The Project Gutenberg eBook of The best stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, Volume 2 (of 2)
    
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Title: The best stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, Volume 2 (of 2)

Author: Sarah Orne Jewett

Compiler: Willa Cather

Release date: December 26, 2024 [eBook #74980]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST STORIES OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***





                       __THE MAYFLOWER EDITION__

                          THE BEST STORIES OF
                           SARAH ORNE JEWETT

                             IN TWO VOLUMES

                               VOLUME II




                       __THE MAYFLOWER EDITION__




                 THE BEST STORIES OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT


                         SELECTED AND ARRANGED
                           WITH A PREFACE BY

                              WILLA CATHER

                               VOLUME II

[Illustration: [Logo]]

                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
                    =The Riverside Press Cambridge=
                                  1925




 COPYRIGHT, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1893, 1895, AND 1899, BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

      COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1921, AND 1923 BY MARY R. JEWETT

                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


                          =The Riverside Press=
                        CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
                          PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




                                CONTENTS


                     I. A WHITE HERON               1
                    II. THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE  22
                   III. THE DULHAM LADIES          64
                    IV. GOING TO SHREWSBURY        90
                     V. THE ONLY ROSE             109
                    VI. MISS TEMPY’S WATCHERS     137
                   VII. MARTHA’S LADY             158
                  VIII. THE GUESTS OF MRS. TIMMS  193
                    IX. THE TOWN POOR             224
                     X. THE HILTONS’ HOLIDAY      248
                    XI. AUNT CYNTHY DALLETT       279




                             A WHITE HERON.


                                   I.

The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before
eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the
trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding,
dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for
all that. They were going away from the western light, and striking deep
into the dark woods, but their feet were familiar with the path, and it
was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.

There was hardly a night the summer through when the old cow could be
found waiting at the pasture bars; on the contrary, it was her greatest
pleasure to hide herself away among the high huckleberry bushes, and
though she wore a loud bell she had made the discovery that if one stood
perfectly still it would not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until
she found her, and call Co’! Co’! with never an answering Moo, until her
childish patience was quite spent. If the creature had not given good
milk and plenty of it, the case would have seemed very different to her
owners. Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was, and very little use
to make of it. Sometimes in pleasant weather it was a consolation to
look upon the cow’s pranks as an intelligent attempt to play hide and
seek, and as the child had no playmates she lent herself to this
amusement with a good deal of zest. Though this chase had been so long
that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her
whereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly
at the swamp-side, and urged her affectionately homeward with a twig of
birch leaves. The old cow was not inclined to wander farther, she even
turned in the right direction for once as they left the pasture, and
stepped along the road at a good pace. She was quite ready to be milked
now, and seldom stopped to browse. Sylvia wondered what her grandmother
would say because they were so late. It was a great while since she had
left home at half past five o’clock, but everybody knew the difficulty
of making this errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley had chased the hornéd
torment too many summer evenings herself to blame any one else for
lingering, and was only thankful as she waited that she had Sylvia,
nowadays, to give such valuable assistance. The good woman suspected
that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own account; there never was
such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!
Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried
to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for
Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before
she came to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion
of a wretched dry geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

“‘Afraid of folks,’” old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile,
after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter’s
houseful of children, and was returning to the farm. “‘Afraid of folks,’
they said! I guess she won’t be troubled no great with ’em up to the old
place!” When they reached the door of the lonely house and stopped to
unlock it, and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub against them, a
deserted pussy, indeed, but fat with young robins, Sylvia whispered that
this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go
home.


The companions followed the shady wood-road, the cow taking slow steps,
and the child very fast ones. The cow stopped long at the brook to
drink, as if the pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still
and waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water,
while the great twilight moths struck softly against her. She waded on
through the brook as the cow moved away, and listened to the thrushes
with a heart that beat fast with pleasure. There was a stirring in the
great boughs overhead. They were full of little birds and beasts that
seemed to be wide awake, and going about their world, or else saying
good-night to each other in sleepy twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy
as she walked along. However, it was not much farther to the house, and
the air was soft and sweet. She was not often in the woods so late as
this, and it made her feel as if she were a part of the gray shadows and
the moving leaves. She was just thinking how long it seemed since she
first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on
in the noisy town just the same as when she was there; the thought of
the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her made her
hurry along the path to escape from the shadow of the trees.

Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear
whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s whistle, which would have a sort
of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined, and somewhat
aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever sad fate might await her,
and stepped discreetly aside into the bushes, but she was just too late.
The enemy had discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and
persuasive tone, “Halloa, little girl, how far is it to the road?” and
trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, “A good ways.”

She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun
over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush and again followed the
cow, while he walked alongside.

“I have been hunting for some birds,” the stranger said kindly, “and I
have lost my way, and need a friend very much. Don’t be afraid,” he
added gallantly. “Speak up and tell me what your name is, and whether
you think I can spend the night at your house, and go out gunning early
in the morning.”

Sylvia was more alarmed than before. Would not her grandmother consider
her much to blame? But who could have foreseen such an accident as this?
It did not appear to be her fault, and she hung her head as if the stem
of it were broken, but managed to answer “Sylvy,” with much effort when
her companion again asked her name.

Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway when the trio came into view.
The cow gave a loud moo by way of explanation.

“Yes, you’d better speak up for yourself, you old trial! Where’d she
tucked herself away this time, Sylvy?” Sylvia kept an awed silence; she
knew by instinct that her grandmother did not comprehend the gravity of
the situation. She must be mistaking the stranger for one of the
farmer-lads of the region.

The young man stood his gun beside the door, and dropped a heavy
game-bag beside it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good-evening, and repeated
his wayfarer’s story, and asked if he could have a night’s lodging.

“Put me anywhere you like,” he said. “I must be off early in the
morning, before day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You can give me some
milk at any rate, that’s plain.”

“Dear sakes, yes,” responded the hostess, whose long slumbering
hospitality seemed to be easily awakened. “You might fare better if you
went out on the main road a mile or so, but you’re welcome to what we’ve
got. I’ll milk right off, and you make yourself at home. You can sleep
on husks or feathers,” she proffered graciously. “I raised them all
myself. There’s good pasturing for geese just below here towards the
ma’sh. Now step round and set a plate for the gentleman, Sylvy!” And
Sylvia promptly stepped. She was glad to have something to do, and she
was hungry herself.

It was a surprise to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in
this New England wilderness. The young man had known the horrors of its
most primitive housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of that level of
society which does not rebel at the companionship of hens. This was the
best thrift of an old-fashioned farmstead, though on such a small scale
that it seemed like a hermitage. He listened eagerly to the old woman’s
quaint talk, he watched Sylvia’s pale face and shining gray eyes with
ever growing enthusiasm, and insisted that this was the best supper he
had eaten for a month; then, afterward, the new-made friends sat down in
the doorway together while the moon came up.

Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was a great help at picking. The
cow was a good milker, though a plaguy thing to keep track of, the
hostess gossiped frankly, adding presently that she had buried four
children, so that Sylvia’s mother, and a son (who might be dead) in
California were all the children she had left. “Dan, my boy, was a great
hand to go gunning,” she explained sadly. “I never wanted for pa’tridges
or gray squer’ls while he was to home. He’s been a great wand’rer, I
expect, and he’s no hand to write letters. There, I don’t blame him, I’d
ha’ seen the world myself if it had been so I could.

“Sylvia takes after him,” the grandmother continued affectionately,
after a minute’s pause. “There ain’t a foot o’ ground she don’t know her
way over, and the wild creatur’s counts her one o’ themselves. Squer’ls
she’ll tame to come an’ feed right out o’ her hands, and all sorts o’
birds. Last winter she got the jay-birds to bangeing here, and I believe
she’d ‘a’ scanted herself of her own meals to have plenty to throw out
amongst ’em, if I hadn’t kep’ watch. Anything but crows, I tell her, I’m
willin’ to help support, — though Dan he went an’ tamed one o’ them that
did seem to have reason same as folks. It was round here a good spell
after he went away. Dan an’ his father they didn’t hitch, — but he never
held up his head ag’in after Dan had dared him an’ gone off.”

The guest did not notice this hint of family sorrows in his eager
interest in something else.

“So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?” he exclaimed, as he looked
round at the little girl who sat, very demure but increasingly sleepy,
in the moonlight. “I am making a collection of birds myself. I have been
at it ever since I was a boy.” (Mrs. Tilley smiled.) “There are two or
three very rare ones I have been hunting for these five years. I mean to
get them on my own ground if they can be found.”

“Do you cage ’em up?” asked Mrs. Tilley doubtfully, in response to this
enthusiastic announcement.

“Oh, no, they’re stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them,” said
the ornithologist, “and I have shot or snared every one myself. I caught
a glimpse of a white heron three miles from here on Saturday, and I have
followed it in this direction. They have never been found in this
district at all. The little white heron, it is,” and he turned again to
look at Sylvia with the hope of discovering that the rare bird was one
of her acquaintances.

But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the narrow foot-path.

“You would know the heron if you saw it,” the stranger continued
eagerly. “A queer tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs.
And it would have a nest perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of
sticks, something like a hawk’s nest.”

Sylvia’s heart gave a wild beat; she knew that strange white bird, and
had once stolen softly near where it stood in some bright green swamp
grass, away over at the other side of the woods. There was an open place
where the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow and hot, where tall,
nodding rushes grew, and her grandmother had warned her that she might
sink in the soft black mud underneath and never be heard of more. Not
far beyond were the salt marshes and beyond those was the sea, the sea
which Sylvia wondered and dreamed about, but never had looked upon,
though its great voice could often be heard above the noise of the woods
on stormy nights.

“I can’t think of anything I should like so much as to find that heron’s
nest,” the handsome stranger was saying. “I would give ten dollars to
anybody who could show it to me,” he added desperately, “and I mean to
spend my whole vacation hunting for it if need be. Perhaps it was only
migrating, or had been chased out of its own region by some bird of
prey.”

Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still watched
the toad, not divining, as she might have done at some calmer time, that
the creature wished to get to its hole under the doorstep, and was much
hindered by the unusual spectators at that hour of the evening. No
amount of thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for
treasures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy.

The next day the young sportsman hovered about the woods, and Sylvia
kept him company, having lost her first fear of the friendly lad, who
proved to be most kind and sympathetic. He told her many things about
the birds and what they knew and where they lived and what they did with
themselves. And he gave her a jack-knife, which she thought as great a
treasure as if she were a desert-islander. All day long he did not once
make her troubled or afraid except when he brought down some
unsuspecting singing creature from its bough. Sylvia would have liked
him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he
killed the very birds he seemed to like so much. But as the day waned,
Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She had never
seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s heart, asleep in
the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Some premonition of
that great power stirred and swayed these young foresters who traversed
the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to
listen to a bird’s song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting the
branches,—speaking to each other rarely and in whispers; the young man
going first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a few steps behind, with
her gray eyes dark with excitement.

She grieved because the longed-for white heron was elusive, but she did
not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as
speaking first. The sound of her own unquestioned voice would have
terrified her,—it was hard enough to answer yes or no when there was
need of that. At last evening began to fall, and they drove the cow home
together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure when they came to the place
where she heard the whistle and was afraid only the night before.


                                  II.

Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land
was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation.
Whether it was left for a boundary mark, or for what reason, no one
could say; the woodchoppers who had felled its mates were dead and gone
long ago, and a whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples,
had grown again. But the stately head of this old pine towered above
them all and made a landmark for sea and shore miles and miles away.
Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed that whoever climbed to the
top of it could see the ocean; and the little girl had often laid her
hand on the great rough trunk and looked up wistfully at those dark
boughs that the wind always stirred, no matter how hot and still the air
might be below. Now she thought of the tree with a new excitement, for
why, if one climbed it at break of day, could not one see all the world,
and easily discover whence the white heron flew, and mark the place, and
find the hidden nest?

What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and
delight and glory for the later morning when she could make known the
secret! It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to
bear.

All night the door of the little house stood open, and the whippoorwills
came and sang upon the very step. The young sportsman and his old
hostess were sound asleep, but Sylvia’s great design kept her broad
awake and watching. She forgot to think of sleep. The short summer night
seemed as long as the winter darkness, and at last when the
whippoorwills ceased, and she was afraid the morning would after all
come too soon, she stole out of the house and followed the pasture path
through the woods, hastening toward the open ground beyond, listening
with a sense of comfort and companionship to the drowsy twitter of a
half-awakened bird, whose perch she had jarred in passing. Alas, if the
great wave of human interest which flooded for the first time this dull
little life should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to
heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest!

There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small
and hopeful Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it,
with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame,
with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws
to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself. First
she must mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, where she was
almost lost among the dark branches and the green leaves heavy and wet
with dew; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and
fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker. Sylvia felt her
way easily. She had often climbed there, and knew that higher still one
of the oak’s upper branches chafed against the pine trunk, just where
its lower boughs were set close together. There, when she made the
dangerous pass from one tree to the other, the great enterprise would
really begin.

She crept out along the swaying oak limb at last, and took the daring
step across into the old pine-tree. The way was harder than she thought;
she must reach far and hold fast, the sharp dry twigs caught and held
her and scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made her thin little
fingers clumsy and stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great
stem, higher and higher upward. The sparrows and robins in the woods
below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed much
lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and the child knew that she must
hurry if her project were to be of any use.

The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach
farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the
voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all
its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit
creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch. Who knows how
steadily the least twigs held themselves to advantage this light, weak
creature on her way! The old pine must have loved his new dependent.
More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet-voiced
thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child.
And the tree stood still and held away the winds that June morning while
the dawn grew bright in the east.

Sylvia’s face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the ground,
when the last thorny bough was past, and she stood trembling and tired
but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-top. Yes, there was the sea with
the dawning sun making a golden dazzle over it, and toward that glorious
east flew two hawks with slow-moving pinions. How low they looked in the
air from that height when before one had only seen them far up, and dark
against the blue sky. Their gray feathers were as soft as moths; they
seemed only a little way from the tree, and Sylvia felt as if she too
could go flying away among the clouds. Westward, the woodlands and farms
reached miles and miles into the distance; here and there were church
steeples, and white villages; truly it was a vast and awesome world.

The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up bewilderingly
bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships out at sea, and the
clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to
fade away. Where was the white heron’s nest in the sea of green
branches, and was this wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only
reward for having climbed to such a giddy height? Now look down again,
Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark
hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him
again; look, look! a white spot of him like a single floating feather
comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes
close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing
and outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! wait! do not
move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and
consciousness from your two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a
pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest,
and plumes his feathers for the new day!

The child gives a long sigh a minute later when a company of shouting
cat-birds comes also to the tree, and vexed by their fluttering and
lawlessness the solemn heron goes away. She knows his secret now, the
wild, light, slender bird that floats and wavers, and goes back like an
arrow presently to his home in the green world beneath. Then Sylvia,
well satisfied, makes her perilous way down again, not daring to look
far below the branch she stands on, ready to cry sometimes because her
fingers ache and her lamed feet slip. Wondering over and over again what
the stranger would say to her, and what he would think when she told him
how to find his way straight to the heron’s nest.


