
+Mrs. Martin's only reply was a look of bewilderment and distress. It was
+evident to Mrs. Williams that she would have to answer her own
+question, but she delayed, for there were still a few well considered
+diplomatic remarks that it might be well to use before the climax was
+brought on. "Now, I don't want you to answer me, Mrs. Martin. You
+couldn't be expected to answer that question on such short notice as
+this. Many's the night I've stayed awake till long after the clock
+struck twelve askin' myself what could be done about it, and the only
+thing I can think of is this."
+
+She paused. Mrs. Martin was listening eagerly. The time had come for the
+final charge.
+
+"Don't you think, Mrs. Martin,"--there was an anxious, beseeching note
+in the speaker's voice,--"don't you think that you and me might manage
+to live together? Your house is big enough for two, and it's a double
+house, with a hall runnin' through the middle, so you can live on one
+side and me on the other. And if you'll let me come and live in one side
+of your house, I'll deed my house to Henry and Anna Belle, and they can
+get married with a clear conscience. You and me can be company for each
+other, and we've each got enough money to supply our wants; and I'll
+keep house on my side of the hall, and you'll keep house on your side,
+and there's no need of our ever fallin' out or interferin' with each
+other."
+
+There! the deed was done, and the doer of the deed, pale with
+consternation over her own daring, sat waiting a reply.
+
+But no reply came. Apparently Mrs. Martin had not heard her words, for
+she was looking beyond her visitor with the dreamy gaze of one who sees,
+but not with the eye of flesh. Was she considering the question, or was
+her silence a rebuke to an officious meddler? Mrs. Williams' heart was
+beating as it used to beat on Friday afternoons when she stood up to
+read her composition before the school, and she tingled from head to
+foot with a flush of shame.
+
+"I don't know what you think of me for makin' such a proposition to
+you," she stammered. "You'll never know what it costs me to say what
+I've said, and I never could have said it, if it hadn't been for that
+nightgown put away in the bottom drawer, and the look in Anna Belle's
+eyes."
+
+Still Mrs. Martin did not speak. The piteous humiliation in her
+visitor's eyes deepened. She must make one more effort to break the ice
+of that cruel silence.
+
+"It's not for myself; I hope you understand that. There's no reason why
+I should want to give up my home, but it's for Anna Belle. A mother'll
+do anything for her child, you know."
+
+Mrs. Martin's eyes were fixed gravely on her visitor's face.
+
+"Yes, I do know," she said, speaking with sudden resolution. "It's all
+as plain as day. I don't know what Henry will say, when he finds out
+that a stranger had to tell his mother what her duty was. I ought to
+have seen it long ago just as you did." Her voice faltered, and there
+were tears in her eyes.
+
+The embarrassment and distress on Mrs. Williams' face changed to joyful
+relief. She drew a quick breath and laid instant hold on her wonted
+power of speech.
+
+"You're not to blame at all," she consoled eagerly. "If Anna Belle was
+your child, you'd have seen it just as I did. A son's here and there and
+everywhere, but a daughter's right in the house with you, and you can
+read her heart like an open book. That's how I happened to know before
+you did. My goodness! Is that clock strikin' eleven?" She rose with an
+air of deep contrition, "Here I've taken up nearly all your mornin'. But
+then, what's a mornin's work by the side of your child's happiness?" On
+the threshold she paused and stood irresolute for a few seconds.
+
+"I'm glad you think as I do," she said slowly; "but somethin' tells me
+that you ought to have time to think it over. It's no light matter to
+take another woman under your roof and for a lifetime, too. So give
+yourself a chance to consider, and if you change your mind, we'll still
+be friends."
+
+The two were standing with clasped hands, and the majesty of motherhood
+looked forth from the eyes of each. Mrs. Martin shook her head. "I'm not
+likely to change my mind," she said with gentle dignity. "I love my son
+as well as you love your daughter."
+
+These simple words seemed to both the conclusion of the whole matter,
+and they turned away from each other, forgetting the accustomed
+farewells.
+
+Slowly and thoughtfully Mrs. Williams walked homeward. Her mission had
+been highly successful, but, instead of the elation of the victor, she
+felt only the strange depression that comes after we take our fate in
+our own hands, and make a decided move on the checkerboard of life. On
+her way to Mrs. Martin's she had felt sure that she was doing "the right
+thing"; but before she reached home, doubt and uncertainty possessed her
+mind. At her own gate she stopped, and resting her elbows on the top of
+one of the posts, she gazed at the place whose surrender meant happiness
+for her child. It was just a plain little cottage somewhat in need of a
+coat of paint, but the look in Margaret Williams' eyes was the look of a
+worshipper who stands before some long-sought shrine. She looked upward
+at the swaying branches of the elms and drew a quick breath as she
+thought of a day in early March--how long ago?--when _his_ strong arms
+had wielded the pick and spade, and she, a girl like Anna Belle, stood
+by, holding the young trees and smiling at the thought of sitting under
+their shade when he and she were old. Youth was a reality then, and age
+a dream, but now it was the other way. Her eyes wandered over the little
+yard set thick with flowering shrubs and vines. Every one of them had
+its roots in her heart and in her memory, and a mist dimmed her eyes as
+she looked again at the house she had first entered when life and love
+were new.
+
+"He built it for me," she murmured, and then gave a guilty start as a
+clear young voice called out: "Why don't you come in, Mother?"
+
+She passed her hand over her eyes and came smiling into the little hall
+where Anna Belle sat, turning down the hems of some coarse kitchen
+towels.
+
+"Put up those towels," she said with motherly severity; "that's no work
+for a young girl. Where's that nightgown you're embroiderin'? If you
+must work, work on that."
+
+The girl glanced up, and in her eyes was the look that for weeks had
+been like a dagger-thrust in Margaret Williams' heart.
+
+"There's no hurry about getting that nightgown done," she said quietly.
+
+"No hurry about the towels either," rejoined her mother. "However, it's
+so near mealtime there's no use beginnin' anything now. You can set the
+table, and I'll get a pick-up dinner for us. I stayed so long at Mrs.
+Martin's I can't cook much."
+
+At the mention of Henry's mother Anna Belle colored again. A question
+trembled on her lips, but she said nothing, and went about setting the
+table in a listless, absent-minded way.
+
+Her mother was watching her furtively, and a pang went through her heart
+as she noticed how thin the girl's hands were, and how she trifled with
+the food on her plate.
+
+"Pinin' away right before my eyes," she thought. "I'm glad I went to see
+Mrs. Martin. I've done all I could, anyway."
+
+After the meal was over, Anna Belle, at her mother's second bidding, got
+out the embroidered gown and bent over the tracery of leaves and
+flowers. Mrs. Williams went up-stairs, presently returning with a long,
+narrow box of some dark wood.
+
+"You've heard me speak of your Aunt Matilda," she said, seating herself
+and folding her hands over the box. "Well, this box and the things in it
+belonged to her, and when she died, she willed it to you, because she
+hadn't any children of her own, and you were the only girl in the
+family. I've been intendin' for some time to give it to you, and there's
+no time like to-day." She opened the box, took out a roll of shining
+silken tissue such as comes from the looms of the Orient, and threw its
+soft folds across her daughter's lap. Then from the scented darkness of
+the treasure box she drew out a bertha and sleeves of filmy lace and
+laid them on the silk.
+
+"That lace cost a small fortune," she observed. "Your Uncle Harvey was a
+merchant, and whenever he went to the East to buy his goods, he'd bring
+your Aunt Matilda a fine present. This lace was the last thing he ever
+brought her, and--poor thing!--she didn't live to wear it."
+
+Anna Belle had dropped her work on the floor and was fingering the lace
+and silk in a rapture of admiration.
+
+"O Mother," she breathed, "I never saw anything so beautiful! Is it
+really mine?"
+
+She shook out the folds of silk, gathered them in her hands, and held
+them off to note their graceful fall. She laid the bertha across her
+shoulders and ran to a mirror, laughing at the effect of the costly lace
+over the striped gingham; she pushed the sleeves of her dress up to her
+elbows and slipped the lace sleeves over her bare, slender arms. Her
+eyes gleamed with excitement, her lips were parted in a smile of happy
+girlhood, and the mother, watching with quiet satisfaction, read the
+thought in the girl's heart.
+
+"Be careful, Anna Belle," she warned, "you'll wrinkle the goods. Here,
+fold it this way and lay it smooth in your trunk. You may not need it
+now, but some day it will come in handy."
+
+Anna Belle held the silk and lace on her outstretched hands and carried
+it up-stairs as tenderly as she would have carried a newborn babe. She
+lingered in her room a long time and came down silent and dreamy-eyed.
+All the afternoon she embroidered leaf and flower on the linen gown,
+while in imagination she was fashioning a wedding robe of silk and lace
+and beholding herself a bride. When the clock struck five, Mrs. Williams
+rose hurriedly from her chair and gathered up the lapful of mending.
+
+"Go up-stairs, Anna Belle," she commanded, "and put on your blue
+muslin."
+
+Anna Belle looked surprised. "Is any company coming?" she asked.
+
+"What if there isn't?" replied her mother. "Don't you suppose I like to
+see you lookin' nice?" She walked out to the kitchen and began preparing
+the evening meal. All the afternoon a strange nervousness had been
+growing on her. She was beginning to understand the momentousness of her
+morning interview with Mrs. Martin, and she saw herself as one who has
+risked all on a single throw. She had laid bare to Henry's mother the
+sacred desires of her own mother-heart and the yet more sacred desires
+of her daughter's maiden-heart. What if this humiliation should be to no
+purpose? Or, worse still, suppose she had misinterpreted the fragments
+of conversation that she had overheard. Suppose Henry's visits were
+after all only friendly ones? Her hands trembled, and her whole body was
+in a hot flush of fear and apprehension. She glanced at the kitchen
+clock.
+
+"It won't be long till I know," she murmured. "If Henry's mother falls
+in with my plans, Henry'll come to see Anna Belle to-night."
+
+She tried to reassure herself by recalling all that gentle Mrs. Martin
+had said, but as the moments passed, her apprehension grew, and when she
+tried to eat, the food almost choked her.
+
+As soon as the dishes were washed, Anna Belle stole out to the front
+porch. She did not expect her lover to-night, but at least she could sit
+in the gathering dusk, thinking of Henry and of that wonderful wedding
+gown. Meanwhile Mrs. Williams was up-stairs, leaning from her bedroom
+window, listening for Henry's step and peering anxiously in the
+direction from which Henry must come. How slow the minutes were! The
+kitchen clock struck seven. Half-past seven was Henry's usual hour, but
+surely to-night he would come earlier. Ten minutes passed. She heard
+footsteps up the street, and her heart began to beat like a girl's.
+Nearer the footsteps sounded. Could that quick, firm tread be Henry's?
+Henry was usually rather slow of speech and movement. A hand was on the
+latch of the gate. She heard Anna Belle's exclamation of surprise and
+pleasure, then Henry's laugh and Henry's voice.
+
+In the love affairs of her daughter, every mother finds a resurrection
+of her own youthful romance, no matter how long it may have been buried;
+and as the young man's tones, low, earnest and charged with a lover's
+joy, rose on the summer air, Anna Belle's mother turned away from the
+window, and covering her face with her hands, tried to beat back a tide
+of emotions that have no place in the heart of middle age. The moments
+passed uncounted now, and twilight had faded into night before she heard
+Anna Belle's voice calling from below:
+
+"Mother! Where are you, Mother? Come right down. Henry wants to see
+you;" and like one who walks in her sleep she obeyed the summons.
+
+They stood before her, hand in hand, smiling, breathless, encircled by
+the aura of love's young dream; but there was a far-away look in
+Margaret Williams' eyes, as she looked at their radiant faces. How many
+years was it since she and Anna Belle's father had stood before her
+mother! And now that mother's name was carved on a graveyard stone, and
+she was in her mother's place with a mother's blessing in her hands for
+young lovers.
+
+Anna Belle was looking up at Henry, waiting for him to put into words
+the gratitude and happiness that filled their hearts. But the gift of
+the ready tongue was not Henry's. How could a man find words to thank a
+mother for giving him her daughter? How poor and mean were all the
+customary phrases of appreciation to be offered for such a gift! But
+while he hesitated, his eyes met the eyes of Anna Belle's mother, and
+with a quick impulse of the heart, his tongue was loosed to the
+utterance of one word that made all other words superfluous.
+
+"Mother!" he said; and as their hands met, Anna Belle's arms were around
+her neck, and Anna Belle's voice was whispering in her ear: "You are
+the very best mother in all the world." Yet in that moment of supreme
+happiness for the lovers, Margaret Williams realized what she was giving
+up, and tasted the bitterness and the sweetness of the cup of
+self-abnegation that her own hands had prepared. The hot tears of
+anguish smarted in her eyes. But the tears did not fall, and the emotion
+passed as swiftly as it had come. She straightened herself in her chair
+and pushed Anna Belle gently away.
+
+"It seems to me we're makin' a great fuss over a mighty little matter,"
+she said carelessly. "I'd have been a poor sort o' mother to stand in
+the way of my own child's happiness, and it wouldn't suit me at all to
+be a millstone or a stumblin'-block. That's all there is to it. Now, go
+out on the front porch, you two, and set your weddin' day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the afternoon of the wedding day, and the two mothers were
+sitting on the porch of their joint home, both in festal attire, and
+both in the state of pleasurable excitement that follows any great
+change, and that precludes an immediate return to the commonplace
+routine of daily life.
