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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9370-8.txt b/9370-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a627d47 --- /dev/null +++ b/9370-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8799 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tiverton Tales, 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: Tiverton Tales + +Author: Alice Brown + +Posting Date: March 22, 2014 [EBook #9370] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 26, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + +TIVERTON TALES + +BY + +ALICE BROWN + +1899 + + + + + CONTENTS + + + DOORYARDS + A MARCH WIND + THE MORTUARY CHEST + HORN-O'-THE-MOON + A STOLEN FESTIVAL + A LAST ASSEMBLING + THE WAY OF PEACE + THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + HONEY AND MYRRH + A SECOND MARRIAGE + THE FLAT-IRON LOT + THE END OF ALL LIVING + + + + + +DOORYARDS + + +Tiverton has breezy, upland roads, and damp, sweet valleys; but should +you tarry there a summer long, you might find it wasteful to take many +excursions abroad. For, having once received the freedom of family +living, you will own yourself disinclined to get beyond dooryards, +those outer courts of domesticity. Homely joys spill over into them, +and, when children are afoot, surge and riot there. In them do the +common occupations of life find niche and channel. While bright weather +holds, we wash out of doors on a Monday morning, the wash-bench in the +solid block of shadow thrown by the house. We churn there, also, at the +hour when Sweet-Breath, the cow, goes afield, modestly unconscious of +her own sovereignty over the time. There are all the varying fortunes +of butter-making recorded. Sometimes it comes merrily to the tune of + + "Come, butter, come! + Peter stands a-waiting at the gate, + Waiting for his butter-cake. + Come, butter, come!" + +chanted in time with the dasher; again it doth willfully refuse, and +then, lest it be too cool, we contribute a dash of hot water, or too +hot, and we lend it a dash of cold. Or we toss in a magical handful of +salt, to encourage it. Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of +householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them +away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the +syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what +complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with +purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; +for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, +omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the +merry months are well under way, or the cows go kicking up their heels +to pasture, or plants are taken from the south window and clapped into +chilly ground, orderly passions begin to riot within us, and we "clear +up" our yards. We gather stray chips, and pieces of bone brought in by +the scavenger dog, who sits now with his tail tucked under him, +oblivious of such vagrom ways. We rake the grass, and then, gilding +refined gold, we sweep it. There is a tradition that Miss Lois May once +went to the length of trimming her grass about the doorstone and +clothes-pole with embroidery scissors; but that was a too-hasty +encomium bestowed by a widower whom she rejected next week, and who +qualified his statement by saying they were pruning-shears. + +After this preliminary skirmishing arises much anxious inspection of +ancient shrubs and the faithful among old-fashioned plants, to see +whether they have "stood the winter." The fresh, brown "piny" heads are +brooded over with a motherly care; wormwood roots are loosened, and the +horse-radish plant is given a thrifty touch. There is more than the +delight of occupation in thus stirring the wheels of the year. We are +Nature's poor handmaidens, and our labor gives us joy. + +But sweet as these homespun spots can make themselves, in their mixture +of thrift and prodigality, they are dearer than ever at the points +where they register family traits, and so touch the humanity of us all. +Here is imprinted the story of the man who owns the farm, that of the +father who inherited it, and; the grandfather who reclaimed it from +waste; here have they and their womenkind set the foot of daily living +and traced indelible paths. They have left here the marks of tragedy, +of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground +between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will, +since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose +to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field +of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure +met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out +in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a +woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the +wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the +ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his +heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a +gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown +shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die. +She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she +walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied +delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a +hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who +followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner +house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the +wandering train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the +dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest +joy,--one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, +where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but +she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one +dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set +up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The +game opened before her an endless vista of delight. She saw herself +perpetually knocking red-striped balls through an eternity of wickets; +and she knew that here was the one pastime of which no soul could tire. +Afterwards, driving home with her husband and two children, still in a +daze of satisfied delight, she murmured absently:-- + +"Wonder how much they cost?" + +"What?" asked Eben, and Della turned, flushed scarlet, and replied:-- + +"Oh, nothin'!" + +That night, she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the +sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to +work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a +monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang +at moments when she purposed leaping the bounds of domestic custom. +Even Eben had learned that, dull as he was. If he heard that guilty +crooning from the buttery, he knew she might be breaking extra eggs, or +using more sugar than was conformable. + +"What you doin' of?" he was accustomed to call. But Delia never +answered, and he did not interfere. The question was a necessary +concession to marital authority; he had no wish to curb her ways. + +Della scudded about the yard like a willful wind. She gathered withes +from a waiting pile, and set them in that one level space for wickets. +Then she took a handsaw, and, pale about the lips, returned to the +house and to her bedroom. She had made her choice. She was sacrificing +old associations to her present need; and, one after another, she sawed +the ornamenting balls from her mother's high-post bedstead. Perhaps the +one element of tragedy lay in the fact that Della was no mechanician, +and she had not foreseen that, having one flat side, her balls might +decline to roll. But that dismay was brief. A weaker soul would have +flinched; to Della it was a futile check, a pebble under the wave. She +laid her balls calmly aside. Some day she would whittle them into +shape; for there were always coming to Della days full of roomy leisure +and large content. Meanwhile apples would serve her turn,--good alike +to draw a weary mind out of its channel or teach the shape of spheres. +And so, with two russets for balls and the clothes-slice for a mallet +(the heavy sledge-hammer having failed), Della serenely, yet in +triumph, played her first game against herself. + +"Don't you drive over them wickets!" she called imperiously, when Eben +came up from the lot in his dingle cart. + +"Them what?" returned he, and Della had to go out to explain. He looked +at them gravely; hers had been a ragged piece of work. + +"What under the sun'd you do that for?" he inquired. "The young ones +wouldn't turn their hand over for't They ain't big enough." + +"Well, I be," said Della briefly. "Don't you drive over 'em." + +Eben looked at her and then at his path to the barn, and he turned his +horse aside. + +Thereafter, until we got used to it, we found a vivid source of +interest in seeing Della playing croquet, and always playing alone. +That was a very busy summer, because the famous drought came then, and +water had to be carried for weary rods from spring and river. Sometimes +Della did not get her playtime till three in the afternoon, sometimes +not till after dark; but she was faithful to her joy. The croquet +ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were +potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke, +and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether, +and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the +mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's +daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in +the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was +a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark. +She clung to her kitchen chair. + +"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to +understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had +grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was +frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although +loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own +species of sad and shy content. + +Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were +not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need +not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the +house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry. They could +recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as +children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on +the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went +out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at +once gave way. I looked down--at a broken wicket and a withered apple +by the stake. + +Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind, +at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding +mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not +wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No +sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it +up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in +all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from +the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under +different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might +guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition +that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have +their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country +maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, +still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and +strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish +through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has +roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and +that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? +Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy never has no +luck with plants." And that, indeed, is true. + +There is another dooryard with its infallible index finger pointing to +tell a tale. You can scarcely thread your way through it for vehicles +of all sorts, congregated there to undergo slow decomposition at the +hands of wind and weather. This farmer is a tradesman by nature, and +though, for thrift's sake, his fields must be tilled, he is yet +inwardly constrained to keep on buying and selling, albeit to no +purpose. He is everlastingly swapping and bargaining, giving play to a +faculty which might, in its legitimate place, have worked out the +definite and tangible, but which now goes automatically clicking on +under vain conditions. The house, too, is overrun with useless +articles, presently to be exchanged for others as unavailing, and in +the farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with +another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable +evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with +torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are +here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this +yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, +and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take +long, entrancing journeys in the mouldy old chaise; they endure +Siberian nights of sleighing, and throw out their helpless dolls to the +pursuing wolves; or the more mercantile-minded among the boys mount a +three-wheeled express wagon, and drive noisily away to traffic upon the +road. This, in its dramatic possibilities, is not a yard to be +despised. + +Not far away are two neighboring houses once held in affectionate +communion by a straight path through the clover and a gap in the wall. +This was the road to much friendly gossip, and there were few bright +days which did not find two matrons met at the wall, their heads +together over some amiable yarn; But now one house is closed, its +windows boarded up, like eyes shut down forever, and the grass has +grown over the little path: a line erased, perhaps never to be renewed. +It is easier to wipe out a story from nature than to wipe it from the +heart; and these mutilated pages of the outer life perpetually renew in +us the pangs of loss and grief. + +But not all our dooryard reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not +remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or +disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon +an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts +had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and +the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him news +of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was +going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his +mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of +attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now +due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a +pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling +across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down +hastily--yea, even before the advancing cat!--and made a trumpet of his +hands. + +"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away! +Died yesterday!" + +I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be +strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was +always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in +such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait +until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his +wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, +until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving +mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his +wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:-- + +"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?" + +They had their funeral. + +To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder +and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One, +where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of +caraway. It seemed mysteriously connected with the oak-leaf cookies, +which only she could make; and the child, brushing through the delicate +bushes grown above his head, used to feel vaguely that, on some +fortunate day, cookies would be found there, "a-blowin' and a-growin'." +That he had seen them stirred and mixed and taken from the oven was an +empty matter; the cookies belonged to the caraway grove, and there they +hang ungathered still. In the very same yard was a hogshead filled with +rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated +pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent +black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would +hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth +depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river +is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where +insects float and fly. + +These are our dooryards. I wish we lived in them more; that there were +vines to sing under, and shade enough for the table, with its wheaten +loaf and good farm butter, and its smoking tea. But all that may come +when we give up our frantic haste, and sit down to look, and breathe, +and listen. + + + + +A MARCH WIND + + +When the clouds hung low, or chimneys refused to draw, or the bread +soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the +local drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon +as the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been +getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of +wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set +down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was +whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm. + +It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to +clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb, +innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot +upon her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient +creature. She never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants +into the ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies +were gone. So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the +fire, awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder +set in the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, +hardy as she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her +thick brown hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks +bloomed out in a frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard +knot under her chin, seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her +hands ached, holding the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the +inclemency of the time. It never occurred to her that she could have +put off this exacting job. She would sooner have expected Heaven to put +off the weather. Just as she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted +her pail of refuse over the edge, a man appeared from the other side of +the house, and stood confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his +deeply graven face was framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid +thought that he was not so old as he looked; experience, rather than +years, must have wrought its trace upon him. He was leading a little +girl, dressed with a very patent regard for warmth, and none for +beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine glance, noted that the child's +bungled skirt and hideous waist had been made from an old army +overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet and seeking; they +seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did not respond; at +that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of children. Yet +she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She afterwards +explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they looked as +odd as Dick's hatband. + +"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's +lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and +rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt +impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and +stiffness, and she answered sharply,-- + +"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' +then I don't take tramps." + +The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side. + +"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail +from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked. +"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully +down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it." + +Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had +offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though +she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she +believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if +she were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation +of difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He +emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as +if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen, +where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at the +start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job +was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar, +and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands +on his trousers, and turned to the child. + +"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'." + +It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery. +The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely +simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little warmer +because they had appeared. She had a new sensation of welcome company. +So it was that, quite to her own surprise, she answered as quickly as +he spoke, and her reply also seemed an inevitable part of the drama:-- + +"Walk right in. It's 'most dinner-time, an' I'll put on the pot." The +two stepped in before her, and they did not go away. + +Amelia herself never quite knew how it happened; but, like all the +other natural things of life, this had no need to be explained. At +first, there were excellent reasons for delay. The man, whose name +proved to be Enoch Willis, was a marvelous hand at a blow, and she kept +him a week, splitting some pine knots that defied her and the boy who +ordinarily chopped her wood. At the end of the week, Amelia confessed +that she was "terrible tired seein' Rosie round in that gormin' kind of +a dress;" so she cut and fitted her a neat little gown from her own red +cashmere. That was the second reason. Then the neighbors heard of the +mysterious guest, and dropped in, to place and label him. At first, +following the lead of undiscouraged fancy, they declared that he must +be some of cousin Silas's connections from Omaha; but even before +Amelia had time to deny that, his ignorance of local tradition denied +it for him. He must have heard of this or that, by way of cousin Silas; +but he owned to nothing defining place or time, save that he had been +in the war--"all through it." He seemed to be a man quite weary of the +past and indifferent to the future. After a half hour's talk with him, +unseasonable callers were likely to withdraw, perhaps into the pantry, +whither Amelia had retreated to escape catechism, and remark jovially, +"Well, 'Melia, you ain't told us who your company is!" + +"Mr. Willis," said Amelia. She was emulating his habit of reserve. It +made a part of her new loyalty. + +Even to her, Enoch had told no tales; and strangely enough, she was +quite satisfied. She trusted him. He did say that Rosie's mother was +dead; for the last five years, he said, she had been out of her mind. +At that, Amelia's heart gave a fierce, amazing leap. It struck a note +she never knew, and wakened her to life and longing. She was glad +Rosie's mother had not made him too content. He went on a step or two +into the story of his life. His wife's last illness had eaten up the +little place, and after she went, he got no work. So, he tramped. He +must go again. Amelia's voice sounded sharp and thin, even to her, as +she answered,-- + +"Go! I dunno what you want to do that for. Rosie's terrible contented +here." + +His brown eyes turned upon her in a kindly glance. + +"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a +machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin' +better 'n days' works." + +Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty. + +"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly. + +Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie +looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a +bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song. +"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't +never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was +younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now. +The better part o' my life's gone." + +Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost +pride, and all a longing of maternal love. + +"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were +married. + +Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries +of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was +agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride +to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no +previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, +and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges +were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They +argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it +would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the +popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies +toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days, +married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six +months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her +"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful +brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the +tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door +neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim, +with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her +smoke's a-goin'." + +Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and +without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of +affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing +things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well +as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her +try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the +steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition +reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their +marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about +the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he +only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he +guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a +bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door, +exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own +ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility +had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to +the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he +never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that +was what made it so pleasant to live with him. + +It was "easy sleddin'" now. Amelia grew very young. Her cheeks gained a +bloom, her eyes brightened. She even, as the matrons noticed, took to +crimping her hair. They looked on with a pitying awe. It seemed a +fearsome thing, to do so much for a tramp who would only kill you in +the end. Amelia stepped deftly about the house. She was a large woman, +whose ways had been devoid of grace; but now the richness of her +spiritual condition informed her with a charm. She crooned a little +about her work. Singing voice she had none, but she grew into a way of +putting words together, sometimes a line from the psalms, sometimes a +name she loved, and chanting the sounds, in unrecorded melody. +Meanwhile, little Rosie, always irreproachably dressed, with a jealous +care lest she fall below the popular standard, roamed in and out of the +house, and lightened its dull intervals. She, like the others, grew at +once very happy, because, like them, she accepted her place without a +qualm, as if it had been hers from the beginning. They were simple +natures, and when their joy came, they knew how to meet it. + +But if Enoch was content to follow the beaten ways of life, there was +one window through which he looked into the upper heaven of all: +thereby he saw what it is to create. He was a born mechanician. A +revolving wheel would set him to dreaming, and still him to that +lethargy of mind which is an involuntary sharing in the things that +are. He could lose himself in the life of rhythmic motion; and when he +discovered rusted springs, or cogs unprepared to fulfill their purpose, +he fell upon them with the ardor of a worshiper, and tried to set them +right. Amelia thought he should have invented something, and he +confessed that he had invented many things, but somehow failed in +getting them on the market. That process he mentioned with the +indifference of a man to whom a practical outcome is vague, and who +finds in the ideal a bright reality. Even Amelia could see that to be a +maker was his joy; to reap rewards of making was another and a lower +task. + +One cold day in the early spring, he went "up garret" to hunt out an +old saddle, gathering mildew there, and came upon a greater treasure, a +disabled clock. He stepped heavily down, bearing it aloft in both +hands. + +"See here, 'Melia," asked he, "why don't this go?" + +Amelia was scouring tins on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind +outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the +irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to +a job to quiet herself. + +"That clock?" she replied. "That was gran'ther Eli's. It give up +strikin', an' then the hands stuck, an' I lost all patience with it. So +I bought this nickel one, an' carted t'other off into the attic. 'T +ain't worth fixin'." + +"Worth it!" repeated Enoch. "Well, I guess I'll give it a chance." + +He drew a chair to the stove, and there hesitated. "Say, 'Melia," said +he, "should you jest as soon I'd bring in that old shoemaker's bench +out o' the shed? It's low, an' I could reach my tools off'n the floor." + +Amelia lacked the discipline of contact with her kind, but she was +nevertheless smooth as silk in her new wifehood. + +"Law, yes, bring it along," said she. "It's a good day to clutter up. +The' won't be nobody in." + +So, while Enoch laid apart the clock with a delicacy of touch known +only to square, mechanical fingers, and Rosie played with the +button-box on the floor, assorting colors and matching white with +white, Amelia scoured the tins. Her energy kept pace with the wind; it +whirled in gusts and snatches, yet her precision never failed. + +"Made up your mind which cow to sell?" she asked, opening a discussion +still unsettled, after days of animated talk. + +"Ain't much to choose," said Enoch. He had frankly set Amelia right on +the subject of livestock; and she smilingly acquiesced in his larger +knowledge. "Elbridge True's got a mighty nice Alderney, an' if he's +goin' to sell milk another year, he'll be glad to get two good milkers +like these. What he wants is ten quarts apiece, no matter if it's bluer +'n a whetstone. I guess I can swap off with him; but I don't want to +run arter him. I put the case last Thursday. Mebbe he'll drop round." + +"Well," concluded Amelia, "I guess you're pretty sure to do what's +right." + +The forenoon galloped fast, and it was half past eleven before she +thought of dinner. + +"Why," said she, "ain't it butcher day? I've been lottin' on a piece o' +liver." + +"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count." + +"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some +fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer +door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an' +peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it +ain't company, a day like this." + +Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full +of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there +came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. +There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia +washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. +She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her +consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her +family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky +with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an +eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were +that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her. + +"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons, +and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose." + +Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank +down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while +the knock came again, a little querulously. + +"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah +Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past +encounters; but that Enoch could not know. + +"Is it?" asked he, with but a mild appearance of interest. "Want me to +go to the door?" + +"Go to the door!" echoed Amelia, so stridently that he looked up at her +again. "No; I don't want anybody should go to the door till this room's +cleared up. If 't w'an't so ever-lastin' cold, I'd take him right into +the clock-room, an' blaze a fire; but he'd see right through that. You +gether up them tools an' things, an' I'll help carry out the bench." + +If Enoch had not just then been absorbed in a delicate combination of +brass, he might have spoken more sympathetically. As it was, he seemed +kindly, but remote. + +"Look out!" said he, "you'll joggle. No, I guess I won't move. If he's +any kind of a man, he'll know what 'tis to clean a clock." + +Amelia was not a crying woman, but the hot tears stood in her eyes. She +was experiencing, for the first time, that helpless pang born from the +wounding of pride in what we love. + +"Don't you see, Enoch?" she insisted. "This room looks like the Old +Boy--an' so do you--an' he'll go home an' tell all the folks at the +Ridge. Why, he's heard we're married, an' come over here to spy out the +land. He hates the cold. He never stirs till 'way on into June; an' now +he's come to find out." + +"Find out what?" inquired Enoch absorbedly. "Well, if you're anyways +put to 't, you send him to me." That manly utterance enunciated from a +"best-room" sofa, by an Enoch clad in his Sunday suit, would have +filled Amelia with rapture; she could have leaned on it as on the +Tables of the Law. But, alas! the scene-setting was meagre, and though +Enoch was very clean, he had no good clothes. He had pointedly refused +to buy them with his wife's money until he should have worked on the +farm to a corresponding amount. She had loved him for it; but every day +his outer poverty hurt her pride. "I guess you better ask him in," +concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you." + +Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed. + +"He _don't_ bother me," said she, "an' I _will_ let him in." She walked +to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she +broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. + +She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for +the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another +instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back +again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his +desire to get in. + +"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk +till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't +ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?" + +She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising +wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin +Josiah Pease." + +Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny +left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased +to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock." + +To Enoch, the explanation was enough. All the simple conventions of his +life might well wait upon a reason potent as this. Josiah Pease went to +the stove, and stood holding his tremulous hands over a cover. He was a +little man, eclipsed in a butternut coat of many capes, and his +parchment face shaded gradually up from it, as if into a harder medium. +His eyes were light, and they had an exceedingly uncomfortable way of +darting from one thing to another, like some insect born to spear and +sting. His head was entirely bald, all save a thin fringe of hair not +worth mentioning, since it disappeared so effectually beneath his +collar; and his general antiquity was grotesquely emphasized by two +sets of aggressive teeth, displaying their falsity from every crown. + +Amelia took out the broom, and began sweeping up buttons. She had an +acrid consciousness that by sacrificing them she was somehow completing +the tragedy of her day. Rosie gave a little cry; but Amelia pointed to +the corner where stood the child's chair, exhumed from the attic, after +forty years of rest. "You set there," she said, in an undertone, "an' +keep still." + +Rosie obeyed without a word. Such an atmosphere had not enveloped her +since she entered this wonderful house. Remembering vaguely the days +when her own mother had "spells," and she and her father effaced +themselves until times should change, she folded her little hands, and +lapsed back into a condition of mental servitude. + +Meanwhile, Amelia followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with +cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. +Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she +caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were +"soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, +having no lover in the war, had traded for her few. Here were the +gold-stones that held her changeable silk, there the little clouded +pearls from her sister's raglan. Annie had died in youth; its glamour +still enwrapped her. Poor Annie! But Rosie had seemed to bring her +back. Amelia swept litter, buttons and all, into the dustpan, and +marched to the stove to throw her booty in. Nobody marked her save +Rosie, whose playthings were endangered; but Enoch's very obtuseness to +the situation was what stayed her hand. She carried the dustpan away +into a closet, and came back, to gather up her tins. A cold rage of +nervousness beset her, so overpowering that she herself was amazed at +it. + +Meantime, Josiah Pease had divested himself of his coat, and drawn the +grandfather chair into a space behind the stove. + +"You a clock-mender by trade?" he asked of Enoch. + +"No," said Enoch absently, "I ain't got any reg'lar trade." + +"Jest goin' round the country?" amended cousin Josiah, with the +preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, +in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to +'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly on with his work. + +"Law, 'Melia, to think o' your bein' married," continued Josiah, +turning to her. "I never should ha' thought that o' you." + +"I never thought it of myself," said Amelia tartly. "You don't know +what you'll do till you're tried." + +"No! no!" said Josiah Pease. "Never in the world. You remember Sally +Flint, how plain-spoken she is? Well, Betsy Harden's darter Ann rode +down to the poor-house t'other day with some sweet trade, an' took a +young sprig with her. He turned his back a minute, to look out o' +winder, an' Sally spoke right up, as ye might say, afore him. 'That +your beau?' says she. Well, o' course Ann couldn't own it, an' him +right there, so to speak. So she shook her head. 'Well, I'm glad on +'t,' says Sally. 'If I couldn't have anything to eat, I'd have suthin' +to look at!' He was the most unsignifyin'est creatur' you ever put your +eyes on. But they say Ann's started in on her clo'es." + +Amelia's face had grown scarlet. "I dunno's any such speech is called +for here," said she, in a furious self-betrayal. Josiah Pease had +always been able to storm her reserves. + +"Law, no," answered he comfortably. "It come into my mind,--that's +all." + +She looked at Enoch with a passionate sympathy, knowing too well how +the hidden sting was intended to work. But Enoch had not heard. He was +absorbed in a finer problem of brass and iron; and though Amelia had +wished to save him from hurt, in that instant she scorned him for his +blindness. "I guess I shall have to ask you to move," she said to her +husband coldly. "I've got to git to that stove, if we're goin' to have +any dinner to-day." + +It seemed to her that even Enoch might take the hint, and clear away +his rubbish. Her feelings might have been assuaged by a clean hearth +and some acquiescence in her own mood. But he only moved back a little, +and went on fitting and musing. He was not thinking of her in the +least, nor even of Josiah Pease. His mind had entered its brighter, +more alluring world. She began to fry her pork and apples, with a +perfunctory attempt at conversation. "You don't often git round so +early in the spring," said she. + +"No," returned cousin Josiah. "I kind o' got started out, this time, I +don't rightly know why. I guess I've had you in mind more of late, for +some Tiverton folks come over our way, tradin', an' they brought all +the news. It sort o' stirred me up to come." + +Amelia turned her apples vigorously, well aware that the slices were +breaking. That made a part of her bitter day. + +"Folks needn't take the trouble to carry news about me," she said. +There was an angry gleam in her eyes. "If anybody wants to know +anything, let 'em come right here, an' I'll settle 'em." The ring of +her voice penetrated even to Enoch's perception, and he looked up in +mild surprise. She seemed to have thrown open, for an instant, a little +window into a part of her nature he had never seen. + +"How good them apples smell!" said Josiah innocently. "Last time I had +'em was down to cousin Amasa True's, he that married his third wife, +an' she run through all he had. I went down to see 'em arter the +vandoo,--you know they got red o' most everything,--an' they had fried +pork an' apples for dinner. Old Bashaby dropped in. 'Law!' says she. +'Fried pork an' apples! Well, I call that livin' pretty nigh the +wind!'" Josiah chuckled. He was very warm now, and the savory smell of +the dish he decried was mounting to what served him for fancy. "'Melia, +you ain't never had your teeth out, have ye?" he asked, as one who +spoke from richer memories. + +"I guess my teeth'll last me as long as I want 'em," said Amelia +curtly. + +"Well, I didn't know. They looked real white an' firm last time I see +'em, but you never can tell how they be underneath. I knew the folks +would ask me when I got home. I thought I'd speak." + +"Dinner's ready," said Amelia. She turned an alien look upon her +husband. "You want to wash your hands?" + +Enoch rose cheerfully. He had got to a hopeful place with the clock. + +"Set ri' down," said he. "Don't wait a minute. I'll be along." + +So Amelia and the guest began their meal, while little Rosie climbed, +rather soberly, into her higher chair, and held out her plate. + +"You wait," said Amelia harshly. "Can't you let other folks eat a +mouthful before you have to have yours?" Yet as she said it, she +remembered, with a remorseful pang, that she had always helped the +child first; it had been so sweet to see her pleased and satisfied. + +Josiah was never talkative during meals. Not being absolute master of +his teeth, his mind dwelt with them. Amelia remembered that, with a +malicious satisfaction. But he could not be altogether dumb. That, +people said, would never happen to Josiah Pease while he was above +ground. + +"That his girl?" he asked, indicating Rosie with his knife, in a +gustatory pause. + +"Whose?" inquired Amelia willfully. + +"His." He pointed again, this time to the back room, where Enoch was +still washing his hands. + +"Yes." + +"Mother dead?" + +Amelia sprang from her chair, while Rosie looked at her with the +frightened glance of a child to whom some half-forgotten grief has +suddenly returned. + +"Josiah Pease!" said Amelia. "I never thought a poor, insignificant +creatur' like you could rile me so,--when I know what you're doin' it +for, too. But you've brought it about. Her mother dead? Ain't I been +an' married her father?" + +"Law, Amelia, do se' down!" said Josiah indulgently. There was a +mince-pie warming on the back of the stove. He saw it there. "I didn't +mean nuthin'. I'll be bound you thought she's dead, or you wouldn't ha' +took such a step. I only meant, did ye see her death in the paper, for +example, or anything like that?" + +"'Melia," called Enoch, from the doorway, "I won't come in to dinner +jest now. Elbridge True's drove into the yard. I guess he's got it in +mind to talk it over about them cows. I don't want to lose the chance." + +"All right," answered Amelia. She took her seat again, while Enoch's +footsteps went briskly out through the shed. With the clanging of the +door, she felt secure. If she had to deal with Josiah Pease, she could +do it better alone, clutching at the certainty that was with her from +of old, that, if you could only keep your temper with cousin Josiah, +you had one chance of victory. Flame out at him, and you were lost. +"Some more potatoes?" asked she, with a deceptive calm. + +"Don't care if I do," returned Josiah, selecting greedily, his fork +hovering in air. "Little mite watery, ain't they? Dig 'em yourself?" + +"We dug 'em," said Amelia coldly. + +Rosie stepped down from her chair, unnoticed. To Amelia, she was then +no bigger than some little winged thing flitting about the room in time +of tragedy. Our greatest emotions sometimes stay unnamed. At that +moment, Amelia was swayed by as tumultuous a love as ever animated +damsel of verse or story; but it merely seemed to her that she was an +ill-used woman, married to a man for whom she was called on to be +ashamed. Rosie tiptoed into the entry, put on her little shawl and +hood, and stole out to play in the corn-house. When domestic squalls +were gathering, she knew where to go. The great outdoors was safer. Her +past had taught her that. + +"Don't like to eat with folks, does he? Well, it's all in what you're +brought up to." + +Amelia was ready with her counter-charge. "Have some tea?" + +She poured it as if it were poison, and Josiah became conscious of her +tragic self-control. + +"You ain't eat a thing," said he, with an ostentatious kindliness. He +bent forward a little, with the air of inviting a confidence. "Got +suthin' on your mind, ain't you, 'Melia?" he whispered. "Kind o' +worried? Find he's a drinkin' man?" + +Amelia was not to be beguiled, even by that anger which veils itself as +justice. She looked at him steadily, with scorching eyes. + +"You ain't took any sugar," said she. "There 't is, settin' by you. +Help yourself." + +Josiah addressed himself to his tea, and then Amelia poured him another +cup. She had some fierce satisfaction in making it good and strong. It +seemed to her that she was heartening her adversary for the fray, and +she took pleasure in doing it effectually. So great was the spirit +within her that she knew he could not be too valiant, for her keener +joy in laying him low. Then they rose from the table, and Josiah took +his old place by the stove, while Amelia began carrying the dishes to +the sink. Her mind was a little hazy now; her next move must depend on +his, and cousin Josiah, somewhat drowsy from his good dinner, was not +at once inclined to talk. Suddenly he raised his head snakily from +those sunken shoulders, and pointed a lean finger to the window. + +"'Melia!" cried he sharply. "I'll be buttered if he ain't been and +traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin' to stan' there an' let +them two cows go?" + +Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked +out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her +two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She +walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together +in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and +send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from +the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his +arms. + +"Here's your coat," said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. +"Stan' up, an' I'll help you put it on." + +Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous +that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight. + +"I was in hopes he'd harness up"--he began, but she ruthlessly cut him +short. + +"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes +round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There +they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' +this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown +up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she +was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, +but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in +the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, +Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his +usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, +and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!" + +He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was +nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia +realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for +despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't +you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,--egg an' bird!" She +closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went +back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor +and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that +moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had +resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time +itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his +voice jarred upon her tingling nerves. + +"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've +made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I +eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it." + +Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her +conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an +unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else. + +"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my +cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what +you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man +who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions +neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was +there. + +"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!" + +Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew +sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed +themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which +left her no will save that of speaking. + +"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say +once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' +things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours." + +Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was +almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by +his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest +patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind +anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had +too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose +anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. +"There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp." + +Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she +could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he +turned away from her, and went over to the bench. + +"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still +voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer +pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical +way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the +bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled +machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the +stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those +moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came +back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of +his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and +broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke +to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face. + +"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new +cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the +worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' +I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, +an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so +than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. +You've been good to me,--better 'n anybody ever was in the world." + +She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the +door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and +then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, +to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking +vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart +hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh. + +"Well," said Amelia, "_that's_ over. I'll wash my dishes now." + +Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly +about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped +her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet +her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little +imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten +the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all +her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia +stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah +Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean +forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she +realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train +where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child +behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to +the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste +to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of +welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, +and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path +toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into +the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of +the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, +still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish +color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of +their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that +moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth +which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least +against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient +fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about +Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while +she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve. + +"You cold?" asked she--"_dear_?" But she told herself it was a kiss of +farewell. + +She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and +took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded +root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only +tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those +without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying +forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She +would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; +nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would +drop the child at his side,--the child he had deserted,--and before he +could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, +she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if +she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of +her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come +chokingly. + +"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down +at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry." + +At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her +feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband +running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but +Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes +feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great +despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of +patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles +under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all +the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not +stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming +upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his +shoulders, and laid her wet face to his. + +"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with +me!" + +She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and +very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a +whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for +Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her." + +He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her +hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could +wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze +fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet +cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and +she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," +she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything +ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew." + +"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance +had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away +while she still suffered. + +Amelia began, stumblingly,-- + +"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it." + +"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly. + +"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. +But--Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off--Enoch"--Her voice +fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to +analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb +things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. +The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must +die. + +He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away. + +"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I +couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the +woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about +the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the +beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"-- + +Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly +argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from +her and left her young. + +"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've +got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more +than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all +your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between +us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you +now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you +go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep +upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, +in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a +sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the +candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him. + +"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked. + +"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could +not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous +judgment. + +"S'pose I don't ask you?" + +"I'll foller on behind." + +"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?" + +She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head. + +"No." + +"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?" + +"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly. + +Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you +look up here." + +She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, +but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which +she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, +and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his +arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a +man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more +bitter tears. + +"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about +the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie." + +Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her +as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking +the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before +they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and +their hearts beat together. + +"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, +but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have +her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I +know that now. You're all there is in the world." + +When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there +with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and +soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing +her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the +word his wife might wish. + +"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't +tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me +go over it"-- + +"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, +and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their +tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door +only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she +threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?" + +He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and +then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he +made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught. + +"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of +'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference +whose they be. But as to lyin'"-- + +"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?" + +"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held +each other's hands. + +"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped +together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You +blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs." + + + + +THE MORTUARY CHEST + + +"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down +an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the +country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she +spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't +git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter +miss for a good deal." + +Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. +They also remarked that her nose was as pickèd as a pin, and that +anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You +could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme +acuteness, and tried to live up to it. + +"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page +comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had +contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the +letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp +on in the mornin'." + +By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, +a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East +Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the +pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the +midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum +of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store +for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of +sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an +exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of +the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with +ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. +One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she +meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according +to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, +and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly +rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son +Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, +she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of +paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had +smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast +glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great +forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand +wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth +had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service +that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown +back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease. + +"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an +informal preliminary. + +"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before +the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt +went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood +an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! +she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days." + +"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was +one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd +ruther live with a born fool." + +"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron +(recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad +as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' +a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' +we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish +to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about +news, but she won't lend." + +"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively +practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. +"Got all the water you want?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been +sence November." + +But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track. + +"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she +asked. + +Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay +in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat +and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond +uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her +minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. +Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of +beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces. + +"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to +tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say +right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in +the paper, it ain't the kind you can." + +Tilly's eyes burned. + +"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now +don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never +in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for +himself." + +"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' +last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here +to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the +Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? +an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, +'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all +the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech +come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on +'t, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a +plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the +assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she +had done it. + +The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was +accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension. + +"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!" + +"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her +eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful +disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could +easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small +issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' +into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got +eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five +minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with +Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?" + +"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins +sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' +he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' +your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen." + +Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under +her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these +assured married women; it was always a little bracing. + +"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. +"Tickled to death, I s'pose?" + +"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding +finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has +been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate +the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, +and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and +no." + +"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the +party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna +Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. +Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was +passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he +felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out +kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to +take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it +ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been +the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't +take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, +'No, I thank you.'" + +"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked +Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and +proceeding to divide them. + +"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if +what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. +Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to +end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live +by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from +Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. +He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he +heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the +dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you +know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married +twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he +heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started." + +Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of +reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming +profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and +she continued:-- + +"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' +her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the +dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says +he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' +'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'" + +There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt +the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be +indefinitely prolonged. + +"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she +is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?" + +"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' +her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as +old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible +class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young +thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, +when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton +wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' +his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at +his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, +'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two +darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted +up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, +afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' +whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson +over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was +growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but +he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, +by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, +'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, +an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says +he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'" + +Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others +laughed out rich and free. + +"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who +never forgot the main issue. + +"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em +straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the +tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, +an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he +couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says +he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn." + +"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll +marry him?" + +"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll +think she's got to." + +"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with +everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her +sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two +girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's +got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take +lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd +let her alone." + +"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our +sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a +mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time +we've had oysters over our way." + +"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured +veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'." + +"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't +foller." + +"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said +the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring +at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over +in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music." + +"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. +"If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!" + +"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. +We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' +cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's +Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to +Saltash." + +Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and +went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in +passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their +guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She +was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft +brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, +if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop +beauty in middle life. + +The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their +faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, +who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by +the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with +dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but +something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his +people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes +rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached +the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at +her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all +through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing +down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her +sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road. + +The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry +twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who +had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. +Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before +the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a +blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the +snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew +her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it. + +"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must +hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow." + +The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child +carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces +lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, +while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from +within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly +banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful +frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and +the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore +her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them +back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag. + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. +When did you rain down?" + +"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing +into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' +I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out +to do it." + +"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into +the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I +put on coal in the morning, and then again at night." + +"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it +with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under +the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?" + +Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other +side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits. + +"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm +going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm +having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and +live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died." + +"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a +glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen +'d feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she +was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' +there 't is!" + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a +chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, +half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest. + +"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist." + +"Whose?" + +"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd +triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not +at once apparent. + +"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it. + +"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have +you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I +feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, +an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I +guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up +attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, +an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence." + +"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh. + +"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't +was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but +it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a +great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther +go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more +'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved +suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this +chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' +smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the +very next week she was took away." + +"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? +Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?" + +"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past +an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. +She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must +think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll +open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, +'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't +was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the +chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it +to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a +sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! +Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she +never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, +I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' +she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off +downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her +work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to +harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, +an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but +what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. +John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't +a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went +to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been +meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a +new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?" + +"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why +you care." + +Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief. + +"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's +al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. +There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest +as soon open it?" + +Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. +She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned +over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment +the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room. + +"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of +saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a +whisper:-- + +"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think." + +"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself +with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's +that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no +need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!" + +Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped +handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my +dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The +broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" + +"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep +that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a +little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's +lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take +out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly +believe it." + +Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an +old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, +"'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, +"there's no back breadth!" + +"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for +fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a +real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back +breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most +sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" + +It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. + +"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt +Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza +was a horror!" + +"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a +chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we +can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn +bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's +cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' +Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're +marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I +bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up +and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with +unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. +"There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as +soon burn 'em?" + +"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I +will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; +perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then." + +She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer +gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still +remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on +her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, +though the tears had gone from her face. + +"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you +do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my +things." + +Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, +whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living. + +"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts +back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' +along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks +he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I +git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so +spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and +Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse +and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent +forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to +say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it." + +Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's +anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"-- + +Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. +"Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But +there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country +road to the music of old-fashioned bells. + +Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about +preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with +a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which +nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, +the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any +domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well +as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never +consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the +night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the +table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, +uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic +sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, +as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and +over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment +of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried +again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human +power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, +conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon +the table with indignant emphasis. + +"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate +repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix +her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her +beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in +reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion +also, and take away her wicked facility. + +The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper +had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had +quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the +chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was +wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things +to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's +awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a +certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the +remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the +accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at +that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. +Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the +side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton +could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel +always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed +upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much +she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible +attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut +undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in +it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his +office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how +could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, +to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began +casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing +current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the +foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have +laughed hysterically. + +"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out +the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me +on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I +said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why +couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the +dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the +tone she sought. + +He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the +sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She +had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and +pulled out the black dress. + +"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking +as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you +don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!" + +The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting +on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the +leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed +the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow +from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent +care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and +smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She +blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, +schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to +remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her +upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door. + +"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," +but the words stuck in his throat. + +"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home." + +The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with +benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he +expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her +also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated. + +"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied +on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly +she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were +dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice +is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A +merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with +decision: "Won't you come in?" + +The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede +him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside. + +"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door." + +He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin +his shawl. + +"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering +with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, +within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear +up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in +to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more +faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'--not a mite." + +The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously +removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she +thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, +for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they +looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was +safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, +"'I have thee on the hip!'" + +The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making +parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened +conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:-- + +"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did +you say?" + +She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her +voice. + +"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took +up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that +lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he +bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, +'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'" + +The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old +lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious. + +"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"--he began, but +he was interrupted without compunction. + +"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother +married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. +By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're +writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so +I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her +own aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'" + +Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had +shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and +peered at his hostess. + +"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively. + +"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic +than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her +sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she +leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!" + +"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!" + +Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of +itself into her voice. + +"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I +thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house +upside down inside of a week." + +The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to +say something, and thought better of it. + +"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies +take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution +lessons"-- + +"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as +if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' +of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or +take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know." + +The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment. + +"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in +Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?" + +"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's +the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how +a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale +o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I +heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week +was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the +'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in +Missouri, an' here I be." + +"I hope you will be able to remain." + +"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was +losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here +to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But +Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and +she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown +herself!") + +"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson +courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old +lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I +could do anything towards finding her"-- + +"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as +she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could +do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should +be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the +neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't +speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got +enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the +keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed +enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel +for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the +necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious +me! What's that?" + +A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, +amazed at her agitation. + +"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?" + +"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her +cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the +parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There +came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in +front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim +twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself +before the door. + +"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say." + +Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be +mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea +speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped +forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl. + +"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?" + +Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to +herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the +parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate. + +"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove +and be calm--be calm!" + +Isabel was overcome anew. + +"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let +me be!" + +She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. +Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she +called. + +"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the +door." + +"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she +continued. "Only a minute!" + +She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. +The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey +in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to +be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it. + +"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take +off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" +Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile. + +"Isabel!" gasped the parson. + +"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!" + +The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the +mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue +chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss +me the shawl. Now if you say one word--Oh, parson, if you only will +keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And +leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door. + +"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want +greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face +and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so +small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life +with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the +sitting-room. "Sadie here?" + +The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was +peering down into her face. + +"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed. + +The little woman looked up at him--very sadly, Isabel thought. + +"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she +did not offer to shake hands. + +Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and +aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on +the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt +followed her. + +"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the +things?" + +"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No." + +"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into +the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and +aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers +are," she said. "Lamp smoke?" + +Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her +aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt +as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing +awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed +her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair. + +"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over +with you." + +The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they +trembled, and he clasped his hands instead. + +"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began. + +"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece +needed me." + +Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. +She began crying angrily into her handkerchief. + +"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?" + +"Yes," sobbed the girl. + +"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel +better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's +anything for you to do." + +Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat +mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the +clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew +his nose vigorously. + +"Mary Ellen"--he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you +so!" + +"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She +was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and +laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He +remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking +intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing +makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are." + +"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do _not_! And you +don't look so." + +"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the +only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones." + +The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and +bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own. + +"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but +Isabel looks like you!" + +She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything +they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't +see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father +said." + +"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've +always thought so, ever since she was a little girl." + +"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle +calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her +eyes. I believe they were black." + +"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never +were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly." + +Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! +But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a +little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been +hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made +town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after +her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you +was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked +out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim +harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you +should make a mistake at your time of life!" + +The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in +his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him +through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the +woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel +like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, +looking at her with something piteous in his air. + +"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I +did make one. You know it, and I know it." + +She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, +William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've +passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no +shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to +break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about +her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a +shame to put her there." + +The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and +sad lines of recollection deepened in his face. + +"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. +Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a +minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" +"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her +chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of +tears forbidden to fall. + +"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence +roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but +you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all +times." + +"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember." + +"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I +was a minister, and my girl--the girl that was going to marry me--sat +down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of +you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my +life, just that way." + +Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged +face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other +in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white +a good deal." + +But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he +broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing +his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial +one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you +remember what he said?" + +"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The +corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender. + +"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art +fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think +of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was +in a garden--always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that +summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been +a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down +where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the +Church, but do all I could, it was a girl--or an angel!" + +"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty. + +"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped +sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. +But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just +how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles +pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the +dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd +got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. +And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, +though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his +hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a +doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. _This one's about a girl_. You +might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'" + +The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of +memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile. + +"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember." + +"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I +could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the +sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what +came afterwards--I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have +brought me nearer to you." + +It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted +herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face. + +"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on +us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you +just as lieves tell me?" + +She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone +brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes. + +"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,--no, +nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given +to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I +don't know what tale was carried to you"-- + +"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give +you a chance!" + +"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I +took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants +to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so." + +The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal. + +"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let +me _be_ a fool?" + +She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all +their sting. + +"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things +like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I +read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out +of poor little Isabel." + +The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel. + +"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and +unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: +'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as +soon as I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and +I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that +belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with +her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a +finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm +going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every +time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened +her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but +I'm glad now!" + +The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the +smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her +glasses and walked over to the chest. + +"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it +ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my +courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a +knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by." + +The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged +people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the +broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When +they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen +looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard. + +"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up." + +The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a +folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. +The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out +and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as +we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, +wiping his glasses, looked also. + +"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And +that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her. + +"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little +trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it +gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your +mother's?" + +She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at +once:-- + +"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas +with you." + +She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other. + +"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it +here. Just take it away with you." + +The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his +youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned +the pages, a smile coming now and then. + +"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,--"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He +murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, +shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a +sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And +the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled. + +The woman was the first to turn away. + +"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. +We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we +ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of +other people--them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?" + +The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in +buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she +did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness +in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson +put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over +it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned. + +"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the +sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?" + +She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at +all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil +the truth. + +"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I +took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!" + +"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind +him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the +horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was +opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk. + +"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice. + +"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to +leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; +"Isabel!" + +She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up +in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen. + +"Parson,"--forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his +knee,--"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, +please? I can't explain it"-- + +"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't +try to. I guess I made you nervous." + +"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the +parson drove away. + +Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, +where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had +her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that +the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary +Ellen had looked when she was young. + +"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron +to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief." + + + + +HORN O' THE MOON + + +If you drive along Tiverton Street, and then turn to the left, down the +Gully Road, you journey, for the space of a mile or so, through a +bewildering succession of damp greenery, with noisy brooks singing +songs below you, on either side, and the treetops on the level with +your horse's feet. Few among the older inhabitants ever take this +drive, save from necessity, because it is conceded that the dampness +there is enough, even in summer, to "give you your death o' cold;" and +as for the young, to them the place wears an eerie look, with its +miniature suggestion of impassable gulfs and roaring torrents. Yet no +youth reaches his majority without exploring the Gully. He who goes +alone is the more a hero; but even he had best leave two or three +trusty comrades reasonably near, not only to listen, should he call, +but to stand his witnesses when he afterwards declares where he has +been. It is a fearsome thing to explore that lower stratum of this +round world, so close to the rushing brook that it drowns your +thoughts, though not your apprehensions, and to go slipping about over +wet boulders and among dripping ferns; but your fears are fears of the +spirit. They are inherited qualms. You shiver because your grandfathers +and fathers and uncles have shivered there before you. If you are very +brave indeed, and naught but the topmost round of destiny will content +you, possibly you penetrate still further into green abysses, and come +upon the pool where, tradition says, an ancient trout has his +impregnable habitation. Apparently, nobody questions that the life of a +trout may be indefinitely prolonged, under the proper conditions of a +retired dusk; and the same fish that served our grandfathers for a +legend now enlivens our childish days. When you meet a youngster, +ostentatiously setting forth for the Gully Road, with bait-box and +pole, you need not ask where he is going; though if you have any human +sympathy in the pride of life, you will not deny him his answer:-- + +"Down to have a try for the old trout!" + +The pool has been still for many years. Not within the memory of aged +men has the trout turned fin or flashed a speckled side; but he is to +this day an historical present. He has lived, and therefore he lives +always. + +Those who do not pause upon the Gully Road, but keep straight on into +the open, will come into the old highway leading up and up to Horn o' +the Moon. It is an unshaded, gravelly track, pointing duly up-hill for +three long miles; and it has become a sober way to most of us, in this +generation: for we never take it unless we go on the solemn errand of +getting Mary Dunbar, that famous nurse, to care for our sick or dead. +There is a tradition that a summer visitor once hired a "shay," and +drove, all by herself, up to Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive +splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by +the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated +with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to +lean on the fence, and call excitedly,-- + +"Where ye goin'?" + +"Horn o' the Moon," replied she, having learned in Tiverton the value +of succinct replies. + +"Who's sick?" + +"Nobody." + +"Got any folks up there?" + +"No. Going to see the place." + +The effect of this varied. Some looked in amazement; one ventured to +say, "Well, that's the beater!" and another dropped into the cabalistic +remark which cannot be defined, but which has its due significance, +"Well, you _must_ be sent for!" The result of all this running +commentary was such that, when the visitor reached the top of the hill +where Horn o' the Moon lies, encircled by other lesser heights, she was +stricken by its exceeding desolation, and had no heart to cast more +than a glance at the noble view below. She turned her horse, and +trotted, recklessly and with many stumblings, down again into friendly +Tiverton. + +Horn o' the Moon is unique in its melancholy. It has so few trees, and +those of so meagre and wind-swept a nature, that it might as well be +entirely bald. No apples grow there; and in the autumn, the inhabitants +make a concerted sally down into Tiverton Street, to purchase their +winter stock, such of them as can afford it. The poorer folk--and they +are all poor enough--buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so +common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds +this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to +remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, +to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. + +There is very little grass at the top of the lonely height, and that of +a husky, whispering sort, in thin ribbons that flutter low little songs +in the breeze. They never cease; for, at Horn o' the Moon, there is +always a wind blowing, differing in quality with the season. Sometimes +it is a sighing wind from other heights, happier in that they are sweet +with firs. Sometimes it is exasperating enough to make the March +breezes below seem tender; then it tosses about in snatching gusts, +buffeting, and slapping, and excoriating him who stands in its way. +Somehow, all the peculiarities of Horn o' the Moon seem referable, in a +mysterious fashion, to the wind. The people speak in high, strenuous +voices, striving to hold their own against its wicked strength. Most of +them are deaf. Is that because the air beats ceaselessly against the +porches of their ears? They are a stunted race; for they have grown +into the habit of holding the head low, and plunging forward against +that battling element. Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the +ordinary sort. Their feathers grow the wrong way, standing up in a +ragged and disorderly fashion; and they, too, have the effect of having +been blown about and disarranged, until nature yielded, and agreed to +their permanent roughness. + +Moreover, all the people are old or middle-aged; and possibly that is +why, again, the settlement is so desolate. It is a disgrace for us +below to marry with Horn o' the Mooners, though they are a sober folk; +and now it happens that everybody up there is the cousin of everybody +else. The race is dying out, we say, as if we considered it a distinct +species; and we agree that it would have been wiped away long ago, by +weight of its own eccentricity, had not Mary Dunbar been the making of +it. She is the one righteous among many. She is the good nurse whom we +all go to seek, in our times of trouble, and she perpetually saves her +city from the odium of the world. + +Mary was born in Tiverton Street. We are glad to remember that, we who +condemn by the wholesale, and are assured that no good can come out of +Nazareth. When she was a girl of eighteen, her father and mother died; +and she fell into a state of spiritual exaltation, wherein she dreamed +dreams, and had periods of retirement within her house, communing with +other intelligences. We said Mary had lost her mind; but that was +difficult to believe, since no more wholesome type of womanhood had +ever walked our streets. She was very tall, built on the lines of a +beauty transcending our meagre strain. Nobody approved of those broad +shoulders and magnificent arms. We said it was a shame for any girl to +be so overgrown; yet our eyes followed her, delighted by the harmony of +line and action. Then we whispered that she was as big as a moose, and +that, if we had such arms, we never'd go out without a shawl. Her +"mittins" must be wide enough for any man! + +Mary did everything perfectly. She walked as if she went to meet the +morning, and must salute it worthily. She carried a weight as a goddess +might bear the infant Bacchus; and her small head, poised upon that +round throat, wore the crown of simplicity, and not of pride. But we +only told how strong she was, and how much she could lift. We loved +Mary, but sensibility had to shrink from those great proportions and +that elemental strength. + +One snowy morning, Mary's spiritual vision called her out of our midst, +to which she never came back save as we needed her. The world was very +white that day, when she rose, in her still house, dressed herself +hastily, and roused a neighbor, begging him to harness, and drive her +up to Horn o' the Moon. Folks were sick there, with nobody to take care +of them. The neighbor reasoned, and then refused, as one might deny a +person, however beloved, who lives by the intuitions of an unseen +world. Mary went home again, and, as he believed, to stay. But she had +not hesitated in her allegiance to the heavenly voice. Somehow, through +the blinding snow and unbroken road, she ploughed her way up to Horn o' +the Moon, where she found an epidemic of diphtheria; and there she +stayed. We marveled over her guessing how keenly she was needed; but +since she never explained, it began to be noised abroad that some +wandering peddler told her. That accounted for everything; and Mary had +no time for talk. She was too busy, watching with the sick, and going +about from house to house, cooking delicate gruels and broiling chicken +for those who were getting well. It is said that she even did the barn +work, and milked the cows, during that tragic time. We were not +surprised. Mary was a great worker, and she was fond of "creatur's." + +Whether she came to care for these stolid people on the height, or +whether the vision counseled her, Mary gave up her house in the +village, and bought a little old dwelling under an overhanging +hillside, at Horn o' the Moon. It was a nest built into the rock, its +back sitting snugly there. The dark came down upon it quickly. In +winter, the sun was gone from the little parlor as early as three +o'clock; but Mary did not mind. That house was her temporary shell; she +only slept in it in the intervals of hurrying away, with blessed feet, +to tend the sick, and hold the dying in untiring arms. I shall never +forget how, one morning, I saw her come out of the door, and stand +silent, looking toward the rosy east. There was the dawn, and there was +she, its priestess, while all around her slept. I should not have been +surprised had her lips, parted already in a mysterious smile, opened +still further in a prophetic chanting to the sun. But Mary saw me, and +the alert, answering look of one who is a messenger flashed swiftly +over her face. She advanced like the leader of a triumphal procession. + +"Anybody want me?" she called. "I'll get my bunnit." + +It was when she was twenty, and not more than settled in the little +house at Horn o' the Moon, that her story came to her. The Veaseys were +her neighbors, perhaps five doors away; and one summer morning, Johnnie +Veasey came home from sea. He brought no money, no coral from foreign +parts, nor news of grapes in Eshcol. He simply came empty-handed, as he +always did, bearing only, to vouch for his wanderings, a tanned face, +and the bright, red-brown eyes that had surely looked on things we +never saw. Adam Veasey, his brother; had been paralyzed for years. He +sat all day in the chimney corner, looking at his shaking hands, and +telling how wide a swathe he could cut before he was afflicted. Mattie, +Adam's wife, had long dealt with the problem of an unsupported +existence. She had turned into a flitting little creature with eager +eyes, who made it her business to prey upon a more prosperous world. +Mattie never went about without a large extra pocket attached to her +waist; into this, she could slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, +or even a loaf of bread. She laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and +the town below. Was there a frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No +sooner had the odor risen upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, +dumbly insistent on her toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it +was said that, in fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, +because of the hordes of insects settling here and there on her +odoriferous gown. When Johnnie Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in +arms. Their golden chance had come at last. + +"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and +Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that +he did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into +the wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new +folks. + +Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again, +and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him.. So she went over to +old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted, +according to her little best. + +Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had +brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He +described what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others +had known and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these +stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and +every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, +or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the +tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit +out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill +possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling +uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men +about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking +swiftly by, a basket in her hand. Johnnie came bolt upright, and took +off his cap. He looked amazingly young and fine, and Mary blushed as +she went by. + +"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers. + +"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved +up." + +Johnnie watched her walking away, for the rhythm of her motion +attracted him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that. + +It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys', +where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; +and while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman +for her dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange +lands. It seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were +such lands in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt +out her old geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed +rivers to their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. +She was seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast. + +Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in +the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey +would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of +the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had +simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from +her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after +her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her +own bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but +one first question for every comer:-- + +"Anybody sick?" + +"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. +"I want to tell you how things stand." + +It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an +exposition of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress +came to the tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella +Hardy, who had died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no +matter, for the enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, +concealed that youthful eccentricity. Her shoes--congress, with +world-weary elastics at the side--were her own, inherited from an aunt; +and her bonnet was a rusty black, with a mourning veil. There was, at +that time, but one new bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had +sighed, when Mattie proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed +nobody'd want anything that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant +sought out Mrs. Pillsbury, whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief +season of prosperity, nine years before, had become, in a manner, +village property. It was as duly in public requisition as the hearse; +and its owner cherished a melancholy pride in this official state. She +never felt as if she owned it,--only that she was the keeper of a +sacred trust; and Mattie, in asking for it, knew that she demanded no +more than her due, as a citizen should. It was an impersonal matter +between her and the bonnet; and though she should wear it on a secular +errand, the veil did not signify. She knew everybody else knew whose +bonnet it was; and that if anybody supposed she had met with a loss, +they had only to ask, and she to answer. So, in the consciousness of an +armor calculated to meet the world, she skillfully brought her congress +boots into Mary's kitchen, and sat down, her worn little hands clasped +under the shawl. + +"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's +happened to Johnnie?" + +Mary rose, a hand upon her chair. + +"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so--ready +to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!" + +Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of +those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and +sugared again. + +"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as +some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been +gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, +neither,--down the ledge. I dunno how he done it--he climbs like a +cat--seems as if the Old Boy was in it--but half his body he can't +move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's." + +Mary listened gravely; her hands on her knees. + +"How long's he been so?" + +"Nigh on to five weeks." + +"Had the doctor?" + +"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there +ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An' +I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him +in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the +heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the +selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no +money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I +can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down +to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along +down." + +"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes." + +"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that +last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in +bed, an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to know if you +wouldn't run in, long towards noon, an' warm up suthin' for 'em." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mary Dunbar. "I'll be there." + +She rose, and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she +must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had +already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading +carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her +way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to scurry and gather. + +Mary looked hastily about the room, to see if its perfect order needed +a farewell touch; and then she drank her cup of tea, and stepped out +into the morning. The air was fresh and sweet. She wore no shawl, and +the wind lifted the little brown rings on her forehead, and curled them +closer. Mary held a hand upon them, and hurried on. She had no more +thought of appearances than a woman in a desert land, or in the desert +made by lack of praise; for she knew no one looked at her. To be clean +and swift was all her life demanded. + +Adam sat by the stove, where the ashes were still warm. It was not a +day for fires, but he loved his accustomed corner. He was a middle-aged +man, old with the suffering which is not of years, and the pathos of +his stricken state hung about him, from his unkempt beard to the dusty +black clothing which had been the Tiverton minister's outworn suit. One +would have said he belonged to the generation before his brother. + +"That you, Mary?" he asked, in his shaking voice. "Now, ain't that +good? Come to set a spell?" + +"Where is he?" responded Mary, in a swift breathlessness quite new to +her. + +"In there. We put up a bed in the clock-room." + +It was the unfinished part of the house. The Veaseys had always meant +to plaster, but that consummation was still afar. The laths showed +meagrely; it was a skeleton of a room,--and, sunken in the high +feather-bed between the two windows, lay Johnnie Veasey, his buoyancy +all gone, his face quite piteous to see, now that its tan had faded. +Mary went up to the bedside, and laid one cool, strong hand upon his +wrist. His eyes sought her with a wild entreaty; but she knew, although +he seemed to suffer, that this was the misery of delirium, and not the +conscious mind. Adam had come trembling to the door, and stood there, +one hand beating its perpetual tattoo upon the wall. Mary looked up at +him with that abstracted gaze with which we weigh and judge. + +"He's feverish," said she. "Mattie didn't tell me that. How long's he +been so?" + +"I dunno. I guess a matter o' two days." + +"Two days?" + +"Well, it might be off an' on ever sence he fell." Adam was helpless. +He depended upon Mattie, and Mattie was not there. + +"What did the doctor leave?" + +Adam looked about him. "'T was the Herb doctor," he said. "He had her +steep some trade in a bowl." + +Mary Dunbar drew her hand away, and walked two or three times up and +down the bare, bleak room. The seeking eyes were following her. She +knew how little their distended agony might mean; but nevertheless they +carried an entreaty. They leaned upon her, as the world, her sick +world, was wont to lean. Mary was, in many things, a child; but her +attitude had grown to be maternal. Suddenly she turned to Adam, where +he stood, shaking and hesitating, in the doorway. + +"You goin' to send him off?" + +"Pears as if that's the only way," shuffled Adam. + +"To-day?" + +"Well, I dunno 's they'll come"-- + +Mary walked past him, her mind assured. + +"There, that'll do," said she. "You set down in your corner. I'll be +back byme-by." + +She hurried out into the bleak world which was her home, and, at that +moment, it looked very fair and new. The birds were singing, loudly as +they ever sang up here where there were few leaves to nest in. Mary +stopped an instant to listen, and lifted her face wordlessly to the +clear blue sky. It seemed as if she had been given a gift. There, +before one of the houses, she called aloud, with a long, lingering +note, "Jacob!" and Jacob Pease rose from; his milking-stool, and came +forward. Jacob was tall and snuff-colored, a widower of three years' +standing. There was a theory that he wanted Mary, and lacked the +courage to ask her. + +"That you, Mary Dunbar?" said he. "Anything on hand?" + +"I want you to come and help me lift," answered Mary. + +Jacob set down his milk pail, and followed her into the Veaseys' +kitchen. She drew out the tin basin, and filled it at the sink. + +"Wash your hands," said she. "Adam, you set where you generally do. +You'll be in the way." + +Jacob followed her into the sick-room, and Adam weakly shuffled in +behind. + +"For the land's sake!" he began, but Mary was at the head of the bed, +and Jacob at the foot. + +"I'll carry his shoulders," she said, in the voice that admits no +demur. "You take his feet and legs. Sort o' fold the feather-bed up +round him, or we never shall get him through the door." + +"Which way?" asked Jacob, still entirely at rest on a greater mind. + +"Out!" commanded Mary,--"out the front door." + +Adam, in describing that dramatic moment, always declared that nobody +but Mary Dunbar could have engineered a feather-bed through the narrow +passage, without sticking midway. He recalled an incident of his +boyhood when, in the Titcomb fire, the whole family had spent every +available instant before the falling of the roof, in trying to push the +second-best bed through the attic window, only to leave it there to +burn. But Mary Dunbar took her patient through the doorway as Napoleon +marched over the Alps; she went with him down the road toward her own +little house under the hill. Only then did Adam, still shuffling on +behind, collect his intelligence sufficiently to shout after her,-- + +"Mary, what under the sun be you doin' of? What you want me to tell +Mattie? S'pose she brings the selec'men, Mary Dunbar!" + +She made no reply, even by a glance. She walked straight on, as if her +burden lightened, and into her own cave-like house and her little neat +bedroom. + +"Lay him down jest as he is," she said to Jacob. "We won't try to shift +him to-day. Let him get over this." + +Jacob stretched himself, after his load, put his hands in his pockets, +and made up his mouth into a soundless whistle. + +"Yes! well!" said he. "Guess I better finish milkin'." + +Mary put her patient "to-rights," and set some herb drink on the back +of the stove. Presently the little room was filled with the steamy odor +of a bitter healing, and she was on the battlefield where she loved to +conquer. In spite of her heaven-born instinct, she knew very little +about doctors and their ways of cure. Earth secrets were hers, some of +them inherited and some guessed at, and luckily she had never been +involved in those greater issues to be dealt with only by an exalted +science. Later in her life, she was to get acquainted with the young +doctor, down in Tiverton Street, and hear from him what things were +doing in his world. She was to learn that a hospital is not a slaughter +house incarnadined with writhing victims, as some of us had thought. +She was even to witness the magic of a great surgeon; though that was +in her old age, when her attitude toward medicine had become one of +humble thankfulness that, in all her daring, she had done no harm. +To-day, she thought she could set a bone or break up a fever; and there +was no doubt in her mind that, if other deeds were demanded of her, she +should be led in the one true way. So she sat down by her patient, and +was watching there, hopeful of moisture on his palm, when Mattie broke +into the front room, impetuous as the wind. Mary rose and stepped out +to meet her, shutting the door as she went. Passing the window, she saw +the selectmen, in the vehicle known as a long-reach, waiting at the +gate. + +"Hush, Mattie!" said she, "you'll wake him." + +Mattie, in her ill-assorted respectabilities of dress, seemed to have +been involved but recently in some bacchanalian orgie. Her shawl was +dragged to one side, and her bonnet sat rakishly. She was intoxicated +with her own surprise. + +"Mary Dunbar!" cried she, "I'd like to know the meanin' of all this +go-round!" + +"There!" answered Mary, with a quietude like that of the sea at ebb, "I +can't stop to talk. I'll settle it with the selec'men. You come, too." + +Mattie's eyes were seeking the bedroom. Leave her alone, and her feet +would follow. "You come along," repeated Mary, and Mattie came. + +When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little +slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer +Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous +cough. Lothrop Wilson, mild by nature, and rather prone to whiffling in +times of difficulty, frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only +because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, +let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself +in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated +warfare, and were nervously conscious, that, should they fail in +firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the +wagon, and laid one hand upon the wheel. + +"I've got John Veasey in my house," she began rapidly. "I can't stop to +talk. He's pretty sick." + +Ebenezer cleared his throat again. + +"We understood his folks had put him on the town," said he. + +Mattie made a little eager sound, and then stopped. + +"He ain't on the town yet," said Mary. "He's in my bedroom. An' there +he's goin' to stay. I've took this job." She turned away from them, +erect in her decision, and went up the path. Eli Pike looked after her, +with an understanding sympathy. He was the man who had walked two +miles, one night, to shoot a fox, trapped, and left there helpless with +a broken leg. Lothrop gazed straight ahead, and said nothing. + +"Look here!" called Ebenezer. "Mary! Mary! you look here!" + +Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and +dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but +still the public purse must be regarded. + +"You can't bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he's on the +town, he'll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest." + +Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he +remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on." + +But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the +door in vain. + +"My land!" she ejaculated, "if she ain't bolted it!" So the nurse and +her patient were left to themselves. + +As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton. +At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor +came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of +violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the +case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do +not know; tradition was quite voluble. + +It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those +days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, +setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets +for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the +door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his +knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. +The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a +dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; +but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, +delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he +came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a +listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where +the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors +called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted +no appeal. + +"I've got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway +confronting them. "He's too weak to see anybody; I guess I won't ask +you in." + +But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing +painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon +as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind +her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust +of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and +very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on +the step. + +"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't +have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day." + +The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his +dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand. + +"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had +hoped to see him." + +Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers. + +"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to +pray by ourselves." + +The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the +slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which +his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined +upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair. + +"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar +stand." + +Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient +breathing, and her mind was with him. + +"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim +on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going +to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to +get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be +respected,--though only in a measure." + +Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him. + +"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!" + +"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married." + +Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced +round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess +you better go now. Good-day." + +She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his +wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk +with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better. + +But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into +sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, +heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung +her way, she marveled at it. + +The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, +the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late +that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull +weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all +beat out," for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to +have an early supper at five. + +"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I'd do it, an' I have. There +ain't a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an' folks that want you +to go nussin' have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very +afternoon, 'I'll be whipped if I don't git in an' see what's goin' on!' +There's some will have it Johnnie's got well, an' drove away without +saying good-by to his own folks, an' some say he ain't likely to live, +an' there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the +childern, they've got an idea suthin' 's been done to uncle Johnnie, +an' you can't mention him but they cry." + +Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn't +mention him, then," said she. + +A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. +Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the +lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight +of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His +face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming. + +"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She +always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don't +know what it was,--but _I can move_!" + +He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood +looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet +a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes. + +"I'll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want +to see her?" + +"For God's sake, no! not till I'm on my feet." He was still laughing. +"I guess I can get up to-morrow." + +Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. + +"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in +to-morrer. I shouldn't wonder if he'd be up then." + +"I told Adam"--began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little +arm, and held it there. + +"I'd rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don't you come in before +'leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your +brother'll be gettin' away before long." She opened the outer door, and +Mattie had no volition but to go. "It's a nice night, ain't it?" called +Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many +stars." + +Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and +exactitude prepared her patient's supper. He was sitting upright, +bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great +mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize. + +"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can't get up to-morrow? Why, I could +walk!" + +They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that +afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie +talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what +he meant to do when he got into the world again. + +"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam +put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again." + +"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for +more 'n two years. It's my business." + +Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak. + +"What you goin' to ask?" + +Mary started. Then she answered steadily-- + +"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have +ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn't talk no more, +even if you are well. I've got to wash these dishes." + +She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did +they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he +was flat among his pillows, listening for her. + +"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn't unless you want to; but +if ever I earn another cent of money, you'll see. And I ain't the only +friend you've got. There's a girl down in Southport would do anything +in the world for you, if she only knew." + +Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse's +cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a +wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his +breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh +way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of +gratitude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out +whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he +must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had +done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and +perhaps he remembered the message too coldly. + +When Mattie came over, that afternoon, to make her call, she found the +house closed. Mary had gone on foot down into Tiverton, where old Mrs. +Lamson, who was sick with a fever, lay still in need. It was many weeks +before she came home again to Horn o' the Moon; and then Grandfather +Sinclair had broken his leg, so that interest in her miracle became +temporarily inactive. + +Two years had gone when there came to her a little package, through the +Tiverton mail. It was tied with the greatest caution, and directed in a +straggling hand. Mary opened it just as she struck into the Gully Road, +on her way home. Inside was a little purse, and three gold pieces. She +paused there, under the branches, the purse in one hand, and the gold +lying within her other palm. For a long time she stood looking at them, +her face set in that patient sadness seen in those whose only holding +is the past. It was all over and done, and yet it had never been at +all. She thought a little about herself, and that was very rare, for +Mary. She was not the poorer for what her soul desired; she was +infinitely the richer, and she remembered the girl at Southport, not +with the pang that once afflicted her heart, but with a warm, +outrushing sense of womanly sympathy. If he had money, perhaps he could +marry. Perhaps he was married now. Coming out of the Gully Road, she +opened the purse again, and the sun struck richly upon the gold within. +Mary smiled a little, wanly, but still with a sense of the good, human +kinship in life. + +"I won't ever spend 'em," she said to herself. "I'll keep 'em to bury +me." + + + + +A STOLEN FESTIVAL + + +David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a +road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could +see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to +no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the +middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She +had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the +go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west, +she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'. + +The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in +love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray +eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which +America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something +superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic +responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how +the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her +after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not +to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a +vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which +move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of +aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to +understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried +to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; +but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes +brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she +spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know +that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had +never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but +that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There +had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her +husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of +the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of +a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living +beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but +entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of +birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much +under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green +was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond +it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of +violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey +blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange +memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on +the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon +her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his +neck. + +"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is +it, little child?" + +"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!" + +The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it +meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become +familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the +blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain +at her heart. + +Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in +front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to +market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes +forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily +belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled +roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked +up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon +her. + +"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked. + +Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there +was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The +world was a jewel newly set for her. + +"I _am_ nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin' +on? It's 'most a year since we were married,--a year the fifteenth." + +David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her. + +"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good +bargain. Best trade I ever made in _my_ life!" + +"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you +how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have +our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll +take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!" + +David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed +his lips. + +"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to +Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there +before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up +in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down; +an' if I wait for him to do it--well, you know what he is!" + +"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you +can!" + +"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it +is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm +awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!" + +Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one +heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was +not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was +only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put +great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would +be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love. + +David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist. + +"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the +same as another, now ain't it?" + +"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet +eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday +mornin'!" + +David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. +His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a +joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the +logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and +twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth. + +"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long +as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git +a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's +done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take +both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!" + +The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he +looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a +little and turned her face up to his--her rebellious eyes and unsteady +mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a +great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud. + +"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. _I_ don't +care!" + +These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or +tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish +concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She +had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention +and not the act. + +David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell. + +"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man +when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye +o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle." + +Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. +Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large +carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried +to feel resigned. + +"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the +day!" + +David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up +his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn. + +"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I +might as well stan' from under." + +Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, +clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress +boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep +affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like +process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile. + +"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find +yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody +must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', +an' git their best clo'es all over dirt." + +"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very +sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o' +folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous +scheme of life to live and let live. + +"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily. +"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up +here this mornin'?" + +Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped +hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't +know." + +"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis' +Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You +look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while +Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under +her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; +and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently +revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious +imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from +the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself. + +But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was +holding it out on the end of a knotted finger. + +"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your +engagement ring." + +Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an +involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave. + +"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?" + +"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye +lose it?" + +But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and +looked obstinate. + +"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily. +Debby was diverted, though only for the moment. + +"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and +giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want +_him_ to know of it?" + +"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation +disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do +you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?" + +"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little +consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day, +an' she says, 'Don't ye tell _him_!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a +pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for +'t after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if +ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you +want to know where I come on this ring?" + +Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned +she, turning about. "Where was it?" + +"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f +'t had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst +he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an' +she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to +show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank, +an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him +suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted +but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber." + +"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say +anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and +that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire +Hill. + +She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to +cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne +before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and +began packing its contents into the yawning bag. + +"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it. +And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late." + +Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a +kernel with a critical thumb. + +"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this +time o' year. Is that the pork?" + +It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth. + +"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the +bag. "There!" + +"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly. + +"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak +to David before he harnesses. Good-by!" + +In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn. + +"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly +about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's _I_ say!" And she made +no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the +barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him +I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and +the likelihood of its being properly diversified. + +Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and +laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and +inquired of him confidentially what was the matter. + +"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly. +"I've got to see you." + +David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty +precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs +and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, +"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?" + +David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed. + +"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he. + +Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically. + +"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There +ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em +'twas my engagement ring." + +David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He +could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency. + +"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture. + +"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a +ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd +have showed 'em." + +David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and, +though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town +blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was +condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him. + +"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a +new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. +It wasn't that I begrudged anything." + +"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't +was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have +'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I +bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue +handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give +'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I +always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the +comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a +little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring, +for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I +knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it +in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've +sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you +about the pork, and I--I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and +lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly, +and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair. +His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of +children over some grief not understood. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length. + +"When?" said Letty chokingly. + +"Then--when folks expected things--before we were married." + +"Oh, David, I couldn't!" + +"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't." + +Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump +hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and +stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm. + +"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring." + +Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to +wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?" + +"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't +you ever let me set eyes on it again!" + +David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened +it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do +me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each +other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt +them bitterer than if they had been his own. + +But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble +in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a +secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without +his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him +radiantly. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but +it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!" + +Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder. +He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like +swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So +he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a +singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy +again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven, +to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could +deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance--this +was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household +duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she +went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed +to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of +love. + +Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind +the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced, +into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a +breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the +house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an +unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound. +Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray, +and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes +by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her +wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as +he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, +from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the +child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then +she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, +that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of +blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist. + +But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the +barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal. + +"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about +that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty +dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd +ought to eat yours while't was hot." + +Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured +coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste, +and said good-by. + +"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone, +you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till +night." + +"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile +crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin' +to bring it to you." + +"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess +you won't!" + +"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to +hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm +comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the +butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time +to argue, went off to his work. + +About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was +a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face, +regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life +might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great +universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the +day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged +along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and +owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was +better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer +than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the +stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier +still. + +"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs +beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her. +"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn +and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her. + +"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and +walked on together through the shade. + +The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of +the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him; +then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment, +with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a +palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for +a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out +a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her +dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a +blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the +air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling +over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal, +Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine +white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes +deepened. + +"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?" + +Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in +her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. +David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed +the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate +her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him, +and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close. +He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry +light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while +Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when +her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her +wedding day. + +When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and +David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the +basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief +excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with +her weedy treasures. Once--was it something in the air?--he called to +her:-- + +"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were +married?" + +But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on +a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take +him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she +was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the +day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to +her that he should forget. + +"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the +kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star +Pond." + +After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and +then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest +moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor. + +"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your +little ring? It's right here in my pocket." + +"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again." + +"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other +day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make +a choice unless you was with me." + +Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break +in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you." + +David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief +about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from +one another, will we?" + +Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before +answering:-- + +"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!" + + + + +A LAST ASSEMBLING + + +This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, +was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed +to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing +instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to +carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did +happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen +again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily +and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing +harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her +life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of +human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great +delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore, +she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted +all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was +thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than +she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked +out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church +on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a +pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk +failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric +and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution: +to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led +direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy +to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take +him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived, +understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken +the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had +simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the +city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade. +He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for +ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee +the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again; +but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of +nature, but a simplicity quite different in kind. Jethro did not grow +rich very fast (uncle Silas saw to that), but he did prosper; and he +was ready to marry his girl long before she owned herself ready to +marry him. She took care of a succession of aged relatives, all +afflicted by a strange and interesting diversity of trying diseases; +and then, after the last death, she settled down, quite poor, in a +little house on the Tiverton Road, and "went out nussin'," the +profession for which her previous life had fitted her. With a careless +generosity, she made over to her brother the old farmhouse where they +were born, because he had a family and needed it. But he died, and was +soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with +the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for +them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take +him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of +faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. +She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the +old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without a cent; but +since he was coming for her, and she needn't go to Chicago alone, she +didn't know that there was anything to worry about. He would buy her +ticket. There was an ineffable simplicity about Dilly. She had no +respect whatever for money, save as a puzzling means to a few necessary +ends. And now the place had been sold, and Jethro was coming in a +month. Meanwhile Dilly was to pack up the few family effects she could +afford to keep, and the rest would go by auction. + +Little as she was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the +inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in +the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human +meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true +that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the +fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like +irresistible factors, and welded her to the universe anew. + +As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and +began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some +solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher, +and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the +throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black +hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an +assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a +gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed +by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this +case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to +go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward +garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink +flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody. +She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical +call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the +beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of +the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an +unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house, +since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding +drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the +stage. + +Her mind was peopled with figures. She thought of Jethro, too. He +seemed to be coming ever nearer and nearer. She could hear his tread +marching into her life, and could see his face. It was very moving, as +she remembered it. A long line of scholarly forbears had dowered him +with a refinement and grace quite startling in this unornamented spot, +and some old Acadian ancestor had lent him beauty. His eyes were dark, +and they held an unfathomable melancholy. The line of his forehead and +nose ran haughtily and yet delicate; and even after years of absence, +Dilly sometimes caught her breath when she thought of the way his head +was set upon his shoulders. She had never in her life seen a man or +woman who was entirely beautiful, and he saturated her longing like a +prodigal stream. + +She was a little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the +road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. +Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is +away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, +and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed +in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed +their broken branches, and were covered with little green buttons of +fruit. Dilly stopped to look about her, and her eyes filled. The tears +were hot; they hurt her, and so recalled her to the needs of life. + +"There!" she said, "I mustn't do so!"--and she walked straight forward +through the open shed, and fitted her key in the lock. The door sagged; +but she pushed it open and stepped in. The deserted kitchen lay there +in desolate order, and the old Willard clock slept upon the wall. Dilly +hastily pushed a chair before it (this was the only chair old Daniel +Joyce would allow the children to climb in) and wound the clock. It +began ticking slowly, with the old, remembered sound. Somehow it seemed +beautiful to Dilly that the clock should speak with the voice of all +those years agone; it was a kind of loyalty which appealed to the soul +like a piercing miracle. Then she ran through to the sitting-room, and +started the old eight-day in the corner; and the house breathed and was +alive again. She threw open the windows, all save those on the Dilloway +side (lest kindly neighbors should discover she was at home), and the +soft rose-scented air flooded the rooms like an invisible presence, and +bore out the smell of age upon gracious wings. Now, Dilly worked fast +and steadily, lest some human thing should come upon her. She tied up +bedclothes, and opened long-closed cupboards. She made careful piles of +clothing from the attic; and finally, her mind a little tired, she sat +down on the floor and began looking over papers and daguerreotypes from +her father's desk. Just as she had lost herself in the ancient history +of which they were the signs, there came a knock at the back door. So +assured had become her idea of a continued housekeeping, that the +summons did not seem in the least strange. The house lived again; it +had thrown open its arms to human kind. + +"Come in!" she called; and a light step sounded in the kitchen and +crossed the sill. It was a man, dark-eyed and very handsome. "Oh!" +murmured Dilly, catching her breath and holding both hands clasped upon +the papers in her lap. "Jethro!" + +The stranger was much moved, and his black eyes deepened. He looked at +her kindly, perhaps lovingly, too. "Yes," he said, at last. "So you'd +know me?" + +Dilly got lightly up, and the papers fell about her in a shower; yet +she made no motion toward him. "Oh, yes," she said softly, "I should +know you. You ain't changed at all." + +That was not true. He looked ten years older than his real age; yet +time had only dowered him with a finer grace and charm. All the lines +in his face were those of gentleness and truth. His mouth had the old +delicate curves. One meeting him that day might have said, with a throb +of involuntary homage, "How beautiful he must have been when he was +young!" But to Dilly he bore even a more subtile distinction than in +that far-away time; he had ripened into something harmonizing with her +own years. He came forward a little, and held out both hands; but Dilly +did not take them, and he dropped the left one. Then she laid her +fingers lightly in his, and they greeted each other like old +acquaintances. A flush rose in her smooth brown cheek. Her eyes grew +bright with that startled questioning which is of the woods. He looked +at her the more intently, and his breath quickened. She had none of the +blossomy charm of more robust womanhood; but he recognized the old +gypsy element which had once bewitched him, and felt he loved her +still. + +"Well," he said, and his voice shook a little, "are you glad to see +me?" + +Dilly moved back, and sat down in her mother's little sewing-chair by +the desk. "I don't know as I can tell," she answered. "This is a +strange day." + +Jethro nodded. "I meant to surprise you," he said. "So I never wrote I +was coming on so soon. I was real disappointed to find your house shut +up; but the neighbors told me where you'd gone, and what you'd gone +for. Then I walked over here." + +Dilly's face brightened all over with a responsive smile. "Did you come +through the woods?" she asked. "What made you?" + +"Why, I knew you'd go that way," he answered. "I thought you'd get +wool-gathering over some weed or another, and maybe I'd overtake you." + +They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and +gathered a drawer-full of papers into her apron. + +"I can't stop workin'," she said. "I want to fix it so's not to stay +here more 'n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run +'em over an' listen too." + +"I think 't was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom's folks," +said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as +if it were an omen, in her father's great chair. "Not that you'll ever +need it, Dilly. You won't want for a thing. I've done real well." + +Dilly's long fingers assorted papers and laid them at either side, with +a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the +quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to +its habits. + +"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I +did--why, I'd resk it!" + +Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, +half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet +she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same. + +"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, +if ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars +run by your door, and you can hire two girls." + +"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as +a shadow sweeps across the field. + +"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I +said?" + +Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive. + +"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind. +"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how 't would be. I +never spec'lated much on keepin' house." + +"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling +on her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, +and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, +Dilly,--you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things." + +Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked +swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the +orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. +Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. +That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was +the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew +the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. +She knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a +pursuit. She turned about, and came back to her chair. + +"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But +it don't make no matter. You're contented with it." + +"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got +enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in +with it, too." + +Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She +was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in +her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very +spurious thing when there is nothing to say. + +"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly. + +Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was +thinkin'," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was +so sweet,--"I was thinkin' you make me homesick, somehow or another." + +Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he +smiled also. + +"I don't believe it's me," he said, confidently. "It's because you're +going over things here. It's the old house." + +"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But +I don't know. I never had quite such feelin's before. It's the nearest +to bein' afraid of anything I've come acrost. I guess I shall have to +run out into the lot an' take my bearin's." + +Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room. +He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory +that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules. + +"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last +drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in +excitement. "You don't know, I ain't begun to tell you, how queer it +seems to me. Why, I've dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come +nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all +knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood 'round me, +ready to uphold me in what I was doin'. I shouldn't be surprised if +they were all here now. I don't feel a mite alone." + +Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro +came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine +hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with +a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines. + +"There, poor girl!" he said, "you're tired thinking about it. No wonder +you've got fancies. I guess the ghosts won't trouble us. There's +nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, +Dilly felt homesick and alone. + +There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she +turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet +slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her +feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had +seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded +forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed +to exude kindliness as she came. + +"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain't jest like you!" she exclaimed. +"Creep in here an' not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? +Recognize you! Well, I guess I should!" + +She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very +grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down +and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other +voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the +intercourse of a life so sadly changed. + +"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You're tired +to pieces with this pickin' and sortin', an' you're comin' over to +dinner, both on ye. Eli's dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. _He_ +wouldn't ha' done it; you know that, Dilly! An' I've been beatin' up +eggs. Now don't you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you +got a watch? You see't she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away +victorious, her apron over her head, and waving one hand before her as +she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as +this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange +dooryards. + +Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn +significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper +persons. She thought of her bread and butter and boiled eggs, lying in +her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it +were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars +going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car +meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove +her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made +her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever +on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, +and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, +they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike's. + +The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an +unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it +choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of +housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; +and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife +and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his +mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as +possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the +empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again. + +The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very +loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was +the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her +knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside +in the jessamine, and a humming-bird--there had always been one, year +after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was +the same bird--hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings +divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a +sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs. +Pike's again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch +herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told +her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, +bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon +her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and +another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he +meant to be married. + +"Soon," said Jethro, with assurance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her +mind." + +All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the +talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill's song from +the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside +him. He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when +half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given +the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but +Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops +down to her own home. + +At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great +blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as +she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, +suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was +forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For +she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long spaces of +silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little +animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves. +Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably +precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches +lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, +thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed +to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of +meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should +pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, +until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to +approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of +unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned +her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to +the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the +greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to +Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped +softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the +shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement +thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not +wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her +feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that +she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird +note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his +tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed +to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she +hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, +and shut the door behind her. + +As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room where the old desk stood +in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her +confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness. +She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, +in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her +wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She +drew forward her father's chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious +abandonment, to rest. Her mother's little cricket was by her side, and +she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. + +Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there +fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight +and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware +that the Joyces were all about her. + +She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and +cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their +bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that +they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, +and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and +women, face to face. There was the shoemaker among them, who, +generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle +of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out +into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a +loud voice upon Almighty God to save him from ill-doing. Then he had +drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but +a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not +think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered +among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself +rather than go to war. But here he stood--was it the man, or some +secret intelligence of him?--and Dilly, out of all his race, was the +one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of passionate sympathy, +how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how +the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he +fled away and prayed his God to save him from mortal guilt,--and how, +finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of anticipated +slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, +he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And +Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake. + +There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and +wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the +island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be +beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, +who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the +pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her +for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in +the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the +poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and +faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern +use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was +not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering +gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that +all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her +whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. +It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul +does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret +core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way. + +There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and to the disgust of +her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the +world found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency +herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one +night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying +hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; +that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in +one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of +Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that +she was of those who overcome. + +So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had +never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they +had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one +drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of +life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There +was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom +she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an +infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she +smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She +thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating +huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she +remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been +lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how +the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there +is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer +life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and +she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, +whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood. + +The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly +felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now +she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she +understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a +case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in +his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how +that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but +theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long +passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, +waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not +him, but his inheritance. + +Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a +clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her +eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with +a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no +longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were +hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she +closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, +and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We +know, you and we!" As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just +going to milking, with clusters of shining pails. + +"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!" + +"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who +carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" +And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran +up to smooth her tumbled bed. + +After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly +called Jethro softly to one side. + +"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you." + +Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and +Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and +caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be +quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a +child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest +tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him. + +"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married." + +He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of +bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand. + +"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again +Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence. + +"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much. But +it's your folks I care about. It ain't you. I've found it all out, +Jethro. Things don't al'ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them +that have gone before; an' half the time we don't know it." + +Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. "You're all tired out," he said +soothingly. "Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire +somebody. I'll be glad to." + +But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. "You're real good, Jethro," +she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her +old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. "But I don't feel +tired, an' I ain't a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to +town with Eli--he's goin' after he feeds the pigs--an' take the cars +from there. It's all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain't so sorry as I +might be; for it's borne in on me you won't care this way long. An' you +needn't, dear; for nothin' between us is changed a mite. The only +trouble is, it ain't the kind of thing we thought." + +She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned +away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and +beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the +house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces +had done their work, and she was doing hers. + + + + +THE WAY OF PEACE + + +It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat +down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still +clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had +been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the +cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their +own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and +brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their +solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on +leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the +funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the +very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient +sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A +little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier +than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then +Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly +office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can +only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing +away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then +deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to +pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but +that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the +moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put +things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was +then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace. + +Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it +was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was +standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking +over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he +told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper +lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes +were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of +herself in the glass. + +"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!" + +And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before +disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery +there. + +"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I +shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!" + +Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided +in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its +other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair, +and moaned a little to herself. + +"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I +never can bear it in the world!" + +The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold +in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the +inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a +little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, +coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always +been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and +held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a +great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with +accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart, +in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the +stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking +about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There +again she caught sight of herself in the glass. + +"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a +fullness, of joy. + +Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more +and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched +out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how +to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her +mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a +pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her +thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock +after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self. +But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp +silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and +coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older +face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all +suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had +gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have +kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She +did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to +think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that +instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful +portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the +closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched. +Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off +her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on +her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to +wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the +deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a +wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; +this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another +life as well. + +"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself. +"Them are the ones to be put aside." + +She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again, +her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a +pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face +to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded +her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely +any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the +tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be +afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and +likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not +seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. + +They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being +worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, +stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her +unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of +evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back +against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with +one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!" + +Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him. + +"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git +along, if I could look a little mite like her." + +John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment. + +"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?" + +"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble +mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. +Well, I _am_ pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down +Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I +can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can +git along." + +They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John +had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. + +When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he +never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The +other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the +funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to +fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So, +though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, +he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be +when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. +She'd got to looking a good deal like mother. + +They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting +a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a +low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from +that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither +would have been surprised. + +"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came +crackling at them. + +"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got +into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most +burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a +real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I +laughed--an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o' +picked it out a-purpose." + +John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it +was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it. + +"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to +do?" + +Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that. +She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage. + +"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to +pull through on." + +"Yes, but where you goin' to live?" + +"Here." + +"Alone?" + +"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At +that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made +themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love. + +John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with +which his soul did not accord. + +"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say +you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will +have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she +should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your +home with us." + +"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I +ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she +could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me. +Why, John, this is my home!" + +Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy +mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth +and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the +hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk +the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both +would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her: +but she belonged to it as well. + +John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent +him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also, +wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been +sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its +dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly +judgment he could only yield. + +"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I +don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an' +there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit? +That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be +done." + +Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold +beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an +innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to +judge. + +"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got +to?" + +"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his +eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?" + +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never +could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up +yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might." + +John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned +forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made +her last condition. + +"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't +ask me to break up nuthin'?" + +"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you +needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me." + +So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that +had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her +visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her +mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the +window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her +about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy +notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade +than a strange by-path taken by nature itself. + +The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann +"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to +say, with her happiest smile,-- + +"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't +ever forget her." + +Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a +way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind; +but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit +mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the +time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone. +A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as +the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a +sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had +happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she +had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so +many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there +she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours +would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her +hands folded, communing with old memories. + +The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal, +packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John +stood by her, and she was allowed to go. + +"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be +glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've +got to come back an' spend the winter." + +Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently +remote; and the winter was not yet here. + +The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in +Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains, +the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be +done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in +the face, and learn its lineaments. + +Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with +an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those +who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his +luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well +with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear, +could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went +to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but +still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His +cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary +with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not +arrived, and John was at the goal before him. + +"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann. +"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for +us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used +to over there." + +"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to." + +It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone. + +"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room +gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." + +It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in +Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as +she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in +like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she +would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the +first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at +night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted +to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason +for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the +flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might +feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner +resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out +on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while +she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh. + +"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he. + +A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely. + +"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence +August." + +John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to +illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann +and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there. + +"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a +visitor." + +"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been +a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else." + +But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own +house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned +that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a +looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him +good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for +getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as +"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the +door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had +ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch +her shawled arms pathetically upward. + +"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a +great experience. + +She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the +things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to +cling. + +"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no +more." + +Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like +children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who +may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a +programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In +one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her +pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She +felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its +best. + +"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could +hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like +those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season. +Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the +roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers +past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and +leaned out. + +"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she +called. "The barn's open." + +John was in a hurry. + +"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he. +"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night +before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to +breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good +time with them." + +John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann +stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls, +and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and +sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and +thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to +be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones +in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there +were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and +confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they +were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply +touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner +self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of +nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the +patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though +the savor of the task was gone. + +Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she +sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy, +and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda +and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very +important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household +goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's +would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter +itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her +deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay. +Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that +time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all. + +It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She +thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks: +so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground, +and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a +wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins. + +"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?" + +"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin' +to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the +post-office." + +"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I +meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day +with us. I'll come over arter you." + +"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his +lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.". + +"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh. +"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle +end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well, +John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll +git more'n you would with us." + +He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing. +She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared. + +It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer +way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood, +prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long +memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store +smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its +fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to +be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her +lips opened to words she had not chosen:-- + +"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest +flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer. +Ezra's asked me to go there." + +"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he? +Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry, +Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without +you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They +can't seem to understand the difference." + +"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it +as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange, +excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way +before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own +volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice +time." + +She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward +to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody +had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and +now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her +mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference. + +"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I +might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for +some Thanksgivin' things? + +"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your +credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time. + +"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some +cinnamon an' some mace--there! I'll tell you, while you weigh." + +It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world; +and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay, +the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its +market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It +could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she +left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with +bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them. + +"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to _you_. Jest leave +the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too +often." + +She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and +swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by +over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in +joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be +flying on the wings of a fortunate wind. + +All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable +steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they +love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was +going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day +with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:-- + +"Oh, John's invited me there!" + +All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful +hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had +many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be +told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within +hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time. +Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she +sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up +piteously and say aloud:-- + +"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the +pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she +was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant. + +Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter +savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature +cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a +sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all +their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she +recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed +as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through +that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable +sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a +personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed +by memory as well as hope. + +On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because +that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house, +and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the +day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now +they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the +sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church. +Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient +questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would +stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The +morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made +the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but +there had to be just so many--onions, turnips, and squash baked with +molasses--for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of +dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a +curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that +it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when +dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her +anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She +ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did +not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. +She was at home; that was enough. + +After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen +without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's +beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left +behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy +Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the +wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself +in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl +adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a +more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved +herself. + +"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody +ever had." + +The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always +gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding +of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or +the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, +and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case +containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little +distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, +nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In +herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours +slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though +it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came +rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice, +calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had +had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John +kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down, +unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story, +and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise. + +"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all +right." + +Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood +there, gently welcoming. + +"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that +ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan +it?" + +"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on +Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's +poplin, she forbore. + +Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in +after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the +brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way +behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak. + +"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I +should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks +thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over +there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha' +gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've +been, all day long, in this lonesome house!" + +"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your +things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the +table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did +not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney, +more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in +the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was +the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very +capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting +on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face. + +"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way," +said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha' +spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest +wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the +track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or +not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it." + +Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"-- + +"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She +wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you, +Lucy?" + +Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile. + +"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it. + +But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt +unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back. + +"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but +you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go +round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've +all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should +make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my +visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. +An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile +breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter +her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got +more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' +fruit-cake, a year old." + +Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner +of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and +Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the +children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw +themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room +became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a +swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie +between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no +moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little +John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her +poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear. + +"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?" + + + + +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + + +Tiverton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about +naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation +felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from +spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an +assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an +excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion +by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with +overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an +enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives +had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere +shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, +pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the +desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire +of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or +the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with +awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their +bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a +puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was +their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed +evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an +intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of +the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had +strangely transformed itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology +and the breath of an unknown world. But though sobered, they were not +cast down; for the occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a +heaven-defying profligacy of intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy +Forbes had in his pocket a pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by +wicked but careless design, just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and +that Tom Drake was master of a concealed pea-shooter, which he had +sworn, with all the asseverations held sacred by boys, to use at some +dramatic moment. All the band were aware that neither of these daring +deeds would be done. The prospective actors themselves knew it; but it +was a darling joy to contemplate the remote possibility thereof. + +Deacon Pitts opened, the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious +a privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His +companion had not been able to come. (The entire neighborhood knew that +Mrs. Pitts had been laid low by an attack of erysipelas, and that she +was, at the moment, in a dark bedroom at home, helpless under +elderblow.) + +"She lays there on a bed of pain," said the deacon. "But she says to +me, 'You go. Better the house o' mournin' than the house o' feastin',' +she says. Oh, my friends! what can be more blessed than the counsel of +an aged and feeble companion?" + +The deacon sat down, and Tom Drake, his finger on the pea-shooter, +assured himself, in acute mental triumph, that he had almost done it +that time. + +Then followed certain incidents eminently pleasing to the boys. To +their unbounded relief, Sarah Frances Giles rose to speak, weeping as +she began. She always wept at prayer meeting, though at the very moment +of asserting her joy that she cherished a hope, and her gratitude that +she was so nearly at an end of this earthly pilgrimage and ready to +take her stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The boys reveled +in her testimony. They were in a state of bitter uneasiness before she +rose, and gnawed with a consuming impatience until she began to cry. +Then they wondered if she could possibly leave out the sea of glass; +and when it duly came, they gave a sigh of satiated bliss and sank into +acquiescence in whatever might happen. This was a rich occasion to +their souls, for Silas Marden, who was seldom moved by the spirit, fell +upon his knees to pray; but at the same unlucky instant, his +sister-in-law, for whom he cherished an unbounded scorn, rose (being +"nigh-eyed" and ignorant of his priority) and began to speak. For a +moment, the two held on together, "neck and neck," as the happy boys +afterward remembered, and then Silas got up, dusted his knees, and sat +down, not to rise again at any spiritual call. "An' a madder man you +never see," cried all the Hollow next day, in shocked but gleeful +memory. + +Taking it all in all, the meeting had thus far mirrored others of its +class. If the droning experiences were devoid of all human passion, it +was chiefly because they had to be expressed in the phrases of strict +theological usage. There was an unspoken agreement that feelings of +this sort should be described in a certain way. They were not the +affairs of the hearth and market; they were matters pertaining to that +awful entity called the soul, and must be dressed in the fine linen +which she had herself elected to wear. + +Suddenly, in a wearisome pause, when minds had begun to stray toward +the hayfield and tomorrow's churning, the door was pushed open, and the +Widow Prime walked in. She was quite unused to seeking her kind, and +the little assembly at once awoke, under the stimulus of surprise. They +knew quite well where she had been walking: to Sudleigh Jail, to visit +her only son, lying there for the third time, not, as usual, for +drunkenness, but for house-breaking. She was a wiry woman, a mass of +muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with +clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking, +and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the +marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and +her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The +vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like +that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very +bitter--so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after +undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A +quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was +"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every +professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for +which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old +conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like +creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their +own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could +they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God +and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key +of the unexpected. + +"Has any one an experience to offer? Will any brother or sister lead in +prayer?" + +The silence was growing into a thing to be recognized and conquered, +when, to the wonder of her neighbors, Hannah Prime herself rose, She +looked slowly about the room, gazing into every face as if to challenge +an honest understanding. Then she began speaking in a low voice +thrilled by an emotion not yet explained. Unused to expressing herself +in public, she seemed to be feeling her way. The silence, pride, +endurance, which had been her armor for many years, were no longer +apparent; she had thrown down all her defenses with a grave composure, +as if life suddenly summoned her to higher issues. + +"I dunno's I've got an experience to offer," she said. "I dunno's it's +religion. I dunno what 'tis. Mebbe you'd say it don't belong to a +meetin'. But when I come by an' see you all settin' here, it come over +me I'd like to tell somebody. Two weeks ago I was most crazy"--She +paused of necessity, for something broke in her voice. + +"That's the afternoon Jim was took," whispered a woman to her neighbor. +Hannah Prime went on. + +"I jest as soon tell it now. I can tell ye all together what I couldn't +say to one on ye alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it +afterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. +I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I +set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the +clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought +I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to +death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, +seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got up an' run outdoor jest as fast as +I could go. I run out behind the house an' down the cart-path to that +pile o' rocks that overlooks the lake; an' there I got out o' breath +an' dropped down on a big rock. An' there I set, jest as still as I'd +been settin' when I was in the house." + +Here a little girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward +and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. +afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I +thought, if I heard a pin drop, I should scream." + +"I dunno how long I set there," went on Hannah Prime, "but byme-by it +begun to come over me how still the lake was. 'Twas like glass; an' way +over where it runs in 'tween them islands, it burnt like fire. Then I +looked up a little further, to see what kind of a sky there was. 'T was +light green, with clouds in it, all fire, an' it begun to seem to me as +if it was a kind o' land an' water up there--like our'n, on'y not +solid. I set there an' looked at it; an' I picked out islands, an' +ma'sh-land, an' p'ints running out into the yeller-green sea. An' +everything grew stiller an' stiller. The loons struck up, down on the +lake, with that kind of a lonesome whinner; but that on'y made the rest +of it seem quieter. An' it begun to grow dark all 'round me. I dunno 's +I ever noticed before jest how the dark comes. It sifted down like +snow, on'y you couldn't see it. Well, I set there, an' I tried to keep +stiller an' stiller, like everything else. Seemed as if I must. An' +pretty soon I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' +my eyes on the sky; for I knew 't would break suthin' if I turned my +head, an' I felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', +walkin', without takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come +right up 'side o' me an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I +mustn't. I dunno whether It touched me; I dunno whether It said +anything--but I know It made me a new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't +be afraid o' things no more--nor sorry. I found out 't was all right. +'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been +dead for the last twenty year. I'd come alive. + +"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno +how long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun +to fade. An' then it come over me 't was goin'. I knew 't was terrible +tender of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I +won't forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned +an' see my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side +of it. Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home +without lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah +Prime, looking her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I +dunno what 't was, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' +I ain't goin' to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's +bigger'n we think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and +moved toward the door. There she again turned to her neighbors. + +"Good-night!" she said, and was gone. + +They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating +on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly +out. There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not +sung. + + + + +HONEY AND MYRRH + + +The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow +drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying +wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid +banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The +lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with +which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely +lives. The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned +curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted +over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a +fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and +flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch +swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all +hidden away. + +That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save +to shovel paths, and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched +until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion +for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by +the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the +men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking +swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath +ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton +Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way +of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an +exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. + +By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened +by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the +less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as +one man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind +in the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the +county paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another +stick of wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and +in the evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red +flannel in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the +tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass, and that +their communication with the world was reëstablished. + +Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young +schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard, +at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. +There was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was +going to be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always +receiving through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, +the postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs +might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with +photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very +well understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a +week, was an interlude in the life of one who would some day write a +spelling-book, or exercise senatorial rights at Washington. He was a +long-legged, pleasant looking youth, with a pale cheek, dark eyes, and +thick black hair, one lock of which, hanging low over his forehead, he +twisted while he read. He kept glancing up at Miss Susan and smiling at +her, whenever he could look away from his book and the fire, and she +smiled back. At last, after many such wordless messages, he spoke. + +"What lots of red mittens you do knit! Do you send them all away to +that society?" + +Miss Susan's needles clicked. + +"Every one," said she. + +She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her +head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness +better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great +cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a +mystery she had not turned out "gormin'." But that was because Susan +had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs +and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was +strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked +frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick +always delighted in Susan's nearness; her magnificent health and +presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor +air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She +rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm. + +"I shall call you the Orphans' Friend," said he. + +She laid down her work. + +"Don't you say one word," she answered, with an air of abject +confession. "It don't interest me a mite! I give because it's my +bounden duty, but I'll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my +life, an' fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to +provide folks with what they don't need ruther'n what they do." + +"I don't see what you mean," said the schoolmaster. "Tell me." + +Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of +firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine +knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under +her feet, and settled herself to gossip. + +"Anybody'd think I'd most talked myself out sence you come here to +board," said she, "but you're the beatemest for tolin' anybody on. I +never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if +there's anybody 't wants to listen. I never've said this to a livin' +soul, an' I guess it's sort o' heathenish to think, but I'm tired to +death o' fightin' ag'inst poverty, poverty! I s'pose it's there, fast +enough, though we're all so well on 't we don't realize it; an' I'm +goin' to do my part, an' be glad to, while I'm above ground. But I +guess heaven'll be a spot where we don't give folks what they need, but +what they don't." + +"There is something in your Bible," began the schoolmaster +hesitatingly, "about a box of precious ointment." He always said "your +Bible," as if church members held a proprietary right. + +"That's it!" replied Miss Susan, brightening. "That's what I al'ays +thought. Spill it all out, I say, an' make the world smell as sweet as +honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin' here by the fire alone! +Great projicks!" + +"Tell me some! + +"Well, I dunno's I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits +along towards eight o'clock, an' the room's all simmerin', an' the moon +lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec' +out o' life. We don't seem to have no color in it. Why, don't you +remember 'Solomon in all his glory'? I guess 't wouldn't ha' been put +in jest that way if there wa'n't somethin' in it. I s'pose he had +crowns an' rings an' purple velvet coats an' brocade satin weskits, an' +all manner o' things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin' +straight in through that door there." She was running a knitting needle +back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing +that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone +outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed +open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in. + +"My land!" cried Miss Susan, aghast. Then she and the schoolmaster, by +one accord, began to laugh. + +But the man did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his +feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the +legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag +he had been carrying. + +"I guess I trailed it through some o' the drifts," he remarked. "The +road's pretty narrer, this season o' the year." + +"You give us a real start," said Susan. "We thought be sure 'twas +Solomon, an' mebbe the Queen o' Sheba follerin' arter. Why, Solon +Slade, you ain't walked way over to Tiverton Street!" + +"Yes, I have," asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, +possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was +Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, +but hadn't no more spunk 'n a wet rag. + +Susan had risen and laid down her knitting. She approached the table +and rested one hand on it, a hawk-like brightness in her eyes. + +"What you got in that bag?" asked she. + +Solon was enjoying his certainty that he held the key to the situation. + +"I got a mite o' cheese," he answered, approaching the fire and +spreading his hands to the blaze. + +"You got anything else? Now, Solon, don't you keep me here on +tenter-hooks! You got a letter?" + +"Well," said Solon, "I thought I might as well look into the +post-office an' see." + +"You thought so! You went a-purpose! An' you walked because you al'ays +was half shackled about takin' horses out in bad goin'. You hand me +over that letter!" + +Solon approached the table, a furtive twinkle in his blue eyes. He +lifted the bag and opened it slowly. First, he took out a wedge-shaped +package. + +"That's the cheese," said he. "Herb." + +"My land!" ejaculated Miss Susan, while the schoolmaster looked on and +smiled. "You better ha' come to me for cheese. I've got a plenty, tansy +an' sage, an' you know it. I see it! There! you gi' me holt on 't!" It +was a fugitive white gleam in the bottom of the bag; she pounced upon +it and brought up a letter. Midway in the act of tearing it open, she +paused and looked at Solon with droll entreaty. "It's your letter, by +rights!" she added tentatively. + +"Law!" said he, "I dunno who it's directed to, but I guess it's as much +your'n as anybody's." + +Miss Susan spread open the sheets with an air of breathless delight. +She bent nearer the lamp. "'Dear father and auntie,'" she began. + +"There!" remarked Solon, in quiet satisfaction, still warming his hands +at the blaze. "There! you see _'tis_ to both." + +"My! how she does run the words together! Here!" Miss Susan passed it +to the schoolmaster. "You read it. It's from Jenny. You know she's away +to school, an' we didn't think best for her to come home Christmas. I +knew she'd write for Christmas. Solon, I told you so!" + +The schoolmaster took the letter, and read it aloud. It was a simple +little message, full of contentment and love and a girl's new delight +in life. When he had finished, the two older people busied themselves a +moment without speaking, Solon in picking up a chip from the hearth, +and Susan in mechanically smoothing the mammoth roses on the side of +the carpetbag. + +"Well, I 'most wish we'd had her come home," said he at last, clearing +his throat. + +"No, you don't either," answered Miss Susan promptly. "Not with this +snow, an' comin' out of a house where it's het up, into cold beds an' +all. Now I'm goin' to git you a mite o' pie an' some hot tea." + +She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon +silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for +company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and +she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his +panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began +clearing up. + +"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. +"S'pose he should be sick in the night!" + +"You'd got over," answered the schoolmaster easily. + +"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?" + +"Oh, you'd know it! You 're that sort." + +Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent +anxiety. She came back to her knitting. + +"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster. + +"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence +September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull +pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the +house from sunrise to set." + +"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now +let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all +the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just +the ones they'd like." + +Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the +schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to +sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air. + +"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the +turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed +away up garret, an' lives like a pig." + +"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'" + +"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all +winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't +she'd got to walk on." + +"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal +now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries." + +"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's +temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple? +Why, the nails was all gold. Don't you wish we'd lived in them times? +Jest think about the wood they had--cedars o' Lebanon an' fir-trees. +You know how he set folks to workin' in the mountains. I've al'ays +thought I'd like to ben up on them mountains an' heard the axes ringin' +an' listened to the talk. An' then there was pomegranates an' cherubim, +an' as for silver an' gold, they were as common as dirt. When I was a +little girl, I learnt them chapters, an' sometimes now, when I'm +settin' by the fire, I say over that verse about the 'man of Tyre, +skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, +and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson.' +My! ain't it rich?" + +She drew a long breath of surfeited enjoyment. The schoolmaster's eyes +burned under his heavy brows. + +"Then things smelt so good in them days," continued Miss Susan. "They +had myrrh an' frankincense, an' I dunno what all. I never make my +mincemeat 'thout snuffin' at the spice-box to freshen up my mind. No +matter where I start, some way or another I al'ays git back to Solomon. +Well, if Cap'n Ben wants to see foreign countries, I guess he'd be +glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick--that big +one thereby you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if +I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set +the chimbly afire as not!" + +There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It +exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the +ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own +panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and +perished. + +"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the +world?" + +"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can +fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n +if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen, +kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious +stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't +would look." + +"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,--what should we have?" + +"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey--an'--but that's as fur as I +can git." + +The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he +said musically:-- + + ... "'a heap + Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; + With jellies soother than the creamy curd, + And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; + Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd + From Fez; and spicéd dainties, every one, + From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.'" + +"Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain't like the Bible, but it's +nice." + +They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and +burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan +came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor. + +"There!" said she, "sometimes I think it's most sinful to make believe, +it's so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when +Solon comes for the pigs' kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself +sayin', 'Here's the frankincense!'" + +They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He +paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again. + +"There are lots of people we haven't provided for," he said. "We +haven't even thought what we'd give Jenny." + +"I guess Jenny's got her heart's desire." Miss Susan nodded sagely. +"I've sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an' pickles and cheese. She's +all fixed out." + +The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then +he spoke, somewhat timidly, "What should you like to give her father?" + +Miss Susan's face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled +upon her eyes like haze. + +"Well," said she, "I guess whatever I should give him'd only make him +laugh." + +"Flowers--and velvet--and honey--and myrrh?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Susan with gravity. "Perhaps it's jest as well +some things ain't to be had at the shops." + +The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door. + +"We never can tell," he said. "It may be people want things awfully +without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They'd better laugh than +cry. _I_ should give all I could. Good-night." + +Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the +hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on +too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out +the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a +moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The +visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with +a tumultuous emotion--the sense that life might be very fair and +shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The +loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; +they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare. + +Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was +still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire, +and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white +day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale +winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the +heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her +a wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, +all the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. +She went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little +scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the +schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she +hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the +work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up +to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the +rose. The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her +than all. She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed +meagre still, broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and +disposed the flowers hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling +and good; it spoke to the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she +rolled the flowers in her apron from the frost, and stepped out into +the brilliant day. The little cross-track between her house and the +other was snowed up; but she took the road and, hurrying between banks +of carven whiteness, went up Solon's path to the side door. She walked +in upon him where he was standing over the kitchen stove, warming his +hands at the first blaze. Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of +the stinging air, but she had the look of one who, living by a larger +law, has banished the foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to +him and proffered him her flowers. + +"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these." + +Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both +hands and took them awkwardly. + +"Well!" he said, "Well!" + +Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the +world was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give +all you choose, while nobody is the wiser. + +"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He +laid them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked +over to Pine Hill to pick you some mayflowers, when you was gittin' +over the lung fever?" + +She nodded. + +"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old +scores an' begin all over?" + +"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the +face with her brilliant smile. + +"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed +you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked +her, I thought 't was you." + +"Yes, I knew that well enough I was in the buttery and heard it all. +There, le's not talk about it." + +Solon came a step nearer. + +"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like +it." + +"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no +further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry +chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out, +walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon, +regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her. +Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all +over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He +forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and +snow. It was the spring of the year. + +When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and +was putting a stick of wood into the stove. + +"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you." + +A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was +always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious. + +"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance +of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers. +They were white and wonderful. + +"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the +schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than +I; but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I +should like to have you keep this." + +Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to +fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she +murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin' +over to breakfast." + + + + +A SECOND MARRIAGE + + +Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round, +consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a +steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a +snatching flame below. It was exactly a year and a day since her +husband's death, and she had packed herself away in his own corner of +the settle, her hands clasped across her knees, and her red-brown eyes +brooding on the nearer embers. She was not definitely speculating on +her future, nor had she any heart for retracing the dull and gentle +past. She had simply relaxed hold on her mind; and so, escaping her, it +had gone wandering off into shadowy prophecies of the immediate years. +For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months, +since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not +old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how +free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of +her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black +hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had +once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray. +All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the +possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a +new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over. + +It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to +bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen +hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone +creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of +the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped +down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until +that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle +held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke. + +Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of +the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and +burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living. To-night, +under the spell of some vague expectancy, she had sat still for a long +time, her sewing laid aside and her room scrupulously in order. She was +waiting for what was not to be acknowledged even to her own intimate +self. But as the clock struck nine, she roused herself, and shook off +her mood in impatience and a disappointment which she would not own. +She looked about the room, as she often had of late, and began to +enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it +changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she +only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had +done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other +house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the +prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept +his precisely as his grandfather had left it to him. Amelia had never +once complained; she had observed toward her husband an unfailing +deference, due, she felt, to his twenty years' seniority; perhaps, +also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him +for having married him without love. It was her father who made the +match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by +parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably +born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He +had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows +sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power--gone +home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine +anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man +who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, +but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and +Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and +remained unmarried. + +Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture, +as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there +together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart +to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient +bitterness,--to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be +exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace +should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in +shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock--But +at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia +threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet. +She clasped her hands in a spontaneous gesture of rapt attention; and +when the sound paused at her gate, with one or two sweet, lingering +clingles, "I knew it!" she said aloud. Yet she did not go to the window +to look into the moonlit night. Standing there in the middle of the +room, she awaited the knock which was not long in coming. It was +imperative, insistent. Amelia, who had a spirit responsive to the +dramatic exigencies of life, felt a little flush spring into her face, +so hot that, on the way to the door, she involuntarily put her hand to +her cheek and held it there. The door came open grumblingly. It sagged +upon the hinges, but, well-used to its vagaries, she overcame it with a +regardless haste. + +"Come in," she said, at once, to the man on the step. "It's cold. Oh, +come in!" + +He stepped inside the entry, removing his fur cap, and disclosing a +youthful face charged with that radiance which made him, at +thirty-five, almost the counterpart of his former self. It may have +come only from the combination of curly brown hair, blue eyes, and an +aspiring lift of the chin, but it always seemed to mean a great deal +more. In the kitchen, he threw off his heavy coat, while Amelia, +bright-eyed and breathing quickly, stood by, quite silent. Then he +looked at her. + +"You expected me, didn't you?" he asked. + +A warmer color surged into her cheeks. "I didn't know," she said +perversely. + +"I guess you did. It's one day over a year. You knew I'd wait a year." + +"It ain't a year over the services," said Amelia, trying to keep the +note of vital expectancy out of her voice. "It won't be that till +Friday." + +"Well, Saturday I'll come again." He went over to the fire and +stretched out his hands to the blaze, "Come here," he said +imperatively, "while I talk to you." + +Amelia stepped forward obediently, like a good little child. The old +fascination was still as dominant as at its birth, sixteen years ago. +She realized, with a strong, splendid sense of the eternity of things, +that always, even while it would have been treason to recognize it, she +had known how ready it was to rise and live again. All through her +married years, she had sternly drugged it and kept it sleeping. Now it +had a right to breathe, and she gloried in it. + +"I said to myself I wouldn't come to-day," went on Laurie, without +looking at her. A new and excited note had come into his voice, +responsive to her own. He gazed down at the fire, musing the while he +spoke. "Then I found I couldn't help it. That's why I'm so late. I +stayed in the shop till seven, and some fellows come in and wanted me +to play. I took up the fiddle, and begun. But I hadn't more'n drew a +note before I laid it down and put for the door. 'Dick, you keep shop,' +says I. And I harnessed up, and drove like the devil." + +Amelia felt warm with life and hope; she was taking up her youth just +where the story ended. + +"You ain't stopped swearin' yet!" she remarked, with a little excited +laugh. Then, from an undercurrent of exhilaration, it occurred to her +that she had never laughed so in all these years. + +"Well," said Laurie abruptly, turning upon her, "how am I goin' to +start out? Shall we hark back to old scores? I know what come between +us. So do you. Have we got to talk it out, or can we begin now?" + +"Begin now," replied Amelia faintly. Her breath choked her. He +stretched out his arms to her in sudden passion. His hands touched her +sleeves and, with an answering rapidity of motion, she drew back. She +shrank within herself, and her face gathered a look of fright. "No! no! +no!" she cried strenuously. + +His arms fell at his sides, and he looked at her in amazement. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +Amelia had retreated, until she stood now with one hand on the table. +She could not look at him, and when she answered, her voice shook. + +"There's nothin' the matter," she answered. "Only you mustn't--yet." + +A shade of relief passed over his face, and he smiled. + +"There, there!" he said, "never you mind. I understand. But if I come +over the last of the week, I guess it will be different. Won't it be +different, Milly?" + +"Yes," she owned, with a little sob in her throat, "it will be +different." + +Thrown out of his niche of easy friendliness with circumstance, he +stood there in irritated consciousness that here was some subtile +barrier which he had not foreseen. Ever since John Porter's death, +there had been strengthening in him a joyous sense that Milly's life +and his own must have been running parallel all this time, and that it +needed only a little widening of channels to make them join. His was no +crass certainty of finding her ready to drop into his hand; it was +rather a childlike, warmhearted faith in the permanence of her +affection for him, and perhaps, too, a shrewd estimate of his own +lingering youth compared with John Porter's furrowed face and his +fifty-five years. But now, with this new whiffling of the wind, he +could only stand rebuffed and recognize his own perplexity. + +"You do care, don't you, Milly?" he asked, with a boy's frank ardor. +"You want me to come again?" + +All her own delight in youth and the warm naturalness of life had +rushed back upon her. + +"Yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you the truth. I always did +tell you the truth. I do want you to come." + +"But you don't want me to-night!" He lifted his brows, pursing his lips +whimsically; and Amelia laughed. + +"No," said she, with a little defiant movement of her own crisp head, +"I don't know as I do want you to-night!" + +Laurie shook himself into his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the +door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added +significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got to like me then!" + +Amelia laughed. "I guess there won't be no trouble!" she called after +him daringly. + +She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and +drove away. Then she went shaking back to her fire; but it was not +altogether from cold. The sense of the consistency of love and youth, +the fine justice with which nature was paying an old debt, had raised +her to a stature above her own. She stood there under the mantel, and +held by it while she trembled. For the first time, her husband had gone +utterly out of her life. It was as though he had not been. + +"Saturday!" she said to herself. "Saturday! Three days till then!" + +Next morning, the spring asserted itself,--there came a whiff of wind +from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut +through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin +crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling +drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over +the snow and talked of nests. + +Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her +low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell +hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her +eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No +sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She +throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving +sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung +laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the side-door. The +sled was empty, save for a rocking-chair where sat an enormous woman +enveloped in shawls, her broad face surrounded by a pumpkin hood. Her +dark brown front came low over her forehead, and she wore spectacles +with wide bows, which gave her an added expression of benevolence. She +waved a mittened hand to Amelia when their eyes met, and her heavy face +broke up into smiles. + +"Here I be!" she called in a thick, gurgling voice, as Amelia hastened +out, her apron thrown over her head. "Didn't expect me, did ye? Nobody +looks for an old rheumatic creatur'. She's more out o' the runnin' 'n a +last year's bird's-nest." + +"Why, aunt Ann!" cried Amelia, in unmistakable joy. "I'm tickled to +death to see you. Here, Amos, I'll help get her out." + +The driver, a short, thick-set man of neutral, ashy tints and a +sprinkling of hair and beard, trudged round the oxen and drew the +rocking-chair forward without a word. He never once looked in Amelia's +direction, and she seemed not to expect it; but he had scarcely laid +hold of the chair when aunt Ann broke forth:-- + +"Now, Amos, ain't you goin' to take no notice of 'Melia, no more'n if +she wa'n't here? She ain't a bump on a log, nor you a born fool." + +Amos at once relinquished his sway over the chair, and stood looking +abstractedly at the oxen, who, with their heads low, had already fallen +into that species of day-dream whereby they compensate themselves for +human tyranny. They were waiting for Amos, and Amos, in obedience to +some inward resolve, waited for commotion to cease. + +"If ever I was ashamed, I be now!" continued aunt Ann, still with an +expression of settled good-nature, and in a voice all jollity though +raised conscientiously to a scolding pitch. "To think I should bring +such a creatur' into the world, an' set by to see him treat his own +relations like the dirt under his feet!" + +Amelia laughed. She was exhilarated by the prospect of company, and +this domestic whirlpool had amused her from of old. + +"Law, aunt Ann," she said, "you let Amos alone. He and I are old +cronies. We understand one another. Here, Amos, catch hold! We shall +all get our deaths out here, if we don't do nothin' but stand still and +squabble." + +The immovable Amos had only been awaiting his cue. He lifted the laden +chair with perfect ease to one of the piazza steps, and then to +another; when it had reached the top-most level, he dragged it over +the sill into the kitchen, and, leaving his mother sitting in colossal +triumph by the fire, turned about and took his silent way to the outer +world. + +"Amos," called aunt Ann, "do you mean to say you're goin' to walk out +o' this house without speakin' a civil word to anybody? Do you mean to +say that?" + +"I don't mean to say nothin'," confided Amos to his worsted muffler, as +he took up his goad, and began backing the oxen round. + +Undisturbed and not at all daunted by a reply for which she had not +even listened, aunt Ann raised her voice in cheerful response: "Well, +you be along 'tween three an' four, an' you'll find me ready." + +"Mercy, aunt Ann!" said Amelia, beginning to unwind the visitor's +wraps, "what makes you keep houndin' Amos that way? If he hasn't spoke +for thirty-five years, it ain't likely he's goin' to begin now." + +Aunt Ann was looking about her with an expression of beaming delight in +unfamiliar surroundings. She laughed a rich, unctuous laugh, and +stretched her hands to the blaze. + +"Law," she said contentedly, "of course it ain't goin' to do no good. +Who ever thought 't would? But I've been at that boy all these years to +make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never +shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, +'Melia, you _air_ kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my +bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't a mite cold." + +Amelia was bustling about the fire, her mind full of the possibilities +of a company dinner. + +"How's your limbs?" she asked, while aunt Ann drew out a long stocking, +and began to knit with an amazing rapidity of which her fat fingers +gave no promise. + +"Well, I ain't allowed to forgit 'em very often," she replied +comfortably. "Rheumatiz is my cross, an' I've got to bear it. Sometimes +I wish 't had gone into my hands ruther 'n my feet, an' I could ha' got +round. But there! if 't ain't one thing, it's another. Mis' Eben +Smith's got eight young ones down with the whoopin'-cough. Amos dragged +me over there yisterday; an' when I heerd 'em tryin' to see which could +bark the loudest, I says, 'Give me the peace o' Jerusalem in my own +house, even if I don't stir a step for the next five year no more 'n I +have for the last.' I dunno what 't would be if I hadn't a darter. I've +been greatly blessed." + +The talk went on in pleasant ripples, while Amelia moved back and forth +from pantry to table. She brought out the mixing-board, and began to +put her bread in the pans, while the tin kitchen stood in readiness by +the hearth. The sunshine flooded all the room, and lay insolently on +the paling fire; the Maltese cat sat in the broadest shaft of all, and, +having lunched from her full saucer in the corner, made her second +toilet for the day. + +"'Melia," said aunt Ann suddenly, looking down over her glasses at the +tin kitchen, "ain't it a real cross to bake in that thing?" + +"I always had it in mind to buy me a range," answered Amelia +reservedly, "but somehow we never got to it." + +"That's the only thing I ever had ag'inst John. He was as grand a man +as ever was, but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out +the old things, I say, no more 'n the old folks; but when it comes to +makin' a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, +that beats me." + +"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste, +"only he never knew I wanted it!" + +"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her +ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men. +Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft +as a woman. His mother used to say his eyes'd fill full o' tears when +he broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,--a good +provider an' a good friend." + +Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face +flushed. + +"Yes," she said gently, "he _was_ good." + +"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations, +"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor +why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 'twas +only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's +see what you could do. When you got the range in, 'twould alter this +kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned +mantelpiece in the fore-room?" + +"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had +taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were +ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled. + +"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. +"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down +her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in +her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and +rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in +her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning +conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got +'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and +about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed +to be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never +anything too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a +buffer between her and the doers of her will; and though she might +scold, she never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in +the least to the disease which had practically disabled her. It might +confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of +others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in +her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative +genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She +cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she +asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. +It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually +gave up talking, and thereafter opened his lips only when some +practical exigency was to be filled. But once did he vouchsafe a reason +for that eccentricity. It was in his fifteenth year, as aunt Ann +remembered well, when the minister had called; and Amos, in response to +some remark about his hope of salvation, had looked abstractedly out of +the window. + +"I'd be ashamed," announced aunt Ann, after the minister had +gone,--"Amos, I _would_ be ashamed, if I couldn't open my head to a +minister o' the gospel!" + +"If one head's open permanent in a house, I guess that fills the bill," +said Amos, getting up to seek the woodpile. "I ain't goin' to interfere +with nobody else's contract." + +His mother looked after him with gaping lips, and, for the space of +half an hour, spoke no word. + +To-day she saw before her an alluring field of action; the prospect +roused within her energies, never incapable of responding to a spur. + +"My soul, 'Melia!" she exclaimed, looking about the kitchen with a +dominating eye, "how I should like to git hold o' this house! I al'ays +did have a hankerin' that way, an' I don't mind tellin' ye. You could +change it all round complete." + +"It's a good house," said Amelia evasively, taking quick, even +stitches, but listening hungrily to the voice of outside temptation. It +seemed to confirm all the long-suppressed ambitions of her own heart. + +"You 're left well on 't," continued aunt Ann, her shrewd blue eyes +taking on a speculative look. "I'm glad you sold the stock. A woman +never undertakes man's work but she comes out the little end o' the +horn. The house is enough, if you keep it nice. Now, you've got that +money laid away, an' all he left you besides. You could live in the +village, if you was a mind to." + +A deep flush struck suddenly into Amelia's cheek. She thought of +Saltash and Laurie Morse. + +"I don't want to live in the village," she said sharply, thus reproving +her own errant mind. "I like my home." + +"Law, yes, of course ye do," replied aunt Ann easily, returning to her +knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of? +Repairin' an old coat?" + +Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'Twas his," she answered in a voice +almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and +when daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and +puttin' on a black one to match the stuff." + +"Goin' to give it away?" + +"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note +in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?" + +"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,--that's +all." + +Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled +sunnily. + +"Well, I suppose it _is_ foolish," she owned,--"too foolish to tell. +But I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at +last. I kind o' like to do it." + +Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on +a voyage of discovery. + +"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's +better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come +when it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into +your chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em." + +Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility. + +"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she +remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will. + +"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos +has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the +lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?" + +"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like +changes." + +"Blue spread on the west room bed?" + +"Yes." + +"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper +kep' 'em?" + +"Yes." + +"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to +have such a royal good time with, makin' essences?" + +Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears. + +"Yes;" she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it +yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for +him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then." + +Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of +rich enjoyment. + +"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!" + +"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia soberly, +folding her work and taking off her thimble. "I'd just as soon as not." + +All through the dinner hour aunt Ann kept up an inspiring stream of +question and reminiscence. + +"You _be_ a good cook, 'Melia, an' no mistake," she remarked, breaking +her brown hot biscuit. "This your same kind o' bread, made without +yeast?" + +"Yes," answered Amelia, pouring the tea. "I save a mite over from the +last risin'." + +Aunt Ann smelled the biscuit critically. "Well, it makes proper nice +bread," she said, "but seems to me that's a terrible shif'less way to +go about it. However'd you happen to git hold on't? You wa'n't never +brought up to't." + +"His mother used to make it so. 'T was no great trouble, and 't would +have worried him if I'd changed." + +When the lavender-sprigged china had been washed and the hearth swept +up, the room fell into its aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after +another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the +fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork +cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss +appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message of +domestic content. + +"Now," said Amelia, "I'll get the still." + +"Bring down anything else that's ancient!" called aunt Ann. "We've +pretty much got red o' such things over t'our house, but I kind o' +like to see 'em." + +When Amelia returned, she staggered under a miscellaneous burden: the +still, some old swifts for winding yarn, and a pair of wool-cards. + +"I don't believe you know so much about cardin' wool as I do," she +said, in some triumph, regarding the cards with the saddened gaze of +one who recalls an occupation never to be resumed. "You see, you +dropped all such work when new things come in. I kept right on because +he wanted me to." + +Aunt Ann was abundantly interested and amused. + +"Well, now, if ever!" she repeated over and over again. "If this don't +carry me back! Seems if I could hear the wheel hummin' an' gramma Balch +steppin' back an' forth as stiddy as a clock. It's been a good while +sence I've thought o' such old days." + +"If it's old days you want"--began Amelia, and she sped upstairs with a +fresh light of resolution in her eyes. + +It was a long time before she returned,--so long that aunt Ann +exhausted the still, and turned again to her thrifty knitting. Then +there came a bumping noise on the stairs, and Amelia's shuffling tread. + +"What under the sun be you doin' of?" called her aunt, listening, with +her head on one side. "Don't you fall, 'Melia! Whatever't is, I can't +help ye." + +But the stairway door yielded to pressure from within: and first a rim +of wood appeared, and then Amelia, scarlet and breathless, staggering +under a spinning-wheel. + +"Forever!" ejaculated aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like +some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll +break a blood-vessel, an' then where'll ye be?" + +Amelia triumphantly drew the wheel to the middle of the floor, and then +blew upon her dusty hands and smoothed her tumbled hair. She took off +her apron and wiped the wheel with it rather tenderly, as if an +ordinary duster would not do. + +"There!" she said. "Here's some rolls right here in the bedroom. I +carded them myself, but I never expected to spin any more." + +She adjusted a roll to the spindle, and, quite forgetting aunt Ann, +began stepping back and forth in a rhythmical march of feminine +service. The low hum of her spinning filled the air, and she seemed to +be wrapped about by an atmosphere of remoteness and memory. Even aunt +Ann was impressed by it; and once, beginning to speak, she looked at +Amelia's face, and stopped. The purring silence continued, lulling all +lesser energies to sleep, until Amelia, pausing to adjust her thread, +found her mood broken by actual stillness, and gazed about her like one +awakened from dreams. + +"There!" she said, recalling herself. "Ain't that a good smooth thread? +I've sold lots of yarn. They ask for it in Sudleigh." + +"'Tis so!" confirmed aunt Ann cordially. "An' you've al'ays dyed it +yourself, too!" + +"Yes, a good blue; sometimes tea-color. There, now, you can't say you +ain't heard a spinnin'-wheel once more!" + +Amelia moved the wheel to the side of the room, and went gravely back +to her chair. Her energy had fled, leaving her hushed and tremulous. +But not for that did aunt Ann relinquish her quest for the betterment +of the domestic world. Her tongue clicked the faster as Amelia's +halted. She put away her work altogether, and sat, with wagging head +and eloquent hands, still holding forth on the changes which might be +wrought in the house: a bay window here, a sofa there, new chairs, +tables, and furnishings. Amelia's mind swam in a sea of green rep, and +she found herself looking up from time to time at her mellowed four +walls, to see if they sparkled in desirable yet somewhat terrifying +gilt paper. + +At four o'clock, when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was +remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in +to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense +that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that +moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in +silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and +cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the +crumbs. Amos never varied in his rôle of automaton; and Amelia talked +rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she +was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned +in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt, +just as the oxen gave' their tremulous preparatory heave. + +"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia +this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I +can!" + +Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia +sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand, +she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow. + +"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even +in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word. +"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!" + +Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming +eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and +keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they +would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt +Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all +the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard. + +When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the +silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had +miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, +strangely clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been +stilled; only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, +and the cat stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in +the waning light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the +coat over critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it +behind the door in its accustomed place, where it had remained +undisturbed now for many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her +early supper, and then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it +brought out great shadows in the room, she took a little cricket and +sat down by the fire. There she had mused many an evening which seemed +to her less dull than the general course of her former life, while her +husband occupied the hearthside chair and told her stories of the war. +He had a childlike clearness and simplicity of speech, and a +self-forgetful habit of reminiscence. The war was the war to him, not a +theatre for boastful individual action; but Amelia remembered now that +he had seemed to hold heroic proportions in relation to that immortal +past. One could hardly bring heroism into the potato-field and the +cow-house; but after this lapse of time, it began to dawn upon her that +the man who had fought at Gettysburg and the man who marked out for her +the narrow rut of an unchanging existence were one and the same. And as +if the moment had come for an expected event, she heard again the +jangling of bells without, and the old vivid color rushed into her +cheeks, reddened before by the fire-shine. It was as though the other +night had been a rehearsal, and as if now she knew what was coming. Yet +she only clasped her hands more tightly about her knees and waited, the +while her heart hurried its time. The knocker fell twice, with a +resonant clang. She did not move. It beat again, the more insistently. +Then the heavy outer door was pushed open, and Laurie Morse came in, +looking exactly as she knew he would look--half angry, wholly excited, +and dowered with the beauty of youth recalled. He took off his cap and +stood before her. + +"Why didn't you come?" he asked imperatively. "Why didn't you let me +in?" + +The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it +was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some +influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she +was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, +calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not. + +"If you wanted it enough, you could get in," she said perversely, with +an alluring coquetry in her mien. "The door was unfastened." + +"I did want to enough," he responded. A new light came into his eyes. +He held out his hands toward her. "Get up off that cricket!" he +commanded. "Come here!" + +Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, +one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard. + +"It ain't Saturday," she whispered. + +"No, it ain't But I couldn't wait. You knew I couldn't. You knew I'd +come to-night." + +The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had +been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an +heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the +firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which +she had never felt in the days of their youth. + +"Am I goin' to stay," he asked sternly, "or shall I go home?" + +As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at +the gate. Should he go or stay? + +"I suppose," said Amelia faintly, "you're, goin' to stay." + +Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about +impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted +the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had +watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how +much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband's, the +real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life +with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward. + +"No! no!" she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. "No! no! +don't you hang it there! Don't you! don't you!" She swept him aside, +and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as +if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned +with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed. + +Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. +"I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're +nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and +let's talk." + +The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, +jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a +silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little +ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came +back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to +remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. +At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the +chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion. + +"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk." + +Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, +a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm. + +"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!" + +"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!" + +She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again. + +"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel +and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't +bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 'twould +kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a +comfort. If 'twas you--I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her +voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate +emotion. + +Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own +nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its +fears. + +"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But +we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd +furnish all new." + +"Not have these things!" called Amelia, with a ringing note of +dismay,--"not have these things he set by as he did his life! Why, what +do you think I'm made of, after fifteen years? What did I think I was +made of, even to guess I could? You don't know what women are like, +Laurie Morse,--you don't know!" + +She broke down in piteous weeping. Even then it seemed to her that it +would be good to find herself comforted with warm human sympathy; but +not a thought of its possibility remained in her mind. She saw the +boundaries beyond which she must not pass. Though the desert were arid +on this side, it was her desert, and there in her tent must she abide. +She began speaking again between sobbing breaths:-- + +"I did have a dull life. I used up all my young days doin' the same +things over and over, when I wanted somethin' different. It _was_ dull; +but if I could have it all over again, I'd work my fingers to the bone. +I don't know how it would have been if you and I'd come together then, +and had it all as we planned; but now I'm a different woman. I can't +any more go back than you could turn Sudleigh River, and coax it to run +uphill. I don't know whether 't was meant my life should make me a +different woman; but I _am_ different, and such as I am, I'm his woman. +Yes, till I die, till I'm laid in the ground 'longside of him!" Her +voice had an assured ring of triumph, as if she were taking again an +indissoluble marriage oath. + +Laurie had grown very pale. There were forlorn hollows under his eyes; +now he looked twice his age. + +"I didn't suppose you kept a place for me," he said, with an +unconscious dignity. "That wouldn't have been right, and him alive. And +I didn't wait for dead men's shoes. But somehow I thought there was +something between you and me that couldn't be outlived." + +Amelia looked at him with a frank sweetness which transfigured her face +into spiritual beauty. + +"I thought so, too," she answered, with that simplicity ever attending +our approximation to the truth, "I never once said it to myself; but +all this year, 'way down in my heart, I knew you'd come back. And I +wanted you to come. I guess I'd got it all planned out how we'd make up +for what we'd lost, and build up a new life. But so far as I go, I +guess I didn't lose by what I've lived through. I guess I gained +somethin' I'd sooner give up my life than even lose the memory of." + +So absorbed was she in her own spiritual inheritance that she quite +forgot his pain. She gazed past him with an unseeing look; and striving +to meet and recall it, he faced the vision of their divided lives. +To-morrow Amelia would remember his loss and mourn over it with +maternal pangs; to-night she was oblivious of all but her own. Great +human experiences are costly things; they demand sacrifice, not only of +ourselves, but of those who are near us. The room was intolerable to +Laurie. He took his hat and coat, and hurried out. Amelia heard the +dragging door closed behind him. She realized, with the numbness born +of supreme emotion, that he was putting on his coat outside in the +cold; and she did not mind. The bells stirred, and went clanging away. +Then she drew a long breath, and bowed her head on her hands in an +acquiescence that was like prayer. + +It seemed a long time to Amelia before she awoke again to temporal +things. She rose, smiling, to her feet, and looked about her as if her +eyes caressed every corner of the homely room. She picked up puss in a +round, comfortable ball, and carried her back to the hearth-side chair; +there she stroked her until her touchy ladyship had settled down again +to purring content. Then Amelia, still smiling, and with an absent +look, as if her mind wandered through lovely possibilities of a sort +which can never be undone, drew forth the spinning-wheel, and fitted a +roll to the spindle. She began stepping back and forth as if she moved +to the measure of an unheard song, and the pleasant hum of her spinning +broke delicately upon the ear. It seemed to waken all the room into new +vibrations of life. The clock ticked with an assured peace, as if +knowing it marked eternal hours. The flames waved softly upward without +their former crackle and sheen; and the moving shadows were gentle and +rhythmic ones come to keep the soul company. Amelia felt her thread +lovingly. + +"I guess I'll dye it blue," she said, with a tenderness great enough to +compass inanimate things. "He always set by blue, didn't he, puss?" + + + + +THE FLAT-IRON LOT + + +The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside, +closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It +was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear +day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed. +Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the +signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all +others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to +celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big +with the importance of it. + +On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender +old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over +his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing +the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N. +Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either +side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality +of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have +numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length; +and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of +a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At +one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an +unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The +old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly +on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock +down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief +when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received +it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully +folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were +partially effaced. + +"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children +who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up +his bag, and went on. + +Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar +figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face, +with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone +from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue +eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day +after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had +come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert +that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish +to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of +home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham +neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff, +starched creases. + +"Dirt don't stick to _you_, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow. +"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it +for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute +which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself. + +As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked +it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the +extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his +clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed +perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing +Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a +thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he +reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged, +though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too +keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon +with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by +his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us +who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences, +children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack, +besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the +mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to +approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his +little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of +the flock would come soberly in, to announce:-- + +"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield." + +It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and +restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one +colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old +Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there +were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing +round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until +Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed +him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory +tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere +mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the +haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough +to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very +mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too +tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of +relief, and marked his value down. + +Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he +never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at +the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept +his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been +born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a +time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were +Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its +spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were +born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its +hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever +dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even, +of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him +the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A +little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding +itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak, +saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:-- + +"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?" + +Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized +that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went +home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her +husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:-- + +"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me +conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" + +Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the +seeds. + +"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems +to be pretty rugged." + +Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of +plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little +house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that +afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was +covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with +old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor +of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a +moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be +quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so +serenely. + +"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind +for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely +remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk +about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd +do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past +an' gone, the neighbors say"-- + +Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this +point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did +all these things as if each one were very important. + +"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite +o' lemon in." + +Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her +pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she +knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to +pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing +his own washing and making his own pie. + +To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had +turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it +had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have +named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace +nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a +little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There +was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in +bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in +the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own +bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming +profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when +he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in +passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock; +the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot +upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas +Oldfield was at home. + +He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight +through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock. +He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder +of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face. + +"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin', +though." + +For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in +time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again, +under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and +pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall +eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely, +reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been +inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the +entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm +decorum of his own desires. + +In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a +spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and +window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner +cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches, +indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on +the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as +flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his +china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to +solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures, +remarking, without emphasis:-- + +"I guess they might as well stay where they be." + +So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed +him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found +always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of +demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their +places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be +betrayed. + +One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that +calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some +natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was +sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking +tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude. + +"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't +you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke." + +Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed. + +"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones. + +"No, I waited for you." + +"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it +down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate." + +Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and +standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and +mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at +each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between +them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this +was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about +it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown +hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way +of nodding at his clocks. + +"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked, +while Mary buttered her biscuit. + +She looked at him in assent. + +"Well, I've proved it." + +"You don't say!" + +Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled +school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully +dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get +obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a +logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a +conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and +misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther, +because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so. + +"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!' +says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old +meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks +I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried +over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself, +'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house +was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in +Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever, +that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room +over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house +clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there. +An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete +and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face. +Her own reflected it. + +"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited; +she could only whisper. + +"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' _they 're in +my bag_!" + +Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently +secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a +knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance. + +"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin', +when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got +the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they +come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister, +the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then +opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all +was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o' +withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot. +An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God." + +"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. +"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. +She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, +"did they settle here first? Or--or was it Sudleigh?" + +Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell +and hear. + +"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate, +"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in +Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth." + +"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the +celebration then, you got it right?" + +"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the +rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key." + +The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great +content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he +gave her an oft-repeated charge:-- + +"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me. +I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the +meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To +them it don't signify." + +Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older +experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly +aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's +voice sounded that instant from the door:-- + +"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to +run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't +thick!". + +"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly. + +Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger. +Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown +hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for +color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was +customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes +going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that +no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy +footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's +right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously. + +"Well, father," said she, "you got home!" + +Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the +teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug. + +"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home." + +Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech. + +"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to +be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it. +'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he." + +Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen +blue eyes upon her. + +"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?" + +"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"-- + +"What Eaton?" + +"William W." + +"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool +Eaton?" + +Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what +was coming. + +"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other +towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration." + +"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew +he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em +all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got +letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out, +'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's +quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past +I." + +He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard +father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before +had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole +township now conspired to bait him. + +"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as +they can tell what they mean by it." + +Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth +on one so dull. + +"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might +as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the +clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm +enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell." + +Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he +learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our +nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now." + +He rose from his chair. + +"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of +a new bell?" + +Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry. + +"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take +on so. What under the sun has got into you?" + +Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the +dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his +fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she +understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her +apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She +gathered herself desperately. + +"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it, +an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it." + +"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!" + +"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful +creases. "Say your say and git it over." + +Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment +Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its +equilibrium. + +"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very +day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron +Lot." + +"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's +he made up his mind to do with it?" + +"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says +he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he +can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that +lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as +ever was, an' no good to you,--there ain't half a load o' hay cut there +in a season,--an' he'd pay the full vally"-- + +"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie +paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie," +said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything +to do with that lot o' land?" + +"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly. + +"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old +gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye +had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron +Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone, +you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin' +down to vote." + +Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly. +"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the +crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind +of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared +in the gathering dusk. + +"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along +with me." + +Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of +his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a +passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood +in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have +it. I wish I was father. I'd see!" + +Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his +arm. + +"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He +can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set +up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I +meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody +knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer." + +Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered. + +"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody." + +"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. +He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a +poor tool that would do that." + +He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of +the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas +took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already +assembled. + +Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed, +responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its +phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to +the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the +west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still +under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife +lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the +strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the +neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding, +sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world +seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to +sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living +things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest +decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it +could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the +few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old +War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also +the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant +spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas +Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse, +to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying +down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and +Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming +night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might +not have done in a room full of winter brightness. + +"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. +Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand." + +"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas. + +"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' +takin' the sense o' the meetin'." + +"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. +"All gab an' no git there!" + +"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had +something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled +clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity." + +"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted +fierceness:-- + +"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a +clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep +Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?" + +"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I +do." + +"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," +suggested Brad Freeman. + +"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented +Tom O'Neil irreverently. + +"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might +as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, +it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back +ag'in." + +"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by +dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to +do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy +gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low +land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! +Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into +Sudleigh." + +Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard +him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the +sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired +so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but +all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly. + +"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't +do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell." + +Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, +and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated +discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public +soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, +by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have +his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the +town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for +taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the +bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his +neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! +it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another +stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed +man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His +face looked ashen. + +"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I +ain't there_!" + +A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life. + +"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, +for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. +Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. +They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and +more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the +womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled +majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. +Sixty! seventy! eighty-one! + +"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice. + +Then on it beat, to the completed century. + +The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their +public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the +fact with scorn. + +"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. +"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never +heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess +I'd see!" + +It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and +cry,-- + +"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" + +He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up +the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, +followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the +tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving +fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men +and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had +ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield +strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and +each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of +protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's +Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. + +"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" + +Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the +waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his +boyhood. + +"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from +under!" + +Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. +There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent +even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to +another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." + +He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. +There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he +stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. + +"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set +foot on it." + +The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping +elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within +the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; +then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the +rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, +illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. + +"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But +no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak. + +"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you +know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place +that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to +prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled +that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the +age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that +made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was +cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here." + +"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly. + +"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll +have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this +God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in +open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit +hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he +continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. +"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or +bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the +Judgment Day." + +With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and +though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save +that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them +trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange +herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere. + +"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could +shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the +hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, +and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had +walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, +reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly +and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk +thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose +within her. + +That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the +poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, +and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother +thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it +wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel +hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated +clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the +stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all +the unresponsive presences of night. + +For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle +seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really +closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, +interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after +Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed +father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high +tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction +that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; +and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much +about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' +doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not +be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the +prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no +decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in +preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over +two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was +that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of +the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side +with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of +Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that +he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable +atmosphere of loftier meanings. + +Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to +do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only +Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod +or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For +he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for +that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public +conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an +elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him +gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It +seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He +would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, +he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a +meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his +own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark +bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that +he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. +Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to +draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the +youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were +with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of +goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for +their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped +down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the +atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, +and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to +the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework +together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had +brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was +"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's +brain," and the brain was ready. + +Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when +Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have +realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have +been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when +Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the +cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: +only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's +wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's +hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the +shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a +pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine +shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an +intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were +inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. +Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying +meantime to the smallest Crane boy,-- + +"You crawl up there!" + +The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to +seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal +glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed. + +"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there," +commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats +fast when we approach a great fruition. + +"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!" + +The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, +he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk +with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their +sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited +such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural +rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What +lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his +trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of +possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and +argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young +scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other +from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and +grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and +over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only +remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants +apart:-- + +"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he +thinks best. He's got the say." + +In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs +in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for +the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the +rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that +specious plea. + +"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that +elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail +was repeated in many keys. + +Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before +the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the +cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became +suddenly and dramatically dignified. + +"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it +standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it? +Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of +Injuns tackle it?" + +The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's +desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears +of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over +the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to +seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first +desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came +into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping +dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and +leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this +aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being +unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened +with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, +greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then +the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But +each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing +to suffer the attack. + +"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every +time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be +dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that +glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what +loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking +redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful +solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of +settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's +wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed +logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm +horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and +pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled +realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a +daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the +popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when +young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic +yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:-- + +"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day +comes, who's goin' to beat?" + +An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not +yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at +home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!" + +"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in +unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against +red. + +"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned +their chief. "_My_ last gun 's fired." + +Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two +separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went +faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those +days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and +undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. +Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are +ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the +oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his +Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside +her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud. + +Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot +as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, +brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an +attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor +had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of +mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, +being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in +village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on +Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at +the front door. + +"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your +grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like +as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got +out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think." + +Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting. + +"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, +absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a +shaken head, and pursed-up lips. + +A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week +had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were +telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without +her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew +well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what +the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in +the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was +still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not +expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she +saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next +day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed +her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which +was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little +house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the +clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, +as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the +night, and slipped away again in silence! + + * * * * * + +"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister. +"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin' +here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My +soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I +wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!" + +Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she +might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever +a chip o' the old block. + +When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front +steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little +chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new +cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant +wine. + +"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle +righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal." + +The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay. + +"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about +Mr. Oldfield?" + +So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in +disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an +apologetic cough. + +"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular +about father." + +"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got +to." + +"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and +loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost +her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It +seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister +bent his brows impatiently. + +"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the +fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me +back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what +to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then +when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all +at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without +him." + +This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever +looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A +frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in +expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight. + +"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, +"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything." + +"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts +enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them. +The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the +town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline +to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take +the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came +in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's +Nicholas Oldfield." + +Mary folded her hands, in proud composure. + +"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was +here." + +"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield," +asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I +should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor +ain't neither of 'em heard of?" + +"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town +legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But +then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has +been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie +realized with awe, to offer prayer. + +Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye +Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not +until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed" +rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her +mouth and spoke. + +"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great +shakes?" + +Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered +demurely, "I don't know as I can say." + +"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear +your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't +they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?" + +Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it +carefully on the shelf. + +"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's +barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and +prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how +little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and +dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both. + +The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that +the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the +celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable +warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for +him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to +lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding +cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming +headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!" + +Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why +gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him +sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, +she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance +at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little +room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being +careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the +truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in +comparison. + +It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of +the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world. + +"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full +of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed +incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing. +"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from +one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite +right, that time he tolled the bell." + +They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in +byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low +degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and +remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until +the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way. + +"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never +was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold." + +Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, +there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet +morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the +night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to +the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the +celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in +the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it +seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. +Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save +each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the +eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad +Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, +and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if +there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, +though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short +address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the +doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of +it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is." + +It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism +which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, +justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed +the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went +whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse +about the address, without doing it justice. + +The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty +toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The +air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they +were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, +something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went +up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the +step. + +"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon +him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held +her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly. + +"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!" + +Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as +he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the +big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he +could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed +very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, +and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, +catching her breath tremulously:-- + +"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the +county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the +pond!" + +"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded +Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about +a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't +in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?" + +"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister." + +"The minister? What's he want?" + +"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to +say." + +Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas +Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave. + +"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's +needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've +got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I +ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me +timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they +needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can +carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.". + +Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew +her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of +plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; +and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast +asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had +only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and +saw the doctor come striding into the yard. + +"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers. +Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?" + +Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a +hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at +the situation without delay. + +"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've +got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. +He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we +don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you +think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if +nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to +pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because +you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning +to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, +and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!" + +Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning +dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the +doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not +climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary +appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink +and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. +Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for +thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up +treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. +He turned quite meekly to the doctor. + +"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up +an' dressed?" + +Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door. + +Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield +settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it +ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless +while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both +knew well. + +"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old +cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road. +Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you +understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But +they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they +wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up +Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' +there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he +told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot. + +"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We +might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the +church." + +"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas +quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He +could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it +quivered and betrayed him. + +"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the +Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there." + +But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had +the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain. + +"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides +gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' +dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a +jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine +feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, +Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over." + +"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and +you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson +while I start up the town." + +The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did +some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul +Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was +ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind +kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to +be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened +at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy; +and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody +had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act +the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head +without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for +the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation +and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is +naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy +man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly +progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by +vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the +sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into +town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the +part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent +nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't," +said he. + +But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he +turned his horse. + +"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please, +_please_ let me be Mary Oldfield!" + +The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his +way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's +tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily +anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted +before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of +boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an +unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the +fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth +to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could +with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride +inside the elephant. + +So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the +cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic +intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and +her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the +handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's +heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and +that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's +vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the +procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up +his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to +pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air. + +"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and +Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a +long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all. + +When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge +into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and +shot out a sibilant whisper:-- + +"Did you know that?--about the Flat-Iron Lot?" + +Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed. + +"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my +end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder +father let me get out alive." + +The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the +sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying +that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard +against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon +lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his +heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them. +Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a +suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some +precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath +went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the +economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment +day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white. + +Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of +presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read +them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by +finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped +into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded. +So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the +universe in its making. + +It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He +sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and +then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would +suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an +inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to +be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile +Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising. + +"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would +be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public +land forever." + +Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick +muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied, +antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise. +They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised +intelligence exalted. + +The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the +sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly +spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down +on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to +flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the +"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux +representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my +brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a +frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were +patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it +was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an +occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by +"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A +very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups +of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before +"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes +themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred +shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing +quietly by--the reverential glance accorded those who find out +unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an +awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual. + +"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot." + +Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in +a flutter. + +"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to +supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"-- + +"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but +Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the +evenin'. Come, Mary!" + +Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking +with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about +contentedly. + +"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!" + + + + +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + +The First Church of Tiverton stands on a hill, whence it overlooks the +little village, with one or two pine-shaded neighborhoods beyond, and, +when the air is clear, a thin blue line of upland delusively like the +sea. Set thus austerely aloft, it seems now a survival of the day when +men used to go to meeting gun in hand, and when one stayed, a lookout +by the door, to watch and listen. But this the present dwellers do not +remember. Conceding not a sigh to the holy and strenuous past, they +lament--and the more as they grow older--the stiff climb up the hill, +albeit to rest in so sweet a sanctuary at the top. For it is sweet +indeed. A soft little wind seems always to be stirring there, on summer +Sundays a messenger of good. It runs whispering about, and wafts in all +sorts of odors: honey of the milkweed and wild rose, and a Christmas +tang of the evergreens just below. It carries away something, +too--scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a +whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of +musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here +to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we +faint, of the keen savor of righteousness. + +Here in the church do we congregate from week to week; but behind it, +on a sloping hillside, is the last home of us all, the old +burying-ground, overrun with a briery tangle, and relieved by Nature's +sweet and cunning hand from the severe decorum set ordinarily about the +dead. Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we +were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but +affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too +supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due +course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in +common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay +unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect, +and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we +ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds; +tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets +smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little +of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry, +crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered +corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off +from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely +walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the +spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear. + +Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green +tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun. But our pendulum had +swung too wide. Like many folk who suffer from one discomfort, we had +gone to the utmost extreme and courted another. We were tired of +climbing hills, and so we pressed too far into the lowland; and the +first grave dug in our Cemetery showed three inches of water at the +bottom. It was in "Prince's new lot," and there his young daughter was +to lie. But her lover had stood by while the men were making the grave; +and, looking into the ooze below, he woke to the thought of her fair +young body there. + +"God!" they heard him say, "she sha'n't lay so. Leave it as it is, an' +come up into the old buryin'-ground. There's room enough by me." + +The men, all mates of his, stopped work without a glance and followed +him; and up there in the dearer shrine her place was made. The father +said but a word at her changed estate. Neighbors had hurried in to +bring him the news; he went first to the unfinished grave in the +Cemetery, and then strode up the hill, where the men had not yet done. +After watching them for a while in silence, he turned aside; but he +came back to drop a trembling hand upon the lover's arm. + +"I guess," he said miserably, "she'd full as lieves lay here by you." + +And she will be quite beside him, though, in the beaten ways of earth, +others have come between. For years he lived silently and apart; but +when his mother died, and he and his father were left staring at the +dulled embers of life, he married a good woman, who perhaps does not +deify early dreams; yet she is tender of them, and at the death of her +own child it was she who went toiling up to the graveyard, to see that +its little place did not encroach too far. She gave no reason, but we +all knew it was because she meant to let her husband lie there by the +long-loved guest. + +Naturally enough, after this incident of the forsaken grave, we +conceived a strange horror of the new Cemetery, and it has remained +deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one +little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any +farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently +from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will +be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this +year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school +children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave +where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau took her away. +They never seem to connect that heart-broken wraith of a lover with the +bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched +overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of +youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever +quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, +all his for poring over those dulled pages of the past. + +After we had elected to abide by our old home, we voted an enlargement +of its bounds; and thereby hangs a tale of outlawed revenge. Long years +ago "old Abe Eaton" quarreled with his twin brother, and vowed, as the +last fiat of an eternal divorce, "I won't be buried in the same yard +with ye!" + +The brother died first; and because he lay within a little knoll beside +the fence, Abe willfully set a public seal on that iron oath by +purchasing a strip of land outside, wherein he should himself be +buried. Thus they would rest in a hollow correspondence, the fence +between. It all fell out as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are +cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the +helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not +the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does +the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according +to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves +another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into +decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, +beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out +the individual wrong. + +So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead +upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth +monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,--a rigid box +of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh +came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the +idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad +Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us +out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it." +That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we +smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by +friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids. + +The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find +them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for +they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of +age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds +them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such +veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning +skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely +feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I +fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the +larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny +imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that +wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a +certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into +the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses +from the stones and chip the letters clear. He liked to draw, +"creatur's" especially, and would trace them for children on their +slates. He lived alone in a little house long since fallen, and he +would eat no meat. That is all they know of him. I can guess but one +thing more: that when no looker-on was by, he pushed away the grass, +and wrote his little jokes, safe in the kindly tolerance of the dead. +This was the identical soul who should, in good old days, have been +carving gargoyles and misereres; here his only field was the obscurity +of Tiverton churchyard, his only monument these grotesqueries so +cunningly concealed. + +We have epitaphs, too,--all our own as yet, for the world has not +discovered them. One couple lies in well-to-do respectability under a +tiny monument not much taller than the conventional gravestone, but +shaped on a pretentious model. + +"We'd ruther have it nice," said the builders, "even if there ain't +much of it." + +These were Eliza Marden and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to +sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own fore-handedness. +I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple +portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting +between them, and glancing about her, in a flickering, intermittent +way, at the pleasant holiday world. Hannah was no worker; she liked a +long afternoon in the sun, her thin little hands busied about nothing +weightier than crochet; and her mother regarded her with a horrified +patience, as one who might some time be trusted to sow all her wild +oats of idleness. The well-mated pair died within the same year, and it +was Hannah who composed their epitaph, with an artistic accuracy, but a +defective sense of rhyme:-- + + "Here lies Eliza + She was a striver + Here lies Peleg + He was a select Man" + +We townsfolk found something haunting and bewildering in the lines; +they drew, and yet they baffled us, with their suggested echoes luring +only to betray. Hannah never wrote anything else, but we always +cherished the belief that she could do "'most anything" with words and +their possibilities. Still, we accepted her one crowning achievement, +and never urged her to further proof. In Tiverton we never look genius +in the mouth. Nor did Hannah herself propose developing her gift. +Relieved from the spur of those two unquiet spirits who had begotten +her, she settled down to sit all day in the sun, learning new patterns +of crochet; and having cheerfully let her farm run down, she died at +last in a placid poverty. + +Then there was Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial +hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a +day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by +the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, +below her _obiit_, the astounding statement:-- + +"The first woman. She made the journey to Boston. By stage." + +Here, too, are the ironies whereof departed life is prodigal. This is +the tidy lot of Peter Merrick, who had a desire to stand well with the +world, in leaving it, and whose purple and fine linen were embodied in +the pomp of death. He was a cobbler, and he put his small savings +together to erect a modest monument to his own memory. Every Sunday he +visited it, "after meetin'," and perhaps his day-dreams, as he sat +leather-aproned on his bench, were still of that white marble idealism. +The inscription upon it was full of significant blanks; they seemed an +interrogation of the destiny which governs man. + +"Here lies Peter Merrick----" ran the unfinished scroll, "and his wife +who died----" + +But ambitious Peter never lay there at all; for in his later prime, +with one flash of sharp desire to see the world, he went on a voyage to +the Banks, and was drowned. And his wife? The story grows somewhat +threadbare. She summoned his step-brother to settle the estate, and he, +a marble-cutter by trade, filled in the date of Peter's death with +letters English and illegible. In the process of their carving, the +widow stood by, hands folded under her apron from the midsummer sun. +The two got excellent well acquainted, and the stone-cutter prolonged +his stay. He came again in a little over a year, at Thanksgiving time, +and they were married. Which shows that nothing is certain in +life,--no, not the proprieties of our leaving it,--and that even there +we must walk softly, writing no boastful legend for time to annul. + +At one period a certain quatrain had a great run in Tiverton; it was +the epitaph of the day. Noting how it overspread that stony soil, you +picture to yourself the modest pride of its composer; unless, indeed, +it had been copied from an older inscription in an English yard, and +transplanted through the heart and brain of some settler whose thoughts +were ever flitting back. Thus it runs in decorous metre:-- + + "Dear husband, now my life is passed, + You have dearly loved me to the last. + Grieve not for me, but pity take + On my dear children for my sake." + +But one sorrowing widower amended it, according to his wife's +direction, so that it bore a new and significant meaning. He was +charged to + + "pity take + On my dear parent for my sake." + +The lesson was patent. His mother-in-law had always lived with him, and +she was "difficult." Who knows how keenly the sick woman's mind ran on +the possibilities of reef and quicksand for the alien two left alone +without her guiding hand? So she set the warning of her love and fear +to be no more forgotten while she herself should be remembered. + +The husband was a silent man. He said very little about his intentions; +performance was enough for him. Therefore it happened that his +"parent," adopted perforce, knew nothing about this public charge until +she came upon it, on her first Sunday visit, surveying the new glory of +the stone. The story goes that she stood before it, a square, +portentous figure in black alpaca and warlike mitts, and that she +uttered these irrevocable words:-- + +"Pity on _me_! Well, I guess he won't! I'll go to the poor-farm fust!" + +And Monday morning, spite of his loyal dissuasions, she packed her +"blue chist," and drove off to a far-away cousin, who got her "nussin'" +to do. Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was +life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part +company. + +Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a +story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's +death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied +her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled +the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance +of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden +death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his +blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish +order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled, +not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home +from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds +it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things, +chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one +another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the +rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile +away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief." In the +late afternoon, the guest so summoned walked quietly into the silent +house, where Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon +the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was +frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. +But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded +hair, her benevolent spectacles, and her atmosphere of calm. + +"I guess I'll blaze a fire, Jonas," said she. "You step out an' git me +a mite o' kindlin'." + +The air of homely living enwrapped him once again, and mechanically, +with the inertia of old habit, he obeyed. They had a "cup o' tea" +together; and then, when the dishes were washed, and the peaceful +twilight began to settle down upon them like a sifting mist, she drew a +little rocking chair to the window where he sat opposite, and spoke. + +"Jonas," said she, in that still voice which had been harmonized by the +experiences of life, "arter dark, you jest go up an' bring home them +blue dishes. Mary's got an awful lot o' fun in her, an' if she ain't +laughin' over that, I'm beat. Now, Jonas, you do it! Do you s'pose she +wants them nice blue pieces out there through wind an' weather? She'd +ruther by half see 'em on the parlor cluzzet shelves; an' if you'll +fetch 'em home, I'll scallop some white paper, jest as she liked, an' +we'll set 'em up there." + +Jonas wakened a little from his mental swoon. Life seemed warmer, more +tangible, again. + +"Law, do go," said the mother soothingly. "She don't want the whole +township tramplin' up there to eye over her chiny. Make her as nervous +as a witch. Here's the ha'-bushel basket, an' some paper to put between +'em. You go, Jonas, an' I'll clear off the shelves." + +So Jonas, whether he was tired of guiding the impulses of his own +unquiet mind, or whether he had become a child again, glad to yield to +the maternal, as we all do in our grief, took the basket and went. He +stood by, still like a child, while this comfortable woman put the +china on the shelves, speaking warmly, as she worked, of the pretty +curving of the cups, and her belief that the pitcher was "one you could +pour out of." She stayed on at the house, and Jonas, through his +sickness of the mind, lay back upon her soothing will as a baby lies in +its mother's arms. But the china was never used, even when he had come +to his normal estate, and bought and sold as before. The mother's +prescience was too keen for that. + +Here in this ground are the ambiguities of life carried over into that +other state, its pathos and its small misunderstandings. This was a +much-married man whose last spouse had been a triple widow. Even to him +the situation proved mathematically complex, and the sumptuous stone to +her memory bears the dizzying legend that "Enoch Nudd who erects this +stone is her fourth husband and his fifth wife." Perhaps it was the +exigencies of space which brought about this amazing elision; but +surely, in its very apparent intention, there is only a modest pride. +For indubitably the much-married may plume themselves upon being also +the widely sought. If it is the crown of sex to be desired, here you +have it, under seal of the civil bond. No baseless, windy boasting that +"I might an if I would!" Nay, here be the marriage ties to testify. + +In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long +erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and +reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a +little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching +eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay. +Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man +whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and +years ago he broke into a house,--an unknown felony in our quiet +limits,--and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went +about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with +healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief +imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he +came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had +learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his +wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing +such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss. +Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered +that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said +us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in +the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a +hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he +died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily. +When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought +of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its +posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set +us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of +one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the +blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we +stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy +to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of +morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We +are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated +to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to +men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose +soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate. + +But of all these fleeting legends made to, hold the soul a moment on +its way, and keep it here in fickle permanence, one is more dramatic +than all, more charged with power and pathos. Years ago there came into +Tiverton an unknown man, very handsome, showing the marks of high +breeding, and yet in his bearing strangely solitary and remote. He wore +a cloak, and had a foreign look. He came walking into the town one +night, with dust upon his shoes, and we judged that he had been +traveling a long time. He had the appearance of one who was not nearly +at his journey's end, and would pass through the village, continuing on +a longer way. He glanced at no one, but we all stared at him. He +seemed, though we had not the words to put it so, an exiled prince. He +went straight through Tiverton Street until he came to the parsonage; +and something about it (perhaps its garden, hot with flowers, larkspur, +coreopsis, and the rest) detained his eye, and he walked in. Next day +the old doctor was there also with his little black case, but we were +none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who +intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside +the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of +nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. + +"What's the matter with so-and-so?" would ask a mousing neighbor. + +"He's sick," ran the laconic reply. + +"Goin' to die?" one daring querist ventured further. + +"Some time," said the doctor. + +But though he assumed a right to combat thus the outer world, no one +was gentler with a sick man or with those about him in their grief. To +the latter he would speak; but he used to say he drew his line at +second cousins. + +Into his hands and the true old parson's fell the stranger's +confidence, if confidence it were. He may have died solitary and +unexplained; but no matter what he said, his story was safe. In a week +he was carried out for burial; and so solemn was the parson's manner as +he spoke a brief service over him, so thrilling his enunciation of the +words "our brother," that we dared not even ask what else he should be +called. And we never knew. The headstone, set up by the parson, bore +the words "Peccator Maximus." For a long time we thought they made the +stranger's name, and, judged that he must have been a foreigner; but a +new schoolmistress taught us otherwise. It was Latin, she said, and it +meant "the chiefest among sinners." When that report flew round, the +parson got wind of it, and then, in the pulpit one morning, he +announced that he felt it necessary to say that the words had been used +"at our brother's request," and that it was his own decision to write +below them, "For this cause came I into the world." + +We have accepted the stranger as we accept many things in Tiverton. +Parson and doctor kept his secret well. He is quite safe from our +questioning; but for years I expected a lady, always young and full of +grief, to seek out his grave and shrive him with her tears. She will +not appear now, unless she come as an old, old woman, to lie beside +him. It is too late. + +One more record of our vanished time,--this full of poesy only, and the +pathos of farewell. It was not the aged and heartsick alone who lay +down here to rest We have been no more fortunate than others. Youth and +beauty came also, and returned no more. This, where the white rose-bush +grows untended, was the young daughter of a squire in far-off days: too +young to have known the pangs of love or the sweet desire of Death, +save that, in primrose time, he always paints himself so fair. I have +thought the inscription must have been borrowed from another grave, in +some yard shaded by yews and silent under the cawing of the rooks; +perhaps, from its stiffness, translated from a stately Latin verse. +This it is, snatched not too soon from oblivion; for a few more years +will wear it quite away:-- + + "Here lies the purple flower of a maid + Having to envious Death due tribute paid. + Her sudden Loss her Parents did lament, + And all her Friends with grief their hearts did Rent. + Life's short. Your wicked Lives amend with care, + For Mortals know we Dust and Shadows are." + +"The purple flower of a maid!" All the blossomy sweetness, the fragrant +lamenting of Lycidas, lies in that one line. Alas, poor +love-lies-bleeding! And yet not poor according to the barren pity we +accord the dead, but dowered with another youth set like a crown upon +the unstained front of this. Not going with sparse blossoms ripened or +decayed, but heaped with buds and dripping over in perfume. She seems +so sweet in her still loveliness, the empty promise of her balmy +spring, that for a moment fain are you to snatch her back into the +pageant of your day. Reading that phrase, you feel the earth is poorer +for her loss. And yet not so, since the world holds other greater +worlds as well. Elsewhere she may have grown to age and stature; but +here she lives yet in beauteous permanence,--as true a part of youth +and joy and rapture as the immortal figures on the Grecian Urn. While +she was but a flying phantom on the frieze of time, Death fixed her +there forever,--a haunting spirit in perennial bliss. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tiverton Tales, by Alice Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 9370-8.txt or 9370-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/7/9370/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Tiverton Tales + +Author: Alice Brown + +Posting Date: March 22, 2014 [EBook #9370] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 26, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1> +<br /><br /><br /> +TIVERTON TALES +</h1> + +<p class="t3b"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +ALICE BROWN +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +1899 +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="t3b"> + CONTENTS<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + <a href="#dooryards">DOORYARDS</a><br /> + <a href="#wind">A MARCH WIND</a><br /> + <a href="#chest">THE MORTUARY CHEST</a><br /> + <a href="#horn">HORN-O'-THE-MOON</a><br /> + <a href="#festival">A STOLEN FESTIVAL</a><br /> + <a href="#assembling">A LAST ASSEMBLING</a><br /> + <a href="#peace">THE WAY OF PEACE</a><br /> + <a href="#hannah">THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME</a><br /> + <a href="#honey">HONEY AND MYRRH</a><br /> + <a href="#marriage">A SECOND MARRIAGE</a><br /> + <a href="#flatiron">THE FLAT-IRON LOT</a><br /> + <a href="#living">THE END OF ALL LIVING</a><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dooryards"></a> +DOORYARDS +</h3> + +<p> +Tiverton has breezy, upland roads, and damp, sweet valleys; but should +you tarry there a summer long, you might find it wasteful to take many +excursions abroad. For, having once received the freedom of family +living, you will own yourself disinclined to get beyond dooryards, +those outer courts of domesticity. Homely joys spill over into them, +and, when children are afoot, surge and riot there. In them do the +common occupations of life find niche and channel. While bright weather +holds, we wash out of doors on a Monday morning, the wash-bench in the +solid block of shadow thrown by the house. We churn there, also, at the +hour when Sweet-Breath, the cow, goes afield, modestly unconscious of +her own sovereignty over the time. There are all the varying fortunes +of butter-making recorded. Sometimes it comes merrily to the tune of +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Come, butter, come!<br /> + Peter stands a-waiting at the gate,<br /> + Waiting for his butter-cake.<br /> + Come, butter, come!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> +chanted in time with the dasher; again it doth willfully refuse, and +then, lest it be too cool, we contribute a dash of hot water, or too +hot, and we lend it a dash of cold. Or we toss in a magical handful of +salt, to encourage it. Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of +householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them +away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the +syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what +complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with +purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; +for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, +omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the +merry months are well under way, or the cows go kicking up their heels +to pasture, or plants are taken from the south window and clapped into +chilly ground, orderly passions begin to riot within us, and we "clear +up" our yards. We gather stray chips, and pieces of bone brought in by +the scavenger dog, who sits now with his tail tucked under him, +oblivious of such vagrom ways. We rake the grass, and then, gilding +refined gold, we sweep it. There is a tradition that Miss Lois May once +went to the length of trimming her grass about the doorstone and +clothes-pole with embroidery scissors; but that was a too-hasty +encomium bestowed by a widower whom she rejected next week, and who +qualified his statement by saying they were pruning-shears. +</p> + +<p> +After this preliminary skirmishing arises much anxious inspection of +ancient shrubs and the faithful among old-fashioned plants, to see +whether they have "stood the winter." The fresh, brown "piny" heads are +brooded over with a motherly care; wormwood roots are loosened, and the +horse-radish plant is given a thrifty touch. There is more than the +delight of occupation in thus stirring the wheels of the year. We are +Nature's poor handmaidens, and our labor gives us joy. +</p> + +<p> +But sweet as these homespun spots can make themselves, in their mixture +of thrift and prodigality, they are dearer than ever at the points +where they register family traits, and so touch the humanity of us all. +Here is imprinted the story of the man who owns the farm, that of the +father who inherited it, and; the grandfather who reclaimed it from +waste; here have they and their womenkind set the foot of daily living +and traced indelible paths. They have left here the marks of tragedy, +of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground +between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will, +since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose +to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field +of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure +met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out +in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a +woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the +wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the +ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his +heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a +gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown +shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die. +She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she +walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied +delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a +hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who +followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner +house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the +wandering train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the +dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest +joy,—one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, +where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but +she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one +dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set +up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The +game opened before her an endless vista of delight. She saw herself +perpetually knocking red-striped balls through an eternity of wickets; +and she knew that here was the one pastime of which no soul could tire. +Afterwards, driving home with her husband and two children, still in a +daze of satisfied delight, she murmured absently:— +</p> + +<p> +"Wonder how much they cost?" +</p> + +<p> +"What?" asked Eben, and Della turned, flushed scarlet, and replied:— +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, nothin'!" +</p> + +<p> +That night, she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the +sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to +work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a +monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang +at moments when she purposed leaping the bounds of domestic custom. +Even Eben had learned that, dull as he was. If he heard that guilty +crooning from the buttery, he knew she might be breaking extra eggs, or +using more sugar than was conformable. +</p> + +<p> +"What you doin' of?" he was accustomed to call. But Delia never +answered, and he did not interfere. The question was a necessary +concession to marital authority; he had no wish to curb her ways. +</p> + +<p> +Della scudded about the yard like a willful wind. She gathered withes +from a waiting pile, and set them in that one level space for wickets. +Then she took a handsaw, and, pale about the lips, returned to the +house and to her bedroom. She had made her choice. She was sacrificing +old associations to her present need; and, one after another, she sawed +the ornamenting balls from her mother's high-post bedstead. Perhaps the +one element of tragedy lay in the fact that Della was no mechanician, +and she had not foreseen that, having one flat side, her balls might +decline to roll. But that dismay was brief. A weaker soul would have +flinched; to Della it was a futile check, a pebble under the wave. She +laid her balls calmly aside. Some day she would whittle them into +shape; for there were always coming to Della days full of roomy leisure +and large content. Meanwhile apples would serve her turn,—good alike +to draw a weary mind out of its channel or teach the shape of spheres. +And so, with two russets for balls and the clothes-slice for a mallet +(the heavy sledge-hammer having failed), Della serenely, yet in +triumph, played her first game against herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you drive over them wickets!" she called imperiously, when Eben +came up from the lot in his dingle cart. +</p> + +<p> +"Them what?" returned he, and Della had to go out to explain. He looked +at them gravely; hers had been a ragged piece of work. +</p> + +<p> +"What under the sun'd you do that for?" he inquired. "The young ones +wouldn't turn their hand over for't They ain't big enough." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I be," said Della briefly. "Don't you drive over 'em." +</p> + +<p> +Eben looked at her and then at his path to the barn, and he turned his +horse aside. +</p> + +<p> +Thereafter, until we got used to it, we found a vivid source of +interest in seeing Della playing croquet, and always playing alone. +That was a very busy summer, because the famous drought came then, and +water had to be carried for weary rods from spring and river. Sometimes +Della did not get her playtime till three in the afternoon, sometimes +not till after dark; but she was faithful to her joy. The croquet +ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were +potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke, +and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether, +and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the +mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's +daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in +the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was +a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark. +She clung to her kitchen chair. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to +understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had +grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was +frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although +loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own +species of sad and shy content. +</p> + +<p> +Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were +not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need +not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the +house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry. They could +recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as +children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on +the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went +out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at +once gave way. I looked down—at a broken wicket and a withered apple +by the stake. +</p> + +<p> +Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind, +at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding +mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not +wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No +sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it +up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in +all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from +the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under +different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might +guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition +that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have +their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country +maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, +still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and +strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish +through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has +roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and +that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? +Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy never has no +luck with plants." And that, indeed, is true. +</p> + +<p> +There is another dooryard with its infallible index finger pointing to +tell a tale. You can scarcely thread your way through it for vehicles +of all sorts, congregated there to undergo slow decomposition at the +hands of wind and weather. This farmer is a tradesman by nature, and +though, for thrift's sake, his fields must be tilled, he is yet +inwardly constrained to keep on buying and selling, albeit to no +purpose. He is everlastingly swapping and bargaining, giving play to a +faculty which might, in its legitimate place, have worked out the +definite and tangible, but which now goes automatically clicking on +under vain conditions. The house, too, is overrun with useless +articles, presently to be exchanged for others as unavailing, and in +the farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with +another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable +evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with +torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are +here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this +yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, +and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take +long, entrancing journeys in the mouldy old chaise; they endure +Siberian nights of sleighing, and throw out their helpless dolls to the +pursuing wolves; or the more mercantile-minded among the boys mount a +three-wheeled express wagon, and drive noisily away to traffic upon the +road. This, in its dramatic possibilities, is not a yard to be +despised. +</p> + +<p> +Not far away are two neighboring houses once held in affectionate +communion by a straight path through the clover and a gap in the wall. +This was the road to much friendly gossip, and there were few bright +days which did not find two matrons met at the wall, their heads +together over some amiable yarn; But now one house is closed, its +windows boarded up, like eyes shut down forever, and the grass has +grown over the little path: a line erased, perhaps never to be renewed. +It is easier to wipe out a story from nature than to wipe it from the +heart; and these mutilated pages of the outer life perpetually renew in +us the pangs of loss and grief. +</p> + +<p> +But not all our dooryard reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not +remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or +disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon +an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts +had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and +the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him news +of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was +going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his +mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of +attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now +due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a +pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling +across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down +hastily—yea, even before the advancing cat!—and made a trumpet of his +hands. +</p> + +<p> +"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away! +Died yesterday!" +</p> + +<p> +I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be +strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was +always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in +such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait +until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his +wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, +until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving +mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his +wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:— +</p> + +<p> +"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?" +</p> + +<p> +They had their funeral. +</p> + +<p> +To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder +and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One, +where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of +caraway. It seemed mysteriously connected with the oak-leaf cookies, +which only she could make; and the child, brushing through the delicate +bushes grown above his head, used to feel vaguely that, on some +fortunate day, cookies would be found there, "a-blowin' and a-growin'." +That he had seen them stirred and mixed and taken from the oven was an +empty matter; the cookies belonged to the caraway grove, and there they +hang ungathered still. In the very same yard was a hogshead filled with +rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated +pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent +black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would +hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth +depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river +is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where +insects float and fly. +</p> + +<p> +These are our dooryards. I wish we lived in them more; that there were +vines to sing under, and shade enough for the table, with its wheaten +loaf and good farm butter, and its smoking tea. But all that may come +when we give up our frantic haste, and sit down to look, and breathe, +and listen. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="wind"></a> +A MARCH WIND +</h3> + +<p> +When the clouds hung low, or chimneys refused to draw, or the bread +soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the +local drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon +as the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been +getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of +wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set +down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was +whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm. +</p> + +<p> +It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to +clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb, +innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot +upon her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient +creature. She never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants +into the ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies +were gone. So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the +fire, awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder +set in the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, +hardy as she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her +thick brown hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks +bloomed out in a frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard +knot under her chin, seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her +hands ached, holding the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the +inclemency of the time. It never occurred to her that she could have +put off this exacting job. She would sooner have expected Heaven to put +off the weather. Just as she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted +her pail of refuse over the edge, a man appeared from the other side of +the house, and stood confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his +deeply graven face was framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid +thought that he was not so old as he looked; experience, rather than +years, must have wrought its trace upon him. He was leading a little +girl, dressed with a very patent regard for warmth, and none for +beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine glance, noted that the child's +bungled skirt and hideous waist had been made from an old army +overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet and seeking; they +seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did not respond; at +that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of children. Yet +she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She afterwards +explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they looked as +odd as Dick's hatband. +</p> + +<p> +"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's +lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and +rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt +impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and +stiffness, and she answered sharply,— +</p> + +<p> +"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' +then I don't take tramps." +</p> + +<p> +The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side. +</p> + +<p> +"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail +from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked. +"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully +down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it." +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had +offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though +she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she +believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if +she were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation +of difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He +emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as +if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen, +where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at the +start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job +was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar, +and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands +on his trousers, and turned to the child. +</p> + +<p> +"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'." +</p> + +<p> +It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery. +The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely +simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little warmer +because they had appeared. She had a new sensation of welcome company. +So it was that, quite to her own surprise, she answered as quickly as +he spoke, and her reply also seemed an inevitable part of the drama:— +</p> + +<p> +"Walk right in. It's 'most dinner-time, an' I'll put on the pot." The +two stepped in before her, and they did not go away. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia herself never quite knew how it happened; but, like all the +other natural things of life, this had no need to be explained. At +first, there were excellent reasons for delay. The man, whose name +proved to be Enoch Willis, was a marvelous hand at a blow, and she kept +him a week, splitting some pine knots that defied her and the boy who +ordinarily chopped her wood. At the end of the week, Amelia confessed +that she was "terrible tired seein' Rosie round in that gormin' kind of +a dress;" so she cut and fitted her a neat little gown from her own red +cashmere. That was the second reason. Then the neighbors heard of the +mysterious guest, and dropped in, to place and label him. At first, +following the lead of undiscouraged fancy, they declared that he must +be some of cousin Silas's connections from Omaha; but even before +Amelia had time to deny that, his ignorance of local tradition denied +it for him. He must have heard of this or that, by way of cousin Silas; +but he owned to nothing defining place or time, save that he had been +in the war—"all through it." He seemed to be a man quite weary of the +past and indifferent to the future. After a half hour's talk with him, +unseasonable callers were likely to withdraw, perhaps into the pantry, +whither Amelia had retreated to escape catechism, and remark jovially, +"Well, 'Melia, you ain't told us who your company is!" +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Willis," said Amelia. She was emulating his habit of reserve. It +made a part of her new loyalty. +</p> + +<p> +Even to her, Enoch had told no tales; and strangely enough, she was +quite satisfied. She trusted him. He did say that Rosie's mother was +dead; for the last five years, he said, she had been out of her mind. +At that, Amelia's heart gave a fierce, amazing leap. It struck a note +she never knew, and wakened her to life and longing. She was glad +Rosie's mother had not made him too content. He went on a step or two +into the story of his life. His wife's last illness had eaten up the +little place, and after she went, he got no work. So, he tramped. He +must go again. Amelia's voice sounded sharp and thin, even to her, as +she answered,— +</p> + +<p> +"Go! I dunno what you want to do that for. Rosie's terrible contented +here." +</p> + +<p> +His brown eyes turned upon her in a kindly glance. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a +machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin' +better 'n days' works." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty. +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly. +</p> + +<p> +Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie +looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a +bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song. +"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't +never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was +younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now. +The better part o' my life's gone." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost +pride, and all a longing of maternal love. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were +married. +</p> + +<p> +Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries +of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was +agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride +to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no +previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, +and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges +were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They +argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it +would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the +popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies +toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days, +married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six +months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her +"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful +brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the +tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door +neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim, +with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her +smoke's a-goin'." +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and +without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of +affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing +things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well +as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her +try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the +steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition +reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their +marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about +the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he +only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he +guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a +bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door, +exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own +ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility +had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to +the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he +never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that +was what made it so pleasant to live with him. +</p> + +<p> +It was "easy sleddin'" now. Amelia grew very young. Her cheeks gained a +bloom, her eyes brightened. She even, as the matrons noticed, took to +crimping her hair. They looked on with a pitying awe. It seemed a +fearsome thing, to do so much for a tramp who would only kill you in +the end. Amelia stepped deftly about the house. She was a large woman, +whose ways had been devoid of grace; but now the richness of her +spiritual condition informed her with a charm. She crooned a little +about her work. Singing voice she had none, but she grew into a way of +putting words together, sometimes a line from the psalms, sometimes a +name she loved, and chanting the sounds, in unrecorded melody. +Meanwhile, little Rosie, always irreproachably dressed, with a jealous +care lest she fall below the popular standard, roamed in and out of the +house, and lightened its dull intervals. She, like the others, grew at +once very happy, because, like them, she accepted her place without a +qualm, as if it had been hers from the beginning. They were simple +natures, and when their joy came, they knew how to meet it. +</p> + +<p> +But if Enoch was content to follow the beaten ways of life, there was +one window through which he looked into the upper heaven of all: +thereby he saw what it is to create. He was a born mechanician. A +revolving wheel would set him to dreaming, and still him to that +lethargy of mind which is an involuntary sharing in the things that +are. He could lose himself in the life of rhythmic motion; and when he +discovered rusted springs, or cogs unprepared to fulfill their purpose, +he fell upon them with the ardor of a worshiper, and tried to set them +right. Amelia thought he should have invented something, and he +confessed that he had invented many things, but somehow failed in +getting them on the market. That process he mentioned with the +indifference of a man to whom a practical outcome is vague, and who +finds in the ideal a bright reality. Even Amelia could see that to be a +maker was his joy; to reap rewards of making was another and a lower +task. +</p> + +<p> +One cold day in the early spring, he went "up garret" to hunt out an +old saddle, gathering mildew there, and came upon a greater treasure, a +disabled clock. He stepped heavily down, bearing it aloft in both +hands. +</p> + +<p> +"See here, 'Melia," asked he, "why don't this go?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was scouring tins on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind +outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the +irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to +a job to quiet herself. +</p> + +<p> +"That clock?" she replied. "That was gran'ther Eli's. It give up +strikin', an' then the hands stuck, an' I lost all patience with it. So +I bought this nickel one, an' carted t'other off into the attic. 'T +ain't worth fixin'." +</p> + +<p> +"Worth it!" repeated Enoch. "Well, I guess I'll give it a chance." +</p> + +<p> +He drew a chair to the stove, and there hesitated. "Say, 'Melia," said +he, "should you jest as soon I'd bring in that old shoemaker's bench +out o' the shed? It's low, an' I could reach my tools off'n the floor." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia lacked the discipline of contact with her kind, but she was +nevertheless smooth as silk in her new wifehood. +</p> + +<p> +"Law, yes, bring it along," said she. "It's a good day to clutter up. +The' won't be nobody in." +</p> + +<p> +So, while Enoch laid apart the clock with a delicacy of touch known +only to square, mechanical fingers, and Rosie played with the +button-box on the floor, assorting colors and matching white with +white, Amelia scoured the tins. Her energy kept pace with the wind; it +whirled in gusts and snatches, yet her precision never failed. +</p> + +<p> +"Made up your mind which cow to sell?" she asked, opening a discussion +still unsettled, after days of animated talk. +</p> + +<p> +"Ain't much to choose," said Enoch. He had frankly set Amelia right on +the subject of livestock; and she smilingly acquiesced in his larger +knowledge. "Elbridge True's got a mighty nice Alderney, an' if he's +goin' to sell milk another year, he'll be glad to get two good milkers +like these. What he wants is ten quarts apiece, no matter if it's bluer +'n a whetstone. I guess I can swap off with him; but I don't want to +run arter him. I put the case last Thursday. Mebbe he'll drop round." +</p> + +<p> +"Well," concluded Amelia, "I guess you're pretty sure to do what's +right." +</p> + +<p> +The forenoon galloped fast, and it was half past eleven before she +thought of dinner. +</p> + +<p> +"Why," said she, "ain't it butcher day? I've been lottin' on a piece o' +liver." +</p> + +<p> +"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count." +</p> + +<p> +"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some +fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer +door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an' +peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it +ain't company, a day like this." +</p> + +<p> +Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full +of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there +came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. +There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia +washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. +She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her +consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her +family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky +with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an +eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were +that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons, +and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose." +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank +down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while +the knock came again, a little querulously. +</p> + +<p> +"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah +Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past +encounters; but that Enoch could not know. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it?" asked he, with but a mild appearance of interest. "Want me to +go to the door?" +</p> + +<p> +"Go to the door!" echoed Amelia, so stridently that he looked up at her +again. "No; I don't want anybody should go to the door till this room's +cleared up. If 't w'an't so ever-lastin' cold, I'd take him right into +the clock-room, an' blaze a fire; but he'd see right through that. You +gether up them tools an' things, an' I'll help carry out the bench." +</p> + +<p> +If Enoch had not just then been absorbed in a delicate combination of +brass, he might have spoken more sympathetically. As it was, he seemed +kindly, but remote. +</p> + +<p> +"Look out!" said he, "you'll joggle. No, I guess I won't move. If he's +any kind of a man, he'll know what 'tis to clean a clock." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was not a crying woman, but the hot tears stood in her eyes. She +was experiencing, for the first time, that helpless pang born from the +wounding of pride in what we love. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you see, Enoch?" she insisted. "This room looks like the Old +Boy—an' so do you—an' he'll go home an' tell all the folks at the +Ridge. Why, he's heard we're married, an' come over here to spy out the +land. He hates the cold. He never stirs till 'way on into June; an' now +he's come to find out." +</p> + +<p> +"Find out what?" inquired Enoch absorbedly. "Well, if you're anyways +put to 't, you send him to me." That manly utterance enunciated from a +"best-room" sofa, by an Enoch clad in his Sunday suit, would have +filled Amelia with rapture; she could have leaned on it as on the +Tables of the Law. But, alas! the scene-setting was meagre, and though +Enoch was very clean, he had no good clothes. He had pointedly refused +to buy them with his wife's money until he should have worked on the +farm to a corresponding amount. She had loved him for it; but every day +his outer poverty hurt her pride. "I guess you better ask him in," +concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed. +</p> + +<p> +"He <i>don't</i> bother me," said she, "an' I <i>will</i> let him in." She walked +to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she +broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. +</p> + +<p> +She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for +the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another +instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back +again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his +desire to get in. +</p> + +<p> +"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk +till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't +ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?" +</p> + +<p> +She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising +wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin +Josiah Pease." +</p> + +<p> +Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny +left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased +to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock." +</p> + +<p> +To Enoch, the explanation was enough. All the simple conventions of his +life might well wait upon a reason potent as this. Josiah Pease went to +the stove, and stood holding his tremulous hands over a cover. He was a +little man, eclipsed in a butternut coat of many capes, and his +parchment face shaded gradually up from it, as if into a harder medium. +His eyes were light, and they had an exceedingly uncomfortable way of +darting from one thing to another, like some insect born to spear and +sting. His head was entirely bald, all save a thin fringe of hair not +worth mentioning, since it disappeared so effectually beneath his +collar; and his general antiquity was grotesquely emphasized by two +sets of aggressive teeth, displaying their falsity from every crown. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia took out the broom, and began sweeping up buttons. She had an +acrid consciousness that by sacrificing them she was somehow completing +the tragedy of her day. Rosie gave a little cry; but Amelia pointed to +the corner where stood the child's chair, exhumed from the attic, after +forty years of rest. "You set there," she said, in an undertone, "an' +keep still." +</p> + +<p> +Rosie obeyed without a word. Such an atmosphere had not enveloped her +since she entered this wonderful house. Remembering vaguely the days +when her own mother had "spells," and she and her father effaced +themselves until times should change, she folded her little hands, and +lapsed back into a condition of mental servitude. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Amelia followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with +cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. +Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she +caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were +"soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, +having no lover in the war, had traded for her few. Here were the +gold-stones that held her changeable silk, there the little clouded +pearls from her sister's raglan. Annie had died in youth; its glamour +still enwrapped her. Poor Annie! But Rosie had seemed to bring her +back. Amelia swept litter, buttons and all, into the dustpan, and +marched to the stove to throw her booty in. Nobody marked her save +Rosie, whose playthings were endangered; but Enoch's very obtuseness to +the situation was what stayed her hand. She carried the dustpan away +into a closet, and came back, to gather up her tins. A cold rage of +nervousness beset her, so overpowering that she herself was amazed at +it. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, Josiah Pease had divested himself of his coat, and drawn the +grandfather chair into a space behind the stove. +</p> + +<p> +"You a clock-mender by trade?" he asked of Enoch. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said Enoch absently, "I ain't got any reg'lar trade." +</p> + +<p> +"Jest goin' round the country?" amended cousin Josiah, with the +preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, +in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to +'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly on with his work. +</p> + +<p> +"Law, 'Melia, to think o' your bein' married," continued Josiah, +turning to her. "I never should ha' thought that o' you." +</p> + +<p> +"I never thought it of myself," said Amelia tartly. "You don't know +what you'll do till you're tried." +</p> + +<p> +"No! no!" said Josiah Pease. "Never in the world. You remember Sally +Flint, how plain-spoken she is? Well, Betsy Harden's darter Ann rode +down to the poor-house t'other day with some sweet trade, an' took a +young sprig with her. He turned his back a minute, to look out o' +winder, an' Sally spoke right up, as ye might say, afore him. 'That +your beau?' says she. Well, o' course Ann couldn't own it, an' him +right there, so to speak. So she shook her head. 'Well, I'm glad on +'t,' says Sally. 'If I couldn't have anything to eat, I'd have suthin' +to look at!' He was the most unsignifyin'est creatur' you ever put your +eyes on. But they say Ann's started in on her clo'es." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia's face had grown scarlet. "I dunno's any such speech is called +for here," said she, in a furious self-betrayal. Josiah Pease had +always been able to storm her reserves. +</p> + +<p> +"Law, no," answered he comfortably. "It come into my mind,—that's +all." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at Enoch with a passionate sympathy, knowing too well how +the hidden sting was intended to work. But Enoch had not heard. He was +absorbed in a finer problem of brass and iron; and though Amelia had +wished to save him from hurt, in that instant she scorned him for his +blindness. "I guess I shall have to ask you to move," she said to her +husband coldly. "I've got to git to that stove, if we're goin' to have +any dinner to-day." +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to her that even Enoch might take the hint, and clear away +his rubbish. Her feelings might have been assuaged by a clean hearth +and some acquiescence in her own mood. But he only moved back a little, +and went on fitting and musing. He was not thinking of her in the +least, nor even of Josiah Pease. His mind had entered its brighter, +more alluring world. She began to fry her pork and apples, with a +perfunctory attempt at conversation. "You don't often git round so +early in the spring," said she. +</p> + +<p> +"No," returned cousin Josiah. "I kind o' got started out, this time, I +don't rightly know why. I guess I've had you in mind more of late, for +some Tiverton folks come over our way, tradin', an' they brought all +the news. It sort o' stirred me up to come." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia turned her apples vigorously, well aware that the slices were +breaking. That made a part of her bitter day. +</p> + +<p> +"Folks needn't take the trouble to carry news about me," she said. +There was an angry gleam in her eyes. "If anybody wants to know +anything, let 'em come right here, an' I'll settle 'em." The ring of +her voice penetrated even to Enoch's perception, and he looked up in +mild surprise. She seemed to have thrown open, for an instant, a little +window into a part of her nature he had never seen. +</p> + +<p> +"How good them apples smell!" said Josiah innocently. "Last time I had +'em was down to cousin Amasa True's, he that married his third wife, +an' she run through all he had. I went down to see 'em arter the +vandoo,—you know they got red o' most everything,—an' they had fried +pork an' apples for dinner. Old Bashaby dropped in. 'Law!' says she. +'Fried pork an' apples! Well, I call that livin' pretty nigh the +wind!'" Josiah chuckled. He was very warm now, and the savory smell of +the dish he decried was mounting to what served him for fancy. "'Melia, +you ain't never had your teeth out, have ye?" he asked, as one who +spoke from richer memories. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess my teeth'll last me as long as I want 'em," said Amelia +curtly. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I didn't know. They looked real white an' firm last time I see +'em, but you never can tell how they be underneath. I knew the folks +would ask me when I got home. I thought I'd speak." +</p> + +<p> +"Dinner's ready," said Amelia. She turned an alien look upon her +husband. "You want to wash your hands?" +</p> + +<p> +Enoch rose cheerfully. He had got to a hopeful place with the clock. +</p> + +<p> +"Set ri' down," said he. "Don't wait a minute. I'll be along." +</p> + +<p> +So Amelia and the guest began their meal, while little Rosie climbed, +rather soberly, into her higher chair, and held out her plate. +</p> + +<p> +"You wait," said Amelia harshly. "Can't you let other folks eat a +mouthful before you have to have yours?" Yet as she said it, she +remembered, with a remorseful pang, that she had always helped the +child first; it had been so sweet to see her pleased and satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +Josiah was never talkative during meals. Not being absolute master of +his teeth, his mind dwelt with them. Amelia remembered that, with a +malicious satisfaction. But he could not be altogether dumb. That, +people said, would never happen to Josiah Pease while he was above +ground. +</p> + +<p> +"That his girl?" he asked, indicating Rosie with his knife, in a +gustatory pause. +</p> + +<p> +"Whose?" inquired Amelia willfully. +</p> + +<p> +"His." He pointed again, this time to the back room, where Enoch was +still washing his hands. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes." +</p> + +<p> +"Mother dead?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia sprang from her chair, while Rosie looked at her with the +frightened glance of a child to whom some half-forgotten grief has +suddenly returned. +</p> + +<p> +"Josiah Pease!" said Amelia. "I never thought a poor, insignificant +creatur' like you could rile me so,—when I know what you're doin' it +for, too. But you've brought it about. Her mother dead? Ain't I been +an' married her father?" +</p> + +<p> +"Law, Amelia, do se' down!" said Josiah indulgently. There was a +mince-pie warming on the back of the stove. He saw it there. "I didn't +mean nuthin'. I'll be bound you thought she's dead, or you wouldn't ha' +took such a step. I only meant, did ye see her death in the paper, for +example, or anything like that?" +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia," called Enoch, from the doorway, "I won't come in to dinner +jest now. Elbridge True's drove into the yard. I guess he's got it in +mind to talk it over about them cows. I don't want to lose the chance." +</p> + +<p> +"All right," answered Amelia. She took her seat again, while Enoch's +footsteps went briskly out through the shed. With the clanging of the +door, she felt secure. If she had to deal with Josiah Pease, she could +do it better alone, clutching at the certainty that was with her from +of old, that, if you could only keep your temper with cousin Josiah, +you had one chance of victory. Flame out at him, and you were lost. +"Some more potatoes?" asked she, with a deceptive calm. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't care if I do," returned Josiah, selecting greedily, his fork +hovering in air. "Little mite watery, ain't they? Dig 'em yourself?" +</p> + +<p> +"We dug 'em," said Amelia coldly. +</p> + +<p> +Rosie stepped down from her chair, unnoticed. To Amelia, she was then +no bigger than some little winged thing flitting about the room in time +of tragedy. Our greatest emotions sometimes stay unnamed. At that +moment, Amelia was swayed by as tumultuous a love as ever animated +damsel of verse or story; but it merely seemed to her that she was an +ill-used woman, married to a man for whom she was called on to be +ashamed. Rosie tiptoed into the entry, put on her little shawl and +hood, and stole out to play in the corn-house. When domestic squalls +were gathering, she knew where to go. The great outdoors was safer. Her +past had taught her that. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't like to eat with folks, does he? Well, it's all in what you're +brought up to." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was ready with her counter-charge. "Have some tea?" +</p> + +<p> +She poured it as if it were poison, and Josiah became conscious of her +tragic self-control. +</p> + +<p> +"You ain't eat a thing," said he, with an ostentatious kindliness. He +bent forward a little, with the air of inviting a confidence. "Got +suthin' on your mind, ain't you, 'Melia?" he whispered. "Kind o' +worried? Find he's a drinkin' man?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was not to be beguiled, even by that anger which veils itself as +justice. She looked at him steadily, with scorching eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"You ain't took any sugar," said she. "There 't is, settin' by you. +Help yourself." +</p> + +<p> +Josiah addressed himself to his tea, and then Amelia poured him another +cup. She had some fierce satisfaction in making it good and strong. It +seemed to her that she was heartening her adversary for the fray, and +she took pleasure in doing it effectually. So great was the spirit +within her that she knew he could not be too valiant, for her keener +joy in laying him low. Then they rose from the table, and Josiah took +his old place by the stove, while Amelia began carrying the dishes to +the sink. Her mind was a little hazy now; her next move must depend on +his, and cousin Josiah, somewhat drowsy from his good dinner, was not +at once inclined to talk. Suddenly he raised his head snakily from +those sunken shoulders, and pointed a lean finger to the window. +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia!" cried he sharply. "I'll be buttered if he ain't been and +traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin' to stan' there an' let +them two cows go?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked +out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her +two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She +walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together +in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and +send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from +the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his +arms. +</p> + +<p> +"Here's your coat," said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. +"Stan' up, an' I'll help you put it on." +</p> + +<p> +Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous +that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight. +</p> + +<p> +"I was in hopes he'd harness up"—he began, but she ruthlessly cut him +short. +</p> + +<p> +"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes +round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There +they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' +this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown +up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she +was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, +but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in +the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, +Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his +usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, +and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!" +</p> + +<p> +He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was +nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia +realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for +despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't +you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,—egg an' bird!" She +closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went +back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor +and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that +moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had +resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time +itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his +voice jarred upon her tingling nerves. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've +made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I +eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her +conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an +unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else. +</p> + +<p> +"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my +cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what +you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man +who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions +neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was +there. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew +sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed +themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which +left her no will save that of speaking. +</p> + +<p> +"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say +once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' +things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours." +</p> + +<p> +Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was +almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by +his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest +patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind +anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had +too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose +anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. +"There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp." +</p> + +<p> +Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she +could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he +turned away from her, and went over to the bench. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still +voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer +pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical +way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the +bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled +machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the +stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those +moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came +back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of +his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and +broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke +to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new +cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the +worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' +I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, +an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so +than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. +You've been good to me,—better 'n anybody ever was in the world." +</p> + +<p> +She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the +door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and +then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, +to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking +vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart +hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said Amelia, "<i>that's</i> over. I'll wash my dishes now." +</p> + +<p> +Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly +about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped +her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet +her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little +imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten +the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all +her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia +stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah +Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean +forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she +realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train +where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child +behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to +the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste +to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of +welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, +and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path +toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into +the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of +the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, +still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish +color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of +their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that +moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth +which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least +against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient +fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about +Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while +she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +"You cold?" asked she—"<i>dear</i>?" But she told herself it was a kiss of +farewell. +</p> + +<p> +She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and +took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded +root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only +tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those +without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying +forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She +would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; +nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would +drop the child at his side,—the child he had deserted,—and before he +could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, +she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if +she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of +her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come +chokingly. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down +at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry." +</p> + +<p> +At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her +feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband +running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but +Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes +feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great +despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of +patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles +under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all +the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not +stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming +upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his +shoulders, and laid her wet face to his. +</p> + +<p> +"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with +me!" +</p> + +<p> +She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and +very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a +whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for +Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her." +</p> + +<p> +He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her +hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could +wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze +fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet +cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and +she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," +she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything +ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew." +</p> + +<p> +"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance +had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away +while she still suffered. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia began, stumblingly,— +</p> + +<p> +"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it." +</p> + +<p> +"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly. +</p> + +<p> +"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. +But—Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off—Enoch"—Her voice +fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to +analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb +things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. +The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must +die. +</p> + +<p> +He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I +couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the +woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about +the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the +beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"— +</p> + +<p> +Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly +argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from +her and left her young. +</p> + +<p> +"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've +got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more +than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all +your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between +us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you +now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you +go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep +upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, +in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a +sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the +candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him. +</p> + +<p> +"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could +not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous +judgment. +</p> + +<p> +"S'pose I don't ask you?" +</p> + +<p> +"I'll foller on behind." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?" +</p> + +<p> +She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head. +</p> + +<p> +"No." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly. +</p> + +<p> +Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you +look up here." +</p> + +<p> +She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, +but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which +she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, +and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his +arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a +man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more +bitter tears. +</p> + +<p> +"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about +the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her +as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking +the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before +they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and +their hearts beat together. +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, +but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have +her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I +know that now. You're all there is in the world." +</p> + +<p> +When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there +with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and +soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing +her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the +word his wife might wish. +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't +tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me +go over it"— +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, +and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their +tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door +only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she +threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?" +</p> + +<p> +He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and +then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he +made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught. +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of +'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference +whose they be. But as to lyin'"— +</p> + +<p> +"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?" +</p> + +<p> +"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held +each other's hands. +</p> + +<p> +"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped +together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You +blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="chest"></a> +THE MORTUARY CHEST +</h3> + +<p> +"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down +an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the +country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she +spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't +git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter +miss for a good deal." +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,—so said her neighbors. +They also remarked that her nose was as pickèd as a pin, and that +anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You +could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme +acuteness, and tried to live up to it. +</p> + +<p> +"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page +comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had +contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the +letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp +on in the mornin'." +</p> + +<p> +By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, +a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East +Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the +pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the +midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum +of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store +for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of +sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an +exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of +the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with +ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. +One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she +meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according +to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, +and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly +rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son +Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, +she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of +paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had +smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast +glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great +forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand +wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth +had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service +that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown +back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an +informal preliminary. +</p> + +<p> +"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before +the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt +went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood +an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! +she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days." +</p> + +<p> +"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "<i>He</i> was +one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd +ruther live with a born fool." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron +(recollect them little dots she used to wear?—made her look as broad +as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' +a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' +we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, <i>but I don't wish +to lend</i>.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about +news, but she won't lend." +</p> + +<p> +"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively +practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. +"Got all the water you want?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been +sence November." +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track. +</p> + +<p> +"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay +in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat +and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond +uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her +minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. +Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of +beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces. +</p> + +<p> +"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to +tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say +right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in +the paper, it ain't the kind you can." +</p> + +<p> +Tilly's eyes burned. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now +don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never +in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for +himself." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' +last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here +to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the +Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? +an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, +'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all +the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech +come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on +'t, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a +plenty, <i>I</i> say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the +assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she +had done it. +</p> + +<p> +The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was +accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension. +</p> + +<p> +"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her +eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful +disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could +easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small +issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' +into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got +eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five +minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with +Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins +sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' +he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' +your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under +her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these +assured married women; it was always a little bracing. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. +"Tickled to death, I s'pose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding +finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has +been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate +the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but <i>'tis</i> the minister, +and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and +no." +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the +party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna +Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. +Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was +passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he +felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out +kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to +take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it +ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been +the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't +take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, +'No, I thank you.'" +</p> + +<p> +"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked +Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and +proceeding to divide them. +</p> + +<p> +"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if +what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. +Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to +end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live +by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from +Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. +He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he +heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the +dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you +know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married +twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he +heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started." +</p> + +<p> +Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of +reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming +profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and +she continued:— +</p> + +<p> +"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' +her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the +dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says +he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,—'no light?' +'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'" +</p> + +<p> +There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt +the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be +indefinitely prolonged. +</p> + +<p> +"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she +is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?" +</p> + +<p> +"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' +her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,—he'd like to have her as +old as the hills!—an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible +class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young +thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, +when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton +wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts—le's see, there ain't any o' +his folks present, be they?—well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at +his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, +'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two +darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted +up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, +afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' +whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson +over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was +growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but +he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, +by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, +'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, +an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says +he,—'I conclude 't was the judges!'" +</p> + +<p> +Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others +laughed out rich and free. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who +never forgot the main issue. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em +straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the +tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, +an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he +couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says +he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll +marry him?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll +think she's got to." +</p> + +<p> +"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with +everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her +sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two +girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's +got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take +lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd +let her alone." +</p> + +<p> +"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our +sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a +mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time +we've had oysters over our way." +</p> + +<p> +"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured +veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't +foller." +</p> + +<p> +"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said +the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring +at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over +in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. +"If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!" +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. +We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' +cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's +Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to +Saltash." +</p> + +<p> +Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and +went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in +passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their +guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She +was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft +brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, +if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop +beauty in middle life. +</p> + +<p> +The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their +faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, +who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by +the parson came,—a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with +dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but +something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his +people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes +rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached +the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at +her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all +through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing +down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her +sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road. +</p> + +<p> +The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry +twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who +had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. +Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before +the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a +blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the +snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew +her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must +hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child +carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces +lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, +while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from +within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly +banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful +frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and +the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore +her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them +back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. +When did you rain down?" +</p> + +<p> +"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing +into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' +I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out +to do it." +</p> + +<p> +"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into +the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I +put on coal in the morning, and then again at night." +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it +with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under +the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other +side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm +going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm +having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and +live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died." +</p> + +<p> +"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a +glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen +'d feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she +was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' +there 't is!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a +chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, +half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest. +</p> + +<p> +"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist." +</p> + +<p> +"Whose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd +triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not +at once apparent. +</p> + +<p> +"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have +you meddle with it—But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I +feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, +an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I +guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up +attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, +an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence." +</p> + +<p> +"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't +was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but +it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a +great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther +go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more +'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved +suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this +chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' +smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the +very next week she was took away." +</p> + +<p> +"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? +Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past +an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. +She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must +think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll +open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, +'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't +was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the +chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it +to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a +sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! +Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she +never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, +I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' +she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off +downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her +work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to +harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, +an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but +what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. +John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't +a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went +to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been +meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a +new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why +you care." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's +al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. +There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest +as soon open it?" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. +She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned +over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment +the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room. +</p> + +<p> +"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of +saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a +whisper:— +</p> + +<p> +"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think." +</p> + +<p> +"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself +with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's +that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no +need of 'em! <i>Things</i> are full bad enough!" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped +handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my +dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The +broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" +</p> + +<p> +"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep +that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a +little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's +lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take +out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly +believe it." +</p> + +<p> +Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an +old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, +"'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, +"there's no back breadth!" +</p> + +<p> +"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for +fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a +real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back +breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most +sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" +</p> + +<p> +It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. +</p> + +<p> +"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt +Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza +was a horror!" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a +chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we +can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn +bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's +cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' +Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're +marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I +bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up +and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with +unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. +"There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as +soon burn 'em?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I +will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; +perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then." +</p> + +<p> +She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer +gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still +remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on +her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, +though the tears had gone from her face. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you +do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my +things." +</p> + +<p> +Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, +whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts +back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' +along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks +he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I +git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so +spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and +Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse +and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent +forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to +say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it." +</p> + +<p> +Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's +anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"— +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. +"Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But +there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country +road to the music of old-fashioned bells. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about +preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with +a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which +nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, +the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any +domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well +as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never +consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the +night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the +table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, +uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic +sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, +as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and +over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment +of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried +again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human +power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, +conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon +the table with indignant emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate +repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix +her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her +beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in +reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion +also, and take away her wicked facility. +</p> + +<p> +The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper +had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had +quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the +chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was +wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things +to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's +awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a +certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the +remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the +accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at +that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. +Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the +side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton +could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel +always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed +upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much +she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible +attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut +undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in +it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his +office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how +could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, +to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began +casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing +current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the +foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have +laughed hysterically. +</p> + +<p> +"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out +the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me +on the crust. He'll—ask me—to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I +said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why +couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the +dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the +tone she sought. +</p> + +<p> +He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the +sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She +had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and +pulled out the black dress. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking +as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you +don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!" +</p> + +<p> +The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting +on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the +leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed +the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow +from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent +care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and +smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She +blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, +schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to +remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her +upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-evening"—said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," +but the words stuck in his throat. +</p> + +<p> +"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home." +</p> + +<p> +The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with +benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he +expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her +also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied +on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly +she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were +dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice +is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. <i>But I've got it!</i>" A +merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with +decision: "Won't you come in?" +</p> + +<p> +The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede +him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside. +</p> + +<p> +"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door." +</p> + +<p> +He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin +his shawl. +</p> + +<p> +"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering +with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, +within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear +up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in +to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more +faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'—not a mite." +</p> + +<p> +The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously +removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she +thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, +for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they +looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was +safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, +"'I have thee on the hip!'" +</p> + +<p> +The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making +parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened +conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:— +</p> + +<p> +"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did +you say?" +</p> + +<p> +She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her +voice. +</p> + +<p> +"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took +up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that +lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he +bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, +'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'" +</p> + +<p> +The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old +lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious. +</p> + +<p> +"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"—he began, but +he was interrupted without compunction. +</p> + +<p> +"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother +married my uncle—no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. +By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're +writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so +I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her +own aunt,' says I—'her aunt by adoption—she needs her now.'" +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had +shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and +peered at his hostess. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic +than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her +sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she +leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!" +</p> + +<p> +"But she's always neat. She looks like an—an angel!" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of +itself into her voice. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I +thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house +upside down inside of a week." +</p> + +<p> +The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to +say something, and thought better of it. +</p> + +<p> +"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,—"it may be her studies +take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution +lessons"— +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as +if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' +of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or +take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know." +</p> + +<p> +The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in +Illinois, as you do—did you say Illinois or Iowa?" +</p> + +<p> +"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's +the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how +a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale +o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I +heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week +was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the +'tater-bug—think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in +Missouri, an' here I be." +</p> + +<p> +"I hope you will be able to remain." +</p> + +<p> +"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was +losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here +to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But +Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and +she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown +herself!") +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson +courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old +lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I +could do anything towards finding her"— +</p> + +<p> +"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as +she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could +do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should +be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the +neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't +speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got +enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the +keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed +enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel +for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the +necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious +me! What's that?" +</p> + +<p> +A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, +amazed at her agitation. +</p> + +<p> +"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her +cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?" +</p> + +<p> +Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the +parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There +came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in +front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim +twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself +before the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say." +</p> + +<p> +Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be +mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea +speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped +forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl. +</p> + +<p> +"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to +herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the +parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate. +</p> + +<p> +"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove +and be calm—be calm!" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel was overcome anew. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let +me be!" +</p> + +<p> +She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. +Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she +called. +</p> + +<p> +"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the +door." +</p> + +<p> +"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she +continued. "Only a minute!" +</p> + +<p> +She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. +The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey +in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to +be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it. +</p> + +<p> +"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take +off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" +Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel!" gasped the parson. +</p> + +<p> +"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!" +</p> + +<p> +The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the +mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue +chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss +me the shawl. Now if you say one word—Oh, parson, if you only will +keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And +leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want +greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face +and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so +small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life +with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the +sitting-room. "Sadie here?" +</p> + +<p> +The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was +peering down into her face. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +The little woman looked up at him—very sadly, Isabel thought. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she +did not offer to shake hands. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and +aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on +the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt +followed her. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the +things?" +</p> + +<p> +"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No." +</p> + +<p> +"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into +the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and +aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers +are," she said. "Lamp smoke?" +</p> + +<p> +Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her +aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt +as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing +awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed +her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over +with you." +</p> + +<p> +The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they +trembled, and he clasped his hands instead. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began. +</p> + +<p> +"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece +needed me." +</p> + +<p> +Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. +She began crying angrily into her handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," sobbed the girl. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel +better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's +anything for you to do." +</p> + +<p> +Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat +mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the +clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew +his nose vigorously. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen"—he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you +so!" +</p> + +<p> +"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She +was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and +laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He +remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking +intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing +makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do <i>not</i>! And you +don't look so." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the +only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones." +</p> + +<p> +The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and +bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but +Isabel looks like you!" +</p> + +<p> +She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything +they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't +see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider—so father +said." +</p> + +<p> +"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've +always thought so, ever since she was a little girl." +</p> + +<p> +"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle +calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her +eyes. I believe they were black." +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never +were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly." +</p> + +<p> +Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! +But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a +little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been +hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made +town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after +her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you +was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked +out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim +harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you +should make a mistake at your time of life!" +</p> + +<p> +The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in +his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him +through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the +woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel +like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, +looking at her with something piteous in his air. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I +did make one. You know it, and I know it." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, +William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've +passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no +shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to +break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about +her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a +shame to put her there." +</p> + +<p> +The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and +sad lines of recollection deepened in his face. +</p> + +<p> +"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. +Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a +minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" +"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her +chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of +tears forbidden to fall. +</p> + +<p> +"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence +roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but +you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all +times." +</p> + +<p> +"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember." +</p> + +<p> +"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I +was a minister, and my girl—the girl that was going to marry me—sat +down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of +you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my +life, just that way." +</p> + +<p> +Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged +face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other +in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white +a good deal." +</p> + +<p> +But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he +broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing +his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial +one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you +remember what he said?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The +corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender. +</p> + +<p> +"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art +fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think +of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was +in a garden—always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that +summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been +a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down +where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the +Church, but do all I could, it was a girl—or an angel!" +</p> + +<p> +"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty. +</p> + +<p> +"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped +sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. +But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just +how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles +pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the +dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd +got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. +And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, +though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his +hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a +doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. <i>This one's about a girl</i>. You +might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'" +</p> + +<p> +The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of +memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember." +</p> + +<p> +"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I +could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the +sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what +came afterwards—I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have +brought me nearer to you." +</p> + +<p> +It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted +herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on +us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you +just as lieves tell me?" +</p> + +<p> +She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone +brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,—no, +nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given +to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I +don't know what tale was carried to you"— +</p> + +<p> +"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give +you a chance!" +</p> + +<p> +"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I +took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants +to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so." +</p> + +<p> +The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal. +</p> + +<p> +"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let +me <i>be</i> a fool?" +</p> + +<p> +She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all +their sting. +</p> + +<p> +"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things +like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I +read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out +of poor little Isabel." +</p> + +<p> +The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel. +</p> + +<p> +"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and +unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: +'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as +soon as I can—maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and +I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that +belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with +her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a +finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm +going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every +time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened +her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but +I'm glad now!" +</p> + +<p> +The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the +smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her +glasses and walked over to the chest. +</p> + +<p> +"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it +ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my +courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a +knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by." +</p> + +<p> +The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged +people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the +broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When +they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen +looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard. +</p> + +<p> +"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up." +</p> + +<p> +The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,—a +folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. +The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out +and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as +we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, +wiping his glasses, looked also. +</p> + +<p> +"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And +that was mother's locket. It had"—He paused and looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little +trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it +gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your +mother's?" +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at +once:— +</p> + +<p> +"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas +with you." +</p> + +<p> +She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it +here. Just take it away with you." +</p> + +<p> +The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his +youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned +the pages, a smile coming now and then. +</p> + +<p> +"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,—"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He +murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, +shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a +sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And +the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +The woman was the first to turn away. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. +We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we +ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of +other people—them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?" +</p> + +<p> +The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in +buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she +did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness +in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson +put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over +it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the +sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?" +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at +all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil +the truth. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I +took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!" +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind +him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the +horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was +opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk. +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice. +</p> + +<p> +"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to +leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; +"Isabel!" +</p> + +<p> +She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up +in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +"Parson,"—forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his +knee,—"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, +please? I can't explain it"— +</p> + +<p> +"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't +try to. I guess I made you nervous." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the +parson drove away. +</p> + +<p> +Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, +where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had +her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that +the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary +Ellen had looked when she was young. +</p> + +<p> +"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron +to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="horn"></a> +HORN O' THE MOON +</h3> + +<p> +If you drive along Tiverton Street, and then turn to the left, down the +Gully Road, you journey, for the space of a mile or so, through a +bewildering succession of damp greenery, with noisy brooks singing +songs below you, on either side, and the treetops on the level with +your horse's feet. Few among the older inhabitants ever take this +drive, save from necessity, because it is conceded that the dampness +there is enough, even in summer, to "give you your death o' cold;" and +as for the young, to them the place wears an eerie look, with its +miniature suggestion of impassable gulfs and roaring torrents. Yet no +youth reaches his majority without exploring the Gully. He who goes +alone is the more a hero; but even he had best leave two or three +trusty comrades reasonably near, not only to listen, should he call, +but to stand his witnesses when he afterwards declares where he has +been. It is a fearsome thing to explore that lower stratum of this +round world, so close to the rushing brook that it drowns your +thoughts, though not your apprehensions, and to go slipping about over +wet boulders and among dripping ferns; but your fears are fears of the +spirit. They are inherited qualms. You shiver because your grandfathers +and fathers and uncles have shivered there before you. If you are very +brave indeed, and naught but the topmost round of destiny will content +you, possibly you penetrate still further into green abysses, and come +upon the pool where, tradition says, an ancient trout has his +impregnable habitation. Apparently, nobody questions that the life of a +trout may be indefinitely prolonged, under the proper conditions of a +retired dusk; and the same fish that served our grandfathers for a +legend now enlivens our childish days. When you meet a youngster, +ostentatiously setting forth for the Gully Road, with bait-box and +pole, you need not ask where he is going; though if you have any human +sympathy in the pride of life, you will not deny him his answer:— +</p> + +<p> +"Down to have a try for the old trout!" +</p> + +<p> +The pool has been still for many years. Not within the memory of aged +men has the trout turned fin or flashed a speckled side; but he is to +this day an historical present. He has lived, and therefore he lives +always. +</p> + +<p> +Those who do not pause upon the Gully Road, but keep straight on into +the open, will come into the old highway leading up and up to Horn o' +the Moon. It is an unshaded, gravelly track, pointing duly up-hill for +three long miles; and it has become a sober way to most of us, in this +generation: for we never take it unless we go on the solemn errand of +getting Mary Dunbar, that famous nurse, to care for our sick or dead. +There is a tradition that a summer visitor once hired a "shay," and +drove, all by herself, up to Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive +splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by +the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated +with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to +lean on the fence, and call excitedly,— +</p> + +<p> +"Where ye goin'?" +</p> + +<p> +"Horn o' the Moon," replied she, having learned in Tiverton the value +of succinct replies. +</p> + +<p> +"Who's sick?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nobody." +</p> + +<p> +"Got any folks up there?" +</p> + +<p> +"No. Going to see the place." +</p> + +<p> +The effect of this varied. Some looked in amazement; one ventured to +say, "Well, that's the beater!" and another dropped into the cabalistic +remark which cannot be defined, but which has its due significance, +"Well, you <i>must</i> be sent for!" The result of all this running +commentary was such that, when the visitor reached the top of the hill +where Horn o' the Moon lies, encircled by other lesser heights, she was +stricken by its exceeding desolation, and had no heart to cast more +than a glance at the noble view below. She turned her horse, and +trotted, recklessly and with many stumblings, down again into friendly +Tiverton. +</p> + +<p> +Horn o' the Moon is unique in its melancholy. It has so few trees, and +those of so meagre and wind-swept a nature, that it might as well be +entirely bald. No apples grow there; and in the autumn, the inhabitants +make a concerted sally down into Tiverton Street, to purchase their +winter stock, such of them as can afford it. The poorer folk—and they +are all poor enough—buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so +common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds +this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to +remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, +to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. +</p> + +<p> +There is very little grass at the top of the lonely height, and that of +a husky, whispering sort, in thin ribbons that flutter low little songs +in the breeze. They never cease; for, at Horn o' the Moon, there is +always a wind blowing, differing in quality with the season. Sometimes +it is a sighing wind from other heights, happier in that they are sweet +with firs. Sometimes it is exasperating enough to make the March +breezes below seem tender; then it tosses about in snatching gusts, +buffeting, and slapping, and excoriating him who stands in its way. +Somehow, all the peculiarities of Horn o' the Moon seem referable, in a +mysterious fashion, to the wind. The people speak in high, strenuous +voices, striving to hold their own against its wicked strength. Most of +them are deaf. Is that because the air beats ceaselessly against the +porches of their ears? They are a stunted race; for they have grown +into the habit of holding the head low, and plunging forward against +that battling element. Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the +ordinary sort. Their feathers grow the wrong way, standing up in a +ragged and disorderly fashion; and they, too, have the effect of having +been blown about and disarranged, until nature yielded, and agreed to +their permanent roughness. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, all the people are old or middle-aged; and possibly that is +why, again, the settlement is so desolate. It is a disgrace for us +below to marry with Horn o' the Mooners, though they are a sober folk; +and now it happens that everybody up there is the cousin of everybody +else. The race is dying out, we say, as if we considered it a distinct +species; and we agree that it would have been wiped away long ago, by +weight of its own eccentricity, had not Mary Dunbar been the making of +it. She is the one righteous among many. She is the good nurse whom we +all go to seek, in our times of trouble, and she perpetually saves her +city from the odium of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Mary was born in Tiverton Street. We are glad to remember that, we who +condemn by the wholesale, and are assured that no good can come out of +Nazareth. When she was a girl of eighteen, her father and mother died; +and she fell into a state of spiritual exaltation, wherein she dreamed +dreams, and had periods of retirement within her house, communing with +other intelligences. We said Mary had lost her mind; but that was +difficult to believe, since no more wholesome type of womanhood had +ever walked our streets. She was very tall, built on the lines of a +beauty transcending our meagre strain. Nobody approved of those broad +shoulders and magnificent arms. We said it was a shame for any girl to +be so overgrown; yet our eyes followed her, delighted by the harmony of +line and action. Then we whispered that she was as big as a moose, and +that, if we had such arms, we never'd go out without a shawl. Her +"mittins" must be wide enough for any man! +</p> + +<p> +Mary did everything perfectly. She walked as if she went to meet the +morning, and must salute it worthily. She carried a weight as a goddess +might bear the infant Bacchus; and her small head, poised upon that +round throat, wore the crown of simplicity, and not of pride. But we +only told how strong she was, and how much she could lift. We loved +Mary, but sensibility had to shrink from those great proportions and +that elemental strength. +</p> + +<p> +One snowy morning, Mary's spiritual vision called her out of our midst, +to which she never came back save as we needed her. The world was very +white that day, when she rose, in her still house, dressed herself +hastily, and roused a neighbor, begging him to harness, and drive her +up to Horn o' the Moon. Folks were sick there, with nobody to take care +of them. The neighbor reasoned, and then refused, as one might deny a +person, however beloved, who lives by the intuitions of an unseen +world. Mary went home again, and, as he believed, to stay. But she had +not hesitated in her allegiance to the heavenly voice. Somehow, through +the blinding snow and unbroken road, she ploughed her way up to Horn o' +the Moon, where she found an epidemic of diphtheria; and there she +stayed. We marveled over her guessing how keenly she was needed; but +since she never explained, it began to be noised abroad that some +wandering peddler told her. That accounted for everything; and Mary had +no time for talk. She was too busy, watching with the sick, and going +about from house to house, cooking delicate gruels and broiling chicken +for those who were getting well. It is said that she even did the barn +work, and milked the cows, during that tragic time. We were not +surprised. Mary was a great worker, and she was fond of "creatur's." +</p> + +<p> +Whether she came to care for these stolid people on the height, or +whether the vision counseled her, Mary gave up her house in the +village, and bought a little old dwelling under an overhanging +hillside, at Horn o' the Moon. It was a nest built into the rock, its +back sitting snugly there. The dark came down upon it quickly. In +winter, the sun was gone from the little parlor as early as three +o'clock; but Mary did not mind. That house was her temporary shell; she +only slept in it in the intervals of hurrying away, with blessed feet, +to tend the sick, and hold the dying in untiring arms. I shall never +forget how, one morning, I saw her come out of the door, and stand +silent, looking toward the rosy east. There was the dawn, and there was +she, its priestess, while all around her slept. I should not have been +surprised had her lips, parted already in a mysterious smile, opened +still further in a prophetic chanting to the sun. But Mary saw me, and +the alert, answering look of one who is a messenger flashed swiftly +over her face. She advanced like the leader of a triumphal procession. +</p> + +<p> +"Anybody want me?" she called. "I'll get my bunnit." +</p> + +<p> +It was when she was twenty, and not more than settled in the little +house at Horn o' the Moon, that her story came to her. The Veaseys were +her neighbors, perhaps five doors away; and one summer morning, Johnnie +Veasey came home from sea. He brought no money, no coral from foreign +parts, nor news of grapes in Eshcol. He simply came empty-handed, as he +always did, bearing only, to vouch for his wanderings, a tanned face, +and the bright, red-brown eyes that had surely looked on things we +never saw. Adam Veasey, his brother; had been paralyzed for years. He +sat all day in the chimney corner, looking at his shaking hands, and +telling how wide a swathe he could cut before he was afflicted. Mattie, +Adam's wife, had long dealt with the problem of an unsupported +existence. She had turned into a flitting little creature with eager +eyes, who made it her business to prey upon a more prosperous world. +Mattie never went about without a large extra pocket attached to her +waist; into this, she could slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, +or even a loaf of bread. She laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and +the town below. Was there a frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No +sooner had the odor risen upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, +dumbly insistent on her toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it +was said that, in fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, +because of the hordes of insects settling here and there on her +odoriferous gown. When Johnnie Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in +arms. Their golden chance had come at last. +</p> + +<p> +"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and +Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that +he did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into +the wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new +folks. +</p> + +<p> +Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again, +and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him.. So she went over to +old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted, +according to her little best. +</p> + +<p> +Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had +brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He +described what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others +had known and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these +stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and +every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, +or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the +tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit +out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill +possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling +uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men +about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking +swiftly by, a basket in her hand. Johnnie came bolt upright, and took +off his cap. He looked amazingly young and fine, and Mary blushed as +she went by. +</p> + +<p> +"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers. +</p> + +<p> +"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved +up." +</p> + +<p> +Johnnie watched her walking away, for the rhythm of her motion +attracted him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that. +</p> + +<p> +It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys', +where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; +and while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman +for her dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange +lands. It seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were +such lands in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt +out her old geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed +rivers to their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. +She was seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast. +</p> + +<p> +Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in +the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey +would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of +the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had +simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from +her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after +her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her +own bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but +one first question for every comer:— +</p> + +<p> +"Anybody sick?" +</p> + +<p> +"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. +"I want to tell you how things stand." +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an +exposition of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress +came to the tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella +Hardy, who had died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no +matter, for the enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, +concealed that youthful eccentricity. Her shoes—congress, with +world-weary elastics at the side—were her own, inherited from an aunt; +and her bonnet was a rusty black, with a mourning veil. There was, at +that time, but one new bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had +sighed, when Mattie proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed +nobody'd want anything that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant +sought out Mrs. Pillsbury, whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief +season of prosperity, nine years before, had become, in a manner, +village property. It was as duly in public requisition as the hearse; +and its owner cherished a melancholy pride in this official state. She +never felt as if she owned it,—only that she was the keeper of a +sacred trust; and Mattie, in asking for it, knew that she demanded no +more than her due, as a citizen should. It was an impersonal matter +between her and the bonnet; and though she should wear it on a secular +errand, the veil did not signify. She knew everybody else knew whose +bonnet it was; and that if anybody supposed she had met with a loss, +they had only to ask, and she to answer. So, in the consciousness of an +armor calculated to meet the world, she skillfully brought her congress +boots into Mary's kitchen, and sat down, her worn little hands clasped +under the shawl. +</p> + +<p> +"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's +happened to Johnnie?" +</p> + +<p> +Mary rose, a hand upon her chair. +</p> + +<p> +"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so—ready +to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of +those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and +sugared again. +</p> + +<p> +"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as +some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been +gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, +neither,—down the ledge. I dunno how he done it—he climbs like a +cat—seems as if the Old Boy was in it—but half his body he can't +move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's." +</p> + +<p> +Mary listened gravely; her hands on her knees. +</p> + +<p> +"How long's he been so?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nigh on to five weeks." +</p> + +<p> +"Had the doctor?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there +ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An' +I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him +in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the +heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the +selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no +money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I +can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down +to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along +down." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that +last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in +bed, an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to know if you +wouldn't run in, long towards noon, an' warm up suthin' for 'em." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, indeed," said Mary Dunbar. "I'll be there." +</p> + +<p> +She rose, and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she +must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had +already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading +carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her +way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to scurry and gather. +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked hastily about the room, to see if its perfect order needed +a farewell touch; and then she drank her cup of tea, and stepped out +into the morning. The air was fresh and sweet. She wore no shawl, and +the wind lifted the little brown rings on her forehead, and curled them +closer. Mary held a hand upon them, and hurried on. She had no more +thought of appearances than a woman in a desert land, or in the desert +made by lack of praise; for she knew no one looked at her. To be clean +and swift was all her life demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Adam sat by the stove, where the ashes were still warm. It was not a +day for fires, but he loved his accustomed corner. He was a middle-aged +man, old with the suffering which is not of years, and the pathos of +his stricken state hung about him, from his unkempt beard to the dusty +black clothing which had been the Tiverton minister's outworn suit. One +would have said he belonged to the generation before his brother. +</p> + +<p> +"That you, Mary?" he asked, in his shaking voice. "Now, ain't that +good? Come to set a spell?" +</p> + +<p> +"Where is he?" responded Mary, in a swift breathlessness quite new to +her. +</p> + +<p> +"In there. We put up a bed in the clock-room." +</p> + +<p> +It was the unfinished part of the house. The Veaseys had always meant +to plaster, but that consummation was still afar. The laths showed +meagrely; it was a skeleton of a room,—and, sunken in the high +feather-bed between the two windows, lay Johnnie Veasey, his buoyancy +all gone, his face quite piteous to see, now that its tan had faded. +Mary went up to the bedside, and laid one cool, strong hand upon his +wrist. His eyes sought her with a wild entreaty; but she knew, although +he seemed to suffer, that this was the misery of delirium, and not the +conscious mind. Adam had come trembling to the door, and stood there, +one hand beating its perpetual tattoo upon the wall. Mary looked up at +him with that abstracted gaze with which we weigh and judge. +</p> + +<p> +"He's feverish," said she. "Mattie didn't tell me that. How long's he +been so?" +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno. I guess a matter o' two days." +</p> + +<p> +"Two days?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, it might be off an' on ever sence he fell." Adam was helpless. +He depended upon Mattie, and Mattie was not there. +</p> + +<p> +"What did the doctor leave?" +</p> + +<p> +Adam looked about him. "'T was the Herb doctor," he said. "He had her +steep some trade in a bowl." +</p> + +<p> +Mary Dunbar drew her hand away, and walked two or three times up and +down the bare, bleak room. The seeking eyes were following her. She +knew how little their distended agony might mean; but nevertheless they +carried an entreaty. They leaned upon her, as the world, her sick +world, was wont to lean. Mary was, in many things, a child; but her +attitude had grown to be maternal. Suddenly she turned to Adam, where +he stood, shaking and hesitating, in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +"You goin' to send him off?" +</p> + +<p> +"Pears as if that's the only way," shuffled Adam. +</p> + +<p> +"To-day?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I dunno 's they'll come"— +</p> + +<p> +Mary walked past him, her mind assured. +</p> + +<p> +"There, that'll do," said she. "You set down in your corner. I'll be +back byme-by." +</p> + +<p> +She hurried out into the bleak world which was her home, and, at that +moment, it looked very fair and new. The birds were singing, loudly as +they ever sang up here where there were few leaves to nest in. Mary +stopped an instant to listen, and lifted her face wordlessly to the +clear blue sky. It seemed as if she had been given a gift. There, +before one of the houses, she called aloud, with a long, lingering +note, "Jacob!" and Jacob Pease rose from; his milking-stool, and came +forward. Jacob was tall and snuff-colored, a widower of three years' +standing. There was a theory that he wanted Mary, and lacked the +courage to ask her. +</p> + +<p> +"That you, Mary Dunbar?" said he. "Anything on hand?" +</p> + +<p> +"I want you to come and help me lift," answered Mary. +</p> + +<p> +Jacob set down his milk pail, and followed her into the Veaseys' +kitchen. She drew out the tin basin, and filled it at the sink. +</p> + +<p> +"Wash your hands," said she. "Adam, you set where you generally do. +You'll be in the way." +</p> + +<p> +Jacob followed her into the sick-room, and Adam weakly shuffled in +behind. +</p> + +<p> +"For the land's sake!" he began, but Mary was at the head of the bed, +and Jacob at the foot. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll carry his shoulders," she said, in the voice that admits no +demur. "You take his feet and legs. Sort o' fold the feather-bed up +round him, or we never shall get him through the door." +</p> + +<p> +"Which way?" asked Jacob, still entirely at rest on a greater mind. +</p> + +<p> +"Out!" commanded Mary,—"out the front door." +</p> + +<p> +Adam, in describing that dramatic moment, always declared that nobody +but Mary Dunbar could have engineered a feather-bed through the narrow +passage, without sticking midway. He recalled an incident of his +boyhood when, in the Titcomb fire, the whole family had spent every +available instant before the falling of the roof, in trying to push the +second-best bed through the attic window, only to leave it there to +burn. But Mary Dunbar took her patient through the doorway as Napoleon +marched over the Alps; she went with him down the road toward her own +little house under the hill. Only then did Adam, still shuffling on +behind, collect his intelligence sufficiently to shout after her,— +</p> + +<p> +"Mary, what under the sun be you doin' of? What you want me to tell +Mattie? S'pose she brings the selec'men, Mary Dunbar!" +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply, even by a glance. She walked straight on, as if her +burden lightened, and into her own cave-like house and her little neat +bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +"Lay him down jest as he is," she said to Jacob. "We won't try to shift +him to-day. Let him get over this." +</p> + +<p> +Jacob stretched himself, after his load, put his hands in his pockets, +and made up his mouth into a soundless whistle. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes! well!" said he. "Guess I better finish milkin'." +</p> + +<p> +Mary put her patient "to-rights," and set some herb drink on the back +of the stove. Presently the little room was filled with the steamy odor +of a bitter healing, and she was on the battlefield where she loved to +conquer. In spite of her heaven-born instinct, she knew very little +about doctors and their ways of cure. Earth secrets were hers, some of +them inherited and some guessed at, and luckily she had never been +involved in those greater issues to be dealt with only by an exalted +science. Later in her life, she was to get acquainted with the young +doctor, down in Tiverton Street, and hear from him what things were +doing in his world. She was to learn that a hospital is not a slaughter +house incarnadined with writhing victims, as some of us had thought. +She was even to witness the magic of a great surgeon; though that was +in her old age, when her attitude toward medicine had become one of +humble thankfulness that, in all her daring, she had done no harm. +To-day, she thought she could set a bone or break up a fever; and there +was no doubt in her mind that, if other deeds were demanded of her, she +should be led in the one true way. So she sat down by her patient, and +was watching there, hopeful of moisture on his palm, when Mattie broke +into the front room, impetuous as the wind. Mary rose and stepped out +to meet her, shutting the door as she went. Passing the window, she saw +the selectmen, in the vehicle known as a long-reach, waiting at the +gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Hush, Mattie!" said she, "you'll wake him." +</p> + +<p> +Mattie, in her ill-assorted respectabilities of dress, seemed to have +been involved but recently in some bacchanalian orgie. Her shawl was +dragged to one side, and her bonnet sat rakishly. She was intoxicated +with her own surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary Dunbar!" cried she, "I'd like to know the meanin' of all this +go-round!" +</p> + +<p> +"There!" answered Mary, with a quietude like that of the sea at ebb, "I +can't stop to talk. I'll settle it with the selec'men. You come, too." +</p> + +<p> +Mattie's eyes were seeking the bedroom. Leave her alone, and her feet +would follow. "You come along," repeated Mary, and Mattie came. +</p> + +<p> +When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little +slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer +Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous +cough. Lothrop Wilson, mild by nature, and rather prone to whiffling in +times of difficulty, frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only +because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, +let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself +in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated +warfare, and were nervously conscious, that, should they fail in +firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the +wagon, and laid one hand upon the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got John Veasey in my house," she began rapidly. "I can't stop to +talk. He's pretty sick." +</p> + +<p> +Ebenezer cleared his throat again. +</p> + +<p> +"We understood his folks had put him on the town," said he. +</p> + +<p> +Mattie made a little eager sound, and then stopped. +</p> + +<p> +"He ain't on the town yet," said Mary. "He's in my bedroom. An' there +he's goin' to stay. I've took this job." She turned away from them, +erect in her decision, and went up the path. Eli Pike looked after her, +with an understanding sympathy. He was the man who had walked two +miles, one night, to shoot a fox, trapped, and left there helpless with +a broken leg. Lothrop gazed straight ahead, and said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here!" called Ebenezer. "Mary! Mary! you look here!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and +dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but +still the public purse must be regarded. +</p> + +<p> +"You can't bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he's on the +town, he'll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest." +</p> + +<p> +Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he +remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on." +</p> + +<p> +But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the +door in vain. +</p> + +<p> +"My land!" she ejaculated, "if she ain't bolted it!" So the nurse and +her patient were left to themselves. +</p> + +<p> +As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton. +At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor +came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of +violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the +case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do +not know; tradition was quite voluble. +</p> + +<p> +It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those +days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, +setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets +for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the +door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his +knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. +The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a +dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; +but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, +delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he +came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a +listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where +the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors +called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted +no appeal. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway +confronting them. "He's too weak to see anybody; I guess I won't ask +you in." +</p> + +<p> +But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing +painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon +as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind +her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust +of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and +very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on +the step. +</p> + +<p> +"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't +have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day." +</p> + +<p> +The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his +dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand. +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had +hoped to see him." +</p> + +<p> +Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to +pray by ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the +slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which +his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined +upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar +stand." +</p> + +<p> +Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient +breathing, and her mind was with him. +</p> + +<p> +"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim +on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going +to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to +get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be +respected,—though only in a measure." +</p> + +<p> +Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him. +</p> + +<p> +"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,—"married!" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married." +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced +round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess +you better go now. Good-day." +</p> + +<p> +She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his +wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk +with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better. +</p> + +<p> +But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into +sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, +heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung +her way, she marveled at it. +</p> + +<p> +The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, +the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late +that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull +weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all +beat out," for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to +have an early supper at five. +</p> + +<p> +"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I'd do it, an' I have. There +ain't a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an' folks that want you +to go nussin' have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very +afternoon, 'I'll be whipped if I don't git in an' see what's goin' on!' +There's some will have it Johnnie's got well, an' drove away without +saying good-by to his own folks, an' some say he ain't likely to live, +an' there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the +childern, they've got an idea suthin' 's been done to uncle Johnnie, +an' you can't mention him but they cry." +</p> + +<p> +Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn't +mention him, then," said she. +</p> + +<p> +A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. +Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the +lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight +of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His +face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming. +</p> + +<p> +"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She +always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don't +know what it was,—but <i>I can move</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood +looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet +a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want +to see her?" +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake, no! not till I'm on my feet." He was still laughing. +"I guess I can get up to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in +to-morrer. I shouldn't wonder if he'd be up then." +</p> + +<p> +"I told Adam"—began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little +arm, and held it there. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don't you come in before +'leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your +brother'll be gettin' away before long." She opened the outer door, and +Mattie had no volition but to go. "It's a nice night, ain't it?" called +Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many +stars." +</p> + +<p> +Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and +exactitude prepared her patient's supper. He was sitting upright, +bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great +mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize. +</p> + +<p> +"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can't get up to-morrow? Why, I could +walk!" +</p> + +<p> +They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that +afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie +talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what +he meant to do when he got into the world again. +</p> + +<p> +"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam +put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again." +</p> + +<p> +"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for +more 'n two years. It's my business." +</p> + +<p> +Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak. +</p> + +<p> +"What you goin' to ask?" +</p> + +<p> +Mary started. Then she answered steadily— +</p> + +<p> +"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have +ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn't talk no more, +even if you are well. I've got to wash these dishes." +</p> + +<p> +She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did +they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he +was flat among his pillows, listening for her. +</p> + +<p> +"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn't unless you want to; but +if ever I earn another cent of money, you'll see. And I ain't the only +friend you've got. There's a girl down in Southport would do anything +in the world for you, if she only knew." +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse's +cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a +wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his +breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh +way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of +gratitude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out +whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he +must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had +done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and +perhaps he remembered the message too coldly. +</p> + +<p> +When Mattie came over, that afternoon, to make her call, she found the +house closed. Mary had gone on foot down into Tiverton, where old Mrs. +Lamson, who was sick with a fever, lay still in need. It was many weeks +before she came home again to Horn o' the Moon; and then Grandfather +Sinclair had broken his leg, so that interest in her miracle became +temporarily inactive. +</p> + +<p> +Two years had gone when there came to her a little package, through the +Tiverton mail. It was tied with the greatest caution, and directed in a +straggling hand. Mary opened it just as she struck into the Gully Road, +on her way home. Inside was a little purse, and three gold pieces. She +paused there, under the branches, the purse in one hand, and the gold +lying within her other palm. For a long time she stood looking at them, +her face set in that patient sadness seen in those whose only holding +is the past. It was all over and done, and yet it had never been at +all. She thought a little about herself, and that was very rare, for +Mary. She was not the poorer for what her soul desired; she was +infinitely the richer, and she remembered the girl at Southport, not +with the pang that once afflicted her heart, but with a warm, +outrushing sense of womanly sympathy. If he had money, perhaps he could +marry. Perhaps he was married now. Coming out of the Gully Road, she +opened the purse again, and the sun struck richly upon the gold within. +Mary smiled a little, wanly, but still with a sense of the good, human +kinship in life. +</p> + +<p> +"I won't ever spend 'em," she said to herself. "I'll keep 'em to bury +me." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="festival"></a> +A STOLEN FESTIVAL +</h3> + +<p> +David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a +road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could +see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to +no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the +middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She +had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the +go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west, +she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'. +</p> + +<p> +The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in +love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray +eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which +America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something +superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic +responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how +the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her +after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not +to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a +vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which +move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of +aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to +understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried +to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; +but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes +brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she +spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know +that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had +never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but +that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There +had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her +husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of +the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of +a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living +beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but +entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of +birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much +under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green +was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond +it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of +violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey +blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange +memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on +the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon +her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his +neck. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is +it, little child?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only—I like you so!" +</p> + +<p> +The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it +meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become +familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the +blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain +at her heart. +</p> + +<p> +Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in +front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to +market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes +forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily +belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled +roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked +up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon +her. +</p> + +<p> +"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there +was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The +world was a jewel newly set for her. +</p> + +<p> +"I <i>am</i> nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin' +on? It's 'most a year since we were married,—a year the fifteenth." +</p> + +<p> +David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her. +</p> + +<p> +"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good +bargain. Best trade I ever made in <i>my</i> life!" +</p> + +<p> +"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you +how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have +our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll +take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!" +</p> + +<p> +David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed +his lips. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to +Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there +before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up +in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down; +an' if I wait for him to do it—well, you know what he is!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you +can!" +</p> + +<p> +"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it +is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm +awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!" +</p> + +<p> +Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one +heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was +not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was +only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put +great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would +be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love. +</p> + +<p> +David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist. +</p> + +<p> +"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the +same as another, now ain't it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet +eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday +mornin'!" +</p> + +<p> +David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. +His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a +joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the +logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and +twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth. +</p> + +<p> +"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long +as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git +a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's +done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take +both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!" +</p> + +<p> +The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he +looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a +little and turned her face up to his—her rebellious eyes and unsteady +mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a +great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. <i>I</i> don't +care!" +</p> + +<p> +These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or +tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish +concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She +had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention +and not the act. +</p> + +<p> +David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell. +</p> + +<p> +"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man +when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye +o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle." +</p> + +<p> +Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. +Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large +carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried +to feel resigned. +</p> + +<p> +"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the +day!" +</p> + +<p> +David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up +his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I +might as well stan' from under." +</p> + +<p> +Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, +clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress +boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep +affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like +process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile. +</p> + +<p> +"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find +yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody +must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', +an' git their best clo'es all over dirt." +</p> + +<p> +"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very +sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o' +folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous +scheme of life to live and let live. +</p> + +<p> +"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily. +"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up +here this mornin'?" +</p> + +<p> +Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped +hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't +know." +</p> + +<p> +"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis' +Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You +look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while +Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under +her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; +and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently +revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious +imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from +the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself. +</p> + +<p> +But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was +holding it out on the end of a knotted finger. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your +engagement ring." +</p> + +<p> +Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an +involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye +lose it?" +</p> + +<p> +But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and +looked obstinate. +</p> + +<p> +"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily. +Debby was diverted, though only for the moment. +</p> + +<p> +"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and +giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want +<i>him</i> to know of it?" +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation +disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do +you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?" +</p> + +<p> +"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little +consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day, +an' she says, 'Don't ye tell <i>him</i>!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a +pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for +'t after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if +ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you +want to know where I come on this ring?" +</p> + +<p> +Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned +she, turning about. "Where was it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f +'t had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst +he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an' +she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to +show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank, +an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him +suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted +but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber." +</p> + +<p> +"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say +anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and +that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire +Hill. +</p> + +<p> +She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to +cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne +before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and +began packing its contents into the yawning bag. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it. +And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late." +</p> + +<p> +Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a +kernel with a critical thumb. +</p> + +<p> +"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this +time o' year. Is that the pork?" +</p> + +<p> +It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the +bag. "There!" +</p> + +<p> +"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly. +</p> + +<p> +"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak +to David before he harnesses. Good-by!" +</p> + +<p> +In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly +about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's <i>I</i> say!" And she made +no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the +barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him +I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and +the likelihood of its being properly diversified. +</p> + +<p> +Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and +laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and +inquired of him confidentially what was the matter. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly. +"I've got to see you." +</p> + +<p> +David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty +precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs +and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, +"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?" +</p> + +<p> +David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed. +</p> + +<p> +"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he. +</p> + +<p> +Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically. +</p> + +<p> +"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There +ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em +'twas my engagement ring." +</p> + +<p> +David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He +could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency. +</p> + +<p> +"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a +ring—and presents, David—and they knew I never had anything, or I'd +have showed 'em." +</p> + +<p> +David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and, +though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town +blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was +condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a +new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. +It wasn't that I begrudged anything." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't +was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have +'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me—David, I +bought me that high comb I used to wear, and—and a blue +handkerchief—and a thimble—and—and—this ring. And I said you give +'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I +always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the +comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a +little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring, +for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I +knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it +in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've +sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you +about the pork, and I—I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and +lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly, +and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair. +His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of +children over some grief not understood. +</p> + +<p> +"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length. +</p> + +<p> +"When?" said Letty chokingly. +</p> + +<p> +"Then—when folks expected things—before we were married." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, David, I couldn't!" +</p> + +<p> +"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't." +</p> + +<p> +Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump +hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and +stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring." +</p> + +<p> +Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to +wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?" +</p> + +<p> +"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't +you ever let me set eyes on it again!" +</p> + +<p> +David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened +it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do +me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each +other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt +them bitterer than if they had been his own. +</p> + +<p> +But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble +in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a +secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without +his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him +radiantly. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but +it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!" +</p> + +<p> +Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder. +He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like +swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So +he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a +singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy +again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven, +to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could +deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance—this +was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household +duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she +went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed +to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of +love. +</p> + +<p> +Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind +the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced, +into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a +breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the +house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an +unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound. +Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray, +and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes +by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her +wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as +he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, +from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the +child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then +she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, +that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of +blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the +barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about +that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty +dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd +ought to eat yours while't was hot." +</p> + +<p> +Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured +coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste, +and said good-by. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone, +you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till +night." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile +crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin' +to bring it to you." +</p> + +<p> +"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess +you won't!" +</p> + +<p> +"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to +hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm +comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the +butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time +to argue, went off to his work. +</p> + +<p> +About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was +a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face, +regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life +might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great +universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the +day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged +along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and +owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was +better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer +than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the +stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier +still. +</p> + +<p> +"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs +beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her. +"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn +and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her. +</p> + +<p> +"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and +walked on together through the shade. +</p> + +<p> +The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of +the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him; +then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment, +with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a +palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for +a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out +a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her +dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a +blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the +air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling +over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal, +Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine +white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes +deepened. +</p> + +<p> +"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?" +</p> + +<p> +Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in +her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. +David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed +the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate +her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him, +and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close. +He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry +light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while +Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when +her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her +wedding day. +</p> + +<p> +When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and +David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the +basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief +excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with +her weedy treasures. Once—was it something in the air?—he called to +her:— +</p> + +<p> +"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were +married?" +</p> + +<p> +But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on +a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take +him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she +was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the +day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to +her that he should forget. +</p> + +<p> +"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the +kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star +Pond." +</p> + +<p> +After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and +then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest +moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor. +</p> + +<p> +"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your +little ring? It's right here in my pocket." +</p> + +<p> +"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again." +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other +day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make +a choice unless you was with me." +</p> + +<p> +Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break +in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you." +</p> + +<p> +David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief +about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from +one another, will we?" +</p> + +<p> +Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before +answering:— +</p> + +<p> +"No, we won't—not unless they're nice ones!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="assembling"></a> +A LAST ASSEMBLING +</h3> + +<p> +This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, +was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed +to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing +instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to +carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did +happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen +again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily +and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing +harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her +life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of +human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great +delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore, +she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted +all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was +thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than +she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked +out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church +on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a +pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk +failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric +and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution: +to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led +direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy +to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take +him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived, +understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken +the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had +simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the +city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade. +He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for +ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee +the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again; +but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of +nature, but a simplicity quite different in kind. Jethro did not grow +rich very fast (uncle Silas saw to that), but he did prosper; and he +was ready to marry his girl long before she owned herself ready to +marry him. She took care of a succession of aged relatives, all +afflicted by a strange and interesting diversity of trying diseases; +and then, after the last death, she settled down, quite poor, in a +little house on the Tiverton Road, and "went out nussin'," the +profession for which her previous life had fitted her. With a careless +generosity, she made over to her brother the old farmhouse where they +were born, because he had a family and needed it. But he died, and was +soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with +the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for +them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take +him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of +faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. +She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the +old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without a cent; but +since he was coming for her, and she needn't go to Chicago alone, she +didn't know that there was anything to worry about. He would buy her +ticket. There was an ineffable simplicity about Dilly. She had no +respect whatever for money, save as a puzzling means to a few necessary +ends. And now the place had been sold, and Jethro was coming in a +month. Meanwhile Dilly was to pack up the few family effects she could +afford to keep, and the rest would go by auction. +</p> + +<p> +Little as she was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the +inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in +the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human +meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true +that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the +fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like +irresistible factors, and welded her to the universe anew. +</p> + +<p> +As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and +began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some +solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher, +and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the +throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black +hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an +assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a +gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed +by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this +case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to +go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward +garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink +flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody. +She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical +call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the +beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of +the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an +unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house, +since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding +drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the +stage. +</p> + +<p> +Her mind was peopled with figures. She thought of Jethro, too. He +seemed to be coming ever nearer and nearer. She could hear his tread +marching into her life, and could see his face. It was very moving, as +she remembered it. A long line of scholarly forbears had dowered him +with a refinement and grace quite startling in this unornamented spot, +and some old Acadian ancestor had lent him beauty. His eyes were dark, +and they held an unfathomable melancholy. The line of his forehead and +nose ran haughtily and yet delicate; and even after years of absence, +Dilly sometimes caught her breath when she thought of the way his head +was set upon his shoulders. She had never in her life seen a man or +woman who was entirely beautiful, and he saturated her longing like a +prodigal stream. +</p> + +<p> +She was a little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the +road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. +Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is +away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, +and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed +in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed +their broken branches, and were covered with little green buttons of +fruit. Dilly stopped to look about her, and her eyes filled. The tears +were hot; they hurt her, and so recalled her to the needs of life. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said, "I mustn't do so!"—and she walked straight forward +through the open shed, and fitted her key in the lock. The door sagged; +but she pushed it open and stepped in. The deserted kitchen lay there +in desolate order, and the old Willard clock slept upon the wall. Dilly +hastily pushed a chair before it (this was the only chair old Daniel +Joyce would allow the children to climb in) and wound the clock. It +began ticking slowly, with the old, remembered sound. Somehow it seemed +beautiful to Dilly that the clock should speak with the voice of all +those years agone; it was a kind of loyalty which appealed to the soul +like a piercing miracle. Then she ran through to the sitting-room, and +started the old eight-day in the corner; and the house breathed and was +alive again. She threw open the windows, all save those on the Dilloway +side (lest kindly neighbors should discover she was at home), and the +soft rose-scented air flooded the rooms like an invisible presence, and +bore out the smell of age upon gracious wings. Now, Dilly worked fast +and steadily, lest some human thing should come upon her. She tied up +bedclothes, and opened long-closed cupboards. She made careful piles of +clothing from the attic; and finally, her mind a little tired, she sat +down on the floor and began looking over papers and daguerreotypes from +her father's desk. Just as she had lost herself in the ancient history +of which they were the signs, there came a knock at the back door. So +assured had become her idea of a continued housekeeping, that the +summons did not seem in the least strange. The house lived again; it +had thrown open its arms to human kind. +</p> + +<p> +"Come in!" she called; and a light step sounded in the kitchen and +crossed the sill. It was a man, dark-eyed and very handsome. "Oh!" +murmured Dilly, catching her breath and holding both hands clasped upon +the papers in her lap. "Jethro!" +</p> + +<p> +The stranger was much moved, and his black eyes deepened. He looked at +her kindly, perhaps lovingly, too. "Yes," he said, at last. "So you'd +know me?" +</p> + +<p> +Dilly got lightly up, and the papers fell about her in a shower; yet +she made no motion toward him. "Oh, yes," she said softly, "I should +know you. You ain't changed at all." +</p> + +<p> +That was not true. He looked ten years older than his real age; yet +time had only dowered him with a finer grace and charm. All the lines +in his face were those of gentleness and truth. His mouth had the old +delicate curves. One meeting him that day might have said, with a throb +of involuntary homage, "How beautiful he must have been when he was +young!" But to Dilly he bore even a more subtile distinction than in +that far-away time; he had ripened into something harmonizing with her +own years. He came forward a little, and held out both hands; but Dilly +did not take them, and he dropped the left one. Then she laid her +fingers lightly in his, and they greeted each other like old +acquaintances. A flush rose in her smooth brown cheek. Her eyes grew +bright with that startled questioning which is of the woods. He looked +at her the more intently, and his breath quickened. She had none of the +blossomy charm of more robust womanhood; but he recognized the old +gypsy element which had once bewitched him, and felt he loved her +still. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," he said, and his voice shook a little, "are you glad to see +me?" +</p> + +<p> +Dilly moved back, and sat down in her mother's little sewing-chair by +the desk. "I don't know as I can tell," she answered. "This is a +strange day." +</p> + +<p> +Jethro nodded. "I meant to surprise you," he said. "So I never wrote I +was coming on so soon. I was real disappointed to find your house shut +up; but the neighbors told me where you'd gone, and what you'd gone +for. Then I walked over here." +</p> + +<p> +Dilly's face brightened all over with a responsive smile. "Did you come +through the woods?" she asked. "What made you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, I knew you'd go that way," he answered. "I thought you'd get +wool-gathering over some weed or another, and maybe I'd overtake you." +</p> + +<p> +They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and +gathered a drawer-full of papers into her apron. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't stop workin'," she said. "I want to fix it so's not to stay +here more 'n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run +'em over an' listen too." +</p> + +<p> +"I think 't was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom's folks," +said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as +if it were an omen, in her father's great chair. "Not that you'll ever +need it, Dilly. You won't want for a thing. I've done real well." +</p> + +<p> +Dilly's long fingers assorted papers and laid them at either side, with +a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the +quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to +its habits. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I +did—why, I'd resk it!" +</p> + +<p> +Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, +half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet +she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same. +</p> + +<p> +"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, +if ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars +run by your door, and you can hire two girls." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as +a shadow sweeps across the field. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I +said?" +</p> + +<p> +Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind. +"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how 't would be. I +never spec'lated much on keepin' house." +</p> + +<p> +"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling +on her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, +and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, +Dilly,—you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things." +</p> + +<p> +Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked +swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the +orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. +Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. +That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was +the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew +the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. +She knew no city streets,—yet the thought of them sounded like a +pursuit. She turned about, and came back to her chair. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But +it don't make no matter. You're contented with it." +</p> + +<p> +"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got +enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in +with it, too." +</p> + +<p> +Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She +was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in +her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very +spurious thing when there is nothing to say. +</p> + +<p> +"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was +thinkin'," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was +so sweet,—"I was thinkin' you make me homesick, somehow or another." +</p> + +<p> +Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he +smiled also. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't believe it's me," he said, confidently. "It's because you're +going over things here. It's the old house." +</p> + +<p> +"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But +I don't know. I never had quite such feelin's before. It's the nearest +to bein' afraid of anything I've come acrost. I guess I shall have to +run out into the lot an' take my bearin's." +</p> + +<p> +Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room. +He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory +that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules. +</p> + +<p> +"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last +drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in +excitement. "You don't know, I ain't begun to tell you, how queer it +seems to me. Why, I've dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come +nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all +knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood 'round me, +ready to uphold me in what I was doin'. I shouldn't be surprised if +they were all here now. I don't feel a mite alone." +</p> + +<p> +Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro +came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine +hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with +a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines. +</p> + +<p> +"There, poor girl!" he said, "you're tired thinking about it. No wonder +you've got fancies. I guess the ghosts won't trouble us. There's +nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, +Dilly felt homesick and alone. +</p> + +<p> +There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she +turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet +slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her +feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had +seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded +forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed +to exude kindliness as she came. +</p> + +<p> +"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain't jest like you!" she exclaimed. +"Creep in here an' not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? +Recognize you! Well, I guess I should!" +</p> + +<p> +She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very +grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down +and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other +voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the +intercourse of a life so sadly changed. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You're tired +to pieces with this pickin' and sortin', an' you're comin' over to +dinner, both on ye. Eli's dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. <i>He</i> +wouldn't ha' done it; you know that, Dilly! An' I've been beatin' up +eggs. Now don't you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you +got a watch? You see't she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away +victorious, her apron over her head, and waving one hand before her as +she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as +this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange +dooryards. +</p> + +<p> +Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn +significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper +persons. She thought of her bread and butter and boiled eggs, lying in +her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it +were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars +going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car +meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove +her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made +her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever +on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, +and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, +they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike's. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an +unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it +choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of +housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; +and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife +and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his +mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as +possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the +empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again. +</p> + +<p> +The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very +loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was +the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her +knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside +in the jessamine, and a humming-bird—there had always been one, year +after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was +the same bird—hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings +divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a +sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs. +Pike's again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch +herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told +her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, +bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon +her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and +another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he +meant to be married. +</p> + +<p> +"Soon," said Jethro, with assurance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her +mind." +</p> + +<p> +All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the +talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill's song from +the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside +him. He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when +half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given +the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but +Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops +down to her own home. +</p> + +<p> +At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great +blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as +she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, +suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was +forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For +she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long spaces of +silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little +animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves. +Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably +precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches +lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, +thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed +to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of +meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should +pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, +until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to +approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of +unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned +her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to +the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the +greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to +Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped +softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the +shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement +thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not +wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her +feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that +she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird +note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his +tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed +to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she +hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, +and shut the door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room where the old desk stood +in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her +confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness. +She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, +in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her +wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She +drew forward her father's chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious +abandonment, to rest. Her mother's little cricket was by her side, and +she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there +fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight +and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware +that the Joyces were all about her. +</p> + +<p> +She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and +cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their +bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that +they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, +and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and +women, face to face. There was the shoemaker among them, who, +generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle +of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out +into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a +loud voice upon Almighty God to save him from ill-doing. Then he had +drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but +a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not +think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered +among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself +rather than go to war. But here he stood—was it the man, or some +secret intelligence of him?—and Dilly, out of all his race, was the +one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of passionate sympathy, +how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how +the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he +fled away and prayed his God to save him from mortal guilt,—and how, +finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of anticipated +slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, +he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And +Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake. +</p> + +<p> +There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and +wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the +island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be +beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, +who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the +pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her +for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in +the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the +poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and +faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern +use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was +not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering +gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that +all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her +whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. +It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul +does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret +core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way. +</p> + +<p> +There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and to the disgust of +her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the +world found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency +herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one +night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying +hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; +that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in +one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of +Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that +she was of those who overcome. +</p> + +<p> +So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had +never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they +had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one +drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of +life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There +was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom +she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an +infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she +smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She +thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating +huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she +remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been +lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how +the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there +is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer +life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and +she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, +whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood. +</p> + +<p> +The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly +felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now +she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she +understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a +case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in +his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how +that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but +theirs,—and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long +passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, +waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not +him, but his inheritance. +</p> + +<p> +Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a +clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her +eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with +a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no +longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were +hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she +closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, +and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We +know, you and we!" As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just +going to milking, with clusters of shining pails. +</p> + +<p> +"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!" +</p> + +<p> +"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who +carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" +And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran +up to smooth her tumbled bed. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly +called Jethro softly to one side. +</p> + +<p> +"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you." +</p> + +<p> +Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and +Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and +caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be +quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a +child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest +tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him. +</p> + +<p> +"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married." +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of +bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again +Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much. But +it's your folks I care about. It ain't you. I've found it all out, +Jethro. Things don't al'ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them +that have gone before; an' half the time we don't know it." +</p> + +<p> +Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. "You're all tired out," he said +soothingly. "Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire +somebody. I'll be glad to." +</p> + +<p> +But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. "You're real good, Jethro," +she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her +old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. "But I don't feel +tired, an' I ain't a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to +town with Eli—he's goin' after he feeds the pigs—an' take the cars +from there. It's all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain't so sorry as I +might be; for it's borne in on me you won't care this way long. An' you +needn't, dear; for nothin' between us is changed a mite. The only +trouble is, it ain't the kind of thing we thought." +</p> + +<p> +She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned +away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and +beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the +house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces +had done their work, and she was doing hers. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="peace"></a> +THE WAY OF PEACE +</h3> + +<p> +It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat +down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still +clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had +been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the +cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their +own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and +brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their +solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on +leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the +funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the +very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient +sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A +little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier +than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then +Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly +office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can +only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing +away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then +deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to +pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but +that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the +moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put +things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was +then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace. +</p> + +<p> +Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it +was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was +standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking +over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he +told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper +lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes +were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of +herself in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!" +</p> + +<p> +And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before +disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery +there. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I +shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!" +</p> + +<p> +Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided +in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its +other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair, +and moaned a little to herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I +never can bear it in the world!" +</p> + +<p> +The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold +in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the +inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a +little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, +coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always +been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and +held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a +great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with +accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart, +in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the +stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking +about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There +again she caught sight of herself in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a +fullness, of joy. +</p> + +<p> +Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more +and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched +out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how +to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her +mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a +pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her +thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock +after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self. +But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp +silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and +coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older +face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all +suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had +gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have +kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She +did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to +think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that +instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful +portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the +closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched. +Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off +her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on +her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to +wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the +deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a +wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; +this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another +life as well. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself. +"Them are the ones to be put aside." +</p> + +<p> +She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again, +her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a +pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face +to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded +her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely +any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the +tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be +afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and +likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not +seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. +</p> + +<p> +They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being +worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, +stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her +unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of +evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back +against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with +one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!" +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git +along, if I could look a little mite like her." +</p> + +<p> +John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble +mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. +Well, I <i>am</i> pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down +Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I +can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can +git along." +</p> + +<p> +They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John +had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. +</p> + +<p> +When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he +never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The +other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the +funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to +fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So, +though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, +he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be +when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. +She'd got to looking a good deal like mother. +</p> + +<p> +They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting +a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a +low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from +that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither +would have been surprised. +</p> + +<p> +"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came +crackling at them. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got +into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most +burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a +real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I +laughed—an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o' +picked it out a-purpose." +</p> + +<p> +John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it +was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it. +</p> + +<p> +"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to +do?" +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that. +She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage. +</p> + +<p> +"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to +pull through on." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, but where you goin' to live?" +</p> + +<p> +"Here." +</p> + +<p> +"Alone?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At +that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made +themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love. +</p> + +<p> +John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with +which his soul did not accord. +</p> + +<p> +"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say +you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will +have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she +should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your +home with us." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I +ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she +could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me. +Why, John, this is my home!" +</p> + +<p> +Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy +mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth +and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the +hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk +the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both +would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her: +but she belonged to it as well. +</p> + +<p> +John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent +him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also, +wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been +sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its +dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly +judgment he could only yield. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I +don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an' +there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit? +That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be +done." +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold +beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an +innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to +judge. +</p> + +<p> +"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got +to?" +</p> + +<p> +"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his +eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never +could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up +yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might." +</p> + +<p> +John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned +forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made +her last condition. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't +ask me to break up nuthin'?" +</p> + +<p> +"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you +needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me." +</p> + +<p> +So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that +had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her +visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her +mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the +window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her +about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy +notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade +than a strange by-path taken by nature itself. +</p> + +<p> +The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann +"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to +say, with her happiest smile,— +</p> + +<p> +"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't +ever forget her." +</p> + +<p> +Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a +way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind; +but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit +mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the +time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone. +A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as +the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a +sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had +happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she +had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so +many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there +she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours +would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her +hands folded, communing with old memories. +</p> + +<p> +The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal, +packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John +stood by her, and she was allowed to go. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be +glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've +got to come back an' spend the winter." +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently +remote; and the winter was not yet here. +</p> + +<p> +The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in +Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains, +the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be +done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in +the face, and learn its lineaments. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with +an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those +who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his +luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well +with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear, +could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went +to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but +still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His +cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary +with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not +arrived, and John was at the goal before him. +</p> + +<p> +"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann. +"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for +us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used +to over there." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to." +</p> + +<p> +It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone. +</p> + +<p> +"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room +gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." +</p> + +<p> +It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in +Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as +she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in +like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she +would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the +first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at +night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted +to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason +for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the +flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might +feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner +resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out +on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while +she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh. +</p> + +<p> +"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he. +</p> + +<p> +A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely. +</p> + +<p> +"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence +August." +</p> + +<p> +John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to +illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann +and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a +visitor." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been +a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else." +</p> + +<p> +But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own +house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned +that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a +looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him +good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for +getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as +"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the +door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had +ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch +her shawled arms pathetically upward. +</p> + +<p> +"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a +great experience. +</p> + +<p> +She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the +things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to +cling. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no +more." +</p> + +<p> +Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like +children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who +may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a +programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In +one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her +pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She +felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its +best. +</p> + +<p> +"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could +hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like +those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season. +Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the +roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers +past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and +leaned out. +</p> + +<p> +"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she +called. "The barn's open." +</p> + +<p> +John was in a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he. +"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night +before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to +breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good +time with them." +</p> + +<p> +John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann +stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls, +and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and +sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and +thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to +be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones +in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there +were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and +confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they +were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply +touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner +self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of +nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the +patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though +the savor of the task was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she +sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy, +and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda +and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very +important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household +goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's +would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter +itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her +deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay. +Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that +time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all. +</p> + +<p> +It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She +thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks: +so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground, +and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a +wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins. +</p> + +<p> +"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin' +to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the +post-office." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I +meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day +with us. I'll come over arter you." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his +lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.". +</p> + +<p> +"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh. +"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle +end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well, +John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll +git more'n you would with us." +</p> + +<p> +He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing. +She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared. +</p> + +<p> +It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer +way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood, +prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long +memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store +smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its +fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to +be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her +lips opened to words she had not chosen:— +</p> + +<p> +"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest +flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer. +Ezra's asked me to go there." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he? +Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry, +Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without +you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They +can't seem to understand the difference." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it +as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange, +excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way +before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own +volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice +time." +</p> + +<p> +She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward +to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody +had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and +now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her +mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference. +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I +might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for +some Thanksgivin' things? +</p> + +<p> +"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your +credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time. +</p> + +<p> +"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some +cinnamon an' some mace—there! I'll tell you, while you weigh." +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world; +and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay, +the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its +market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It +could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she +left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with +bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them. +</p> + +<p> +"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to <i>you</i>. Jest leave +the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too +often." +</p> + +<p> +She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and +swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by +over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in +joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be +flying on the wings of a fortunate wind. +</p> + +<p> +All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable +steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they +love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was +going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day +with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:— +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, John's invited me there!" +</p> + +<p> +All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful +hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had +many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be +told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within +hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time. +Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she +sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up +piteously and say aloud:— +</p> + +<p> +"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the +pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she +was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter +savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature +cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a +sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all +their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she +recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed +as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through +that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable +sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a +personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed +by memory as well as hope. +</p> + +<p> +On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because +that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house, +and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the +day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now +they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the +sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church. +Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient +questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would +stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The +morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made +the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but +there had to be just so many—onions, turnips, and squash baked with +molasses—for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of +dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a +curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that +it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when +dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her +anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She +ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did +not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. +She was at home; that was enough. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen +without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's +beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left +behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy +Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the +wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself +in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl +adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a +more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved +herself. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody +ever had." +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always +gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding +of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or +the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, +and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case +containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little +distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, +nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In +herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours +slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though +it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came +rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice, +calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had +had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John +kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down, +unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story, +and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all +right." +</p> + +<p> +Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood +there, gently welcoming. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that +ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan +it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on +Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's +poplin, she forbore. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in +after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the +brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way +behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak. +</p> + +<p> +"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I +should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks +thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over +there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha' +gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've +been, all day long, in this lonesome house!" +</p> + +<p> +"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your +things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the +table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did +not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney, +more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in +the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was +the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very +capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting +on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face. +</p> + +<p> +"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way," +said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha' +spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest +wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the +track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or +not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it." +</p> + +<p> +Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"— +</p> + +<p> +"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She +wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own—don't you, +Lucy?" +</p> + +<p> +Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it. +</p> + +<p> +But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt +unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but +you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go +round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've +all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should +make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my +visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. +An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile +breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter +her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got +more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' +fruit-cake, a year old." +</p> + +<p> +Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner +of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and +Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the +children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw +themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room +became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a +swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie +between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no +moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little +John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her +poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear. +</p> + +<p> +"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="hannah"></a> +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME +</h3> + +<p> +Tiverton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about +naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation +felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from +spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an +assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an +excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion +by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with +overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an +enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives +had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere +shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, +pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the +desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire +of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or +the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with +awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their +bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a +puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was +their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed +evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an +intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of +the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had +strangely transformed itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology +and the breath of an unknown world. But though sobered, they were not +cast down; for the occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a +heaven-defying profligacy of intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy +Forbes had in his pocket a pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by +wicked but careless design, just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and +that Tom Drake was master of a concealed pea-shooter, which he had +sworn, with all the asseverations held sacred by boys, to use at some +dramatic moment. All the band were aware that neither of these daring +deeds would be done. The prospective actors themselves knew it; but it +was a darling joy to contemplate the remote possibility thereof. +</p> + +<p> +Deacon Pitts opened, the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious +a privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His +companion had not been able to come. (The entire neighborhood knew that +Mrs. Pitts had been laid low by an attack of erysipelas, and that she +was, at the moment, in a dark bedroom at home, helpless under +elderblow.) +</p> + +<p> +"She lays there on a bed of pain," said the deacon. "But she says to +me, 'You go. Better the house o' mournin' than the house o' feastin',' +she says. Oh, my friends! what can be more blessed than the counsel of +an aged and feeble companion?" +</p> + +<p> +The deacon sat down, and Tom Drake, his finger on the pea-shooter, +assured himself, in acute mental triumph, that he had almost done it +that time. +</p> + +<p> +Then followed certain incidents eminently pleasing to the boys. To +their unbounded relief, Sarah Frances Giles rose to speak, weeping as +she began. She always wept at prayer meeting, though at the very moment +of asserting her joy that she cherished a hope, and her gratitude that +she was so nearly at an end of this earthly pilgrimage and ready to +take her stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The boys reveled +in her testimony. They were in a state of bitter uneasiness before she +rose, and gnawed with a consuming impatience until she began to cry. +Then they wondered if she could possibly leave out the sea of glass; +and when it duly came, they gave a sigh of satiated bliss and sank into +acquiescence in whatever might happen. This was a rich occasion to +their souls, for Silas Marden, who was seldom moved by the spirit, fell +upon his knees to pray; but at the same unlucky instant, his +sister-in-law, for whom he cherished an unbounded scorn, rose (being +"nigh-eyed" and ignorant of his priority) and began to speak. For a +moment, the two held on together, "neck and neck," as the happy boys +afterward remembered, and then Silas got up, dusted his knees, and sat +down, not to rise again at any spiritual call. "An' a madder man you +never see," cried all the Hollow next day, in shocked but gleeful +memory. +</p> + +<p> +Taking it all in all, the meeting had thus far mirrored others of its +class. If the droning experiences were devoid of all human passion, it +was chiefly because they had to be expressed in the phrases of strict +theological usage. There was an unspoken agreement that feelings of +this sort should be described in a certain way. They were not the +affairs of the hearth and market; they were matters pertaining to that +awful entity called the soul, and must be dressed in the fine linen +which she had herself elected to wear. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, in a wearisome pause, when minds had begun to stray toward +the hayfield and tomorrow's churning, the door was pushed open, and the +Widow Prime walked in. She was quite unused to seeking her kind, and +the little assembly at once awoke, under the stimulus of surprise. They +knew quite well where she had been walking: to Sudleigh Jail, to visit +her only son, lying there for the third time, not, as usual, for +drunkenness, but for house-breaking. She was a wiry woman, a mass of +muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with +clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking, +and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the +marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and +her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The +vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like +that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very +bitter—so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after +undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A +quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was +"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every +professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for +which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old +conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like +creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their +own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could +they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God +and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key +of the unexpected. +</p> + +<p> +"Has any one an experience to offer? Will any brother or sister lead in +prayer?" +</p> + +<p> +The silence was growing into a thing to be recognized and conquered, +when, to the wonder of her neighbors, Hannah Prime herself rose, She +looked slowly about the room, gazing into every face as if to challenge +an honest understanding. Then she began speaking in a low voice +thrilled by an emotion not yet explained. Unused to expressing herself +in public, she seemed to be feeling her way. The silence, pride, +endurance, which had been her armor for many years, were no longer +apparent; she had thrown down all her defenses with a grave composure, +as if life suddenly summoned her to higher issues. +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno's I've got an experience to offer," she said. "I dunno's it's +religion. I dunno what 'tis. Mebbe you'd say it don't belong to a +meetin'. But when I come by an' see you all settin' here, it come over +me I'd like to tell somebody. Two weeks ago I was most crazy"—She +paused of necessity, for something broke in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the afternoon Jim was took," whispered a woman to her neighbor. +Hannah Prime went on. +</p> + +<p> +"I jest as soon tell it now. I can tell ye all together what I couldn't +say to one on ye alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it +afterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. +I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I +set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the +clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought +I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to +death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, +seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got up an' run outdoor jest as fast as +I could go. I run out behind the house an' down the cart-path to that +pile o' rocks that overlooks the lake; an' there I got out o' breath +an' dropped down on a big rock. An' there I set, jest as still as I'd +been settin' when I was in the house." +</p> + +<p> +Here a little girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward +and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. +afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I +thought, if I heard a pin drop, I should scream." +</p> + +<p> +"I dunno how long I set there," went on Hannah Prime, "but byme-by it +begun to come over me how still the lake was. 'Twas like glass; an' way +over where it runs in 'tween them islands, it burnt like fire. Then I +looked up a little further, to see what kind of a sky there was. 'T was +light green, with clouds in it, all fire, an' it begun to seem to me as +if it was a kind o' land an' water up there—like our'n, on'y not +solid. I set there an' looked at it; an' I picked out islands, an' +ma'sh-land, an' p'ints running out into the yeller-green sea. An' +everything grew stiller an' stiller. The loons struck up, down on the +lake, with that kind of a lonesome whinner; but that on'y made the rest +of it seem quieter. An' it begun to grow dark all 'round me. I dunno 's +I ever noticed before jest how the dark comes. It sifted down like +snow, on'y you couldn't see it. Well, I set there, an' I tried to keep +stiller an' stiller, like everything else. Seemed as if I must. An' +pretty soon I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' +my eyes on the sky; for I knew 't would break suthin' if I turned my +head, an' I felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', +walkin', without takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come +right up 'side o' me an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I +mustn't. I dunno whether It touched me; I dunno whether It said +anything—but I know It made me a new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't +be afraid o' things no more—nor sorry. I found out 't was all right. +'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been +dead for the last twenty year. I'd come alive. +</p> + +<p> +"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno +how long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun +to fade. An' then it come over me 't was goin'. I knew 't was terrible +tender of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I +won't forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned +an' see my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side +of it. Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home +without lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah +Prime, looking her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I +dunno what 't was, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' +I ain't goin' to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's +bigger'n we think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and +moved toward the door. There she again turned to her neighbors. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night!" she said, and was gone. +</p> + +<p> +They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating +on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly +out. There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not +sung. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="honey"></a> +HONEY AND MYRRH +</h3> + +<p> +The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow +drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying +wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid +banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The +lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with +which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely +lives. The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned +curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted +over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a +fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and +flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch +swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all +hidden away. +</p> + +<p> +That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save +to shovel paths, and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched +until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion +for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by +the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the +men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking +swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath +ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton +Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way +of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an +exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. +</p> + +<p> +By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened +by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the +less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as +one man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind +in the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the +county paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another +stick of wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and +in the evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red +flannel in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the +tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass, and that +their communication with the world was reëstablished. +</p> + +<p> +Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young +schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard, +at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. +There was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was +going to be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always +receiving through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, +the postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs +might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with +photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very +well understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a +week, was an interlude in the life of one who would some day write a +spelling-book, or exercise senatorial rights at Washington. He was a +long-legged, pleasant looking youth, with a pale cheek, dark eyes, and +thick black hair, one lock of which, hanging low over his forehead, he +twisted while he read. He kept glancing up at Miss Susan and smiling at +her, whenever he could look away from his book and the fire, and she +smiled back. At last, after many such wordless messages, he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +"What lots of red mittens you do knit! Do you send them all away to +that society?" +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan's needles clicked. +</p> + +<p> +"Every one," said she. +</p> + +<p> +She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her +head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness +better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great +cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a +mystery she had not turned out "gormin'." But that was because Susan +had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs +and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was +strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked +frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick +always delighted in Susan's nearness; her magnificent health and +presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor +air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She +rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall call you the Orphans' Friend," said he. +</p> + +<p> +She laid down her work. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you say one word," she answered, with an air of abject +confession. "It don't interest me a mite! I give because it's my +bounden duty, but I'll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my +life, an' fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to +provide folks with what they don't need ruther'n what they do." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't see what you mean," said the schoolmaster. "Tell me." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of +firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine +knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under +her feet, and settled herself to gossip. +</p> + +<p> +"Anybody'd think I'd most talked myself out sence you come here to +board," said she, "but you're the beatemest for tolin' anybody on. I +never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if +there's anybody 't wants to listen. I never've said this to a livin' +soul, an' I guess it's sort o' heathenish to think, but I'm tired to +death o' fightin' ag'inst poverty, poverty! I s'pose it's there, fast +enough, though we're all so well on 't we don't realize it; an' I'm +goin' to do my part, an' be glad to, while I'm above ground. But I +guess heaven'll be a spot where we don't give folks what they need, but +what they don't." +</p> + +<p> +"There is something in your Bible," began the schoolmaster +hesitatingly, "about a box of precious ointment." He always said "your +Bible," as if church members held a proprietary right. +</p> + +<p> +"That's it!" replied Miss Susan, brightening. "That's what I al'ays +thought. Spill it all out, I say, an' make the world smell as sweet as +honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin' here by the fire alone! +Great projicks!" +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me some! +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I dunno's I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits +along towards eight o'clock, an' the room's all simmerin', an' the moon +lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec' +out o' life. We don't seem to have no color in it. Why, don't you +remember 'Solomon in all his glory'? I guess 't wouldn't ha' been put +in jest that way if there wa'n't somethin' in it. I s'pose he had +crowns an' rings an' purple velvet coats an' brocade satin weskits, an' +all manner o' things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin' +straight in through that door there." She was running a knitting needle +back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing +that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone +outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed +open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in. +</p> + +<p> +"My land!" cried Miss Susan, aghast. Then she and the schoolmaster, by +one accord, began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +But the man did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his +feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the +legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag +he had been carrying. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I trailed it through some o' the drifts," he remarked. "The +road's pretty narrer, this season o' the year." +</p> + +<p> +"You give us a real start," said Susan. "We thought be sure 'twas +Solomon, an' mebbe the Queen o' Sheba follerin' arter. Why, Solon +Slade, you ain't walked way over to Tiverton Street!" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I have," asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, +possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was +Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, +but hadn't no more spunk 'n a wet rag. +</p> + +<p> +Susan had risen and laid down her knitting. She approached the table +and rested one hand on it, a hawk-like brightness in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"What you got in that bag?" asked she. +</p> + +<p> +Solon was enjoying his certainty that he held the key to the situation. +</p> + +<p> +"I got a mite o' cheese," he answered, approaching the fire and +spreading his hands to the blaze. +</p> + +<p> +"You got anything else? Now, Solon, don't you keep me here on +tenter-hooks! You got a letter?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said Solon, "I thought I might as well look into the +post-office an' see." +</p> + +<p> +"You thought so! You went a-purpose! An' you walked because you al'ays +was half shackled about takin' horses out in bad goin'. You hand me +over that letter!" +</p> + +<p> +Solon approached the table, a furtive twinkle in his blue eyes. He +lifted the bag and opened it slowly. First, he took out a wedge-shaped +package. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the cheese," said he. "Herb." +</p> + +<p> +"My land!" ejaculated Miss Susan, while the schoolmaster looked on and +smiled. "You better ha' come to me for cheese. I've got a plenty, tansy +an' sage, an' you know it. I see it! There! you gi' me holt on 't!" It +was a fugitive white gleam in the bottom of the bag; she pounced upon +it and brought up a letter. Midway in the act of tearing it open, she +paused and looked at Solon with droll entreaty. "It's your letter, by +rights!" she added tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +"Law!" said he, "I dunno who it's directed to, but I guess it's as much +your'n as anybody's." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan spread open the sheets with an air of breathless delight. +She bent nearer the lamp. "'Dear father and auntie,'" she began. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" remarked Solon, in quiet satisfaction, still warming his hands +at the blaze. "There! you see <i>'tis</i> to both." +</p> + +<p> +"My! how she does run the words together! Here!" Miss Susan passed it +to the schoolmaster. "You read it. It's from Jenny. You know she's away +to school, an' we didn't think best for her to come home Christmas. I +knew she'd write for Christmas. Solon, I told you so!" +</p> + +<p> +The schoolmaster took the letter, and read it aloud. It was a simple +little message, full of contentment and love and a girl's new delight +in life. When he had finished, the two older people busied themselves a +moment without speaking, Solon in picking up a chip from the hearth, +and Susan in mechanically smoothing the mammoth roses on the side of +the carpetbag. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I 'most wish we'd had her come home," said he at last, clearing +his throat. +</p> + +<p> +"No, you don't either," answered Miss Susan promptly. "Not with this +snow, an' comin' out of a house where it's het up, into cold beds an' +all. Now I'm goin' to git you a mite o' pie an' some hot tea." +</p> + +<p> +She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon +silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for +company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and +she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his +panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began +clearing up. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. +"S'pose he should be sick in the night!" +</p> + +<p> +"You'd got over," answered the schoolmaster easily. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, you'd know it! You 're that sort." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent +anxiety. She came back to her knitting. +</p> + +<p> +"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster. +</p> + +<p> +"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence +September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull +pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the +house from sunrise to set." +</p> + +<p> +"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now +let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all +the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just +the ones they'd like." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the +schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to +sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the +turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed +away up garret, an' lives like a pig." +</p> + +<p> +"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'" +</p> + +<p> +"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all +winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't +she'd got to walk on." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal +now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's +temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple? +Why, the nails was all gold. Don't you wish we'd lived in them times? +Jest think about the wood they had—cedars o' Lebanon an' fir-trees. +You know how he set folks to workin' in the mountains. I've al'ays +thought I'd like to ben up on them mountains an' heard the axes ringin' +an' listened to the talk. An' then there was pomegranates an' cherubim, +an' as for silver an' gold, they were as common as dirt. When I was a +little girl, I learnt them chapters, an' sometimes now, when I'm +settin' by the fire, I say over that verse about the 'man of Tyre, +skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, +and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson.' +My! ain't it rich?" +</p> + +<p> +She drew a long breath of surfeited enjoyment. The schoolmaster's eyes +burned under his heavy brows. +</p> + +<p> +"Then things smelt so good in them days," continued Miss Susan. "They +had myrrh an' frankincense, an' I dunno what all. I never make my +mincemeat 'thout snuffin' at the spice-box to freshen up my mind. No +matter where I start, some way or another I al'ays git back to Solomon. +Well, if Cap'n Ben wants to see foreign countries, I guess he'd be +glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick—that big +one thereby you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if +I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set +the chimbly afire as not!" +</p> + +<p> +There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It +exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the +ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own +panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and +perished. +</p> + +<p> +"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the +world?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can +fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n +if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen, +kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious +stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't +would look." +</p> + +<p> +"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,—what should we have?" +</p> + +<p> +"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey—an'—but that's as fur as I +can git." +</p> + +<p> +The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he +said musically:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + ... "'a heap + Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; + With jellies soother than the creamy curd, + And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; + Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd + From Fez; and spicéd dainties, every one, + From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.'" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain't like the Bible, but it's +nice." +</p> + +<p> +They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and +burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan +came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" said she, "sometimes I think it's most sinful to make believe, +it's so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when +Solon comes for the pigs' kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself +sayin', 'Here's the frankincense!'" +</p> + +<p> +They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He +paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again. +</p> + +<p> +"There are lots of people we haven't provided for," he said. "We +haven't even thought what we'd give Jenny." +</p> + +<p> +"I guess Jenny's got her heart's desire." Miss Susan nodded sagely. +"I've sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an' pickles and cheese. She's +all fixed out." +</p> + +<p> +The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then +he spoke, somewhat timidly, "What should you like to give her father?" +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan's face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled +upon her eyes like haze. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said she, "I guess whatever I should give him'd only make him +laugh." +</p> + +<p> +"Flowers—and velvet—and honey—and myrrh?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," answered Miss Susan with gravity. "Perhaps it's jest as well +some things ain't to be had at the shops." +</p> + +<p> +The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door. +</p> + +<p> +"We never can tell," he said. "It may be people want things awfully +without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They'd better laugh than +cry. <i>I</i> should give all I could. Good-night." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the +hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on +too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out +the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a +moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The +visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with +a tumultuous emotion—the sense that life might be very fair and +shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The +loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; +they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was +still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire, +and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white +day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale +winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the +heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her +a wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, +all the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. +She went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little +scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the +schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she +hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the +work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up +to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the +rose. The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her +than all. She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed +meagre still, broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and +disposed the flowers hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling +and good; it spoke to the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she +rolled the flowers in her apron from the frost, and stepped out into +the brilliant day. The little cross-track between her house and the +other was snowed up; but she took the road and, hurrying between banks +of carven whiteness, went up Solon's path to the side door. She walked +in upon him where he was standing over the kitchen stove, warming his +hands at the first blaze. Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of +the stinging air, but she had the look of one who, living by a larger +law, has banished the foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to +him and proffered him her flowers. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these." +</p> + +<p> +Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both +hands and took them awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +"Well!" he said, "Well!" +</p> + +<p> +Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the +world was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give +all you choose, while nobody is the wiser. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He +laid them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked +over to Pine Hill to pick you some mayflowers, when you was gittin' +over the lung fever?" +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old +scores an' begin all over?" +</p> + +<p> +"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the +face with her brilliant smile. +</p> + +<p> +"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed +you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked +her, I thought 't was you." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I knew that well enough I was in the buttery and heard it all. +There, le's not talk about it." +</p> + +<p> +Solon came a step nearer. +</p> + +<p> +"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like +it." +</p> + +<p> +"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no +further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry +chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out, +walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon, +regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her. +Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all +over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He +forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and +snow. It was the spring of the year. +</p> + +<p> +When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and +was putting a stick of wood into the stove. +</p> + +<p> +"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you." +</p> + +<p> +A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was +always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious. +</p> + +<p> +"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance +of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers. +They were white and wonderful. +</p> + +<p> +"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the +schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than +I; but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I +should like to have you keep this." +</p> + +<p> +Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to +fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she +murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin' +over to breakfast." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="marriage"></a> +A SECOND MARRIAGE +</h3> + +<p> +Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round, +consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a +steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a +snatching flame below. It was exactly a year and a day since her +husband's death, and she had packed herself away in his own corner of +the settle, her hands clasped across her knees, and her red-brown eyes +brooding on the nearer embers. She was not definitely speculating on +her future, nor had she any heart for retracing the dull and gentle +past. She had simply relaxed hold on her mind; and so, escaping her, it +had gone wandering off into shadowy prophecies of the immediate years. +For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months, +since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not +old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how +free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of +her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black +hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had +once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray. +All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the +possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a +new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over. +</p> + +<p> +It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to +bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen +hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone +creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of +the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped +down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until +that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle +held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of +the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and +burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living. To-night, +under the spell of some vague expectancy, she had sat still for a long +time, her sewing laid aside and her room scrupulously in order. She was +waiting for what was not to be acknowledged even to her own intimate +self. But as the clock struck nine, she roused herself, and shook off +her mood in impatience and a disappointment which she would not own. +She looked about the room, as she often had of late, and began to +enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it +changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she +only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had +done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other +house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the +prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept +his precisely as his grandfather had left it to him. Amelia had never +once complained; she had observed toward her husband an unfailing +deference, due, she felt, to his twenty years' seniority; perhaps, +also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him +for having married him without love. It was her father who made the +match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by +parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably +born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He +had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows +sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power—gone +home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine +anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man +who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, +but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and +Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and +remained unmarried. +</p> + +<p> +Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture, +as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there +together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart +to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient +bitterness,—to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be +exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace +should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in +shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock—But +at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia +threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet. +She clasped her hands in a spontaneous gesture of rapt attention; and +when the sound paused at her gate, with one or two sweet, lingering +clingles, "I knew it!" she said aloud. Yet she did not go to the window +to look into the moonlit night. Standing there in the middle of the +room, she awaited the knock which was not long in coming. It was +imperative, insistent. Amelia, who had a spirit responsive to the +dramatic exigencies of life, felt a little flush spring into her face, +so hot that, on the way to the door, she involuntarily put her hand to +her cheek and held it there. The door came open grumblingly. It sagged +upon the hinges, but, well-used to its vagaries, she overcame it with a +regardless haste. +</p> + +<p> +"Come in," she said, at once, to the man on the step. "It's cold. Oh, +come in!" +</p> + +<p> +He stepped inside the entry, removing his fur cap, and disclosing a +youthful face charged with that radiance which made him, at +thirty-five, almost the counterpart of his former self. It may have +come only from the combination of curly brown hair, blue eyes, and an +aspiring lift of the chin, but it always seemed to mean a great deal +more. In the kitchen, he threw off his heavy coat, while Amelia, +bright-eyed and breathing quickly, stood by, quite silent. Then he +looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +"You expected me, didn't you?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +A warmer color surged into her cheeks. "I didn't know," she said +perversely. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess you did. It's one day over a year. You knew I'd wait a year." +</p> + +<p> +"It ain't a year over the services," said Amelia, trying to keep the +note of vital expectancy out of her voice. "It won't be that till +Friday." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, Saturday I'll come again." He went over to the fire and +stretched out his hands to the blaze, "Come here," he said +imperatively, "while I talk to you." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia stepped forward obediently, like a good little child. The old +fascination was still as dominant as at its birth, sixteen years ago. +She realized, with a strong, splendid sense of the eternity of things, +that always, even while it would have been treason to recognize it, she +had known how ready it was to rise and live again. All through her +married years, she had sternly drugged it and kept it sleeping. Now it +had a right to breathe, and she gloried in it. +</p> + +<p> +"I said to myself I wouldn't come to-day," went on Laurie, without +looking at her. A new and excited note had come into his voice, +responsive to her own. He gazed down at the fire, musing the while he +spoke. "Then I found I couldn't help it. That's why I'm so late. I +stayed in the shop till seven, and some fellows come in and wanted me +to play. I took up the fiddle, and begun. But I hadn't more'n drew a +note before I laid it down and put for the door. 'Dick, you keep shop,' +says I. And I harnessed up, and drove like the devil." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia felt warm with life and hope; she was taking up her youth just +where the story ended. +</p> + +<p> +"You ain't stopped swearin' yet!" she remarked, with a little excited +laugh. Then, from an undercurrent of exhilaration, it occurred to her +that she had never laughed so in all these years. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said Laurie abruptly, turning upon her, "how am I goin' to +start out? Shall we hark back to old scores? I know what come between +us. So do you. Have we got to talk it out, or can we begin now?" +</p> + +<p> +"Begin now," replied Amelia faintly. Her breath choked her. He +stretched out his arms to her in sudden passion. His hands touched her +sleeves and, with an answering rapidity of motion, she drew back. She +shrank within herself, and her face gathered a look of fright. "No! no! +no!" she cried strenuously. +</p> + +<p> +His arms fell at his sides, and he looked at her in amazement. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter?" he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia had retreated, until she stood now with one hand on the table. +She could not look at him, and when she answered, her voice shook. +</p> + +<p> +"There's nothin' the matter," she answered. "Only you mustn't—yet." +</p> + +<p> +A shade of relief passed over his face, and he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +"There, there!" he said, "never you mind. I understand. But if I come +over the last of the week, I guess it will be different. Won't it be +different, Milly?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," she owned, with a little sob in her throat, "it will be +different." +</p> + +<p> +Thrown out of his niche of easy friendliness with circumstance, he +stood there in irritated consciousness that here was some subtile +barrier which he had not foreseen. Ever since John Porter's death, +there had been strengthening in him a joyous sense that Milly's life +and his own must have been running parallel all this time, and that it +needed only a little widening of channels to make them join. His was no +crass certainty of finding her ready to drop into his hand; it was +rather a childlike, warmhearted faith in the permanence of her +affection for him, and perhaps, too, a shrewd estimate of his own +lingering youth compared with John Porter's furrowed face and his +fifty-five years. But now, with this new whiffling of the wind, he +could only stand rebuffed and recognize his own perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +"You do care, don't you, Milly?" he asked, with a boy's frank ardor. +"You want me to come again?" +</p> + +<p> +All her own delight in youth and the warm naturalness of life had +rushed back upon her. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you the truth. I always did +tell you the truth. I do want you to come." +</p> + +<p> +"But you don't want me to-night!" He lifted his brows, pursing his lips +whimsically; and Amelia laughed. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said she, with a little defiant movement of her own crisp head, +"I don't know as I do want you to-night!" +</p> + +<p> +Laurie shook himself into his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the +door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added +significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got to like me then!" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia laughed. "I guess there won't be no trouble!" she called after +him daringly. +</p> + +<p> +She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and +drove away. Then she went shaking back to her fire; but it was not +altogether from cold. The sense of the consistency of love and youth, +the fine justice with which nature was paying an old debt, had raised +her to a stature above her own. She stood there under the mantel, and +held by it while she trembled. For the first time, her husband had gone +utterly out of her life. It was as though he had not been. +</p> + +<p> +"Saturday!" she said to herself. "Saturday! Three days till then!" +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, the spring asserted itself,—there came a whiff of wind +from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut +through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin +crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling +drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over +the snow and talked of nests. +</p> + +<p> +Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her +low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell +hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her +eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No +sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She +throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving +sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung +laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the side-door. The +sled was empty, save for a rocking-chair where sat an enormous woman +enveloped in shawls, her broad face surrounded by a pumpkin hood. Her +dark brown front came low over her forehead, and she wore spectacles +with wide bows, which gave her an added expression of benevolence. She +waved a mittened hand to Amelia when their eyes met, and her heavy face +broke up into smiles. +</p> + +<p> +"Here I be!" she called in a thick, gurgling voice, as Amelia hastened +out, her apron thrown over her head. "Didn't expect me, did ye? Nobody +looks for an old rheumatic creatur'. She's more out o' the runnin' 'n a +last year's bird's-nest." +</p> + +<p> +"Why, aunt Ann!" cried Amelia, in unmistakable joy. "I'm tickled to +death to see you. Here, Amos, I'll help get her out." +</p> + +<p> +The driver, a short, thick-set man of neutral, ashy tints and a +sprinkling of hair and beard, trudged round the oxen and drew the +rocking-chair forward without a word. He never once looked in Amelia's +direction, and she seemed not to expect it; but he had scarcely laid +hold of the chair when aunt Ann broke forth:— +</p> + +<p> +"Now, Amos, ain't you goin' to take no notice of 'Melia, no more'n if +she wa'n't here? She ain't a bump on a log, nor you a born fool." +</p> + +<p> +Amos at once relinquished his sway over the chair, and stood looking +abstractedly at the oxen, who, with their heads low, had already fallen +into that species of day-dream whereby they compensate themselves for +human tyranny. They were waiting for Amos, and Amos, in obedience to +some inward resolve, waited for commotion to cease. +</p> + +<p> +"If ever I was ashamed, I be now!" continued aunt Ann, still with an +expression of settled good-nature, and in a voice all jollity though +raised conscientiously to a scolding pitch. "To think I should bring +such a creatur' into the world, an' set by to see him treat his own +relations like the dirt under his feet!" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia laughed. She was exhilarated by the prospect of company, and +this domestic whirlpool had amused her from of old. +</p> + +<p> +"Law, aunt Ann," she said, "you let Amos alone. He and I are old +cronies. We understand one another. Here, Amos, catch hold! We shall +all get our deaths out here, if we don't do nothin' but stand still and +squabble." +</p> + +<p> +The immovable Amos had only been awaiting his cue. He lifted the laden +chair with perfect ease to one of the piazza steps, and then to +another; when it had reached the top-most level, he dragged it over +the sill into the kitchen, and, leaving his mother sitting in colossal +triumph by the fire, turned about and took his silent way to the outer +world. +</p> + +<p> +"Amos," called aunt Ann, "do you mean to say you're goin' to walk out +o' this house without speakin' a civil word to anybody? Do you mean to +say that?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't mean to say nothin'," confided Amos to his worsted muffler, as +he took up his goad, and began backing the oxen round. +</p> + +<p> +Undisturbed and not at all daunted by a reply for which she had not +even listened, aunt Ann raised her voice in cheerful response: "Well, +you be along 'tween three an' four, an' you'll find me ready." +</p> + +<p> +"Mercy, aunt Ann!" said Amelia, beginning to unwind the visitor's +wraps, "what makes you keep houndin' Amos that way? If he hasn't spoke +for thirty-five years, it ain't likely he's goin' to begin now." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ann was looking about her with an expression of beaming delight in +unfamiliar surroundings. She laughed a rich, unctuous laugh, and +stretched her hands to the blaze. +</p> + +<p> +"Law," she said contentedly, "of course it ain't goin' to do no good. +Who ever thought 't would? But I've been at that boy all these years to +make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never +shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, +'Melia, you <i>air</i> kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my +bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't a mite cold." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was bustling about the fire, her mind full of the possibilities +of a company dinner. +</p> + +<p> +"How's your limbs?" she asked, while aunt Ann drew out a long stocking, +and began to knit with an amazing rapidity of which her fat fingers +gave no promise. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I ain't allowed to forgit 'em very often," she replied +comfortably. "Rheumatiz is my cross, an' I've got to bear it. Sometimes +I wish 't had gone into my hands ruther 'n my feet, an' I could ha' got +round. But there! if 't ain't one thing, it's another. Mis' Eben +Smith's got eight young ones down with the whoopin'-cough. Amos dragged +me over there yisterday; an' when I heerd 'em tryin' to see which could +bark the loudest, I says, 'Give me the peace o' Jerusalem in my own +house, even if I don't stir a step for the next five year no more 'n I +have for the last.' I dunno what 't would be if I hadn't a darter. I've +been greatly blessed." +</p> + +<p> +The talk went on in pleasant ripples, while Amelia moved back and forth +from pantry to table. She brought out the mixing-board, and began to +put her bread in the pans, while the tin kitchen stood in readiness by +the hearth. The sunshine flooded all the room, and lay insolently on +the paling fire; the Maltese cat sat in the broadest shaft of all, and, +having lunched from her full saucer in the corner, made her second +toilet for the day. +</p> + +<p> +"'Melia," said aunt Ann suddenly, looking down over her glasses at the +tin kitchen, "ain't it a real cross to bake in that thing?" +</p> + +<p> +"I always had it in mind to buy me a range," answered Amelia +reservedly, "but somehow we never got to it." +</p> + +<p> +"That's the only thing I ever had ag'inst John. He was as grand a man +as ever was, but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out +the old things, I say, no more 'n the old folks; but when it comes to +makin' a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, +that beats me." +</p> + +<p> +"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste, +"only he never knew I wanted it!" +</p> + +<p> +"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her +ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men. +Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft +as a woman. His mother used to say his eyes'd fill full o' tears when +he broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,—a good +provider an' a good friend." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face +flushed. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," she said gently, "he <i>was</i> good." +</p> + +<p> +"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations, +"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor +why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 'twas +only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's +see what you could do. When you got the range in, 'twould alter this +kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned +mantelpiece in the fore-room?" +</p> + +<p> +"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had +taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were +ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled. +</p> + +<p> +"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. +"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down +her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in +her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and +rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in +her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning +conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got +'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and +about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed +to be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never +anything too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a +buffer between her and the doers of her will; and though she might +scold, she never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in +the least to the disease which had practically disabled her. It might +confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of +others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in +her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative +genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She +cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she +asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. +It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually +gave up talking, and thereafter opened his lips only when some +practical exigency was to be filled. But once did he vouchsafe a reason +for that eccentricity. It was in his fifteenth year, as aunt Ann +remembered well, when the minister had called; and Amos, in response to +some remark about his hope of salvation, had looked abstractedly out of +the window. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd be ashamed," announced aunt Ann, after the minister had +gone,—"Amos, I <i>would</i> be ashamed, if I couldn't open my head to a +minister o' the gospel!" +</p> + +<p> +"If one head's open permanent in a house, I guess that fills the bill," +said Amos, getting up to seek the woodpile. "I ain't goin' to interfere +with nobody else's contract." +</p> + +<p> +His mother looked after him with gaping lips, and, for the space of +half an hour, spoke no word. +</p> + +<p> +To-day she saw before her an alluring field of action; the prospect +roused within her energies, never incapable of responding to a spur. +</p> + +<p> +"My soul, 'Melia!" she exclaimed, looking about the kitchen with a +dominating eye, "how I should like to git hold o' this house! I al'ays +did have a hankerin' that way, an' I don't mind tellin' ye. You could +change it all round complete." +</p> + +<p> +"It's a good house," said Amelia evasively, taking quick, even +stitches, but listening hungrily to the voice of outside temptation. It +seemed to confirm all the long-suppressed ambitions of her own heart. +</p> + +<p> +"You 're left well on 't," continued aunt Ann, her shrewd blue eyes +taking on a speculative look. "I'm glad you sold the stock. A woman +never undertakes man's work but she comes out the little end o' the +horn. The house is enough, if you keep it nice. Now, you've got that +money laid away, an' all he left you besides. You could live in the +village, if you was a mind to." +</p> + +<p> +A deep flush struck suddenly into Amelia's cheek. She thought of +Saltash and Laurie Morse. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't want to live in the village," she said sharply, thus reproving +her own errant mind. "I like my home." +</p> + +<p> +"Law, yes, of course ye do," replied aunt Ann easily, returning to her +knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of? +Repairin' an old coat?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'Twas his," she answered in a voice +almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and +when daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and +puttin' on a black one to match the stuff." +</p> + +<p> +"Goin' to give it away?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note +in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?" +</p> + +<p> +"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,—that's +all." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled +sunnily. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I suppose it <i>is</i> foolish," she owned,—"too foolish to tell. +But I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at +last. I kind o' like to do it." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on +a voyage of discovery. +</p> + +<p> +"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's +better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come +when it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into +your chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she +remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will. +</p> + +<p> +"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos +has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the +lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like +changes." +</p> + +<p> +"Blue spread on the west room bed?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes." +</p> + +<p> +"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper +kep' 'em?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes." +</p> + +<p> +"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to +have such a royal good time with, makin' essences?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes;" she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it +yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for +him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of +rich enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia soberly, +folding her work and taking off her thimble. "I'd just as soon as not." +</p> + +<p> +All through the dinner hour aunt Ann kept up an inspiring stream of +question and reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +"You <i>be</i> a good cook, 'Melia, an' no mistake," she remarked, breaking +her brown hot biscuit. "This your same kind o' bread, made without +yeast?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," answered Amelia, pouring the tea. "I save a mite over from the +last risin'." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ann smelled the biscuit critically. "Well, it makes proper nice +bread," she said, "but seems to me that's a terrible shif'less way to +go about it. However'd you happen to git hold on't? You wa'n't never +brought up to't." +</p> + +<p> +"His mother used to make it so. 'T was no great trouble, and 't would +have worried him if I'd changed." +</p> + +<p> +When the lavender-sprigged china had been washed and the hearth swept +up, the room fell into its aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after +another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the +fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork +cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss +appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message of +domestic content. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," said Amelia, "I'll get the still." +</p> + +<p> +"Bring down anything else that's ancient!" called aunt Ann. "We've +pretty much got red o' such things over t'our house, but I kind o' +like to see 'em." +</p> + +<p> +When Amelia returned, she staggered under a miscellaneous burden: the +still, some old swifts for winding yarn, and a pair of wool-cards. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't believe you know so much about cardin' wool as I do," she +said, in some triumph, regarding the cards with the saddened gaze of +one who recalls an occupation never to be resumed. "You see, you +dropped all such work when new things come in. I kept right on because +he wanted me to." +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ann was abundantly interested and amused. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, now, if ever!" she repeated over and over again. "If this don't +carry me back! Seems if I could hear the wheel hummin' an' gramma Balch +steppin' back an' forth as stiddy as a clock. It's been a good while +sence I've thought o' such old days." +</p> + +<p> +"If it's old days you want"—began Amelia, and she sped upstairs with a +fresh light of resolution in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +It was a long time before she returned,—so long that aunt Ann +exhausted the still, and turned again to her thrifty knitting. Then +there came a bumping noise on the stairs, and Amelia's shuffling tread. +</p> + +<p> +"What under the sun be you doin' of?" called her aunt, listening, with +her head on one side. "Don't you fall, 'Melia! Whatever't is, I can't +help ye." +</p> + +<p> +But the stairway door yielded to pressure from within: and first a rim +of wood appeared, and then Amelia, scarlet and breathless, staggering +under a spinning-wheel. +</p> + +<p> +"Forever!" ejaculated aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like +some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll +break a blood-vessel, an' then where'll ye be?" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia triumphantly drew the wheel to the middle of the floor, and then +blew upon her dusty hands and smoothed her tumbled hair. She took off +her apron and wiped the wheel with it rather tenderly, as if an +ordinary duster would not do. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said. "Here's some rolls right here in the bedroom. I +carded them myself, but I never expected to spin any more." +</p> + +<p> +She adjusted a roll to the spindle, and, quite forgetting aunt Ann, +began stepping back and forth in a rhythmical march of feminine +service. The low hum of her spinning filled the air, and she seemed to +be wrapped about by an atmosphere of remoteness and memory. Even aunt +Ann was impressed by it; and once, beginning to speak, she looked at +Amelia's face, and stopped. The purring silence continued, lulling all +lesser energies to sleep, until Amelia, pausing to adjust her thread, +found her mood broken by actual stillness, and gazed about her like one +awakened from dreams. +</p> + +<p> +"There!" she said, recalling herself. "Ain't that a good smooth thread? +I've sold lots of yarn. They ask for it in Sudleigh." +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis so!" confirmed aunt Ann cordially. "An' you've al'ays dyed it +yourself, too!" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, a good blue; sometimes tea-color. There, now, you can't say you +ain't heard a spinnin'-wheel once more!" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia moved the wheel to the side of the room, and went gravely back +to her chair. Her energy had fled, leaving her hushed and tremulous. +But not for that did aunt Ann relinquish her quest for the betterment +of the domestic world. Her tongue clicked the faster as Amelia's +halted. She put away her work altogether, and sat, with wagging head +and eloquent hands, still holding forth on the changes which might be +wrought in the house: a bay window here, a sofa there, new chairs, +tables, and furnishings. Amelia's mind swam in a sea of green rep, and +she found herself looking up from time to time at her mellowed four +walls, to see if they sparkled in desirable yet somewhat terrifying +gilt paper. +</p> + +<p> +At four o'clock, when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was +remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in +to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense +that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that +moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in +silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and +cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the +crumbs. Amos never varied in his rôle of automaton; and Amelia talked +rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she +was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned +in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt, +just as the oxen gave' their tremulous preparatory heave. +</p> + +<p> +"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia +this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I +can!" +</p> + +<p> +Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia +sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand, +she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow. +</p> + +<p> +"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even +in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word. +"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!" +</p> + +<p> +Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming +eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and +keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they +would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt +Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all +the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard. +</p> + +<p> +When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the +silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had +miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, +strangely clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been +stilled; only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, +and the cat stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in +the waning light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the +coat over critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it +behind the door in its accustomed place, where it had remained +undisturbed now for many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her +early supper, and then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it +brought out great shadows in the room, she took a little cricket and +sat down by the fire. There she had mused many an evening which seemed +to her less dull than the general course of her former life, while her +husband occupied the hearthside chair and told her stories of the war. +He had a childlike clearness and simplicity of speech, and a +self-forgetful habit of reminiscence. The war was the war to him, not a +theatre for boastful individual action; but Amelia remembered now that +he had seemed to hold heroic proportions in relation to that immortal +past. One could hardly bring heroism into the potato-field and the +cow-house; but after this lapse of time, it began to dawn upon her that +the man who had fought at Gettysburg and the man who marked out for her +the narrow rut of an unchanging existence were one and the same. And as +if the moment had come for an expected event, she heard again the +jangling of bells without, and the old vivid color rushed into her +cheeks, reddened before by the fire-shine. It was as though the other +night had been a rehearsal, and as if now she knew what was coming. Yet +she only clasped her hands more tightly about her knees and waited, the +while her heart hurried its time. The knocker fell twice, with a +resonant clang. She did not move. It beat again, the more insistently. +Then the heavy outer door was pushed open, and Laurie Morse came in, +looking exactly as she knew he would look—half angry, wholly excited, +and dowered with the beauty of youth recalled. He took off his cap and +stood before her. +</p> + +<p> +"Why didn't you come?" he asked imperatively. "Why didn't you let me +in?" +</p> + +<p> +The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it +was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some +influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she +was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, +calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not. +</p> + +<p> +"If you wanted it enough, you could get in," she said perversely, with +an alluring coquetry in her mien. "The door was unfastened." +</p> + +<p> +"I did want to enough," he responded. A new light came into his eyes. +He held out his hands toward her. "Get up off that cricket!" he +commanded. "Come here!" +</p> + +<p> +Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, +one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard. +</p> + +<p> +"It ain't Saturday," she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +"No, it ain't But I couldn't wait. You knew I couldn't. You knew I'd +come to-night." +</p> + +<p> +The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had +been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an +heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the +firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which +she had never felt in the days of their youth. +</p> + +<p> +"Am I goin' to stay," he asked sternly, "or shall I go home?" +</p> + +<p> +As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at +the gate. Should he go or stay? +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose," said Amelia faintly, "you're, goin' to stay." +</p> + +<p> +Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about +impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted +the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had +watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how +much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband's, the +real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life +with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward. +</p> + +<p> +"No! no!" she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. "No! no! +don't you hang it there! Don't you! don't you!" She swept him aside, +and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as +if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned +with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed. +</p> + +<p> +Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. +"I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're +nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and +let's talk." +</p> + +<p> +The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, +jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a +silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little +ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came +back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to +remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. +At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the +chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion. +</p> + +<p> +"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, +a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!" +</p> + +<p> +She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again. +</p> + +<p> +"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel +and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't +bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 'twould +kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a +comfort. If 'twas you—I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her +voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own +nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its +fears. +</p> + +<p> +"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But +we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd +furnish all new." +</p> + +<p> +"Not have these things!" called Amelia, with a ringing note of +dismay,—"not have these things he set by as he did his life! Why, what +do you think I'm made of, after fifteen years? What did I think I was +made of, even to guess I could? You don't know what women are like, +Laurie Morse,—you don't know!" +</p> + +<p> +She broke down in piteous weeping. Even then it seemed to her that it +would be good to find herself comforted with warm human sympathy; but +not a thought of its possibility remained in her mind. She saw the +boundaries beyond which she must not pass. Though the desert were arid +on this side, it was her desert, and there in her tent must she abide. +She began speaking again between sobbing breaths:— +</p> + +<p> +"I did have a dull life. I used up all my young days doin' the same +things over and over, when I wanted somethin' different. It <i>was</i> dull; +but if I could have it all over again, I'd work my fingers to the bone. +I don't know how it would have been if you and I'd come together then, +and had it all as we planned; but now I'm a different woman. I can't +any more go back than you could turn Sudleigh River, and coax it to run +uphill. I don't know whether 't was meant my life should make me a +different woman; but I <i>am</i> different, and such as I am, I'm his woman. +Yes, till I die, till I'm laid in the ground 'longside of him!" Her +voice had an assured ring of triumph, as if she were taking again an +indissoluble marriage oath. +</p> + +<p> +Laurie had grown very pale. There were forlorn hollows under his eyes; +now he looked twice his age. +</p> + +<p> +"I didn't suppose you kept a place for me," he said, with an +unconscious dignity. "That wouldn't have been right, and him alive. And +I didn't wait for dead men's shoes. But somehow I thought there was +something between you and me that couldn't be outlived." +</p> + +<p> +Amelia looked at him with a frank sweetness which transfigured her face +into spiritual beauty. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought so, too," she answered, with that simplicity ever attending +our approximation to the truth, "I never once said it to myself; but +all this year, 'way down in my heart, I knew you'd come back. And I +wanted you to come. I guess I'd got it all planned out how we'd make up +for what we'd lost, and build up a new life. But so far as I go, I +guess I didn't lose by what I've lived through. I guess I gained +somethin' I'd sooner give up my life than even lose the memory of." +</p> + +<p> +So absorbed was she in her own spiritual inheritance that she quite +forgot his pain. She gazed past him with an unseeing look; and striving +to meet and recall it, he faced the vision of their divided lives. +To-morrow Amelia would remember his loss and mourn over it with +maternal pangs; to-night she was oblivious of all but her own. Great +human experiences are costly things; they demand sacrifice, not only of +ourselves, but of those who are near us. The room was intolerable to +Laurie. He took his hat and coat, and hurried out. Amelia heard the +dragging door closed behind him. She realized, with the numbness born +of supreme emotion, that he was putting on his coat outside in the +cold; and she did not mind. The bells stirred, and went clanging away. +Then she drew a long breath, and bowed her head on her hands in an +acquiescence that was like prayer. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed a long time to Amelia before she awoke again to temporal +things. She rose, smiling, to her feet, and looked about her as if her +eyes caressed every corner of the homely room. She picked up puss in a +round, comfortable ball, and carried her back to the hearth-side chair; +there she stroked her until her touchy ladyship had settled down again +to purring content. Then Amelia, still smiling, and with an absent +look, as if her mind wandered through lovely possibilities of a sort +which can never be undone, drew forth the spinning-wheel, and fitted a +roll to the spindle. She began stepping back and forth as if she moved +to the measure of an unheard song, and the pleasant hum of her spinning +broke delicately upon the ear. It seemed to waken all the room into new +vibrations of life. The clock ticked with an assured peace, as if +knowing it marked eternal hours. The flames waved softly upward without +their former crackle and sheen; and the moving shadows were gentle and +rhythmic ones come to keep the soul company. Amelia felt her thread +lovingly. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I'll dye it blue," she said, with a tenderness great enough to +compass inanimate things. "He always set by blue, didn't he, puss?" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="flatiron"></a> +THE FLAT-IRON LOT +</h3> + +<p> +The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside, +closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It +was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear +day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed. +Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the +signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all +others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to +celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big +with the importance of it. +</p> + +<p> +On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender +old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over +his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing +the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N. +Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either +side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality +of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have +numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length; +and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of +a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At +one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an +unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The +old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly +on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock +down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief +when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received +it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully +folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were +partially effaced. +</p> + +<p> +"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children +who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up +his bag, and went on. +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar +figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face, +with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone +from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue +eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day +after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had +come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert +that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish +to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of +home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham +neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff, +starched creases. +</p> + +<p> +"Dirt don't stick to <i>you</i>, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow. +"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it +for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute +which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself. +</p> + +<p> +As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked +it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the +extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his +clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed +perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing +Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a +thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he +reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged, +though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too +keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon +with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by +his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us +who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences, +children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack, +besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the +mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to +approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his +little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of +the flock would come soberly in, to announce:— +</p> + +<p> +"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield." +</p> + +<p> +It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and +restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one +colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old +Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there +were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing +round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until +Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed +him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory +tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere +mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the +haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough +to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very +mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too +tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of +relief, and marked his value down. +</p> + +<p> +Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he +never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at +the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept +his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been +born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a +time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were +Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its +spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were +born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its +hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever +dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even, +of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him +the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A +little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding +itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak, +saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:— +</p> + +<p> +"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?" +</p> + +<p> +Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized +that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went +home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her +husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:— +</p> + +<p> +"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me +conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" +</p> + +<p> +Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the +seeds. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems +to be pretty rugged." +</p> + +<p> +Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of +plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little +house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that +afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was +covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with +old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor +of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a +moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be +quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so +serenely. +</p> + +<p> +"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind +for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely +remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk +about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd +do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past +an' gone, the neighbors say"— +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this +point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did +all these things as if each one were very important. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite +o' lemon in." +</p> + +<p> +Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her +pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she +knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to +pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing +his own washing and making his own pie. +</p> + +<p> +To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had +turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it +had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have +named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace +nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a +little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There +was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in +bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in +the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own +bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming +profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when +he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in +passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock; +the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot +upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas +Oldfield was at home. +</p> + +<p> +He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight +through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock. +He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder +of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin', +though." +</p> + +<p> +For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in +time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again, +under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and +pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall +eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely, +reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been +inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the +entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm +decorum of his own desires. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a +spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and +window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner +cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches, +indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on +the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as +flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his +china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to +solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures, +remarking, without emphasis:— +</p> + +<p> +"I guess they might as well stay where they be." +</p> + +<p> +So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed +him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found +always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of +demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their +places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be +betrayed. +</p> + +<p> +One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that +calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some +natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was +sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking +tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude. +</p> + +<p> +"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't +you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke." +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed. +</p> + +<p> +"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones. +</p> + +<p> +"No, I waited for you." +</p> + +<p> +"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug—here, I'll reach it +down for ye—an' there's the Good-Girl plate." +</p> + +<p> +Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and +standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and +mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at +each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between +them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this +was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about +it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time—her capable brown +hands and careful braids of hair,—and nodded briefly, as he had a way +of nodding at his clocks. +</p> + +<p> +"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked, +while Mary buttered her biscuit. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him in assent. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I've proved it." +</p> + +<p> +"You don't say!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled +school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully +dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get +obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a +logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a +conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and +misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther, +because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so. +</p> + +<p> +"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!' +says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old +meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks +I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried +over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself, +'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house +was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in +Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever, +that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room +over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house +clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there. +An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete +and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face. +Her own reflected it. +</p> + +<p> +"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited; +she could only whisper. +</p> + +<p> +"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' <i>they 're in +my bag</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently +secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a +knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin', +when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got +the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they +come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister, +the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then +opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all +was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o' +withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot. +An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God." +</p> + +<p> +"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. +"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. +She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, +"did they settle here first? Or—or was it Sudleigh?" +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell +and hear. +</p> + +<p> +"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate, +"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in +Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth." +</p> + +<p> +"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the +celebration then, you got it right?" +</p> + +<p> +"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the +rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key." +</p> + +<p> +The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great +content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he +gave her an oft-repeated charge:— +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me. +I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the +meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To +them it don't signify." +</p> + +<p> +Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older +experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly +aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's +voice sounded that instant from the door:— +</p> + +<p> +"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to +run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't +thick!". +</p> + +<p> +"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger. +Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown +hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for +color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was +customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes +going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that +no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy +footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's +right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, father," said she, "you got home!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the +teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home." +</p> + +<p> +Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to +be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it. +'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he." +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen +blue eyes upon her. +</p> + +<p> +"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"— +</p> + +<p> +"What Eaton?" +</p> + +<p> +"William W." +</p> + +<p> +"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool +Eaton?" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what +was coming. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other +towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew +he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em +all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got +letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out, +'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's +quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past +I." +</p> + +<p> +He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard +father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before +had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole +township now conspired to bait him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as +they can tell what they mean by it." +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth +on one so dull. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might +as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the +clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm +enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell." +</p> + +<p> +Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he +learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our +nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now." +</p> + +<p> +He rose from his chair. +</p> + +<p> +"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of +a new bell?" +</p> + +<p> +Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry. +</p> + +<p> +"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take +on so. What under the sun has got into you?" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the +dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his +fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she +understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her +apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She +gathered herself desperately. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it, +an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it." +</p> + +<p> +"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful +creases. "Say your say and git it over." +</p> + +<p> +Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment +Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its +equilibrium. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very +day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron +Lot." +</p> + +<p> +"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's +he made up his mind to do with it?" +</p> + +<p> +"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says +he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he +can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that +lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as +ever was, an' no good to you,—there ain't half a load o' hay cut there +in a season,—an' he'd pay the full vally"— +</p> + +<p> +"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie +paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie," +said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything +to do with that lot o' land?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old +gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye +had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron +Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone, +you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin' +down to vote." +</p> + +<p> +Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly. +"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the +crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind +of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared +in the gathering dusk. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along +with me." +</p> + +<p> +Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of +his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a +passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood +in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have +it. I wish I was father. I'd see!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his +arm. +</p> + +<p> +"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He +can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set +up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I +meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody +knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer." +</p> + +<p> +Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered. +</p> + +<p> +"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. +He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a +poor tool that would do that." +</p> + +<p> +He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of +the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas +took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already +assembled. +</p> + +<p> +Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed, +responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its +phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to +the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the +west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still +under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife +lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the +strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the +neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding, +sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world +seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to +sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living +things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest +decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it +could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the +few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old +War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also +the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant +spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas +Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse, +to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying +down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and +Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming +night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might +not have done in a room full of winter brightness. +</p> + +<p> +"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. +Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand." +</p> + +<p> +"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' +takin' the sense o' the meetin'." +</p> + +<p> +"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. +"All gab an' no git there!" +</p> + +<p> +"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had +something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled +clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity." +</p> + +<p> +"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted +fierceness:— +</p> + +<p> +"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a +clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep +Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno <i>but</i> I +do." +</p> + +<p> +"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," +suggested Brad Freeman. +</p> + +<p> +"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented +Tom O'Neil irreverently. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might +as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, +it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back +ag'in." +</p> + +<p> +"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by +dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to +do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house—or a fancy +gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low +land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! +Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into +Sudleigh." +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard +him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the +sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired +so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but +all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly. +</p> + +<p> +"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't +do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell." +</p> + +<p> +Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, +and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated +discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public +soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, +by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have +his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the +town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for +taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the +bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his +neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! +it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another +stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed +man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His +face looked ashen. +</p> + +<p> +"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' <i>I +ain't there</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life. +</p> + +<p> +"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, +for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. +Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. +They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and +more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the +womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled +majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. +Sixty! seventy! eighty-one! +</p> + +<p> +"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice. +</p> + +<p> +Then on it beat, to the completed century. +</p> + +<p> +The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their +public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the +fact with scorn. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. +"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never +heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess +I'd see!" +</p> + +<p> +It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and +cry,— +</p> + +<p> +"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" +</p> + +<p> +He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up +the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, +followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the +tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving +fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men +and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had +ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield +strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and +each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of +protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's +Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. +</p> + +<p> +"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the +waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his +boyhood. +</p> + +<p> +"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from +under!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. +There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent +even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to +another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." +</p> + +<p> +He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. +There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he +stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set +foot on it." +</p> + +<p> +The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping +elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within +the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; +then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the +rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, +illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. +</p> + +<p> +"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But +no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you +know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place +that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to +prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled +that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the +age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that +made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was +cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here." +</p> + +<p> +"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly. +</p> + +<p> +"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll +have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this +God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in +open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit +hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he +continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. +"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or +bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the +Judgment Day." +</p> + +<p> +With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and +though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save +that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them +trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange +herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could +shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the +hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, +and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had +walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, +reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly +and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk +thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose +within her. +</p> + +<p> +That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the +poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, +and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother +thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it +wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel +hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated +clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the +stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all +the unresponsive presences of night. +</p> + +<p> +For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle +seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really +closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, +interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after +Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed +father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high +tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction +that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; +and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much +about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' +doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not +be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the +prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no +decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in +preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over +two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was +that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of +the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side +with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of +Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that +he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable +atmosphere of loftier meanings. +</p> + +<p> +Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to +do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only +Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod +or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For +he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for +that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public +conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an +elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him +gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It +seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He +would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, +he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a +meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his +own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark +bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that +he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. +Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to +draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the +youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were +with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of +goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for +their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped +down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the +atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, +and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to +the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework +together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had +brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was +"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's +brain," and the brain was ready. +</p> + +<p> +Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when +Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have +realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have +been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when +Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the +cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: +only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's +wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's +hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the +shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a +pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine +shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an +intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were +inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. +Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying +meantime to the smallest Crane boy,— +</p> + +<p> +"You crawl up there!" +</p> + +<p> +The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to +seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal +glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed. +</p> + +<p> +"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there," +commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats +fast when we approach a great fruition. +</p> + +<p> +"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!" +</p> + +<p> +The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, +he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk +with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their +sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited +such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural +rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What +lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his +trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of +possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and +argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young +scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other +from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and +grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and +over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only +remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants +apart:— +</p> + +<p> +"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he +thinks best. He's got the say." +</p> + +<p> +In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs +in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for +the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the +rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that +specious plea. +</p> + +<p> +"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that +elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail +was repeated in many keys. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before +the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,—the +cabin of a first settler,—and through one wild leap of fancy it became +suddenly and dramatically dignified. +</p> + +<p> +"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it +standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to <i>do</i> anythin' with it? +Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of +Injuns tackle it?" +</p> + +<p> +The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's +desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears +of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over +the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to +seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first +desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came +into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping +dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and +leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this +aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being +unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened +with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, +greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then +the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But +each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing +to suffer the attack. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every +time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be +dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that +glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what +loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking +redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful +solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of +settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's +wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed +logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm +horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and +pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled +realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a +daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the +popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when +young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic +yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:— +</p> + +<p> +"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day +comes, who's goin' to beat?" +</p> + +<p> +An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not +yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at +home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!" +</p> + +<p> +"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in +unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against +red. +</p> + +<p> +"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned +their chief. "<i>My</i> last gun 's fired." +</p> + +<p> +Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two +separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went +faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those +days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and +undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. +Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are +ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the +oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his +Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside +her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud. +</p> + +<p> +Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot +as it would,—the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, +brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an +attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor +had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of +mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, +being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in +village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on +Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at +the front door. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your +grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like +as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got +out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think." +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, +absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a +shaken head, and pursed-up lips. +</p> + +<p> +A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week +had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were +telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without +her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew +well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what +the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in +the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was +still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not +expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she +saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next +day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed +her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which +was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little +house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the +clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, +as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the +night, and slipped away again in silence! +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + * * * * *<br /> +</p> + +<p> +"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister. +"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin' +here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My +soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I +wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!" +</p> + +<p> +Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she +might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever +a chip o' the old block. +</p> + +<p> +When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front +steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little +chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new +cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant +wine. +</p> + +<p> +"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle +righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal." +</p> + +<p> +The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay. +</p> + +<p> +"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about +Mr. Oldfield?" +</p> + +<p> +So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in +disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an +apologetic cough. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular +about father." +</p> + +<p> +"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got +to." +</p> + +<p> +"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and +loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost +her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It +seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister +bent his brows impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the +fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me +back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what +to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then +when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all +at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without +him." +</p> + +<p> +This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever +looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A +frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in +expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, +"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything." +</p> + +<p> +"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts +enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them. +The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the +town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline +to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take +the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came +in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's +Nicholas Oldfield." +</p> + +<p> +Mary folded her hands, in proud composure. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was +here." +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield," +asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I +should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor +ain't neither of 'em heard of?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town +legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But +then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has +been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie +realized with awe, to offer prayer. +</p> + +<p> +Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye +Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not +until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed" +rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her +mouth and spoke. +</p> + +<p> +"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great +shakes?" +</p> + +<p> +Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered +demurely, "I don't know as I can say." +</p> + +<p> +"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear +your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't +they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it +carefully on the shelf. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's +barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and +prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how +little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and +dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both. +</p> + +<p> +The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that +the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the +celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable +warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for +him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to +lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding +cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming +headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why +gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him +sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, +she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance +at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little +room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being +careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the +truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in +comparison. +</p> + +<p> +It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of +the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world. +</p> + +<p> +"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full +of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed +incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing. +"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from +one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite +right, that time he tolled the bell." +</p> + +<p> +They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in +byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low +degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and +remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until +the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way. +</p> + +<p> +"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never +was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold." +</p> + +<p> +Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, +there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet +morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the +night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to +the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the +celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in +the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it +seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. +Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save +each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the +eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad +Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, +and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if +there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, +though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short +address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the +doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of +it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is." +</p> + +<p> +It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism +which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, +justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed +the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went +whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse +about the address, without doing it justice. +</p> + +<p> +The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty +toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The +air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they +were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, +something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went +up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the +step. +</p> + +<p> +"What under the heavens"—he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon +him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held +her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly. +</p> + +<p> +"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as +he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the +big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he +could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed +very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, +and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, +catching her breath tremulously:— +</p> + +<p> +"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the +county; and after the celebration, they're going to—dr—drag the +pond!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded +Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about +a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't +in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?" +</p> + +<p> +"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister." +</p> + +<p> +"The minister? What's he want?" +</p> + +<p> +"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to +say." +</p> + +<p> +Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas +Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave. +</p> + +<p> +"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's +needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've +got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I +ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me +timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they +needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can +carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.". +</p> + +<p> +Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew +her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of +plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; +and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast +asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had +only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and +saw the doctor come striding into the yard. +</p> + +<p> +"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers. +Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?" +</p> + +<p> +Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a +hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at +the situation without delay. +</p> + +<p> +"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've +got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. +He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we +don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you +think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if +nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to +pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because +you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning +to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, +and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!" +</p> + +<p> +Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning +dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the +doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not +climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary +appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink +and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. +Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for +thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up +treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. +He turned quite meekly to the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up +an' dressed?" +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door. +</p> + +<p> +Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield +settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it +ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless +while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both +knew well. +</p> + +<p> +"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old +cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road. +Then they turned straight to one side—'t was thick woods then, you +understand—an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But +they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they +wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up +Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' +there"—Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he +told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot. +</p> + +<p> +"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We +might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the +church." +</p> + +<p> +"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas +quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He +could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it +quivered and betrayed him. +</p> + +<p> +"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the +Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there." +</p> + +<p> +But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had +the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides +gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' +dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a +jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine +feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, +Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over." +</p> + +<p> +"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and +you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson +while I start up the town." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did +some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul +Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was +ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind +kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to +be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened +at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy; +and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody +had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act +the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head +without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for +the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation +and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is +naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy +man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly +progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by +vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the +sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into +town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the +part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent +nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't," +said he. +</p> + +<p> +But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he +turned his horse. +</p> + +<p> +"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please, +<i>please</i> let me be Mary Oldfield!" +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his +way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's +tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily +anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted +before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of +boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an +unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the +fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth +to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could +with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride +inside the elephant. +</p> + +<p> +So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the +cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic +intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and +her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the +handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's +heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and +that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's +vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the +procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up +his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to +pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and +Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a +long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all. +</p> + +<p> +When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge +into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and +shot out a sibilant whisper:— +</p> + +<p> +"Did you know that?—about the Flat-Iron Lot?" +</p> + +<p> +Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my +end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder +father let me get out alive." +</p> + +<p> +The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the +sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying +that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard +against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon +lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his +heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them. +Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a +suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some +precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath +went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the +economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment +day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of +presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read +them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by +finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped +into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded. +So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the +universe in its making. +</p> + +<p> +It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He +sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and +then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would +suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an +inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to +be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile +Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising. +</p> + +<p> +"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would +be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public +land forever." +</p> + +<p> +Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick +muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied, +antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise. +They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised +intelligence exalted. +</p> + +<p> +The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the +sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly +spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down +on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to +flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the +"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux +representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my +brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a +frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were +patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it +was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an +occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by +"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A +very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups +of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before +"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes +themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred +shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing +quietly by—the reverential glance accorded those who find out +unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an +awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot." +</p> + +<p> +Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in +a flutter. +</p> + +<p> +"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to +supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"— +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but +Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the +evenin'. Come, Mary!" +</p> + +<p> +Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking +with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about +contentedly. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="living"></a> +THE END OF ALL LIVING +</h3> + +<p> +The First Church of Tiverton stands on a hill, whence it overlooks the +little village, with one or two pine-shaded neighborhoods beyond, and, +when the air is clear, a thin blue line of upland delusively like the +sea. Set thus austerely aloft, it seems now a survival of the day when +men used to go to meeting gun in hand, and when one stayed, a lookout +by the door, to watch and listen. But this the present dwellers do not +remember. Conceding not a sigh to the holy and strenuous past, they +lament—and the more as they grow older—the stiff climb up the hill, +albeit to rest in so sweet a sanctuary at the top. For it is sweet +indeed. A soft little wind seems always to be stirring there, on summer +Sundays a messenger of good. It runs whispering about, and wafts in all +sorts of odors: honey of the milkweed and wild rose, and a Christmas +tang of the evergreens just below. It carries away something, +too—scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a +whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of +musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here +to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we +faint, of the keen savor of righteousness. +</p> + +<p> +Here in the church do we congregate from week to week; but behind it, +on a sloping hillside, is the last home of us all, the old +burying-ground, overrun with a briery tangle, and relieved by Nature's +sweet and cunning hand from the severe decorum set ordinarily about the +dead. Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we +were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but +affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too +supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due +course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in +common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay +unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect, +and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we +ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds; +tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets +smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little +of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry, +crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered +corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off +from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely +walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the +spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear. +</p> + +<p> +Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green +tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun. But our pendulum had +swung too wide. Like many folk who suffer from one discomfort, we had +gone to the utmost extreme and courted another. We were tired of +climbing hills, and so we pressed too far into the lowland; and the +first grave dug in our Cemetery showed three inches of water at the +bottom. It was in "Prince's new lot," and there his young daughter was +to lie. But her lover had stood by while the men were making the grave; +and, looking into the ooze below, he woke to the thought of her fair +young body there. +</p> + +<p> +"God!" they heard him say, "she sha'n't lay so. Leave it as it is, an' +come up into the old buryin'-ground. There's room enough by me." +</p> + +<p> +The men, all mates of his, stopped work without a glance and followed +him; and up there in the dearer shrine her place was made. The father +said but a word at her changed estate. Neighbors had hurried in to +bring him the news; he went first to the unfinished grave in the +Cemetery, and then strode up the hill, where the men had not yet done. +After watching them for a while in silence, he turned aside; but he +came back to drop a trembling hand upon the lover's arm. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess," he said miserably, "she'd full as lieves lay here by you." +</p> + +<p> +And she will be quite beside him, though, in the beaten ways of earth, +others have come between. For years he lived silently and apart; but +when his mother died, and he and his father were left staring at the +dulled embers of life, he married a good woman, who perhaps does not +deify early dreams; yet she is tender of them, and at the death of her +own child it was she who went toiling up to the graveyard, to see that +its little place did not encroach too far. She gave no reason, but we +all knew it was because she meant to let her husband lie there by the +long-loved guest. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally enough, after this incident of the forsaken grave, we +conceived a strange horror of the new Cemetery, and it has remained +deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one +little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any +farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently +from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will +be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this +year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school +children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave +where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau took her away. +They never seem to connect that heart-broken wraith of a lover with the +bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched +overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of +youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever +quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, +all his for poring over those dulled pages of the past. +</p> + +<p> +After we had elected to abide by our old home, we voted an enlargement +of its bounds; and thereby hangs a tale of outlawed revenge. Long years +ago "old Abe Eaton" quarreled with his twin brother, and vowed, as the +last fiat of an eternal divorce, "I won't be buried in the same yard +with ye!" +</p> + +<p> +The brother died first; and because he lay within a little knoll beside +the fence, Abe willfully set a public seal on that iron oath by +purchasing a strip of land outside, wherein he should himself be +buried. Thus they would rest in a hollow correspondence, the fence +between. It all fell out as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are +cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the +helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not +the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does +the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according +to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves +another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into +decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, +beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out +the individual wrong. +</p> + +<p> +So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead +upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth +monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,—a rigid box +of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh +came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the +idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad +Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us +out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it." +That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we +smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by +friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids. +</p> + +<p> +The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find +them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for +they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of +age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds +them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such +veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning +skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely +feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I +fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the +larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny +imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that +wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a +certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into +the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses +from the stones and chip the letters clear. He liked to draw, +"creatur's" especially, and would trace them for children on their +slates. He lived alone in a little house long since fallen, and he +would eat no meat. That is all they know of him. I can guess but one +thing more: that when no looker-on was by, he pushed away the grass, +and wrote his little jokes, safe in the kindly tolerance of the dead. +This was the identical soul who should, in good old days, have been +carving gargoyles and misereres; here his only field was the obscurity +of Tiverton churchyard, his only monument these grotesqueries so +cunningly concealed. +</p> + +<p> +We have epitaphs, too,—all our own as yet, for the world has not +discovered them. One couple lies in well-to-do respectability under a +tiny monument not much taller than the conventional gravestone, but +shaped on a pretentious model. +</p> + +<p> +"We'd ruther have it nice," said the builders, "even if there ain't +much of it." +</p> + +<p> +These were Eliza Marden and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to +sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own fore-handedness. +I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple +portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting +between them, and glancing about her, in a flickering, intermittent +way, at the pleasant holiday world. Hannah was no worker; she liked a +long afternoon in the sun, her thin little hands busied about nothing +weightier than crochet; and her mother regarded her with a horrified +patience, as one who might some time be trusted to sow all her wild +oats of idleness. The well-mated pair died within the same year, and it +was Hannah who composed their epitaph, with an artistic accuracy, but a +defective sense of rhyme:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Here lies Eliza<br /> + She was a striver<br /> + Here lies Peleg<br /> + He was a select Man"<br /> +</p> + +<p> +We townsfolk found something haunting and bewildering in the lines; +they drew, and yet they baffled us, with their suggested echoes luring +only to betray. Hannah never wrote anything else, but we always +cherished the belief that she could do "'most anything" with words and +their possibilities. Still, we accepted her one crowning achievement, +and never urged her to further proof. In Tiverton we never look genius +in the mouth. Nor did Hannah herself propose developing her gift. +Relieved from the spur of those two unquiet spirits who had begotten +her, she settled down to sit all day in the sun, learning new patterns +of crochet; and having cheerfully let her farm run down, she died at +last in a placid poverty. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial +hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a +day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by +the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, +below her <i>obiit</i>, the astounding statement:— +</p> + +<p> +"The first woman. She made the journey to Boston. By stage." +</p> + +<p> +Here, too, are the ironies whereof departed life is prodigal. This is +the tidy lot of Peter Merrick, who had a desire to stand well with the +world, in leaving it, and whose purple and fine linen were embodied in +the pomp of death. He was a cobbler, and he put his small savings +together to erect a modest monument to his own memory. Every Sunday he +visited it, "after meetin'," and perhaps his day-dreams, as he sat +leather-aproned on his bench, were still of that white marble idealism. +The inscription upon it was full of significant blanks; they seemed an +interrogation of the destiny which governs man. +</p> + +<p> +"Here lies Peter Merrick——" ran the unfinished scroll, "and his wife +who died——" +</p> + +<p> +But ambitious Peter never lay there at all; for in his later prime, +with one flash of sharp desire to see the world, he went on a voyage to +the Banks, and was drowned. And his wife? The story grows somewhat +threadbare. She summoned his step-brother to settle the estate, and he, +a marble-cutter by trade, filled in the date of Peter's death with +letters English and illegible. In the process of their carving, the +widow stood by, hands folded under her apron from the midsummer sun. +The two got excellent well acquainted, and the stone-cutter prolonged +his stay. He came again in a little over a year, at Thanksgiving time, +and they were married. Which shows that nothing is certain in +life,—no, not the proprieties of our leaving it,—and that even there +we must walk softly, writing no boastful legend for time to annul. +</p> + +<p> +At one period a certain quatrain had a great run in Tiverton; it was +the epitaph of the day. Noting how it overspread that stony soil, you +picture to yourself the modest pride of its composer; unless, indeed, +it had been copied from an older inscription in an English yard, and +transplanted through the heart and brain of some settler whose thoughts +were ever flitting back. Thus it runs in decorous metre:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Dear husband, now my life is passed,<br /> + You have dearly loved me to the last.<br /> + Grieve not for me, but pity take<br /> + On my dear children for my sake."<br /> +</p> + +<p> +But one sorrowing widower amended it, according to his wife's +direction, so that it bore a new and significant meaning. He was +charged to +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "pity take<br /> + On my dear parent for my sake."<br /> +</p> + +<p> +The lesson was patent. His mother-in-law had always lived with him, and +she was "difficult." Who knows how keenly the sick woman's mind ran on +the possibilities of reef and quicksand for the alien two left alone +without her guiding hand? So she set the warning of her love and fear +to be no more forgotten while she herself should be remembered. +</p> + +<p> +The husband was a silent man. He said very little about his intentions; +performance was enough for him. Therefore it happened that his +"parent," adopted perforce, knew nothing about this public charge until +she came upon it, on her first Sunday visit, surveying the new glory of +the stone. The story goes that she stood before it, a square, +portentous figure in black alpaca and warlike mitts, and that she +uttered these irrevocable words:— +</p> + +<p> +"Pity on <i>me</i>! Well, I guess he won't! I'll go to the poor-farm fust!" +</p> + +<p> +And Monday morning, spite of his loyal dissuasions, she packed her +"blue chist," and drove off to a far-away cousin, who got her "nussin'" +to do. Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was +life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part +company. +</p> + +<p> +Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a +story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's +death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied +her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled +the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance +of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden +death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his +blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish +order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled, +not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home +from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds +it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things, +chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one +another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the +rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile +away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief." In the +late afternoon, the guest so summoned walked quietly into the silent +house, where Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon +the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was +frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. +But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded +hair, her benevolent spectacles, and her atmosphere of calm. +</p> + +<p> +"I guess I'll blaze a fire, Jonas," said she. "You step out an' git me +a mite o' kindlin'." +</p> + +<p> +The air of homely living enwrapped him once again, and mechanically, +with the inertia of old habit, he obeyed. They had a "cup o' tea" +together; and then, when the dishes were washed, and the peaceful +twilight began to settle down upon them like a sifting mist, she drew a +little rocking chair to the window where he sat opposite, and spoke. +</p> + +<p> +"Jonas," said she, in that still voice which had been harmonized by the +experiences of life, "arter dark, you jest go up an' bring home them +blue dishes. Mary's got an awful lot o' fun in her, an' if she ain't +laughin' over that, I'm beat. Now, Jonas, you do it! Do you s'pose she +wants them nice blue pieces out there through wind an' weather? She'd +ruther by half see 'em on the parlor cluzzet shelves; an' if you'll +fetch 'em home, I'll scallop some white paper, jest as she liked, an' +we'll set 'em up there." +</p> + +<p> +Jonas wakened a little from his mental swoon. Life seemed warmer, more +tangible, again. +</p> + +<p> +"Law, do go," said the mother soothingly. "She don't want the whole +township tramplin' up there to eye over her chiny. Make her as nervous +as a witch. Here's the ha'-bushel basket, an' some paper to put between +'em. You go, Jonas, an' I'll clear off the shelves." +</p> + +<p> +So Jonas, whether he was tired of guiding the impulses of his own +unquiet mind, or whether he had become a child again, glad to yield to +the maternal, as we all do in our grief, took the basket and went. He +stood by, still like a child, while this comfortable woman put the +china on the shelves, speaking warmly, as she worked, of the pretty +curving of the cups, and her belief that the pitcher was "one you could +pour out of." She stayed on at the house, and Jonas, through his +sickness of the mind, lay back upon her soothing will as a baby lies in +its mother's arms. But the china was never used, even when he had come +to his normal estate, and bought and sold as before. The mother's +prescience was too keen for that. +</p> + +<p> +Here in this ground are the ambiguities of life carried over into that +other state, its pathos and its small misunderstandings. This was a +much-married man whose last spouse had been a triple widow. Even to him +the situation proved mathematically complex, and the sumptuous stone to +her memory bears the dizzying legend that "Enoch Nudd who erects this +stone is her fourth husband and his fifth wife." Perhaps it was the +exigencies of space which brought about this amazing elision; but +surely, in its very apparent intention, there is only a modest pride. +For indubitably the much-married may plume themselves upon being also +the widely sought. If it is the crown of sex to be desired, here you +have it, under seal of the civil bond. No baseless, windy boasting that +"I might an if I would!" Nay, here be the marriage ties to testify. +</p> + +<p> +In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long +erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and +reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a +little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching +eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay. +Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man +whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and +years ago he broke into a house,—an unknown felony in our quiet +limits,—and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went +about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with +healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief +imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he +came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had +learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his +wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing +such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss. +Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered +that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said +us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in +the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a +hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he +died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily. +When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought +of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its +posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set +us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of +one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the +blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we +stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy +to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of +morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We +are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated +to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to +men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose +soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate. +</p> + +<p> +But of all these fleeting legends made to, hold the soul a moment on +its way, and keep it here in fickle permanence, one is more dramatic +than all, more charged with power and pathos. Years ago there came into +Tiverton an unknown man, very handsome, showing the marks of high +breeding, and yet in his bearing strangely solitary and remote. He wore +a cloak, and had a foreign look. He came walking into the town one +night, with dust upon his shoes, and we judged that he had been +traveling a long time. He had the appearance of one who was not nearly +at his journey's end, and would pass through the village, continuing on +a longer way. He glanced at no one, but we all stared at him. He +seemed, though we had not the words to put it so, an exiled prince. He +went straight through Tiverton Street until he came to the parsonage; +and something about it (perhaps its garden, hot with flowers, larkspur, +coreopsis, and the rest) detained his eye, and he walked in. Next day +the old doctor was there also with his little black case, but we were +none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who +intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside +the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of +nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter with so-and-so?" would ask a mousing neighbor. +</p> + +<p> +"He's sick," ran the laconic reply. +</p> + +<p> +"Goin' to die?" one daring querist ventured further. +</p> + +<p> +"Some time," said the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +But though he assumed a right to combat thus the outer world, no one +was gentler with a sick man or with those about him in their grief. To +the latter he would speak; but he used to say he drew his line at +second cousins. +</p> + +<p> +Into his hands and the true old parson's fell the stranger's +confidence, if confidence it were. He may have died solitary and +unexplained; but no matter what he said, his story was safe. In a week +he was carried out for burial; and so solemn was the parson's manner as +he spoke a brief service over him, so thrilling his enunciation of the +words "our brother," that we dared not even ask what else he should be +called. And we never knew. The headstone, set up by the parson, bore +the words "Peccator Maximus." For a long time we thought they made the +stranger's name, and, judged that he must have been a foreigner; but a +new schoolmistress taught us otherwise. It was Latin, she said, and it +meant "the chiefest among sinners." When that report flew round, the +parson got wind of it, and then, in the pulpit one morning, he +announced that he felt it necessary to say that the words had been used +"at our brother's request," and that it was his own decision to write +below them, "For this cause came I into the world." +</p> + +<p> +We have accepted the stranger as we accept many things in Tiverton. +Parson and doctor kept his secret well. He is quite safe from our +questioning; but for years I expected a lady, always young and full of +grief, to seek out his grave and shrive him with her tears. She will +not appear now, unless she come as an old, old woman, to lie beside +him. It is too late. +</p> + +<p> +One more record of our vanished time,—this full of poesy only, and the +pathos of farewell. It was not the aged and heartsick alone who lay +down here to rest We have been no more fortunate than others. Youth and +beauty came also, and returned no more. This, where the white rose-bush +grows untended, was the young daughter of a squire in far-off days: too +young to have known the pangs of love or the sweet desire of Death, +save that, in primrose time, he always paints himself so fair. I have +thought the inscription must have been borrowed from another grave, in +some yard shaded by yews and silent under the cawing of the rooks; +perhaps, from its stiffness, translated from a stately Latin verse. +This it is, snatched not too soon from oblivion; for a few more years +will wear it quite away:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Here lies the purple flower of a maid<br /> + Having to envious Death due tribute paid.<br /> + Her sudden Loss her Parents did lament,<br /> + And all her Friends with grief their hearts did Rent.<br /> + Life's short. Your wicked Lives amend with care,<br /> + For Mortals know we Dust and Shadows are."<br /> +</p> + +<p> +"The purple flower of a maid!" All the blossomy sweetness, the fragrant +lamenting of Lycidas, lies in that one line. Alas, poor +love-lies-bleeding! And yet not poor according to the barren pity we +accord the dead, but dowered with another youth set like a crown upon +the unstained front of this. Not going with sparse blossoms ripened or +decayed, but heaped with buds and dripping over in perfume. She seems +so sweet in her still loveliness, the empty promise of her balmy +spring, that for a moment fain are you to snatch her back into the +pageant of your day. Reading that phrase, you feel the earth is poorer +for her loss. And yet not so, since the world holds other greater +worlds as well. Elsewhere she may have grown to age and stature; but +here she lives yet in beauteous permanence,—as true a part of youth +and joy and rapture as the immortal figures on the Grecian Urn. While +she was but a flying phantom on the frieze of time, Death fixed her +there forever,—a haunting spirit in perennial bliss. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tiverton Tales, by Alice Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 9370-h.htm or 9370-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/7/9370/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Tiverton Tales + +Author: Alice Brown + +Posting Date: March 22, 2014 [EBook #9370] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 26, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + +TIVERTON TALES + +BY + +ALICE BROWN + +1899 + + + + + CONTENTS + + + DOORYARDS + A MARCH WIND + THE MORTUARY CHEST + HORN-O'-THE-MOON + A STOLEN FESTIVAL + A LAST ASSEMBLING + THE WAY OF PEACE + THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + HONEY AND MYRRH + A SECOND MARRIAGE + THE FLAT-IRON LOT + THE END OF ALL LIVING + + + + + +DOORYARDS + + +Tiverton has breezy, upland roads, and damp, sweet valleys; but should +you tarry there a summer long, you might find it wasteful to take many +excursions abroad. For, having once received the freedom of family +living, you will own yourself disinclined to get beyond dooryards, +those outer courts of domesticity. Homely joys spill over into them, +and, when children are afoot, surge and riot there. In them do the +common occupations of life find niche and channel. While bright weather +holds, we wash out of doors on a Monday morning, the wash-bench in the +solid block of shadow thrown by the house. We churn there, also, at the +hour when Sweet-Breath, the cow, goes afield, modestly unconscious of +her own sovereignty over the time. There are all the varying fortunes +of butter-making recorded. Sometimes it comes merrily to the tune of + + "Come, butter, come! + Peter stands a-waiting at the gate, + Waiting for his butter-cake. + Come, butter, come!" + +chanted in time with the dasher; again it doth willfully refuse, and +then, lest it be too cool, we contribute a dash of hot water, or too +hot, and we lend it a dash of cold. Or we toss in a magical handful of +salt, to encourage it. Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of +householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them +away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the +syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what +complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with +purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; +for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, +omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the +merry months are well under way, or the cows go kicking up their heels +to pasture, or plants are taken from the south window and clapped into +chilly ground, orderly passions begin to riot within us, and we "clear +up" our yards. We gather stray chips, and pieces of bone brought in by +the scavenger dog, who sits now with his tail tucked under him, +oblivious of such vagrom ways. We rake the grass, and then, gilding +refined gold, we sweep it. There is a tradition that Miss Lois May once +went to the length of trimming her grass about the doorstone and +clothes-pole with embroidery scissors; but that was a too-hasty +encomium bestowed by a widower whom she rejected next week, and who +qualified his statement by saying they were pruning-shears. + +After this preliminary skirmishing arises much anxious inspection of +ancient shrubs and the faithful among old-fashioned plants, to see +whether they have "stood the winter." The fresh, brown "piny" heads are +brooded over with a motherly care; wormwood roots are loosened, and the +horse-radish plant is given a thrifty touch. There is more than the +delight of occupation in thus stirring the wheels of the year. We are +Nature's poor handmaidens, and our labor gives us joy. + +But sweet as these homespun spots can make themselves, in their mixture +of thrift and prodigality, they are dearer than ever at the points +where they register family traits, and so touch the humanity of us all. +Here is imprinted the story of the man who owns the farm, that of the +father who inherited it, and; the grandfather who reclaimed it from +waste; here have they and their womenkind set the foot of daily living +and traced indelible paths. They have left here the marks of tragedy, +of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground +between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will, +since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose +to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field +of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure +met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out +in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a +woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the +wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the +ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his +heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a +gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown +shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die. +She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she +walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied +delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a +hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who +followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner +house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the +wandering train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the +dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest +joy,--one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, +where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but +she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one +dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set +up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The +game opened before her an endless vista of delight. She saw herself +perpetually knocking red-striped balls through an eternity of wickets; +and she knew that here was the one pastime of which no soul could tire. +Afterwards, driving home with her husband and two children, still in a +daze of satisfied delight, she murmured absently:-- + +"Wonder how much they cost?" + +"What?" asked Eben, and Della turned, flushed scarlet, and replied:-- + +"Oh, nothin'!" + +That night, she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the +sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to +work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a +monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang +at moments when she purposed leaping the bounds of domestic custom. +Even Eben had learned that, dull as he was. If he heard that guilty +crooning from the buttery, he knew she might be breaking extra eggs, or +using more sugar than was conformable. + +"What you doin' of?" he was accustomed to call. But Delia never +answered, and he did not interfere. The question was a necessary +concession to marital authority; he had no wish to curb her ways. + +Della scudded about the yard like a willful wind. She gathered withes +from a waiting pile, and set them in that one level space for wickets. +Then she took a handsaw, and, pale about the lips, returned to the +house and to her bedroom. She had made her choice. She was sacrificing +old associations to her present need; and, one after another, she sawed +the ornamenting balls from her mother's high-post bedstead. Perhaps the +one element of tragedy lay in the fact that Della was no mechanician, +and she had not foreseen that, having one flat side, her balls might +decline to roll. But that dismay was brief. A weaker soul would have +flinched; to Della it was a futile check, a pebble under the wave. She +laid her balls calmly aside. Some day she would whittle them into +shape; for there were always coming to Della days full of roomy leisure +and large content. Meanwhile apples would serve her turn,--good alike +to draw a weary mind out of its channel or teach the shape of spheres. +And so, with two russets for balls and the clothes-slice for a mallet +(the heavy sledge-hammer having failed), Della serenely, yet in +triumph, played her first game against herself. + +"Don't you drive over them wickets!" she called imperiously, when Eben +came up from the lot in his dingle cart. + +"Them what?" returned he, and Della had to go out to explain. He looked +at them gravely; hers had been a ragged piece of work. + +"What under the sun'd you do that for?" he inquired. "The young ones +wouldn't turn their hand over for't They ain't big enough." + +"Well, I be," said Della briefly. "Don't you drive over 'em." + +Eben looked at her and then at his path to the barn, and he turned his +horse aside. + +Thereafter, until we got used to it, we found a vivid source of +interest in seeing Della playing croquet, and always playing alone. +That was a very busy summer, because the famous drought came then, and +water had to be carried for weary rods from spring and river. Sometimes +Della did not get her playtime till three in the afternoon, sometimes +not till after dark; but she was faithful to her joy. The croquet +ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were +potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke, +and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether, +and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the +mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's +daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in +the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was +a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark. +She clung to her kitchen chair. + +"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to +understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had +grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was +frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although +loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own +species of sad and shy content. + +Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were +not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need +not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the +house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry. They could +recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as +children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on +the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went +out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at +once gave way. I looked down--at a broken wicket and a withered apple +by the stake. + +Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind, +at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding +mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not +wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No +sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it +up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in +all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from +the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under +different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might +guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition +that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have +their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country +maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, +still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and +strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish +through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has +roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and +that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? +Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy never has no +luck with plants." And that, indeed, is true. + +There is another dooryard with its infallible index finger pointing to +tell a tale. You can scarcely thread your way through it for vehicles +of all sorts, congregated there to undergo slow decomposition at the +hands of wind and weather. This farmer is a tradesman by nature, and +though, for thrift's sake, his fields must be tilled, he is yet +inwardly constrained to keep on buying and selling, albeit to no +purpose. He is everlastingly swapping and bargaining, giving play to a +faculty which might, in its legitimate place, have worked out the +definite and tangible, but which now goes automatically clicking on +under vain conditions. The house, too, is overrun with useless +articles, presently to be exchanged for others as unavailing, and in +the farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with +another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable +evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with +torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are +here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this +yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, +and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take +long, entrancing journeys in the mouldy old chaise; they endure +Siberian nights of sleighing, and throw out their helpless dolls to the +pursuing wolves; or the more mercantile-minded among the boys mount a +three-wheeled express wagon, and drive noisily away to traffic upon the +road. This, in its dramatic possibilities, is not a yard to be +despised. + +Not far away are two neighboring houses once held in affectionate +communion by a straight path through the clover and a gap in the wall. +This was the road to much friendly gossip, and there were few bright +days which did not find two matrons met at the wall, their heads +together over some amiable yarn; But now one house is closed, its +windows boarded up, like eyes shut down forever, and the grass has +grown over the little path: a line erased, perhaps never to be renewed. +It is easier to wipe out a story from nature than to wipe it from the +heart; and these mutilated pages of the outer life perpetually renew in +us the pangs of loss and grief. + +But not all our dooryard reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not +remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or +disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon +an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts +had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and +the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him news +of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was +going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his +mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of +attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now +due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a +pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling +across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down +hastily--yea, even before the advancing cat!--and made a trumpet of his +hands. + +"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away! +Died yesterday!" + +I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be +strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was +always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in +such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait +until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his +wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, +until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving +mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his +wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:-- + +"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?" + +They had their funeral. + +To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder +and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One, +where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of +caraway. It seemed mysteriously connected with the oak-leaf cookies, +which only she could make; and the child, brushing through the delicate +bushes grown above his head, used to feel vaguely that, on some +fortunate day, cookies would be found there, "a-blowin' and a-growin'." +That he had seen them stirred and mixed and taken from the oven was an +empty matter; the cookies belonged to the caraway grove, and there they +hang ungathered still. In the very same yard was a hogshead filled with +rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated +pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent +black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would +hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth +depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river +is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where +insects float and fly. + +These are our dooryards. I wish we lived in them more; that there were +vines to sing under, and shade enough for the table, with its wheaten +loaf and good farm butter, and its smoking tea. But all that may come +when we give up our frantic haste, and sit down to look, and breathe, +and listen. + + + + +A MARCH WIND + + +When the clouds hung low, or chimneys refused to draw, or the bread +soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the +local drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon +as the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been +getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of +wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set +down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was +whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm. + +It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to +clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb, +innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot +upon her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient +creature. She never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants +into the ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies +were gone. So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the +fire, awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder +set in the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, +hardy as she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her +thick brown hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks +bloomed out in a frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard +knot under her chin, seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her +hands ached, holding the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the +inclemency of the time. It never occurred to her that she could have +put off this exacting job. She would sooner have expected Heaven to put +off the weather. Just as she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted +her pail of refuse over the edge, a man appeared from the other side of +the house, and stood confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his +deeply graven face was framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid +thought that he was not so old as he looked; experience, rather than +years, must have wrought its trace upon him. He was leading a little +girl, dressed with a very patent regard for warmth, and none for +beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine glance, noted that the child's +bungled skirt and hideous waist had been made from an old army +overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet and seeking; they +seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did not respond; at +that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of children. Yet +she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She afterwards +explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they looked as +odd as Dick's hatband. + +"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's +lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and +rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt +impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and +stiffness, and she answered sharply,-- + +"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' +then I don't take tramps." + +The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side. + +"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail +from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked. +"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully +down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it." + +Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had +offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though +she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she +believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if +she were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation +of difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He +emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as +if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen, +where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at the +start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job +was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar, +and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands +on his trousers, and turned to the child. + +"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'." + +It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery. +The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely +simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little warmer +because they had appeared. She had a new sensation of welcome company. +So it was that, quite to her own surprise, she answered as quickly as +he spoke, and her reply also seemed an inevitable part of the drama:-- + +"Walk right in. It's 'most dinner-time, an' I'll put on the pot." The +two stepped in before her, and they did not go away. + +Amelia herself never quite knew how it happened; but, like all the +other natural things of life, this had no need to be explained. At +first, there were excellent reasons for delay. The man, whose name +proved to be Enoch Willis, was a marvelous hand at a blow, and she kept +him a week, splitting some pine knots that defied her and the boy who +ordinarily chopped her wood. At the end of the week, Amelia confessed +that she was "terrible tired seein' Rosie round in that gormin' kind of +a dress;" so she cut and fitted her a neat little gown from her own red +cashmere. That was the second reason. Then the neighbors heard of the +mysterious guest, and dropped in, to place and label him. At first, +following the lead of undiscouraged fancy, they declared that he must +be some of cousin Silas's connections from Omaha; but even before +Amelia had time to deny that, his ignorance of local tradition denied +it for him. He must have heard of this or that, by way of cousin Silas; +but he owned to nothing defining place or time, save that he had been +in the war--"all through it." He seemed to be a man quite weary of the +past and indifferent to the future. After a half hour's talk with him, +unseasonable callers were likely to withdraw, perhaps into the pantry, +whither Amelia had retreated to escape catechism, and remark jovially, +"Well, 'Melia, you ain't told us who your company is!" + +"Mr. Willis," said Amelia. She was emulating his habit of reserve. It +made a part of her new loyalty. + +Even to her, Enoch had told no tales; and strangely enough, she was +quite satisfied. She trusted him. He did say that Rosie's mother was +dead; for the last five years, he said, she had been out of her mind. +At that, Amelia's heart gave a fierce, amazing leap. It struck a note +she never knew, and wakened her to life and longing. She was glad +Rosie's mother had not made him too content. He went on a step or two +into the story of his life. His wife's last illness had eaten up the +little place, and after she went, he got no work. So, he tramped. He +must go again. Amelia's voice sounded sharp and thin, even to her, as +she answered,-- + +"Go! I dunno what you want to do that for. Rosie's terrible contented +here." + +His brown eyes turned upon her in a kindly glance. + +"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a +machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin' +better 'n days' works." + +Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty. + +"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly. + +Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie +looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a +bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song. +"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't +never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was +younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now. +The better part o' my life's gone." + +Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost +pride, and all a longing of maternal love. + +"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were +married. + +Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries +of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was +agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride +to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no +previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, +and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges +were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They +argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it +would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the +popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies +toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days, +married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six +months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her +"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful +brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the +tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door +neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim, +with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her +smoke's a-goin'." + +Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and +without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of +affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing +things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well +as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her +try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the +steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition +reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their +marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about +the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he +only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he +guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a +bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door, +exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own +ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility +had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to +the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he +never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that +was what made it so pleasant to live with him. + +It was "easy sleddin'" now. Amelia grew very young. Her cheeks gained a +bloom, her eyes brightened. She even, as the matrons noticed, took to +crimping her hair. They looked on with a pitying awe. It seemed a +fearsome thing, to do so much for a tramp who would only kill you in +the end. Amelia stepped deftly about the house. She was a large woman, +whose ways had been devoid of grace; but now the richness of her +spiritual condition informed her with a charm. She crooned a little +about her work. Singing voice she had none, but she grew into a way of +putting words together, sometimes a line from the psalms, sometimes a +name she loved, and chanting the sounds, in unrecorded melody. +Meanwhile, little Rosie, always irreproachably dressed, with a jealous +care lest she fall below the popular standard, roamed in and out of the +house, and lightened its dull intervals. She, like the others, grew at +once very happy, because, like them, she accepted her place without a +qualm, as if it had been hers from the beginning. They were simple +natures, and when their joy came, they knew how to meet it. + +But if Enoch was content to follow the beaten ways of life, there was +one window through which he looked into the upper heaven of all: +thereby he saw what it is to create. He was a born mechanician. A +revolving wheel would set him to dreaming, and still him to that +lethargy of mind which is an involuntary sharing in the things that +are. He could lose himself in the life of rhythmic motion; and when he +discovered rusted springs, or cogs unprepared to fulfill their purpose, +he fell upon them with the ardor of a worshiper, and tried to set them +right. Amelia thought he should have invented something, and he +confessed that he had invented many things, but somehow failed in +getting them on the market. That process he mentioned with the +indifference of a man to whom a practical outcome is vague, and who +finds in the ideal a bright reality. Even Amelia could see that to be a +maker was his joy; to reap rewards of making was another and a lower +task. + +One cold day in the early spring, he went "up garret" to hunt out an +old saddle, gathering mildew there, and came upon a greater treasure, a +disabled clock. He stepped heavily down, bearing it aloft in both +hands. + +"See here, 'Melia," asked he, "why don't this go?" + +Amelia was scouring tins on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind +outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the +irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to +a job to quiet herself. + +"That clock?" she replied. "That was gran'ther Eli's. It give up +strikin', an' then the hands stuck, an' I lost all patience with it. So +I bought this nickel one, an' carted t'other off into the attic. 'T +ain't worth fixin'." + +"Worth it!" repeated Enoch. "Well, I guess I'll give it a chance." + +He drew a chair to the stove, and there hesitated. "Say, 'Melia," said +he, "should you jest as soon I'd bring in that old shoemaker's bench +out o' the shed? It's low, an' I could reach my tools off'n the floor." + +Amelia lacked the discipline of contact with her kind, but she was +nevertheless smooth as silk in her new wifehood. + +"Law, yes, bring it along," said she. "It's a good day to clutter up. +The' won't be nobody in." + +So, while Enoch laid apart the clock with a delicacy of touch known +only to square, mechanical fingers, and Rosie played with the +button-box on the floor, assorting colors and matching white with +white, Amelia scoured the tins. Her energy kept pace with the wind; it +whirled in gusts and snatches, yet her precision never failed. + +"Made up your mind which cow to sell?" she asked, opening a discussion +still unsettled, after days of animated talk. + +"Ain't much to choose," said Enoch. He had frankly set Amelia right on +the subject of livestock; and she smilingly acquiesced in his larger +knowledge. "Elbridge True's got a mighty nice Alderney, an' if he's +goin' to sell milk another year, he'll be glad to get two good milkers +like these. What he wants is ten quarts apiece, no matter if it's bluer +'n a whetstone. I guess I can swap off with him; but I don't want to +run arter him. I put the case last Thursday. Mebbe he'll drop round." + +"Well," concluded Amelia, "I guess you're pretty sure to do what's +right." + +The forenoon galloped fast, and it was half past eleven before she +thought of dinner. + +"Why," said she, "ain't it butcher day? I've been lottin' on a piece o' +liver." + +"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count." + +"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some +fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer +door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an' +peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it +ain't company, a day like this." + +Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full +of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there +came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. +There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia +washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. +She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her +consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her +family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky +with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an +eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were +that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her. + +"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons, +and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose." + +Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank +down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while +the knock came again, a little querulously. + +"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah +Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past +encounters; but that Enoch could not know. + +"Is it?" asked he, with but a mild appearance of interest. "Want me to +go to the door?" + +"Go to the door!" echoed Amelia, so stridently that he looked up at her +again. "No; I don't want anybody should go to the door till this room's +cleared up. If 't w'an't so ever-lastin' cold, I'd take him right into +the clock-room, an' blaze a fire; but he'd see right through that. You +gether up them tools an' things, an' I'll help carry out the bench." + +If Enoch had not just then been absorbed in a delicate combination of +brass, he might have spoken more sympathetically. As it was, he seemed +kindly, but remote. + +"Look out!" said he, "you'll joggle. No, I guess I won't move. If he's +any kind of a man, he'll know what 'tis to clean a clock." + +Amelia was not a crying woman, but the hot tears stood in her eyes. She +was experiencing, for the first time, that helpless pang born from the +wounding of pride in what we love. + +"Don't you see, Enoch?" she insisted. "This room looks like the Old +Boy--an' so do you--an' he'll go home an' tell all the folks at the +Ridge. Why, he's heard we're married, an' come over here to spy out the +land. He hates the cold. He never stirs till 'way on into June; an' now +he's come to find out." + +"Find out what?" inquired Enoch absorbedly. "Well, if you're anyways +put to 't, you send him to me." That manly utterance enunciated from a +"best-room" sofa, by an Enoch clad in his Sunday suit, would have +filled Amelia with rapture; she could have leaned on it as on the +Tables of the Law. But, alas! the scene-setting was meagre, and though +Enoch was very clean, he had no good clothes. He had pointedly refused +to buy them with his wife's money until he should have worked on the +farm to a corresponding amount. She had loved him for it; but every day +his outer poverty hurt her pride. "I guess you better ask him in," +concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you." + +Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed. + +"He _don't_ bother me," said she, "an' I _will_ let him in." She walked +to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she +broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. + +She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for +the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another +instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back +again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his +desire to get in. + +"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk +till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't +ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?" + +She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising +wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin +Josiah Pease." + +Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny +left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased +to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock." + +To Enoch, the explanation was enough. All the simple conventions of his +life might well wait upon a reason potent as this. Josiah Pease went to +the stove, and stood holding his tremulous hands over a cover. He was a +little man, eclipsed in a butternut coat of many capes, and his +parchment face shaded gradually up from it, as if into a harder medium. +His eyes were light, and they had an exceedingly uncomfortable way of +darting from one thing to another, like some insect born to spear and +sting. His head was entirely bald, all save a thin fringe of hair not +worth mentioning, since it disappeared so effectually beneath his +collar; and his general antiquity was grotesquely emphasized by two +sets of aggressive teeth, displaying their falsity from every crown. + +Amelia took out the broom, and began sweeping up buttons. She had an +acrid consciousness that by sacrificing them she was somehow completing +the tragedy of her day. Rosie gave a little cry; but Amelia pointed to +the corner where stood the child's chair, exhumed from the attic, after +forty years of rest. "You set there," she said, in an undertone, "an' +keep still." + +Rosie obeyed without a word. Such an atmosphere had not enveloped her +since she entered this wonderful house. Remembering vaguely the days +when her own mother had "spells," and she and her father effaced +themselves until times should change, she folded her little hands, and +lapsed back into a condition of mental servitude. + +Meanwhile, Amelia followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with +cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. +Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she +caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were +"soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, +having no lover in the war, had traded for her few. Here were the +gold-stones that held her changeable silk, there the little clouded +pearls from her sister's raglan. Annie had died in youth; its glamour +still enwrapped her. Poor Annie! But Rosie had seemed to bring her +back. Amelia swept litter, buttons and all, into the dustpan, and +marched to the stove to throw her booty in. Nobody marked her save +Rosie, whose playthings were endangered; but Enoch's very obtuseness to +the situation was what stayed her hand. She carried the dustpan away +into a closet, and came back, to gather up her tins. A cold rage of +nervousness beset her, so overpowering that she herself was amazed at +it. + +Meantime, Josiah Pease had divested himself of his coat, and drawn the +grandfather chair into a space behind the stove. + +"You a clock-mender by trade?" he asked of Enoch. + +"No," said Enoch absently, "I ain't got any reg'lar trade." + +"Jest goin' round the country?" amended cousin Josiah, with the +preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, +in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to +'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly on with his work. + +"Law, 'Melia, to think o' your bein' married," continued Josiah, +turning to her. "I never should ha' thought that o' you." + +"I never thought it of myself," said Amelia tartly. "You don't know +what you'll do till you're tried." + +"No! no!" said Josiah Pease. "Never in the world. You remember Sally +Flint, how plain-spoken she is? Well, Betsy Harden's darter Ann rode +down to the poor-house t'other day with some sweet trade, an' took a +young sprig with her. He turned his back a minute, to look out o' +winder, an' Sally spoke right up, as ye might say, afore him. 'That +your beau?' says she. Well, o' course Ann couldn't own it, an' him +right there, so to speak. So she shook her head. 'Well, I'm glad on +'t,' says Sally. 'If I couldn't have anything to eat, I'd have suthin' +to look at!' He was the most unsignifyin'est creatur' you ever put your +eyes on. But they say Ann's started in on her clo'es." + +Amelia's face had grown scarlet. "I dunno's any such speech is called +for here," said she, in a furious self-betrayal. Josiah Pease had +always been able to storm her reserves. + +"Law, no," answered he comfortably. "It come into my mind,--that's +all." + +She looked at Enoch with a passionate sympathy, knowing too well how +the hidden sting was intended to work. But Enoch had not heard. He was +absorbed in a finer problem of brass and iron; and though Amelia had +wished to save him from hurt, in that instant she scorned him for his +blindness. "I guess I shall have to ask you to move," she said to her +husband coldly. "I've got to git to that stove, if we're goin' to have +any dinner to-day." + +It seemed to her that even Enoch might take the hint, and clear away +his rubbish. Her feelings might have been assuaged by a clean hearth +and some acquiescence in her own mood. But he only moved back a little, +and went on fitting and musing. He was not thinking of her in the +least, nor even of Josiah Pease. His mind had entered its brighter, +more alluring world. She began to fry her pork and apples, with a +perfunctory attempt at conversation. "You don't often git round so +early in the spring," said she. + +"No," returned cousin Josiah. "I kind o' got started out, this time, I +don't rightly know why. I guess I've had you in mind more of late, for +some Tiverton folks come over our way, tradin', an' they brought all +the news. It sort o' stirred me up to come." + +Amelia turned her apples vigorously, well aware that the slices were +breaking. That made a part of her bitter day. + +"Folks needn't take the trouble to carry news about me," she said. +There was an angry gleam in her eyes. "If anybody wants to know +anything, let 'em come right here, an' I'll settle 'em." The ring of +her voice penetrated even to Enoch's perception, and he looked up in +mild surprise. She seemed to have thrown open, for an instant, a little +window into a part of her nature he had never seen. + +"How good them apples smell!" said Josiah innocently. "Last time I had +'em was down to cousin Amasa True's, he that married his third wife, +an' she run through all he had. I went down to see 'em arter the +vandoo,--you know they got red o' most everything,--an' they had fried +pork an' apples for dinner. Old Bashaby dropped in. 'Law!' says she. +'Fried pork an' apples! Well, I call that livin' pretty nigh the +wind!'" Josiah chuckled. He was very warm now, and the savory smell of +the dish he decried was mounting to what served him for fancy. "'Melia, +you ain't never had your teeth out, have ye?" he asked, as one who +spoke from richer memories. + +"I guess my teeth'll last me as long as I want 'em," said Amelia +curtly. + +"Well, I didn't know. They looked real white an' firm last time I see +'em, but you never can tell how they be underneath. I knew the folks +would ask me when I got home. I thought I'd speak." + +"Dinner's ready," said Amelia. She turned an alien look upon her +husband. "You want to wash your hands?" + +Enoch rose cheerfully. He had got to a hopeful place with the clock. + +"Set ri' down," said he. "Don't wait a minute. I'll be along." + +So Amelia and the guest began their meal, while little Rosie climbed, +rather soberly, into her higher chair, and held out her plate. + +"You wait," said Amelia harshly. "Can't you let other folks eat a +mouthful before you have to have yours?" Yet as she said it, she +remembered, with a remorseful pang, that she had always helped the +child first; it had been so sweet to see her pleased and satisfied. + +Josiah was never talkative during meals. Not being absolute master of +his teeth, his mind dwelt with them. Amelia remembered that, with a +malicious satisfaction. But he could not be altogether dumb. That, +people said, would never happen to Josiah Pease while he was above +ground. + +"That his girl?" he asked, indicating Rosie with his knife, in a +gustatory pause. + +"Whose?" inquired Amelia willfully. + +"His." He pointed again, this time to the back room, where Enoch was +still washing his hands. + +"Yes." + +"Mother dead?" + +Amelia sprang from her chair, while Rosie looked at her with the +frightened glance of a child to whom some half-forgotten grief has +suddenly returned. + +"Josiah Pease!" said Amelia. "I never thought a poor, insignificant +creatur' like you could rile me so,--when I know what you're doin' it +for, too. But you've brought it about. Her mother dead? Ain't I been +an' married her father?" + +"Law, Amelia, do se' down!" said Josiah indulgently. There was a +mince-pie warming on the back of the stove. He saw it there. "I didn't +mean nuthin'. I'll be bound you thought she's dead, or you wouldn't ha' +took such a step. I only meant, did ye see her death in the paper, for +example, or anything like that?" + +"'Melia," called Enoch, from the doorway, "I won't come in to dinner +jest now. Elbridge True's drove into the yard. I guess he's got it in +mind to talk it over about them cows. I don't want to lose the chance." + +"All right," answered Amelia. She took her seat again, while Enoch's +footsteps went briskly out through the shed. With the clanging of the +door, she felt secure. If she had to deal with Josiah Pease, she could +do it better alone, clutching at the certainty that was with her from +of old, that, if you could only keep your temper with cousin Josiah, +you had one chance of victory. Flame out at him, and you were lost. +"Some more potatoes?" asked she, with a deceptive calm. + +"Don't care if I do," returned Josiah, selecting greedily, his fork +hovering in air. "Little mite watery, ain't they? Dig 'em yourself?" + +"We dug 'em," said Amelia coldly. + +Rosie stepped down from her chair, unnoticed. To Amelia, she was then +no bigger than some little winged thing flitting about the room in time +of tragedy. Our greatest emotions sometimes stay unnamed. At that +moment, Amelia was swayed by as tumultuous a love as ever animated +damsel of verse or story; but it merely seemed to her that she was an +ill-used woman, married to a man for whom she was called on to be +ashamed. Rosie tiptoed into the entry, put on her little shawl and +hood, and stole out to play in the corn-house. When domestic squalls +were gathering, she knew where to go. The great outdoors was safer. Her +past had taught her that. + +"Don't like to eat with folks, does he? Well, it's all in what you're +brought up to." + +Amelia was ready with her counter-charge. "Have some tea?" + +She poured it as if it were poison, and Josiah became conscious of her +tragic self-control. + +"You ain't eat a thing," said he, with an ostentatious kindliness. He +bent forward a little, with the air of inviting a confidence. "Got +suthin' on your mind, ain't you, 'Melia?" he whispered. "Kind o' +worried? Find he's a drinkin' man?" + +Amelia was not to be beguiled, even by that anger which veils itself as +justice. She looked at him steadily, with scorching eyes. + +"You ain't took any sugar," said she. "There 't is, settin' by you. +Help yourself." + +Josiah addressed himself to his tea, and then Amelia poured him another +cup. She had some fierce satisfaction in making it good and strong. It +seemed to her that she was heartening her adversary for the fray, and +she took pleasure in doing it effectually. So great was the spirit +within her that she knew he could not be too valiant, for her keener +joy in laying him low. Then they rose from the table, and Josiah took +his old place by the stove, while Amelia began carrying the dishes to +the sink. Her mind was a little hazy now; her next move must depend on +his, and cousin Josiah, somewhat drowsy from his good dinner, was not +at once inclined to talk. Suddenly he raised his head snakily from +those sunken shoulders, and pointed a lean finger to the window. + +"'Melia!" cried he sharply. "I'll be buttered if he ain't been and +traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin' to stan' there an' let +them two cows go?" + +Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked +out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her +two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She +walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together +in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and +send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from +the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his +arms. + +"Here's your coat," said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. +"Stan' up, an' I'll help you put it on." + +Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous +that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight. + +"I was in hopes he'd harness up"--he began, but she ruthlessly cut him +short. + +"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes +round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There +they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' +this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown +up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she +was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, +but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in +the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, +Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his +usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, +and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!" + +He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was +nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia +realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for +despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't +you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,--egg an' bird!" She +closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went +back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor +and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that +moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had +resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time +itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his +voice jarred upon her tingling nerves. + +"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've +made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I +eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it." + +Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her +conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an +unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else. + +"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my +cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what +you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man +who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions +neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was +there. + +"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!" + +Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew +sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed +themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which +left her no will save that of speaking. + +"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say +once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' +things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours." + +Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was +almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by +his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest +patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind +anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had +too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose +anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. +"There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp." + +Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she +could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he +turned away from her, and went over to the bench. + +"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still +voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer +pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical +way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the +bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled +machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the +stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those +moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came +back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of +his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and +broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke +to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face. + +"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new +cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the +worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' +I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, +an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so +than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. +You've been good to me,--better 'n anybody ever was in the world." + +She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the +door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and +then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, +to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking +vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart +hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh. + +"Well," said Amelia, "_that's_ over. I'll wash my dishes now." + +Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly +about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped +her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet +her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little +imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten +the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all +her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia +stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah +Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean +forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she +realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train +where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child +behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to +the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste +to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of +welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, +and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path +toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into +the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of +the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, +still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish +color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of +their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that +moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth +which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least +against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient +fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about +Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while +she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve. + +"You cold?" asked she--"_dear_?" But she told herself it was a kiss of +farewell. + +She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and +took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded +root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only +tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those +without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying +forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She +would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; +nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would +drop the child at his side,--the child he had deserted,--and before he +could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, +she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if +she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of +her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come +chokingly. + +"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down +at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry." + +At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her +feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband +running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but +Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes +feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great +despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of +patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles +under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all +the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not +stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming +upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his +shoulders, and laid her wet face to his. + +"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with +me!" + +She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and +very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a +whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for +Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her." + +He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her +hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could +wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze +fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet +cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and +she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," +she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything +ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew." + +"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance +had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away +while she still suffered. + +Amelia began, stumblingly,-- + +"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it." + +"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly. + +"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. +But--Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off--Enoch"--Her voice +fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to +analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb +things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. +The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must +die. + +He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away. + +"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I +couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the +woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about +the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the +beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"-- + +Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly +argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from +her and left her young. + +"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've +got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more +than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all +your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between +us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you +now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you +go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep +upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, +in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a +sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the +candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him. + +"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked. + +"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could +not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous +judgment. + +"S'pose I don't ask you?" + +"I'll foller on behind." + +"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?" + +She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head. + +"No." + +"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?" + +"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly. + +Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you +look up here." + +She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, +but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which +she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, +and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his +arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a +man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more +bitter tears. + +"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about +the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie." + +Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her +as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking +the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before +they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and +their hearts beat together. + +"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, +but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have +her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I +know that now. You're all there is in the world." + +When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there +with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and +soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing +her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the +word his wife might wish. + +"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't +tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me +go over it"-- + +"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, +and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their +tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door +only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she +threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?" + +He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and +then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he +made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught. + +"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of +'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference +whose they be. But as to lyin'"-- + +"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?" + +"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held +each other's hands. + +"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped +together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You +blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs." + + + + +THE MORTUARY CHEST + + +"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down +an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the +country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she +spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't +git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter +miss for a good deal." + +Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. +They also remarked that her nose was as picked as a pin, and that +anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You +could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme +acuteness, and tried to live up to it. + +"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page +comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had +contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the +letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp +on in the mornin'." + +By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, +a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East +Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the +pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the +midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum +of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store +for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of +sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an +exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of +the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with +ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. +One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she +meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according +to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, +and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly +rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son +Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, +she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of +paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had +smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast +glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great +forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand +wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth +had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service +that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown +back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease. + +"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an +informal preliminary. + +"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before +the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt +went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood +an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! +she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days." + +"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was +one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd +ruther live with a born fool." + +"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron +(recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad +as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' +a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' +we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish +to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about +news, but she won't lend." + +"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively +practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. +"Got all the water you want?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been +sence November." + +But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track. + +"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she +asked. + +Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay +in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat +and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond +uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her +minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. +Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of +beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces. + +"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to +tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say +right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in +the paper, it ain't the kind you can." + +Tilly's eyes burned. + +"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now +don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never +in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for +himself." + +"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' +last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here +to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the +Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? +an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, +'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all +the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech +come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on +'t, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a +plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the +assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she +had done it. + +The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was +accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension. + +"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!" + +"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her +eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful +disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could +easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small +issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' +into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got +eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five +minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with +Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?" + +"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins +sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' +he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' +your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen." + +Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under +her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these +assured married women; it was always a little bracing. + +"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. +"Tickled to death, I s'pose?" + +"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding +finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has +been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate +the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, +and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and +no." + +"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the +party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna +Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. +Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was +passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he +felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out +kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to +take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it +ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been +the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't +take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, +'No, I thank you.'" + +"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked +Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and +proceeding to divide them. + +"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if +what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. +Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to +end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live +by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from +Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. +He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he +heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the +dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you +know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married +twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he +heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started." + +Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of +reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming +profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and +she continued:-- + +"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' +her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the +dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says +he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' +'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'" + +There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt +the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be +indefinitely prolonged. + +"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she +is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?" + +"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' +her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as +old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible +class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young +thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, +when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton +wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' +his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at +his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, +'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two +darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted +up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, +afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' +whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson +over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was +growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but +he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, +by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, +'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, +an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says +he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'" + +Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others +laughed out rich and free. + +"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who +never forgot the main issue. + +"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em +straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the +tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, +an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he +couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says +he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn." + +"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll +marry him?" + +"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll +think she's got to." + +"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with +everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her +sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two +girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's +got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take +lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd +let her alone." + +"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our +sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a +mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time +we've had oysters over our way." + +"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured +veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'." + +"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't +foller." + +"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said +the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring +at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over +in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music." + +"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. +"If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!" + +"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. +We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' +cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's +Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to +Saltash." + +Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and +went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in +passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their +guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She +was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft +brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, +if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop +beauty in middle life. + +The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their +faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, +who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by +the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with +dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but +something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his +people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes +rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached +the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at +her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all +through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing +down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her +sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road. + +The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry +twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who +had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. +Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before +the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a +blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the +snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew +her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it. + +"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must +hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow." + +The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child +carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces +lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, +while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from +within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly +banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful +frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and +the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore +her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them +back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag. + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. +When did you rain down?" + +"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing +into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' +I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out +to do it." + +"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into +the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I +put on coal in the morning, and then again at night." + +"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it +with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under +the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?" + +Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other +side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits. + +"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm +going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm +having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and +live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died." + +"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a +glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen +'d feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she +was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' +there 't is!" + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a +chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, +half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest. + +"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist." + +"Whose?" + +"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd +triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not +at once apparent. + +"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it. + +"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have +you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I +feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, +an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I +guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up +attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, +an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence." + +"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh. + +"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't +was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but +it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a +great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther +go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more +'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved +suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this +chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' +smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the +very next week she was took away." + +"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? +Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?" + +"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past +an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. +She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must +think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll +open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, +'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't +was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the +chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it +to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a +sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! +Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she +never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, +I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' +she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off +downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her +work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to +harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, +an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but +what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. +John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't +a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went +to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been +meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a +new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?" + +"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why +you care." + +Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief. + +"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's +al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. +There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest +as soon open it?" + +Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. +She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned +over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment +the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room. + +"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of +saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a +whisper:-- + +"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think." + +"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself +with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's +that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no +need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!" + +Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped +handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my +dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The +broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" + +"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep +that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a +little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's +lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take +out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly +believe it." + +Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an +old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, +"'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, +"there's no back breadth!" + +"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for +fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a +real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back +breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most +sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" + +It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. + +"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt +Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza +was a horror!" + +"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a +chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we +can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn +bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's +cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' +Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're +marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I +bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up +and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with +unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. +"There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as +soon burn 'em?" + +"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I +will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; +perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then." + +She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer +gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still +remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on +her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, +though the tears had gone from her face. + +"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you +do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my +things." + +Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, +whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living. + +"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts +back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' +along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks +he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I +git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so +spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and +Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse +and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent +forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to +say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it." + +Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's +anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"-- + +Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. +"Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But +there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country +road to the music of old-fashioned bells. + +Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about +preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with +a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which +nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, +the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any +domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well +as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never +consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the +night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the +table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, +uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic +sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, +as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and +over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment +of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried +again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human +power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, +conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon +the table with indignant emphasis. + +"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate +repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix +her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her +beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in +reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion +also, and take away her wicked facility. + +The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper +had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had +quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the +chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was +wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things +to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's +awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a +certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the +remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the +accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at +that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. +Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the +side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton +could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel +always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed +upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much +she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible +attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut +undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in +it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his +office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how +could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, +to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began +casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing +current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the +foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have +laughed hysterically. + +"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out +the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me +on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I +said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why +couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the +dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the +tone she sought. + +He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the +sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She +had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and +pulled out the black dress. + +"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking +as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you +don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!" + +The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting +on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the +leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed +the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow +from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent +care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and +smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She +blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, +schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to +remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her +upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door. + +"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," +but the words stuck in his throat. + +"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home." + +The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with +benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he +expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her +also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated. + +"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied +on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly +she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were +dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice +is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A +merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with +decision: "Won't you come in?" + +The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede +him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside. + +"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door." + +He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin +his shawl. + +"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering +with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, +within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear +up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in +to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more +faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'--not a mite." + +The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously +removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she +thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, +for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they +looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was +safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, +"'I have thee on the hip!'" + +The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making +parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened +conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:-- + +"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did +you say?" + +She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her +voice. + +"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took +up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that +lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he +bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, +'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'" + +The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old +lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious. + +"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"--he began, but +he was interrupted without compunction. + +"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother +married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. +By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're +writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so +I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her +own aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'" + +Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had +shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and +peered at his hostess. + +"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively. + +"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic +than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her +sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she +leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!" + +"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!" + +Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of +itself into her voice. + +"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I +thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house +upside down inside of a week." + +The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to +say something, and thought better of it. + +"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies +take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution +lessons"-- + +"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as +if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' +of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or +take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know." + +The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment. + +"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in +Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?" + +"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's +the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how +a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale +o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I +heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week +was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the +'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in +Missouri, an' here I be." + +"I hope you will be able to remain." + +"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was +losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here +to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But +Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and +she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown +herself!") + +"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson +courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old +lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I +could do anything towards finding her"-- + +"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as +she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could +do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should +be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the +neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't +speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got +enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the +keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed +enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel +for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the +necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious +me! What's that?" + +A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, +amazed at her agitation. + +"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?" + +"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her +cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the +parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There +came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in +front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim +twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself +before the door. + +"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say." + +Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be +mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea +speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped +forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl. + +"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?" + +Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to +herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the +parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate. + +"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove +and be calm--be calm!" + +Isabel was overcome anew. + +"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let +me be!" + +She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. +Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she +called. + +"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the +door." + +"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she +continued. "Only a minute!" + +She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. +The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey +in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to +be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it. + +"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take +off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" +Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile. + +"Isabel!" gasped the parson. + +"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!" + +The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the +mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue +chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss +me the shawl. Now if you say one word--Oh, parson, if you only will +keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And +leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door. + +"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want +greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face +and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so +small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life +with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the +sitting-room. "Sadie here?" + +The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was +peering down into her face. + +"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed. + +The little woman looked up at him--very sadly, Isabel thought. + +"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she +did not offer to shake hands. + +Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and +aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on +the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt +followed her. + +"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the +things?" + +"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No." + +"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into +the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and +aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers +are," she said. "Lamp smoke?" + +Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her +aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt +as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing +awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed +her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair. + +"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over +with you." + +The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they +trembled, and he clasped his hands instead. + +"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began. + +"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece +needed me." + +Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. +She began crying angrily into her handkerchief. + +"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?" + +"Yes," sobbed the girl. + +"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel +better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's +anything for you to do." + +Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat +mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the +clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew +his nose vigorously. + +"Mary Ellen"--he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you +so!" + +"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She +was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and +laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He +remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking +intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing +makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are." + +"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do _not_! And you +don't look so." + +"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the +only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones." + +The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and +bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own. + +"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but +Isabel looks like you!" + +She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything +they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't +see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father +said." + +"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've +always thought so, ever since she was a little girl." + +"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle +calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her +eyes. I believe they were black." + +"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never +were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly." + +Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! +But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a +little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been +hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made +town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after +her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you +was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked +out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim +harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you +should make a mistake at your time of life!" + +The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in +his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him +through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the +woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel +like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, +looking at her with something piteous in his air. + +"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I +did make one. You know it, and I know it." + +She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, +William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've +passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no +shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to +break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about +her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a +shame to put her there." + +The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and +sad lines of recollection deepened in his face. + +"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. +Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a +minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" +"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her +chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of +tears forbidden to fall. + +"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence +roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but +you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all +times." + +"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember." + +"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I +was a minister, and my girl--the girl that was going to marry me--sat +down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of +you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my +life, just that way." + +Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged +face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other +in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white +a good deal." + +But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he +broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing +his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial +one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you +remember what he said?" + +"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The +corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender. + +"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art +fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think +of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was +in a garden--always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that +summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been +a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down +where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the +Church, but do all I could, it was a girl--or an angel!" + +"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty. + +"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped +sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. +But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just +how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles +pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the +dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd +got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. +And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, +though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his +hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a +doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. _This one's about a girl_. You +might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'" + +The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of +memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile. + +"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember." + +"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I +could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the +sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what +came afterwards--I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have +brought me nearer to you." + +It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted +herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face. + +"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on +us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you +just as lieves tell me?" + +She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone +brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes. + +"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,--no, +nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given +to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I +don't know what tale was carried to you"-- + +"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give +you a chance!" + +"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I +took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants +to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so." + +The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal. + +"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let +me _be_ a fool?" + +She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all +their sting. + +"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things +like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I +read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out +of poor little Isabel." + +The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel. + +"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and +unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: +'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as +soon as I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and +I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that +belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with +her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a +finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm +going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every +time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened +her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but +I'm glad now!" + +The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the +smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her +glasses and walked over to the chest. + +"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it +ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my +courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a +knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by." + +The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged +people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the +broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When +they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen +looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard. + +"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up." + +The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a +folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. +The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out +and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as +we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, +wiping his glasses, looked also. + +"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And +that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her. + +"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little +trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it +gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your +mother's?" + +She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at +once:-- + +"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas +with you." + +She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other. + +"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it +here. Just take it away with you." + +The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his +youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned +the pages, a smile coming now and then. + +"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,--"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He +murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, +shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a +sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And +the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled. + +The woman was the first to turn away. + +"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. +We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we +ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of +other people--them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?" + +The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in +buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she +did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness +in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson +put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over +it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned. + +"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the +sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?" + +She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at +all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil +the truth. + +"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I +took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!" + +"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind +him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the +horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was +opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk. + +"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice. + +"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to +leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; +"Isabel!" + +She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up +in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen. + +"Parson,"--forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his +knee,--"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, +please? I can't explain it"-- + +"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't +try to. I guess I made you nervous." + +"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the +parson drove away. + +Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, +where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had +her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that +the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary +Ellen had looked when she was young. + +"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron +to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief." + + + + +HORN O' THE MOON + + +If you drive along Tiverton Street, and then turn to the left, down the +Gully Road, you journey, for the space of a mile or so, through a +bewildering succession of damp greenery, with noisy brooks singing +songs below you, on either side, and the treetops on the level with +your horse's feet. Few among the older inhabitants ever take this +drive, save from necessity, because it is conceded that the dampness +there is enough, even in summer, to "give you your death o' cold;" and +as for the young, to them the place wears an eerie look, with its +miniature suggestion of impassable gulfs and roaring torrents. Yet no +youth reaches his majority without exploring the Gully. He who goes +alone is the more a hero; but even he had best leave two or three +trusty comrades reasonably near, not only to listen, should he call, +but to stand his witnesses when he afterwards declares where he has +been. It is a fearsome thing to explore that lower stratum of this +round world, so close to the rushing brook that it drowns your +thoughts, though not your apprehensions, and to go slipping about over +wet boulders and among dripping ferns; but your fears are fears of the +spirit. They are inherited qualms. You shiver because your grandfathers +and fathers and uncles have shivered there before you. If you are very +brave indeed, and naught but the topmost round of destiny will content +you, possibly you penetrate still further into green abysses, and come +upon the pool where, tradition says, an ancient trout has his +impregnable habitation. Apparently, nobody questions that the life of a +trout may be indefinitely prolonged, under the proper conditions of a +retired dusk; and the same fish that served our grandfathers for a +legend now enlivens our childish days. When you meet a youngster, +ostentatiously setting forth for the Gully Road, with bait-box and +pole, you need not ask where he is going; though if you have any human +sympathy in the pride of life, you will not deny him his answer:-- + +"Down to have a try for the old trout!" + +The pool has been still for many years. Not within the memory of aged +men has the trout turned fin or flashed a speckled side; but he is to +this day an historical present. He has lived, and therefore he lives +always. + +Those who do not pause upon the Gully Road, but keep straight on into +the open, will come into the old highway leading up and up to Horn o' +the Moon. It is an unshaded, gravelly track, pointing duly up-hill for +three long miles; and it has become a sober way to most of us, in this +generation: for we never take it unless we go on the solemn errand of +getting Mary Dunbar, that famous nurse, to care for our sick or dead. +There is a tradition that a summer visitor once hired a "shay," and +drove, all by herself, up to Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive +splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by +the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated +with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to +lean on the fence, and call excitedly,-- + +"Where ye goin'?" + +"Horn o' the Moon," replied she, having learned in Tiverton the value +of succinct replies. + +"Who's sick?" + +"Nobody." + +"Got any folks up there?" + +"No. Going to see the place." + +The effect of this varied. Some looked in amazement; one ventured to +say, "Well, that's the beater!" and another dropped into the cabalistic +remark which cannot be defined, but which has its due significance, +"Well, you _must_ be sent for!" The result of all this running +commentary was such that, when the visitor reached the top of the hill +where Horn o' the Moon lies, encircled by other lesser heights, she was +stricken by its exceeding desolation, and had no heart to cast more +than a glance at the noble view below. She turned her horse, and +trotted, recklessly and with many stumblings, down again into friendly +Tiverton. + +Horn o' the Moon is unique in its melancholy. It has so few trees, and +those of so meagre and wind-swept a nature, that it might as well be +entirely bald. No apples grow there; and in the autumn, the inhabitants +make a concerted sally down into Tiverton Street, to purchase their +winter stock, such of them as can afford it. The poorer folk--and they +are all poor enough--buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so +common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds +this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to +remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, +to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. + +There is very little grass at the top of the lonely height, and that of +a husky, whispering sort, in thin ribbons that flutter low little songs +in the breeze. They never cease; for, at Horn o' the Moon, there is +always a wind blowing, differing in quality with the season. Sometimes +it is a sighing wind from other heights, happier in that they are sweet +with firs. Sometimes it is exasperating enough to make the March +breezes below seem tender; then it tosses about in snatching gusts, +buffeting, and slapping, and excoriating him who stands in its way. +Somehow, all the peculiarities of Horn o' the Moon seem referable, in a +mysterious fashion, to the wind. The people speak in high, strenuous +voices, striving to hold their own against its wicked strength. Most of +them are deaf. Is that because the air beats ceaselessly against the +porches of their ears? They are a stunted race; for they have grown +into the habit of holding the head low, and plunging forward against +that battling element. Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the +ordinary sort. Their feathers grow the wrong way, standing up in a +ragged and disorderly fashion; and they, too, have the effect of having +been blown about and disarranged, until nature yielded, and agreed to +their permanent roughness. + +Moreover, all the people are old or middle-aged; and possibly that is +why, again, the settlement is so desolate. It is a disgrace for us +below to marry with Horn o' the Mooners, though they are a sober folk; +and now it happens that everybody up there is the cousin of everybody +else. The race is dying out, we say, as if we considered it a distinct +species; and we agree that it would have been wiped away long ago, by +weight of its own eccentricity, had not Mary Dunbar been the making of +it. She is the one righteous among many. She is the good nurse whom we +all go to seek, in our times of trouble, and she perpetually saves her +city from the odium of the world. + +Mary was born in Tiverton Street. We are glad to remember that, we who +condemn by the wholesale, and are assured that no good can come out of +Nazareth. When she was a girl of eighteen, her father and mother died; +and she fell into a state of spiritual exaltation, wherein she dreamed +dreams, and had periods of retirement within her house, communing with +other intelligences. We said Mary had lost her mind; but that was +difficult to believe, since no more wholesome type of womanhood had +ever walked our streets. She was very tall, built on the lines of a +beauty transcending our meagre strain. Nobody approved of those broad +shoulders and magnificent arms. We said it was a shame for any girl to +be so overgrown; yet our eyes followed her, delighted by the harmony of +line and action. Then we whispered that she was as big as a moose, and +that, if we had such arms, we never'd go out without a shawl. Her +"mittins" must be wide enough for any man! + +Mary did everything perfectly. She walked as if she went to meet the +morning, and must salute it worthily. She carried a weight as a goddess +might bear the infant Bacchus; and her small head, poised upon that +round throat, wore the crown of simplicity, and not of pride. But we +only told how strong she was, and how much she could lift. We loved +Mary, but sensibility had to shrink from those great proportions and +that elemental strength. + +One snowy morning, Mary's spiritual vision called her out of our midst, +to which she never came back save as we needed her. The world was very +white that day, when she rose, in her still house, dressed herself +hastily, and roused a neighbor, begging him to harness, and drive her +up to Horn o' the Moon. Folks were sick there, with nobody to take care +of them. The neighbor reasoned, and then refused, as one might deny a +person, however beloved, who lives by the intuitions of an unseen +world. Mary went home again, and, as he believed, to stay. But she had +not hesitated in her allegiance to the heavenly voice. Somehow, through +the blinding snow and unbroken road, she ploughed her way up to Horn o' +the Moon, where she found an epidemic of diphtheria; and there she +stayed. We marveled over her guessing how keenly she was needed; but +since she never explained, it began to be noised abroad that some +wandering peddler told her. That accounted for everything; and Mary had +no time for talk. She was too busy, watching with the sick, and going +about from house to house, cooking delicate gruels and broiling chicken +for those who were getting well. It is said that she even did the barn +work, and milked the cows, during that tragic time. We were not +surprised. Mary was a great worker, and she was fond of "creatur's." + +Whether she came to care for these stolid people on the height, or +whether the vision counseled her, Mary gave up her house in the +village, and bought a little old dwelling under an overhanging +hillside, at Horn o' the Moon. It was a nest built into the rock, its +back sitting snugly there. The dark came down upon it quickly. In +winter, the sun was gone from the little parlor as early as three +o'clock; but Mary did not mind. That house was her temporary shell; she +only slept in it in the intervals of hurrying away, with blessed feet, +to tend the sick, and hold the dying in untiring arms. I shall never +forget how, one morning, I saw her come out of the door, and stand +silent, looking toward the rosy east. There was the dawn, and there was +she, its priestess, while all around her slept. I should not have been +surprised had her lips, parted already in a mysterious smile, opened +still further in a prophetic chanting to the sun. But Mary saw me, and +the alert, answering look of one who is a messenger flashed swiftly +over her face. She advanced like the leader of a triumphal procession. + +"Anybody want me?" she called. "I'll get my bunnit." + +It was when she was twenty, and not more than settled in the little +house at Horn o' the Moon, that her story came to her. The Veaseys were +her neighbors, perhaps five doors away; and one summer morning, Johnnie +Veasey came home from sea. He brought no money, no coral from foreign +parts, nor news of grapes in Eshcol. He simply came empty-handed, as he +always did, bearing only, to vouch for his wanderings, a tanned face, +and the bright, red-brown eyes that had surely looked on things we +never saw. Adam Veasey, his brother; had been paralyzed for years. He +sat all day in the chimney corner, looking at his shaking hands, and +telling how wide a swathe he could cut before he was afflicted. Mattie, +Adam's wife, had long dealt with the problem of an unsupported +existence. She had turned into a flitting little creature with eager +eyes, who made it her business to prey upon a more prosperous world. +Mattie never went about without a large extra pocket attached to her +waist; into this, she could slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, +or even a loaf of bread. She laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and +the town below. Was there a frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No +sooner had the odor risen upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, +dumbly insistent on her toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it +was said that, in fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, +because of the hordes of insects settling here and there on her +odoriferous gown. When Johnnie Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in +arms. Their golden chance had come at last. + +"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and +Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that +he did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into +the wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new +folks. + +Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again, +and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him.. So she went over to +old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted, +according to her little best. + +Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had +brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He +described what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others +had known and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these +stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and +every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, +or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the +tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit +out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill +possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling +uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men +about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking +swiftly by, a basket in her hand. Johnnie came bolt upright, and took +off his cap. He looked amazingly young and fine, and Mary blushed as +she went by. + +"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers. + +"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved +up." + +Johnnie watched her walking away, for the rhythm of her motion +attracted him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that. + +It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys', +where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; +and while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman +for her dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange +lands. It seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were +such lands in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt +out her old geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed +rivers to their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. +She was seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast. + +Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in +the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey +would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of +the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had +simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from +her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after +her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her +own bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but +one first question for every comer:-- + +"Anybody sick?" + +"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. +"I want to tell you how things stand." + +It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an +exposition of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress +came to the tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella +Hardy, who had died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no +matter, for the enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, +concealed that youthful eccentricity. Her shoes--congress, with +world-weary elastics at the side--were her own, inherited from an aunt; +and her bonnet was a rusty black, with a mourning veil. There was, at +that time, but one new bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had +sighed, when Mattie proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed +nobody'd want anything that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant +sought out Mrs. Pillsbury, whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief +season of prosperity, nine years before, had become, in a manner, +village property. It was as duly in public requisition as the hearse; +and its owner cherished a melancholy pride in this official state. She +never felt as if she owned it,--only that she was the keeper of a +sacred trust; and Mattie, in asking for it, knew that she demanded no +more than her due, as a citizen should. It was an impersonal matter +between her and the bonnet; and though she should wear it on a secular +errand, the veil did not signify. She knew everybody else knew whose +bonnet it was; and that if anybody supposed she had met with a loss, +they had only to ask, and she to answer. So, in the consciousness of an +armor calculated to meet the world, she skillfully brought her congress +boots into Mary's kitchen, and sat down, her worn little hands clasped +under the shawl. + +"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's +happened to Johnnie?" + +Mary rose, a hand upon her chair. + +"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so--ready +to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!" + +Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of +those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and +sugared again. + +"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as +some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been +gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, +neither,--down the ledge. I dunno how he done it--he climbs like a +cat--seems as if the Old Boy was in it--but half his body he can't +move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's." + +Mary listened gravely; her hands on her knees. + +"How long's he been so?" + +"Nigh on to five weeks." + +"Had the doctor?" + +"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there +ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An' +I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him +in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the +heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the +selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no +money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I +can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down +to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along +down." + +"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes." + +"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that +last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in +bed, an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to know if you +wouldn't run in, long towards noon, an' warm up suthin' for 'em." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mary Dunbar. "I'll be there." + +She rose, and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she +must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had +already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading +carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her +way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to scurry and gather. + +Mary looked hastily about the room, to see if its perfect order needed +a farewell touch; and then she drank her cup of tea, and stepped out +into the morning. The air was fresh and sweet. She wore no shawl, and +the wind lifted the little brown rings on her forehead, and curled them +closer. Mary held a hand upon them, and hurried on. She had no more +thought of appearances than a woman in a desert land, or in the desert +made by lack of praise; for she knew no one looked at her. To be clean +and swift was all her life demanded. + +Adam sat by the stove, where the ashes were still warm. It was not a +day for fires, but he loved his accustomed corner. He was a middle-aged +man, old with the suffering which is not of years, and the pathos of +his stricken state hung about him, from his unkempt beard to the dusty +black clothing which had been the Tiverton minister's outworn suit. One +would have said he belonged to the generation before his brother. + +"That you, Mary?" he asked, in his shaking voice. "Now, ain't that +good? Come to set a spell?" + +"Where is he?" responded Mary, in a swift breathlessness quite new to +her. + +"In there. We put up a bed in the clock-room." + +It was the unfinished part of the house. The Veaseys had always meant +to plaster, but that consummation was still afar. The laths showed +meagrely; it was a skeleton of a room,--and, sunken in the high +feather-bed between the two windows, lay Johnnie Veasey, his buoyancy +all gone, his face quite piteous to see, now that its tan had faded. +Mary went up to the bedside, and laid one cool, strong hand upon his +wrist. His eyes sought her with a wild entreaty; but she knew, although +he seemed to suffer, that this was the misery of delirium, and not the +conscious mind. Adam had come trembling to the door, and stood there, +one hand beating its perpetual tattoo upon the wall. Mary looked up at +him with that abstracted gaze with which we weigh and judge. + +"He's feverish," said she. "Mattie didn't tell me that. How long's he +been so?" + +"I dunno. I guess a matter o' two days." + +"Two days?" + +"Well, it might be off an' on ever sence he fell." Adam was helpless. +He depended upon Mattie, and Mattie was not there. + +"What did the doctor leave?" + +Adam looked about him. "'T was the Herb doctor," he said. "He had her +steep some trade in a bowl." + +Mary Dunbar drew her hand away, and walked two or three times up and +down the bare, bleak room. The seeking eyes were following her. She +knew how little their distended agony might mean; but nevertheless they +carried an entreaty. They leaned upon her, as the world, her sick +world, was wont to lean. Mary was, in many things, a child; but her +attitude had grown to be maternal. Suddenly she turned to Adam, where +he stood, shaking and hesitating, in the doorway. + +"You goin' to send him off?" + +"Pears as if that's the only way," shuffled Adam. + +"To-day?" + +"Well, I dunno 's they'll come"-- + +Mary walked past him, her mind assured. + +"There, that'll do," said she. "You set down in your corner. I'll be +back byme-by." + +She hurried out into the bleak world which was her home, and, at that +moment, it looked very fair and new. The birds were singing, loudly as +they ever sang up here where there were few leaves to nest in. Mary +stopped an instant to listen, and lifted her face wordlessly to the +clear blue sky. It seemed as if she had been given a gift. There, +before one of the houses, she called aloud, with a long, lingering +note, "Jacob!" and Jacob Pease rose from; his milking-stool, and came +forward. Jacob was tall and snuff-colored, a widower of three years' +standing. There was a theory that he wanted Mary, and lacked the +courage to ask her. + +"That you, Mary Dunbar?" said he. "Anything on hand?" + +"I want you to come and help me lift," answered Mary. + +Jacob set down his milk pail, and followed her into the Veaseys' +kitchen. She drew out the tin basin, and filled it at the sink. + +"Wash your hands," said she. "Adam, you set where you generally do. +You'll be in the way." + +Jacob followed her into the sick-room, and Adam weakly shuffled in +behind. + +"For the land's sake!" he began, but Mary was at the head of the bed, +and Jacob at the foot. + +"I'll carry his shoulders," she said, in the voice that admits no +demur. "You take his feet and legs. Sort o' fold the feather-bed up +round him, or we never shall get him through the door." + +"Which way?" asked Jacob, still entirely at rest on a greater mind. + +"Out!" commanded Mary,--"out the front door." + +Adam, in describing that dramatic moment, always declared that nobody +but Mary Dunbar could have engineered a feather-bed through the narrow +passage, without sticking midway. He recalled an incident of his +boyhood when, in the Titcomb fire, the whole family had spent every +available instant before the falling of the roof, in trying to push the +second-best bed through the attic window, only to leave it there to +burn. But Mary Dunbar took her patient through the doorway as Napoleon +marched over the Alps; she went with him down the road toward her own +little house under the hill. Only then did Adam, still shuffling on +behind, collect his intelligence sufficiently to shout after her,-- + +"Mary, what under the sun be you doin' of? What you want me to tell +Mattie? S'pose she brings the selec'men, Mary Dunbar!" + +She made no reply, even by a glance. She walked straight on, as if her +burden lightened, and into her own cave-like house and her little neat +bedroom. + +"Lay him down jest as he is," she said to Jacob. "We won't try to shift +him to-day. Let him get over this." + +Jacob stretched himself, after his load, put his hands in his pockets, +and made up his mouth into a soundless whistle. + +"Yes! well!" said he. "Guess I better finish milkin'." + +Mary put her patient "to-rights," and set some herb drink on the back +of the stove. Presently the little room was filled with the steamy odor +of a bitter healing, and she was on the battlefield where she loved to +conquer. In spite of her heaven-born instinct, she knew very little +about doctors and their ways of cure. Earth secrets were hers, some of +them inherited and some guessed at, and luckily she had never been +involved in those greater issues to be dealt with only by an exalted +science. Later in her life, she was to get acquainted with the young +doctor, down in Tiverton Street, and hear from him what things were +doing in his world. She was to learn that a hospital is not a slaughter +house incarnadined with writhing victims, as some of us had thought. +She was even to witness the magic of a great surgeon; though that was +in her old age, when her attitude toward medicine had become one of +humble thankfulness that, in all her daring, she had done no harm. +To-day, she thought she could set a bone or break up a fever; and there +was no doubt in her mind that, if other deeds were demanded of her, she +should be led in the one true way. So she sat down by her patient, and +was watching there, hopeful of moisture on his palm, when Mattie broke +into the front room, impetuous as the wind. Mary rose and stepped out +to meet her, shutting the door as she went. Passing the window, she saw +the selectmen, in the vehicle known as a long-reach, waiting at the +gate. + +"Hush, Mattie!" said she, "you'll wake him." + +Mattie, in her ill-assorted respectabilities of dress, seemed to have +been involved but recently in some bacchanalian orgie. Her shawl was +dragged to one side, and her bonnet sat rakishly. She was intoxicated +with her own surprise. + +"Mary Dunbar!" cried she, "I'd like to know the meanin' of all this +go-round!" + +"There!" answered Mary, with a quietude like that of the sea at ebb, "I +can't stop to talk. I'll settle it with the selec'men. You come, too." + +Mattie's eyes were seeking the bedroom. Leave her alone, and her feet +would follow. "You come along," repeated Mary, and Mattie came. + +When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little +slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer +Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous +cough. Lothrop Wilson, mild by nature, and rather prone to whiffling in +times of difficulty, frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only +because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, +let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself +in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated +warfare, and were nervously conscious, that, should they fail in +firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the +wagon, and laid one hand upon the wheel. + +"I've got John Veasey in my house," she began rapidly. "I can't stop to +talk. He's pretty sick." + +Ebenezer cleared his throat again. + +"We understood his folks had put him on the town," said he. + +Mattie made a little eager sound, and then stopped. + +"He ain't on the town yet," said Mary. "He's in my bedroom. An' there +he's goin' to stay. I've took this job." She turned away from them, +erect in her decision, and went up the path. Eli Pike looked after her, +with an understanding sympathy. He was the man who had walked two +miles, one night, to shoot a fox, trapped, and left there helpless with +a broken leg. Lothrop gazed straight ahead, and said nothing. + +"Look here!" called Ebenezer. "Mary! Mary! you look here!" + +Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and +dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but +still the public purse must be regarded. + +"You can't bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he's on the +town, he'll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest." + +Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he +remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on." + +But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the +door in vain. + +"My land!" she ejaculated, "if she ain't bolted it!" So the nurse and +her patient were left to themselves. + +As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton. +At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor +came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of +violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the +case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do +not know; tradition was quite voluble. + +It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those +days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, +setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets +for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the +door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his +knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. +The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a +dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; +but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, +delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he +came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a +listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where +the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors +called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted +no appeal. + +"I've got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway +confronting them. "He's too weak to see anybody; I guess I won't ask +you in." + +But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing +painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon +as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind +her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust +of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and +very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on +the step. + +"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't +have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day." + +The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his +dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand. + +"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had +hoped to see him." + +Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers. + +"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to +pray by ourselves." + +The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the +slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which +his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined +upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair. + +"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar +stand." + +Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient +breathing, and her mind was with him. + +"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim +on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going +to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to +get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be +respected,--though only in a measure." + +Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him. + +"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!" + +"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married." + +Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced +round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess +you better go now. Good-day." + +She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his +wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk +with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better. + +But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into +sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, +heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung +her way, she marveled at it. + +The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, +the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late +that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull +weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all +beat out," for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to +have an early supper at five. + +"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I'd do it, an' I have. There +ain't a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an' folks that want you +to go nussin' have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very +afternoon, 'I'll be whipped if I don't git in an' see what's goin' on!' +There's some will have it Johnnie's got well, an' drove away without +saying good-by to his own folks, an' some say he ain't likely to live, +an' there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the +childern, they've got an idea suthin' 's been done to uncle Johnnie, +an' you can't mention him but they cry." + +Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn't +mention him, then," said she. + +A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. +Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the +lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight +of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His +face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming. + +"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She +always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don't +know what it was,--but _I can move_!" + +He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood +looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet +a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes. + +"I'll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want +to see her?" + +"For God's sake, no! not till I'm on my feet." He was still laughing. +"I guess I can get up to-morrow." + +Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. + +"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in +to-morrer. I shouldn't wonder if he'd be up then." + +"I told Adam"--began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little +arm, and held it there. + +"I'd rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don't you come in before +'leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your +brother'll be gettin' away before long." She opened the outer door, and +Mattie had no volition but to go. "It's a nice night, ain't it?" called +Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many +stars." + +Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and +exactitude prepared her patient's supper. He was sitting upright, +bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great +mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize. + +"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can't get up to-morrow? Why, I could +walk!" + +They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that +afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie +talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what +he meant to do when he got into the world again. + +"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam +put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again." + +"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for +more 'n two years. It's my business." + +Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak. + +"What you goin' to ask?" + +Mary started. Then she answered steadily-- + +"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have +ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn't talk no more, +even if you are well. I've got to wash these dishes." + +She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did +they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he +was flat among his pillows, listening for her. + +"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn't unless you want to; but +if ever I earn another cent of money, you'll see. And I ain't the only +friend you've got. There's a girl down in Southport would do anything +in the world for you, if she only knew." + +Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse's +cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a +wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his +breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh +way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of +gratitude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out +whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he +must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had +done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and +perhaps he remembered the message too coldly. + +When Mattie came over, that afternoon, to make her call, she found the +house closed. Mary had gone on foot down into Tiverton, where old Mrs. +Lamson, who was sick with a fever, lay still in need. It was many weeks +before she came home again to Horn o' the Moon; and then Grandfather +Sinclair had broken his leg, so that interest in her miracle became +temporarily inactive. + +Two years had gone when there came to her a little package, through the +Tiverton mail. It was tied with the greatest caution, and directed in a +straggling hand. Mary opened it just as she struck into the Gully Road, +on her way home. Inside was a little purse, and three gold pieces. She +paused there, under the branches, the purse in one hand, and the gold +lying within her other palm. For a long time she stood looking at them, +her face set in that patient sadness seen in those whose only holding +is the past. It was all over and done, and yet it had never been at +all. She thought a little about herself, and that was very rare, for +Mary. She was not the poorer for what her soul desired; she was +infinitely the richer, and she remembered the girl at Southport, not +with the pang that once afflicted her heart, but with a warm, +outrushing sense of womanly sympathy. If he had money, perhaps he could +marry. Perhaps he was married now. Coming out of the Gully Road, she +opened the purse again, and the sun struck richly upon the gold within. +Mary smiled a little, wanly, but still with a sense of the good, human +kinship in life. + +"I won't ever spend 'em," she said to herself. "I'll keep 'em to bury +me." + + + + +A STOLEN FESTIVAL + + +David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a +road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could +see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to +no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the +middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She +had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the +go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west, +she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'. + +The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in +love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray +eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which +America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something +superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic +responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how +the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her +after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not +to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a +vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which +move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of +aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to +understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried +to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; +but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes +brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she +spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know +that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had +never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but +that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There +had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her +husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of +the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of +a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living +beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but +entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of +birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much +under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green +was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond +it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of +violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey +blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange +memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on +the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon +her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his +neck. + +"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is +it, little child?" + +"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!" + +The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it +meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become +familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the +blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain +at her heart. + +Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in +front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to +market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes +forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily +belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled +roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked +up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon +her. + +"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked. + +Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there +was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The +world was a jewel newly set for her. + +"I _am_ nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin' +on? It's 'most a year since we were married,--a year the fifteenth." + +David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her. + +"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good +bargain. Best trade I ever made in _my_ life!" + +"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you +how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have +our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll +take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!" + +David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed +his lips. + +"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to +Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there +before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up +in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down; +an' if I wait for him to do it--well, you know what he is!" + +"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you +can!" + +"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it +is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm +awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!" + +Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one +heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was +not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was +only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put +great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would +be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love. + +David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist. + +"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the +same as another, now ain't it?" + +"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet +eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday +mornin'!" + +David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. +His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a +joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the +logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and +twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth. + +"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long +as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git +a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's +done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take +both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!" + +The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he +looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a +little and turned her face up to his--her rebellious eyes and unsteady +mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a +great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud. + +"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. _I_ don't +care!" + +These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or +tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish +concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She +had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention +and not the act. + +David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell. + +"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man +when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye +o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle." + +Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. +Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large +carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried +to feel resigned. + +"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the +day!" + +David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up +his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn. + +"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I +might as well stan' from under." + +Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, +clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress +boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep +affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like +process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile. + +"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find +yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody +must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', +an' git their best clo'es all over dirt." + +"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very +sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o' +folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous +scheme of life to live and let live. + +"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily. +"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up +here this mornin'?" + +Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped +hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't +know." + +"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis' +Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You +look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while +Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under +her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; +and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently +revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious +imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from +the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself. + +But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was +holding it out on the end of a knotted finger. + +"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your +engagement ring." + +Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an +involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave. + +"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?" + +"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye +lose it?" + +But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and +looked obstinate. + +"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily. +Debby was diverted, though only for the moment. + +"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and +giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want +_him_ to know of it?" + +"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation +disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do +you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?" + +"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little +consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day, +an' she says, 'Don't ye tell _him_!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a +pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for +'t after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if +ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you +want to know where I come on this ring?" + +Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned +she, turning about. "Where was it?" + +"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f +'t had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst +he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an' +she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to +show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank, +an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him +suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted +but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber." + +"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say +anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and +that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire +Hill. + +She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to +cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne +before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and +began packing its contents into the yawning bag. + +"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it. +And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late." + +Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a +kernel with a critical thumb. + +"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this +time o' year. Is that the pork?" + +It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth. + +"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the +bag. "There!" + +"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly. + +"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak +to David before he harnesses. Good-by!" + +In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn. + +"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly +about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's _I_ say!" And she made +no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the +barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him +I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and +the likelihood of its being properly diversified. + +Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and +laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and +inquired of him confidentially what was the matter. + +"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly. +"I've got to see you." + +David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty +precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs +and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, +"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?" + +David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed. + +"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he. + +Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically. + +"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There +ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em +'twas my engagement ring." + +David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He +could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency. + +"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture. + +"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a +ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd +have showed 'em." + +David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and, +though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town +blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was +condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him. + +"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a +new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. +It wasn't that I begrudged anything." + +"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't +was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have +'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I +bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue +handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give +'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I +always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the +comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a +little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring, +for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I +knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it +in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've +sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you +about the pork, and I--I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and +lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly, +and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair. +His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of +children over some grief not understood. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length. + +"When?" said Letty chokingly. + +"Then--when folks expected things--before we were married." + +"Oh, David, I couldn't!" + +"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't." + +Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump +hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and +stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm. + +"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring." + +Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to +wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?" + +"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't +you ever let me set eyes on it again!" + +David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened +it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do +me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each +other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt +them bitterer than if they had been his own. + +But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble +in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a +secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without +his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him +radiantly. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but +it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!" + +Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder. +He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like +swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So +he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a +singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy +again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven, +to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could +deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance--this +was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household +duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she +went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed +to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of +love. + +Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind +the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced, +into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a +breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the +house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an +unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound. +Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray, +and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes +by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her +wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as +he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, +from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the +child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then +she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, +that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of +blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist. + +But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the +barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal. + +"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about +that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty +dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd +ought to eat yours while't was hot." + +Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured +coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste, +and said good-by. + +"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone, +you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till +night." + +"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile +crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin' +to bring it to you." + +"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess +you won't!" + +"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to +hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm +comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the +butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time +to argue, went off to his work. + +About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was +a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face, +regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life +might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great +universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the +day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged +along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and +owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was +better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer +than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the +stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier +still. + +"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs +beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her. +"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn +and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her. + +"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and +walked on together through the shade. + +The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of +the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him; +then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment, +with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a +palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for +a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out +a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her +dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a +blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the +air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling +over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal, +Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine +white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes +deepened. + +"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?" + +Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in +her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. +David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed +the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate +her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him, +and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close. +He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry +light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while +Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when +her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her +wedding day. + +When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and +David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the +basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief +excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with +her weedy treasures. Once--was it something in the air?--he called to +her:-- + +"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were +married?" + +But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on +a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take +him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she +was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the +day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to +her that he should forget. + +"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the +kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star +Pond." + +After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and +then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest +moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor. + +"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your +little ring? It's right here in my pocket." + +"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again." + +"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other +day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make +a choice unless you was with me." + +Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break +in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you." + +David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief +about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from +one another, will we?" + +Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before +answering:-- + +"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!" + + + + +A LAST ASSEMBLING + + +This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, +was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed +to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing +instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to +carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did +happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen +again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily +and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing +harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her +life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of +human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great +delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore, +she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted +all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was +thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than +she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked +out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church +on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a +pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk +failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric +and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution: +to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led +direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy +to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take +him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived, +understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken +the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had +simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the +city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade. +He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for +ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee +the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again; +but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of +nature, but a simplicity quite different in kind. Jethro did not grow +rich very fast (uncle Silas saw to that), but he did prosper; and he +was ready to marry his girl long before she owned herself ready to +marry him. She took care of a succession of aged relatives, all +afflicted by a strange and interesting diversity of trying diseases; +and then, after the last death, she settled down, quite poor, in a +little house on the Tiverton Road, and "went out nussin'," the +profession for which her previous life had fitted her. With a careless +generosity, she made over to her brother the old farmhouse where they +were born, because he had a family and needed it. But he died, and was +soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with +the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for +them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take +him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of +faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. +She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the +old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without a cent; but +since he was coming for her, and she needn't go to Chicago alone, she +didn't know that there was anything to worry about. He would buy her +ticket. There was an ineffable simplicity about Dilly. She had no +respect whatever for money, save as a puzzling means to a few necessary +ends. And now the place had been sold, and Jethro was coming in a +month. Meanwhile Dilly was to pack up the few family effects she could +afford to keep, and the rest would go by auction. + +Little as she was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the +inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in +the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human +meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true +that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the +fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like +irresistible factors, and welded her to the universe anew. + +As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and +began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some +solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher, +and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the +throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black +hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an +assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a +gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed +by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this +case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to +go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward +garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink +flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody. +She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical +call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the +beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of +the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an +unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house, +since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding +drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the +stage. + +Her mind was peopled with figures. She thought of Jethro, too. He +seemed to be coming ever nearer and nearer. She could hear his tread +marching into her life, and could see his face. It was very moving, as +she remembered it. A long line of scholarly forbears had dowered him +with a refinement and grace quite startling in this unornamented spot, +and some old Acadian ancestor had lent him beauty. His eyes were dark, +and they held an unfathomable melancholy. The line of his forehead and +nose ran haughtily and yet delicate; and even after years of absence, +Dilly sometimes caught her breath when she thought of the way his head +was set upon his shoulders. She had never in her life seen a man or +woman who was entirely beautiful, and he saturated her longing like a +prodigal stream. + +She was a little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the +road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. +Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is +away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, +and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed +in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed +their broken branches, and were covered with little green buttons of +fruit. Dilly stopped to look about her, and her eyes filled. The tears +were hot; they hurt her, and so recalled her to the needs of life. + +"There!" she said, "I mustn't do so!"--and she walked straight forward +through the open shed, and fitted her key in the lock. The door sagged; +but she pushed it open and stepped in. The deserted kitchen lay there +in desolate order, and the old Willard clock slept upon the wall. Dilly +hastily pushed a chair before it (this was the only chair old Daniel +Joyce would allow the children to climb in) and wound the clock. It +began ticking slowly, with the old, remembered sound. Somehow it seemed +beautiful to Dilly that the clock should speak with the voice of all +those years agone; it was a kind of loyalty which appealed to the soul +like a piercing miracle. Then she ran through to the sitting-room, and +started the old eight-day in the corner; and the house breathed and was +alive again. She threw open the windows, all save those on the Dilloway +side (lest kindly neighbors should discover she was at home), and the +soft rose-scented air flooded the rooms like an invisible presence, and +bore out the smell of age upon gracious wings. Now, Dilly worked fast +and steadily, lest some human thing should come upon her. She tied up +bedclothes, and opened long-closed cupboards. She made careful piles of +clothing from the attic; and finally, her mind a little tired, she sat +down on the floor and began looking over papers and daguerreotypes from +her father's desk. Just as she had lost herself in the ancient history +of which they were the signs, there came a knock at the back door. So +assured had become her idea of a continued housekeeping, that the +summons did not seem in the least strange. The house lived again; it +had thrown open its arms to human kind. + +"Come in!" she called; and a light step sounded in the kitchen and +crossed the sill. It was a man, dark-eyed and very handsome. "Oh!" +murmured Dilly, catching her breath and holding both hands clasped upon +the papers in her lap. "Jethro!" + +The stranger was much moved, and his black eyes deepened. He looked at +her kindly, perhaps lovingly, too. "Yes," he said, at last. "So you'd +know me?" + +Dilly got lightly up, and the papers fell about her in a shower; yet +she made no motion toward him. "Oh, yes," she said softly, "I should +know you. You ain't changed at all." + +That was not true. He looked ten years older than his real age; yet +time had only dowered him with a finer grace and charm. All the lines +in his face were those of gentleness and truth. His mouth had the old +delicate curves. One meeting him that day might have said, with a throb +of involuntary homage, "How beautiful he must have been when he was +young!" But to Dilly he bore even a more subtile distinction than in +that far-away time; he had ripened into something harmonizing with her +own years. He came forward a little, and held out both hands; but Dilly +did not take them, and he dropped the left one. Then she laid her +fingers lightly in his, and they greeted each other like old +acquaintances. A flush rose in her smooth brown cheek. Her eyes grew +bright with that startled questioning which is of the woods. He looked +at her the more intently, and his breath quickened. She had none of the +blossomy charm of more robust womanhood; but he recognized the old +gypsy element which had once bewitched him, and felt he loved her +still. + +"Well," he said, and his voice shook a little, "are you glad to see +me?" + +Dilly moved back, and sat down in her mother's little sewing-chair by +the desk. "I don't know as I can tell," she answered. "This is a +strange day." + +Jethro nodded. "I meant to surprise you," he said. "So I never wrote I +was coming on so soon. I was real disappointed to find your house shut +up; but the neighbors told me where you'd gone, and what you'd gone +for. Then I walked over here." + +Dilly's face brightened all over with a responsive smile. "Did you come +through the woods?" she asked. "What made you?" + +"Why, I knew you'd go that way," he answered. "I thought you'd get +wool-gathering over some weed or another, and maybe I'd overtake you." + +They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and +gathered a drawer-full of papers into her apron. + +"I can't stop workin'," she said. "I want to fix it so's not to stay +here more 'n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run +'em over an' listen too." + +"I think 't was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom's folks," +said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as +if it were an omen, in her father's great chair. "Not that you'll ever +need it, Dilly. You won't want for a thing. I've done real well." + +Dilly's long fingers assorted papers and laid them at either side, with +a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the +quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to +its habits. + +"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I +did--why, I'd resk it!" + +Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, +half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet +she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same. + +"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, +if ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars +run by your door, and you can hire two girls." + +"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as +a shadow sweeps across the field. + +"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I +said?" + +Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive. + +"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind. +"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how 't would be. I +never spec'lated much on keepin' house." + +"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling +on her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, +and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, +Dilly,--you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things." + +Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked +swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the +orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. +Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. +That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was +the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew +the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. +She knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a +pursuit. She turned about, and came back to her chair. + +"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But +it don't make no matter. You're contented with it." + +"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got +enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in +with it, too." + +Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She +was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in +her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very +spurious thing when there is nothing to say. + +"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly. + +Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was +thinkin'," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was +so sweet,--"I was thinkin' you make me homesick, somehow or another." + +Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he +smiled also. + +"I don't believe it's me," he said, confidently. "It's because you're +going over things here. It's the old house." + +"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But +I don't know. I never had quite such feelin's before. It's the nearest +to bein' afraid of anything I've come acrost. I guess I shall have to +run out into the lot an' take my bearin's." + +Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room. +He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory +that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules. + +"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last +drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in +excitement. "You don't know, I ain't begun to tell you, how queer it +seems to me. Why, I've dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come +nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all +knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood 'round me, +ready to uphold me in what I was doin'. I shouldn't be surprised if +they were all here now. I don't feel a mite alone." + +Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro +came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine +hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with +a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines. + +"There, poor girl!" he said, "you're tired thinking about it. No wonder +you've got fancies. I guess the ghosts won't trouble us. There's +nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, +Dilly felt homesick and alone. + +There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she +turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet +slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her +feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had +seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded +forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed +to exude kindliness as she came. + +"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain't jest like you!" she exclaimed. +"Creep in here an' not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? +Recognize you! Well, I guess I should!" + +She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very +grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down +and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other +voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the +intercourse of a life so sadly changed. + +"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You're tired +to pieces with this pickin' and sortin', an' you're comin' over to +dinner, both on ye. Eli's dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. _He_ +wouldn't ha' done it; you know that, Dilly! An' I've been beatin' up +eggs. Now don't you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you +got a watch? You see't she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away +victorious, her apron over her head, and waving one hand before her as +she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as +this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange +dooryards. + +Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn +significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper +persons. She thought of her bread and butter and boiled eggs, lying in +her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it +were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars +going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car +meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove +her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made +her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever +on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, +and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, +they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike's. + +The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an +unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it +choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of +housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; +and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife +and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his +mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as +possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the +empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again. + +The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very +loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was +the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her +knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside +in the jessamine, and a humming-bird--there had always been one, year +after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was +the same bird--hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings +divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a +sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs. +Pike's again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch +herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told +her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, +bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon +her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and +another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he +meant to be married. + +"Soon," said Jethro, with assurance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her +mind." + +All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the +talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill's song from +the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside +him. He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when +half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given +the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but +Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops +down to her own home. + +At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great +blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as +she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, +suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was +forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For +she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long spaces of +silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little +animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves. +Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably +precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches +lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, +thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed +to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of +meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should +pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, +until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to +approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of +unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned +her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to +the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the +greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to +Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped +softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the +shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement +thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not +wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her +feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that +she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird +note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his +tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed +to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she +hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, +and shut the door behind her. + +As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room where the old desk stood +in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her +confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness. +She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, +in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her +wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She +drew forward her father's chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious +abandonment, to rest. Her mother's little cricket was by her side, and +she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. + +Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there +fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight +and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware +that the Joyces were all about her. + +She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and +cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their +bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that +they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, +and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and +women, face to face. There was the shoemaker among them, who, +generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle +of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out +into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a +loud voice upon Almighty God to save him from ill-doing. Then he had +drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but +a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not +think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered +among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself +rather than go to war. But here he stood--was it the man, or some +secret intelligence of him?