“Sylvy, Sylvy!” called the busy old grandmother again and again, but
nobody answered, and the small husk bed was empty, and Sylvia had
disappeared.

The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s pleasure hurried
to dress himself that it might sooner begin. He was sure from the way
the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least
seen the white heron, and now she must really be persuaded to tell. Here
she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is torn and
tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the sportsman
stand in the door together and question her, and the splendid moment has
come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.

But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grandmother
fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind appealing eyes are
looking straight in her own. He can make them rich with money; he has
promised it, and they are poor now. He is so well worth making happy,
and he waits to hear the story she can tell.

No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and
makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing, and now, when the great
world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it
aside for a bird’s sake? The murmur of the pine’s green branches is in
her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the
golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and
Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its
life away.


Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away
disappointed later in the day, that could have served and followed him
and loved him as a dog loves! Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his
whistle haunting the pasture path as she came home with the loitering
cow. She forgot even her sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and the
piteous sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground,
their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood.
Were the birds better friends than their hunter might have been,—who can
tell? Whatever treasures were lost to her, woodlands and summer-time,
remember! Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this
lonely country child!




                       THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE.


                                   I.

One windy morning in May, three old women sat together near an open
window in the shed chamber of Byfleet Poor-house. The wind was from the
northwest, but their window faced the southeast, and they were only
visited by an occasional pleasant waft of fresh air. They were close
together, knee to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and commanding a
view of the dandelion-starred, green yard below, and of the winding,
sandy road that led to the village, two miles away. Some captive bees
were scolding among the cobwebs of the rafters overhead, or thumping
against the upper panes of glass; two calves were bawling from the
barnyard, where some of the men were at work loading a dump-cart and
shouting as if every one were deaf. There was a cheerful feeling of
activity, and even an air of comfort, about the Byfleet Poor-house.
Almost every one was possessed of a most interesting past, though there
was less to be said about the future. The inmates were by no means
distressed or unhappy; many of them retired to this shelter only for the
winter season, and would go out presently, some to begin such work as
they could still do, others to live in their own small houses; old age
had impoverished most of them by limiting their power of endurance; but
far from lamenting the fact that they were town charges, they rather
liked the change and excitement of a winter residence on the poor-farm.
There was a sharp-faced, hard-worked young widow with seven children,
who was an exception to the general level of society, because she
deplored the change in her fortunes. The older women regarded her with
suspicion, and were apt to talk about her in moments like this, when
they happened to sit together at their work.

The three bean-pickers were dressed alike in stout brown ginghams,
checked by a white line, and all wore great faded aprons of blue
drilling, with sufficient pockets convenient to the right hand. Miss
Peggy Bond was a very small, belligerent-looking person, who wore a huge
pair of steel-bowed spectacles, holding her sharp chin well up in air,
as if to supplement an inadequate nose. She was more than half blind,
but the spectacles seemed to face upward instead of square ahead, as if
their wearer were always on the sharp lookout for birds. Miss Bond had
suffered much personal damage from time to time, because she never took
heed where she planted her feet, and so was always tripping and stubbing
her bruised way through the world. She had fallen down hatchways and
cellarways, and stepped composedly into deep ditches and pasture brooks;
but she was proud of stating that she was upsighted, and so was her
father before her. At the poor-house, where an unusual malady was
considered a distinction, upsightedness was looked upon as a most
honorable infirmity. Plain rheumatism, such as afflicted Aunt Lavina
Dow, whose twisted hands found even this light work difficult and
tiresome,—plain rheumatism was something of every-day occurrence, and
nobody cared to hear about it. Poor Peggy was a meek and friendly soul,
who never put herself forward; she was just like other folks, as she
always loved to say, but Mrs. Lavina Dow was a different sort of person
altogether, of great dignity and, occasionally, almost aggressive
behavior. The time had been when she could do a good day’s work with
anybody: but for many years now she had not left the town-farm, being
too badly crippled to work; she had no relations or friends to visit,
but from an innate love of authority she could not submit to being one
of those who are forgotten by the world. Mrs. Dow was the hostess and
social lawgiver here, where she remembered every inmate and every item
of interest for nearly forty years, besides an immense amount of town
history and biography for three or four generations back.

She was the dear friend of the third woman, Betsey Lane; together they
led thought and opinion—chiefly opinion—and held sway, not only over
Byfleet Poor-farm, but also the selectmen and all others in authority.
Betsey Lane had spent most of her life as aid-in-general to the
respected household of old General Thornton. She had been much trusted
and valued, and, at the breaking up of that once large and flourishing
family, she had been left in good circumstances, what with legacies and
her own comfortable savings; but by sad misfortune and lavish generosity
everything had been scattered, and after much illness, which ended in a
stiffened arm and more uncertainty, the good soul had sensibly decided
that it was easier for the whole town to support her than for a part of
it. She had always hoped to see something of the world before she died;
she came of an adventurous, seafaring stock, but had never made a longer
journey than to the towns of Danby and Northville, thirty miles away.

They were all old women; but Betsey Lane, who was sixty-nine, and looked
much older, was the youngest. Peggy Bond was far on in the seventies,
and Mrs. Dow was at least ten years older. She made a great secret of
her years; and as she sometimes spoke of events prior to the Revolution
with the assertion of having been an eye-witness, she naturally wore an
air of vast antiquity. Her tales were an inexpressible delight to Betsey
Lane, who felt younger by twenty years because her friend and comrade
was so unconscious of chronological limitations.

The bushel basket of cranberry beans was within easy reach, and each of
the pickers had filled her lap from it again and again. The shed chamber
was not an unpleasant place in which to sit at work, with its traces of
seed corn hanging from the brown crossbeams, its spare churns, and dusty
loom, and rickety wool-wheels, and a few bits of old furniture. In one
far corner was a wide board of dismal use and suggestion, and close
beside it an old cradle. There was a battered chest of drawers where the
keeper of the poor-house kept his garden-seeds, with the withered
remains of three seed cucumbers ornamenting the top. Nothing beautiful
could be discovered, nothing interesting, but there was something usable
and homely about the place. It was the favorite and untroubled bower of
the bean-pickers, to which they might retreat unmolested from the public
apartments of this rustic institution.

Betsey Lane blew away the chaff from her handful of beans. The spring
breeze blew the chaff back again, and sifted it over her face and
shoulders. She rubbed it out of her eyes impatiently, and happened to
notice old Peggy holding her own handful high, as if it were an
oblation, and turning her queer, up-tilted head this way and that, to
look at the beans sharply, as if she were first cousin to a hen.

“There, Miss Bond, ’tis kind of botherin’ work for you, ain’t it?”
Betsey inquired compassionately.

“I feel to enjoy it, anything that I can do my own way so,” responded
Peggy. “I like to do my part. Ain’t that old Mis’ Fales comin’ up the
road? It sounds like her step.”

The others looked, but they were not farsighted, and for a moment Peggy
had the advantage. Mrs. Fales was not a favorite.

“I hope she ain’t comin’ here to put up this spring. I guess she won’t
now, it’s gettin’ so late,” said Betsey Lane. “She likes to go rovin’
soon as the roads is settled.”

“’Tis Mis’ Fales!” said Peggy Bond, listening with solemn anxiety.
“There, do let’s pray her by!”

“I guess she’s headin’ for her cousin’s folks up Beech Hill way,” said
Betsey presently. “If she’d left her daughter’s this mornin’, she’d have
got just about as far as this. I kind o’ wish she had stepped in just to
pass the time o’ day, long’s she wa’n’t going to make no stop.”

There was a silence as to further speech in the shed chamber; and even
the calves were quiet in the barnyard. The men had all gone away to the
field where corn-planting was going on. The beans clicked steadily into
the wooden measure at the pickers’ feet. Betsey Lane began to sing a
hymn, and the others joined in as best they might, like autumnal
crickets; their voices were sharp and cracked, with now and then a few
low notes of plaintive tone. Betsey herself could sing pretty well, but
the others could only make a kind of accompaniment. Their voices ceased
altogether at the higher notes.

“Oh my! I wish I had the means to go to the Centennial,” mourned Betsey
Lane, stopping so suddenly that the others had to go on croaking and
shrilling without her for a moment before they could stop. “It seems to
me as if I can’t die happy ‘less I do,” she added; “I ain’t never seen
nothin’ of the world, an’ here I be.”

“What if you was as old as I be?” suggested Mrs. Dow pompously. “You’ve
got time enough yet, Betsey; don’t you go an’ despair. I knowed of a
woman that went clean round the world four times when she was past
eighty, an’ enjoyed herself real well. Her folks followed the sea; she
had three sons an’ a daughter married,—all shipmasters, and she’d been
with her own husband when they was young. She was left a widder early,
and fetched up her family herself,—a real stirrin’, smart woman. After
they’d got married off, an’ settled, an’ was doing well, she come to be
lonesome; and first she tried to stick it out alone, but she wa’n’t one
that could; an’ she got a notion she hadn’t nothin’ before her but her
last sickness, and she wa’n’t a person that enjoyed havin’ other folks
do for her. So one on her boys—I guess ’twas the oldest—said he was
going to take her to sea; there was ample room, an’ he was sailin’ a
good time o’ year for the Cape o’ Good Hope an’ way up to some o’ them
tea-ports in the Chiny Seas. She was all high to go, but it made a sight
o’ talk at her age; an’ the minister made it a subject o’ prayer the
last Sunday, and all the folks took a last leave; but she said to some
she’d fetch ’em home something real pritty, and so did. An’ then they
come home t’other way, round the Horn, an’ she done so well, an’ was
such a sight o’ company, the other child’n was jealous, an’ she promised
she’d go a v’y’ge long o’ each on ’em. She was as sprightly a person as
ever I see; an’ could speak well o’ what she’d seen.”

“Did she die to sea?” asked Peggy, with interest.

“No, she died to home between v’y’ges, or she’d gone to sea again. I was
to her funeral. She liked her son George’s ship the best; ’twas the one
she was going on to Callao. They said the men aboard all called her
‘gran’ma’am,’ an’ she kep’ ’em mended up, an’ would go below and tend to
’em if they was sick. She might ‘a’ been alive an’ enjoyin’ of herself a
good many years but for the kick of a cow; ’twas a new cow out of a
drove, a dreadful unruly beast.”

Mrs. Dow stopped for breath, and reached down for a new supply of beans;
her empty apron was gray with soft chaff. Betsey Lane, still pondering
on the Centennial, began to sing another verse of her hymn, and again
the old women joined her. At this moment some strangers came driving
round into the yard from the front of the house. The turf was soft, and
our friends did not hear the horses’ steps. Their voices cracked and
quavered; it was a funny little concert, and a lady in an open carriage
just below listened with sympathy and amusement.


                                  II.

“Betsey! Betsey! Miss Lane!” a voice called eagerly at the foot of the
stairs that led up from the shed. “Betsey! There’s a lady here wants to
see you right away.”

Betsey was dazed with excitement, like a country child who knows the
rare pleasure of being called out of school. “Lor’, I ain’t fit to go
down, be I?” she faltered, looking anxiously at her friends; but Peggy
was gazing even nearer to the zenith than usual, in her excited effort
to see down into the yard, and Mrs. Dow only nodded somewhat jealously,
and said that she guessed ’twas nobody would do her any harm. She rose
ponderously, while Betsey hesitated, being, as they would have said, all
of a twitter. “It is a lady, certain,” Mrs. Dow assured her; “’tain’t
often there’s a lady comes here.”

“While there was any of Mis’ Gen’ral Thornton’s folks left, I wa’n’t
without visits from the gentry,” said Betsey Lane, turning back proudly
at the head of the stairs, with a touch of old-world pride and sense of
high station. Then she disappeared, and closed the door behind her at
the stair-foot with a decision quite unwelcome to the friends above.

“She needn’t ‘a’ been so dreadful ‘fraid anybody was goin’ to listen. I
guess we’ve got folks to ride an’ see us, or had once, if we hain’t
now,” said Miss Peggy Bond, plaintively.

“I expect ’twas only the wind shoved it to,” said Aunt Lavina. “Betsey
is one that gits flustered easier than some. I wish ’twas somebody to
take her off an’ give her a kind of a good time; she’s young to settle
down ’long of old folks like us. Betsey’s got a notion o’ rovin’ such as
ain’t my natur’, but I should like to see her satisfied. She’d been a
very understandin’ person, if she had the advantages that some does.”

“’Tis so,” said Peggy Bond, tilting her chin high. “I suppose you can’t
hear nothin’ they’re saying? I feel my hearin’ ain’t up to whar it was.
I can hear things close to me well as ever; but there, hearin’ ain’t
everything; ’tain’t as if we lived where there was more goin’ on to
hear. Seems to me them folks is stoppin’ a good while.”

“They surely be,” agreed Lavina Dow.

“I expect it’s somethin’ particular. There ain’t none of the Thornton
folks left, except one o’ the gran’darters, an’ I’ve often I heard
Betsey remark that she should never see her more, for she lives to
London. Strange how folks feels contented in them strayaway places off
to the ends of the airth.”

The flies and bees were buzzing against the hot window-panes; the
handfuls of beans were clicking into the brown wooden measure. A bird
came and perched on the window-sill, and then flitted away toward the
blue sky. Below, in the yard, Betsey Lane stood talking with the lady.
She had put her blue drilling apron over her head, and her face was
shining with delight.

“Lor’, dear,” she said, for at least the third time, “I remember ye when
I first see ye; an awful pritty baby you was, an’ they all said you
looked just like the old gen’ral. Be you goin’ back to foreign parts
right away?”

“Yes, I’m going back; you know that all my children are there. I wish I
could take you with me for a visit,” said the charming young guest. “I’m
going to carry over some of the pictures and furniture from the old
house; I didn’t care half so much for them when I was younger as I do
now. Perhaps next summer we shall all come over for a while. I should
like to see my girls and boys playing under the pines.”

“I wish you re’lly was livin’ to the old place,” said Betsey Lane. Her
imagination was not swift; she needed time to think over all that was
being told her, and she could not fancy the two strange houses across
the sea. The old Thornton house was to her mind the most delightful and
elegant in the world.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Mrs. Strafford
kindly,—“anything that I can do for you myself, before I go away? I
shall be writing to you, and sending some pictures of the children, and
you must let me know how you are getting on.”

“Yes, there is one thing, darlin’. If you could stop in the village an’
pick me out a pritty, little, small lookin’-glass, that I can keep for
my own an’ have to remember you by. ’Tain’t that I want to set me above
the rest o’ the folks, but I was always used to havin’ my own when I was
to your grandma’s. There’s very nice folks here, some on ’em, and I’m
better off than if I was able to keep house; but sence you ask me,
that’s the only thing I feel cropin’ about. What be you goin’ right back
for? ain’t you goin’ to see the great fair to Pheladelphy, that
everybody talks about?”