+
+"I might just as well be sewin' or mendin'," said Mrs. Williams, "but it
+seems like Sunday or Christmas day, and I don't feel like settlin' down
+to anything."
+
+"There's nothing like a weddin' for makin' you feel unsettled," said
+Mrs. Martin, as she smoothed down her black silk dress. "It'll be a long
+time before we get over this day."
+
+"It was a pretty weddin', wasn't it?" said Mrs. Williams, "And I never
+saw a happier lookin' couple than Anna Belle and Henry. Most brides and
+grooms look more like scared rabbits than anything else, but Anna Belle
+and Henry were so happy they actually forgot to be scared. I reckon they
+think that married life's a smooth, straight road with flowers on both
+sides, just like that garden path. You and me have been over it, and we
+know better."
+
+"They'll have their trials," smiled Mrs. Martin, "but if they love each
+other, they can stand whatever comes."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mrs. Williams, "love's like a rubber tire; it softens the
+jolts and carries you easy over the rough places in the road."
+
+"Henry was the image of his father," said Mrs. Martin dreamily.
+
+"I couldn't help thinkin' of myself when I looked at Anna Belle," said
+Mrs. Williams. "You may not believe it, but I was as slim as Anna Belle,
+when I was her age."
+
+"I wish their fathers could have seen them," sighed Mrs. Martin.
+
+Mrs. Williams leaned toward her companion. "Maybe they did," she said in
+a half whisper. "I'm no believer in table-walkin' and such as that, but
+many a time I've felt the dead just as near me as you are, and I
+wouldn't be at all surprised if Henry's father and Anna Belle's father
+were at the weddin'."
+
+"Every weddin' makes you think of your own weddin'," said Mrs. Martin
+timidly.
+
+"So it does," assured Mrs. Williams, "and I was married just such a day
+as this. We'd set the fifteenth of May for our weddin', but Aunt Martha
+McDavid said May was an unlucky month, and so we changed it to the first
+of June."
+
+"I was married in the fall," said Mrs. Martin placidly. "I remember one
+of my dresses was a plaid silk, green and brown and yellow, and the
+first time I put it on, Henry's father went out in the yard and pulled
+some leaves off the sugar maples, and laid 'em on my lap, and said they
+matched the colors of my dress. I pressed the leaves, and they're in my
+Bible to this day."
+
+"I had a dark blue silk with a black satin stripe runnin' through it,"
+confided Mrs. Williams, "and after I got through wearin' it, I lined a
+quilt with it, and it's on Anna Belle's bed now."
+
+The two women were rocking gently to and fro; both were smiling faintly,
+and there was a retrospective look in their eyes. Memory, like a
+questing dove, was flying between the past and the present, bringing
+back now a leaf and now a flower plucked from the shores of old romance,
+and they were no longer the middle-aged mothers of married children, but
+young brides with life before them; and as they talked, more to
+themselves than to each other, with long intervals of silence, the
+afternoon waned, the sun was low, and the little garden lay in shadow.
+
+"What a long day this has been!" exclaimed Mrs. Williams, rousing
+herself from a reverie. "Why, it seems to me I've lived a hundred years
+since I got up this mornin'."
+
+"I'd better see about makin' the fire and gettin' a cup of tea," said
+Mrs. Martin. "I can tell by the shadow of that maple tree, that it's
+near supper time." Then hesitatingly, as if it were a doubtful point of
+etiquette, "It looks like foolishness to have two fires. Mine's already
+laid; suppose you eat supper with me to-night."
+
+"I'll be glad to," responded Mrs. Williams heartily, "for I haven't half
+got my things in order yet." She followed Mrs. Martin to the kitchen,
+and together they set the table and waited for the kettle to boil. Mrs.
+Martin was pleased to find that Mrs. Williams preferred black tea to
+green, and while she was slicing the bread, Mrs. Williams disappeared
+for a moment, returning with something wrapped in a napkin. She unfolded
+it, disclosing huge slices of wedding cake, white cake, golden cake, and
+spice cake dark and fragrant.
+
+"There!" she said complacently. "You and me were too flustered to eat
+much at the weddin', but maybe we'll enjoy a piece of this cake now."
+
+Silently and abstractedly the two women ate the simple meal. Now and
+then Mrs. Martin looked across the table at the vacant place where Henry
+had always sat, and as Mrs. Williams ate wedding cake, her thoughts were
+with the daughter whose face for twenty years had smiled at her across
+the little square leaf-table in the old home; also, she had a queer,
+uneasy feeling, as if she had spent the afternoon with her friend and
+should have gone home before supper. After the dishes were washed, they
+seated themselves again on the cool, shadowy porch. Both were feeling
+the depression that follows an emotional strain; besides, it was night,
+the time when the heart throws off the smothering cares of the day and
+cries aloud for its own. It was Mrs. Williams who finally broke the
+silence.
+
+"While I think of it," she said, dropping her voice to a confidential
+whisper, "I want to tell you what I heard Job Andrews and Sam Moreman
+say when they brought my trunk in this mornin'. They didn't know I could
+hear 'em, and they were laughin' and whisperin' as they set the trunk
+down on the porch, and Job says: 'Some of these days these two women are
+goin' to have a rippet that you can hear from one end of this town to
+the other,' and Sam says: 'Yes, they'll be dissolvin' partnership in
+less than two months.'"
+
+"Did you ever!" ejaculated Mrs. Martin.
+
+"I thought once I'd go out and say somethin' to 'em," pursued Mrs.
+Williams, "but I didn't. I just shut my mouth tight, and I made a
+solemn resolution right there that there'd never be any rippet if I
+could help it, and if there was any, I'd take care that those men never
+heard of it, There's nothin' in the world men enjoy so much as seein'
+women fall out and quarrel, and I don't intend to furnish 'em with that
+sort o' pleasure."
+
+"Nor I," said Mrs. Martin warmly. "I don't see why two women can't live
+in peace under the same roof. For my part, quarrelin' comes hard with
+me. It's not Christian, and it's not ladylike."
+
+"Well, if I felt inclined to quarrel," said Mrs. Williams, "the thought
+of Sam and Job would be enough to keep me from it, and if that's not
+enough, there's the thought of Anna Belle and Henry. They can't be happy
+unless we get along well together, and we mustn't do anything to spoil
+their happiness."
+
+Mrs. Martin made an assenting murmur, and another silence fell between
+them, Both were conscious of the strangeness of their new relation. To
+Mrs. Martin it seemed that Mrs. Williams was her guest, and she was
+vaguely wondering if it would be polite to suggest that it was time to
+go to bed. Mrs. Williams rocked to and fro, and the squeak of the old
+chair mingled with the shrill notes of the crickets. Presently she
+stopped rocking and heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"It's curious," she said, "how grown folks never get over bein'
+children. When I was a little girl I used to go out to the country to
+visit my Aunt Mary Meadows. I'd get along all right durin' the day, but
+when night come, and the frogs and the katydids begun to holler, I'd
+think about home and wish I was there; and when Aunt Mary put me to bed
+and carried the light away, I'd bury my face in the pillow and cry
+myself to sleep. And just now, when I heard that katydid up yonder in
+the old locust tree, I felt just like I used to feel at Aunt Mary's."
+
+Her voice quivered on the last word, but once more she laughed bravely.
+A flash of comprehension crossed Mary Martin's brain. She leaned over
+and laid her hand on the other woman's arm.
+
+"You're homesick," she said, with a note of deep sympathy in her voice.
+"All day I've been thinkin' about it, and I've come to the conclusion
+that you've got the hardest part of this matter. Henry and Anna Belle
+owe more to you than they do to me. We've both given up a child, but
+you've given up your home, too, and that's a hard thing to do at your
+time of life." At her time of life! The words were like a spur to a
+jaded horse. Mrs. Williams straightened her shoulders, raised her head,
+and laughed again.
+
+"Shuh!" she said carelessly, "changin' your house ain't any more than
+changin' your dress. I ain't so far gone in years yet that I have to
+stick in the same old place to keep from dyin'. But I reckon I'm like
+that spring branch that used to run through the field back of Father's
+house. It was always overflowin' and ruinin' a part o' the crop, and one
+fall Father went to work and turned it out of its course into a rocky
+old pasture where it couldn't do any harm. I was just a little child,
+but I remember how sorry I felt for that little stream runnin' along
+between the new banks, and I used to wonder if it wasn't homesick for
+the old course, and if it didn't miss the purple flags and the willers
+and cat-tails that used to grow alongside of it; but just let me get a
+good night's rest and my things all straightened out, and I'll soon get
+used to the new banks and be as much at home as you are."
+
+She rose heavily from her chair. "I believe I'll go to bed now," she
+said briskly. "Movin' 's no light work, and we're both tired."
+
+"If you should get sick in the night or need anything," said Mrs.
+Martin, following her into the house, "don't fail to call me."
+
+"I'm goin' to sleep the minute my head hits the pillow and sleep till
+it's time to get up," replied Mrs. Williams, "and you do the same. Good
+night!"
+
+She closed the door and stood for a few seconds in the darkness. Then
+she groped her way to the table and lighted her lamp. Its cheerful
+radiance flooded every part of the little room, and showed each familiar
+piece of furniture in its new surroundings. Yes, there was the high
+chest of drawers that Grandfather Means had made from the wood of a
+cherry tree on the old home place; there was the colonial sewing-table,
+and the splint-bottomed rocker, the old bookcase, and all the rest of
+the belongings that she cherished because they belonged to "the family."
+But how strange her brass candlesticks looked on that mantel! It was not
+_her_ mantel, and the wall-paper was not hers. Her wall-paper was gray
+with purple lilacs all over it, and this was pink and green and white!
+And the windows and doors were not in their right places. Ah! the hold
+of Place and Custom! The memories and associations of a lifetime twined
+themselves around her heart closer and closer, and the hand of Change
+seemed to be tearing at every root and tendril. Pale and trembling she
+sank into a chair, and the same tears she had shed sixty years ago, the
+tears of a homesick child, fell over her wrinkled cheeks, while in her
+brain one thought repeated itself with a terrifying emphasis: "_I can't
+get used to it. I can't get used to it._"
+
+But the sound of her own sobs put a stop to her grief. She brushed the
+tears away with the back of her hand and glanced toward the door. The
+other woman across the hall must not know her weakness. She rose, walked
+forlornly to a side window, and parting the curtains, looked fearfully
+out. Why, where was the lilac bush and the Lombardy poplar and the
+box-wood hedge? Again the hand tore at her heart; she peered
+bewilderedly into the night. Alas! the stream turned from its course
+cannot at once forget the old channel and the old banks. Again the tears
+came, but as she wiped them away, a fresh wind arose, parting the light
+clouds that lay in the western sky and showing a crescent moon and near
+it the evening star. Like a message from heaven came a memory that dried
+her tears and swept away the homesick longing. Twenty-five years ago she
+had looked at the new moon on her wedding night, and this was Anna
+Belle's wedding night--her daughter's wedding night! Fairer than moon or
+star, the face of the young bride seemed to look into hers; she felt the
+girl's clinging arms around her neck and heard the fervent whisper:
+"_You are the very best mother in the whole wide world._"
+
+She lifted her eyes once more, not to the moon or the star, but to
+Something beyond them.
+
+"O God!" she whispered brokenly, "it's harder than I thought it would
+be; but for my child's sake I can stand it, and anyway, I'm glad I'm not
+a millstone or a stumblin'-block."
+
+
+
+
+"ONE TASTE OF THE OLD TIME"
+
+
+"There is no organic disease whatever," said the doctor. "The trouble is
+purely mental. No, I don't mean that," he corrected hastily, as he saw
+the look of dismay on David Maynor's face. "Your wife is not losing her
+mind. Nothing of that sort. Indeed, I take her to be a woman of
+unusually sound mentality. But, evidently there is some trouble preying
+on her mind and producing these nervous symptoms. The prescription I am
+leaving will palliate these, but it remains for you to find out what the
+trouble is and remove it, if you can. There are some cases where doctors
+are powerless, and this, I think, is one of them." He reached for his
+hat and bowing with professional courtesy turned to leave.
+
+"How much do I owe you?" said David Maynor.
+
+The blunt question was like a sentry's challenge, and the doctor paused
+with his hand on the knob of the door.
+
+"Ah--never mind about that now. A bill will be sent you at the end of
+the month." His tone and manner implied that this was too trivial a
+matter to be mentioned.
+
+But David Maynor's hand was in his pocket, and he was drawing forth his
+new seal-leather purse.
+
+"I always pay as I go," he said stolidly. The corners of the doctor's
+mouth twitched, and a gleam of humor came into his eyes. "Ten dollars,"
+he said, and while David Maynor was counting out the bills, the
+physician's quick glance was taking note of the expensive furniture and
+the utter absence of individuality, that gave the house the air of a
+hotel rather than a home. "The new rich," he thought with good-natured
+amusement, then aloud:
+
+"Let me hear from your wife to-morrow, Mr. Maynor. But, as I said
+before, the case is in your hands. Good afternoon!" And with another
+courtly bow he was gone.
+
+David Maynor hurried back up-stairs to his wife's bedside. "Sarah," he
+said, bending over her and smoothing her hair clumsily, "the doctor says
+there's not a thing the matter with you, except you've got something on
+your mind that's worrying you. He says he can't do much for you, and
+that I've got to find out what the trouble is and remove it, if I can."
+
+Sarah Maynor turned her head restlessly on the pillow. "I must say he's
+got more sense than I thought he had," she said, with a nervous laugh.
+"I was afraid he'd go to dosing me with bitters and pills. He's exactly
+right: no doctor can cure me." Her voice broke, and she buried her face
+in the pillow.