--and Dilly, out of all his race, was the +one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of passionate sympathy, +how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how +the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he +fled away and prayed his God to save him from mortal guilt,--and how, +finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of anticipated +slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, +he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And +Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake. + +There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and +wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the +island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be +beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, +who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the +pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her +for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in +the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the +poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and +faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern +use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was +not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering +gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that +all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her +whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. +It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul +does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret +core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way. + +There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and to the disgust of +her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the +world found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency +herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one +night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying +hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; +that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in +one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of +Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that +she was of those who overcome. + +So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had +never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they +had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one +drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of +life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There +was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom +she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an +infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she +smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She +thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating +huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she +remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been +lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how +the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there +is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer +life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and +she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, +whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood. + +The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly +felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now +she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she +understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a +case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in +his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how +that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but +theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long +passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, +waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not +him, but his inheritance. + +Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a +clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her +eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with +a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no +longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were +hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she +closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, +and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We +know, you and we!" As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just +going to milking, with clusters of shining pails. + +"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!" + +"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who +carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" +And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran +up to smooth her tumbled bed. + +After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly +called Jethro softly to one side. + +"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you." + +Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and +Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and +caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be +quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a +child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest +tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him. + +"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married." + +He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of +bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand. + +"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again +Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence. + +"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much. But +it's your folks I care about. It ain't you. I've found it all out, +Jethro. Things don't al'ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them +that have gone before; an' half the time we don't know it." + +Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. "You're all tired out," he said +soothingly. "Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire +somebody. I'll be glad to." + +But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. "You're real good, Jethro," +she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her +old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. "But I don't feel +tired, an' I ain't a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to +town with Eli--he's goin' after he feeds the pigs--an' take the cars +from there. It's all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain't so sorry as I +might be; for it's borne in on me you won't care this way long. An' you +needn't, dear; for nothin' between us is changed a mite. The only +trouble is, it ain't the kind of thing we thought." + +She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned +away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and +beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the +house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces +had done their work, and she was doing hers. + + + + +THE WAY OF PEACE + + +It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat +down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still +clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had +been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the +cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their +own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and +brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their +solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on +leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the +funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the +very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient +sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A +little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier +than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then +Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly +office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can +only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing +away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then +deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to +pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but +that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the +moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put +things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was +then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace. + +Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it +was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was +standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking +over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he +told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper +lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes +were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of +herself in the glass. + +"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!" + +And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before +disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery +there. + +"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I +shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!" + +Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided +in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its +other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair, +and moaned a little to herself. + +"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I +never can bear it in the world!" + +The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold +in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the +inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a +little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, +coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always +been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and +held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a +great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with +accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart, +in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the +stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking +about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There +again she caught sight of herself in the glass. + +"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a +fullness, of joy. + +Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more +and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched +out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how +to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her +mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a +pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her +thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock +after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self. +But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp +silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and +coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older +face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all +suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had +gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have +kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She +did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to +think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that +instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful +portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the +closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched. +Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off +her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on +her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to +wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the +deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a +wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; +this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another +life as well. + +"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself. +"Them are the ones to be put aside." + +She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again, +her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a +pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face +to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded +her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely +any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the +tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be +afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and +likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not +seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. + +They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being +worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, +stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her +unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of +evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back +against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with +one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!" + +Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him. + +"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git +along, if I could look a little mite like her." + +John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment. + +"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?" + +"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble +mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. +Well, I _am_ pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down +Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I +can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can +git along." + +They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John +had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. + +When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he +never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The +other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the +funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to +fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So, +though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, +he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be +when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. +She'd got to looking a good deal like mother. + +They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting +a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a +low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from +that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither +would have been surprised. + +"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came +crackling at them. + +"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got +into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most +burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a +real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I +laughed--an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o' +picked it out a-purpose." + +John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it +was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it. + +"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to +do?" + +Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that. +She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage. + +"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to +pull through on." + +"Yes, but where you goin' to live?" + +"Here." + +"Alone?" + +"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At +that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made +themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love. + +John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with +which his soul did not accord. + +"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say +you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will +have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she +should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your +home with us." + +"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I +ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she +could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me. +Why, John, this is my home!" + +Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy +mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth +and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the +hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk +the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both +would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her: +but she belonged to it as well. + +John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent +him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also, +wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been +sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its +dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly +judgment he could only yield. + +"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I +don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an' +there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit? +That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be +done." + +Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold +beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an +innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to +judge. + +"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got +to?" + +"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his +eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?" + +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never +could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up +yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might." + +John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned +forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made +her last condition. + +"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't +ask me to break up nuthin'?" + +"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you +needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me." + +So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that +had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her +visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her +mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the +window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her +about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy +notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade +than a strange by-path taken by nature itself. + +The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann +"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to +say, with her happiest smile,-- + +"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't +ever forget her." + +Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a +way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind; +but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit +mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the +time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone. +A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as +the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a +sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had +happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she +had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so +many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there +she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours +would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her +hands folded, communing with old memories. + +The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal, +packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John +stood by her, and she was allowed to go. + +"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be +glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've +got to come back an' spend the winter." + +Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently +remote; and the winter was not yet here. + +The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in +Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains, +the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be +done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in +the face, and learn its lineaments. + +Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with +an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those +who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his +luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well +with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear, +could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went +to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but +still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His +cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary +with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not +arrived, and John was at the goal before him. + +"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann. +"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for +us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used +to over there." + +"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to." + +It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone. + +"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room +gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." + +It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in +Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as +she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in +like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she +would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the +first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at +night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted +to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason +for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the +flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might +feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner +resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out +on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while +she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh. + +"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he. + +A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely. + +"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence +August." + +John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to +illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann +and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there. + +"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a +visitor." + +"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been +a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else." + +But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own +house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned +that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a +looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him +good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for +getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as +"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the +door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had +ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch +her shawled arms pathetically upward. + +"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a +great experience. + +She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the +things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to +cling. + +"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no +more." + +Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like +children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who +may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a +programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In +one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her +pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She +felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its +best. + +"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could +hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like +those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season. +Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the +roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers +past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and +leaned out. + +"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she +called. "The barn's open." + +John was in a hurry. + +"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he. +"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night +before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to +breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good +time with them." + +John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann +stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls, +and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and +sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and +thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to +be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones +in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there +were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and +confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they +were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply +touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner +self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of +nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the +patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though +the savor of the task was gone. + +Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she +sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy, +and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda +and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very +important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household +goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's +would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter +itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her +deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay. +Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that +time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all. + +It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She +thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks: +so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground, +and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a +wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins. + +"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?" + +"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin' +to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the +post-office." + +"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I +meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day +with us. I'll come over arter you." + +"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his +lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.". + +"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh. +"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle +end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well, +John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll +git more'n you would with us." + +He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing. +She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared. + +It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer +way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood, +prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long +memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store +smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its +fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to +be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her +lips opened to words she had not chosen:-- + +"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest +flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer. +Ezra's asked me to go there." + +"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he? +Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry, +Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without +you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They +can't seem to understand the difference." + +"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it +as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange, +excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way +before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own +volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice +time." + +She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward +to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody +had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and +now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her +mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference. + +"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I +might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for +some Thanksgivin' things? + +"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your +credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time. + +"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some +cinnamon an' some mace--there! I'll tell you, while you weigh." + +It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world; +and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay, +the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its +market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It +could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she +left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with +bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them. + +"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to _you_. Jest leave +the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too +often." + +She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and +swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by +over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in +joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be +flying on the wings of a fortunate wind. + +All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable +steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they +love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was +going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day +with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:-- + +"Oh, John's invited me there!" + +All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful +hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had +many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be +told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within +hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time. +Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she +sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up +piteously and say aloud:-- + +"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the +pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she +was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant. + +Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter +savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature +cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a +sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all +their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she +recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed +as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through +that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable +sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a +personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed +by memory as well as hope. + +On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because +that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house, +and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the +day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now +they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the +sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church. +Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient +questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would +stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The +morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made +the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but +there had to be just so many--onions, turnips, and squash baked with +molasses--for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of +dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a +curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that +it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when +dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her +anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She +ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did +not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. +She was at home; that was enough. + +After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen +without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's +beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left +behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy +Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the +wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself +in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl +adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a +more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved +herself. + +"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody +ever had." + +The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always +gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding +of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or +the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, +and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case +containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little +distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, +nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In +herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours +slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though +it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came +rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice, +calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had +had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John +kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down, +unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story, +and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise. + +"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all +right." + +Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood +there, gently welcoming. + +"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that +ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan +it?" + +"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on +Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's +poplin, she forbore. + +Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in +after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the +brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way +behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak. + +"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I +should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks +thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over +there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha' +gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've +been, all day long, in this lonesome house!" + +"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your +things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the +table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did +not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney, +more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in +the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was +the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very +capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting +on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face. + +"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way," +said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha' +spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest +wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the +track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or +not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it." + +Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"-- + +"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She +wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you, +Lucy?" + +Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile. + +"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it. + +But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt +unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back. + +"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but +you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go +round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've +all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should +make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my +visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. +An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile +breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter +her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got +more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' +fruit-cake, a year old." + +Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner +of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and +Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the +children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw +themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room +became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a +swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie +between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no +moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little +John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her +poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear. + +"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?" + + + + +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + + +Tiverton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about +naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation +felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from +spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an +assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an +excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion +by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with +overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an +enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives +had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere +shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, +pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the +desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire +of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or +the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with +awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their +bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a +puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was +their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed +evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an +intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of +the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had +strangely transformed itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology +and the breath of an unknown world. But though sobered, they were not +cast down; for the occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a +heaven-defying profligacy of intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy +Forbes had in his pocket a pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by +wicked but careless design, just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and +that Tom Drake was master of a concealed pea-shooter, which he had +sworn, with all the asseverations held sacred by boys, to use at some +dramatic moment. All the band were aware that neither of these daring +deeds would be done. The prospective actors themselves knew it; but it +was a darling joy to contemplate the remote possibility thereof. + +Deacon Pitts opened, the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious +a privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His +companion had not been able to come. (The entire neighborhood knew that +Mrs. Pitts had been laid low by an attack of erysipelas, and that she +was, at the moment, in a dark bedroom at home, helpless under +elderblow.) + +"She lays there on a bed of pain," said the deacon. "But she says to +me, 'You go. Better the house o' mournin' than the house o' feastin',' +she says. Oh, my friends! what can be more blessed than the counsel of +an aged and feeble companion?" + +The deacon sat down, and Tom Drake, his finger on the pea-shooter, +assured himself, in acute mental triumph, that he had almost done it +that time. + +Then followed certain incidents eminently pleasing to the boys. To +their unbounded relief, Sarah Frances Giles rose to speak, weeping as +she began. She always wept at prayer meeting, though at the very moment +of asserting her joy that she cherished a hope, and her gratitude that +she was so nearly at an end of this earthly pilgrimage and ready to +take her stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The boys reveled +in her testimony. They were in a state of bitter uneasiness before she +rose, and gnawed with a consuming impatience until she began to cry. +Then they wondered if she could possibly leave out the sea of glass; +and when it duly came, they gave a sigh of satiated bliss and sank into +acquiescence in whatever might happen. This was a rich occasion to +their souls, for Silas Marden, who was seldom moved by the spirit, fell +upon his knees to pray; but at the same unlucky instant, his +sister-in-law, for whom he cherished an unbounded scorn, rose (being +"nigh-eyed" and ignorant of his priority) and began to speak. For a +moment, the two held on together, "neck and neck," as the happy boys +afterward remembered, and then Silas got up, dusted his knees, and sat +down, not to rise again at any spiritual call. "An' a madder man you +never see," cried all the Hollow next day, in shocked but gleeful +memory. + +Taking it all in all, the meeting had thus far mirrored others of its +class. If the droning experiences were devoid of all human passion, it +was chiefly because they had to be expressed in the phrases of strict +theological usage. There was an unspoken agreement that feelings of +this sort should be described in a certain way. They were not the +affairs of the hearth and market; they were matters pertaining to that +awful entity called the soul, and must be dressed in the fine linen +which she had herself elected to wear. + +Suddenly, in a wearisome pause, when minds had begun to stray toward +the hayfield and tomorrow's churning, the door was pushed open, and the +Widow Prime walked in. She was quite unused to seeking her kind, and +the little assembly at once awoke, under the stimulus of surprise. They +knew quite well where she had been walking: to Sudleigh Jail, to visit +her only son, lying there for the third time, not, as usual, for +drunkenness, but for house-breaking. She was a wiry woman, a mass of +muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with +clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking, +and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the +marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and +her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The +vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like +that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very +bitter--so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after +undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A +quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was +"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every +professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for +which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old +conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like +creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their +own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could +they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God +and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key +of the unexpected. + +"Has any one an experience to offer? Will any brother or sister lead in +prayer?" + +The silence was growing into a thing to be recognized and conquered, +when, to the wonder of her neighbors, Hannah Prime herself rose, She +looked slowly about the room, gazing into every face as if to challenge +an honest understanding. Then she began speaking in a low voice +thrilled by an emotion not yet explained. Unused to expressing herself +in public, she seemed to be feeling her way. The silence, pride, +endurance, which had been her armor for many years, were no longer +apparent; she had thrown down all her defenses with a grave composure, +as if life suddenly summoned her to higher issues. + +"I dunno's I've got an experience to offer," she said. "I dunno's it's +religion. I dunno what 'tis. Mebbe you'd say it don't belong to a +meetin'. But when I come by an' see you all settin' here, it come over +me I'd like to tell somebody. Two weeks ago I was most crazy"--She +paused of necessity, for something broke in her voice. + +"That's the afternoon Jim was took," whispered a woman to her neighbor. +Hannah Prime went on. + +"I jest as soon tell it now. I can tell ye all together what I couldn't +say to one on ye alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it +afterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. +I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I +set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the +clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought +I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to +death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, +seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got up an' run outdoor jest as fast as +I could go. I run out behind the house an' down the cart-path to that +pile o' rocks that overlooks the lake; an' there I got out o' breath +an' dropped down on a big rock. An' there I set, jest as still as I'd +been settin' when I was in the house." + +Here a little girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward +and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. +afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I +thought, if I heard a pin drop, I should scream." + +"I dunno how long I set there," went on Hannah Prime, "but byme-by it +begun to come over me how still the lake was. 'Twas like glass; an' way +over where it runs in 'tween them islands, it burnt like fire. Then I +looked up a little further, to see what kind of a sky there was. 'T was +light green, with clouds in it, all fire, an' it begun to seem to me as +if it was a kind o' land an' water up there--like our'n, on'y not +solid. I set there an' looked at it; an' I picked out islands, an' +ma'sh-land, an' p'ints running out into the yeller-green sea. An' +everything grew stiller an' stiller. The loons struck up, down on the +lake, with that kind of a lonesome whinner; but that on'y made the rest +of it seem quieter. An' it begun to grow dark all 'round me. I dunno 's +I ever noticed before jest how the dark comes. It sifted down like +snow, on'y you couldn't see it. Well, I set there, an' I tried to keep +stiller an' stiller, like everything else. Seemed as if I must. An' +pretty soon I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' +my eyes on the sky; for I knew 't would break suthin' if I turned my +head, an' I felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', +walkin', without takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come +right up 'side o' me an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I +mustn't. I dunno whether It touched me; I dunno whether It said +anything--but I know It made me a new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't +be afraid o' things no more--nor sorry. I found out 't was all right. +'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been +dead for the last twenty year. I'd come alive. + +"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno +how long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun +to fade. An' then it come over me 't was goin'. I knew 't was terrible +tender of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I +won't forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned +an' see my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side +of it. Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home +without lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah +Prime, looking her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I +dunno what 't was, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' +I ain't goin' to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's +bigger'n we think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and +moved toward the door. There she again turned to her neighbors. + +"Good-night!" she said, and was gone. + +They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating +on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly +out. There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not +sung. + + + + +HONEY AND MYRRH + + +The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow +drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying +wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid +banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The +lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with +which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely +lives. The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned +curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted +over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a +fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and +flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch +swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all +hidden away. + +That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save +to shovel paths, and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched +until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion +for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by +the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the +men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking +swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath +ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton +Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way +of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an +exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. + +By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened +by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the +less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as +one man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind +in the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the +county paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another +stick of wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and +in the evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red +flannel in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the +tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass, and that +their communication with the world was reestablished. + +Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young +schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard, +at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. +There was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was +going to be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always +receiving through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, +the postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs +might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with +photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very +well understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a +week, was an interlude in the life of one who would some day write a +spelling-book, or exercise senatorial rights at Washington. He was a +long-legged, pleasant looking youth, with a pale cheek, dark eyes, and +thick black hair, one lock of which, hanging low over his forehead, he +twisted while he read. He kept glancing up at Miss Susan and smiling at +her, whenever he could look away from his book and the fire, and she +smiled back. At last, after many such wordless messages, he spoke. + +"What lots of red mittens you do knit! Do you send them all away to +that society?" + +Miss Susan's needles clicked. + +"Every one," said she. + +She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her +head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness +better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great +cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a +mystery she had not turned out "gormin'." But that was because Susan +had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs +and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was +strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked +frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick +always delighted in Susan's nearness; her magnificent health and +presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor +air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She +rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm. + +"I shall call you the Orphans' Friend," said he. + +She laid down her work. + +"Don't you say one word," she answered, with an air of abject +confession. "It don't interest me a mite! I give because it's my +bounden duty, but I'll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my +life, an' fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to +provide folks with what they don't need ruther'n what they do." + +"I don't see what you mean," said the schoolmaster. "Tell me." + +Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of +firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine +knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under +her feet, and settled herself to gossip. + +"Anybody'd think I'd most talked myself out sence you come here to +board," said she, "but you're the beatemest for tolin' anybody on. I +never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if +there's anybody 't wants to listen. I never've said this to a livin' +soul, an' I guess it's sort o' heathenish to think, but I'm tired to +death o' fightin' ag'inst poverty, poverty! I s'pose it's there, fast +enough, though we're all so well on 't we don't realize it; an' I'm +goin' to do my part, an' be glad to, while I'm above ground. But I +guess heaven'll be a spot where we don't give folks what they need, but +what they don't." + +"There is something in your Bible," began the schoolmaster +hesitatingly, "about a box of precious ointment." He always said "your +Bible," as if church members held a proprietary right. + +"That's it!" replied Miss Susan, brightening. "That's what I al'ays +thought. Spill it all out, I say, an' make the world smell as sweet as +honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin' here by the fire alone! +Great projicks!" + +"Tell me some! + +"Well, I dunno's I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits +along towards eight o'clock, an' the room's all simmerin', an' the moon +lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec' +out o' life. We don't seem to have no color in it. Why, don't you +remember 'Solomon in all his glory'? I guess 't wouldn't ha' been put +in jest that way if there wa'n't somethin' in it. I s'pose he had +crowns an' rings an' purple velvet coats an' brocade satin weskits, an' +all manner o' things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin' +straight in through that door there." She was running a knitting needle +back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing +that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone +outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed +open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in. + +"My land!" cried Miss Susan, aghast. Then she and the schoolmaster, by +one accord, began to laugh. + +But the man did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his +feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the +legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag +he had been carrying. + +"I guess I trailed it through some o' the drifts," he remarked. "The +road's pretty narrer, this season o' the year." + +"You give us a real start," said Susan. "We thought be sure 'twas +Solomon, an' mebbe the Queen o' Sheba follerin' arter. Why, Solon +Slade, you ain't walked way over to Tiverton Street!" + +"Yes, I have," asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, +possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was +Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, +but hadn't no more spunk 'n a wet rag. + +Susan had risen and laid down her knitting. She approached the table +and rested one hand on it, a hawk-like brightness in her eyes. + +"What you got in that bag?" asked she. + +Solon was enjoying his certainty that he held the key to the situation. + +"I got a mite o' cheese," he answered, approaching the fire and +spreading his hands to the blaze. + +"You got anything else? Now, Solon, don't you keep me here on +tenter-hooks! You got a letter?" + +"Well," said Solon, "I thought I might as well look into the +post-office an' see." + +"You thought so! You went a-purpose! An' you walked because you al'ays +was half shackled about takin' horses out in bad goin'. You hand me +over that letter!" + +Solon approached the table, a furtive twinkle in his blue eyes. He +lifted the bag and opened it slowly. First, he took out a wedge-shaped +package. + +"That's the cheese," said he. "Herb." + +"My land!" ejaculated Miss Susan, while the schoolmaster looked on and +smiled. "You better ha' come to me for cheese. I've got a plenty, tansy +an' sage, an' you know it. I see it! There! you gi' me holt on 't!" It +was a fugitive white gleam in the bottom of the bag; she pounced upon +it and brought up a letter. Midway in the act of tearing it open, she +paused and looked at Solon with droll entreaty. "It's your letter, by +rights!" she added tentatively. + +"Law!" said he, "I dunno who it's directed to, but I guess it's as much +your'n as anybody's." + +Miss Susan spread open the sheets with an air of breathless delight. +She bent nearer the lamp. "'Dear father and auntie,'" she began. + +"There!" remarked Solon, in quiet satisfaction, still warming his hands +at the blaze. "There! you see _'tis_ to both." + +"My! how she does run the words together! Here!" Miss Susan passed it +to the schoolmaster. "You read it. It's from Jenny. You know she's away +to school, an' we didn't think best for her to come home Christmas. I +knew she'd write for Christmas. Solon, I told you so!" + +The schoolmaster took the letter, and read it aloud. It was a simple +little message, full of contentment and love and a girl's new delight +in life. When he had finished, the two older people busied themselves a +moment without speaking, Solon in picking up a chip from the hearth, +and Susan in mechanically smoothing the mammoth roses on the side of +the carpetbag. + +"Well, I 'most wish we'd had her come home," said he at last, clearing +his throat. + +"No, you don't either," answered Miss Susan promptly. "Not with this +snow, an' comin' out of a house where it's het up, into cold beds an' +all. Now I'm goin' to git you a mite o' pie an' some hot tea." + +She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon +silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for +company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and +she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his +panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began +clearing up. + +"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. +"S'pose he should be sick in the night!" + +"You'd got over," answered the schoolmaster easily. + +"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?" + +"Oh, you'd know it! You 're that sort." + +Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent +anxiety. She came back to her knitting. + +"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster. + +"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence +September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull +pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the +house from sunrise to set." + +"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now +let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all +the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just +the ones they'd like." + +Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the +schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to +sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air. + +"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the +turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed +away up garret, an' lives like a pig." + +"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'" + +"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all +winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't +she'd got to walk on." + +"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal +now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries." + +"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's +temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple? +Why, the nails was all gold. Don't you wish we'd lived in them times? +Jest think about the wood they had--cedars o' Lebanon an' fir-trees. +You know how he set folks to workin' in the mountains. I've al'ays +thought I'd like to ben up on them mountains an' heard the axes ringin' +an' listened to the talk. An' then there was pomegranates an' cherubim, +an' as for silver an' gold, they were as common as dirt. When I was a +little girl, I learnt them chapters, an' sometimes now, when I'm +settin' by the fire, I say over that verse about the 'man of Tyre, +skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, +and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson.' +My! ain't it rich?" + +She drew a long breath of surfeited enjoyment. The schoolmaster's eyes +burned under his heavy brows. + +"Then things smelt so good in them days," continued Miss Susan. "They +had myrrh an' frankincense, an' I dunno what all. I never make my +mincemeat 'thout snuffin' at the spice-box to freshen up my mind. No +matter where I start, some way or another I al'ays git back to Solomon. +Well, if Cap'n Ben wants to see foreign countries, I guess he'd be +glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick--that big +one thereby you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if +I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set +the chimbly afire as not!" + +There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It +exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the +ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own +panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and +perished. + +"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the +world?" + +"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can +fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n +if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen, +kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious +stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't +would look." + +"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,--what should we have?" + +"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey--an'--but that's as fur as I +can git." + +The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he +said musically:-- + + ... "'a heap + Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; + With jellies soother than the creamy curd, + And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; + Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd + From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, + From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.'" + +"Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain't like the Bible, but it's +nice." + +They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and +burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan +came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor. + +"There!" said she, "sometimes I think it's most sinful to make believe, +it's so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when +Solon comes for the pigs' kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself +sayin', 'Here's the frankincense!'" + +They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He +paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again. + +"There are lots of people we haven't provided for," he said. "We +haven't even thought what we'd give Jenny." + +"I guess Jenny's got her heart's desire." Miss Susan nodded sagely. +"I've sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an' pickles and cheese. She's +all fixed out." + +The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then +he spoke, somewhat timidly, "What should you like to give her father?" + +Miss Susan's face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled +upon her eyes like haze. + +"Well," said she, "I guess whatever I should give him'd only make him +laugh." + +"Flowers--and velvet--and honey--and myrrh?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Susan with gravity. "Perhaps it's jest as well +some things ain't to be had at the shops." + +The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door. + +"We never can tell," he said. "It may be people want things awfully +without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They'd better laugh than +cry. _I_ should give all I could. Good-night." + +Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the +hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on +too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out +the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a +moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The +visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with +a tumultuous emotion--the sense that life might be very fair and +shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The +loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; +they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare. + +Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was +still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire, +and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white +day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale +winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the +heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her +a wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, +all the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. +She went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little +scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the +schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she +hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the +work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up +to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the +rose. The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her +than all. She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed +meagre still, broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and +disposed the flowers hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling +and good; it spoke to the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she +rolled the flowers in her apron from the frost, and stepped out into +the brilliant day. The little cross-track between her house and the +other was snowed up; but she took the road and, hurrying between banks +of carven whiteness, went up Solon's path to the side door. She walked +in upon him where he was standing over the kitchen stove, warming his +hands at the first blaze. Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of +the stinging air, but she had the look of one who, living by a larger +law, has banished the foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to +him and proffered him her flowers. + +"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these." + +Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both +hands and took them awkwardly. + +"Well!" he said, "Well!" + +Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the +world was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give +all you choose, while nobody is the wiser. + +"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He +laid them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked +over to Pine Hill to pick you some mayflowers, when you was gittin' +over the lung fever?" + +She nodded. + +"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old +scores an' begin all over?" + +"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the +face with her brilliant smile. + +"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed +you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked +her, I thought 't was you." + +"Yes, I knew that well enough I was in the buttery and heard it all. +There, le's not talk about it." + +Solon came a step nearer. + +"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like +it." + +"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no +further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry +chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out, +walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon, +regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her. +Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all +over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He +forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and +snow. It was the spring of the year. + +When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and +was putting a stick of wood into the stove. + +"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you." + +A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was +always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious. + +"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance +of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers. +They were white and wonderful. + +"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the +schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than +I; but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I +should like to have you keep this." + +Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to +fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she +murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin' +over to breakfast." + + + + +A SECOND MARRIAGE + + +Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round, +consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a +steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a +snatching flame below. It was exactly a year and a day since her +husband's death, and she had packed herself away in his own corner of +the settle, her hands clasped across her knees, and her red-brown eyes +brooding on the nearer embers. She was not definitely speculating on +her future, nor had she any heart for retracing the dull and gentle +past. She had simply relaxed hold on her mind; and so, escaping her, it +had gone wandering off into shadowy prophecies of the immediate years. +For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months, +since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not +old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how +free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of +her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black +hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had +once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray. +All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the +possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a +new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over. + +It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to +bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen +hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone +creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of +the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped +down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until +that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle +held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke. + +Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of +the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and +burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living. To-night, +under the spell of some vague expectancy, she had sat still for a long +time, her sewing laid aside and her room scrupulously in order. She was +waiting for what was not to be acknowledged even to her own intimate +self. But as the clock struck nine, she roused herself, and shook off +her mood in impatience and a disappointment which she would not own. +She looked about the room, as she often had of late, and began to +enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it +changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she +only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had +done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other +house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the +prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept +his precisely as his grandfather had left it to him. Amelia had never +once complained; she had observed toward her husband an unfailing +deference, due, she felt, to his twenty years' seniority; perhaps, +also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him +for having married him without love. It was her father who made the +match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by +parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably +born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He +had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows +sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power--gone +home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine +anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man +who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, +but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and +Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and +remained unmarried. + +Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture, +as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there +together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart +to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient +bitterness,--to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be +exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace +should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in +shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock--But +at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia +threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet. +She clasped her hands in a spontaneous gesture of rapt attention; and +when the sound paused at her gate, with one or two sweet, lingering +clingles, "I knew it!" she said aloud. Yet she did not go to the window +to look into the moonlit night. Standing there in the middle of the +room, she awaited the knock which was not long in coming. It was +imperative, insistent. Amelia, who had a spirit responsive to the +dramatic exigencies of life, felt a little flush spring into her face, +so hot that, on the way to the door, she involuntarily put her hand to +her cheek and held it there. The door came open grumblingly. It sagged +upon the hinges, but, well-used to its vagaries, she overcame it with a +regardless haste. + +"Come in," she said, at once, to the man on the step. "It's cold. Oh, +come in!" + +He stepped inside the entry, removing his fur cap, and disclosing a +youthful face charged with that radiance which made him, at +thirty-five, almost the counterpart of his former self. It may have +come only from the combination of curly brown hair, blue eyes, and an +aspiring lift of the chin, but it always seemed to mean a great deal +more. In the kitchen, he threw off his heavy coat, while Amelia, +bright-eyed and breathing quickly, stood by, quite silent. Then he +looked at her. + +"You expected me, didn't you?" he asked. + +A warmer color surged into her cheeks. "I didn't know," she said +perversely. + +"I guess you did. It's one day over a year. You knew I'd wait a year." + +"It ain't a year over the services," said Amelia, trying to keep the +note of vital expectancy out of her voice. "It won't be that till +Friday." + +"Well, Saturday I'll come again." He went over to the fire and +stretched out his hands to the blaze, "Come here," he said +imperatively, "while I talk to you." + +Amelia stepped forward obediently, like a good little child. The old +fascination was still as dominant as at its birth, sixteen years ago. +She realized, with a strong, splendid sense of the eternity of things, +that always, even while it would have been treason to recognize it, she +had known how ready it was to rise and live again. All through her +married years, she had sternly drugged it and kept it sleeping. Now it +had a right to breathe, and she gloried in it. + +"I said to myself I wouldn't come to-day," went on Laurie, without +looking at her. A new and excited note had come into his voice, +responsive to her own. He gazed down at the fire, musing the while he +spoke. "Then I found I couldn't help it. That's why I'm so late. I +stayed in the shop till seven, and some fellows come in and wanted me +to play. I took up the fiddle, and begun. But I hadn't more'n drew a +note before I laid it down and put for the door. 'Dick, you keep shop,' +says I. And I harnessed up, and drove like the devil." + +Amelia felt warm with life and hope; she was taking up her youth just +where the story ended. + +"You ain't stopped swearin' yet!" she remarked, with a little excited +laugh. Then, from an undercurrent of exhilaration, it occurred to her +that she had never laughed so in all these years. + +"Well," said Laurie abruptly, turning upon her, "how am I goin' to +start out? Shall we hark back to old scores? I know what come between +us. So do you. Have we got to talk it out, or can we begin now?" + +"Begin now," replied Amelia faintly. Her breath choked her. He +stretched out his arms to her in sudden passion. His hands touched her +sleeves and, with an answering rapidity of motion, she drew back. She +shrank within herself, and her face gathered a look of fright. "No! no! +no!" she cried strenuously. + +His arms fell at his sides, and he looked at her in amazement. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +Amelia had retreated, until she stood now with one hand on the table. +She could not look at him, and when she answered, her voice shook. + +"There's nothin' the matter," she answered. "Only you mustn't--yet." + +A shade of relief passed over his face, and he smiled. + +"There, there!" he said, "never you mind. I understand. But if I come +over the last of the week, I guess it will be different. Won't it be +different, Milly?" + +"Yes," she owned, with a little sob in her throat, "it will be +different." + +Thrown out of his niche of easy friendliness with circumstance, he +stood there in irritated consciousness that here was some subtile +barrier which he had not foreseen. Ever since John Porter's death, +there had been strengthening in him a joyous sense that Milly's life +and his own must have been running parallel all this time, and that it +needed only a little widening of channels to make them join. His was no +crass certainty of finding her ready to drop into his hand; it was +rather a childlike, warmhearted faith in the permanence of her +affection for him, and perhaps, too, a shrewd estimate of his own +lingering youth compared with John Porter's furrowed face and his +fifty-five years. But now, with this new whiffling of the wind, he +could only stand rebuffed and recognize his own perplexity. + +"You do care, don't you, Milly?" he asked, with a boy's frank ardor. +"You want me to come again?" + +All her own delight in youth and the warm naturalness of life had +rushed back upon her. + +"Yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you the truth. I always did +tell you the truth. I do want you to come." + +"But you don't want me to-night!" He lifted his brows, pursing his lips +whimsically; and Amelia laughed. + +"No," said she, with a little defiant movement of her own crisp head, +"I don't know as I do want you to-night!" + +Laurie shook himself into his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the +door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added +significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got to like me then!" + +Amelia laughed. "I guess there won't be no trouble!" she called after +him daringly. + +She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and +drove away. Then she went shaking back to her fire; but it was not +altogether from cold. The sense of the consistency of love and youth, +the fine justice with which nature was paying an old debt, had raised +her to a stature above her own. She stood there under the mantel, and +held by it while she trembled. For the first time, her husband had gone +utterly out of her life. It was as though he had not been. + +"Saturday!" she said to herself. "Saturday! Three days till then!" + +Next morning, the spring asserted itself,--there came a whiff of wind +from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut +through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin +crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling +drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over +the snow and talked of nests. + +Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her +low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell +hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her +eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No +sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She +throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving +sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung +laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the side-door. The +sled was empty, save for a rocking-chair where sat an enormous woman +enveloped in shawls, her broad face surrounded by a pumpkin hood. Her +dark brown front came low over her forehead, and she wore spectacles +with wide bows, which gave her an added expression of benevolence. She +waved a mittened hand to Amelia when their eyes met, and her heavy face +broke up into smiles. + +"Here I be!" she called in a thick, gurgling voice, as Amelia hastened +out, her apron thrown over her head. "Didn't expect me, did ye? Nobody +looks for an old rheumatic creatur'. She's more out o' the runnin' 'n a +last year's bird's-nest." + +"Why, aunt Ann!" cried Amelia, in unmistakable joy. "I'm tickled to +death to see you. Here, Amos, I'll help get her out." + +The driver, a short, thick-set man of neutral, ashy tints and a +sprinkling of hair and beard, trudged round the oxen and drew the +rocking-chair forward without a word. He never once looked in Amelia's +direction, and she seemed not to expect it; but he had scarcely laid +hold of the chair when aunt Ann broke forth:-- + +"Now, Amos, ain't you goin' to take no notice of 'Melia, no more'n if +she wa'n't here? She ain't a bump on a log, nor you a born fool." + +Amos at once relinquished his sway over the chair, and stood looking +abstractedly at the oxen, who, with their heads low, had already fallen +into that species of day-dream whereby they compensate themselves for +human tyranny. They were waiting for Amos, and Amos, in obedience to +some inward resolve, waited for commotion to cease. + +"If ever I was ashamed, I be now!" continued aunt Ann, still with an +expression of settled good-nature, and in a voice all jollity though +raised conscientiously to a scolding pitch. "To think I should bring +such a creatur' into the world, an' set by to see him treat his own +relations like the dirt under his feet!" + +Amelia laughed. She was exhilarated by the prospect of company, and +this domestic whirlpool had amused her from of old. + +"Law, aunt Ann," she said, "you let Amos alone. He and I are old +cronies. We understand one another. Here, Amos, catch hold! We shall +all get our deaths out here, if we don't do nothin' but stand still and +squabble." + +The immovable Amos had only been awaiting his cue. He lifted the laden +chair with perfect ease to one of the piazza steps, and then to +another; when it had reached the top-most level, he dragged it over +the sill into the kitchen, and, leaving his mother sitting in colossal +triumph by the fire, turned about and took his silent way to the outer +world. + +"Amos," called aunt Ann, "do you mean to say you're goin' to walk out +o' this house without speakin' a civil word to anybody? Do you mean to +say that?" + +"I don't mean to say nothin'," confided Amos to his worsted muffler, as +he took up his goad, and began backing the oxen round. + +Undisturbed and not at all daunted by a reply for which she had not +even listened, aunt Ann raised her voice in cheerful response: "Well, +you be along 'tween three an' four, an' you'll find me ready." + +"Mercy, aunt Ann!" said Amelia, beginning to unwind the visitor's +wraps, "what makes you keep houndin' Amos that way? If he hasn't spoke +for thirty-five years, it ain't likely he's goin' to begin now." + +Aunt Ann was looking about her with an expression of beaming delight in +unfamiliar surroundings. She laughed a rich, unctuous laugh, and +stretched her hands to the blaze. + +"Law," she said contentedly, "of course it ain't goin' to do no good. +Who ever thought 't would? But I've been at that boy all these years to +make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never +shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, +'Melia, you _air_ kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my +bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't a mite cold." + +Amelia was bustling about the fire, her mind full of the possibilities +of a company dinner. + +"How's your limbs?" she asked, while aunt Ann drew out a long stocking, +and began to knit with an amazing rapidity of which her fat fingers +gave no promise. + +"Well, I ain't allowed to forgit 'em very often," she replied +comfortably. "Rheumatiz is my cross, an' I've got to bear it. Sometimes +I wish 't had gone into my hands ruther 'n my feet, an' I could ha' got +round. But there! if 't ain't one thing, it's another. Mis' Eben +Smith's got eight young ones down with the whoopin'-cough. Amos dragged +me over there yisterday; an' when I heerd 'em tryin' to see which could +bark the loudest, I says, 'Give me the peace o' Jerusalem in my own +house, even if I don't stir a step for the next five year no more 'n I +have for the last.' I dunno what 't would be if I hadn't a darter. I've +been greatly blessed." + +The talk went on in pleasant ripples, while Amelia moved back and forth +from pantry to table. She brought out the mixing-board, and began to +put her bread in the pans, while the tin kitchen stood in readiness by +the hearth. The sunshine flooded all the room, and lay insolently on +the paling fire; the Maltese cat sat in the broadest shaft of all, and, +having lunched from her full saucer in the corner, made her second +toilet for the day. + +"'Melia," said aunt Ann suddenly, looking down over her glasses at the +tin kitchen, "ain't it a real cross to bake in that thing?" + +"I always had it in mind to buy me a range," answered Amelia +reservedly, "but somehow we never got to it." + +"That's the only thing I ever had ag'inst John. He was as grand a man +as ever was, but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out +the old things, I say, no more 'n the old folks; but when it comes to +makin' a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, +that beats me." + +"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste, +"only he never knew I wanted it!" + +"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her +ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men. +Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft +as a woman. His mother used to say his eyes'd fill full o' tears when +he broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,--a good +provider an' a good friend." + +Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face +flushed. + +"Yes," she said gently, "he _was_ good." + +"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations, +"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor +why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 'twas +only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's +see what you could do. When you got the range in, 'twould alter this +kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned +mantelpiece in the fore-room?" + +"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had +taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were +ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled. + +"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. +"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down +her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in +her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and +rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in +her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning +conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got +'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and +about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed +to be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never +anything too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a +buffer between her and the doers of her will; and though she might +scold, she never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in +the least to the disease which had practically disabled her. It might +confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of +others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in +her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative +genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She +cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she +asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. +It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually +gave up talking, and thereafter opened his lips only when some +practical exigency was to be filled. But once did he vouchsafe a reason +for that eccentricity. It was in his fifteenth year, as aunt Ann +remembered well, when the minister had called; and Amos, in response to +some remark about his hope of salvation, had looked abstractedly out of +the window. + +"I'd be ashamed," announced aunt Ann, after the minister had +gone,--"Amos, I _would_ be ashamed, if I couldn't open my head to a +minister o' the gospel!" + +"If one head's open permanent in a house, I guess that fills the bill," +said Amos, getting up to seek the woodpile. "I ain't goin' to interfere +with nobody else's contract." + +His mother looked after him with gaping lips, and, for the space of +half an hour, spoke no word. + +To-day she saw before her an alluring field of action; the prospect +roused within her energies, never incapable of responding to a spur. + +"My soul, 'Melia!" she exclaimed, looking about the kitchen with a +dominating eye, "how I should like to git hold o' this house! I al'ays +did have a hankerin' that way, an' I don't mind tellin' ye. You could +change it all round complete." + +"It's a good house," said Amelia evasively, taking quick, even +stitches, but listening hungrily to the voice of outside temptation. It +seemed to confirm all the long-suppressed ambitions of her own heart. + +"You 're left well on 't," continued aunt Ann, her shrewd blue eyes +taking on a speculative look. "I'm glad you sold the stock. A woman +never undertakes man's work but she comes out the little end o' the +horn. The house is enough, if you keep it nice. Now, you've got that +money laid away, an' all he left you besides. You could live in the +village, if you was a mind to." + +A deep flush struck suddenly into Amelia's cheek. She thought of +Saltash and Laurie Morse. + +"I don't want to live in the village," she said sharply, thus reproving +her own errant mind. "I like my home." + +"Law, yes, of course ye do," replied aunt Ann easily, returning to her +knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of? +Repairin' an old coat?" + +Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'Twas his," she answered in a voice +almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and +when daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and +puttin' on a black one to match the stuff." + +"Goin' to give it away?" + +"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note +in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?" + +"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,--that's +all." + +Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled +sunnily. + +"Well, I suppose it _is_ foolish," she owned,--"too foolish to tell. +But I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at +last. I kind o' like to do it." + +Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on +a voyage of discovery. + +"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's +better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come +when it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into +your chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em." + +Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility. + +"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she +remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will. + +"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos +has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the +lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?" + +"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like +changes." + +"Blue spread on the west room bed?" + +"Yes." + +"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper +kep' 'em?" + +"Yes." + +"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to +have such a royal good time with, makin' essences?" + +Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears. + +"Yes;" she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it +yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for +him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then." + +Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of +rich enjoyment. + +"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!" + +"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia soberly, +folding her work and taking off her thimble. "I'd just as soon as not." + +All through the dinner hour aunt Ann kept up an inspiring stream of +question and reminiscence. + +"You _be_ a good cook, 'Melia, an' no mistake," she remarked, breaking +her brown hot biscuit. "This your same kind o' bread, made without +yeast?" + +"Yes," answered Amelia, pouring the tea. "I save a mite over from the +last risin'." + +Aunt Ann smelled the biscuit critically. "Well, it makes proper nice +bread," she said, "but seems to me that's a terrible shif'less way to +go about it. However'd you happen to git hold on't? You wa'n't never +brought up to't." + +"His mother used to make it so. 'T was no great trouble, and 't would +have worried him if I'd changed." + +When the lavender-sprigged china had been washed and the hearth swept +up, the room fell into its aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after +another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the +fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork +cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss +appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message of +domestic content. + +"Now," said Amelia, "I'll get the still." + +"Bring down anything else that's ancient!" called aunt Ann. "We've +pretty much got red o' such things over t'our house, but I kind o' +like to see 'em." + +When Amelia returned, she staggered under a miscellaneous burden: the +still, some old swifts for winding yarn, and a pair of wool-cards. + +"I don't believe you know so much about cardin' wool as I do," she +said, in some triumph, regarding the cards with the saddened gaze of +one who recalls an occupation never to be resumed. "You see, you +dropped all such work when new things come in. I kept right on because +he wanted me to." + +Aunt Ann was abundantly interested and amused. + +"Well, now, if ever!" she repeated over and over again. "If this don't +carry me back! Seems if I could hear the wheel hummin' an' gramma Balch +steppin' back an' forth as stiddy as a clock. It's been a good while +sence I've thought o' such old days." + +"If it's old days you want"--began Amelia, and she sped upstairs with a +fresh light of resolution in her eyes. + +It was a long time before she returned,--so long that aunt Ann +exhausted the still, and turned again to her thrifty knitting. Then +there came a bumping noise on the stairs, and Amelia's shuffling tread. + +"What under the sun be you doin' of?" called her aunt, listening, with +her head on one side. "Don't you fall, 'Melia! Whatever't is, I can't +help ye." + +But the stairway door yielded to pressure from within: and first a rim +of wood appeared, and then Amelia, scarlet and breathless, staggering +under a spinning-wheel. + +"Forever!" ejaculated aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like +some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll +break a blood-vessel, an' then where'll ye be?" + +Amelia triumphantly drew the wheel to the middle of the floor, and then +blew upon her dusty hands and smoothed her tumbled hair. She took off +her apron and wiped the wheel with it rather tenderly, as if an +ordinary duster would not do. + +"There!" she said. "Here's some rolls right here in the bedroom. I +carded them myself, but I never expected to spin any more." + +She adjusted a roll to the spindle, and, quite forgetting aunt Ann, +began stepping back and forth in a rhythmical march of feminine +service. The low hum of her spinning filled the air, and she seemed to +be wrapped about by an atmosphere of remoteness and memory. Even aunt +Ann was impressed by it; and once, beginning to speak, she looked at +Amelia's face, and stopped. The purring silence continued, lulling all +lesser energies to sleep, until Amelia, pausing to adjust her thread, +found her mood broken by actual stillness, and gazed about her like one +awakened from dreams. + +"There!" she said, recalling herself. "Ain't that a good smooth thread? +I've sold lots of yarn. They ask for it in Sudleigh." + +"'Tis so!" confirmed aunt Ann cordially. "An' you've al'ays dyed it +yourself, too!" + +"Yes, a good blue; sometimes tea-color. There, now, you can't say you +ain't heard a spinnin'-wheel once more!" + +Amelia moved the wheel to the side of the room, and went gravely back +to her chair. Her energy had fled, leaving her hushed and tremulous. +But not for that did aunt Ann relinquish her quest for the betterment +of the domestic world. Her tongue clicked the faster as Amelia's +halted. She put away her work altogether, and sat, with wagging head +and eloquent hands, still holding forth on the changes which might be +wrought in the house: a bay window here, a sofa there, new chairs, +tables, and furnishings. Amelia's mind swam in a sea of green rep, and +she found herself looking up from time to time at her mellowed four +walls, to see if they sparkled in desirable yet somewhat terrifying +gilt paper. + +At four o'clock, when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was +remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in +to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense +that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that +moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in +silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and +cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the +crumbs. Amos never varied in his role of automaton; and Amelia talked +rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she +was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned +in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt, +just as the oxen gave' their tremulous preparatory heave. + +"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia +this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I +can!" + +Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia +sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand, +she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow. + +"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even +in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word. +"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!" + +Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming +eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and +keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they +would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt +Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all +the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard. + +When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the +silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had +miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, +strangely clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been +stilled; only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, +and the cat stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in +the waning light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the +coat over critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it +behind the door in its accustomed place, where it had remained +undisturbed now for many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her +early supper, and then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it +brought out great shadows in the room, she took a little cricket and +sat down by the fire. There she had mused many an evening which seemed +to her less dull than the general course of her former life, while her +husband occupied the hearthside chair and told her stories of the war. +He had a childlike clearness and simplicity of speech, and a +self-forgetful habit of reminiscence. The war was the war to him, not a +theatre for boastful individual action; but Amelia remembered now that +he had seemed to hold heroic proportions in relation to that immortal +past. One could hardly bring heroism into the potato-field and the +cow-house; but after this lapse of time, it began to dawn upon her that +the man who had fought at Gettysburg and the man who marked out for her +the narrow rut of an unchanging existence were one and the same. And as +if the moment had come for an expected event, she heard again the +jangling of bells without, and the old vivid color rushed into her +cheeks, reddened before by the fire-shine. It was as though the other +night had been a rehearsal, and as if now she knew what was coming. Yet +she only clasped her hands more tightly about her knees and waited, the +while her heart hurried its time. The knocker fell twice, with a +resonant clang. She did not move. It beat again, the more insistently. +Then the heavy outer door was pushed open, and Laurie Morse came in, +looking exactly as she knew he would look--half angry, wholly excited, +and dowered with the beauty of youth recalled. He took off his cap and +stood before her. + +"Why didn't you come?" he asked imperatively. "Why didn't you let me +in?" + +The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it +was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some +influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she +was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, +calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not. + +"If you wanted it enough, you could get in," she said perversely, with +an alluring coquetry in her mien. "The door was unfastened." + +"I did want to enough," he responded. A new light came into his eyes. +He held out his hands toward her. "Get up off that cricket!" he +commanded. "Come here!" + +Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, +one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard. + +"It ain't Saturday," she whispered. + +"No, it ain't But I couldn't wait. You knew I couldn't. You knew I'd +come to-night." + +The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had +been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an +heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the +firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which +she had never felt in the days of their youth. + +"Am I goin' to stay," he asked sternly, "or shall I go home?" + +As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at +the gate. Should he go or stay? + +"I suppose," said Amelia faintly, "you're, goin' to stay." + +Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about +impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted +the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had +watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how +much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband's, the +real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life +with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward. + +"No! no!" she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. "No! no! +don't you hang it there! Don't you! don't you!" She swept him aside, +and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as +if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned +with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed. + +Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. +"I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're +nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and +let's talk." + +The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, +jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a +silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little +ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came +back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to +remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. +At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the +chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion. + +"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk." + +Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, +a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm. + +"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!" + +"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!" + +She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again. + +"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel +and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't +bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 'twould +kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a +comfort. If 'twas you--I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her +voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate +emotion. + +Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own +nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its +fears. + +"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But +we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd +furnish all new." + +"Not have these things!" called Amelia, with a ringing note of +dismay,--"not have these things he set by as he did his life! Why, what +do you think I'm made of, after fifteen years? What did I think I was +made of, even to guess I could? You don't know what women are like, +Laurie Morse,--you don't know!" + +She broke down in piteous weeping. Even then it seemed to her that it +would be good to find herself comforted with warm human sympathy; but +not a thought of its possibility remained in her mind. She saw the +boundaries beyond which she must not pass. Though the desert were arid +on this side, it was her desert, and there in her tent must she abide. +She began speaking again between sobbing breaths:-- + +"I did have a dull life. I used up all my young days doin' the same +things over and over, when I wanted somethin' different. It _was_ dull; +but if I could have it all over again, I'd work my fingers to the bone. +I don't know how it would have been if you and I'd come together then, +and had it all as we planned; but now I'm a different woman. I can't +any more go back than you could turn Sudleigh River, and coax it to run +uphill. I don't know whether 't was meant my life should make me a +different woman; but I _am_ different, and such as I am, I'm his woman. +Yes, till I die, till I'm laid in the ground 'longside of him!" Her +voice had an assured ring of triumph, as if she were taking again an +indissoluble marriage oath. + +Laurie had grown very pale. There were forlorn hollows under his eyes; +now he looked twice his age. + +"I didn't suppose you kept a place for me," he said, with an +unconscious dignity. "That wouldn't have been right, and him alive. And +I didn't wait for dead men's shoes. But somehow I thought there was +something between you and me that couldn't be outlived." + +Amelia looked at him with a frank sweetness which transfigured her face +into spiritual beauty. + +"I thought so, too," she answered, with that simplicity ever attending +our approximation to the truth, "I never once said it to myself; but +all this year, 'way down in my heart, I knew you'd come back. And I +wanted you to come. I guess I'd got it all planned out how we'd make up +for what we'd lost, and build up a new life. But so far as I go, I +guess I didn't lose by what I've lived through. I guess I gained +somethin' I'd sooner give up my life than even lose the memory of." + +So absorbed was she in her own spiritual inheritance that she quite +forgot his pain. She gazed past him with an unseeing look; and striving +to meet and recall it, he faced the vision of their divided lives. +To-morrow Amelia would remember his loss and mourn over it with +maternal pangs; to-night she was oblivious of all but her own. Great +human experiences are costly things; they demand sacrifice, not only of +ourselves, but of those who are near us. The room was intolerable to +Laurie. He took his hat and coat, and hurried out. Amelia heard the +dragging door closed behind him. She realized, with the numbness born +of supreme emotion, that he was putting on his coat outside in the +cold; and she did not mind. The bells stirred, and went clanging away. +Then she drew a long breath, and bowed her head on her hands in an +acquiescence that was like prayer. + +It seemed a long time to Amelia before she awoke again to temporal +things. She rose, smiling, to her feet, and looked about her as if her +eyes caressed every corner of the homely room. She picked up puss in a +round, comfortable ball, and carried her back to the hearth-side chair; +there she stroked her until her touchy ladyship had settled down again +to purring content. Then Amelia, still smiling, and with an absent +look, as if her mind wandered through lovely possibilities of a sort +which can never be undone, drew forth the spinning-wheel, and fitted a +roll to the spindle. She began stepping back and forth as if she moved +to the measure of an unheard song, and the pleasant hum of her spinning +broke delicately upon the ear. It seemed to waken all the room into new +vibrations of life. The clock ticked with an assured peace, as if +knowing it marked eternal hours. The flames waved softly upward without +their former crackle and sheen; and the moving shadows were gentle and +rhythmic ones come to keep the soul company. Amelia felt her thread +lovingly. + +"I guess I'll dye it blue," she said, with a tenderness great enough to +compass inanimate things. "He always set by blue, didn't he, puss?" + + + + +THE FLAT-IRON LOT + + +The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside, +closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It +was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear +day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed. +Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the +signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all +others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to +celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big +with the importance of it. + +On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender +old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over +his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing +the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N. +Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either +side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality +of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have +numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length; +and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of +a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At +one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an +unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The +old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly +on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock +down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief +when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received +it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully +folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were +partially effaced. + +"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children +who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up +his bag, and went on. + +Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar +figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face, +with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone +from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue +eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day +after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had +come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert +that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish +to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of +home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham +neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff, +starched creases. + +"Dirt don't stick to _you_, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow. +"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it +for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute +which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself. + +As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked +it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the +extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his +clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed +perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing +Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a +thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he +reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged, +though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too +keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon +with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by +his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us +who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences, +children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack, +besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the +mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to +approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his +little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of +the flock would come soberly in, to announce:-- + +"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield." + +It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and +restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one +colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old +Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there +were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing +round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until +Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed +him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory +tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere +mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the +haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough +to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very +mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too +tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of +relief, and marked his value down. + +Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he +never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at +the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept +his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been +born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a +time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were +Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its +spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were +born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its +hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever +dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even, +of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him +the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A +little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding +itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak, +saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:-- + +"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?" + +Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized +that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went +home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her +husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:-- + +"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me +conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" + +Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the +seeds. + +"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems +to be pretty rugged." + +Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of +plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little +house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that +afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was +covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with +old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor +of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a +moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be +quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so +serenely. + +"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind +for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely +remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk +about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd +do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past +an' gone, the neighbors say"-- + +Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this +point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did +all these things as if each one were very important. + +"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite +o' lemon in." + +Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her +pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she +knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to +pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing +his own washing and making his own pie. + +To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had +turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it +had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have +named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace +nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a +little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There +was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in +bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in +the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own +bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming +profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when +he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in +passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock; +the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot +upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas +Oldfield was at home. + +He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight +through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock. +He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder +of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face. + +"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin', +though." + +For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in +time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again, +under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and +pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall +eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely, +reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been +inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the +entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm +decorum of his own desires. + +In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a +spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and +window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner +cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches, +indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on +the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as +flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his +china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to +solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures, +remarking, without emphasis:-- + +"I guess they might as well stay where they be." + +So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed +him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found +always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of +demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their +places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be +betrayed. + +One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that +calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some +natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was +sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking +tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude. + +"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't +you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke." + +Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed. + +"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones. + +"No, I waited for you." + +"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it +down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate." + +Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and +standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and +mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at +each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between +them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this +was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about +it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown +hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way +of nodding at his clocks. + +"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked, +while Mary buttered her biscuit. + +She looked at him in assent. + +"Well, I've proved it." + +"You don't say!" + +Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled +school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully +dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get +obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a +logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a +conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and +misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther, +because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so. + +"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!' +says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old +meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks +I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried +over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself, +'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house +was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in +Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever, +that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room +over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house +clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there. +An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete +and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face. +Her own reflected it. + +"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited; +she could only whisper. + +"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' _they 're in +my bag_!" + +Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently +secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a +knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance. + +"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin', +when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got +the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they +come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister, +the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then +opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all +was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o' +withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot. +An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God." + +"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. +"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. +She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, +"did they settle here first? Or--or was it Sudleigh?" + +Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell +and hear. + +"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate, +"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in +Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth." + +"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the +celebration then, you got it right?" + +"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the +rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key." + +The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great +content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he +gave her an oft-repeated charge:-- + +"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me. +I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the +meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To +them it don't signify." + +Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older +experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly +aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's +voice sounded that instant from the door:-- + +"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to +run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't +thick!". + +"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly. + +Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger. +Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown +hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for +color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was +customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes +going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that +no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy +footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's +right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously. + +"Well, father," said she, "you got home!" + +Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the +teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug. + +"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home." + +Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech. + +"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to +be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it. +'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he." + +Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen +blue eyes upon her. + +"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?" + +"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"-- + +"What Eaton?" + +"William W." + +"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool +Eaton?" + +Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what +was coming. + +"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other +towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration." + +"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew +he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em +all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got +letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out, +'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's +quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past +I." + +He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard +father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before +had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole +township now conspired to bait him. + +"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as +they can tell what they mean by it." + +Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth +on one so dull. + +"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might +as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the +clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm +enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell." + +Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he +learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our +nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now." + +He rose from his chair. + +"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of +a new bell?" + +Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry. + +"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take +on so. What under the sun has got into you?" + +Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the +dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his +fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she +understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her +apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She +gathered herself desperately. + +"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it, +an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it." + +"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!" + +"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful +creases. "Say your say and git it over." + +Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment +Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its +equilibrium. + +"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very +day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron +Lot." + +"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's +he made up his mind to do with it?" + +"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says +he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he +can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that +lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as +ever was, an' no good to you,--there ain't half a load o' hay cut there +in a season,--an' he'd pay the full vally"-- + +"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie +paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie," +said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything +to do with that lot o' land?" + +"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly. + +"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old +gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye +had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron +Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone, +you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin' +down to vote." + +Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly. +"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the +crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind +of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared +in the gathering dusk. + +"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along +with me." + +Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of +his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a +passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood +in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have +it. I wish I was father. I'd see!" + +Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his +arm. + +"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He +can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set +up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I +meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody +knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer." + +Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered. + +"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody." + +"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. +He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a +poor tool that would do that." + +He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of +the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas +took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already +assembled. + +Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed, +responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its +phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to +the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the +west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still +under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife +lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the +strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the +neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding, +sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world +seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to +sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living +things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest +decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it +could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the +few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old +War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also +the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant +spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas +Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse, +to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying +down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and +Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming +night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might +not have done in a room full of winter brightness. + +"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. +Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand." + +"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas. + +"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' +takin' the sense o' the meetin'." + +"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. +"All gab an' no git there!" + +"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had +something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled +clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity." + +"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted +fierceness:-- + +"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a +clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep +Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?" + +"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I +do." + +"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," +suggested Brad Freeman. + +"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented +Tom O'Neil irreverently. + +"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might +as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, +it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back +ag'in." + +"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by +dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to +do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy +gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low +land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! +Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into +Sudleigh." + +Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard +him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the +sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired +so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but +all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly. + +"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't +do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell." + +Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, +and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated +discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public +soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, +by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have +his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the +town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for +taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the +bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his +neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! +it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another +stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed +man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His +face looked ashen. + +"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I +ain't there_!" + +A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life. + +"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, +for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. +Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. +They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and +more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the +womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled +majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. +Sixty! seventy! eighty-one! + +"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice. + +Then on it beat, to the completed century. + +The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their +public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the +fact with scorn. + +"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. +"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never +heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess +I'd see!" + +It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and +cry,-- + +"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" + +He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up +the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, +followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the +tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving +fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men +and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had +ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield +strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and +each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of +protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's +Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. + +"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" + +Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the +waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his +boyhood. + +"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from +under!" + +Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. +There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent +even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to +another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." + +He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. +There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he +stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. + +"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set +foot on it." + +The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping +elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within +the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; +then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the +rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, +illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. + +"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But +no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak. + +"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you +know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place +that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to +prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled +that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the +age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that +made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was +cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here." + +"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly. + +"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll +have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this +God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in +open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit +hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he +continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. +"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or +bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the +Judgment Day." + +With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and +though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save +that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them +trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange +herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere. + +"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could +shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the +hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, +and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had +walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, +reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly +and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk +thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose +within her. + +That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the +poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, +and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother +thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it +wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel +hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated +clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the +stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all +the unresponsive presences of night. + +For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle +seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really +closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, +interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after +Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed +father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high +tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction +that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; +and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much +about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' +doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not +be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the +prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no +decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in +preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over +two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was +that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of +the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side +with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of +Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that +he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable +atmosphere of loftier meanings. + +Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to +do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only +Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod +or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For +he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for +that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public +conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an +elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him +gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It +seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He +would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, +he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a +meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his +own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark +bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that +he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. +Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to +draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the +youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were +with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of +goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for +their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped +down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the +atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, +and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to +the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework +together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had +brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was +"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's +brain," and the brain was ready. + +Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when +Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have +realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have +been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when +Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the +cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: +only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's +wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's +hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the +shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a +pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine +shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an +intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were +inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. +Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying +meantime to the smallest Crane boy,-- + +"You crawl up there!" + +The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to +seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal +glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed. + +"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there," +commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats +fast when we approach a great fruition. + +"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!" + +The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, +he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk +with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their +sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited +such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural +rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What +lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his +trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of +possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and +argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young +scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other +from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and +grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and +over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only +remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants +apart:-- + +"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he +thinks best. He's got the say." + +In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs +in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for +the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the +rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that +specious plea. + +"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that +elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail +was repeated in many keys. + +Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before +the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the +cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became +suddenly and dramatically dignified. + +"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it +standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it? +Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of +Injuns tackle it?" + +The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's +desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears +of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over +the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to +seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first +desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came +into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping +dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and +leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this +aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being +unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened +with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, +greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then +the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But +each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing +to suffer the attack. + +"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every +time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be +dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that +glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what +loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking +redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful +solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of +settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's +wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed +logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm +horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and +pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled +realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a +daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the +popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when +young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic +yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:-- + +"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day +comes, who's goin' to beat?" + +An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not +yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at +home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!" + +"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in +unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against +red. + +"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned +their chief. "_My_ last gun 's fired." + +Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two +separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went +faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those +days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and +undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. +Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are +ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the +oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his +Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside +her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud. + +Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot +as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, +brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an +attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor +had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of +mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, +being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in +village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on +Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at +the front door. + +"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your +grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like +as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got +out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think." + +Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting. + +"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, +absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a +shaken head, and pursed-up lips. + +A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week +had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were +telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without +her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew +well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what +the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in +the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was +still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not +expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she +saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next +day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed +her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which +was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little +house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the +clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, +as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the +night, and slipped away again in silence! + + * * * * * + +"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister. +"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin' +here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My +soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I +wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!" + +Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she +might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever +a chip o' the old block. + +When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front +steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little +chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new +cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant +wine. + +"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle +righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal." + +The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay. + +"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about +Mr. Oldfield?" + +So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in +disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an +apologetic cough. + +"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular +about father." + +"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got +to." + +"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and +loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost +her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It +seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister +bent his brows impatiently. + +"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the +fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me +back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what +to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then +when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all +at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without +him." + +This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever +looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A +frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in +expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight. + +"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, +"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything." + +"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts +enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them. +The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the +town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline +to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take +the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came +in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's +Nicholas Oldfield." + +Mary folded her hands, in proud composure. + +"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was +here." + +"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield," +asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I +should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor +ain't neither of 'em heard of?" + +"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town +legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But +then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has +been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie +realized with awe, to offer prayer. + +Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye +Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not +until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed" +rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her +mouth and spoke. + +"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great +shakes?" + +Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered +demurely, "I don't know as I can say." + +"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear +your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't +they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?" + +Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it +carefully on the shelf. + +"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's +barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and +prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how +little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and +dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both. + +The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that +the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the +celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable +warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for +him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to +lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding +cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming +headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!" + +Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why +gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him +sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, +she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance +at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little +room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being +careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the +truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in +comparison. + +It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of +the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world. + +"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full +of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed +incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing. +"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from +one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite +right, that time he tolled the bell." + +They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in +byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low +degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and +remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until +the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way. + +"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never +was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold." + +Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, +there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet +morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the +night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to +the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the +celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in +the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it +seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. +Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save +each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the +eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad +Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, +and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if +there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, +though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short +address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the +doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of +it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is." + +It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism +which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, +justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed +the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went +whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse +about the address, without doing it justice. + +The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty +toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The +air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they +were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, +something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went +up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the +step. + +"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon +him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held +her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly. + +"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!" + +Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as +he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the +big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he +could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed +very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, +and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, +catching her breath tremulously:-- + +"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the +county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the +pond!" + +"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded +Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about +a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't +in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?" + +"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister." + +"The minister? What's he want?" + +"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to +say." + +Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas +Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave. + +"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's +needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've +got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I +ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me +timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they +needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can +carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.". + +Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew +her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of +plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; +and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast +asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had +only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and +saw the doctor come striding into the yard. + +"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers. +Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?" + +Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a +hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at +the situation without delay. + +"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've +got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. +He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we +don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you +think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if +nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to +pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because +you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning +to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, +and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!" + +Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning +dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the +doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not +climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary +appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink +and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. +Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for +thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up +treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. +He turned quite meekly to the doctor. + +"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up +an' dressed?" + +Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door. + +Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield +settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it +ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless +while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both +knew well. + +"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old +cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road. +Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you +understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But +they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they +wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up +Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' +there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he +told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot. + +"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We +might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the +church." + +"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas +quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He +could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it +quivered and betrayed him. + +"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the +Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there." + +But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had +the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain. + +"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides +gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' +dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a +jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine +feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, +Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over." + +"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and +you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson +while I start up the town." + +The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did +some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul +Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was +ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind +kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to +be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened +at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy; +and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody +had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act +the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head +without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for +the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation +and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is +naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy +man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly +progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by +vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the +sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into +town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the +part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent +nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't," +said he. + +But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he +turned his horse. + +"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please, +_please_ let me be Mary Oldfield!" + +The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his +way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's +tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily +anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted +before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of +boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an +unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the +fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth +to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could +with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride +inside the elephant. + +So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the +cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic +intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and +her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the +handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's +heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and +that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's +vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the +procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up +his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to +pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air. + +"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and +Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a +long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all. + +When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge +into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and +shot out a sibilant whisper:-- + +"Did you know that?--about the Flat-Iron Lot?" + +Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed. + +"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my +end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder +father let me get out alive." + +The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the +sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying +that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard +against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon +lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his +heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them. +Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a +suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some +precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath +went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the +economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment +day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white. + +Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of +presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read +them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by +finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped +into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded. +So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the +universe in its making. + +It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He +sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and +then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would +suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an +inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to +be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile +Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising. + +"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would +be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public +land forever." + +Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick +muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied, +antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise. +They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised +intelligence exalted. + +The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the +sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly +spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down +on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to +flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the +"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux +representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my +brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a +frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were +patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it +was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an +occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by +"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A +very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups +of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before +"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes +themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred +shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing +quietly by--the reverential glance accorded those who find out +unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an +awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual. + +"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot." + +Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in +a flutter. + +"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to +supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"-- + +"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but +Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the +evenin'. Come, Mary!" + +Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking +with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about +contentedly. + +"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!" + + + + +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + +The First Church of Tiverton stands on a hill, whence it overlooks the +little village, with one or two pine-shaded neighborhoods beyond, and, +when the air is clear, a thin blue line of upland delusively like the +sea. Set thus austerely aloft, it seems now a survival of the day when +men used to go to meeting gun in hand, and when one stayed, a lookout +by the door, to watch and listen. But this the present dwellers do not +remember. Conceding not a sigh to the holy and strenuous past, they +lament--and the more as they grow older--the stiff climb up the hill, +albeit to rest in so sweet a sanctuary at the top. For it is sweet +indeed. A soft little wind seems always to be stirring there, on summer +Sundays a messenger of good. It runs whispering about, and wafts in all +sorts of odors: honey of the milkweed and wild rose, and a Christmas +tang of the evergreens just below. It carries away something, +too--scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a +whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of +musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here +to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we +faint, of the keen savor of righteousness. + +Here in the church do we congregate from week to week; but behind it, +on a sloping hillside, is the last home of us all, the old +burying-ground, overrun with a briery tangle, and relieved by Nature's +sweet and cunning hand from the severe decorum set ordinarily about the +dead. Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we +were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but +affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too +supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due +course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in +common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay +unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect, +and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we +ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds; +tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets +smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little +of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry, +crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered +corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off +from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely +walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the +spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear. + +Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green +tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun. But our pendulum had +swung too wide. Like many folk who suffer from one discomfort, we had +gone to the utmost extreme and courted another. We were tired of +climbing hills, and so we pressed too far into the lowland; and the +first grave dug in our Cemetery showed three inches of water at the +bottom. It was in "Prince's new lot," and there his young daughter was +to lie. But her lover had stood by while the men were making the grave; +and, looking into the ooze below, he woke to the thought of her fair +young body there. + +"God!" they heard him say, "she sha'n't lay so. Leave it as it is, an' +come up into the old buryin'-ground. There's room enough by me." + +The men, all mates of his, stopped work without a glance and followed +him; and up there in the dearer shrine her place was made. The father +said but a word at her changed estate. Neighbors had hurried in to +bring him the news; he went first to the unfinished grave in the +Cemetery, and then strode up the hill, where the men had not yet done. +After watching them for a while in silence, he turned aside; but he +came back to drop a trembling hand upon the lover's arm. + +"I guess," he said miserably, "she'd full as lieves lay here by you." + +And she will be quite beside him, though, in the beaten ways of earth, +others have come between. For years he lived silently and apart; but +when his mother died, and he and his father were left staring at the +dulled embers of life, he married a good woman, who perhaps does not +deify early dreams; yet she is tender of them, and at the death of her +own child it was she who went toiling up to the graveyard, to see that +its little place did not encroach too far. She gave no reason, but we +all knew it was because she meant to let her husband lie there by the +long-loved guest. + +Naturally enough, after this incident of the forsaken grave, we +conceived a strange horror of the new Cemetery, and it has remained +deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one +little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any +farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently +from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will +be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this +year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school +children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave +where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau took her away. +They never seem to connect that heart-broken wraith of a lover with the +bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched +overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of +youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever +quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, +all his for poring over those dulled pages of the past. + +After we had elected to abide by our old home, we voted an enlargement +of its bounds; and thereby hangs a tale of outlawed revenge. Long years +ago "old Abe Eaton" quarreled with his twin brother, and vowed, as the +last fiat of an eternal divorce, "I won't be buried in the same yard +with ye!" + +The brother died first; and because he lay within a little knoll beside +the fence, Abe willfully set a public seal on that iron oath by +purchasing a strip of land outside, wherein he should himself be +buried. Thus they would rest in a hollow correspondence, the fence +between. It all fell out as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are +cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the +helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not +the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does +the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according +to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves +another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into +decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, +beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out +the individual wrong. + +So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead +upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth +monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,--a rigid box +of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh +came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the +idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad +Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us +out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it." +That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we +smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by +friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids. + +The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find +them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for +they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of +age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds +them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such +veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning +skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely +feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I +fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the +larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny +imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that +wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a +certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into +the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses +from the stones and chip the letters clear. He liked to draw, +"creatur's" especially, and would trace them for children on their +slates. He lived alone in a little house long since fallen, and he +would eat no meat. That is all they know of him. I can guess but one +thing more: that when no looker-on was by, he pushed away the grass, +and wrote his little jokes, safe in the kindly tolerance of the dead. +This was the identical soul who should, in good old days, have been +carving gargoyles and misereres; here his only field was the obscurity +of Tiverton churchyard, his only monument these grotesqueries so +cunningly concealed. + +We have epitaphs, too,--all our own as yet, for the world has not +discovered them. One couple lies in well-to-do respectability under a +tiny monument not much taller than the conventional gravestone, but +shaped on a pretentious model. + +"We'd ruther have it nice," said the builders, "even if there ain't +much of it." + +These were Eliza Marden and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to +sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own fore-handedness. +I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple +portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting +between them, and glancing about her, in a flickering, intermittent +way, at the pleasant holiday world. Hannah was no worker; she liked a +long afternoon in the sun, her thin little hands busied about nothing +weightier than crochet; and her mother regarded her with a horrified +patience, as one who might some time be trusted to sow all her wild +oats of idleness. The well-mated pair died within the same year, and it +was Hannah who composed their epitaph, with an artistic accuracy, but a +defective sense of rhyme:-- + + "Here lies Eliza + She was a striver + Here lies Peleg + He was a select Man" + +We townsfolk found something haunting and bewildering in the lines; +they drew, and yet they baffled us, with their suggested echoes luring +only to betray. Hannah never wrote anything else, but we always +cherished the belief that she could do "'most anything" with words and +their possibilities. Still, we accepted her one crowning achievement, +and never urged her to further proof. In Tiverton we never look genius +in the mouth. Nor did Hannah herself propose developing her gift. +Relieved from the spur of those two unquiet spirits who had begotten +her, she settled down to sit all day in the sun, learning new patterns +of crochet; and having cheerfully let her farm run down, she died at +last in a placid poverty. + +Then there was Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial +hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a +day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by +the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, +below her _obiit_, the astounding statement:-- + +"The first woman. She made the journey to Boston. By stage." + +Here, too, are the ironies whereof departed life is prodigal. This is +the tidy lot of Peter Merrick, who had a desire to stand well with the +world, in leaving it, and whose purple and fine linen were embodied in +the pomp of death. He was a cobbler, and he put his small savings +together to erect a modest monument to his own memory. Every Sunday he +visited it, "after meetin'," and perhaps his day-dreams, as he sat +leather-aproned on his bench, were still of that white marble idealism. +The inscription upon it was full of significant blanks; they seemed an +interrogation of the destiny which governs man. + +"Here lies Peter Merrick----" ran the unfinished scroll, "and his wife +who died----" + +But ambitious Peter never lay there at all; for in his later prime, +with one flash of sharp desire to see the world, he went on a voyage to +the Banks, and was drowned. And his wife? The story grows somewhat +threadbare. She summoned his step-brother to settle the estate, and he, +a marble-cutter by trade, filled in the date of Peter's death with +letters English and illegible. In the process of their carving, the +widow stood by, hands folded under her apron from the midsummer sun. +The two got excellent well acquainted, and the stone-cutter prolonged +his stay. He came again in a little over a year, at Thanksgiving time, +and they were married. Which shows that nothing is certain in +life,--no, not the proprieties of our leaving it,--and that even there +we must walk softly, writing no boastful legend for time to annul. + +At one period a certain quatrain had a great run in Tiverton; it was +the epitaph of the day. Noting how it overspread that stony soil, you +picture to yourself the modest pride of its composer; unless, indeed, +it had been copied from an older inscription in an English yard, and +transplanted through the heart and brain of some settler whose thoughts +were ever flitting back. Thus it runs in decorous metre:-- + + "Dear husband, now my life is passed, + You have dearly loved me to the last. + Grieve not for me, but pity take + On my dear children for my sake." + +But one sorrowing widower amended it, according to his wife's +direction, so that it bore a new and significant meaning. He was +charged to + + "pity take + On my dear parent for my sake." + +The lesson was patent. His mother-in-law had always lived with him, and +she was "difficult." Who knows how keenly the sick woman's mind ran on +the possibilities of reef and quicksand for the alien two left alone +without her guiding hand? So she set the warning of her love and fear +to be no more forgotten while she herself should be remembered. + +The husband was a silent man. He said very little about his intentions; +performance was enough for him. Therefore it happened that his +"parent," adopted perforce, knew nothing about this public charge until +she came upon it, on her first Sunday visit, surveying the new glory of +the stone. The story goes that she stood before it, a square, +portentous figure in black alpaca and warlike mitts, and that she +uttered these irrevocable words:-- + +"Pity on _me_! Well, I guess he won't! I'll go to the poor-farm fust!" + +And Monday morning, spite of his loyal dissuasions, she packed her +"blue chist," and drove off to a far-away cousin, who got her "nussin'" +to do. Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was +life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part +company. + +Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a +story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's +death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied +her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled +the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance +of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden +death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his +blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish +order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled, +not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home +from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds +it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things, +chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one +another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the +rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile +away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief." In the +late afternoon, the guest so summoned walked quietly into the silent +house, where Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon +the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was +frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. +But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded +hair, her benevolent spectacles, and her atmosphere of calm. + +"I guess I'll blaze a fire, Jonas," said she. "You step out an' git me +a mite o' kindlin'." + +The air of homely living enwrapped him once again, and mechanically, +with the inertia of old habit, he obeyed. They had a "cup o' tea" +together; and then, when the dishes were washed, and the peaceful +twilight began to settle down upon them like a sifting mist, she drew a +little rocking chair to the window where he sat opposite, and spoke. + +"Jonas," said she, in that still voice which had been harmonized by the +experiences of life, "arter dark, you jest go up an' bring home them +blue dishes. Mary's got an awful lot o' fun in her, an' if she ain't +laughin' over that, I'm beat. Now, Jonas, you do it! Do you s'pose she +wants them nice blue pieces out there through wind an' weather? She'd +ruther by half see 'em on the parlor cluzzet shelves; an' if you'll +fetch 'em home, I'll scallop some white paper, jest as she liked, an' +we'll set 'em up there." + +Jonas wakened a little from his mental swoon. Life seemed warmer, more +tangible, again. + +"Law, do go," said the mother soothingly. "She don't want the whole +township tramplin' up there to eye over her chiny. Make her as nervous +as a witch. Here's the ha'-bushel basket, an' some paper to put between +'em. You go, Jonas, an' I'll clear off the shelves." + +So Jonas, whether he was tired of guiding the impulses of his own +unquiet mind, or whether he had become a child again, glad to yield to +the maternal, as we all do in our grief, took the basket and went. He +stood by, still like a child, while this comfortable woman put the +china on the shelves, speaking warmly, as she worked, of the pretty +curving of the cups, and her belief that the pitcher was "one you could +pour out of." She stayed on at the house, and Jonas, through his +sickness of the mind, lay back upon her soothing will as a baby lies in +its mother's arms. But the china was never used, even when he had come +to his normal estate, and bought and sold as before. The mother's +prescience was too keen for that. + +Here in this ground are the ambiguities of life carried over into that +other state, its pathos and its small misunderstandings. This was a +much-married man whose last spouse had been a triple widow. Even to him +the situation proved mathematically complex, and the sumptuous stone to +her memory bears the dizzying legend that "Enoch Nudd who erects this +stone is her fourth husband and his fifth wife." Perhaps it was the +exigencies of space which brought about this amazing elision; but +surely, in its very apparent intention, there is only a modest pride. +For indubitably the much-married may plume themselves upon being also +the widely sought. If it is the crown of sex to be desired, here you +have it, under seal of the civil bond. No baseless, windy boasting that +"I might an if I would!" Nay, here be the marriage ties to testify. + +In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long +erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and +reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a +little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching +eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay. +Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man +whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and +years ago he broke into a house,--an unknown felony in our quiet +limits,--and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went +about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with +healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief +imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he +came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had +learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his +wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing +such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss. +Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered +that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said +us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in +the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a +hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he +died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily. +When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought +of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its +posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set +us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of +one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the +blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we +stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy +to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of +morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We +are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated +to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to +men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose +soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate. + +But of all these fleeting legends made to, hold the soul a moment on +its way, and keep it here in fickle permanence, one is more dramatic +than all, more charged with power and pathos. Years ago there came into +Tiverton an unknown man, very handsome, showing the marks of high +breeding, and yet in his bearing strangely solitary and remote. He wore +a cloak, and had a foreign look. He came walking into the town one +night, with dust upon his shoes, and we judged that he had been +traveling a long time. He had the appearance of one who was not nearly +at his journey's end, and would pass through the village, continuing on +a longer way. He glanced at no one, but we all stared at him. He +seemed, though we had not the words to put it so, an exiled prince. He +went straight through Tiverton Street until he came to the parsonage; +and something about it (perhaps its garden, hot with flowers, larkspur, +coreopsis, and the rest) detained his eye, and he walked in. Next day +the old doctor was there also with his little black case, but we were +none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who +intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside +the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of +nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. + +"What's the matter with so-and-so?" would ask a mousing neighbor. + +"He's sick," ran the laconic reply. + +"Goin' to die?" one daring querist ventured further. + +"Some time," said the doctor. + +But though he assumed a right to combat thus the outer world, no one +was gentler with a sick man or with those about him in their grief. To +the latter he would speak; but he used to say he drew his line at +second cousins. + +Into his hands and the true old parson's fell the stranger's +confidence, if confidence it were. He may have died solitary and +unexplained; but no matter what he said, his story was safe. In a week +he was carried out for burial; and so solemn was the parson's manner as +he spoke a brief service over him, so thrilling his enunciation of the +words "our brother," that we dared not even ask what else he should be +called. And we never knew. The headstone, set up by the parson, bore +the words "Peccator Maximus." For a long time we thought they made the +stranger's name, and, judged that he must have been a foreigner; but a +new schoolmistress taught us otherwise. It was Latin, she said, and it +meant "the chiefest among sinners." When that report flew round, the +parson got wind of it, and then, in the pulpit one morning, he +announced that he felt it necessary to say that the words had been used +"at our brother's request," and that it was his own decision to write +below them, "For this cause came I into the world." + +We have accepted the stranger as we accept many things in Tiverton. +Parson and doctor kept his secret well. He is quite safe from our +questioning; but for years I expected a lady, always young and full of +grief, to seek out his grave and shrive him with her tears. She will +not appear now, unless she come as an old, old woman, to lie beside +him. It is too late. + +One more record of our vanished time,--this full of poesy only, and the +pathos of farewell. It was not the aged and heartsick alone who lay +down here to rest We have been no more fortunate than others. Youth and +beauty came also, and returned no more. This, where the white rose-bush +grows untended, was the young daughter of a squire in far-off days: too +young to have known the pangs of love or the sweet desire of Death, +save that, in primrose time, he always paints himself so fair. I have +thought the inscription must have been borrowed from another grave, in +some yard shaded by yews and silent under the cawing of the rooks; +perhaps, from its stiffness, translated from a stately Latin verse. +This it is, snatched not too soon from oblivion; for a few more years +will wear it quite away:-- + + "Here lies the purple flower of a maid + Having to envious Death due tribute paid. + Her sudden Loss her Parents did lament, + And all her Friends with grief their hearts did Rent. + Life's short. Your wicked Lives amend with care, + For Mortals know we Dust and Shadows are." + +"The purple flower of a maid!" All the blossomy sweetness, the fragrant +lamenting of Lycidas, lies in that one line. Alas, poor +love-lies-bleeding! And yet not poor according to the barren pity we +accord the dead, but dowered with another youth set like a crown upon +the unstained front of this. Not going with sparse blossoms ripened or +decayed, but heaped with buds and dripping over in perfume. She seems +so sweet in her still loveliness, the empty promise of her balmy +spring, that for a moment fain are you to snatch her back into the +pageant of your day. Reading that phrase, you feel the earth is poorer +for her loss. And yet not so, since the world holds other greater +worlds as well. Elsewhere she may have grown to age and stature; but +here she lives yet in beauteous permanence,--as true a part of youth +and joy and rapture as the immortal figures on the Grecian Urn. While +she was but a flying phantom on the frieze of time, Death fixed her +there forever,--a haunting spirit in perennial bliss. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tiverton Tales, by Alice Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIVERTON TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 9370.txt or 9370.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/7/9370/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya +Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tiverton Tales + +Author: Alice Brown + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9370] +[This file was first posted on September 26, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TIVERTON TALES *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya Allen, and +Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +TIVERTON TALES + +BY + +ALICE BROWN + +1899 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +DOORYARDS +A MARCH WIND +THE MORTUARY CHEST +HORN-O'-THE-MOON +A STOLEN FESTIVAL +A LAST ASSEMBLING +THE WAY OF PEACE +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME +HONEY AND MYRRH +A SECOND MARRIAGE +THE FLAT-IRON LOT +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + + + + +DOORYARDS + + +Tiverton has breezy, upland roads, and damp, sweet valleys; but should +you tarry there a summer long, you might find it wasteful to take many +excursions abroad. For, having once received the freedom of family +living, you will own yourself disinclined to get beyond dooryards, +those outer courts of domesticity. Homely joys spill over into them, +and, when children are afoot, surge and riot there. In them do the +common occupations of life find niche and channel. While bright weather +holds, we wash out of doors on a Monday morning, the wash-bench in the +solid block of shadow thrown by the house. We churn there, also, at the +hour when Sweet-Breath, the cow, goes afield, modestly unconscious of +her own sovereignty over the time. There are all the varying fortunes +of butter-making recorded. Sometimes it comes merrily to the tune of + + "Come, butter, come! + Peter stands a-waiting at the gate, + Waiting for his butter-cake. + Come, butter, come!" + +chanted in time with the dasher; again it doth willfully refuse, and +then, lest it be too cool, we contribute a dash of hot water, or too +hot, and we lend it a dash of cold. Or we toss in a magical handful of +salt, to encourage it. Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of +householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them +away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the +syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what +complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with +purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; +for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, +omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the +merry months are well under way, or the cows go kicking up their heels +to pasture, or plants are taken from the south window and clapped into +chilly ground, orderly passions begin to riot within us, and we "clear +up" our yards. We gather stray chips, and pieces of bone brought in by +the scavenger dog, who sits now with his tail tucked under him, +oblivious of such vagrom ways. We rake the grass, and then, gilding +refined gold, we sweep it. There is a tradition that Miss Lois May once +went to the length of trimming her grass about the doorstone and +clothes-pole with embroidery scissors; but that was a too-hasty +encomium bestowed by a widower whom she rejected next week, and who +qualified his statement by saying they were pruning-shears. + +After this preliminary skirmishing arises much anxious inspection of +ancient shrubs and the faithful among old-fashioned plants, to see +whether they have "stood the winter." The fresh, brown "piny" heads are +brooded over with a motherly care; wormwood roots are loosened, and the +horse-radish plant is given a thrifty touch. There is more than the +delight of occupation in thus stirring the wheels of the year. We are +Nature's poor handmaidens, and our labor gives us joy. + +But sweet as these homespun spots can make themselves, in their mixture +of thrift and prodigality, they are dearer than ever at the points +where they register family traits, and so touch the humanity of us all. +Here is imprinted the story of the man who owns the farm, that of the +father who inherited it, and; the grandfather who reclaimed it from +waste; here have they and their womenkind set the foot of daily living +and traced indelible paths. They have left here the marks of tragedy, +of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground +between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will, +since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose +to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field +of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure +met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out +in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a +woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the +wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the +ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his +heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a +gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown +shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die. +She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she +walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied +delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a +hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who +followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner +house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the +wandering train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the +dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest +joy,--one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, +where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but +she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one +dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set +up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The +game opened before her an endless vista of delight. She saw herself +perpetually knocking red-striped balls through an eternity of wickets; +and she knew that here was the one pastime of which no soul could tire. +Afterwards, driving home with her husband and two children, still in a +daze of satisfied delight, she murmured absently:-- + +"Wonder how much they cost?" + +"What?" asked Eben, and Della turned, flushed scarlet, and replied:-- + +"Oh, nothin'!" + +That night, she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the +sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to +work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a +monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang +at moments when she purposed leaping the bounds of domestic custom. +Even Eben had learned that, dull as he was. If he heard that guilty +crooning from the buttery, he knew she might be breaking extra eggs, or +using more sugar than was conformable. + +"What you doin' of?" he was accustomed to call. But Delia never +answered, and he did not interfere. The question was a necessary +concession to marital authority; he had no wish to curb her ways. + +Della scudded about the yard like a willful wind. She gathered withes +from a waiting pile, and set them in that one level space for wickets. +Then she took a handsaw, and, pale about the lips, returned to the +house and to her bedroom. She had made her choice. She was sacrificing +old associations to her present need; and, one after another, she sawed +the ornamenting balls from her mother's high-post bedstead. Perhaps the +one element of tragedy lay in the fact that Della was no mechanician, +and she had not foreseen that, having one flat side, her balls might +decline to roll. But that dismay was brief. A weaker soul would have +flinched; to Della it was a futile check, a pebble under the wave. She +laid her balls calmly aside. Some day she would whittle them into +shape; for there were always coming to Della days full of roomy leisure +and large content. Meanwhile apples would serve her turn,--good alike +to draw a weary mind out of its channel or teach the shape of spheres. +And so, with two russets for balls and the clothes-slice for a mallet +(the heavy sledge-hammer having failed), Della serenely, yet in +triumph, played her first game against herself. + +"Don't you drive over them wickets!" she called imperiously, when Eben +came up from the lot in his dingle cart. + +"Them what?" returned he, and Della had to go out to explain. He looked +at them gravely; hers had been a ragged piece of work. + +"What under the sun'd you do that for?" he inquired. "The young ones +wouldn't turn their hand over for't They ain't big enough." + +"Well, I be," said Della briefly. "Don't you drive over 'em." + +Eben looked at her and then at his path to the barn, and he turned his +horse aside. + +Thereafter, until we got used to it, we found a vivid source of +interest in seeing Della playing croquet, and always playing alone. +That was a very busy summer, because the famous drought came then, and +water had to be carried for weary rods from spring and river. Sometimes +Della did not get her playtime till three in the afternoon, sometimes +not till after dark; but she was faithful to her joy. The croquet +ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were +potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke, +and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether, +and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the +mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's +daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in +the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was +a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark. +She clung to her kitchen chair. + +"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to +understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had +grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was +frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although +loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own +species of sad and shy content. + +Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were +not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need +not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the +house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry. They could +recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as +children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on +the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went +out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at +once gave way. I looked down--at a broken wicket and a withered apple +by the stake. + +Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind, +at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding +mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not +wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No +sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it +up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in +all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from +the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under +different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might +guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition +that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have +their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country +maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, +still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and +strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish +through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has +roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and +that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? +Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy never has no +luck with plants." And that, indeed, is true. + +There is another dooryard with its infallible index finger pointing to +tell a tale. You can scarcely thread your way through it for vehicles +of all sorts, congregated there to undergo slow decomposition at the +hands of wind and weather. This farmer is a tradesman by nature, and +though, for thrift's sake, his fields must be tilled, he is yet +inwardly constrained to keep on buying and selling, albeit to no +purpose. He is everlastingly swapping and bargaining, giving play to a +faculty which might, in its legitimate place, have worked out the +definite and tangible, but which now goes automatically clicking on +under vain conditions. The house, too, is overrun with useless +articles, presently to be exchanged for others as unavailing, and in +the farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with +another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable +evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with +torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are +here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this +yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, +and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take +long, entrancing journeys in the mouldy old chaise; they endure +Siberian nights of sleighing, and throw out their helpless dolls to the +pursuing wolves; or the more mercantile-minded among the boys mount a +three-wheeled express wagon, and drive noisily away to traffic upon the +road. This, in its dramatic possibilities, is not a yard to be +despised. + +Not far away are two neighboring houses once held in affectionate +communion by a straight path through the clover and a gap in the wall. +This was the road to much friendly gossip, and there were few bright +days which did not find two matrons met at the wall, their heads +together over some amiable yarn; But now one house is closed, its +windows boarded up, like eyes shut down forever, and the grass has +grown over the little path: a line erased, perhaps never to be renewed. +It is easier to wipe out a story from nature than to wipe it from the +heart; and these mutilated pages of the outer life perpetually renew in +us the pangs of loss and grief. + +But not all our dooryard reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not +remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or +disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon +an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts +had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and +the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him news +of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was +going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his +mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of +attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now +due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a +pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling +across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down +hastily--yea, even before the advancing cat!--and made a trumpet of his +hands. + +"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away! +Died yesterday!" + +I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be +strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was +always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in +such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait +until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his +wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, +until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving +mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his +wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:-- + +"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?" + +They had their funeral. + +To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder +and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One, +where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of +caraway. It seemed mysteriously connected with the oak-leaf cookies, +which only she could make; and the child, brushing through the delicate +bushes grown above his head, used to feel vaguely that, on some +fortunate day, cookies would be found there, "a-blowin' and a-growin'." +That he had seen them stirred and mixed and taken from the oven was an +empty matter; the cookies belonged to the caraway grove, and there they +hang ungathered still. In the very same yard was a hogshead filled with +rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated +pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent +black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would +hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth +depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river +is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where +insects float and fly. + +These are our dooryards. I wish we lived in them more; that there were +vines to sing under, and shade enough for the table, with its wheaten +loaf and good farm butter, and its smoking tea. But all that may come +when we give up our frantic haste, and sit down to look, and breathe, +and listen. + + + + +A MARCH WIND + + +When the clouds hung low, or chimneys refused to draw, or the bread +soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the +local drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon +as the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been +getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of +wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set +down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was +whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm. + +It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to +clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb, +innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot +upon her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient +creature. She never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants +into the ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies +were gone. So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the +fire, awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder +set in the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, +hardy as she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her +thick brown hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks +bloomed out in a frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard +knot under her chin, seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her +hands ached, holding the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the +inclemency of the time. It never occurred to her that she could have +put off this exacting job. She would sooner have expected Heaven to put +off the weather. Just as she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted +her pail of refuse over the edge, a man appeared from the other side of +the house, and stood confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his +deeply graven face was framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid +thought that he was not so old as he looked; experience, rather than +years, must have wrought its trace upon him. He was leading a little +girl, dressed with a very patent regard for warmth, and none for +beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine glance, noted that the child's +bungled skirt and hideous waist had been made from an old army +overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet and seeking; they +seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did not respond; at +that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of children. Yet +she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She afterwards +explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they looked as +odd as Dick's hatband. + +"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's +lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and +rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt +impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and +stiffness, and she answered sharply,-- + +"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' +then I don't take tramps." + +The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side. + +"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail +from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked. +"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully +down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it." + +Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had +offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though +she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she +believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if +she were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation +of difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He +emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as +if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen, +where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at the +start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job +was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar, +and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands +on his trousers, and turned to the child. + +"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'." + +It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery. +The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely +simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little warmer +because they had appeared. She had a new sensation of welcome company. +So it was that, quite to her own surprise, she answered as quickly as +he spoke, and her reply also seemed an inevitable part of the drama:-- + +"Walk right in. It's 'most dinner-time, an' I'll put on the pot." The +two stepped in before her, and they did not go away. + +Amelia herself never quite knew how it happened; but, like all the +other natural things of life, this had no need to be explained. At +first, there were excellent reasons for delay. The man, whose name +proved to be Enoch Willis, was a marvelous hand at a blow, and she kept +him a week, splitting some pine knots that defied her and the boy who +ordinarily chopped her wood. At the end of the week, Amelia confessed +that she was "terrible tired seein' Rosie round in that gormin' kind of +a dress;" so she cut and fitted her a neat little gown from her own red +cashmere. That was the second reason. Then the neighbors heard of the +mysterious guest, and dropped in, to place and label him. At first, +following the lead of undiscouraged fancy, they declared that he must +be some of cousin Silas's connections from Omaha; but even before +Amelia had time to deny that, his ignorance of local tradition denied +it for him. He must have heard of this or that, by way of cousin Silas; +but he owned to nothing defining place or time, save that he had been +in the war--"all through it." He seemed to be a man quite weary of the +past and indifferent to the future. After a half hour's talk with him, +unseasonable callers were likely to withdraw, perhaps into the pantry, +whither Amelia had retreated to escape catechism, and remark jovially, +"Well, 'Melia, you ain't told us who your company is!" + +"Mr. Willis," said Amelia. She was emulating his habit of reserve. It +made a part of her new loyalty. + +Even to her, Enoch had told no tales; and strangely enough, she was +quite satisfied. She trusted him. He did say that Rosie's mother was +dead; for the last five years, he said, she had been out of her mind. +At that, Amelia's heart gave a fierce, amazing leap. It struck a note +she never knew, and wakened her to life and longing. She was glad +Rosie's mother had not made him too content. He went on a step or two +into the story of his life. His wife's last illness had eaten up the +little place, and after she went, he got no work. So, he tramped. He +must go again. Amelia's voice sounded sharp and thin, even to her, as +she answered,-- + +"Go! I dunno what you want to do that for. Rosie's terrible contented +here." + +His brown eyes turned upon her in a kindly glance. + +"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a +machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin' +better 'n days' works." + +Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty. + +"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly. + +Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie +looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a +bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song. +"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't +never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was +younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now. +The better part o' my life's gone." + +Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost +pride, and all a longing of maternal love. + +"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were +married. + +Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries +of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was +agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride +to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no +previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, +and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges +were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They +argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it +would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the +popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies +toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days, +married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six +months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her +"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful +brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the +tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door +neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim, +with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her +smoke's a-goin'." + +Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and +without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of +affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing +things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well +as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her +try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the +steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition +reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their +marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about +the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he +only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he +guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a +bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door, +exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own +ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility +had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to +the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he +never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that +was what made it so pleasant to live with him. + +It was "easy sleddin'" now. Amelia grew very young. Her cheeks gained a +bloom, her eyes brightened. She even, as the matrons noticed, took to +crimping her hair. They looked on with a pitying awe. It seemed a +fearsome thing, to do so much for a tramp who would only kill you in +the end. Amelia stepped deftly about the house. She was a large woman, +whose ways had been devoid of grace; but now the richness of her +spiritual condition informed her with a charm. She crooned a little +about her work. Singing voice she had none, but she grew into a way of +putting words together, sometimes a line from the psalms, sometimes a +name she loved, and chanting the sounds, in unrecorded melody. +Meanwhile, little Rosie, always irreproachably dressed, with a jealous +care lest she fall below the popular standard, roamed in and out of the +house, and lightened its dull intervals. She, like the others, grew at +once very happy, because, like them, she accepted her place without a +qualm, as if it had been hers from the beginning. They were simple +natures, and when their joy came, they knew how to meet it. + +But if Enoch was content to follow the beaten ways of life, there was +one window through which he looked into the upper heaven of all: +thereby he saw what it is to create. He was a born mechanician. A +revolving wheel would set him to dreaming, and still him to that +lethargy of mind which is an involuntary sharing in the things that +are. He could lose himself in the life of rhythmic motion; and when he +discovered rusted springs, or cogs unprepared to fulfill their purpose, +he fell upon them with the ardor of a worshiper, and tried to set them +right. Amelia thought he should have invented something, and he +confessed that he had invented many things, but somehow failed in +getting them on the market. That process he mentioned with the +indifference of a man to whom a practical outcome is vague, and who +finds in the ideal a bright reality. Even Amelia could see that to be a +maker was his joy; to reap rewards of making was another and a lower +task. + +One cold day in the early spring, he went "up garret" to hunt out an +old saddle, gathering mildew there, and came upon a greater treasure, a +disabled clock. He stepped heavily down, bearing it aloft in both +hands. + +"See here, 'Melia," asked he, "why don't this go?" + +Amelia was scouring tins on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind +outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the +irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to +a job to quiet herself. + +"That clock?" she replied. "That was gran'ther Eli's. It give up +strikin', an' then the hands stuck, an' I lost all patience with it. So +I bought this nickel one, an' carted t'other off into the attic. 'T +ain't worth fixin'." + +"Worth it!" repeated Enoch. "Well, I guess I'll give it a chance." + +He drew a chair to the stove, and there hesitated. "Say, 'Melia," said +he, "should you jest as soon I'd bring in that old shoemaker's bench +out o' the shed? It's low, an' I could reach my tools off'n the floor." + +Amelia lacked the discipline of contact with her kind, but she was +nevertheless smooth as silk in her new wifehood. + +"Law, yes, bring it along," said she. "It's a good day to clutter up. +The' won't be nobody in." + +So, while Enoch laid apart the clock with a delicacy of touch known +only to square, mechanical fingers, and Rosie played with the +button-box on the floor, assorting colors and matching white with +white, Amelia scoured the tins. Her energy kept pace with the wind; it +whirled in gusts and snatches, yet her precision never failed. + +"Made up your mind which cow to sell?" she asked, opening a discussion +still unsettled, after days of animated talk. + +"Ain't much to choose," said Enoch. He had frankly set Amelia right on +the subject of livestock; and she smilingly acquiesced in his larger +knowledge. "Elbridge True's got a mighty nice Alderney, an' if he's +goin' to sell milk another year, he'll be glad to get two good milkers +like these. What he wants is ten quarts apiece, no matter if it's bluer +'n a whetstone. I guess I can swap off with him; but I don't want to +run arter him. I put the case last Thursday. Mebbe he'll drop round." + +"Well," concluded Amelia, "I guess you're pretty sure to do what's +right." + +The forenoon galloped fast, and it was half past eleven before she +thought of dinner. + +"Why," said she, "ain't it butcher day? I've been lottin' on a piece o' +liver." + +"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count." + +"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some +fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer +door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an' +peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it +ain't company, a day like this." + +Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full +of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there +came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. +There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia +washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. +She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her +consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her +family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky +with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an +eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were +that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her. + +"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons, +and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose." + +Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank +down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while +the knock came again, a little querulously. + +"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah +Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past +encounters; but that Enoch could not know. + +"Is it?" asked he, with but a mild appearance of interest. "Want me to +go to the door?" + +"Go to the door!" echoed Amelia, so stridently that he looked up at her +again. "No; I don't want anybody should go to the door till this room's +cleared up. If 't w'an't so ever-lastin' cold, I'd take him right into +the clock-room, an' blaze a fire; but he'd see right through that. You +gether up them tools an' things, an' I'll help carry out the bench." + +If Enoch had not just then been absorbed in a delicate combination of +brass, he might have spoken more sympathetically. As it was, he seemed +kindly, but remote. + +"Look out!" said he, "you'll joggle. No, I guess I won't move. If he's +any kind of a man, he'll know what 'tis to clean a clock." + +Amelia was not a crying woman, but the hot tears stood in her eyes. She +was experiencing, for the first time, that helpless pang born from the +wounding of pride in what we love. + +"Don't you see, Enoch?" she insisted. "This room looks like the Old +Boy--an' so do you--an' he'll go home an' tell all the folks at the +Ridge. Why, he's heard we're married, an' come over here to spy out the +land. He hates the cold. He never stirs till 'way on into June; an' now +he's come to find out." + +"Find out what?" inquired Enoch absorbedly. "Well, if you're anyways +put to 't, you send him to me." That manly utterance enunciated from a +"best-room" sofa, by an Enoch clad in his Sunday suit, would have +filled Amelia with rapture; she could have leaned on it as on the +Tables of the Law. But, alas! the scene-setting was meagre, and though +Enoch was very clean, he had no good clothes. He had pointedly refused +to buy them with his wife's money until he should have worked on the +farm to a corresponding amount. She had loved him for it; but every day +his outer poverty hurt her pride. "I guess you better ask him in," +concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you." + +Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed. + +"He _don't_ bother me," said she, "an' I _will_ let him in." She walked +to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she +broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. + +She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for +the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another +instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back +again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his +desire to get in. + +"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk +till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't +ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?" + +She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising +wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin +Josiah Pease." + +Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny +left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased +to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock." + +To Enoch, the explanation was enough. All the simple conventions of his +life might well wait upon a reason potent as this. Josiah Pease went to +the stove, and stood holding his tremulous hands over a cover. He was a +little man, eclipsed in a butternut coat of many capes, and his +parchment face shaded gradually up from it, as if into a harder medium. +His eyes were light, and they had an exceedingly uncomfortable way of +darting from one thing to another, like some insect born to spear and +sting. His head was entirely bald, all save a thin fringe of hair not +worth mentioning, since it disappeared so effectually beneath his +collar; and his general antiquity was grotesquely emphasized by two +sets of aggressive teeth, displaying their falsity from every crown. + +Amelia took out the broom, and began sweeping up buttons. She had an +acrid consciousness that by sacrificing them she was somehow completing +the tragedy of her day. Rosie gave a little cry; but Amelia pointed to +the corner where stood the child's chair, exhumed from the attic, after +forty years of rest. "You set there," she said, in an undertone, "an' +keep still." + +Rosie obeyed without a word. Such an atmosphere had not enveloped her +since she entered this wonderful house. Remembering vaguely the days +when her own mother had "spells," and she and her father effaced +themselves until times should change, she folded her little hands, and +lapsed back into a condition of mental servitude. + +Meanwhile, Amelia followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with +cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. +Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she +caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were +"soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, +having no lover in the war, had traded for her few. Here were the +gold-stones that held her changeable silk, there the little clouded +pearls from her sister's raglan. Annie had died in youth; its glamour +still enwrapped her. Poor Annie! But Rosie had seemed to bring her +back. Amelia swept litter, buttons and all, into the dustpan, and +marched to the stove to throw her booty in. Nobody marked her save +Rosie, whose playthings were endangered; but Enoch's very obtuseness to +the situation was what stayed her hand. She carried the dustpan away +into a closet, and came back, to gather up her tins. A cold rage of +nervousness beset her, so overpowering that she herself was amazed at +it. + +Meantime, Josiah Pease had divested himself of his coat, and drawn the +grandfather chair into a space behind the stove. + +"You a clock-mender by trade?" he asked of Enoch. + +"No," said Enoch absently, "I ain't got any reg'lar trade." + +"Jest goin' round the country?" amended cousin Josiah, with the +preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, +in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to +'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly on with his work. + +"Law, 'Melia, to think o' your bein' married," continued Josiah, +turning to her. "I never should ha' thought that o' you." + +"I never thought it of myself," said Amelia tartly. "You don't know +what you'll do till you're tried." + +"No! no!" said Josiah Pease. "Never in the world. You remember Sally +Flint, how plain-spoken she is? Well, Betsy Harden's darter Ann rode +down to the poor-house t'other day with some sweet trade, an' took a +young sprig with her. He turned his back a minute, to look out o' +winder, an' Sally spoke right up, as ye might say, afore him. 'That +your beau?' says she. Well, o' course Ann couldn't own it, an' him +right there, so to speak. So she shook her head. 'Well, I'm glad on +'t,' says Sally. 'If I couldn't have anything to eat, I'd have suthin' +to look at!' He was the most unsignifyin'est creatur' you ever put your +eyes on. But they say Ann's started in on her clo'es." + +Amelia's face had grown scarlet. "I dunno's any such speech is called +for here," said she, in a furious self-betrayal. Josiah Pease had +always been able to storm her reserves. + +"Law, no," answered he comfortably. "It come into my mind,--that's +all." + +She looked at Enoch with a passionate sympathy, knowing too well how +the hidden sting was intended to work. But Enoch had not heard. He was +absorbed in a finer problem of brass and iron; and though Amelia had +wished to save him from hurt, in that instant she scorned him for his +blindness. "I guess I shall have to ask you to move," she said to her +husband coldly. "I've got to git to that stove, if we're goin' to have +any dinner to-day." + +It seemed to her that even Enoch might take the hint, and clear away +his rubbish. Her feelings might have been assuaged by a clean hearth +and some acquiescence in her own mood. But he only moved back a little, +and went on fitting and musing. He was not thinking of her in the +least, nor even of Josiah Pease. His mind had entered its brighter, +more alluring world. She began to fry her pork and apples, with a +perfunctory attempt at conversation. "You don't often git round so +early in the spring," said she. + +"No," returned cousin Josiah. "I kind o' got started out, this time, I +don't rightly know why. I guess I've had you in mind more of late, for +some Tiverton folks come over our way, tradin', an' they brought all +the news. It sort o' stirred me up to come." + +Amelia turned her apples vigorously, well aware that the slices were +breaking. That made a part of her bitter day. + +"Folks needn't take the trouble to carry news about me," she said. +There was an angry gleam in her eyes. "If anybody wants to know +anything, let 'em come right here, an' I'll settle 'em." The ring of +her voice penetrated even to Enoch's perception, and he looked up in +mild surprise. She seemed to have thrown open, for an instant, a little +window into a part of her nature he had never seen. + +"How good them apples smell!" said Josiah innocently. "Last time I had +'em was down to cousin Amasa True's, he that married his third wife, +an' she run through all he had. I went down to see 'em arter the +vandoo,--you know they got red o' most everything,--an' they had fried +pork an' apples for dinner. Old Bashaby dropped in. 