“No,” said Mrs. Strafford, laughing at this eager and almost convicting
question. “No; I’m going back next week. If I were, I believe that I
should take you with me. Good-by, dear old Betsey; you make me feel as
if I were a little girl again; you look just the same.”

For full five minutes the old woman stood out in the sunshine, dazed
with delight, and majestic with a sense of her own consequence. She held
something tight in her hand, without thinking what it might be; but just
as the friendly mistress of the poor-farm came out to hear the news, she
tucked the roll of money into the bosom of her brown gingham dress.
“’Twas my dear Mis’ Katy Strafford,” she turned to say proudly. “She
come way over from London; she’s been sick; they thought the voyage
would do her good. She said most the first thing she had on her mind was
to come an’ find me, and see how I was, an’ if I was comfortable; an’
now she ’s goin’ right back. She’s got two splendid houses; an’ said how
she wished I was there to look after things,—she remembered I was always
her gran’ma’s right hand. Oh, it does so carry me back, to see her!
Seems if all the rest on ’em must be there together to the old house.
There, I must go right up an’ tell Mis’ Dow an’ Peggy.”

“Dinner’s all ready; I was just goin’ to blow the horn for the
menfolks,” said the keeper’s wife. “They’ll be right down. I expect
you’ve got along smart with them beans,—all three of you together;” but
Betsey’s mind roved so high and so far at that moment that no
achievements of bean-picking could lure it back.


                                  III.

The long table in the great kitchen soon gathered its company of waifs
and strays,—creatures of improvidence and misfortune, and the
irreparable victims of old age. The dinner was satisfactory, and there
was not much delay for conversation. Peggy Bond and Mrs. Dow and Betsey
Lane always sat together at one end, with an air of putting the rest of
the company below the salt. Betsey was still flushed with excitement; in
fact, she could not eat as much as usual, and she looked up from time to
time expectantly, as if she were likely to be asked to speak of her
guest; but everybody was hungry, and even Mrs. Dow broke in upon some
attempted confidences by asking inopportunely for a second potato. There
were nearly twenty at the table, counting the keeper and his wife and
two children, noisy little persons who had come from school with the
small flock belonging to the poor widow, who sat just opposite our
friends. She finished her dinner before any one else, and pushed her
chair back; she always helped with the housework,—a thin, sorry,
bad-tempered-looking poor soul, whom grief had sharpened instead of
softening. “I expect you feel too fine to set with common folks,” she
said enviously to Betsey.

“Here I be a-settin’,” responded Betsey calmly. “I don’ know’s I behave
more unbecomin’ than usual.” Betsey prided herself upon her good and
proper manners; but the rest of the company, who would have liked to
hear the bit of morning news, were now defrauded of that pleasure. The
wrong note had been struck; there was a silence after the clatter of
knives and plates, and one by one the cheerful town charges disappeared.
The bean-picking had been finished, and there was a call for any of the
women who felt like planting corn; so Peggy Bond, who could follow the
line of hills pretty fairly, and Betsey herself, who was still equal to
anybody at that work, and Mrs. Dow, all went out to the field together.
Aunt Lavina labored slowly up the yard, carrying a light splint-bottomed
kitchen chair and her knitting-work, and sat near the stone wall on a
gentle rise, where she could see the pond and the green country, and
exchange a word with her friends as they came and went up and down the
rows. Betsey vouchsafed a word now and then about Mrs. Strafford, but
you would have thought that she had been suddenly elevated to Mrs.
Strafford’s own cares and the responsibilities attending them, and had
little in common with her old associates. Mrs. Dow and Peggy knew well
that these high-feeling times never lasted long, and so they waited with
as much patience as they could muster. They were by no means without
that true tact which is only another word for unselfish sympathy.

The strip of corn land ran along the side of a great field; at the upper
end of it was a field-corner thicket of young maples and walnut
saplings, the children of a great nut-tree that marked the boundary.
Once, when Betsey Lane found herself alone near this shelter at the end
of her row, the other planters having lagged behind beyond the rising
ground, she looked stealthily about, and then put her hand inside her
gown, and for the first time took out the money that Mrs. Strafford had
given her. She turned it over and over with an astonished look: there
were new bank-bills for a hundred dollars. Betsey gave a funny little
shrug of her shoulders, came out of the bushes, and took a step or two
on the narrow edge of turf, as if she were going to dance; then she
hastily tucked away her treasure, and stepped discreetly down into the
soft harrowed and hoed land, and began to drop corn again, five kernels
to a hill. She had seen the top of Peggy Bond’s head over the knoll, and
now Peggy herself came entirely into view, gazing upward to the skies,
and stumbling more or less, but counting the corn by touch and twisting
her head about anxiously to gain advantage over her uncertain vision.
Betsey made a friendly, inarticulate little sound as they passed; she
was thinking that somebody said once that Peggy’s eyesight might be
remedied if she could go to Boston to the hospital; but that was so
remote and impossible an undertaking that no one had ever taken the
first step. Betsey Lane’s brown old face suddenly worked with
excitement, but in a moment more she regained her usual firm expression,
and spoke carelessly to Peggy as she turned and came alongside.

The high spring wind of the morning had quite fallen; it was a lovely
May afternoon. The woods about the field to the northward were full of
birds, and the young leaves scarcely hid the solemn shapes of a company
of crows that patiently attended the corn-planting, Two of the men had
finished their hoeing, and were busy with the construction of a
scarecrow; they knelt in the furrows, chuckling, and looking over some
forlorn, discarded garments. It was a time-honored custom to make the
scarecrow resemble one of the poor-house family; and this year they
intended to have Mrs. Lavina Dow protect the field in effigy; last year
it was the counterfeit of Betsey Lane who stood on guard, with an easily
recognized quilted hood and the remains of a valued shawl that one of
the calves had found airing on a fence and chewed to pieces. Behind the
men was the foundation for this rustic attempt at statuary,—an upright
stake and bar in the form of a cross. This stood on the highest part of
the field; and as the men knelt near it, and the quaint figures of the
corn-planters went and came, the scene gave a curious suggestion of
foreign life. It was not like New England; the presence of the rude
cross appealed strangely to the imagination.


                                  IV.

Life flowed so smoothly, for the most part, at the Byfleet Poor-farm,
that nobody knew what to make, later in the summer, of a strange
disappearance. All the elder inmates were familiar with illness and
death, and the poor pomp of a town-pauper’s funeral. The comings and
goings and the various misfortunes of those who composed this strange
family, related only through its disasters, hardly served for the
excitement and talk of a single day. Now that the June days were at
their longest, the old people were sure to wake earlier than ever; but
one morning, to the astonishment of every one, Betsey Lane’s bed was
empty; the sheets and blankets, which were her own, and guarded with
jealous care, were carefully folded and placed on a chair not too near
the window, and Betsey had flown. Nobody had heard her go down the
creaking stairs. The kitchen door was unlocked, and the old watch-dog
lay on the step outside in the early sunshine, wagging his tail and
looking wise, as if he were left on guard and meant to keep the
fugitive’s secret.

“Never knowed her to do nothin’ afore ’thout talking it over a
fortnight, and paradin’ off when we could all see her,” ventured a
spiteful voice. “Guess we can wait till night to hear ’bout it.”

Mrs. Dow looked sorrowful and shook her head. “Betsey had an aunt on her
mother’s side that went and drownded of herself; she was a
pritty-appearing woman as ever you see.”

“Perhaps she’s gone to spend the day with Decker’s folks,” suggested
Peggy Bond. “She always takes an extra early start; she was speakin’
lately o’ going up their way;” but Mrs. Dow shook her head with a most
melancholy look. “I’m impressed that something’s befell her,” she
insisted. “I heard her a-groanin’ in her sleep. I was wakeful the
forepart o’ the night,—’tis very unusual with me, too.”

“’Twa’n’t like Betsey not to leave us any word,” said the other old
friend, with more resentment than melancholy. They sat together almost
in silence that morning in the shed chamber. Mrs. Dow was sorting and
cutting rags, and Peggy braided them into long ropes, to be made into
mats at a later date. If they had only known where Betsey Lane had gone,
they might have talked about it until dinner-time at noon; but failing
this new subject, they could take no interest in any of their old ones.
Out in the field the corn was well up, and the men were hoeing. It was a
hot morning in the shed chamber, and the woolen rags were dusty and hot
to handle.


                                   V.

Byfleet people knew each other well, and when this mysteriously absent
person did not return to the town-farm at the end of a week, public
interest became much excited; and presently it was ascertained that
Betsey Lane was neither making a visit to her friends the Deckers on
Birch Hill, nor to any nearer acquaintances; in fact, she had
disappeared altogether from her wonted haunts. Nobody remembered to have
seen her pass, hers had been such an early flitting; and when somebody
thought of her having gone away by train, he was laughed at for
forgetting that the earliest morning train from South Byfleet, the
nearest station, did not start until long after eight o’clock; and if
Betsey had designed to be one of the passengers, she would have started
along the road at seven, and been seen and known of all women. There was
not a kitchen in that part of Byfleet that did not have windows toward
the road. Conversation rarely left the level of the neighborhood gossip:
to see Betsey Lane, in her best clothes, at that hour in the morning,
would have been the signal for much exercise of imagination; but as day
after day went by without news, the curiosity of those who knew her best
turned slowly into fear, and at last Peggy Bond again gave utterance to
the belief that Betsey had either gone out in the early morning and put
an end to her life, or that she had gone to the Centennial. Some of the
people at table were moved to loud laughter,—it was at supper-time on a
Sunday night,—but others listened with great interest.

“She never’d put on her good clothes to drownd herself,” said the widow.
“She might have thought ’twas good as takin’ ’em with her, though. Old
folks has wandered off an’ got lost in the woods afore now.”

Mrs. Dow and Peggy resented this impertinent remark, but deigned to take
no notice of the speaker. “She wouldn’t have wore her best clothes to
the Centennial, would she?” mildly inquired Peggy, bobbing her head
toward the ceiling. “’Twould be a shame to spoil your best things in
such a place. An’ I don’t know of her havin’ any money; there’s the end
o’ that.”

“You’re bad as old Mis’ Bland, that used to live neighbor to our folks,”
said one of the old men. “She was dreadful precise; an’ she so
begretched to wear a good alapaca dress that was left to her, that it
hung in a press forty year, an’ baited the moths at last.”

“I often seen Mis’ Bland a-goin’ in to meetin’ when I was a young girl,”
said Peggy Bond approvingly. “She was a good-appearin’ woman, an’ she
left property.”

“Wish she’d left it to me, then,” said the poor soul opposite, glancing
at her pathetic row of children: but it was not good manners at the farm
to deplore one’s situation, and Mrs. Dow and Peggy only frowned. “Where
do you suppose Betsey can be?” said Mrs. Dow, for the twentieth time.
“She didn’t have no money. I know she ain’t gone far, if it’s so that
she’s yet alive. She’s b’en real pinched all the spring.”

“Perhaps that lady that come one day give her some,” the keeper’s wife
suggested mildly.

“Then Betsey would have told me,” said Mrs. Dow, with injured dignity.


                                  VI.

On the morning of her disappearance, Betsey rose even before the pewee
and the English sparrow, and dressed herself quietly, though with
trembling hands, and stole out of the kitchen door like a plunderless
thief. The old dog licked her hand and looked at her anxiously; the
tortoise-shell cat rubbed against her best gown, and trotted away up the
yard, then she turned anxiously and came after the old woman, following
faithfully until she had to be driven back. Betsey was used to long
country excursions afoot. She dearly loved the early morning; and
finding that there was no dew to trouble her, she began to follow
pasture paths and short cuts across the fields, surprising here and
there a flock of sleepy sheep, or a startled calf that rustled out from
the bushes. The birds were pecking their breakfast from bush and turf;
and hardly any of the wild inhabitants of that rural world were enough
alarmed by her presence to do more than flutter away if they chanced to
be in her path. She stepped along, light-footed and eager as a girl,
dressed in her neat old straw bonnet and black gown, and carrying a few
belongings in her best bundle-handkerchief, one that her only brother
had brought home from the East Indies fifty years before. There was an
old crow perched as sentinel on a small, dead pine-tree, where he could
warn friends who were pulling up the sprouted corn in a field close by;
but he only gave a contemptuous caw as the adventurer appeared, and she
shook her bundle at him in revenge, and laughed to see him so clumsy as
he tried to keep his footing on the twigs.

“Yes, I be,” she assured him. “I’m a-goin’ to Pheladelphy, to the
Centennial, same’s other folks. I’d jest as soon tell ye’s not, old
crow;” and Betsey laughed aloud in pleased content with herself and her
daring, as she walked along. She had only two miles to go to the station
at South Byfleet, and she felt for the money now and then, and found it
safe enough. She took great pride in the success of her escape, and
especially in the long concealment of her wealth. Not a night had passed
since Mrs. Strafford’s visit that she had not slept with the roll of
money under her pillow by night, and buttoned safe inside her dress by
day. She knew that everybody would offer advice and even commands about
the spending or saving of it; and she brooked no interference.

The last mile of the foot-path to South Byfleet was along the railway
track; and Betsey began to feel in haste, though it was still nearly two
hours to train time. She looked anxiously forward and back along the
rails every few minutes, for fear of being run over; and at last she
caught sight of an engine that was apparently coming toward her, and
took flight into the woods before she could gather courage to follow the
path again. The freight train proved to be at a standstill, waiting at a
turnout; and some of the men were straying about, eating their early
breakfast comfortably in this time of leisure. As the old woman came up
to them, she stopped too, for a moment of rest and conversation.

“Where be ye goin’?” she asked pleasantly; and they told her. It was to
the town where she had to change cars and take the great through train;
a point of geography which she had learned from evening talks between
the men at the farm.

“What’ll ye carry me there for?”

“We don’t run no passenger cars,” said one of the young fellows,
laughing. “What makes you in such a hurry?”

“I’m startin’ for Pheladelphy, an’ it’s a gre’t ways to go.”

“So ’tis; but you’re consid’able early, if you’re makin’ for the
eight-forty train. See here! you haven’t got a needle an’ thread ’long
of you in that bundle, have you? If you’ll sew me on a couple o’
buttons, I’ll give ye a free ride. I’m in a sight o’ distress, an’ none
o’ the fellows is provided with as much as a bent pin.”

“You poor boy! I’ll have you seen to, in half a minute. I’m troubled
with a stiff arm, but I’ll do the best I can.”