+
+A deep anxiety settled on David's rugged features. "Why, Sarah," he
+said, with tender reproach in his voice, "when did you get to hiding
+your troubles from me? Is there anything you want? Anything I can do for
+you? You know you can have everything now that money can buy."
+
+Sarah turned her face toward her husband. Her gray eyes were filled with
+tears, and her hands were clenched in an effort to control her feelings.
+
+"That's just the trouble!" she cried, her voice rising into a wail.
+"You've given me everything that money buys, and I don't want anything
+except the things that love buys. I want to go back to Millville! I want
+to live in our own little cottage! I'm sick of this sort of life! I
+never was made to be a rich man's wife, and it's killing me! It's
+killing me! Oh! I know I'm ungrateful, Dave, but I can't help it!" Her
+voice broke in a storm of sobs. She covered her face with the
+bedclothes and shrank away from her husband's hand.
+
+A look of profound relief lighted David Maynor's face. "Is that all?" he
+exclaimed. "And here I've been putting up with everything because I
+thought you were pleased! My gracious, Sarah! You don't hate this life
+any more than I do."
+
+Sarah lifted her head from the pillow and searched his face with her
+tear-reddened eyes. "Dave Maynor," she said solemnly, "are you just
+saying that to please me, or is it the truth?"
+
+"I'd go back to Millville to-morrow, if I could," said David, with an
+emphasis that swept away all doubt of his sincerity.
+
+Sarah fell back on her pillows with a long, sobbing breath of relief.
+Her tears flowed again, but they were tears of happiness, and an
+ecstatic smile shone through them.
+
+"Oh! Then it's all right, Dave! It's all right!" She reached for David's
+hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "You see, it was just the
+thought that you and I didn't think alike--that was what I couldn't
+stand. But if you feel as I do, why, I can stand anything. You know what
+I mean, don't you, Dave?"
+
+"Of course I know what you mean, honey," said David soothingly, as if he
+were talking to a child in distress. "I've felt exactly the same way,
+ever since we left our little Millville home and come to this two-story
+brick house. I thought you liked it,--women always like fine houses and
+fine furniture,--and I wanted to please you, but I hated it from the
+start; and we'd always thought the same about everything, and to have
+this big pile of brick and mortar comin' between us at our time of
+life--"
+
+At this point words failed him. He was not in the habit of analyzing and
+describing his own feelings, but Sarah's eyes met his, and a look of
+perfect understanding passed between husband and wife. They had been
+living a divided life, but now they were one.
+
+"It was my fault," said Sarah. "I ought to have stopped you in the
+beginning; but I knew you were trying to please me, and I didn't want to
+seem ungrateful--"
+
+"Yes, honey, yes," interrupted David, "I know just how it was, and it
+was my fault, not yours. I ought to have asked you what you wanted,
+instead of takin' things for granted. Yes, if it's anybody's fault,
+it's mine. But what's the use in blamin' anybody? My doctrine is that
+when a thing _has_ happened, instead of blamin' ourselves or anybody
+else, we just ought to conclude that it _had_ to happen, and then make
+the best of it. This house is built; it's ours; we're in it; we don't
+like it; and now what are we going to do about it?"
+
+Sarah's face clouded at once. She and David were of one mind, but things
+were not "all right", for still the burden of unaccustomed wealth and
+luxury weighed upon her, and David's question brought her face to face
+with the old troubles.
+
+"Oh! I don't know," she said wearily. "If we just hadn't left our little
+cottage!"
+
+"It was that architect fellow's fault, my buildin' this house," said
+David ruefully. "He was a young man just startin' out in the world, and
+I thought I'd give him a helpin' hand. And then it didn't look right for
+people with the income we've got to live in a four-room cottage in
+Millville."
+
+"I don't care how it looked," said Sarah fretfully, "we were in our
+right place there, and we're out of place here. When we lived in
+Millville, I'd get up in the morning, and I knew just exactly what I'd
+have to do, and I knew I could do whatever I had to do. But now--" She
+made a gesture of unutterable despair--"Why, I hate to open my eyes, I
+hate to get up, I hate to think there's another day before me, for I'm
+certain there'll be things to do that I never did before, and don't know
+how to do and don't want to do, even if I knew how. People come to see
+me and they talk about things I never heard of, and ask me to do things
+I can't do, and I feel just exactly as if I was caught in some kind of a
+cage and couldn't get out. There was that Mrs. Emerson--she wanted me to
+join a club she belongs to. She said it used to be a literary club, but
+that they'd changed their plans, and, instead of writin' papers, they'd
+decided to do civic work."
+
+She paused in her passionate confession and turned abruptly to David
+with a look of self-scorn that was tragic in its intensity. "Do you know
+what 'civic work' is, David?" David did not answer at once.
+
+"Why, no, Sarah, I can't say I do," he said cautiously. "It seems to me
+I've seen that word somewhere, and maybe I could think up what it means,
+if you'd give me time to--"
+
+Sarah cut him short. "You don't know what that word means, David, and
+neither do I," she said with studied calmness.
+
+David was genuinely puzzled by Sarah's evident distress over so
+unimportant a circumstance as the meaning of a word. "Honey," he said
+tenderly, "I'll go right down town and buy you a dictionary, so you can
+find out what that word means. But what difference does it make,
+anyhow?"
+
+Once more his wife turned on him a face that was like a mask of tragedy.
+"What difference does it make?" she wailed. "Oh, David! Can't you see?
+Can't you understand? There I sat--in my own house--like a fool--not
+knowin' what answer to give her, just because I didn't know what that
+word meant! And every day something like this happens, something that
+makes me feel that I'm out of place, something that makes me hate
+myself! Can't you understand?"
+
+Yes, David understood as well as a man could be expected to understand a
+woman. Many times since Fortune had smiled on him, he had been thrown
+with men of superior education and social position and had known
+momentarily the feeling of being out of place. And if Sarah's
+passionate words failed to convey all she felt and suffered, the despair
+in her eyes and the nervous twitching of her fingers brought
+comprehension to her husband's mind.
+
+"There! There!" he soothed, taking her hands in his. "You mustn't carry
+on this way, Sarah, or I'll have to send for the doctor again. Just give
+me time to think; there must be a way out of this trouble. My goodness!"
+He shook his head in helpless wonderment over the strange situation. "I
+thought we'd be through with troubles when we got rich, but it looks as
+if this money's the most trouble we ever had."
+
+"It wouldn't be a trouble if we were used to it," explained Sarah. "We
+were born poor, and we've lived poor all our lives, and we don't know
+how to get happiness out of money."
+
+David sighed. "We can't go back to Millville to live," he said
+thoughtfully. "At least we can't get back our old place." Sarah's face
+was already clouded, but at these words a deeper shadow passed over it.
+She had known, when she left the Millville house, that the owner of the
+property intended tearing down the cottage and building a tenement house
+for the mill-workers, and every time she thought of her house in ruins,
+she had a dull heartache. "I never hankered after riches," mused David,
+his mind still occupied with the mysterious ways of the Providence that
+had made him rich. "I never even tried to invent that machine. It just
+seemed to come to me, without any thinkin' or tryin' on my part; and
+when I patented the thing, I never supposed it would do any more than
+make us fairly comfortable in our old age. But here's the money comin'
+in all the time; it's ours, and it's honest money, and we've got to take
+it and make the best of it. But," tenderly, "I'm not goin' to let it
+worry you to death if I can help it. What is it that bothers you most,
+honey?"
+
+Sarah moved her head restlessly on the pillow and sighed heavily. "Oh!
+everything; but I believe the servants are the worst aggravation of
+all."
+
+"What's the matter with 'em?" asked David; "don't they do their work
+right?"
+
+"No, they don't," said Sarah despairingly. "I never saw such cleanin' as
+that Bertha does--dust behind the doors and on the window sills; and she
+never takes up a rug, and the windows look like Jacob's cattle, all
+ringed and striped and streaked. And Nelly's just as bad. The dish
+towels are a sight, and the kitchen closet's in such a mess I can't
+sleep for thinkin' of it. I never could stand dust, especially in my
+kitchen; you know that, David. And here we are payin' these
+good-for-nothin' creatures every week almost as much money as you used
+to earn in a month! It's enough to drive me crazy." It was the
+lamentation of a housekeeper, a cry as old as civilization, that Sarah
+was uttering, and David heard it sympathetically, for his wife's
+troubles were his own.
+
+"Can't you make 'em do their work right?" he asked.
+
+"Make 'em?" Sarah's voice rose in a petulant wail. "No, I can't. I can
+make myself work, but I don't know how to make anybody else work."
+
+"Do they ever give you any back talk?" asked David.
+
+"No, they don't," said Sarah, a dull flush crimsoning her face. "They're
+polite enough to my face, but, David, I believe they laugh at us both
+behind our backs. Two or three times I've turned around right quick, and
+I've seen a look on their faces that made me want to turn 'em out of the
+house."
+
+David's face hardened. "Why don't you discharge 'em?" he asked grimly.
+
+"Oh! I don't know how," said Sarah fretfully. "It seems to me you ought
+to know that, without being told. I never discharged anybody in my life.
+I wouldn't know what to say. Don't you have to give servants warning
+before you turn 'em off?"
+
+David deliberated a moment. "Either they have to give you warning, or
+you have to give them warning, or maybe it's both," he announced. "I
+guess it would take a lawyer to settle that question."
+
+"People that don't know how to get rid of a servant have got no business
+with servants," said Sarah bitterly. "Here I am, a stout, able-bodied
+woman, holdin' my hands all day, when I ought to be doin' my own work
+just as I always have."
+
+"You couldn't do your work in this house," argued David. "It would break
+you down if you tried it."
+
+"There it is again," cried Sarah. "The house! It's the house that's to
+blame for everything. Why, it was just last week I met Molly Matthews on
+the street, and she turned her head away and wouldn't speak to me! Molly
+Matthews that nursed me when I had the fever and that's been like a
+sister to me all these years!"
+
+David's face darkened angrily. "What right has Molly Matthews to fall
+out with you, because you've got a better house than she has? That's
+just envy."
+
+"No, it's not envy!" cried Sarah in loyal defense of the absent friend.
+"I know Molly as well as I know myself. She hasn't changed, but she
+thinks I've changed; she thinks I feel above her just because I've got
+this two-story brick. And I don't blame her a bit. When we left
+Millville and moved into town, it looked just like we had turned our
+backs on all our old friends. I'd feel just as Molly does, if I were in
+Molly's place. I've wanted to have Molly and Annie and all the rest of
+my friends to spend the day with me,--I've only waited because I wanted
+to feel at home in my own house, before I had visitors,--but now I can't
+do it. We've got a fine house, David, and plenty of money, but we've
+lost our old friends; and what is life without friends?"
+
+The god of Mammon had showered his favors on these simple souls, but
+they would never be worshippers of the god. David, too, had felt the
+barrier of wealth rising, hard and cruel, between him and the friends of
+a lifetime, and his heart echoed Sarah's question, "What is life without
+friends?"
+
+"Well," he said, with an effort at lightness, "if our old friends
+forsake us, we'll have to make new ones."
+
+"But I don't want new friends!" cried Sarah, with the accent of a
+fretful child, "Haven't I just told you I couldn't talk to that Mrs.
+Emerson?"
+
+A sudden thought seemed to strike David. He took out his watch and
+glanced at it. "It's time for you to take another dose of the medicine
+the doctor left. I have to go down-town for a few minutes. You lie still
+and see if you can't sleep a little."
+
+He handed her the medicine and left the room. Sarah waited till he was
+out of the house, and then she rose hastily from the bed and began
+making a hurried toilet.
+
+When David reappeared, he found her fully dressed and the marks of tears
+gone from her face.
+
+"That medicine's helped you already," he said cheerfully; "and here's a
+dictionary, and we'll find out what that word means."
+
+The dictionary was an unfamiliar book to David, but after a patient
+search he found the strange word. "Here it is: civic, of or pertaining
+to a city, a citizen, or citizenship." He looked hopefully at Sarah. She
+shook her head rather sadly.
+
+"I don't know a bit more now than I did before, David, but never mind
+that word. I told you awhile ago that I could stand anything, if we only
+felt alike about it, and I'm goin' to stand this."
+
+"That's right," said David heartily; "and while you're standing it, I'll
+be looking for a way out of it. I didn't build this house for you to
+stand, I built it for you to enjoy, and if you don't enjoy it, you don't
+have to live in it." At that moment the supper bell rang.
+
+"Come on, honey," said David, holding out his hand to help her from the
+chair, "you'll feel better after you've had something to eat."
+
+But Sarah only sighed and shook her head languidly. "If I'd only cooked
+the supper, I might feel hungry. But I just don't care whether I eat or
+not. I'd rather go hungry than to eat with that Nelly starin' at me."
+
+"You stay up here, Sarah," said David with sudden determination. He
+wheeled a small table in front of her and hurried from the room. In a
+few minutes Nelly appeared with a laden tray that she set on the table.
+
+"Mr. Maynor says if there's anything else you want, to let him know."
+Nelly's tone and manner were those of the well-trained servant, and she
+looked at her mistress with a gleam of real sympathy in her eyes.
+
+"This is all I want. I'm much obliged," said Sarah Maynor awkwardly.
+
+Nelly withdrew, and Sarah began to eat, more from gratitude to David
+than from any sense of hunger. David was so good to her, she must get
+used to things for his sake. But the relief of eating without the
+espionage of a servant quickened her appetite, and when David rejoined
+her, he looked with satisfaction on the empty dishes.