'Law!' says she. +'Fried pork an' apples! Well, I call that livin' pretty nigh the +wind!'" Josiah chuckled. He was very warm now, and the savory smell of +the dish he decried was mounting to what served him for fancy. "'Melia, +you ain't never had your teeth out, have ye?" he asked, as one who +spoke from richer memories. + +"I guess my teeth'll last me as long as I want 'em," said Amelia +curtly. + +"Well, I didn't know. They looked real white an' firm last time I see +'em, but you never can tell how they be underneath. I knew the folks +would ask me when I got home. I thought I'd speak." + +"Dinner's ready," said Amelia. She turned an alien look upon her +husband. "You want to wash your hands?" + +Enoch rose cheerfully. He had got to a hopeful place with the clock. + +"Set ri' down," said he. "Don't wait a minute. I'll be along." + +So Amelia and the guest began their meal, while little Rosie climbed, +rather soberly, into her higher chair, and held out her plate. + +"You wait," said Amelia harshly. "Can't you let other folks eat a +mouthful before you have to have yours?" Yet as she said it, she +remembered, with a remorseful pang, that she had always helped the +child first; it had been so sweet to see her pleased and satisfied. + +Josiah was never talkative during meals. Not being absolute master of +his teeth, his mind dwelt with them. Amelia remembered that, with a +malicious satisfaction. But he could not be altogether dumb. That, +people said, would never happen to Josiah Pease while he was above +ground. + +"That his girl?" he asked, indicating Rosie with his knife, in a +gustatory pause. + +"Whose?" inquired Amelia willfully. + +"His." He pointed again, this time to the back room, where Enoch was +still washing his hands. + +"Yes." + +"Mother dead?" + +Amelia sprang from her chair, while Rosie looked at her with the +frightened glance of a child to whom some half-forgotten grief has +suddenly returned. + +"Josiah Pease!" said Amelia. "I never thought a poor, insignificant +creatur' like you could rile me so,--when I know what you're doin' it +for, too. But you've brought it about. Her mother dead? Ain't I been +an' married her father?" + +"Law, Amelia, do se' down!" said Josiah indulgently. There was a +mince-pie warming on the back of the stove. He saw it there. "I didn't +mean nuthin'. I'll be bound you thought she's dead, or you wouldn't ha' +took such a step. I only meant, did ye see her death in the paper, for +example, or anything like that?" + +"'Melia," called Enoch, from the doorway, "I won't come in to dinner +jest now. Elbridge True's drove into the yard. I guess he's got it in +mind to talk it over about them cows. I don't want to lose the chance." + +"All right," answered Amelia. She took her seat again, while Enoch's +footsteps went briskly out through the shed. With the clanging of the +door, she felt secure. If she had to deal with Josiah Pease, she could +do it better alone, clutching at the certainty that was with her from +of old, that, if you could only keep your temper with cousin Josiah, +you had one chance of victory. Flame out at him, and you were lost. +"Some more potatoes?" asked she, with a deceptive calm. + +"Don't care if I do," returned Josiah, selecting greedily, his fork +hovering in air. "Little mite watery, ain't they? Dig 'em yourself?" + +"We dug 'em," said Amelia coldly. + +Rosie stepped down from her chair, unnoticed. To Amelia, she was then +no bigger than some little winged thing flitting about the room in time +of tragedy. Our greatest emotions sometimes stay unnamed. At that +moment, Amelia was swayed by as tumultuous a love as ever animated +damsel of verse or story; but it merely seemed to her that she was an +ill-used woman, married to a man for whom she was called on to be +ashamed. Rosie tiptoed into the entry, put on her little shawl and +hood, and stole out to play in the corn-house. When domestic squalls +were gathering, she knew where to go. The great outdoors was safer. Her +past had taught her that. + +"Don't like to eat with folks, does he? Well, it's all in what you're +brought up to." + +Amelia was ready with her counter-charge. "Have some tea?" + +She poured it as if it were poison, and Josiah became conscious of her +tragic self-control. + +"You ain't eat a thing," said he, with an ostentatious kindliness. He +bent forward a little, with the air of inviting a confidence. "Got +suthin' on your mind, ain't you, 'Melia?" he whispered. "Kind o' +worried? Find he's a drinkin' man?" + +Amelia was not to be beguiled, even by that anger which veils itself as +justice. She looked at him steadily, with scorching eyes. + +"You ain't took any sugar," said she. "There 't is, settin' by you. +Help yourself." + +Josiah addressed himself to his tea, and then Amelia poured him another +cup. She had some fierce satisfaction in making it good and strong. It +seemed to her that she was heartening her adversary for the fray, and +she took pleasure in doing it effectually. So great was the spirit +within her that she knew he could not be too valiant, for her keener +joy in laying him low. Then they rose from the table, and Josiah took +his old place by the stove, while Amelia began carrying the dishes to +the sink. Her mind was a little hazy now; her next move must depend on +his, and cousin Josiah, somewhat drowsy from his good dinner, was not +at once inclined to talk. Suddenly he raised his head snakily from +those sunken shoulders, and pointed a lean finger to the window. + +"'Melia!" cried he sharply. "I'll be buttered if he ain't been and +traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin' to stan' there an' let +them two cows go?" + +Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked +out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her +two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She +walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together +in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and +send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from +the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his +arms. + +"Here's your coat," said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. +"Stan' up, an' I'll help you put it on." + +Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous +that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight. + +"I was in hopes he'd harness up"--he began, but she ruthlessly cut him +short. + +"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes +round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There +they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' +this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown +up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she +was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, +but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in +the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, +Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his +usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, +and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!" + +He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was +nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia +realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for +despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't +you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,--egg an' bird!" She +closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went +back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor +and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that +moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had +resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time +itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his +voice jarred upon her tingling nerves. + +"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've +made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I +eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it." + +Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her +conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an +unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else. + +"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my +cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what +you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man +who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions +neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was +there. + +"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!" + +Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew +sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed +themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which +left her no will save that of speaking. + +"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say +once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' +things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours." + +Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was +almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by +his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest +patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind +anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had +too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose +anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. +"There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp." + +Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she +could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he +turned away from her, and went over to the bench. + +"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still +voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer +pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical +way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the +bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled +machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the +stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those +moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came +back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of +his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and +broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke +to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face. + +"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new +cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the +worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' +I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, +an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so +than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. +You've been good to me,--better 'n anybody ever was in the world." + +She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the +door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and +then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, +to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking +vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart +hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh. + +"Well," said Amelia, "_that's_ over. I'll wash my dishes now." + +Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly +about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped +her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet +her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little +imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten +the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all +her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia +stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah +Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean +forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she +realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train +where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child +behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to +the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste +to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of +welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, +and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path +toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into +the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of +the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, +still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish +color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of +their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that +moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth +which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least +against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient +fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about +Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while +she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve. + +"You cold?" asked she--"_dear_?" But she told herself it was a kiss of +farewell. + +She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and +took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded +root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only +tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those +without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying +forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She +would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; +nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would +drop the child at his side,--the child he had deserted,--and before he +could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, +she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if +she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of +her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come +chokingly. + +"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down +at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry." + +At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her +feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband +running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but +Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes +feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great +despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of +patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles +under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all +the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not +stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming +upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his +shoulders, and laid her wet face to his. + +"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with +me!" + +She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and +very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a +whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for +Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her." + +He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her +hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could +wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze +fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet +cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and +she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," +she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything +ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew." + +"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance +had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away +while she still suffered. + +Amelia began, stumblingly,-- + +"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it." + +"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly. + +"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. +But--Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off--Enoch"--Her voice +fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to +analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb +things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. +The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must +die. + +He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away. + +"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I +couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the +woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about +the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the +beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"-- + +Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly +argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from +her and left her young. + +"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've +got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more +than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all +your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between +us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you +now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you +go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep +upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, +in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a +sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the +candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him. + +"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked. + +"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could +not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous +judgment. + +"S'pose I don't ask you?" + +"I'll foller on behind." + +"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?" + +She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head. + +"No." + +"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?" + +"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly. + +Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you +look up here." + +She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, +but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which +she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, +and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his +arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a +man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more +bitter tears. + +"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about +the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie." + +Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her +as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking +the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before +they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and +their hearts beat together. + +"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, +but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have +her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I +know that now. You're all there is in the world." + +When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there +with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and +soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing +her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the +word his wife might wish. + +"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't +tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me +go over it"-- + +"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, +and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their +tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door +only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she +threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?" + +He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and +then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he +made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught. + +"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of +'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference +whose they be. But as to lyin'"-- + +"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?" + +"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held +each other's hands. + +"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped +together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You +blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs." + + + + +THE MORTUARY CHEST + + +"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down +an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the +country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she +spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't +git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter +miss for a good deal." + +Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. +They also remarked that her nose was as picked as a pin, and that +anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You +could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme +acuteness, and tried to live up to it. + +"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page +comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had +contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the +letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp +on in the mornin'." + +By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, +a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East +Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the +pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the +midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum +of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store +for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of +sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an +exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of +the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with +ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. +One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she +meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according +to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, +and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly +rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son +Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, +she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of +paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had +smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast +glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great +forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand +wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth +had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service +that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown +back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease. + +"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an +informal preliminary. + +"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before +the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt +went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood +an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! +she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days." + +"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was +one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd +ruther live with a born fool." + +"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron +(recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad +as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' +a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' +we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish +to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about +news, but she won't lend." + +"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively +practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. +"Got all the water you want?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been +sence November." + +But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track. + +"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she +asked. + +Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay +in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat +and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond +uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her +minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. +Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of +beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces. + +"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to +tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say +right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in +the paper, it ain't the kind you can." + +Tilly's eyes burned. + +"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now +don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never +in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for +himself." + +"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' +last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here +to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the +Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? +an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, +'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all +the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech +come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on +'t, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a +plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the +assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she +had done it. + +The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was +accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension. + +"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!" + +"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her +eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful +disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could +easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small +issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' +into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got +eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five +minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with +Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?" + +"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins +sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' +he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' +your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen." + +Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under +her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these +assured married women; it was always a little bracing. + +"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. +"Tickled to death, I s'pose?" + +"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding +finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has +been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate +the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, +and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and +no." + +"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the +party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna +Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. +Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was +passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he +felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out +kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to +take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it +ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been +the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't +take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, +'No, I thank you.'" + +"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked +Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and +proceeding to divide them. + +"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if +what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. +Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to +end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live +by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from +Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. +He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he +heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the +dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you +know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married +twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he +heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started." + +Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of +reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming +profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and +she continued:-- + +"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' +her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the +dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says +he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' +'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'" + +There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt +the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be +indefinitely prolonged. + +"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she +is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?" + +"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' +her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as +old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible +class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young +thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, +when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton +wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' +his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at +his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, +'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two +darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted +up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, +afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' +whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson +over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was +growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but +he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, +by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, +'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, +an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says +he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'" + +Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others +laughed out rich and free. + +"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who +never forgot the main issue. + +"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em +straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the +tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, +an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he +couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says +he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn." + +"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll +marry him?" + +"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll +think she's got to." + +"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with +everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her +sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two +girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's +got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take +lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd +let her alone." + +"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our +sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a +mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time +we've had oysters over our way." + +"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured +veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'." + +"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't +foller." + +"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said +the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring +at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over +in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music." + +"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. +"If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!" + +"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. +We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' +cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's +Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to +Saltash." + +Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and +went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in +passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their +guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She +was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft +brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, +if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop +beauty in middle life. + +The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their +faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, +who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by +the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with +dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but +something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his +people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes +rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached +the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at +her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all +through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing +down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her +sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road. + +The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry +twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who +had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. +Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before +the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a +blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the +snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew +her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it. + +"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must +hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow." + +The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child +carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces +lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, +while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from +within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly +banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful +frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and +the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore +her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them +back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag. + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. +When did you rain down?" + +"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing +into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' +I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out +to do it." + +"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into +the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I +put on coal in the morning, and then again at night." + +"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it +with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under +the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?" + +Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other +side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits. + +"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm +going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm +having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and +live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died." + +"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a +glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen +'d feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she +was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' +there 't is!" + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a +chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, +half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest. + +"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist." + +"Whose?" + +"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd +triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not +at once apparent. + +"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it. + +"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have +you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I +feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, +an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I +guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up +attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, +an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence." + +"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh. + +"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't +was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but +it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a +great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther +go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more +'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved +suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this +chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' +smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the +very next week she was took away." + +"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? +Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?" + +"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past +an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. +She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must +think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll +open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, +'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't +was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the +chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it +to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a +sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! +Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she +never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, +I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' +she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off +downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her +work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to +harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, +an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but +what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. +John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't +a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went +to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been +meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a +new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?" + +"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why +you care." + +Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief. + +"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's +al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. +There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest +as soon open it?" + +Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. +She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned +over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment +the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room. + +"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of +saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a +whisper:-- + +"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think." + +"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself +with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's +that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no +need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!" + +Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped +handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my +dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The +broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" + +"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep +that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a +little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's +lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take +out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly +believe it." + +Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an +old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, +"'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, +"there's no back breadth!" + +"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for +fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a +real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back +breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most +sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" + +It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. + +"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt +Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza +was a horror!" + +"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a +chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we +can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn +bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's +cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' +Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're +marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I +bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up +and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with +unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. +"There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as +soon burn 'em?" + +"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I +will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; +perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then." + +She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer +gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still +remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on +her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, +though the tears had gone from her face. + +"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you +do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my +things." + +Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, +whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living. + +"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts +back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' +along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks +he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I +git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so +spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and +Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse +and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent +forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to +say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it." + +Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's +anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"-- + +Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. +"Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But +there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country +road to the music of old-fashioned bells. + +Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about +preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with +a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which +nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, +the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any +domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well +as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never +consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the +night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the +table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, +uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic +sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, +as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and +over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment +of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried +again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human +power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, +conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon +the table with indignant emphasis. + +"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate +repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix +her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her +beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in +reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion +also, and take away her wicked facility. + +The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper +had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had +quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the +chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was +wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things +to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's +awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a +certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the +remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the +accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at +that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. +Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the +side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton +could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel +always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed +upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much +she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible +attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut +undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in +it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his +office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how +could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, +to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began +casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing +current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the +foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have +laughed hysterically. + +"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out +the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me +on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I +said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why +couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the +dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the +tone she sought. + +He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the +sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She +had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and +pulled out the black dress. + +"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking +as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you +don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!" + +The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting +on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the +leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed +the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow +from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent +care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and +smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She +blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, +schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to +remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her +upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door. + +"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," +but the words stuck in his throat. + +"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home." + +The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with +benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he +expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her +also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated. + +"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied +on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly +she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were +dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice +is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A +merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with +decision: "Won't you come in?" + +The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede +him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside. + +"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door." + +He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin +his shawl. + +"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering +with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, +within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear +up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in +to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more +faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'--not a mite." + +The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously +removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she +thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, +for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they +looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was +safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, +"'I have thee on the hip!'" + +The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making +parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened +conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:-- + +"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did +you say?" + +She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her +voice. + +"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took +up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that +lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he +bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, +'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'" + +The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old +lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious. + +"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"--he began, but +he was interrupted without compunction. + +"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother +married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. +By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're +writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so +I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her +own aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'" + +Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had +shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and +peered at his hostess. + +"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively. + +"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic +than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her +sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she +leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!" + +"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!" + +Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of +itself into her voice. + +"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I +thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house +upside down inside of a week." + +The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to +say something, and thought better of it. + +"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies +take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution +lessons"-- + +"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as +if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' +of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or +take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know." + +The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment. + +"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in +Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?" + +"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's +the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how +a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale +o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I +heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week +was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the +'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in +Missouri, an' here I be." + +"I hope you will be able to remain." + +"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was +losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here +to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But +Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and +she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown +herself!") + +"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson +courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old +lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I +could do anything towards finding her"-- + +"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as +she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could +do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should +be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the +neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't +speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got +enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the +keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed +enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel +for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the +necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious +me! What's that?" + +A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, +amazed at her agitation. + +"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?" + +"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her +cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the +parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There +came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in +front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim +twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself +before the door. + +"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say." + +Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be +mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea +speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped +forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl. + +"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?" + +Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to +herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the +parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate. + +"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove +and be calm--be calm!" + +Isabel was overcome anew. + +"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let +me be!" + +She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. +Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she +called. + +"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the +door." + +"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she +continued. "Only a minute!" + +She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. +The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey +in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to +be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it. + +"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take +off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" +Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile. + +"Isabel!" gasped the parson. + +"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!" + +The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the +mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue +chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss +me the shawl. Now if you say one word--Oh, parson, if you only will +keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And +leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door. + +"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want +greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face +and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so +small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life +with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the +sitting-room. "Sadie here?" + +The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was +peering down into her face. + +"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed. + +The little woman looked up at him--very sadly, Isabel thought. + +"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she +did not offer to shake hands. + +Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and +aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on +the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt +followed her. + +"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the +things?" + +"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No." + +"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into +the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and +aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers +are," she said. "Lamp smoke?" + +Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her +aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt +as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing +awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed +her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair. + +"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over +with you." + +The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they +trembled, and he clasped his hands instead. + +"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began. + +"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece +needed me." + +Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. +She began crying angrily into her handkerchief. + +"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?" + +"Yes," sobbed the girl. + +"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel +better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's +anything for you to do." + +Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat +mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the +clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew +his nose vigorously. + +"Mary Ellen"--he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you +so!" + +"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She +was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and +laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He +remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking +intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing +makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are." + +"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do _not_! And you +don't look so." + +"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the +only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones." + +The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and +bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own. + +"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but +Isabel looks like you!" + +She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything +they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't +see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father +said." + +"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've +always thought so, ever since she was a little girl." + +"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle +calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her +eyes. I believe they were black." + +"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never +were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly." + +Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! +But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a +little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been +hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made +town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after +her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you +was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked +out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim +harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you +should make a mistake at your time of life!" + +The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in +his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him +through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the +woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel +like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, +looking at her with something piteous in his air. + +"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I +did make one. You know it, and I know it." + +She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, +William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've +passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no +shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to +break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about +her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a +shame to put her there." + +The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and +sad lines of recollection deepened in his face. + +"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. +Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a +minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" +"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her +chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of +tears forbidden to fall. + +"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence +roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but +you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all +times." + +"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember." + +"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I +was a minister, and my girl--the girl that was going to marry me--sat +down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of +you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my +life, just that way." + +Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged +face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other +in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white +a good deal." + +But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he +broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing +his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial +one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you +remember what he said?" + +"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The +corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender. + +"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art +fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think +of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was +in a garden--always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that +summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been +a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down +where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the +Church, but do all I could, it was a girl--or an angel!" + +"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty. + +"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped +sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. +But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just +how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles +pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the +dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd +got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. +And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, +though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his +hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a +doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. _This one's about a girl_. You +might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'" + +The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of +memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile. + +"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember." + +"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I +could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the +sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what +came afterwards--I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have +brought me nearer to you." + +It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted +herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face. + +"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on +us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you +just as lieves tell me?" + +She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone +brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes. + +"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,--no, +nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given +to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I +don't know what tale was carried to you"-- + +"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give +you a chance!" + +"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I +took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants +to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so." + +The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal. + +"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let +me _be_ a fool?" + +She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all +their sting. + +"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things +like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I +read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out +of poor little Isabel." + +The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel. + +"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and +unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: +'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as +soon as I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and +I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that +belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with +her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a +finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm +going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every +time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened +her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but +I'm glad now!" + +The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the +smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her +glasses and walked over to the chest. + +"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it +ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my +courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a +knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by." + +The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged +people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the +broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When +they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen +looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard. + +"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up." + +The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a +folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. +The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out +and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as +we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, +wiping his glasses, looked also. + +"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And +that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her. + +"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little +trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it +gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your +mother's?" + +She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at +once:-- + +"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas +with you." + +She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other. + +"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it +here. Just take it away with you." + +The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his +youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned +the pages, a smile coming now and then. + +"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,--"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He +murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, +shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a +sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And +the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled. + +The woman was the first to turn away. + +"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. +We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we +ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of +other people--them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?" + +The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in +buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she +did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness +in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson +put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over +it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned. + +"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the +sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?" + +She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at +all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil +the truth. + +"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I +took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!" + +"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind +him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the +horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was +opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk. + +"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice. + +"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to +leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; +"Isabel!" + +She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up +in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen. + +"Parson,"--forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his +knee,--"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, +please? I can't explain it"-- + +"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't +try to. I guess I made you nervous." + +"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the +parson drove away. + +Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, +where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had +her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that +the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary +Ellen had looked when she was young. + +"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron +to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief." + + + + +HORN O' THE MOON + + +If you drive along Tiverton Street, and then turn to the left, down the +Gully Road, you journey, for the space of a mile or so, through a +bewildering succession of damp greenery, with noisy brooks singing +songs below you, on either side, and the treetops on the level with +your horse's feet. Few among the older inhabitants ever take this +drive, save from necessity, because it is conceded that the dampness +there is enough, even in summer, to "give you your death o' cold;" and +as for the young, to them the place wears an eerie look, with its +miniature suggestion of impassable gulfs and roaring torrents. Yet no +youth reaches his majority without exploring the Gully. He who goes +alone is the more a hero; but even he had best leave two or three +trusty comrades reasonably near, not only to listen, should he call, +but to stand his witnesses when he afterwards declares where he has +been. It is a fearsome thing to explore that lower stratum of this +round world, so close to the rushing brook that it drowns your +thoughts, though not your apprehensions, and to go slipping about over +wet boulders and among dripping ferns; but your fears are fears of the +spirit. They are inherited qualms. You shiver because your grandfathers +and fathers and uncles have shivered there before you. If you are very +brave indeed, and naught but the topmost round of destiny will content +you, possibly you penetrate still further into green abysses, and come +upon the pool where, tradition says, an ancient trout has his +impregnable habitation. Apparently, nobody questions that the life of a +trout may be indefinitely prolonged, under the proper conditions of a +retired dusk; and the same fish that served our grandfathers for a +legend now enlivens our childish days. When you meet a youngster, +ostentatiously setting forth for the Gully Road, with bait-box and +pole, you need not ask where he is going; though if you have any human +sympathy in the pride of life, you will not deny him his answer:-- + +"Down to have a try for the old trout!" + +The pool has been still for many years. Not within the memory of aged +men has the trout turned fin or flashed a speckled side; but he is to +this day an historical present. He has lived, and therefore he lives +always. + +Those who do not pause upon the Gully Road, but keep straight on into +the open, will come into the old highway leading up and up to Horn o' +the Moon. It is an unshaded, gravelly track, pointing duly up-hill for +three long miles; and it has become a sober way to most of us, in this +generation: for we never take it unless we go on the solemn errand of +getting Mary Dunbar, that famous nurse, to care for our sick or dead. +There is a tradition that a summer visitor once hired a "shay," and +drove, all by herself, up to Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive +splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by +the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated +with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to +lean on the fence, and call excitedly,-- + +"Where ye goin'?" + +"Horn o' the Moon," replied she, having learned in Tiverton the value +of succinct replies. + +"Who's sick?" + +"Nobody." + +"Got any folks up there?" + +"No. Going to see the place." + +The effect of this varied. Some looked in amazement; one ventured to +say, "Well, that's the beater!" and another dropped into the cabalistic +remark which cannot be defined, but which has its due significance, +"Well, you _must_ be sent for!" The result of all this running +commentary was such that, when the visitor reached the top of the hill +where Horn o' the Moon lies, encircled by other lesser heights, she was +stricken by its exceeding desolation, and had no heart to cast more +than a glance at the noble view below. She turned her horse, and +trotted, recklessly and with many stumblings, down again into friendly +Tiverton. + +Horn o' the Moon is unique in its melancholy. It has so few trees, and +those of so meagre and wind-swept a nature, that it might as well be +entirely bald. No apples grow there; and in the autumn, the inhabitants +make a concerted sally down into Tiverton Street, to purchase their +winter stock, such of them as can afford it. The poorer folk--and they +are all poor enough--buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so +common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds +this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to +remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, +to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. + +There is very little grass at the top of the lonely height, and that of +a husky, whispering sort, in thin ribbons that flutter low little songs +in the breeze. They never cease; for, at Horn o' the Moon, there is +always a wind blowing, differing in quality with the season. Sometimes +it is a sighing wind from other heights, happier in that they are sweet +with firs. Sometimes it is exasperating enough to make the March +breezes below seem tender; then it tosses about in snatching gusts, +buffeting, and slapping, and excoriating him who stands in its way. +Somehow, all the peculiarities of Horn o' the Moon seem referable, in a +mysterious fashion, to the wind. The people speak in high, strenuous +voices, striving to hold their own against its wicked strength. Most of +them are deaf. Is that because the air beats ceaselessly against the +porches of their ears? They are a stunted race; for they have grown +into the habit of holding the head low, and plunging forward against +that battling element. Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the +ordinary sort. Their feathers grow the wrong way, standing up in a +ragged and disorderly fashion; and they, too, have the effect of having +been blown about and disarranged, until nature yielded, and agreed to +their permanent roughness. + +Moreover, all the people are old or middle-aged; and possibly that is +why, again, the settlement is so desolate. It is a disgrace for us +below to marry with Horn o' the Mooners, though they are a sober folk; +and now it happens that everybody up there is the cousin of everybody +else. The race is dying out, we say, as if we considered it a distinct +species; and we agree that it would have been wiped away long ago, by +weight of its own eccentricity, had not Mary Dunbar been the making of +it. She is the one righteous among many. She is the good nurse whom we +all go to seek, in our times of trouble, and she perpetually saves her +city from the odium of the world. + +Mary was born in Tiverton Street. We are glad to remember that, we who +condemn by the wholesale, and are assured that no good can come out of +Nazareth. When she was a girl of eighteen, her father and mother died; +and she fell into a state of spiritual exaltation, wherein she dreamed +dreams, and had periods of retirement within her house, communing with +other intelligences. We said Mary had lost her mind; but that was +difficult to believe, since no more wholesome type of womanhood had +ever walked our streets. She was very tall, built on the lines of a +beauty transcending our meagre strain. Nobody approved of those broad +shoulders and magnificent arms. We said it was a shame for any girl to +be so overgrown; yet our eyes followed her, delighted by the harmony of +line and action. Then we whispered that she was as big as a moose, and +that, if we had such arms, we never'd go out without a shawl. Her +"mittins" must be wide enough for any man! + +Mary did everything perfectly. She walked as if she went to meet the +morning, and must salute it worthily. She carried a weight as a goddess +might bear the infant Bacchus; and her small head, poised upon that +round throat, wore the crown of simplicity, and not of pride. But we +only told how strong she was, and how much she could lift. We loved +Mary, but sensibility had to shrink from those great proportions and +that elemental strength. + +One snowy morning, Mary's spiritual vision called her out of our midst, +to which she never came back save as we needed her. The world was very +white that day, when she rose, in her still house, dressed herself +hastily, and roused a neighbor, begging him to harness, and drive her +up to Horn o' the Moon. Folks were sick there, with nobody to take care +of them. The neighbor reasoned, and then refused, as one might deny a +person, however beloved, who lives by the intuitions of an unseen +world. Mary went home again, and, as he believed, to stay. But she had +not hesitated in her allegiance to the heavenly voice. Somehow, through +the blinding snow and unbroken road, she ploughed her way up to Horn o' +the Moon, where she found an epidemic of diphtheria; and there she +stayed. We marveled over her guessing how keenly she was needed; but +since she never explained, it began to be noised abroad that some +wandering peddler told her. That accounted for everything; and Mary had +no time for talk. She was too busy, watching with the sick, and going +about from house to house, cooking delicate gruels and broiling chicken +for those who were getting well. It is said that she even did the barn +work, and milked the cows, during that tragic time. We were not +surprised. Mary was a great worker, and she was fond of "creatur's." + +Whether she came to care for these stolid people on the height, or +whether the vision counseled her, Mary gave up her house in the +village, and bought a little old dwelling under an overhanging +hillside, at Horn o' the Moon. It was a nest built into the rock, its +back sitting snugly there. The dark came down upon it quickly. In +winter, the sun was gone from the little parlor as early as three +o'clock; but Mary did not mind. That house was her temporary shell; she +only slept in it in the intervals of hurrying away, with blessed feet, +to tend the sick, and hold the dying in untiring arms. I shall never +forget how, one morning, I saw her come out of the door, and stand +silent, looking toward the rosy east. There was the dawn, and there was +she, its priestess, while all around her slept. I should not have been +surprised had her lips, parted already in a mysterious smile, opened +still further in a prophetic chanting to the sun. But Mary saw me, and +the alert, answering look of one who is a messenger flashed swiftly +over her face. She advanced like the leader of a triumphal procession. + +"Anybody want me?" she called. "I'll get my bunnit." + +It was when she was twenty, and not more than settled in the little +house at Horn o' the Moon, that her story came to her. The Veaseys were +her neighbors, perhaps five doors away; and one summer morning, Johnnie +Veasey came home from sea. He brought no money, no coral from foreign +parts, nor news of grapes in Eshcol. He simply came empty-handed, as he +always did, bearing only, to vouch for his wanderings, a tanned face, +and the bright, red-brown eyes that had surely looked on things we +never saw. Adam Veasey, his brother; had been paralyzed for years. He +sat all day in the chimney corner, looking at his shaking hands, and +telling how wide a swathe he could cut before he was afflicted. Mattie, +Adam's wife, had long dealt with the problem of an unsupported +existence. She had turned into a flitting little creature with eager +eyes, who made it her business to prey upon a more prosperous world. +Mattie never went about without a large extra pocket attached to her +waist; into this, she could slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, +or even a loaf of bread. She laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and +the town below. Was there a frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No +sooner had the odor risen upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, +dumbly insistent on her toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it +was said that, in fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, +because of the hordes of insects settling here and there on her +odoriferous gown. When Johnnie Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in +arms. Their golden chance had come at last. + +"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and +Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that +he did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into +the wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new +folks. + +Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again, +and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him.. So she went over to +old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted, +according to her little best. + +Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had +brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He +described what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others +had known and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these +stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and +every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, +or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the +tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit +out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill +possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling +uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men +about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking +swiftly by, a basket in her hand. Johnnie came bolt upright, and took +off his cap. He looked amazingly young and fine, and Mary blushed as +she went by. + +"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers. + +"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved +up." + +Johnnie watched her walking away, for the rhythm of her motion +attracted him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that. + +It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys', +where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; +and while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman +for her dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange +lands. It seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were +such lands in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt +out her old geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed +rivers to their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. +She was seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast. + +Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in +the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey +would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of +the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had +simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from +her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after +her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her +own bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but +one first question for every comer:-- + +"Anybody sick?" + +"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. +"I want to tell you how things stand." + +It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an +exposition of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress +came to the tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella +Hardy, who had died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no +matter, for the enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, +concealed that youthful eccentricity. Her shoes--congress, with +world-weary elastics at the side--were her own, inherited from an aunt; +and her bonnet was a rusty black, with a mourning veil. There was, at +that time, but one new bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had +sighed, when Mattie proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed +nobody'd want anything that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant +sought out Mrs. Pillsbury, whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief +season of prosperity, nine years before, had become, in a manner, +village property. It was as duly in public requisition as the hearse; +and its owner cherished a melancholy pride in this official state. She +never felt as if she owned it,--only that she was the keeper of a +sacred trust; and Mattie, in asking for it, knew that she demanded no +more than her due, as a citizen should. It was an impersonal matter +between her and the bonnet; and though she should wear it on a secular +errand, the veil did not signify. She knew everybody else knew whose +bonnet it was; and that if anybody supposed she had met with a loss, +they had only to ask, and she to answer. So, in the consciousness of an +armor calculated to meet the world, she skillfully brought her congress +boots into Mary's kitchen, and sat down, her worn little hands clasped +under the shawl. + +"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's +happened to Johnnie?" + +Mary rose, a hand upon her chair. + +"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so--ready +to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!" + +Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of +those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and +sugared again. + +"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as +some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been +gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, +neither,--down the ledge. I dunno how he done it--he climbs like a +cat--seems as if the Old Boy was in it--but half his body he can't +move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's." + +Mary listened gravely; her hands on her knees. + +"How long's he been so?" + +"Nigh on to five weeks." + +"Had the doctor?" + +"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there +ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An' +I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him +in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the +heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the +selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no +money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I +can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down +to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along +down." + +"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes." + +"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that +last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in +bed, an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to know if you +wouldn't run in, long towards noon, an' warm up suthin' for 'em." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mary Dunbar. "I'll be there." + +She rose, and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she +must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had +already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading +carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her +way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to scurry and gather. + +Mary looked hastily about the room, to see if its perfect order needed +a farewell touch; and then she drank her cup of tea, and stepped out +into the morning. The air was fresh and sweet. She wore no shawl, and +the wind lifted the little brown rings on her forehead, and curled them +closer. Mary held a hand upon them, and hurried on. She had no more +thought of appearances than a woman in a desert land, or in the desert +made by lack of praise; for she knew no one looked at her. To be clean +and swift was all her life demanded. + +Adam sat by the stove, where the ashes were still warm. It was not a +day for fires, but he loved his accustomed corner. He was a middle-aged +man, old with the suffering which is not of years, and the pathos of +his stricken state hung about him, from his unkempt beard to the dusty +black clothing which had been the Tiverton minister's outworn suit. One +would have said he belonged to the generation before his brother. + +"That you, Mary?" he asked, in his shaking voice. "Now, ain't that +good? Come to set a spell?" + +"Where is he?" responded Mary, in a swift breathlessness quite new to +her. + +"In there. We put up a bed in the clock-room." + +It was the unfinished part of the house. The Veaseys had always meant +to plaster, but that consummation was still afar. The laths showed +meagrely; it was a skeleton of a room,--and, sunken in the high +feather-bed between the two windows, lay Johnnie Veasey, his buoyancy +all gone, his face quite piteous to see, now that its tan had faded. +Mary went up to the bedside, and laid one cool, strong hand upon his +wrist. His eyes sought her with a wild entreaty; but she knew, although +he seemed to suffer, that this was the misery of delirium, and not the +conscious mind. Adam had come trembling to the door, and stood there, +one hand beating its perpetual tattoo upon the wall. Mary looked up at +him with that abstracted gaze with which we weigh and judge. + +"He's feverish," said she. "Mattie didn't tell me that. How long's he +been so?" + +"I dunno. I guess a matter o' two days." + +"Two days?" + +"Well, it might be off an' on ever sence he fell." Adam was helpless. +He depended upon Mattie, and Mattie was not there. + +"What did the doctor leave?" + +Adam looked about him. "'T was the Herb doctor," he said. "He had her +steep some trade in a bowl." + +Mary Dunbar drew her hand away, and walked two or three times up and +down the bare, bleak room. The seeking eyes were following her. She +knew how little their distended agony might mean; but nevertheless they +carried an entreaty. They leaned upon her, as the world, her sick +world, was wont to lean. Mary was, in many things, a child; but her +attitude had grown to be maternal. Suddenly she turned to Adam, where +he stood, shaking and hesitating, in the doorway. + +"You goin' to send him off?" + +"Pears as if that's the only way," shuffled Adam. + +"To-day?" + +"Well, I dunno 's they'll come"-- + +Mary walked past him, her mind assured. + +"There, that'll do," said she. "You set down in your corner. I'll be +back byme-by." + +She hurried out into the bleak world which was her home, and, at that +moment, it looked very fair and new. The birds were singing, loudly as +they ever sang up here where there were few leaves to nest in. Mary +stopped an instant to listen, and lifted her face wordlessly to the +clear blue sky. It seemed as if she had been given a gift. There, +before one of the houses, she called aloud, with a long, lingering +note, "Jacob!" and Jacob Pease rose from; his milking-stool, and came +forward. Jacob was tall and snuff-colored, a widower of three years' +standing. There was a theory that he wanted Mary, and lacked the +courage to ask her. + +"That you, Mary Dunbar?" said he. "Anything on hand?" + +"I want you to come and help me lift," answered Mary. + +Jacob set down his milk pail, and followed her into the Veaseys' +kitchen. She drew out the tin basin, and filled it at the sink. + +"Wash your hands," said she. "Adam, you set where you generally do. +You'll be in the way." + +Jacob followed her into the sick-room, and Adam weakly shuffled in +behind. + +"For the land's sake!" he began, but Mary was at the head of the bed, +and Jacob at the foot. + +"I'll carry his shoulders," she said, in the voice that admits no +demur. "You take his feet and legs. Sort o' fold the feather-bed up +round him, or we never shall get him through the door." + +"Which way?" asked Jacob, still entirely at rest on a greater mind. + +"Out!" commanded Mary,--"out the front door." + +Adam, in describing that dramatic moment, always declared that nobody +but Mary Dunbar could have engineered a feather-bed through the narrow +passage, without sticking midway. He recalled an incident of his +boyhood when, in the Titcomb fire, the whole family had spent every +available instant before the falling of the roof, in trying to push the +second-best bed through the attic window, only to leave it there to +burn. But Mary Dunbar took her patient through the doorway as Napoleon +marched over the Alps; she went with him down the road toward her own +little house under the hill. Only then did Adam, still shuffling on +behind, collect his intelligence sufficiently to shout after her,-- + +"Mary, what under the sun be you doin' of? What you want me to tell +Mattie? S'pose she brings the selec'men, Mary Dunbar!" + +She made no reply, even by a glance. She walked straight on, as if her +burden lightened, and into her own cave-like house and her little neat +bedroom. + +"Lay him down jest as he is," she said to Jacob. "We won't try to shift +him to-day. Let him get over this." + +Jacob stretched himself, after his load, put his hands in his pockets, +and made up his mouth into a soundless whistle. + +"Yes! well!" said he. "Guess I better finish milkin'." + +Mary put her patient "to-rights," and set some herb drink on the back +of the stove. Presently the little room was filled with the steamy odor +of a bitter healing, and she was on the battlefield where she loved to +conquer. In spite of her heaven-born instinct, she knew very little +about doctors and their ways of cure. Earth secrets were hers, some of +them inherited and some guessed at, and luckily she had never been +involved in those greater issues to be dealt with only by an exalted +science. Later in her life, she was to get acquainted with the young +doctor, down in Tiverton Street, and hear from him what things were +doing in his world. She was to learn that a hospital is not a slaughter +house incarnadined with writhing victims, as some of us had thought. +She was even to witness the magic of a great surgeon; though that was +in her old age, when her attitude toward medicine had become one of +humble thankfulness that, in all her daring, she had done no harm. +To-day, she thought she could set a bone or break up a fever; and there +was no doubt in her mind that, if other deeds were demanded of her, she +should be led in the one true way. So she sat down by her patient, and +was watching there, hopeful of moisture on his palm, when Mattie broke +into the front room, impetuous as the wind. Mary rose and stepped out +to meet her, shutting the door as she went. Passing the window, she saw +the selectmen, in the vehicle known as a long-reach, waiting at the +gate. + +"Hush, Mattie!" said she, "you'll wake him." + +Mattie, in her ill-assorted respectabilities of dress, seemed to have +been involved but recently in some bacchanalian orgie. Her shawl was +dragged to one side, and her bonnet sat rakishly. She was intoxicated +with her own surprise. + +"Mary Dunbar!" cried she, "I'd like to know the meanin' of all this +go-round!" + +"There!" answered Mary, with a quietude like that of the sea at ebb, "I +can't stop to talk. I'll settle it with the selec'men. You come, too." + +Mattie's eyes were seeking the bedroom. Leave her alone, and her feet +would follow. "You come along," repeated Mary, and Mattie came. + +When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little +slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer +Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous +cough. Lothrop Wilson, mild by nature, and rather prone to whiffling in +times of difficulty, frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only +because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, +let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself +in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated +warfare, and were nervously conscious, that, should they fail in +firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the +wagon, and laid one hand upon the wheel. + +"I've got John Veasey in my house," she began rapidly. "I can't stop to +talk. He's pretty sick." + +Ebenezer cleared his throat again. + +"We understood his folks had put him on the town," said he. + +Mattie made a little eager sound, and then stopped. + +"He ain't on the town yet," said Mary. "He's in my bedroom. An' there +he's goin' to stay. I've took this job." She turned away from them, +erect in her decision, and went up the path. Eli Pike looked after her, +with an understanding sympathy. He was the man who had walked two +miles, one night, to shoot a fox, trapped, and left there helpless with +a broken leg. Lothrop gazed straight ahead, and said nothing. + +"Look here!" called Ebenezer. "Mary! Mary! you look here!" + +Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and +dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but +still the public purse must be regarded. + +"You can't bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he's on the +town, he'll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest." + +Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he +remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on." + +But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the +door in vain. + +"My land!" she ejaculated, "if she ain't bolted it!" So the nurse and +her patient were left to themselves. + +As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton. +At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor +came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of +violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the +case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do +not know; tradition was quite voluble. + +It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those +days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, +setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets +for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the +door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his +knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. +The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a +dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; +but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, +delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he +came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a +listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where +the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors +called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted +no appeal. + +"I've got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway +confronting them. "He's too weak to see anybody; I guess I won't ask +you in." + +But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing +painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon +as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind +her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust +of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and +very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on +the step. + +"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't +have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day." + +The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his +dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand. + +"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had +hoped to see him." + +Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers. + +"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to +pray by ourselves." + +The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the +slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which +his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined +upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair. + +"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar +stand." + +Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient +breathing, and her mind was with him. + +"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim +on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going +to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to +get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be +respected,--though only in a measure." + +Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him. + +"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!" + +"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married." + +Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced +round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess +you better go now. Good-day." + +She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his +wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk +with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better. + +But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into +sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, +heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung +her way, she marveled at it. + +The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, +the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late +that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull +weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all +beat out," for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to +have an early supper at five. + +"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I'd do it, an' I have. There +ain't a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an' folks that want you +to go nussin' have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very +afternoon, 'I'll be whipped if I don't git in an' see what's goin' on!' +There's some will have it Johnnie's got well, an' drove away without +saying good-by to his own folks, an' some say he ain't likely to live, +an' there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the +childern, they've got an idea suthin' 's been done to uncle Johnnie, +an' you can't mention him but they cry." + +Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn't +mention him, then," said she. + +A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. +Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the +lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight +of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His +face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming. + +"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She +always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don't +know what it was,--but _I can move_!" + +He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood +looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet +a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes. + +"I'll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want +to see her?" + +"For God's sake, no! not till I'm on my feet." He was still laughing. +"I guess I can get up to-morrow." + +Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. + +"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in +to-morrer. I shouldn't wonder if he'd be up then." + +"I told Adam"--began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little +arm, and held it there. + +"I'd rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don't you come in before +'leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your +brother'll be gettin' away before long." She opened the outer door, and +Mattie had no volition but to go. "It's a nice night, ain't it?" called +Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many +stars." + +Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and +exactitude prepared her patient's supper. He was sitting upright, +bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great +mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize. + +"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can't get up to-morrow? Why, I could +walk!" + +They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that +afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie +talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what +he meant to do when he got into the world again. + +"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam +put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again." + +"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for +more 'n two years. It's my business." + +Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak. + +"What you goin' to ask?" + +Mary started. Then she answered steadily-- + +"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have +ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn't talk no more, +even if you are well. I've got to wash these dishes." + +She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did +they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he +was flat among his pillows, listening for her. + +"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn't unless you want to; but +if ever I earn another cent of money, you'll see. And I ain't the only +friend you've got. There's a girl down in Southport would do anything +in the world for you, if she only knew." + +Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse's +cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a +wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his +breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh +way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of +gratitude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out +whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he +must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had +done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and +perhaps he remembered the message too coldly. + +When Mattie came over, that afternoon, to make her call, she found the +house closed. Mary had gone on foot down into Tiverton, where old Mrs. +Lamson, who was sick with a fever, lay still in need. It was many weeks +before she came home again to Horn o' the Moon; and then Grandfather +Sinclair had broken his leg, so that interest in her miracle became +temporarily inactive. + +Two years had gone when there came to her a little package, through the +Tiverton mail. It was tied with the greatest caution, and directed in a +straggling hand. Mary opened it just as she struck into the Gully Road, +on her way home. Inside was a little purse, and three gold pieces. She +paused there, under the branches, the purse in one hand, and the gold +lying within her other palm. For a long time she stood looking at them, +her face set in that patient sadness seen in those whose only holding +is the past. It was all over and done, and yet it had never been at +all. She thought a little about herself, and that was very rare, for +Mary. She was not the poorer for what her soul desired; she was +infinitely the richer, and she remembered the girl at Southport, not +with the pang that once afflicted her heart, but with a warm, +outrushing sense of womanly sympathy. If he had money, perhaps he could +marry. Perhaps he was married now. Coming out of the Gully Road, she +opened the purse again, and the sun struck richly upon the gold within. +Mary smiled a little, wanly, but still with a sense of the good, human +kinship in life. + +"I won't ever spend 'em," she said to herself. "I'll keep 'em to bury +me." + + + + +A STOLEN FESTIVAL + + +David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a +road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could +see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to +no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the +middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She +had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the +go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west, +she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'. + +The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in +love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray +eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which +America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something +superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic +responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how +the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her +after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not +to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a +vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which +move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of +aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to +understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried +to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; +but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes +brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she +spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know +that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had +never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but +that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There +had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her +husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of +the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of +a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living +beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but +entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of +birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much +under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green +was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond +it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of +violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey +blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange +memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on +the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon +her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his +neck. + +"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is +it, little child?" + +"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!" + +The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it +meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become +familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the +blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain +at her heart. + +Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in +front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to +market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes +forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily +belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled +roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked +up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon +her. + +"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked. + +Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there +was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The +world was a jewel newly set for her. + +"I _am_ nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin' +on? It's 'most a year since we were married,--a year the fifteenth." + +David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her. + +"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good +bargain. Best trade I ever made in _my_ life!" + +"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you +how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have +our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll +take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!" + +David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed +his lips. + +"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to +Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there +before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up +in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down; +an' if I wait for him to do it--well, you know what he is!" + +"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you +can!" + +"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it +is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm +awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!" + +Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one +heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was +not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was +only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put +great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would +be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love. + +David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist. + +"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the +same as another, now ain't it?" + +"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet +eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday +mornin'!" + +David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. +His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a +joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the +logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and +twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth. + +"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long +as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git +a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's +done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take +both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!" + +The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he +looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a +little and turned her face up to his--her rebellious eyes and unsteady +mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a +great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud. + +"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. _I_ don't +care!" + +These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or +tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish +concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She +had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention +and not the act. + +David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell. + +"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man +when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye +o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle." + +Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. +Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large +carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried +to feel resigned. + +"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the +day!" + +David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up +his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn. + +"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I +might as well stan' from under." + +Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, +clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress +boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep +affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like +process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile. + +"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find +yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody +must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', +an' git their best clo'es all over dirt." + +"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very +sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o' +folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous +scheme of life to live and let live. + +"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily. +"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up +here this mornin'?" + +Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped +hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't +know." + +"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis' +Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You +look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while +Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under +her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; +and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently +revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious +imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from +the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself. + +But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was +holding it out on the end of a knotted finger. + +"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your +engagement ring." + +Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an +involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave. + +"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?" + +"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye +lose it?" + +But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and +looked obstinate. + +"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily. +Debby was diverted, though only for the moment. + +"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and +giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want +_him_ to know of it?" + +"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation +disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do +you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?" + +"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little +consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day, +an' she says, 'Don't ye tell _him_!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a +pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for +'t after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if +ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you +want to know where I come on this ring?" + +Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned +she, turning about. "Where was it?" + +"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f +'t had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst +he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an' +she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to +show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank, +an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him +suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted +but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber." + +"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say +anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and +that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire +Hill. + +She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to +cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne +before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and +began packing its contents into the yawning bag. + +"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it. +And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late." + +Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a +kernel with a critical thumb. + +"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this +time o' year. Is that the pork?" + +It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth. + +"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the +bag. "There!" + +"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly. + +"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak +to David before he harnesses. Good-by!" + +In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn. + +"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly +about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's _I_ say!" And she made +no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the +barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him +I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and +the likelihood of its being properly diversified. + +Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and +laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and +inquired of him confidentially what was the matter. + +"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly. +"I've got to see you." + +David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty +precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs +and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, +"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?" + +David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed. + +"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he. + +Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically. + +"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There +ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em +'twas my engagement ring." + +David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He +could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency. + +"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture. + +"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a +ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd +have showed 'em." + +David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and, +though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town +blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was +condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him. + +"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a +new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. +It wasn't that I begrudged anything." + +"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't +was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have +'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I +bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue +handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give +'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I +always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the +comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a +little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring, +for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I +knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it +in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've +sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you +about the pork, and I--I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and +lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly, +and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair. +His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of +children over some grief not understood. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length. + +"When?" said Letty chokingly. + +"Then--when folks expected things--before we were married." + +"Oh, David, I couldn't!" + +"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't." + +Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump +hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and +stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm. + +"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring." + +Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to +wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?" + +"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't +you ever let me set eyes on it again!" + +David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened +it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do +me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each +other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt +them bitterer than if they had been his own. + +But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble +in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a +secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without +his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him +radiantly. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but +it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!" + +Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder. +He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like +swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So +he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a +singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy +again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven, +to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could +deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance--this +was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household +duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she +went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed +to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of +love. + +Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind +the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced, +into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a +breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the +house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an +unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound. +Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray, +and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes +by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her +wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as +he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, +from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the +child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then +she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, +that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of +blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist. + +But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the +barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal. + +"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about +that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty +dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd +ought to eat yours while't was hot." + +Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured +coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste, +and said good-by. + +"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone, +you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till +night." + +"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile +crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin' +to bring it to you." + +"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess +you won't!" + +"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to +hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm +comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the +butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time +to argue, went off to his work. + +About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was +a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face, +regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life +might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great +universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the +day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged +along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and +owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was +better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer +than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the +stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier +still. + +"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs +beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her. +"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn +and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her. + +"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and +walked on together through the shade. + +The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of +the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him; +then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment, +with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a +palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for +a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out +a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her +dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a +blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the +air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling +over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal, +Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine +white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes +deepened. + +"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?" + +Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in +her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. +David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed +the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate +her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him, +and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close. +He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry +light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while +Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when +her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her +wedding day. + +When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and +David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the +basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief +excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with +her weedy treasures. Once--was it something in the air?--he called to +her:-- + +"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were +married?" + +But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on +a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take +him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she +was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the +day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to +her that he should forget. + +"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the +kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star +Pond." + +After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and +then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest +moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor. + +"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your +little ring? It's right here in my pocket." + +"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again." + +"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other +day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make +a choice unless you was with me." + +Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break +in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you." + +David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief +about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from +one another, will we?" + +Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before +answering:-- + +"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!" + + + + +A LAST ASSEMBLING + + +This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, +was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed +to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing +instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to +carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did +happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen +again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily +and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing +harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her +life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of +human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great +delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore, +she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted +all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was +thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than +she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked +out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church +on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a +pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk +failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric +and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution: +to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led +direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy +to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take +him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived, +understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken +the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had +simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the +city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade. +He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for +ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee +the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again; +but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of +nature, but a simplicity quite different in kind. Jethro did not grow +rich very fast (uncle Silas saw to that), but he did prosper; and he +was ready to marry his girl long before she owned herself ready to +marry him. She took care of a succession of aged relatives, all +afflicted by a strange and interesting diversity of trying diseases; +and then, after the last death, she settled down, quite poor, in a +little house on the Tiverton Road, and "went out nussin'," the +profession for which her previous life had fitted her. With a careless +generosity, she made over to her brother the old farmhouse where they +were born, because he had a family and needed it. But he died, and was +soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with +the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for +them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take +him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of +faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. +She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the +old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without a cent; but +since he was coming for her, and she needn't go to Chicago alone, she +didn't know that there was anything to worry about. He would buy her +ticket. There was an ineffable simplicity about Dilly. She had no +respect whatever for money, save as a puzzling means to a few necessary +ends. And now the place had been sold, and Jethro was coming in a +month. Meanwhile Dilly was to pack up the few family effects she could +afford to keep, and the rest would go by auction. + +Little as she was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the +inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in +the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human +meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true +that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the +fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like +irresistible factors, and welded her to the universe anew. + +As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and +began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some +solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher, +and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the +throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black +hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an +assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a +gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed +by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this +case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to +go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward +garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink +flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody. +She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical +call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the +beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of +the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an +unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house, +since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding +drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the +stage. + +Her mind was peopled with figures. She thought of Jethro, too. He +seemed to be coming ever nearer and nearer. She could hear his tread +marching into her life, and could see his face. It was very moving, as +she remembered it. A long line of scholarly forbears had dowered him +with a refinement and grace quite startling in this unornamented spot, +and some old Acadian ancestor had lent him beauty. His eyes were dark, +and they held an unfathomable melancholy. The line of his forehead and +nose ran haughtily and yet delicate; and even after years of absence, +Dilly sometimes caught her breath when she thought of the way his head +was set upon his shoulders. She had never in her life seen a man or +woman who was entirely beautiful, and he saturated her longing like a +prodigal stream. + +She was a little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the +road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. +Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is +away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, +and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed +in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed +their broken branches, and were covered with little green buttons of +fruit. Dilly stopped to look about her, and her eyes filled. The tears +were hot; they hurt her, and so recalled her to the needs of life. + +"There!" she said, "I mustn't do so!"--and she walked straight forward +through the open shed, and fitted her key in the lock. The door sagged; +but she pushed it open and stepped in. The deserted kitchen lay there +in desolate order, and the old Willard clock slept upon the wall. Dilly +hastily pushed a chair before it (this was the only chair old Daniel +Joyce would allow the children to climb in) and wound the clock. It +began ticking slowly, with the old, remembered sound. Somehow it seemed +beautiful to Dilly that the clock should speak with the voice of all +those years agone; it was a kind of loyalty which appealed to the soul +like a piercing miracle. Then she ran through to the sitting-room, and +started the old eight-day in the corner; and the house breathed and was +alive again. She threw open the windows, all save those on the Dilloway +side (lest kindly neighbors should discover she was at home), and the +soft rose-scented air flooded the rooms like an invisible presence, and +bore out the smell of age upon gracious wings. Now, Dilly worked fast +and steadily, lest some human thing should come upon her. She tied up +bedclothes, and opened long-closed cupboards. She made careful piles of +clothing from the attic; and finally, her mind a little tired, she sat +down on the floor and began looking over papers and daguerreotypes from +her father's desk. Just as she had lost herself in the ancient history +of which they were the signs, there came a knock at the back door. So +assured had become her idea of a continued housekeeping, that the +summons did not seem in the least strange. The house lived again; it +had thrown open its arms to human kind. + +"Come in!" she called; and a light step sounded in the kitchen and +crossed the sill. It was a man, dark-eyed and very handsome. "Oh!" +murmured Dilly, catching her breath and holding both hands clasped upon +the papers in her lap. "Jethro!" + +The stranger was much moved, and his black eyes deepened. He looked at +her kindly, perhaps lovingly, too. "Yes," he said, at last. "So you'd +know me?" + +Dilly got lightly up, and the papers fell about her in a shower; yet +she made no motion toward him. "Oh, yes," she said softly, "I should +know you. You ain't changed at all." + +That was not true. He looked ten years older than his real age; yet +time had only dowered him with a finer grace and charm. All the lines +in his face were those of gentleness and truth. His mouth had the old +delicate curves. One meeting him that day might have said, with a throb +of involuntary homage, "How beautiful he must have been when he was +young!" But to Dilly he bore even a more subtile distinction than in +that far-away time; he had ripened into something harmonizing with her +own years. He came forward a little, and held out both hands; but Dilly +did not take them, and he dropped the left one. Then she laid her +fingers lightly in his, and they greeted each other like old +acquaintances. A flush rose in her smooth brown cheek. Her eyes grew +bright with that startled questioning which is of the woods. He looked +at her the more intently, and his breath quickened. She had none of the +blossomy charm of more robust womanhood; but he recognized the old +gypsy element which had once bewitched him, and felt he loved her +still. + +"Well," he said, and his voice shook a little, "are you glad to see +me?" + +Dilly moved back, and sat down in her mother's little sewing-chair by +the desk. "I don't know as I can tell," she answered. "This is a +strange day." + +Jethro nodded. "I meant to surprise you," he said. "So I never wrote I +was coming on so soon. I was real disappointed to find your house shut +up; but the neighbors told me where you'd gone, and what you'd gone +for. Then I walked over here." + +Dilly's face brightened all over with a responsive smile. "Did you come +through the woods?" she asked. "What made you?" + +"Why, I knew you'd go that way," he answered. "I thought you'd get +wool-gathering over some weed or another, and maybe I'd overtake you." + +They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and +gathered a drawer-full of papers into her apron. + +"I can't stop workin'," she said. "I want to fix it so's not to stay +here more 'n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run +'em over an' listen too." + +"I think 't was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom's folks," +said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as +if it were an omen, in her father's great chair. "Not that you'll ever +need it, Dilly. You won't want for a thing. I've done real well." + +Dilly's long fingers assorted papers and laid them at either side, with +a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the +quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to +its habits. + +"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I +did--why, I'd resk it!" + +Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, +half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet +she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same. + +"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, +if ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars +run by your door, and you can hire two girls." + +"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as +a shadow sweeps across the field. + +"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I +said?" + +Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive. + +"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind. +"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how 't would be. I +never spec'lated much on keepin' house." + +"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling +on her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, +and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, +Dilly,--you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things." + +Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked +swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the +orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. +Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. +That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was +the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew +the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. +She knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a +pursuit. She turned about, and came back to her chair. + +"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But +it don't make no matter. You're contented with it." + +"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got +enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in +with it, too." + +Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She +was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in +her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very +spurious thing when there is nothing to say. + +"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly. + +Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was +thinkin'," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was +so sweet,--"I was thinkin' you make me homesick, somehow or another." + +Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he +smiled also. + +"I don't believe it's me," he said, confidently. "It's because you're +going over things here. It's the old house." + +"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But +I don't know. I never had quite such feelin's before. It's the nearest +to bein' afraid of anything I've come acrost. I guess I shall have to +run out into the lot an' take my bearin's." + +Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room. +He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory +that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules. + +"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last +drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in +excitement. "You don't know, I ain't begun to tell you, how queer it +seems to me. Why, I've dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come +nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all +knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood 'round me, +ready to uphold me in what I was doin'. I shouldn't be surprised if +they were all here now. I don't feel a mite alone." + +Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro +came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine +hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with +a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines. + +"There, poor girl!" he said, "you're tired thinking about it. No wonder +you've got fancies. I guess the ghosts won't trouble us. There's +nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, +Dilly felt homesick and alone. + +There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she +turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet +slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her +feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had +seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded +forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed +to exude kindliness as she came. + +"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain't jest like you!" she exclaimed. +"Creep in here an' not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? +Recognize you! Well, I guess I should!" + +She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very +grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down +and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other +voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the +intercourse of a life so sadly changed. + +"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You're tired +to pieces with this pickin' and sortin', an' you're comin' over to +dinner, both on ye. Eli's dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. _He_ +wouldn't ha' done it; you know that, Dilly! An' I've been beatin' up +eggs. Now don't you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you +got a watch? You see't she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away +victorious, her apron over her head, and waving one hand before her as +she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as +this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange +dooryards. + +Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn +significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper +persons. She thought of her bread and butter and boiled eggs, lying in +her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it +were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars +going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car +meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove +her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made +her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever +on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, +and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, +they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike's. + +The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an +unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it +choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of +housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; +and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife +and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his +mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as +possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the +empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again. + +The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very +loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was +the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her +knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside +in the jessamine, and a humming-bird--there had always been one, year +after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was +the same bird--hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings +divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a +sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs. +Pike's again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch +herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told +her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, +bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon +her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and +another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he +meant to be married. + +"Soon," said Jethro, with assurance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her +mind." + +All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the +talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill's song from +the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside +him. He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when +half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given +the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but +Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops +down to her own home. + +At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great +blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as +she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, +suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was +forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For +she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long spaces of +silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little +animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves. +Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably +precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches +lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, +thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed +to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of +meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should +pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, +until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to +approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of +unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned +her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to +the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the +greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to +Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped +softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the +shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement +thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not +wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her +feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that +she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird +note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his +tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed +to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she +hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, +and shut the door behind her. + +As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room where the old desk stood +in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her +confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness. +She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, +in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her +wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She +drew forward her father's chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious +abandonment, to rest. Her mother's little cricket was by her side, and +she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. + +Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there +fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight +and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware +that the Joyces were all about her. + +She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and +cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their +bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that +they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, +and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and +women, face to face. There was the shoemaker among them, who, +generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle +of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out +into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a +loud voice upon Almighty God to save him from ill-doing. Then he had +drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but +a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not +think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered +among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself +rather than go to war. But here he stood--was it the man, or some +secret intelligence of him?--and Dilly, out of all his race, was the +one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of passionate sympathy, +how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how +the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he +fled away and prayed his God to save him from mortal guilt,--and how, +finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of anticipated +slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, +he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And +Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake. + +There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and +wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the +island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be +beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, +who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the +pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her +for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in +the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the +poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and +faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern +use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was +not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering +gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that +all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her +whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. +It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul +does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret +core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way. + +There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and to the disgust of +her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the +world found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency +herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one +night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying +hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; +that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in +one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of +Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that +she was of those who overcome. + +So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had +never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they +had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one +drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of +life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There +was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom +she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an +infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she +smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She +thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating +huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she +remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been +lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how +the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there +is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer +life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and +she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, +whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood. + +The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly +felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now +she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she +understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a +case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in +his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how +that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but +theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long +passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, +waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not +him, but his inheritance. + +Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a +clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her +eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with +a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no +longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were +hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she +closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, +and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We +know, you and we!" As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just +going to milking, with clusters of shining pails. + +"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!" + +"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who +carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" +And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran +up to smooth her tumbled bed. + +After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly +called Jethro softly to one side. + +"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you." + +Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and +Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and +caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be +quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a +child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest +tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him. + +"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married." + +He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of +bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand. + +"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again +Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence. + +"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much. But +it's your folks I care about. It ain't you. I've found it all out, +Jethro. Things don't al'ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them +that have gone before; an' half the time we don't know it." + +Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. "You're all tired out," he said +soothingly. "Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire +somebody. I'll be glad to." + +But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. "You're real good, Jethro," +she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her +old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. "But I don't feel +tired, an' I ain't a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to +town with Eli--he's goin' after he feeds the pigs--an' take the cars +from there. It's all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain't so sorry as I +might be; for it's borne in on me you won't care this way long. An' you +needn't, dear; for nothin' between us is changed a mite. The only +trouble is, it ain't the kind of thing we thought." + +She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned +away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and +beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the +house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces +had done their work, and she was doing hers. + + + + +THE WAY OF PEACE + + +It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat +down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still +clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had +been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the +cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their +own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and +brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their +solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on +leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the +funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the +very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient +sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A +little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier +than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then +Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly +office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can +only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing +away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then +deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to +pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but +that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the +moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put +things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was +then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace. + +Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it +was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was +standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking +over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he +told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper +lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes +were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of +herself in the glass. + +"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!" + +And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before +disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery +there. + +"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I +shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!" + +Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided +in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its +other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair, +and moaned a little to herself. + +"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I +never can bear it in the world!" + +The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold +in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the +inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a +little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, +coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always +been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and +held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a +great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with +accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart, +in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the +stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking +about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There +again she caught sight of herself in the glass. + +"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a +fullness, of joy. + +Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more +and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched +out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how +to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her +mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a +pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her +thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock +after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self. +But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp +silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and +coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older +face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all +suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had +gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have +kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She +did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to +think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that +instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful +portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the +closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched. +Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off +her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on +her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to +wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the +deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a +wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; +this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another +life as well. + +"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself. +"Them are the ones to be put aside." + +She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again, +her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a +pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face +to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded +her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely +any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the +tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be +afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and +likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not +seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. + +They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being +worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, +stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her +unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of +evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back +against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with +one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!" + +Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him. + +"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git +along, if I could look a little mite like her." + +John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment. + +"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?" + +"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble +mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. +Well, I _am_ pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down +Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I +can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can +git along." + +They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John +had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. + +When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he +never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The +other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the +funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to +fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So, +though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, +he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be +when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. +She'd got to looking a good deal like mother. + +They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting +a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a +low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from +that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither +would have been surprised. + +"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came +crackling at them. + +"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got +into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most +burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a +real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I +laughed--an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o' +picked it out a-purpose." + +John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it +was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it. + +"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to +do?" + +Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that. +She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage. + +"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to +pull through on." + +"Yes, but where you goin' to live?" + +"Here." + +"Alone?" + +"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At +that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made +themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love. + +John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with +which his soul did not accord. + +"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say +you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will +have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she +should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your +home with us." + +"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I +ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she +could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me. +Why, John, this is my home!" + +Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy +mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth +and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the +hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk +the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both +would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her: +but she belonged to it as well. + +John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent +him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also, +wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been +sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its +dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly +judgment he could only yield. + +"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I +don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an' +there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit? +That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be +done." + +Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold +beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an +innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to +judge. + +"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got +to?" + +"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his +eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?" + +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never +could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up +yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might." + +John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned +forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made +her last condition. + +"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't +ask me to break up nuthin'?" + +"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you +needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me." + +So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that +had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her +visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her +mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the +window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her +about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy +notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade +than a strange by-path taken by nature itself. + +The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann +"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to +say, with her happiest smile,-- + +"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't +ever forget her." + +Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a +way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind; +but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit +mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the +time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone. +A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as +the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a +sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had +happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she +had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so +many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there +she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours +would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her +hands folded, communing with old memories. + +The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal, +packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John +stood by her, and she was allowed to go. + +"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be +glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've +got to come back an' spend the winter." + +Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently +remote; and the winter was not yet here. + +The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in +Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains, +the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be +done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in +the face, and learn its lineaments. + +Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with +an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those +who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his +luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well +with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear, +could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went +to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but +still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His +cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary +with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not +arrived, and John was at the goal before him. + +"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann. +"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for +us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used +to over there." + +"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to." + +It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone. + +"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room +gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." + +It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in +Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as +she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in +like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she +would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the +first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at +night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted +to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason +for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the +flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might +feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner +resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out +on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while +she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh. + +"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he. + +A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely. + +"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence +August." + +John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to +illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann +and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there. + +"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a +visitor." + +"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been +a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else." + +But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own +house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned +that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a +looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him +good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for +getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as +"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the +door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had +ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch +her shawled arms pathetically upward. + +"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a +great experience. + +She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the +things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to +cling. + +"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no +more." + +Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like +children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who +may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a +programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In +one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her +pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She +felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its +best. + +"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could +hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like +those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season. +Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the +roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers +past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and +leaned out. + +"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she +called. "The barn's open." + +John was in a hurry. + +"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he. +"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night +before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to +breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good +time with them." + +John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann +stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls, +and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and +sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and +thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to +be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones +in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there +were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and +confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they +were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply +touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner +self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of +nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the +patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though +the savor of the task was gone. + +Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she +sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy, +and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda +and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very +important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household +goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's +would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter +itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her +deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay. +Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that +time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all. + +It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She +thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks: +so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground, +and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a +wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins. + +"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?" + +"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin' +to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the +post-office." + +"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I +meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day +with us. I'll come over arter you." + +"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his +lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.". + +"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh. +"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle +end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well, +John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll +git more'n you would with us." + +He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing. +She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared. + +It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer +way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood, +prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long +memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store +smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its +fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to +be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her +lips opened to words she had not chosen:-- + +"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest +flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer. +Ezra's asked me to go there." + +"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he? +Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry, +Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without +you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They +can't seem to understand the difference." + +"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it +as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange, +excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way +before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own +volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice +time." + +She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward +to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody +had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and +now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her +mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference. + +"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I +might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for +some Thanksgivin' things? + +"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your +credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time. + +"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some +cinnamon an' some mace--there! I'll tell you, while you weigh." + +It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world; +and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay, +the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its +market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It +could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she +left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with +bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them. + +"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to _you_. Jest leave +the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too +often." + +She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and +swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by +over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in +joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be +flying on the wings of a fortunate wind. + +All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable +steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they +love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was +going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day +with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:-- + +"Oh, John's invited me there!" + +All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful +hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had +many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be +told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within +hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time. +Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she +sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up +piteously and say aloud:-- + +"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the +pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she +was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant. + +Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter +savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature +cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a +sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all +their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she +recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed +as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through +that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable +sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a +personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed +by memory as well as hope. + +On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because +that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house, +and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the +day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now +they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the +sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church. +Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient +questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would +stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The +morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made +the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but +there had to be just so many--onions, turnips, and squash baked with +molasses--for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of +dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a +curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that +it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when +dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her +anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She +ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did +not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. +She was at home; that was enough. + +After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen +without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's +beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left +behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy +Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the +wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself +in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl +adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a +more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved +herself. + +"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody +ever had." + +The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always +gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding +of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or +the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, +and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case +containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little +distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, +nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In +herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours +slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though +it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came +rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice, +calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had +had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John +kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down, +unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story, +and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise. + +"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all +right." + +Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood +there, gently welcoming. + +"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that +ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan +it?" + +"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on +Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's +poplin, she forbore. + +Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in +after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the +brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way +behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak. + +"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I +should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks +thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over +there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha' +gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've +been, all day long, in this lonesome house!" + +"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your +things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the +table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did +not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney, +more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in +the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was +the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very +capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting +on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face. + +"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way," +said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha' +spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest +wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the +track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or +not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it." + +Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"-- + +"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She +wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you, +Lucy?" + +Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile. + +"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it. + +But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt +unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back. + +"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but +you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go +round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've +all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should +make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my +visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. +An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile +breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter +her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got +more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' +fruit-cake, a year old." + +Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner +of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and +Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the +children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw +themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room +became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a +swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie +between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no +moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little +John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her +poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear. + +"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?" + + + + +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + + +Tiverton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about +naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation +felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from +spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an +assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an +excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion +by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with +overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an +enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives +had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere +shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, +pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the +desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire +of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or +the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with +awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their +bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a +puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was +their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed +evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an +intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of +the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had +strangely transformed itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology +and the breath of an unknown world. But though sobered, they were not +cast down; for the occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a +heaven-defying profligacy of intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy +Forbes had in his pocket a pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by +wicked but careless design, just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and +that Tom Drake was master of a concealed pea-shooter, which he had +sworn, with all the asseverations held sacred by boys, to use at some +dramatic moment. All the band were aware that neither of these daring +deeds would be done. The prospective actors themselves knew it; but it +was a darling joy to contemplate the remote possibility thereof. + +Deacon Pitts opened, the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious +a privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His +companion had not been able to come. (The entire neighborhood knew that +Mrs. Pitts had been laid low by an attack of erysipelas, and that she +was, at the moment, in a dark bedroom at home, helpless under +elderblow.) + +"She lays there on a bed of pain," said the deacon. "But she says to +me, 'You go. Better the house o' mournin' than the house o' feastin',' +she says. Oh, my friends! what can be more blessed than the counsel of +an aged and feeble companion?" + +The deacon sat down, and Tom Drake, his finger on the pea-shooter, +assured himself, in acute mental triumph, that he had almost done it +that time. + +Then followed certain incidents eminently pleasing to the boys. To +their unbounded relief, Sarah Frances Giles rose to speak, weeping as +she began. She always wept at prayer meeting, though at the very moment +of asserting her joy that she cherished a hope, and her gratitude that +she was so nearly at an end of this earthly pilgrimage and ready to +take her stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The boys reveled +in her testimony. They were in a state of bitter uneasiness before she +rose, and gnawed with a consuming impatience until she began to cry. +Then they wondered if she could possibly leave out the sea of glass; +and when it duly came, they gave a sigh of satiated bliss and sank into +acquiescence in whatever might happen. This was a rich occasion to +their souls, for Silas Marden, who was seldom moved by the spirit, fell +upon his knees to pray; but at the same unlucky instant, his +sister-in-law, for whom he cherished an unbounded scorn, rose (being +"nigh-eyed" and ignorant of his priority) and began to speak. For a +moment, the two held on together, "neck and neck," as the happy boys +afterward remembered, and then Silas got up, dusted his knees, and sat +down, not to rise again at any spiritual call. "An' a madder man you +never see," cried all the Hollow next day, in shocked but gleeful +memory. + +Taking it all in all, the meeting had thus far mirrored others of its +class. If the droning experiences were devoid of all human passion, it +was chiefly because they had to be expressed in the phrases of strict +theological usage. There was an unspoken agreement that feelings of +this sort should be described in a certain way. They were not the +affairs of the hearth and market; they were matters pertaining to that +awful entity called the soul, and must be dressed in the fine linen +which she had herself elected to wear. + +Suddenly, in a wearisome pause, when minds had begun to stray toward +the hayfield and tomorrow's churning, the door was pushed open, and the +Widow Prime walked in. She was quite unused to seeking her kind, and +the little assembly at once awoke, under the stimulus of surprise. They +knew quite well where she had been walking: to Sudleigh Jail, to visit +her only son, lying there for the third time, not, as usual, for +drunkenness, but for house-breaking. She was a wiry woman, a mass of +muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with +clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking, +and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the +marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and +her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The +vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like +that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very +bitter--so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after +undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A +quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was +"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every +professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for +which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old +conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like +creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their +own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could +they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God +and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key +of the unexpected. + +"Has any one an experience to offer? Will any brother or sister lead in +prayer?" + +The silence was growing into a thing to be recognized and conquered, +when, to the wonder of her neighbors, Hannah Prime herself rose, She +looked slowly about the room, gazing into every face as if to challenge +an honest understanding. Then she began speaking in a low voice +thrilled by an emotion not yet explained. Unused to expressing herself +in public, she seemed to be feeling her way. The silence, pride, +endurance, which had been her armor for many years, were no longer +apparent; she had thrown down all her defenses with a grave composure, +as if life suddenly summoned her to higher issues. + +"I dunno's I've got an experience to offer," she said. "I dunno's it's +religion. I dunno what 'tis. Mebbe you'd say it don't belong to a +meetin'. But when I come by an' see you all settin' here, it come over +me I'd like to tell somebody. Two weeks ago I was most crazy"--She +paused of necessity, for something broke in her voice. + +"That's the afternoon Jim was took," whispered a woman to her neighbor. +Hannah Prime went on. + +"I jest as soon tell it now. I can tell ye all together what I couldn't +say to one on ye alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it +afterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. +I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I +set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the +clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought +I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to +death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, +seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got up an' run outdoor jest as fast as +I could go. I run out behind the house an' down the cart-path to that +pile o' rocks that overlooks the lake; an' there I got out o' breath +an' dropped down on a big rock. An' there I set, jest as still as I'd +been settin' when I was in the house." + +Here a little girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward +and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. +afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I +thought, if I heard a pin drop, I should scream." + +"I dunno how long I set there," went on Hannah Prime, "but byme-by it +begun to come over me how still the lake was. 'Twas like glass; an' way +over where it runs in 'tween them islands, it burnt like fire. Then I +looked up a little further, to see what kind of a sky there was. 'T was +light green, with clouds in it, all fire, an' it begun to seem to me as +if it was a kind o' land an' water up there--like our'n, on'y not +solid. I set there an' looked at it; an' I picked out islands, an' +ma'sh-land, an' p'ints running out into the yeller-green sea. An' +everything grew stiller an' stiller. The loons struck up, down on the +lake, with that kind of a lonesome whinner; but that on'y made the rest +of it seem quieter. An' it begun to grow dark all 'round me. I dunno 's +I ever noticed before jest how the dark comes. It sifted down like +snow, on'y you couldn't see it. Well, I set there, an' I tried to keep +stiller an' stiller, like everything else. Seemed as if I must. An' +pretty soon I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' +my eyes on the sky; for I knew 't would break suthin' if I turned my +head, an' I felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', +walkin', without takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come +right up 'side o' me an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I +mustn't. I dunno whether It touched me; I dunno whether It said +anything--but I know It made me a new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't +be afraid o' things no more--nor sorry. I found out 't was all right. +'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been +dead for the last twenty year. I'd come alive. + +"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno +how long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun +to fade. An' then it come over me 't was goin'. I knew 't was terrible +tender of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I +won't forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned +an' see my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side +of it. Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home +without lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah +Prime, looking her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I +dunno what 't was, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' +I ain't goin' to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's +bigger'n we think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and +moved toward the door. There she again turned to her neighbors. + +"Good-night!" she said, and was gone. + +They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating +on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly +out. There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not +sung. + + + + +HONEY AND MYRRH + + +The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow +drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying +wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid +banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The +lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with +which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely +lives. The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned +curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted +over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a +fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and +flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch +swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all +hidden away. + +That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save +to shovel paths, and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched +until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion +for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by +the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the +men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking +swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath +ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton +Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way +of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an +exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. + +By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened +by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the +less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as +one man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind +in the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the +county paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another +stick of wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and +in the evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red +flannel in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the +tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass, and that +their communication with the world was reestablished. + +Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young +schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard, +at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. +There was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was +going to be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always +receiving through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, +the postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs +might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with +photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very +well understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a +week, was an interlude in the life of one who would some day write a +spelling-book, or exercise senatorial rights at Washington. He was a +long-legged, pleasant looking youth, with a pale cheek, dark eyes, and +thick black hair, one lock of which, hanging low over his forehead, he +twisted while he read. He kept glancing up at Miss Susan and smiling at +her, whenever he could look away from his book and the fire, and she +smiled back. At last, after many such wordless messages, he spoke. + +"What lots of red mittens you do knit! Do you send them all away to +that society?" + +Miss Susan's needles clicked. + +"Every one," said she. + +She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her +head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness +better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great +cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a +mystery she had not turned out "gormin'." But that was because Susan +had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs +and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was +strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked +frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick +always delighted in Susan's nearness; her magnificent health and +presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor +air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She +rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm. + +"I shall call you the Orphans' Friend," said he. + +She laid down her work. + +"Don't you say one word," she answered, with an air of abject +confession. "It don't interest me a mite! I give because it's my +bounden duty, but I'll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my +life, an' fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to +provide folks with what they don't need ruther'n what they do." + +"I don't see what you mean," said the schoolmaster. "Tell me." + +Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of +firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine +knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under +her feet, and settled herself to gossip. + +"Anybody'd think I'd most talked myself out sence you come here to +board," said she, "but you're the beatemest for tolin' anybody on. I +never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if +there's anybody 't wants to listen. I never've said this to a livin' +soul, an' I guess it's sort o' heathenish to think, but I'm tired to +death o' fightin' ag'inst poverty, poverty! I s'pose it's there, fast +enough, though we're all so well on 't we don't realize it; an' I'm +goin' to do my part, an' be glad to, while I'm above ground. But I +guess heaven'll be a spot where we don't give folks what they need, but +what they don't." + +"There is something in your Bible," began the schoolmaster +hesitatingly, "about a box of precious ointment." He always said "your +Bible," as if church members held a proprietary right. + +"That's it!" replied Miss Susan, brightening. "That's what I al'ays +thought. Spill it all out, I say, an' make the world smell as sweet as +honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin' here by the fire alone! +Great projicks!" + +"Tell me some! + +"Well, I dunno's I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits +along towards eight o'clock, an' the room's all simmerin', an' the moon +lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec' +out o' life. We don't seem to have no color in it. Why, don't you +remember 'Solomon in all his glory'? I guess 't wouldn't ha' been put +in jest that way if there wa'n't somethin' in it. I s'pose he had +crowns an' rings an' purple velvet coats an' brocade satin weskits, an' +all manner o' things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin' +straight in through that door there." She was running a knitting needle +back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing +that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone +outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed +open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in. + +"My land!" cried Miss Susan, aghast. Then she and the schoolmaster, by +one accord, began to laugh. + +But the man did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his +feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the +legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag +he had been carrying. + +"I guess I trailed it through some o' the drifts," he remarked. "The +road's pretty narrer, this season o' the year." + +"You give us a real start," said Susan. "We thought be sure 'twas +Solomon, an' mebbe the Queen o' Sheba follerin' arter. Why, Solon +Slade, you ain't walked way over to Tiverton Street!" + +"Yes, I have," asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, +possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was +Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, +but hadn't no more spunk 'n a wet rag. + +Susan had risen and laid down her knitting. She approached the table +and rested one hand on it, a hawk-like brightness in her eyes. + +"What you got in that bag?" asked she. + +Solon was enjoying his certainty that he held the key to the situation. + +"I got a mite o' cheese," he answered, approaching the fire and +spreading his hands to the blaze. + +"You got anything else? Now, Solon, don't you keep me here on +tenter-hooks! You got a letter?" + +"Well," said Solon, "I thought I might as well look into the +post-office an' see." + +"You thought so! You went a-purpose! An' you walked because you al'ays +was half shackled about takin' horses out in bad goin'. You hand me +over that letter!" + +Solon approached the table, a furtive twinkle in his blue eyes. He +lifted the bag and opened it slowly. First, he took out a wedge-shaped +package. + +"That's the cheese," said he. "Herb." + +"My land!" ejaculated Miss Susan, while the schoolmaster looked on and +smiled. "You better ha' come to me for cheese. I've got a plenty, tansy +an' sage, an' you know it. I see it! There! you gi' me holt on 't!" It +was a fugitive white gleam in the bottom of the bag; she pounced upon +it and brought up a letter. Midway in the act of tearing it open, she +paused and looked at Solon with droll entreaty. "It's your letter, by +rights!" she added tentatively. + +"Law!" said he, "I dunno who it's directed to, but I guess it's as much +your'n as anybody's." + +Miss Susan spread open the sheets with an air of breathless delight. +She bent nearer the lamp. "'Dear father and auntie,'" she began. + +"There!" remarked Solon, in quiet satisfaction, still warming his hands +at the blaze. "There! you see _'tis_ to both." + +"My! how she does run the words together! Here!" Miss Susan passed it +to the schoolmaster. "You read it. It's from Jenny. You know she's away +to school, an' we didn't think best for her to come home Christmas. I +knew she'd write for Christmas. Solon, I told you so!" + +The schoolmaster took the letter, and read it aloud. It was a simple +little message, full of contentment and love and a girl's new delight +in life. When he had finished, the two older people busied themselves a +moment without speaking, Solon in picking up a chip from the hearth, +and Susan in mechanically smoothing the mammoth roses on the side of +the carpetbag. + +"Well, I 'most wish we'd had her come home," said he at last, clearing +his throat. + +"No, you don't either," answered Miss Susan promptly. "Not with this +snow, an' comin' out of a house where it's het up, into cold beds an' +all. Now I'm goin' to git you a mite o' pie an' some hot tea." + +She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon +silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for +company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and +she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his +panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began +clearing up. + +"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. +"S'pose he should be sick in the night!" + +"You'd got over," answered the schoolmaster easily. + +"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?" + +"Oh, you'd know it! You 're that sort." + +Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent +anxiety. She came back to her knitting. + +"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster. + +"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence +September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull +pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the +house from sunrise to set." + +"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now +let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all +the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just +the ones they'd like." + +Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the +schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to +sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air. + +"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the +turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed +away up garret, an' lives like a pig." + +"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'" + +"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all +winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't +she'd got to walk on." + +"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal +now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries." + +"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's +temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple? +Why, the nails was all gold. Don't you wish we'd lived in them times? +Jest think about the wood they had--cedars o' Lebanon an' fir-trees. +You know how he set folks to workin' in the mountains. I've al'ays +thought I'd like to ben up on them mountains an' heard the axes ringin' +an' listened to the talk. An' then there was pomegranates an' cherubim, +an' as for silver an' gold, they were as common as dirt. When I was a +little girl, I learnt them chapters, an' sometimes now, when I'm +settin' by the fire, I say over that verse about the 'man of Tyre, +skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, +and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson.' +My! ain't it rich?" + +She drew a long breath of surfeited enjoyment. The schoolmaster's eyes +burned under his heavy brows. + +"Then things smelt so good in them days," continued Miss Susan. "They +had myrrh an' frankincense, an' I dunno what all. I never make my +mincemeat 'thout snuffin' at the spice-box to freshen up my mind. No +matter where I start, some way or another I al'ays git back to Solomon. +Well, if Cap'n Ben wants to see foreign countries, I guess he'd be +glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick--that big +one thereby you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if +I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set +the chimbly afire as not!" + +There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It +exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the +ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own +panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and +perished. + +"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the +world?" + +"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can +fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n +if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen, +kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious +stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't +would look." + +"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,--what should we have?" + +"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey--an'--but that's as fur as I +can git." + +The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he +said musically:-- + +... "'a heap +Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; +With jellies soother than the creamy curd, +And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; +Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd +From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, +From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.'" + +"Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain't like the Bible, but it's +nice." + +They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and +burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan +came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor. + +"There!" said she, "sometimes I think it's most sinful to make believe, +it's so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when +Solon comes for the pigs' kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself +sayin', 'Here's the frankincense!'" + +They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He +paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again. + +"There are lots of people we haven't provided for," he said. "We +haven't even thought what we'd give Jenny." + +"I guess Jenny's got her heart's desire." Miss Susan nodded sagely. +"I've sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an' pickles and cheese. She's +all fixed out." + +The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then +he spoke, somewhat timidly, "What should you like to give her father?" + +Miss Susan's face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled +upon her eyes like haze. + +"Well," said she, "I guess whatever I should give him'd only make him +laugh." + +"Flowers--and velvet--and honey--and myrrh?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Susan with gravity. "Perhaps it's jest as well +some things ain't to be had at the shops." + +The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door. + +"We never can tell," he said. "It may be people want things awfully +without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They'd better laugh than +cry. _I_ should give all I could. Good-night." + +Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the +hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on +too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out +the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a +moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The +visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with +a tumultuous emotion--the sense that life might be very fair and +shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The +loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; +they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare. + +Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was +still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire, +and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white +day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale +winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the +heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her +a wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, +all the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. +She went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little +scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the +schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she +hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the +work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up +to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the +rose. The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her +than all. She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed +meagre still, broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and +disposed the flowers hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling +and good; it spoke to the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she +rolled the flowers in her apron from the frost, and stepped out into +the brilliant day. The little cross-track between her house and the +other was snowed up; but she took the road and, hurrying between banks +of carven whiteness, went up Solon's path to the side door. She walked +in upon him where he was standing over the kitchen stove, warming his +hands at the first blaze. Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of +the stinging air, but she had the look of one who, living by a larger +law, has banished the foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to +him and proffered him her flowers. + +"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these." + +Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both +hands and took them awkwardly. + +"Well!" he said, "Well!" + +Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the +world was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give +all you choose, while nobody is the wiser. + +"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He +laid them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked +over to Pine Hill to pick you some mayflowers, when you was gittin' +over the lung fever?" + +She nodded. + +"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old +scores an' begin all over?" + +"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the +face with her brilliant smile. + +"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed +you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked +her, I thought 't was you." + +"Yes, I knew that well enough I was in the buttery and heard it all. +There, le's not talk about it." + +Solon came a step nearer. + +"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like +it." + +"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no +further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry +chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out, +walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon, +regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her. +Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all +over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He +forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and +snow. It was the spring of the year. + +When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and +was putting a stick of wood into the stove. + +"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you." + +A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was +always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious. + +"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance +of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers. +They were white and wonderful. + +"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the +schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than +I; but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I +should like to have you keep this." + +Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to +fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she +murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin' +over to breakfast." + + + + +A SECOND MARRIAGE + + +Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round, +consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a +steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a +snatching flame below. It was exactly a year and a day since her +husband's death, and she had packed herself away in his own corner of +the settle, her hands clasped across her knees, and her red-brown eyes +brooding on the nearer embers. She was not definitely speculating on +her future, nor had she any heart for retracing the dull and gentle +past. She had simply relaxed hold on her mind; and so, escaping her, it +had gone wandering off into shadowy prophecies of the immediate years. +For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months, +since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not +old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how +free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of +her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black +hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had +once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray. +All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the +possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a +new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over. + +It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to +bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen +hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone +creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of +the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped +down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until +that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle +held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke. + +Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of +the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and +burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living. To-night, +under the spell of some vague expectancy, she had sat still for a long +time, her sewing laid aside and her room scrupulously in order. She was +waiting for what was not to be acknowledged even to her own intimate +self. But as the clock struck nine, she roused herself, and shook off +her mood in impatience and a disappointment which she would not own. +She looked about the room, as she often had of late, and began to +enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it +changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she +only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had +done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other +house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the +prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept +his precisely as his grandfather had left it to him. Amelia had never +once complained; she had observed toward her husband an unfailing +deference, due, she felt, to his twenty years' seniority; perhaps, +also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him +for having married him without love. It was her father who made the +match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by +parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably +born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He +had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows +sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power--gone +home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine +anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man +who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, +but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and +Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and +remained unmarried. + +Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture, +as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there +together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart +to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient +bitterness,--to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be +exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace +should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in +shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock--But +at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia +threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet. +She clasped her hands in a spontaneous gesture of rapt attention; and +when the sound paused at her gate, with one or two sweet, lingering +clingles, "I knew it!" she said aloud. Yet she did not go to the window +to look into the moonlit night. Standing there in the middle of the +room, she awaited the knock which was not long in coming. It was +imperative, insistent. Amelia, who had a spirit responsive to the +dramatic exigencies of life, felt a little flush spring into her face, +so hot that, on the way to the door, she involuntarily put her hand to +her cheek and held it there. The door came open grumblingly. It sagged +upon the hinges, but, well-used to its vagaries, she overcame it with a +regardless haste. + +"Come in," she said, at once, to the man on the step. "It's cold. Oh, +come in!" + +He stepped inside the entry, removing his fur cap, and disclosing a +youthful face charged with that radiance which made him, at +thirty-five, almost the counterpart of his former self. It may have +come only from the combination of curly brown hair, blue eyes, and an +aspiring lift of the chin, but it always seemed to mean a great deal +more. In the kitchen, he threw off his heavy coat, while Amelia, +bright-eyed and breathing quickly, stood by, quite silent. Then he +looked at her. + +"You expected me, didn't you?" he asked. + +A warmer color surged into her cheeks. "I didn't know," she said +perversely. + +"I guess you did. It's one day over a year. You knew I'd wait a year." + +"It ain't a year over the services," said Amelia, trying to keep the +note of vital expectancy out of her voice. "It won't be that till +Friday." + +"Well, Saturday I'll come again." He went over to the fire and +stretched out his hands to the blaze, "Come here," he said +imperatively, "while I talk to you." + +Amelia stepped forward obediently, like a good little child. The old +fascination was still as dominant as at its birth, sixteen years ago. +She realized, with a strong, splendid sense of the eternity of things, +that always, even while it would have been treason to recognize it, she +had known how ready it was to rise and live again. All through her +married years, she had sternly drugged it and kept it sleeping. Now it +had a right to breathe, and she gloried in it. + +"I said to myself I wouldn't come to-day," went on Laurie, without +looking at her. A new and excited note had come into his voice, +responsive to her own. He gazed down at the fire, musing the while he +spoke. "Then I found I couldn't help it. That's why I'm so late. I +stayed in the shop till seven, and some fellows come in and wanted me +to play. I took up the fiddle, and begun. But I hadn't more'n drew a +note before I laid it down and put for the door. 'Dick, you keep shop,' +says I. And I harnessed up, and drove like the devil." + +Amelia felt warm with life and hope; she was taking up her youth just +where the story ended. + +"You ain't stopped swearin' yet!" she remarked, with a little excited +laugh. Then, from an undercurrent of exhilaration, it occurred to her +that she had never laughed so in all these years. + +"Well," said Laurie abruptly, turning upon her, "how am I goin' to +start out? Shall we hark back to old scores? I know what come between +us. So do you. Have we got to talk it out, or can we begin now?" + +"Begin now," replied Amelia faintly. Her breath choked her. He +stretched out his arms to her in sudden passion. His hands touched her +sleeves and, with an answering rapidity of motion, she drew back. She +shrank within herself, and her face gathered a look of fright. "No! no! +no!" she cried strenuously. + +His arms fell at his sides, and he looked at her in amazement. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +Amelia had retreated, until she stood now with one hand on the table. +She could not look at him, and when she answered, her voice shook. + +"There's nothin' the matter," she answered. "Only you mustn't--yet." + +A shade of relief passed over his face, and he smiled. + +"There, there!" he said, "never you mind. I understand. But if I come +over the last of the week, I guess it will be different. Won't it be +different, Milly?" + +"Yes," she owned, with a little sob in her throat, "it will be +different." + +Thrown out of his niche of easy friendliness with circumstance, he +stood there in irritated consciousness that here was some subtile +barrier which he had not foreseen. Ever since John Porter's death, +there had been strengthening in him a joyous sense that Milly's life +and his own must have been running parallel all this time, and that it +needed only a little widening of channels to make them join. His was no +crass certainty of finding her ready to drop into his hand; it was +rather a childlike, warmhearted faith in the permanence of her +affection for him, and perhaps, too, a shrewd estimate of his own +lingering youth compared with John Porter's furrowed face and his +fifty-five years. But now, with this new whiffling of the wind, he +could only stand rebuffed and recognize his own perplexity. + +"You do care, don't you, Milly?" he asked, with a boy's frank ardor. +"You want me to come again?" + +All her own delight in youth and the warm naturalness of life had +rushed back upon her. + +"Yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you the truth. I always did +tell you the truth. I do want you to come." + +"But you don't want me to-night!" He lifted his brows, pursing his lips +whimsically; and Amelia laughed. + +"No," said she, with a little defiant movement of her own crisp head, +"I don't know as I do want you to-night!" + +Laurie shook himself into his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the +door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added +significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got to like me then!" + +Amelia laughed. "I guess there won't be no trouble!" she called after +him daringly. + +She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and +drove away. Then she went shaking back to her fire; but it was not +altogether from cold. The sense of the consistency of love and youth, +the fine justice with which nature was paying an old debt, had raised +her to a stature above her own. She stood there under the mantel, and +held by it while she trembled. For the first time, her husband had gone +utterly out of her life. It was as though he had not been. + +"Saturday!" she said to herself. "Saturday! Three days till then!" + +Next morning, the spring asserted itself,--there came a whiff of wind +from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut +through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin +crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling +drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over +the snow and talked of nests. + +Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her +low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell +hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her +eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No +sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She +throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving +sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung +laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the side-door. The +sled was empty, save for a rocking-chair where sat an enormous woman +enveloped in shawls, her broad face surrounded by a pumpkin hood. Her +dark brown front came low over her forehead, and she wore spectacles +with wide bows, which gave her an added expression of benevolence. She +waved a mittened hand to Amelia when their eyes met, and her heavy face +broke up into smiles. + +"Here I be!" she called in a thick, gurgling voice, as Amelia hastened +out, her apron thrown over her head. "Didn't expect me, did ye? Nobody +looks for an old rheumatic creatur'. She's more out o' the runnin' 'n a +last year's bird's-nest." + +"Why, aunt Ann!" cried Amelia, in unmistakable joy. "I'm tickled to +death to see you. Here, Amos, I'll help get her out." + +The driver, a short, thick-set man of neutral, ashy tints and a +sprinkling of hair and beard, trudged round the oxen and drew the +rocking-chair forward without a word. He never once looked in Amelia's +direction, and she seemed not to expect it; but he had scarcely laid +hold of the chair when aunt Ann broke forth:-- + +"Now, Amos, ain't you goin' to take no notice of 'Melia, no more'n if +she wa'n't here? She ain't a bump on a log, nor you a born fool" + +Amos at once relinquished his sway over the chair, and stood looking +abstractedly at the oxen, who, with their heads low, had already fallen +into that species of day-dream whereby they compensate themselves for +human tyranny. They were waiting for Amos, and Amos, in obedience to +some inward resolve, waited for commotion to cease. + +"If ever I was ashamed, I be now!" continued aunt Ann, still with an +expression of settled good-nature, and in a voice all jollity though +raised conscientiously to a scolding pitch. "To think I should bring +such a creatur' into the world, an' set by to see him treat his own +relations like the dirt under his feet!" + +Amelia laughed. She was exhilarated by the prospect of company, and +this domestic whirlpool had amused her from of old. + +"Law, aunt Ann," she said, "you let Amos alone. He and I are old +cronies. We understand one another. Here, Amos, catch hold! We shall +all get our deaths out here, if we don't do nothin' but stand still and +squabble." + +The immovable Amos had only been awaiting his cue. He lifted the laden +chair with perfect ease to one of the piazza steps, and then to +another; when it had reached the top-most level, he dragged it over +the sill into the kitchen, and, leaving his mother sitting in colossal +triumph by the fire, turned about and took his silent way to the outer +world. + +"Amos," called aunt Ann, "do you mean to say you're goin' to walk out +o' this house without speakin' a civil word to anybody? Do you mean to +say that?" + +"I don't mean to say nothin'," confided Amos to his worsted muffler, as +he took up his goad, and began backing the oxen round. + +Undisturbed and not at all daunted by a reply for which she had not +even listened, aunt Ann raised her voice in cheerful response: "Well, +you be along 'tween three an' four, an' you'll find me ready." + +"Mercy, aunt Ann!" said Amelia, beginning to unwind the visitor's +wraps, "what makes you keep houndin' Amos that way? If he hasn't spoke +for thirty-five years, it ain't likely he's goin' to begin now." + +Aunt Ann was looking about her with an expression of beaming delight in +unfamiliar surroundings. She laughed a rich, unctuous laugh, and +stretched her hands to the blaze. + +"Law," she said contentedly, "of course it ain't goin' to do no good. +Who ever thought 't would? But I've been at that boy all these years to +make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never +shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, +'Melia, you _air_ kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my +bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't a mite cold." + +Amelia was bustling about the fire, her mind full of the possibilities +of a company dinner. + +"How's your limbs?" she asked, while aunt Ann drew out a long stocking, +and began to knit with an amazing rapidity of which her fat fingers +gave no promise. + +"Well, I ain't allowed to forgit 'em very often," she replied +comfortably. "Rheumatiz is my cross, an' I've got to bear it. Sometimes +I wish 't had gone into my hands ruther 'n my feet, an' I could ha' got +round. But there! if 't ain't one thing, it's another. Mis' Eben +Smith's got eight young ones down with the whoopin'-cough. Amos dragged +me over there yisterday; an' when I heerd 'em tryin' to see which could +bark the loudest, I says, 'Give me the peace o' Jerusalem in my own +house, even if I don't stir a step for the next five year no more 'n I +have for the last.' I dunno what 't would be if I hadn't a darter. I've +been greatly blessed." + +The talk went on in pleasant ripples, while Amelia moved back and forth +from pantry to table. She brought out the mixing-board, and began to +put her bread in the pans, while the tin kitchen stood in readiness by +the hearth. The sunshine flooded all the room, and lay insolently on +the paling fire; the Maltese cat sat in the broadest shaft of all, and, +having lunched from her full saucer in the corner, made her second +toilet for the day. + +"'Melia," said aunt Ann suddenly, looking down over her glasses at the +tin kitchen, "ain't it a real cross to bake in that thing?" + +"I always had it in mind to buy me a range," answered Amelia +reservedly, "but somehow we never got to it." + +"That's the only thing I ever had ag'inst John. He was as grand a man +as ever was, but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out +the old things, I say, no more 'n the old folks; but when it comes to +makin' a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, +that beats me." + +"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste, +"only he never knew I wanted it!" + +"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her +ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men. +Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft +as a woman. His mother used to say his eyes'd fill full o' tears when +he broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,--a good +provider an' a good friend." + +Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face +flushed. + +"Yes," she said gently, "he _was_ good." + +"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations, +"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor +why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 'twas +only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's +see what you could do. When you got the range in, 'twould alter this +kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned +mantelpiece in the fore-room?" + +"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had +taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were +ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled. + +"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. +"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down +her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in +her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and +rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in +her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning +conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got +'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and +about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed +to be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never +anything too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a +buffer between her and the doers of her will; and though she might +scold, she never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in +the least to the disease which had practically disabled her. It might +confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of +others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in +her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative +genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She +cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she +asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. +It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually +gave up talking, and thereafter opened his lips only when some +practical exigency was to be filled. But once did he vouchsafe a reason +for that eccentricity. It was in his fifteenth year, as aunt Ann +remembered well, when the minister had called; and Amos, in response to +some remark about his hope of salvation, had looked abstractedly out of +the window. + +"I'd be ashamed," announced aunt Ann, after the minister had +gone,--"Amos, I _would_ be ashamed, if I couldn't open my head to a +minister o' the gospel!" + +"If one head's open permanent in a house, I guess that fills the bill," +said Amos, getting up to seek the woodpile. "I ain't goin' to interfere +with nobody else's contract." + +His mother looked after him with gaping lips, and, for the space of +half an hour, spoke no word. + +To-day she saw before her an alluring field of action; the prospect +roused within her energies, never incapable of responding to a spur. + +"My soul, 'Melia!" she exclaimed, looking about the kitchen with a +dominating eye, "how I should like to git hold o' this house! I al'ays +did have a hankerin' that way, an' I don't mind tellin' ye. You could +change it all round complete." + +"It's a good house," said Amelia evasively, taking quick, even +stitches, but listening hungrily to the voice of outside temptation. It +seemed to confirm all the long-suppressed ambitions of her own heart. + +"You 're left well on 't," continued aunt Ann, her shrewd blue eyes +taking on a speculative look. "I'm glad you sold the stock. A woman +never undertakes man's work but she comes out the little end o' the +horn. The house is enough, if you keep it nice. Now, you've got that +money laid away, an' all he left you besides. You could live in the +village, if you was a mind to." + +A deep flush struck suddenly into Amelia's cheek. She thought of +Saltash and Laurie Morse. + +"I don't want to live in the village," she said sharply, thus reproving +her own errant mind. "I like my home." + +"Law, yes, of course ye do," replied aunt Ann easily, returning to her +knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of? +Repairin' an old coat?" + +Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'Twas his," she answered in a voice +almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and +when daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and +puttin' on a black one to match the stuff." + +"Goin' to give it away?" + +"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note +in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?" + +"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,--that's +all." + +Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled +sunnily. + +"Well, I suppose it _is_ foolish," she owned,--"too foolish to tell. +But I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at +last. I kind o' like to do it." + +Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on +a voyage of discovery. + +"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's +better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come +when it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into +your chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em." + +Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility. + +"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she +remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will. + +"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos +has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the +lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?" + +"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like +changes." + +"Blue spread on the west room bed?" + +"Yes." + +"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper +kep' 'em?" + +"Yes." + +"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to +have such a royal good time with, makin' essences?" + +Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears. + +"Yes;" she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it +yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for +him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then." + +Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of +rich enjoyment. + +"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!" + +"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia soberly, +folding her work and taking off her thimble. "I'd just as soon as not." + +All through the dinner hour aunt Ann kept up an inspiring stream of +question and reminiscence. + +"You _be_ a good cook, 'Melia, an' no mistake," she remarked, breaking +her brown hot biscuit. "This your same kind o' bread, made without +yeast?" + +"Yes," answered Amelia, pouring the tea. "I save a mite over from the +last risin'." + +Aunt Ann smelled the biscuit critically. "Well, it makes proper nice +bread," she said, "but seems to me that's a terrible shif'less way to +go about it. However'd you happen to git hold on't? You wa'n't never +brought up to't." + +"His mother used to make it so. 