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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Meadow Grass, by Alice Brown
+
+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: Meadow Grass
+
+Author: Alice Brown
+
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9367]
+This file was first posted on September 25, 2003]
+Last updated: May 23, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEADOW GRASS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A. Templeton, J. Sutherland, T. Allen and the
+PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MEADOW-GRASS
+
+TALES OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE
+
+By Alice Brown
+
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+NUMBER FIVE
+
+FARMER ELI'S VACATION
+
+AFTER ALL
+
+TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE
+
+HEMAN'S MA
+
+HEARTSEASE
+
+MIS' WADLEIGH'S GUEST
+
+A RIGHTEOUS BARGAIN
+
+JOINT OWNERS IN SPAIN
+
+AT SUDLEIGH FAIR
+
+BANKRUPT
+
+NANCY BOYD'S LAST SERMON
+
+STROLLERS IN TIVERTON
+
+
+
+
+TO M.G.R.
+
+
+
+
+LOVER OF WOODS AND FIELD AND SEA.
+
+
+
+
+NUMBER FIVE.
+
+
+We who are Tiverton born, though false ambition may have ridden us to
+market, or the world's voice incited us to kindred clamoring, have a
+way of shutting our eyes, now and then, to present changes, and seeing
+things as they were once, as they are still, in a certain sleepy yet
+altogether individual corner of country life. And especially do we
+delight in one bit of fine mental tracery, etched carelessly, yet for
+all time, so far as our own' short span is concerned, by the unerring
+stylus of youth: the outline of a little red schoolhouse, distinguished
+from the other similar structures within Tiverton bounds by "District
+No. V.," painted on a shingle, in primitive black letters, and nailed
+aloft over the door. Up to the very hollow which made its playground
+and weedy garden, the road was elm-bordered and lined with fair
+meadows, skirted in the background by shadowy pines, so soft they did
+not even wave; they only seemed to breathe. The treasures of the road!
+On either side, the way was plumed and paved with beauties so rare that
+now, disheartened dwellers in city streets, we covetously con over in
+memory that roaming walk to school and home again. We know it now for
+what it was, a daily progress of delight. We see again the old
+watering-trough, decayed into the mellow loveliness of gray lichen and
+greenest moss. Here beside the ditch whence the water flowed, grew the
+pale forget-me-not and sticky star-blossomed cleavers. A step farther,
+beyond the nook where the spring bubbled first, were the riches of the
+common roadway; and over the gray, lichen-bearded fence, the growth of
+stubbly upland pasture. Everywhere, in road and pasture too, thronged
+milkweed, odorous haunt of the bee and those frailest butterflies of
+the year, born of one family with drifting blossoms; and straightly
+tall, the solitary mullein, dust-covered but crowned with a gold softer
+and more to be desired than the pride of kings. Perhaps the carriage
+folk from the outer world, who sometimes penetrate Tiverton's leafy
+quiet, may wonder at the queer little enclosures of sticks and pebbles
+on many a bare, tree-shaded slope along the road. "Left there from some
+game!" they say to one another, and drive on, satisfied. But these are
+no mere discarded playthings, dear ignorant travellers! They are tokens
+of the mimic earnest with which child-life is ever seeking to sober
+itself, and rushing unsummoned into the workaday fields of an aimlessly
+frantic world. They are houses, and the stone boundaries are walls.
+This tree stump is an armchair, this board a velvet sofa. Not more
+truly is "this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog."
+
+Across the road, at easy running distance from the schoolhouse at
+noontime or recess, crawled the little river, with its inevitable
+"hole," which each mother's son was warned to avoid in swimming, lest
+he be seized with cramp there where the pool was bottomless. What eerie
+wonders lurked within the mirror of those shallow brown waters! Long
+black hairs cleaved and clung in their limpid flowing. To this day, I
+know not whether they were horse-hairs, far from home, or swaying
+willow roots; the boys said they were "truly" hairs of the kind
+destined to become snakes in their last estate; and the girls,
+listening, shivered with all Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along the
+backbone. Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. The
+peculiarity of a wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart's
+desire, if only you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossible
+premise defeats the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough,
+simply because you can't catch him in the first place. Yet the
+fascinating possibility is like a taste for drink, or the glamour of
+cards. Does the committee-man drive past to Sudleigh market, suggesting
+the prospect of a leisurely return that afternoon, and consequent
+dropping in to hear the geography class? Then do the laziest and most
+optimistic boys betake them hastily from their dinner-pails to the
+river, and spend their precious nooning in quest of the potent bug,
+through whose spell the unwelcome visit may be averted. The time so
+squandered in riotous gaming might have, fixed the afternoon's "North
+Poles and Equators" triumphantly in mind, to the everlasting defiance
+of all alien questioning; but no! for human delight lies ever in the
+unattainable. The committee-man comes like Nemesis, _aequo pede_, the
+lesson is unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher orders out the
+rack known as staying after school. But what durance beyond hours in
+the indescribably desolate schoolroom ever taught mortal boy to shun
+the delusive insect created for his special undoing? So long as the
+heart has woes of its own breeding, so long also will it dodge the
+discipline of labor, and grasp at the flicker of an easy success.
+
+On either side the little bridge (over which horses pounded with an
+ominous thunder and a rain of dust on the head of him who lingered
+beneath the sleepers, in a fearsome joy), the meadows were pranked with
+purple iris and whispering rushes, mingling each its sweetness with the
+good, rank smell of mud below. Here were the treasures of the
+water-course, close hidden, or blowing in the light of day. The pale,
+golden-hearted arrow-head neighbored the homespun pickerel-weed,
+and--oh, mysterious glory from an oozy bed!--luscious, sun-golden
+cow-lilies rose sturdily triumphant, dripping with color, glowing in
+sheen. The button-bush hung out her balls, and white alder painted the
+air with faint perfume; willow-herb built her bowery arches, and the
+flags were ever glancing like swords of roistering knights. These
+flags, be it known to such as have grown up in grievous ignorance of
+the lore inseparable from "deestrick school," hold the most practical
+significance in the mind of boy and girl; for they bring forth (I know
+we thought for our delight alone!) a delicacy known as flag-buds,
+everlastingly dear to the childish palate. These were devoured by the
+wholesale in their season, and little mouths grew oozy-green as those
+of happy beasties in June, from much champing and chewing. Did we lose
+our appetite for the delectable dinner-pail through such literal going
+to pasture? I think not. Tastes were elastic, in those days; and
+Nature, so bullied, durst seldom revolt.
+
+On one side, the nearest neighbor to the school lived at least a mile
+away; but on the other, the first house of all owned treasures manifold
+for the little squad who, though the day were wet or dry, fair or
+frowning, trotted thither at noon. Here were trees under which lay, in
+happy season, over-ripe Bartlett pears; here, too, was one
+mulberry-tree, whereof the suggestion was strange and wonderful, and
+the fruit less appealing to taste than to a mystical fancy. But outside
+the bank wall grew the balm-of-Gileads, in a stately, benevolent
+row,--trees of healing, of fragrance and romantic charm. No child ever
+sought the old home to beg pears and mulberries, or to fill the
+school-house pail at its dark-bosomed well, without bearing away a few
+of the leaves in a covetous grasp. Sweet treasure-trove these, to be
+pressed to fresh young faces, and held and patted in hot little palms,
+till they grew flabby but evermore fragrant, still diffusing over the
+dusty schoolroom that warm odor, whispering to those who read no corner
+but their own New England, of the myrrh and balsams of the East.
+
+We knew everything in those days, we aimless knights-errant with
+dinner-pail and slate; the dry, frosty hollow where gentians bloom when
+the pride of the field is over, the woody slopes of the hepatica's
+awakening, under coverlet of withered leaves, and the sunny banks where
+violets love to live with their good gossip, the trembling anemone. At
+noon, we roved abroad into solitudes so deep that even our unsuspecting
+hearts sometimes quaked with fear of dark and lonesomeness; and then we
+came trooping back at the sound of the bell, untamed, happy little
+savages, ready to settle, with a long breath, to the afternoon's drowsy
+routine. Arrant nonsense that! the boundary of British America and the
+conjugation of the verb _to be_! Who that might loll away the hours
+upon a bank in silken ease, needed aught even of computation or the
+tongues? He alone had inherited the earth.
+
+All the little figures flitting through those tranquil early dramas are
+so sharply drawn, so brightly colored still! I meet Melissa Crane
+sometimes nowadays, a prosperous matron with space enough on her broad
+back for the very largest plaid ever woven; but her present identity is
+hazy and unreal. I see instead, with a sudden throb of memory, the
+little Melissa, who, one recess, accepted a sugared doughnut from me,
+and said, with a quaint imitation of old folks' manner,--
+
+"I think your mother will be a real good cook, if she lives!"
+
+I hear of Susie Marden, who went out West, married, and grew up with
+the country in great magnificence; but to me she is and ever will be
+the little girl who made seventy pies, one Thanksgiving time, thereby
+earning the somewhat stinted admiration of those among us who could not
+cook. Many a great deed, tacitly promised in that springtime, never
+came to pass; many a brilliant career ingloriously ended. There was Sam
+Marshall. He could do sums to the admiration of class and teacher, and,
+Cuvier-like, evolve an entire flock from Colburn's two geese and a
+half. His memory was prodigious. He could name the Presidents, bound
+the States and Territories, and rattle off the list of prepositions so
+fast that you could almost see the spark-shower from his rushing wheels
+of thought. It was an understood thing among us, when Sam was in his
+teens, that he should at least enter the Senate; perhaps he would even
+be President, and scatter offices, like halfpence, among his scampering
+townsmen. But to-day he patiently does his haying--by hand! and "goes
+sleddin'" in the winter. The Senate is as far from him as the Polar
+Star, and I question whether he could even bear the crucial test of two
+geese and a half. Yet I still look upon him with a thrill of awe, as
+the man selected by the popular vote to represent us in fame's
+Valhalla, and mysteriously defeated by some unexpected move of the
+"unseen hand at a game."
+
+There were a couple of boys such good comrades as never to be happy
+save when together. They cared only for the games made for two; all
+their goods were tacitly held in common, and a tradition still lives
+that David, when a new teacher asked his exact age, claimed his
+comrade's birthday, and then wondered why everybody laughed. They had a
+way of wandering off together to the woods, on Saturday mornings, when
+the routine of chores could be hurried through, and always they bore
+with them a store of eggs, apples, or sweet corn, to be cooked in happy
+seclusion. All this raw material was stolen from the respective
+haylofts and gardens at home, though, as the fathers owned, with an
+appreciative grin, the boys might have taken it openly for the asking.
+That, however, would so have alloyed the charm of gypsying that it was
+not to be thought of for a moment; and they crept about on their
+foraging expeditions with all the caution of a hostile tribe. Blessed
+fathers and mothers to wink at the escapade, and happy boys, wise
+chiefly in their longing to be free! We had a theory that Jonathan and
+David would go into business together. Perhaps we thought of them in
+the same country store, their chairs tilted on either side of the
+air-tight stove, telling stories, in the intervals of custom, as they
+apparently did in their earlier estate. For, shy as they were in
+general company, they chatted together with an intense earnestness all
+day long; and it was one of the stock questions in our neighborhood,
+when the social light burned low,--
+
+"What under the sun do you s'pose Dave and Jont find to talk about?"
+
+Alas! again the world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood,
+they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathan
+married her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the other
+fled to the town, whence he never returned save for the briefest visit
+at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warm
+farmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face shows
+the record of a placid life; but David cannot know even this, save by
+hearsay, for he never sees them. He is a moneyed man, and not a year
+ago, gave the town a new library. But is he happy? Or does the old
+wound still show a ragged edge? For that may be, they tell us, even
+"when you come to forty year."
+
+Then, clad in brighter vestments of memory, there was the lad who
+earned unto himself much renown, even among his disapproving relatives,
+by running away from home, in quest of gold and glory. True, he was
+brought back at the end of three days, footsore and muddy, and with
+noble appetite for the griddle-cakes his mother cooked him in lieu of
+the traditional veal,--but all undaunted. He never tried it again, yet
+people say he has thrown away all his chances of a thrifty living by
+perpetual wandering in the woods with gun and fishing-rod, and that he
+is cursed with a deplorable indifference to the state of his fences and
+potato-patch. No one could call him an admirable citizen, but I am not
+sure that he has chosen the worser part; for who is so jovial and
+sympathetic on a winter evening, when the apples are passed, and even
+the shining cat purrs content before the blaze, or in the wood
+solitudes, familiar to him as his own house door?
+
+"Pa'tridges' nests?" he said, one spring, with a cock of his eye
+calculated to show at once a humorous recognition of his genius and his
+delinquencies. "Sartain! I wish I was as sure where I keep my scythe
+sned!"
+
+He has learned all the lore of the woods, the ways of "wild critters,"
+and the most efficacious means both to woo and kill them. Prim
+spinsters eye him acridly, as a man given over to "shif'less" ways, and
+wives set him up, like a lurid guidepost, before husbands prone to
+lapse from domestic thrift; but the dogs smile at him, and children,
+for whom he is ever ready to make kite or dory, though all his hay
+should mildew, or to string thimbleberries on a grass spear while
+supper cools within, tumble merrily at his heels. Such as he should
+never assume domestic relations, to be fettered with requirements of
+time and place. Let them rather claim maintenance from a grateful
+public, and live, like troubadours of old, ministrant to the general
+joy.
+
+Not all the memories of that early day are quite unspotted by remorse.
+Although we wore the mask of jocund faces and straightforward glance,
+we little people repeatedly proclaimed ourselves the victims of Adam's
+fall. Even then we needed to pray for deliverance from those passions
+which have since pursued us. There was the little bound girl who lived
+with a "selec'man's" wife, a woman with children of her own, but a hard
+taskmistress to the stranger within her gates. Poor little Polly! her
+clothes, made over from those of her mistress, were of dark, rough
+flannel, often in uncouth plaids and appalling stripes. Her petticoats
+were dyed of a sickly hue known as cudbar, and she wore heavy woollen
+stockings of the same shade. Polly got up early, to milk and drive the
+cows; she set the table, washed milkpans, and ran hither and thither on
+her sturdy cudbar legs, always willing, sometimes singing, and often
+with a mute, questioning look on her little freckled face, as if she
+had already begun to wonder why it has pleased God to set so many
+boundary lines over which the feeble may not pass. The selec'man's
+son--a heavy-faced, greedy boy--was a bully, and Polly became his butt;
+she did his tasks, hectored by him in private, and with a child's
+strange reticence, she never told even us how unbearable he made her
+life. We could see it, however; for not much remains hidden in that
+communistic atmosphere of the country neighborhood. But sometimes Polly
+revolted; her temper blazed up, a harmless flash in the pan, and then,
+it was said, Mis' Jeremiah took her to the shed-chamber and, trounced
+her soundly. I myself have seen her sitting at the little low window,
+when I trotted by, in the pride of young life, to "borry some
+emptin's," or the recipe for a new cake. Often she waved a timid hand
+to me; and I am glad to remember a certain sunny morning, illuminated
+now because I tossed her up a bright hollyhock in return. It was little
+to give out of a full and happy day; but Polly had nothing. Once she
+came near great good fortune,--and missed it! For a lady, who boarded a
+few weeks in the neighborhood, took a fancy to Polly, and was stirred
+to outspoken wrath by our tales of the severity of her life. She gave
+her a pretty pink cambric dress, and Polly wore it on "last day," at
+the end of the summer term. She was evidently absorbed in love of it,
+and sat, smoothing its shiny surface with her little cracked hand, so
+oblivious to the requirements of the occasion that she only looked up
+dazed when the teacher told her to describe the Amazon River, and
+unregretfully let the question pass. The lady meant to take Polly away
+with, her, but she fell sick with erysipelas in the face, and was
+hurried off to the city to be nursed, "a sight to behold," as everybody
+said. And whether she died, or whether she got well and forgot Polly,
+none of us ever heard. We only knew she did not return, bringing the
+odor of violets and the rustle of starched petticoats into our placid
+lives.
+
+But all these thoughts of Polly would be less wearing, when they come
+in the night-time knocking at the heart, if I could only remember her
+as glowing under the sympathy and loving-kindness of her little mates.
+Alas! it was not so. We were senseless little brutes, who, never having
+learned the taste of misery ourselves, had no pity for the misfortunes
+of others. She was, indeed, ill-treated; but what were we, to translate
+the phrase? She was an under dog, and we had no mercy on her. We
+"plagued" her, God forgive us! And what the word means, in its full
+horror, only a child can compass. We laughed at her cudbar petticoats,
+her little "chopped hands;" and when she stumbled over the arithmetic
+lesson, because she had been up at four o'clock every morning since the
+first bluebirds came, we laughed at that. Life in general seems to have
+treated Polly in somewhat the same way. I hear that she did not marry
+well, and that her children had begun to "turn out bad," when she died,
+prematurely bent and old, not many weeks ago. But when I think of what
+we might have given and what we did withhold, when I realize that one
+drop of water from each of us would have filled her little cup to
+overflowing, there is one compensating thought, and I murmur,
+conscience-smitten, "I'm glad she had the pink dress!"
+
+And now the little school is ever present with us, ours still for
+counsel or reproof. Its long-closed sessions are open, by day and
+night; and I suppose, as time goes on, and we drop into the estate of
+those who sit by the fireside, oblivious to present scenes, yet acutely
+awake to such as
+
+  "Flash upon that inward eye
+  Which is the bliss of solitude,"
+
+it will grow more and more lifelike and more near. Beside it, live all
+the joys of memory and many a long-past pain. For we who have walked in
+country ways, walk in them always, and with no divided love, even
+though brick pavements have been our chosen road this many a year. We
+follow the market, we buy and sell, and even run across the sea, to fit
+us with new armor for the soul, to guard it from the hurts of years;
+but ever do we keep the calendar of this one spring of life. Some
+unheard angelus summons us to days of feast and mourning; it may be the
+joy of the fresh-springing willow, or the nameless pain responsive to
+the croaking of frogs, in the month when twilights are misty, and waves
+of world-sorrow flood in upon the heart, we know not why. All those
+trembling half-thoughts of the sleep of the year and its awakening,--we
+have not escaped them by leaving the routine that brought them forth.
+We know when the first violets are blowing in the woods, and we paint
+for ourselves the tasselling of the alder and the red of maple-buds. We
+taste still the sting of checkerberry and woodsy flavor of the fragrant
+birch. When fields of corn are shimmering in the sun, we know exactly
+how it would seem to run through those dusty aisles, swept by that
+silken drapery, and counselled in whispers from the plumy tops so far
+above our heads. The ground-sparrow's nest is not strange to us; no,
+nor the partridge's hidden treasure within the wood. We can make
+pudding-bags of live-forever, dolls' bonnets, "trimmed up to the
+nines," out of the velvet mullein leaf, and from the ox-eyed daisies,
+round, cap-begirt faces, smiling as the sun. All the homely secrets of
+rural life are ours: the taste of pie, cinnamon-flavored, from the
+dinner-pails at noon; the smell of "pears a-b'ilin'," at that happiest
+hour when, in the early dusk, we tumble into the kitchen, to find the
+table set and the stove redolent of warmth and savor. "What you got for
+supper?" we cry,--question to be paralleled in the summer days by
+"What'd you have for dinner?" as, famished little bears, we rush to the
+dairy-wheel, to feed ravenously on the cold, delicious fragments of the
+meal eaten without us.
+
+If time ever stood still, if we were condemned to the blank solitude of
+hospital nights or becalmed, mid-ocean days, and had hours for
+fruitless dreaming, I wonder what viands we should choose, in setting
+forth a banquet from that ambrosial past! Foods unknown to poetry and
+song: "cold b'iled dish," pan-dowdy, or rye drop-cakes dripping with
+butter! For these do we taste, in moments of retrospect; and perhaps we
+dwell the more on their homely savor because we dare not think what
+hands prepared them for our use, or, when the board was set, what faces
+smiled. We are too wise, with the cunning prudence of the years, to
+penetrate over-far beyond the rosy boundary of youth, lest we find also
+that bitter pool which is not Lethe, but the waters of a vain regret.
+
+
+
+
+FARMER ELI'S VACATION
+
+
+"It don't seem as if we'd really got round to it, does it, father?"
+asked Mrs. Pike.
+
+The west was paling, and the August insects stirred the air with their
+crooning chirp. Eli and his wife sat together on the washing-bench
+outside the back door, waiting for the milk to cool before it should be
+strained. She was a large, comfortable woman, with an unlined face, and
+smooth, fine auburn hair; he was spare and somewhat bent, with curly
+iron-gray locks, growing thin, and crow's-feet about his deep-set gray
+eyes. He had been smoking the pipe of twilight contentment, but now he
+took it out and laid it on the bench beside him, uncrossing his legs
+and straightening himself, with the air of a man to whom it falls,
+after long pondering, to take some decisive step.
+
+"No; it don't seem as if 'twas goin' to happen," he owned. "It looked
+pretty dark to me, all last week. It's a good deal of an undertakin',
+come to think it all over. I dunno's I care about goin'."
+
+"Why, father! After you've thought about it so many years, an' Sereno's
+got the tents strapped up, an' all! You must be crazy!"
+
+"Well," said the farmer, gently, as he rose and went to carry the
+milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty!
+kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby
+rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose against the
+foaming saucer.
+
+Mrs. Pike came ponderously to her feet, and followed, with the heavy,
+swaying motion of one grown fleshy and rheumatic. She was not in the
+least concerned about Eli's change of mood. He was a gentle soul, and
+she had always been able to guide him in paths of her own choosing.
+Moreover, the present undertaking was one involving his own good
+fortune, and she meant to tolerate no foolish scruples which might
+interfere with its result. For Eli, though he had lived all his life
+within easy driving distance of the ocean, had never seen it, and ever
+since his boyhood he had cherished one darling plan,--some day he would
+go to the shore, and camp out there for a week. This, in his starved
+imagination, was like a dream of the Acropolis to an artist stricken
+blind, or as mountain outlines to the dweller in a lonely plain. But
+the years had flitted past, and the dream never seemed nearer
+completion. There were always planting, haying, and harvesting to be
+considered; and though he was fairly prosperous, excursions were
+foreign to his simple habit of life. But at last, his wife had stepped
+into the van, and organized an expedition, with all the valor of a
+Francis Drake.
+
+"Now, don't you say one word, father," she had said. "We're goin' down
+to the beach, Sereno, an' Hattie, an' you an' me, an' we're goin' to
+camp out. It'll do us all good."
+
+For days before the date of the excursion, Eli had been solemn and
+tremulous, as with joy; but now, on the eve of the great event, he
+shrank back from it, with an undefined notion that it was like death,
+and that he was not prepared. Next morning, however, when they all rose
+and took their early breakfast, preparatory to starting at five, he
+showed no sign of indecision, and even went about his outdoor tasks
+with an alacrity calculated, as his wife approvingly remarked, to
+"for'ard the v'y'ge." He had at last begun to see his way clear, and he
+looked well satisfied when his daughter Hattie and Sereno, her husband,
+drove into the yard, in a wagon cheerfully suggestive of a wandering
+life. The tents and a small hair-trunk were stored in the back, and the
+horse's pail swung below.
+
+"Well, father," called Hattie, her rosy face like a flower under the
+large shade-hat she had trimmed for the occasion, "guess we're goin' to
+have a good day!"
+
+He nodded from the window, where he was patiently holding his head high
+and undergoing strangulation, while his wife, breathing huskily with
+haste and importance, put on his stock.
+
+"You come in, Hattie, an' help pack the doughnuts into that lard-pail
+on the table," she called. "I guess you'll have to take two pails. They
+ain't very big."
+
+At length, the two teams were ready, and Eli mounted to his place,
+where he looked very slender beside his towering mate. The hired man
+stood leaning on the pump, chewing a bit of straw, and the cats rubbed
+against his legs, with tails like banners; they were all impressed by a
+sense of the unusual.
+
+"Well, good-by, Luke," Mrs. Pike called, over her shoulder; and Eli
+gave the man a solemn nod, gathered up the reins, and drove out of the
+yard. Just outside the gate, he pulled up.
+
+"Whoa!" he called, and Luke lounged forward. "Don't you forgit them
+cats! Git up, Doll!" And this time, they were gone.
+
+For the first ten miles of the way, familiar in being the road to
+market, Eli was placidly cheerful. The sense that he was going to do
+some strange deed, to step into an unknown country, dropped away from
+him, and he chatted, in his intermittent, serious fashion, of the crops
+and the lay of the land.
+
+"Pretty bad job up along here, ain't it, father?" called Sereno, as
+they passed a sterile pasture where two plodding men and a yoke of oxen
+were redeeming the soil from its rocky fetters.
+
+"There's a good deal o' pastur', in some places, that ain't fit for
+nothin' but to hold the world together," returned Eli; and then he was
+silent, his eyes fixed on Doll's eloquent ears, his mouth working a
+little. For this progress through a less desirable stratum of life
+caused him to cast a backward glance over his own smooth, middle-aged
+road.
+
+"We've prospered, 'ain't we, Maria?" he said, at last; and his wife,
+unconsciously following his thoughts, in the manner of those who have
+lived long together, stroked her black silk _visite_, and answered,
+with a well-satisfied nod:
+
+"I guess we 'ain't got no cause to complain."
+
+The roadside was parched under an August sun; tansy was dust-covered,
+and ferns had grown ragged and gray. The jogging horses left behind
+their lazy feet a suffocating cloud.
+
+"My land!" cried Mrs. Pike, "if that ain't goldenrod! I do b'lieve it
+comes earlier every year, or else the seasons are changin'. See them
+elderberries! Ain't they purple! You jest remember that bush, an' when
+we go back, we'll fill some pails. I dunno when I've made elderberry
+wine."
+
+Like her husband, she was vaguely excited; she began to feel as if life
+would be all holidays. At noon, they stopped under the shadow of an
+elm-tree which, from its foothold in a field, completely arched the
+road; and there they ate a lunch of pie and doughnuts, while the
+horses, freed from their headstalls, placidly munched a generous feed
+of oats, near by. Hattie and her mother accepted this picnicking with
+an air of apologetic amusement; and when one or two passers-by looked
+at them, they smiled a little at vacancy, with the air of wishing it
+understood that they were by no means accustomed to such
+irregularities.
+
+"I guess they think we're gypsies," said Hattie, as one carriage rolled
+past.
+
+"Well, they needn't trouble themselves," returned her mother, rising
+with difficulty to brush the crumbs from her capacious lap. "I guess
+I've got as good an extension-table to home as any on 'em."
+
+But Eli ate sparingly, and with a preoccupied and solemn look.
+
+"Land, father!" exclaimed his wife, "you 'ain't eat no more'n a bird!
+
+"I guess I'll go over to that well," said he, "an' git a drink o'
+water. I drink more'n I eat, if I ain't workin'." But when he came
+back, carefully bearing a tin pail brimming with cool, clear water, his
+face expressed strong disapprobation, and he smacked his lips
+scornfully.
+
+"Terrible flat water!" he announced. "Tastes as if it come out o' the
+cistern." But the others could find no fault with it, and Sereno
+drained the pail.
+
+"Pretty good, I call it," he said; and Mrs. Pike rejoined,--
+
+"You always was pretty particular about water, father."
+
+But Eli still shook his head, and ejaculated, "Brackish, brackish!" as
+he began to put the bit in Doll's patient mouth. He was thinking, with
+a passion of loyalty, of the clear, ice-cold water at home, which had
+never been shut out, by a pump, from the purifying airs of heaven, but
+lay where the splashing bucket and chain broke, every day, the image of
+moss and fern. His throat grew parched and dry with longing.
+
+When they were within three miles of the sea, it seemed to them that
+they could taste the saltness of the incoming breeze; the road was
+ankle-deep in dust; the garden flowers were glaring in their
+brightness. It was a new world. And when at last they emerged from the
+marsh-bordered road upon a ridge of sand, and turned a sudden corner,
+Mrs. Pike faced her husband in triumph.
+
+"There, father!" she cried. "There 'tis!"
+
+But Eli's eyes were fixed on the dashboard in front of him. He looked
+pale.
+
+"Why, father," said she, impatiently, "ain't you goin' to look? It's
+the sea!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Eli, quietly; "byme-by. I'm goin' to put the horses up
+fust."
+
+"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Pike; and as they drew up on the sandy tract
+where Sereno had previously arranged a place for their tents, she
+added, almost fretfully, turning to Hattie, "I dunno what's come over
+your father. There's the water, an' he won't even cast his eyes at it."
+
+But Hattie understood her father, by some intuition of love, though not
+of likeness.
+
+"Don't you bother him, ma," she said. "He'll make up his mind to it
+pretty soon. Here, le's lift out these little things, while they're
+unharnessin', and then they can get at the tents."
+
+Mrs. Pike's mind was diverted by the exigencies of labor, and she said
+no more; but after the horses had been put up at a neighboring house,
+and Sereno, red-faced with exertion, had superintended the
+tent-raising, Hattie slipped her arm through her father's, and led him
+away.
+
+"Come, pa," she said, in a whisper; "le's you and me climb over on them
+rocks."
+
+Eli went; and when they had picked their way over sand and pools to a
+headland where the water thundered below, and salt spray dashed up in
+mist to their feet, he turned and looked at the sea. He faced it as a
+soul might face Almighty Greatness, only to be stricken blind
+thereafter; for his eyes filled painfully with slow, hot tears. Hattie
+did not look at him, but after a while she shouted in his ear, above
+the outcry of the surf,--
+
+"Here, pa, take my handkerchief. I don't know how 'tis about you, but
+this spray gets in my eyes."
+
+Eli took it obediently, but he did not speak; he only looked at the
+sea. The two sat there, chilled and quite content, until six o'clock,
+when Mrs. Pike came calling to them from the beach, with dramatic
+shouts, emphasized by the waving of her ample apron,--
+
+"Supper's ready! Sereno's built a bum-fire, an' I've made some tea!"
+
+Then they slowly made their way back to the tents, and sat down to the
+evening meal. Sereno seemed content, and Mrs. Pike was bustling and
+triumphant; the familiar act of preparing food had given her the
+feeling of home.
+
+"Well, father, what think?" she asked, smiling exuberantly, as she
+passed him his mug of tea. "Does it come up to what you expected?"
+
+Eli turned upon her his mild, dazed eyes.
+
+"I guess it does," he said, gently.
+
+That night, they sat upon the shore while the moon rose and laid in the
+water her majestic pathway of light. Eli was the last to leave the
+rocks, and he lay down on his hard couch in the tent, without speaking.
+
+"I wouldn't say much to father," whispered Hattie to her mother, as
+they parted for the night. "He feels it more 'n we do."
+
+"Well, I s'pose he is some tired," said Mrs. Pike, acquiescing, after a
+brief look of surprise. "It's a good deal of a jaunt, but I dunno but I
+feel paid a'ready. Should you take out your hair-pins, Hattie?"
+
+She slept soundly and vocally, but her husband did not close his eyes.
+He looked, though he could see nothing, through the opening in the
+tent, in the direction where lay the sea, solemnly clamorous, eternally
+responsive to some infinite whisper from without his world. The tension
+of the hour was almost more than he could bear; he longed for morning,
+in sharp suspense, with a faint hope that the light might bring relief.
+Just as the stars faded, and one luminous line pencilled the east, he
+rose, smoothed his hair, and stepped softly out upon the beach. There
+he saw two shadowy figures, Sereno and Hattie. She hurried forward to
+meet him.
+
+"You goin' to see the sunrise, too, father?"
+she asked. "I made Sereno come. He's awful mad at bein' waked up."
+
+Eli grasped her arm.
+
+"Hattie," he said, in a whisper, "don't you tell. I jest come out to
+see how 'twas here, before I go. I'm goin' home,--I'm goin' _now_."
+
+"Why, father!" said Hattie; but she peered more closely into his face,
+and her tone changed. "All right," she added, cheerfully. "Sereno'll go
+and harness up."
+
+"No; I'm goin' to walk."
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"I don't mean to breakup your stayin' here, nor your mother's. You tell
+her how 'twas. I'm goin' to walk."
+
+Hattie turned and whispered to her husband for a moment. Then she took
+her father's hand.
+
+"I'll slip into the tent and put you up somethin' for your breakfast
+and luncheon," she said. "Sereno's gone to harness; for, pa, you must
+take one horse, and you can send Luke back with it Friday, so's we can
+get the things home. What do we want of two horses down here, at two
+and ninepence a day? I guess I know!"
+
+So Eli yielded; but before his wife appeared, he had turned his back on
+the sea, where the rose of dawn was fast unfolding. As he jogged
+homeward, the dusty roadsides bloomed with flowers of paradise, and the
+insects' dry chirp thrilled like the song of angels. He drove into the
+yard just at the turning of the day, when the fragrant smoke of many a
+crackling fire curls cheerily upward, in promise of the evening meal.
+
+"What's busted?" asked Luke, swinging himself down from his load of
+fodder-corn, and beginning to unharness Doll.
+
+"Oh, nothin'," said Eli, leaping, from the wagon as if twenty years had
+been taken from his bones. "I guess I'm too old for such jaunts. I hope
+you didn't forgit them cats."
+
+
+
+
+AFTER ALL.
+
+
+"The land o' gracious!" said Mrs. Lothrop Wilson, laying down her
+"drawing-in hook" on the rug stretched between two chairs in the middle
+of the kitchen, and getting up to look from the window. "If there ain't
+Lucindy comin' out o' the Pitmans' without a thing on her head, an' all
+them little curls a-flyin'! An' the old Judge ain't cold in his grave!"
+
+"I guess the Judge won't be troubled with cold, any to speak of, arter
+this," said her husband from the window, where he sat eating his
+forenoon lunch of apple-pie and cheese. He was a cooper, and perhaps
+the pleasantest moment in his day was that when he slipped out of his
+shop, leaving a bit of paper tacked on the door to say he was "on
+errands," and walked soberly home for his bite and sup. "If he ain't
+good an' warm about now, then the Scriptur's ain't no more to be
+depended on than a last year's almanac."
+
+"Late Wilson, I'm ashamed of you," retorted his wife, looking at him
+with such reproof that, albeit she had no flesh to spare, she made
+herself a double chin. "An' he your own uncle, too! Well, he _was_
+nigh, I'll say that for him; an' if he'd had his way, the sun'd ha' riz
+an' set when he said the word. But Lucindy's his only darter, an' if
+she don't so much as pretend to be a mourner, I guess there ain't
+nobody that will. There! don't you say no more! She's comin' in here!"
+
+A light step sounded on the side piazza, and Lucindy came in, with a
+little delicate, swaying motion peculiar to her walk. She was a very
+slender woman, far past middle life, with a thin, smiling face, light
+blue eyes, shining with an eager brightness, and fine hair, which
+escaped from its tight twist in little spiral curls about the face.
+
+"How do, Jane?" she said, in an even voice, stirred by a pleasant,
+reedy thrill. "How do, Lote?"
+
+Lothrop pushed forward a chair, looking at her with an air of great
+kindliness. There was some slight resemblance between them, but the
+masculine type seemed entirely lacking in that bright alertness so
+apparent in her. Mrs. Wilson nodded, and went back to her drawing-in.
+She was making a very red rose with a pink middle.
+
+"I dunno's I can say I'm surprised to see you, Lucindy," she began,
+with the duteous aspect of one forced to speak her disapproval, "for I
+ketched you comin' out o' the Pitmans' yard."
+
+"Yes," said Lucindy, smiling, and plaiting her skirt between her
+nervous fingers. "Yes, I went in to see if they'd let me take Old
+Buckskin a spell to-morrow."
+
+"What under the sun--" began Mrs. Wilson; but her husband looked at
+her, and she stopped. He had become so used to constituting himself
+Lucindy's champion in the old Judge's day, now just ended, that he kept
+an unremitting watch on any one who might threaten her peace. But
+Lucindy evidently guessed at the unspoken question.
+
+"I should have come here, if I'd expected to drive," she said. "But I
+thought maybe your horse wa'n't much used to women, and I kind o'
+dreaded to be the first one to try him with a saddle."
+
+Mrs. Wilson put down her hook again, and leaned back in her chair. She
+looked from her husband to Lucindy, without speaking. But Lucindy went
+on, with the innocent simplicity of a happy child.
+
+"You know I was always possessed to ride horseback," she said,
+addressing herself to Lothrop, "and father never would let me. And now
+he ain't here, I mean to try it, and see if 'tain't full as nice as I
+thought."
+
+"Lucindy!" burst forth Mrs. Wilson, explosively, "ain't you goin' to
+pay no respect to your father's memory?"
+
+Lucindy turned to her, smiling still, but with a hint of quizzical
+shrewdness about her mouth.
+
+"I guess I ain't called on to put myself out," she said, simply, yet
+not irreverently. "Father had his way in pretty much everything while
+he was alive. I always made up my mind if I should outlive him, I'd
+have all the things I wanted then, when young folks want the most. And
+you know then I couldn't get 'em."
+
+"Well!" said Mrs. Wilson. Her tone spoke volumes of conflicting
+commentary.
+
+"You got a saddle?" asked Lucindy, turning to her cousin. "I thought I
+remembered you had one laid away, up attic. I suppose you'd just as
+soon I'd take it?"
+
+He was neither shocked nor amused. He had been looking at her very
+sadly, as one who read in every word the entire tragedy of a repressed
+and lonely life.
+
+"Yes, we have, Lucindy," he said, gently, quieting his wife by a motion
+of the hand, "but 'tain't what you think. It's a man's saddle. You'd
+have to set straddle.
+
+"Oh!" said Lucindy, a faint shade of disappointment clouding her face.
+"Well, no matter! I guess they've got one down to the Mardens'. Jane,
+should you just as soon come round this afternoon, and look over some
+bunnit trimmin's with me? I took two kinds of flowers home from Miss
+West's, and I can't for my life tell which to have."
+
+"Ain't you goin' to wear black?" Mrs. Wilson spoke now in double
+italics.
+
+"Oh, no! I don't feel called on to do that. I always liked bright
+colors, and I don't know's 'twould be real honest in me to put on
+mournin' when I didn't feel it."
+
+"'Honor thy father'--" began Jane, in spite of her husband's warning
+hand; but Lucindy interrupted her, with some perplexity.
+
+"I have, Jane, I have! I honored father all my life, just as much as
+ever I could. I done everything he ever told me, little and big! No,
+though, there's one thing I never fell in with. I did cheat him once. I
+don't know but I'm sorry for that, now it's all past and gone!"
+
+Her cousin had been drumming absently on the window-sill, but he looked
+up with awakened interest. Mrs. Wilson, too, felt a wholesale
+curiosity, and she, at least, saw no reason for curbing it.
+
+"What was it, Lucindy?" she asked. "The old hunks!" she repeated to
+herself, like an anathema.
+
+Lucindy began her confession, with eyes down-dropped and a faltering
+voice.
+
+"Father wanted I should have my hair done up tight and firm. So I
+pretended I done the best I could with it. I told him these curls round
+my face and down in my neck was too short, and I couldn't pin 'em up.
+But they wa'n't curls, and they wouldn't ha' been short if I hadn't cut
+'em. For every night, and sometimes twice a day, I curled 'em on a
+pipe-stem."
+
+"Ain't them curls nat'ral, Lucindy?" cried Mrs. Wilson. "Have you been
+fixin' 'em to blow round your face that way, all these years?"
+
+"I begun when I was a little girl," said Lucindy, guiltily. "It did
+seem kind o' wrong, but I took real pleasure in it!"
+
+Lothrop could bear no more. He wanted to wipe his eyes, but he chose
+instead to walk straight out of the room and down to his shop. His wife
+could only express a part of her amazement by demanding, in a futile
+sort of way,--
+
+"Where'd you get the pipe?"
+
+"I stole the first one from a hired man we had," said Lucindy, her
+cheeks growing pink. "Sometimes I had to use slate-pencils."
+
+There was no one else to administer judgment, and Mrs. Wilson felt the
+necessity.
+
+"Well," she began, "an' you can set there, tellin' that an' smilin'--"
+
+"My smilin' don't mean any more'n some other folks' cryin', I guess,"
+said Lucindy, smiling still more broadly. "I begun that more'n thirty
+years ago. I looked into the glass one day, and I see the corners of my
+mouth were goin' down. Sharper 'n, vinegar, I was! So I says to myself,
+'I can smile, whether or no. Nobody can't help that!' And I did, and
+now I guess I don't know when I do it."
+
+"Well!"
+
+Lucindy rose suddenly and brushed her lap, as if she dusted away
+imaginary cares.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, "I've said more this mornin' than I have for
+forty year! Don't you lead me on to talk about what's past and gone!
+The only thing is, I mean to have a good time now, what there is left
+of it. Some things you can't get back, and some you can. Well, you step
+round this afternoon, won't you?"
+
+"I dunno's I can. John's goin' to bring Claribel up, to spend the
+arternoon an' stay to supper."
+
+"Why, dear heart! that needn't make no difference. I should admire to
+have her, too. I'll show her some shells and coral I found this
+mornin', up attic."
+
+Lucindy had almost reached the street when she turned, as with a sudden
+resolution, and retraced her steps.
+
+"Jane," she called, looking in at the kitchen window. "It's a real
+bright day, pretty as any 't ever I see. Don't you worry for fear o' my
+disturbin' them that's gone, if I do try to ketch at somethin'
+pleasant. If they're wiser now, I guess they'll be glad I had sense
+enough left to do it!"
+
+That afternoon, Mrs. Wilson, in her best gingham and checked sunbonnet,
+took her way along the village street to the old Judge Wilson house. It
+was a colonial mansion, sitting austerely back in a square yard. In
+spite of its prosperity, everything about it wore a dreary air, as if
+it were tired of being too well kept; for houses are like people, and
+carry their own indefinable atmosphere with them. Mrs. Wilson herself
+lived on a narrower and more secluded street, though it was said that
+her husband, if he had not defied the old Judge in some crucial matter,
+might have studied law with him, and possibly shared his speculations
+in wool. Then he, too, might have risen to be one of the first men in
+the county, instead of working, in his moderate fashion, for little
+more than day's wages. Claribel, a pale, dark-eyed child, also dressed
+in her best gingham, walked seriously by her grandmother's side.
+Lucindy was waiting for them at the door.
+
+"I declare!" she called, delightedly. "I was 'most afraid you'd forgot
+to come! Well, Claribel, if you 'ain't grown! They'll have to put a
+brick on your head, or you'll be taller'n grandma."
+
+Claribel submitted to be kissed, and they entered the large, cool
+sitting-room, where they took off their things.
+
+"You make yourself at home, Jane," said Lucindy, fluttering about, in
+pleasant excitement. "I ain't goin' to pay you a mite of attention till
+I see Claribel fixed. Now, Claribel, remember! you can go anywheres
+you're a mind to. And you can touch anything there is. You won't find a
+thing a little girl can hurt. Here, you come here where I be, and look
+across the entry. See that big lamp on the table? Well, if you unhook
+them danglin' things and peek through 'em, you'll find the brightest
+colors! My, how pretty they be! I've been lookin' through 'em this
+mornin'. I used to creep in and do it when I was little," she
+continued, in an aside to Mrs. Wilson. "Once I lost one." A strange
+look settled on her face; she was recalling a bitter experience.
+"There!" she said, releasing Claribel with a little hug, "now run
+along! If you look on the lower shelf of the what-not, you'll see some
+shells and coral I put there for just such a little girl."
+
+Claribel walked soberly away to her playing.
+
+"Don't you hurt nothin'!" called Mrs. Wilson; and Claribel responded
+properly,--
+
+"No, 'm."
+
+"There!" said Lucindy, watching the precise little back across the
+hall, "Now le's talk a mite about vanity. You reach me that green box
+behind your chair. Here's the best flowers Miss West had for what I
+wanted. Here's my bunnit, too. You see what you think."
+
+She set the untrimmed bonnet on her curls, and laid first a bunch of
+bright chrysanthemums against it, and then some strange lavender roses.
+The roses turned her complexion to an ivory whiteness, and her anxious,
+intent expression combined strangely with that undesirable effect.
+
+"My soul, Lucindy!" cried Mrs. Wilson, startled into a more robust
+frankness than usual, "you do look like the Old Nick!"
+
+A shade came over Miss Lucindy's honest face. It seemed, for a moment,
+as if she were going to cry.
+
+"Don't you like 'em, Jane?" she asked, appealingly. "Won't neither of
+'em do?"
+
+Mrs. Wilson was not incapable of compunction, but she felt also the
+demands of the family honor.
+
+"Well, Lucindy," she began, soothingly, "now 'tain't any use, is it,
+for us to say we ain't gettin' on in years? We be! You 're my age,
+an'--Why, look at Claribel in there! What should you say, if you see me
+settin' out to meetin' with red flowers on my bunnit? I should be
+nothin' but a laughin'-stock!"
+
+Lucindy laid the flowers back in their box, with as much tenderness as
+if they held the living fragrance of a dream.
+
+"Well!" she said, wistfully. Then she tried to smile.
+
+"Here!" interposed Mrs. Wilson, not over-pleased with the part she felt
+called upon to play, "you give me your bunnit. Don't I see your old
+sheaf o'wheat in the box? Let me pin it on for you. There, now, don't
+that look more suitable?"
+
+By the time she had laid it on, in conventional flatness, and held it
+up for inspection, every trace of rebellion had apparently been
+banished from Lucindy's mind.
+
+"Here," said the victim of social rigor, "you hand me the box, and I'll
+set it away."
+
+They had a cosey, old-fashioned chat, touching upon nothing in the
+least revolutionary, and Mrs. Wilson was glad to think Lucindy had
+forgotten all about the side-saddle. This last incident of the bonnet,
+she reflected, showed how much real influence she had over Lucindy. She
+must take care to exert it kindly but seriously now that the old Judge
+was gone.
+
+"You goin' to keep your same help?" she asked, continuing the
+conversation.
+
+"Oh, yes! I wouldn't part with Ann Toby for a good deal. She's goin' to
+have her younger sister come to live with us now. We shall be a passel
+o' women, sha'n't we?"