+
+"Don't worry about me, David," said Sarah, with a good attempt at a
+careless smile. "I've been actin' like a child, but from now on I'm
+goin' to behave myself." David did not answer. He appeared to be in deep
+thought about some important matter. He took out a pencil, did some
+figuring on the back of an envelope, relapsed again into the thoughtful
+mood, and finally went to bed silent and preoccupied.
+
+For the next few weeks, he was away from home the greater part of the
+time. Many days he failed to appear at the midday meal, and often it
+would be dusk before he came to supper. The vague excuse of "business"
+satisfied Sarah, for she had the wifely faith that forbade questioning,
+and though David's sympathy helped her to stand the hard conditions of
+her daily life, she was still too unhappy to feel any keen curiosity
+about her husband's comings and goings. But one day David came home
+wearing an expression of such triumphant satisfaction that it could not
+be overlooked.
+
+"What's the matter, David?" she asked wistfully. "You look just like you
+did the day you got your patent."
+
+David laughed joyously. "I feel just as I did the day I got my patent,
+Sarah: I've got a little business to see to after dinner, but about four
+o'clock I'll come around with the buggy, and we'll take a long ride.
+I've been workin' hard for the last few weeks, and I reckon I'm entitled
+to a little holiday."
+
+That horse and phaeton had been the occasion of much comment on the part
+of the general public. People often smiled to see the rich inventor and
+his wife in their modest turnout, while men of lesser worth whizzed by
+in costly machines; only Sarah knew that the shining little phaeton and
+the gentle mare were the realization of a childish dream.
+
+"I reckon I ought to have bought a car," said David apologetically, as
+he helped Sarah into the phaeton for their first ride together; "but
+when I was a little shaver I wanted a pony; every boy does. Nobody but
+God will ever know how much I wanted that pony I never got. And when I
+grew older, I wanted a horse just as bad as I wanted a pony, and now the
+time's come when I can have what I want. Some day we can get one of
+these big machines, but right now this little buggy and this little mare
+just suit me." And Sarah had acquiesced fully in these views.
+
+"You can't love a big machine, but you can love a horse," she said. And
+thereafter the horse and phaeton were the only mitigating circumstances
+of her new life, for they enabled her to get away, for a few happy,
+care-free hours, from the two-story brick and the two hateful servants.
+She ate her dinner with a better appetite because of the promised ride.
+Long before the hour appointed she was dressed and waiting with the
+impatience of a child, and before they had gone a mile, she had caught
+David's spirit of happiness, and was looking up into her husband's face
+with a look her face used to wear before the curse of wealth came upon
+her.
+
+"Are we going to Millville?" she asked apprehensively.
+
+"No," said David. "We're going in that direction, but we'll stop before
+we get there." He understood why Sarah would not want to drive through
+the village; it would seem like flaunting her new wealth in the faces of
+her old neighbors. David's eyes sparkled, and his mouth kept curving
+into a smile even though there was no occasion for smiling. Sarah felt
+that she was on the verge of a pleasant surprise, and her eyes roved
+here and there searching for the possible stopping-place. There were
+pretty cottages at intervals along the road, and each one reminded her
+of her lost home. On they went, around a sharp turn in the road, and
+suddenly David drew rein in the shade of a huge tulip tree just in front
+of a little country place. A new paling fence painted gray enclosed the
+lot; the house was not a new one, but its coat of gray matched the
+fence, and a fresh green roof crowned its walls. Sarah leaned forward,
+her eyes alight with wonder.
+
+"Why, Dave, it looks like our old cottage. It's exactly like it, only
+it's had a new coat of paint. What are we stopping here for? Does
+anybody live here?"
+
+David was helping her out of the phaeton. His eyes were smiling, and the
+corners of his mouth twitched.
+
+"It does look considerably like our cottage," he said gravely. "That's
+why I brought you out here. I thought you might enjoy lookin' at it." He
+opened the gate, and they walked up the path, Sarah glancing from side
+to side at the newly planted shrubs and trees.
+
+"Why, Dave, it looks just like our front yard, only everything's new.
+There's that little maple tree at the corner of the house, just like our
+maple tree at home, and all the shrubs I used to have, and planted in
+exactly the same places. It's right curious how much it's like our old
+place."
+
+They were on the front porch now. David knocked loudly on the door. That
+door! Sarah's eyes were scanning it as if it were a written page from
+which she hoped to learn good tidings. It glistened bravely in its thick
+coat of white paint, but when one has opened and shut the same door for
+twenty years, the brush of the painter cannot wholly conceal its
+familiar features. Surely that was her front door!
+
+"The folks don't seem to be at home," said David, and as he spoke, he
+took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and flung it wide open.
+David was no playwright, but he understood how to produce a dramatic
+situation and bring a scene to a successful climax. The opening of the
+door disclosed a narrow entry. The floor was covered with an oilcloth
+somewhat worn, and in front of the door lay a rug of braided rags.
+Against the wall stood a very ugly hatrack, and over the door leading
+into the room on the left was a Bible text worked in faded yarns and
+framed in dingy gilt. For a moment Sarah stood gazing bewildered at the
+familiar interior, then she grasped her husband's hand and stepped
+across the threshold, uttering an inarticulate expression of rapture,
+while David laughed aloud in pure delight.
+
+"Oh, David! David!" she cried, "it's my own home, my own little home!
+What does it mean, David? Am I crazy or dreaming or what?" She was
+clinging to David's arm, trembling and tearful. David patted her kindly
+on the hand.
+
+"You're not crazy, honey, and you're wide-awake, too. It means that
+you've got your old home again, and you needn't ever go back to the
+two-story brick house in town unless you want to."
+
+"But I thought the house was torn down," insisted Sarah, incredulous of
+the happy reality.
+
+"So it was," explained David, "but I bought the lumber and had it all
+put together again. Everything's just like it used to be except the
+wall paper and paint. They're new."
+
+Oh! the miracle of it! And it was David's love that had wrought the
+miracle. Sarah tried to speak, tried to tell David all her happiness and
+gratitude, but the words were so incoherent, broken, and mixed with
+tears that no one but David could have understood their meaning.
+
+"Kind?" he said, patting her shoulder. "No, there's no particular
+kindness about this. I've just got Doctor Bourland's prescription
+filled, that's all. You know he said I had to find out what the trouble
+was and remove it, and that's what I've tried to do."
+
+Sarah's tears flowed afresh at this proof of David's thoughtfulness.
+"Oh, David!" she cried remorsefully. "I thought you didn't care for the
+things--_our_ things! And it hurt me so!"
+
+"Cheer up, old woman," said David. "Dry your eyes and see if I've got
+everything here I ought to have. You'll find some clothes in the bureau
+drawers, enough to last for a few days, anyhow. We're goin' to stay here
+awhile, till that head of yours quits achin' and your nerves get quieted
+down."
+
+But Sarah was in the kitchen now, opening drawers, doors, and boxes like
+a true daughter of Pandora. "Sugar--meal--soda--bacon--salt. How on
+earth did you manage to think of everything, David?"
+
+"Come out in the garden," urged David. "Pretty outlook, ain't it?" he
+said, with a gesture toward the west where green meadows and blue hills
+slumbered in the late afternoon sunshine. "See the new stable and the
+chicken yard. I'll put up some martin boxes next week, and we'll have
+pigeons, too. Here's the asparagus bed, and over against the stable
+we'll have a little hotbed and raise early lettuce. It's too late to do
+much now, but I've got the walks laid off, and this time next year we'll
+be sittin' under our own 'vine and fig-tree.'"
+
+Hand in hand, like two children, they wandered over their acre of
+ground, planning for the flower garden, the vegetable garden, and the
+tiny orchard and the grape arbor that were to be, till the level rays of
+the sun warned them of approaching evening. David took out his watch.
+
+"Pretty near supper time," he said. "The fire's laid in the kitchen
+stove. I wonder if you've forgotten how to cook a meal, Mrs. Maynor?"
+
+Sarah answered with a laugh; and as she walked to the house and entered
+her kitchen, she looked as Eve might have looked, if, with her womanly
+tears and sighs, she had bribed the Angel of the Flaming Sword to let
+her pass through the gate and stroll for an hour along the paths of her
+lost Eden. But Sarah's Paradise Regained was the paradise of the worker.
+She rolled up her sleeves, tied a gingham apron around her waist, and
+set about getting supper with the zeal of those who count themselves
+blest in having to earn the bread they eat.
+
+She set the little square table near a western window, and the sunset
+light fell on the cheap cloth, the ill-matched pieces of cheap china,
+and the plain food of the working man. It was all she could do to keep
+back the tears of joy when she called David in to supper. David's eyes
+filled, too, when he seated himself at the table. He bowed his head to
+say grace, but his voice failed, and their grace was a silent
+thanksgiving, not for food, but for the restoration of the old home and
+the old life.
+
+In the midst of the meal Sarah laid down her knife and fork with an
+expression of dismay. "Oh, David!" she exclaimed, "what will we do about
+the house in town? We can't leave it in charge of those no-account
+servants."
+
+"Don't worry," said David placidly. "Ann Bryan's in charge of that
+house, and she'll stay as long as we're here. Ann knows how to manage
+servants. She used to be the housekeeper at Northcliffe Manor, you
+remember. I told her about the trouble you'd had, and I think you'll
+find Nelly and Bertha well broken in when you get back."
+
+Sarah drew a sigh of relief. It was good to know that those hateful
+servants were in stronger hands than hers, and better still, that she
+and David could eat their meals in the privacy of the kitchen with no
+spying eyes upon them.
+
+"Do the people at Millville know about this house, David?" she asked
+later, as they sat on the porch in the stillness and coolness of the
+night. David blew a puff of smoke into the darkness before he answered.
+
+"They all know, Sarah, and I think it'll make things a good deal easier
+for you. Annie McGowan came by one day, when I was havin' the cottage
+torn down and the lumber hauled out here; she stopped to ask questions,
+and I told her how you pined for your old home and what I intended to
+do, and I guess she told all the other women, for I notice a change in
+everybody's face."
+
+"What did Annie say?" urged Sarah eagerly.
+
+"She said she always knew your heart was in the right place."
+
+The old home and the old friends, too! All her loved and lost
+possessions were found, and if David's wealth were suddenly snatched
+away, she would still be a rich woman. She slept soundly and woke with a
+thrill of rapture at the thought of the day's work before her. How many
+things there were to be done and how willingly she would do them, for
+she was back in her own place, living her own life, and finding health
+and happiness in daily toil. She went from task to task, rejoicing that
+her hand had not lost its cunning for sweeping, dusting, sewing,
+cooking, and all the rest of the blessed work that goes to the making of
+a home; "and the evening and the morning were the first day." The second
+day was like unto the first, and on the third day Mary Matthews and
+Annie McGowan came, and a broken friendship was cemented, never to be
+broken again.
+
+At the end of the week David came home with a grave face. "I'm sorry,
+Sarah," he said, as they sat down to their supper, "but I'm afraid
+we'll have to break camp and go back to town to-morrow morning. I had a
+letter from Bates and Hammond, that big firm I told you about, and I
+have to go to St. Louis to-morrow morning. I can't leave you out here
+alone, so I reckon you'll have to go back to the two-story brick for
+awhile."
+
+He expected an outburst of tears from Sarah, but to his great relief she
+went calmly on, pouring his coffee and helping him to the corn bread and
+bacon.
+
+"That's all right, David," she said pleasantly. "I was just wonderin'
+to-day how things were in town, and I'd just as soon go back as not."
+
+David drew a breath of relief. "I think you'll find everything in good
+order," he said. "Ann Bryan has got Nelly and Bertha well in hand. She
+says they're good servants, and all they need is a tight rein to hold
+them to their work. She says you must look them straight in the eye when
+you give an order, and never let a bad piece of work pass. She says
+that's the secret of managin' servants."
+
+Sarah said nothing, but there was a look on her face that Ann Bryan
+would have approved.
+
+"We have to make an early start to-morrow," continued David, "for I
+leave on the nine o'clock train. Ann may leave the house before we get
+to town. Her brother's wife is sick, and she's needed at home, and
+that's another reason why we ought to go back to town for awhile."
+
+"Of course it is," agreed Sarah, "and I don't mind it at all."
+
+David watched his wife closely, as they made preparations for leaving
+the next morning, but there was nothing in her manner or her words to
+indicate the slightest annoyance over the return to town. She seemed
+alert, cheerful, and more than willing to make the change, and when they
+came in sight of the two-story brick, David thought she looked rather
+pleased.
+
+"Maybe you'd better have some one to stay with you while I'm gone," he
+suggested, as he kissed her good-by.
+
+"No," said Sarah, very decidedly, "I've got some work to do, and I'd
+rather be alone. Take care of yourself, David, and come home as soon as
+you can."
+
+She stood on the porch till David was out of sight and then walked back
+to the kitchen where the two servants were dawdling and gossiping over
+their breakfast.
+
+"Nelly," she said, pointing to the kitchen clock and looking the maid
+squarely in the face, "it's nearly nine o'clock and no cleaning done
+yet. Go up-stairs and open the windows so the house'll have a good
+airing, and then get the parlor in order first before company comes."
+While the astonished Nelly obeyed orders, she turned to Bertha and gave
+directions for the next meal. "You've got your kitchen in good order,"
+she said approvingly, "and from now on you must keep it just this way."
+
+"She's learnin' fast," said Nelly to Bertha an hour later, when they
+came together for a whispered conference in the kitchen pantry.