The obliging Betsey seated herself stiffly on the slope of the
embankment, and found her thread and needle with utmost haste. Two of
the train-men stood by and watched the careful stitches, and even
offered her a place as spare brakeman, so that they might keep her near;
and Betsey took the offer with considerable seriousness, only thinking
it necessary to assure them that she was getting most too old to be out
in all weathers. An express went by like an earthquake, and she was
presently hoisted on board an empty box-car by two of her new and
flattering acquaintances, and found herself before noon at the end of
the first stage of her journey, without having spent a cent, and
furnished with any amount of thrifty advice. One of the young men, being
compassionate of her unprotected state as a traveler, advised her to
find out the widow of an uncle of his in Philadelphia, saying
despairingly that he couldn’t tell her just how to find the house; but
Miss Betsey Lane said that she had an English tongue in her head, and
should be sure to find whatever she was looking for. This unexpected
incident of the freight train was the reason why everybody about the
South Byfleet station insisted that no such person had taken passage by
the regular train that same morning, and why there were those who
persuaded themselves that Miss Betsey Lane was probably lying at the
bottom of the poor-farm pond.


                                  VII.

“Land sakes!” said Miss Betsey Lane, as she watched a Turkish person
parading by in his red fez, “I call the Centennial somethin’ like the
day o’ judgment! I wish I was goin’ to stop a month, but I dare say
’twould be the death o’ my poor old bones.”

She was leaning against the barrier of a patent pop-corn establishment,
which had given her a sudden reminder of home, and of the winter nights
when the sharp-kerneled little red and yellow ears were brought out, and
Old Uncle Eph Flanders sat by the kitchen stove, and solemnly filled a
great wooden chopping-tray for the refreshment of the company. She had
wandered and loitered and looked until her eyes and head had grown numb
and unreceptive; but it is only unimaginative persons who can be really
astonished. The imagination can always outrun the possible and actual
sights and sounds of the world; and this plain old body from Byfleet
rarely found anything rich and splendid enough to surprise her. She saw
the wonders of the West and the splendors of the East with equal
calmness and satisfaction; she had always known that there was an
amazing world outside the boundaries of Byfleet. There was a piece of
paper in her pocket on which was marked, in her clumsy handwriting, “If
Betsey Lane should meet with accident, notify the selectmen of Byfleet;”
but having made this slight provision for the future, she had thrown
herself boldly into the sea of strangers, and then had made the joyful
discovery that friends were to be found at every turn.

There was something delightfully companionable about Betsey; she had a
way of suddenly looking up over her big spectacles with a reassuring and
expectant smile, as if you were going to speak to her, and you generally
did. She must have found out where hundreds of people came from, and
whom they had left at home, and what they thought of the great show, as
she sat on a bench to rest, or leaned over the railings where free
luncheons were afforded by the makers of hot waffles and molasses candy
and fried potatoes; and there was not a night when she did not return to
her lodgings with a pocket crammed with samples of spool cotton and
nobody knows what. She had already collected small presents for almost
everybody she knew at home, and she was such a pleasant, beaming old
country body, so unmistakably appreciative and interested, that nobody
ever thought of wishing that she would move on. Nearly all the busy
people of the Exhibition called her either Aunty or Grandma at once, and
made little pleasures for her as best they could. She was a delightful
contrast to the indifferent, stupid crowd that drifted along, with eyes
fixed at the same level, and seeing, even on that level, nothing for
fifty feet at a time. “What be you making here, dear?” Betsey Lane would
ask joyfully, and the most perfunctory guardian hastened to explain. She
squandered money as she had never had the pleasure of doing before, and
this hastened the day when she must return to Byfleet. She was always
inquiring if there were any spectacle-sellers at hand, and received
occasional directions; but it was a difficult place for her to find her
way about in, and the very last day of her stay arrived before she found
an exhibitor of the desired sort, an oculist and instrument-maker.

“I called to get some specs for a friend that’s upsighted,” she gravely
informed the salesman, to his extreme amusement. “She’s dreadful
troubled, and jerks her head up like a hen a-drinkin’. She’s got a blur
a-growin’ an’ spreading an’ sometimes she can see out to one side on ’t,
and more times she can’t.”

“Cataracts,” said a middle-aged gentleman at her side; and Betsey Lane
turned to regard him with approval and curiosity.

“’Tis Miss Peggy Bond I was mentioning, of Byfleet Poor-farm,” she
explained. “I count on gettin’ some glasses to relieve her trouble, if
there ’s any to be found.”

“Glasses won’t do her any good,” said the stranger. “Suppose you come
and sit down on this bench, and tell me all about it. First, where is
Byfleet?” and Betsey gave the directions at length.

“I thought so,” said the surgeon. “How old is this friend of yours?”

Betsey cleared her throat decisively, and smoothed her gown over her
knees as if it were an apron; then she turned to take a good look at her
new acquaintance as they sat on the rustic bench together. “Who be you,
sir, I should like to know?” she asked, in a friendly tone.

“My name’s Dunster.”

“I take it you’re a doctor,” continued Betsey, as if they had overtaken
each other walking from Byfleet to South Byfleet on a summer morning.

“I’m a doctor; part of one at least,” said he. “I know more or less
about eyes; and I spend my summers down on the shore at the mouth of
your river; some day I’ll come up and look at this person. How old is
she?”

“Peggy Bond is one that never tells her age; ’tain’t come quite up to
where she’ll begin to brag of it, you see,” explained Betsey
reluctantly; “but I know her to be nigh to seventy-six, one way or
t’other. Her an’ Mrs. Mary Ann Chick was same year’s child’n, and Peggy
knows I know it, an’ two or three times when we’ve be’n in the
buryin’-ground where Mary Ann lays an’ has her dates right on her
headstone, I couldn’t bring Peggy to take no sort o’ notice. I will say
she makes, at times, a convenience of being upsighted. But there, I feel
for her,—everybody does; it keeps her stubbin’ an’ trippin’ against
everything, beakin’ and gazin’ up the way she has to.”

“Yes, yes,” said the doctor, whose eyes were twinkling. “I’ll come and
look after her, with your town doctor, this summer,—some time in the
last of July or first of August.”

“You’ll find occupation,” said Betsey, not without an air of patronage.
“Most of us to the Byfleet Farm has got our ails, now I tell ye. You
ain’t got no bitters that’ll take a dozen years right off an ol’ lady’s
shoulders?”

The busy man smiled pleasantly, and shook his head as he went away.
“Dunster,” said Betsey to herself, soberly committing the new name to
her sound memory. “Yes, I mustn’t forget to speak of him to the doctor,
as he directed. I do’ know now as Peggy would vally herself quite so
much accordin’ to, if she had her eyes fixed same as other folks. I
expect there wouldn’t been a smarter woman in town, though, if she’d had
a proper chance. Now I’ve done what I set to do for her, I do believe,
an’ ’twa’n’t glasses, neither. I’ll git her a pritty little shawl with
that money I laid aside. Peggy Bond ain’t got a pritty shawl. I always
wanted to have a real good time, an’ now I’m havin’ it.”


                                 VIII.

Two or three days later, two pathetic figures might have been seen
crossing the slopes of the poor-farm field, toward the low shores of
Byfield pond. It was early in the morning, and the stubble of the lately
mown grass was wet with rain and hindering to old feet. Peggy Bond was
more blundering and liable to stray in the wrong direction than usual;
it was one of the days when she could hardly see at all. Aunt Lavina Dow
was unusually clumsy of movement, and stiff in the joints; she had not
been so far from the house for three years. The morning breeze filled
the gathers of her wide gingham skirt, and aggravated the size of her
unwieldy figure. She supported herself with a stick, and trusted beside
to the fragile support of Peggy’s arm. They were talking together in
whispers.

“Oh, my sakes!” exclaimed Peggy, moving her small head from side to
side. “Hear you wheeze, Mis’ Dow! This may be the death o’ you; there,
do go slow! You set here on the side-hill, an’ le’ me go try if I can
see.”

“It needs more eyesight than you’ve got,” said Mrs. Dow, panting between
the words. “Oh! to think how spry I was in my young days, an’ here I be
now, the full of a door, an’ all my complaints so aggravated by my size.
’Tis hard! ’tis hard! but I’m a-doin’ of all this for pore Betsey’s
sake. I know they’ve all laughed, but I look to see her ris’ to the top
o’ the pond this day,—’tis just nine days since she departed; an’ say
what they may, I know she hove herself in. It run in her family; Betsey
had an aunt that done just so, an’ she ain’t be’n like herself,
a-broodin’ an’ hivin’ away alone, an’ nothin’ to say to you an’ me that
was always sich good company all together. Somethin’ sprung her mind,
now I tell ye, Mis’ Bond.”

“I feel to hope we sha’n’t find her, I must say,” faltered Peggy. It was
plain that Mrs. Dow was the captain of this doleful expedition. “I guess
she ain’t never thought o’ drowndin’ of herself, Mis’ Dow; she’s gone
off a-visitin’ way over to the other side o’ South Byfleet; some thinks
she’s gone to the Centennial even now!”

“She hadn’t no proper means, I tell ye,” wheezed Mrs. Dow indignantly;
“an’ if you prefer that others should find her floatin’ to the top this
day, instid of us that’s her best friends, you can step back to the
house.”

They walked on in aggrieved silence. Peggy Bond trembled with
excitement, but her companion’s firm grasp never wavered, and so they
came to the narrow, gravelly margin and stood still. Peggy tried in vain
to see the glittering water and the pond-lilies that starred it; she
knew that they must be there; once, years ago, she had caught fleeting
glimpses of them, and she never forgot what she had once seen. The clear
blue sky overhead, the dark pine-woods beyond the pond, were all clearly
pictured in her mind. “Can’t you see nothin’?” she faltered; “I believe
I’m wuss’n upsighted this day. I’m going to be blind.”

“No,” said Lavina Dow solemnly; “no, there ain’t nothin’ whatever,
Peggy. I hope to mercy she ain’t”—

“Why, whoever’d expected to find you ’way out here!” exclaimed a brisk
and cheerful voice. There stood Betsey Lane herself, close behind them,
having just emerged from a thicket of alders that grew close by. She was
following the short way homeward from the railroad.

“Why, what’s the matter, Mis’ Dow? You ain’t overdoin’, be ye? an’
Peggy’s all of a flutter. What in the name o’ natur’ ails ye?”

“There ain’t nothin’ the matter, as I knows on,” responded the leader of
this fruitless expedition. “We only thought we’d take a stroll this
pleasant mornin’,” she added, with sublime self-possession. “Where’ve
you be’n, Betsey Lane?”

“To Pheladelphy, ma’am,” said Betsey, looking quite young and gay, and
wearing a townish and unfamiliar air that upheld her words. “All ought
to go that can; why, you feel’s if you’d be’n all round the world. I
guess I’ve got enough to think of and tell ye for the rest o’ my days.
I’ve always wanted to go somewheres. I wish you’d be’n there, I do so.
I’ve talked with folks from Chiny an’ the back o’ Pennsylvany; and I see
folks way from Australy that ’peared as well as anybody; an’ I see how
they made spool cotton, an’ sights o’ other things; an’ I spoke with a
doctor that lives down to the beach in the summer, an’ he offered to
come up ’long in the first of August, an’ see what he can do for Peggy’s
eyesight. There was di’monds there as big as pigeon’s eggs; an’ I met
with Mis’ Abby Fletcher from South Byfleet depot; an’ there was hogs
there that weighed risin’ thirteen hunderd”—

“I want to know,” said Mrs. Lavina Dow and Peggy Bond, together.

“Well, ’twas a great exper’ence for a person,” added Lavina, turning
ponderously, in spite of herself, to give a last wistful look at the
smiling waters of the pond.

“I don’t know how soon I be goin’ to settle down,” proclaimed the rustic
sister of Sindbad. “What’s for the good o’ one’s for the good of all.
You just wait till we’re setting together up in the old shed chamber!
You know, my dear Mis’ Katy Strafford give me a han’some present o’
money that day she come to see me; and I’d be’n a-dreamin’ by night an’
day o’ seein’ that Centennial; and when I come to think on ’t I felt
sure somebody ought to go from this neighborhood, if ’twas only for the
good o’ the rest; and I thought I’d better be the one. I wa’n’t goin’ to
ask the selec’men neither. I’ve come back with one-thirty-five in money,
and I see everything there, an’ I fetched ye all a little somethin’; but
I’m full o’ dust now, an’ pretty nigh beat out. I never see a place more
friendly than Pheladelphy; but ’tain’t natural to a Byfleet person to be
always walkin’ on a level. There, now, Peggy, you take my
bundle-handkercher and the basket, and let Mis’ Dow sag on to me. I’ll
git her along twice as easy.”

With this the small elderly company set forth triumphant toward the
poor-house, across the wide green field.




                           THE DULHAM LADIES.


To be leaders of society in the town of Dulham was as satisfactory to
Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda Dobin as if Dulham were London itself. Of
late years, though they would not allow themselves to suspect such
treason, the most ill-bred of the younger people in the village made fun
of them behind their backs, and laughed at their treasured summer
mantillas, their mincing steps, and the shape of their parasols.

They were always conscious of the fact that they were the daughters of a
once eminent Dulham minister; but beside this unanswerable claim to the
respect of the First Parish, they were aware that their mother’s social
position was one of superior altitude. Madam Dobin’s grandmother was a
Greenaple of Boston. In her younger days she had often visited her
relatives, the Greenaples and Hightrees, and in seasons of festivity she
could relate to a select and properly excited audience her delightful
experiences of town life. Nothing could be finer than her account of
having taken tea at Governor Clovenfoot’s, on Beacon Street, in company
with an English lord, who was indulging himself in a brief vacation from
his arduous duties at the Court of St. James.

“He exclaimed that he had seldom seen in England so beautiful and
intelligent a company of ladies,” Madam Dobin would always say in
conclusion. “He was decorated with the blue ribbon of the Knights of the
Garter.” Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda thought for many years that this
famous blue ribbon was tied about the noble gentleman’s leg. One day
they even discussed the question openly; Miss Dobin placing the
decoration at his knee, and Miss Lucinda locating it much lower down,
according to the length of the short gray socks with which she was
familiar.

“You have no imagination, Lucinda,” the elder sister replied
impatiently. “Of course, those were the days of small-clothes and long
silk stockings!”—whereat Miss Lucinda was rebuked, but not persuaded.

“I wish that my dear girls could have the outlook upon society which
fell to my portion,” Madam Dobin sighed, after she had set these
ignorant minds to rights, and enriched them by communicating the final
truth about the blue ribbon. “I must not chide you for the absence of
opportunities, but if our cousin Harriet Greenaple were only living, you
would not lack enjoyment or social education.”


Madam Dobin had now been dead a great many years. She seemed an elderly
woman to her daughters some time before she left them; they thought
later that she had really died comparatively young, since their own
years had come to equal the record of hers. When they visited her tall
white tombstone in the orderly Dulham burying-ground, it was a strange
thought to both the daughters that they were older women than their
mother had been when she died. To be sure, it was the fashion to appear
older in her day,—they could remember the sober effect of really
youthful married persons in cap and frisette; but, whether they owed it
to the changed times or to their own qualities, they felt no older
themselves than ever they had. Beside upholding the ministerial dignity
of their father, they were obliged to give a lenient sanction to the
ways of the world for their mother’s sake; and they combined the two
duties with reverence and impartiality.