+
+"I guess it's well for you Ann Toby's what she is, or she'd cheat you
+out o' your eye-teeth!"
+
+"Well," answered Lucindy, easily, "I ain't goin' to worry about my
+eye-teeth. If I be cheated out of 'em, I guess I can get a new set."
+
+At five o'clock, they had some cookies, ostensibly for Claribel, since
+Mrs. Wilson could not stay to tea; and then, when the little maid had
+taken hers out to the front steps, Lucindy broached a daring plan, that
+moment conceived.
+
+"Say, Jane," she whispered, with great pretence of secrecy, "what do
+you think just come into my head? Do you s'pose Mattie would be put
+out, if I should give Claribel a hat?"
+
+"Mercy sakes, no! all in the family so! But what set you out on that?
+She's got a good last year's one now, an' the ribbin's all pressed out
+an' turned, complete."
+
+"I'll tell you," Said Lucindy, leaning nearer, and speaking as if she
+feared the very corners might hear. "You know I never was allowed to
+wear bright colors. And to this day, I see the hats the other girls
+had, blue on 'em, and pink. And if I could stand by and let a little
+girl pick out a hat for herself, without a word said to stop her,
+'twould be real agreeable to me." Lucindy was shrewd enough to express
+herself somewhat moderately. She knew by experience how plainly Jane
+considered it a duty to discourage any overmastering emotion. But Jane
+Wilson was, at the same instant, feeling very keenly that Lucindy,
+faded and old as she was, needed to be indulged in all her riotous
+fancies. She repressed the temptation, however, at its birth.
+
+"Why, I dunno's there's anything in the way of it," she said, soberly.
+
+"Then, if you must go, I'll walk right along now. Claribel and I'll go
+down to Miss West's, and see what she's got. Nothin''s to be gained by
+waitin'!"
+
+When they walked out through the hall together, Lucindy cast a quick
+and eager glance into the parlor. She almost hoped Claribel had
+unhooked the glass prisms from the lamp, and left them scattered on the
+floor, or that she had broken the precious shells, more than half a
+century old. She wanted to put her arms round her, and say fondly,
+"Never mind!" But the room was in perfect order, and little Claribel
+waited for them, conscious of a propriety unstained by guilt.
+
+"Lucindy," said Mrs. Wilson, who also had used her eyes, "where's your
+father's canes? They al'ays stood right here in this corner."
+
+Lucindy flushed.
+
+"Jane," she whispered, "don't you tell, but I--I buried 'em! I felt
+somehow as if I couldn't--do the things I wanted to, if they set there
+just the same."
+
+Jane could only look at her in silence.
+
+"Well," she said, at length, "it takes all kinds o' people to make a
+world!"
+
+That, at least, was non-committal.
+
+She left the shoppers at her own gate, and they walked on together.
+Lucindy was the more excited of the two.
+
+"Now, Claribel," she was saying, "you remember you can choose any hat
+you see, and have it trimmed just the way you like. What color do you
+set by most?"
+
+"I don't know," said Claribel. "Blue, I guess."
+
+"Well, there's a hat there all trimmed with it. I see it this mornin'.
+Real bright, pretty blue! I believe there was some little noddin'
+yellow flowers on it, too. But mind you don't take it unless you like
+it."
+
+Miss West's shop occupied the front room of her house, a small yellow
+one on a side street. The upper part of the door was of glass, and it
+rang a bell as it opened. Lucindy had had very few occasions for going
+there, and she entered with some importance. The bell clanged; and Miss
+West, a portly woman, came in from the back room, whisking off her
+apron in haste.
+
+"Oh, that you, Miss Lucindy?" she called. "I've just been fryin' some
+riz doughnuts. Well, how'd the flowers suit?"
+
+"I haven't quite made up my mind," said Lucindy, trying to speak with
+the dignity befitting her quest. "I just come in with little Claribel
+here. She's goin' to have a new hat, and her grandma said she might
+come down with me to pick it out. You've got some all trimmed, I
+believe?"
+
+Miss West opened a drawer in an old-fashioned bureau.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've got two my niece trimmed for me before she went
+to make her visit to Sudleigh. One's blue. I guess you've seen that.
+Then there's a nice white one. The 'Weekly' says white's all the go,
+this year."
+
+She took out two little hats, and balanced them on either hand. The
+blue one was strongly accented. The ribbon was very broad and very
+bright, and its nodding cowslips gleamed in cheerful yellow.
+
+"Ain't that a beauty?" whispered Lucindy close to the little girl's
+ear. "But there! Don't you have it unless you'd rather. There's lots of
+other colors, you know; pink, and all sorts.".
+
+Claribel put out one little brown hand, and timidly touched the other
+hat.
+
+"This one," she said.
+
+It was very plain, and very pretty; yet there were no flowers, and the
+modest white ribbon lay smoothly about the crown. Miss Lucindy gave a
+little cry, as if some one had hurt her.
+
+"O!" she exclaimed, "O Claribel! you sure?" Claribel was sure.
+
+"She's got real good taste," put in Miss West. "Shall I wrop it up?"
+
+"Yes," answered Lucindy, drearily. "We'll take it. But I suppose if she
+should change, her mind before she wore it--" she added, with some
+slight accession of hope.
+
+"Oh, yes, bring it right back. I'll give her another choice."
+
+But Claribel was not likely to change her mind. On the way home, she
+walked sedately, and carried her hat with the utmost care. At her
+grandmother's gate, she looked up shyly, and spoke of her own accord,--
+
+"Thank you, ever so much!"
+
+Then she fled up the path, her bundle waving before her. That, at
+least, looked like spontaneous joy, and the sight of it soothed Lucindy
+into a temporary resignation; yet she was very much disappointed.
+
+The next afternoon, Tiverton saw a strange and wondrous sight. The
+Crane boy led Old Buckskin, under an ancient saddle, into Miss
+Lucindy's yard, and waited there before her door. The Crane boy had
+told all his mates, and they had told their fathers and mothers, so
+that a wild excitement flew through the village like stubble fire,
+stirring the inhabitants to futile action. "It's like the 'clipse,"
+said one of the squad of children collected at the gate, "only they
+ain't no smoked glass." Some of the grown people "made an errand" for
+the sake of being in the street, but those who lived near-by simply
+mounted guard at their doors and windows. The horse had not waited long
+when Miss Lucindy appeared before the gaze of an eager world. Her face
+had wakened into a keen excitement.
+
+"Here!" she called to the Crane boy's brother, who was lingering in the
+background grinding his toes on the gravel and then lifting them in
+sudden agony, "you take this kitchen chair and set it down side of him,
+so't I can climb up."
+
+The chair was placed, and Miss Lucindy essayed to climb, but vainly.
+
+"Ann!" she called, "you bring me that little cricket."
+
+Ann Toby appeared unwillingly, the little cricket in her hand. She was
+a tall, red-haired woman, who bore the reputation of being willing to
+be "tore into inch pieces" for Miss Lucindy. Her freckled face burned
+red with shame and anger.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, you come back into the house!" she whispered, with
+tragic meaning. "You jest give it up, an' I'll scatter them boys. Sassy
+little peeps! what are they starin' round here for, I'd like to know!"
+
+But Lucindy had mounted the cricket with much agility, and seated
+herself on the horse's back. Once she slipped off; but the Crane boy
+had the address to mutter, "Put your leg over the horn!" and, owing to
+that timely advice, she remained. But he was to experience the
+gratitude of an unfeeling world; for Ann Toby, in the irritation of one
+tried beyond endurance, fell upon him and cuffed him soundly. And Mrs.
+Crane, passing the gate at that moment, did not blame her.
+
+"My! it seems a proper high place to set," remarked Lucindy, adjusting
+herself. "Well, I guess I sha'n't come to no harm. I'll ride round to
+your place, boys, when I get through, and leave the horse there." She
+trotted out of the yard amid the silence of the crowd.
+
+The spectacle was too awesome to be funny, even to the boys; it seemed
+to Tiverton strangely like the work of madness. Only one little boy
+recovered himself sufficiently to ran after her and hold up a switch he
+had been peeling.
+
+"Here!" he piped up, daringly, "you want a whip."
+
+Lucindy smiled upon him benignly.
+
+"I never did believe in abusin' dumb creatur's," she said, "but I'm
+much obliged." She took the switch and rode on.
+
+Now Mrs. Wilson had heard the rumor too late to admit of any
+interference on her part, and she was staying indoors, suffering an
+agony of shame, determined not to countenance the scandalous sight by
+her presence. But as she sat "hooking-in," the window was darkened, and
+involuntarily she lifted her eyes. There was the huge bulk of a horse,
+and there was Lucindy. The horsewoman's cheeks were bright red with
+exercise and joy. She wore a black dress and black mitts. Her little
+curls were flying; and oh, most unbearable of all! they were surmounted
+by a bonnet bearing no modest sheaf of wheat, but blossoming brazenly
+out into lavender roses. The spectacle was too much for Mrs. Wilson.
+She dropped her hook, and flew to the door.
+
+"Well, I've known a good deal, fust an' last, but I never see the beat
+o' this! Lucindy, where'd you git that long dress?"
+
+"It's my cashmere," answered Lucindy, joyously. "I set up last night to
+lengthen it down."
+
+"Well, I should think you did! Lothrop!"
+
+Her husband had been taking a nap in the sitting-room, and he came out,
+rubbing his eyes. Mrs. Wilson could not speak for curiosity. She
+watched him with angry intentness. She wondered if he would take
+Lucindy's part now! But Lothrop only moved forward and felt at the
+girth.
+
+"You know you want to pull him up if he stumbles," he said; "but I
+guess he won't. He was a stiddy horse, fifteen year ago."
+
+"Lothrop," began his wife, "do you want to be made a laughin'-stock in
+this town--"
+
+"I guess if I've lived in a place over sixty year an' hil' my own, I
+can yet," said Lothrop, quietly. "You don't want to ride too long,
+Lucindy. You'll be lame to-morrer."
+
+"I didn't suppose 'twould jounce so," said Lucindy; "but it's proper
+nice. I don't know what 'twould be on a real high horse. Well,
+good-by!" She turned the horse about, and involuntarily struck him with
+her little switch. Old Buckskin broke into a really creditable trot,
+and they disappeared down the village street. Lothrop sensibly took his
+way down to the shop while his wife was recovering her powers of
+speech; and for that, Jane herself mentally commended him.
+
+Lucindy kept on out of the village and along the country road. The
+orioles were singing in the elms, and the leaves still wore the gloss
+of last night's shower. The earth smiled like a new creation, very
+green and sweet, and the horse's hoofs made music in Lucindy's mind. It
+seemed to her that she had lost sight both of youth and crabbed age;
+the pendulum stood still in the jarring machinery of time, the hands
+pointing to a moment of joy. She was quite happy, as any of us may be
+who seek the fellowship of dancing leaves and strong, bright sun. She
+turned into a cross-road, hardly wider than a lane, and bordered with
+wild rose and fragrant raspberry. There was but one house here,--a
+little, time-stained cottage, where Tom McNeil lived with his wife and
+five children. Perhaps these were the happiest people in all Tiverton,
+though no one but themselves had ever found it out. Tom made shoes in a
+desultory fashion, and played the fiddle earnestly all winter, and in
+summer, peddled essences and medicines from a pack strapped over his
+shoulders. Sometimes in the warm summer weather Molly, his wife, and
+all the children tramped with him, so that the house was closed for
+weeks at a time,--a thing very trying to the conventional sensibilities
+of Tiverton. Tom might have had a "stiddy job o' work" with some of the
+farmers; Molly might have helped about the churning and ironing. But
+no! they were like the birds, nesting happily in summer, and drawing
+their feet under their feathers when the snow drifted in. The
+children--lank, wild-eyed creatures--each went to school a few months,
+and then stopped, unable to bear the cross of confinement within four
+dull walls. They could not write; it was even rumored that they had
+never learned to tell time. And, indeed, what good would it have done
+them when the clock was run down and stood always at the hour of noon?
+But they knew where thoroughwort grows, and the wholesome goldthread;
+they gathered cress and peppermint, and could tell the mushroom from
+its noisome kindred. Day after day, they roamed the woods for simples
+to be distilled by the father, and made into potent salves and
+ointments for man and the beasties he loved better.
+
+When Lucindy came in sight of the house, she was glad to find it open.
+She had scarcely gone so far afield for years, and the reports
+concerning this strange people had reached her only by hearsay. She
+felt like a discoverer. In close neighborhood to the house stood a
+peculiar structure,--the half-finished dwelling McNeil had attempted,
+in a brief access of ambition, to build with his own hands. The
+chimney, slightly curving and very ragged at the top, stood foolishly
+above the unfinished lower story. Lucindy remembered hearing how Tom
+had begun the chimney first, and built the house round it. But the
+fulfilment of his worldly dream never came to pass; and perhaps it was
+quite as well, for thereby would the unity of his existence have been
+destroyed. He might have lived up to the house; he might even have
+grown into a proud man, and accumulated dollars. But the bent of birth
+was too much for him. A day dawned, warm and entrancing; he left his
+bricks and boards in the midst, and the whole family went joyfully off
+on a tramp. To Tiverton, the unfinished house continued to serve as an
+immortal joke, and Tom smiled as broadly as any. He always said he
+couldn't finish it; he had mislaid the plan.
+
+A little flower-garden bloomed between the two houses, and on the
+grass, by one of its clove-pink borders, sat a woman, rocking back and
+forth in an ancient chair, and doing absolutely nothing. She was young,
+and seemed all brown; for her eyes were dark, and her skin had been
+tanned to the deep, rich tint sweeter to some eyes than pure roses and
+milk. Lucindy guided Buckskin up to the gate, and Molly McNeil looked
+up and smiled without moving.
+
+"How do?" she said, in a soft, slow voice. "Won't you come in?"
+
+Lucindy was delighted. It was long since she had met a stranger.
+
+"Well, I would," she answered, "but I don't know as I can get down.
+This is new business to me."
+
+"Ellen," called Mrs. McNeil, "you bring out somethin' to step on!"
+
+A little girl appeared with a yellow kitchen chair. Mrs. McNeil rose,
+carried it outside the gate, and planted it by Buckskin's side.
+
+"There!" she said, "you put your hand on my shoulder and step down. It
+won't tip. I've got my knee on it."
+
+Lucindy alighted, with some difficulty, and drew a long breath.
+
+"I'll hitch him," said Molly McNeil. "You go in and sit down in that
+chair, and Ellen'll bring you a drink of water."
+
+Ellen was barelegged and barefooted. Her brown hair hung over her dark
+eyes in a pleasant tangle. Her even teeth were white, and her lips red.
+There was no fault nor blemish in her little face; and when she had
+brought the dipper full of water, and stood rubbing one foot against
+its neighboring leg, Lucindy thought she had never seen anything so
+absolutely bewitching. Molly had hitched the horse, in manly and
+knowing fashion, and then seated herself on the kitchen chair beside
+Lucindy; but the attitude seemed not to suit her, and presently she
+rose and lay quietly down at full length on the grass. She did it quite
+as a matter of course, and her visitor thought it looked very pleasant;
+possibly she would have tried it herself if she had not been so
+absorbed in another interest. She was watching the little girl, who was
+running into the house with the dipper.
+
+"Ain't she complete!" she said. "Your oldest?"
+
+"She ain't mine at 'all." Mrs. McNeil rose on one elbow, and began
+chewing a grass stem.
+
+It was very restful to Lucindy to see some one who was too much
+interested in anything, however trivial, to be interested in her. "You
+know about the Italian that come round with the hand-organ last month?
+He was her father. Well, he died,--fell off a mow one night,--and the
+town sold the hand-organ and kept Ellen awhile on the farm. But she run
+away, and my boys found her hidin' in the woods starved most to death.
+So I took her in, and the overseer said I was welcome to her. She's a
+nice little soul."
+
+"She's proper good-lookin'!" Lucindy's eyes were sparkling.
+
+"She don't look as well as common to-day, for the boys went off
+plummin' without her. She was asleep, and I didn't want to call her.
+She had a cryin' spell when she waked up, but I didn't know which way
+they'd gone."
+
+Ellen came wandering round the side of the house, and Lucindy crooked a
+trembling finger at her.
+
+"Come here!" she called. "You come here and see me!"
+
+Ellen walked up to her with a steady step, and laid one little brown
+hand on Lucindy's knee. But the old Judge's daughter drew the child
+covetously to her lap.
+
+"Look here," she said, "should you like to go home and spend a week
+with me?"
+
+The little maid threw back her tangle of curls, and looked Lucindy
+squarely in the eyes.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+Lucindy's grasp tightened round her.
+
+"How should you like to live with me?"
+
+The child touched her little breast inquiringly with one finger.
+
+"Me?" She pointed over to Mrs. McNeil, who lay listening and stretching
+her limbs in lazy comfort. "Leave _her_?" And then, gravely, "No; she's
+good to me."
+
+Lucindy's heart sank.
+
+"You could come over to see her," she pleaded, "and I'd come too. We'd
+all go plummin' together. I should admire to! And we'd have parties,
+and ask 'em all over. What say?"
+
+The child sat straight and serious, one warm hand clinging to Lucindy's
+slender palm. But her eyes still sought the face of her older friend.
+Molly McNeil rose to a sitting posture. She took the straw from her
+mouth, and spoke with the happy frankness of those who have no fear
+because they demand nothing save earth and sky room.
+
+"I know who you are," she said to Lucindy. "You're left well off, and I
+guess you could bring up a child, give you your way. We're as poor as
+poverty! You take her, if she'll go. Ellen, she's a nice lady; you
+better say 'yes.'"
+
+Lucindy was trembling all over.
+
+"You come, dear," she urged, piteously. "You come and live with me."
+
+Ellen thought a moment more. Then she nodded.
+
+"I'll come," said she.
+
+Lucindy could not wait.
+
+"I'll send a wagon over after her to-night." She had put Ellen down, and
+was rising tremblingly. "I won't stop to talk no more now, but you come
+and see me, won't you? Now, if you'll help me mount up--there! My! it's
+higher 'n 'twas before! Well, I'll see you again." She turned Old
+Buckskin's head away from the fence; then she pulled him fiercely round
+again. "Here!" she called, "what if she should jump up behind me and
+come now!"
+
+Mrs. McNeil, being the thrall only of the earth, saw no reason, why a
+thing should not be done as one wanted it. She lifted; the child and
+set her on the horse behind Lucindy. And so, in this strange fashion,
+the two entered the high street of Tiverton.
+
+A few weeks after this, Mrs. Wilson and Lucindy went together to the
+little millinery shop. Ellen trotted between them, taking excursions
+into the street, now and again, in pursuit of butterflies or
+thistledown. When they entered, Miss West, who had seen their approach
+from her position at the ironing-board, came forward with a gay little
+hat in her hand. It was trimmed with pink, and a wreath of tiny white
+flowers clung about the crown. She set it on Ellen's curls; and Ellen,
+her face quite radiant, looked up at Miss Lucindy for approval. But
+that lady was gazing anxiously at Mrs. Wilson.
+
+"Now, there ain't anything unsuitable about that, is there?" she asked.
+"I know, it's gay, and I want it to be gay. I can tell about _that_!
+But is it all right? Is it such as you'd be willin' to have Claribel
+wear?"
+
+"It's a real beauty!" Mrs. Wilson answered, cordially; but she could
+not refrain from adding, while Miss West was doing up the hat, and
+Ellen surreptitiously tried on a black poke bonnet, "Now, don't you
+spile her, Lucindy! She's a nice little girl as ever was, but you ain't
+no more fit to bring up a child than the cat!"
+
+Lucindy did not hear. She was smiling at Ellen, and Ellen smiled back
+at her. They thought they knew.
+
+
+
+
+TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE.
+
+
+"Le' me see," said old Sally Flint, "was it fifty year ago, or was it
+on'y forty? Some'er's betwixt 1825 an' '26 it must ha' been when they
+were married, an' 'twas in '41 he died."
+
+The other old women in the Poorhouse sitting-room gathered about her.
+Old Mrs. Forbes, who dearly loved a story, unwound a length of yarn
+with peculiar satisfaction, and put her worn shoe up to the fire.
+Everybody knew when Sally Flint was disposed to open her unwritten book
+of folk-tales for the public entertainment; and to-day, having tied on
+a fresh apron and bound a new piece of red flannel about her wrist, she
+was, so to speak, in fighting trim. The other members of the Poorhouse
+had scanty faith in that red flannel. They were aware that Sally had
+broken her wrist, some twenty years before, and that the bandage was
+consequently donned on days when her "hand felt kind o' cold," or was
+"burnin' like fire embers;" but there was an unspoken suspicion that it
+really served as token of her inability to work whenever she felt bored
+by the prescribed routine of knitting and sweeping. No one had dared
+presume on that theory, however, since the day when an untactful
+overseer had mentioned it, to be met by such a stream of unpleasant
+reminiscence concerning his immediate ancestry that he had retreated in
+dismay, and for a week after, had served extra pieces of pie to his
+justly offended charge.
+
+"They were married in June," continued Sally. "No, 'twa'n't; 'twas the
+last o' May. May thirty-fust--no, May 'ain't but thirty days, has it?"
+
+"'Thirty days hath September,'" quoted Mrs. Giles, with importance.
+"That's about all I've got left o' my schoolin', Miss Flint. May's got
+thirty-one days, sure enough."
+
+"Call it the thirty-fust, then. It's nigh enough, anyway. Well, Josh
+Marden an' Lyddy Ann Crane was married, an' for nine year they lived
+like two kittens. Old Sperry Dyer, that wanted to git Lyddy himself,
+used to call 'em cup an' sasser, 'There they be,' he'd say, when he
+stood outside the meetin'-house door an' they drove up; 'there comes
+cup an' sasser.' Lyddy was a little mite of a thing, with great black
+eyes; an' if Josh hadn't been as tough as tripe, he'd ha' got all wore
+out waitin' on her. He even washed the potaters for her, made the
+fires, an' lugged water. Scairt to death if she was sick! She used to
+have sick headaches, an' one day he stopped choppin' pine limbs near
+the house 'cause the noise hurt Lyddy Ann's head. Another time, I
+recollect, she had erysipelas in her face, an' I went in to carry some
+elder-blows, an' found him readin' the Bible. 'Lord!' says I, 'Josh;
+that's on'y Genesis! 'twon't do the erysipelas a mite o' good for you
+to be settin' there reading the be'gats! You better turn to
+Revelation.' But 'twa'n't all on his side, nuther. 'Twas give an' take
+with them. It used to seem as if Lyddy Ann kind o' worshipped him.
+'Josh' we all called him; but she used to say 'Joshuay,' an' look at
+him as if he was the Lord A'mighty."
+
+"My! Sally!" said timid Mrs. Spenser, under her breath; but Sally gave
+no heed, and swept on in the stream of her recollections.
+
+"Well, it went on for fifteen year, an' then 'Mandy Knowles, Josh's
+second cousin, come to help 'em with the work. 'Mandy was a queer
+creatur'. I've studied a good deal over her, an' I dunno's I've quite
+got to the bottom of her yit. She was one o' them sort o' slow women,
+with a fat face, an' she hadn't got over dressin' young, though Lyddy
+an' the rest of us that was over thirty was wearin' caps an' talkin'
+about false fronts. But she never'd had no beaux; an' when Josh begun
+to praise her an' say how nice 'twas to have her there, it tickled her
+e'en a'most to death. She'd lived alone with her mother an' two
+old-maid aunts, an' she didn't know nothin' about men-folks; I al'ays
+thought she felt they was different somehow,--kind o' cherubim an'
+seraphim,--an' you'd got to mind 'em as if you was the Childern of
+Isr'el an' they was Moses. Josh never meant a mite o' harm, I'll say
+that for him. He was jest man-like, that's all. There's lots o'
+different kinds,--here, Mis' Niles, you know; you've buried your
+third,--an' Josh was the kind that can't see more'n, one woman to a
+time. He looked at 'Mandy, an' he got over seein' Lyddy Ann, that's
+all. Things would ha' come out all right--as right as they be for most
+married folks--if Lyddy Ann hadn't been so high-sperited; but she set
+the world by Joshuay, an' there 'twas. 'Ain't it nice to have her
+here?' he kep' on sayin' over'n' over to Lyddy, an' she'd say 'Yes;'
+but byme-by, when she found he was al'ays on hand to bring a pail o'
+water for 'Mandy, or to throw away her suds, or even help hang out the
+clo'es--I see 'em hangin' out clo'es one day when I was goin' across
+their lot huckleberr'in', an' he did look like a great gump, an' so did
+she--well, then, Lyddy Ann got to seemin' kind o' worried, an' she had
+more sick headaches than ever. Twa'n't a year afore that, I'd been in
+one day when she had a headache, an' he says, as if he was perfessin'
+his faith in meetin', 'By gum! I wish I could have them headaches for
+her!' an' I thought o' speakin' of it, about now, when I run in to
+borrer some saleratus, an' he hollered into the bedroom: 'Lyddy Ann,
+you got another headache? If I had such a head as that, I'd cut it
+off!' An' all the time 'Mandy did act like the very Old Nick, jest as
+any old maid would that hadn't set her mind on menfolks till she was
+thirty-five. She bought a red-plaid bow an' pinned it on in front, an'
+one day I ketched her at the lookin'-glass pullin' out a gray hair.
+
+"'Land, 'Mandy,' says I (I spoke right up), 'do you pull 'em out as
+fast as they come? That's why you ain't no grayer, I s'pose. I was
+sayin' the other day, "'Mandy Knowles is gittin' on, but she holds her
+own pretty well. I dunno how she manages it, whether she dyes or not,"'
+says I.
+
+"An' afore she could stop herself, 'Mandy turned round, red as a beet,
+to look at Josh an' see if he heard. He stamped out into the
+wood-house, but Lyddy Ann never took her eyes off her work. Them little
+spiteful things didn't seem to make no impression on her. I've thought
+a good many times sence, she didn't care how handsome other women was,
+nor how scrawny she was herself, if she could on'y keep Josh. An' Josh
+he got kind o' fretful to her, an' she to him, an' 'Mandy was all honey
+an' cream. Nothin' would do but she must learn how to make the
+gingerbread he liked, an' iron his shirts; an' when Lyddy Ann found he
+seemed to praise things up jest as much as he had when she done 'em,
+she give 'em up, an' done the hard things herself, an' let 'Mandy see
+to Josh. She looked pretty pindlin' then, mark my words; but I never
+see two such eyes in anybody's head. I s'pose 'twas a change for Josh,
+anyway, to be with a woman like 'Mandy, that never said her soul's her
+own, for Lyddy'd al'ays had a quick way with her; but, land! you can't
+tell about men, what changes 'em or what don't. If you're tied to one,
+you've jest got to bear with him, an' be thankful if he don't run some
+kind of a rig an' make you town-talk."
+
+There was a murmur from gentle Lucy Staples, who had been constant for
+fifty years to the lover who died in her youth; but no one took any
+notice of her, and Sally Flint went on:
+
+"It come spring, an' somehow or nuther 'Mandy found out the last o'
+March was Josh's birthday, an' nothin' would do but she must make him a
+present. So she walked over to Sudleigh, an' bought him a great long
+pocket-book that you could put your bills into without foldin' 'em, an'
+brought it home, tickled to death because she'd been so smart. Some o'
+this come out at the time, an' some wa'n't known till arterwards; the
+hired man told some, an' a good deal the neighbors see themselves. An'
+I'll be whipped if 'Mandy herself didn't tell the heft on't arter 'twas
+all over. She wa'n't more'n half baked in a good many things. It got
+round somehow that the pocket-book was comin', an' when, I see 'Mandy
+walkin' home that arternoon, I ketched up my shawl an' run in behind
+her, to borrer some yeast. Nobody thought anything o' birthdays in our
+neighborhood, an' mebbe that made it seem a good deal more 'n 'twas;
+but when I got in there, I vow I was sorry I come. There set Josh by
+the kitchen table, sort o' red an' pleased, with his old pocket-book
+open afore him, an' he was puttin' all his bills an' papers into the
+new one, an' sayin', every other word,--
+
+"'Why, 'Mandy, I never see your beat! Ain't this a nice one, Lyddy?'
+
+"An' 'Mandy was b'ilin' over with pride, an' she stood there takin' off
+her cloud; she'd been in such a hurry to give it to him she hadn't even
+got her things off fust. Lyddy stood by the cupboard, lookin' straight
+at the glass spoon-holder. I thought arterwards I didn't b'lieve she
+see it; an' if she did, I guess she never forgot it.
+
+"'Yes, it's a real nice one,' says I.
+
+"I had to say suthin', but in a minute, I was most scairt. Lyddy turned
+round, in a kind of a flash; her face blazed all over red, an' her eyes
+kind o' went through me. She stepped up to the table, an' took up the
+old pocket-book.
+
+"'You've got a new one,' says she. 'May I have this?'
+
+"'Course you may,' says he.
+
+"He didn't look up to see her face, an' her voice was so soft an'
+still, I guess he never thought nothin' of it. Then she held the
+pocket-book up tight ag'inst her dress waist an' walked off into the
+bedroom. I al'ays thought she never knew I was there. An' arterwards it
+come out that that old pocket-book was one she'd bought for him afore
+they was married,--earned it bindin' shoes."
+
+"_'Twas_ kind o' hard," owned Mrs. Niles, bending forward, and, with
+hands clasped over her knees, peering into the coals for data regarding
+her own marital experiences. "But if 'twas all wore out--did you say
+'twas wore?--well, then I dunno's you could expect him to set by it.
+An' 'twa'n't as if he'd give it away; they'd got it between 'em."
+
+"I dunno; it's all dark to me," owned Sally Flint. "I guess 'twould
+puzzle a saint to explain men-folks, anyway, but I've al'ays thought
+they was sort o' numb about some things. Anyway, Josh Marden was. Well,
+things went on that way till the fust part o' the summer, an' then they
+come to a turnin'-p'int. I s'pose they'd got to, some time, an' it
+might jest as well ha' been fust as last. Lyddy Ann was pretty
+miserable, an' she'd been dosin' with thoroughwort an' what all when
+anybody told her to; but I al'ays thought she never cared a mite
+whether she lived to see another spring. The day I'm comin' to, she was
+standin' over the fire fryin' fish, an' 'Mandy was sort o' fiddlin'
+round, settin' the table, an' not doin' much of anything arter all. I
+dunno how she come to be so aggravatin', for she was al'ays ready to do
+her part, if she _had_ come between husband an' wife. You know how hard
+it is to git a fish dinner! Well, Lyddy Ann was tired enough, anyway.
+An' when Josh come in, 'Mandy she took a cinnamon-rose out of her
+dress, an' offered it to him.
+
+"'Here's a flower for your button-hole,' says she, as if she wa'n't
+more 'n sixteen. An' then she set down in a chair, an' fanned herself
+with a newspaper.
+
+"Now that chair happened to be Lyddy Ann's at the table, an' she see
+what was bein' done. She turned right round, with the fish-platter in
+her hand, an' says she, in an awful kind of a voice,--
+
+"'You git up out o' my chair! You've took my husband away, but you
+sha'n't take my place at the table!'
+
+"The hired man was there, washin' his hands at the sink, an' he told it
+to me jest as it happened. Well, I guess they all thought they was
+struck by lightnin', an' Lyddy Ann most of all. Josh he come to, fust.
+He walked over to Lyddy Ann.
+
+"'You put down that platter!' says he. An' she begun to tremble, an'
+set it down.
+
+"I guess they thought there was goin' to be murder done, for 'Mandy
+busted right out cryin' an' come runnin' over to me, an' the hired man
+took a step an' stood side o' Lyddy Ann. He was a little mite of a man,
+Cyrus was, but he wouldn't ha' stood no violence.
+
+"Josh opened the door that went into the front entry, an' jest p'inted.
+'You walk in there,' he says, 'an' you stay there. That's your half o'
+the house, an' this is mine. Don't you dast to darken my doors!'
+
+"Lyddy Ann she walked through the entry an' into the fore-room, an' he
+shet the door."
+
+"I wouldn't ha' done it!" snorted old Mrs. Page, who had spent all her
+property in lawsuits over a right of way. "Ketch me!"
+
+"You would if you'd 'a' been Lyddy Ann!" said Sally Flint, with an
+emphatic nod. Then she continued: "I hadn't more'n heard 'Mandy's story
+afore I was over there; but jest as I put my foot on the door-sill,
+Josh he come for'ard to meet me.
+
+"'What's wanted?' says he. An' I declare for't I was so scairt I jest
+turned round an' cut for home. An' there set 'Mandy, wringin' her
+hands.
+
+"'What be I goin' to do?' says she, over 'n' over. 'Who ever'd ha'
+thought o' this?'
+
+"'The thing for you to do,' says I, 'is to go, straight home to your
+mother, an' I'll harness up an' carry you. Don't you step your foot
+inside that house ag'in. Maybe ma'am will go over an' pack up your
+things. You've made mischief enough.' So we got her off that
+arter-noon, an' that was an end of _her_.
+
+"I never could see what made Josh think so quick that day. We never
+thought he was brighter 'n common; but jest see how in that flash o'
+bein' mad with Lyddy Ann he'd planned out what would be most wormwood
+for her! He gi'n her the half o' the house she'd furnished herself with
+hair-cloth chairs an' a whatnot, but 'twa'n't the part that was fit to
+be lived in. She stayed pretty close for three or four days, an' I
+guess she never had nothin' to eat. It made me kind o' sick to think of
+her in there settin' on her hair-cloth sofy, an' lookin' at her wax
+flowers an' the coral on the what-not, an' thinkin' what end she'd
+made. It was of a Monday she was sent in there, an' Tuesday night I
+slipped over an' put some luncheon on the winder-sill; but 'twas there
+the next day, an' Cyrus see the old crower fly up an' git it. An' that
+same Tuesday mornin', Josh had a j'iner come an' begin a partition
+right straight through the house. It was all rough boards, like a high
+fence, an' it cut the front entry in two, an' went right through the
+kitchen--so't the kitchen stove was one side on't, an' the sink the
+other. Lyddy Ann's side had the stove. I was glad o' that, though I
+s'pose she 'most had a fit every day to think o' him tryin' to cook
+over the airtight in the settin'-room. Seemed kind o' queer to go to
+the front door, too, for you had to open it wide an' squeeze round the
+partition to git into Lyddy Ann's part, an' a little mite of a crack
+would let you into Josh's. But they didn't have many callers. It was a
+good long while afore anybody dared to say a word to her; an' as for
+Josh, there wa'n't nobody that cared about seein' him but the
+tax-collector an' pedlers.
+
+"Well, the trouble Josh took to carry out that mad fit! He split wood
+an' laid it down at Lyddy Ann's door, an' he divided the eggs an' milk,
+an' shoved her half inside. He bought her a separate barrel o' flour,
+an' all the groceries he could think on; they said he laid money on her
+winder-sill. But, take it all together, he was so busy actin' like a
+crazed one that he never got his 'taters dug till 'most time for the
+frost. Lyddy Ann she never showed her head among the neighbors ag'in.
+When she see she'd got to stay there, she begun to cook for herself;
+but one day, one o' the neighbors heard her pleadin' with Josh, out in
+the cow-yard, while he was milkin'.
+
+"'O Joshuay,' she kep' a-sayin' over 'n' over, 'you needn't take me
+back, if you'll on'y let me do your work! You needn't speak to me, an'
+I'll live in the other part; but I shall be crazy if you don't let me
+do your work. O Joshuay! O Joshuay!' She cried an' cried as if her
+heart would break, but Josh went on milkin', an' never said a word.
+
+"I s'pose she thought he'd let her, the old hunks, for the next day,
+she baked some pies an' set 'em on the table in his part. She reached
+in through the winder to do it. But that night, when Josh come home, he
+hove 'em all out into the back yard, an' the biddies eat 'em up. The
+last time I was there, I see them very pieces o' pie-plate, white an'
+blue-edged, under the syringa bush. Then she kind o' give up hope. I
+guess--But no! I'm gittin' ahead o' my story. She did try him once
+more. Of course his rooms got to lookin' like a hog's nest--"
+
+"My! I guess when she see him doin' his own washin', she thought the
+pocket-book was a small affair," interpolated Mrs. Niles.
+
+"She used to go round peerin' into his winders when he wa'n't there,
+an' one day, arter he'd gone off to trade some steers, she jest spunked
+up courage an' went in an' cleaned all up. I see the bed airin', an'
+went over an' ketched her at it. She hadn't more'n got through an'
+stepped outside when Josh come home, an' what should he do but take the
+wheelbarrer an', beat out as he was drivin' oxen five mile, go down to
+the gravel-pit an' get a barrerful o' gravel. He wheeled it up to the
+side door, an' put a plank over the steps, an' wheeled it right in. An'
+then he dumped it in the middle o' his clean floor. That was the last
+o' her tryin' to do for him on the sly.
+
+"I should ha' had some patience with him if 'twa'n't for one thing he
+done to spite her. Seemed as if he meant to shame her that way afore
+the whole neighborhood. He wouldn't speak to her himself, but he sent a
+painter by trade to tell her he was goin' to paint the house, an' to
+ask her what color she'd ruther have. The painter said she acted sort
+o' wild, she was so pleased. She told him yaller; an' Josh had him go
+right to work on't next day. But he had her half painted yaller, an'
+his a kind of a drab, I guess you'd call it. He sold a piece o' ma'sh
+to pay for't. Dr. Parks said you might as well kill a woman with a
+hatchet, as the man did down to Sudleigh, as put her through such
+treatment. My! ain't it growin' late? Here, let me set back by the
+winder. I want to see who goes by, to-day. An' I'll cut my story short.
+
+"Well, they lived jest that way. Lyddy Ann she looked like an old
+woman, in a month or two. She looked every minute as old as you do,
+Mis' Gridley. Ain't you sixty-nine? Well, she wa'n't but thirty-six.
+Her hair turned gray, an' she was all stooped over. Sometimes I thought
+she wa'n't jest right. I used to go in to see if she'd go coltsfootin'
+with me, or plummin'; but she never'd make me no answer. I recollect
+two things she said. One day, she set rockin' back'ards an' for'ards in
+a straight chair, holdin' her hands round her knees, an' she says,--
+
+"'I 'ain't got no pride, Sally Flint! I 'ain't got no pride!'
+
+"An' once she looked up kind o' pitiful an' says, 'Ain't it queer I
+can't die?' But, poor creatur', I never thought she knew what she was
+sayin'. She'd ha' been the last one to own she wa'n't contented if
+she'd had any gover'ment over her words.
+
+"Well, Josh he'd turned the hired man away because he couldn't do for
+him over the airtight stove, an' he got men to help him by days' works.
+An' through the winter, he jest set over the fire an' sucked his claws,
+an' thought how smart he was. But one day 'twas awful cold, an' we'd
+been tryin' out lard, an' the fat ketched fire, an' everything was all
+up in arms, anyway. Cyrus he was goin' by Josh's, an' he didn't see no
+smoke from the settin'-room stove. So he jest went to the side door an'
+walked in, an' there set Josh in the middle o' the room. Couldn't move
+hand nor foot! Cyrus didn't stop for no words, but he run over to our
+house, hollerin', 'Josh Harden's got a stroke!' An' ma'am left the
+stove all over fat an' run, an' I arter her, I guess Lyddy Ann must ha'
+seen us comin', for we hadn't more'n got into the settin'-room afore
+she was there. The place was cold as a barn, an' it looked like a
+hurrah's nest. Josh never moved, but his eyes follered her when she
+went into the bedroom to spread up the bed.
+
+"'You help me, Cyrus,' says she, kind, o' twittery-like, but calm.
+'We'll carry him in here. I can lift.'
+
+"But our men-folks got there jest about as they was tryin' to plan how
+to take him, an' they h'isted him onto the bed. Cyrus harnessed up our
+horse an' went after Dr. Parks, an' by the time he come, we'd got the
+room so's to look decent. An'--if you'll b'lieve it! Lyddy Ann was in
+the bedroom tryin' to warm Josh up an' make him take some hot drink;
+but when I begun to sweep up, an' swop towards that gravel-pile in the
+middle o' the floor, she come hurryin' up, all out o' breath. She
+ketched the broom right out o' my hand.
+
+"I'll sweep, byme-by,' says she. 'Don't you touch that gravel, none on
+ye!' An' so the gravel laid there, an' we walked round it, watchers an'
+all.
+
+"She wouldn't have no watcher in his bedroom, though; she was
+determined to do everything but turn him an' lift him herself, but
+there was al'ays one or two settin' round to keep the fires goin' an'
+make sure there was enough cooked up. I swan, I never see a woman so
+happy round a bed o' sickness as Lyddy Ann was! She never made no fuss
+when Josh was awake, but if he shet his eyes, she'd kind o' hang over
+the bed an' smooth the clo'es as if they was kittens, an' once I
+ketched her huggin' up the sleeve of his old barn coat that hung
+outside the door. If ever a woman made a fool of herself over a man
+that wa'n't wuth it, 'twas Lyddy Ann Marden!
+
+"Well, Josh he hung on for a good while, an' we couldn't make out
+whether he had his senses or not. He kep' his eyes shet most o' the
+time; but when Lyddy Ann's back was turned, he seemed to know it
+somehow, an' he'd open 'em an' foller her all round the room. But he
+never spoke. I asked the doctor about it.
+
+"'Can't he speak, doctor?' says I. 'He can move that hand a leetle
+to-day. Don't you s'pose he could speak, if he'd a mind to?'
+
+"The doctor he squinted up his eyes--he al'ays done that when he didn't
+want to answer--an' he says,--
+
+"'I guess he's thinkin' on't over.'
+
+"But one day, Lyddy Ann found she was all beat out, an' she laid down
+in the best bedroom an' went to sleep. I set with Josh. I was narrerin'
+off, but when I looked up, he was beckonin' with his well hand. I got
+up, an' went to the bed.
+
+"'Be you dry?' says I. He made a little motion, an' then he lifted his
+hand an' p'inted out into the settin'-room.
+
+"Do you want Lyddy Ann?' says I. 'She's laid down.' No, he didn't want
+her. I went to the settin'-room door an' looked out, an'--I dunno how
+'twas--it all come to me.
+
+"'Is it that gravel-heap?' says I. 'Do you want it carried off, an' the
+floor swop up?' An' he made a motion to say 'Yes.' I called Cyrus, an'
+we made short work o' that gravel. When, I'd took up the last mite
+on't, I went back to the bed.
+
+"'Josh Marden,' says I, 'can you speak, or can't you?' But he shet his
+eyes, an' wouldn't say a word.
+
+"When Lyddy Ann come out, I told her what he'd done, an' then she did
+give way a little mite. Two tears come out o' her eyes, an' jest rolled
+down her cheeks, but she didn't give up to 'em.
+
+"'Sally,' says she, sort o' peaceful, 'I guess I'll have a cup o' tea.'
+
+"Well, there was times when we thought Josh would git round ag'in, if
+he didn't have another stroke. I dunno whether he did have another or
+not, but one night, he seemed to be sort o' sinkin' away. Lyddy Ann she
+begun to turn white, an' she set down by him an' rubbed his sick hand.
+He looked at her,--fust time he had, fair an' square,--an' then he
+begun to wobble his lips round an' make a queer noise with 'em. She put
+her head down, an' then she says, 'Yes, Joshuay! yes, dear!' An' she
+got up an' took the pocket-book 'Mandy had gi'n him off the top o' the
+bureau, an' laid it down on the bed where he could git it. But he shook
+his head, an' said the word ag'in, an' a queer look--as if she was
+scairt an' pleased--flashed over Lyddy Ann's face. She run into the
+parlor, an' come back with that old pocket-book he'd give up to her,
+an' she put it into his well hand. That was what he wanted. His fingers
+gripped it up, an' he shet his eyes. He never spoke ag'in. He died that
+night."
+
+"I guess she died, too!" said Lucy Staples, under her breath,
+stealthily wiping a tear from her faded cheek.
+
+"No, she didn't, either!" retorted Sally Flint, hastily, getting up to
+peer from the window down the country road. "She lived a good many
+year, right in that very room he'd drove her out on, an' she looked as
+if she owned the airth. I've studied on it consid'able, an' I al'ays
+s'posed 'twas because she'd got him, an' that was all she cared for.
+There's the hearse now, an' two carriages, step an' step."
+
+"Land! who's dead?" exclaimed Mrs. Forbes, getting up in haste, while
+her ball rolled unhindered to the other end of the room.
+
+"It's Lyddy Ann Marden," returned Sally Flint, with the triumphant
+quiet of one first at the goal. "I see it this mornin' in the 'County
+Democrat,' when I was doin' up my wrist, an' you was all so busy."
+
+
+
+
+HEMAN'S MA.
+
+
+It was half-past nine of a radiant winter's night, and the Widder
+Poll's tooth still ached, though she was chewing cloves, and had
+applied a cracker poultice to her cheek. She was walking back and forth
+through the great low-studded kitchen, where uncouth shadows lurked and
+brooded, still showing themselves ready to leap aloft with any
+slightest motion of the flames that lived behind the old black
+fire-dogs. At every trip across the room, she stopped to look from the
+window into the silver paradise without, and at every glance she
+groaned, as if groaning were a duty. The kitchen was unlighted save by
+the fire and one guttering candle; but even through such inadequate
+illumination the Widder Poll was a figure calculated to stir rich
+merriment in a satirical mind. Her contour was rather square than
+oblong, and she was very heavy. In fact, she had begun to announce that
+her ankles wouldn't bear her much longer, and she should "see the day
+when she'd have to set by, from mornin' to night, like old Anrutty
+Green that had the dropsy so many years afore she was laid away." Her
+face, also, was cut upon the broadest pattern in common use, and her
+small, dull eyes and closely shut mouth gave token of that firmness
+which, save in ourselves, we call obstinacy. To-night, however, her
+features were devoid of even their wonted dignity, compressed, as they
+had been, by the bandage encircling her face. She looked like a
+caricature of her unprepossessing self. On one of her uneasy journeys
+to the window, she caught the sound of sleigh-bells; and staying only
+to assure herself of their familiar ring, she hastily closed the
+shutter, and, going back to the fireplace, sank into a chair there, and
+huddled over the blaze. The sleigh drove slowly into the yard, and
+after the necessary delay of unharnessing, a man pushed open the side
+door, and entered the kitchen. He, too, was short and square of build,
+though he had no superfluous flesh. His ankles would doubtless continue
+to bear him for many a year to come. His face was but slightly
+accented; he had very thin eyebrows, light hair, and only a shaggy
+fringe of whisker beneath the chin. This was Heman Blaisdell, the
+Widder Poll's brother-in-law, for whom she had persistently kept house
+ever since the death of his wife, four years ago. He came in without
+speaking, and after shaking himself out of his great-coat, sat silently
+down in his armchair by the fire. The Widder Poll held both hands to
+her face, and groaned again. At length, curiosity overcame her, and,
+quite against her judgment, she spoke. She was always resolving that
+she would never again take the initiative; but every time her
+resolution went down before the certainty that if she did not talk,
+there would be no conversation at all,--for Heman had a staying power
+that was positively amazing.