+
+"Believe me!" returned Bertha, "it won't be long before I'll be cookin'
+six o'clock dinner instead of supper."
+
+Sarah had ample time to work and think, for David was gone a week
+instead of three days. Every morning she arose with certain plans in her
+mind, and every night she lay down to sleep, calmly satisfied because
+she had carried these plans to a successful completion. The forenoons
+were spent in a careful superintendence of household affairs, and Nelly
+and Bertha were made to feel the authority of a mistress whose ideas of
+cleanliness and order were beyond any they had ever known. In the
+afternoon she put on her brown suit and went out to walk, or to call on
+the friendly people whose cards lay in the silver tray on her center
+table. Her air at such times was one of grave determination, and even
+David never knew with what fear and trembling and heart-sinking these
+first social duties were performed. She was a pleasant-faced,
+wholesome-looking woman; her dark, abundant hair was somewhat coarse,
+but it waved naturally, and she arranged it well; her skin was not fine,
+but it had a clear, healthy color, and her form was erect, in spite of
+years of drudgery. Each day a careful observer might have found some
+slight improvement in her dress and manner. Hitherto the putting on of
+clothes had been to Sarah merely a part of her day's work, something to
+be done with the utmost speed; but now she was learning to make a
+toilette, varying the arrangement of her hair and observing the fit of
+her garments and the effect of different colors. Her taste in clothes
+happened to be good, and the fine simplicity of her suit and hat offset
+the plainness of her manner and her evident embarrassment over the
+difficult function of making calls.
+
+"I like her," said Mrs. Emerson, the minister's wife, to Mrs. Morris,
+the banker's wife. "She is what you call a plain woman, and they're
+unmistakably 'new rich', but the newspaper paragrapher will never have
+anything on her. She's absolutely without pretense, and she has a world
+of common sense. I'm glad she's consented to join our club, for we need
+just such a woman in this legislative work we're undertaking."
+
+When David wrote her the date of his home-coming, she made it a festal
+occasion. The house had an extra cleaning; the grocer's boy left the
+choicest meat, fruits, and vegetables on Nelly's kitchen table, and
+Bertha was ordered to make the table look as attractive as possible.
+Notwithstanding her longing for the old life, Sarah had always taken a
+timid, tremulous sort of pleasure in the fine damask, the cut glass,
+silver, and china that David had bought when they moved into the
+"two-story brick", and after she had dressed to meet David, she stole
+down to the dining-room to feast her eyes on the costly things that had
+replaced the plated spoons, steel knives, ten-cent dishes, and cotton
+napkins of other days. Closing the door lest Bertha should intrude on
+her, she gazed fondly at her possessions. She was just beginning to feel
+they were really hers. She touched the lace of the centerpiece and a
+daring thought came into her mind. Was there time to do it before David
+came? She rushed up-stairs, put on her hat and coat, seized her purse,
+and walked swiftly to a near-by greenhouse.
+
+"Roses?" said the florist, "certainly, madam, what kind?"
+
+What kind? Alas! the only roses she knew by name were roses like the
+old-fashioned ones that grew in the gardens of the Millville people.
+These stately queens clad in white, pink, and crimson satin and cloth of
+gold, were strangers to her. She looked hesitatingly from the Bridesmaid
+to the Bride, from the Bride to the Jacqueminot, and the florist, seeing
+her perplexity, suggested La France as a desirable choice and called her
+attention to the perfume. Yes, she wanted a dozen,--she almost turned
+pale at the thought of her own extravagance,--and when the florist laid
+the big, soft bundle of roses and ferns on her arm, she hurried home
+with a fearful joy in her heart. She was used to placing flowers on her
+table, gay nasturtiums, delicate sweet peas, and gorgeous zinnias from
+her own little back-yard garden. But to buy flowers for the table had
+always seemed to her the acme of luxury. Often she had gazed admiringly
+at the treasures of the florist's window, with never a thought that such
+splendors of color and perfume would one day be within her reach. She
+had really never accepted the change from poverty to wealth, and not
+once had she put her fingers into the purse that the hand of fortune
+held out to her. It was David who bought the house and its furnishings,
+David who bought even her clothes, while she, fettered by the frugal
+habits of a lifetime, stood aghast at what seemed to her a reckless,
+sinful extravagance. But now the rich fragrance of the roses was like an
+enchantment. Her hands trembled, a flush rose to her cheek, and as she
+placed the blossoms in a cut-glass vase, unconsciously she stepped
+across the boundary line between the old life and the new. Those
+hothouse flowers and ferns were the signs of wealth, David's wealth. She
+was David's wife, and she had a right to every costly and beautiful
+thing that her husband's money could purchase. She drew back from the
+table to observe the effect of the flowers drooping over the heavy
+damask cloth set with sparkling glass and silver and delicate china;
+then, moved by a sudden impulse that she could not have explained, she
+drew one of the roses from the vase and hurried up to her room,
+glancing furtively back to see whether she was observed by either of the
+servants. Standing before the mirror, she broke off the long stem and
+pinned the flower at her belt, then gazed anxiously into the glass.
+Clearly the flower looked out of place. She unpinned it, noticing how
+rough and coarse her hands were when they touched the satiny rose
+petals. But she had seen other women wearing great clusters of such
+flowers, and she too must learn to wear them. She heard David's step on
+the pavement below; the front door opened. She replaced the rose, and
+turning from the mirror with an air of firm resolve, she went bravely
+down to meet her husband.
+
+Ah, the joy of reunion! All her perplexities fell away from her as she
+and David clasped hands and smiled at each other after the manner of
+long married lovers.
+
+"Thank God for home!" ejaculated David, sinking into an easy chair. He
+looked around the room, looked again at his wife, and was conscious of a
+subtle change in the atmosphere of the house. The exquisite order and
+cleanliness reminded him of the housekeeping he had been accustomed to,
+when he and Sarah lived in the little Millville cottage; and on Sarah's
+face there was an expression that her husband had never before seen
+there, the look of a soul that is girding itself for new
+responsibilities and new duties. David did not understand the look, but
+he observed that Sarah no longer crept about the house like an awkward,
+frightened guest; her step and bearing were that of the mistress, and he
+had a thrill of exultant pride a few moments later, when he heard her
+address Nelly in a tone of calm command. He also saw and approved the
+rose at her belt, but he did not know that the flower was a symbol of
+all the changes that had been wrought during his absence.
+
+There was no self-consciousness in the manner of either when they sat
+down at the flower-decked table. David had seen persons of importance
+and transacted business of importance; he was the sort of husband who
+makes his wife a silent partner in all his business affairs, and the two
+talked at ease, forgetting the hated presence of a servant. David looked
+across the roses at his wife's face, serene and happy as it used to be
+in the old days, and again he silently blessed the doctor and his magic
+prescription.
+
+"How do you feel now, Sarah?" he asked, as they seated themselves in the
+parlor, and Sarah took up her basket of crocheting. "You know the
+doctor said I must let him know how you got along."
+
+"I am perfectly well," said Sarah emphatically, "and what's more, I
+intend to stay well."
+
+David laughed aloud with pleasure. "I'll tell the doctor how well his
+prescription worked. That cottage is the best investment I ever made."
+
+"Even if we never went back to it," said Sarah thoughtfully, "it would
+make me happy just to know it's there and it's ours."
+
+"That reminds me," said David, with a sudden change of manner. "Hale and
+Davis say they can sell this house for me any day."
+
+"Hale and Davis?" inquired Sarah with a look of surprise.
+
+"Real estate men," explained David.
+
+"What right have they to sell my house?" asked Sarah almost angrily.
+
+David looked embarrassed. "Why, Sarah, I told them you were
+dissatisfied; you know you said--"
+
+"Yes, I know I did," owned Sarah hastily. Her face crimsoned with an
+embarrassment greater than David's. During his absence she had been
+born again, born from poverty to riches. This sudden change of heart
+and mind that had made her a new creature was a mystery to herself; how,
+then, could she explain it satisfactorily to her husband? "I know you'll
+think I'm notionate and changeable, but--I don't want to sell this
+house. I feel just as much at home here now as I do in the little
+cottage. I've got used to the servants and everything, and I want to
+stay, and if I did not want to, I'd stay anyhow. It's cowardly to run
+away or turn back when you've set out to do a certain thing, and I'm not
+a coward. Oh! I know I can't make you understand how I feel about it and
+how I came to change so, but--_I want to stay in this house._" She
+paused and looked pleadingly at David. For a few seconds he was dumb
+with astonishment, then:
+
+"Good for you, Sarah," ejaculated David: "That's exactly the way I feel
+about it." Pride and exultation shone in his eyes. Sarah had risen to
+the situation, and if Sarah could, so could he.
+
+"But can we afford to keep this house and the cottage, too?" asked Sarah
+anxiously.
+
+David laughed as one laughs at the questioning of a child.
+
+"Wait a minute, Sarah; I've got something to show you." He rose and left
+the room, returning presently with a drawing-board covered with sheets
+of drafting paper. He drew his chair near to Sarah's, rested the board
+on her knees, and began an enthusiastic description of the mechanism
+pictured in his rough drawings. Sarah could not comprehend the
+complexities of wheels, pulleys, flanges, and weights that David pointed
+out to her, but David's mechanical genius was the glory of her life, and
+she looked at the drawings with the rapt admiration a painter's wife
+might bestow on a canvas fresh from her husband's touch.
+
+"I've been hammering at this idea a good while," concluded David, "and I
+believe I've got it in working shape at last. I'll have some better
+drawings made this week and get them off to Washington, and if all goes
+well, we'll have more money than we know what to do with."
+
+"No, we won't," said Sarah. Her lips closed to a thin line, and she
+spoke with defiant emphasis. "That's another thing I've learned while
+you were away. I know what to do with money, and I don't care how rich
+we are."
+
+David stared at his wife in unveiled amazement. Was this his wife, who a
+few short weeks ago was weeping over unwelcome riches and longing for a
+life of poverty? Sarah's face crimsoned with the confusion of the woman
+who is suddenly called upon to explain a change of mind, and she began
+her explanation, speaking slowly and hesitatingly.
+
+"You remember I told you about that Mrs. Emerson who came to see me and
+ask me to join her club,--the Fortnightly, I believe they call it. Well,
+the day after you left, I dressed myself in my best and went to see her.
+And I told her that if the place was still open, I believed I'd join.
+She was real pleasant about it, and said she was so glad I'd changed my
+mind, and that they'd all be glad to have me for a member. And I said to
+her: 'Now, Mrs. Emerson, I'm not an educated woman, but I've got sense
+enough to know what I can do and what I can't do. I can't write papers
+and make speeches, but maybe there's some kind of work for me to do, if
+I join the club;' and she laughed and said that if I have sense enough
+to know what I could do and what I couldn't do, I'd make a fine club
+woman. And she said they had been studyin' _The Ring and the Book_,
+whatever that is, but now they've concluded to change their plan of
+work, and they were lookin' into the conditions of workin' people,
+especially workin' women, and she was sure I could help in that sort of
+work. And I said: 'That's very likely, for I've been a workin' woman
+myself, and lived with workin' women all my life.' And she said that was
+something to be proud of, and that every woman ought to be a workin'
+woman, and it was just for that reason they wanted me in the club."
+
+Sarah paused here and bent over to straighten out a tangle in her
+worsteds. David was holding a paper open before him, but his wife's
+social adventures were of more interest to him than any page of the
+_Inventor's Journal_, and he waited patiently for Sarah to resume her
+story.
+
+"The next day was Wednesday, and the club met at Mrs. Morton's--she's
+the president."
+
+"What Morton? Alexander Morton's wife?" interrupted David.
+
+Sarah nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Alexander Morton. They live in the big white
+stone house over on First Avenue."
+
+"He's president of the bank and about everything else in this place."
+David stated this fact in an un-emotional way, but his eyes gleamed
+with triumph. His wife and Alexander Morton's wife members of the same
+club!
+
+"When Mrs. Emerson said the club met at Mrs. Morton's, I declare, Dave,
+my heart stood still at the thought of goin' by myself to that club. But
+Mrs. Emerson said she'd come by in her carriage and take me there, and
+she did."
+
+David laid down his paper and straightened himself in his chair. "How
+did they treat you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Just as nice as they possibly could," said Sarah. "I won't mind goin'
+by myself next time."
+
+David's face expressed a satisfaction and pride too deep for words.
+"What did they do?" he asked with the curiosity of the masculine mind
+that seeks to penetrate the mysteries of a purely feminine affair.
+
+"Well, they talked mostly, and at first I couldn't see what they were
+drivin' at, but I kept on listenin', and at last I began to understand
+what they intend to do. They're lookin' into the conditions of workin'
+women and girls and children, and they're tryin' to get laws passed that
+will make things easier for people that work in mills and factories.
+They asked me about the hours of work at the mills, and the wages and
+how the mill people lived, and, David, they said when the Legislature
+meets this winter, they'll have to go up to the capital to get some
+bills passed, and they want me to go with them."
+
+It was impossible for Sarah to stifle the note of triumph in her voice.
+There was a red spot on each cheek, her eyes shone with enthusiasm, and
+though she might not be able yet to define the word "civic", evidently
+she had caught the spirit of civic work. As for David, he was speechless
+with astonishment and delight. If long residence in Millville had
+qualified Sarah for membership in the Fortnightly Club, then, after all,
+the world of the rich and the world of the poor were not very far apart.