Madam Dobin was, in her prime, a walking example of refinement and
courtesy. If she erred in any way, it was by keeping too strict watch
and rule over her small kingdom. She acted with great dignity in all
matters of social administration and etiquette, but, while it must be
owned that the parishioners felt a sense of freedom for a time after her
death, in their later years they praised and valued her more and more,
and often lamented her generously and sincerely.

Several of her distinguished relatives attended Madam Dobin’s funeral,
which was long considered the most dignified and elegant pageant of that
sort which had ever taken place in Dulham. It seemed to mark the close
of a famous epoch in Dulham history, and it was increasingly difficult
forever afterward to keep the tone of society up to the old standard.
Somehow, the distinguished relatives had one by one disappeared, though
they all had excellent reasons for the discontinuance of their visits. A
few had left this world altogether, and the family circle of the
Greenaples and Hightrees was greatly reduced in circumference.
Sometimes, in summer, a stray connection drifted Dulham-ward, and was
displayed to the townspeople (not to say paraded) by the gratified
hostesses. It was a disappointment if the guest could not be persuaded
to remain over Sunday and appear at church. When household antiquities
became fashionable, the ladies remarked upon a surprising interest in
their corner cupboard and best chairs, and some distant relatives
revived their almost forgotten custom of paying a summer visit to
Dulham. They were not long in finding out with what desperate affection
Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda clung to their mother’s wedding china and
other inheritances, and were allowed to depart without a single teacup.
One graceless descendant of the Hightrees prowled from garret to cellar,
and admired the household belongings diligently, but she was not asked
to accept even the dislocated cherry-wood footstool that she had
discovered in the far corner of the parsonage pew.

Some of the Dulham friends had always suspected that Madam Dobin made a
social misstep when she chose the Reverend Edward Dobin for her husband.
She was no longer young when she married, and though she had gone
through the wood and picked up a crooked stick at last, it made a great
difference that her stick possessed an ecclesiastical bark. The Reverend
Edward was, moreover, a respectable graduate of Harvard College, and to
a woman of her standards a clergyman was by no means insignificant. It
was impossible not to respect his office, at any rate, and she must have
treated him with proper veneration for the sake of that, if for no other
reason, though his early advantages had been insufficient, and he was
quite insensible to the claims of the Greenaple pedigree, and preferred
an Indian pudding to pie crust that was, without exaggeration, half a
quarter high. The delicacy of Madam Dobin’s touch and preference in
everything, from hymns to cookery, was quite lost upon this respected
preacher, yet he was not without pride or complete confidence in his own
decisions.

The Reverend Mr. Dobin was never very enlightening in his discourses,
and was providentially stopped short by a stroke of paralysis in the
middle of his clerical career. He lived on and on through many dreary
years, but his children never accepted the fact that he was a tyrant,
and served him humbly and patiently. He fell at last into a condition of
great incapacity and chronic trembling, but was able for nearly a
quarter of a century to be carried to the meeting-house from time to
time to pronounce farewell discourses. On high days of the church he was
always placed in the pulpit, and held up his shaking hands when the
benediction was pronounced, as if the divine gift were exclusively his
own, and the other minister did but say empty words. Afterward he was
usually tired and displeased and hard to cope with, but there was always
a proper notice taken of these too often recurring events. For old
times’ and for pity’s sake and from natural goodness of heart, the elder
parishioners rallied manfully about the Reverend Mr. Dobin; and whoever
his successor or colleague might be, the Dobins were always called the
minister’s folks, while the active laborer in that vineyard was only Mr.
Smith or Mr. Jones, as the case might be. At last the poor old man died,
to everybody’s relief and astonishment; and after he was properly
preached about and lamented, his daughters, Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda,
took a good look at life from a new standpoint, and decided that, now
they were no longer constrained by home duties, they must make
themselves of a great deal more use to the town.

Sometimes there is such a household as this (which has been perhaps too
minutely described), where the parents linger until their children are
far past middle age, and always keep them in a too childish and unworthy
state of subjection. The Misses Dobin’s characters were much influenced
by such an unnatural prolongation of the filial relationship, and they
were amazingly slow to suspect that they were not so young as they used
to be. There was nothing to measure themselves by but Dulham people and
things. The elm-trees were growing yet, and many of the ladies of the
First Parish were older than they, and called them, with pleasant
familiarity, the Dobin girls. These elderly persons seemed really to be
growing old, and Miss Lucinda frequently lamented the change in society;
she thought it a freak of nature and too sudden blighting of earthly
hopes that several charming old friends of her mother’s were no longer
living. They were advanced in age when Miss Lucinda was a young girl,
though time and space are but relative, after all.

Their influence upon society would have made a great difference in many
ways. Certainly, the new parishioners, who had often enough been
instructed to pronounce their pastor’s name as if it were spelled with
one “b,” would not have boldly returned again and again to their
obnoxious habit of saying Dobbin. Miss Lucinda might carefully speak to
the neighbor and new-comers of “my sister, Miss Do-bin;” only the select
company of intimates followed her lead, and at last there was something
humiliating about it, even though many persons spoke of them only as
“the ladies.”

“The name was originally _D’Aubigne_, we think,” Miss Lucinda would say
coldly and patiently, as if she had already explained this foolish
mistake a thousand times too often. It was like the sorrows in many a
provincial château in the Reign of Terror. The ladies looked on with
increasing dismay at the retrogression in society. They felt as if they
were a feeble garrison, to whose lot it had fallen to repulse a noisy,
irreverent mob, an increasing band of marauders who would overthrow all
landmarks of the past, all etiquette and social rank. The new minister
himself was a round-faced, unspiritual-looking young man, whom they
would have instinctively ignored if he had not been a minister. The new
people who came to Dulham were not like the older residents, and they
had no desire to be taught better. Little they cared about the
Greenaples or the Hightrees; and once, when Miss Dobin essayed to speak
of some detail of her mother’s brilliant experiences in Boston high
life, she was interrupted, and the new-comer who sat next her at the
parish sewing society began to talk about something else. We cannot
believe that it could have been the tea-party at Governor Clovenfoot’s
which the rude creature so disrespectfully ignored, but some persons are
capable of showing any lack of good taste.

The ladies had an unusual and most painful sense of failure, as they
went home together that evening. “I have always made it my object to
improve and interest the people at such times; it would seem so possible
to elevate their thoughts and direct them into higher channels,” said
Miss Dobin sadly. “But as for that Woolden woman, there is no use in
casting pearls before swine!”

Miss Lucinda murmured an indignant assent. She had a secret suspicion
that the Woolden woman had heard the story in question oftener than had
pleased her. She was but an ignorant creature; though she had lived in
Dulham twelve or thirteen years, she was no better than when she came.
The mistake was in treating sister Harriet as if she were on a level
with the rest of the company. Miss Lucinda had observed more than once,
lately, that her sister sometimes repeated herself, unconsciously, a
little oftener than was agreeable. Perhaps they were getting a trifle
dull; towards spring it might be well to pass a few days with some of
their friends, and have a change.

“If I have tried to do anything,” said Miss Dobin in an icy tone, “it
has been to stand firm in my lot and place, and to hold the standard of
cultivated mind and elegant manners as high as possible. You would think
it had been a hundred years since our mother’s death, so completely has
the effect of her good breeding and exquisite hospitality been lost
sight of, here in Dulham. I could wish that our father had chosen to
settle in a larger and more appreciative place. They would like to put
us on the shelf, too. I can see that plainly.”

“I am sure we have our friends,” said Miss Lucinda anxiously, but with a
choking voice. “We must not let them think we do not mean to keep up
with the times, as we always have. I do feel as if perhaps—our hair”—

And the sad secret was out at last. Each of the sisters drew a long
breath of relief at this beginning of a confession.

It was certain that they must take some steps to retrieve their lost
ascendency. Public attention had that evening been called to their
fast-disappearing locks, poor ladies; and Miss Lucinda felt the
discomfort most, for she had been the inheritor of the Hightree hair,
long and curly, and chestnut in color. There used to be a waviness about
it, and sometimes pretty escaping curls, but these were gone long ago.
Miss Dobin resembled her father, and her hair had not been luxuriant, so
that she was less changed by its absence than one might suppose. The
straightness and thinness had increased so gradually that neither sister
had quite accepted the thought that other persons would particularly
notice their altered appearance.

They had shrunk, with the reticence born of close family association,
from speaking of the cause even to each other, when they made themselves
pretty little lace and dotted muslin caps. Breakfast caps, they called
them, and explained that these were universally worn in town; the young
Princess of Wales originated them, or at any rate adopted them. The
ladies offered no apology for keeping the breakfast caps on until
bedtime, and in spite of them a forward child had just spoken, loud and
shrill, an untimely question in the ears of the for once silent sewing
society. “Do Miss Dobinses wear them great caps because their heads is
cold?” the little beast had said; and everybody was startled and
dismayed.

Miss Dobin had never shown better her good breeding and valor, the
younger sister thought.

“No, little girl,” replied the stately Harriet, with a chilly smile. “I
believe that our headdresses are quite in the fashion for ladies of all
ages. And you must remember that it is never polite to make such
personal remarks.” It was after this that Miss Dobin had been reminded
of Madam Somebody’s unusual headgear at the evening entertainment in
Boston. Nobody but the Woolden woman could have interrupted her under
such trying circumstances.

Miss Lucinda, however, was certain that the time had come for making
some effort to replace her lost adornment. The child had told an
unwelcome truth, but had paved the way for further action, and now was
the time to suggest something that had slowly been taking shape in Miss
Lucinda’s mind. A young grand-nephew of their mother and his bride had
passed a few days with them, two or three summers before, and the
sisters had been quite shocked to find that the pretty young woman wore
a row of frizzes, not originally her own, over her smooth forehead. At
the time, Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda had spoken severely with each
other of such bad taste, but now it made a great difference that the
wearer of the frizzes was not only a relative by marriage and used to
good society, but also that she came from town, and might be supposed to
know what was proper in the way of toilet.

“I really think, sister, that we had better see about having
some—arrangements, next time we go anywhere,” Miss Dobin said
unexpectedly, with a slight tremble in her voice, just as they reached
their own door. “There seems to be quite a fashion for them nowadays.
For the parish’s sake we ought to recognize”—and Miss Lucinda responded
with instant satisfaction. She did not like to complain, but she had
been troubled with neuralgic pains in her forehead on suddenly meeting
the cold air. The sisters felt a new bond of sympathy in keeping this
secret with and for each other; they took pains to say to several
acquaintances that they were thinking of going to the next large town to
do a few errands for Christmas.

A bright, sunny morning seemed to wish the ladies good fortune. Old
Hetty Downs, their faithful maid-servant and protector, looked after
them in affectionate foreboding. “Dear sakes, what devil’s wiles may be
played on them blessed innocents afore they’re safe home again?” she
murmured, as they vanished round the corner of the street that led to
the railway station.

Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda paced discreetly side by side down the main
street of Westbury. It was nothing like Boston, of course, but the noise
was slightly confusing, and the passers-by sometimes roughly pushed
against them. Westbury was a consequential manufacturing town, but a
great convenience at times like this. The trifling Christmas gifts for
their old neighbors and Sunday-school scholars were purchased and stowed
away in their neat Fayal basket before the serious commission of the day
was attended to. Here and there, in the shops, disreputable frizzes were
displayed in unblushing effrontery, but no such vulgar shopkeeper
merited the patronage of the Misses Dobin. They pretended not to observe
the unattractive goods, and went their way to a low, one-storied
building on a side street, where an old tradesman lived. He had been
useful to the minister while he still remained upon the earth and had
need of a wig, sandy in hue and increasingly sprinkled with gray, as if
it kept pace with other changes of existence. But old Paley’s shutters
were up, and a bar of rough wood was nailed firmly across the one that
had lost its fastening and would rack its feeble hinges in the wind. Old
Paley had always been polite and bland; they really had looked forward
to a little chat with him; they had heard a year or two before of his
wife’s death, and meant to offer sympathy. His business of hair-dressing
had been carried on with that of parasol and umbrella mending, and the
condemned umbrella which was his sign flapped and swung in the rising
wind, a tattered skeleton before the closed door. The ladies sighed and
turned away; they were beginning to feel tired; the day was long, and
they had not met with any pleasures yet. “We might walk up the street a
little farther,” suggested Miss Lucinda; “that is, if you are not
tired,” as they stood hesitating on the corner after they had finished a
short discussion of Mr. Paley’s disappearance. Happily it was only a few
minutes before they came to a stop together in front of a new, shining
shop, where smirking waxen heads all in a row were decked with the
latest fashions of wigs and frizzes. One smiling fragment of a gentleman
stared so straight at Miss Lucinda with his black eyes that she felt
quite coy and embarrassed, and was obliged to feign not to be conscious
of his admiration. But Miss Dobin, after a brief delay, boldly opened
the door and entered; it was better to be sheltered in the shop than
exposed to public remark as they gazed in at the windows. Miss Lucinda
felt her heart beat and her courage give out; she, coward like, left the
transaction of their business to her sister, and turned to contemplate
the back of the handsome model. It was a slight shock to find that he
was not so attractive from this point of view. The wig he wore was well
made all round, but his shoulders were roughly finished in a substance
that looked like plain plaster of Paris.

“What can I have ze pleasure of showing you, young ladees?” asked a
person who advanced; and Miss Lucinda faced about to discover a smiling,
middle-aged Frenchman, who rubbed his hands together and looked at his
customers, first one and then the other, with delightful deference. He
seemed a very civil nice person, the young ladies thought.

“My sister and I were thinking of buying some little arrangements to
wear above the forehead.” Miss Dobin explained, with pathetic dignity;
but the Frenchman spared her any further words. He looked with eager
interest at the bonnets, as if no lack had attracted his notice before.
“Ah, yes. _Je comprends_; ze high foreheads are not now ze mode. Je
prefer them, moi, yes, yes, but ze ladees must accept ze fashion; zay
must now cover ze forehead with ze frizzes, ze bangs, you say. As you
wis’, as you wis’!” and the tactful little man, with many shrugs and
merry gestures at such girlish fancies, pulled down one box after
another.

It was a great relief to find that this was no worse, to say the least,
than any other shopping, though the solemnity and secrecy of the
occasion were infringed upon by the great supply of “arrangements” and
the loud discussion of the color of some crimps a noisy girl was buying
from a young saleswoman the other side of the shop.

Miss Dobin waved aside the wares which were being displayed for her
approval. “Something—more simple, if you please,”—she did not like to
say “older.”

“But these are _très simple_,” protested the Frenchman. “We have nothing
younger;” and Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda blushed, and said no more. The
Frenchman had his own way; he persuaded them that nothing was so
suitable as some conspicuous forelocks that matched their hair as it
used to be. They would have given anything rather than leave their
breakfast caps at home, if they had known that their proper winter
bonnets must come off. They hardly listened to the wig merchant’s glib
voice as Miss Dobin stood revealed before the merciless mirror at the
back of the shop.