+
+"Well?" she began, interrogatively.
+
+Heman only stirred slightly in his chair.
+
+"_Well!_ ain't you goin' to tell me what went on at the meetin'?"
+
+Her quarry answered patiently, yet with a certain dogged resistance of
+her,--
+
+"I dunno's there's anything to tell."
+
+"How'd it go off?"
+
+"'Bout as usual."
+
+"Did you speak?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Lead in prayer?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Wa'n't you _asked_?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, my soul! Was Roxy Cole there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you fetch her home?"
+
+"No, I didn't!" Some mild exasperation animated his tone at last. The
+Widder detected it, and occupied herself with her tooth.
+
+"My soul an' body! I wonder if it's goin' to grumble all night long!"
+she exclaimed, bending lower over the blaze. "I've tried everything but
+a roasted raisin, an' I b'lieve I shall come to that."
+
+Heman rose, and opened the clock on the mantel; he drew forth the key
+from under the pendulum, and slowly wound up the time-worn machinery.
+In another instant, he would be on his way to bed; the Widder knew she
+must waste no time in hurt silence, if she meant to find out anything.
+She began hastily,--
+
+"Did they say anything about the church fair?"
+
+"They ain't goin' to have it."
+
+"Not have it! Well, how _be_ they goin' to git the shinglin' paid for?"
+
+"They've got up the idee of an Old Folks' Concert."
+
+"Singin'?"
+
+"Singin' an' playin'."
+
+"Who's goin' to play?"
+
+"Brad Freeman an' Jont Marshall agreed to play fust an' second fiddle."
+Heman paused a moment, and straightened himself with an air of
+conscious pride; then he added,--
+
+"They've asked me to play the bass-viol."
+
+The Widder had no special objections to this arrangement, but it did
+strike her as an innovation; and when she had no other reason for
+disapproval, she still believed in it on general principles. So
+altogether effective a weapon should never rust from infrequent use!
+
+"Well!" she announced. "I never heard of such carryin's-on,--never!"
+
+Heman was lighting a small kerosene lamp. The little circle of light
+seemed even brilliant in the dusky room; it affected him with a relief
+so sudden and manifest as to rouse also a temporary irritation at
+having endured the previous gloom even for a moment.
+
+"'Ain't you got no oil in the house?" he exclaimed, testily. "I wish
+you'd light up, evenin's, an' not set here by one taller candle!"
+
+He had ventured on this remonstrance before, the only one he permitted
+himself against his housekeeper's ways, and at the instant of making
+it, he realized its futility.
+
+"The gre't lamp's all full," said the Widder, warming her apron and
+pressing it to her poulticed face. "You can light it, if you've got the
+heart to. That was poor Mary's lamp, an' hard as I've tried, I never
+could bring myself to put a match to that wick. How many evenin's I've
+seen her set by it, rockin' back'ards an' for'ards,--an' her needle
+goin' in an' out! She was a worker, if ever there was one, poor
+creatur'! At it all the time, jes' like a silk-worm."
+
+Heman was perfectly familiar with this explanation; from long
+repetition, he had it quite by heart. Possibly that was why he did not
+wait for its conclusion, but tramped stolidly away to his bedroom,
+where he had begun to kick off his shoes by the time his sister-in-law
+reached a period.
+
+The Widder had a fresh poultice waiting by the fire. She applied it to
+her cheek, did up her face in an old flannel petticoat, and then,
+having covered the fire, toiled up to bed. It was a wearisome journey,
+for she carried a heavy soapstone which showed a tendency to conflict
+with the candle, and she found it necessary to hold together most of
+her garments; these she had "loosened a mite by the fire," according to
+custom on cold nights, after Heman had left her the field.
+
+Next day, Heman went away into the woods chopping, and carried his
+dinner of doughnuts and cheese, with a chunk of bean-porridge frozen
+into a ball, to be thawed out by his noontime fire. He returned much
+earlier than usual, and the Widder was at the window awaiting him. The
+swelling in her cheek had somewhat subsided; and the bandage, no longer
+distended by a poultice beneath, seemed, in comparison, a species of
+holiday device. She was very impatient. She watched Heman, as he went
+first to the barn; and even opened the back door a crack to listen for
+the rattling of chains, the signal of feeding or watering.
+
+"What's he want to do that now for?" she muttered, closing the door
+again, as the cold struck her cheek. "He'll have to feed 'em ag'in,
+come night!"
+
+But at last he came, and, according to his silent wont, crossed the
+kitchen to the sink, to wash his hands. He was an unobservant man, and
+it did not occur to him that the Widder had on her Tycoon rep, the gown
+she kept "for nice." Indeed, he was so unused to looking at her that he
+might well have forgotten her outward appearance. He was only sure of
+her size; he knew she cut off a good deal of light. One sign, however,
+he did recognize; she was very cheerful, with a hollow good-nature
+which had its meaning.
+
+"I got your shavin'-water all ready," she began. "Don't you burn ye
+when ye turn it out."
+
+It had once been said of the Widder Poll that if she could hold her
+tongue, the devil himself couldn't get ahead of her. But fortune had
+not gifted her with such endurance, and she always spoke too often and
+too soon.
+
+"Brad Freeman's been up here," she continued, eying Heman, as she drew
+out the supper-table and put up the leaves. "I dunno's I ever knew
+anybody so took up as he is with that concert, an' goin' to the vestry
+to sing to-night, an' all. He said he'd call here an' ride 'long o'
+you, an' I told him there'd be plenty o' room, for you'd take the
+pung."
+
+If Heman felt any surprise at her knowledge of his purpose, he did not
+betray it. He poured out his shaving-water, and looked about him for an
+old newspaper.
+
+"I ain't goin' in the pung," he answered, without glancing at her. "The
+shoe's most off'n one o' the runners now."
+
+The Widder Poll set a pie on the table with an emphasis unconsciously
+embodying her sense that now, indeed, had come the time for remedies.
+
+"I dunno what you can take," she remarked, with that same foreboding
+liveliness. "Three on a seat, an' your bass-viol, too!"
+
+Heman was lathering his cheeks before the mirror, where a sinuous Venus
+and a too-corpulent Cupid disported themselves in a green landscape
+above the glass. "There ain't goin' to be three," he said, patiently.
+"T'others are goin' by themselves."
+
+The Widder took up her stand at a well-chosen angle, and looked at him
+in silence. He paid no attention to her, and it was she who, of
+necessity, broke into speech.
+
+"_Well!_ I've got no more to say. Do you mean to tell me you'd go off
+playin' on fiddles an' bass-viols, an' leave me, your own wife's
+sister, settin' here the whole evenin' long, all swelled up with the
+toothache?"
+
+Heman often felt that he had reached a state of mind where nothing
+could surprise him, but this point of view was really unexpected. He
+decided, however, with some scorn, that the present misunderstanding
+might arise from a confusion of terms in the feminine mind.
+
+"This ain't the concert," he replied, much as if she had proposed going
+to the polls. "It's the rehearsal. That means where you play the tunes
+over. The concert ain't comin' off for a month."
+
+And now the Widder Poll spoke with the air of one injured almost beyond
+reparation.
+
+"I'd like to know what difference that makes! If a man's goin' where he
+can't take his womenfolks, I say he'd better stay to home! an' if
+there's things goin' on there't you don't want me to git hold of, I
+tell you, Heman Blaisdell, you'd better by half stop shavin' you now,
+an' take yourself off to bed at seven o'clock! Traipsin' round playin'
+the fiddle at your age! Ain't I fond o' music?"
+
+"No, you ain't!" burst forth Heman, roused to brief revolt where his
+beloved instrument was concerned. "You don't know Old Hunderd from
+Yankee Doodle!"
+
+The Widder walked round the table and confronted him as he was turning
+away from the glass, shaving-mug in hand.
+
+"You answer me one question! I know who's goin' to be there, an' set in
+the chorus an' sing alto. Brad Freeman told me, as innercent as a lamb.
+Heman Blaisdell, you answer me? Be you goin' to bring anybody here to
+this house, an' set her in poor Mary's place? If you be, I ought to be
+the fust one to know it."
+
+Heman looked at the shaving-mug for a moment, as if he contemplated
+dashing it to the floor. Then he tightened his grasp on it, like one
+putting the devil behind him.
+
+"No, I ain't," he said, doggedly, adding under his breath, "not unless
+I'm drove to 't."
+
+"I dunno who could ha' done more," said the Widder, so patently with
+the air of continuing for an indefinite period that Heman reached up
+for his hat. "Where you goin'? Mercy sakes alive! don't you mean to eat
+no supper, now I've got it all ready?"
+
+But Heman pushed his way past her and escaped, muttering something
+about "feedin' the critters." Perhaps the "critters" under his care
+were fed oftener than those on farms where the ingle-nook was at least
+as cosey as the barn.
+
+These slight skirmishes always left Heman with an uneasy sense that
+somehow he also must be to blame, though he never got beyond wondering
+what could have been done to avert the squall. When he went back into
+the kitchen, however,--the "critters" fed, and his own nerves soothed
+by pitchforking the haymow with the vigor of one who assaults a
+citadel,--he was much relieved at finding the atmosphere as clear as
+usual; and as the early twilight drew on, he became almost happy at
+thought of; the vivid pleasure before him. Never, since his wife died,
+had he played his bass-viol in public; but he had long been in the
+habit of "slying off" upstairs to it, as to a tryst with lover or
+friend whom the world denied. The Widder Poll, though she heard it
+wailing and droning thence, never seriously objected to it; the
+practice was undoubtedly "shaller," but it kept him in the house.
+
+They ate supper in silence; and then, while she washed the dishes,
+Heman changed his clothes, and went to the barn to harness. He stood
+for a moment, irresolute, when the horse was ready, and then backed him
+into the old blue pung. A queer little smile lurked at the corners of
+his mouth.
+
+"I guess the shoe'll go once more," he muttered. "No, I ain't goin' to
+marry ag'in! I said I ain't, an' I ain't. But I guess I can give a
+neighbor a lift, if I want to!"
+
+Brad Freeman was waiting near the tack door when Heman led the horse
+out of the barn. He was lank and lean, and his thick red hair strayed
+low over the forehead. His army overcoat was rent here and there beyond
+the salvation which lay in his wife's patient mending, and his old fur
+cap showed the skin in moth-eaten patches; yet Heman thought, with a
+wondering protest, how young he looked, how free from care.
+
+"Hullo, Heman!" called Brad.
+
+"How are ye?" responded Heman, with a cordiality Brad never failed to
+elicit from his brother man.
+
+Heman left the horse standing, and opened the back door.
+
+He stopped short. An awful vision confronted him,--the Widder Poll,
+clad not only in the Tycoon rep, but her best palm-leaf shawl, her
+fitch tippet, and pumpkin hood; her face was still bandaged, and her
+head-gear had been enwound by a green _barege_ veil. She stepped
+forward with an alertness quite unusual in one so accustomed to
+remembering her weight of mortal flesh.
+
+"Here!" she called, "you kind o' help me climb in. I ain't so spry as I
+was once. You better give me a real boost. But, land! I mustn't talk. I
+wouldn't git a mite of air into that tooth for a dollar bill."
+
+Heman stepped into the house for his bass-viol, and brought it out with
+an extremity of tender care; he placed it, enveloped in its green baize
+covering, in the bottom of the pung. Some ludicrous association between
+the baize and the green _barege_ veil struck Brad so forcibly that he
+gave vent to a chuckle, sliding cleverly into a cough. He tried to meet
+Heman's eye, but Heman only motioned him to get in, and took his own
+place without a word. Brad wondered if he could be ill; his face had
+grown yellowish in its pallor, and he seemed to breathe heavily.
+
+Midway in their drive to the vestry, they passed a woman walking
+briskly along in the snowy track. She was carrying her singing-books
+under one arm, and holding her head high with that proud lift which had
+seemed, more than anything else, to keep alive her girlhood's charm.
+
+"There's Roxy," said Brad. "Here, Heman, you let me jump out, an' you
+give her a lift." But Heman looked straight before him, and drove on.
+
+By the time they entered Tiverton Street, the vestry was full of
+chattering groups. Heman was the last to arrive. He made a long job of
+covering the horse, inside the shed, resolved that nothing should tempt
+him to face the general mirth at the Widder's entrance. For he could
+not deceive himself as to the world's amused estimate of her
+guardianship and his submission. He had even withdrawn from the School
+Board, where he had once been proud to figure, because, entering the
+schoolroom one day at recess, he had seen, on a confiscated slate at
+the teacher's desk, a rough caricature representing "Heman and his Ma."
+The Ma was at least half the size of the slate, while Heman was
+microscopic; but, alas! his inflamed consciousness found in both a
+resemblance which would mightily have surprised the artist. He felt
+that if he ever saw another testimony of art to his unworthiness, he
+might commit murder.
+
+When he did muster courage to push open the vestry door, the Widder
+Poll sat alone by the stove, still unwinding her voluminous wrappings,
+and the singers had very pointedly withdrawn by themselves. Brad and
+Jont had begun to tune their fiddles, and the first prelusive snapping
+of strings at once awakened Heman's nerves to a pleasant tingling; he
+was excited at the nearness of the coming joy. He drew a full breath
+when it struck home to him, with the warm certainty of a happy truth,
+that if he did not look at her, even the Widder Poll could hardly spoil
+his evening. Everybody greeted him with unusual kindliness, though some
+could not refrain from coupling their word with a meaning glance at the
+colossal figure near the stove. One even whispered,--
+
+"She treed ye, didn't she, Heman?"
+
+He did not trust himself to answer, but drew the covering from his own
+treasure, and began his part of the delicious snapping and screwing.
+
+"Where's Roxy?" called Jont Marshall "Can't do without her alto.
+Anybody seen her?"
+
+Roxy was really very late, and Heman could not help wondering whether
+she had delayed in starting because she had expected a friendly
+invitation to ride, "All right," he reflected, bitterly. "She must get
+used to it."
+
+The door opened, and Roxy came in. She had been walking fast, and her
+color was high. Heman stole one glance at her, under cover of the
+saluting voices. She was forty years old, yet her hair had not one
+silver thread, and at that instant of happy animation, she looked
+strikingly like her elder sister, to whom Heman used to give lozenges
+when they were boy and girl together, and who died in India. Then Roxy
+took her place, and Heman bent over his bass-viol. The rehearsal began.
+Heman forgot all about his keeper sitting by the stove, as the old,
+familiar tunes swelled up in the little room, and one antique phrase
+after another awoke nerve-cells all unaccustomed nowadays to thrilling.
+He could remember just when he first learned The Mellow Horn, and how
+his uncle, the sailor, had used to sing it. "Fly like a youthful hart
+or roe!" Were there spices still left on the hills of life? Ah, but
+only for youth to smell and gather! Boldly, with a happy bravado, the
+choir sang,--
+
+  "The British yoke, the Gallic chain,
+  Were placed upon our necks in vain!"
+
+And then came the pious climax of Coronation, America, and the
+Doxology. Above the tumult of voices following the end of rehearsal,
+some one announced the decision to meet on Wednesday night; and Heman,
+his bass-viol again in its case, awoke, and saw the Widder putting on
+her green veil. Rosa Tolman nudged her intimate friend, Laura Pettis,
+behind Heman's back, and whispered,--
+
+"I wonder if she's had a good time! There 'ain't been a soul for her to
+speak to, the whole evenin' long!"
+
+The other girl laughed, with a delicious sense of fun in the situation,
+and Heman recoiled; the sound was like a blow in the face.
+
+"Say, Heman," said Brad, speaking in his ear. "I guess I'll walk home,
+so't you can take in Roxy."
+
+But Heman had bent his head, and was moving along with the rest, like a
+man under a burden.
+
+"No," said he, drearily. "I can't. You come along."
+
+His tone was quite conclusive; and Brad, albeit wondering, said no
+more. The three packed themselves into the pung, and drove away. Heman
+was conscious of some dull relief in remembering that he need not pass
+Roxy again on the road, for he heard her voice ring out clearly from a
+group near the church. He wondered if anybody would go home with her,
+and whether she minded the dark "spell o' woods" by the river. No
+matter! It was of no use. She must get used to her own company.
+
+The Widder was almost torpid from her long sojourn by the stove; but
+the tingling air roused her at last, and she spoke, though mumblingly,
+remembering her tooth,--
+
+"Proper nice tunes, wa'n't they? Was most on 'em new?"
+
+But Brad could not hear, and left it for Heman to answer; and Heman
+gave his head a little restive shake, and said, "No." At his own gate,
+he stopped.
+
+"I guess I won't car' you down home," he said to Brad.
+
+It was only a stone's-throw, Brad hesitated.
+
+"No, I, didn't mean for ye to," answered he, "but I'll stop an' help
+unharness."
+
+"No," said Heman, gently. "You better not. I'd ruther do it." Even a
+friendly voice had become unbearable in his ears.
+
+So, Brad, stepped down, lifted out his fiddle-case, and said
+good-night. Heman drove into the yard, and stopped before the kitchen
+door. He took the reins in one hand, and held out the other to the
+Widder.
+
+"You be a mite careful o' your feet," he said. "That bass-viol slipped
+a little for'ard when we come down Lamson's Hill."
+
+She rose ponderously. She seemed to sway and hesitate; then she set one
+foot cautiously forward in the pung. There was a rending, crash. The
+Widder Poll had stepped into the bass-viol. She gave a little scream;
+and plunged forward.
+
+"My foot's ketched!" she cried. "Can't you help me out?"
+
+Heman dropped the reins; he put his hands on her arms, and pulled her
+forward. He never knew whether she reached the ground on her feet or
+her knees. Then he pushed past her, where she floundered, and lifted
+out his darling. He carried it into the kitchen, and lighted the
+candle, with trembling hands. He drew back the cover. The bass-viol had
+its mortal wound; he could have laid both fists into the hole. He
+groaned.
+
+"My God Almighty!" he said aloud.
+
+The Widder Poll had stumbled into the room. She threw back her green
+veil, and her face shone ivory white under its shadow; her small eyes
+were starting. She looked like a culprit whom direst vengeance had
+overtaken at last. At the sound of her step, Heman lifted his hurt
+treasure, carried it tenderly into his bedroom, and shut the door upon
+it. He turned about, and walked past her out of the house. The Widder
+Poll followed him, wringing her mittened hands.
+
+"O Heman!" she cried, "don't you look like that! Oh, you'll do yourself
+some mischief, I know you will!"
+
+But Heman had climbed into the pung, and given Old Gameleg a vicious
+cut. Swinging out of the yard they went; and the Widder Poll ran after
+until, just outside the gate, she reflected that she never could
+overtake him and that her ankles were weak; then she returned to the
+house, groaning.
+
+Heman was conscious of one thought only: if any man had come home with
+Roxy, he should kill him with his own hands. He drove on, almost to the
+vestry, and found no trace of her. He turned about, and, retracing his
+way, stopped at her mother's gate, left Old Gameleg, and strode into
+the yard. There was no light in the kitchen, and only a glimmer in the
+chamber above. Heman went up to the kitchen door and knocked. The
+chamber window opened.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Mrs. Cole. "Why, that you, Heman? Anybody sick?"
+
+"Where's Roxy?" returned Heman, as if he demanded her at the point of
+the bayonet.
+
+"Why, she's been abed as much as ten minutes. The Tuckers brought her
+home."
+
+"You tell her to come here! I want to see her."
+
+"What! down there? Law, Heman! you come in the mornin'. She'll ketch
+her death o' cold gittin' up an' dressin', now she's got all warmed
+through."
+
+"What's he want, mother?" came Roxy's clear voice from within the room.
+"That's Heman Blaisdell's voice."
+
+"Roxy, you come down here!" called Heman, masterfully.
+
+There was a pause, during which Mrs. Cole was apparently pulled away
+from the window. Then Roxy, her head enveloped in a shawl, appeared in
+her mother's place.
+
+"Well!" she said, impatiently. "What is it?"
+
+Heman's voice found a pleading level.
+
+"Roxy, will you marry me?"
+
+"Why, Heman, you 're perfectly ridiculous! At this time o' night, too!"
+
+"You answer me!" cried Heman, desperately. "I want you! Won't you have
+me, Roxy? Say?"
+
+"Roxy!" came her mother's muffled voice from the bed. "You'll git your
+death o' cold. What's he want? Can't you give him an answer an' let him
+go?"
+
+"Won't you, Roxy?" called Heman. "Oh, won't you?"
+
+Roxy began to laugh hysterically. "Yes," she said, and shut the window.
+
+When Heman had put up the horse, he walked into the kitchen, and
+straight up to the Widder Poll, who stood awaiting him, clinging to the
+table by one fat hand.
+
+"Now, look here!" he said, good-naturedly, speaking to her with a
+direct address he had not been able to use for many a month, "You
+listen to me. I don't want any hard feelin', but to-morrer mornin'
+you've got to pick up your things an' go. You can have the house down
+to the Holler, or you can go out nussin', but you come here by your own
+invitation, an' you've got to leave by mine. I'm goin' to be married as
+soon as I can git a license." Then he walked to the bedroom, and shut
+himself in with his ruined bass-viol and the darkness.
+
+And the Widder Poll did not speak.
+
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are very few cosey evenings when Heman and Roxy do not smile at
+each other across the glowing circle of their hearth, and ask, the one
+or the other, with a perplexity never to be allayed,--
+
+"Do you s'pose she tumbled, or did she put her foot through it
+a-purpose?"
+
+But Heman is sure to conclude the discussion with a glowing tribute to
+Brad Freeman, his genius and his kindliness.
+
+"I never shall forgit that o' Brad," he announces. "There wa'n't
+another man in the State o' New Hampshire could ha' mended it as he
+did. Why, you never'd know there was a brack in it!"
+
+
+
+
+HEARTSEASE.
+
+    "For as for heartsease, it groweth in a single night."
+
+
+"What be you doin' of, Mis' Lamson?" asked Mrs. Pettis, coming in from
+the kitchen, where she had been holding a long conversation with young
+Mrs. Lamson on the possibility of doing over sugar-barberry. Mrs.
+Pettis was a heavy woman, bent almost double with rheumatism, and she
+carried a baggy umbrella for a cane. She was always sighing over the
+difficulty of "gittin' round the house," but nevertheless she made more
+calls than any one else in the neighborhood. "It kind o' limbered her
+up," she said, "to take a walk after she had been bendin' over the
+dish-pan."
+
+Mrs. Lamson looked up with an alert, bright glance. She was a little
+creature, and something still girlish lingered in her straight, slender
+figure and the poise of her head. "Old Lady Lamson" was over eighty,
+and she dressed with due deference to custom; but everything about her
+gained, in the wearing, an air of youth. Her aggressively brown front
+was rumpled a little, as if it had tried to crimp itself, only to be
+detected before the operation was well begun, and the purple ribbons of
+her cap flared rakishly aloft.
+
+"I jest took up a garter," she said, with some apology in her tone.
+"Kind o' fiddlin' work, ain't it?"
+
+"Last time I was here, you was knittin' mittins," continued Mrs.
+Pettis, seating herself laboriously on the lounge, and leaning forward
+upon the umbrella clutched steadily in two fat hands. "You're dretful
+forehanded. I remember I said so then. 'Samwel 'ain't got a mittin, to
+his name,' I says, 'nor he won't have 'fore November.'"
+
+"Well, I guess David's pretty well on't for everything now," answered
+Mrs. Lamson, with some pride. "He's got five pair o' new mittins, an'
+my little blue chist full o' stockin's. I knit 'em two-an'-two, an'
+two-an'-one, an' toed some on 'em off with white, an' some with red,
+so's to keep 'em in pairs. But Mary said I better not knit any more,
+for fear the moths'd git into 'em, an' so I stopped an' took up this
+garter. But _'tis_ dretful fiddlin' work!"
+
+A brief silence fell upon the two, while the sweet summer scents stole
+in at the window,--the breath of the cinnamon rose, of growing, grass
+and good brown earth. Mrs. Pettis pondered, looking vacantly before
+her, and Old Lady Lamson knit hastily on. Her needles clicked together,
+and she turned her work with a jerk in beginning a row. But neither was
+oppressed by lack of speech. They understood each other, and no more
+thought of "making talk" than of pulling up a seed to learn whether it
+had germinated. It was Mrs. Pettis who, after, a natural interval; felt
+moved to speak.
+
+"Mary's master thoughtful of you, ain't she? 'Tain't many sons' wives
+would be so tender of, anybody, now is it?"
+
+Mrs. Lamson looked up sharply, and then, with the same quick movement;
+bent her eyes on her work.
+
+"Mary means to do jest what's right," she answered. "If she don't make
+out, it ain't for lack o' tryin'."
+
+"So I says to Samwel this mornin, 'Old Lady Lamson 'ain't one thing to
+concert herself with,' says I, 'but to git dressed an' set by the
+winder. When dinner-time comes, she's got nothin' to do but hitch up to
+the table; an' she don't have to touch her hand to a dish.' Now ain't
+that so, Mis' Lamson?"
+
+"That's so," agreed Mrs. Lamson, with a little sigh, instantly
+suppressed. "It's different from what I thought to myself 'twould be
+when Mary come here. ''Tain't in natur' she'll have the feelin' for me
+she would for her own,' I says; but I b'lieve she has, an' more too.
+When she come for good, I made up my mind I'd put 'Up with everything,
+an' say 'twas all in the day's work; but law! I never had to. She an'
+David both act as if I was sugar or salt, I dunno which."
+
+"Don't ye never help 'round, washin'-days?"
+
+"Law, no! Mary won't hear to 't. She'd ruther have the dishes wait till
+everything's on the line; an' if I stir a step to go into the gardin to
+pick a 'mess o' beans, or kill a currant worm, she's right arter me.
+'Mother, don't you fall!' she says, a dozen 'times a day. 'I dunno what
+David'd do to me, if I let anything happen to you.' An' 'David, he's
+ketched it, too. One night, 'long towards Thanksgivin' time, I kicked
+the soapstone out o' bed, an' he come runnin' up as if he was
+bewitched. 'Mother,' says he, 'did you fall? You 'ain't had a stroke,
+have ye?'"
+
+Old Lady Lamson laughed huskily; her black eyes shone, and her cap
+ribbons nodded, and danced, but there was an ironical ring to her
+merriment.
+
+"Do tell!" responded Mrs. Pettis, in her ruminating voice. "Well,
+things were different when we was young married folks, an' used to do
+our own spinnin' an' weavin'."
+
+"I guess so!" Mrs. Lamson dropped her busy hands in her lap, and leaned
+back a moment, in eager retrospect. "Do you recollect that Friday we
+spun from four o'clock in the mornin' till six that evenin', because
+the men-folks had gone in the ma'sh, an' all we had to do was to stop
+an' feed the critters? An' Hiram Peasley come along with tinware, an'
+you says, 'If you're a mind to stop at my house, an' throw a colander
+an' a long-handled dipper over the fence, under the flowerin'-currant,
+an' wait till next time for your pay, I'll take 'em,' says you. 'But I
+ain't goin' to leave off spinnin' for anything less 'n Gabriel's
+trumpet,' says you. I remember your sayin' that, as if 'twas only
+yisterday; an' arter you said it, you kind o' drawed down your face an'
+looked scairt. An' I never thought on't ag'in till next Sabbath
+evenin', when Jim Bellows rose to speak, an' made some handle about the
+Day o' Judgment, an' then I tickled right out."
+
+"How you do set by them days!" said Mrs. Pettis, striving to keep a
+steady face, though her heavy sides were shaking. "I guess you remember
+'em better 'n your prayers!"
+
+"Yes, I laughed out loud, an' you passed me a pep'mint over the pew,
+an' looked as if you was goin' to cry. 'Don't,' says you; an' it sort
+o' come over me you knew what I was laughin' at. Why, if there ain't
+John Freeman stoppin' here,--Mary's sister's brother-in-law, you know.
+Lives down to Bell P'int. Guess he's pullin' up to give the news."
+
+Mrs. Pettis came slowly to her feet, and scanned the farmer, who was
+hitching his horse to the fence. When he had gone round to the back
+door, she turned, and grasped her umbrella with a firmer hand.
+
+"Well, I guess 'twon't pay me to set down ag'in," she announced. "I'm
+goin' to take it easy on the way home. I dunno but I'll let down the
+bars, an' poke a little ways into the north pastur', an' see if I can't
+git a mite o' pennyr'yal. I'll be in ag'in to-morrer or next day."
+
+"So do, so do," returned Mrs. Lamson.
+
+"'Tain't no use to ask you to come down, I s'pose? You don't git, out
+so fur, nowadays."
+
+"No," said the other, still with that latent touch of sarcasm in her
+voice. "If I should fall, there'd be a great hurrah, boys,--'fire on
+the mountain, run, boys, run!'"
+
+Mrs. Pettis toiled out into the road; and Old Lady Lamson, laying her
+knitting on the table, bent forward, not to watch her out of sight, but
+to make sure whether she really would stop at the north pasture.
+
+"No, she's goin' by," she said aloud, with evident relief. "No, she
+ain't either. I'll be whipped if she ain't lettin' down the bars!
+_'Twould_ smell kind o' good, I declare!"
+
+She was still peering forward, one slender hand on the window-sill,
+when Mary, a pretty young woman, with two nervous lines between her
+eyes, came hurrying in.
+
+"Mother," she began, in that unnatural voice which is supposed to allay
+excitement in another, "I dunno what I'm goin' to do. Stella's sick."
+
+"You don't say!" said Old Lady Lamson, turning away from the window.
+"What do they think 'tis?"
+
+"Fever, John says. An' she's so full-blooded it'll be likely to go hard
+with her. They want me to go right down, an' David's got to carry me.
+John would, but he's gone to be referee in that land case, an' he won't
+be back for a day or two. It's a mercy David's just home from town, so
+he won't have to change his clo'es right through. Now, mother, if you
+should have little 'Liza Tolman come an' stay with you, do you think
+anything would happen, s'posin' we left you alone just one night?"
+
+A little flush rose in the old lady's withered cheek. Her eyes gleamed
+brightly through her glasses.
+
+"Don't you worry one mite about me," she replied, in an even voice.
+"You change your dress, an' git off afore it's dark. I shall be all
+right."
+
+"David's harnessin' now," said Mary, beginning to untie her apron. "I
+sent John down to the lower barn to call him. But, mother, if anything
+should happen to you--"
+
+"Lord-a-massy! nothin' 's goin' to!" the old lady broke forth, in
+momentary impatience. "Don't stan' here talkin'. You better have your
+mind on Stella. Fever's a quicker complaint than old age. It al'ays
+was, an' al'ays will be."
+
+"Oh, I know it! I know it!" cried Mary, starting toward the door.
+"There ain't a thing for you to do. There's new bread an' preserves on
+the dairy-wheel, an' you have 'Liza Tolman pick you up some chips, an'
+build the fire for your tea; an' don't you wash the dishes, mother.
+Just leave 'em in the sink. An' for mercy sake, take a candle, an' not
+meddle with kerosene--"
+
+"Come, come, ain't you ready?" came David's voice from the door. "I
+can't keep the horse stan'in' here till he's all eat up with flies."
+
+Mary fled to her bedroom, unbuttoning her dress as she ran; and David
+came in, bringing an air of outdoor freshness into the little
+sitting-room, with his regal height, his broad shoulders, and tanned,
+fresh face.
+
+"Well, mother," he said, putting a hand of clumsy kindliness on her
+shoulder, "if anything happens to you while we're gone, I shall wish
+we'd let the whole caboodle of 'em die in their tracks. Don't s'pose
+anything will, do ye?"
+
+"Law, no, David!" exclaimed the old lady, looking at him with beaming
+pride. "You stan' still an' let me pick that mite o' lint off your arm.
+I shall be tickled to death to git rid on ye."
+
+"Now, mother," counselled Mary, when she came but of the bedroom,
+hastily tying her bonnet strings, "you watch the school-children, an'
+ask 'Liza Tolman to stay with you, an' if she can't, to get one of the
+Daltons; an' tell her we'll give her some Bartlett pears when they're
+ripe."
+
+"Yes, yes, I hear," answered the old lady, rising, and setting back her
+chair in its accustomed corner. "Now, do go along, or ye won't be down
+to Grapevine Run afore five o'clock."
+
+She watched them while they drove out of the yard, shading her eyes
+with one nervous hand.
+
+"Mother," called Mary, "don't you stan' there in that wind, with
+nothin' on your head!"
+
+The old lady turned back into the house, and her face was alive with
+glee.
+
+"Wind!" she ejaculated scornfully, and yet with the tolerance of one
+too happy for complaint. "Wind! I guess there wouldn't be so much, if
+some folks would save their breath to cool their porridge!"
+
+She did not go back to the sitting-room and her peaceful knitting. She
+walked into the pantry, where she gave the shelves a critical survey,
+and then, returning to the kitchen, looked about her once more.
+
+"If it's one day sence I've been down sullar," she said aloud, "it's
+two year." She 'was lighting a candle as she spoke. In another moment,
+she was taking sprightly steps down the stairs into the darkness below.
+
+"Now, mother, don't you fall!" she chuckled, midway in the descent; and
+it was undeniable that the voice sounded much like Mary's in her
+anxious mood. "Now, ain't I a mean creatur' to stan' here laughin' at
+'em!" she went on: "Well,' if she don't keep things nice! 'Taters all
+sprouted; an' the preserve cupboard never looked better in my day.
+Mary's been well brought up,--I'll say that for her."
+
+Old Lady Lamson must have spent at least half an hour in the cellar,
+for when she ascended it was after four o'clock, and the
+school-children had passed the house on their way home. She heard their
+voices under the elms at the turn of the road.
+
+"I ain't to blame if I can't ketch 'em," she remarked calmly, as she
+blew out her light. "I don't see's anybody could say I was to blame.
+An' I couldn't walk up to the Tolmans' to ask 'Liza. I might fall!"
+
+She set about her preparations for supper. It was a favorite maxim in
+the household that the meal should be eaten early, "to get it out of
+the way;" and to-night this unaccustomed handmaid had additional
+reasons for haste. But the new bread and preserves were ignored. She
+built a rousing fire in the little kitchen stove; she brought out the
+moulding-board, and with trembling eagerness proceeded to mix
+cream-of-tartar biscuits. Not Cellini himself nor Jeannie Carlyle had
+awaited the results of passionate labor with a more strenuous
+eagerness; and when she drew out the panful of delicately browned
+biscuits, she set it down on the table, and looked at it in sheer
+delight.
+
+"I'll be whipped if they ain't as good as if I'd made 'em every night
+for the last two year!" she cried. "I ain't got to git my hand in,
+an' that's truth an' fact!"
+
+She brought out some "cold b'iled dish," made her strong green tea, and
+sat down to a banquet such as they taste who have reached the
+Delectable Mountains. It held within it all the savor of a happy past;
+it satisfied her hungry soul.
+
+After she had washed the supper dishes and scrupulously swept the
+hearth, she rested, for a moment's thought, in the old rocking-chair,
+and then took her way, candle in hand, to the attic. There was no
+further self-confidence on the stairs; she was too serious, now. Her
+hours were going fast. The attic, in spite of the open windows, lay hot
+under summer's touch upon the shingles outside, and odorous of the
+dried herbs hanging in bunches here and there.
+
+"Wormwood--thoroughwort--spearmint," she mused, as she touched them,
+one after another, and inhaled their fragrance. "'Tain't so long ago I
+was out pickin' herbs an' dryin' 'em. Well, well, well!"
+
+She made her way under the eaves, and pulled out a hair-trunk, studded
+with brass nails. A rush-bottomed chair stood near-by, and, setting her
+candle in it, she knelt before the trunk and began lifting out its
+contents: a brocaded satin waistcoat of a long-past day, a woolen
+comforter knit in stripes, a man's black broadcloth coat. She smoothed
+them, as she laid them by, and there was a wondering note in her
+lowered voice.
+
+"My Lord!" she whispered reverently, as if speaking to One who would
+hear and understand, "it's over fifty year!"
+
+A pile of yellowed linen lay in the bottom of the trunk, redolent of
+camphor from contact with its perishable neighbors. She lifted one
+shirt after another, looking at them in silence. Then she laid back the
+other clothes, took up her candle and the shirts, and went downstairs
+again. In hot haste, she rebuilt the kitchen fire, and set two large
+kettles of water on the stove. She dragged the washing-bench into the
+back kitchen from its corner in the shed, and on it placed her tubs;
+and when the water was heated, she put the garments into a tub, and
+rubbed with the vigor and ease of a woman well accustomed to such work.
+All the sounds of the night were loud about her, and the song of the
+whippoorwill came in at the open door. He was very near. His presence
+should have been a sign of approaching trouble, but Old Lady Lamson did
+not hear him. Her mind was reading the lettered scroll of a vanished
+year.
+
+Perhaps the touch of the warm water on her hands recalled her to the
+present.
+
+"Seems good to feel the suds," she said, happily, holding up one
+withered hand, and letting the foam drip from her fingers, "I wish't I
+could dry outdoor! But when mornin' come, they'd be all of a sop."
+
+She washed and rinsed the garments, and, opening a clothes-horse,
+spread them out to dry. Then she drew a long breath, put out her
+candle, and wandered to the door. The garden lay before her, unreal in
+the beauty of moonlight. Every bush seemed an enchanted wood. The old
+lady went forth, lingering at first, as one too rich for choosing; then
+with a firmer step. She closed the little gate, and walked out into the
+country road. She hurried along to the old signboard, and turned aside
+unerringly into a hollow, there, where she stooped and filled her hands
+with tansy, pulling it up in great bunches, and pressing it eagerly to
+her face.
+
+"Seventy-four year ago!" she told the unseen listener of the night,
+with the same wonder in her voice. "Sir laid dead, an' they sent me
+down here to pick tansy to put round him. Seventy-four year ago!"
+
+Still holding it; she rose, and went through the bars into the dewy
+lane. Down the wandering path, trodden daily by the cows, she walked,
+and came out in the broad pasture, irregular with its little hillocks,
+where, as she had been told from her babyhood, the Indians used to
+plant their corn. She entered the woods by a cart-path hidden from the
+moon, and went on with a light step, gathering a bit of green here and
+there,--now hemlock, now a needle from the sticky pine,--and inhaling
+its balsam on her hands. A sharp descent, and she had reached the spot
+where the brook ran fast, and where lay "Peggy's b'ilin' spring," named
+for a great-aunt she had never seen, but whose gold beads she had
+inherited, and who had consequently seemed to her a person of opulence
+and ease.
+
+"I wish't I'd brought a cup," she said. "There ain't no such water
+within twenty mile."
+
+She crouched beside the little black pool, where the moon glinted in
+mysterious, wavering, symbols to beckon the gaze upward, and, making a
+cup of her hand, drank eagerly. There was a sound near-by, as if some
+wood creature were stirring; she thought she heard a fox barking in the
+distance. Yet she was really conscious only of the wonder of time, the
+solemn record of the fleeting years.
+
+When she made her way back through the woods, the moon was sinking, and
+the shadows had grown heavy. As she reached the bars again, on her
+homeward track, she stopped suddenly, and her face broke into smiling
+at the pungent fragrance rising from the bruised herbage beneath her
+feet. She stooped and gathered one telltale, homely weed, mixed as it
+was with the pasture grass. "Pennyr'yal," she said happily, and felt
+the richness of being.
+
+When Old Lady Lamson had ironed her shirts and put them away again, all
+hot and sweet from the fire, it was five o'clock, and the birds had
+long been trying to drag creation up from sleep, to sing with them the
+wonders of the dawn. At six, she had her cup of tea, and when, at
+eight, her son drove into the yard, she came placidly to the side door
+to meet him, her knitting in her hands.
+
+"Well, if I ain't glad!" called David. "I couldn't git it out o' my
+mind somethin' 'd happened to you. Stella's goin' to be all right, they
+think, but nothin' will do but Mary must stay a spell. Do you s'pose
+you an' I could keep house a week or so, if I do the heft o' the work?"
+
+Old Lady Lamson's eyes took on the look which sometimes caused her son
+to inquire suspiciously, "Mother, what you laughin' at?"
+
+"I guess we can, if we try hard enough," she said, soberly, rolling up
+her yarn. "Now you come in, an' I'll git you a bite o' somethin'
+t'eat."
+
+
+
+
+MIS' WADLEIGH'S GUEST.
+
+
+Cyrus Pendleton sat by the kitchen fire, his stockinged feet, in the
+oven, and his; hands stretched out toward the kettles, which were
+bubbling prosperously away, and puffing a cloud of steam, into his
+face. He was a meagre, sad-colored man, with mutton-chop whiskers so
+thin as to lie like a shadow on his fallen cheeks; and his glance,
+wherever it fell, Seemed to deprecate reproof. Thick layers of flannel
+swathed his throat, and from time to time, he coughed wheezingly, with
+the air of one who, having a cold, was determined to be conscientious
+about it. A voice from the buttery began pouring forth words only a
+little slower than the blackbird sings, and with no more reference to
+reply.
+
+"Cyrus, don't you feel a mite better? Though I dunno how you could,
+expect to, arter such a night as you had on't, puffin' an' blowin'!"
+Mrs. Pendleton followed the voice. She seemed to be borne briskly in on
+its wings, and came scudding over the kitchen sill, carrying a pan of
+freshly sifted flour. She set it down on the table, and began "stirrin'
+up." "I dunno where you got such a cold, unless it's in the air," she
+continued. "Folks say they're round, nowadays, an' you ketch 'em, jest
+as you would the mumps. But there! nobody on your side or mine ever had
+the mumps, as long as I can remember. Except Elkanah, though! an' he
+ketched 'em down to Portsmouth, when he went off on that fool's arrant
+arter elwives. Do you s'pose you could eat a mite o' fish for dinner?"
+
+"I was thinkin'--" interposed Cyrus, mildly; but his wife swept past
+him, and took the road.
+
+"I dunno's there's any use in gittin' a real dinner, jest you an' me,
+an' you not workin' either. Folks say there's more danger of eatin' too
+much'n too little. Gilman Lane, though, he kep' eatin' less an' less,
+an' his stomach dried all up, till 'twa'n't no bigger'n a bladder. Look
+here, you! I shouldn't wonder a mite if you'd got some o' them stomach
+troubles along with your cold. You 'ain't acted as if you'd relished a
+meal o' victuals for nigh onto ten days. Soon as I git my hands out o'
+the flour, I'll look in the doctor's book, an' find out. My! how het up
+I be!" She wiped her hands on the roller towel, and unpinned the little
+plaid shawl drawn tightly across her shoulders, Its removal disclosed a
+green sontag, and under that manifold layers of jacket and waist. She
+was amply protected from the cold. "I dunno's I ought to ha' stirred up
+rye'n' Injun," she went on, returning to her vigorous tossing and
+mixing at the table. "Some might say the steam was bad for your lungs.
+Anyhow, the doctor's book holds to't you've got to pick out a dry
+climate, if you don't want to go into a decline. Le' me see! when your
+Aunt Mattie was took, how long was it afore she really gi'n up? Arter
+she begun to cough, I mean?"
+
+Cyrus moved uneasily.
+
+"I dunno," he said, hastily. "I never kep' the run o' such things."
+
+But Mirandy, pouring her batter into the pan, heeded him no more than
+was her wont.
+
+"I s'pose that was real gallopin' consumption," she said, with relish."
+I must ask Sister Sarah how long 'twas, next time I see her. She set it
+down with the births an' deaths."
+
+Cyrus was moved to some remonstrance. He often felt the necessity of
+asserting himself, lest he should presently hear his own passing-bell
+and epitaph.
+
+"I guess you needn't stop steamin' bread for me! I ain't half so
+stuffed up as I was yisterday!"
+
+Mrs. Pendleton clapped the loaf into the pot, wrinkling her face over
+the cloud of steam that came puffing into it.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed. "Now perhaps I can git a minute to se' down. I
+ain't bound a shoe to-day. My! who's that out this weather?"
+
+The side door was pushed open, and then shut with a bang. A vigorous
+stamping of snow followed, and the inner door swung in to admit a
+woman, very short, very stout, with a round, apple-cheeked face, and
+twinkling eyes looking out from the enveloping folds of a gray cloud.
+
+"Well!" she said, in a cheery voice, beginning at once to unwind the
+cloud, "here I be! Didn't think I'd rain down, did ye? I thought
+myself, one spell, I should freeze afore I fell!"
+
+Mrs. Pendleton hurried forward, wiping her hands on her apron as she
+went.
+
+"For the land's sake, Marthy Wadleigh!" she cried, laying hold of the
+new-comer by the shoulders, and giving her an ineffectual but wholly
+delighted shake. "Well, I never! Who brought you over? Though I dunno
+which way you come. I 'ain't looked out--"
+
+"I walked from the corner," said Mrs. Wadleigh, who never felt any
+compunction about interrupting her old neighbor. She was unpinning her
+shawl composedly, as one sure of a welcome. "How do, Cyrus? Jim Thomas
+took me up jest beyond the depot, an' give me a lift on his sled; but I
+was all of a shiver, an' at the corner, I told him he better let me
+step down an' walk. So I come the rest o' the way afoot an' alone. You
+ain't goin' to use the oven, be ye? I'll jest stick my feet in a
+minute. No, Cyrus, don't you move! I'll take t'other side. I guess we
+sha'n't come to 'blows over it."