+
+"I told them about Agnes Thompson, how she lost her thumb and finger in
+the mill this spring, and what the Company offered her for damages, and
+how hard it is for mothers with little children to leave home and work;
+and they want to build a day nursery where the babies and children can
+be looked after, and that's why I said I'd learned what to do with
+money." She paused and looked at David, who nodded sympathetically. "One
+thing that helped me to see things right," she continued, "was a sermon
+I heard the Sunday you were away. You know that little church just three
+blocks down the street back of us? Well, Sunday morning I dressed and
+started out, and I said to myself: 'I'll go to the first church I come
+to;' and it happened to be that little church down the street with the
+cross on the steeple and over the door 'Church of the Eternal Hope.'
+That's a pretty name for a church, ain't it? Church of Eternal Hope. I
+went in while they were singin' the first hymn, and when the preacher
+read his text and begun to preach, it seemed to me that something must
+have led me there, for that sermon, every word of it, was just meant for
+me. The text was: 'I know both how to abound and to suffer need,' and he
+said life was a school, and every change that life brought to us was a
+lesson, and instead of complaining about it, we ought to go to work and
+learn that lesson, and get ready for a new one. He said if poverty came
+to us, it was because we needed the lesson of poverty; and if riches
+came, it was because we needed another lesson; and he said the lesson of
+poverty was easier to learn than the lesson of wealth. Oh,
+David!"--Sarah's face was glowing with repressed emotion and her voice
+trembled,--"I wish you could have heard him, I can't remember it all,
+but it seemed as if he was preaching just to me, and I sat and listened,
+and all my troubles and worries just seemed to leave me, because I began
+to see the meaning of them; and when you know what trouble means, it's
+not a trouble any longer. And he said that there was a purpose in every
+life, and it was our duty to find out what the purpose was and do our
+best to carry it out. Now, I believe, David, that I see why all this
+money's been put into our hands. We were happy without it, and it made
+us pretty miserable at first, but it was given to us for a purpose, and
+we must carry out the purpose. Both of us were born poor, and we've
+lived with poor people all our lives, and I can see the purpose in that.
+We know how poor people live, we know what they need, and now we've got
+money"--she stopped abruptly. "Don't you see the purpose, David?"
+
+David was silent, but Sarah knew that the silence did not mean dissent.
+His wife's narrative had started a train of thoughts and emotions that
+would be henceforth the mainspring of all his acts. Of late the sleeping
+ambition that lies in the heart of every man had begun to stir, and he
+had dared to think timidly and doubtfully of a time when he should be,
+to use his own words, "something and somebody" in the world. As he
+listened to the story of Sarah's social adventures, his heart swelled
+proudly. His wife had found her place among her fellow women; he would
+find his among his fellow men. Before him were the doors of opportunity
+all "barred with gold", but he held in his hand the "golden keys" that
+would unlock them, and the finger of Divinity was pointing out the way
+he should go. Could it be that the Infinite Power had planned his life
+for a certain end? That he had come into the world for something more
+than daily toil, daily wages, and, at last, old age and death? Were his
+mortal days a part of some great, immortal plan? A thrill of awe shook
+the man as he caught a momentary vision of the majesty in a human life
+that expresses a divine purpose. He had no words for thoughts like
+these, and the silence lasted a long time. When he spoke, it was of
+practical affairs.
+
+"The club will have to meet with you one of these days, won't it?" he
+asked.
+
+"It meets with me the last of the month," said Sarah, trying to speak in
+a matter-of-fact way.
+
+David looked critically around the room. "This furniture's pretty
+nice," he said, "but I don't know how it compares with other people's."
+
+"The furniture's all right," said Sarah hastily. "Of course, this house
+doesn't look like Mrs. Emerson's. Her parlor looked as if everything in
+it had grown there and belonged there; this room looks as if we'd just
+bought the things and put them here. Maybe after we've lived here a long
+time, it'll look different, but there's no use tryin' to make my house
+look like Mrs. Emerson's or Mrs. Morton's."
+
+"Are your clothes as good as the other women's?" inquired David
+solicitously.
+
+"Suppose they're not," argued Sarah sturdily. "I'm not goin' to try to
+dress like other women. My clothes suit me, and that's enough."
+
+Sarah's sturdy independence pleased David, but like a good husband, he
+wanted his wife to look as well as other women. "Oughtn't you to have
+some jewelry, Sarah? Some rings and chains and--things of that sort?" he
+added vaguely.
+
+"David! David!" cried his wife half in anger, half in love. "Do you want
+to make me a laughing stock? My hands are not the kind for rings; and
+what would Molly and Annie say if they saw me wearin' jewelry? We've
+got enough things between us and our old friends without jewelry.
+Instead of rings, you can give me a check for the day nursery."
+
+Sarah was rolling up her work now and smiling softly. "Two weeks ago,"
+she said, "it seemed as if everything was in a tangle just like this
+worsted gets sometimes. But I've picked and pulled and twisted, you
+might say, till I've straightened it out. You see, David, there's some
+things you can't understand till you get 'way off from them. As long as
+I was in this house, I thought I was out of place, but I hadn't been in
+the cottage long, till I saw that this house was just as much my home as
+the little cottage was. I never could have seen it, though, if I hadn't
+gone back to the old house."
+
+Wise Sarah! It was well for her that the club had changed its plan of
+work. She would never be able to write an analysis of _The Ring and the
+Book_, or throw an interpretative flashlight into the obscurity of _Red
+Cotton Night-Cap Country_, but like the knight of the Dark Tower, she
+had learned that
+
+    "One taste of the old time sets all things right."
+
+
+
+
+ONE DAY IN SPRING
+
+
+According to the calendar, it was the last day of March, but for weeks
+the spirit of April and May had breathed on the face of the earth, and
+those who had memories of many springs declared that never before had
+there been such weather in the month of March.
+
+In the annals of the rural weather prophets, the winter had been set
+down as the coldest ever known--a winter of many snows, of frozen
+rivers, and skies so heavily clouded that there was little difference
+between the day and the night. Wild creatures had frozen and starved to
+death, and man and beast had drawn near to each other in the
+companionship of common suffering. Then, as if repenting of her
+harshness to her helpless children, Nature had sent a swift and early
+spring. It was March, but hardly a March wind had blown. The rain that
+fell was not the cold, wind-driven rain of March; it was the warm,
+delicate April shower. The sun had the warmth of May, and all the
+flowers of field, forest, and garden had felt the summons of sun and
+rain and started up from the underworld in such haste that they trod on
+each other's heels. Flowers that never had met before stood side by side
+and looked wonderingly at each other. The golden flame of the daffodils
+was almost burnt out, and the withered blossoms drooped in the grass
+like extinguished torches; but hyacinths were opening their censers;
+tulips were budding; the plumes of the lilacs showed color, and
+honeysuckles and roses looked as if they were trying to bloom with the
+lilac and the snowball. March had blustered in with the face and voice
+of February, but she was going out a flower-decked Queen of May.
+
+The fragrant air was like the touch of a warm hand. Fleets of white
+clouds sailed on the sea of pale blue ether, and the trees, not yet in
+full leaf, cast delicate shadows on the grass. On a day like this in
+ancient Rome, young and old clad themselves in garments of joy and went
+forth to the festival of the goddess of grain and harvests; and under
+such skies, English poets were wont to sing of skylarks and of golden
+daffodils. But in the calendar of the Kentucky housewife there is no
+Floralia or Thesmophoria, and no smile or breath of song was on the lips
+of the girl who was climbing the back stairs of an old farmhouse, with
+a bucket of water in one hand and a cake of soap in the other, to
+celebrate the Christian festival of spring cleaning. The steps were
+steep and narrow, and every time she set her foot down they creaked
+dismally, as if to warn the climber that they might fall at any minute.
+She toiled painfully up and set the bucket on the floor. Where should
+she begin her work? She went into the nearest bedroom, opened the door
+of a closet, and looked disgustedly at the disorder within,--coats,
+hats, trousers, disabled suspenders, a pair of shoes caked with mud, an
+old whip-handle, an empty blacking box, a fishing-pole and tangled line,
+a hammer, and a box of rusty nails. It was not an unfamiliar sight. She
+had cleaned the boys' closet and the boys' room every spring for--how
+many years? It made her tired to think of it, and she sat down on the
+edge of the slovenly bed and stared hopelessly around the low-ceiled,
+dingy room. The mouldy wall paper was peeling off, the woodwork was an
+ugly brown, dirty, discolored, and worn off in spots; the furniture was
+rickety, the bedclothes coarse and soiled; and walls, floors, and
+furniture reeked with a musty odor as of old age, decay, and death. All
+houses that have sheltered many generations acquire this atmosphere;
+nothing but fire can wholly destroy such uncleanness, and some vague
+idea of the impossibility of making the old house wholesomely clean
+crossed the girl's mind as she sat listlessly on the side of the bed and
+stared out of the window.
+
+There are two kinds of homesickness. One is a longing for home that
+seizes the wanderer and draws him across continent and ocean back to the
+country and the house of his nativity. Men have died of this
+homesickness on many a foreign soil. The other kind is a sickness of
+home that draws us away from ordered rooms, from sheltering walls and
+roofs, to the bare, primitive forest life that was ours ages ago. It was
+this homesickness that made Miranda sigh and frown as she looked at that
+room, gray and dingy with the accumulated dirt of the winter, and
+thought of the task before her. While she sat, scowling and rebellious,
+a breeze blew in, scattering the sickly odors of the bedroom, and at the
+same moment she heard two sounds that seem to belong specially to the
+spring of the year, the bleating of some young lambs in a near meadow
+and the plaintive lowing of a calf that had been separated from its
+mother. Yes, spring was here. How she had longed for it all through the
+long, cold, dark days of winter! And now she must spend its sunny hours
+in house cleaning! A weariness of all familiar things was upon her; she
+hated the old house; she wanted to go,--somewhere, anywhere, and her
+soul, like a caged bird, was beating its wings against the bars of
+circumstance. She went to the window and leaned out. A branch of a maple
+tree growing near the house almost touched her cheek, and she noticed
+the lovely shape and color of the young leaves. Farther on was a giant
+oak whose orange-green tassels swung gaily in the breeze, and through
+the trees she had a glimpse of a green meadow bordered by an osage
+orange hedge that looked like a pale green mist in the morning sunshine.
+She saw and felt the glory and sweetness of the spring with her physical
+senses only, for in her heart there was a "winter of discontent." But
+while she leaned from the window, looking at the trees and sky, came one
+of those unexplained flashes of consciousness in which the present is
+obliterated and we are snatched back to a shadowy past. What was the
+incantation that made her feel that she had lived this same moment ages
+and ages ago? Was it the voice of the wind and the voice of the bird in
+the tree-tops? Was it the shimmer of morning mist and the gold-green
+oak tassels against the blue sky? Or was it a blending of all these
+sights and sounds? Her gaze wandered farther and farther on till it
+reached the horizon line where stretched a fragment of the primitive
+wood, bounded by smooth turnpikes and fenced-in fields and meadows.
+Serene and majestic these forest remnants stand in every Kentucky
+landscape, guardians of the Great Silence, homes for the hunted bird and
+beast, and sanctuaries where the stricken soul of man may find a miracle
+of healing. A wild, unreasonable longing possessed the homesick girl as
+she looked at that line of trees, softly green and faintly veiled, and
+thought of what lay in their secret deeps. All her life had been spent
+in the country, and yet how many years it had been since she had seen
+the woods in spring. _The woods in spring!_ The words were like a strain
+of music, and as she whispered them to herself, something rent the veil
+between childhood and womanhood, and she saw herself a little girl
+roaming through the forest, clinging to her father's hand and searching
+for spring's wild flowers. She saw the blue violets nestling at the foot
+of mossy stumps, columbines and ferns waving in damp, rocky places,
+purple hepaticas, yellow celandine, the pinkish lavender bells of the
+cowslip, Solomon's seal lifting its tiers of leaves by lichened rocks
+around a dripping spring, and that strange white flower, more like the
+corpse of a flower than the flower itself, that she had found once--and
+then no more--growing by a fallen log and half buried under the drift of
+fallen leaves. Suddenly she started up, hurried from the room, and ran
+swift-footed down-stairs and into the kitchen, where her mother stood at
+a table washing the breakfast dishes.
+
+"Mother," she said breathlessly, "I'm going over to the woods awhile. I
+want to see if the violets are in bloom yet. I'll be back after awhile."
+
+Ellen Crawford paused in her work and looked helplessly at her daughter.
+The mind of her child had always been a sealed book to her, and she was
+never without a feeling of apprehension as to what Miranda would do
+next. "For mercy's sake!" she said weakly. Going to the woods to look
+for violets in house-cleaning time, when each day's unfinished work
+overflowed into the brimming hours of the next day! There were no words
+to fit such folly, and the mother only stood stupefied, looking through
+the open door at the flying footsteps of her errant daughter.
+
+Miranda ran through the back yard where the house dog lay basking in the
+sun, and two broods of young chickens were "peeping" around in the wet
+grass, led by their clucking mothers. The cat came purring and tried to
+rub herself against Miranda's garments, but she thrust her aside and
+hurried on. These creatures belonged to the house, and it was the house
+from which she was fleeing. As she passed through the sagging garden
+gate, a casual gust of wind stirred the boughs of a water-maple tree
+near by, and scattered a shower of petals over her hair and shoulders,
+while a robin in the topmost branch sang a Godspeed to the pilgrim who
+was hastening to the altars of spring. Down the garden path she sped
+with never a glance aside at the trim rows of early vegetables bordered
+by clumps of iris and peonies, with now and then an old-fashioned rose
+that looked as if it were tired of growing and blooming in the same spot
+so many years. If one had stopped her and said: "Where are you going?"