He made everything as easy as possible, the friendly creature, and the
ladies were grateful to him. Besides, now that the bonnet was on again
there was a great improvement in Miss Dobin’s appearance. She turned to
Miss Lucinda, and saw a gleam of delight in her eager countenance. “It
really is very becoming. I like the way it parts over your forehead,”
said the younger sister, “but if it were long enough to go behind the
ears”—“_Non, non_,” entreated the Frenchman. “To make her the old woman
at once would be cruelty!” And Lucinda, who was wondering how well she
would look in her turn, succumbed promptly to such protestations. Yes,
there was no use in being old before their time. Dulham was not quite
keeping pace with the rest of the world in these days, but they need not
drag behind everybody else, just because they lived there.

The price of the little arrangements was much less than the sisters
expected, and the uncomfortable expense of their reverend father’s wigs
had been, it was proved, a thing of the past. Miss Dobin treated her
polite Frenchman with great courtesy; indeed, Miss Lucinda had more than
once whispered to her to talk French, and as they were bowed out of the
shop the gracious _Bongsure_ of the elder lady seemed to act like the
string of a showerbath, and bring down an awesome torrent of foreign
phrases upon the two guileless heads. It was impossible to reply; the
ladies bowed again, however, and Miss Lucinda caught a last smile from
the handsome wax countenance in the window. He appeared to regard her
with fresh approval, and she departed down the street with mincing
steps.

“I feel as if anybody might look at me now, sister,” said gentle Miss
Lucinda. “I confess, I have really suffered sometimes, since I knew I
looked so distressed.”

“Yours is lighter than I thought it was in the shop,” remarked Miss
Dobin doubtfully, but she quickly added that perhaps it would change a
little. She was so perfectly satisfied with her own appearance that she
could not bear to dim the pleasure of any one else. The truth remained
that she never would have let Lucinda choose that particular arrangement
if she had seen it first in a good light. And Lucinda was thinking
exactly the same of her companion.

“I am sure we shall have no more neuralgia,” said Miss Dobin. “I am
sorry we waited so long, dear,” and they tripped down the main street of
Westbury, confident that nobody would suspect them of being over thirty.
Indeed, they felt quite girlish, and unconsciously looked sideways as
they went along, to see their satisfying reflections in the windows. The
great panes made excellent mirrors, with not too clear or lasting
pictures of these comforted passers-by.

The Frenchman in the shop was making merry with his assistants. The two
great frisettes had long been out of fashion; he had been lying in wait
with them for two unsuspecting country ladies, who could be cajoled into
such a purchase.

“Sister,” Miss Lucinda was saying, “you know there is still an hour to
wait before our train goes. Suppose we take a little longer walk down
the other side of the way;” and they strolled slowly back again. In
fact, they nearly missed the train, naughty girls! Hetty would have been
so worried, they assured each other, but they reached the station just
in time.

“Lutie,” said Miss Dobin, “put up your hand and part it from your
forehead; it seems to be getting a little out of place;” and Miss
Lucinda, who had just got breath enough to speak, returned the
information that Miss Dobin’s was almost covering her eyebrows. They
might have to trim them a little shorter; of course it could be done.
The darkness was falling; they had taken an early dinner before they
started, and now they were tired and hungry after the exertion of the
afternoon, but the spirit of youth flamed afresh in their hearts, and
they were very happy. If one’s heart remains young, it is a sore trial
to have the outward appearance entirely at variance. It was the ladies’
nature to be girlish, and they found it impossible not to be grateful to
the flimsy, ineffectual disguise which seemed to set them right with the
world. The old conductor, who had known them for many years, looked hard
at them as he took their tickets, and, being a man of humor and
compassion, affected not to notice anything remarkable in their
appearance. “You ladies never mean to grow old, like the rest of us,” he
said gallantly, and the sisters fairly quaked with joy. Their young
hearts would forever keep them truly unconscious of the cruel thievery
of time.

“Bless us!” the obnoxious Mrs. Woolden was saying, at the other end of
the car. “There’s the old maid Dobbinses, and they’ve bought ’em some
bangs. I expect they wanted to get thatched in a little before real cold
weather; but don’t they look just like a pair o’ poodle dogs.”

The little ladies descended wearily from the train. Somehow they did not
enjoy a day’s shopping as much as they used. They were certainly much
obliged to Hetty for sending her niece’s boy to meet them, with a
lantern; also for having a good warm supper ready when they came in.
Hetty took a quick look at her mistresses, and returned to the kitchen.
“I knew somebody would be foolin’ of ’em,” she assured herself angrily,
but she had to laugh. Their dear, kind faces were wrinkled and pale, and
the great frizzes had lost their pretty curliness, and were hanging
down, almost straight and very ugly, into the ladies’ eyes. They could
not tuck them up under their caps, as they were sure might be done.

Then came a succession of rainy days, and nobody visited the rejuvenated
household. The frisettes looked very bright chestnut by the light of
day, and it must be confessed that Miss Dobin took the scissors and
shortened Miss Lucinda’s half an inch, and Miss Lucinda returned the
compliment quite secretly, because each thought her sister’s forehead
lower than her own. Their dear gray eyebrows were honestly displayed, as
if it were the fashion not to have them match with wigs. Hetty at last
spoke out, and begged her mistresses, as they sat at breakfast, to let
her take the frizzes back and change them. Her sister’s daughter worked
in that very shop, and though in the workroom, would be able to oblige
them, Hetty was sure.

But the ladies looked at each other in pleased assurance, and then
turned together to look at Hetty, who stood already a little
apprehensive near the table, where she had just put down a plateful of
smoking drop-cakes. The good creature really began to look old.

“They are worn very much in town,” said Miss Dobin. “We think it was
quite fortunate that the fashion came in just as our hair was growing a
trifle thin. I dare say we may choose those that are a shade duller in
color when these are a little past. Oh, we shall not want tea this
evening, you remember, Hetty. I am glad there is likely to be such a
good night for the sewing circle.” And Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda
nodded and smiled.

“Oh, my sakes alive!” the troubled handmaiden groaned. “Going to the
circle, be they, to be snickered at! Well, the Dobbin girls they was
born, and the Dobbin girls they will remain till they die; but if they
ain’t innocent Christian babes to those that knows ’em well, mark me
down for an idjit myself! They believe them front-pieces has set the
clock back forty year or more, but if they’re pleased to think so, let
’em!”

Away paced the Dulham ladies, late in the afternoon, to grace the parish
occasion, and face the amused scrutiny of their neighbors. “I think we
owe it to society to observe the fashions of the day,” said Miss
Lucinda. “A lady cannot afford to be unattractive. I feel now as if we
were prepared for anything!”




                          GOING TO SHREWSBURY.


The train stopped at a way station with apparent unwillingness, and
there was barely time for one elderly passenger to be hurried on board
before a sudden jerk threw her almost off her unsteady old feet and we
moved on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed old countrywoman,
laden with a large basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an old-fashioned
bundle-handkerchief; then I discovered that she was a friend of mine,
Mrs. Peet, who lived on a small farm, several miles from the village.
She used to be renowned for good butter and fresh eggs and the earliest
cowslip greens; in fact, she always made the most of her farm’s slender
resources; but it was some time since I had seen her drive by from
market in her ancient thorough-braced wagon.

The brakeman followed her into the crowded car, also carrying a number
of packages. I leaned forward and asked Mrs. Peet to sit by me; it was a
great pleasure to see her again. The brakeman seemed relieved, and
smiled as he tried to put part of his burden into the rack overhead; but
even the flowered carpet-bag was much too large, and he explained that
he would take care of everything at the end of the car. Mrs. Peet was
not large herself, but with the big basket, and the bundle-handkerchief,
and some possessions of my own we had very little spare room.

“So this ‘ere is what you call ridin’ in the cars! Well, I do declare!”
said my friend, as soon as she had recovered herself a little. She
looked pale and as if she had been in tears, but there was the familiar
gleam of good humor in her tired old eyes.

“Where in the world are you going, Mrs. Peet?” I asked.

“Can’t be you ain’t heared about me, dear?” said she. “Well, the world’s
bigger than I used to think ’t was. I’ve broke up,—’twas the only thing
_to_ do,—and I’m a-movin’ to Shrewsbury.”

“To Shrewsbury? Have you sold the farm?” I exclaimed, with sorrow and
surprise. Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic to be suddenly
transplanted from her native soil.

“’Twa’n’t mine, the place wa’n’t.” Her pleasant face hardened slightly.
“He was coaxed an’ over-persuaded into signin’ off before he was taken
away. Is’iah, son of his sister that married old Josh Peet, come it over
him about his bein’ past work and how he’d do for him like an own son,
an’ we owed him a little somethin’. I’d paid off everythin’ but that,
an’ was fool enough to leave it till the last, on account o’ Is’iah’s
bein’ a relation and not needin’ his pay much as some others did. It’s
hurt me to have the place fall into other hands. Some wanted me to go
right to law; but ’twouldn’t be no use. Is’iah’s smarter ’n I be about
them matters. You see he’s got my name on the paper, too; he said ’twas
somethin’ ’bout bein’ responsible for the taxes. We was scant o’ money,
an’ I was wore out with watchin’ an’ being broke o’ my rest. After my
tryin’ hard for risin’ forty-five year to provide for bein’ past work,
here I be, dear, here I be! I used to drive things smart, you remember.
But we was fools enough in ’72 to put about everythin’ we had safe in
the bank into that spool factory that come to nothin’. But I tell ye I
could ha’ kept myself long’s I lived, if I could ha’ held the place. I’d
parted with most o’ the woodland, if Is’iah’d coveted it. He was welcome
to that, ’cept what might keep me in oven-wood. I’ve always desired to
travel an’ see somethin’ o’ the world, but I’ve got the chance now when
I don’t value it no great.”

“Shrewsbury is a busy, pleasant place,” I ventured to say by way of
comfort, though my heart was filled with rage at the trickery of Isaiah
Peet, who had always looked like a fox and behaved like one.

“Shrewsbury’s be’n held up consid’able for me to smile at,” said the
poor old soul, “but I tell ye, dear, it’s hard to go an’ live twenty-two
miles from where you’ve always had your home and friends. It may divert
me, but it won’t be home. You might as well set out one o’ my old
apple-trees on the beach, so ’t could see the waves come in,—there
wouldn’t be no please to it.”

“Where are you going to live in Shrewsbury?” I asked presently.

“I don’t expect to stop long, dear creatur’. I’m ’most seventy-six year
old,” and Mrs. Peet turned to look at me with pathetic amusement in her
honest wrinkled face. “I said right out to Is’iah, before a roomful o’
the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an’ bury me when
my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn my livin’, if
’twas so I could, till then. He’d made sly talk, you see, about my
electin’ to leave the farm and go ’long some o’ my own folks; but”—and
she whispered this carefully—“he didn’t give me no chance to stay there
without hurtin’ my pride and dependin’ on him. I ain’t said that to many
folks, but all must have suspected. A good sight on ’em’s had money of
Is’iah, though, and they don’t like to do nothin’ but take his part an’
be pretty soft spoken, fear it’ll git to his ears. Well, well, dear,
we’ll let it be bygones, and not think of it no more;” but I saw the
great tears roll slowly down her cheeks, and she pulled her bonnet
forward impatiently, and looked the other way.

“There looks to be plenty o’ good farmin’ land in this part o’ the
country,” she said, a minute later. “Where be we now? See them handsome
farm buildin’s; he must be a well-off man.” But I had to tell my
companion that we were still within the borders of the old town where we
had both been born. Mrs. Peet gave a pleased little laugh, like a girl.
“I’m expectin’ Shrewsbury to pop up any minute. I’m feared to be kerried
right by. I wa’n’t never aboard of the cars before, but I’ve so often
thought about em’ I don’t know but it seems natural. Ain’t it jest like
flyin’ through the air? I can’t catch holt to see nothin’. Land! and
here’s my old cat goin’ too, and never mistrustin’. I ain’t told you
that I’d fetched her.”

“Is she in that basket?” I inquired with interest.

“Yis, dear. Truth was, I calc’lated to have her put out o’ the misery o’
movin’, an spoke to one o’ the Barnes boys, an’ he promised me all fair;
but he wa’n’t there in season, an’ I kind o’ made excuse to myself to
fetch her along. She’s an’ old creatur’, like me, an’ I can make shift
to keep her some way or ’nuther; there’s probably mice where we’re
goin’, an’ she’s a proper mouser that can about keep herself if there’s
any sort o’ chance. ’Twill be somethin’ o’ home to see her goin’ an’
comin’, but I expect we’re both on us goin’ to miss our old haunts. I’d
love to know what kind o’ mousin’ there’s goin’ to be for me.”

“You mustn’t worry,” I answered, with all the bravery and assurance that
I could muster. “Your niece will be thankful to have you with her. Is
she one of Mrs. Winn’s daughters?”

“Oh, no, they ain’t able; it’s Sister Wayland’s darter Isabella, that
married the overseer of the gre’t carriage-shop. I ain’t seen her since
just after she was married; but I turned to her first because I knew she
was best able to have me, and then I can see just how the other girls is
situated and make me some kind of a plot. I wrote to Isabella, though
she _is_ ambitious, and said ’twas so I’d got to ask to come an’ make
her a visit, an’ she wrote back she would be glad to have me; but she
didn’t write right off, and her letter was scented up dreadful strong
with some sort o’ essence, and I don’t feel heartened about no great of
a welcome. But there, I’ve got eyes, an’ I can see _how_ ’tis when I git
_where_ ’tis. Sister Winn’s gals ain’t married, an’ they’ve always
boarded, an’ worked in the shop on trimmin’s. Isabella’s well off; she
had some means from her father’s sister. I thought it all over by night
an’ day, an’ I recalled that our folks kept Sister Wayland’s folks all
one winter, when he’d failed up and got into trouble. I’m reckonin’ on
sendin’ over to-night an’ gittin’ the Winn gals to come and see me and
advise. Perhaps some on ’em may know of somebody that’ll take me for
what help I can give about house, or some clever folks that have been
lookin’ for a smart cat, any ways; no, I don’t know’s I could let her go
to strangers.

“There was two or three o’ the folks round home that acted real
warm-hearted towards me, an’ urged me to come an’ winter with ’em,”
continued the exile; “an’ this mornin’ I wished I’d agreed to, ’twas so
hard to break away. But now it’s done I feel more ’n ever it’s best. I
couldn’t bear to live right in sight o’ the old place, and come spring I
shouldn’t ‘prove of nothing Is’iah ondertakes to do with the land. Oh,
dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not to have had no child’n. When I
was young an’ workin’ hard and into everything, I felt kind of free an’
superior to them that was so blessed, an’ their houses cluttered up from
mornin’ till night, but I tell ye it comes home to me now. I’d be most
willin’ to own to even Is’iah, mean ’s he is; but I tell ye I’d took it
out of him ‘fore he was a grown man, if there’d be’n any virtue in
cow-hidin’ of him. Folks don’t look like wild creatur’s for nothin’.
Is’iah’s got fox blood in him, an’ p’r’haps ’tis his misfortune. His own
mother always favored the looks of an old fox, true ’s the world; she
was a poor tool,—a poor tool! I d’know ’s we ought to blame him same ’s
we do.