+
+She seemed to have brought into the kitchen, with that freshness of
+outdoor air which the new-comer bears, like a balsam, in his garments,
+a breath of fuller life, and even of jollity. As she sat there in her
+good brown dress, with her worked collar, fastened by a large cameo,
+her gold beads just showing, and her plump hands folded on a capacious
+lap, she looked the picture of jovial content, quite able to take care
+of herself, and perhaps apply a sturdy shoulder to the lagging
+machinery of the world.
+
+"Didn't you git word I was comin' this week?" she asked. "I sent you a
+line."
+
+"No, we 'ain't been so fur's the post-office," answered Mirandy,
+absently. She was debating over her most feasible bill of fare, now
+that a "pick-up dinner" seemed no longer possible. Moreover, she had
+something on her mind, and she could not help thinking how unfortunate
+it was that Cyrus shared her secret. Who could tell at what moment he
+might broach it? She doubted his discretion. "The roads wa'n't broke
+out till day before yisterday."
+
+"I shouldn't think they were!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, scornfully, testing
+the heat with a hand on her skirt, and then lifting the breadths back
+over her quilted petticoat. "I thought that would be the way on't, but
+I'd made up my mind to come, an' come I would. Cyrus, what's the matter
+o' you? Nothin' more'n a cold, is it?"
+
+Cyrus had withdrawn from the stove, and was feeling his chin,
+uncertainly.
+
+"Oh, no, I guess not," he said. "We've been kind o' peaked, for a week
+or two, all over the neighborhood; but I guess we shall come out on't,
+now we've got into the spring. Mirandy, you git me a mite o' hot water,
+an' I'll see if I can't shave."
+
+Mirandy was vigorously washing potatoes at the sink, but she turned, in
+ever-ready remonstrance.
+
+"Shave!" she ejaculated, "Well, I guess you won't shave, such a day as
+this, in that cold bedroom, with a stockin'-leg round your throat, an'
+all! You want to git your death? Why, 'twas only last night, Marthy, he
+had a hemlock sweat, an' all the ginger tea I could git down into him!
+An' then I didn't know--"
+
+"Law! let him alone!" said Marthy, with a comfortable, throaty laugh.
+"He'll feel twice as well, git some o' them things off his neck. Here,
+Cyrus, you reach me down your mug--ain't them your shavin' things up
+there?--an' I'll fill it for you. You git him a piece o' flannel,
+Mirandy, to put on when he's washed up an' took all that stuff off his
+throat. Why, he's got enough wool round there, if 'twas all in yarn, to
+knit Old Tobe a pair o' mittins! An' they say one o' his thumbs was
+bigger'n the hand o' Providence. You don't want to try all the goodness
+out of him, do ye?"
+
+Cyrus gave one swift glance at his wife. "There! you see!" it said
+plainly. "I am not without defenders." He took down his shaving-mug,
+with an air of some bravado. But Mirandy was no shrew; she was simply
+troubled about many things.
+
+"Well," she said, compressing her lips, and wrinkling her forehead in
+resignation. "If folks want to kill themselves, I can't hender 'em! But
+when he's down ag'in, I shall be the one to take care of him, that's
+all. Here, Cyrus, don't you go into that cold bedroom. You shave you
+here, if you're determined to do it."
+
+So Cyrus, after honing his razor, with the pleasure of a bored child
+provided at last with occupation, betook himself to the glass set in
+the lower part of the clock, and there, with much contortion of his
+thin visage, proceeded to shave. Mirandy put her potatoes on to boil,
+and set the fish on the stove to freshen; then She sat down by the
+window, with a great basket beside her, and began to bind shoes.
+
+"Here," said Mrs. Wadleigh, coming to her feet and adjusting her skirt,
+"you give me a needle! I've got my thimble right here in my pocket.
+It's three months sence I've seen a shoe. I should admire to do a pair
+or two. I wish I could promise ye more, but somehow I'm bewitched to
+git over home right arter dinner!"
+
+Mrs. Pendleton laid down her work, and leaned back in her chair. Cyrus
+turned, cleared his throat, and looked at her.
+
+"Marthy," said the hostess, "you ain't goin' over there to that
+lonesome house, this cold snap?"
+
+"Ain't I?" asked Mrs. Wadleigh, composedly, as she trimmed the top of
+her shoe preparatory to binding it. "Well, you see'f I ain't!"
+
+"In the fust place," went on Mrs. Pendleton, nervously, "the cross-road
+ain't broke out, an' you can't git there. I dunno's a horse could
+plough through; an' s'posin' they could, Cyrus ain't no more fit to go
+out an' carry you over'n a fly."
+
+"Don't you worry," said Mrs. Wadleigh, binding off one top. "While I've
+got my own legs, I don't mean to be beholden to nobody. I've had a
+proper nice time all winter, fust with Lucy an' then with Ann,--an' I
+tell ye 'tain't everybody that's got two darters married so well!--but
+for the last fortnight, I've been in a real tew to come home. They've
+kep' me till I wouldn't stay no longer, an' now I've got so near as
+this, I guess I ain't goin' to stop for nobody!"
+
+Mrs. Pendleton looked despairingly at her husband; and he, absently
+wiping his razor on a bit of paper, looked at her.
+
+"Marthy!" she burst forth. "No, Cyrus, don't you say one word! You
+can't go! There's somebody there!"
+
+Mrs. Wadleigh, in turn, put down her work.
+
+"Somebody there!" she ejaculated. "Where?"
+
+"In your house!"
+
+"In my house? What for?"
+
+"I dunno," said Mirandy, unhappily.
+
+"Dunno? Well, what are they doin' there?"
+
+"I dunno that. We only know there's somebody there."
+
+Here the brown-bread kettle boiled over, creating a diversion; and
+Mirandy gladly rose to set it further back. A slight heat had come into
+Mrs. Wadleigh's manner.
+
+"Cyrus," said she, with emphasis, "I should like to have you speak. I
+left that house in your care. I left the key with you, an' I should
+like to know who you've been an' got in there."
+
+Cyrus opened his mouth, and then closed it again without saying a word.
+He looked appealingly at his wife; and she took up the tale with some
+joy, now that the first plunge had been made.
+
+"Well," she said, folding her hands in her apron, and beginning to rock
+back and forth, a little color coming into her cheeks, and her eyes
+snapping vigorously. "You see, this was the way 'twas. Cyrus, do let me
+speak!" Cyrus had ineffectually opened his mouth again. "Wa'n't it in
+November you went away? I thought so. Jest after that first sprinklin'
+o' snow, that looked as if 'twould lay all winter. Well, we took the
+key, an' hung it up inside the clock--an' there 'tis now!--an' once a
+week, reg'lar as the day come round, Cyrus went over, an' opened the
+winders, an' aired out the house."
+
+Mrs. Wadleigh sat putting her thimble off and on.
+
+"I know all about that," she interposed, "but who's in there now?
+That's what I want to find out."
+
+"I'm comin' to that. I don't want to git ahead o' my story. An' so't
+went on till it come two weeks ago Friday, an' Cyrus went over jest the
+same as ever. An' when he hitched to the gate, he see smoke comin' out
+o' the chimbly, an' there was a man's face at one square o' glass." She
+paused, enjoying her climax.
+
+"Well? Why don't you go ahead? Mirandy Jane Pendleton, I could shake
+you! You can talk fast enough when somebody else wants the floor! How'd
+he git in? What'd he say for himself?"
+
+"Why, he never said anything! Cyrus didn't see him."
+
+"Didn't see him? I thought he see him lookin' out the winder!"
+
+"Why, yes! so he did, but he didn't see him to speak to. He jest nailed
+up the door, an' come away."
+
+Mrs. Wadleigh turned squarely upon the delinquent Cyrus, who stood,
+half-shaven, absently honing his razor.
+
+"Cyrus," said she, with an alarming decision, "will you open your head,
+an' tell me what you nailed up that door for? an' where you got your
+nails? I s'pose you don't carry 'em round with you, ready for any
+door't happens to need nailin' up?"
+
+This fine sarcasm was not lost on Cyrus. He perceived that he had
+become the victim of a harsh and ruthless dealing.
+
+"I had the key to the front door with me, an' I thought I'd jest step
+round an' nail up t'other one," he said, in the tone of one conscious
+of right. "There was some nails in the wood-shed. Then I heard somebody
+steppin' round inside, an' I come away."
+
+"You come away!" repeated Mrs. Wadleigh, rising in noble wrath. "You
+nailed up the' door an' come away! Well, if you! ain't a weak sister!
+Mirandy, you hand me down that key, out o' the clock, while I git my
+things!"
+
+She walked sturdily across to the bedroom, and Mirandy followed her,
+wringing her hands in futile entreaty.
+
+"My soul, Marthy! you ain't goin' over there! You'll be killed, as sure
+as you step foot into the yard. Don't you remember how that hired man
+down to Sudleigh toled the whole fam'ly out into the barn, one arter
+another, an' chopped their heads off--"
+
+"You gi' me t'other end o' my cloud," commanded Mrs. Wadleigh. "I'm
+glad I've got on stockin'-feet. Where's t'other mittin? Oh! there
+'tis, down by the sto'-leg. Cyrus, if you knew how you looked with your
+face plastered over o' lather, you'd wipe it off, an' hand me down that
+key. Can't you move? Well, I guess I can reach it myself."
+
+She dropped the house key carefully into her pocket, and opened the
+outer door; both Cyrus and his wife knew they were powerless to stop
+her.
+
+"O Marthy, do come back!" wailed Mrs. Pendleton after her. "You 'ain't
+had a mite o' dinner, an' you'll never git out o' that house alive!"
+
+"I'd rather by half hitch up myself," began Cyrus; but his wife turned
+upon him, at the word, bundled him into the kitchen, and shut the door
+upon him. Then she went back to her post in the doorway, and peered
+after Mrs. Wadleigh's square figure on the dazzling road, with a
+melancholy determination to stand by her to the last. Only when it
+occurred to her that it was unlucky to watch a departing friend out of
+sight, did she shut the door hastily, and go in to reproach Cyrus and
+prepare his dinner.
+
+Mrs. Wadleigh plodded steadily onward. Her face had lost its robustness
+of scorn, and expressed only a cheerful determination. Once or twice
+her mouth relaxed, in retrospective enjoyment of the scene behind her,
+and she gave vent to a scornful ejaculation.
+
+"A man in my house!" she said once, aloud. "I guess we'll see!"
+
+She turned into the cross-road, where stood her dear and lonely
+dwelling, with no neighbors on either side for half a mile, and stopped
+a moment to gaze about her. The road was almost untravelled, and the
+snow lay encrusted over the wide fields, sparkling on the heights and
+blue in the hollows. The brown bushes by a hidden stone-wall broke the
+sheen entrancingly; here and there a dry leaf fluttered, but only
+enough to show how still such winter stillness can be, and a flock of
+little brown birds rose, with a soft whirr, and settled further on.
+Mrs. Wadleigh pressed her lips together in a voiceless content, and her
+eyes took on a new brightness. She had lived quite long enough in the
+town. Rounding a sweeping bend, and ploughing sturdily along, though it
+was difficult here to find the roadway, she kept her eyes fixed on a
+patch of sky, over a low elm, where the chimney would first come into
+view. But just before it stepped forward to meet her, as she had seen
+it a thousand times, a telltale token forestalled it; a delicate blue
+haze crept out, in spiral rings, and tinged the sky.
+
+"He's got a fire!" she exclaimed loudly. "He's there! My soul!" Until
+now the enormity of his offence had not penetrated her understanding.
+She had heard the fact without realizing it.
+
+The house was ancient but trimly kept, and it stood within a spacious
+yard, now in billows and mounds of snow, under which lay the treasures
+inherited by the spring. The trellises on either side the door held the
+bare clinging arms of jessamine and rose, and the syringa and lilac
+bushes reached hardily above the snow. As Mrs. Wadleigh approached the
+door, she gave a rapid glance at the hop-pole in the garden, and
+wondered if its vine had stood the winter well. That was the third hop
+vine she'd had from Mirandy Pendleton! Mounting the front steps, she
+drew forth the key, and put it in the door. It turned readily enough,
+but though she gave more than one valiant push, the door itself did not
+yield. It was evidently barricaded.
+
+"My soul!" said Mrs. Wadleigh.
+
+She stepped back, to survey the possibilities of attack; but at that
+instant, glancing up at the window, she had Cyrus Pendleton's own
+alarming experience. A head looked out at her, and was quickly
+withdrawn. It was dark, unkempt, and the movement was stealthy.
+
+"That's him!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, grimly, and returning to the charge,
+she knocked civilly at the door. No answer. Then she pushed again. It
+would not yield. She thought of the ladder in the barn, of the small
+cellar-window; vain hopes, both of them!
+
+"Look here!" she called aloud. "You let me in! I'm the Widder Wadleigh!
+This is my own house, an' I'm real tried stan'in' round here, knockin'
+at my own front door. You le'me in, or I shall git my death o' cold!"
+
+No answer; and then Mrs. Wadleigh, as she afterwards explained it, "got
+mad." She ploughed her way round the side of the house,--not the side
+where she had seen the face, but by the "best-room" windows,--and
+stepped softly up to the back door. Cyrus Pendleton's nail was no
+longer there. The man had easily pushed it out. She lifted the latch,
+and set her shoulder against the panel.
+
+"If it's the same old button, it'll give," she thought. And it did
+give. She walked steadily across the kitchen toward the clock-room,
+where the man that moment turned to confront her. He made a little run
+forward; then, seeing but one woman, he restrained himself. He was not
+over thirty years old; a tall, well-built fellow, with very black eyes
+and black hair. His features were good, but just now his mouth was set,
+and he looked darkly defiant. Of this, however, Mrs. Wadleigh did not
+think, for she was in a hot rage.
+
+"What under the sun do you mean, lockin' me out o' my own house?" she
+cried, stretching out her reddened hands to the fire. "An' potaters
+b'iled all over this good kitchen stove! I declare, this room's a real
+hog's nest, an' I left it as neat as wax!"
+
+Perhaps no man was ever more amazed than this invader. He stood staring
+at her in silence.
+
+"Can't you shet the door!" she inquired, fractiously, beginning to
+untie her cloud. "An' put a stick o' wood in the stove? If I don't git
+het through, I shall ketch my death!"
+
+He obeyed, seemingly from the inertia of utter surprise. Midway in the
+act of lifting the stove-cover, he glanced at her in sharp, suspicion.
+
+"Where's the rest?" he asked, savagely. "You ain't alone?"
+
+"Well, I guess I'm alone!" returned Mrs. Wadleigh, drawing off her icy
+stocking-feet, "an' walked all the way from Cyrus Pendleton's! There
+ain't nobody likely to be round," she continued, with grim humor. "I
+never knew 'twas such a God-forsaken hole, till I'd been away an' come
+back to 't. No, you needn't be scairt! The road ain't broke out, an' if
+'twas, we shouldn't have no callers to-day. It's got round there's a
+man here, an' I'll warrant the selec'men are all sick abed with colds.
+But there!" she added, presently, as the soothing warmth of her own
+kitchen stove began to penetrate, "I dunno's I oughter call it a
+Godforsaken place. I'm kind o' glad to git back."
+
+There was silence for a few minutes, while she toasted her feet, and
+the man stood shambling from one foot to the other and furtively
+watching her and the road. Suddenly she rose, and lifted a pot-cover.
+
+"What you got for dinner?" she inquired, genially. "I'm as holler's a
+horn!"
+
+"I put some potatoes on," said he, gruffly.
+
+"Got any pork? or have you used it all up?"
+
+"I guess there's pork! I 'ain't touched it. I 'ain't eat anything but
+potatoes; an' I've chopped wood for them, an' for what I burnt."
+
+"Do tell!" said Mrs. Wadleigh. She set the potatoes forward, where they
+would boil more vigorously. "Well, you go down sullar an' bring me up a
+little piece o' pork--streak o' fat an' streak o' lean--an' I'll fry
+it. I'll sweep up here a mite while you're gone. Why, I never see such
+a lookin' kitchen! What's your name?" she called after him, as he set
+his foot on the Upper stair.
+
+He hesitated. "Joe!" he said, falteringly.
+
+"All right, then, Joe, you fly round an' git the pork!" She took down
+the broom from its accustomed nail, and began sweeping joyously; the
+man, fishing in the pork-barrel, listened meanwhile to the regular
+sound above. Once it stopped, and he held his breath for a moment, and
+stood at bay, ready to dash up the stairs and past his pursuers, had
+she let them in. But it was only her own step, approaching the cellar
+door.
+
+"Joe!" she called. "You bring up a dozen apples, Bald'ins. I'll fry
+them, too."
+
+Something past one o'clock, they sat down together to as strange a meal
+as the little kitchen had ever seen. Bread and butter were lacking, but
+there was quince preserve, drawn from some hidden hoard, the apples and
+pork, and smoking tea. Mrs. Wadleigh's spirits rose. Home was even
+better than her dreams had pictured it. She told her strange guest all
+about her darter Lucy and her darter Ann's children; and he listened,
+quite dazed and utterly speechless.
+
+"There!" she said at last, rising, "I dunno's I ever eat such a meal
+o' victuals in my life, but I guess it's better'n many a poor soldier
+used to have. Now, if you've got some wood to chop, you go an' do it,
+an' I'll clear up this kitchen; it's a real hurrah's nest, if ever
+there was one!"
+
+All that afternoon, the stranger chopped wood, pausing, from time to
+time, to look from the shed door down the country road; and Mrs.
+Wadleigh, singing "Fly like a Youthful," "But O! their end, their
+dreadful end," and like melodies which had prevailed when she "set in
+the seats," flew round, indeed, and set the kitchen in immaculate
+order. Evidently her guest had seldom left that room. He had slept
+there on the lounge. He had eaten his potatoes there, and smoked his
+pipe.
+
+When the early dusk set in, and Mrs. Wadleigh had cleared away their
+supper of baked potatoes and salt fish, again with libations of quince,
+she drew up before the shining stove, and put her feet on the hearth.
+
+"Here!" she called to the man, who was sitting uncomfortably on one
+corner of the woodbox, and eying her with the same embarrassed
+watchfulness. "You draw up, too! It's the best time o' the day now,
+'tween sunset an' dark."
+
+"I guess I'd better be goin'," he returned, doggedly.
+
+"Goin'? Where?"
+
+"I don't know. But I'm goin'."
+
+"Now look here," said Mrs. Wadleigh, with rigor. "You take that chair,
+an' draw up to the fire. You do as I tell you!"
+
+He did it.
+
+"Now, I can't hender your goin', but if you do go, I've got a word to
+say to you."
+
+"You needn't say it! I don't want nobody's advice."
+
+"Well, you've got to have it jest the same! When you bile potaters,
+don't you let 'em run over onto the stove. Now you remember! I've had
+to let the fire go down here, an' scrub till I could ha' cried. Don't
+you never do such a thing ag'in, wherever you be!"
+
+He could only look at her. This sort of woman was entirely new to his
+experience.
+
+"But I've got somethin' else to say," she continued, adjusting her feet
+more comfortably. "I ain't goin' to turn anybody out into the snow,
+such a night as this. You're welcome to stay, but I want to know what
+brought ye here. I ain't one o' them that meddles an' makes, an' if you
+'ain't done nothin' out o' the way, an' I ain't called on for a
+witness, you needn't be afraid o' my tellin'."
+
+"You will be called on!" he broke in, speaking from a desperation
+outside his own control. "It's murder! I've killed a man!" He turned
+upon her with a savage challenge in the motion; but her face was set,
+placidly forward, and the growing dusk had veiled its meaning.
+
+"Well!" she remarked, at length, "ain't you ashamed to set there
+talkin' about it! You must have brass enough to line a kittle! Why
+'ain't you been, like a man, an' gi'n yourself up, instid o' livin'
+here, turnin' my kitchen upside down? Now you tell me all about it!
+It'll do ye good."
+
+"I'm goin'," said the man, breathing hard as he spoke, "I'm goin' away
+from here tonight. They never'll take me alive. It was this way. There
+was a man over where I lived that's most drunk himself under ground,
+but he ain't too fur gone to do mischief. He told a lie about me, an'
+lost me my place in the shoe shop. Then one night, I met him goin'
+home, an' we had words. I struck him. He fell like an ox. I killed him.
+I didn't go home no more. I didn't even see my wife. I couldn't tell
+her. I couldn't be took _there_. So I run away. An' when I got starved
+out, an' my feet were most froze walkin', I see this house, all shet
+up, an' I come here."
+
+He paused; and the silence was broken only by the slow, cosey ticking
+of the liberated clock.
+
+"Well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, at last, in a ruminating tone. "Well! well!
+Be you a drinkin' man?"
+
+"I never was till I lost my job," he answered, sullenly. "I had a
+little then. I had a little the night he sassed me."
+
+"Well! well!" said Mrs. Wadleigh, again. And then she continued,
+musingly: "So I s'pose you're Joe Mellen, an' the man you struck was
+Solomon Ray?"
+
+He came to his feet with a spring.
+
+"How'd you know?" he shouted.
+
+"Law! I've been visitin' over Hillside way!" said Mrs. Wadleigh,
+comfortably. "You couldn't ha' been very smart not to thought o' that
+when I mentioned my darter Lucy, an' where the childern went to school.
+No smarter'n you was to depend on that old wooden button! I know all
+about that drunken scrape. But the queerest part on't was--Solomon Ray
+didn't die!"
+
+"Didn't die!" the words halted, and he dragged them forth. "Didn't
+die?"
+
+"Law, no! you can't kill a Ray! They brought him to, an' fixed him up
+in good shape. I guess you mellered him some, but he's more scairt than
+hurt. He won't prosecute. You needn't be afraid. He said he dared you
+to it. There, there now! I wouldn't. My sake alive! le' me git a
+light!"
+
+For the stranger sat with his head bowed on the table, and he trembled
+like a child.
+
+Next morning at eight o'clock, Mrs. Wadleigh was standing at the door,
+in the sparkling light, giving her last motherly injunction to the
+departing guest.
+
+"You know where the depot is? An' it's the nine o'clock train you've
+got to take. An' you remember what I said about hayin' time. If you
+don't have no work by the middle o' May, you drop me a line, an'
+perhaps I can take you an' your wife, too; Lucy's childern al'ays make
+a sight o' work. You keep that bill safe, an'--Here, wait a minute! You
+might stop at Cyrus Pendleton's--it's the fust house arter you pass;
+the corner--an' ask 'em to put a sparerib an' a pat o' butter into the
+sleigh, an' ride over here to dinner. You tell 'em I'm as much obleeged
+to 'em for sendin' over last night to see if I was alive, as if I
+hadn't been so dead with sleep I couldn't say so. Good-bye! Now, you
+mind you keep tight hold o' that bill, an', spend it prudent!"
+
+"Is Kelup Rivers comin' over here to-night?" suddenly asked Aunt
+Melissa Adams, peering over her gold-bowed glasses, and fixing her
+small shrewd eyes sharply upon her niece.
+
+Amanda did not look up from her fine hemming, but her thin hand
+trembled almost imperceptibly, and she gave a little start, as if such
+attacks were not altogether unexpected.
+
+"I don't know," she answered, in a low tone.
+
+"Dunno! why don't ye know?" said her aunt, beginning to sway back and
+forth in the old-fashioned rocking-chair, but not once dropping her
+eyes from Amanda's face. "Don't he come every Saturday night?"
+
+Amanda took another length, of thread, and this time her hand really
+shook.
+
+"I guess so," she answered.
+
+"You guess so? Don't ye know? An' if he's come every Saturday night for
+fifteen year, ain't he comin' to-night? I dunno what makes you act as
+if you wa'n't sure whether your soul's your own, 'Mandy Green. My
+dander al'ays rises when I ask you a civil question an' you put on that
+look."
+
+Amanda bent more closely over her sewing. She was a woman of
+thirty-five, with a pathetically slender figure, thin blond hair
+painstakingly crimped, and anxious blue eyes. Something deprecating lay
+in her expression; her days had been uncomplainingly sacrificed to the
+comfort of those she loved, and the desire of peace and good-will had
+crept into her face and stayed there. Her mother, who looked even
+slighter than she, and whose cheeks were puckered by wrinkles, sat by
+the window watching the two with a smile of empty content. Old Lady
+Green had lost her mind, said the neighbors; but she was sufficiently
+like her former self to be a source of unspeakable joy and comfort to
+Amanda, who nursed and petted her as if their positions were reversed,
+and protected her from the blunt criticism of the literal-tongued
+neighborhood with a reverential awe belonging to the old days when the
+fifth commandment was written and obeyed.
+
+"Gold-bowed," said Mrs. Green, with a look of unalloyed delight,
+pointing to her sister-in-law's spectacles; and Aunt Melissa repeated
+indulgently,--
+
+"Yes, yes, gold-bowed. I'll let you take 'em a spell, arter I've set my
+heel. It'll please her, poor creatur'!" she added, in an audible aside
+to Amanda. Since the time when Mrs. Green's wits had ceased to work
+normally, she had treated her sympathetically, but from a lofty
+eminence. Aunt Melissa was perhaps too prosperous. She sat there,
+swaying back and forth, in her thin black silk trimmed with narrow rows
+of velvet, her heavy chin sunk upon a broad collar, worked in her
+youth, and she seemed to Mrs. Green a vision of majesty and delight,
+but to Amanda a virtuous censor, necessarily to be obeyed, yet whose
+presence made the summer day intolerable. Even her purple cap-ribbons
+bespoke terror to the evil-doer, and her heavy face was set, as a
+judgment, toward the doom of the man who knew not how to account for
+his actions. She began speaking again, and Amanda involuntarily gave a
+little start, as at a lightning flash.
+
+"I says to myself when I drove off, this mornin': 'I'll have a little
+talk with 'Mandy. I don' go there to spend a day more'n four times a
+year, an' like as not she'll be glad to have somebody to speak to,
+seen' 's her mother's how she is.'"
+
+Amanda gave a quick look at Mrs. Green; but the old lady was busily
+pleating the hem of her apron and then smoothing it out again. Aunt
+Melissa rocked, and went on:--
+
+"I says to myself: 'Here they let Kelup carry on the farm at the
+halves, an' go racin' an' trottin' from the other place over here day
+in an' day out. An' when his Uncle Nat died, two year ago, then was the
+time for him to come over here an' marry 'Mandy an' carry on the farm.
+But no, he'd rather hang round the old place, an' sleep in the
+ell-chamber, an' do their chores for his board, an' keep on a-runnin'
+over here.' An' when young Nat married, I says to myself, 'That'll make
+him speak.' But it didn't--an' you 're a laughin'-stock, 'Mandy Green,
+if ever there was one. Every time the neighbors see him steppin' by
+Saturday nights, all fixed up, with that brown coat on he's had sence
+the year one, they have suthin' to say, 'Goin' over to 'Mandy's,'
+that's what they say. An' on'y last Saturday one on 'em hollered out to
+me, when I was pickin' a mess o' pease for Sunday, 'Wonder what
+'Mandy'll answer when he gits round to askin' of her?' I hadn't a word
+to say. 'You better go to _him_,' says I, at last."
+
+Amanda had put down her sewing in her lap, and was looking steadfastly
+out of the window, with eyes brimmed by two angry tears. Once she wiped
+them with a furtive movement of the white garment in her lap; her
+cheeks were crimson. Aunt Melissa had lashed herself into a cumulative
+passion of words.
+
+"An' I says to myself, 'If there ain't nobody else to speak to 'Mandy,
+I will,' I says, when I was combin' my hair this mornin'. 'She 'ain't
+got no mother,' I says, 'nor as good as none, an' if she 'ain't spunk
+enough to look out for herself, somebody's got to look out for her.'
+An' then it all come over me--I'd speak to Kelup himself, an' bein'
+Saturday night, I knew I should ketch him here."
+
+"O Aunt Melissa!" gasped Amanda, "you wouldn't do that!"
+
+"Yes, I would, too!" asserted Aunt Melissa, setting her firm lips. "You
+see if I don't, an' afore another night goes over my head!"
+
+But while Amanda was looking at her, paralyzed with the certainty that
+no mortal aid could save her from this dire extremity, there came an
+unexpected diversion. Old Lady Green spoke out clearly and decidedly
+from her corner, in so rational a voice that it seemed like one calling
+from the dead.
+
+"'Mandy, what be you cryin' for? You come here an' tell me what 'tis,
+an' I'll see to't. You'll spile your eyes, 'Mandy, if you take on so."
+
+"There, there, ma'am! 'tain't anything," said Amanda, hurrying over to
+her chair and patting her on the shoulder. "We was just havin' a little
+spat,--Aunt Melissa an' me; but we've got all over it. Don't you want
+to knit on your garter a little while now?"
+
+But the old lady kept her glazed eyes fixed on Amanda's face.
+
+"Be you well to-day, 'Mandy?" she said, wistfully. "If you ain't well,
+you must take suthin'."
+
+"There, there! don't you make a to-do, an' she'll come round all
+right," said Aunt Melissa, moving her chair about so that it faced the
+old lady. "I'll tell her suthin' to take up her mind a little." And she
+continued, in the loud voice which was her concession to Mrs. Green's
+feebleness of intellect, "They've got a boarder over to the
+Blaisdells'."
+
+Mrs. Green sat up straight in her chair, smoothed her apron, and looked
+at her sister with grateful appreciation.
+
+"Do tell!" she said, primly.
+
+"Yes, they have. Name's Chapman. They thought he was a book agent fust.
+But he's buyin' up old dishes an' all matter o' truck. He wanted my
+andirons, an' I told him if I hadn't got a son in a Boston store, he
+might ha' come round me, but I know the vally o' things now. You don't
+want to sell them blue coverlids o' yourn, do ye?"
+
+Aunt Melissa sometimes asked the old lady questions from a sense of the
+requirements of conversation, and she was invariably startled when they
+elicited an answer.
+
+"Them coverlids I wove myself, fifty-five years ago come next spring,"
+said Mrs. Green, firmly. "Sally Ann Mason an' me used to set up till
+the clock struck twelve that year, spinnin' an' weavin'. Then we had a
+cup or two o' green tea, an' went to bed."
+
+"Well, you wove 'em, an' you don't want to sell 'em," said Aunt
+Melissa, her eyes on her work. "If you do, 'Lijah he'll take 'em right
+up to Boston for you, an' I warrant he'll git you a new white spread
+for every one on 'em."
+
+"That was the year afore I was married," continued Old Lady Green. "I
+had a set o' white chiny with lavender sprigs, an' my dress was
+changeable. He had a flowered weskit. 'Mandy, you go into the
+clo'es-press in my bedroom an' git out that weskit, an' some o' them
+quilts, an' my M's an' O's table-cloths."
+
+Amanda rose and hurried into the bedroom, in spite of Aunt Melissa's
+whispered comment: "What makes you go to overhaulin' things? She'll
+forgit it in a minute."
+
+While she was absent, a smart wagon drove up to the gate, and a young
+man alighted from it, hitched his horse, and knocked at the front door.
+Aunt Melissa saw him coming, and peered at him over her glasses with an
+unrecognizing stare.
+
+"'Mandy!" she called, "'Mandy, here's a pedler or suthin'! If he's got
+any essences, you ask him for a little bottle o' pep'mint."
+
+Amanda dropped the pile of coverlets on the sofa, and went to the front
+door. Presently she reappeared, and with her, smoothly talking her
+down, came the young man. His eyes lighted first on the coverlets, with
+a look of cheerful satisfaction.
+
+"Got all ready for me, didn't you?" he asked, briskly. "Heard I was
+coming, I guess."
+
+He was a man of an alert Yankee type, with waxed blond mustache and
+eye-glasses; he was evidently to be classed among those who have
+exchanged their country honesty for a veneer of city knowingness.
+
+"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Aunt Melissa, as soon as she had him
+at short range, "you're the one down to Blaisdell's that's buyin' up
+all the old truck in the neighborhood. Well, you won't git my
+andirons!"
+
+He had begun to unfold the blue coverlets and examine them with a
+practised eye, while Amanda stood by, painfully conscious that some
+decisive action might be required of her; and her mother sat watching
+the triumph of her quilts in pleased importance.
+
+"They ain't worth much," he said, dropping them, with a conclusive air.
+"Fact is, they ain't worth anything, unless any body's got a fancy for
+such old stuff. I'll tell you what, I'll give you fifty cents apiece
+for the lot! How many are there here--four? Two dollars, then."
+
+Amanda took a hasty step forward.
+
+"But we don't want to sell our coverlids!" she said, indignantly,
+casting an appealing glance at Aunt Melissa.
+
+"I guess they don't want to git rid on 'em," said that lady,
+"'specially at such a price. They're wuth more 'n that to cover up the
+squashes when the frost comes."
+
+"Mother wove 'em herself," exclaimed Amanda, irrelevantly. It began to
+seem to her as if the invader might pack up her mother's treasures and
+walk off with them.
+
+"Well, then, I s'pose they're hers to do as she likes with?" he said,
+pleasantly, tipping back, in his chair, and beginning to pare his nails
+with an air of nicety that fascinated Amanda into watching him.
+"They're hers, I s'pose?" he continued, looking suddenly and keenly up
+at her.
+
+"Why, yes," she answered, "they're mother's, but she don't want to
+sell. She sets by 'em."
+
+"Just like me, for all the world," owned the stranger, "Now there's
+plenty of folks that wouldn't care a Hannah Cook about such old truck,
+but it just hits me in the right spot. Mother's doughnuts, mother's
+mince-pies, I say! Can't improve on _them_! And when my wife and I
+bought our little place, I said to her, 'We'll have it all furnished
+with old-fashioned goods.' And here I am, taking, time away from my
+business, riding round the country, and paying good money for what's no
+use to anybody but me."
+
+"What is your business?" interrupted Aunt Melissa.
+
+"Oh, insurance--a little of everything--Jack-of-all-trades!" Then he
+turned to Old Mrs. Green, and asked, abruptly, "What'll you take for
+that clock?"
+
+The old lady followed his alert forefinger until her eyes rested on the
+tall eight-day clock in the corner. She straightened herself in her
+chair, and spoke with pride:--
+
+"That was Jonathan's gre't-uncle Samwell's. He wound it every Sunday
+night, reg'lar as the day come round. I've rubbed that case up till I
+sweat like rain. 'Mandy she rubs it now."
+
+"Well, what'll you take?" persisted he, while Amanda, in wordless
+protest, stepped in front of the clock. "Five dollars?"
+
+"Five dollars," repeated the old lady, lapsing into senseless
+iteration. "Yes, five dollars."
+
+But Aunt Melissa came to the rescue.
+
+"Five dollars for that clock?" she repeated, winding her ball, and
+running the needles into it with a conclusive stab. "Well, I guess
+there ain't any eight-day clocks goin' out o' _this_ house for five
+dollars, if they go at all! 'Mandy, why don't you speak up, an' not
+stand there like a chicken with the pip?"
+
+"Oh, all right, all right!" said the visitor, shutting his knife with a
+snap, and getting briskly on his feet. "I don't care much about buying.
+That ain't a particularly good style of clock, anyway. But I like old
+things. I may drop in again, just to take a look at 'em. I suppose
+you're always at home?" he said to Amanda, with his hand on the door.
+
+"Yes; but sometimes I go to Sudleigh with butter. I go Monday
+afternoons most always, after washin'."
+
+With a cheerful good-day he was gone, and Amanda drew a long breath of
+relief.
+
+"Well, some folks have got enough brass to line a kittle," said Aunt
+Melissa, carefully folding her knitting-work in a large silk
+handkerchief. "'Mandy, you'll have to git supper a little earlier'n
+common for me. I told Hiram to come by half arter six. Do you s'pose
+Kelup'll be round by that time? I'll wait all night afore I'll give up
+seein' him."
+
+"I don't know, Aunt Melissa," said Amanda, nervously clearing the table
+of its pile of snowy cloth, and taking a flying glance from the window.
+She looked like a harassed animal, hunted beyond its endurance; but
+suddenly a strange light of determination flashed into her face.
+"Should you just as lieves set the table," she asked, in a tone of
+guilty consciousness, "while I start the kitchen fire? You know where
+things are." Hardly waiting for an assent, she fled from the room, and
+once in the kitchen, laid the fire in haste, with a glance from the
+window to accompany every movement. Presently, by a little path through
+the field, came a stocky man in blue overalls and the upper garment
+known as a jumper. He was bound for the pigpen in the rear of the barn;
+and there Amanda flew to meet him, stopping only to throw an apron over
+her head. They met at the door. He was a fresh-colored man, with honest
+brown eyes and a ring of whiskers under the chin. He had a way of
+blushing, and when Amanda came upon him thus unannounced, he colored to
+the eyes.
+
+"Why, you're all out o' breath!" he said, in slow alarms.
+
+"O Caleb!" she cried, looking at him with imploring eyes. "I'll feed
+the pigs to-night."
+
+Caleb regarded her in dull wonderment. Then he set down the pail he had
+taken.
+
+"Ain't there any taters to bile?" he asked, solving the difficulty in
+his own way; "or 'ain't you skimmed the milk? I'd jest as soon wait."
+
+"You better not wait," answered Amanda, almost passionately, her thin
+hair blowing about her temples. "You better go right back. I'd ruther
+do it myself; I'd a good deal ruther."
+
+Caleb turned about. He took a few steps, then stopped, and called
+hesitatingly over his shoulder, "I thought maybe I'd come an' set a
+spell to-night."
+
+Then, indeed, Amanda felt her resolution, crack and quiver. "I guess
+you better come some other night," she said, in a steady voice, though
+her face was wet with tears. And Caleb walked away, never once looking
+back. Amanda stayed only to wipe her eyes, saying meanwhile to her
+sorry self, "Oh, I dunno how I can get along! I dunno!" Then she
+hurried back to the house, to find the kettle merrily singing, and Aunt
+Melissa standing at the kitchen cupboard, looking critically up and
+down the shelves.
+
+"If you've got two sets o' them little gem-pans, you might lend me
+one," she remarked; and Amanda agreed, not knowing what she gave.
+
+The supper was eaten and the dishes were washed, Aunt Melissa meantime
+keeping a strict watch from the window.
+
+"Is it time for Kelup?" she asked, again and again; and finally she
+confronted the guilty Amanda with the challenge, "Do you think Kelup
+ain't comin'?"
+
+"I--guess not," quavered Amanda, her cheeks scarlet, and her small,
+pathetic hands trembling. She was not more used to _finesse_ than to
+heroic action.
+
+"Do you s'pose there's any on 'em sick down to young Nat's?" asked Aunt
+Melissa; and Amanda was obliged to take recourse again to her shielding
+"I guess not." But at length Uncle Hiram drove up in the comfortable
+carry-all; and though his determined spouse detained him more than
+three-quarters of an hour, sitting beside him like a portly
+Rhadamanthus, and scanning the horizon for the Caleb who never came, he
+finally rebelled, shook the reins, and drove off, Aunt Melissa meantime
+screaming over her shoulder certain vigorous declarations, which
+evidently began with the phrase, "You tell Kelup--"
+
+Then Amanda went into the house, and sat down by the window in the
+gathering dusk, surveying the wreckage of her dream. The dream was even
+more precious in that it had grown so old. Caleb was a part of her
+every-day life, and for fifteen years Saturday had brought a little
+festival, wherein the commonplace man with brown eyes had been
+high-priest. He would not come to-night. Perhaps he never would come
+again. She knew what it was to feel widowed.
+
+Sunday passed; and though Caleb fed the pigs and did the barn-work as
+usual, he spoke but briefly. Even in his customary salutation of "How
+dee?" Amanda detected a change of tone, and thereafter took flight
+whenever she heard his step at the kitchen door. So Monday forenoon
+passed; Caleb brought water for her tubs and put out her clothes-line,
+but they had hardly spoken. The intangible monster of a
+misunderstanding had crept between them. But when at noon he asked as
+usual, though without looking at her, "Goin' to Sudleigh with the
+butter to-day?" Amanda had reached the limit of her endurance. It
+seemed to her that she could no longer bear this formal travesty of
+their old relations, and she answered in haste,--
+
+"No, I guess not."
+
+"Then you don't want I should set with your mother?"
+
+"No!" And again Caleb turned away, and plodded soberly off to young
+Nat's.
+
+"I guess I must be crazy," groaned poor Amanda, as she changed her
+washing-dress for her brown cashmere. "The butter's got to go, an' now
+I shall have to harness, an' leave ma'am alone. Oh, I wish Aunt
+Melissa'd never darkened these doors!"
+
+Everything went wrong with Amanda, that day. The old horse objected to
+the bits, and occupied twenty minutes in exasperating protest; the
+wheels had to be greased, and she lost a butter-napkin in the well.
+Finally, breathless with exertion, she went in to bid her mother
+good-by, and see that the matches were hidden and the cellar door
+fastened.
+
+"Now, ma'am," she said, standing over the little old woman and speaking
+with great distinctness, "don't you touch the stove, will you? You jest
+set right here in your chair till I come back, an' I'll bring you a
+good parcel o' pep'-mints. Here's your garter to knit on, an' here's
+the almanac. Don't you stir now till I come."
+
+And so, with many misgivings, she drove away.
+
+When, Amanda came back, she did not stay to unharness, but hurried up
+to the kitchen door, and called, "You all right, ma'am?" There was no
+answer, and she stepped hastily across the floor. As she opened the
+sitting-room door, a low moaning struck her ear. The old lady sat
+huddled together in, her chair, groaning at intervals, and looking
+fixedly at the corner of the room.
+
+"O ma'am, what is it? Where be you hurt?" cried Amanda, possessed by an
+anguish of self-reproach. But the old lady only continued her moaning;
+and then it was that Amanda noticed her shrivelled and shaking fingers
+tightly clasped upon a roll of money in her lap.
+
+"Why, ma'am, what you got?" she cried; but even as she spoke, the
+explanation flashed upon her, and she looked up at the corner of the
+room. The eight-day clock was gone.
+
+"Here, ma'am, you let me have it," she said, soothingly; and by dint of
+further coaxing, she pulled the money from the old lady's tense
+fingers. There were nine dollars in crisp new bills. Amanda sat looking
+at them in unbelief and misery.
+
+"O my!" she whispered, at length, "what a world this is! Ma'am, did you
+tell him he might have 'em?"
+
+"I dunno what Jonathan'll do without that clock," moaned the old lady.
+"I see it carried off myself."
+
+"Did you tell him he might?" cried Amanda, loudly.
+
+"I dunno but I did, but I never'd ha' thought he'd ha' done it. I dunno
+what time 'tis now;" and she continued her low-voiced lamenting.
+
+"O my Lord!" uttered Amanda, under her breath. Then she roused herself
+to the present exigency of comfort. "You come an' set in the kitchen a
+spell," she said, coaxingly, "an' I'll go an' get the things back."
+
+Old Lady Green looked at her with that unquestioning trust which was
+the most pathetic accompaniment of her state. "You'll git 'em back,
+'Mandy, won't ye?" she repeated, smiling a little and wiping her eyes.
+"That's a good gal! So't we can tell what time 'tis."
+
+Amanda led her into the kitchen, and established her by the window. She
+shut the door of the denuded sitting-room, and, giving her courage no
+time to cool, ran across lots to the Blaisdells', the hated money
+clasped tightly in her hand. The family was at supper, and the stranger
+with them, when she walked in at the kitchen door. She hurried up to
+her enemy, and laid the little roll of bills by his plate. Her cheeks
+were scarlet, her thin hair-flying.
+
+"Here's your money," she said, in a strained, high voice, "an' I want
+our things. You hadn't ought to gone over there an' talked over an old
+lady that--that--"
+
+There she stopped. Amanda had never yet acknowledged that her mother
+was not in her "perfect mind." Chapman took out a long pocket-book, and
+for a moment her courage stood at flood-tide; she thought he was about
+to accept the money and put it away. But no! He produced a slip of
+white paper and held it up before her. She bent forward and examined
+it,--a receipt signed by her mother's shaking hand.
+
+"But it ain't right!" she cried, helpless in her dismay. "Cap'n Jabez,
+you speak to him! You know how 'tis about mother! She wouldn't any more
+ha' sold that clock than she'd ha' sold--me!"
+
+Captain Jabez looked at his plate in uncomfortable silence. He was a
+just man, but he hated to interfere.
+
+"Well, there!" he said, at length, pushing his chair back to leave the
+table. "It don't seem jestly right to me, but then he's got the resate,
+an' your mother signed it--an' there 'tis!"
+
+"An' you won't do anything?" cried Amanda, passionately, turning back
+to the stranger. "You mean to keep them things?"
+
+He was honestly sorry for her, as the business man for the
+sentimentalist, but he had made a good bargain, and he held it sacred.
+
+"I declare, I wish it hadn't happened so," he said, good-naturedly.
+"But the old lady'll get over it. You buy her a nice bright little
+nickel clock that'll strike the half-hours, and she'll be tickled to
+death to watch it."
+
+Amanda turned away and walked out of the house.
+
+"Here," called Chapman, "come back and get your money!" But she hurried
+on. "Well, I'll leave it with Captain Jabez," he called again, "and you
+can come over and get it. I'm going in the morning, early."
+
+Amanda was passing the barn, and there, through the open door, she saw
+the old clock pathetically loaded on the light wagon, protected by
+burlap, and tied with ropes. The coverlets lay beside it. A sob rose in
+her throat, but her eyes were dry, and she hurried across lots home. At
+the back door she found Caleb unharnessing the horse. She had forgotten
+their misunderstanding in the present practical emergency.
+
+"O Caleb," she began, before she had reached him, "ma'am's sold the
+clock an' some coverlids, an' I can't get 'em back!"
+
+"Cap'n Jabez said she had, this arternoon," said Caleb, slowly, tying a
+trace. "I dunno's the old lady's to blame. Seem's if she hadn't ought
+to be left alone."