+she could not have told him where. If he had asked: "What do you seek?"
+again she would have been at a loss for a reply. But she had heard a
+call more imperative than the voice of father or mother, more
+authoritative than the voice of conscience; something had passed out of
+her life with the passing of childhood and first youth; she was going to
+find the precious lost joy; and the power that guides the bird in its
+autumnal flight to the south and brings it north again was guiding her
+feet to the woods in spring.
+
+She pushed aside some loose palings and crept through the opening into
+the pasture that lay back of the garden. The cows stopped feeding and
+stared at her in mild surprise as she stood, irresolute and wavering,
+looking back at the house, where her mother was lifting the burden of
+the day's toil, and then at the orchard on one side, where the peach
+trees were faintly flushed with pink. In the middle of the pasture stood
+a group of elms. When the wind passed over them, their branches swayed
+with the grace of willows, and against the blue sky their half-grown
+leaves were delicate as the fronds of the maidenhair fern. The elms
+seemed to beckon her, and she crossed over and stood for a moment
+looking up at the sky "in a net",--the net of leafy branches. While she
+gazed upward, a sudden wind came blowing from the direction of the
+forest, and on its breath was the mysterious sweetness that is one of
+the surest tokens of spring. It is as if every tree and plant of the
+forest had sent forth a premonition of its blooming, a spirit perfume
+waiting to be embodied in a flower. Miranda drew a long breath and
+looked across the meadow to the freshly plowed field whose western
+boundary line was "all awave with trees", each clad in its own
+particular tint of verdure, from the silver green of the silver poplar
+to the black green of the cedars. The dogwood, that white maiden of the
+forest, was still in hiding; the wild cherry, that soon would stand like
+a bride in her wedding veil, was now just a shy girl in a dress of
+virginal green; the purplish pink of the red-bud flower was barely
+visible on its spreading limbs. The Great Artist had merely outlined and
+touched here and there with his brush the picture which later on he
+would fill in with the gorgeous coloring of summer's full leafage and
+full flowering.
+
+She hurried across the meadow, climbed the old rail fence, and plodded
+her way over the plowed ground, stepping from ridge to ridge and feeling
+the earth crumble under her feet at every step. It was a ten-acre field,
+and she was out of breath by the time she reached the other side. There
+was no fence between field and forest; the only boundary line was the
+last furrow made by the plow. On one side of this furrow lay
+civilization with its ordered life of cares and duties. On the other
+side was the wild, free life of Nature. She stopped and looked
+doubtfully into the sunlit aisles of the forest, as we look at old
+familiar places, revisited after long absence, to see if they measure up
+to the stately beauty with which our childish imagination clothed them.
+She stepped timidly through the underbrush at the edge of the wood and
+looked above and around. So many years had passed, and so many things
+had passed with the years! Perhaps the remembered enchantment had passed
+too. She recalled the song of the birds, and how the voice of the wind
+in the tree-tops had sounded against the fathomless stillness that lies
+at the heart of the forest. She held her breath and listened. Wind and
+leaf and bird were making music together as of old; and under the
+whisper and the song she felt the presence of the eternal, inviolable
+calm against which earth's clamor vainly beats. She recalled the rustle
+of the dead leaves under her feet, and the odor that the heat of the sun
+drew from the moist earth. There were dead leaves to-day in every path,
+and Nature was distilling the same perfumes and making beauty from ashes
+by the same wondrous alchemy she had used when the earth was young.
+Nothing had changed except herself. She looked around for an opening in
+the underbrush, some trace of a path, and then hastened fearlessly on to
+find the main path that led through the heart of the woods, and made a
+"short cut" for the traveler on foot. Besides this central path, there
+were numerous little by-paths made by the feet of cattle that had
+pastured here for a few months of the previous summer. Each one of these
+invited her feet, and each one led past some fairy spot--a bed of
+flowers, a bower of wild vines, a grapevine swing, a tiny spring from
+which she drank, using a big, mossy acorn cup for a goblet. She wandered
+from one side of the main path to the other, and thrice she walked from
+road to road. All winter she had been snow-bound and ice-bound within
+the walls of the old farmhouse, and now spring had unlocked the doors of
+the prison. Lighter grew her footsteps the longer she walked, and in
+every muscle she felt the joy of motion that the fawn feels when it
+leaps through the forest, or the bird when it cleaves the sunny air on
+glistening wing.
+
+Gone was the thought of time, for here were no tasks to be done, no
+breakfast, dinner, and supper; and the day had but three
+periods,--sunrise, noontide, and sunset. The house she had left that
+morning seemed a long way off, almost in another world; and the forest
+was an enchanted land where there was no ugly toil for one's daily
+bread. Duty and fear alike were lulled to sleep, and while the sun
+climbed to its zenith she roamed as care-free as any wild creature of
+the woods. Suddenly a cloud darkened the sun and melted into a soft,
+warm mist that the wind caught up and blew like a veil across the face
+of spring. Miranda paused, lifted her head, and held out her hands to
+catch the gracious baptism. It was only a momentary shower, past in a
+burst of sunshine, but it left its chrism on her forehead and hair and
+made her feel more akin to flower and tree. How many gifts were falling
+from the hand of spring! To the birds the joy of mating and nesting; to
+the roots and seeds in the dark, cold earth warmth and moisture and a
+resurrection morn; and to the ancients of the forest a vesture as fresh
+as that which clothes the sapling of the spring.
+
+Surely we have severed some tie that once bound us to the Great Mother's
+heart or this outflow and inflow of life and beauty that we call spring
+would touch men and women too, and then would come the Golden Age.
+Nature is kinder to her trees and flowers than she is to her sons and
+daughters. The girl who lifted her forehead to the sacrament of the rain
+should have received a blessing that would touch her face with the color
+of the rose and put the strength and grace of the young trees into her
+limbs. But how sad and strange she looked, flitting through the vernal
+freshness of the forest! Her faded calico gown hung limp over her thin
+body, and her hair and cheek were as faded as the gown. She should have
+been a nymph, but she was only a tired, worn daughter of the soil, and
+amid all this opulence of giving there was no gift for her except the
+ecstatic yearning that was welling up in her heart and leading her here
+and there in search of something she could not name.
+
+How sweet the air was! She breathed deeply as she walked, and at every
+inspiration a burden seemed to fall from both body and soul. Just to be
+alive was good--to breathe, to walk through the sun-flecked forest
+paths, to feel the warmth of the sunshine on her shoulders, and to know
+that the world of the forest belonged to her as it belonged to the bird
+and the bee. She had almost reached the other side of the strip of
+woodland, and through the trees she caught glimpses of a wheat field
+stretching like a pale green sea from this strip of woodland to another
+that belonged to a neighboring farm. She thought of a hymn her mother
+often sang when the drudgery of the farm permitted her soul to rise on
+the wings of song:
+
+    "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
+       Stand dressed in living green;
+     So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
+       While Jordan rolled between."
+
+She lifted up her voice and sang the old hymn:
+
+    "There is a land of pure delight
+       Where saints immortal reign;
+     Infinite day excludes the night,
+       And pleasures banish pain.
+
+    "There everlasting spring abides
+       And never withering flowers:
+     Death, like a narrow sea, divides
+       This pleasant land from ours."
+
+Alas! How strange and sad it sounded with the "careless rapture" of the
+birds. Never before had a song of death been sung in those forest
+aisles, and suddenly she stopped, silenced by a sense of the incongruity
+of such a hymn in the spring woods. Why should one sing of "sweet
+fields" and "pleasant lands" beyond the sea of death? Right here are
+pleasant lands and sweet fields, and our songs should be of the "pure
+delight" of this old earth. Better than such worship as ours the worship
+of the pagan, who went forth with music to meet the dawn and sang hymns
+in praise of seed-time and harvest.
+
+It is not alone by "getting and spending" that we "lay waste our powers"
+and loosen our hold on the possessions that Nature so freely offers us.
+Perpetually she calls to us with her voice of many waters, her winds and
+bird songs. She opens and closes each day with cloudy splendors that
+transcend the art of poet or painter. She spends centuries making the
+columned sanctuaries of her forests more majestic than Solomon's temple,
+and lights them with the glory of the sun and stars. Life more abundant
+is in her air and sunshine. She offers to each soul the solitude of the
+wilderness, and the mountains, where Christ found rest and strength
+after the presence of crowds had drained him of his virtue. And we--we
+wrap ourselves in the mantle of Care; we build walls of stone to shut
+out from us all sweet influences of Nature; we sing of "an everlasting
+spring", and then let the fleeting hours of our earthly springs go by
+without once tasting their full sweetness; we look for a heaven beyond
+death, unmindful of the heaven within and around us; we deem the light
+that falls through a stained glass window more religious than the light
+of open day, and a waxen taper more sacred than a star; we shorten life
+by cutting it off from its source, and at last, worn out with sordid
+cares, we give our bodies back to earth without having known one hour of
+the real joy of life.
+
+Vague, half-formed thoughts like these were in Miranda's mind as she
+paused and looked up in response to a voice from a neighboring oak:
+"Chic-o-ree! Chic-o-ree!" The syllables were clear and distinct as if
+spoken by a human voice, and from a tree across the path came the
+answer: "Chic-o-ree! Chic-o-ree!" All her consciousness had been merged
+in seeing, but now she was aware of a chorus of voices calling,
+chirping, whistling, trilling, fluting, warbling from far and near, the
+orchestra of May assembled a month in advance of its usual time.
+
+"If we could only live outdoors!" she whispered to herself. All the high
+emotions that fill the heart of a poet in spring were stirring in the
+breast of the country girl, and finding no way of expression they could
+only change into poignant longings that she herself but half understood.
+There was a puzzled, baffled look on her face as she stood hesitant,
+wondering what step to take next. So many remembered things she had
+found in the woods!--music, perfume, light winds and warmth and flowers
+and trees, but there was still something, nameless, elusive, that had
+once been hers, and she must find it before the day ended.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She stooped to gather a violet growing by a fallen tree, and the second
+time that day a wave of memory and feeling swept over her, and in one
+exquisite moment she found the lost treasure! For the heart that leaped
+and throbbed faster at sight of the violet was the heart of a little
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was past the middle of the afternoon. The wind had died down to a
+mere occasional whisper, the birds chirped more softly, and there seemed
+to be a hush and a pause, as if all the creatures of the wood felt the
+languorous spell of the hour. Miranda looked about for a resting place.
+She was standing near the main path in a partly cleared space, a sort of
+fairy ring, in the center of which was a giant tree that had suffered a
+lingering death from a stroke of lightning. Lithe and graceful, with the
+sap of a new life coursing through their veins, its comrades were waving
+and beckoning to each other and welcoming the birds to leafy shelters,
+while, stark and stiff with decay, the stricken one stood like the
+skeleton at the feast, stretching its helpless arms skyward as if
+imploring Nature to raise it from the dead. All around it were the kings
+of the forest, the fruitful walnut and hickory whose leaves smell like
+the "close-bit thyme" on the downs of Sussex by the sea; the tasseled
+oak, and the elm more graceful than any graveyard willow; but moved by
+some hidden impulse, this girl whose youth was almost gone chose the
+dead tree for her own. The ground was littered with strips of bark that
+the electric storm had torn from the trunk. She gathered these and laid
+them at the root for protection from the damp earth. Then, seating
+herself, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree and drew a long,
+sighing breath of deep content. Through the woods on the other side of
+the path she could see the field of young wheat, and she had a vague,
+dreamy thought of the summer's heat that would ripen the grain and of
+the harvest with its terrible toil for the women of the farm. The heat
+of summer and the cold of winter were alike hateful to her, but no
+thought of either could break this blissful calm. Like an evil dream the
+winter was gone, and like an evil dream the summer too would go, and
+both would be forgotten. What mattered heat or cold? Every winter had
+its spring; every summer its autumn; and the heart need remember only
+its springs and autumns. She looked upward into the depths of pale blue
+ether, and followed the course of the white, drifting clouds. O, ecstasy
+of ecstasies! To live on such an earth with such a sky above! Looking at
+the sky was like looking into a vast crystal. Farther and farther into
+space her gaze seemed to penetrate, and presently her soul began to
+follow her gaze. Something in that boundless space seemed to be drawing
+her out of the body. Her breath was so light it would hardly have moved
+a gossamer; her eyelids drooped slowly and heavily, and she slept a
+sleep too deep for dreams.
+
+An hour passed, and still the mystery of sleep enfolded her. A bee
+hummed noisily about her head, a catbird sang in a tree near by, but she
+was too far away to be disturbed by any sound of earth.
+
+    "Ye are not bound!
+       The soul of things is sweet,
+     The heart of being is celestial rest--"
+
+All this the sleeper knew. She had broken the chains of habit that
+mortals forge for themselves and bind on themselves; in the freedom of
+that spring day her soul had tasted the sweetness that lies at the "soul
+of things", and now in sleep she had found the "celestial rest" that
+lies at "the heart of being."
+
+Was that a human footstep or was it a rabbit rustling the underbrush?
+Was it a human voice or the note of a bird? Along the fresh path between
+the two roads came a man, walking with a glad, free stride and whistling
+softly under his breath. The joy of the season was in his face, and he
+was at home in the woods, for when a redbird called to its mate, the man
+whistled a reply and smiled to hear the bird's instant response.