“I’ve always been a master proud woman, if I was riz among the
pastures,” Mrs. Peet added, half to herself. There was no use in saying
much to her; she was conscious of little beside her own thoughts and the
smouldering excitement caused by this great crisis in her simple
existence. Yet the atmosphere of her loneliness, uncertainty, and sorrow
was so touching that after scolding again at her nephew’s treachery, and
finding the tears come fast to my eyes as she talked, I looked intently
out of the car window, and tried to think what could be done for the
poor soul. She was one of the old-time people, and I hated to have her
go away; but even if she could keep her home she would soon be too
feeble to live there alone, and some definite plan must be made for her
comfort. Farms in that neighborhood were not valuable. Perhaps through
the agency of the law and quite in secret, Isaiah Peet could be forced
to give up his unrighteous claim. Perhaps, too, the Winn girls, who were
really no longer young, might have saved something, and would come home
again. But it was easy to make such pictures in one’s mind, and I must
do what I could through other people, for I was just leaving home for a
long time. I wondered sadly about Mrs. Peet’s future, and the ambitious
Isabella, and the favorite Sister Winn’s daughters, to whom, with all
their kindliness of heart, the care of so old and perhaps so dependent
an aunt might seem impossible. The truth about life in Shrewsbury would
soon be known; more than half the short journey was already past.

To my great pleasure, my fellow-traveler now began to forget her own
troubles in looking about her. She was an alert, quickly interested old
soul, and this was a bit of neutral ground between the farm and
Shrewsbury, where she was unattached and irresponsible. She had lived
through the last tragic moments of her old life, and felt a certain
relief, and Shrewsbury might be as far away as the other side of the
Rocky Mountains for all the consciousness she had of its real existence.
She was simply a traveler for the time being, and began to comment, with
delicious phrases and shrewd understanding of human nature, on two or
three persons near us who attracted her attention.

“Where do you s’pose they be all goin’?” she asked contemptuously.
“There ain’t none on ’em but what looks kind o’ respectable. I’ll
warrant they’ve left work to home they’d ought to be doin’. I knowed, if
ever I stopped to think, that cars was hived full o’ folks, an’ wa’n’t
run to an’ fro for nothin’; but these can’t be quite up to the average,
be they? Some on ’em’s real thrif’less? guess they’ve be’n shoved out o’
the last place, an’ goin’ to try the next one,—_like me_, I suppose
you’ll want to say! Jest see that flauntin’ old creatur’ that looks like
a stopped clock. There! everybody can’t be o’ one goodness, even
preachers.”

I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we could
be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be forgiven
for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars that she
never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take her ticket
she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a loss.

“You’ll have to look after me, dear, when we get to Shrewsbury,” she
said, after we had spent some distracted moments in hunting for the
ticket, and the cat had almost escaped from the basket, and the
bundle-handkerchief had become untied and all its miscellaneous contents
scattered about our laps and the floor. It was a touching collection of
the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet’s housekeeping: some battered books,
and singed holders for flatirons, and the faded little shoulder shawl
that I had seen her wear many a day about her bent shoulders. There were
her old tin match-box spilling all its matches, and a goose-wing for
brushing up ashes, and her much-thumbed Leavitt’s Almanac. It was most
pathetic to see these poor trifles out of their places. At last the
ticket was found in her left-hand woolen glove, where her stiff,
work-worn hand had grown used to the feeling of it.

“I shouldn’t wonder, now, if I come to like living over to Shrewsbury
first-rate,” she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful, eager look to
see if I differed. “You see ’twon’t be so tough for me as if I hadn’t
always felt it lurking within me to go off some day or ’nother an’ see
how other folks did things. I do’ know but what the Winn gals have laid
up somethin’ sufficient for us to take a house, with the little mite
I’ve got by me. I might keep house for us all, ’stead o’ boardin’ round
in other folks’ houses. That I ain’t never been demeaned to, but I dare
say I should find it pleasant in some ways. Town folks has got the upper
hand o’ country folks, but with all their work an’ pride they can’t make
a dandelion. I do’ know the times when I’ve set out to wash Monday
mornin’s, an’ tied out the line betwixt the old pucker-pear tree and the
corner o’ the barn, an’ thought, ‘Here I be with the same kind o’ week’s
work right over again.’ I’d wonder kind o’ f’erce if I couldn’t git out
of it noways; an’ now here I be out of it, and an uprooteder creatur’
never stood on the airth. Just as I got to feel I had somethin’ ahead
come that spool-factory business. There! you know he never was a
forehanded man; his health was slim, and he got discouraged pretty nigh
before ever he begun. I hope he don’t know I’m turned out o’ the old
place. ‘Is’iah’s well off; he’ll do the right thing by ye,’ says he. But
my! I turned hot all over when I found out what I’d put my name to,—me
that had always be’n counted a smart woman! I did undertake to read it
over, but I couldn’t sense it. I’ve told all the folks so when they laid
it off on to me some: but hand-writin’ is awful tedious readin’ and my
head felt that day as if the works was gone.

“I ain’t goin’ to sag on to nobody,” she assured me eagerly, as the
train rushed along. “I’ve got more work in me now than folks expects at
my age. I may be consid’able use to Isabella. She’s got a family, an’
I’ll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She had
four on ’em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked housework.
Little gals! I do’ know now but what they must be about grown, time doos
slip away so. I expect I shall look outlandish to ’em. But there!
everybody knows me to home, an’ nobody knows me to Shrewsbury; ’twon’t
make a mite o’ difference, if I take holt willin’.”

I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she would never be persuaded to
cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that she had
worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist upon more
modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested, as if it were a matter of little
consequence, that she had kept it in mind to buy some mourning; but
there were other things to be thought of first, and so she had let it go
until winter, any way, or until she should be fairly settled in
Shrewsbury.

“Are your nieces expecting you by this train?” I was moved to ask,
though with all the good soul’s ready talk and appealing manner I could
hardly believe that she was going to Shrewsbury for more than a visit;
it seemed as if she must return to the worn old farmhouse over by the
sheep-lands. She answered that one of the Barnes boys had written a
letter for her the day before, and there was evidently little uneasiness
about her first reception.

We drew near the junction where I must leave her within a mile of the
town. The cat was clawing indignantly at the basket, and her mistress
grew as impatient of the car. She began to look very old and pale, my
poor fellow-traveler, and said that she felt dizzy, going so fast.
Presently the friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came along, bringing
the carpet-bag and other possessions, and insisted upon taking the
alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive paw that had worked its
way through the wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her goods disappear
with suspicions eyes, and clutched her bundle-handkerchief as if it
might be all that she could save. Then she anxiously got to her feet,
much too soon, and when I said good-by to her at the car door she was
ready to cry. I pointed to the car which she was to take next on the
branch line of railway, and I assured her that it was only a few
minutes’ ride to Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she would find
somebody waiting. The sight of that worn, thin figure adventuring alone
across the platform gave my heart a sharp pang as the train carried me
away.

Some of the passengers who sat near asked me about my old friend with
great sympathy, after she had gone. There was a look of tragedy about
her, and indeed it had been impossible not to get a good deal of her
history, as she talked straight on in the same tone, when we stopped at
a station, as if the train were going at full speed, and some of her
remarks caused pity and amusements by turns. At the last minute she
said, with deep self-reproach, “Why, I haven’t asked a word about your
folks; but you’d ought to excuse such an old stray hen as I be.”

In the spring I was driving by on what the old people of my native town
call the sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs. Peet’s former home
brought our former journey freshly to my mind. I had last heard from her
just after she got to Shrewsbury, when she had sent me a message.

“Have you ever heard how she got on?” I eagerly asked my companion.

“Didn’t I tell you that I met her in Shrewsbury High Street one day?” I
was answered. “She seemed perfectly delighted with everything. Her
nieces have laid up a good bit of money, and are soon to leave the mill,
and most thankful to have old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told me that
they wished to buy the farm here, and come back to live, but she
wouldn’t hear of it, and thought they would miss too many privileges.
She has been going to concerts and lectures this winter, and insists
that Isaiah did her a good turn.”

We both laughed. My own heart was filled with joy, for the uncertain,
lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The
rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole
lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The pucker-pear tree was
in full bloom, However, and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted
dooryard.

A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet, the prosperous money-lender, who
had cheated the old woman of her own. I fancied that he looked somewhat
ashamed, as he recognized us. To my surprise, he stopped his horse in
most social fashion.

“Old Aunt Peet’s passed away,” he informed me briskly. “She had a shock,
and went right off sudden yisterday forenoon. I’m about now tendin’ to
the funeral ‘rangements. She’s be’n extry smart, they say, all
winter,—out to meetin’ last Sabbath; never enjoyed herself so complete
as she has this past month. She’d be’n a very hard-workin’ woman. Her
folks was glad to have her there, and give her every attention. The
place here never was good for nothin’. The old gen’leman,—uncle, you
know,—he wore hisself out tryin’ to make a livin’ off from it.”

There was an ostentatious sympathy and half-suppressed excitement from
bad news which were quite lost upon us, and we did not linger to hear
much more. It seemed to me as if I had known Mrs. Peet better than any
one else had known her. I had counted upon seeing her again, and hearing
her own account of Shrewsbury life, its pleasures and its limitations. I
wondered what had become of the cat and the contents of the faded
bundle-handkerchief.




                             THE ONLY ROSE.


                                   I.

Just where the village abruptly ended, and the green mowing fields
began, stood Mrs. Bickford’s house, looking down the road with all its
windows, and topped by two prim chimneys that stood up like ears. It was
placed with an end to the road, and fronted southward; you could follow
a straight path from the gate past the front door and find Mrs. Bickford
sitting by the last window of all in the kitchen, unless she were
solemnly stepping about, prolonging the stern duties of her solitary
housekeeping.

One day in early summer, when almost every one else in Fairfield had put
her house plants out of doors, there were still three flower pots on a
kitchen window-sill. Mrs. Bickford spent but little time over her rose
and geranium and Jerusalem cherry-tree, although they had gained a kind
of personality born of long association. They rarely undertook to bloom,
but had most courageously maintained life in spite of their owner’s
unsympathetic but conscientious care. Later in the season she would
carry them out of doors, and leave them, until the time of frosts, under
the shade of a great apple-tree, where they might make the best of what
the summer had to give.

The afternoon sun was pouring in, the Jerusalem cherry-tree drooped its
leaves in the heat and looked pale, when a neighbor, Miss Pendexter,
came in from the next house but one to make a friendly call. As she
passed the parlor with its shut blinds, and the sitting-room, also
shaded carefully from the light, she wished, as she had done many times
before, that somebody beside the owner might have the pleasure of living
in and using so good and pleasant a house. Mrs. Bickford always
complained of having so much care, even while she valued herself
intelligently upon having the right to do as she pleased with one of the
best houses in Fairfield. Miss Pendexter was a cheerful, even gay little
person, who always brought a pleasant flurry of excitement, and usually
had a genuine though small piece of news to tell, or some new aspect of
already received information.

Mrs. Bickford smiled as she looked up to see this sprightly neighbor
coming. She had no gift at entertaining herself, and was always glad, as
one might say, to be taken off her own hands.

Miss Pendexter smiled back, as if she felt herself to be equal to the
occasion.

“How be you to-day?” the guest asked kindly, as she entered the kitchen.
“Why, what a sight o’ flowers, Mis’ Bickford! What be you goin’ to do
with ’em all?”

Mrs. Bickford wore a grave expression as she glanced over her
spectacles. “My sister’s boy fetched ’em over,” she answered. “You know
my sister Parsons’s a great hand to raise flowers, an’ this boy takes
after her. He said his mother thought the gardin never looked handsomer,
and she picked me these to send over. They was sendin’ a team to
Westbury for some fertilizer to put on the land, an’ he come with the
men, an’ stopped to eat his dinner ’long o’ me. He’s been growin’ fast,
and looks peakëd. I expect sister ’Liza thought the ride, this pleasant
day, would do him good. ’Liza sent word for me to come over and pass
some days next week, but it ain’t so that I can.”

“Why, it ’s a pretty time of year to go off and make a little visit,”
suggested the neighbor encouragingly.

“I ain’t got my sitting-room chamber carpet taken up yet,” sighed Mrs.
Bickford. “I do feel condemned. I might have done it to-day, but ’twas
all at end when I saw Tommy coming. There, he’s a likely boy, an’ so
relished his dinner; I happened to be well prepared. I don’t know but
he’s my favorite o’ that family. Only I’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’,
since he went, an’ I can’t remember that I ever was so belated with my
spring cleaning.”

“’Twas owin’ to the weather,” explained Miss Pendexter. “None of us
could be so smart as common this year, not even the lazy ones that
always get one room done the first o’ March, and brag of it to others’
shame, and then never let on when they do the rest.”

The two women laughed together cheerfully. Mrs. Bickford had put up the
wide leaf of her large table between the windows and spread out the
flowers. She was sorting them slowly into three heaps.

“Why, I do declare if you haven’t got a rose in bloom yourself!”
exclaimed Miss Pendexter abruptly, as if the bud had not been announced
weeks before, and its progress regularly commented upon. “Ain’t it a
lovely rose? Why, Mis’ Bickford!”

“Yes’m, it’s out to-day,” said Mrs. Bickford, with a somewhat plaintive
air. “I’m glad you come in so as to see it.”

The bright flower was like a face. Somehow, the beauty and life of it
were surprising in the plain room, like a gay little child who might
suddenly appear in a doorway. Miss Pendexter forgot herself and her
hostess and the tangled mass of garden flowers in looking at the red
rose. She even forgot that it was incumbent upon her to carry forward
the conversation. Mrs. Bickford was subject to fits of untimely silence
which made her friends anxiously sweep the corners of their minds in
search of something to say, but any one who looked at her now could
easily see that it was not poverty of thought that made her speechless,
but an overburdening sense of the inexpressible.

“Goin’ to make up all your flowers into bo’quets? I think the
short-stemmed kinds is often pretty in a dish,” suggested Miss Pendexter
compassionately.

“I thought I should make them into three bo’quets. I wish there wa’n’t
quite so many. Sister Eliza’s very lavish with her flowers; she’s always
been a kind sister, too,” said Mrs. Bickford vaguely. She was not apt to
speak with so much sentiment, and as her neighbor looked at her narrowly
she detected unusual signs of emotion. It suddenly became evident that
the three nosegays were connected in her mind with her bereavement of
three husbands, and Miss Pendexter’s easily roused curiosity was quieted
by the discovery that her friend was bent upon a visit to the
burying-ground. It was the time of year when she was pretty sure to
spend an afternoon there, and sometimes they had taken the walk in
company. Miss Pendexter expected to receive the usual invitation, but
there was nothing further said at the moment, and she looked again at
the pretty rose.