'T was no great trouble, and 't would +have worried him if I'd changed." + +When the lavender-sprigged china had been washed and the hearth swept +up, the room fell into its aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after +another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the +fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork +cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss +appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message of +domestic content. + +"Now," said Amelia, "I'll get the still." + +"Bring down anything else that's ancient!" called aunt Ann. "We've +pretty much got red o' such things over t'our house, but I kind o' +like to see 'em." + +When Amelia returned, she staggered under a miscellaneous burden: the +still, some old swifts for winding yarn, and a pair of wool-cards. + +"I don't believe you know so much about cardin' wool as I do," she +said, in some triumph, regarding the cards with the saddened gaze of +one who recalls an occupation never to be resumed. "You see, you +dropped all such work when new things come in. I kept right on because +he wanted me to." + +Aunt Ann was abundantly interested and amused. + +"Well, now, if ever!" she repeated over and over again. "If this don't +carry me back! Seems if I could hear the wheel hummin' an' gramma Balch +steppin' back an' forth as stiddy as a clock. It's been a good while +sence I've thought o' such old days." + +"If it's old days you want"--began Amelia, and she sped upstairs with a +fresh light of resolution in her eyes. + +It was a long time before she returned,--so long that aunt Ann +exhausted the still, and turned again to her thrifty knitting. Then +there came a bumping noise on the stairs, and Amelia's shuffling tread. + +"What under the sun be you doin' of?" called her aunt, listening, with +her head on one side. "Don't you fall, 'Melia! Whatever't is, I can't +help ye." + +But the stairway door yielded to pressure from within: and first a rim +of wood appeared, and then Amelia, scarlet and breathless, staggering +under a spinning-wheel. + +"Forever!" ejaculated aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like +some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll +break a blood-vessel, an' then where'll ye be?" + +Amelia triumphantly drew the wheel to the middle of the floor, and then +blew upon her dusty hands and smoothed her tumbled hair. She took off +her apron and wiped the wheel with it rather tenderly, as if an +ordinary duster would not do. + +"There!" she said. "Here's some rolls right here in the bedroom. I +carded them myself, but I never expected to spin any more." + +She adjusted a roll to the spindle, and, quite forgetting aunt Ann, +began stepping back and forth in a rhythmical march of feminine +service. The low hum of her spinning filled the air, and she seemed to +be wrapped about by an atmosphere of remoteness and memory. Even aunt +Ann was impressed by it; and once, beginning to speak, she looked at +Amelia's face, and stopped. The purring silence continued, lulling all +lesser energies to sleep, until Amelia, pausing to adjust her thread, +found her mood broken by actual stillness, and gazed about her like one +awakened from dreams. + +"There!" she said, recalling herself. "Ain't that a good smooth thread? +I've sold lots of yarn. They ask for it in Sudleigh." + +"'Tis so!" confirmed aunt Ann cordially. "An' you've al'ays dyed it +yourself, too!" + +"Yes, a good blue; sometimes tea-color. There, now, you can't say you +ain't heard a spinnin'-wheel once more!" + +Amelia moved the wheel to the side of the room, and went gravely back +to her chair. Her energy had fled, leaving her hushed and tremulous. +But not for that did aunt Ann relinquish her quest for the betterment +of the domestic world. Her tongue clicked the faster as Amelia's +halted. She put away her work altogether, and sat, with wagging head +and eloquent hands, still holding forth on the changes which might be +wrought in the house: a bay window here, a sofa there, new chairs, +tables, and furnishings. Amelia's mind swam in a sea of green rep, and +she found herself looking up from time to time at her mellowed four +walls, to see if they sparkled in desirable yet somewhat terrifying +gilt paper. + +At four o'clock, when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was +remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in +to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense +that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that +moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in +silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and +cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the +crumbs. Amos never varied in his role of automaton; and Amelia talked +rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she +was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned +in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt, +just as the oxen gave' their tremulous preparatory heave. + +"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia +this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I +can!" + +Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia +sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand, +she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow. + +"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even +in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word. +"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!" + +Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming +eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and +keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they +would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt +Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all +the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard. + +When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the +silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had +miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, +strangely clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been +stilled; only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, +and the cat stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in +the waning light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the +coat over critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it +behind the door in its accustomed place, where it had remained +undisturbed now for many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her +early supper, and then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it +brought out great shadows in the room, she took a little cricket and +sat down by the fire. There she had mused many an evening which seemed +to her less dull than the general course of her former life, while her +husband occupied the hearthside chair and told her stories of the war. +He had a childlike clearness and simplicity of speech, and a +self-forgetful habit of reminiscence. The war was the war to him, not a +theatre for boastful individual action; but Amelia remembered now that +he had seemed to hold heroic proportions in relation to that immortal +past. One could hardly bring heroism into the potato-field and the +cow-house; but after this lapse of time, it began to dawn upon her that +the man who had fought at Gettysburg and the man who marked out for her +the narrow rut of an unchanging existence were one and the same. And as +if the moment had come for an expected event, she heard again the +jangling of bells without, and the old vivid color rushed into her +cheeks, reddened before by the fire-shine. It was as though the other +night had been a rehearsal, and as if now she knew what was coming. Yet +she only clasped her hands more tightly about her knees and waited, the +while her heart hurried its time. The knocker fell twice, with a +resonant clang. She did not move. It beat again, the more insistently. +Then the heavy outer door was pushed open, and Laurie Morse came in, +looking exactly as she knew he would look--half angry, wholly excited, +and dowered with the beauty of youth recalled. He took off his cap and +stood before her. + +"Why didn't you come?" he asked imperatively. "Why didn't you let me +in?" + +The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it +was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some +influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she +was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, +calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not. + +"If you wanted it enough, you could get in," she said perversely, with +an alluring coquetry in her mien. "The door was unfastened." + +"I did want to enough," he responded. A new light came into his eyes. +He held out his hands toward her. "Get up off that cricket!" he +commanded. "Come here!" + +Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, +one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard. + +"It ain't Saturday," she whispered. + +"No, it ain't But I couldn't wait. You knew I couldn't. You knew I'd +come to-night." + +The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had +been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an +heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the +firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which +she had never felt in the days of their youth. + +"Am I goin' to stay," he asked sternly, "or shall I go home?" + +As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at +the gate. Should he go or stay? + +"I suppose," said Amelia faintly, "you're, goin' to stay." + +Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about +impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted +the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had +watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how +much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband's, the +real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life +with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward. + +"No! no!" she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. "No! no! +don't you hang it there! Don't you! don't you!" She swept him aside, +and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as +if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned +with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed. + +Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. +"I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're +nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and +let's talk." + +The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, +jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a +silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little +ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came +back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to +remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. +At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the +chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion. + +"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk." + +Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, +a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm. + +"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!" + +"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!" + +She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again. + +"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel +and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't +bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 'twould +kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a +comfort. If 'twas you--I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her +voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate +emotion. + +Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own +nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its +fears. + +"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But +we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd +furnish all new." + +"Not have these things!" called Amelia, with a ringing note of +dismay,--"not have these things he set by as he did his life! Why, what +do you think I'm made of, after fifteen years? What did I think I was +made of, even to guess I could? You don't know what women are like, +Laurie Morse,--you don't know!" + +She broke down in piteous weeping. Even then it seemed to her that it +would be good to find herself comforted with warm human sympathy; but +not a thought of its possibility remained in her mind. She saw the +boundaries beyond which she must not pass. Though the desert were arid +on this side, it was her desert, and there in her tent must she abide. +She began speaking again between sobbing breaths:-- + +"I did have a dull life. I used up all my young days doin' the same +things over and over, when I wanted somethin' different. It _was_ dull; +but if I could have it all over again, I'd work my fingers to the bone. +I don't know how it would have been if you and I'd come together then, +and had it all as we planned; but now I'm a different woman. I can't +any more go back than you could turn Sudleigh River, and coax it to run +uphill. I don't know whether 't was meant my life should make me a +different woman; but I _am_ different, and such as I am, I'm his woman. +Yes, till I die, till I'm laid in the ground 'longside of him!" Her +voice had an assured ring of triumph, as if she were taking again an +indissoluble marriage oath. + +Laurie had grown very pale. There were forlorn hollows under his eyes; +now he looked twice his age. + +"I didn't suppose you kept a place for me," he said, with an +unconscious dignity. "That wouldn't have been right, and him alive. And +I didn't wait for dead men's shoes. But somehow I thought there was +something between you and me that couldn't be outlived." + +Amelia looked at him with a frank sweetness which transfigured her face +into spiritual beauty. + +"I thought so, too," she answered, with that simplicity ever attending +our approximation to the truth, "I never once said it to myself; but +all this year, 'way down in my heart, I knew you'd come back. And I +wanted you to come. I guess I'd got it all planned out how we'd make up +for what we'd lost, and build up a new life. But so far as I go, I +guess I didn't lose by what I've lived through. I guess I gained +somethin' I'd sooner give up my life than even lose the memory of." + +So absorbed was she in her own spiritual inheritance that she quite +forgot his pain. She gazed past him with an unseeing look; and striving +to meet and recall it, he faced the vision of their divided lives. +To-morrow Amelia would remember his loss and mourn over it with +maternal pangs; to-night she was oblivious of all but her own. Great +human experiences are costly things; they demand sacrifice, not only of +ourselves, but of those who are near us. The room was intolerable to +Laurie. He took his hat and coat, and hurried out. Amelia heard the +dragging door closed behind him. She realized, with the numbness born +of supreme emotion, that he was putting on his coat outside in the +cold; and she did not mind. The bells stirred, and went clanging away. +Then she drew a long breath, and bowed her head on her hands in an +acquiescence that was like prayer. + +It seemed a long time to Amelia before she awoke again to temporal +things. She rose, smiling, to her feet, and looked about her as if her +eyes caressed every corner of the homely room. She picked up puss in a +round, comfortable ball, and carried her back to the hearth-side chair; +there she stroked her until her touchy ladyship had settled down again +to purring content. Then Amelia, still smiling, and with an absent +look, as if her mind wandered through lovely possibilities of a sort +which can never be undone, drew forth the spinning-wheel, and fitted a +roll to the spindle. She began stepping back and forth as if she moved +to the measure of an unheard song, and the pleasant hum of her spinning +broke delicately upon the ear. It seemed to waken all the room into new +vibrations of life. The clock ticked with an assured peace, as if +knowing it marked eternal hours. The flames waved softly upward without +their former crackle and sheen; and the moving shadows were gentle and +rhythmic ones come to keep the soul company. Amelia felt her thread +lovingly. + +"I guess I'll dye it blue," she said, with a tenderness great enough to +compass inanimate things. "He always set by blue, didn't he, puss?" + + + + +THE FLAT-IRON LOT + + +The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside, +closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It +was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear +day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed. +Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the +signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all +others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to +celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big +with the importance of it. + +On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender +old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over +his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing +the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N. +Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either +side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality +of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have +numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length; +and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of +a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At +one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an +unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The +old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly +on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock +down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief +when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received +it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully +folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were +partially effaced. + +"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children +who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up +his bag, and went on. + +Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar +figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face, +with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone +from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue +eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day +after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had +come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert +that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish +to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of +home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham +neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff, +starched creases. + +"Dirt don't stick to _you_, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow. +"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it +for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute +which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself. + +As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked +it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the +extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his +clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed +perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing +Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a +thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he +reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged, +though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too +keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon +with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by +his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us +who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences, +children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack, +besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the +mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to +approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his +little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of +the flock would come soberly in, to announce:-- + +"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield." + +It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and +restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one +colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old +Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there +were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing +round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until +Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed +him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory +tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere +mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the +haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough +to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very +mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too +tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of +relief, and marked his value down. + +Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he +never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at +the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept +his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been +born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a +time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were +Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its +spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were +born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its +hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever +dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even, +of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him +the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A +little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding +itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak, +saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:-- + +"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?" + +Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized +that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went +home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her +husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:-- + +"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me +conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" + +Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the +seeds. + +"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems +to be pretty rugged." + +Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of +plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little +house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that +afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was +covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with +old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor +of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a +moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be +quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so +serenely. + +"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind +for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely +remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk +about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd +do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past +an' gone, the neighbors say"-- + +Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this +point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did +all these things as if each one were very important. + +"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite +o' lemon in." + +Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her +pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she +knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to +pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing +his own washing and making his own pie. + +To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had +turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it +had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have +named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace +nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a +little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There +was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in +bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in +the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own +bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming +profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when +he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in +passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock; +the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot +upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas +Oldfield was at home. + +He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight +through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock. +He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder +of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face. + +"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin', +though." + +For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in +time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again, +under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and +pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall +eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely, +reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been +inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the +entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm +decorum of his own desires. + +In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a +spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and +window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner +cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches, +indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on +the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as +flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his +china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to +solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures, +remarking, without emphasis:-- + +"I guess they might as well stay where they be." + +So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed +him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found +always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of +demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their +places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be +betrayed. + +One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that +calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some +natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was +sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking +tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude. + +"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't +you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke." + +Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed. + +"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones. + +"No, I waited for you." + +"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it +down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate." + +Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and +standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and +mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at +each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between +them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this +was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about +it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown +hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way +of nodding at his clocks. + +"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked, +while Mary buttered her biscuit. + +She looked at him in assent. + +"Well, I've proved it." + +"You don't say!" + +Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled +school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully +dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get +obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a +logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a +conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and +misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther, +because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so. + +"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!' +says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old +meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks +I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried +over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself, +'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house +was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in +Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever, +that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room +over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house +clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there. +An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete +and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face. +Her own reflected it. + +"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited; +she could only whisper. + +"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' _they 're in +my bag_!" + +Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently +secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a +knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance. + +"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin', +when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got +the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they +come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister, +the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then +opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all +was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o' +withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot. +An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God." + +"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. +"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. +She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, +"did they settle here first? Or--or was it Sudleigh?" + +Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell +and hear. + +"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate, +"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in +Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth." + +"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the +celebration then, you got it right?" + +"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the +rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key." + +The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great +content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he +gave her an oft-repeated charge:-- + +"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me. +I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the +meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To +them it don't signify." + +Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older +experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly +aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's +voice sounded that instant from the door:-- + +"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to +run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't +thick!". + +"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly. + +Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger. +Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown +hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for +color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was +customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes +going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that +no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy +footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's +right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously. + +"Well, father," said she, "you got home!" + +Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the +teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug. + +"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home." + +Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech. + +"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to +be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it. +'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he." + +Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen +blue eyes upon her. + +"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?" + +"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"-- + +"What Eaton?" + +"William W." + +"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool +Eaton?" + +Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what +was coming. + +"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other +towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration." + +"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew +he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em +all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got +letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out, +'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's +quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past +I." + +He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard +father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before +had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole +township now conspired to bait him. + +"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as +they can tell what they mean by it." + +Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth +on one so dull. + +"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might +as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the +clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm +enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell." + +Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he +learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our +nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now." + +He rose from his chair. + +"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of +a new bell?" + +Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry. + +"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take +on so. What under the sun has got into you?" + +Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the +dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his +fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she +understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her +apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She +gathered herself desperately. + +"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it, +an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it." + +"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!" + +"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful +creases. "Say your say and git it over." + +Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment +Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its +equilibrium. + +"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very +day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron +Lot." + +"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's +he made up his mind to do with it?" + +"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says +he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he +can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that +lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as +ever was, an' no good to you,--there ain't half a load o' hay cut there +in a season,--an' he'd pay the full vally"-- + +"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie +paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie," +said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything +to do with that lot o' land?" + +"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly. + +"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old +gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye +had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron +Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone, +you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin' +down to vote." + +Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly. +"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the +crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind +of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared +in the gathering dusk. + +"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along +with me." + +Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of +his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a +passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood +in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have +it. I wish I was father. I'd see!" + +Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his +arm. + +"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He +can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set +up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I +meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody +knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer." + +Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered. + +"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody." + +"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. +He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a +poor tool that would do that." + +He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of +the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas +took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already +assembled. + +Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed, +responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its +phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to +the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the +west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still +under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife +lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the +strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the +neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding, +sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world +seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to +sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living +things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest +decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it +could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the +few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old +War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also +the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant +spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas +Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse, +to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying +down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and +Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming +night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might +not have done in a room full of winter brightness. + +"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. +Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand." + +"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas. + +"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' +takin' the sense o' the meetin'." + +"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. +"All gab an' no git there!" + +"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had +something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled +clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity." + +"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted +fierceness:-- + +"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a +clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep +Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?" + +"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I +do." + +"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," +suggested Brad Freeman. + +"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented +Tom O'Neil irreverently. + +"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might +as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, +it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back +ag'in." + +"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by +dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to +do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy +gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low +land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! +Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into +Sudleigh." + +Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard +him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the +sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired +so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but +all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly. + +"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't +do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell." + +Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, +and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated +discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public +soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, +by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have +his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the +town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for +taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the +bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his +neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! +it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another +stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed +man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His +face looked ashen. + +"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I +ain't there_!" + +A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life. + +"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, +for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. +Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. +They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and +more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the +womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled +majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. +Sixty! seventy! eighty-one! + +"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice. + +Then on it beat, to the completed century. + +The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their +public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the +fact with scorn. + +"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. +"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never +heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess +I'd see!" + +It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and +cry,-- + +"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" + +He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up +the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, +followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the +tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving +fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men +and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had +ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield +strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and +each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of +protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's +Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. + +"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" + +Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the +waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his +boyhood. + +"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from +under!" + +Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. +There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent +even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to +another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." + +He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. +There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he +stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. + +"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set +foot on it." + +The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping +elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within +the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; +then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the +rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, +illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. + +"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But +no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak. + +"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you +know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place +that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to +prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled +that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the +age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that +made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was +cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here." + +"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly. + +"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll +have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this +God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in +open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit +hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he +continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. +"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or +bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the +Judgment Day." + +With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and +though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save +that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them +trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange +herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere. + +"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could +shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the +hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, +and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had +walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, +reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly +and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk +thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose +within her. + +That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the +poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, +and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother +thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it +wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel +hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated +clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the +stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all +the unresponsive presences of night. + +For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle +seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really +closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, +interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after +Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed +father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high +tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction +that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; +and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much +about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' +doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not +be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the +prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no +decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in +preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over +two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was +that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of +the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side +with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of +Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that +he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable +atmosphere of loftier meanings. + +Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to +do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only +Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod +or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For +he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for +that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public +conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an +elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him +gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It +seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He +would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, +he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a +meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his +own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark +bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that +he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. +Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to +draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the +youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were +with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of +goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for +their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped +down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the +atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, +and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to +the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework +together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had +brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was +"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's +brain," and the brain was ready. + +Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when +Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have +realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have +been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when +Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the +cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: +only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's +wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's +hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the +shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a +pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine +shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an +intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were +inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. +Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying +meantime to the smallest Crane boy,-- + +"You crawl up there!" + +The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to +seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal +glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed. + +"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there," +commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats +fast when we approach a great fruition. + +"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!" + +The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, +he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk +with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their +sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited +such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural +rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What +lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his +trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of +possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and +argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young +scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other +from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and +grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and +over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only +remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants +apart:-- + +"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he +thinks best. He's got the say." + +In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs +in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for +the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the +rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that +specious plea. + +"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that +elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail +was repeated in many keys. + +Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before +the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the +cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became +suddenly and dramatically dignified. + +"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it +standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it? +Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of +Injuns tackle it?" + +The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's +desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears +of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over +the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to +seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first +desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came +into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping +dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and +leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this +aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being +unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened +with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, +greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then +the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But +each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing +to suffer the attack. + +"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every +time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be +dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that +glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what +loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking +redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful +solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of +settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's +wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed +logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm +horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and +pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled +realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a +daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the +popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when +young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic +yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:-- + +"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day +comes, who's goin' to beat?" + +An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not +yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at +home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!" + +"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in +unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against +red. + +"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned +their chief. "_My_ last gun 's fired." + +Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two +separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went +faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those +days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and +undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. +Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are +ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the +oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his +Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside +her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud. + +Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot +as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, +brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an +attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor +had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of +mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, +being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in +village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on +Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at +the front door. + +"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your +grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like +as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got +out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think." + +Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting. + +"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, +absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a +shaken head, and pursed-up lips. + +A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week +had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were +telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without +her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew +well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what +the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in +the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was +still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not +expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she +saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next +day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed +her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which +was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little +house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the +clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, +as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the +night, and slipped away again in silence! + + * * * * * + +"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister. +"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin' +here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My +soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I +wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!" + +Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she +might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever +a chip o' the old block. + +When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front +steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little +chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new +cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant +wine. + +"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle +righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal." + +The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay. + +"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about +Mr. Oldfield?" + +So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in +disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an +apologetic cough. + +"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular +about father." + +"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got +to." + +"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and +loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost +her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It +seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister +bent his brows impatiently. + +"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the +fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me +back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what +to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then +when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all +at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without +him." + +This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever +looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A +frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in +expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight. + +"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, +"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything." + +"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts +enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them. +The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the +town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline +to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take +the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came +in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's +Nicholas Oldfield." + +Mary folded her hands, in proud composure. + +"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was +here." + +"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield," +asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I +should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor +ain't neither of 'em heard of?" + +"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town +legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But +then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has +been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie +realized with awe, to offer prayer. + +Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye +Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not +until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed" +rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her +mouth and spoke. + +"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great +shakes?" + +Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered +demurely, "I don't know as I can say." + +"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear +your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't +they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?" + +Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it +carefully on the shelf. + +"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's +barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and +prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how +little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and +dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both. + +The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that +the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the +celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable +warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for +him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to +lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding +cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming +headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!" + +Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why +gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him +sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, +she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance +at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little +room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being +careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the +truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in +comparison. + +It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of +the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world. + +"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full +of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed +incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing. +"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from +one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite +right, that time he tolled the bell." + +They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in +byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low +degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and +remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until +the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way. + +"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never +was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold." + +Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, +there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet +morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the +night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to +the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the +celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in +the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it +seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. +Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save +each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the +eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad +Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, +and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if +there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, +though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short +address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the +doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of +it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is." + +It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism +which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, +justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed +the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went +whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse +about the address, without doing it justice. + +The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty +toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The +air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they +were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, +something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went +up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the +step. + +"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon +him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held +her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly. + +"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!" + +Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as +he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the +big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he +could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed +very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, +and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, +catching her breath tremulously:-- + +"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the +county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the +pond!" + +"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded +Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about +a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't +in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?" + +"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister." + +"The minister? What's he want?" + +"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to +say." + +Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas +Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave. + +"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's +needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've +got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I +ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me +timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they +needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can +carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.". + +Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew +her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of +plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; +and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast +asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had +only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and +saw the doctor come striding into the yard. + +"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers. +Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?" + +Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a +hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at +the situation without delay. + +"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've +got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. +He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we +don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you +think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if +nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to +pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because +you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning +to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, +and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!" + +Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning +dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the +doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not +climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary +appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink +and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. +Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for +thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up +treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. +He turned quite meekly to the doctor. + +"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up +an' dressed?" + +Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door. + +Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield +settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it +ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless +while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both +knew well. + +"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old +cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road. +Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you +understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But +they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they +wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up +Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' +there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he +told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot. + +"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We +might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the +church." + +"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas +quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He +could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it +quivered and betrayed him. + +"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the +Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there." + +But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had +the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain. + +"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides +gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' +dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a +jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine +feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, +Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over." + +"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and +you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson +while I start up the town." + +The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did +some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul +Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was +ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind +kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to +be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened +at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy; +and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody +had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act +the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head +without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for +the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation +and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is +naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy +man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly +progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by +vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the +sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into +town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the +part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent +nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't," +said he. + +But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he +turned his horse. + +"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please, +_please_ let me be Mary Oldfield!" + +The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his +way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's +tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily +anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted +before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of +boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an +unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the +fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth +to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could +with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride +inside the elephant. + +So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the +cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic +intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and +her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the +handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's +heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and +that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's +vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the +procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up +his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to +pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air. + +"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and +Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a +long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all. + +When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge +into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and +shot out a sibilant whisper:-- + +"Did you know that?--about the Flat-Iron Lot?" + +Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed. + +"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my +end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder +father let me get out alive." + +The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the +sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying +that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard +against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon +lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his +heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them. +Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a +suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some +precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath +went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the +economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment +day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white. + +Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of +presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read +them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by +finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped +into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded. +So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the +universe in its making. + +It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He +sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and +then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would +suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an +inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to +be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile +Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising. + +"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would +be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public +land forever." + +Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick +muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied, +antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise. +They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised +intelligence exalted. + +The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the +sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly +spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down +on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to +flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the +"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux +representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my +brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a +frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were +patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it +was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an +occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by +"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A +very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups +of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before +"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes +themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred +shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing +quietly by--the reverential glance accorded those who find out +unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an +awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual. + +"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot." + +Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in +a flutter. + +"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to +supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"-- + +"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but +Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the +evenin'. Come, Mary!" + +Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking +with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about +contentedly. + +"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!" + + + + +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + +The First Church of Tiverton stands on a hill, whence it overlooks the +little village, with one or two pine-shaded neighborhoods beyond, and, +when the air is clear, a thin blue line of upland delusively like the +sea. Set thus austerely aloft, it seems now a survival of the day when +men used to go to meeting gun in hand, and when one stayed, a lookout +by the door, to watch and listen. But this the present dwellers do not +remember. Conceding not a sigh to the holy and strenuous past, they +lament--and the more as they grow older--the stiff climb up the hill, +albeit to rest in so sweet a sanctuary at the top. For it is sweet +indeed. A soft little wind seems always to be stirring there, on summer +Sundays a messenger of good. It runs whispering about, and wafts in all +sorts of odors: honey of the milkweed and wild rose, and a Christmas +tang of the evergreens just below. It carries away something, +too--scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a +whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of +musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here +to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we +faint, of the keen savor of righteousness. + +Here in the church do we congregate from week to week; but behind it, +on a sloping hillside, is the last home of us all, the old +burying-ground, overrun with a briery tangle, and relieved by Nature's +sweet and cunning hand from the severe decorum set ordinarily about the +dead. Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we +were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but +affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too +supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due +course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in +common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay +unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect, +and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we +ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds; +tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets +smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little +of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry, +crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered +corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off +from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely +walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the +spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear. + +Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green +tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun. But our pendulum had +swung too wide. Like many folk who suffer from one discomfort, we had +gone to the utmost extreme and courted another. We were tired of +climbing hills, and so we pressed too far into the lowland; and the +first grave dug in our Cemetery showed three inches of water at the +bottom. It was in "Prince's new lot," and there his young daughter was +to lie. But her lover had stood by while the men were making the grave; +and, looking into the ooze below, he woke to the thought of her fair +young body there. + +"God!" they heard him say, "she sha'n't lay so. Leave it as it is, an' +come up into the old buryin'-ground. There's room enough by me." + +The men, all mates of his, stopped work without a glance and followed +him; and up there in the dearer shrine her place was made. The father +said but a word at her changed estate. Neighbors had hurried in to +bring him the news; he went first to the unfinished grave in the +Cemetery, and then strode up the hill, where the men had not yet done. +After watching them for a while in silence, he turned aside; but he +came back to drop a trembling hand upon the lover's arm. + +"I guess," he said miserably, "she'd full as lieves lay here by you." + +And she will be quite beside him, though, in the beaten ways of earth, +others have come between. For years he lived silently and apart; but +when his mother died, and he and his father were left staring at the +dulled embers of life, he married a good woman, who perhaps does not +deify early dreams; yet she is tender of them, and at the death of her +own child it was she who went toiling up to the graveyard, to see that +its little place did not encroach too far. She gave no reason, but we +all knew it was because she meant to let her husband lie there by the +long-loved guest. + +Naturally enough, after this incident of the forsaken grave, we +conceived a strange horror of the new Cemetery, and it has remained +deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one +little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any +farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently +from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will +be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this +year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school +children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave +where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau took her away. +They never seem to connect that heart-broken wraith of a lover with the +bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched +overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of +youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever +quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, +all his for poring over those dulled pages of the past. + +After we had elected to abide by our old home, we voted an enlargement +of its bounds; and thereby hangs a tale of outlawed revenge. Long years +ago "old Abe Eaton" quarreled with his twin brother, and vowed, as the +last fiat of an eternal divorce, "I won't be buried in the same yard +with ye!" + +The brother died first; and because he lay within a little knoll beside +the fence, Abe willfully set a public seal on that iron oath by +purchasing a strip of land outside, wherein he should himself be +buried. Thus they would rest in a hollow correspondence, the fence +between. It all fell out as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are +cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the +helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not +the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does +the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according +to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves +another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into +decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, +beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out +the individual wrong. + +So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead +upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth +monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,--a rigid box +of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh +came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the +idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad +Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us +out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it." +That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we +smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by +friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids. + +The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find +them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for +they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of +age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds +them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such +veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning +skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely +feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I +fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the +larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny +imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that +wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a +certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into +the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses +from the stones and chip the letters clear. He liked to draw, +"creatur's" especially, and would trace them for children on their +slates. He lived alone in a little house long since fallen, and he +would eat no meat. That is all they know of him. I can guess but one +thing more: that when no looker-on was by, he pushed away the grass, +and wrote his little jokes, safe in the kindly tolerance of the dead. +This was the identical soul who should, in good old days, have been +carving gargoyles and misereres; here his only field was the obscurity +of Tiverton churchyard, his only monument these grotesqueries so +cunningly concealed. + +We have epitaphs, too,--all our own as yet, for the world has not +discovered them. One couple lies in well-to-do respectability under a +tiny monument not much taller than the conventional gravestone, but +shaped on a pretentious model. + +"We'd ruther have it nice," said the builders, "even if there ain't +much of it." + +These were Eliza Marden and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to +sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own fore-handedness. +I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple +portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting +between them, and glancing about her, in a flickering, intermittent +way, at the pleasant holiday world. Hannah was no worker; she liked a +long afternoon in the sun, her thin little hands busied about nothing +weightier than crochet; and her mother regarded her with a horrified +patience, as one who might some time be trusted to sow all her wild +oats of idleness. The well-mated pair died within the same year, and it +was Hannah who composed their epitaph, with an artistic accuracy, but a +defective sense of rhyme:-- + + "Here lies Eliza + She was a striver + Here lies Peleg + He was a select Man" + +We townsfolk found something haunting and bewildering in the lines; +they drew, and yet they baffled us, with their suggested echoes luring +only to betray. Hannah never wrote anything else, but we always +cherished the belief that she could do "'most anything" with words and +their possibilities. Still, we accepted her one crowning achievement, +and never urged her to further proof. In Tiverton we never look genius +in the mouth. Nor did Hannah herself propose developing her gift. +Relieved from the spur of those two unquiet spirits who had begotten +her, she settled down to sit all day in the sun, learning new patterns +of crochet; and having cheerfully let her farm run down, she died at +last in a placid poverty. + +Then there was Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial +hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a +day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by +the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, +below her _obiit_, the astounding statement:-- + +"The first woman. She made the journey to Boston. By stage." + +Here, too, are the ironies whereof departed life is prodigal. This is +the tidy lot of Peter Merrick, who had a desire to stand well with the +world, in leaving it, and whose purple and fine linen were embodied in +the pomp of death. He was a cobbler, and he put his small savings +together to erect a modest monument to his own memory. Every Sunday he +visited it, "after meetin'," and perhaps his day-dreams, as he sat +leather-aproned on his bench, were still of that white marble idealism. +The inscription upon it was full of significant blanks; they seemed an +interrogation of the destiny which governs man. + +"Here lies Peter Merrick----" ran the unfinished scroll, "and his wife +who died----" + +But ambitious Peter never lay there at all; for in his later prime, +with one flash of sharp desire to see the world, he went on a voyage to +the Banks, and was drowned. And his wife? The story grows somewhat +threadbare. She summoned his step-brother to settle the estate, and he, +a marble-cutter by trade, filled in the date of Peter's death with +letters English and illegible. In the process of their carving, the +widow stood by, hands folded under her apron from the midsummer sun. +The two got excellent well acquainted, and the stone-cutter prolonged +his stay. He came again in a little over a year, at Thanksgiving time, +and they were married. Which shows that nothing is certain in +life,--no, not the proprieties of our leaving it,--and that even there +we must walk softly, writing no boastful legend for time to annul. + +At one period a certain quatrain had a great run in Tiverton; it was +the epitaph of the day. Noting how it overspread that stony soil, you +picture to yourself the modest pride of its composer; unless, indeed, +it had been copied from an older inscription in an English yard, and +transplanted through the heart and brain of some settler whose thoughts +were ever flitting back. Thus it runs in decorous metre:-- + + "Dear husband, now my life is passed, + You have dearly loved me to the last. + Grieve not for me, but pity take + On my dear children for my sake." + +But one sorrowing widower amended it, according to his wife's +direction, so that it bore a new and significant meaning. He was +charged to + + "pity take + On my dear parent for my sake." + +The lesson was patent. His mother-in-law had always lived with him, and +she was "difficult." Who knows how keenly the sick woman's mind ran on +the possibilities of reef and quicksand for the alien two left alone +without her guiding hand? So she set the warning of her love and fear +to be no more forgotten while she herself should be remembered. + +The husband was a silent man. He said very little about his intentions; +performance was enough for him. Therefore it happened that his +"parent," adopted perforce, knew nothing about this public charge until +she came upon it, on her first Sunday visit, surveying the new glory of +the stone. The story goes that she stood before it, a square, +portentous figure in black alpaca and warlike mitts, and that she +uttered these irrevocable words:-- + +"Pity on _me_! Well, I guess he won't! I'll go to the poor-farm fust!" + +And Monday morning, spite of his loyal dissuasions, she packed her +"blue chist," and drove off to a far-away cousin, who got her "nussin'" +to do. Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was +life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part +company. + +Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a +story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's +death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied +her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled +the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance +of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden +death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his +blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish +order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled, +not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home +from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds +it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things, +chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one +another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the +rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile +away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief." In the +late afternoon, the guest so summoned walked quietly into the silent +house, where Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon +the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was +frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. +But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded +hair, her benevolent spectacles, and her atmosphere of calm. + +"I guess I'll blaze a fire, Jonas," said she. "You step out an' git me +a mite o' kindlin'." + +The air of homely living enwrapped him once again, and mechanically, +with the inertia of old habit, he obeyed. They had a "cup o' tea" +together; and then, when the dishes were washed, and the peaceful +twilight began to settle down upon them like a sifting mist, she drew a +little rocking chair to the window where he sat opposite, and spoke. + +"Jonas," said she, in that still voice which had been harmonized by the +experiences of life, "arter dark, you jest go up an' bring home them +blue dishes. Mary's got an awful lot o' fun in her, an' if she ain't +laughin' over that, I'm beat. Now, Jonas, you do it! Do you s'pose she +wants them nice blue pieces out there through wind an' weather? She'd +ruther by half see 'em on the parlor cluzzet shelves; an' if you'll +fetch 'em home, I'll scallop some white paper, jest as she liked, an' +we'll set 'em up there." + +Jonas wakened a little from his mental swoon. Life seemed warmer, more +tangible, again. + +"Law, do go," said the mother soothingly. "She don't want the whole +township tramplin' up there to eye over her chiny. Make her as nervous +as a witch. Here's the ha'-bushel basket, an' some paper to put between +'em. You go, Jonas, an' I'll clear off the shelves." + +So Jonas, whether he was tired of guiding the impulses of his own +unquiet mind, or whether he had become a child again, glad to yield to +the maternal, as we all do in our grief, took the basket and went. He +stood by, still like a child, while this comfortable woman put the +china on the shelves, speaking warmly, as she worked, of the pretty +curving of the cups, and her belief that the pitcher was "one you could +pour out of." She stayed on at the house, and Jonas, through his +sickness of the mind, lay back upon her soothing will as a baby lies in +its mother's arms. But the china was never used, even when he had come +to his normal estate, and bought and sold as before. The mother's +prescience was too keen for that. + +Here in this ground are the ambiguities of life carried over into that +other state, its pathos and its small misunderstandings. This was a +much-married man whose last spouse had been a triple widow. Even to him +the situation proved mathematically complex, and the sumptuous stone to +her memory bears the dizzying legend that "Enoch Nudd who erects this +stone is her fourth husband and his fifth wife." Perhaps it was the +exigencies of space which brought about this amazing elision; but +surely, in its very apparent intention, there is only a modest pride. +For indubitably the much-married may plume themselves upon being also +the widely sought. If it is the crown of sex to be desired, here you +have it, under seal of the civil bond. No baseless, windy boasting that +"I might an if I would!" Nay, here be the marriage ties to testify. + +In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long +erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and +reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a +little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching +eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay. +Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man +whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and +years ago he broke into a house,--an unknown felony in our quiet +limits,--and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went +about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with +healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief +imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he +came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had +learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his +wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing +such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss. +Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered +that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said +us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in +the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a +hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he +died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily. +When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought +of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its +posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set +us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of +one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the +blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we +stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy +to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of +morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We +are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated +to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to +men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose +soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate. + +But of all these fleeting legends made to, hold the soul a moment on +its way, and keep it here in fickle permanence, one is more dramatic +than all, more charged with power and pathos. Years ago there came into +Tiverton an unknown man, very handsome, showing the marks of high +breeding, and yet in his bearing strangely solitary and remote. He wore +a cloak, and had a foreign look. He came walking into the town one +night, with dust upon his shoes, and we judged that he had been +traveling a long time. He had the appearance of one who was not nearly +at his journey's end, and would pass through the village, continuing on +a longer way. He glanced at no one, but we all stared at him. He +seemed, though we had not the words to put it so, an exiled prince. He +went straight through Tiverton Street until he came to the parsonage; +and something about it (perhaps its garden, hot with flowers, larkspur, +coreopsis, and the rest) detained his eye, and he walked in. Next day +the old doctor was there also with his little black case, but we were +none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who +intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside +the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of +nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. + +"What's the matter with so-and-so?" would ask a mousing neighbor. + +"He's sick," ran the laconic reply. + +"Goin' to die?" one daring querist ventured further. + +"Some time," said the doctor. + +But though he assumed a right to combat thus the outer world, no one +was gentler with a sick man or with those about him in their grief. To +the latter he would speak; but he used to say he drew his line at +second cousins. + +Into his hands and the true old parson's fell the stranger's +confidence, if confidence it were. He may have died solitary and +unexplained; but no matter what he said, his story was safe. In a week +he was carried out for burial; and so solemn was the parson's manner as +he spoke a brief service over him, so thrilling his enunciation of the +words "our brother," that we dared not even ask what else he should be +called. And we never knew. The headstone, set up by the parson, bore +the words "Peccator Maximus." For a long time we thought they made the +stranger's name, and, judged that he must have been a foreigner; but a +new schoolmistress taught us otherwise. It was Latin, she said, and it +meant "the chiefest among sinners." When that report flew round, the +parson got wind of it, and then, in the pulpit one morning, he +announced that he felt it necessary to say that the words had been used +"at our brother's request," and that it was his own decision to write +below them, "For this cause came I into the world." + +We have accepted the stranger as we accept many things in Tiverton. +Parson and doctor kept his secret well. He is quite safe from our +questioning; but for years I expected a lady, always young and full of +grief, to seek out his grave and shrive him with her tears. She will +not appear now, unless she come as an old, old woman, to lie beside +him. It is too late. + +One more record of our vanished time,--this full of poesy only, and the +pathos of farewell. It was not the aged and heartsick alone who lay +down here to rest We have been no more fortunate than others. Youth and +beauty came also, and returned no more. This, where the white rose-bush +grows untended, was the young daughter of a squire in far-off days: too +young to have known the pangs of love or the sweet desire of Death, +save that, in primrose time, he always paints himself so fair. I have +thought the inscription must have been borrowed from another grave, in +some yard shaded by yews and silent under the cawing of the rooks; +perhaps, from its stiffness, translated from a stately Latin verse. +This it is, snatched not too soon from oblivion; for a few more years +will wear it quite away:-- + + "Here lies the purple flower of a maid + Having to envious Death due tribute paid. + Her sudden Loss her Parents did lament, + And all her Friends with grief their hearts did Rent. + Life's short. Your wicked Lives amend with care, + For Mortals know we Dust and Shadows are." + +"The purple flower of a maid!" All the blossomy sweetness, the fragrant +lamenting of Lycidas, lies in that one line. Alas, poor +love-lies-bleeding! And yet not poor according to the barren pity we +accord the dead, but dowered with another youth set like a crown upon +the unstained front of this. Not going with sparse blossoms ripened or +decayed, but heaped with buds and dripping over in perfume. She seems +so sweet in her still loveliness, the empty promise of her balmy +spring, that for a moment fain are you to snatch her back into the +pageant of your day. Reading that phrase, you feel the earth is poorer +for her loss. And yet not so, since the world holds other greater +worlds as well. Elsewhere she may have grown to age and stature; but +here she lives yet in beauteous permanence,--as true a part of youth +and joy and rapture as the immortal figures on the Grecian Urn. While +she was but a flying phantom on the frieze of time, Death fixed her +there forever,--a haunting spirit in perennial bliss. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TIVERTON TALES *** + +This file should be named 7tvtl10.txt or 7tvtl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7tvtl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7tvtl10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tiverton Tales + +Author: Alice Brown + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9370] +[This file was first posted on September 26, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TIVERTON TALES *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Andrew Templeton, Tonya Allen, and +Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +TIVERTON TALES + +BY + +ALICE BROWN + +1899 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +DOORYARDS +A MARCH WIND +THE MORTUARY CHEST +HORN-O'-THE-MOON +A STOLEN FESTIVAL +A LAST ASSEMBLING +THE WAY OF PEACE +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME +HONEY AND MYRRH +A SECOND MARRIAGE +THE FLAT-IRON LOT +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + + + + +DOORYARDS + + +Tiverton has breezy, upland roads, and damp, sweet valleys; but should +you tarry there a summer long, you might find it wasteful to take many +excursions abroad. For, having once received the freedom of family +living, you will own yourself disinclined to get beyond dooryards, +those outer courts of domesticity. Homely joys spill over into them, +and, when children are afoot, surge and riot there. In them do the +common occupations of life find niche and channel. While bright weather +holds, we wash out of doors on a Monday morning, the wash-bench in the +solid block of shadow thrown by the house. We churn there, also, at the +hour when Sweet-Breath, the cow, goes afield, modestly unconscious of +her own sovereignty over the time. There are all the varying fortunes +of butter-making recorded. Sometimes it comes merrily to the tune of + + "Come, butter, come! + Peter stands a-waiting at the gate, + Waiting for his butter-cake. + Come, butter, come!" + +chanted in time with the dasher; again it doth willfully refuse, and +then, lest it be too cool, we contribute a dash of hot water, or too +hot, and we lend it a dash of cold. Or we toss in a magical handful of +salt, to encourage it. Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of +householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them +away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the +syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what +complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with +purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; +for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, +omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the +merry months are well under way, or the cows go kicking up their heels +to pasture, or plants are taken from the south window and clapped into +chilly ground, orderly passions begin to riot within us, and we "clear +up" our yards. We gather stray chips, and pieces of bone brought in by +the scavenger dog, who sits now with his tail tucked under him, +oblivious of such vagrom ways. We rake the grass, and then, gilding +refined gold, we sweep it. There is a tradition that Miss Lois May once +went to the length of trimming her grass about the doorstone and +clothes-pole with embroidery scissors; but that was a too-hasty +encomium bestowed by a widower whom she rejected next week, and who +qualified his statement by saying they were pruning-shears. + +After this preliminary skirmishing arises much anxious inspection of +ancient shrubs and the faithful among old-fashioned plants, to see +whether they have "stood the winter." The fresh, brown "piny" heads are +brooded over with a motherly care; wormwood roots are loosened, and the +horse-radish plant is given a thrifty touch. There is more than the +delight of occupation in thus stirring the wheels of the year. We are +Nature's poor handmaidens, and our labor gives us joy. + +But sweet as these homespun spots can make themselves, in their mixture +of thrift and prodigality, they are dearer than ever at the points +where they register family traits, and so touch the humanity of us all. +Here is imprinted the story of the man who owns the farm, that of the +father who inherited it, and; the grandfather who reclaimed it from +waste; here have they and their womenkind set the foot of daily living +and traced indelible paths. They have left here the marks of tragedy, +of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground +between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will, +since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose +to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field +of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure +met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out +in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a +woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the +wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the +ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his +heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a +gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown +shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die. +She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she +walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied +delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a +hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who +followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner +house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the +wandering train had passed. But Della drained her draught of joy to the +dregs, and then tilted her cup anew. With croquet came her supremest +joy,--one that leavened her days till God took her, somewhere, we hope, +where there is playtime. Della had no money to buy a croquet set, but +she had something far better, an alert and undiscouraged mind. On one +dizzy afternoon, at a Fourth of July picnic, when wickets had been set +up near the wood, she had played with the minister, and beaten him. The +game opened before her an endless vista of delight. She saw herself +perpetually knocking red-striped balls through an eternity of wickets; +and she knew that here was the one pastime of which no soul could tire. +Afterwards, driving home with her husband and two children, still in a +daze of satisfied delight, she murmured absently:-- + +"Wonder how much they cost?" + +"What?" asked Eben, and Della turned, flushed scarlet, and replied:-- + +"Oh, nothin'!" + +That night, she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the +sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to +work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a +monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang +at moments when she purposed leaping the bounds of domestic custom. +Even Eben had learned that, dull as he was. If he heard that guilty +crooning from the buttery, he knew she might be breaking extra eggs, or +using more sugar than was conformable. + +"What you doin' of?" he was accustomed to call. But Delia never +answered, and he did not interfere. The question was a necessary +concession to marital authority; he had no wish to curb her ways. + +Della scudded about the yard like a willful wind. She gathered withes +from a waiting pile, and set them in that one level space for wickets. +Then she took a handsaw, and, pale about the lips, returned to the +house and to her bedroom. She had made her choice. She was sacrificing +old associations to her present need; and, one after another, she sawed +the ornamenting balls from her mother's high-post bedstead. Perhaps the +one element of tragedy lay in the fact that Della was no mechanician, +and she had not foreseen that, having one flat side, her balls might +decline to roll. But that dismay was brief. A weaker soul would have +flinched; to Della it was a futile check, a pebble under the wave. She +laid her balls calmly aside. Some day she would whittle them into +shape; for there were always coming to Della days full of roomy leisure +and large content. Meanwhile apples would serve her turn,--good alike +to draw a weary mind out of its channel or teach the shape of spheres. +And so, with two russets for balls and the clothes-slice for a mallet +(the heavy sledge-hammer having failed), Della serenely, yet in +triumph, played her first game against herself. + +"Don't you drive over them wickets!" she called imperiously, when Eben +came up from the lot in his dingle cart. + +"Them what?" returned he, and Della had to go out to explain. He looked +at them gravely; hers had been a ragged piece of work. + +"What under the sun'd you do that for?" he inquired. "The young ones +wouldn't turn their hand over for't They ain't big enough." + +"Well, I be," said Della briefly. "Don't you drive over 'em." + +Eben looked at her and then at his path to the barn, and he turned his +horse aside. + +Thereafter, until we got used to it, we found a vivid source of +interest in seeing Della playing croquet, and always playing alone. +That was a very busy summer, because the famous drought came then, and +water had to be carried for weary rods from spring and river. Sometimes +Della did not get her playtime till three in the afternoon, sometimes +not till after dark; but she was faithful to her joy. The croquet +ground suffered varying fortunes. It might happen that the balls were +potatoes, when apples failed to be in season; often her wickets broke, +and stood up in two ragged horns. Sometimes one fell away altogether, +and Della, like the planets, kept an unseen track. Once or twice, the +mistaken benevolence of others gave her real distress. The minister's +daughter, noting her solitary game, mistook it for forlornness, and, in +the warmth of her maiden heart, came to ask if she might share. It was +a timid though official benevolence; but Della's bright eyes grew dark. +She clung to her kitchen chair. + +"I guess I won't," she said, and, in some dim way, everybody began to +understand that this was but an intimate and solitary joy. She had +grown so used to spreading her banquets for one alone that she was +frightened at the sight of other cups upon the board; for although +loneliness begins in pain, by and by, perhaps, it creates its own +species of sad and shy content. + +Della did not have a long life; and that was some relief to us who were +not altogether satisfied with her outlook here. The place she left need +not be always desolate. There was a good maiden sister to keep the +house, and Eben and the children would be but briefly sorry. They could +recover their poise; he with the health of a simple mind, and they as +children will. Yet he was truly stunned by the blow; and I hoped, on +the day of the funeral, that he did not see what I did. When we went +out to get our horse and wagon, I caught my foot in something which at +once gave way. I looked down--at a broken wicket and a withered apple +by the stake. + +Quite at the other end of the town is a dooryard which, in my own mind, +at least, I call the traveling garden. Miss Nancy, its presiding +mistress, is the victim of a love of change; and since she may not +wander herself, she transplants shrubs and herbs from nook to nook. No +sooner does a green thing get safely rooted than Miss Nancy snatches it +up and sets it elsewhere. Her yard is a varying pageant of plants in +all stages of misfortune. Here is a shrub, with faded leaves, torn from +the lap of prosperity in a well-sunned corner to languish under +different conditions. There stands a hardy bush, shrinking, one might +guess, under all its bravery of new spring green, from the premonition +that Miss Nancy may move it tomorrow. Even the ladies'-delights have +their months of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country +maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, +still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and +strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish +through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has +roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and +that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? +Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy never has no +luck with plants." And that, indeed, is true. + +There is another dooryard with its infallible index finger pointing to +tell a tale. You can scarcely thread your way through it for vehicles +of all sorts, congregated there to undergo slow decomposition at the +hands of wind and weather. This farmer is a tradesman by nature, and +though, for thrift's sake, his fields must be tilled, he is yet +inwardly constrained to keep on buying and selling, albeit to no +purpose. He is everlastingly swapping and bargaining, giving play to a +faculty which might, in its legitimate place, have worked out the +definite and tangible, but which now goes automatically clicking on +under vain conditions. The house, too, is overrun with useless +articles, presently to be exchanged for others as unavailing, and in +the farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with +another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable +evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with +torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are +here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this +yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, +and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take +long, entrancing journeys in the mouldy old chaise; they endure +Siberian nights of sleighing, and throw out their helpless dolls to the +pursuing wolves; or the more mercantile-minded among the boys mount a +three-wheeled express wagon, and drive noisily away to traffic upon the +road. This, in its dramatic possibilities, is not a yard to be +despised. + +Not far away are two neighboring houses once held in affectionate +communion by a straight path through the clover and a gap in the wall. +This was the road to much friendly gossip, and there were few bright +days which did not find two matrons met at the wall, their heads +together over some amiable yarn; But now one house is closed, its +windows boarded up, like eyes shut down forever, and the grass has +grown over the little path: a line erased, perhaps never to be renewed. +It is easier to wipe out a story from nature than to wipe it from the +heart; and these mutilated pages of the outer life perpetually renew in +us the pangs of loss and grief. + +But not all our dooryard reminiscences are instinct with pain. Do I not +remember one swept and garnished plot, never defiled by weed or +disordered with ornamental plants, where stood old Deacon Pitts, upon +an historic day, and woke the echoes with a herald's joy? Deacon Pitts +had the ghoulish delight of the ennuied country mind in funerals and +the mortality of man; and this morning the butcher had brought him news +of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was +going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his +mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of +attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now +due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a +pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling +across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down +hastily--yea, even before the advancing cat!--and made a trumpet of his +hands. + +"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away! +Died yesterday!" + +I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be +strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was +always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in +such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait +until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his +wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom, +until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving +mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his +wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:-- + +"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?" + +They had their funeral. + +To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder +and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One, +where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of +caraway. It seemed mysteriously connected with the oak-leaf cookies, +which only she could make; and the child, brushing through the delicate +bushes grown above his head, used to feel vaguely that, on some +fortunate day, cookies would be found there, "a-blowin' and a-growin'." +That he had seen them stirred and mixed and taken from the oven was an +empty matter; the cookies belonged to the caraway grove, and there they +hang ungathered still. In the very same yard was a hogshead filled with +rainwater, where insects came daily to their death and floated +pathetically in a film of gauzy wings. The child feared this innocent +black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would +hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth +depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river +is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where +insects float and fly. + +These are our dooryards. I wish we lived in them more; that there were +vines to sing under, and shade enough for the table, with its wheaten +loaf and good farm butter, and its smoking tea. But all that may come +when we give up our frantic haste, and sit down to look, and breathe, +and listen. + + + + +A MARCH WIND + + +When the clouds hung low, or chimneys refused to draw, or the bread +soured over night, a pessimistic public, turning for relief to the +local drama, said that Amelia Titcomb had married a tramp. But as soon +as the heavens smiled again, it was conceded that she must have been +getting lonely in her middle age, and that she had taken the way of +wisdom so to furbish up mansions for the coming years. Whatever was set +down on either side of the page, Amelia did not care. She was +whole-heartedly content with her husband and their farm. + +It had happened, one autumn day, that she was trying, all alone, to +clean out the cistern. This was while she was still Amelia Titcomb, +innocent that there lived a man in the world who could set his foot +upon her maiden state, and flourish there. She was an impatient +creature. She never could delay for a fostering time to put her plants +into the ground, and her fall cleaning was done long before the flies +were gone. So, to-day, while other house mistresses sat cosily by the +fire, awaiting a milder season, she was toiling up and down the ladder +set in the cistern, dipping pails of sediment from the bottom, and, +hardy as she was, almost repenting her of a too-fierce desire. Her +thick brown hair was roughened and blown about her face, her cheeks +bloomed out in a frosty pink, and the plaid kerchief, tied in a hard +knot under her chin, seemed foolishly ineffectual against the cold. Her +hands ached, holding the pail, and she rebelled inwardly against the +inclemency of the time. It never occurred to her that she could have +put off this exacting job. She would sooner have expected Heaven to put +off the weather. Just as she reached the top of the cistern, and lifted +her pail of refuse over the edge, a man appeared from the other side of +the house, and stood confronting her. He was tall and gaunt, and his +deeply graven face was framed by grizzled hair. Amelia had a rapid +thought that he was not so old as he looked; experience, rather than +years, must have wrought its trace upon him. He was leading a little +girl, dressed with a very patent regard for warmth, and none for +beauty. Amelia, with a quick, feminine glance, noted that the child's +bungled skirt and hideous waist had been made from an old army +overcoat. The little maid's brown eyes were sweet and seeking; they +seemed to petition for something. Amelia's heart did not respond; at +that time, she had no reason for thinking she was fond of children. Yet +she felt a curious disturbance at sight of the pair. She afterwards +explained it adequately to the man, by asserting that they looked as +odd as Dick's hatband. + +"Want any farmwork done?" asked he. "Enough to pay for a night's +lodgin'?" His voice sounded strangely soft from one so large and +rugged. It hinted at unused possibilities. But though Amelia felt +impressed, she was conscious of little more than her own cold and +stiffness, and she answered sharply,-- + +"No, I don't. I don't calculate to hire, except in hayin' time, an' +then I don't take tramps." + +The man dropped the child's hand, and pushed her gently to one side. + +"Stan' there, Rosie," said he. Then he went forward, and drew the pail +from Amelia's unwilling grasp. "Where do you empt' it?" he asked. +"There? It ought to be carried further. You don't want to let it gully +down into that beet bed. Here, I'll see to it." + +Perhaps this was the very first time in Amelia's life that a man had +offered her an unpaid service for chivalry alone. And somehow, though +she might have scoffed, knowing what the tramp had to gain, she +believed in him and in his kindliness. The little girl stood by, as if +she were long used to doing as she had been told, with no expectation +of difficult reasons; and the man, as soberly, went about his task. He +emptied the cistern, and cleansed it, with plentiful washings. Then, as +if guessing by instinct what he should find, he went into the kitchen, +where were two tubs full of the water which Amelia had pumped up at the +start. It had to be carried back again to the cistern; and when the job +was quite finished, he opened the bulkhead, set the tubs in the cellar, +and then, covering the cistern and cellar-case, rubbed his cold hands +on his trousers, and turned to the child. + +"Come, Rosie," said he, "we'll be goin'." + +It was a very effective finale, but still Amelia suspected no trickery. +The situation seemed to her, just as the two new actors did, entirely +simple, like the course of nature. Only, the day was a little warmer +because they had appeared. She had a new sensation of welcome company. +So it was that, quite to her own surprise, she answered as quickly as +he spoke, and her reply also seemed an inevitable part of the drama:-- + +"Walk right in. It's 'most dinner-time, an' I'll put on the pot." The +two stepped in before her, and they did not go away. + +Amelia herself never quite knew how it happened; but, like all the +other natural things of life, this had no need to be explained. At +first, there were excellent reasons for delay. The man, whose name +proved to be Enoch Willis, was a marvelous hand at a blow, and she kept +him a week, splitting some pine knots that defied her and the boy who +ordinarily chopped her wood. At the end of the week, Amelia confessed +that she was "terrible tired seein' Rosie round in that gormin' kind of +a dress;" so she cut and fitted her a neat little gown from her own red +cashmere. That was the second reason. Then the neighbors heard of the +mysterious guest, and dropped in, to place and label him. At first, +following the lead of undiscouraged fancy, they declared that he must +be some of cousin Silas's connections from Omaha; but even before +Amelia had time to deny that, his ignorance of local tradition denied +it for him. He must have heard of this or that, by way of cousin Silas; +but he owned to nothing defining place or time, save that he had been +in the war--"all through it." He seemed to be a man quite weary of the +past and indifferent to the future. After a half hour's talk with him, +unseasonable callers were likely to withdraw, perhaps into the pantry, +whither Amelia had retreated to escape catechism, and remark jovially, +"Well, 'Melia, you ain't told us who your company is!" + +"Mr. Willis," said Amelia. She was emulating his habit of reserve. It +made a part of her new loyalty. + +Even to her, Enoch had told no tales; and strangely enough, she was +quite satisfied. She trusted him. He did say that Rosie's mother was +dead; for the last five years, he said, she had been out of her mind. +At that, Amelia's heart gave a fierce, amazing leap. It struck a note +she never knew, and wakened her to life and longing. She was glad +Rosie's mother had not made him too content. He went on a step or two +into the story of his life. His wife's last illness had eaten up the +little place, and after she went, he got no work. So, he tramped. He +must go again. Amelia's voice sounded sharp and thin, even to her, as +she answered,-- + +"Go! I dunno what you want to do that for. Rosie's terrible contented +here." + +His brown eyes turned upon her in a kindly glance. + +"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a +machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin' +better 'n days' works." + +Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty. + +"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly. + +Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie +looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a +bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song. +"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't +never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was +younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now. +The better part o' my life's gone." + +Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost +pride, and all a longing of maternal love. + +"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were +married. + +Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries +of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was +agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride +to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no +previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, +and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges +were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They +argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it +would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the +popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies +toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days, +married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six +months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her +"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful +brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the +tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door +neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim, +with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her +smoke's a-goin'." + +Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and +without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of +affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing +things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well +as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her +try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the +steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition +reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their +marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about +the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he +only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he +guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a +bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door, +exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own +ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility +had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to +the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he +never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that +was what made it so pleasant to live with him. + +It was "easy sleddin'" now. Amelia grew very young. Her cheeks gained a +bloom, her eyes brightened. She even, as the matrons noticed, took to +crimping her hair. They looked on with a pitying awe. It seemed a +fearsome thing, to do so much for a tramp who would only kill you in +the end. Amelia stepped deftly about the house. She was a large woman, +whose ways had been devoid of grace; but now the richness of her +spiritual condition informed her with a charm. She crooned a little +about her work. Singing voice she had none, but she grew into a way of +putting words together, sometimes a line from the psalms, sometimes a +name she loved, and chanting the sounds, in unrecorded melody. +Meanwhile, little Rosie, always irreproachably dressed, with a jealous +care lest she fall below the popular standard, roamed in and out of the +house, and lightened its dull intervals. She, like the others, grew at +once very happy, because, like them, she accepted her place without a +qualm, as if it had been hers from the beginning. They were simple +natures, and when their joy came, they knew how to meet it. + +But if Enoch was content to follow the beaten ways of life, there was +one window through which he looked into the upper heaven of all: +thereby he saw what it is to create. He was a born mechanician. A +revolving wheel would set him to dreaming, and still him to that +lethargy of mind which is an involuntary sharing in the things that +are. He could lose himself in the life of rhythmic motion; and when he +discovered rusted springs, or cogs unprepared to fulfill their purpose, +he fell upon them with the ardor of a worshiper, and tried to set them +right. Amelia thought he should have invented something, and he +confessed that he had invented many things, but somehow failed in +getting them on the market. That process he mentioned with the +indifference of a man to whom a practical outcome is vague, and who +finds in the ideal a bright reality. Even Amelia could see that to be a +maker was his joy; to reap rewards of making was another and a lower +task. + +One cold day in the early spring, he went "up garret" to hunt out an +old saddle, gathering mildew there, and came upon a greater treasure, a +disabled clock. He stepped heavily down, bearing it aloft in both +hands. + +"See here, 'Melia," asked he, "why don't this go?" + +Amelia was scouring tins on the kitchen table. There was a teasing wind +outside, with a flurry of snow, and she had acknowledged that the +irritating weather made her as nervous as a witch. So she had taken to +a job to quiet herself. + +"That clock?" she replied. "That was gran'ther Eli's. It give up +strikin', an' then the hands stuck, an' I lost all patience with it. So +I bought this nickel one, an' carted t'other off into the attic. 'T +ain't worth fixin'." + +"Worth it!" repeated Enoch. "Well, I guess I'll give it a chance." + +He drew a chair to the stove, and there hesitated. "Say, 'Melia," said +he, "should you jest as soon I'd bring in that old shoemaker's bench +out o' the shed? It's low, an' I could reach my tools off'n the floor." + +Amelia lacked the discipline of contact with her kind, but she was +nevertheless smooth as silk in her new wifehood. + +"Law, yes, bring it along," said she. "It's a good day to clutter up. +The' won't be nobody in." + +So, while Enoch laid apart the clock with a delicacy of touch known +only to square, mechanical fingers, and Rosie played with the +button-box on the floor, assorting colors and matching white with +white, Amelia scoured the tins. Her energy kept pace with the wind; it +whirled in gusts and snatches, yet her precision never failed. + +"Made up your mind which cow to sell?" she asked, opening a discussion +still unsettled, after days of animated talk. + +"Ain't much to choose," said Enoch. He had frankly set Amelia right on +the subject of livestock; and she smilingly acquiesced in his larger +knowledge. "Elbridge True's got a mighty nice Alderney, an' if he's +goin' to sell milk another year, he'll be glad to get two good milkers +like these. What he wants is ten quarts apiece, no matter if it's bluer +'n a whetstone. I guess I can swap off with him; but I don't want to +run arter him. I put the case last Thursday. Mebbe he'll drop round." + +"Well," concluded Amelia, "I guess you're pretty sure to do what's +right." + +The forenoon galloped fast, and it was half past eleven before she +thought of dinner. + +"Why," said she, "ain't it butcher day? I've been lottin' on a piece o' +liver." + +"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count." + +"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some +fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer +door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an' +peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it +ain't company, a day like this." + +Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full +of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there +came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. +There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia +washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. +She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her +consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her +family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky +with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an +eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were +that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her. + +"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons, +and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose." + +Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank +down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while +the knock came again, a little querulously. + +"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah +Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past +encounters; but that Enoch could not know. + +"Is it?" asked he, with but a mild appearance of interest. "Want me to +go to the door?" + +"Go to the door!" echoed Amelia, so stridently that he looked up at her +again. "No; I don't want anybody should go to the door till this room's +cleared up. If 't w'an't so ever-lastin' cold, I'd take him right into +the clock-room, an' blaze a fire; but he'd see right through that. You +gether up them tools an' things, an' I'll help carry out the bench." + +If Enoch had not just then been absorbed in a delicate combination of +brass, he might have spoken more sympathetically. As it was, he seemed +kindly, but remote. + +"Look out!" said he, "you'll joggle. No, I guess I won't move. If he's +any kind of a man, he'll know what 'tis to clean a clock." + +Amelia was not a crying woman, but the hot tears stood in her eyes. She +was experiencing, for the first time, that helpless pang born from the +wounding of pride in what we love. + +"Don't you see, Enoch?" she insisted. "This room looks like the Old +Boy--an' so do you--an' he'll go home an' tell all the folks at the +Ridge. Why, he's heard we're married, an' come over here to spy out the +land. He hates the cold. He never stirs till 'way on into June; an' now +he's come to find out." + +"Find out what?" inquired Enoch absorbedly. "Well, if you're anyways +put to 't, you send him to me." That manly utterance enunciated from a +"best-room" sofa, by an Enoch clad in his Sunday suit, would have +filled Amelia with rapture; she could have leaned on it as on the +Tables of the Law. But, alas! the scene-setting was meagre, and though +Enoch was very clean, he had no good clothes. He had pointedly refused +to buy them with his wife's money until he should have worked on the +farm to a corresponding amount. She had loved him for it; but every day +his outer poverty hurt her pride. "I guess you better ask him in," +concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you." + +Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed. + +"He _don't_ bother me," said she, "an' I _will_ let him in." She walked +to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she +broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom. + +She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for +the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another +instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back +again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his +desire to get in. + +"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk +till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't +ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?" + +She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising +wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin +Josiah Pease." + +Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny +left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased +to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock." + +To Enoch, the explanation was enough. All the simple conventions of his +life might well wait upon a reason potent as this. Josiah Pease went to +the stove, and stood holding his tremulous hands over a cover. He was a +little man, eclipsed in a butternut coat of many capes, and his +parchment face shaded gradually up from it, as if into a harder medium. +His eyes were light, and they had an exceedingly uncomfortable way of +darting from one thing to another, like some insect born to spear and +sting. His head was entirely bald, all save a thin fringe of hair not +worth mentioning, since it disappeared so effectually beneath his +collar; and his general antiquity was grotesquely emphasized by two +sets of aggressive teeth, displaying their falsity from every crown. + +Amelia took out the broom, and began sweeping up buttons. She had an +acrid consciousness that by sacrificing them she was somehow completing +the tragedy of her day. Rosie gave a little cry; but Amelia pointed to +the corner where stood the child's chair, exhumed from the attic, after +forty years of rest. "You set there," she said, in an undertone, "an' +keep still." + +Rosie obeyed without a word. Such an atmosphere had not enveloped her +since she entered this wonderful house. Remembering vaguely the days +when her own mother had "spells," and she and her father effaced +themselves until times should change, she folded her little hands, and +lapsed back into a condition of mental servitude. + +Meanwhile, Amelia followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with +cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. +Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she +caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were +"soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, +having no lover in the war, had traded for her few. Here were the +gold-stones that held her changeable silk, there the little clouded +pearls from her sister's raglan. Annie had died in youth; its glamour +still enwrapped her. Poor Annie! But Rosie had seemed to bring her +back. Amelia swept litter, buttons and all, into the dustpan, and +marched to the stove to throw her booty in. Nobody marked her save +Rosie, whose playthings were endangered; but Enoch's very obtuseness to +the situation was what stayed her hand. She carried the dustpan away +into a closet, and came back, to gather up her tins. A cold rage of +nervousness beset her, so overpowering that she herself was amazed at +it. + +Meantime, Josiah Pease had divested himself of his coat, and drawn the +grandfather chair into a space behind the stove. + +"You a clock-mender by trade?" he asked of Enoch. + +"No," said Enoch absently, "I ain't got any reg'lar trade." + +"Jest goin' round the country?" amended cousin Josiah, with the +preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, +in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to +'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly on with his work. + +"Law, 'Melia, to think o' your bein' married," continued Josiah, +turning to her. "I never should ha' thought that o' you." + +"I never thought it of myself," said Amelia tartly. "You don't know +what you'll do till you're tried." + +"No! no!" said Josiah Pease. "Never in the world. You remember Sally +Flint, how plain-spoken she is? Well, Betsy Harden's darter Ann rode +down to the poor-house t'other day with some sweet trade, an' took a +young sprig with her. He turned his back a minute, to look out o' +winder, an' Sally spoke right up, as ye might say, afore him. 'That +your beau?' says she. Well, o' course Ann couldn't own it, an' him +right there, so to speak. So she shook her head. 'Well, I'm glad on +'t,' says Sally. 'If I couldn't have anything to eat, I'd have suthin' +to look at!' He was the most unsignifyin'est creatur' you ever put your +eyes on. But they say Ann's started in on her clo'es." + +Amelia's face had grown scarlet. "I dunno's any such speech is called +for here," said she, in a furious self-betrayal. Josiah Pease had +always been able to storm her reserves. + +"Law, no," answered he comfortably. "It come into my mind,--that's +all." + +She looked at Enoch with a passionate sympathy, knowing too well how +the hidden sting was intended to work. But Enoch had not heard. He was +absorbed in a finer problem of brass and iron; and though Amelia had +wished to save him from hurt, in that instant she scorned him for his +blindness. "I guess I shall have to ask you to move," she said to her +husband coldly. "I've got to git to that stove, if we're goin' to have +any dinner to-day." + +It seemed to her that even Enoch might take the hint, and clear away +his rubbish. Her feelings might have been assuaged by a clean hearth +and some acquiescence in her own mood. But he only moved back a little, +and went on fitting and musing. He was not thinking of her in the +least, nor even of Josiah Pease. His mind had entered its brighter, +more alluring world. She began to fry her pork and apples, with a +perfunctory attempt at conversation. "You don't often git round so +early in the spring," said she. + +"No," returned cousin Josiah. "I kind o' got started out, this time, I +don't rightly know why. I guess I've had you in mind more of late, for +some Tiverton folks come over our way, tradin', an' they brought all +the news. It sort o' stirred me up to come." + +Amelia turned her apples vigorously, well aware that the slices were +breaking. That made a part of her bitter day. + +"Folks needn't take the trouble to carry news about me," she said. +There was an angry gleam in her eyes. "If anybody wants to know +anything, let 'em come right here, an' I'll settle 'em." The ring of +her voice penetrated even to Enoch's perception, and he looked up in +mild surprise. She seemed to have thrown open, for an instant, a little +window into a part of her nature he had never seen. + +"How good them apples smell!" said Josiah innocently. "Last time I had +'em was down to cousin Amasa True's, he that married his third wife, +an' she run through all he had. I went down to see 'em arter the +vandoo,--you know they got red o' most everything,--an' they had fried +pork an' apples for dinner. Old Bashaby dropped in. 'Law!' says she. +'Fried pork an' apples! Well, I call that livin' pretty nigh the +wind!'" Josiah chuckled. He was very warm now, and the savory smell of +the dish he decried was mounting to what served him for fancy. "'Melia, +you ain't never had your teeth out, have ye?" he asked, as one who +spoke from richer memories. + +"I guess my teeth'll last me as long as I want 'em," said Amelia +curtly. + +"Well, I didn't know. They looked real white an' firm last time I see +'em, but you never can tell how they be underneath. I knew the folks +would ask me when I got home. I thought I'd speak." + +"Dinner's ready," said Amelia. She turned an alien look upon her +husband. "You want to wash your hands?" + +Enoch rose cheerfully. He had got to a hopeful place with the clock. + +"Set ri' down," said he. "Don't wait a minute. I'll be along." + +So Amelia and the guest began their meal, while little Rosie climbed, +rather soberly, into her higher chair, and held out her plate. + +"You wait," said Amelia harshly. "Can't you let other folks eat a +mouthful before you have to have yours?" Yet as she said it, she +remembered, with a remorseful pang, that she had always helped the +child first; it had been so sweet to see her pleased and satisfied. + +Josiah was never talkative during meals. Not being absolute master of +his teeth, his mind dwelt with them. Amelia remembered that, with a +malicious satisfaction. But he could not be altogether dumb. That, +people said, would never happen to Josiah Pease while he was above +ground. + +"That his girl?" he asked, indicating Rosie with his knife, in a +gustatory pause. + +"Whose?" inquired Amelia willfully. + +"His." He pointed again, this time to the back room, where Enoch was +still washing his hands. + +"Yes." + +"Mother dead?" + +Amelia sprang from her chair, while Rosie looked at her with the +frightened glance of a child to whom some half-forgotten grief has +suddenly returned. + +"Josiah Pease!" said Amelia. "I never thought a poor, insignificant +creatur' like you could rile me so,--when I know what you're doin' it +for, too. But you've brought it about. Her mother dead? Ain't I been +an' married her father?" + +"Law, Amelia, do se' down!" said Josiah indulgently. There was a +mince-pie warming on the back of the stove. He saw it there. "I didn't +mean nuthin'. I'll be bound you thought she's dead, or you wouldn't ha' +took such a step. I only meant, did ye see her death in the paper, for +example, or anything like that?" + +"'Melia," called Enoch, from the doorway, "I won't come in to dinner +jest now. Elbridge True's drove into the yard. I guess he's got it in +mind to talk it over about them cows. I don't want to lose the chance." + +"All right," answered Amelia. She took her seat again, while Enoch's +footsteps went briskly out through the shed. With the clanging of the +door, she felt secure. If she had to deal with Josiah Pease, she could +do it better alone, clutching at the certainty that was with her from +of old, that, if you could only keep your temper with cousin Josiah, +you had one chance of victory. Flame out at him, and you were lost. +"Some more potatoes?" asked she, with a deceptive calm. + +"Don't care if I do," returned Josiah, selecting greedily, his fork +hovering in air. "Little mite watery, ain't they? Dig 'em yourself?" + +"We dug 'em," said Amelia coldly. + +Rosie stepped down from her chair, unnoticed. To Amelia, she was then +no bigger than some little winged thing flitting about the room in time +of tragedy. Our greatest emotions sometimes stay unnamed. At that +moment, Amelia was swayed by as tumultuous a love as ever animated +damsel of verse or story; but it merely seemed to her that she was an +ill-used woman, married to a man for whom she was called on to be +ashamed. Rosie tiptoed into the entry, put on her little shawl and +hood, and stole out to play in the corn-house. When domestic squalls +were gathering, she knew where to go. The great outdoors was safer. Her +past had taught her that. + +"Don't like to eat with folks, does he? Well, it's all in what you're +brought up to." + +Amelia was ready with her counter-charge. "Have some tea?" + +She poured it as if it were poison, and Josiah became conscious of her +tragic self-control. + +"You ain't eat a thing," said he, with an ostentatious kindliness. He +bent forward a little, with the air of inviting a confidence. "Got +suthin' on your mind, ain't you, 'Melia?" he whispered. "Kind o' +worried? Find he's a drinkin' man?" + +Amelia was not to be beguiled, even by that anger which veils itself as +justice. She looked at him steadily, with scorching eyes. + +"You ain't took any sugar," said she. "There 't is, settin' by you. +Help yourself." + +Josiah addressed himself to his tea, and then Amelia poured him another +cup. She had some fierce satisfaction in making it good and strong. It +seemed to her that she was heartening her adversary for the fray, and +she took pleasure in doing it effectually. So great was the spirit +within her that she knew he could not be too valiant, for her keener +joy in laying him low. Then they rose from the table, and Josiah took +his old place by the stove, while Amelia began carrying the dishes to +the sink. Her mind was a little hazy now; her next move must depend on +his, and cousin Josiah, somewhat drowsy from his good dinner, was not +at once inclined to talk. Suddenly he raised his head snakily from +those sunken shoulders, and pointed a lean finger to the window. + +"'Melia!" cried he sharply. "I'll be buttered if he ain't been and +traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin' to stan' there an' let +them two cows go?" + +Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked +out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her +two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She +walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together +in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and +send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from +the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his +arms. + +"Here's your coat," said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. +"Stan' up, an' I'll help you put it on." + +Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous +that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight. + +"I was in hopes he'd harness up"--he began, but she ruthlessly cut him +short. + +"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes +round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There +they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' +this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown +up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she +was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, +but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in +the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, +Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his +usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, +and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!" + +He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was +nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia +realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for +despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't +you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,--egg an' bird!" She +closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went +back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor +and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that +moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had +resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time +itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his +voice jarred upon her tingling nerves. + +"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've +made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I +eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it." + +Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her +conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an +unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else. + +"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my +cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what +you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man +who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions +neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was +there. + +"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!" + +Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew +sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed +themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which +left her no will save that of speaking. + +"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say +once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' +things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours." + +Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was +almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by +his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest +patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind +anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had +too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose +anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. +"There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp." + +Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she +could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he +turned away from her, and went over to the bench. + +"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still +voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer +pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical +way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the +bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled +machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the +stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those +moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came +back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of +his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and +broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke +to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face. + +"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new +cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the +worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' +I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, +an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so +than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. +You've been good to me,--better 'n anybody ever was in the world." + +She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the +door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and +then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, +to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking +vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart +hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh. + +"Well," said Amelia, "_that's_ over. I'll wash my dishes now." + +Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly +about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped +her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet +her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little +imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten +the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all +her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia +stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah +Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean +forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she +realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train +where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child +behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to +the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste +to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of +welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, +and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path +toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into +the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of +the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, +still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish +color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of +their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that +moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth +which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least +against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient +fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about +Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while +she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve. + +"You cold?" asked she--"_dear_?" But she told herself it was a kiss of +farewell. + +She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and +took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded +root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only +tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those +without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying +forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She +would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; +nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would +drop the child at his side,--the child he had deserted,--and before he +could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, +she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if +she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of +her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come +chokingly. + +"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down +at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry." + +At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her +feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband +running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but +Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes +feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great +despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of +patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles +under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all +the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not +stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming +upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his +shoulders, and laid her wet face to his. + +"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with +me!" + +She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and +very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a +whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for +Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her." + +He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her +hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could +wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze +fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet +cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and +she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," +she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything +ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew." + +"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance +had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away +while she still suffered. + +Amelia began, stumblingly,-- + +"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it." + +"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly. + +"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. +But--Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off--Enoch"--Her voice +fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to +analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb +things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. +The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must +die. + +He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away. + +"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I +couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the +woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about +the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the +beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"-- + +Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly +argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from +her and left her young. + +"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've +got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more +than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all +your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between +us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you +now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you +go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep +upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, +in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a +sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the +candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him. + +"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked. + +"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could +not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous +judgment. + +"S'pose I don't ask you?" + +"I'll foller on behind." + +"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?" + +She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head. + +"No." + +"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?" + +"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly. + +Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you +look up here." + +She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, +but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which +she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, +and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his +arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a +man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more +bitter tears. + +"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about +the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie." + +Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her +as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking +the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before +they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and +their hearts beat together. + +"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, +but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have +her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I +know that now. You're all there is in the world." + +When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there +with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and +soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing +her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the +word his wife might wish. + +"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't +tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me +go over it"-- + +"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, +and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their +tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door +only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she +threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?" + +He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and +then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he +made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught. + +"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of +'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference +whose they be. But as to lyin'"-- + +"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?" + +"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held +each other's hands. + +"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped +together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You +blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs." + + + + +THE MORTUARY CHEST + + +"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down +an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the +country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she +spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't +git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter +miss for a good deal." + +Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. +They also remarked that her nose was as pickèd as a pin, and that +anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You +could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme +acuteness, and tried to live up to it. + +"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page +comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had +contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the +letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp +on in the mornin'." + +By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, +a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East +Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the +pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the +midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum +of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store +for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of +sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an +exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of +the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with +ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. +One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she +meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according +to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, +and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly +rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son +Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, +she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of +paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had +smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast +glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great +forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand +wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth +had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service +that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown +back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease. + +"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an +informal preliminary. + +"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before +the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt +went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood +an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! +she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days." + +"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was +one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd +ruther live with a born fool." + +"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron +(recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad +as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' +a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' +we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish +to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about +news, but she won't lend." + +"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively +practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. +"Got all the water you want?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been +sence November." + +But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track. + +"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she +asked. + +Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay +in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat +and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond +uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her +minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. +Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of +beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces. + +"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to +tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say +right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in +the paper, it ain't the kind you can." + +Tilly's eyes burned. + +"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now +don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never +in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for +himself." + +"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' +last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here +to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the +Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? +an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, +'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all +the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech +come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on +'t, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a +plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the +assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she +had done it. + +The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was +accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension. + +"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!" + +"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her +eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful +disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could +easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small +issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' +into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got +eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five +minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with +Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?" + +"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins +sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' +he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' +your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen." + +Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under +her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these +assured married women; it was always a little bracing. + +"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. +"Tickled to death, I s'pose?" + +"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding +finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has +been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate +the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, +and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and +no." + +"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the +party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna +Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. +Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was +passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he +felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out +kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to +take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it +ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been +the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't +take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, +'No, I thank you.'" + +"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked +Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and +proceeding to divide them. + +"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if +what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. +Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to +end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live +by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from +Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. +He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he +heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the +dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you +know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married +twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he +heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started." + +Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of +reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming +profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and +she continued:-- + +"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' +her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the +dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says +he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' +'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'" + +There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt +the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be +indefinitely prolonged. + +"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she +is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?" + +"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' +her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as +old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible +class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young +thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, +when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton +wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' +his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at +his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, +'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two +darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted +up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, +afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' +whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson +over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was +growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but +he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, +by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, +'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, +an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says +he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'" + +Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others +laughed out rich and free. + +"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who +never forgot the main issue. + +"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em +straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the +tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, +an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he +couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says +he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn." + +"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll +marry him?" + +"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll +think she's got to." + +"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with +everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her +sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two +girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's +got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take +lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd +let her alone." + +"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our +sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a +mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time +we've had oysters over our way." + +"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured +veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'." + +"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't +foller." + +"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said +the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring +at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over +in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music." + +"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. +"If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!" + +"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. +We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' +cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's +Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to +Saltash." + +Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and +went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in +passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their +guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She +was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft +brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, +if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop +beauty in middle life. + +The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their +faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, +who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by +the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with +dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but +something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his +people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes +rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached +the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at +her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all +through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing +down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her +sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road. + +The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry +twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who +had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. +Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before +the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a +blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the +snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew +her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it. + +"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must +hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow." + +The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child +carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces +lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, +while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from +within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly +banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful +frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and +the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore +her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them +back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag. + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. +When did you rain down?" + +"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing +into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' +I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out +to do it." + +"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into +the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I +put on coal in the morning, and then again at night." + +"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it +with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under +the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?" + +Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other +side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits. + +"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm +going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm +having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and +live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died." + +"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a +glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen +'d feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she +was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' +there 't is!" + +"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a +chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, +half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest. + +"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist." + +"Whose?" + +"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd +triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not +at once apparent. + +"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it. + +"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have +you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I +feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, +an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I +guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up +attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, +an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence." + +"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh. + +"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't +was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but +it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a +great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther +go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more +'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved +suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this +chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' +smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the +very next week she was took away." + +"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? +Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?" + +"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past +an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. +She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must +think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll +open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, +'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't +was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the +chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it +to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a +sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! +Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she +never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, +I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' +she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off +downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her +work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to +harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, +an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but +what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. +John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't +a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went +to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been +meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a +new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?" + +"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why +you care." + +Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief. + +"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's +al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. +There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest +as soon open it?" + +Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. +She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned +over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment +the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room. + +"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of +saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a +whisper:-- + +"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think." + +"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself +with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's +that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no +need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!" + +Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped +handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my +dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The +broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" + +"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep +that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a +little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's +lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take +out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly +believe it." + +Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an +old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, +"'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, +"there's no back breadth!" + +"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for +fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a +real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back +breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most +sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" + +It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. + +"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt +Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza +was a horror!" + +"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a +chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we +can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn +bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's +cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' +Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're +marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I +bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up +and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with +unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. +"There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as +soon burn 'em?" + +"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I +will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; +perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then." + +She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer +gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still +remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on +her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, +though the tears had gone from her face. + +"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you +do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my +things." + +Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, +whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living. + +"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts +back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' +along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks +he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I +git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so +spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and +Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse +and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent +forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to +say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it." + +Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's +anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"-- + +Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. +"Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But +there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country +road to the music of old-fashioned bells. + +Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about +preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with +a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which +nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, +the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any +domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well +as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never +consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the +night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the +table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, +uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic +sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, +as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and +over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment +of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried +again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human +power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, +conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon +the table with indignant emphasis. + +"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate +repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix +her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her +beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in +reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion +also, and take away her wicked facility. + +The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper +had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had +quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the +chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was +wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things +to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's +awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a +certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the +remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the +accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at +that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. +Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the +side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton +could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel +always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed +upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much +she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible +attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut +undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in +it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his +office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how +could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, +to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began +casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing +current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the +foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have +laughed hysterically. + +"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out +the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me +on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I +said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why +couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the +dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the +tone she sought. + +He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the +sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She +had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and +pulled out the black dress. + +"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking +as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you +don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!" + +The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting +on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the +leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed +the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow +from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent +care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and +smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She +blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, +schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to +remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her +upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door. + +"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," +but the words stuck in his throat. + +"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home." + +The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with +benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he +expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her +also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated. + +"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied +on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly +she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were +dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice +is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A +merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with +decision: "Won't you come in?" + +The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede +him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside. + +"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door." + +He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin +his shawl. + +"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering +with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, +within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear +up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in +to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more +faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'--not a mite." + +The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously +removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she +thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, +for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they +looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was +safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, +"'I have thee on the hip!'" + +The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making +parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened +conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:-- + +"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did +you say?" + +She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her +voice. + +"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took +up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that +lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he +bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, +'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'" + +The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old +lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious. + +"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"--he began, but +he was interrupted without compunction. + +"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother +married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. +By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're +writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so +I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her +own aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'" + +Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had +shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and +peered at his hostess. + +"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively. + +"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic +than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her +sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she +leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!" + +"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!" + +Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of +itself into her voice. + +"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I +thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house +upside down inside of a week." + +The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to +say something, and thought better of it. + +"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies +take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution +lessons"-- + +"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as +if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' +of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or +take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know." + +The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment. + +"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in +Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?" + +"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's +the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how +a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale +o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I +heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week +was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the +'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in +Missouri, an' here I be." + +"I hope you will be able to remain." + +"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was +losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here +to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But +Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and +she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown +herself!") + +"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson +courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old +lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I +could do anything towards finding her"-- + +"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as +she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could +do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should +be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the +neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't +speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got +enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the +keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed +enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel +for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the +necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious +me! What's that?" + +A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, +amazed at her agitation. + +"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?" + +"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her +cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?" + +Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the +parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There +came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in +front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim +twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself +before the door. + +"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say." + +Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be +mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea +speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped +forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl. + +"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?" + +Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to +herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the +parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate. + +"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove +and be calm--be calm!" + +Isabel was overcome anew. + +"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let +me be!" + +She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. +Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she +called. + +"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the +door." + +"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she +continued. "Only a minute!" + +She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. +The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey +in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to +be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it. + +"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take +off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" +Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile. + +"Isabel!" gasped the parson. + +"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!" + +The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the +mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue +chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss +me the shawl. Now if you say one word--Oh, parson, if you only will +keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And +leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door. + +"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want +greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face +and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so +small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life +with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the +sitting-room. "Sadie here?" + +The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was +peering down into her face. + +"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed. + +The little woman looked up at him--very sadly, Isabel thought. + +"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she +did not offer to shake hands. + +Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and +aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on +the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt +followed her. + +"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the +things?" + +"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No." + +"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into +the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and +aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers +are," she said. "Lamp smoke?" + +Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her +aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt +as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing +awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed +her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair. + +"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over +with you." + +The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they +trembled, and he clasped his hands instead. + +"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began. + +"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece +needed me." + +Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. +She began crying angrily into her handkerchief. + +"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?" + +"Yes," sobbed the girl. + +"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel +better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's +anything for you to do." + +Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat +mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the +clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew +his nose vigorously. + +"Mary Ellen"--he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you +so!" + +"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She +was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and +laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He +remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking +intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing +makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are." + +"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do _not_! And you +don't look so." + +"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the +only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones." + +The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and +bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own. + +"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but +Isabel looks like you!" + +She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything +they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't +see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father +said." + +"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've +always thought so, ever since she was a little girl." + +"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle +calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her +eyes. I believe they were black." + +"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never +were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly." + +Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! +But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a +little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been +hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made +town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after +her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you +was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked +out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim +harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you +should make a mistake at your time of life!" + +The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in +his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him +through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the +woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel +like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, +looking at her with something piteous in his air. + +"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I +did make one. You know it, and I know it." + +She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, +William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've +passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no +shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to +break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about +her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a +shame to put her there." + +The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and +sad lines of recollection deepened in his face. + +"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. +Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a +minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" +"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her +chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of +tears forbidden to fall. + +"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence +roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but +you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all +times." + +"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember." + +"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I +was a minister, and my girl--the girl that was going to marry me--sat +down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of +you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my +life, just that way." + +Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged +face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other +in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white +a good deal." + +But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he +broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing +his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial +one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you +remember what he said?" + +"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The +corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender. + +"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art +fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think +of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was +in a garden--always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that +summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been +a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down +where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the +Church, but do all I could, it was a girl--or an angel!" + +"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty. + +"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped +sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. +But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just +how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles +pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the +dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd +got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. +And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, +though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his +hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a +doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. _This one's about a girl_. You +might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'" + +The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of +memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile. + +"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember." + +"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I +could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the +sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what +came afterwards--I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have +brought me nearer to you." + +It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted +herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face. + +"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on +us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you +just as lieves tell me?" + +She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone +brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes. + +"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,--no, +nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given +to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I +don't know what tale was carried to you"-- + +"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give +you a chance!" + +"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I +took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants +to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so." + +The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal. + +"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let +me _be_ a fool?" + +She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all +their sting. + +"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things +like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I +read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out +of poor little Isabel." + +The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel. + +"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and +unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: +'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as +soon as I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and +I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that +belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with +her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a +finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm +going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every +time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened +her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but +I'm glad now!" + +The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the +smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her +glasses and walked over to the chest. + +"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it +ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my +courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a +knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by." + +The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged +people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the +broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When +they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen +looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard. + +"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up." + +The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a +folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. +The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out +and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as +we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, +wiping his glasses, looked also. + +"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And +that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her. + +"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little +trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it +gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your +mother's?" + +She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at +once:-- + +"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas +with you." + +She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other. + +"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it +here. Just take it away with you." + +The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his +youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned +the pages, a smile coming now and then. + +"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,--"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He +murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, +shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a +sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And +the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled. + +The woman was the first to turn away. + +"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. +We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we +ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of +other people--them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?" + +The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in +buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she +did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness +in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson +put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over +it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned. + +"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the +sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?" + +She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at +all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil +the truth. + +"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I +took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!" + +"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind +him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the +horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was +opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk. + +"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice. + +"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to +leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; +"Isabel!" + +She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up +in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen. + +"Parson,"--forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his +knee,--"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, +please? I can't explain it"-- + +"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't +try to. I guess I made you nervous." + +"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the +parson drove away. + +Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, +where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had +her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that +the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary +Ellen had looked when she was young. + +"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron +to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief." + + + + +HORN O' THE MOON + + +If you drive along Tiverton Street, and then turn to the left, down the +Gully Road, you journey, for the space of a mile or so, through a +bewildering succession of damp greenery, with noisy brooks singing +songs below you, on either side, and the treetops on the level with +your horse's feet. Few among the older inhabitants ever take this +drive, save from necessity, because it is conceded that the dampness +there is enough, even in summer, to "give you your death o' cold;" and +as for the young, to them the place wears an eerie look, with its +miniature suggestion of impassable gulfs and roaring torrents. Yet no +youth reaches his majority without exploring the Gully. He who goes +alone is the more a hero; but even he had best leave two or three +trusty comrades reasonably near, not only to listen, should he call, +but to stand his witnesses when he afterwards declares where he has +been. It is a fearsome thing to explore that lower stratum of this +round world, so close to the rushing brook that it drowns your +thoughts, though not your apprehensions, and to go slipping about over +wet boulders and among dripping ferns; but your fears are fears of the +spirit. They are inherited qualms. You shiver because your grandfathers +and fathers and uncles have shivered there before you. If you are very +brave indeed, and naught but the topmost round of destiny will content +you, possibly you penetrate still further into green abysses, and come +upon the pool where, tradition says, an ancient trout has his +impregnable habitation. Apparently, nobody questions that the life of a +trout may be indefinitely prolonged, under the proper conditions of a +retired dusk; and the same fish that served our grandfathers for a +legend now enlivens our childish days. When you meet a youngster, +ostentatiously setting forth for the Gully Road, with bait-box and +pole, you need not ask where he is going; though if you have any human +sympathy in the pride of life, you will not deny him his answer:-- + +"Down to have a try for the old trout!" + +The pool has been still for many years. Not within the memory of aged +men has the trout turned fin or flashed a speckled side; but he is to +this day an historical present. He has lived, and therefore he lives +always. + +Those who do not pause upon the Gully Road, but keep straight on into +the open, will come into the old highway leading up and up to Horn o' +the Moon. It is an unshaded, gravelly track, pointing duly up-hill for +three long miles; and it has become a sober way to most of us, in this +generation: for we never take it unless we go on the solemn errand of +getting Mary Dunbar, that famous nurse, to care for our sick or dead. +There is a tradition that a summer visitor once hired a "shay," and +drove, all by herself, up to Horn o' the Moon, drawn on by the elusive +splendor of its name. But she met such a dissuading flood of comment by +the way as to startle her into the state of mind commonly associated +with the Gully Road. Farmers, haying in the field, came forward, to +lean on the fence, and call excitedly,-- + +"Where ye goin'?" + +"Horn o' the Moon," replied she, having learned in Tiverton the value +of succinct replies. + +"Who's sick?" + +"Nobody." + +"Got any folks up there?" + +"No. Going to see the place." + +The effect of this varied. Some looked in amazement; one ventured to +say, "Well, that's the beater!" and another dropped into the cabalistic +remark which cannot be defined, but which has its due significance, +"Well, you _must_ be sent for!" The result of all this running +commentary was such that, when the visitor reached the top of the hill +where Horn o' the Moon lies, encircled by other lesser heights, she was +stricken by its exceeding desolation, and had no heart to cast more +than a glance at the noble view below. She turned her horse, and +trotted, recklessly and with many stumblings, down again into friendly +Tiverton. + +Horn o' the Moon is unique in its melancholy. It has so few trees, and +those of so meagre and wind-swept a nature, that it might as well be +entirely bald. No apples grow there; and in the autumn, the inhabitants +make a concerted sally down into Tiverton Street, to purchase their +winter stock, such of them as can afford it. The poorer folk--and they +are all poor enough--buy windfalls, and string them to dry; and so +common is dried-apple-pie among them that, when a Tivertonian finds +this makeshift appearing too frequently on his table, he has only to +remark, "I should think this was Horn o' the Moon!" and it disappears, +to return no more until the slur is somewhat outworn. + +There is very little grass at the top of the lonely height, and that of +a husky, whispering sort, in thin ribbons that flutter low little songs +in the breeze. They never cease; for, at Horn o' the Moon, there is +always a wind blowing, differing in quality with the season. Sometimes +it is a sighing wind from other heights, happier in that they are sweet +with firs. Sometimes it is exasperating enough to make the March +breezes below seem tender; then it tosses about in snatching gusts, +buffeting, and slapping, and excoriating him who stands in its way. +Somehow, all the peculiarities of Horn o' the Moon seem referable, in a +mysterious fashion, to the wind. The people speak in high, strenuous +voices, striving to hold their own against its wicked strength. Most of +them are deaf. Is that because the air beats ceaselessly against the +porches of their ears? They are a stunted race; for they have grown +into the habit of holding the head low, and plunging forward against +that battling element. Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the +ordinary sort. Their feathers grow the wrong way, standing up in a +ragged and disorderly fashion; and they, too, have the effect of having +been blown about and disarranged, until nature yielded, and agreed to +their permanent roughness. + +Moreover, all the people are old or middle-aged; and possibly that is +why, again, the settlement is so desolate. It is a disgrace for us +below to marry with Horn o' the Mooners, though they are a sober folk; +and now it happens that everybody up there is the cousin of everybody +else. The race is dying out, we say, as if we considered it a distinct +species; and we agree that it would have been wiped away long ago, by +weight of its own eccentricity, had not Mary Dunbar been the making of +it. She is the one righteous among many. She is the good nurse whom we +all go to seek, in our times of trouble, and she perpetually saves her +city from the odium of the world. + +Mary was born in Tiverton Street. We are glad to remember that, we who +condemn by the wholesale, and are assured that no good can come out of +Nazareth. When she was a girl of eighteen, her father and mother died; +and she fell into a state of spiritual exaltation, wherein she dreamed +dreams, and had periods of retirement within her house, communing with +other intelligences. We said Mary had lost her mind; but that was +difficult to believe, since no more wholesome type of womanhood had +ever walked our streets. She was very tall, built on the lines of a +beauty transcending our meagre strain. Nobody approved of those broad +shoulders and magnificent arms. We said it was a shame for any girl to +be so overgrown; yet our eyes followed her, delighted by the harmony of +line and action. Then we whispered that she was as big as a moose, and +that, if we had such arms, we never'd go out without a shawl. Her +"mittins" must be wide enough for any man! + +Mary did everything perfectly. She walked as if she went to meet the +morning, and must salute it worthily. She carried a weight as a goddess +might bear the infant Bacchus; and her small head, poised upon that +round throat, wore the crown of simplicity, and not of pride. But we +only told how strong she was, and how much she could lift. We loved +Mary, but sensibility had to shrink from those great proportions and +that elemental strength. + +One snowy morning, Mary's spiritual vision called her out of our midst, +to which she never came back save as we needed her. The world was very +white that day, when she rose, in her still house, dressed herself +hastily, and roused a neighbor, begging him to harness, and drive her +up to Horn o' the Moon. Folks were sick there, with nobody to take care +of them. The neighbor reasoned, and then refused, as one might deny a +person, however beloved, who lives by the intuitions of an unseen +world. Mary went home again, and, as he believed, to stay. But she had +not hesitated in her allegiance to the heavenly voice. Somehow, through +the blinding snow and unbroken road, she ploughed her way up to Horn o' +the Moon, where she found an epidemic of diphtheria; and there she +stayed. We marveled over her guessing how keenly she was needed; but +since she never explained, it began to be noised abroad that some +wandering peddler told her. That accounted for everything; and Mary had +no time for talk. She was too busy, watching with the sick, and going +about from house to house, cooking delicate gruels and broiling chicken +for those who were getting well. It is said that she even did the barn +work, and milked the cows, during that tragic time. We were not +surprised. Mary was a great worker, and she was fond of "creatur's." + +Whether she came to care for these stolid people on the height, or +whether the vision counseled her, Mary gave up her house in the +village, and bought a little old dwelling under an overhanging +hillside, at Horn o' the Moon. It was a nest built into the rock, its +back sitting snugly there. The dark came down upon it quickly. In +winter, the sun was gone from the little parlor as early as three +o'clock; but Mary did not mind. That house was her temporary shell; she +only slept in it in the intervals of hurrying away, with blessed feet, +to tend the sick, and hold the dying in untiring arms. I shall never +forget how, one morning, I saw her come out of the door, and stand +silent, looking toward the rosy east. There was the dawn, and there was +she, its priestess, while all around her slept. I should not have been +surprised had her lips, parted already in a mysterious smile, opened +still further in a prophetic chanting to the sun. But Mary saw me, and +the alert, answering look of one who is a messenger flashed swiftly +over her face. She advanced like the leader of a triumphal procession. + +"Anybody want me?" she called. "I'll get my bunnit." + +It was when she was twenty, and not more than settled in the little +house at Horn o' the Moon, that her story came to her. The Veaseys were +her neighbors, perhaps five doors away; and one summer morning, Johnnie +Veasey came home from sea. He brought no money, no coral from foreign +parts, nor news of grapes in Eshcol. He simply came empty-handed, as he +always did, bearing only, to vouch for his wanderings, a tanned face, +and the bright, red-brown eyes that had surely looked on things we +never saw. Adam Veasey, his brother; had been paralyzed for years. He +sat all day in the chimney corner, looking at his shaking hands, and +telling how wide a swathe he could cut before he was afflicted. Mattie, +Adam's wife, had long dealt with the problem of an unsupported +existence. She had turned into a flitting little creature with eager +eyes, who made it her business to prey upon a more prosperous world. +Mattie never went about without a large extra pocket attached to her +waist; into this, she could slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, +or even a loaf of bread. She laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and +the town below. Was there a frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No +sooner had the odor risen upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, +dumbly insistent on her toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it +was said that, in fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, +because of the hordes of insects settling here and there on her +odoriferous gown. When Johnnie Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in +arms. Their golden chance had come at last. + +"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and +Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that +he did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into +the wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new +folks. + +Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again, +and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him.. So she went over to +old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted, +according to her little best. + +Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had +brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He +described what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others +had known and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these +stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and +every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, +or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the +tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit +out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill +possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling +uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men +about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking +swiftly by, a basket in her hand. Johnnie came bolt upright, and took +off his cap. He looked amazingly young and fine, and Mary blushed as +she went by. + +"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers. + +"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved +up." + +Johnnie watched her walking away, for the rhythm of her motion +attracted him. He did not think her pretty; no one ever thought that. + +It happened, then, that he spent two or three evenings at the Hardys', +where Mary went, every night, to rub grandmother and put her to bed; +and while she sat there in the darkened room, soothing the old woman +for her dreary vigil, she heard his golden tales of people in strange +lands. It seemed very wonderful to Mary. She had not dreamed there were +such lands in all the world; and when she hurried home, it was to hunt +out her old geography, and read it until after midnight. She followed +rivers to their sources, and dwelt upon mountains with amazing names. +She was seeing the earth and its fullness, and her heart beat fast. + +Next day she went away for a long case, giving only one little sigh in +the going, to the certainty that, when she came back, Johnnie Veasey +would be off on another voyage to lands beyond the sea. Mary was not of +the sort who cry for the moon just because they have seen it. She had +simply begun to read a fairy tale, and somebody had taken it away from +her and put it high on the shelf. But on the very first morning after +her return, when she rose early, longing for the blissful air of her +own bleak solitude, Mattie Veasey stood there at her door. Mary had but +one first question for every comer:-- + +"Anybody sick?" + +"You let me step in," answered Mattie, a determined foot on the sill. +"I want to tell you how things stand." + +It was evident that Mattie was going on a journey. She was an +exposition of the domestic resources of Horn o' the Moon. Her dress +came to the tops of her boots. It was the plaid belonging to Stella +Hardy, who had died in her teens. It hooked behind; but that was no +matter, for the enveloping shawl, belonging to old Mrs. Titcomb, +concealed that youthful eccentricity. Her shoes--congress, with +world-weary elastics at the side--were her own, inherited from an aunt; +and her bonnet was a rusty black, with a mourning veil. There was, at +that time, but one new bonnet at Horn o' the Moon, and its owner had +sighed, when Mattie proposed for it, brazenly saying that she guessed +nobody'd want anything that set so fur back. Whereupon the suppliant +sought out Mrs. Pillsbury, whose mourning headgear, bought in a brief +season of prosperity, nine years before, had become, in a manner, +village property. It was as duly in public requisition as the hearse; +and its owner cherished a melancholy pride in this official state. She +never felt as if she owned it,--only that she was the keeper of a +sacred trust; and Mattie, in asking for it, knew that she demanded no +more than her due, as a citizen should. It was an impersonal matter +between her and the bonnet; and though she should wear it on a secular +errand, the veil did not signify. She knew everybody else knew whose +bonnet it was; and that if anybody supposed she had met with a loss, +they had only to ask, and she to answer. So, in the consciousness of an +armor calculated to meet the world, she skillfully brought her congress +boots into Mary's kitchen, and sat down, her worn little hands clasped +under the shawl. + +"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's +happened to Johnnie?" + +Mary rose, a hand upon her chair. + +"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so--ready +to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!" + +Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of +those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and +sugared again. + +"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as +some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been +gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one, +neither,--down the ledge. I dunno how he done it--he climbs like a +cat--seems as if the Old Boy was in it--but half his body he can't +move. Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's." + +Mary listened gravely; her hands on her knees. + +"How long's he been so?" + +"Nigh on to five weeks." + +"Had the doctor?" + +"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there +ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An' +I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him +in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the +heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the +selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no +money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I +can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down +to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along +down." + +"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes." + +"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that +last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in +bed, an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to know if you +wouldn't run in, long towards noon, an' warm up suthin' for 'em." + +"Yes, indeed," said Mary Dunbar. "I'll be there." + +She rose, and Mattie, albeit she dearly loved to gossip, felt that she +must rise, too, and be on her way. She tried to amplify on what she had +already said, but Mary did not seem to be listening; so, treading +carefully, lest the dust and dew beset her precious shoes, she took her +way down the hill, like a busy little ant, born to scurry and gather. + +Mary looked hastily about the room, to see if its perfect order needed +a farewell touch; and then she drank her cup of tea, and stepped out +into the morning. The air was fresh and sweet. She wore no shawl, and +the wind lifted the little brown rings on her forehead, and curled them +closer. Mary held a hand upon them, and hurried on. She had no more +thought of appearances than a woman in a desert land, or in the desert +made by lack of praise; for she knew no one looked at her. To be clean +and swift was all her life demanded. + +Adam sat by the stove, where the ashes were still warm. It was not a +day for fires, but he loved his accustomed corner. He was a middle-aged +man, old with the suffering which is not of years, and the pathos of +his stricken state hung about him, from his unkempt beard to the dusty +black clothing which had been the Tiverton minister's outworn suit. One +would have said he belonged to the generation before his brother. + +"That you, Mary?" he asked, in his shaking voice. "Now, ain't that +good? Come to set a spell?" + +"Where is he?" responded Mary, in a swift breathlessness quite new to +her. + +"In there. We put up a bed in the clock-room." + +It was the unfinished part of the house. The Veaseys had always meant +to plaster, but that consummation was still afar. The laths showed +meagrely; it was a skeleton of a room,--and, sunken in the high +feather-bed between the two windows, lay Johnnie Veasey, his buoyancy +all gone, his face quite piteous to see, now that its tan had faded. +Mary went up to the bedside, and laid one cool, strong hand upon his +wrist. His eyes sought her with a wild entreaty; but she knew, although +he seemed to suffer, that this was the misery of delirium, and not the +conscious mind. Adam had come trembling to the door, and stood there, +one hand beating its perpetual tattoo upon the wall. Mary looked up at +him with that abstracted gaze with which we weigh and judge. + +"He's feverish," said she. "Mattie didn't tell me that. How long's he +been so?" + +"I dunno. I guess a matter o' two days." + +"Two days?" + +"Well, it might be off an' on ever sence he fell." Adam was helpless. +He depended upon Mattie, and Mattie was not there. + +"What did the doctor leave?" + +Adam looked about him. "'T was the Herb doctor," he said. "He had her +steep some trade in a bowl." + +Mary Dunbar drew her hand away, and walked two or three times up and +down the bare, bleak room. The seeking eyes were following her. She +knew how little their distended agony might mean; but nevertheless they +carried an entreaty. They leaned upon her, as the world, her sick +world, was wont to lean. Mary was, in many things, a child; but her +attitude had grown to be maternal. Suddenly she turned to Adam, where +he stood, shaking and hesitating, in the doorway. + +"You goin' to send him off?" + +"Pears as if that's the only way," shuffled Adam. + +"To-day?" + +"Well, I dunno 's they'll come"-- + +Mary walked past him, her mind assured. + +"There, that'll do," said she. "You set down in your corner. I'll be +back byme-by." + +She hurried out into the bleak world which was her home, and, at that +moment, it looked very fair and new. The birds were singing, loudly as +they ever sang up here where there were few leaves to nest in. Mary +stopped an instant to listen, and lifted her face wordlessly to the +clear blue sky. It seemed as if she had been given a gift. There, +before one of the houses, she called aloud, with a long, lingering +note, "Jacob!" and Jacob Pease rose from; his milking-stool, and came +forward. Jacob was tall and snuff-colored, a widower of three years' +standing. There was a theory that he wanted Mary, and lacked the +courage to ask her. + +"That you, Mary Dunbar?" said he. "Anything on hand?" + +"I want you to come and help me lift," answered Mary. + +Jacob set down his milk pail, and followed her into the Veaseys' +kitchen. She drew out the tin basin, and filled it at the sink. + +"Wash your hands," said she. "Adam, you set where you generally do. +You'll be in the way." + +Jacob followed her into the sick-room, and Adam weakly shuffled in +behind. + +"For the land's sake!" he began, but Mary was at the head of the bed, +and Jacob at the foot. + +"I'll carry his shoulders," she said, in the voice that admits no +demur. "You take his feet and legs. Sort o' fold the feather-bed up +round him, or we never shall get him through the door." + +"Which way?" asked Jacob, still entirely at rest on a greater mind. + +"Out!" commanded Mary,--"out the front door." + +Adam, in describing that dramatic moment, always declared that nobody +but Mary Dunbar could have engineered a feather-bed through the narrow +passage, without sticking midway. He recalled an incident of his +boyhood when, in the Titcomb fire, the whole family had spent every +available instant before the falling of the roof, in trying to push the +second-best bed through the attic window, only to leave it there to +burn. But Mary Dunbar took her patient through the doorway as Napoleon +marched over the Alps; she went with him down the road toward her own +little house under the hill. Only then did Adam, still shuffling on +behind, collect his intelligence sufficiently to shout after her,-- + +"Mary, what under the sun be you doin' of? What you want me to tell +Mattie? S'pose she brings the selec'men, Mary Dunbar!" + +She made no reply, even by a glance. She walked straight on, as if her +burden lightened, and into her own cave-like house and her little neat +bedroom. + +"Lay him down jest as he is," she said to Jacob. "We won't try to shift +him to-day. Let him get over this." + +Jacob stretched himself, after his load, put his hands in his pockets, +and made up his mouth into a soundless whistle. + +"Yes! well!" said he. "Guess I better finish milkin'." + +Mary put her patient "to-rights," and set some herb drink on the back +of the stove. Presently the little room was filled with the steamy odor +of a bitter healing, and she was on the battlefield where she loved to +conquer. In spite of her heaven-born instinct, she knew very little +about doctors and their ways of cure. Earth secrets were hers, some of +them inherited and some guessed at, and luckily she had never been +involved in those greater issues to be dealt with only by an exalted +science. Later in her life, she was to get acquainted with the young +doctor, down in Tiverton Street, and hear from him what things were +doing in his world. She was to learn that a hospital is not a slaughter +house incarnadined with writhing victims, as some of us had thought. +She was even to witness the magic of a great surgeon; though that was +in her old age, when her attitude toward medicine had become one of +humble thankfulness that, in all her daring, she had done no harm. +To-day, she thought she could set a bone or break up a fever; and there +was no doubt in her mind that, if other deeds were demanded of her, she +should be led in the one true way. So she sat down by her patient, and +was watching there, hopeful of moisture on his palm, when Mattie broke +into the front room, impetuous as the wind. Mary rose and stepped out +to meet her, shutting the door as she went. Passing the window, she saw +the selectmen, in the vehicle known as a long-reach, waiting at the +gate. + +"Hush, Mattie!" said she, "you'll wake him." + +Mattie, in her ill-assorted respectabilities of dress, seemed to have +been involved but recently in some bacchanalian orgie. Her shawl was +dragged to one side, and her bonnet sat rakishly. She was intoxicated +with her own surprise. + +"Mary Dunbar!" cried she, "I'd like to know the meanin' of all this +go-round!" + +"There!" answered Mary, with a quietude like that of the sea at ebb, "I +can't stop to talk. I'll settle it with the selec'men. You come, too." + +Mattie's eyes were seeking the bedroom. Leave her alone, and her feet +would follow. "You come along," repeated Mary, and Mattie came. + +When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little +slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer +Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous +cough. Lothrop Wilson, mild by nature, and rather prone to whiffling in +times of difficulty, frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only +because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, +let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself +in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated +warfare, and were nervously conscious, that, should they fail in +firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the +wagon, and laid one hand upon the wheel. + +"I've got John Veasey in my house," she began rapidly. "I can't stop to +talk. He's pretty sick." + +Ebenezer cleared his throat again. + +"We understood his folks had put him on the town," said he. + +Mattie made a little eager sound, and then stopped. + +"He ain't on the town yet," said Mary. "He's in my bedroom. An' there +he's goin' to stay. I've took this job." She turned away from them, +erect in her decision, and went up the path. Eli Pike looked after her, +with an understanding sympathy. He was the man who had walked two +miles, one night, to shoot a fox, trapped, and left there helpless with +a broken leg. Lothrop gazed straight ahead, and said nothing. + +"Look here!" called Ebenezer. "Mary! Mary! you look here!" + +Mary turned about at the door. She was magnificent in her height and +dignity. Even Ebenezer felt almost ashamed of what he had to say; but +still the public purse must be regarded. + +"You can't bring in a bill for services," he announced. "If he's on the +town, he'll have to go right into the Poorhouse with the rest." + +Mary made no answer. She stood there a second, looking at him, and he +remarked to Eli, "I guess you might drive on." + +But Mattie, following Mary up to the house, to talk it over, tried the +door in vain. + +"My land!" she ejaculated, "if she ain't bolted it!" So the nurse and +her patient were left to themselves. + +As to the rest of the story, I tell it as we hear it still in Tiverton. +At first, it was reckoned among the miracles; but when the new doctor +came, he explained that it accorded quite honestly with the course of +violated nature, and that, with some slight pruning here and there, the +case might figure in his books. What science would say about it, I do +not know; tradition was quite voluble. + +It proved a very long time before Johnnie grew better, and in all those +days Mary Dunbar was a happy woman. She stepped about the house, +setting it in order, watching her charge, and making delicate possets +for him to take. When the "herb-man" came, she turned him away from the +door with a regal courtesy. It was not so much that she despised his +knowledge, as that he knew no more than she, and this was her patient. +The young doctor in Tiverton told her afterwards that she had done a +dangerous thing in not calling in some accredited wearer of the cloth; +but Mary did not think of that. She went on her way of innocence, +delightfully content. And all those days, Johnnie Veasey, as soon as he +came out of his fever, lay there and watched her with eyes full of a +listless wonder. He was still in that borderland of helplessness where +the unusual seems only a part of the new condition of things. Neighbors +called, and Mary refused them entrance, with a finality which admitted +no appeal. + +"I've got sickness here," she would say, standing in the doorway +confronting them. "He's too weak to see anybody; I guess I won't ask +you in." + +But one day, the minister appeared, his fat gray horse climbing +painfully up from the Gully Road. It was a warm afternoon; and as soon +as Mary saw him, she went out of her house, and closed the door behind +her. When he had tied his horse, he came toward her, brushing the dust +of the road from his irreproachable black. He was a new minister, and +very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on +the step. + +"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't +have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day." + +The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his +dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand. + +"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had +hoped to see him." + +Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers. + +"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to +pray by ourselves." + +The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the +slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which +his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined +upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair. + +"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar +stand." + +Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient +breathing, and her mind was with him. + +"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim +on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going +to marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to +get well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be +respected,--though only in a measure." + +Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him. + +"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!" + +"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married." + +Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced +round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess +you better go now. Good-day." + +She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his +wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk +with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better. + +But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into +sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not, +heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung +her way, she marveled at it. + +The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, +the door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late +that afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull +weather her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was "all +beat out," for she had begun at three, and steamed through her work, to +have an early supper at five. + +"There, Mary Dunbar!" cried she; "I said I'd do it, an' I have. There +ain't a neighbor got into this house for weeks, an' folks that want you +to go nussin' have been turned away. I says to Adam, this very +afternoon, 'I'll be whipped if I don't git in an' see what's goin' on!' +There's some will have it Johnnie's got well, an' drove away without +saying good-by to his own folks, an' some say he ain't likely to live, +an' there he lays without a last word to his own brother! As for the +childern, they've got an idea suthin' 's been done to uncle Johnnie, +an' you can't mention him but they cry." + +Mary rose calmly and began clearing her table. "I guess I wouldn't +mention him, then," said she. + +A muffled sound came from the bedroom. It might have been laughter. +Then there was a little crack, and Mary involuntarily looked at the +lamp chimney. She hurried into the bedroom, and stopped short at sight +of her patient, lying there in the light of the flickering fire. His +face had flushed, and his eyes were streaming. + +"I laughed so," he said chokingly. "She +always makes me. And something snapped into place in my neck. I don't +know what it was,--but _I can move_!" + +He held out his hand to her. Mary did not touch it; she only stood +looking at him with a wonderful gaze of pride and recognition, and yet +a strange timidity. She, too, flushed, and tears stood in her eyes. + +"I'll go and tell Mattie," said she, turning toward the door. "You want +to see her?" + +"For God's sake, no! not till I'm on my feet." He was still laughing. +"I guess I can get up to-morrow." + +Mary went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. + +"I guess you better not see him to-night," she said. "You can come in +to-morrer. I shouldn't wonder if he'd be up then." + +"I told Adam"--began Mattie, but Mary put a hand on her thin little +arm, and held it there. + +"I'd rather talk to-morrer," said she gently. "Don't you come in before +'leven; but you come. Tell Adam to, if he wants. I guess your +brother'll be gettin' away before long." She opened the outer door, and +Mattie had no volition but to go. "It's a nice night, ain't it?" called +Mary cheerfully, after her. "Seems as if there never was so many +stars." + +Then she went back into the kitchen, and with the old thrift and +exactitude prepared her patient's supper. He was sitting upright, +bolstered against the head of the bed; and he looked like a great +mischievous boy, who had, in some way, gained a long-desired prize. + +"See here!" he called. "Tell me I can't get up to-morrow? Why, I could +walk!" + +They had a very merry time while he ate. Mary remembered that +afterwards, with a bruised wonder that laughter comes so cheap. Johnnie +talked incessantly, not any more of the wonders of the deep, but what +he meant to do when he got into the world again. + +"How'd I come here in your house, any way?" he asked. "Mattie and Adam +put me here to get rid of me? Tell me all over again." + +"I take care of folks, you know," answered Mary briefly. "I have, for +more 'n two years. It's my business." + +Johnnie looked at her a moment, crimsoning as he tried to speak. + +"What you goin' to ask?" + +Mary started. Then she answered steadily-- + +"That's all right. I don't ask much, anyway; but when folks don't have +ready money, I never ask anything. There, you mustn't talk no more, +even if you are well. I've got to wash these dishes." + +She left him to his meditations, and only once more that evening did +they speak together. When she came to the door, to say good-night, he +was flat among his pillows, listening for her. + +"Say!" he called, "you come in. No, you needn't unless you want to; but +if ever I earn another cent of money, you'll see. And I ain't the only +friend you've got. There's a girl down in Southport would do anything +in the world for you, if she only knew." + +Next morning, Johnnie walked weakly out of doors, despite his nurse's +cautions; for, not knowing what had happened to him, she was in a +wearying dark as to whether it might not happen again. After his +breakfast, he got a ride with Jacob Pease, who was going down Sudleigh +way, and Jacob came back without him. He bore a message, full of +gratitude, to Mary. At Sudleigh, Johnnie had telegraphed, to find out +whether the ship Firewing was still in port; and he had heard that he +must lose no time in joining her. He should never forget what Mary had +done for him. So Jacob said; but he was a man of tepid words, and +perhaps he remembered the message too coldly. + +When Mattie came over, that afternoon, to make her call, she found the +house closed. Mary had gone on foot down into Tiverton, where old Mrs. +Lamson, who was sick with a fever, lay still in need. It was many weeks +before she came home again to Horn o' the Moon; and then Grandfather +Sinclair had broken his leg, so that interest in her miracle became +temporarily inactive. + +Two years had gone when there came to her a little package, through the +Tiverton mail. It was tied with the greatest caution, and directed in a +straggling hand. Mary opened it just as she struck into the Gully Road, +on her way home. Inside was a little purse, and three gold pieces. She +paused there, under the branches, the purse in one hand, and the gold +lying within her other palm. For a long time she stood looking at them, +her face set in that patient sadness seen in those whose only holding +is the past. It was all over and done, and yet it had never been at +all. She thought a little about herself, and that was very rare, for +Mary. She was not the poorer for what her soul desired; she was +infinitely the richer, and she remembered the girl at Southport, not +with the pang that once afflicted her heart, but with a warm, +outrushing sense of womanly sympathy. If he had money, perhaps he could +marry. Perhaps he was married now. Coming out of the Gully Road, she +opened the purse again, and the sun struck richly upon the gold within. +Mary smiled a little, wanly, but still with a sense of the good, human +kinship in life. + +"I won't ever spend 'em," she said to herself. "I'll keep 'em to bury +me." + + + + +A STOLEN FESTIVAL + + +David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a +road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could +see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to +no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the +middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She +had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the +go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west, +she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'. + +The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in +love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray +eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which +America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something +superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic +responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how +the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her +after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not +to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a +vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which +move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of +aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to +understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried +to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; +but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes +brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she +spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know +that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had +never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but +that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There +had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her +husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of +the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of +a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living +beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but +entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of +birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much +under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green +was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond +it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of +violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey +blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange +memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on +the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon +her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his +neck. + +"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is +it, little child?" + +"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!" + +The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it +meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become +familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the +blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain +at her heart. + +Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in +front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to +market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes +forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily +belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled +roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked +up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon +her. + +"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked. + +Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there +was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The +world was a jewel newly set for her. + +"I _am_ nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin' +on? It's 'most a year since we were married,--a year the fifteenth." + +David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her. + +"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good +bargain. Best trade I ever made in _my_ life!" + +"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you +how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have +our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll +take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!" + +David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed +his lips. + +"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to +Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there +before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up +in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down; +an' if I wait for him to do it--well, you know what he is!" + +"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you +can!" + +"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it +is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm +awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!" + +Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one +heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was +not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was +only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put +great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would +be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love. + +David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist. + +"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the +same as another, now ain't it?" + +"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet +eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday +mornin'!" + +David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. +His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a +joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the +logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and +twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth. + +"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long +as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git +a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's +done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take +both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!" + +The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he +looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a +little and turned her face up to his--her rebellious eyes and unsteady +mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a +great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud. + +"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. _I_ don't +care!" + +These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or +tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish +concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She +had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention +and not the act. + +David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell. + +"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man +when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye +o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle." + +Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot. +Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large +carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried +to feel resigned. + +"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the +day!" + +David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up +his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn. + +"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I +might as well stan' from under." + +Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it, +clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress +boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep +affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like +process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile. + +"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find +yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody +must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin', +an' git their best clo'es all over dirt." + +"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very +sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o' +folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous +scheme of life to live and let live. + +"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily. +"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up +here this mornin'?" + +Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped +hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't +know." + +"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis' +Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You +look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while +Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under +her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; +and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently +revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious +imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from +the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself. + +But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was +holding it out on the end of a knotted finger. + +"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your +engagement ring." + +Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an +involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave. + +"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?" + +"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye +lose it?" + +But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and +looked obstinate. + +"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily. +Debby was diverted, though only for the moment. + +"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and +giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want +_him_ to know of it?" + +"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation +disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do +you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?" + +"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little +consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day, +an' she says, 'Don't ye tell _him_!