+Suddenly he caught sight of the sleeping girl at the foot of the tree;
+the whistle and the smile died on his lips and he stopped short, amazed
+and bewildered. A woman asleep in the forest! Wonder of wonders! The
+sunshine flecked her face and her hair, and in the sweet placidity of
+sleep he hardly recognized the girl he had often seen in the country
+church on Sundays. What was she doing here alone and unprotected?
+Surprise and wonder vanished as he realized the situation, and his face
+crimsoned like a bashful girl's. For the moment the whole wood seemed
+to belong to the sleeper at whom he was gazing, and he felt the
+confusion of one who accidentally invades the privacy of a maiden's
+room. Here was no fairy princess to be wakened with a kiss, but a
+helpless woman who must be guarded as long as she slept, and he was a
+knight in homespun appointed to keep the watch. He knew, though no poet
+had ever told him, that sleep is "a holy thing." If it had been
+possible, he would have silenced the songs of the birds, and he held his
+breath as he turned and tiptoed softly away, looking timidly back now
+and then to see if she still slept. When he had gone a few rods, he
+stepped out of the path and took his place behind the trunk of a tree.
+Here he could watch and see that no other intruder passed by, and when
+she wakened he would be ready to follow her homeward flight. There were
+tasks at home awaiting his hand, but here was a work more important than
+any labor of farm or fireside. Steadfastly he watched and listened,
+while the sun sank lower, and the woods were filled with a golden glow
+like the radiance of many candles lighted in some great temple.
+
+Sleep is a mystery, and so is our awakening from sleep. Who can tell
+where the soul goes, when the body lies motionless, unseeing,
+unhearing, and who can tell what calls it back from those far and
+unremembered lands?
+
+It may have been the chill of the coming night as the sun went down, or
+the cry of a bird that summoned Miranda again to earth. She opened her
+eyes with a long, sighing breath. How heavenly to waken out of doors and
+see the blue sky and the swaying limbs of the trees instead of the
+cracked ceiling of her bedroom! Then, as full consciousness came back to
+her with memory of the day just passed, she saw that the sun was nearly
+down. Night was at hand; the birds were seeking their nests, and she
+must return to her home. With the thought of home came the thought of
+duty, of the undone work she had left behind her that morning, and her
+mother toiling in the gloomy kitchen. She sprang up, every sense alert,
+turned her face in the direction of home, and took the nearest path
+through the underbrush.
+
+The watcher by the tree heard her flying steps and breathed a sigh of
+relief. He moved cautiously around the trunk of the oak and waited till
+he was sure she was out of the wood. Then he followed her trail and
+caught sight of her half-way across the plowed field. He watched till
+she was safe inside the pasture and then retraced his steps to the dead
+tree. Had he been living in a dream? No, for here were the withered
+violets lying on the ground witnessing to the reality of the last few
+hours. He gathered up the poor, limp flowers, placed them carefully in
+his waistcoat pocket and walked rapidly homeward.
+
+The sun was just on the horizon line, when Miranda reached the garden
+gate, and the splendor of light all around made her pause and look back
+to the glowing West. Clouds were gathering for a storm; every cloud was
+a mount of transfiguration, golden-hued or rose-colored, and the evening
+sky was pierced by long arrows of light that grew brighter and more
+far-reaching as the great central light sank lower behind the little
+hills. The wind was blowing across the fields, carrying with it the
+fragrance that night draws from the heart of the forest. One moment the
+sad magnificence of dying day held her spellbound, then conscience spoke
+again, and she hurried into the kitchen. The golden light was streaming
+into the room, bringing out all its ugliness and disorder, and her
+mother was standing by the table just where Miranda had left her that
+morning.
+
+"This is a pretty time of day for you to come home. Where have you been
+all this time?" She looked at her daughter with cold displeasure, but
+under the displeasure Miranda saw the expression of despair and
+weariness that comes of unrecompensed toil, and a pang of remorse went
+through her heart. She took her mother by the shoulders and gently
+pushed her away from the table.
+
+"Go out and sit on the porch, Mother, and look at the sky. I'll get
+supper, and to-morrow I'll begin the house cleaning."
+
+There was something in the girl's voice that checked the rising anger in
+her mother's heart and stilled the upbraiding words that were on her
+lips. She looked searchingly at her daughter and then turned silently
+away. Miranda went to work with a willingness that surprised herself.
+All the weariness and disgust of the morning were gone. She had
+voluntarily resumed the shackles of duty, but as she worked she looked
+out of the window to catch glimpses of the fading splendor that was
+rounding out her flawless day, and in her heart she resolved that as
+long as she lived, no spring should pass without a day in the woods. She
+had eaten nothing since morning, but the mood of exaltation was still
+upon her, and even the odor of the food she cooked roused no sense of
+hunger. She thought of a Bible text learned when she was a child: "Man
+doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
+the mouth of God." Perhaps all the splendor of color and light, all the
+opulence of perfume and warmth and music that make spring are words of
+God. All day she had been living by those words, and she knew the
+meaning of another occult saying of Christ: "I have meat to eat that ye
+know not of."
+
+She placed the evening meal on the table, called the family, and served
+them more cheerfully than ever before; and when they had eaten, she
+cleared the table and washed the dishes, while her mother rested again
+on the porch. Her hands moved mechanically over the work. She could hear
+the voices of her father and brothers; they were talking about crops and
+the weather, and the planting that must be done that week. Now and then
+her mother put in a word of querulous complaining over the hardship of
+the day just passed and of all those that were to come. She heard it as
+in a dream for still "the holy spirit of the spring" possessed her, and
+it seemed strange and unbelievable that people could be troubled over
+such trifles as sweeping and cleaning and cooking, when there were the
+woods and the great, deep peace of the woods in which all such cares
+might be forgotten.
+
+After she had set the table for breakfast, she went out on the porch.
+Her mother and the boys had gone up-stairs to bed, and her father was
+knocking the ashes from his pipe and yawning loudly. She sat down on the
+bench beside him and laid her hand on his knee. Such a thing as a caress
+had not passed between father and daughter since the latter had outgrown
+her childhood, and the man turned in surprise and peered through the
+gloom at the face of the girl, as if seeking an explanation of that
+familiar touch.
+
+"Your mother says you been roamin' around in the woods all day,
+Mirandy," he said awkwardly. "That ain't safe for a girl. Don't you know
+that?"
+
+"I wasn't afraid," she answered; "and, Father, I want to ask a favor of
+you." Her voice had the eager pleading of a child's. "I want you to go
+walkin' with me in the woods next Sunday, just like we used to do when I
+was a little girl." Something in her voice and the words "when I was a
+little girl" touched a chord of memory that had not vibrated for many a
+year. Perhaps the tired, hard-worked man had a glimpse of the meagerness
+of his child's life, for he laid his rough hand over hers and spoke with
+the voice she remembered he had used when she was "a little girl."
+
+"Why, that's a curious notion, Mirandy," he said. "What'll the preacher
+say, if he hears we've gone walkin' in the woods on Sunday instead of
+goin' to church? But I'll go just to please you, provided the weather's
+suitable. Now, le's shut up the house and go to bed. It's time everybody
+was asleep."
+
+They went in together, and while her father closed the doors and put
+down the windows in anticipation of the coming rain, Miranda lighted her
+lamp in the kitchen and went softly up-stairs. She still felt the
+delicious sleepiness that comes from breathing outdoor air all day, and
+her nap in the woods seemed only to have given her a longing for more
+sleep.
+
+At the head of the stairs were the soap and water still waiting to be
+used, but she could look at them now without any of the irritation she
+had felt that morning, for she knew the hidden meaning of the work that
+lay before her. Was not Nature cleaning the whole earth, purifying it
+with her sunshine and her wind, and washing it with her dew and rain? If
+men and women could only live in the wind and sun with no shelter but
+the branches of the trees! But since they must have houses, these, too,
+must know the wholesome touch of wind, sun, and water. Lovely pictures
+of clouds, trees, fields, birds, and flowers filled her brain and made
+more apparent the ugliness of her room. Her sense of smell, sharpened by
+breathing forest air, took instant note of the musty odors that came
+from walls, floors, and clothing. She pushed the bedstead near the
+window so that she might feel the night air blowing over her face as she
+slept and resolved that the next night should find that room as like to
+a nook in the woods as she could make it; and when the scrubbing and
+whitewashing were over, she would go again and again to the woods and
+gather the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn to sweeten the air of
+the old house. As she blew out the lamp, there was a rumble of thunder
+from the west; a wind with the smell of rain swept through the dark
+room, and, laying her head on the pillow, she smiled to think how the
+creatures of the forest would look and feel in the scented night and the
+falling rain. All the spring landscape on which she had gazed that day
+seemed imprinted on her brain, and when she closed her eyes, it passed
+like a panorama before her inner vision: wind-swept trees whose leafy
+branches waved against the pale blue sky; tremulous shadows on the fresh
+greensward; flowers of the garden and flowers of the forest flushing,
+purpling, paling, flaming, glowing in orderly beds or in wild forest
+nooks; long grey fences outlining farms and roads; sunlight glinting on
+the wings of flying birds; misty hills and little valleys sloping down
+to the level of the fertile fields; glory of midday and greater glory of
+sunset softening into the quiet, star-lit evening skies.
+
+What need of the painter's canvas and brush when the soul can thus
+imprint on its records Beauty's every line and every color to be
+recalled instantly from the shadows of time by Memory's magic art?
+
+The thunder muttered fitfully, and presently the rain came, dashing
+against the roof like a rattle of musketry, then quieting to a steady
+downpour that promised to last all night. She lay still, listening
+drowsily to the music of the storm and seeing through her closed eyelids
+the flashes of lightning. She was not tired, only sleepy and happy. The
+same calm that enveloped her in the forest was around her now, and soon
+she was sleeping as deeply and sweetly as she had slept in the
+afternoon. And while she slept, the man who had guarded her forest
+slumber sat in the darkness, dreaming, and gazing at a picture that
+would never fade from his brain: In the midst of the living forest a
+dead tree, and at its foot a sleeping girl holding a bunch of withered
+violets.
+
+Ah, well! The perfect day was over and never again would come another
+like it. To-morrow the sleeper and the dreamer would wake and rise to
+the old, dull routine of daily toil and daily weariness, but though the
+day was gone, its grace would abide forever, and life could never be
+quite the same to the one who had met face to face with the True
+Romance, and to the other who had lived, for a few charmed hours, the
+life of the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_By the author of "The Land of Long Ago."_
+
+
+AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY
+
+
+_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
+
+Illustrated by Beulah Strong. 12mo. Cloth. $1.30 _net_
+
+
+Aunt Jane is perfectly delightful.--_The Outlook_, New York.
+
+A book that plays on the heart strings.--_St. Louis Post-Despatch._
+
+What Mrs. Gaskill did in "Cranford" this author does for
+Kentucky.--_Syracuse Herald._
+
+A prose idyl. Nothing more charming has appeared in recent
+fiction.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+These pages have in them much of the stuff that makes genuine
+literature.--_Louisville Courier Journal._
+
+Where so many have made caricatures of old-time country folk, Eliza
+Calvert Hall has caught at once the real charm, the real spirit, the
+real people, and the real joy of living which was theirs.--_New York
+Times._
+
+Have you read that charming little book written by one of your clever
+Kentucky women--"Aunt Jane of Kentucky"--by Eliza Calvert Hall? It is
+very wholesome and attractive. Be sure that you read it.--THEODORE
+ROOSEVELT.
+
+LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_By the Author of "Aunt Jane of Kentucky"_
+
+
+THE LAND OF LONG AGO
+
+
+_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
+
+Illustrated by G. Patrick Nelson and Beulah Strong 12mo. Cloth. $1.30
+_net_
+
+
+The book is an inspiration.--_Boston Globe._
+
+Without qualification one of the worthiest publications of the
+year.--_Pittsburg Post._
+
+Aunt Jane has become a real personage in American literature.--_Hartford
+Courant._
+
+A philosophy sweet and wholesome flows from the lips of "Aunt
+Jane."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+The sweetness and sincerity of Aunt Jane's recollections have the same
+unfailing charm found in "Cranford."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+To a greater degree than her previous work it touches the heart by its
+wholesome, quaint human appeal.-_Boston Transcript._
+
+The stories are prose idyls; the illuminations of a lovely spirit
+shine upon them, and their literary quality is as rare as
+beautiful.--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+MARGARET E. SANGSTER says: "It is not often that an author competes with
+herself, but Eliza Calvert Hall has done so successfully, for her second
+volume centred about Aunt Jane is more fascinating than her first."
+
+
+LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
+
+34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_By the author of "Aunt Jane of Kentucky"_
+
+
+TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH
+
+
+_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
+
+Author of "The Land of Long Ago," "Sally Ann's Experience," etc.
+
+Illustrated by J. V. McFall. $1.00 _net_
+
+
+A story of vital human quality.--_Boston Transcript._
+
+A Kentucky idyl, pure, sweet, fragrant.--_Los Angeles Herald._
+
+Her work has a quality all its own, bespeaking a deep and spiritual
+individuality in the author.--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+A simple, sweet, wholesome idyl dealing with some of the great issues of
+life in a spirit of love and sacrifice.... Another instance where
+simplicity is strength and beauty.--_Detroit Free Press._
+
+It is a story which flows as limpidly as a mountain brook, and leaves a
+peculiar sense of clear impressions behind it that is a tribute to its
+good art.--_Christian Science Monitor._
+
+Lofty of sentiment and as uplifting a tale of modern chivalry as any
+tale that the old romancers have evolved. In a word, it is an artistic
+gem.--_Springfield Union._
+
+LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
+
+34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Clover and Blue Grass, by Eliza Calvert Hall
+
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