+
+"But how'm I goin' to get 'em back?" persisted Amanda, coming close to
+him, her poor little face pinched and eager. "He jest showed me the
+receipt, all signed. How'm I goin' to get the things, Caleb?"
+
+"If he's got the receipt, an' the things an' all, an' she took the
+money, I dunno's you can get 'em," said Caleb, "unless you could prove
+in a court o' law that she wa'n't in her right mind. I dunno how that
+would work."
+
+Amanda stood looking him in the face. For the first time in all her
+gentle life she was questioning masculine superiority, and its present
+embodiment in Caleb Rivers.
+
+"Then you don't see's anything can be done?" she asked, steadily.
+
+"Why, no," answered Caleb, still reflecting. "Not unless you should go
+to law."
+
+"You'd better give the pigs some shorts," said Amanda, abruptly. "I
+sha'n't bile any taters, to-night."
+
+She walked into the house; and as Caleb watched her, it crossed his
+mind that she looked very tall. He had always thought of her as a
+little body.
+
+Amanda set her lips, and went about her work. From time to time, she
+smiled mechanically at her mother; and the old lady, forgetful of her
+grief now that she was no longer reproached by the empty space on, the
+wall, sat content and sleepy after her emotion. She was willing to go
+to bed early; and when Amanda heard her breathing peacefully, she sat
+down by the kitchen window to wait. The dusk came slowly, and the
+whippoorwill sang from the deep woods behind the house.
+
+That night at ten o'clock, Caleb Rivers was walking stolidly along the
+country road, when his ear became aware of a strangely familiar
+sound,--a steadily recurrent creak. It was advancing, though
+intermittently. Sometimes it ceased altogether, as if the machinery
+stopped to rest, and again it began fast and shrill. He rounded a bend
+of the road, and came full upon a remarkable vision. Approaching him
+was a wheelbarrow, with a long object balanced across it, and, wheeling
+it, walked a woman. Caleb was nearly opposite her before his brain
+translated the scene. Then he stopped short and opened his lips.
+
+"'Mandy," he cried, "what under the heavens be you a-doin'?"
+
+But Amanda did not pause. Whatever emotion the meeting caused in her
+was swiftly vanquished, and she wheeled on. Caleb turned and walked by
+her side. When he had recovered sufficiently from his surprise, he laid
+a hand upon her wrist.
+
+"You set it down, an' let me wheel a spell," he said.
+
+But Amanda's small hands only grasped the handles more tightly, and she
+went on. Caleb had never in his life seen a necessity for passionate
+remonstrance, but now the moment had come.
+
+"'Mandy," he kept repeating, at every step, "you give me holt o' them
+handles! Why, 'Mandy, I should think you was crazy!"
+
+At length, Amanda dropped the handles with a jerk, and turning about,
+sat down on the edge of the wheelbarrow, evidently to keep the right of
+possession. Then she began to speak in a high, strained voice, that
+echoed sharply through the country stillness.
+
+"If you've got to know, I'll tell you, an' you can be a witness, if you
+want to. It won't do no hurt in a court o' law, because I shall tell
+myself. I've gone an' got our clock an' our coverlids from where they
+were stored in the Blaisdells' barn. The man's got his money, an' I've
+took our things. That's all I've done, an' anybody can know it that's a
+mind to."
+
+Then she rose, lifted the handles, and went on, panting. Caleb walked
+by her side.
+
+"But you ain't afraid o' me, 'Mandy?" he said, imploringly. "Jest you
+let me wheel it, an' I won't say a word if I never set eyes on you
+ag'in. Jest you let me wheel, 'Mandy."
+
+"There ain't anybody goin' to touch a finger to it but me," said
+Amanda, shortly. "If anybody's got to be sent to jail for it, it'll be
+me. I can't talk no more. I 'ain't got any breath to spare."
+
+But the silence of years had been broken, and Caleb kept on.
+
+"Why, I was goin' over to Blaisdell's myself to buy 'em back. Here's my
+wallet an' my bank-book. Don't that prove it? I was goin' to pay any
+price he asked. I set an' mulled over it all the evenin'. It got late,
+an' then I started. It al'ays has took me a good long spell to make up
+my mind to things. I wa'n't to blame this arternoon because I couldn't
+tell what was best to do all of a whew!"
+
+At the beginning of this revelation, Amanda's shoulders twitched
+eloquently, but she said nothing. She reached the gate of the farmyard,
+and wheeled in, panting painfully as she ascended the rise of the
+grassy driveway. She toiled round to the back door; and then Caleb saw
+that she had prepared for her return by leaving the doors of the
+cellar-case open, and laying down a board over the steps. She turned
+the wheelbarrow to descend; and Caleb, seeing his opportunity, ran
+before to hold back its weight. Amanda did not prevent him; she had no
+breath left for remonstrance. When the clock was safely in the cellar,
+she went up the steps again, hooked the bulkhead door, and turned, even
+in the darkness, unerringly to the flight of stairs.
+
+"You wait till I open the door into the kitchen," she said. "There's a
+light up there."
+
+And Caleb plodded up the stairs after her with his head down, amazed
+and sorrowful.
+
+"You can stay here," said Amanda, opening the outside door without
+looking at him. "I'm goin' back to Cap'n Blaisdell's."
+
+She hurried out into the moonlit path across lots, and Caleb followed.
+They entered the yard, and Amanda walked up to the window belonging to
+the best bedroom. It was wide open, and she rapped on it loudly, and
+then turned her back.
+
+"Hello!" came a sleepy voice from within.
+
+"I've got to speak to you," called Amanda. "You needn't get up. Be you
+awake?"
+
+"I guess so," said the voice, this time several feet nearer the window.
+"What's up?"
+
+"I've been over an' got our clock an' the rest of our things," said
+Amanda, steadily. "An', you've got your money. I've carried the things
+home an' fastened 'em up. They're down cellar under the arch, an' I'm
+goin' to set over 'em till I drop afore anybody lays a finger on 'em
+again. An' you can go to law if you're a mind to; _but I've got our
+things_!"
+
+There was a silence. Amanda felt that the stranger's eyes were fastened
+upon her back, and she tried not to tremble. Caleb knew they were, for
+he and the man faced each other.
+
+"Well, now, you know you've as good as stole my property," began
+Chapman; but at that instant, Caleb's voice broke roughly upon the air.
+
+"You say that ag'in," said he, "an' I'll horsewhip you within an inch
+of your life. You touch them things ag'in, an' I'll break every bone in
+your body. I dunno whose they be, accordin' to rights, but by gum!--"
+and he stopped, for words will fail where a resolute heart need not.
+
+There was again a silence, and the stranger spoke: "Well, well!" he
+said, good-naturedly. "I guess we'll have to call it square. I don't
+often do business this way; but if you'll let me alone, I'll let you
+alone. Good luck to you!"
+
+Amanda's heart melted. "You're real good!" she cried, and turned
+impulsively; but when she faced the white-shirted form at the window,
+she ejaculated, "Oh, my!" and fled precipitately round the corner of
+the house.
+
+Side by side, the two took their way across lots again. Amanda was
+shaking all over, with weariness and emotion spent. Suddenly a strange
+sound at her side startled her into scrutiny of Caleb's face.
+
+"Why, Caleb Rivers!" she exclaimed, in amazement, "you ain't cryin'?"
+
+"I dunno what I'm doin'," said Caleb, brushing off two big tears with
+his jumper sleeve, "an' I don't much care. It ain't your harnessin' for
+yourself an' feedin' the pigs, an' my not comin' Saturday night, but
+it's seein' you wheelin' that great thing all alone. An' you're so
+little, 'Mandy! I never thought much o' myself, an' it al'ays seemed
+kind o' queer you could think anything _of_ me; but I al'ays s'posed
+you'd let me do the heft o' the work, an' not cast me off!"
+
+"I 'ain't cast you off, Caleb," said Amanda, faintly, and in spite of
+herself her slender figure turned slightly but still gratefully toward
+him. And that instant, for the first time in all their lives, Caleb's
+arms were upholding her, and Amanda had received her crown. Caleb had
+kissed her.
+
+"Say, 'Mandy," said he, when they parted, an hour later, by the syringa
+bush at the back door, "the world won't come to an end if you don't
+iron of a Tuesday. I was thinkin' we could ketch Passon True about ten
+o'clock better'n we could in the arternoon."
+
+
+
+
+JOINT OWNERS IN SPAIN.
+
+
+The Old Ladies' Home, much to the sorrow of its inmates, "set back from
+the road." A long, box-bordered walk led from the great door down to
+the old turnpike, and thickly bowering lilac-bushes forced the eye to
+play an unsatisfied hide-and-seek with the view. The sequestered old
+ladies were quite unreconciled to their leaf-hung outlook; active life
+was presumably over for them, and all the more did they long to "see
+the passing" of the little world which had usurped their places. The
+house itself was very old, a stately, square structure, with pillars on
+either side of the door, and a fanlight above. It had remained
+unpainted now for many years, and had softened into a mellow
+lichen-gray, so harmonious and pleasing in the midst of summer's vital
+green, that the few artists who ever heard of Tiverton sought it out,
+to plant umbrella and easel in the garden, and sketch the stately
+relic; photographers, also, made it one of their accustomed haunts. Of
+the artists the old ladies disapproved, without a dissenting voice. It
+seemed a "shaller" proceeding to sit out there in the hot sun for no
+result save a wash of unreal colors on a white ground, or a few hasty
+lines indicating no solid reality; but the photographers were their
+constant delight, and they rejoiced in forming themselves into groups
+upon, the green, to be "took" and carried away with the house.
+
+One royal winter's day, there was a directors' meeting in the great
+south room, the matron's parlor, a sprat bearing the happy charm of
+perfect loyalty to the past, with its great fireplace, iron dogs and
+crane, its settle and entrancing corner cupboards. The hard-working
+president of the board was speaking hastily and from a full heart,
+conscious that another instant's discussion might bring the tears to
+her eyes:--
+
+"May I be allowed to say--it's irrelevant, I know, but I should like
+the satisfaction of saying it--that this is enough to make one vow
+never to have anything to do with an institution of any sort, from this
+time forth for evermore?"
+
+For the moment had apparently come when a chronic annoyance must be
+recognized as unendurable. They had borne with the trial, inmates and
+directors, quite as cheerfully as most ordinary people accept the
+inevitable; but suddenly the tension had become too great, and the
+universal patience snapped. Two of the old ladies, Mrs. Blair and Miss
+Dyer, who were settled in the Home for life, and who, before going
+there, had shown no special waywardness of temper, had proved utterly
+incapable of living in peace with any available human being; and as the
+Home had insufficient accommodations, neither could be isolated to
+fight her "black butterflies" alone. No inmate, though she were cousin
+to Hercules, could be given a room to herself; and the effect of this
+dual system on these two, possibly the most eccentric of the number,
+had proved disastrous in the extreme. Each had, in her own favorite
+fashion, "kicked over the traces," as the matron's son said in
+town-meeting (much to the joy of the village fathers), and to such
+purpose that, to continue the light-minded simile, very little harness
+was left to guide them withal. Mrs. Blair, being "high sperited," like
+all the Coxes from whom she sprung, had now so tyrannized over the last
+of her series of room-mates, so browbeaten and intimidated her, that
+the latter had actually taken to her bed with a slow-fever of
+discouragement, announcing that "she'd rather go to the poor-farm and
+done with it than resk her life there another night; and she'd like to
+know what had become of that hunderd dollars her nephew Thomas paid
+down in bills to get her into the Home, for she'd be thankful to them
+that laid it away so antic to hand it back afore another night went
+over her head, so't she could board somewheres decent till 'twas gone,
+and then starve if she'd got to!"
+
+If Miss Sarah Ann Dyer, known also as a disturber of the public peace,
+presented a less aggressive front to her kind, she was yet, in her own
+way, a cross and a hindrance to their spiritual growth. She, poor
+woman, lived in a scarcely varying state of hurt feeling; her tiny
+world seemed to her one close federation, existing for the sole purpose
+of infringing on her personal rights; and though she would not take the
+initiative in battle, she lifted up her voice in aggrieved lamentation
+over the tragic incidents decreed for her alone. She had perhaps never
+directly reproached her own unhappy room-mate for selecting a
+comfortable chair, for wearing squeaking shoes, or singing "Hearken, ye
+sprightly," somewhat early in the morning, but she chanted those ills
+through all her waking hours in a high, yet husky tone, broken by
+frequent sobs. And therefore, as a result of these domestic whirlwinds
+and too stagnant pools, came the directors' meeting, and the helpless
+protest of the exasperated president. The two cases were discussed for
+an hour longer, in the dreary fashion pertaining to a question which
+has long been supposed to have but one side; and then it remained for
+Mrs. Mitchell, the new director, to cut the knot with the energy of one
+to whom a difficulty is fresh.
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you to put them together?" asked she. "They
+are impossible people; so, naturally, you have selected the very
+mildest and most Christian women to endure their nagging. They can't
+live with the saints of the earth. Experience has proved that. Put them
+into one room, and let them fight it out together."
+
+The motion was passed with something of that awe ever attending a
+Napoleonic decree, and passed, too, with the utmost good-breeding; for
+nobody mentioned the Kilkenny cats. The matron compressed her lips and
+lifted her brows, but said nothing; having exhausted her own resources,
+she was the more willing to take the superior attitude of good-natured
+scepticism.
+
+The moving was speedily accomplished; and at ten o'clock, one morning,
+Mrs. Blair was ushered into the room where her forced colleague sat by
+the window, knitting. There the two were left alone. Miss Dyer looked
+up, and then heaved a tempestuous sigh over her work, in the manner of
+one not entirely surprised by its advent, but willing to suppress it,
+if such alleviation might be. She was a thin, colorless woman, and
+infinitely passive, save at those times when her nervous system
+conflicted with the scheme of the universe. Not so Mrs. Blair. She had
+black eyes, "like live coals," said her awed associates; and her skin
+was soft and white, albeit wrinkled. One could even believe she had
+reigned a beauty, as the tradition of the house declared. This morning,
+she held her head higher than ever, and disdained expression except
+that of an occasional nasal snort. She regarded the room with the air
+of an impartial though exacting critic; two little beds covered with
+rising-sun quilts, two little pine bureaus, two washstands. The
+sunshine lay upon the floor, and in that radiant pathway Miss Dyer sat.
+
+"If I'd ha' thought I should ha' come to this," began Mrs. Blair, in
+the voice of one who speaks perforce after long sufferance, "I'd ha'
+died in my tracks afore I'd left my comfortable home down in Tiverton
+Holler. Story-'n'-a-half house, a good sullar, an' woods nigh-by full
+o' sarsaparilla an' goldthread! I've moved more times in this
+God-forsaken place than a Methodist preacher, fust one room an' then
+another; an' bad is the best. It was poor pickin's enough afore, but
+this is the crowner!"
+
+Miss Dyer said nothing, but two large tears rolled down and dropped on
+her work. Mrs. Blair followed their course with gleaming eyes endowed
+with such uncomfortable activity that they seemed to pounce with every
+glance.
+
+"What under the sun be you carryin' on like that for?" she asked,
+giving the handle of the water-pitcher an emphatic twitch to make it
+even with the world. "You 'ain't lost nobody, have ye, sence I moved in
+here?"
+
+Miss Dyer put aside her knitting with ostentatious abnegation, and
+began rocking herself back and forth in her chair, which seemed not of
+itself to sway fast enough, and Mrs. Blair's voice rose again, ever
+higher and more metallic:--
+
+"I dunno what you've got to complain of more'n the rest of us. Look at
+that dress you've got on,--a good thick thibet, an' mine's a cheap,
+sleazy alpaca they palmed off on me because they knew my eyesight ain't
+what it was once. An' you're settin' right there in the sun, gittin'
+het through, an' it's cold as a barn over here by the door. My land! if
+it don't make me mad to see anybody without no more sperit than a wet
+rag! If you've lost anybody, why don't ye say so? An' if it's a mad
+fit, speak out an' say that! Give me anybody that's got a tongue in
+their head, _I_ say!"
+
+But Miss Dyer, with an unnecessary display of effort, was hitching her
+chair into the darkest corner of the room, the rockers hopelessly
+snarling her yarn at every move.
+
+"I'm sure I wouldn't keep the sun off'n anybody," she said, tearfully.
+"It never come into my head to take it up, an' I don't claim no share
+of anything. I guess, if the truth was known, 'twould be seen I'd been
+used to a house lookin' south, an' the fore-room winders all of a glare
+o' light, day in an' day out, an' Madeira vines climbin' over 'em, an'
+a trellis by the front door; but that's all past an' gone, past an'
+gone! I never was one to take more 'n belonged to me; an' I don't care
+who says it, I never shall be. An' I'd hold to that, if 'twas the last
+word I had to speak!"
+
+This negative sort of retort had an enfeebling effect upon Mrs. Blair.
+
+"My land!" she exclaimed, helplessly. "Talk about my tongue! Vinegar's
+nothin' to cold molasses, if you've got to plough through it."
+
+The other sighed, and leaned her head upon her hand in an attitude of
+extreme dejection. Mrs. Blair eyed her with the exasperation of one
+whose just challenge has been refused; she marched back and forth
+through the room, now smoothing a fold of the counterpane, with vicious
+care, and again pulling the braided rug to one side or the other, the
+while she sought new fuel for her rage. Without, the sun was lighting
+snowy knoll and hollow, and printing the fine-etched tracery of the
+trees against a crystal sky. The road was not usually much frequented
+in winter time, but just now it had been worn by the week's sledding
+into a shining track, and several sleighs went jingling up and down.
+
+Tiverton was seizing the opportunity of a perfect day and the best of
+"going," and was taking its way to market. The trivial happenings of
+this far-away world had thus far elicited no more than a passing glance
+from Mrs. Blair; she was too absorbed in domestic warfare even to peer
+down through the leafless lilac-boughs, in futile wonderment as to
+whose bells they might be, ringing merrily past. On one journey about
+the room, however, some chance arrested her gaze. She stopped,
+transfixed.
+
+"Forever!" she cried. Her nervous, blue-veined hands clutched at her
+apron and held it; she was motionless for a moment. Yet the picture
+without would have been quite devoid of interest to the casual eye; it
+could have borne little significance save to one who knew the inner
+life history of the Tiverton Home, and thus might guess what slight
+events wrought all its joy and pain. A young man had set up his camera
+at the end of the walk, and thrown the cloth over his head, preparatory
+to taking the usual view of the house. Mrs. Blair recovered from her
+temporary inaction. She rushed to the window, and threw up the sash.
+Her husky voice broke strenuously upon the stillness:--
+
+"Here! you keep right where you be! I'm goin' to be took! You wait till
+I come!"
+
+She pulled down the window, and went in haste to the closet, in the
+excess of her eagerness stumbling recklessly forward into its depths.
+
+"Where's my bandbox?" Her voice came piercingly from her temporary
+seclusion. "Where'd they put it? It ain't here in sight! My soul!
+where's my bunnit?"
+
+These were apostrophes thrown off in extremity of feeling; they were
+not questions, and no listener, even with the most friendly disposition
+in the world, need have assumed the necessity of answering. So, wrapped
+in oblivion to all earthly considerations save that of her Own inward
+gloom, the one person who might have responded merely swayed back and
+forth, in martyrized silence. But no such spiritual withdrawal could
+insure her safety. Mrs. Blair emerged from the closet, and darted
+across the room with the energy of one stung by a new despair. She
+seemed about to fall upon the neutral figure in the corner, but seized
+the chair-back instead, and shook it with such angry vigor that Miss
+Dyer cowered down in no simulated fright.
+
+"Where's my green bandbox?'" The words were emphasized by cumulative
+shakes, "Anybody that's took that away from me ought to be b'iled in
+ile! Hangin''s too good for 'em, but le' me git my eye on 'em an' they
+shall swing for 't! Yes, they shall, higher 'n Gil'roy's kite!"
+
+The victim put both trembling hands to her ears.
+
+"I ain't deef!" she wailed.
+
+"Deef? I don't care whether you're deef or dumb, or whether you're
+nummer'n a beetle! It's my bandbox I'm arter. Isr'el in Egypt! you
+might grind some folks in a mortar an' you couldn't make 'em speak!"
+
+It was of no use. Intimidation had been worse than hopeless; even
+bodily force would not avail. She cast one lurid glance at the supine
+figure, and gave up the quest in that direction as sheer waste of time.
+With new determination, she again essayed the closet, tossing shoes and
+rubbers behind her in an unsightly heap, quite heedless of the
+confusion of rights and lefts. At last, in a dark corner, behind a blue
+chest, she came upon her treasure. Too hurried now for reproaches, she
+drew it forth, and with trembling fingers untied the strings. Casting
+aside the cover, she produced a huge scoop bonnet of a long-past date,
+and setting it on her head, with the same fevered haste, tied over it
+the long figured veil destined always to make an inseparable part of
+her state array. She snatched her stella shawl from the drawer, threw
+it over her shoulders, and ran out of the room.
+
+Miss Dyer was left quite bewildered by these erratic proceedings, but
+she had no mind to question them; so many stories were rife in the Home
+of the eccentricities embodied in the charitable phrase "Mis' Blair's
+way" that she would scarcely have been amazed had her terrible
+room-mate chosen to drive a coach and four up the chimney, or saddle
+the broom for a midnight revel. She drew a long breath of relief at the
+bliss of solitude, closed her eyes, and strove to regain the lost
+peace, which, as she vaguely remembered, had belonged to her once in a
+shadowy past.
+
+Silence had come, but not to reign. Back flew Mrs. Blair, like a
+whirlwind. Her cheeks wore each a little hectic spot; her eyes were
+flaming. The figured veil, swept rudely to one side, was borne
+backwards on the wind of her coming, and her thin hair, even in those
+few seconds, had become wildly disarranged.
+
+"He's gone!" she announced, passionately. "He kep' right on while I was
+findin' my bunnit. He come to take the house, an' he'd ha' took me an'
+been glad. An' when I got that plaguy front door open, he was jest
+drivin' away; an' I might ha' hollered till I was black in the face,
+an' then I couldn't ha' made him hear."
+
+"I dunno what to say, nor what not to," remarked Miss Dyer, to her
+corner. "If I speak, I'm to blame; an' so I be if I keep still."
+
+The other old lady had thrown herself into a chair, and was looking
+wrathfully before her.
+
+"It's the same man that come from Sudleigh last August," she said,
+bitterly. "He took the house then, an' said he wanted another view when
+the leaves was off; an' that time I was laid up with my stiff ankle,
+an' didn't git into it, an' to-day my bunnit was hid, an' I lost it
+ag'in."
+
+Her voice changed. To the listener, it took on an awful meaning.
+
+"An' I should like to know whose fault it was. If them that owns the
+winder, an' set by it till they see him comin', had spoke up an' said,
+'Mis' Blair, there's the photograph man. Don't you want to be took?' it
+wouldn't ha' been too late! If anybody had answered a civil question,
+an' said, 'Your bunnit-box sets there behind my blue chist,' it
+wouldn't ha' been too late then! An' I 'ain't had my likeness took
+sence I was twenty year old, an' went to Sudleigh Fair in my changeable
+_visite_ an' leghorn hat, an' Jonathan wore the brocaded weskit he
+stood up in, the next week Thursday. It's enough to make a minister
+swear!"
+
+Miss Dyer rocked back and forth.
+
+"Dear me!" she wailed. "Dear me suz!"
+
+The dinner-bell rang, creating a blessed diversion. Miss Blair,
+rendered absent-minded by her grief, went to the table still in her
+bonnet and veil; and this dramatic entrance gave rise to such morbid
+though unexpressed curiosity that every one forbore, for a time, to
+wonder why Miss Dyer did not appear. Later, however, when a tray was
+prepared and sent up to her (according to the programme of her bad
+days), the general commotion reached an almost unruly point, stimulated
+as it was by the matron's son, who found an opportunity to whisper one
+garrulous old lady that Miss Dyer had received bodily injury at the
+hands of her roommate, and that Mrs. Blair had put on her bonnet to be
+ready for the sheriff when he should arrive. This report, judiciously
+started, ran like prairie fire; and the house was all the afternoon in
+a pleasant state of excitement. Possibly the matron will never know why
+so many of the old ladies promenaded the corridors from dinnertime
+until long after early candlelight, while a few kept faithful yet
+agitated watch from the windows. For interest was divided; some
+preferred to see the sheriff's advent, and others found zest in the
+possibility of counting the groans of the prostrate victim.
+
+When Mrs. Blair returned to the stage of action, she was much refreshed
+by her abundant meal and the strong tea which three times daily
+heartened her for battle. She laid aside her bonnet, and carefully
+folded the veil. Then she looked about her, and, persistently ignoring
+all the empty chairs, fixed an annihilating gaze on one where the
+dinner-tray still remained.
+
+"I s'pose there's no need o' my settin' down," she remarked, bitingly.
+"It's all in the day's work. Some folks are waited on; some ain't. Some
+have their victuals brought to 'em an' pushed under their noses, an'
+some has to go to the table; when they're there, they can take it or
+leave it. The quality can keep their waiters settin' round day in an'
+day out, fillin' up every chair in the room. For my part, I should
+think they'd have an extension table moved in, an' a snowdrop cloth
+over it!"
+
+Miss Dyer had become comparatively placid, but now she gave way to
+tears.
+
+"Anybody can move that waiter that's a mind to," she said, tremulously.
+"I would myself, if I had the stren'th; but I 'ain't got it. I ain't a
+well woman, an' I 'ain't been this twenty year. If old Dr. Parks was
+alive this day, he'd say so. 'You 'ain't never had a chance,' he says
+to me. 'You've been pull-hauled one way or another sence you was born.'
+An' he never knew the wust on't, for the wust hadn't come."
+
+"Humph!" It was a royal and explosive note. It represented scorn for
+which Mrs. Blair could find no adequate utterance. She selected the
+straightest chair in the room, ostentatiously turned its back to her
+enemy, and seated herself. Then, taking out her knitting, she strove to
+keep silence; but that was too heavy a task, and at last she broke
+forth, with renewed bitterness,--
+
+"To think of all the wood I've burnt up in my kitchen stove an'
+air-tight, an' never thought nothin' of it! To think of all the wood
+there is now, growin' an' rottin' from Dan to Beersheba, an' I can't
+lay my fingers on it!"
+
+"I dunno what you want o' wood. I'm sure this room's warm enough."
+
+"You don't? Well, I'll tell ye. I want some two-inch boards, to nail up
+a partition in the middle o' this room, same as Josh Marden done to
+spite his wife. I don't want more'n my own, but I want it mine."
+
+Miss Dyer groaned, and drew an uncertain hand across her forehead.
+
+"You wouldn't have no gre't of an outlay for boards," she said,
+drearily. "'Twouldn't have to be knee-high to keep me out. I'm no hand
+to go where I ain't wanted; an' if I ever was, I guess I'm cured on't
+now."
+
+Mrs. Blair dropped her knitting in her lap. For an instant, she sat
+there motionless, in a growing rigidity; but light was dawning in her
+eyes. Suddenly she came to her feet, and tossed her knitting on the
+bed.
+
+"Where's that piece o' chalk you had when you marked out your
+tumbler-quilt?" The words rang like a martial order.
+
+Miss Dyer drew it forth from the ancient-looking bag, known as a cavo,
+which was ever at her side.
+
+"Here 'tis," she said, in her forlornest quaver. "I hope you won't do
+nothin' out o' the way with it. I should hate to git into trouble here.
+I ain't that kind."
+
+Mrs. Blair was too excited to hear or heed her. She was briefly,
+flashingly, taking in the possibilities of the room, her bright black
+eyes darting here and there with fiery insistence. Suddenly she went to
+the closet, and, diving to the bottom of a baggy pocket in her "t'other
+dress," drew forth a ball of twine. She chalked it, still in delighted
+haste, and forced one end upon her bewildered room-mate.
+
+"You go out there to the middle square o' the front winder," she
+commanded, "an' hold your end o' the string down on the floor. I'll
+snap it."
+
+Miss Dyer cast one despairing glance about her, and obeyed.
+
+"Crazy!" she muttered. "Oh my land! she's crazy's a loon. I wisht Mis'
+Mitchell'd pitch her tent here a spell!"
+
+But Mrs. Blair was following out her purpose in a manner exceedingly
+methodical. Drawing out one bed, so that it stood directly opposite her
+kneeling helper, she passed the cord about the leg of the bedstead and
+made it fast; then, returning to the middle of the room, she snapped
+the line triumphantly. A faint chalk-mark was left upon the floor.
+
+"There!" she cried. "Leggo! Now, you gi' me the chalk, an' I'll go over
+it an' make it whiter."
+
+She knelt and chalked with the utmost absorption, crawling along on her
+knees, quite heedless of the despised alpaca; and Miss Dyer, hovering
+in a corner, timorously watched her. Mrs. Blair staggered to her feet,
+entangled by her skirt, and pitching like a ship at sea.
+
+"There!" she announced. "Now here's two rooms. The chalk-mark's the
+partition. You can have the mornin' sun, for I'd jest as soon live by a
+taller candle if I can have somethin' that's my own. I'll chalk a lane
+into the closet, an' we'll both keep a right o' way there. Now I'm to
+home, an' so be you. Don't you dast to speak a word to me unless you
+come an' knock here on my headboard,--that's the front door,--an' I
+won't to you. Well, if I ain't glad to be alone! I've hung my harp on a
+willer long enough!"
+
+It was some time before the true meaning of the new arrangement
+penetrated Miss Dyer's slower intelligence; but presently she drew her
+chair nearer the window and thought a little, chuckling as she did so.
+She, too, was alone.
+
+The sensation was new and very pleasant. Mrs. Blair went back and forth
+through the closet-lane, putting her clothes away, with high good
+humor. Once or twice she sang a little--Derby's Ram and Lord Lovel--in
+a cracked voice. She was in love with solitude.
+
+Just before tea, Mrs. Mitchell, in some trepidation, knocked at the
+door, to see the fruits of contention present and to come. She had
+expected to hear loud words; and the silence quite terrified her,
+emphasizing, as it did, her own guilty sense of personal
+responsibility. Miss Dyer gave one appealing look at Mrs. Blair, and
+then, with some indecision, went to open the door, for the latch was in
+her house.
+
+"Well, here you are, comfortably settled!" began Mrs. Mitchell. She had
+the unmistakable tone of professional kindliness; yet it rang clear and
+true. "May I come in?"
+
+"Set right down here," answered Miss Dyer, drawing forward a chair.
+"I'm real pleased to see ye."
+
+"And how are you this afternoon?" This was addressed to the occupant of
+the other house, who, quite oblivious to any alien presence, stood
+busily rubbing the chalk-marks from her dress.
+
+Mrs. Blair made no answer. She might have been stone deaf, and as dumb
+as the hearthstone bricks. Mrs. Mitchell cast an alarmed glance at her
+entertainer.
+
+"Isn't she well?" she said, softly.
+
+"It's a real pretty day, ain't it?" responded Miss Dyer. "If 'twas
+summer time, I should think there'd be a sea turn afore night. I like a
+sea turn myself. It smells jest like Old Boar's Head."
+
+"I have brought you down some fruit." Mrs. Mitchell was still anxiously
+observing the silent figure, now absorbed in an apparently futile
+search in a brocaded work-bag. "Mrs. Blair, do you ever cut up bananas
+and oranges together?"
+
+No answer. The visitor rose, and unwittingly stepped across the
+dividing line.
+
+"Mrs. Blair--" she began, but she got no further.
+
+Her hostess turned upon her, in surprised welcome.
+
+"Well, if it ain't Mis' Mitchell! I can't say I didn't expect you, for
+I see you goin' into Miss Dyer's house not more'n two minutes ago.
+Seems to me you make short calls. Now set right down here, where you
+can see out o' the winder. That square's cracked, but I guess the
+directors'll put in another."
+
+Mrs. Mitchell was amazed, but entirely interested. It was many a long
+day since any person, official or private, had met with cordiality from
+this quarter.
+
+"I hope you and our friend are going to enjoy your room together," she
+essayed, with a hollow cheerfulness.
+
+"I expect to be as gay as a cricket," returned Mrs. Blair, innocently.
+"An' I do trust I've got good neighbors. I like to keep to myself, but
+if I've got a neighbor, I want her to be somebody you can depend upon."
+
+"I'm sure Miss Dyer means to be very neighborly." The director turned,
+with a smile, to include that lady in the conversation. But the local
+deafness had engulfed her. She was sitting peacefully by the window,
+with the air of one retired within herself, to think her own very
+remote thoughts. The visitor mentally improvised a little theory, and
+it seemed to fit the occasion. They had quarrelled, she thought, and
+each was disturbed at any notice bestowed on the other.
+
+"I have been wondering whether you would both like to go sleighing with
+me some afternoon?" she ventured, with the humility so prone to assail
+humankind in a frank and shrewish presence. "The roads are in wonderful
+condition, and I don't believe you'd take cold. Do you know, I found
+Grandmother Eaton's foot-warmers, the other day! I'll bring them
+along."
+
+"Law! I'd go anywheres to git out o' here," said Mrs. Blair,
+ruthlessly. "I dunno when I've set behind a horse, either. I guess the
+last time was the day I rid up here for good, an' then I didn't feel
+much like lookin' at outdoor. Well, I guess you _be_ a new director, or
+you never'd ha' thought on't!"
+
+"How do you feel about it, Miss Dyer?" asked the visitor. "Will you
+go,--perhaps on, Wednesday?"
+
+The other householder moved uneasily. Her hands twitched at their
+knitting; a flush came over her cheeks, and she cast a childishly
+appealing glance at her neighbor across the chalkline. Her eyes were
+filling fast with tears. "Save me!" her look seemed to entreat "Let me
+not lose this happy fortune!" Mrs. Blair interpreted the message, and
+rose to the occasion with the vigor of the intellectually great.
+
+"Mis' Mitchell," she said, clearly, "I may be queer in my notions, but
+it makes me as nervous as a witch to have anybody hollerin' out o' my
+winders. I don't care whether it's company nor whether it's my own
+folks. If you want to speak to Miss Dyer, you come along here after
+me,--don't you hit the partition now!--right out o' my door an' into
+her'n. Here, I'll knock! Miss Dyer, be you to home?"
+
+The little old lady came forward, fluttering and radiant in the excess
+of her relief.
+
+"Yes, I guess I be," she said, "an' all alone, too! I see you go by the
+winder, an' I was in' hopes you'd come in!"
+
+Then the situation dawned upon Mrs. Mitchell with an effect vastly
+surprising to the two old pensioners. She turned from one to the other,
+including them both in a look of warm loving-kindness. It was truly an
+illumination. Hitherto, they had thought chiefly of her winter cloak
+and nodding ostrich plume; now, at last, they saw her face, and read
+some part of its message.
+
+"You poor souls!" she cried. "Do you care so much as that? 'O you poor
+souls!"
+
+Miss Dyer fingered her apron and looked at the floor, but her companion
+turned brusquely away, even though she trod upon the partition in her
+haste.
+
+"Law! it's nothin' to make such a handle of" she said. "Folks don't
+want to be under each other's noses all the time. I dunno's anybody
+could stan' it, unless 'twas an emmet. They seem to git along swarmin'
+round together."
+
+Mrs. Mitchell left the room abruptly.
+
+"Wednesday or Thursday, then!" she called over her shoulder.
+
+The next forenoon, Mrs. Blair made her neighbor a long visit. Both old
+ladies had their knitting, and they sat peacefully swaying back and
+forth, recalling times past, and occasionally alluding to their happy
+Wednesday.
+
+"What I really come in for," said Mrs. Blair, finally, "was to ask if
+you don't think both our settin'-rooms need new paper."
+
+The other gave one bewildered glance about her.
+
+"Why, 'tain't been on more 'n two weeks," she began; and then
+remembrance awoke in her, and she stopped. It was not the scene of
+their refuge and conflict that must be considered; it was the house of
+fancy built by each unto herself. Invention did not come easily to her
+as yet, and she spoke with some hesitation.
+
+"I've had it in mind myself quite a spell, but somehow I 'ain't been
+able to fix on the right sort o' paper."
+
+"What do you say to a kind of a straw color, all lit up with tulips?"
+inquired Mrs. Blair; triumphantly.
+
+"Ain't that kind o' gay?"
+
+"Gay? Well, you want it gay, don't ye? I dunno why folks seem to think
+they've got to live in a hearse because they expect to ride in one!
+What if we be gittin' on a little mite in years? We ain't underground
+yit, be we? I see a real good ninepenny paper once, all covered over
+with green brakes. I declare if 'twa'n't sweet pretty! Well, whether I
+paper or whether I don't, I've got some thoughts of a magenta sofy. I'm
+tired to death o' that old horsehair lounge that sets in my clock-room.
+Sometimes I wish the moths would tackle it, but I guess they've got
+more sense. I've al'ays said to myself I'd have a magenta sofy when I
+could git round to it, and I dunno's I shall be any nearer to it than I
+be now."
+
+"Well, you _are_ tasty," said Miss Dyer, in some awe. "I dunno how you
+come to think o' that!"
+
+"Priest Rowe had one when I wa'n't more 'n twenty. Some o' his
+relations give it to him (he married into the quality), an' I remember
+as if 'twas yisterday what a tew there was over it. An' I said to
+myself then, if ever I was prospered I'd have a magenta sofy. I 'ain't
+got to it till now, but now I'll have it if I die for't."
+
+"Well, I guess you're in the right on't." Miss Dyer spoke absently,
+glancing from the window in growing trouble. "O Mis' Blair!" she
+continued, with a sudden burst of confidence, "you don't think there's a
+storm brewin', do you? If it snows Wednesday, I shall give up beat!"
+
+Mrs. Blair, in her turn, peered at the smiling sky.
+
+"I hope you ain't one o' them kind that thinks every fair day's a
+weather breeder," she said. "Law, no! I don't b'lieve it will storm;
+an' if it does, why, there's other Wednesdays comin'!"
+
+
+
+
+AT SUDLEIGH FAIR.
+
+
+Delilah Joyce was sitting on her front doorstone with a fine disregard
+of the fact that her little clock had struck eight of the morning,
+while her bed was still unmade. The Tiverton folk who disapproved of
+her shiftlessness in letting the golden hours, run thus to waste, did
+grudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even be
+spread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from her
+little side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun;
+and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the green
+slope outside, called by Dilly her "spring," only because the snow
+melted first there on the freedom days of the year. The new editor of
+the Sudleigh "Star," seeing her slight, wiry figure struggling with the
+bed like a very little ant under a caterpillar all too large, was once
+on the point of drawing up his horse at her gate. He was a chivalrous
+fellow, and he wanted to help; but Brad Freeman, hulking by with his
+gun at the moment, stopped him.
+
+"That's only Dilly wrastlin' with, her bed," he called back, in the act
+of stepping over the wall into the meadow. "'Twon't do no good to take
+holt once, unless you're round here every mornin' 'bout the same time.
+Dilly'll git the better on't. She al'ays does." So the editor laughed,
+put down another Tiverton custom in his mental notebook, and drove on.
+
+Dilly was a very little woman, with abnormally long and sinewy arms.
+Her small, rather delicate face had a healthy coat of tan, and her
+iron-gray hair was braided with scrupulous care. She resembled her own
+house to a striking degree; she was fastidiously neat, but not in the
+least orderly. The Tiverton housekeepers could not appreciate this
+attitude in reference to the conventional world. It was all very well
+to keep the kitchen floor scrubbed, but they did believe, also, in
+seeing the table properly set, and in finishing the washing by eight
+o'clock on Monday morning. Now Dilly seldom felt inclined to set any
+table at all. She was far more likely to take her bread and milk under
+a tree; and as for washing, Thursday was as good a day as any, she was
+wont to declare. Moreover, the tradition of hanging garments on the
+line according to a severely classified system, did not in the least
+appeal to her.
+
+"I guess a petticoat'll dry jest as quick if it's hung 'side of a
+nightgown," she told her critics, drily. "An' when you come to hangin'
+stockin's by the pair, better separate 'em, I say! Like man an' wife!
+Give 'em a vacation, once in a while, an' love'll live the longer!"
+
+Dilly was thinking, this morning, of all the possibilities of the
+lovely, shining day. So many delights lay open to her! She could take
+her luncheon in her pocket, and go threading through the woods behind
+her house. She could walk over to Pine Hollow, to see how the cones
+were coming on, and perchance scrape together a basket of pine needles,
+to add to her winter's kindling; or she might, if the world and the
+desires thereof assailed her, visit Sudleigh Fair. Better still, she
+need account to nobody if she chose to sit there on the doorstone, and
+let the hours go unregretted by. Presently, her happy musing was broken
+by a ripple from the outer world. A girl came briskly round the corner
+where the stone-wall lay hidden under a wilderness of cinnamon
+rosebushes and blackberry vines,--Rosa Tolman, dressed in white
+_pique_, with a great leghorn hat over her curls. The girl came
+hurrying up the path, with a rustle of starched petticoats, and still
+Dilly kept her trance-like posture.
+
+"I know who 'tis!" she announced, presently, in a declamatory voice.
+"It's Rosy Tolman, an' she's dressed in white, with red roses, all
+complete, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh Cattle-Show."
+
+Rosa lost a shade of pink from her cheeks. Her round blue eyes widened,
+in an unmistakable terror quite piteous to see.
+
+"O Dilly!" she quavered, "how do you know such things? Why, you 'ain't
+looked at me!"
+
+Dilly opened her eyes, and chuckled in keen enjoyment.
+
+"Bless ye!" she said, "I can't help imposin' on ye, no more 'n a cat
+could help ketchin' a mouse, if't made a nest down her throat. Why, I
+see ye comin' round the corner! But when folks thinks you're a witch,
+it ain't in human natur' not to fool 'em. I _am_ a witch, ain't I,
+dear? Now, ain't I?"
+
+Rosa's color had faltered back, but she still stood visibly in awe of
+her old neighbor.
+
+"Well," she owned, "Elvin Drew says you can see in the dark, but I
+don't know's he means anything by it."
+
+Again Dilly broke into laughter, rocking back and forth, in happy
+abandonment.
+
+"I can!" she cried, gleefully. "You tell him I can! An' when I can't,
+folks are so neighborly they strike a light for me to see by. You tell
+him! Well, now, what is it? You've come to ask suthin'. Out with it!"
+
+"Father told me to come over, and see if you can't tell something about
+our cows. They're all drying up, and he don't see any reason why."
+
+Dilly nodded her head sagely.
+
+"You'd better ha' come sooner," she announced. "You tell him he must
+drive 'em to pastur' himself, an' go arter 'em, too."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"An' you tell him to give Davie a Saturday, here an' there, to go
+fishin' in, an' not let him do so many chores. Now, you hear! Your
+father must drive the cows, an' he must give Davie time to play a
+little, or there'll be dark days comin', an' he won't be prepared for
+'em."
+
+"My!" exclaimed Rosa, blankly. "My! Ain't it queer! It kind o' scares
+me. But, Dilly,"--she turned about, so that only one flushed cheek
+remained visible,--"Dilly, 'ain't you got something to say to me? We're
+going to be married next Tuesday, Elvin and me. It's all right, ain't
+it?"
+
+Dilly bent forward, and peered masterfully into her face. She took the
+girl's plump pink handy and drew her forward. Rosa, as if compelled by
+some unseen force, turned about, and allowed her frightened gaze to lie
+ensnared by the witch's great black eyes. Dilly began, in a deep
+intense voice, with the rhythm of the Methodist exhorter, though on a
+lower key,--
+
+"Two years, that boy's been arter you. Two years, you trampled on him
+as if he'd been the dust under your feet. He was poor an' strugglin'.
+He was left with his mother to take care on, an' a mortgage to work off.
+An' then his house burnt down, an' he got his insurance money; an' that
+minute, you turned right round an' says, 'I'll have you.' An' now, you
+say, 'Is it all right?' _Is_ it right, Rosy Tolman? You tell _me_!"
+
+Rosa was sobbing hysterically.
+
+"Oh, I wish you wouldn't scare me so!" she exclaimed, yet not for a
+moment attempting to withdraw her hand, or turn aside her terrified
+gaze. "I wish I never'd said one word!"
+
+Dilly broke the spell as lightly as she had woven it. A smile passed
+over her face, like a charm, dispelling all its prophetic fervor.
+
+"There! there!" she said, dropping the girl's hand. "I thought I'd
+scare ye! What's the use o' bein' a witch, if ye can't upset folks? Now
+don't cry, an' git your cheeks all blotched up afore Elvin calls to
+fetch ye, with that hired horse, an' take ye to the Cattle-Show! But
+don't ye forgit what I say! You remember we ain't goin' to wait for the
+Day o' Judgment, none on us. It comes every hour. If Gabriel was
+tootin', should you turn fust to Elvin Drew, an' go up or down with
+him, wherever he was 'lected? That's what you've got to think on; not
+your new hat nor your white _pique_. (Didn't iron it under the
+overskirt, did ye? How'd I know? Law! how's a witch know anything?)
+Now, you 'ain't opened your bundle, dear, have ye? Raisin-cake in it,
+ain't there?"
+
+Rosa bent suddenly forward, and placed the package in Dilly's lap. In
+spite of the bright daylight all about her, she was frightened; if a
+cloud had swept over, she must have screamed.
+
+"I don't know how you found it out," she whispered, "but _'tis_
+raisin-cake. Mother sent it. She knew I was going to ask you about the
+cows. She said I was to tell you, too, there's some sickness over to
+Sudleigh, and she thought you could go over there nussing, if you
+wanted to."
+
+"I 'ain't got time," said Dilly, placidly. "I give up nussin', two year
+ago. I 'ain't got any time at all! Well, here they come, don't they?
+One for me, an' one for you!"
+
+A light wagon, driven rapidly round the corner, drew up at the gate.
+Elvin Drew jumped down, and helped out his companion, a short, rather
+thickset girl, with smooth, dark hair, honest eyes, and a sensitive
+mouth. She came quickly up the path, after an embarrassed word of
+thanks to the young man.