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a +pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for +'t after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if +ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you +want to know where I come on this ring?" + +Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned +she, turning about. "Where was it?" + +"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f +'t had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst +he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an' +she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to +show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank, +an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him +suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted +but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber." + +"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say +anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and +that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire +Hill. + +She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to +cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne +before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and +began packing its contents into the yawning bag. + +"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it. +And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late." + +Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a +kernel with a critical thumb. + +"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this +time o' year. Is that the pork?" + +It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth. + +"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the +bag. "There!" + +"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly. + +"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak +to David before he harnesses. Good-by!" + +In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn. + +"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly +about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's _I_ say!" And she made +no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the +barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him +I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and +the likelihood of its being properly diversified. + +Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and +laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and +inquired of him confidentially what was the matter. + +"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly. +"I've got to see you." + +David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty +precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs +and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried, +"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?" + +David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed. + +"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he. + +Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically. + +"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There +ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em +'twas my engagement ring." + +David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He +could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency. + +"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture. + +"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a +ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd +have showed 'em." + +David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and, +though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town +blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was +condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him. + +"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a +new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it. +It wasn't that I begrudged anything." + +"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't +was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have +'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I +bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue +handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give +'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I +always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the +comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a +little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring, +for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I +knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it +in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've +sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you +about the pork, and I--I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and +lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly, +and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair. +His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of +children over some grief not understood. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length. + +"When?" said Letty chokingly. + +"Then--when folks expected things--before we were married." + +"Oh, David, I couldn't!" + +"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't." + +Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump +hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and +stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm. + +"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring." + +Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to +wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?" + +"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't +you ever let me set eyes on it again!" + +David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened +it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do +me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each +other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt +them bitterer than if they had been his own. + +But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble +in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a +secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without +his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him +radiantly. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but +it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!" + +Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder. +He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like +swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So +he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a +singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy +again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven, +to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could +deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance--this +was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household +duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she +went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed +to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of +love. + +Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind +the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced, +into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a +breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the +house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an +unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound. +Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray, +and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes +by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her +wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as +he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation, +from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the +child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then +she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down, +that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of +blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist. + +But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the +barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal. + +"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about +that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty +dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd +ought to eat yours while't was hot." + +Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured +coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste, +and said good-by. + +"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone, +you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till +night." + +"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile +crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin' +to bring it to you." + +"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess +you won't!" + +"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to +hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm +comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the +butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time +to argue, went off to his work. + +About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was +a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face, +regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life +might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great +universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the +day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged +along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and +owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was +better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer +than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the +stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier +still. + +"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs +beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her. +"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn +and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her. + +"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and +walked on together through the shade. + +The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of +the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him; +then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment, +with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a +palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for +a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out +a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her +dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a +blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the +air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling +over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal, +Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine +white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes +deepened. + +"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?" + +Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in +her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. +David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed +the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate +her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him, +and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close. +He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry +light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while +Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when +her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her +wedding day. + +When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and +David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the +basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief +excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with +her weedy treasures. Once--was it something in the air?--he called to +her:-- + +"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were +married?" + +But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on +a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take +him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she +was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the +day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to +her that he should forget. + +"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the +kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star +Pond." + +After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and +then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest +moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor. + +"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your +little ring? It's right here in my pocket." + +"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again." + +"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other +day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make +a choice unless you was with me." + +Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break +in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you." + +David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief +about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from +one another, will we?" + +Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before +answering:-- + +"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!" + + + + +A LAST ASSEMBLING + + +This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech, +was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed +to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing +instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to +carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did +happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen +again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily +and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing +harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her +life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of +human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great +delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore, +she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted +all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was +thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than +she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked +out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church +on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a +pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk +failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric +and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution: +to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led +direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy +to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take +him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived, +understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken +the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had +simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the +city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade. +He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for +ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee +the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again; +but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of +nature, but a simplicity quite different in kind. Jethro did not grow +rich very fast (uncle Silas saw to that), but he did prosper; and he +was ready to marry his girl long before she owned herself ready to +marry him. She took care of a succession of aged relatives, all +afflicted by a strange and interesting diversity of trying diseases; +and then, after the last death, she settled down, quite poor, in a +little house on the Tiverton Road, and "went out nussin'," the +profession for which her previous life had fitted her. With a careless +generosity, she made over to her brother the old farmhouse where they +were born, because he had a family and needed it. But he died, and was +soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with +the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for +them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take +him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of +faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. +She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the +old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without a cent; but +since he was coming for her, and she needn't go to Chicago alone, she +didn't know that there was anything to worry about. He would buy her +ticket. There was an ineffable simplicity about Dilly. She had no +respect whatever for money, save as a puzzling means to a few necessary +ends. And now the place had been sold, and Jethro was coming in a +month. Meanwhile Dilly was to pack up the few family effects she could +afford to keep, and the rest would go by auction. + +Little as she was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the +inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in +the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human +meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true +that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the +fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like +irresistible factors, and welded her to the universe anew. + +As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and +began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some +solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher, +and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the +throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black +hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an +assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a +gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed +by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this +case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to +go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward +garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink +flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody. +She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical +call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the +beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of +the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an +unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house, +since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding +drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the +stage. + +Her mind was peopled with figures. She thought of Jethro, too. He +seemed to be coming ever nearer and nearer. She could hear his tread +marching into her life, and could see his face. It was very moving, as +she remembered it. A long line of scholarly forbears had dowered him +with a refinement and grace quite startling in this unornamented spot, +and some old Acadian ancestor had lent him beauty. His eyes were dark, +and they held an unfathomable melancholy. The line of his forehead and +nose ran haughtily and yet delicate; and even after years of absence, +Dilly sometimes caught her breath when she thought of the way his head +was set upon his shoulders. She had never in her life seen a man or +woman who was entirely beautiful, and he saturated her longing like a +prodigal stream. + +She was a little dazed when she climbed the low stone wall, crossed the +road, and came into the grassy wilderness of the Joyce back yard. +Nature had triumphed riotously, as she will when niggardly thrift is +away. The grass lay rich and shining, lodged by last night's shower, +and gate and cellar-case were choked by it. The cinnamon roses bloomed +in a spicy hardiness of pink, and the gnarled apple-trees had shed +their broken branches, and were covered with little green buttons of +fruit. Dilly stopped to look about her, and her eyes filled. The tears +were hot; they hurt her, and so recalled her to the needs of life. + +"There!" she said, "I mustn't do so!"--and she walked straight forward +through the open shed, and fitted her key in the lock. The door sagged; +but she pushed it open and stepped in. The deserted kitchen lay there +in desolate order, and the old Willard clock slept upon the wall. Dilly +hastily pushed a chair before it (this was the only chair old Daniel +Joyce would allow the children to climb in) and wound the clock. It +began ticking slowly, with the old, remembered sound. Somehow it seemed +beautiful to Dilly that the clock should speak with the voice of all +those years agone; it was a kind of loyalty which appealed to the soul +like a piercing miracle. Then she ran through to the sitting-room, and +started the old eight-day in the corner; and the house breathed and was +alive again. She threw open the windows, all save those on the Dilloway +side (lest kindly neighbors should discover she was at home), and the +soft rose-scented air flooded the rooms like an invisible presence, and +bore out the smell of age upon gracious wings. Now, Dilly worked fast +and steadily, lest some human thing should come upon her. She tied up +bedclothes, and opened long-closed cupboards. She made careful piles of +clothing from the attic; and finally, her mind a little tired, she sat +down on the floor and began looking over papers and daguerreotypes from +her father's desk. Just as she had lost herself in the ancient history +of which they were the signs, there came a knock at the back door. So +assured had become her idea of a continued housekeeping, that the +summons did not seem in the least strange. The house lived again; it +had thrown open its arms to human kind. + +"Come in!" she called; and a light step sounded in the kitchen and +crossed the sill. It was a man, dark-eyed and very handsome. "Oh!" +murmured Dilly, catching her breath and holding both hands clasped upon +the papers in her lap. "Jethro!" + +The stranger was much moved, and his black eyes deepened. He looked at +her kindly, perhaps lovingly, too. "Yes," he said, at last. "So you'd +know me?" + +Dilly got lightly up, and the papers fell about her in a shower; yet +she made no motion toward him. "Oh, yes," she said softly, "I should +know you. You ain't changed at all." + +That was not true. He looked ten years older than his real age; yet +time had only dowered him with a finer grace and charm. All the lines +in his face were those of gentleness and truth. His mouth had the old +delicate curves. One meeting him that day might have said, with a throb +of involuntary homage, "How beautiful he must have been when he was +young!" But to Dilly he bore even a more subtile distinction than in +that far-away time; he had ripened into something harmonizing with her +own years. He came forward a little, and held out both hands; but Dilly +did not take them, and he dropped the left one. Then she laid her +fingers lightly in his, and they greeted each other like old +acquaintances. A flush rose in her smooth brown cheek. Her eyes grew +bright with that startled questioning which is of the woods. He looked +at her the more intently, and his breath quickened. She had none of the +blossomy charm of more robust womanhood; but he recognized the old +gypsy element which had once bewitched him, and felt he loved her +still. + +"Well," he said, and his voice shook a little, "are you glad to see +me?" + +Dilly moved back, and sat down in her mother's little sewing-chair by +the desk. "I don't know as I can tell," she answered. "This is a +strange day." + +Jethro nodded. "I meant to surprise you," he said. "So I never wrote I +was coming on so soon. I was real disappointed to find your house shut +up; but the neighbors told me where you'd gone, and what you'd gone +for. Then I walked over here." + +Dilly's face brightened all over with a responsive smile. "Did you come +through the woods?" she asked. "What made you?" + +"Why, I knew you'd go that way," he answered. "I thought you'd get +wool-gathering over some weed or another, and maybe I'd overtake you." + +They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and +gathered a drawer-full of papers into her apron. + +"I can't stop workin'," she said. "I want to fix it so's not to stay +here more 'n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run +'em over an' listen too." + +"I think 't was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom's folks," +said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as +if it were an omen, in her father's great chair. "Not that you'll ever +need it, Dilly. You won't want for a thing. I've done real well." + +Dilly's long fingers assorted papers and laid them at either side, with +a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the +quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to +its habits. + +"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I +did--why, I'd resk it!" + +Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, +half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet +she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same. + +"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, +if ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars +run by your door, and you can hire two girls." + +"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as +a shadow sweeps across the field. + +"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I +said?" + +Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive. + +"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind. +"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how 't would be. I +never spec'lated much on keepin' house." + +"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling +on her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, +and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, +Dilly,--you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things." + +Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked +swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the +orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees. +Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all. +That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was +the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew +the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. +She knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a +pursuit. She turned about, and came back to her chair. + +"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But +it don't make no matter. You're contented with it." + +"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got +enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in +with it, too." + +Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She +was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in +her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very +spurious thing when there is nothing to say. + +"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly. + +Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was +thinkin'," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was +so sweet,--"I was thinkin' you make me homesick, somehow or another." + +Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he +smiled also. + +"I don't believe it's me," he said, confidently. "It's because you're +going over things here. It's the old house." + +"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But +I don't know. I never had quite such feelin's before. It's the nearest +to bein' afraid of anything I've come acrost. I guess I shall have to +run out into the lot an' take my bearin's." + +Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room. +He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory +that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules. + +"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last +drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in +excitement. "You don't know, I ain't begun to tell you, how queer it +seems to me. Why, I've dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come +nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all +knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood 'round me, +ready to uphold me in what I was doin'. I shouldn't be surprised if +they were all here now. I don't feel a mite alone." + +Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro +came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine +hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with +a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines. + +"There, poor girl!" he said, "you're tired thinking about it. No wonder +you've got fancies. I guess the ghosts won't trouble us. There's +nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, +Dilly felt homesick and alone. + +There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she +turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet +slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her +feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had +seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded +forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed +to exude kindliness as she came. + +"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain't jest like you!" she exclaimed. +"Creep in here an' not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? +Recognize you! Well, I guess I should!" + +She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very +grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down +and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other +voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the +intercourse of a life so sadly changed. + +"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You're tired +to pieces with this pickin' and sortin', an' you're comin' over to +dinner, both on ye. Eli's dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. _He_ +wouldn't ha' done it; you know that, Dilly! An' I've been beatin' up +eggs. Now don't you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you +got a watch? You see't she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away +victorious, her apron over her head, and waving one hand before her as +she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as +this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange +dooryards. + +Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn +significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper +persons. She thought of her bread and butter and boiled eggs, lying in +her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it +were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars +going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car +meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove +her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made +her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever +on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, +and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, +they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike's. + +The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an +unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it +choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of +housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; +and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife +and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his +mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as +possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the +empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again. + +The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very +loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was +the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her +knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside +in the jessamine, and a humming-bird--there had always been one, year +after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was +the same bird--hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings +divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a +sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs. +Pike's again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch +herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told +her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, +bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon +her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and +another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he +meant to be married. + +"Soon," said Jethro, with assurance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her +mind." + +All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the +talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill's song from +the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside +him. He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when +half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given +the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but +Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops +down to her own home. + +At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great +blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as +she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, +suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was +forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For +she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long spaces of +silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little +animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves. +Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably +precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches +lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, +thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed +to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of +meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should +pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, +until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to +approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of +unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned +her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to +the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the +greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to +Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped +softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the +shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement +thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not +wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her +feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that +she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird +note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his +tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed +to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she +hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, +and shut the door behind her. + +As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room where the old desk stood +in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her +confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness. +She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, +in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her +wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She +drew forward her father's chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious +abandonment, to rest. Her mother's little cricket was by her side, and +she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. + +Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there +fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight +and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware +that the Joyces were all about her. + +She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and +cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their +bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that +they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, +and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and +women, face to face. There was the shoemaker among them, who, +generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle +of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out +into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a +loud voice upon Almighty God to save him from ill-doing. Then he had +drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but +a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not +think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered +among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself +rather than go to war. But here he stood--was it the man, or some +secret intelligence of him?--and Dilly, out of all his race, was the +one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of passionate sympathy, +how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how +the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he +fled away and prayed his God to save him from mortal guilt,--and how, +finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of anticipated +slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, +he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And +Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake. + +There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and +wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the +island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be +beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, +who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the +pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her +for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in +the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the +poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and +faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern +use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was +not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering +gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that +all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her +whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. +It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul +does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret +core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way. + +There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and to the disgust of +her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the +world found out that Annette "couldn't have much sense of decency +herself, or she wouldn't put up with such things." But on this one +night Dilly found out that Annette's life had been a continual laying +hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; +that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in +one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of God: "I demand of +Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that +she was of those who overcome. + +So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had +never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they +had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one +drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of +life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There +was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom +she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an +infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she +smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She +thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating +huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she +remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been +lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how +the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there +is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer +life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and +she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, +whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood. + +The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly +felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now +she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she +understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a +case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in +his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how +that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but +theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long +passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, +waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not +him, but his inheritance. + +Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a +clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her +eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with +a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no +longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were +hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she +closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, +and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We +know, you and we!" As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just +going to milking, with clusters of shining pails. + +"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!" + +"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who +carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" +And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran +up to smooth her tumbled bed. + +After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly +called Jethro softly to one side. + +"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you." + +Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and +Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and +caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be +quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a +child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest +tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him. + +"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married." + +He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of +bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand. + +"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again +Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence. + +"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much. But +it's your folks I care about. It ain't you. I've found it all out, +Jethro. Things don't al'ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them +that have gone before; an' half the time we don't know it." + +Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. "You're all tired out," he said +soothingly. "Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire +somebody. I'll be glad to." + +But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. "You're real good, Jethro," +she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her +old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. "But I don't feel +tired, an' I ain't a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to +town with Eli--he's goin' after he feeds the pigs--an' take the cars +from there. It's all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain't so sorry as I +might be; for it's borne in on me you won't care this way long. An' you +needn't, dear; for nothin' between us is changed a mite. The only +trouble is, it ain't the kind of thing we thought." + +She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned +away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and +beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the +house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces +had done their work, and she was doing hers. + + + + +THE WAY OF PEACE + + +It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat +down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still +clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had +been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the +cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their +own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and +brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their +solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on +leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the +funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the +very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient +sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A +little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier +than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then +Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly +office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can +only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing +away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then +deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to +pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but +that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the +moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put +things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was +then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace. + +Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it +was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was +standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking +over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he +told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper +lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes +were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of +herself in the glass. + +"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!" + +And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before +disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery +there. + +"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I +shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!" + +Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided +in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its +other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair, +and moaned a little to herself. + +"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I +never can bear it in the world!" + +The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold +in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the +inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a +little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, +coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always +been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and +held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a +great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with +accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart, +in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the +stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking +about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There +again she caught sight of herself in the glass. + +"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a +fullness, of joy. + +Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more +and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched +out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how +to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her +mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a +pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her +thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock +after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self. +But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp +silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and +coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older +face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all +suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had +gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have +kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She +did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to +think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that +instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful +portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the +closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched. +Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off +her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on +her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to +wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the +deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a +wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved; +this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another +life as well. + +"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself. +"Them are the ones to be put aside." + +She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again, +her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a +pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face +to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded +her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely +any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the +tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be +afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and +likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not +seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. + +They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being +worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, +stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her +unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of +evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back +against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with +one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!" + +Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him. + +"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git +along, if I could look a little mite like her." + +John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment. + +"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?" + +"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble +mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. +Well, I _am_ pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down +Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I +can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can +git along." + +They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John +had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. + +When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he +never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The +other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the +funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to +fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So, +though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, +he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be +when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. +She'd got to looking a good deal like mother. + +They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting +a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a +low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from +that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither +would have been surprised. + +"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came +crackling at them. + +"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got +into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most +burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a +real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I +laughed--an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o' +picked it out a-purpose." + +John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it +was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it. + +"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to +do?" + +Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that. +She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage. + +"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to +pull through on." + +"Yes, but where you goin' to live?" + +"Here." + +"Alone?" + +"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At +that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made +themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love. + +John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with +which his soul did not accord. + +"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say +you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will +have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she +should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your +home with us." + +"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I +ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she +could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me. +Why, John, this is my home!" + +Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy +mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth +and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the +hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk +the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both +would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her: +but she belonged to it as well. + +John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent +him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also, +wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been +sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its +dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly +judgment he could only yield. + +"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I +don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an' +there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit? +That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be +done." + +Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold +beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an +innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to +judge. + +"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got +to?" + +"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his +eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?" + +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never +could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up +yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might." + +John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned +forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made +her last condition. + +"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't +ask me to break up nuthin'?" + +"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you +needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me." + +So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that +had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her +visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her +mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the +window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her +about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy +notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade +than a strange by-path taken by nature itself. + +The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann +"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to +say, with her happiest smile,-- + +"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't +ever forget her." + +Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a +way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind; +but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit +mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the +time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone. +A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as +the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a +sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had +happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she +had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so +many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there +she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours +would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her +hands folded, communing with old memories. + +The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal, +packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John +stood by her, and she was allowed to go. + +"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be +glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've +got to come back an' spend the winter." + +Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently +remote; and the winter was not yet here. + +The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in +Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains, +the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be +done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in +the face, and learn its lineaments. + +Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with +an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those +who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his +luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well +with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear, +could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went +to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but +still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His +cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary +with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not +arrived, and John was at the goal before him. + +"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann. +"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for +us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used +to over there." + +"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to." + +It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone. + +"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room +gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him." + +It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in +Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as +she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in +like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she +would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the +first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at +night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted +to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason +for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the +flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might +feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner +resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out +on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while +she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh. + +"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he. + +A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely. + +"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence +August." + +John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to +illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann +and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there. + +"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a +visitor." + +"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been +a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else." + +But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own +house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned +that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a +looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him +good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for +getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as +"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the +door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had +ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch +her shawled arms pathetically upward. + +"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a +great experience. + +She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the +things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to +cling. + +"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no +more." + +Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like +children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who +may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a +programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In +one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her +pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She +felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its +best. + +"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could +hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like +those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season. +Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the +roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers +past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and +leaned out. + +"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she +called. "The barn's open." + +John was in a hurry. + +"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he. +"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night +before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to +breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good +time with them." + +John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann +stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls, +and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and +sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and +thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to +be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones +in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there +were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and +confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they +were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply +touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner +self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of +nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the +patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though +the savor of the task was gone. + +Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she +sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy, +and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda +and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very +important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household +goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's +would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter +itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her +deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay. +Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that +time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all. + +It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She +thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks: +so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground, +and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a +wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins. + +"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?" + +"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin' +to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the +post-office." + +"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I +meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day +with us. I'll come over arter you." + +"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his +lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.". + +"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh. +"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle +end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well, +John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll +git more'n you would with us." + +He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing. +She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared. + +It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer +way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood, +prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long +memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store +smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its +fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to +be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her +lips opened to words she had not chosen:-- + +"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest +flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer. +Ezra's asked me to go there." + +"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he? +Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry, +Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without +you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They +can't seem to understand the difference." + +"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it +as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange, +excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way +before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own +volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice +time." + +She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward +to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody +had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and +now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her +mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference. + +"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I +might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for +some Thanksgivin' things? + +"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your +credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time. + +"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some +cinnamon an' some mace--there! I'll tell you, while you weigh." + +It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world; +and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay, +the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its +market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It +could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she +left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with +bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them. + +"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to _you_. Jest leave +the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too +often." + +She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and +swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by +over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in +joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be +flying on the wings of a fortunate wind. + +All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable +steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they +love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was +going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day +with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:-- + +"Oh, John's invited me there!" + +All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful +hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had +many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be +told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within +hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time. +Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she +sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up +piteously and say aloud:-- + +"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the +pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she +was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant. + +Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter +savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature +cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a +sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all +their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she +recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed +as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through +that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable +sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a +personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed +by memory as well as hope. + +On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because +that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house, +and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the +day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now +they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the +sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church. +Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient +questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would +stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The +morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made +the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but +there had to be just so many--onions, turnips, and squash baked with +molasses--for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of +dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a +curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that +it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when +dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her +anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She +ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did +not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received. +She was at home; that was enough. + +After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen +without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's +beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left +behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy +Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the +wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself +in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl +adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a +more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved +herself. + +"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody +ever had." + +The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always +gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding +of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or +the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album, +and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case +containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little +distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass, +nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In +herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours +slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though +it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came +rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice, +calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had +had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John +kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down, +unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story, +and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise. + +"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all +right." + +Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood +there, gently welcoming. + +"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that +ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan +it?" + +"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on +Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's +poplin, she forbore. + +Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in +after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the +brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way +behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak. + +"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I +should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks +thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over +there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha' +gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've +been, all day long, in this lonesome house!" + +"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your +things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the +table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did +not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney, +more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in +the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was +the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very +capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting +on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face. + +"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way," +said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha' +spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest +wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the +track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or +not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it." + +Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"-- + +"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She +wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you, +Lucy?" + +Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile. + +"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it. + +But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt +unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back. + +"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but +you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go +round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've +all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should +make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my +visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. +An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile +breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter +her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got +more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' +fruit-cake, a year old." + +Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner +of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and +Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the +children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw +themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room +became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a +swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie +between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no +moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little +John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her +poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear. + +"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?" + + + + +THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME + + +Tiverton Hollow had occasionally an evening meeting; this came about +naturally whenever religious zeal burned high, or when the congregation +felt, with some uneasiness, that it had remained too long aloof from +spiritual things. To-night, the schoolhouse had been designated for an +assembling place, and the neighborhood trooped thither, animated by an +excited importance, and doing justice to the greatness of the occasion +by "dressing up." Farmers had laid aside their ordinary mood, with +overalls and jumpers, and donned an uncomfortable solemnity, an +enforced attitude of theological reflection, with their stocks. Wives +had urged their patient fingers into cotton gloves, and in cashmere +shawls, and bonnets retrimmed with reference to this year's style, +pressed into the uncomfortable chairs, and folded their hands upon the +desks before them in a sweet seriousness not unmingled with the desire +of thriftily completing a duty no less exigent than pickle-making, or +the work of spring and fall. Last came the boys, clattering with +awkward haste over the dusty floor which had known the touch of their +bare feet on other days. They looked about the room with some awe and a +puzzled acceptance of its being the same, yet not the same. It was +their own. There were the maps of North and South America; the yellowed +evergreens, relic of "Last Day," still festooned the windows, and an +intricate "sum," there explained to the uncomprehending admiration of +the village fathers, still adorned the blackboard. Yet the room had +strangely transformed itself into an alien temple, invaded by theology +and the breath of an unknown world. But though sobered, they were not +cast down; for the occasion was enlivened, in their case, by a +heaven-defying profligacy of intent. Every one of them knew that Sammy +Forbes had in his pocket a pack of cards, which he meant to drop, by +wicked but careless design, just when Deacon Pitts led in prayer, and +that Tom Drake was master of a concealed pea-shooter, which he had +sworn, with all the asseverations held sacred by boys, to use at some +dramatic moment. All the band were aware that neither of these daring +deeds would be done. The prospective actors themselves knew it; but it +was a darling joy to contemplate the remote possibility thereof. + +Deacon Pitts opened, the meeting, reminding his neighbors how precious +a privilege it is for two or three to be gathered together. His +companion had not been able to come. (The entire neighborhood knew that +Mrs. Pitts had been laid low by an attack of erysipelas, and that she +was, at the moment, in a dark bedroom at home, helpless under +elderblow.) + +"She lays there on a bed of pain," said the deacon. "But she says to +me, 'You go. Better the house o' mournin' than the house o' feastin',' +she says. Oh, my friends! what can be more blessed than the counsel of +an aged and feeble companion?" + +The deacon sat down, and Tom Drake, his finger on the pea-shooter, +assured himself, in acute mental triumph, that he had almost done it +that time. + +Then followed certain incidents eminently pleasing to the boys. To +their unbounded relief, Sarah Frances Giles rose to speak, weeping as +she began. She always wept at prayer meeting, though at the very moment +of asserting her joy that she cherished a hope, and her gratitude that +she was so nearly at an end of this earthly pilgrimage and ready to +take her stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. The boys reveled +in her testimony. They were in a state of bitter uneasiness before she +rose, and gnawed with a consuming impatience until she began to cry. +Then they wondered if she could possibly leave out the sea of glass; +and when it duly came, they gave a sigh of satiated bliss and sank into +acquiescence in whatever might happen. This was a rich occasion to +their souls, for Silas Marden, who was seldom moved by the spirit, fell +upon his knees to pray; but at the same unlucky instant, his +sister-in-law, for whom he cherished an unbounded scorn, rose (being +"nigh-eyed" and ignorant of his priority) and began to speak. For a +moment, the two held on together, "neck and neck," as the happy boys +afterward remembered, and then Silas got up, dusted his knees, and sat +down, not to rise again at any spiritual call. "An' a madder man you +never see," cried all the Hollow next day, in shocked but gleeful +memory. + +Taking it all in all, the meeting had thus far mirrored others of its +class. If the droning experiences were devoid of all human passion, it +was chiefly because they had to be expressed in the phrases of strict +theological usage. There was an unspoken agreement that feelings of +this sort should be described in a certain way. They were not the +affairs of the hearth and market; they were matters pertaining to that +awful entity called the soul, and must be dressed in the fine linen +which she had herself elected to wear. + +Suddenly, in a wearisome pause, when minds had begun to stray toward +the hayfield and tomorrow's churning, the door was pushed open, and the +Widow Prime walked in. She was quite unused to seeking her kind, and +the little assembly at once awoke, under the stimulus of surprise. They +knew quite well where she had been walking: to Sudleigh Jail, to visit +her only son, lying there for the third time, not, as usual, for +drunkenness, but for house-breaking. She was a wiry woman, a mass of +muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with +clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking, +and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the +marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and +her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The +vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like +that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very +bitter--so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after +undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A +quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was +"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every +professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for +which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old +conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like +creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their +own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could +they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God +and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key +of the unexpected. + +"Has any one an experience to offer? Will any brother or sister lead in +prayer?" + +The silence was growing into a thing to be recognized and conquered, +when, to the wonder of her neighbors, Hannah Prime herself rose, She +looked slowly about the room, gazing into every face as if to challenge +an honest understanding. Then she began speaking in a low voice +thrilled by an emotion not yet explained. Unused to expressing herself +in public, she seemed to be feeling her way. The silence, pride, +endurance, which had been her armor for many years, were no longer +apparent; she had thrown down all her defenses with a grave composure, +as if life suddenly summoned her to higher issues. + +"I dunno's I've got an experience to offer," she said. "I dunno's it's +religion. I dunno what 'tis. Mebbe you'd say it don't belong to a +meetin'. But when I come by an' see you all settin' here, it come over +me I'd like to tell somebody. Two weeks ago I was most crazy"--She +paused of necessity, for something broke in her voice. + +"That's the afternoon Jim was took," whispered a woman to her neighbor. +Hannah Prime went on. + +"I jest as soon tell it now. I can tell ye all together what I couldn't +say to one on ye alone; an' if anybody speaks to me about it +afterwards, they'll wish they hadn't. I was all by myself in the house. +I set down in my clock-room, about three in the arternoon, an' there I +set. I didn't git no supper. I couldn't. I set there an' heard the +clock tick. Byme-by it struck seven, an' that waked me up. I thought +I'd gone crazy. The figgers on the wall-paper provoked me most to +death; an' that red-an'-white tidy I made, the winter I was laid up, +seemed to be talkin' out loud. I got up an' run outdoor jest as fast as +I could go. I run out behind the house an' down the cart-path to that +pile o' rocks that overlooks the lake; an' there I got out o' breath +an' dropped down on a big rock. An' there I set, jest as still as I'd +been settin' when I was in the house." + +Here a little girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward +and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. +afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I +thought, if I heard a pin drop, I should scream." + +"I dunno how long I set there," went on Hannah Prime, "but byme-by it +begun to come over me how still the lake was. 'Twas like glass; an' way +over where it runs in 'tween them islands, it burnt like fire. Then I +looked up a little further, to see what kind of a sky there was. 'T was +light green, with clouds in it, all fire, an' it begun to seem to me as +if it was a kind o' land an' water up there--like our'n, on'y not +solid. I set there an' looked at it; an' I picked out islands, an' +ma'sh-land, an' p'ints running out into the yeller-green sea. An' +everything grew stiller an' stiller. The loons struck up, down on the +lake, with that kind of a lonesome whinner; but that on'y made the rest +of it seem quieter. An' it begun to grow dark all 'round me. I dunno 's +I ever noticed before jest how the dark comes. It sifted down like +snow, on'y you couldn't see it. Well, I set there, an' I tried to keep +stiller an' stiller, like everything else. Seemed as if I must. An' +pretty soon I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' +my eyes on the sky; for I knew 't would break suthin' if I turned my +head, an' I felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', +walkin', without takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come +right up 'side o' me an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I +mustn't. I dunno whether It touched me; I dunno whether It said +anything--but I know It made me a new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't +be afraid o' things no more--nor sorry. I found out 't was all right. +'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been +dead for the last twenty year. I'd come alive. + +"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno +how long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun +to fade. An' then it come over me 't was goin'. I knew 't was terrible +tender of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I +won't forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned +an' see my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side +of it. Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home +without lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah +Prime, looking her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I +dunno what 't was, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' +I ain't goin' to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's +bigger'n we think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and +moved toward the door. There she again turned to her neighbors. + +"Good-night!" she said, and was gone. + +They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating +on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly +out. There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not +sung. + + + + +HONEY AND MYRRH + + +The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow +drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying +wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid +banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The +lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with +which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely +lives. The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned +curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted +over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a +fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and +flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch +swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was all +hidden away. + +That morning, no one in Tiverton Hollow had gone out of the house, save +to shovel paths, and do the necessary chores. The road lay untouched +until ten o'clock, when a selectman gave notice that it was an occasion +for "breakin' out," by starting with his team, and gathering oxen by +the way until a conquering procession ground through the drifts, the +men shoveling at intervals where the snow lay deepest, the oxen walking +swayingly, head to the earth, and the faint wreath of their breath +ascending and cooling on the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton +Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way +of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an +exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. + +By afternoon, the excitement had quieted. The men had come in, reddened +by cold, and eaten their noon dinner in high spirits, retailing to the +less fortunate women-folk the stories swapped on the march. Then, as +one man, they succumbed to the drowsiness induced by a morning of wind +in the face, and sat by the stove under some pretense of reading the +county paper, but really to nod and doze, waking only to put another +stick of wood on the fire. So passed all the day before Christmas, and +in the evening the shining lamps were lighted (each with a strip of red +flannel in the oil, to give color), and the neighborhood rested in the +tranquil certainty that something had really come to pass, and that +their communication with the world was reëstablished. + +Susan Peavey sat by the fire, knitting on a red mitten, and the young +schoolmaster presided over the other hearth corner, reading very hard, +at intervals, and again sinking into a drowsy study of the flames. +There was an impression abroad in Tiverton that the schoolmaster was +going to be somebody, some time. He wrote for the papers. He was always +receiving through the mail envelopes marked "author's proofs," which, +the postmistress said, indicated that he was an author, whatever proofs +might be. She had an idea they might have something to do with +photographs; perhaps his picture was going into a book. It was very +well understood that teaching school at the Hollow, at seven dollars a +week, was an interlude in the life of one who would some day write a +spelling-book, or exercise senatorial rights at Washington. He was a +long-legged, pleasant looking youth, with a pale cheek, dark eyes, and +thick black hair, one lock of which, hanging low over his forehead, he +twisted while he read. He kept glancing up at Miss Susan and smiling at +her, whenever he could look away from his book and the fire, and she +smiled back. At last, after many such wordless messages, he spoke. + +"What lots of red mittens you do knit! Do you send them all away to +that society?" + +Miss Susan's needles clicked. + +"Every one," said she. + +She was a tall, large woman, well-knit, with no superfluous flesh. Her +head was finely set, and she carried it with a simple unconsciousness +better than dignity. Everybody in Tiverton thought it had been a great +cross to Susan Peavey to be so overgrown. They conceded that it was a +mystery she had not turned out "gormin'." But that was because Susan +had left her vanity behind with early youth, in the days when, all legs +and arms, she had given up the idea of beauty. Her face was +strong-featured, overspread by a healthy color, and her eyes looked +frankly out, as if assured of finding a very pleasant world. The sick +always delighted in Susan's nearness; her magnificent health and +presence were like a supporting tide, and she seemed to carry outdoor +air in her very garments. The schoolmaster still watched her. She +rested and fascinated him at once by her strength and homely charm. + +"I shall call you the Orphans' Friend," said he. + +She laid down her work. + +"Don't you say one word," she answered, with an air of abject +confession. "It don't interest me a mite! I give because it's my +bounden duty, but I'll be whipped if I want to knit warm mittens all my +life, an' fill poor barrels. Sometimes I wisht I could git a chance to +provide folks with what they don't need ruther'n what they do." + +"I don't see what you mean," said the schoolmaster. "Tell me." + +Miss Susan was looking at the hearth. A warmer flush than that of +firelight alone lay on her cheek. She bent forward and threw on a pine +knot. It blazed richly. Then she drew the cricket more securely under +her feet, and settled herself to gossip. + +"Anybody'd think I'd most talked myself out sence you come here to +board," said she, "but you're the beatemest for tolin' anybody on. I +never knew I had so much to say. But there! I guess we all have, if +there's anybody 't wants to listen. I never've said this to a livin' +soul, an' I guess it's sort o' heathenish to think, but I'm tired to +death o' fightin' ag'inst poverty, poverty! I s'pose it's there, fast +enough, though we're all so well on 't we don't realize it; an' I'm +goin' to do my part, an' be glad to, while I'm above ground. But I +guess heaven'll be a spot where we don't give folks what they need, but +what they don't." + +"There is something in your Bible," began the schoolmaster +hesitatingly, "about a box of precious ointment." He always said "your +Bible," as if church members held a proprietary right. + +"That's it!" replied Miss Susan, brightening. "That's what I al'ays +thought. Spill it all out, I say, an' make the world smell as sweet as +honey. My! but I do have great projicks settin' here by the fire alone! +Great projicks!" + +"Tell me some! + +"Well, I dunno's I can, all of a piece, so to speak; but when it gits +along towards eight o'clock, an' the room's all simmerin', an' the moon +lays out on the snow, it does seem as if we made a pretty poor spec' +out o' life. We don't seem to have no color in it. Why, don't you +remember 'Solomon in all his glory'? I guess 't wouldn't ha' been put +in jest that way if there wa'n't somethin' in it. I s'pose he had +crowns an' rings an' purple velvet coats an' brocade satin weskits, an' +all manner o' things. Sometimes seems as I could see him walkin' +straight in through that door there." She was running a knitting needle +back and forth through her ball of yarn as she spoke, without noticing +that some one had been stamping the snow from his feet on the doorstone +outside. The door, after making some bluster of refusal, was pushed +open, and on the heels of her speech a man walked in. + +"My land!" cried Miss Susan, aghast. Then she and the schoolmaster, by +one accord, began to laugh. + +But the man did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his +feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the +legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag +he had been carrying. + +"I guess I trailed it through some o' the drifts," he remarked. "The +road's pretty narrer, this season o' the year." + +"You give us a real start," said Susan. "We thought be sure 'twas +Solomon, an' mebbe the Queen o' Sheba follerin' arter. Why, Solon +Slade, you ain't walked way over to Tiverton Street!" + +"Yes, I have," asserted Solon. He was a slender, sad-colored man, +possibly of her own age, and he spoke in a very soft voice. He was +Susan's widowed brother-in-law, and the neighbors said he was clever, +but hadn't no more spunk 'n a wet rag. + +Susan had risen and laid down her knitting. She approached the table +and rested one hand on it, a hawk-like brightness in her eyes. + +"What you got in that bag?" asked she. + +Solon was enjoying his certainty that he held the key to the situation. + +"I got a mite o' cheese," he answered, approaching the fire and +spreading his hands to the blaze. + +"You got anything else? Now, Solon, don't you keep me here on +tenter-hooks! You got a letter?" + +"Well," said Solon, "I thought I might as well look into the +post-office an' see." + +"You thought so! You went a-purpose! An' you walked because you al'ays +was half shackled about takin' horses out in bad goin'. You hand me +over that letter!" + +Solon approached the table, a furtive twinkle in his blue eyes. He +lifted the bag and opened it slowly. First, he took out a wedge-shaped +package. + +"That's the cheese," said he. "Herb." + +"My land!" ejaculated Miss Susan, while the schoolmaster looked on and +smiled. "You better ha' come to me for cheese. I've got a plenty, tansy +an' sage, an' you know it. I see it! There! you gi' me holt on 't!" It +was a fugitive white gleam in the bottom of the bag; she pounced upon +it and brought up a letter. Midway in the act of tearing it open, she +paused and looked at Solon with droll entreaty. "It's your letter, by +rights!" she added tentatively. + +"Law!" said he, "I dunno who it's directed to, but I guess it's as much +your'n as anybody's." + +Miss Susan spread open the sheets with an air of breathless delight. +She bent nearer the lamp. "'Dear father and auntie,'" she began. + +"There!" remarked Solon, in quiet satisfaction, still warming his hands +at the blaze. "There! you see _'tis_ to both." + +"My! how she does run the words together! Here!" Miss Susan passed it +to the schoolmaster. "You read it. It's from Jenny. You know she's away +to school, an' we didn't think best for her to come home Christmas. I +knew she'd write for Christmas. Solon, I told you so!" + +The schoolmaster took the letter, and read it aloud. It was a simple +little message, full of contentment and love and a girl's new delight +in life. When he had finished, the two older people busied themselves a +moment without speaking, Solon in picking up a chip from the hearth, +and Susan in mechanically smoothing the mammoth roses on the side of +the carpetbag. + +"Well, I 'most wish we'd had her come home," said he at last, clearing +his throat. + +"No, you don't either," answered Miss Susan promptly. "Not with this +snow, an' comin' out of a house where it's het up, into cold beds an' +all. Now I'm goin' to git you a mite o' pie an' some hot tea." + +She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon +silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for +company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and +she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his +panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began +clearing up. + +"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. +"S'pose he should be sick in the night!" + +"You'd got over," answered the schoolmaster easily. + +"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?" + +"Oh, you'd know it! You 're that sort." + +Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent +anxiety. She came back to her knitting. + +"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster. + +"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence +September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull +pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the +house from sunrise to set." + +"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now +let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all +the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just +the ones they'd like." + +Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the +schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to +sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air. + +"Well," said she, "there's old Ann Wheeler that lives over on the +turnpike. She don't want for nothin', but she keeps her things packed +away up garret, an' lives like a pig." + +"'Sold her bed and lay in the straw.'" + +"That's it, on'y she won't sell nuthin'. I'd give her a house all +winders, so 't she couldn't help lookin' out, an' velvet carpets 't +she'd got to walk on." + +"Well, there's Cap'n Ben. The boys say he's out of his head a good deal +now; he fancies himself at sea and in foreign countries." + +"Yes, so they say. Well, I'd let him set down a spell in Solomon's +temple an' look round him. My sake! do you remember about the temple? +Why, the nails was all gold. Don't you wish we'd lived in them times? +Jest think about the wood they had--cedars o' Lebanon an' fir-trees. +You know how he set folks to workin' in the mountains. I've al'ays +thought I'd like to ben up on them mountains an' heard the axes ringin' +an' listened to the talk. An' then there was pomegranates an' cherubim, +an' as for silver an' gold, they were as common as dirt. When I was a +little girl, I learnt them chapters, an' sometimes now, when I'm +settin' by the fire, I say over that verse about the 'man of Tyre, +skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, +and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson.' +My! ain't it rich?" + +She drew a long breath of surfeited enjoyment. The schoolmaster's eyes +burned under his heavy brows. + +"Then things smelt so good in them days," continued Miss Susan. "They +had myrrh an' frankincense, an' I dunno what all. I never make my +mincemeat 'thout snuffin' at the spice-box to freshen up my mind. No +matter where I start, some way or another I al'ays git back to Solomon. +Well, if Cap'n Ben wants to see foreign countries, I guess he'd be +glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick--that big +one thereby you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if +I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set +the chimbly afire as not!" + +There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It +exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the +ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own +panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and +perished. + +"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the +world?" + +"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can +fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n +if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen, +kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious +stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't +would look." + +"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,--what should we have?" + +"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey--an'--but that's as fur as I +can git." + +The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he +said musically:-- + +... "'a heap +Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; +With jellies soother than the creamy curd, +And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon; +Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd +From Fez; and spicéd dainties, every one, +From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.'" + +"Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain't like the Bible, but it's +nice." + +They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and +burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan +came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor. + +"There!" said she, "sometimes I think it's most sinful to make believe, +it's so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when +Solon comes for the pigs' kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself +sayin', 'Here's the frankincense!'" + +They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He +paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again. + +"There are lots of people we haven't provided for," he said. "We +haven't even thought what we'd give Jenny." + +"I guess Jenny's got her heart's desire." Miss Susan nodded sagely. +"I've sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an' pickles and cheese. She's +all fixed out." + +The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then +he spoke, somewhat timidly, "What should you like to give her father?" + +Miss Susan's face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled +upon her eyes like haze. + +"Well," said she, "I guess whatever I should give him'd only make him +laugh." + +"Flowers--and velvet--and honey--and myrrh?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Susan with gravity. "Perhaps it's jest as well +some things ain't to be had at the shops." + +The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door. + +"We never can tell," he said. "It may be people want things awfully +without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They'd better laugh than +cry. _I_ should give all I could. Good-night." + +Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the +hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on +too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out +the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a +moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The +visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with +a tumultuous emotion--the sense that life might be very fair and +shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The +loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; +they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare. + +Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was +still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire, +and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white +day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale +winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the +heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her +a wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, +all the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. +She went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little +scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the +schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she +hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the +work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up +to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the +rose. The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her +than all. She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed +meagre still, broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and +disposed the flowers hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling +and good; it spoke to the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she +rolled the flowers in her apron from the frost, and stepped out into +the brilliant day. The little cross-track between her house and the +other was snowed up; but she took the road and, hurrying between banks +of carven whiteness, went up Solon's path to the side door. She walked +in upon him where he was standing over the kitchen stove, warming his +hands at the first blaze. Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of +the stinging air, but she had the look of one who, living by a larger +law, has banished the foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to +him and proffered him her flowers. + +"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these." + +Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both +hands and took them awkwardly. + +"Well!" he said, "Well!" + +Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the +world was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give +all you choose, while nobody is the wiser. + +"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He +laid them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked +over to Pine Hill to pick you some mayflowers, when you was gittin' +over the lung fever?" + +She nodded. + +"Susan," said he desperately, "what if I should ask you to forgit old +scores an' begin all over?" + +"I ain't laid up anything," answered Susan, looking him full in the +face with her brilliant smile. + +"There's suthin' I've wanted to tell ye, this two year. I never s'posed +you knew, but that night I kissed your sister in the entry an' asked +her, I thought 't was you." + +"Yes, I knew that well enough I was in the buttery and heard it all. +There, le's not talk about it." + +Solon came a step nearer. + +"But will you, Susan?" he persisted. "Will you? I know Jenny'd like +it." + +"I guess she would, too," said Susan. "There! we don't need to talk no +further! You come over to breakfast, won't you? I'm goin' to fry +chicken. It's Christmas mornin'." She nodded at him and went out, +walking perhaps more proudly than usual down the shining path. Solon, +regardless of his cooling kitchen, stood at the door and watched her. +Solon never said very much, but he felt as if life were beginning all +over again, just as he had wished to make it at the very start. He +forgot his gray hair and furrowed face, just as he forgot the cold and +snow. It was the spring of the year. + +When Miss Susan entered her kitchen, the schoolmaster had come down and +was putting a stick of wood into the stove. + +"Merry Christmas!" he called, "and here's something for you." + +A long white package lay on the table at the end where her plate was +always set. She opened it with delicate touches, it seemed so precious. + +"My sake!" said she. "It's a fan!" She lifted it out, and the fragrance +of an Eastern wood filled all the room. She swept open the feathers. +They were white and wonderful. + +"It was never used except by one very beautiful woman," said the +schoolmaster, without looking at her. "She was a good deal older than +I; but somehow she seemed to belong to me. She died, and I thought I +should like to have you keep this." + +Susan was waving it back and forth before her face, stirring the air to +fragrance. Her eyes were full of dreams. "My! ain't it rich!" she +murmured. "The Queen o' Sheba never had no better. An' Solon's comin' +over to breakfast." + + + + +A SECOND MARRIAGE + + +Amelia Porter sat by her great open fireplace, where the round, +consequential black kettle hung from the crane, and breathed out a +steamy cloud to be at once licked up and absorbed by the heat from a +snatching flame below. It was exactly a year and a day since her +husband's death, and she had packed herself away in his own corner of +the settle, her hands clasped across her knees, and her red-brown eyes +brooding on the nearer embers. She was not definitely speculating on +her future, nor had she any heart for retracing the dull and gentle +past. She had simply relaxed hold on her mind; and so, escaping her, it +had gone wandering off into shadowy prophecies of the immediate years. +For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months, +since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not +old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how +free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of +her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black +hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had +once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray. +All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the +possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a +new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over. + +It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to +bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen +hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone +creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of +the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped +down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until +that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle +held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke. + +Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of +the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and +burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living. To-night, +under the spell of some vague expectancy, she had sat still for a long +time, her sewing laid aside and her room scrupulously in order. She was +waiting for what was not to be acknowledged even to her own intimate +self. But as the clock struck nine, she roused herself, and shook off +her mood in impatience and a disappointment which she would not own. +She looked about the room, as she often had of late, and began to +enumerate its possibilities in case she should desire to have it +changed. Amelia never went so far as to say that change should be; she +only felt that she had still a right to speculate upon it, as she had +done for many years, as a form of harmless enjoyment. While every other +house in the neighborhood had gone from the consistently good to the +prosperously bad in the matter of refurnishing, John Porter had kept +his precisely as his grandfather had left it to him. Amelia had never +once complained; she had observed toward her husband an unfailing +deference, due, she felt, to his twenty years' seniority; perhaps, +also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him +for having married him without love. It was her father who made the +match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by +parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably +born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He +had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows +sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power--gone +home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine +anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man +who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, +but who was not of her own generation either in mind or in habit; and +Laurie had kept a music-store in Saltash, seven miles away, and +remained unmarried. + +Now Amelia looked about the room, and mentally displaced the furniture, +as she had done so many times while she and her husband sat there +together. The settle could be taken to the attic. She had not the heart +to carry out one secret resolve indulged in moments of impatient +bitterness,--to split it up for firewood. But it could at least be +exiled. She would have a good cook-stove, and the great fireplace +should be walled up. The tin kitchen, sitting now beside the hearth in +shining quaintness, should also go into the attic. The old clock--But +at that instant the clash of bells shivered the frosty air, and Amelia +threw her vain imaginings aside like a garment, and sprang to her feet. +She clasped her hands in a spontaneous gesture of rapt attention; and +when the sound paused at her gate, with one or two sweet, lingering +clingles, "I knew it!" she said aloud. Yet she did not go to the window +to look into the moonlit night. Standing there in the middle of the +room, she awaited the knock which was not long in coming. It was +imperative, insistent. Amelia, who had a spirit responsive to the +dramatic exigencies of life, felt a little flush spring into her face, +so hot that, on the way to the door, she involuntarily put her hand to +her cheek and held it there. The door came open grumblingly. It sagged +upon the hinges, but, well-used to its vagaries, she overcame it with a +regardless haste. + +"Come in," she said, at once, to the man on the step. "It's cold. Oh, +come in!" + +He stepped inside the entry, removing his fur cap, and disclosing a +youthful face charged with that radiance which made him, at +thirty-five, almost the counterpart of his former self. It may have +come only from the combination of curly brown hair, blue eyes, and an +aspiring lift of the chin, but it always seemed to mean a great deal +more. In the kitchen, he threw off his heavy coat, while Amelia, +bright-eyed and breathing quickly, stood by, quite silent. Then he +looked at her. + +"You expected me, didn't you?" he asked. + +A warmer color surged into her cheeks. "I didn't know," she said +perversely. + +"I guess you did. It's one day over a year. You knew I'd wait a year." + +"It ain't a year over the services," said Amelia, trying to keep the +note of vital expectancy out of her voice. "It won't be that till +Friday." + +"Well, Saturday I'll come again." He went over to the fire and +stretched out his hands to the blaze, "Come here," he said +imperatively, "while I talk to you." + +Amelia stepped forward obediently, like a good little child. The old +fascination was still as dominant as at its birth, sixteen years ago. +She realized, with a strong, splendid sense of the eternity of things, +that always, even while it would have been treason to recognize it, she +had known how ready it was to rise and live again. All through her +married years, she had sternly drugged it and kept it sleeping. Now it +had a right to breathe, and she gloried in it. + +"I said to myself I wouldn't come to-day," went on Laurie, without +looking at her. A new and excited note had come into his voice, +responsive to her own. He gazed down at the fire, musing the while he +spoke. "Then I found I couldn't help it. That's why I'm so late. I +stayed in the shop till seven, and some fellows come in and wanted me +to play. I took up the fiddle, and begun. But I hadn't more'n drew a +note before I laid it down and put for the door. 'Dick, you keep shop,' +says I. And I harnessed up, and drove like the devil." + +Amelia felt warm with life and hope; she was taking up her youth just +where the story ended. + +"You ain't stopped swearin' yet!" she remarked, with a little excited +laugh. Then, from an undercurrent of exhilaration, it occurred to her +that she had never laughed so in all these years. + +"Well," said Laurie abruptly, turning upon her, "how am I goin' to +start out? Shall we hark back to old scores? I know what come between +us. So do you. Have we got to talk it out, or can we begin now?" + +"Begin now," replied Amelia faintly. Her breath choked her. He +stretched out his arms to her in sudden passion. His hands touched her +sleeves and, with an answering rapidity of motion, she drew back. She +shrank within herself, and her face gathered a look of fright. "No! no! +no!" she cried strenuously. + +His arms fell at his sides, and he looked at her in amazement. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +Amelia had retreated, until she stood now with one hand on the table. +She could not look at him, and when she answered, her voice shook. + +"There's nothin' the matter," she answered. "Only you mustn't--yet." + +A shade of relief passed over his face, and he smiled. + +"There, there!" he said, "never you mind. I understand. But if I come +over the last of the week, I guess it will be different. Won't it be +different, Milly?" + +"Yes," she owned, with a little sob in her throat, "it will be +different." + +Thrown out of his niche of easy friendliness with circumstance, he +stood there in irritated consciousness that here was some subtile +barrier which he had not foreseen. Ever since John Porter's death, +there had been strengthening in him a joyous sense that Milly's life +and his own must have been running parallel all this time, and that it +needed only a little widening of channels to make them join. His was no +crass certainty of finding her ready to drop into his hand; it was +rather a childlike, warmhearted faith in the permanence of her +affection for him, and perhaps, too, a shrewd estimate of his own +lingering youth compared with John Porter's furrowed face and his +fifty-five years. But now, with this new whiffling of the wind, he +could only stand rebuffed and recognize his own perplexity. + +"You do care, don't you, Milly?" he asked, with a boy's frank ardor. +"You want me to come again?" + +All her own delight in youth and the warm naturalness of life had +rushed back upon her. + +"Yes," she answered eagerly. "I'll tell you the truth. I always did +tell you the truth. I do want you to come." + +"But you don't want me to-night!" He lifted his brows, pursing his lips +whimsically; and Amelia laughed. + +"No," said she, with a little defiant movement of her own crisp head, +"I don't know as I do want you to-night!" + +Laurie shook himself into his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the +door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added +significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got to like me then!" + +Amelia laughed. "I guess there won't be no trouble!" she called after +him daringly. + +She stood there in the biting wind, while he uncovered the horse and +drove away. Then she went shaking back to her fire; but it was not +altogether from cold. The sense of the consistency of love and youth, +the fine justice with which nature was paying an old debt, had raised +her to a stature above her own. She stood there under the mantel, and +held by it while she trembled. For the first time, her husband had gone +utterly out of her life. It was as though he had not been. + +"Saturday!" she said to herself. "Saturday! Three days till then!" + +Next morning, the spring asserted itself,--there came a whiff of wind +from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut +through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin +crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling +drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over +the snow and talked of nests. + +Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her +low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell +hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her +eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No +sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She +throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving +sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung +laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the side-door. The +sled was empty, save for a rocking-chair where sat an enormous woman +enveloped in shawls, her broad face surrounded by a pumpkin hood. Her +dark brown front came low over her forehead, and she wore spectacles +with wide bows, which gave her an added expression of benevolence. She +waved a mittened hand to Amelia when their eyes met, and her heavy face +broke up into smiles. + +"Here I be!" she called in a thick, gurgling voice, as Amelia hastened +out, her apron thrown over her head. "Didn't expect me, did ye? Nobody +looks for an old rheumatic creatur'. She's more out o' the runnin' 'n a +last year's bird's-nest." + +"Why, aunt Ann!" cried Amelia, in unmistakable joy. "I'm tickled to +death to see you. Here, Amos, I'll help get her out." + +The driver, a short, thick-set man of neutral, ashy tints and a +sprinkling of hair and beard, trudged round the oxen and drew the +rocking-chair forward without a word. He never once looked in Amelia's +direction, and she seemed not to expect it; but he had scarcely laid +hold of the chair when aunt Ann broke forth:-- + +"Now, Amos, ain't you goin' to take no notice of 'Melia, no more'n if +she wa'n't here? She ain't a bump on a log, nor you a born fool" + +Amos at once relinquished his sway over the chair, and stood looking +abstractedly at the oxen, who, with their heads low, had already fallen +into that species of day-dream whereby they compensate themselves for +human tyranny. They were waiting for Amos, and Amos, in obedience to +some inward resolve, waited for commotion to cease. + +"If ever I was ashamed, I be now!" continued aunt Ann, still with an +expression of settled good-nature, and in a voice all jollity though +raised conscientiously to a scolding pitch. "To think I should bring +such a creatur' into the world, an' set by to see him treat his own +relations like the dirt under his feet!" + +Amelia laughed. She was exhilarated by the prospect of company, and +this domestic whirlpool had amused her from of old. + +"Law, aunt Ann," she said, "you let Amos alone. He and I are old +cronies. We understand one another. Here, Amos, catch hold! We shall +all get our deaths out here, if we don't do nothin' but stand still and +squabble." + +The immovable Amos had only been awaiting his cue. He lifted the laden +chair with perfect ease to one of the piazza steps, and then to +another; when it had reached the top-most level, he dragged it over +the sill into the kitchen, and, leaving his mother sitting in colossal +triumph by the fire, turned about and took his silent way to the outer +world. + +"Amos," called aunt Ann, "do you mean to say you're goin' to walk out +o' this house without speakin' a civil word to anybody? Do you mean to +say that?" + +"I don't mean to say nothin'," confided Amos to his worsted muffler, as +he took up his goad, and began backing the oxen round. + +Undisturbed and not at all daunted by a reply for which she had not +even listened, aunt Ann raised her voice in cheerful response: "Well, +you be along 'tween three an' four, an' you'll find me ready." + +"Mercy, aunt Ann!" said Amelia, beginning to unwind the visitor's +wraps, "what makes you keep houndin' Amos that way? If he hasn't spoke +for thirty-five years, it ain't likely he's goin' to begin now." + +Aunt Ann was looking about her with an expression of beaming delight in +unfamiliar surroundings. She laughed a rich, unctuous laugh, and +stretched her hands to the blaze. + +"Law," she said contentedly, "of course it ain't goin' to do no good. +Who ever thought 't would? But I've been at that boy all these years to +make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never +shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, +'Melia, you _air_ kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my +bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't a mite cold." + +Amelia was bustling about the fire, her mind full of the possibilities +of a company dinner. + +"How's your limbs?" she asked, while aunt Ann drew out a long stocking, +and began to knit with an amazing rapidity of which her fat fingers +gave no promise. + +"Well, I ain't allowed to forgit 'em very often," she replied +comfortably. "Rheumatiz is my cross, an' I've got to bear it. Sometimes +I wish 't had gone into my hands ruther 'n my feet, an' I could ha' got +round. But there! if 't ain't one thing, it's another. Mis' Eben +Smith's got eight young ones down with the whoopin'-cough. Amos dragged +me over there yisterday; an' when I heerd 'em tryin' to see which could +bark the loudest, I says, 'Give me the peace o' Jerusalem in my own +house, even if I don't stir a step for the next five year no more 'n I +have for the last.' I dunno what 't would be if I hadn't a darter. I've +been greatly blessed." + +The talk went on in pleasant ripples, while Amelia moved back and forth +from pantry to table. She brought out the mixing-board, and began to +put her bread in the pans, while the tin kitchen stood in readiness by +the hearth. The sunshine flooded all the room, and lay insolently on +the paling fire; the Maltese cat sat in the broadest shaft of all, and, +having lunched from her full saucer in the corner, made her second +toilet for the day. + +"'Melia," said aunt Ann suddenly, looking down over her glasses at the +tin kitchen, "ain't it a real cross to bake in that thing?" + +"I always had it in mind to buy me a range," answered Amelia +reservedly, "but somehow we never got to it." + +"That's the only thing I ever had ag'inst John. He was as grand a man +as ever was, but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out +the old things, I say, no more 'n the old folks; but when it comes to +makin' a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, +that beats me." + +"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste, +"only he never knew I wanted it!" + +"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her +ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men. +Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft +as a woman. His mother used to say his eyes'd fill full o' tears when +he broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,--a good +provider an' a good friend." + +Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face +flushed. + +"Yes," she said gently, "he _was_ good." + +"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations, +"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor +why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 'twas +only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's +see what you could do. When you got the range in, 'twould alter this +kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned +mantelpiece in the fore-room?" + +"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had +taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were +ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled. + +"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. +"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down +her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in +her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and +rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in +her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning +conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got +'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and +about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed +to be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never +anything too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a +buffer between her and the doers of her will; and though she might +scold, she never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in +the least to the disease which had practically disabled her. It might +confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of +others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in +her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative +genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She +cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she +asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. +It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually +gave up talking, and thereafter opened his lips only when some +practical exigency was to be filled. But once did he vouchsafe a reason +for that eccentricity. It was in his fifteenth year, as aunt Ann +remembered well, when the minister had called; and Amos, in response to +some remark about his hope of salvation, had looked abstractedly out of +the window. + +"I'd be ashamed," announced aunt Ann, after the minister had +gone,--"Amos, I _would_ be ashamed, if I couldn't open my head to a +minister o' the gospel!" + +"If one head's open permanent in a house, I guess that fills the bill," +said Amos, getting up to seek the woodpile. "I ain't goin' to interfere +with nobody else's contract." + +His mother looked after him with gaping lips, and, for the space of +half an hour, spoke no word. + +To-day she saw before her an alluring field of action; the prospect +roused within her energies, never incapable of responding to a spur. + +"My soul, 'Melia!" she exclaimed, looking about the kitchen with a +dominating eye, "how I should like to git hold o' this house! I al'ays +did have a hankerin' that way, an' I don't mind tellin' ye. You could +change it all round complete." + +"It's a good house," said Amelia evasively, taking quick, even +stitches, but listening hungrily to the voice of outside temptation. It +seemed to confirm all the long-suppressed ambitions of her own heart. + +"You 're left well on 't," continued aunt Ann, her shrewd blue eyes +taking on a speculative look. "I'm glad you sold the stock. A woman +never undertakes man's work but she comes out the little end o' the +horn. The house is enough, if you keep it nice. Now, you've got that +money laid away, an' all he left you besides. You could live in the +village, if you was a mind to." + +A deep flush struck suddenly into Amelia's cheek. She thought of +Saltash and Laurie Morse. + +"I don't want to live in the village," she said sharply, thus reproving +her own errant mind. "I like my home." + +"Law, yes, of course ye do," replied aunt Ann easily, returning to her +knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of? +Repairin' an old coat?" + +Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'Twas his," she answered in a voice +almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and +when daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and +puttin' on a black one to match the stuff." + +"Goin' to give it away?" + +"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note +in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?" + +"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,--that's +all." + +Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled +sunnily. + +"Well, I suppose it _is_ foolish," she owned,--"too foolish to tell. +But I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at +last. I kind o' like to do it." + +Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on +a voyage of discovery. + +"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's +better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come +when it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into +your chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em." + +Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility. + +"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she +remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will. + +"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos +has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the +lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?" + +"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like +changes." + +"Blue spread on the west room bed?" + +"Yes." + +"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper +kep' 'em?" + +"Yes." + +"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to +have such a royal good time with, makin' essences?" + +Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears. + +"Yes;" she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it +yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for +him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then." + +Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of +rich enjoyment. + +"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!" + +"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia soberly, +folding her work and taking off her thimble. "I'd just as soon as not." + +All through the dinner hour aunt Ann kept up an inspiring stream of +question and reminiscence. + +"You _be_ a good cook, 'Melia, an' no mistake," she remarked, breaking +her brown hot biscuit. "This your same kind o' bread, made without +yeast?" + +"Yes," answered Amelia, pouring the tea. "I save a mite over from the +last risin'." + +Aunt Ann smelled the biscuit critically. "Well, it makes proper nice +bread," she said, "but seems to me that's a terrible shif'less way to +go about it. However'd you happen to git hold on't? You wa'n't never +brought up to't." + +"His mother used to make it so. 'T was no great trouble, and 't would +have worried him if I'd changed." + +When the lavender-sprigged china had been washed and the hearth swept +up, the room fell into its aspect of afternoon repose. The cat, after +another serious ablution, sprang up into a chair drawn close to the +fireplace, and coiled herself symmetrically on the faded patchwork +cushion. Amelia stroked her in passing. She liked to see puss +appropriate that chair; her purr from it renewed the message of +domestic content. + +"Now," said Amelia, "I'll get the still." + +"Bring down anything else that's ancient!" called aunt Ann. "We've +pretty much got red o' such things over t'our house, but I kind o' +like to see 'em." + +When Amelia returned, she staggered under a miscellaneous burden: the +still, some old swifts for winding yarn, and a pair of wool-cards. + +"I don't believe you know so much about cardin' wool as I do," she +said, in some triumph, regarding the cards with the saddened gaze of +one who recalls an occupation never to be resumed. "You see, you +dropped all such work when new things come in. I kept right on because +he wanted me to." + +Aunt Ann was abundantly interested and amused. + +"Well, now, if ever!" she repeated over and over again. "If this don't +carry me back! Seems if I could hear the wheel hummin' an' gramma Balch +steppin' back an' forth as stiddy as a clock. It's been a good while +sence I've thought o' such old days." + +"If it's old days you want"--began Amelia, and she sped upstairs with a +fresh light of resolution in her eyes. + +It was a long time before she returned,--so long that aunt Ann +exhausted the still, and turned again to her thrifty knitting. Then +there came a bumping noise on the stairs, and Amelia's shuffling tread. + +"What under the sun be you doin' of?" called her aunt, listening, with +her head on one side. "Don't you fall, 'Melia! Whatever't is, I can't +help ye." + +But the stairway door yielded to pressure from within: and first a rim +of wood appeared, and then Amelia, scarlet and breathless, staggering +under a spinning-wheel. + +"Forever!" ejaculated aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like +some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll +break a blood-vessel, an' then where'll ye be?" + +Amelia triumphantly drew the wheel to the middle of the floor, and then +blew upon her dusty hands and smoothed her tumbled hair. She took off +her apron and wiped the wheel with it rather tenderly, as if an +ordinary duster would not do. + +"There!" she said. "Here's some rolls right here in the bedroom. I +carded them myself, but I never expected to spin any more." + +She adjusted a roll to the spindle, and, quite forgetting aunt Ann, +began stepping back and forth in a rhythmical march of feminine +service. The low hum of her spinning filled the air, and she seemed to +be wrapped about by an atmosphere of remoteness and memory. Even aunt +Ann was impressed by it; and once, beginning to speak, she looked at +Amelia's face, and stopped. The purring silence continued, lulling all +lesser energies to sleep, until Amelia, pausing to adjust her thread, +found her mood broken by actual stillness, and gazed about her like one +awakened from dreams. + +"There!" she said, recalling herself. "Ain't that a good smooth thread? +I've sold lots of yarn. They ask for it in Sudleigh." + +"'Tis so!" confirmed aunt Ann cordially. "An' you've al'ays dyed it +yourself, too!" + +"Yes, a good blue; sometimes tea-color. There, now, you can't say you +ain't heard a spinnin'-wheel once more!" + +Amelia moved the wheel to the side of the room, and went gravely back +to her chair. Her energy had fled, leaving her hushed and tremulous. +But not for that did aunt Ann relinquish her quest for the betterment +of the domestic world. Her tongue clicked the faster as Amelia's +halted. She put away her work altogether, and sat, with wagging head +and eloquent hands, still holding forth on the changes which might be +wrought in the house: a bay window here, a sofa there, new chairs, +tables, and furnishings. Amelia's mind swam in a sea of green rep, and +she found herself looking up from time to time at her mellowed four +walls, to see if they sparkled in desirable yet somewhat terrifying +gilt paper. + +At four o'clock, when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was +remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in +to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense +that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that +moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in +silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and +cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the +crumbs. Amos never varied in his rôle of automaton; and Amelia talked +rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she +was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned +in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt, +just as the oxen gave' their tremulous preparatory heave. + +"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia +this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I +can!" + +Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia +sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand, +she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow. + +"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even +in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word. +"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!" + +Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming +eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and +keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they +would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt +Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all +the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard. + +When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the +silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had +miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, +strangely clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been +stilled; only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, +and the cat stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in +the waning light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the +coat over critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it +behind the door in its accustomed place, where it had remained +undisturbed now for many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her +early supper, and then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it +brought out great shadows in the room, she took a little cricket and +sat down by the fire. There she had mused many an evening which seemed +to her less dull than the general course of her former life, while her +husband occupied the hearthside chair and told her stories of the war. +He had a childlike clearness and simplicity of speech, and a +self-forgetful habit of reminiscence. The war was the war to him, not a +theatre for boastful individual action; but Amelia remembered now that +he had seemed to hold heroic proportions in relation to that immortal +past. One could hardly bring heroism into the potato-field and the +cow-house; but after this lapse of time, it began to dawn upon her that +the man who had fought at Gettysburg and the man who marked out for her +the narrow rut of an unchanging existence were one and the same. And as +if the moment had come for an expected event, she heard again the +jangling of bells without, and the old vivid color rushed into her +cheeks, reddened before by the fire-shine. It was as though the other +night had been a rehearsal, and as if now she knew what was coming. Yet +she only clasped her hands more tightly about her knees and waited, the +while her heart hurried its time. The knocker fell twice, with a +resonant clang. She did not move. It beat again, the more insistently. +Then the heavy outer door was pushed open, and Laurie Morse came in, +looking exactly as she knew he would look--half angry, wholly excited, +and dowered with the beauty of youth recalled. He took off his cap and +stood before her. + +"Why didn't you come?" he asked imperatively. "Why didn't you let me +in?" + +The old wave of irresponsible joy rose in her at his presence; yet it +was now not so much a part of her real self as a delight in some +influence which might prove foreign to her. She answered him, as she +was always impelled to do, dramatically, as if he gave her the cue, +calling for words which might be her sincere expression, and might not. + +"If you wanted it enough, you could get in," she said perversely, with +an alluring coquetry in her mien. "The door was unfastened." + +"I did want to enough," he responded. A new light came into his eyes. +He held out his hands toward her. "Get up off that cricket!" he +commanded. "Come here!" + +Amelia rose with a swift, feminine motion, but she stepped backward, +one hand upon her heart. She thought its beating could be heard. + +"It ain't Saturday," she whispered. + +"No, it ain't But I couldn't wait. You knew I couldn't. You knew I'd +come to-night." + +The added years had had their effect on him; possibly, too, there had +been growing up in him the strength of a long patience. He was not an +heroic type of man; but noting the sudden wrinkles in his face and the +firmness of his mouth, Amelia conceived a swift respect for him which +she had never felt in the days of their youth. + +"Am I goin' to stay," he asked sternly, "or shall I go home?" + +As if in dramatic accord with his words, the bells jangled loudly at +the gate. Should he go or stay? + +"I suppose," said Amelia faintly, "you're, goin' to stay." + +Laurie laid down his cap, and pulled off his coat. He looked about +impatiently, and then, moving toward the nail by the door, he lifted +the coat to place it over that other one hanging there. Amelia had +watched him absently, thinking only, with a hungry anticipation, how +much she had needed him; but as the garment touched her husband's, the +real woman burst through the husk of her outer self, and came to life +with an intensity that was pain. She sprang forward. + +"No! no!" she cried, the words ringing wildly in her own ears. "No! no! +don't you hang it there! Don't you! don't you!" She swept him aside, +and laid her hands upon the old patched garment on the nail. It was as +if they blessed it, and as if they defended it also. Her eyes burned +with the horror of witnessing some irrevocable deed. + +Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. +"I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're +nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and +let's talk." + +The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, +jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a +silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little +ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came +back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to +remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. +At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the +chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion. + +"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk." + +Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, +a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm. + +"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!" + +"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!" + +She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again. + +"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel +and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't +bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 'twould +kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a +comfort. If 'twas you--I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her +voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate +emotion. + +Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own +nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its +fears. + +"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But +we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd +furnish all new." + +"Not have these things!" called Amelia, with a ringing note of +dismay,--"not have these things he set by as he did his life! Why, what +do you think I'm made of, after fifteen years? What did I think I was +made of, even to guess I could? You don't know what women are like, +Laurie Morse,--you don't know!" + +She broke down in piteous weeping. Even then it seemed to her that it +would be good to find herself comforted with warm human sympathy; but +not a thought of its possibility remained in her mind. She saw the +boundaries beyond which she must not pass. Though the desert were arid +on this side, it was her desert, and there in her tent must she abide. +She began speaking again between sobbing breaths:-- + +"I did have a dull life. I used up all my young days doin' the same +things over and over, when I wanted somethin' different. It _was_ dull; +but if I could have it all over again, I'd work my fingers to the bone. +I don't know how it would have been if you and I'd come together then, +and had it all as we planned; but now I'm a different woman. I can't +any more go back than you could turn Sudleigh River, and coax it to run +uphill. I don't know whether 't was meant my life should make me a +different woman; but I _am_ different, and such as I am, I'm his woman. +Yes, till I die, till I'm laid in the ground 'longside of him!" Her +voice had an assured ring of triumph, as if she were taking again an +indissoluble marriage oath. + +Laurie had grown very pale. There were forlorn hollows under his eyes; +now he looked twice his age. + +"I didn't suppose you kept a place for me," he said, with an +unconscious dignity. "That wouldn't have been right, and him alive. And +I didn't wait for dead men's shoes. But somehow I thought there was +something between you and me that couldn't be outlived." + +Amelia looked at him with a frank sweetness which transfigured her face +into spiritual beauty. + +"I thought so, too," she answered, with that simplicity ever attending +our approximation to the truth, "I never once said it to myself; but +all this year, 'way down in my heart, I knew you'd come back. And I +wanted you to come. I guess I'd got it all planned out how we'd make up +for what we'd lost, and build up a new life. But so far as I go, I +guess I didn't lose by what I've lived through. I guess I gained +somethin' I'd sooner give up my life than even lose the memory of." + +So absorbed was she in her own spiritual inheritance that she quite +forgot his pain. She gazed past him with an unseeing look; and striving +to meet and recall it, he faced the vision of their divided lives. +To-morrow Amelia would remember his loss and mourn over it with +maternal pangs; to-night she was oblivious of all but her own. Great +human experiences are costly things; they demand sacrifice, not only of +ourselves, but of those who are near us. The room was intolerable to +Laurie. He took his hat and coat, and hurried out. Amelia heard the +dragging door closed behind him. She realized, with the numbness born +of supreme emotion, that he was putting on his coat outside in the +cold; and she did not mind. The bells stirred, and went clanging away. +Then she drew a long breath, and bowed her head on her hands in an +acquiescence that was like prayer. + +It seemed a long time to Amelia before she awoke again to temporal +things. She rose, smiling, to her feet, and looked about her as if her +eyes caressed every corner of the homely room. She picked up puss in a +round, comfortable ball, and carried her back to the hearth-side chair; +there she stroked her until her touchy ladyship had settled down again +to purring content. Then Amelia, still smiling, and with an absent +look, as if her mind wandered through lovely possibilities of a sort +which can never be undone, drew forth the spinning-wheel, and fitted a +roll to the spindle. She began stepping back and forth as if she moved +to the measure of an unheard song, and the pleasant hum of her spinning +broke delicately upon the ear. It seemed to waken all the room into new +vibrations of life. The clock ticked with an assured peace, as if +knowing it marked eternal hours. The flames waved softly upward without +their former crackle and sheen; and the moving shadows were gentle and +rhythmic ones come to keep the soul company. Amelia felt her thread +lovingly. + +"I guess I'll dye it blue," she said, with a tenderness great enough to +compass inanimate things. "He always set by blue, didn't he, puss?" + + + + +THE FLAT-IRON LOT + + +The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside, +closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It +was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear +day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed. +Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the +signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all +others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to +celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big +with the importance of it. + +On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender +old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over +his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing +the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N. +Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either +side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality +of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have +numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length; +and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of +a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At +one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an +unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The +old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly +on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock +down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief +when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received +it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully +folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were +partially effaced. + +"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children +who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up +his bag, and went on. + +Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar +figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face, +with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone +from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue +eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day +after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had +come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert +that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish +to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of +home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham +neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff, +starched creases. + +"Dirt don't stick to _you_, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow. +"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it +for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute +which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself. + +As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked +it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the +extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his +clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed +perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing +Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a +thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he +reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged, +though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too +keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon +with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by +his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us +who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences, +children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack, +besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the +mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to +approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his +little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of +the flock would come soberly in, to announce:-- + +"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield." + +It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and +restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one +colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old +Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there +were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing +round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until +Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed +him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory +tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere +mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the +haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough +to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very +mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too +tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of +relief, and marked his value down. + +Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he +never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at +the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept +his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been +born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a +time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were +Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its +spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were +born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its +hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever +dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even, +of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him +the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A +little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding +itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak, +saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:-- + +"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?" + +Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized +that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went +home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her +husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:-- + +"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me +conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?" + +Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the +seeds. + +"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems +to be pretty rugged." + +Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of +plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little +house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that +afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was +covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with +old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor +of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a +moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be +quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so +serenely. + +"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind +for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely +remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk +about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd +do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past +an' gone, the neighbors say"-- + +Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this +point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did +all these things as if each one were very important. + +"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite +o' lemon in." + +Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her +pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she +knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to +pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing +his own washing and making his own pie. + +To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had +turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it +had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have +named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace +nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a +little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There +was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in +bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in +the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own +bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming +profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when +he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in +passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock; +the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot +upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas +Oldfield was at home. + +He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight +through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock. +He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder +of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face. + +"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin', +though." + +For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in +time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again, +under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and +pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall +eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely, +reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been +inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the +entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm +decorum of his own desires. + +In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a +spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and +window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner +cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches, +indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on +the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as +flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his +china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to +solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures, +remarking, without emphasis:-- + +"I guess they might as well stay where they be." + +So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed +him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found +always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of +demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their +places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be +betrayed. + +One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that +calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some +natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was +sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking +tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude. + +"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't +you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke." + +Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed. + +"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones. + +"No, I waited for you." + +"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it +down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate." + +Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and +standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and +mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at +each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between +them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this +was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about +it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown +hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way +of nodding at his clocks. + +"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked, +while Mary buttered her biscuit. + +She looked at him in assent. + +"Well, I've proved it." + +"You don't say!" + +Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled +school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully +dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get +obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a +logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a +conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and +misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther, +because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so. + +"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!' +says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old +meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks +I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried +over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself, +'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house +was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in +Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever, +that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room +over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house +clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there. +An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete +and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face. +Her own reflected it. + +"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited; +she could only whisper. + +"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' _they 're in +my bag_!" + +Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently +secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a +knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance. + +"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin', +when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got +the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they +come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister, +the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then +opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all +was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o' +withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot. +An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God." + +"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands. +"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his. +She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she, +"did they settle here first? Or--or was it Sudleigh?" + +Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell +and hear. + +"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate, +"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in +Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth." + +"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the +celebration then, you got it right?" + +"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the +rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key." + +The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great +content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he +gave her an oft-repeated charge:-- + +"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me. +I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the +meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To +them it don't signify." + +Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older +experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly +aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's +voice sounded that instant from the door:-- + +"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to +run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't +thick!". + +"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly. + +Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger. +Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown +hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for +color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was +customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes +going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that +no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy +footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's +right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously. + +"Well, father," said she, "you got home!" + +Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the +teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug. + +"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home." + +Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech. + +"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to +be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it. +'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he." + +Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen +blue eyes upon her. + +"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?" + +"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"-- + +"What Eaton?" + +"William W." + +"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool +Eaton?" + +Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what +was coming. + +"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other +towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration." + +"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew +he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em +all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got +letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out, +'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's +quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past +I." + +He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard +father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before +had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole +township now conspired to bait him. + +"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as +they can tell what they mean by it." + +Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth +on one so dull. + +"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might +as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the +clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm +enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell." + +Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he +learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our +nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now." + +He rose from his chair. + +"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of +a new bell?" + +Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry. + +"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take +on so. What under the sun has got into you?" + +Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the +dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his +fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she +understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her +apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She +gathered herself desperately. + +"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it, +an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it." + +"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!" + +"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful +creases. "Say your say and git it over." + +Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment +Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its +equilibrium. + +"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very +day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron +Lot." + +"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's +he made up his mind to do with it?" + +"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says +he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he +can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that +lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as +ever was, an' no good to you,--there ain't half a load o' hay cut there +in a season,--an' he'd pay the full vally"-- + +"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie +paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie," +said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything +to do with that lot o' land?" + +"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly. + +"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old +gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye +had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron +Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone, +you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin' +down to vote." + +Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly. +"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the +crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind +of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared +in the gathering dusk. + +"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along +with me." + +Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of +his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a +passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood +in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have +it. I wish I was father. I'd see!" + +Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his +arm. + +"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He +can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set +up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I +meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody +knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer." + +Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered. + +"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody." + +"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. +He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a +poor tool that would do that." + +He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of +the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas +took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already +assembled. + +Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed, +responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its +phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to +the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the +west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still +under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife +lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the +strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the +neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding, +sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world +seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to +sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living +things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest +decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it +could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the +few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old +War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also +the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant +spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas +Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse, +to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying +down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and +Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming +night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might +not have done in a room full of winter brightness. + +"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. +Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand." + +"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas. + +"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' +takin' the sense o' the meetin'." + +"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. +"All gab an' no git there!" + +"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had +something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled +clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity." + +"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted +fierceness:-- + +"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a +clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep +Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?" + +"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I +do." + +"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," +suggested Brad Freeman. + +"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented +Tom O'Neil irreverently. + +"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might +as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, +it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back +ag'in." + +"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by +dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to +do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy +gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low +land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! +Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into +Sudleigh." + +Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard +him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the +sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired +so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but +all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly. + +"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't +do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell." + +Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, +and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated +discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public +soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, +by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have +his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the +town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for +taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the +bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his +neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! +it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another +stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed +man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His +face looked ashen. + +"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I +ain't there_!" + +A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life. + +"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, +for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. +Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. +They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and +more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the +womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled +majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. +Sixty! seventy! eighty-one! + +"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice. + +Then on it beat, to the completed century. + +The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their +public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the +fact with scorn. + +"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. +"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never +heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess +I'd see!" + +It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and +cry,-- + +"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" + +He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up +the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, +followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the +tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving +fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men +and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had +ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield +strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and +each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of +protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's +Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. + +"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" + +Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the +waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his +boyhood. + +"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from +under!" + +Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. +There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent +even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to +another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." + +He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. +There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he +stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. + +"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set +foot on it." + +The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping +elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within +the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; +then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the +rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, +illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. + +"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But +no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak. + +"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you +know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place +that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to +prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled +that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the +age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that +made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was +cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here." + +"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly. + +"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll +have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this +God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in +open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit +hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he +continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. +"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or +bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the +Judgment Day." + +With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and +though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save +that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them +trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange +herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere. + +"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could +shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the +hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, +and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had +walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, +reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly +and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk +thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose +within her. + +That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the +poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, +and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother +thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it +wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel +hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated +clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the +stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all +the unresponsive presences of night. + +For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle +seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really +closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, +interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after +Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed +father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high +tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction +that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; +and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much +about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' +doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not +be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the +prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no +decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in +preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over +two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was +that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of +the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side +with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of +Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that +he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable +atmosphere of loftier meanings. + +Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to +do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only +Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod +or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For +he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for +that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public +conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an +elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him +gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It +seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He +would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, +he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a +meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his +own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark +bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that +he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. +Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to +draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the +youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were +with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of +goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for +their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped +down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the +atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, +and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to +the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework +together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had +brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was +"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's +brain," and the brain was ready. + +Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when +Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have +realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have +been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when +Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the +cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: +only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's +wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's +hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the +shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a +pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine +shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an +intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were +inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. +Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying +meantime to the smallest Crane boy,-- + +"You crawl up there!" + +The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to +seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal +glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed. + +"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there," +commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats +fast when we approach a great fruition. + +"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!" + +The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, +he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk +with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their +sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited +such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural +rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What +lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his +trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of +possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and +argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young +scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other +from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and +grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and +over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only +remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants +apart:-- + +"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he +thinks best. He's got the say." + +In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs +in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for +the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the +rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that +specious plea. + +"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that +elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail +was repeated in many keys. + +Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before +the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the +cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became +suddenly and dramatically dignified. + +"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it +standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it? +Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of +Injuns tackle it?" + +The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's +desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears +of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over +the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to +seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first +desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came +into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping +dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and +leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this +aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being +unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened +with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, +greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then +the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But +each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing +to suffer the attack. + +"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every +time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be +dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that +glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what +loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking +redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful +solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of +settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's +wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed +logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm +horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and +pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled +realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a +daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the +popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when +young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic +yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:-- + +"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day +comes, who's goin' to beat?" + +An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not +yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at +home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!" + +"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in +unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against +red. + +"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned +their chief. "_My_ last gun 's fired." + +Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two +separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went +faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those +days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and +undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. +Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are +ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the +oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his +Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside +her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud. + +Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot +as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, +brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an +attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor +had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of +mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, +being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in +village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on +Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at +the front door. + +"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your +grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like +as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got +out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think." + +Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting. + +"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, +absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a +shaken head, and pursed-up lips. + +A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week +had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were +telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without +her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew +well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what +the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in +the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was +still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not +expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she +saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next +day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed +her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which +was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little +house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the +clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, +as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the +night, and slipped away again in silence! + + * * * * * + +"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister. +"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin' +here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My +soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I +wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!" + +Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she +might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever +a chip o' the old block. + +When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front +steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little +chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new +cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant +wine. + +"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle +righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal." + +The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay. + +"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about +Mr. Oldfield?" + +So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in +disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an +apologetic cough. + +"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular +about father." + +"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got +to." + +"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and +loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost +her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It +seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister +bent his brows impatiently. + +"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the +fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me +back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what +to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then +when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all +at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without +him." + +This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever +looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A +frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in +expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight. + +"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, +"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything." + +"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts +enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them. +The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the +town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline +to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take +the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came +in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's +Nicholas Oldfield." + +Mary folded her hands, in proud composure. + +"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was +here." + +"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield," +asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I +should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor +ain't neither of 'em heard of?" + +"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town +legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But +then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has +been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie +realized with awe, to offer prayer. + +Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye +Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not +until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed" +rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her +mouth and spoke. + +"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great +shakes?" + +Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered +demurely, "I don't know as I can say." + +"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear +your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't +they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?" + +Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it +carefully on the shelf. + +"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's +barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and +prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how +little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and +dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both. + +The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that +the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the +celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable +warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for +him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to +lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding +cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming +headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!" + +Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why +gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him +sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, +she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance +at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little +room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being +careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the +truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in +comparison. + +It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of +the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world. + +"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full +of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed +incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing. +"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from +one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite +right, that time he tolled the bell." + +They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in +byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low +degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and +remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until +the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way. + +"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never +was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold." + +Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, +there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet +morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the +night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to +the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the +celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in +the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it +seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. +Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save +each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the +eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad +Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, +and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if +there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, +though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short +address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the +doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of +it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is." + +It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism +which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, +justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed +the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went +whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse +about the address, without doing it justice. + +The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty +toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The +air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they +were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, +something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went +up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the +step. + +"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon +him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held +her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly. + +"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!" + +Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as +he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the +big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he +could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed +very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, +and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, +catching her breath tremulously:-- + +"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the +county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the +pond!" + +"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded +Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about +a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't +in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?" + +"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister." + +"The minister? What's he want?" + +"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to +say." + +Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas +Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave. + +"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's +needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've +got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I +ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me +timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they +needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can +carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.". + +Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew +her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of +plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; +and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast +asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had +only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and +saw the doctor come striding into the yard. + +"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers. +Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?" + +Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a +hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at +the situation without delay. + +"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've +got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. +He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we +don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you +think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if +nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to +pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because +you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning +to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, +and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!" + +Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning +dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the +doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not +climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary +appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink +and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. +Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for +thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up +treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. +He turned quite meekly to the doctor. + +"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up +an' dressed?" + +Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door. + +Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield +settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it +ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless +while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both +knew well. + +"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old +cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road. +Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you +understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But +they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they +wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up +Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' +there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he +told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot. + +"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We +might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the +church." + +"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas +quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He +could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it +quivered and betrayed him. + +"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the +Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there." + +But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had +the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain. + +"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides +gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' +dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a +jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine +feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, +Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over." + +"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and +you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson +while I start up the town." + +The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did +some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul +Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was +ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind +kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to +be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened +at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy; +and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody +had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act +the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head +without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for +the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation +and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is +naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy +man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly +progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by +vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the +sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into +town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the +part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent +nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't," +said he. + +But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he +turned his horse. + +"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please, +_please_ let me be Mary Oldfield!" + +The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his +way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's +tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily +anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted +before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of +boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an +unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the +fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth +to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could +with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride +inside the elephant. + +So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the +cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic +intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and +her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the +handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's +heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and +that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's +vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the +procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up +his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to +pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air. + +"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and +Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a +long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all. + +When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge +into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and +shot out a sibilant whisper:-- + +"Did you know that?--about the Flat-Iron Lot?" + +Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed. + +"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my +end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder +father let me get out alive." + +The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the +sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying +that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard +against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon +lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his +heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them. +Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a +suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some +precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath +went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the +economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment +day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white. + +Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of +presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read +them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by +finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped +into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded. +So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the +universe in its making. + +It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He +sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and +then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would +suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an +inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to +be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile +Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising. + +"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would +be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public +land forever." + +Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick +muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied, +antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise. +They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised +intelligence exalted. + +The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the +sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly +spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down +on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to +flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the +"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux +representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my +brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a +frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were +patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it +was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an +occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by +"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A +very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups +of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before +"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes +themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred +shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing +quietly by--the reverential glance accorded those who find out +unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an +awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual. + +"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot." + +Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in +a flutter. + +"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to +supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"-- + +"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but +Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the +evenin'. Come, Mary!" + +Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking +with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about +contentedly. + +"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!" + + + + +THE END OF ALL LIVING + + +The First Church of Tiverton stands on a hill, whence it overlooks the +little village, with one or two pine-shaded neighborhoods beyond, and, +when the air is clear, a thin blue line of upland delusively like the +sea. Set thus austerely aloft, it seems now a survival of the day when +men used to go to meeting gun in hand, and when one stayed, a lookout +by the door, to watch and listen. But this the present dwellers do not +remember. Conceding not a sigh to the holy and strenuous past, they +lament--and the more as they grow older--the stiff climb up the hill, +albeit to rest in so sweet a sanctuary at the top. For it is sweet +indeed. A soft little wind seems always to be stirring there, on summer +Sundays a messenger of good. It runs whispering about, and wafts in all +sorts of odors: honey of the milkweed and wild rose, and a Christmas +tang of the evergreens just below. It carries away something, +too--scents calculated to bewilder the thrift-hunting bee: sometimes a +whiff of peppermint from an old lady's pew, but oftener the breath of +musk and southernwood, gathered in ancient gardens, and borne up here +to embroider the preacher's drowsy homilies, and remind us, when we +faint, of the keen savor of righteousness. + +Here in the church do we congregate from week to week; but behind it, +on a sloping hillside, is the last home of us all, the old +burying-ground, overrun with a briery tangle, and relieved by Nature's +sweet and cunning hand from the severe decorum set ordinarily about the +dead. Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we +were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but +affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too +supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due +course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in +common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay +unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect, +and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we +ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds; +tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets +smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little +of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry, +crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered +corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off +from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely +walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the +spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear. + +Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green +tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun. But our pendulum had +swung too wide. Like many folk who suffer from one discomfort, we had +gone to the utmost extreme and courted another. We were tired of +climbing hills, and so we pressed too far into the lowland; and the +first grave dug in our Cemetery showed three inches of water at the +bottom. It was in "Prince's new lot," and there his young daughter was +to lie. But her lover had stood by while the men were making the grave; +and, looking into the ooze below, he woke to the thought of her fair +young body there. + +"God!" they heard him say, "she sha'n't lay so. Leave it as it is, an' +come up into the old buryin'-ground. There's room enough by me." + +The men, all mates of his, stopped work without a glance and followed +him; and up there in the dearer shrine her place was made. The father +said but a word at her changed estate. Neighbors had hurried in to +bring him the news; he went first to the unfinished grave in the +Cemetery, and then strode up the hill, where the men had not yet done. +After watching them for a while in silence, he turned aside; but he +came back to drop a trembling hand upon the lover's arm. + +"I guess," he said miserably, "she'd full as lieves lay here by you." + +And she will be quite beside him, though, in the beaten ways of earth, +others have come between. For years he lived silently and apart; but +when his mother died, and he and his father were left staring at the +dulled embers of life, he married a good woman, who perhaps does not +deify early dreams; yet she is tender of them, and at the death of her +own child it was she who went toiling up to the graveyard, to see that +its little place did not encroach too far. She gave no reason, but we +all knew it was because she meant to let her husband lie there by the +long-loved guest. + +Naturally enough, after this incident of the forsaken grave, we +conceived a strange horror of the new Cemetery, and it has remained +deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one +little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any +farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently +from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will +be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this +year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school +children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave +where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau took her away. +They never seem to connect that heart-broken wraith of a lover with the +bent farmer who goes to and fro driving the cows. He wears patched +overalls, and has sciatica in winter; but I have seen the gleam of +youth awakened, though remotely, in his eyes. I do not believe he ever +quite forgets; there are moments, now and then, at dusk or midnight, +all his for poring over those dulled pages of the past. + +After we had elected to abide by our old home, we voted an enlargement +of its bounds; and thereby hangs a tale of outlawed revenge. Long years +ago "old Abe Eaton" quarreled with his twin brother, and vowed, as the +last fiat of an eternal divorce, "I won't be buried in the same yard +with ye!" + +The brother died first; and because he lay within a little knoll beside +the fence, Abe willfully set a public seal on that iron oath by +purchasing a strip of land outside, wherein he should himself be +buried. Thus they would rest in a hollow correspondence, the fence +between. It all fell out as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are +cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the +helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not +the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does +the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according +to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves +another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into +decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, +beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out +the individual wrong. + +So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead +upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth +monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,--a rigid box +of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh +came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the +idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad +Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us +out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it." +That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we +smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by +friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids. + +The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find +them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for +they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of +age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds +them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such +veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning +skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely +feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I +fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the +larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny +imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that +wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a +certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into +the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses +from the stones and chip the letters clear. He liked to draw, +"creatur's" especially, and would trace them for children on their +slates. He lived alone in a little house long since fallen, and he +would eat no meat. That is all they know of him. I can guess but one +thing more: that when no looker-on was by, he pushed away the grass, +and wrote his little jokes, safe in the kindly tolerance of the dead. +This was the identical soul who should, in good old days, have been +carving gargoyles and misereres; here his only field was the obscurity +of Tiverton churchyard, his only monument these grotesqueries so +cunningly concealed. + +We have epitaphs, too,--all our own as yet, for the world has not +discovered them. One couple lies in well-to-do respectability under a +tiny monument not much taller than the conventional gravestone, but +shaped on a pretentious model. + +"We'd ruther have it nice," said the builders, "even if there ain't +much of it." + +These were Eliza Marden and Peleg her husband, who worked from sun to +sun, with scant reward save that of pride in their own fore-handedness. +I can imagine them as they drove to church in the open wagon, a couple +portentously large and prosperous: their one child, Hannah, sitting +between them, and glancing about her, in a flickering, intermittent +way, at the pleasant holiday world. Hannah was no worker; she liked a +long afternoon in the sun, her thin little hands busied about nothing +weightier than crochet; and her mother regarded her with a horrified +patience, as one who might some time be trusted to sow all her wild +oats of idleness. The well-mated pair died within the same year, and it +was Hannah who composed their epitaph, with an artistic accuracy, but a +defective sense of rhyme:-- + + "Here lies Eliza + She was a striver + Here lies Peleg + He was a select Man" + +We townsfolk found something haunting and bewildering in the lines; +they drew, and yet they baffled us, with their suggested echoes luring +only to betray. Hannah never wrote anything else, but we always +cherished the belief that she could do "'most anything" with words and +their possibilities. Still, we accepted her one crowning achievement, +and never urged her to further proof. In Tiverton we never look genius +in the mouth. Nor did Hannah herself propose developing her gift. +Relieved from the spur of those two unquiet spirits who had begotten +her, she settled down to sit all day in the sun, learning new patterns +of crochet; and having cheerfully let her farm run down, she died at +last in a placid poverty. + +Then there was Desire Baker, who belonged to the era of colonial +hardship, and who, through a redundant punctuation, is relegated to a +day still more remote. For some stone-cutter, scornful of working by +the card, or born with an inordinate taste for periods, set forth, +below her _obiit_, the astounding statement:-- + +"The first woman. She made the journey to Boston. By stage." + +Here, too, are the ironies whereof departed life is prodigal. This is +the tidy lot of Peter Merrick, who had a desire to stand well with the +world, in leaving it, and whose purple and fine linen were embodied in +the pomp of death. He was a cobbler, and he put his small savings +together to erect a modest monument to his own memory. Every Sunday he +visited it, "after meetin'," and perhaps his day-dreams, as he sat +leather-aproned on his bench, were still of that white marble idealism. +The inscription upon it was full of significant blanks; they seemed an +interrogation of the destiny which governs man. + +"Here lies Peter Merrick----" ran the unfinished scroll, "and his wife +who died----" + +But ambitious Peter never lay there at all; for in his later prime, +with one flash of sharp desire to see the world, he went on a voyage to +the Banks, and was drowned. And his wife? The story grows somewhat +threadbare. She summoned his step-brother to settle the estate, and he, +a marble-cutter by trade, filled in the date of Peter's death with +letters English and illegible. In the process of their carving, the +widow stood by, hands folded under her apron from the midsummer sun. +The two got excellent well acquainted, and the stone-cutter prolonged +his stay. He came again in a little over a year, at Thanksgiving time, +and they were married. Which shows that nothing is certain in +life,--no, not the proprieties of our leaving it,--and that even there +we must walk softly, writing no boastful legend for time to annul. + +At one period a certain quatrain had a great run in Tiverton; it was +the epitaph of the day. Noting how it overspread that stony soil, you +picture to yourself the modest pride of its composer; unless, indeed, +it had been copied from an older inscription in an English yard, and +transplanted through the heart and brain of some settler whose thoughts +were ever flitting back. Thus it runs in decorous metre:-- + + "Dear husband, now my life is passed, + You have dearly loved me to the last. + Grieve not for me, but pity take + On my dear children for my sake." + +But one sorrowing widower amended it, according to his wife's +direction, so that it bore a new and significant meaning. He was +charged to + + "pity take + On my dear parent for my sake." + +The lesson was patent. His mother-in-law had always lived with him, and +she was "difficult." Who knows how keenly the sick woman's mind ran on +the possibilities of reef and quicksand for the alien two left alone +without her guiding hand? So she set the warning of her love and fear +to be no more forgotten while she herself should be remembered. + +The husband was a silent man. He said very little about his intentions; +performance was enough for him. Therefore it happened that his +"parent," adopted perforce, knew nothing about this public charge until +she came upon it, on her first Sunday visit, surveying the new glory of +the stone. The story goes that she stood before it, a square, +portentous figure in black alpaca and warlike mitts, and that she +uttered these irrevocable words:-- + +"Pity on _me_! Well, I guess he won't! I'll go to the poor-farm fust!" + +And Monday morning, spite of his loyal dissuasions, she packed her +"blue chist," and drove off to a far-away cousin, who got her "nussin'" +to do. Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was +life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part +company. + +Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a +story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's +death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied +her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled +the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance +of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden +death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his +blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish +order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled, +not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home +from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds +it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things, +chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one +another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the +rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile +away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief." In the +late afternoon, the guest so summoned walked quietly into the silent +house, where Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon +the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was +frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. +But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded +hair, her benevolent spectacles, and her atmosphere of calm. + +"I guess I'll blaze a fire, Jonas," said she. "You step out an' git me +a mite o' kindlin'." + +The air of homely living enwrapped him once again, and mechanically, +with the inertia of old habit, he obeyed. They had a "cup o' tea" +together; and then, when the dishes were washed, and the peaceful +twilight began to settle down upon them like a sifting mist, she drew a +little rocking chair to the window where he sat opposite, and spoke. + +"Jonas," said she, in that still voice which had been harmonized by the +experiences of life, "arter dark, you jest go up an' bring home them +blue dishes. Mary's got an awful lot o' fun in her, an' if she ain't +laughin' over that, I'm beat. Now, Jonas, you do it! Do you s'pose she +wants them nice blue pieces out there through wind an' weather? She'd +ruther by half see 'em on the parlor cluzzet shelves; an' if you'll +fetch 'em home, I'll scallop some white paper, jest as she liked, an' +we'll set 'em up there." + +Jonas wakened a little from his mental swoon. Life seemed warmer, more +tangible, again. + +"Law, do go," said the mother soothingly. "She don't want the whole +township tramplin' up there to eye over her chiny. Make her as nervous +as a witch. Here's the ha'-bushel basket, an' some paper to put between +'em. You go, Jonas, an' I'll clear off the shelves." + +So Jonas, whether he was tired of guiding the impulses of his own +unquiet mind, or whether he had become a child again, glad to yield to +the maternal, as we all do in our grief, took the basket and went. He +stood by, still like a child, while this comfortable woman put the +china on the shelves, speaking warmly, as she worked, of the pretty +curving of the cups, and her belief that the pitcher was "one you could +pour out of." She stayed on at the house, and Jonas, through his +sickness of the mind, lay back upon her soothing will as a baby lies in +its mother's arms. But the china was never used, even when he had come +to his normal estate, and bought and sold as before. The mother's +prescience was too keen for that. + +Here in this ground are the ambiguities of life carried over into that +other state, its pathos and its small misunderstandings. This was a +much-married man whose last spouse had been a triple widow. Even to him +the situation proved mathematically complex, and the sumptuous stone to +her memory bears the dizzying legend that "Enoch Nudd who erects this +stone is her fourth husband and his fifth wife." Perhaps it was the +exigencies of space which brought about this amazing elision; but +surely, in its very apparent intention, there is only a modest pride. +For indubitably the much-married may plume themselves upon being also +the widely sought. If it is the crown of sex to be desired, here you +have it, under seal of the civil bond. No baseless, windy boasting that +"I might an if I would!" Nay, here be the marriage ties to testify. + +In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long +erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and +reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a +little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching +eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay. +Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man +whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and +years ago he broke into a house,--an unknown felony in our quiet +limits,--and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went +about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with +healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief +imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he +came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had +learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his +wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing +such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss. +Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered +that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said +us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in +the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a +hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he +died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily. +When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought +of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its +posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set +us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of +one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the +blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we +stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy +to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of +morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We +are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated +to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to +men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose +soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate. + +But of all these fleeting legends made to, hold the soul a moment on +its way, and keep it here in fickle permanence, one is more dramatic +than all, more charged with power and pathos. Years ago there came into +Tiverton an unknown man, very handsome, showing the marks of high +breeding, and yet in his bearing strangely solitary and remote. He wore +a cloak, and had a foreign look. He came walking into the town one +night, with dust upon his shoes, and we judged that he had been +traveling a long time. He had the appearance of one who was not nearly +at his journey's end, and would pass through the village, continuing on +a longer way. He glanced at no one, but we all stared at him. He +seemed, though we had not the words to put it so, an exiled prince. He +went straight through Tiverton Street until he came to the parsonage; +and something about it (perhaps its garden, hot with flowers, larkspur, +coreopsis, and the rest) detained his eye, and he walked in. Next day +the old doctor was there also with his little black case, but we were +none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who +intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside +the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of +nature. He would give the roan a flick, and his sulky would flash by. + +"What's the matter with so-and-so?" would ask a mousing neighbor. + +"He's sick," ran the laconic reply. + +"Goin' to die?" one daring querist ventured further. + +"Some time," said the doctor. + +But though he assumed a right to combat thus the outer world, no one +was gentler with a sick man or with those about him in their grief. To +the latter he would speak; but he used to say he drew his line at +second cousins. + +Into his hands and the true old parson's fell the stranger's +confidence, if confidence it were. He may have died solitary and +unexplained; but no matter what he said, his story was safe. In a week +he was carried out for burial; and so solemn was the parson's manner as +he spoke a brief service over him, so thrilling his enunciation of the +words "our brother," that we dared not even ask what else he should be +called. And we never knew. The headstone, set up by the parson, bore +the words "Peccator Maximus." For a long time we thought they made the +stranger's name, and, judged that he must have been a foreigner; but a +new schoolmistress taught us otherwise. It was Latin, she said, and it +meant "the chiefest among sinners." When that report flew round, the +parson got wind of it, and then, in the pulpit one morning, he +announced that he felt it necessary to say that the words had been used +"at our brother's request," and that it was his own decision to write +below them, "For this cause came I into the world." + +We have accepted the stranger as we accept many things in Tiverton. +Parson and doctor kept his secret well. He is quite safe from our +questioning; but for years I expected a lady, always young and full of +grief, to seek out his grave and shrive him with her tears. She will +not appear now, unless she come as an old, old woman, to lie beside +him. It is too late. + +One more record of our vanished time,--this full of poesy only, and the +pathos of farewell. It was not the aged and heartsick alone who lay +down here to rest We have been no more fortunate than others. Youth and +beauty came also, and returned no more. This, where the white rose-bush +grows untended, was the young daughter of a squire in far-off days: too +young to have known the pangs of love or the sweet desire of Death, +save that, in primrose time, he always paints himself so fair. I have +thought the inscription must have been borrowed from another grave, in +some yard shaded by yews and silent under the cawing of the rooks; +perhaps, from its stiffness, translated from a stately Latin verse. +This it is, snatched not too soon from oblivion; for a few more years +will wear it quite away:-- + + "Here lies the purple flower of a maid + Having to envious Death due tribute paid. + Her sudden Loss her Parents did lament, + And all her Friends with grief their hearts did Rent. + Life's short. Your wicked Lives amend with care, + For Mortals know we Dust and Shadows are." + +"The purple flower of a maid!" All the blossomy sweetness, the fragrant +lamenting of Lycidas, lies in that one line. Alas, poor +love-lies-bleeding! And yet not poor according to the barren pity we +accord the dead, but dowered with another youth set like a crown upon +the unstained front of this. Not going with sparse blossoms ripened or +decayed, but heaped with buds and dripping over in perfume. She seems +so sweet in her still loveliness, the empty promise of her balmy +spring, that for a moment fain are you to snatch her back into the +pageant of your day. Reading that phrase, you feel the earth is poorer +for her loss. And yet not so, since the world holds other greater +worlds as well. Elsewhere she may have grown to age and stature; but +here she lives yet in beauteous permanence,--as true a part of youth +and joy and rapture as the immortal figures on the Grecian Urn. While +she was but a flying phantom on the frieze of time, Death fixed her +there forever,--a haunting spirit in perennial bliss. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TIVERTON TALES *** + +This file should be named 8tvtl10.txt or 8tvtl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8tvtl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8tvtl10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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