+
+"He took me in," she began, almost apologetically to Rosa, who surveyed
+her with some haughtiness. "I was comin' up here to see Dilly, an' he
+offered me a ride."
+
+Rosa's color and spirits had returned, at the sight of her tangible
+ally at the gate.
+
+"Well, I guess I must be going," she said, airily. "Elvin won't want to
+wait. Good-by, Dilly! I'll tell father. Good-by, Molly Drew!"
+
+But Dilly followed her down to the road, where Elvin stood waiting with
+the reins in his hands. He was a very blond young man, with curly hair,
+and eyes honest in contour and clear of glance. Perhaps his coloring
+impressed one with the fact that he should have looked very young; but
+his face shrunk now behind a subtile veil of keen anxiety, of irritated
+emotion, which were evidently quite foreign to him. Even a stranger,
+looking at him, could hardly help suspecting an alien trouble grafted
+upon a healthy stem. He gave Dilly a pleasant little nod, in the act of
+turning eagerly to help Rosa into the wagon. But when he would have
+followed her, Dilly laid a light but imperative hand on his arm.
+
+"Don't you want your fortune told?" she asked, meaningly. "Here's the
+witch all ready. Ain't it well for me I wa'n't born a hunderd year ago?
+Shouldn't I ha' sizzled well? An' now, all there is to burn me is God
+A'mighty's sunshine!"
+
+Elvin laughed lightly.
+
+"I guess I don't need any fortune," he said. "Mine looks pretty fair
+now. I don't feel as if anybody'd better meddle with it." But he had
+not withdrawn his arm, and his gaze still dwelt on hers.
+
+"You know suthin' you don't mean to tell," said Dilly, speaking so
+rapidly that although Rosa bent forward to listen, she caught only a
+word, here and there. "You think you won't have to tell, but you will.
+God A'mighty'll make you. You'll be a stranger among your own folks,
+an' a wanderer on the earth; till you tell. There! go along! Go an' see
+the punkins an' crazy-quilts!"
+
+She withdrew her hand, and turned away. Elvin, his face suddenly
+blanched, looked after her, fascinated, while she went quickly up the
+garden walk. An impatient word from Rosa recalled him to himself, and
+he got heavily into the wagon and drove on again.
+
+When Dilly reached the steps where her new guest had seated herself,
+her manner had quite changed. It breathed an open frankness, a sweet
+and homely warmth which were very engaging. Molly spoke first.
+
+"How pleased he is with her!" she said, dreamily.
+
+"Yes," answered Dilly, "but to-day ain't tomorrer. They're both
+light-complected. It's jest like patchwork. Put light an' dark
+together, I say, or you won't git no figger. Here, le's have a mite o'
+cake! Mis' Tolman's a proper good cook, if her childern _have_ all
+turned out ducks, an' took to the water. Every one on 'em's took back
+as much as three generations for their noses an' tempers. Strange they
+had to go so fur!"
+
+She broke the rich brown loaf in the middle, and divided a piece
+with Molly. Such were the habits calculated to irritate the
+conventionalities of Tiverton against her. Who ever heard of breaking
+cake when one could go into the house for a knife! They ate in silence,
+and the delights of the summer day grew upon Molly as they never did
+save when she felt the nearness of this queer little woman. Turn which
+side of her personality she might toward you, Dilly could always bend
+you to her own train of thought.
+
+"I come down to talk things over," said Molly, at last, brushing the
+crumbs of cake from her lap. "I've got a chance in the shoe-shop."
+
+"Do tell! Well, ain't that complete? Don't you say one word, now! I
+know how 'tis. You think how you'll have to give up the birds' singin',
+an' your goin' into the woods arter groundpine, an' stay cooped up in a
+boardin'-house to Sudleigh. I know how 'tis! But don't you fret. You
+come right here an' stay Sundays, an' we'll eat up the woods an' drink
+up the sky! There! It's better for ye, dear. Some folks are made to
+live in a holler tree, like me; some ain't. You'll be better on't among
+folks."
+
+Molly's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"You've been real good to me," she said, simply.
+
+"I wish I'd begun it afore," responded Dilly, with a quick upward lift
+of her head, and her brightest smile. "You see I didn't know ye very
+well, for all you'd lived with old Mis' Drew so many year. I 'ain't had
+much to do with folks. I knew ye hadn't got nobody except her, but I
+knew, too, ye were contented there as a cricket. But when she died, an'
+the house burnt down, I begun to wonder what was goin' to become on
+ye."
+
+Molly sat looking over at the pine woods, her lips compressed, her
+cheeks slowly reddening. Finally she burst passionately forth,--
+
+"Dilly, I'd like to know why I couldn't have got some rooms an' kep'
+house for Elvin? His mother's my own aunt!"
+
+"She wa'n't his mother, ye know. She was His stepmother, for all they
+set so much by one Another. Folks would ha' talked, an' I guess Rosy
+wouldn't ha' stood that, even afore they were engaged. Rosy may not
+like corn-fodder herself, any more 'n t'other dog did, but she ain't
+goin' to see other noses put into't without snappin' at 'em."
+
+"Well, it's all over," said Molly, drearily. "It 'ain't been hard for
+me stayin' round as I've done, an' sewin' for my board; but it's seemed
+pretty tough to think of Elvin livin' in that little shanty of Caleb's
+an' doin' for himself. I never could see why he didn't board somewheres
+decent."
+
+"Wants to save his six hunderd dollars, to go out West an' start in the
+furniture business," said Dilly, succinctly. "Come, Molly, what say to
+walkin' over to Sudleigh Cattle-Show?"
+
+Molly threw aside her listless mood like a garment.
+
+"Will you?" she cried. "Oh, I'd like to! You know I'm sewin' for Mis'
+Eli Pike; an' they asked me to go, but I knew she'd fill up the seat so
+I should crowd 'em out of house an' home. Will you, Dilly?"
+
+"You wait till I git suthin' or other to put over my head," said Dilly,
+rising with cheerful decision. "Here, you gi' me that cake! I'll tie it
+up in a nice clean piece o' table-cloth, an' then we'll take along a
+few eggs, so 't we can trade 'em off for bread an' cheese. You jest
+pull in my sheets, an' shet the winder, while I do it. Like as not
+there'll be a shower this arternoon."
+
+When the little gate closed behind them, Molly felt eagerly excited,
+as, if she were setting forth for a year's happy wandering. Dilly knew
+the ways of the road as well as the wood. She was, as usual, in light
+marching order, a handkerchief tied over her smooth braids; another,
+slung on a stick over her shoulder, contained their luncheon and the
+eggs for barter. All her movements were buoyant and free, like those of
+a healthy animal let loose in pleasant pastures. She walked so lightly
+that the eggs in the handkerchief were scarcely stirred.
+
+"See that little swampy patch!" she said, stopping when they had
+rounded the curve in the road. "A week or two ago, that was all alive
+with redbud flowers. I dunno the right name on 'em, an' I don't care.
+Redbirds, I call 'em. I went over there, one day, an' walked along
+between the hummocks, spush! spush! You won't find a nicer feelin' than
+that, wherever ye go. Take off your shoes an' stockin's, an' wade into
+a swamp! Warm, coarse grass atop! Then warm, black mud, an' arter that,
+a layer all nice an' cold that goes down to Chiny, fur's I know! That
+was the day I meant to git some thoroughwort over there, to dry, but I
+looked at the redbird flowers so long I didn't have time, an' I
+never've been sence."
+
+Molly laughed out, with a pretty, free ripple in her voice.
+
+"You're always sayin' that, Dilly! You never have time for anything but
+doin' nothin'!"
+
+A bright little sparkle came into Dilly's eyes, and she laughed, too.
+
+"Why, that's what made me give' up nussin' two year ago," she said,
+happily. "I wa'n't havin' no time at all. I couldn't live my proper
+life. I al'ays knew I should come to that, so I'd raked an' scraped,
+an' put into the bank, till I thought I'd got enough to buy me a mite
+o' flour while I lived, an' a pine coffin arter I died; an' then I jest
+set up my Ebenezer I'd be as free's a bird. Freer, I guess I be, for
+they have to scratch pretty hard, come cold weather, an' I bake me a
+'tater, an' then go clippin' out over the crust, lookin' at the bare
+twigs. Oh, it's complete! If I could live this way, I guess a thousand
+years'd be a mighty small dose for me. Look at that goldenrod, over
+there by the stump! That's the kind that's got the most smell."
+
+Molly broke one of the curving plumes.
+
+"I don't see as it smells at all," she said, still sniffing delicately.
+
+"Le'me take it! Why, yes, it does, too! Everything smells _some_.
+Oftentimes it's so faint it's more like a feelin' than a smell. But
+there! you ain't a witch, as I be!"
+
+"I wish you wouldn't say that!" put in Molly, courageously. "You make
+people think you are."
+
+"Law, then, let 'em!" said Dilly, with a kindly indulgence. "It don't
+do them no hurt, an' it gives me more fun'n the county newspaper.
+They'd ruther I'd say I was a witch'n tell 'em I've got four eyes an'
+eight ears where they 'ain't but two. I tell ye, there's a good deal
+missed when ye stay to home makin' pies, an' a good deal ye can learn
+if ye live out-door. Why, there's Tolman's cows! He dunno why they dry
+up; but I do. He, sends that little Davie with 'em, that don't have no
+proper playtime; an' Davie gallops 'em all the way to pastur', so't he
+can have a minute to fish in the brook. An' then he gallops 'em home
+ag'in, because he's stole a piece out o' the arternoon. I ketched him
+down there by the brook, one day, workin' away with a bent pin, an' the
+next mornin' I laid a fish-hook on the rock, an' hid in the woods to
+see what he'd say. My! I 'guess Jonah wa'n't more tickled when he set
+foot on dry land. Here comes the wagons! There's the Poorhouse team
+fust, an' Sally Flint settin' up straighter 'n a ramrod. An' there's
+Heman an' Roxy! She don't look a day older'n twenty-five. Proper nice
+folks, all on 'em, but they make me kind o' homesick jest because they
+_be_ folks. They do look so sort o' common in their bunnits an' veils,
+an' I keep thinkin' o' little four-legged creatur's, all fur!" The
+Tiverton folk saluted them, always cordially, yet each after his kind.
+They liked Dilly as a product all their own, but one to be partaken of
+sparingly, like some wild, intoxicating root.
+
+They loved her better at home, too, than at Sudleigh Fair. It was like
+a betrayal of their fireside secrets, to see her there in her
+accustomed garb; so slight a concession to propriety would have lain in
+her putting on a bonnet and shawl!
+
+As they neared Sudleigh town, the road grew populous with carriages and
+farm-wagons, "step and step," not all from Tiverton way, but gathered
+in from the roads converging here. Men were walking up and down the
+market street, crying their whips, their toy balloons, and a multitude
+of cheaper gimcracks.
+
+"Forty miles from home! forty miles from home!" called one, more
+imaginative than the rest. "And no place to lay my head! That's why I'm
+selling these little whips here to-day, a stranger in a strange land.
+Buy one! buy one! and the poor pilgrim'll have a supper and a bed! Keep
+your money in your pocket, and he's a wanderer on the face of the
+earth!"
+
+Dilly, the fearless in her chosen wilds, took a fold of Molly's dress,
+and held it tight.
+
+"You s'pose that's so?" she whispered. "Oh, dear! I 'ain't got a mite
+o' money, on'y these six eggs. Oh, why didn't he stay to home, if he's
+so possessed to sleep under cover? What does anybody leave their home
+_for_, if they've got one?"
+
+But Molly put up her head, and walked sturdily on.
+
+"Don't you worry," she counselled, in an undertone. "It don't mean any
+more 'n it does when folks say they're sellin' at a sacrifice. I guess
+they expect to make enough, take it all together."
+
+Dilly walked on, quite bewildered. She had lost her fine, joyous
+carriage; her shoulders were bent, and her feet shuffled, in a
+discouraged fashion, over the unlovely bricks. Molly kept the lead,
+with unconscious superiority.
+
+"Le's go into the store now," she said, "an' swap off the eggs. You'll
+be joggled in this crowd, an' break 'em all to smash. Here, you le' me
+have your handkerchief! I'll see to it all." She kept the handkerchief
+in her hand, after their slight "tradin'" had been accomplished; and
+Dilly, too dispirited to offer a word, walked meekly about after her.
+
+The Fair was held, according to ancient custom, in the town-hall, of
+which the upper story had long been given over to Sudleigh Academy.
+Behind the hall lay an enormous field, roped in now, and provided with
+pens and stalls, where a great assemblage of live-stock lowed, and
+grunted, and patiently chewed the cud.
+
+"Le's go in there fust," whispered Dilly. "I sha'n't feel so strange
+there as I do with folks. I guess if the four-footed creatur's can
+stan' it, I can. Pretty darlin'!" she added, stopping before a heifer
+who had ceased eating and was looking about her with a mild and
+dignified gaze. Dilly eagerly sought out a stick, and began to scratch
+the delicate head. "Pretty creatur'! Smell o' her breath, Molly! See
+her nose, all wet, like pastur' grass afore day! Now, if I didn't want
+to live by myself, I'd like to curl me up in a stall, 'side o' her."
+
+"'Mandy, you an' Kelup come here!" called Aunt Melissa Adams. She
+loomed very prosperous, over the way, in her new poplin and her
+lace-trimmed cape. "Jest look at these roosters! They've got spurs on
+their legs as long's my darnin'-needle. What under the sun makes 'em
+grow so! An' ain't they the nippin'est little creatur's you ever see?"
+
+"They're fightin'-cocks," answered Caleb, tolerantly.
+
+"Fightin'-cocks? You don't mean to tell me they're trained up for
+that?"
+
+"Yes, I do!"
+
+"Well, I never heard o' such a thing in a Christian land! never! Whose
+be they? I'll give him a piece o' my mind, if I live another minute!"
+
+"You better let other folks alone," said Caleb, stolidly.
+
+"'Mandy," returned Aunt Melissa, in a portentous undertone, "be you
+goin' to stan' by an' see your own aunt spoke to as if she was the dirt
+under your feet?"
+
+Amanda had once in her life asserted herself at a crucial moment, and
+she had never seen cause to regret it. Now she "spoke out" again. She
+made her slender neck very straight and stiff, and her lips set
+themselves firmly over the words,--
+
+"I guess Caleb won't do you no hurt, Aunt Melissa. He don't want you
+should make yourself a laughin'-stock, nor I don't either. There's
+Uncle Hiram, over lookin' at the pigs. I guess he don't see you. Caleb,
+le's we move on!"
+
+Aunt Melissa stood looking after them, a mass of quivering wrath.
+
+"Well, I must say!" she retorted to the empty air. "If I live, I must
+say!"
+
+Dilly took her placid companion by the arm, and hurried her on. Human
+jangling wore sadly upon her; under such maddening onslaught she was
+not incapable of developing "nerves." They stopped before a stall where
+another heifer stood, chewing her cud, and looking away into remembered
+pastures.
+
+"Oh, see!" said Molly, "'Price $500'! Do you b'lieve it?"
+
+"Well, well!" came Mrs. Eli Pike's ruminant voice from the crowd. "I'm
+glad I don't own that creatur'! I shouldn't sleep nights if I had five
+hunderd dollars in cow."
+
+"Tain't five hunderd dollars," said Hiram Cole, elbowing his way to the
+front. "'Tain't p'inted right, that's all. P'int off two ciphers--"
+
+"Five dollars!" snickered a Crane boy, diving through the crowd, and
+proceeding to stand on his head in a cleared space beyond. "That's wuth
+less'n Miss Lucindy's hoss!"
+
+Hiram Cole considered again, one lean hand stroking his cheek.
+
+"Five--fifty--" he announced. "Well, I guess _'tis_ five hunderd, arter
+all! Anybody must want to invest, though, to put all their income into
+perishable cow-flesh!"
+
+"You look real tired," whispered Molly. "Le's come inside, an' perhaps
+we can set down."
+
+The old hall seemed to have donned strange carnival clothes,
+for a mystic Saturnalia. It was literally swaddled in
+bedquilts,--tumbler-quilts, rising-suns, Jacob's-ladders, log-cabins,
+and the more modern and altogether terrible crazy-quilt. There were
+square yards of tidies, on wall and table, and furlongs of home-knit
+lace. Dilly looked at this product of the patient art of woman with a
+dispirited gaze.
+
+"Seems a kind of a waste of time, don't it?" she said, dreamily, "when
+things are blowin' outside? I wisht I could see suthin' made once to
+look as handsome as green buds an' branches. Law, dear, now jest turn
+your eyes away from them walls, an' see the tables full of apples! an'
+them piles o' carrots, an' cabbages an' squashes over there! Well,
+'tain't so bad if you can look at things the sun's ever shone on, no
+matter if they be under cover." She wandered up and down the tables,
+caressing the rounded outlines of the fruit with her loving gaze. The
+apples, rich and fragrant, were a glory and a joy. There were great
+pound sweetings, full of the pride of mere bigness; long purple
+gilly-flowers, craftily hiding their mealy joys under a sad-colored
+skin; and the Hubbardston, a portly creature quite unspoiled by the
+prosperity of growth, and holding its lovely scent and flavor like an
+individual charm. There was the Bald'in, stand-by old and good as
+bread; and there were all the rest. We know them, we who have courted
+Pomona in her fair New England orchards.
+
+Near the fancy-work table sat Mrs. Blair, of the Old Ladies' Home, on a
+stool she had wrenched from an unwilling boy, who declared it belonged
+up in the Academy, whence he had brought it "to stan' on" while he
+drove a nail. And though he besought her to rise and let him return it,
+since he alone must be responsible, the old lady continued sitting in
+silence. At length she spoke,--
+
+"Here I be, an' here I'm goin' to set till the premiums is tacked on.
+Them pinballs my neighbor, Mis' Dyer, made with her own hands, an'
+she's bent double o' rheumatiz. An' I said I'd bring 'em for her, an'
+I'd set by an' see things done fair an' square."
+
+"There, Mrs. Blair, don't you worry," said Mrs. Mitchell, a director of
+the Home, putting a hand on the martial and belligerent shoulder,
+"Don't you mind if she doesn't get a premium. I'll buy the pinballs,
+and that will do almost as well."
+
+"My! if there ain't goin' to be trouble between Mary Lamson an'
+Sereno's Hattie, I'll miss my guess!" said a matron, with an
+appreciative wag of her purple-bonneted head. "They've either on 'em
+canned up more preserves 'n Tiverton an' Sudleigh put together, an'
+Mary's got I dunno what all among 'em!--squash, an' dandelion, an'
+punkin with lemon in't. That's steppin' acrost the bounds, _I_ say! If
+she gits a premium for puttin' up gardin-sass, I'll warrant there'll be
+a to-do. An' Hattie'll make it!"
+
+"I guess there won't be no set-to about such small potaters," said Mrs.
+Pike, with dignity. Her broad back had been unrecognized by the herald,
+careless in her haste. "Hattie's ready an' willin' to divide the
+premium, if't comes to her, an' I guess Mary'd be, put her in the same
+place."
+
+"My soul an' body!" exclaimed another, trudging up and waving a large
+palmleaf fan. "Well, there, Rosanna Pike! Is that you? Excuse me all,
+if I don't stop to speak round the circle, I'm so put to't with Passon
+True's carryin's on. You know he's been as mad as hops over Sudleigh
+Cattle-Show, reg'lar as the year come round, because there's a raffle
+for a quilt, or suthin'. An' now he's come an' set up a sort of a stall
+over t'other side the room, an' folks thinks he's tryin' to git up a
+revival. I dunno when I've seen John so stirred. He says we hadn't
+ought to be made a laughin'-stock to Sudleigh, Passon or no Passon. An'
+old Square Lamb says--"
+
+But the fickle crowd waited to hear no more. With one impulse, it
+surged over to the other side of the hall, where Parson True, standing
+behind a table brought down from the Academy, was saying solemnly,--
+
+"Let us engage in prayer!"
+
+The whispering ceased; the titters of embarrassment were stilled, and
+mothers tightened their grasp on little hands, to emphasize the change
+of scene from light to graver hue. Some of the men looked lowering; one
+or two strode out of doors. They loved Parson True, but the Cattle-Show
+was all their own, and they resented even a ministerial innovation. The
+parson was a slender, wiry man, with keen blue eyes, a serious mouth,
+and an overtopping forehead, from which the hair was always brushed
+straight back. He called upon the Lord, with passionate fervor, to
+"bless this people in all their outgoings and comings-in, and to keep
+their feet from paths where His blessing could not attend them."
+
+"Is that the raffle, mother?" whispered the smallest Crane boy; and his
+mother promptly administered a shake, for the correction of misplaced
+curiosity.
+
+Then Parson True opened his eyes on his somewhat shamefaced flock and
+their neighbor townsmen, and began to preach. It was good to be there,
+he told them, only as it was good to be anywhere else, in the spirit of
+God. Judgment might overtake them there, as it might at home, in house
+or field. Were they prepared? He bent forward over the table, his slim
+form trembling with the intensity of gathering passion. He appealed to
+each one personally with that vibratory quality of address peculiar to
+him, wherein it seemed that not only his lips but his very soul
+challenged the souls before him. One after another joined the outer
+circle, and faces bent forward over the shoulders in front, with that
+strange, arrested expression inevitably born when, on the flood of
+sunny weather, we are reminded how deep the darkness is within the
+grave.
+
+"Let every man say to himself, 'Thou, God, seest me!'" reiterated the
+parson. "Thou seest into the dark corners of my heart. What dost Thou
+see, O God? What dost Thou see?"
+
+Elvin and Rosa had drawn near with the others. She smiled a little, and
+the hard bloom on her cheeks had not wavered. No one looked at them,
+for every eye dwelt on the preacher; and though Elvin's face changed
+from the healthy certainty of life and hope to a green pallor of
+self-recognition, no one noticed. Consequently, the general surprise
+culminated in a shock when he cried out, in a loud voice, "God be
+merciful! God be merciful! I ain't fit to be with decent folks! I'd
+ought to be in jail!" and pushed his way through the crowd until he
+stood before the parson, facing him with bowed head, as if he found in
+the little minister the vicegerent of God. He had kept Rosa's hand in a
+convulsive grasp, and he drew her with him into the eye of the world.
+She shrank back, whimpering feebly; but no one took note of her. The
+parson knew exactly what, to do when the soul travailed and cried
+aloud. He stretched forth his hands, and put them on the young man's
+shoulders.
+
+"Come, poor sinner, come!" he urged, in a voice of wonderful melting
+quality. "Come! Here is the throne of grace! Bring your burden, and
+cast it down."
+
+The words roused Elvin, or possibly the restraining touch. He started
+back.
+
+"I can't!" he cried out, stridently. "I can't yet! I can't! I can't!"
+
+Still leading Rosa, who was crying now in good earnest, he turned, and
+pushed his way out of the crowd. But once outside that warm human
+circuit, Rosa broke loose from him. She tried to speak for his ear
+alone, but her voice strove petulantly through her sobs:
+
+"Elvin Drew, I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself! You've made
+me ridiculous before the whole town, and I never'll speak to you again
+as long as I live. If I hadn't stayed with you every minute, I should
+think you'd been drinking, and I believe to my soul you have!" She
+buried her face in her handkerchief, and stumbled over to a table where
+Laura Pettis was standing, open-eyed with amazement, and the two
+clasped each other, while Rosa cried on. Elvin only looked about him,
+in a bewildered fashion, when the warm hand was wrenched away; then,
+realizing that he was quite alone, his head bent under a deeper
+dejection. He seemed unable to move from the spot, and stood there
+quite stupidly, until murmurs of "What's the matter of him?" came from
+the waiting crowd, and Parson True himself advanced, with hands again
+outstretched. But Dilly Joyce forestalled the parson. She, too came
+forward, in her quick way, and took Elvin firmly by the arm.
+
+"Here, dear," she said, caressingly, "you come along out-doors with
+us!"
+
+Elvin turned, still hanging his head, and the three (for little Molly
+had come up on the other side, trying to stand very tall to show her
+championship) walked out of the hall together. Dilly had ever a quick
+eye for green, growing things, and she remembered a little corner of
+the enclosure, where one lone elm-tree stood above a bank. Thither she
+led him, with an assured step; and when they had reached the shadow,
+she drew him forward, and said, still tenderly,--
+
+"There, dear, you set right down here an' think it over. We'll stay
+with ye. We'll never forsake ye, will we, Molly?"
+
+Molly, who did not know what it was all about, had no need to know.
+"Never!" she said, stanchly.
+
+The three sat down there; and first the slow minutes, and then the
+hours, went by. It had not been long before some one found out where
+they were, and curious groups began to wander past, always in silence,
+but eying them intently. Elvin sat with his head bent, looking fixedly
+at a root of plantain; but Molly confronted the alien faces with a
+haughty challenging stare, while her cheeks painted themselves ever a
+deeper red. Dilly leaned happily back against the elm trunk, and dwelt
+upon the fleece-hung sky; and her black eyes grew still calmer and more
+content. She looked as if she had learned what things are lovely and of
+good repute. When the town-clock struck noon, she brought forth their
+little luncheon, and pressed it upon the others, with a nice
+hospitality. Elvin shook his head, but Molly ate a trifle, for pride's
+sake.
+
+"You go an' git him a mite o' water," whispered Dilly, when they had
+finished. "I would, but I dunno the ways o' this place. It'll taste
+good to him."
+
+Molly nodded, and hurried away; presently she came back, bearing a tin
+cup, and Elvin drank, though he did not thank her.
+
+In the early afternoon, Ebenezer Tolman came striding down between the
+pens in ostentatious indignation. He was a tall, red-faced man, with a
+large, loose mouth, and blond-gray whiskers, always parted and blowing
+in the wind. He wore, with manifest pride, the reputation of being a
+dangerous animal when roused. He had bought a toy whip, at little
+Davie's earnest solicitation, and, lashing it suggestively against his
+boot, he began speaking long before he reached the little group. The
+lagging crowd of listeners paused, breathless, to lose no word.
+
+"Look here, you! don't ye darken my doors ag'in, an' don't ye dast to
+open your head to one o' my folks! We're done with ye! Do you hear?
+We're done with ye! Rosy'll ride home with me to-night, an' she'll ride
+with you no more!"
+
+Elvin said nothing, though his brow contracted suddenly at Rosa's name.
+Ebenezer was about to speak again; but the little parson came striding
+swiftly up, his long coat flying behind him, and Tolman, who was a
+church-member, in good and regular standing, moved on. But the parson
+was routed, in his turn. Dilly rose, and, as some one afterwards said,
+"clipped it right up to him."
+
+"Don't you come now, dear," she advised him, in that persuasive voice
+of hers. "No, don't you come now. He ain't ready. You go away, an' let
+him set an' think it out." And the parson, why he knew not, turned
+about, and went humbly back to his preaching in the hall.
+
+The afternoon wore on, and it began to seem as if Elvin would never
+break from his trance, and never speak. Finally, after watching him a
+moment with her keen eyes, Dilly touched him lightly on the arm.
+
+"The Tolmans have drove home," she said, quietly. "All on 'em. What if
+you should git your horse, an' take Molly an' me along?"
+
+Elvin came to his feet with a lurch. He straightened himself.
+
+"I've got to talk to the parson," said he.
+
+"So I thought," answered Dilly, with composure, "but 'tain't no place
+here. You ask him to ride, an' let Miss Dorcas drive home alone. We
+four'll stop at my house, an' then you can talk it over."
+
+Elvin obeyed, like a child tired of his own way. When they packed
+themselves into the wagon,--where Dilly insisted on sitting behind, to
+make room,--the Tiverton and Sudleigh people stood about in groups, to
+watch them. Hiram Cole came forward, just as Elvin took up the reins.
+
+"Elvin," said he, in a cautious whisper, with his accustomed gesture of
+scraping his cheek, "I've got suthin' to say to ye. Don't ye put no
+money into Dan Forbes's hands. I've had a letter from brother 'Lisha,
+out in Illinois, an' he says that business Dan wrote to you
+about--well, there never was none! There ain't a stick o' furniture
+made there! An' Dan's been cuttin' a dash lately with money he got
+som'er's or other, an' he's gambled, an' I dunno what all, an' been
+took up. An' now he's in jail. So don't you send him nothin'. I thought
+I'd speak."
+
+Elvin looked at him a moment, with a strange little smile dawning about
+his mouth.
+
+"That's all right," he said, quickly, and drove away.
+
+To Molly, the road home was like a dark passage full of formless fears.
+She did not even know what had befallen the dear being she loved best;
+but something dire and tragic had stricken him, and therefore her. The
+parson was acutely moved for the anguish he had not probed. Only Dilly
+remained cheerful. When they reached her gate, it was she who took the
+halter from Elvin's hand, and tied the horse. Then she walked up the
+path, and flung open her front door.
+
+"Come right into the settin'-room," she said. "I'll git ye some water
+right out o' the well. My throat's all choked up o' dust."
+
+The cheerful clang of the bucket against the stones, the rumble of the
+windlass, and then Dilly came in with a brimming bright tin dipper. She
+offered it first to the parson, and though she refilled it scrupulously
+for each pair of lips, it seemed a holy loving-cup. They sat there in
+the darkening room, and Dilly "stepped round" and began to get supper.
+Molly nervously joined her, and addressed her, once or twice, in a
+whisper. But Dilly spoke out clearly in, answer, as if rebuking her.
+
+"Le's have a real good time," she said, when she had drawn the table
+forward and set forth her bread, and apples, and tea. "Passon, draw up!
+You drink tea, don't ye? I don't, myself. I never could bear to spile
+good water. But I keep it on hand for them that likes it. Elvin, here!
+You take this good big apple. It's man's size more 'n woman's, I
+guess."
+
+Elvin pushed back his chair.
+
+"I ain't goin' to put a mouthful of victuals to my lips till I make up
+my mind whether I can speak or not," he said, loudly.
+
+"All right," answered Dilly, placidly. "Bless ye! the teapot'll be
+goin' all night, if ye say so."
+
+Only Dilly and the parson made a meal; and when it was over, Parson
+True rose, as if his part of the strange drama must at last begin, and
+fell on his knees.
+
+"Let us pray!"
+
+Molly, too, knelt, and Elvin threw his arms upon the table, and laid
+his head upon them. But Dilly stood erect. From time to time, she
+glanced curiously from the parson to the lovely darkened world outside
+her little square of window, and smiled slightly, tenderly, as if out
+there she saw the visible God. The parson prayed for "this sick soul,
+our brother," over and over, in many phrases, and with true and
+passionate desire. And when the prayer was done, he put his hand on the
+young man's shoulder, and said, with a yearning persuasiveness,--
+
+"Tell it now, my brother! Jesus is here."
+
+Elvin raised his head, with a sudden fierce gesture toward Dilly.
+
+"She knows," he said. "She can see the past. She'll tell you what I've
+done."
+
+"I 'ain't got nothin' to tell, dear," answered Dilly, peacefully.
+"Everything you've done's between you an' God A'mighty. I 'ain't got
+nothin' to tell!"
+
+Then she went out, and, deftly unharnessing the horse, put him in her
+little shed, and gave him a feed of oats. The hens had gone to bed
+without their supper.
+
+"No matter, biddies," she said, conversationally, as she passed their
+roost. "I'll make it up to you in the mornin'!"
+
+When she entered the house again, Elvin still sat there, staring
+stolidly into the dusk. The parson was praying, and Molly, by the
+window, was holding the sill tightly clasped by both hands, as if
+threatening herself into calm. When the parson rose, he turned to
+Elvin, less like the pastor than the familiar friend. One forgot his
+gray hairs in the loving simplicity of his tone.
+
+"My son," he said, tenderly, "tell it all! God is merciful."
+
+But again Dilly put in her voice.
+
+"Don't you push him, Passon! Let him speak or not, jest as he's a mind
+to. Let God A'mighty do it His way! Don't _you_ do it!"
+
+Darkness settled in the room, and the heavenly hunter's-moon rose and
+dispelled it.
+
+"O God! can I?" broke forth the young man. "O God! if I tell, I'll go
+through with it. I will, so help me!"
+
+The moving patterns of the vine at the window began to etch themselves
+waveringly on the floor. Dilly bent, and traced the outline of a leaf
+with her finger.
+
+"I'll tell!" cried Elvin, in a voice exultant over the prospect of
+freedom. "I'll tell it all. I wanted money. The girl I meant to have
+was goin' with somebody else, an' I'd got to scrape together some
+money, quick. I burnt down my house an' barn. I got the insurance
+money. I sent some of it out West, to put into that furniture business,
+an' Dan Forbes has made way with it. I only kept enough to take Rosa
+an' me out there. I'll give up that, an' go to jail; an' if the Lord
+spares my life, when I come out I'll pay it back, principal an'
+int'rest."
+
+Molly gave one little moan, and buried her face in her hands. The
+parson and Dilly rose, by one impulse, and went forward to Elvin, who
+sat upright, trembling from excitement past. Dilly reached him first.
+She put both her hands on his forehead, and smoothed back his hair.
+
+"Dear heart," she said, in a voice thrilled through by music,--"dear
+heart! I was abroad that night, watchin' the stars, an' I see it all. I
+see ye do it. You done it real clever, an' I come nigh hollerin' out to
+ye, I was so pleased, when I see you was determined to save the
+livestock. An' that barn-cat, dear, that old black Tom that's ketched
+my chickens so long!--you 'most broke your neck to save him. But I
+never should ha' told, dear, never! 'specially sence you got out the
+creatur's."
+
+"And 'in Christ shall all be made alive!'" said the parson, wiping his
+eyes, and then beginning to pat Elvin's hand with both his own. "Now,
+what shall we do? What shall we do? Why not come home with me, and stay
+over night? My dear wife will be glad to see you. And the morning will
+bring counsel."
+
+Elvin had regained a fine freedom of carriage, and a decision of tone
+long lost to him. He was dignified by the exaltation of the moment.
+
+"I've got it all fixed," he said, like a man. "I thought it all out
+under that elm-tree, today. You drive me over to Sheriff Holmes's, an'
+he'll tell me what's right to do,--whether I'm to go to the insurance
+people, or whether I'm to be clapped into jail. He'll know. It's out o'
+my hands. I'll go an' harness now."
+
+Parson True drew Molly forward from her corner, and held her hand,
+while he took Elvin's, and motioned Dilly to complete the circle.
+
+"Jesus Christ be with us!" he said, solemnly. "God, our Father, help us
+to love one another more and more tenderly because of our sins!"
+
+While Elvin was harnessing, a dark figure came swiftly through the
+moonlight.
+
+"Elvin," whispered Molly, sharply. "O Elvin, I can't bear it! You take
+what money you've got, an' go as fur as you can. Then you work, an'
+I'll work, an' we'll pay 'em back. What good will it do, for you to go
+to jail? Oh, what good will it do!"
+
+"Poor little Molly!" said he. "You do care about me, don't you? I
+sha'n't forget that, wherever I am."
+
+Molly came forward, and threw her arms about him passionately.
+
+"Go! go!" she whispered, fiercely. "Go now! I'll drive you some'er's
+an' bring the horse back. Don't wait! I don't want a hat."
+
+Elvin smoothed her hair.
+
+"No," said he, gravely, "you'll see it different, come mornin'. The
+things of this world ain't everything. Even freedom ain't everything.
+There's somethin' better. Good-by, Molly. I don't know how long a
+sentence they give; but when they let me out, I shall come an' tell you
+what I think of you for standin' by. Parson True!"
+
+The parson came out, and Dilly followed. When the two men were seated
+in the wagon, she bent forward, and laid her hand on Elvin's, as it
+held the reins.
+
+"Don't you be afraid," she said, lovingly. "If they shet ye up, you
+remember there ain't nothin' to be afraid of but wrong-doin', an'
+that's only a kind of a sickness we al'ays git well of. An' God
+A'mighty's watchin' over us all the time. An' if you've sp'iled your
+chance in this life, don't you mind. There's time enough. Plenty o'
+time, you says to yourself, plenty!"
+
+She drew back, and they drove on. Molly, in heart-sick sobbing, threw
+herself forward into the little woman's arms, and Dilly held her with
+an unwearied cherishing.
+
+"There, there, dear!" she said, tenderly. "Ain't it joyful to think
+he's got his soul out o' prison, where he shet it up? He's all free
+now. It's jest as if he was born into a new world, to begin all over."
+
+"But, Dilly, I love him so! An' I can't do anything! not a thing! O
+Dilly, yes! yes! Oh, it's little enough, but I could! I could save my
+shoe-shop money, an' help him pay his debt, when he's out o' jail."
+
+"Yes," said Dilly, joyously. "An' there's more'n that you can do. You
+can keep him in your mind, all day long, an' all night long, an' your
+sperit'll go right through the stone walls, if they put him there, an'
+cheer him up.
+
+"He won't know how, but so it'll be, dear, so it'll be. Folks don't know
+why they're uplifted sometimes, when there ain't no cause; but _I_ say
+it's other folks's love. Now you come in, dear, an' we'll make the
+bed--it's all aired complete--an' then we'll go to sleep, an' see if we
+can't dream us a nice, pleasant dream,--all about green gardins, an'
+the folks we love walking in the midst of 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+BANKRUPT
+
+
+Miss Dorcas True stood in her square front entry, saying good-by to
+Phoebe Marsh. The entry would have been quite dark from its
+time-stained woodwork and green paper, except for the twilight glimmer
+swaying and creeping through the door leading into the garden. Out
+there were the yellow of coreopsis, and the blue of larkspur, melted
+into a dim magnificence of color, suffusing all the air; to one who
+knew what common glory was a-blowing and a-growing there without, the
+bare seclusion of the house might well seem invaded by it, like a
+heavenly flood. Phoebe, too, in her pink calico, appeared to spread
+abroad the richness of her youth and bloom, and radiate a certain light
+about her where she stood. She was tall, her proportions were ample,
+and her waist very trim. She had the shoulders and arms of the women of
+an elder time, whom we classify vaguely now as goddesses. The Tiverton
+voices argued that she would have been "real handsome if she'd had any
+sense about doin' her hair;" which was brought down loosely over her
+ears, in the fashion of her Aunt Phoebe's miniature. Miss Dorcas beside
+her looked like one of autumn's brown, quiescent stems left standing by
+the way. She was firmly built, yet all her lines subdued themselves to
+that meagreness which ever dwells afar from beauty. The deep marks of
+hard experience had been graven on her forehead, and her dark eyes
+burned inwardly; the tense, concentrated spark of pain and the glowing
+of happy fervor seemed as foreign to them as she herself to all the
+lighter joys and hopes. Her only possibility of beauty lay in an
+abundance of soft dark hair; but even that had been restricted and
+coiled into a compact, utilitarian compass. She had laid one nervous
+hand on Phoebe's arm, and she grasped the arm absently, from time to
+time, in talking, with unconscious joy in its rounded warmth. She spoke
+cautiously, so that her voice might not be heard within.
+
+"Then you come over to-morrow, after the close of service, if it's
+convenient. You can slip right into the kitchen, just as usual. Any
+news?"
+
+Phoebe, too, lowered her voice, but the full sweetness of its quality
+thrilled out.
+
+"Mary Frances Giles is going to be married next week. I've been down to
+see her things. She's real pleased."
+
+"You don't suppose they'll ask father to marry 'em?" Miss Dorcas spoke
+quite eagerly.
+
+"Oh, no, they can't! It's a real wedding, you know. It's got to be at
+the house."
+
+"Yes, of course it's got to! I knew that myself, but I couldn't help
+hoping. Well, goodnight. You come Sunday."
+
+Phoebe lifted her pink skirts about her, and stepped, rustling and
+stately, down the garden walk. Miss Dorcas drew one deep breath of the
+outer fragrance, and turned back into the house. A thin voice,
+enfeebled and husky from old age, rose in the front room, as she
+entered:
+
+"Dorcas! Dorcas! you had a caller?"
+
+Her father, old Parson True, lay in the great bed opposite the window.
+A thin little twig of a man, he was still animated, at times, by the
+power of a strenuous and dauntless spirit. His hair, brushed straight
+back from the overtopping forehead, had grown snowy white, and the
+eager, delicate face beneath wore a strange pathos from the very
+fineness of its nervously netted lines. Not many years after his wife's
+death, the parson had shown some wandering of the wits; yet his
+disability, like his loss, had been mercifully veiled from him. He took
+calmly to his bed, perhaps through sheer lack of interest in life, and
+it became his happy invention that he was "not feeling well," from one
+day to another, but that, on the next Sunday, he should rise and
+preach. He seemed like an unfortunate and uncomplaining child, and the
+village folk took pride in him as something all their own; a pride
+enhanced by his habit, in this weak estate, of falling back into the
+homely ways of speech he had used long ago when he was a boy "on the
+farm." In his wife's day, he had stood in the pulpit above them, and
+expounded scriptural lore in academic English; now he lapsed into their
+own rude phrasing, and seemed to rest content in a tranquil certainty
+that nothing could be better than Tiverton ways and Tiverton's homely
+speech.
+
+"Dorcas," he repeated, with all a child's delight in his own
+cleverness, "you've had somebody here. I heard ye!"
+
+Dorcas folded the sheet back over the quilt, and laid her hand on his
+hair, with all the tenderness of the strong when they let themselves
+brood over the weak.
+
+"Only Phoebe, on her way home," she answered, gently. "The doctor
+visited her school to-day. She thinks he may drop in to see you
+to-night. I guess he give her to understand so."
+
+The minister chuckled.
+
+"Ain't he a smart one?" he rejoined. "Smart as a trap! Dorcas, I 'ain't
+finished my sermon. I guess I shall have to preach an old one. You lay
+me out the one on the salt losin' its savor, an' I'll look it over."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+The same demand and the same answer, varied but slightly, had been
+exchanged between them every Saturday night for years. Dorcas replied
+now without thinking. Her mind had spread its wings and flown out into
+the sweet stillness of the garden and the world beyond; it even
+hastened on into the unknown ways of guesswork, seeking for one who
+should be coming. She strained her ears to hear the beating of hoofs
+and the rattle of wheels across the little, bridge. The dusk sifted in
+about the house, faster and faster; a whippoorwill cried from the
+woods. So she sat until the twilight had vanished, and another of the
+invisible genii was at hand, saying, "I am Night."
+
+"Dorcas!" called the parson again. He had been asleep, and seemed now
+to be holding himself back from a broken dream. "Dorcas, has your
+mother come in yet?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+"Well, you wake me up when you see her down the road; and then you go
+an' carry her a shawl. I dunno what to make o' that cough!" His voice
+trailed sleepily off, and Dorcas rose and tiptoed out of the room. She
+felt the blood in her face; her ears thrilled noisily. The doctor's,
+wagon, had crossed the bridge; now it was whirling swiftly up the road.
+She stationed herself in the entry, to lose no step in his familiar
+progress. The horse came lightly along, beating out a pleasant tune of
+easy haste. He was drawn up at the gate, and the doctor threw out his
+weight, and jumped buoyantly to the ground. There was the brief pause
+of reaching for his medicine-case, and then, with that firm step whose
+rhythm she knew so well, he was walking up the path. Involuntarily, as
+Dorcas awaited him, she put her hand to her heart with one of those
+gestures that seem so melodramatic and are so real; she owned to
+herself, with a throb of appreciative delight, how the sick must warm
+at his coming. This new doctor of Tiverton was no younger than Dorcas
+herself, yet with his erect carriage and merry blue eye she seemed to
+be not only of another temperament, but another time. It had never
+struck him that they were contemporaries. Once he had told Phoebe, in a
+burst of affection and pitying praise, that he should have liked Miss
+Dorcas for a maiden aunt.
+
+"Good evening," he said, heartily, one foot on the sill. "How's the
+patient?"
+
+At actual sight of him, her tremor vanished, and she answered very
+quietly,--
+
+"Father's asleep. I thought you wouldn't want he should be disturbed;
+so I came out."
+
+The doctor took off his hat, and pushed back his thick, unruly hair.
+
+"Yes, that was right," he said absently, and pinched a spray of
+southernwood that grew beside the door. "How has he seemed?"
+
+"About as usual."
+
+"You've kept on with the tonic?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's good! Miss Dorcas, look up there. See that moon! See that wisp
+of an old blanket dragging over her face! Do you mind coming out and
+walking up and down the road while we talk? I may think of one or two
+directions to give about your father."
+
+Dorcas stepped forward with the light obedience given to happy tasking.
+She paused as quickly.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I can't. Father might wake up. I never leave him
+alone."
+
+"Never mind, then! let's sit right down here on the steps. After all,
+perhaps it's pleasanter. What a garden! It's like my mother's. I could
+pick out every leaf in the dark, by the smell. But you're alone, aren't
+you? I'm not keeping you from any one?"
+
+"Oh, no! I'm all alone, except father."
+
+"Yes. The fact is, I went into your school to-day, and the teacher said
+she was coming here to-night. She offered to bring you a message, but I
+said I should come myself. I'm abominably late. I couldn't get here any
+earlier."
+
+"Oh, yes! Phoebe! She was here over an hour ago. Phoebe's a real
+comfort to me." She was seated on the step above him, and it seemed
+very pleasant to her to hear his voice, without encountering also the
+challenge of his eyes.
+
+"No, is she though?" The doctor suddenly faced round upon her. "Tell me
+about it!"
+
+Then, quite to her surprise, Dorcas found herself talking under the
+spell of an interest so eager that it bore her on, entirely without her
+own guidance.
+
+"Well, you see there's a good many things I keep from father. He
+never's been himself since mother died. She was the mainstay here. But
+he thinks the church prospers just the same, and I never've told him
+the attendance dropped off when they put up that 'Piscopal building
+over to Sudleigh. You 'ain't lived here long enough to hear much about
+that, but it's been a real trial to him. The summer boarders built it,
+and some rich body keeps it up; and our folks think it's complete to go
+over there and worship, and get up and down, and say their prayers out
+loud."
+
+The doctor laughed out.
+
+"I've heard about it," said he. "You know what Brad Freeman told Uncle
+Eli Pike, when they went in to see how the service was managed?
+Somebody found the places in the prayer-book for them, and Brad was
+quick-witted, and got on very well; but Eli kept dropping behind. Brad
+nudged him. 'Read!' he said out loud. 'Read like the devil!' I've heard
+that story on an average of twice a day since I came to Tiverton. I'm
+not tired of it yet!"
+
+Miss Dorcas, too, had heard it, and shrunk from its undisguised
+profanity. Now she laughed responsively.
+
+"I guess they do have queer ways," she owned. "Well, I never let father
+know any of our folks go over there. He'd be terrible tried. And I've
+made it my part in our meeting to keep up the young folks' interest as
+much as I can. I've been careful never to miss my Sunday-school class.
+They're all girls, nice as new pins, every one of 'em! Phoebe was in it
+till a little while ago, but now she comes here and sits in the kitchen
+while I'm gone. I don't want father to know that, for I hope it
+never'll come into his head he's so helpless; but I should be worried
+to death to have him left alone. So Phoebe sits there with her book,
+ready to spring if she should hear anything out o' the way."
+
+The doctor had lapsed into his absent mood, but now he roused himself,
+with sudden interest.
+
+"That's very good of her, isn't it?" he said "You trust her, don't
+you?"
+
+"Trust Phoebe! Well, I guess I do! I've known her ever since she went
+to Number Five, and now she's keeping the school herself. She's a real
+noble girl!"
+
+"Tell me more!" said the doctor, warmly. "I want to hear it all.
+You're so new to me here in Tiverton! I want to get acquainted."
+
+Miss Dorcas suddenly felt as if she had been talking a great deal, and
+an overwhelming shyness fell upon her.
+
+"There isn't much to tell," she hesitated. "I don't know's anything'd
+happened to me for years, till father had his ill-turn in the spring,
+and we called you in. He don't seem to realize his sickness was
+anything much. I've told the neighbors not to dwell on it when they're
+with him. Phoebe won't; she's got some sense."
+
+"Has she?" said the doctor, still eagerly. "I'm glad of that, for your
+sake!" He rose to go, but stood a moment near the steps, dallying with
+a reaching branch of jessamine; it seemed persuading him to stay. He
+had always a cheery manner, but to-night it was brightened by a dash of
+something warm and reckless. He had the air of one awaiting good news,
+in confidence of its coming. Dorcas was alive to the rapt contagion,
+and her own blood thrilled. She felt young.
+
+"Well!" said he, "well, Miss Dorcas!" He took a step, and then turned
+back. "Well, Miss Dorcas," he said again, with an embarrassed laugh,
+"perhaps you'd like to gather in one more church-goer. If I have time
+tomorrow, I'll drop in to your service, and then I'll come round here,
+and tell your father I went."
+
+Dorcas rose impulsively. She could have stretched out her hands to him,
+in the warmth of her gratitude.
+
+"Oh, if you would! Oh, how pleased he'd be!"
+
+"All right!" Now he turned away with decision. "Thank you, Miss Dorcas,
+for staying out. It's a beautiful evening. I never knew such a June.
+Good-night!" He strode down the walk, and gave a quick word to his
+horse, who responded in whinnying welcome. An instant's delay, another
+word, and they were gone.
+
+Dorcas stood listening to the scatter of hoofs down the dusty road and
+over the hollow ledge. She sank back on the sill, and, step by step,
+tried to retrace the lovely arabesque the hour had made. At last, she
+had some groping sense of the full beauty of living, when friendship
+says to its mate, "Tell me about yourself!" and the frozen fountain
+wells out, every drop cheered and warmed, as it falls, in the sunshine
+of sympathy. She saw in him that perfection of life lying in strength,
+which he undoubtedly had, and beauty, of which he had little or much
+according as one chose to think well of him. To her aching sense, he
+was a very perfect creature, gifted with, infinite capacities for help
+and comfort.
+
+But the footfalls ceased, and the garden darkened by delicate yet swift
+degrees; a cloud had gone over the moon, fleecy, silver-edged, but
+still a cloud. The waning of the light seemed to her significant; she
+feared lest some bitter change might befall the moment; and went in,
+bolting the door behind her. Once within her own little bedroom, she
+loosened her hair, and moved about aimlessly, for a time, careless of
+sleep, because it seemed so far. Then a sudden resolve nerved her, and
+she stole back again to the front door, and opened it. The night was
+blossoming there, glowing now, abundant. It was so rich, so full! The
+moonlight here, and star upon star above, hidden not by clouds but by
+the light! Need she waste this one night out of all her unregarded
+life? She stepped forth among the flower-beds, stooping, in a
+passionate fervor, to the blossoms she could reach; but, coming back to
+the southernwood, she took it in her arms. She laid her face upon it,
+and crushed the soft leaves against her cheeks. It made all the world
+smell of its own balm and dew. The fragrance and beauty of the time
+passed into her soul, and awakened corners there all unused to such
+sweet incense. She was drunken with the wine that is not of grapes. She
+could not have found words for the passion that possessed her, though
+she hugged it to her heart like another self; but it was elemental,
+springing from founts deeper than those of life and death. God made it,
+and, like all His making, it was divine. She sat there, the
+southernwood still gathered into her arms, and at last emotion stilled
+itself, and passed into thought; a wild temptation rose, and with its
+first whisper drove a hot flush into her cheeks, and branded it there.
+Love! she had never named the name in its first natal significance. She
+had scarcely read it; for romance, even in books, had passed her by.
+But love! she knew it as the insect knows how to spread his new
+sun-dried wings in the air for which he was create. Sitting there, in a
+happy drowse, she thought it all out. She was old, plain, unsought; the
+man she exalted was the flower of his kind. He would never look on her
+as if she might touch the hem of wifehood's mantle; so there would be
+no shame in choosing him. Just to herself, she might name the Great
+Name. He would not know. Only her own soul would know, and God who gave
+it, and sent it forth fitted with delicate, reaching tentacles to touch
+the rock set there to wound them. She began to feel blindly that God
+was not alone the keeper of eternal Sabbaths, but the germinant heat at
+the heart of the world. If she were a young girl, like Phoebe, there
+would be shame. Even a thought of him would be a stretching forth her
+hand to touch him, saying, "Look at me! I am here!" but for her it was
+quite different. It would be like a dream, some grandmother dreamed in
+the sun, of rosy youth and the things that never came to pass. No one
+would be harmed, and the sleeper would have garnered one hour's joy
+before she took up her march again on the lonesomest road of all,--so
+lonesome, although it leads us, home! Thus she thought, half sleeping,
+until the night-dews clung in drops upon her hair; then she went in to
+bed, still wrapped about with the drapery of her dreams.
+
+Next morning, when Dorcas carried in her father's breakfast, she walked
+with a springing step, and spoke in a voice so full and fresh it made
+her newly glad.
+
+"It's a nice day, father! There'll be lots of folks out to meeting."
+
+"That's a good girl!" This was his commendation, from hour to hour; it
+made up the litany of his gratitude for what she had been to him. "But
+I dunno's I feel quite up to preachin' to-day, Dorcas!"
+
+"That'll be all right, father. We'll get somebody."
+
+"You bring me out my sermon-box after breakfast, an' I'll pick out
+one," said he, happily. "Deacon Tolman can read it."
+
+But, alas! Deacon Tolman had been dead this many a year!
+
+A little later, the parson sat up in bed, shuffling his manuscript
+about with nervous hands, and Dorcas, in the kitchen, stood washing her
+breakfast dishes. That eager interest in living still possessed her.
+She began humming, in a timid monotone. Her voice had the clearness of
+truth, with little sweetness; and she was too conscious of its
+inadequacy to use it in public, save under the compelling force of
+conscience. Hitherto, she had only sung in Sunday-school, moved, as in
+everything, by the pathetic desire of "doing her part;" but this
+morning seemed to her one for lifting the voice, though not in Sunday
+phrasing. After a little thought, she began thinly and sweetly,--
+
+  "Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,
+    I heard a maid sing in the valley below:
+  'O don't deceive me! O never leave me
+    How could you use a poor maiden so?'"
+
+A gruff voice from the doorway broke harshly in upon a measure.
+
+"Yes! yes! Well! well! Tunin' up a larrady, ain't ye?"
+
+Dorcas knew who it was, without turning round,--a dark, squat woman,
+broad all over; broad in the hips, the waist, the face, and stamped
+with the race-mark of high cheekbones. Her thick, straight black hair
+was cut "tin-basin style;" she wore men's boots, and her petticoats
+were nearly up to her knees.
+
+"Good morning, Nancy!" called Dorcas, blithely, wringing out her
+dishcloth. "Come right in, and sit down."
+
+Nance Pete (in other words, Nancy the wife of Pete, whose surname was
+unknown) clumped into the room, and took a chair by the hearth. She
+drew forth a short black pipe, looked into it discontentedly, and then
+sat putting her thumb in and out of the bowl.
+
+"You 'ain't got a mite o' terbacker about ye? Hey what?" she asked.
+
+Dorcas had many a time been shocked at the same demand. This morning,
+something humorous about it struck her, and she laughed.
+
+"You know I haven't, Nancy Pete! Did you mend that hole in your skirt,
+as I told you?"
+
+Nance laboriously drew a back breadth of her coarse plaid skirt round
+to the front, and displayed it, without a word. A three-cornered tear
+of the kind known as a barn-door had been treated by tying a white
+string well outside it, and gathering up the cloth, like a bag.
+Dorcas's sense of fitness forbade her to see anything humorous in so
+original a device. She stood before the woman in all the moral
+excellence of a censor fastidiously clad.
+
+"O Nancy Pete!" she exclaimed. "How could you?"
+
+Nance put her cold pipe in her mouth, and began sucking at the
+unresponsive stem.
+
+"You 'ain't got a bite of anything t' eat, have ye?" she asked,
+indifferently.
+
+Dorcas went to the pantry, and brought forth pie, doughnuts and cheese,
+and a dish of cold beans. The coffee-pot was waiting on the stove. One
+would have said the visitor had been expected. Nance rose and tramped
+over to the table. But Dorcas stood firmly in the way.
+
+"No, Nancy, no! You wait a minute! Are you going to meeting to-day?"
+
+"I 'ain't had a meal o' victuals for a week!" remarked Nance,
+addressing no one in particular.
+
+"Nancy, are you going to meeting?"
+
+"Whose seat be I goin' to set in?" inquired Nance, rebelliously, yet
+with a certain air of capitulation.
+
+"You can sit in mine. Haven't you sat there for the last five years?
+Now, Nancy, don't hinder me!"
+
+"Plague take it, then! I'll go!"
+
+At this expected climax, Dorcas stood aside, and allowed her visitor to
+serve herself with beans. When Nance's first hunger had been satisfied,
+she began a rambling monologue, of an accustomed sort to which Dorcas
+never listened.
+
+"I went down to peek into the Poorhouse winders, this mornin'. There
+they all sut, like rats in a trap. 'Got ye, 'ain't they?' says I. Old
+Sal Flint she looked up, an' if there'd been a butcher-knife handy, I
+guess she'd ha' throwed it. 'It's that Injun!' says she to Mis' Giles.
+'Don't you take no notice!' 'I dunno's I'm an Injun,' says I, 'I dunno
+how much Injun I be. I can't look so fur back as that. I dunno's
+there's any more Injun in me than there is devil in you!' I says. An'
+then the overseer he come out, an' driv' me off. 'You won't git me in
+there,' says I to him, 'not so long's I've got my teeth to chaw
+sassafras, an' my claws to dig me a holler in the ground!' But when I
+come along, he passed me on the road, an' old Sal Flint sut up by him
+on the seat, like a bump on a log. I guess he was carryin' her over to
+that Pope-o'-Rome meetin' they've got over to Sudleigh."
+
+Dorcas turned about, in anxious interest.
+
+"Oh, I wonder if he was! How _can_ folks give up their own meeting for
+that?"
+
+Nance pushed her chair back from the table.
+
+"Want to see all kinds, I s'pose," she said, slyly. "Guess I'll try it
+myself, another Sunday!"
+
+"Anybody to home?" came a very high and wheezy voice from the doorway.
+Dorcas knew that also, and so did Nance Pete.
+
+"It's that old haddock't lives up on the mountain," said the latter,
+composedly, searching in her pocket, and then pulling out a stray bit
+of tobacco and pressing it tenderly into her pipe.
+
+An old man, dressed in a suit of very antique butternut clothes, stood
+at the sill, holding forward a bunch of pennyroyal. He was weazened and
+dry; his cheeks were parchment color, and he bore the look of an active
+yet extreme old age. He was totally deaf. Dorcas advanced toward him,
+taking a bright five-cent piece from her pocket. She held it out to
+him, and he, in turn, extended the pennyroyal; but before taking it,
+she went through a solemn pantomime. She made a feint of accepting the
+herb, and then pointed to him and to the road.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the old man, irritably. "Bless ye! of course I'm goin'
+to meetin'. I'll set by myself, though! Yes, I will! Las' Sunday, I set
+with Jont Marshall, an' every time I sung a note, he dug into me with
+his elbow, till I thought I should ha' fell out the pew-door. My voice
+is jest as good as ever 'twas, an' sixty-five year ago come spring, I
+begun to set in the seats."
+
+The coin and pennyroyal changed ownership, and he tottered away,
+chattering to himself in his senile fashion.
+
+"Look here, you!" he shouted back, his hand on the gate. "Heerd
+anything o' that new doctor round here? Well, he's been a-pokin' into
+my ears, an' I guess he'd ha' cured me, if anybody could. You know I
+don't hear so well's I used to. He went a-peekin' an' a-pryin' round my
+ears, as if he'd found a hornet's nest. I dunno what he see there; I
+know he shook his head. I guess we shouldn't ha' got no such a man to
+settle down here if he wa'n't so asthmy he couldn't git along where he
+was. That's the reason he come, they say. He's a bright one!"
+
+Dorcas left her sweeping, and ran out after him. For the moment, she
+forgot his hopeless durance in fleshly walls.
+
+"Did he look at 'em?" she cried. "Did he? Tell me what he said!"
+
+"Why, of course I don't hear no better yit!" answered old Simeon,
+testily, turning to stump away, "but that ain't no sign I sha'n't! He's
+a beauty! I set up now, when he goes by, so's I can hear him when he
+rides back. I put a quilt down in the fore-yard, an' when the ground
+trimbles a mite, I git up to see if it's his hoss. Once I laid there
+till 'leven. He's a beauty, he is!"
+
+He went quavering down the road, and Dorcas ran back to the house,
+elated afresh. An unregarded old man could give him the poor treasure
+of his affection, quite unasked. Why should not she?
+
+Nance was just taking her unceremonious leave. Her pockets bulged with
+doughnuts, and she had wrapped half a pie in the Sudleigh "Star,"
+surreptitiously filched from the woodbox.
+
+"Well, I guess I'll be gittin' along towards meetin'," she said, in a
+tone of unconcern, calculated to allay suspicion. "I'm in hopes to git
+a mite o' terbacker out o' Hiram Cole, if he's settin' lookin' at his
+pigs, where he is 'most every Sunday. I'll have a smoke afore I go in."
+
+"Don't you be late!"
+
+"I'm a-goin' in late, or not at all!" answered Nance, contradictorily.
+"My bunnit ain't trimmed on the congregation side, an' I want to give
+'em a chance to see it all round. I'm a-goin' up the aisle complete!"
+
+Dorcas finished her work, and, having tidied her father's room, sat
+down by his bedside for the simple rites that made their Sabbath holy.
+With the first clanging stroke of the old bell, not half a mile away,
+they fell into silence, waiting reverently through the necessary pause
+for allowing the congregation to become seated. Then they went through
+the service together, from hymn and prayer to the sermon. The parson
+had his manuscript ready, and he began reading it, in the pulpit-voice
+of his prime. At that moment, some of his old vigor came back to him,
+and he uttered the conventional phrases of his church with conscious
+power; though so little a man, he had always a sonorous delivery. After
+a page or two, his hands began to tremble, and his voice sank.
+
+"You read a spell, Dorcas," he whispered, in pathetic apology. "I'll
+rest me a minute." So Dorcas read, and he listened. Presently he fell
+asleep, and she still went on, speaking the words mechanically, and
+busy with her own tumultuous thoughts. Amazement possessed her that the
+world could be so full of joy to which she had long been deaf. She
+could hear the oriole singing in the elm; his song was almost
+articulate. The trees waved a little, in a friendly fashion, through
+the open windows; friendly in the unspoken kinship of green things to
+our thought, yet remote in their own seclusion. One tall, delicate
+locust, gowned in summer's finest gear, stirred idly at the top, as if
+through an inward motion, untroubled by the wind. Dorcas's mind sought
+out the doctor, listening to the sermon in her bare little church, and
+she felt quite content. She had entered the first court of love, where
+a spiritual possession is enough, and asks no alms of bodily nearness.
+When she came to the end of the sermon, her hands fell in her lap, and
+she gave herself up without reserve to the idle delight of satisfied
+dreaming. The silence pressed upon her father, and he opened his eyes
+wide with the startled look of one who comprehends at once the
+requirements of time and place. Then, in all solemnity, he put forth
+his hands; and Dorcas, bending her head, received the benediction for
+the congregation he would never meet again. She roused herself to bring
+in his beef-tea, and at the moment of carrying away the tray, a step
+sounded on the walk. She knew who it was, and smiled happily. The
+lighter foot keeping pace beside it, she did not hear.
+
+"Dorcas," said her father, "git your bunnit. It's time for
+Sunday-school."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+The expected knock came at the door. She went forward, tying on her
+bonnet, and her cheeks were pink. The doctor stood on the doorstone,
+and Phoebe was with him. He smiled at Dorcas, and put out his hand.
+This, according to Tiverton customs, was a warm demonstration at so
+meaningless a moment; it seemed a part of his happy friendliness. It
+was Phoebe who spoke.
+
+"I'll stay outside while the doctor goes in. I can sit down here on the
+step. Your father needn't know I am here any more than usual. I told
+the doctor not to talk, coming up the walk."
+
+The doctor smiled at her. Phoebe looked like a rose in her Sunday
+white, and the elder woman felt a sudden joy in her, untouched by envy
+of her youth and bloom. Phoebe only seemed a part of the beautiful new
+laws to which the world was freshly tuned, Dorcas coveted nothing; she
+envied nobody. She herself possessed all, in usurping her one rich
+kingdom.
+
+"All right," she said. "The doctor can step in now, and see father.
+I'll hurry back, as soon as Sunday-school is over." She walked away,
+glancing happily at the flowers on either side of the garden-path. She
+wanted to touch all their leaves, because, last night, he had praised
+them.
+
+Returning, when her hour was over, she walked very fast; her heart was
+waking into hunger, and she feared he might be gone. But he was there,
+sitting on the steps beside Phoebe, and when the gate swung open, they
+did not hear. Phoebe's eyes were dropped, and she was poking her
+parasol into the moss-encrusted path; the doctor was looking into her
+face, and speaking quite eagerly. He heard Dorcas first, and sprang up.
+His eyes were so bright and forceful in the momentary gleam of meeting
+hers, that she looked aside, and tried to rule her quickening breath.
+
+"Miss Dorcas," said he, "I'm telling this young lady she mustn't forget
+to eat her dinner at school. I find she quite ignores it, if she has
+sums to do, or blots to erase. Why, it's shocking."
+
+"Of course she must eat her dinner!" said Dorcas, tenderly. "Why, yes,
+of course! Phoebe, do as he tells you. He knows."
+
+Phoebe blushed vividly.
+
+"Does he?" she answered, laughing. "Well, I'll see. Good-by, Miss
+Dorcas. I'll come in for Friday night meeting, if I don't before.
+Good-by."
+
+"I'll walk along with you," said the doctor. "If you'll let me," he
+added, humbly.
+
+Phoebe turned away with a little toss of her head, and he turned, too,
+breaking a sprig of southernwood. Dorcas was glad to treasure the last
+sight of him putting to his lips the fragrant herb she had bruised for
+his sake. It seemed to carry over into daylight the joy of the richer
+night; it was like seeing the silken thread on which her pearls were
+strung. She called to them impetuously,--
+
+"Pick all the flowers you want to, both of you!" Then she went in, but
+she said aloud to herself, "They're all for you--" and she whispered
+his name.
+
+"Dorcas," said her father, "the doctor's been here quite a spell. He
+says there was a real full meetin.' Even Nancy Pete, Dorcas! I feel as
+if my ministration had been abundantly blessed."
+
+Then, in that strangest summer in Dorcas's life, time seemed to stand
+still. The happiest of all experiences had befallen her; not a
+succession of joys, but a permanent delight in one unchanging mood. The
+evening of his coming had been the first day; and the evening and the
+morning had ever since been the same in glory. He came often, sometimes
+with Phoebe, sometimes alone; and, being one of the men on whom women
+especially lean, Dorcas soon found herself telling him all the poor
+trials of her colorless life. Nothing was too small for his notice. He
+liked her homely talk of the garden and the church, and once gave up an
+hour to spading a plot where she wanted a new round bed. Dorcas
+had meant to put lilies there, but she remembered he loved
+ladies'-delights; so she gathered them all together from the nooks and
+corners of the garden, and set them there, a sweet, old-fashioned
+company. "That's for thoughts!" She took to wearing flowers now, not
+for the delight of him who loved them, but merely as a part of her
+secret litany of worship. She slept deeply at night, and woke with calm
+content, to speak one name in the way that forms a prayer. He was her
+one possession; all else might be taken away from her, but the feeling
+inhabiting her heart must live, like the heart itself.
+
+By the time September had yellowed all the fields, there came a week
+when Phoebe's aunt, down at the Hollow, was known to be very ill; so
+Phoebe no longer came to care for the parson through the Sunday-school
+hour. But the doctor appeared, instead.
+
+"I'm Phoebe," he said, laughing, when Dorcas met him at the door. "She
+can't come; so I told her I'd take her place."
+
+These were the little familiar deeds which gilded his name among the
+people. Dorcas had been growing used to them. But on the' next Sunday
+morning, when she was hurrying about her kitchen, making early
+preparations for the cold mid-day meal, a daring thought assailed her.
+Phoebe might come to-day, and if the doctor also dropped in, she would
+ask them both to dinner. There was no reason for inviting him alone;
+besides, it was happier to sit by, leaving him to some one else. Then
+the two would talk, and she, with no responsibility, could listen and
+look, and hug her secret joy.
+
+"I ain't a-goin' to meetin' to-day!" came Nance Pete's voice from the
+door. She stood there, smoking prosperously, and took out her pipe,
+with a jaunty motion, at the words. "I stopped at Kelup Rivers', on the
+way over, an' they gi'n me a good breakfast, an' last week, that young
+doctor gi'n me a whole paper o' fine-cut. I ain't a-goin' to meetin'!
+I'm goin' to se' down under the old elm, an' have a real good smoke."
+
+"O Nancy!" Dorcas had no dreams so happy that such an avalanche could
+not sweep them aside. "Now, do! Why, you don't want me to think you go
+to church just because I save you some breakfast!"
+
+Nance turned away, and put up her chin to watch a wreath of smoke.
+
+"I dunno why I don't," said she. "The world's nothin' but buy an' sell.
+You know it, an' I know it!' 'Tain't no use coverin' on't up. You heerd
+the news? That old fool of a Sim Barker's dead. The doctor, sut up all
+night with him, an' I guess now he's layin' on him out. I wouldn't ha'
+done it! I'd ha' wropped him up in his old coat, an' glad to git rid on
+him! Well, he won't cheat ye out o' no more five-cent pieces, to
+squander in terbacker. You might save 'em up for me, now he's done
+for!" Nance went stalking away to the gate, flaunting a visible air of
+fine, free enjoyment, the product of tobacco and a bright morning.
+Dorcas watched her, annoyed, and yet quite helpless; she was outwitted,
+and she knew it. Perhaps she sorrowed less deeply over the loss to her
+pensioner's immortal soul, thus taking holiday from spiritual
+discipline, than the serious problem involved in subtracting one from
+the congregation. Would a Sunday-school picnic constitute a bribe worth
+mentioning? Perhaps not, so far as Nance was concerned; but her own
+class might like it, and on that young blood she depended, to vivify
+the church.
+
+A bit of pink came flashing along the country road. It was Phoebe,
+walking very fast.
+
+"Dear heart!" said Dorcas, aloud to herself, as the girl came hurriedly
+up the path. She was no longer a pretty girl, a nice girl, as the
+commendation went. Her face had gained an exalted lift; she was
+beautiful. She took Miss Dorcas by the arms, and laughed the laugh that
+knows itself in the right, and so will not be shy.
+
+"Miss Dorcas," she said, "I've got to tell you right out, or I can't do
+it at all. What should you say if I told you I was married?--to  the
+doctor?"
+
+Dorcas looked at her as if she did not hear.
+
+"It's begun to get round," went on Phoebe, "and I wanted to give you
+the word myself. You see, auntie was sick, and when he was there so
+much, she grew to depend on him, and one day, when we'd been engaged a
+week, she said, why shouldn't we be married, and he come right to the
+house to live? He's only boarding, you know. And nothing to do but it
+must be done right off, and so I--I said 'yes! And we were married,
+Thursday. Auntie's better, and O Miss Dorcas! I think we're going to
+have a real good time together." She threw her arms about Dorcas, and
+put down her shining brown head upon them.
+
+Dorcas tried to answer. When she did speak, her voice sounded thin and
+faint, and she wondered confusedly if Phoebe could hear.
+
+"I didn't know--" she said. "I didn't know--"
+
+"Why, no, of course not!" returned Phoebe, brightly. "Nobody did. You'd
+have been the first, but I didn't want the engagement talked about till
+auntie was better. Oh, I believe that's his horse's step! I'll run out,
+and ride home with him. You come, too, Miss Dorcas, and just say a
+word!"
+
+Dorcas loosened the girl's arms about her, and, bending to the bright
+head, kissed it twice. Phoebe, grown careless in her joy, ran down the
+walk to stop the approaching wagon; and when she looked round, Dorcas
+had shut the door and gone in. She waited a moment for her to reappear,
+and then, remembering the doctor had had no breakfast, she stepped into
+the wagon, and they drove happily away.
+
+Dorcas went to her bedroom, touching the walls, on the way, with her
+groping hands. She sat down on the floor there, and rested her head
+against a chair. Once only did she rouse herself, and that was to go
+into the kitchen and set away the great bowl of _blanc-mange_ she had
+been making for dinner. She had not strained it all, and the sea-weed
+was drying on the sieve. Then she went back into the bedroom, and
+pulled down the green slat curtains with a shaking hand. Twice her
+father called her to bring his sermons, but she only answered, "Yes,
+father!" in dull acquiescence, and did not move. She was benumbed,
+sunken in a gulf of shame, too faint and cold to save herself by
+struggling. Her poor innocent little fictions made themselves into
+lurid writings on her brain. She had called him hers while another
+woman held his vows, and she was degraded. Her soul was wrecked as
+truly as if the whole world knew it, and could cry to her "Shame!" and
+"Shame!" The church-bells clanged out their judgment of her. A new
+thought awakened her to a new despair. She was not fit to teach in
+Sunday-school any more. Her girls, her innocent, sweet girls! There was
+contagion in her very breath. They must be saved from it; else when
+they were old women like her, some sudden vice of tainted blood might
+rise up in them, no one would know why, and breed disease and shame.
+She started to her feet. Her knees trembling under her, she ran out of
+the house, and hid herself behind the great lilac-bush by the gate.
+
+Deacon Caleb Rivers came jogging past, late for church, but driving
+none the less moderately. His placid-faced wife sat beside him; and
+Dorcas, stepping out to stop them, wondered, with a wild pang of
+perplexity over the things of this world, if 'Mandy Rivers had ever
+known the feeling of death in the soul. Caleb pulled up.
+
+"I can't come to Sunday-school, to-day," called Dorcas, stridently.
+"You tell them to give Phoebe my class. And ask her if she'll keep it.
+I sha'n't teach any more."
+
+"Ain't your father so well?" asked Mrs. Rivers, sympathetically,
+bending forward and smoothing her mitts. Dorcas caught at the reason.
+
+"I sha'n't leave him any more," she said. "You tell 'em so. You fix
+it."
+
+Caleb drove on, and she went back into the house, shrinking under the
+brightness of the air which seemed to quiver so before her eyes. She
+went into her father's room, where he was awake and wondering.
+
+"Seems to me I heard the bells," he said, in his gentle fashion. "Or
+have we had the 'hymns, an' got to the sermon?"
+
+Dorcas fell on her knees by the bedside.
+
+"Father," she began, with difficulty, her cheek laid on the bedclothes
+beside his hand, "there was a sermon about women that are lost. What
+was that?"
+
+"Why, yes," answered the parson, rousing to an active joy in his work.
+"'Neither do I condemn thee!' That was it. You git it, Dorcas! We must
+remember such poor creatur's; though, Lord be praised! there ain't many
+round here. We must remember an' pray for 'em."
+
+But Dorcas did not rise.
+
+"Is there any hope for them, father?" she asked, her voice muffled.
+"Can they be saved?"
+
+"Why, don't you remember the poor creatur' that come here an' asked
+that very question because she heard I said the Lord was pitiful? Her
+baby was born out in the medder, an' died the next day; an' she got up
+out of her sickbed at the Poorhouse, an' come totterin' up here, to ask
+if there was any use in her sayin', 'Lord, be merciful to me, a
+sinner!' An' your mother took her in, an' laid her down on this very
+bed, an' she died here. An' your mother hil' her in her arms when she
+died. You ask her if she didn't!" The effort of continuous talking
+wearied him, and presently he dozed off. Once he woke, and Dorcas was
+still on her knees, her head abased. "Dorcas!" he said, and she
+answered, "Yes, father!" without raising it; and he slept again. The
+bell struck, for the end of service. The parson was awake. He stretched
+out his hand, and it trembled a moment and then fell on his daughter's
+lowly head.
+
+"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ--" the parson said, and went
+clearly on to the solemn close.
+
+"Father," said Dorcas. "Father!" She seemed to be crying to One afar.
+"Say the other verse, too. What He told the woman."
+
+His hand still on her head, the parson repeated, with a wistful
+tenderness stretching back over the past,--
+
+"'Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.'"
+
+
+
+
+NANCY BOYD'S LAST SERMON
+
+
+It was the lonesome time of the year: not November, that accomplishment
+of a gracious death, but the moment before the conscious spring, when
+watercourses have not yet stirred in awakening, and buds are only
+dreamed of by trees still asleep but for the sweet trouble within their
+wood; when the air finds as yet no response to the thrill beginning to
+creep where roots lie blind in the dark; when life is at the one dull,
+flat instant before culmination and movement. I had gone down
+post-haste to my well-beloved Tiverton, in response to the news sent me
+by a dear countrywoman, that Nancy Boyd, whom I had not seen since my
+long absence in Europe, was dying of "galloping consumption." Nancy
+wanted to bid me good-by. Hiram Cole met me, lean-jawed, dust-colored,
+wrinkled as of old, with the overalls necessitated by his "sleddin'" at
+least four inches too short. Not the Pyramids themselves were such
+potent evidence that time may stand still, withal, as this lank,
+stooping figure, line for line exactly what it had been five years
+before. Hiram helped me into the pung, took his place beside me, and
+threw a conversational "huddup" to the rakish-looking sorrel colt. We
+dashed sluing away down the country road, and then I turned to look at
+my old friend. He was steadfastly gazing at the landscape ahead, the
+while he passed one wiry hand over his face, to smooth out its
+broadening smile. He was glad to see me, but his private code of
+decorum forbade the betrayal of any such "shaller" emotion.
+
+"Well, Hiram," I began, "Tiverton looks exactly the same, doesn't it?
+And poor Nancy, how is she?"
+
+"Nancy's pretty low," said Hiram, drawing his mitten over the hand that
+had been used to iron out his smile, and giving critical attention to
+the colt's off hind-leg. "She hil' her own all winter, but now, come
+spring, she's breakin' up mighty fast. They don't cal'late she'll live
+more'n a day or two."
+
+"Her poor husband! How will he get along without her!"
+
+Hiram turned upon me with vehemence.
+
+"Why, don't you know?" said he. "'Ain't nobody told ye? She 'ain't got
+no husband."
+
+"What? Is the Cap'n dead?"
+
+"Dead? Bless ye, he's divorced from Nancy, an' married another woman,
+two year ago come this May!"
+
+I was amazed, and Hiram looked at me with the undisguised triumph of
+one who has news to sell, be it good or bad.
+
+"But Nancy has written me!" I said. "She told me the neighborhood
+gossip; why didn't she tell me that?"
+
+"Pride, I s'pose, pride," said Hiram. "You can't be sure how misery'll
+strike folks. It's like a September gale; the best o' barns'll blow
+down, an' some rickety shanty'll stan' the strain. But there! Nancy's
+had more to bear from the way she took her troubles than from the
+troubles themselves. Ye see, 'twas this way. Cap'n Jim had his own
+reasons for wantin' to git rid of her, an' I guess there was a time
+when he treated her pretty bad. I guess he as good's turned her out o'
+house an' home, an' when he sued for divorce for desertion, she never
+said a word; an' he got it, an' up an' married, as soon as the law'd
+allow, Nancy never opened her head, all through it. She jest settled
+down, with a bed an' a chair or two, in that little house she owned
+down by Wilier Brook, an' took in tailorin' an' mendin'. One spell, she
+bound shoes. The whole town was with her till she begun carryin' on
+like a crazed creatur', as she did arterwards."
+
+My heart sank. Poor Nancy! if she had really incurred the public scorn,
+it must have been through dire extremity.
+
+"Ye see," Hiram continued, "folks were sort o' tried with her from the
+beginnin'. You know what a good outfit she had from her mother's
+side,--bureaus, an' beddin', an' everything complete? Well, she left it
+all right there in the house, for Jim to use, an' when he brought his
+new woman home, there the things set jest the same, an' he never said a
+word. I don't deny he ought to done different, but then, if Nancy
+wouldn't look out for her own interests, you can't blame him so much,
+now can ye? But the capsheaf come about a year ago, when Nancy had a
+smart little sum o' money left her,--nigh onto a hunderd dollars. Jim
+he'd got into debt, an' his oxen died, an' one thing an' another, he
+was all wore out, an' had rheumatic fever; an' if you'll b'lieve it,
+Nancy she went over an' done the work, an' let his wife nuss him. She
+wouldn't step foot into the bedroom, they said; she never see Jim once,
+but there she was, slavin' over the wash-tub and ironin'-board,--an' as
+for that money, I guess it went for doctor's stuff an' what all, for
+Jim bought a new yoke of oxen in the spring."
+
+"But the man! the other wife! how could they?"
+
+"Oh, Jim's wife's a pretty tough-hided creatur', an' as for him, I
+al'ays thought the way Nancy behaved took him kind o' by surprise, an'
+he had to give her her head, an' let her act her pleasure. But it made
+a sight o' town talk. Some say Nancy ain't quite bright to carry on so,
+an' the women-folks seem to think she's a good deal to blame, one way
+or another. Anyhow, she's had a hard row to hoe. Here we be, an'
+there's Hannah at the foreroom winder. You won't think o' goin' over to
+Nancy's till arter supper, will ye?"
+
+When I sat alone beside Nancy's bed, that night, I had several sides of
+her sad story in mind, but none of them lessened the dreariness of the
+tragedy. Before my brief acquaintance with her, Nancy was widely known
+as a travelling-preacher, one who had "the power." She must have been a
+strangely attractive creature, in those early days, alert, intense,
+gifted with such a magnetic reaching into another life that it might
+well set her aside from the commoner phases of a common day, and
+crowned, as with flame, by an unceasing aspiration for the highest. At
+thirty, she married a dashing sailor, marked by the sea, even to the
+rings in his ears; and when I knew them, they were solidly comfortable
+and happy, in a way very reassuring to one who could understand Nancy's
+temperament; for she was one of those who, at every step, are flung
+aside from the world's sharp corners, bruised and bleeding.
+
+As to the storm and shipwreck of her life, I learned no particulars
+essentially new. Evidently her husband had suddenly run amuck, either
+from the monotony of his inland days, or from the strange passion he
+had conceived for a woman who was Nancy's opposite.
+
+That night, I sat in the poor, bare little room, beside the billowing
+feather-bed where Nancy lay propped upon pillows, and gazing with
+bright, glad eyes into my face, one thin little hand clutching mine
+with the grasp of a soul who holds desperately to life. And yet Nancy
+was not clinging to life itself; she only seemed to be, because she
+clung to love.
+
+"I'm proper glad to see ye," she kept saying, "proper glad."
+
+We were quite alone. The fire burned cheerily in the kitchen stove, and
+a cheap little clock over the mantel ticked unmercifully fast; it
+seemed in haste for Nancy to be gone. The curtains were drawn, lest the
+thrifty window-plants should be frostbitten, and several tumblers of
+jelly on the oilcloth-covered table bore witness that the neighbors had
+put aside their moral scruples and their social delicacy, and were
+giving of their best, albeit to one whose ways were not their ways. But
+Nancy herself was the centre and light of the room,--so frail, so
+clean, with her plain nightcap and coarse white nightgown, and the
+small checked shawl folded primly over her shoulders. Thin as she was,
+she looked scarcely older than when I had seen her, five years ago; yet
+since then she had walked through a blacker valley than the one before
+her.
+
+"Now don't you git all nerved up when I cough," she said, lying back
+exhausted after a paroxysm. "I've got used to it; it don't trouble me
+no more'n a mosquiter. I want to have a real good night now, talkin'
+over old times."
+
+"You must try to sleep," I said. "The doctor will blame me, if I let
+you talk."
+
+"No, he won't," said Nancy, shrewdly. "He knows I 'ain't got much time
+afore me, an' I guess he wouldn't deny me the good on't. That's why I
+sent for ye, dear; I 'ain't had anybody I could speak out to in five
+year, an' I wanted to speak out, afore I died. Do you remember how you
+used to come over an' eat cold b'iled dish for supper, that last summer
+you was down here?"
+
+"Oh, don't I, Nancy! there never was anything like it. Such cold
+potatoes--"
+
+"B'iled in the pot-liquor!" she whispered, a knowing gleam in her blue
+eyes. "That's the way; on'y everybody don't know. An' do you remember
+the year we had greens way into the fall, an' I wouldn't tell you what
+they was? Well, I will, now; there was chickweed, an' pusley, an'
+mustard, an' Aaron's-rod, an' I dunno what all."
+
+"Not Aaron's-rod, Nancy! it never would have been so good!"
+
+"It's truth an' fact! I b'iled Aaron's-rod, an' you eat it. That was
+the year Mis' Blaisdell was mad because you had so many meals over to
+my house, an' said it was the last time she'd take summer boarders an'
+have the neighbors feed 'em."
+
+"They were good old days, Nancy!"
+
+"I guess they were! yes, indeed, I guess so! Now, dear, I s'pose you've
+heard what I've been through, sence you went away?"
+
+I put the thin hand to my cheek.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I have heard."
+
+"Well, now, I want to tell you the way it 'pears to me. You'll hear the
+neighbors' side, an' arter I'm gone, they'll tell you I was
+under-witted or bold. They've been proper good to me sence I've been
+sick, but law! what do they know about it, goin' to bed at nine
+o'clock, an' gittin' up to feed the chickens an' ride to meetin' with
+their husbands? No more'n the dead! An' so I want to tell ye my story,
+myself. Now, don't you mind my coughing dear! It don't hurt, to speak
+of, an' I feel better arter it.
+
+"Well, I dunno where to begin. The long an' short of it was, dear,
+James he got kind o' uneasy on land, an' then he was tried with me, an'
+then he told me, one night, when he spoke out, that he didn't care
+about me as he used to, an' he never should, an' we couldn't live no
+longer under the same roof. He was goin' off the next day to sea, or to
+the devil, he said, so he needn't go crazy seein' Mary Ann Worthen's
+face lookin' at him all the time. It ain't any use tryin' to tell how I
+felt. Some troubles ain't no more 'n a dull pain, an' some are like
+cuts an' gashes. You can feel your heart drop, drop, like water off the
+eaves. Mine dropped for a good while arter that. Well, you see I'd been
+through the fust stages of it. I'd been eat up by jealousy, an' I'd
+slaved like a dog to git him back; but now it had got beyond such
+folderol. He was in terrible trouble, an' I'd got to git him out. An' I
+guess 'twas then that I begun to feel as if I was his mother, instid of
+his wife. 'Jim,' says I, (somehow I have to Say 'James,' now we're
+separated!) 'don't you fret. I'll go off an' leave ye, an' you can get
+clear o' me accordin' to law, if you want to. I'm sure you can. I
+sha'n't care.' He turned an' looked at me, as if I was crazed or he was
+himself, 'You won't care?' he says. 'No,' says I, 'I sha'n't care.' I
+said it real easy, for 'twas true. Somehow, I'd got beyond carin'. My
+heart dropped blood, but I couldn't bear to have him in trouble. 'They
+al'ays told me I was cut out for an old maid,' I says, 'an' I guess I
+be. Housekeepin' 's a chore, anyway. You let all the stuff set right
+here jest as we've had it, an' ask Cap'n Fuller to come an' bring his
+chist; an' I'll settle down in the Willer Brook house an' make
+button-holes. It's real pretty work.' You see, the reason I was so high
+for it was 't I knew if he went to sea, he'd git in with a swearin',
+drinkin' set, as he did afore, an' in them days such carryin's-on were
+dretful to me. If I'd known he'd marry, I dunno what course I should
+ha' took; for nothin' could ha' made that seem right to me, arter all
+had come and gone. But I jest thought how James was a dretful handy man
+about the house, an' I knew he set by Cap'n Fuller. The Cap'n 'ain't no
+real home, you know, an' I thought they'd admire to bach it together."
+
+"Did you ever wonder whether you had done right? Did you ever think it
+would have been better for him to keep his promises to you? For him to
+be unhappy?"
+
+A shade of trouble crossed her face.
+
+"I guess I did!" she owned. "At fust, I was so anxious to git out o'
+his way, I never thought of anything else; but when I got settled down
+here, an' had all my time for spec'latin' on things, I was a good deal
+put to 't whether I'd done the best anybody could. But I didn't reason
+much, in them days; I jest felt. All was, I couldn't bear to have James
+tied to me when he'd got so's to hate me. Well, then he married--"
+
+"Was she a good woman?"
+
+"Good enough, yes; a leetle mite coarse-grained, but well-meanin' all
+through. Well, now, you know the neighbors blamed me for lettin' her
+have my things. Why, bless you, I didn't need 'em! An' Jim had used 'em
+so many years, he'd ha' missed 'em if they'd been took away. Then he
+never was forehanded, an' how could he ha' furnished a house all over
+ag'in, I'd like to know? The neighbors never understood. The amount of
+it was, they never was put in jest such a place, any of 'em."
+
+"O Nancy, Nancy!" I said, "you cared for just one thing, and it was
+gone. You didn't care for the tables and chairs that were left behind!"
+
+Two tears came, and dimmed her bright blue eyes. Her firm, delicate
+mouth quivered.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you see how 'twas. I knew you would. Well, arter he
+was married, there was a spell when 'twas pretty tough. Sometimes I
+couldn't hardly help goin' over there by night an' peekin' into the
+winder, an' seein' how they got along. I went jest twice. The fust time
+was late in the fall, an' she was preservin' pears by lamplight. I
+looked into the kitchin winder jest as she was bendin' over the stove,
+tryin' the syrup, an' he was holdin' the light for her to see. I dunno
+what she said, but 'twas suthin' that made 'em both laugh out, an' then
+they turned an' looked at one another, proper pleased. I dunno why, but
+it took right hold o' me, an' I started runnin' an' I never stopped
+till I got in, here an' onto my own bed. I thought 'twould ha' been
+massiful if death had took me that night, but I'm glad it didn't, dear,
+I'm glad it didn't! I shouldn't ha' seen ye, if it had, an' there's a
+good many things I shouldn't ha' had time to study out. You jest put a
+mite o' cayenne pepper in that cup, an' turn some hot water on it. It
+kind o' warms me up."
+
+After a moment's rest, she began again.
+
+"The next time I peeked was the last, for that night they'd had some
+words, an' they both set up straight as a mack'rel, an' wouldn't speak
+to one another. That hurt me most of anything. I never've got over the
+feelin' that I was James's mother, an' that night I felt sort o'
+bruised all through, as if some stranger'd been hurtin' him. So I never
+went spyin' on 'em no more. I felt as if I couldn't stan' it. But when
+I went to help her with the work, that time he was sick, I guess the
+neighbors thought I hadn't any sense of how a right-feelin' woman ought
+to act. I guess they thought I was sort o' coarse an' low, an' didn't
+realize what I'd, been through. Dear, don't you never believe it. The
+feelin' that's between husband an' wife's like a live creatur', an'
+when he told me that night that he didn't prize me no more, he wounded
+it; an' when he married the other woman, he killed it dead. If he'd ha'
+come back to me then, an' swore he was the same man I married, I could
+ha' died for him, jest as I would this minute, but he never should ha'
+touched me. But suthin' had riz up in the place o' the feelin' I had
+fust, so't I never could ha' helped doin' for him, any more'n if he'd
+been my own child."
+
+"'In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage!'"
+
+"I guess that's it," said Nancy. "On'y you have to live through a good
+deal afore you understand it. Well, now, dear, I'm nearin' the end.
+There's one thing that's come to me while I've been livin' through
+this, that I 'ain't never heard anybody mention; an' I want you to
+remember it, so's you can tell folks that are in great trouble, the way
+I've been. I've been thinkin' on't out that there's jest so much of
+everything in the world,--so much gold, so much silver, so many
+di'monds. You can't make no more nor no less. All you can do is to pass
+'em about from hand to hand, so't sometimes here'll be somebody that's
+rich, an' then it'll slip away from him, an' he'll be poor. Now,
+accordin' to my lights, it's jes' so with love. There's jest so much,
+an' when it's took away from you, an' passed over to somebody else,
+it's alive, it's there, same as ever it was. So 't you ain't goin' to
+say it's all holler an' empty, this world. You're goin' to say, 'Well,
+it's som'er's, if 'tain't with me!'"
+
+Nancy had straightened herself, without the support of her pillows. Her
+eyes were bright. A faint flush had come upon her cheeks. A doctor
+would have told me that my devoted friendship had not saved me from
+being a wretched nurse.
+
+"My home was broke up," she went on, "but there's a nice, pretty house
+there jest the same. There's a contented couple livin' in it, an' what
+if the wife ain't me? It ain't no matter. P'r'aps it's a lot better
+that somebody else should have it, somebody that couldn't git along
+alone; an' not me, that can see the rights o' things. Jest so much
+love, dear--don't you forgit that--no matter where 'tis! An' James
+could take his love away from me, but the Lord A'mighty himself can't
+take mine from him. An' so 'tis, the world over. You can al'ays love
+folks, an' do for 'em, even if your doin' 's only breakin' your heart
+an' givin' 'em up. An' do you s'pose there's any sp'ere o' life where
+I sha'n't be allowed to do somethin' for James? I guess not, dear, I
+guess not, even if it's only keepin' away from him."
+
+Nancy lived three days, in a state of delighted content with us and our
+poor ministrations; and only once did we approach the subject of that
+solemn night. As the end drew near, I became more and more anxious to
+know if she had a wish unfulfilled, and at length I ventured to ask her
+softly, when we were alone,--
+
+"Would you like to see him?"
+
+Her bright eyes looked at me, in a startled way.
+
+"No, dear, no," she said, evidently surprised that I could ask it.
+"Bless you, no!"
+
+
+
+
+STROLLERS IN TIVERTON
+
+
+In Tiverton, when reminiscences are in order, we go back to one very
+rich year; then the circus and strolling players came to town, and the
+usual camp-meeting was followed by an epidemic of scarlet fever, which
+might have stood forth as the judgment of heaven, save that the newly
+converted were stricken first and undoubtedly fared hardest. Hiram Cole
+said it was because they'd "got all their nerve-juice used up,
+hollerin' hallelujah." But that I know not. This theory of nerve-juice,
+was a favorite one with Hiram: he contended that it had a powerful hand
+in determining the results of presidential elections; and, indeed, in
+swaying the balance of power among the nations of the earth.
+
+Even in the early spring, there had been several cases of fever at
+Sudleigh; and so, when the circus made application for a license to
+take possession of the town, according to olden custom, the public
+authorities very wisely refused. Tiverton, however, was wroth at this
+arbitrary restriction. For more years than I can say, she had driven
+over to Sudleigh "to see the caravan;" and now, through some
+crack-brained theory of contagion, the caravan was to be barred out. We
+never really believed that the town-fathers had taken their highhanded
+measure on account of scarlet fever. We saw in it some occult political
+significance, and referred ominously to the butter we carried there on
+Saturdays, and to the possibility that, if they cast us off, a
+separation might affect them far more seriously than it would us. But
+to our loud-voiced delight, the caravan, finding that it was to be
+within hailing distance, and unwilling to pass on without further
+tribute, extended the sceptre to Tiverton herself; and Brad Freeman
+joyfully discussed the project of making a circus ground of his old
+race-course, which, he declared, he had purposed planting with tobacco.
+We never knew whether to believe this or not, though we had many times
+previously gone over Brad's calculation, by which he figured that he
+could sell at least three tons of fine-cut from one summer's produce.
+To that specious logic, we always listened with unwilling admiration;
+but when we could shake off the glamour inseparable from a problem made
+to come out right, we were accustomed to turn to one another, demanding
+with cold scepticism, "Where'd he git his seed?"
+
+In spite of the loss of this potential crop, however, Brad was
+magnanimously willing to let his field; and Tiverton held her head
+high, in the prospect of having a circus of her own. We intimated that
+it would undoubtedly be fair weather, owing to our superior moral
+desert as compared with that of Sudleigh, which was annually afflicted
+with what had long been known as "circus-weather." For Sudleigh had
+sinned, and Nature was thenceforth deputed to pay her back, in good old
+Hebrew style. One circus-day--before the war, as I believe--Sudleigh
+fenced up the spring in a corner of her grounds, and with a foolish
+thrift sold ice-water to the crowd, at a penny a glass. Tiverton was
+furious, and so, apparently, were the just heavens; for every
+circus-day thereafter it rained, in a fashion calculated to urge any
+forehanded Noah into immediate action. We of Tiverton never allowed our
+neighbor to forget her criminal lapse. When, on circus-afternoon, we
+met one of the rival township, dripping as ourselves, we said, with all
+the cheerfulness of conscious innocence,--
+
+"Water enough for everybody, to-day! Guess ye won't have to peddle none
+out!"
+
+"Seems to be comin' down pretty fast! You better build a platfoam over
+that spring! Go hard with ye if't overflowed!"
+
+Strange to say, Sudleigh seemed to regard these time-licensed remarks
+with little favor; she even intimated that they smacked of the past,
+and were wearisome in her nostrils. But not for that did we halt in
+their distribution. Moreover, we flaunted our domestic loyalty by
+partaking of no Sudleigh fluid within the grounds. We carried tea,
+coffee, lemonade, milk, an ambitious variety of drinks, in order that
+even our children might be spared the public disgrace of tasting
+Sudleigh water; and it was a part of our excellent fooling to invite
+every Sudleighian to drink with us. Even the virtues, however, spare
+their votaries no pang; and in every family, this unbending fealty
+resulted in the individual members' betaking themselves to the pump or
+well, immediately on getting home, even before attempting to unharness.
+About five o'clock, on circus-afternoon, there would be a general
+rumbling of buckets and creaking of sweeps, while a chorus rose to
+heaven, "My! I was 'most choked!"
+
+But our _fete_-day dawned bright and speckless. We rose before three
+o'clock, every man, woman and child of us, to see the procession come
+into town. It would leave the railway at Sudleigh, and we had a faint
+hope of its forming in regulation style, and sweeping into Tiverton, a
+blaze of glittering chariots surmounted by queens of beauty, of lazy
+beasts of the desert sulking in their cages, and dainty-stepping
+horses, ridden by bold amazons. For a time, the expectation kept us
+bright and hopeful, although most of us had only taken a "cold bite"
+before starting; but as the eastern saffron pencilled one line of light
+and the bird chorus swelled in piercing glory, we grew cross and all
+unbefitting the smiling morn. Only Dilly Joyce looked sunshiny as ever,
+for she had no domestic cares to beckon her; she and Nance Pete, who
+was in luck that day, having a full pipe. Dilly had nestled into a
+rock, curved in the form of a chair, and lay watching the eastern sky,
+a faint smile of pleasure parting her lips when the saffron hardened
+into gold.
+
+"Nice, dear, ain't it?" she said, as I paused a moment near her, "I
+al'ays liked the side o' the road. But it's kind o' disturbin' to have
+so much talk. I dunno's you can help it, though, where there's so many
+people. Most o' the time, I'm better on't to home, but I did want to
+see an elephant near to!"
+
+The sky broadened into light, and the birds jeered at us, poor,
+draggled folk who lived in boxes and were embarrassed by the morn. The
+men grew nervous, for milking-time was near, and in imagination I have
+no doubt they heard the lowing of reproachful kine.
+
+"Well, 'tain't no use," said Eli Pike, rising from the stone-wall, and
+stretching himself, with decision. "I've got to 'tend to them cows,
+whether or no!" And he strolled away on the country-road, without a
+look behind. Most of the other men, as in honor bound, followed him;
+and the women, with loud-voiced protest against an obvious necessity,
+trailed after them, to strain the milk. Only we who formed the gypsy
+element were left behind.
+
+"I call it a real shame!" announced Mrs. Pike, gathering her summer
+shawl about her shoulders, and stepping away with an offended dignity
+such as no delinquent elephant could have faced. "I warrant ye, they
+wouldn't ha' treated Sudleigh so. They wouldn't ha' dared!"
+
+"I dunno's Sudleigh's any more looked up to'n we be," said Caleb
+Rivers, who had been so tardy in bestirring himself that he formed a
+part of the women's corps. "I guess, if the truth was known, Tiverton
+covers more land'n Sudleigh does, on'y Sudleigh's all humped up
+together into a quart bowl. I guess there's countries that 'ain't heard
+o' Sudleigh, an' wouldn't stan' much in fear if they had!"
+
+And so Tiverton dispersed, unamiably, and with its public pride hurt to
+the quick. I tried to take pattern by Dilly Joyce, and steal from
+nature a little of the wonderful filial enjoyment which came to her
+unsought. When Dilly watched the sky, I did, also; when she brightened
+at sound of a bird hitherto silent, I tried to set down his notes in my
+memory; and when she closed her eyes, and shut out the world, to think
+it over, I did the same. But the result was different. Probably Dilly
+opened hers again upon the lovely earth, but I drifted off into
+dreamland, and only awoke, two hours after, to find the scenes
+marvellously changed. It was bright, steady morning, the morning come
+to stay. Tiverton had performed its dairy rites, and returned again,
+enlivened by a cup of tea; and oh, incredible joy! there was a grunting
+and panting, a swaying of mighty flanks. The circus was approaching,
+from Sudleigh way. Instantly I was alert and on my feet, for it would
+have been impossible to miss the contagion of the general joy. I knew
+how we felt, not as individuals, but as Tivertonians alone. We were
+tolerant potentates, waiting, in gracious majesty, to receive a
+deputation from the farther East. It grieves me much to stop here and
+confess, with a necessary honesty, that this was but a sorry circus,
+gauged by the conventional standards; else, I suppose, it had never
+come to Tiverton at all. The circus-folk had evidently dressed for
+travelling, not for us. The chariots, some of them still hooded in
+canvas, were very small and tarnished. There were but three elephants,
+two camels, and a most meagre display of those alluring cages made to
+afford even the careless eye a sudden, quickening glimpse of restless,
+tawny form, or slothful hulk within. Yet why depreciate the raw
+material whereof Fancy has power divine to build her altogether perfect
+heights? Here was the plain, homely setting of our plainer lives, and
+right into the midst of it had come the East. The elephants affected us
+most; we probably thought little about the immemorial mystery, the
+vague, occult tradition wrapped in that mouse-colored hide; but even to
+our dense Western imagination such quickening suggestion was vividly
+apparent. We knew our world; usually it seemed to us the only one, even
+when we looked at the stars. But at least one other had been created,
+and before us appeared its visible sign,--my lord the elephant! There
+he was, swaying along, conscious philosopher, conscious might, yet
+holding his omniscience in the background, and keeping a wary eye out
+for the peanuts with which we simple country souls had not provided
+ourselves. There was one curious thing about it all. We had seen the
+circus at Sudleigh, as I have said, yet the fact of entertaining it
+within our borders made it seem exactly as if we had never laid eyes
+upon it before. This was our caravan, and God Almighty had created the
+elephant for us. Dilly Joyce slipped her hand quickly in mine and
+pressed it hard. She was quite pale. Yet it was she who acted upon the
+first practical thought. She recovered herself before my lord went by,
+took a ginger cookie from her pocket, and put it into Davie Tolman's
+hand.
+
+"Here," she said, pushing him forward, "you go an' offer it to him.
+He'll take it. See'f he don't!"
+
+Davie accepted the mission with joy, and persisted in it until he found
+himself close beside that swaying bulk, and saw the long trunk curved
+enticingly toward him. Then he uttered one explosive howl, and fell
+back on the very toes of us who were pressing forward to partake, by
+right of sympathy, in the little drama.
+
+"Lordy Massy, keep still!" cried out Nance Pete; and she snatched him
+up bodily, and held him out to the elephant. I believe my own pang at
+that moment to have been general. I forgot that elephants are not
+carnivorous, and shuddered back, under the expectation of seeing Davie
+devoured, hide and hair. But Nance had the address to stiffen the
+little arm, and my lord took the cookie, still clutched in the
+despairing hand, and passed on. Then Davie wiped his eyes, after
+peeping stealthily about to see whether any one was disposed to jeer at
+him, and took such courage that he posed, ever after, as the hero of
+the day.
+
+The procession had nearly passed us when we saw a sight calculated to
+animate us anew with a justifiable pride. Sudleigh itself, its young
+men and maidens, old men and children, was following the circus into
+our town. It would not have a circus of its own, forsooth, but it would
+share in ours! We, as by one consent, assumed an air of dignified
+self-importance. We were the hosts of the day; we bowed graciously to
+such of our guests as we knew, and, with a mild tolerance, looked over
+the heads of those who were unfamiliar. Yet nothing checked our happy
+companionship with the caravan; still we followed by the side of the
+procession, through tangles of blackberry vine, and over ditch and
+stubble. Some of the boys mounted the walls, and ran wildly, dislodging
+stones as they went, and earning no reproof from the fathers who, on
+any other day, would have been alive to a future mowing and the
+clashing of scythe and rock. There was, moreover, an impression abroad
+that our progress could by no means be considered devoid of danger.
+
+"S'pose that fellar should rise up, an' wrench off them bars!"
+suggested Heman Blaisdell, pointing out one cage where a great
+creature, gaudy in stripes, paced back and forth, throwing us an
+occasional look of scorn and great despite. "I wouldn't give much for
+my chances! Nor for anybody else's!"
+
+"My soul an' body!" ejaculated a woman. "I hope they don't forgit to
+lock them cages up! Folks git awful careless when they do a thing every
+day! I forgot to shet up the hins last week, an' that was the night the
+skunk got in."
+
+"I'm glad Brad brought his gun," said another, in the tone of one who
+would have crossed herself had there been a saint to help. And
+thereafter we kept so thickly about Brad, walking with his long free
+stride, that his progress became impeded, and he almost fell over us.
+Suddenly, from the front, a man's voice rose in an imperative cry,--
+
+"Turn round! turn round!"
+
+Quite evidently the mandate was addressed to us, and we turned in a
+mass, fleeing back into Sudleigh's very arms. For a moment, it was like
+Sparta and Persia striving in the Pass; then Sudleigh turned also, such
+as were on foot, and fled with us. We pressed up the bank, as soon as
+we could collect our errant wits; some of us, with a sense of coming
+calamity, mounted the very wall, and there we had a moment to look
+about us. The caravan was keeping steadily on, like fate and taxes, and
+facing it stood a carryall attached to a frightened horse. On the front
+seat, erect in her accustomed majesty, sat Aunt Melissa Adams; and
+Uncle Hiram, ever a humble charioteer, was by her side. They, too, had
+driven out to see the circus, but alas! it had not struck them that
+they might meet it midway, with no volition of drawing up at the side
+of the road and allowing it to pass. The old horse, hardened to the
+vicissitudes of many farming seasons, had necessarily no acquaintance
+with the wild beasts of the Orient; no past experience, tucked away in
+his wise old head, could explain them in the very least. He plunged and
+reared; he snorted with fear, and Aunt Melissa began to emit shrieks of
+such volume and quality that the mangy lion, composing himself to sleep
+in his cage, rose, and sent forth a cry that Tiverton will long
+remember. We did not stop to explain our forebodings, but we were sure
+that, in some mysterious way, Aunt Melissa was doomed, and that she had
+brought her misfortune on herself. A second Daniel, she had no special
+integrity to stand her in need. And still the circus advanced, and the
+horse snorted and backed. He was a gaunt old beast, but in his terror,
+one moment of beauty dignified him beyond belief. His head was high,
+his eyes were starting.
+
+"Turn round!" cried the men, but Uncle Hiram was paralyzed, and the
+reins lay supine in his hands, while he screamed a wheezy "Whoa!" Then
+Brad Freeman, as usual in cases outside precedent, became the good
+angel of Tiverton. He forced his gun on the person nearest at hand--who
+proved to be Nance Pete--and dashed forward. Seizing the frightened
+horse by the head, he cramped the wheel scientifically, and turned him
+round. Then he gave him a smack on the flank, and the carryall went
+reeling and swaying back into Tiverton, the _avant-courrier_ of the
+circus. You should have heard Aunt Melissa's account of that ride, an
+epic moment which she treasured, in awe, to the day of her death.
+According to her, it asked no odds from the wild huntsman, or the
+Gabriel hounds. Well, we cowards came down from the wall, assuring each
+other, with voices still shaking a little, that we knew it was nothing,
+after all, and that nobody but Aunt Melissa would make such a fuss. How
+she did holler! we said, with conscious pride in our own
+self-possession when brought into unexpectedly close relations with
+wild beasts; and we trudged happily along through the dust stirred by
+alien trampling, back to Tiverton Street, and down into Brad Freeman's
+field. It would hardly be possible to describe our joy in watching the
+operation of tent-raising, nor our pride in Brad Freeman, when he
+assumed the character of host, and not only made the circus-folk free
+of the ground they had hired, but hurried here and there, helping with
+such address and muscular vigor that we felt defrauded in never having
+known how accomplished he really was. The strollers recognized his
+type, in no time; they were joking with him and clapping him on the
+back before the first tent had been unrolled. Now, none of us had ever
+seen a circus performer, save in the ring; and I think we were
+disappointed, for a moment, at finding we had in our midst no spangled
+angels in rosy tights, no athletes standing on their heads by choice,
+and quite preferring the landscape upside down, but a set of shabbily
+dressed, rather jaded men and women, who were, for all the world, just
+like ourselves, save that they walked more gracefully, and spoke in
+softer voice. But when the report went round that the cook was getting
+breakfast ready--out of doors, too!--we were more than compensated for
+the loss of such tinsel joys. Chattering and eager, we ran over to the
+dining-tent, and there, close beside it, found the little kitchen, its
+ovens smoking hot, and a man outside, aproned and capped, cutting up
+chops and steaks, with careless deftness, and laying them in the great
+iron pans, preparatory to broiling.
+
+"By all 't's good an' bad!" swore Tom McNeil, a universal and sweeping
+oath he much affected, "they've got a whole sheep an' a side o' beef!
+Well, it's high livin', an' no mistake!"
+
+We who considered a few pies a baking, watched this wholesale cookery
+in bewildered fascination. A savory smell arose to heaven. I never was
+so hungry in my life, and I believe all Tiverton would own to the same
+craving. Perhaps some wild instinct sprang up in us with the scent of
+meat in out-door air, but at any rate, we became much exhilarated, and
+our attention was only turned from the beguiling chops by Mrs. Wilson's
+saying, in a low tone, to her husband,--
+
+"Lothrop, if there ain't Lucindy, an' that Molly McNeil with her!
+What's Lucindy got? My sake alive! you might ha' known she'd do suthin'
+to make anybody wish they'd stayed to home. If you can git near her,
+you keep a tight holt on her, or she'll be jumpin' through a hoop!"
+
+I turned, with the rest. Yes, there was Miss Lucindy, tripping happily
+across the level field. Molly McNeil hastened beside her, and between
+them they carried a large clothes-basket, overflowing with flaming
+orange-red; a basket heaped with sunset, not the dawn! They were very
+near me when I guessed what it was; so near that I could see the happy
+smile on Lucindy's parted lips, and note how high the rose flush had
+risen in her delicate cheek, with happiness and haste.
+
+"Stortions!" broke out a voice near me, in virile scorn,--Nance
+Pete's,--"stortions! Jes' like her! Better picked 'em a mess o' pease!"
+
+It was, indeed, a basket of red nasturtiums, and the sun had touched
+them into a glory like his own. For one brief moment, we were ashamed
+of Lucindy's "shallerness" and irrelevancy; but the circus people
+interpreted her better. They rose from box and hamper where they had
+been listlessly awaiting their tardy breakfast, and crowded forward to
+meet her. They knew, through the comradeship of all Bohemia, exactly
+what she meant.
+
+"My!" said Miss Lucindy, smiling full at them as they came,--her old,
+set smile had been touched, within a year, by something glad and
+free,--"set 'em down now, Molly. My! are you the folks? Well, I thought
+you'd seem different, somehow, but anyway, we brought you over a few
+blooms. We thought you couldn't have much time, movin' round so, to
+work in your gardins, especially the things you have to sow every year.
+Yes, dear, yes! Take a good handful. Here's a little mignonette I put
+in the bottom, so't everybody could have a sprig. Yes, there's enough
+for the men, too. Why, yes, help yourself! Law, dear, why don't you
+take off your veil? Hot as this is!" for the bearded lady, closely
+masked in black _barege_, had come forward and hungrily stretched out a
+great hand for her share.
+
+We never knew how it all happened, but during this clamor of happy
+voices, the chops were cooked and the coffee boiled; the circus people
+turned about, and trooped into the tent where the tables were set, and
+they took Miss Lucindy with them. Yes, they did! Molly McNeil stayed
+contentedly outside; for though she had brought her share of the
+treasure, quite evidently she considered herself a friendly helper, not
+a partner in the scheme. But Miss Lucindy was the queen of the
+carnival. We heard one girl say to another, as our eccentric townswoman
+swept past us, in the eager crowd, "Oh, the dear old thing!" We saw a
+sad-eyed girl bend forward, lift a string of Miss Lucindy's apron
+(which, we felt, should have been left behind in the kitchen) and give
+it a hearty kiss. Later, when, by little groups, we peeped into the
+dining-tent, we saw Miss Lucindy sitting there at the table, between
+two women who evidently thought her the very nicest person that had
+ever crossed their wandering track. There she was, an untouched roll
+and chop on her plate, a cup of coffee by her side. She was not
+talking. She only smiled happily at those who talked to her, and her
+eyes shone very bright. We were ashamed; I confess it. For was not
+Sudleigh, also, there to see?
+
+"Oh, my soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, in fretful undertone. "I wish the
+old Judge was here!"
+
+Her husband turned and looked at her, and she quailed; not with fear of
+him, but at the vision of the outraged truth.
+
+"Well, no," she added, weakly, "I dunno's I wish anything so bad as
+that, but I do declare I think there ought to be somebody to keep a
+tight grip on Lucindy!"
+
+Who shall deem himself worthy to write the chronicle of that glorious
+day? There were so many incidents not set down in the logical drama; so
+many side-shows of circumstance! We watched all the mysterious
+preparations for the afternoon performance, so far as we were allowed,
+with the keenness of the wise, who recognize a special wonder and will
+not let it pass unproved. We surrounded Miss Lucindy, when she came
+away from her breakfast party, and begged for an exact account of all
+her entertainers had said; but she could tell us nothing. She only
+reiterated, with eyes sparkling anew, that they were "proper nice
+folks, proper nice! and she must go home and get Ellen. If she'd known
+they were just like other folks she'd have brought Ellen this morning;
+but she'd been afraid there'd be talk that little girls better not
+hear."
+
+At noon, we sat about in the shade of the trees along the wall, and ate
+delicious cold food from the butter-boxes and baskets our men-folks had
+brought over during the forenoon lull; and we assiduously offered
+Sudleigh a drink, whenever it passed the counter where barrels of free
+spring-water had been set. And then, at the first possible moment, we
+paid our fee, and went inside the tent to see the animals. That scrubby
+menagerie had not gained in dignity from its transference to canvas
+walls. The enclosure was very hot and stuffy; there was a smell of dust
+and straw. The lion stretched himself, from time to time, and gave an
+angry roar for savage, long-lost joys. One bear, surely new to the
+business, kept walking up and down, up and down, moaning, in an abandon
+of homesickness. Brad Freeman stood before the cage when I was there.
+
+"Say, Brad," said the Crane boy, slipping his arm into the hunter's, in
+a good-fellowship sure to be reciprocated. "Davie Tolman said you's
+goin' to fetch over your fox, an' sell him to the circus. Be you?"
+
+"My Lord!" answered Brad, very violently for him, the ever-tolerant.
+"No! I'm goin' to let him go. _Look at that!_" And while the Crane boy,
+unconcerned, yet puzzled, gave his full attention to the bear, Brad
+passed on.
+
+There was a wolf, I remember, darting about his cage, slinking,
+furtive, ever on a futile prowl. He especially engaged the interest of
+Tom McNeil, who said admiringly, as I, too, looked through the bars,
+"Ain't he a prompt little cuss?" I felt that with Tom it was the
+fascination of opposites; he never could understand superlative energy.
+
+Just as we were trooping into the larger tent (there were no three
+rings, I beg to say, maliciously calculated to distract the attention!
+One, of a goodly size, was quite enough for us!) a little voice piped
+up, "The snake's got loose!" How we surged and panted, and fought one
+another for our sacred lives! In vain were we urged to stand still; we
+strove the more. And when a bit of rope perversely and maliciously
+coiled itself round Rosa Tolman's ankle, she gave a shriek so loud and
+despairing that it undid us anew. If Sheriff Holmes had not come
+forward and sworn at us, I believe we should have trampled one another
+out of existence; but he seemed so palpably the embodiment of
+authority, and his oath the oath undoubtedly selected by legislature
+for that very occasion, that we paused, and on the passionate
+asseveration of a circus man that the snake was safely in his cage,
+consented to be calm. But Aunt Melissa Adams, unstrung by her earlier
+experience, would trust no doubtful circumstance. She plodded back into
+the animal-tent, assured herself, with her own eyes, of the snake's
+presence at his own hearthstone, and came back satisfied, just as the
+clown entered the ring. The performance needs no bush. We had palmleaf
+fans offered us, pop-corn, and pink lemonade. We sweltered under the
+blazing canvas, laughed at the clown's musty fooling, which deserved
+rather the reverence due old age, and wondered between whiles if there
+would be a shower, and if tent-poles were ever struck. Then it was all
+over, and we trailed out, in great bodily discomfort and spiritual joy,
+to witness, quite unlooked for, the most vivid drama of the day. Young
+Dana Marden was there, he and his wife who lived down in Tiverton
+Hollow. Dana was a nephew of Josh, of hapless memory, and "folks said"
+that, like Josh, he had "all the Marden setness, once git him riled."
+But Mary Worthen had not been in the least afraid of that when she
+married him. Before their engagement, some one had casually mentioned
+Dana's having inherited "setness" for his patrimony.
+
+"I know it," she said, "and if I had anything to do with him, I'd break
+him of it, or I'd break his neck!"
+
+Tiverton had been very considerate in never repeating that speech to
+Dana; and his wife, in all their five years of married life, had not
+fulfilled her threat. As we were making ready to leave the grounds,
+that day, and those who had horses were "tacklin up," we became aware
+that Dana, a handsome, solid, fresh-colored fellow, sat in his wagon
+with pretty Mary beside him, and that they evidently had no intention
+of moving on. Of course we approached, to find out what the trouble
+might be.
+
+"We can send word to have Tom Bunker milk the cows," said Dana, with
+distinct emphasis, "an' we can stay for the evenin' performance. Or we
+can go now. Only, you've got to say which!"
+
+"I don't want to say," returned Mary, placidly, "because I don't know
+which you'd rather have. You just tell me _so_ much!"
+
+A frown contracted his brow; he looked a middle-aged man. When he
+spoke, his voice grated.
+
+"You tell which, or we'll set here all night, an' I don't speak another
+word to you till you do!"
+
+But Mary said nothing.
+
+"My soul!" whispered Mrs. Rivers to me. "She's got herself into it now,
+jest as they say Lyddy Ann Marden done, with Josh. She'll have to back
+down!"
+
+Several more of those aimless on-lookers, ever ready for the making of
+crowds, surged forward. The wagon was blocking the way. We realised
+with shame that Sudleigh, too, was here, to say nothing of sister towns
+less irritating to our pride. It was Uncle Eli Pike who stepped into
+the breach.
+
+"Here, Dana!" he called, and, as we were glad to remember, all the
+aliens in the crowd could hear, "I guess that hoss o' yourn's gittin' a
+mite balky. I'll lead him a step, if you say so." And without a word of
+assent from Dana, he guided the horse out of the grounds, and started
+him on the road. We watched the divided couple, on their common way.
+Dana was driving, it is true; but we knew, with a heavy certainty, that
+he was not speaking to his wife. He was a Marden, and nothing would
+make him speak.
+
+This slight but very significant episode sent us home in a soberer mind
+than any of us had anticipated, after the gaudy triumphs of the day. We
+could not quell our curiosity over the upshot of it all, and that
+night, after the chores were done, we sat in the darkness,
+interspersing our comments on the spangled butterflies of horse and
+hoop with an awed question, now and then, while the minute-hand sped,
+"S'pose they've spoke yit?"
+
+Alas! the prevailing voice was still against it; and when we went to
+market, and met there the people from the Hollow (who were somewhat
+more bucolic than we), they passed about the open secret. Dana did not
+speak to his wife. Again we knew he never would. The summer waned; the
+cows were turned into the shack, and the most "forehanded" among us
+began to cut boughs for banking up the house, and set afoot other
+preparations for winter's cold. Still Dana had not spoken. But the
+effect on Mary was inexplicable to us all. We knew she loved him
+deeply, and that the habits of their relationship were very tender; we
+expected her to sink and fail under the burden of this sudden exile of
+the heart, just as Lyddy Ann had done, so many years ago. But Mary held
+her head high, and kept her color. She even "went abroad" more than
+usual; ostentatiously so, we thought, for she would come over to
+Tiverton to pass the afternoon, after the good, old-fashioned style,
+with women whom she knew but slightly. And, most incredible of all,
+though Dana would not speak to her, she spoke to him! Once, in driving
+past, I heard her clear voice (it seemed now a dauntless voice!)
+calling,--
+
+"Dana, dinner's ready!" Dana dropped the board he was carrying, and
+went in, a fierce yet dogged look upon his face, as if it needed hourly
+schooling to mirror his hard heart. Then the agent of the Sudleigh
+"Star," who was canvassing for a new domestic paper, had also his story
+to tell. He went to the Mardens', and Mary, who admitted him, put down
+her name, and then called blithely into the kitchen,--
+
+"Dana, I'm all out o' change. Will you hand me a dollar 'n' a quarter?"
+
+Dana, flushed red and overwhelmed by a pitiable embarrassment, came to
+the door and gave the money; and Mary, with that proud unconsciousness
+which made us wonder anew every time we saw it in her, thanked him, and
+dismissed the visitor, as if nothing were wrong. The couple went as
+usual to church and sociable. Certain lines deepened in Dana's face,
+but Mary grew every day more light-heartedly cheerful. Yet the
+one-sided silence lived, with the terrible tenacity of evil.
+
+So the days went on until midwinter snows began to blow, and then we
+learned, with a thrill of pride, that the International Dramatic
+Company proposed coming to our own little hall, for a two weeks'
+engagement. Some said Sudleigh Opera House was too large for it, and
+too expensive; but we, the wiser heads, were grandly aware that, with
+unusual acumen, the drama had at last recognized the true emporium of
+taste. We resolved that this discriminating company should not repent
+its choice. A week before the great first night, magnificent posters in
+red and blue set before us, in very choice English, the dramatic
+performances, "Shakespearean and otherwise," destined to take place
+among us. The leading parts were to be assumed by Mr. and Mrs. Van
+Rensellaer Wilde, "two of the foremost artists in the stellar world,
+supported by an adequate company."
+
+The announcement ended with the insinuating alliteration, "Popular
+prices prevail." The very first night, we were at the door, an excited
+crowd, absolutely before it was open; but early as we went, the
+hospitable pianist held the field before us; the hall resounded with
+his jocund banging at the very moment when the pioneer among us set
+foot within. I have never seen anywhere, either on benefit or farewell
+night, a cordiality to be compared with that which presided over our
+own theatre in Tiverton Hall. Mr. Van Rensellaer Wilde himself stood
+within the doorway, to greet us as we came; a personable man, with the
+smooth, individual face of his profession, a moist and beery eye, a
+catholic smile, tolerant enough to include the just and the unjust, a
+rusty, old-fashioned stock, and the very ancientest brown Prince Albert
+coat still in reputable existence,--a strange historical epitome of
+brushings and spongings, of camphor exile and patient patching. Quite
+evidently he was not among the prosperous, even in his stellar world.
+But not for that would he repine. This present planet was an admirable
+plot of ground, and here he stood, cheerfully ready to induct us, the
+Puritan-born, into the fictitious joys thereof. And popular prices
+prevailed; the floor of the hall itself confirmed it. It was divided,
+by chalk-lines, into three sections. Enter the first division, and a
+legend at your feet indicated the ten-cent territory. Advance a little,
+and "twenty-five cents" met the eye; and presently, approaching the
+platform, you were in the seats of the scornful, thirty-five cents
+each. The latter, by common consent, were eschewed by the very first
+comers, not alone for reasons of thrift, but because we thought they
+ought to be left for old folks, "a leetle mite hard o' hearin'," or the
+unfortunates who were "not so fur-sighted" as we. So we seated
+ourselves in delight already begun, for was not Mr. Gad Greenfield
+performing one of the "orchestral pieces" which the programme had led
+us to expect? The piano was an antique, accustomed to serve as victim
+at Sudleigh's dancing-school and sociables. I have never heard its
+condition described, on its return to Sudleigh; I only know that, from
+some eccentric partiality, Gad Greenfield's music was all _fortissimo_.
+Sally Flint, brought thither by the much-enduring overseer, for the
+sake of domestic peace, seemed to be the only one who did not regard
+Gad's performance with unquestioning awe. She was heard to say aloud,
+in a penetrating voice,--
+
+"My soul an' body! what a racket!"
+
+Whereupon she deliberately pulled some wool from the tassel of her
+chinchilla cloud, and stuffed a little wad into each ear. We were sorry
+for the overseer, thus put to shame by his untutored charge, and
+delicately looked away, after making sure Sally had "r'ared as high" as
+she proposed doing. She was the overseer's cross; no one could help him
+bear it.
+
+And now the curtain went up,--though not on the play, let me tell you!
+On slighter joys, a fillip to the taste. A juggler, "all complete" in
+black small-clothes and white kid gloves, stood there ready to burn up
+our handkerchiefs, change our watches into rabbits, and make omelets in
+our best go-to-meeting hats. I cannot remember all the wonderful things
+he did (everything, I believe, judging from the roseate glow left in my
+mind, everything that juggler ever achieved short of the Hindoo marvel
+of cutting up maidens and splicing them together again, or planting the
+magic tree); I only know we were too crafty to help him, and though he
+again and again implored a volunteer from the audience to come and play
+the willing victim, we clung to our settees the more, so that Gad of
+the piano was obliged to fill the gap. And when the curtain came down,
+and went up again on a drawing-room, with a red plush chair in it, and
+a lady dressed in a long-tailed white satin gown, where were we? In
+Tiverton? Nay, in the great world of fashion and of crime. I remember
+very little now about the order of the plays; very little of their
+names and drift. I only know we were swept triumphantly through the
+widest range ever imagined since the "pastoral-comical,
+historical-pastoral," of old Polonius. And in all, fat, middle-aged Wilde
+was the dashing hero, the deep-dyed villain; and his wife, middle-aged
+as he, and far, oh, far more corpulent! played the lovely heroine, the
+blooming victim, the queen of hearts. And she was truly beautiful to
+us, that blowsy dame, through the beguiling witchery of her art. The
+smarting tears came into our eyes when, in "Caste," she staggered back,
+despairing, lost in grief, unable to arm her soldier for the march.
+Melodrama was her joy, and as we watched her lumbering about the stage
+in a white muslin dress, with the artificial springiness of a youth
+that would never return, we could have risen as one man, to snatch her
+from the toils of villany. She was a cool piece, that swiftly
+descending star! She had a way of deliberately stepping outside the
+scenes and letting down her thin black hair, before the tragic moment;
+then would she bound back again, and tear every passion to tatters, in
+good old-fashioned style. In "The Octoroon" especially she tore our
+hearts with it, so that it almost began to seem as if political issues
+were imminent. For between the acts, men bent forward to their
+neighbors, and put their heads together, recalling abolition times; and
+one poor, harmless old farmer from Sudleigh way was glared at in a
+fashion to which he had once been painfully accustomed, while murmurs
+of "Copperhead! Yes, Copperhead all through the war!" must have
+penetrated where he sat. But he was securely locked up in his fortress
+of deaf old age, and met the hostile glances benignly, quite
+unconscious of their meaning. In one particular, we felt, for a time,
+that we had been deceived. The Shakespearean drama had not been touched
+on as we had been led to expect; but at last, in the middle of the
+second week, we were rejoiced by the announcement that "Othello" would
+that night be appropriately set forth. The Moor of Venice! He would
+never have recognized himself--his great creator would never have
+guessed his identity--as presented by Mr. Van Rensellaer Wilde. I give
+you my word for that! From beginning to end of the performance,
+Tiverton groped about, in a haze of perplexity, rendered ever the more
+dense by the fact that none of the actors knew their parts. I am
+inclined to think they had enriched their announcement by this allusion
+to the Shakespearean drama in a moment of wild ambition, as we gladly
+commit ourselves to issues far-off and vague; and then, with a
+chivalrous determination to vindicate their written word; they had
+embarked on a troublous sea for which they had "neither mast nor sail,
+nor chart nor rudder." So they went bobbing about in a tub, and we,
+with a like paucity of equipment, essayed to follow them.
+
+Othello himself was a veiled mystery in our eyes.
+
+"Ain't he colored?" whispered Mrs. Wilson to me; and while I hesitated,
+seeking to frame an answer both terse and true, she continued, although
+he was at that moment impressing the Senate with his great apology, "Is
+he free?"
+
+I assured her on that point, and she settled down to a troubled study
+of the part, only to run hopelessly aground when Desdemona, in her
+stiff white satin gown, announced her intention of cleaving to the
+robust blackamoor, in spite of fate and father. That seemed a
+praiseworthy action, "taken by and large," but we could not altogether
+applaud it. "Abolition," as we were, the deed wounded some race
+prejudice in us, and Mrs. Hiram Cole voiced the general sentiment when
+she remarked audibly,--
+
+"One color's as good as another, come Judgment Day, but let 'em marry
+among themselves, _I_ say!"
+
+The poverty of the scenery had something to do with our dulness in
+following the dramatic thread, for how should we know that our own
+little stage, disguised by a slender tree-growth, was the island of
+Cyprus, and that Desdemona, tripping through a doorway, in the same
+satin gown, had just arrived from a long and perilous voyage? "The
+riches of the ship" had "come on shore," but for all we knew, it had
+been in the next room, taking a nap, all the while. In the crucial
+scene between Cassio and Iago, we got the impression that one was as
+drunk as the other, and that Cassio acted the better man of the two,
+chiefly because of his grandiloquent apostrophe relative to the
+thieving of brains. We approved of that, and looked meaningly round at
+old Cap'n Fuller, who was at that time taking more hard cider than we
+considered good for him. But when the final catastrophe came, we,
+having missed the logical sequence, were totally unprepared. Mr. Wilde,
+with a blackamoor fury irresistibly funny to one who has seen a city
+coal-man cursing another for not moving on, smothered his shrieking
+spouse in a pillow brought over for that purpose from the Blaisdells',
+where most of the actors were boarding. We were not inclined to endure
+this quietly. The more phlegmatic among us moved uneasily in our seats,
+and one or two men, excitable beyond the ordinary, sprang up, with an
+oath. Mrs. Wilson dragged her husband down again.
+
+"For massy sake, do set still!" she urged. "He 'ain't killed her. Don't
+you see them toes a-twitchin'?"
+
+No, Mrs. Wilde was not dead, as her weary appearance in the afterpiece
+attested; but she had been cruelly abused, and the murmurs, here and
+there, as we left the hall, went far to show that Othello had done well
+in voluntarily paying the debt of nature, and that Emilia thought none
+too ill of him.
+
+"Ought to ha' been strong up, by good rights," growled Tiverton, "you
+can't find a jury't would acquit _him_!"
+
+Night after night, we conscientiously sat out the aforesaid afterpiece,
+innocently supposed to be our due because it had formed a part of the
+initial performance. However long our weary strollers might delay it,
+in the empty hope of our going home content, there we waited until the
+curtain went up. It was a dreary piece of business, varied by
+horse-play considered "kind o' rough" by even the more boisterous among
+us. Sometimes it was given, minstrel-wise, in the time-honored panoply
+of burnt cork; again, poor weary souls! they lacked even the spirit to
+blacken themselves, and clinging to the same dialogue, played boldly in
+Caucasian fairness, with the pathetically futile disguise of a Teuton
+accent. And last of all, Mr. Wilde would appear before the curtain, and
+"in behalf of Mrs. Wilde, self and company" thank us movingly for our
+kind attention, and announce the next night's bill.
+
+The last half hour was my chosen time for leaning back against the
+wall, and allowing thought and glance to dwell lovingly on Tiverton
+faces. O worn and rugged features of the elder generation to whose
+kinship we are born! What solution, even of Time, the all-potent,
+shall wash your meaning from the heart? An absolute lack of
+self-consciousness had quite transformed the gaze they bent upon the
+stage. A veil had been swept aside, and the true soul shone forth; that
+soul which ever dwells apart, either from the dignity of its estate or,
+being wrought of fibre more delicate than air, because it fears recoil
+and hurt. There were Roxy and her husband, he too well content with
+life as it is, to be greatly moved by its counterfeit; she sparkling
+back some artless reply to the challenge of feeble romance and wingless
+wit. There was Uncle Eli, a little dazed by these strange doings, the
+hand on his knee shaking, from time to time, under the stimulus of
+unshared thought. There was Miss Lucindy, with Ellen and all the
+McNeils, a care-free, happy phalanx, smiling joyously at everything set
+before them, with that spontaneous rapture so good to see. One night,
+Nance Pete appeared, and established herself, with great importance, in
+the first row of the ten-cent seats; but she fell asleep, and snored
+with embarrassing volume and precision. She never came again, and
+announced indifferently, to all who cared to hear, that when she
+"wanted to see a passel o' monkeys, she'd go to the circus, an' done
+with it." There, too, one night when Comedy burlesqued her own rapt
+self, was Dana Marden; but he came alone. Mary had a cold, we heard,
+and "thought she'd better stay in." Dana sat through the foolish play,
+unmoved. His brow loomed heavy, like Tragedy's own mask, and it grew
+ever blacker while the scene went on. Hiram Cole whispered me,--
+
+"He'll kill himself afore he's done with it. He's gone in for the whole
+hog, but he 'ain't growed to it, as Old Josh had. The Marden blood run
+emptin's afore it got to him."
+
+The last night came of all our blissful interlude, and on that night,
+by some stroke of fate, the bill was "Oliver Twist." Of that
+performance let naught be spoken, save in reverence. For, by divine
+leading it might seem, and not their own good wit, those poor players
+had been briefly touched by the one true fire. Shakespeare had beckoned
+them, and they had passed him by; Comedy and Tragedy had been their
+innocent sport. How funny their tragedy had been, how sad their comedy,
+Momus only might tell. But to-night some gleaming wave from a greater
+sea had lifted them, and borne them on. Still they played, jarringly,
+for that was their untutored wont. Their speech roared, loud defiance
+to grammar's idle saws, their costumes were absurd remnants of an
+antique past; but a certain, rude, and homely dignity had transfigured
+them, and enveloped, too, this poor drama which, after all, goes very
+deep, down to the springs of life and love. There was a dirty and
+wicked abomination of a Fagin. Wilde himself played Sykes, and we of
+Tiverton, who know little about the formless monster dwelling under the
+garnished pavement of every great city, and rising, once in a century
+or so, to send red riot and ruin through the streets,--even we could
+read the story of his word and glance. Unconsciously to ourselves, we
+guessed at Whitechapel and the East End "tough," and shuddered under
+the knowledge of evil. Mrs. Wilde, her heavy face many a shade sincerer
+than when she walked in dirty white satin, was Nancy; and in her death,
+culminated the grand moment of Tiverton's looking the drama in the
+face, and seeing it for what it is,--the living sister of life itself.
+Sykes really killed her alarmingly well. Round the stage he dragged
+her, bruised and speechless, with such cruel realism that we women
+crouched and shivered; and when she staggered to her knees, and told
+her pitiful lie for the brute she loved, the general shudder of worship
+and horror thrilled us into a mighty reverence for the tie stronger
+than death and hell, binding the woman to the man, and lifting Love
+triumphant on his cross of pain. With Nancy's final sigh, another swept
+through the hall, like breath among the trees, and, drawn by what
+thread I know not, I looked about me, and all unwittingly was present
+at another great last act. Dana Marden and his wife were in front of
+me, not three seats away. Mary was very pale, and sat quite motionless,
+looking down into her lap; but Dana bent forward, gripping the seat in
+front of him with white and straining hands. His face, drawn and
+knotted, was a mirror of such anguish as few of us imagine; we only
+learn its power when it steals upon us in the dark, and our souls
+wrestle with it for awful mastery. He seemed to be suffering an
+extremity of physical pain. After that, I gave little heed to the
+stage. I was only conscious that the curtain had gone down, and that
+Mr. Wilde was thanking us for our kind attention, and expressing a
+flattering hope that another year would find him again in our midst. We
+did not want the farce, that night, even as our rightful due. We got
+up, and filed out in silence. I was just behind Dana and Mary; so near
+that I could have touched him when, half-way, down the hall, he put out
+a clumsy hand and drew her shawl closer about her shoulders. Then he
+set his face straight forward again, but not before I had noticed how
+the lips were twitching still, in that dumb protest against the fetters
+of his birth. Again he turned to her, as suddenly as if a blow had
+forced his face about. I heard his voice, abrupt, explosive, full of
+the harshness so near at hand to wait on agony,--
+
+"You got your rubbers on?"
+
+Mary started a little, and a tremor like that of cold, went over her;
+but she kept her head firmly erect.
+
+"Yes, Dana," she said, clearly, just as she had spoken to him all those
+months, "I've got 'em on."
+
+Before eleven o'clock, the next morning, the news had spread all over
+joyful Tiverton. Dana had spoken at last! But Mary! Within a week, she
+took to her bed, quite overmastered by a lingering fever. She "came out
+all right," as we say among ourselves, though after Dana had suffered
+such agonies of tenderness over her as few save mothers can know, or
+those who have injured their beloved. But she has never since been
+quite so dauntless, quite so full of the joy of life. As Hiram Cole
+again remarked, it is a serious thing to draw too heavily on the
+nerve-juice.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Meadow Grass, by Alice Brown
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