Mrs. Bickford aimlessly handled the syringas and flowering almond
sprays, choosing them out of the fragrant heap only to lay them down
again. She glanced out of the window; then gave Miss Pendexter a long
expressive look.

“I expect you’re going to carry ’em over to the burying-ground?”
inquired the guest, in a sympathetic tone.

“Yes’m,” said the hostess, now well started in conversation and in quite
her every-day manner. “You see I was goin’ over to my brother’s folks
to-morrow in South Fairfield, to pass the day; they said they were goin’
to send over to-morrow to leave a wagon at the blacksmith’s, and they’d
hitch that to their best chaise, so I could ride back very comfortable.
You know I have to avoid bein’ out in the mornin’ sun?”

Miss Pendexter smiled to herself at this moment; she was obliged to move
from her chair at the window, the May sun was so hot on her back, for
Mrs. Bickford always kept the curtains rolled high up, out of the way,
for fear of fading and dust. The kitchen was a blaze of light. As for
the Sunday chaise being sent, it was well known that Mrs. Bickford’s
married brothers and sisters comprehended the truth that she was a woman
of property, and had neither chick nor child.

“So I thought ’twas a good opportunity to just stop an’ see if the lot
was in good order,—last spring Mr. Wallis’s stone hove with the frost;
an’ so I could take these flowers.” She gave a sigh. “I ain’t one that
can bear flowers in a close room,—they bring on a headache; but I enjoy
’em as much as anybody to look at, only you never know what to put ’em
in. If I could be out in the mornin’ sun, as some do, and keep flowers
in the house, I should have me a gardin, certain,” and she sighed again.

“A garden’s a sight o’ care, but I don’t begrudge none o’ the care I
give to mine. I have to scant on flowers so ’s to make room for pole
beans,” said Miss Pendexter gayly. She had only a tiny strip of land
behind her house, but she always had something to give away, and made
riches out of her narrow poverty. “A few flowers gives me just as much
pleasure as more would,” she added. “You get acquainted with things when
you’ve only got one or two roots. My sweet-williams is just like folks.”

“Mr. Bickford was partial to sweet-williams,” said Mrs. Bickford. “I
never knew him to take notice of no other sort of flowers. When we’d be
over to Eliza’s, he’d walk down her gardin, an’ he’d never make no
comments until he come to them, and then he’d say, ‘Those is
sweet-williams.’ How many times I’ve heard him!”

“You ought to have a sprig of ’em for his bo’quet,” suggested Miss
Pendexter.

“Yes, I’ve put a sprig in,” said her companion.

At this moment Miss Pendexter took a good look at the bouquets, and
found that they were as nearly alike as careful hands could make them.
Mrs. Bickford was evidently trying to reach absolute impartiality.

“I don’t know but you think it’s foolish to tie ’em up this afternoon,”
she said presently, as she wound the first with a stout string. “I
thought I could put ’em in a bucket o’ water out in the shed, where
there’s a draught o’ air, and then I should have all my time in the
morning. I shall have a good deal to do before I go. I always sweep the
setting-room and front entry Wednesdays. I want to leave everything
nice, goin’ away for all day so. So I meant to get the flowers out o’
the way this afternoon. Why, it’s most half past four, ain’t it? But I
sha’n’t pick the rose till mornin’; ’twill be blowed out better then.”

“The rose?” questioned Miss Pendexter. “Why, are you goin’ to pick that,
too?”

“Yes, I be. I never like to let ’em fade on the bush. There, that’s just
what’s a-troublin’ me,” and she turned to give a long, imploring look at
the friend who sat beside her. Miss Pendexter had moved her chair before
the table in order to be out of the way of the sun. “I don’t seem to
know which of ’em ought to have it,” said Mrs. Bickford despondently. “I
do so hate to make a choice between ’em; they all had their good points,
especially Mr. Bickford, and I respected ’em all. I don’t know but what
I think of one on ’em ’most as much as I do of the other.”

“Why, ’tis difficult for you, ain’t it?” responded Miss Pendexter. “I
don’t know ’s I can offer advice.”

“No, I s’pose not,” answered her friend slowly, with a shadow of
disappointment coming over her calm face. “I feel sure you would if you
could, Abby.”

Both of the women felt as if they were powerless before a great
emergency.

“There’s one thing,—they’re all in a better world now,” said Miss
Pendexter, in a self-conscious and constrained voice; “they can’t feel
such little things or take note o’ slights same ’s we can.”

“No; I suppose ’tis myself that wants to be just,” answered Mrs.
Bickford. “I feel under obligations to my last husband when I look about
and see how comfortable he left me. Poor Mr. Wallis had his great
projects, an’ perhaps if he’d lived longer he’d have made a record; but
when he died he’d failed all up, owing to that patent cornsheller he’d
put everything into, and, as you know, I had to get along ’most any way
I could for the next few years. Life was very disappointing with Mr.
Wallis, but he meant well, an’ used to be an amiable person to dwell
with, until his temper got spoilt makin’ so many hopes an’ havin’ ’em
turn out failures. He had consider’ble of an air, an’ dressed very
handsome when I was first acquainted with him, Mr. Wallis did. I don’t
know ’s you ever knew Mr. Wallis in his prime?”

“He died the year I moved over here from North Denfield,” said Miss
Pendexter, in a tone of sympathy. “I just knew him by sight. I was to
his funeral. You know you lived in what we call the Wells house then,
and I felt it wouldn’t be an intrusion, we was such near neighbors. The
first time I ever was in your house was just before that, when he was
sick, an’ Mary ’Becca Wade an’ I called to see if there was anything we
could do.”

“They used to say about town that Mr. Wallis went to an’ fro like a
mail-coach an’ brought nothin’ to pass,” announced Mrs. Bickford without
bitterness. “He ought to have had a better chance than he did in this
little neighborhood. You see, he had excellent ideas, but he never’d
learned the machinist’s trade, and there was somethin’ the matter with
every model he contrived. I used to be real narrow-minded when he talked
about moving ’way up to Lowell, or some o’ them places; I hated to think
of leaving my folks; and now I see that I never done right by him. His
ideas was good. I know once he was on a jury, and there was a man
stopping to the tavern where he was, near the court house, a man that
traveled for a firm to Lowell; and they engaged in talk, an’ Mr. Wallis
let out some o’ his notions an’ contrivances, an’ he said that man
wouldn’t hardly stop to eat, he was so interested, an’ said he’d look
for a chance for him up to Lowell. It all sounded so well that I kind of
begun to think about goin’ myself. Mr. Wallis said we’d close the house
here, and go an’ board through the winter. But he never heard a word
from him, and the disappointment was one he never got over. I think of
it now different from what I did then. I often used to be kind of
disapproving to Mr. Wallis; but there, he used to be always tellin’ over
his great projects. Somebody told me once that a man by the same name of
the one he met while he was to court had got some patents for the very
things Mr. Wallis used to be workin’ over; but ’twas after he died, an’
I don’t know ’s ’twas in him to ever really set things up so other folks
could ha’ seen their value. His machines always used to work kind of
rickety, but folks used to come from all round to see ’em; they was
curiosities if they wa’n’t nothin’ else, an’ gave him a name.”

Mrs. Bickford paused a moment, with some geranium leaves in her hand,
and seemed to suppress with difficulty a desire to speak even more
freely.

“He was a dreadful notional man,” she said at last, regretfully, and as
if this fact were a poor substitute for what had just been in her mind.
“I recollect one time he worked all through the early winter over my
churn, an’ got it so it would go three quarters of an hour all of itself
if you wound it up; an’ if you’ll believe it, he went an’ spent all that
time for nothin’ when the cow was dry, an’ we was with difficulty
borrowin’ a pint o’ milk a day somewheres in the neighborhood just to
get along with.” Mrs. Bickford flushed with displeasure, and turned to
look at her visitor. “Now what do you think of such a man as that, Miss
Pendexter?” she asked.

“Why, I don’t know but ’twas just as good for an invention,” answered
Miss Pendexter timidly; but her friend looked doubtful, and did not
appear to understand.

“Then I asked him where it was, one day that spring when I’d got tired
to death churnin’, an’ the butter wouldn’t come in a churn I’d had to
borrow, and he’d gone an’ took ours all to pieces to get the works to
make some other useless contrivance with. He had no sort of a business
turn, but he was well meanin’, Mr. Wallis was, an’ full o’ divertin’
talk; they used to call him very good company. I see now that he never
had no proper chance. I’ve always regretted Mr. Wallis,” said she who
was now the widow Bickford.

“I’m sure you always speak well of him,” said Miss Pendexter. “’Twas a
pity he hadn’t got among good business men, who could push his
inventions an’ do all the business part.”

“I was left very poor an’ needy for them next few years,” said Mrs.
Bickford mournfully; “but he never’d give up but what he should die
worth his fifty thousand dollars. I don’t see now how I ever did get
along them next few years without him; but there, I always managed to
keep a pig, an’ sister Eliza gave me my potatoes, and I made out
somehow. I could dig me a few greens, you know, in spring, and then
’twould come strawberry-time, and other berries a-follow-in’ on. I was
always decent to go to meetin’ till within the last six months, an’ then
I went in bad weather, when folks wouldn’t notice; but ’twas a rainy
summer, an’ I managed to get considerable preachin’ after all. My
clothes looked proper enough when ’twas a wet Sabbath. I often think o’
them pinched days now, when I’m left so comfortable by Mr. Bickford.”

“Yes’m, you’ve everything to be thankful for,” said Miss Pendexter, who
was as poor herself at that moment as her friend had ever been, and who
could never dream of venturing upon the support and companionship of a
pig. “Mr. Bickford was a very personable man,” she hastened to say, the
confidences were so intimate and interesting.

“Oh, very,” replied Mrs. Bickford; “there was something about him that
was very marked. Strangers would always ask who he was as he come into
meetin’. His words counted; he never spoke except he had to. ’Twas a
relief at first after Mr. Wallis’s being so fluent; but Mr. Wallis was
splendid company for winter evenings,—’twould be eight o’clock before
you knew it. I didn’t use to listen to it all, but he had a great deal
of information. Mr. Bickford was dreadful dignified; I used to be sort
of meechin’ with him along at the first, for fear he’d disapprove of me;
but I found out ’twa’n’t no need; he was always just that way, an’ done
everything by rule an’ measure. He hadn’t the mind of my other husbands,
but he was a very dignified appearing man; he used ’most always to sleep
in the evenin’s, Mr. Bickford did.”

“Them is lovely bo’quets, certain!” exclaimed Miss Pendexter. “Why, I
couldn’t tell ’em apart; the flowers are comin’ out just right, aren’t
they?”

Mrs. Bickford nodded assent, and then, startled by sudden recollection,
she cast a quick glance at the rose in the window.

“I always seem to forget about your first husband, Mr. Fraley,” Miss
Pendexter suggested bravely. “I’ve often heard you speak of him, too,
but he’d passed away long before I ever knew you.”

“He was but a boy,” said Mrs. Bickford. “I thought the world was done
for me when he died, but I’ve often thought since ’twas a mercy for him.
He come of a very melancholy family, and all his brothers an’ sisters
enjoyed poor health; it might have been his lot. Folks said we was as
pretty a couple as ever come into church; we was both dark, with black
eyes an’ a good deal o’ color,—you wouldn’t expect it to see me now.
Albert was one that held up his head, and looked as if he meant to own
the town, an’ he had a good word for everybody. I don’t know what the
years might have brought.”

There was a long pause. Mrs. Bickford leaned over to pick up a
heavy-headed Guelder-rose that had dropped on the floor.

“I expect ’twas what they call fallin’ in love,” she added, in a
different tone; “he wa’n’t nothin’ but a boy, an’ I wa’n’t nothin’ but a
girl, but we was dreadful happy. He didn’t favor his folks,—they all had
hay-colored hair and was faded-looking, except his mother; they was
alike, and looked alike, an’ set everything by each other. He was just
the kind of strong, hearty young man that goes right off if they get a
fever. We was just settled on a little farm, an’ he’d have done well if
he’d had time; as it was, he left debts. He had a hasty temper, that was
his great fault, but Albert had a lovely voice to sing; they said there
wa’n’t no such tenor voice in this part o’ the State. I could hear him
singin’ to himself right out in the field a-ploughin’ or hoein’, an’ he
didn’t know it half o’ the time, no more ’n a common bird would. I don’t
know ’s I valued his gift as I ought to, but there was nothin’ ever
sounded so sweet to me. I ain’t one that ever had much fancy, but I
knowed Albert had a pretty voice.”

Mrs. Bickford’s own voice trembled a little, but she held up the last
bouquet and examined it critically. “I must hurry now an’ put these in
water,” she said, in a matter of fact tone. Little Miss Pendexter was so
quiet and sympathetic that her hostess felt no more embarrassed than if
she had been talking only to herself.

“Yes, they do seem to droop some; ’tis a little warm for them here in
the sun,” said Miss Pendexter; “but you’ll find they’ll all come up if
you give them their fill o’ water. They’ll look very handsome to-morrow;
folks’ll notice them from the road. You’ve arranged them very tasty,
Mis’ Bickford.”

“They do look pretty, don’t they?” Mrs. Bickford regarded the three in
turn. “I want to have them all pretty. You may deem it strange, Abby.”

“Why, no, Mis’ Bickford,” said the guest sincerely, although a little
perplexed by the solemnity of the occasion. “I know how ’tis with
friends,—that having one don’t keep you from wantin’ another; ’tis just
like havin’ somethin’ to eat, and then wantin’ somethin’ to drink just
the same. I expect all friends find their places.”

But Mrs. Bickford was not interested in this figure, and still looked
vague and anxious as she began to brush the broken stems and wilted
leaves into her wide calico apron. “I done the best I could while they
was alive,” she said, “and mourned ’em when I lost ’em, an’ I feel
grateful to be left so comfortable now when all is over. It seems
foolish, but I’m still at a loss about that rose.”

“Perhaps you’ll feel sure when you first wake up in the morning,”
answered Miss Pendexter solicitously. “It’s a case where I don’t deem
myself qualified to offer you any advice. But I’ll say one thing, seeing
’s you’ve been so friendly spoken and confiding with me. I never was
married myself, Mis’ Bickford, because it wa’n’t so that I could have
the one I liked.”

“I suppose he ain’t livin’, then? Why, I wan’t never aware you had met
with a disappointment, Abby,” said Mrs. Bickford instantly. None of her
neighbors had ever suspected little Miss Pendexter of a romance.

“Yes’m, he’s livin’,” replied Miss Pendexter humbly. “No’m, I never have
heard that he died.”

“I want to know!” exclaimed the woman of experience. “Well, I’ll tell
you this, Abby: you may have regretted your lot, and felt lonesome and
hardshipped, but they all have their faults, and a single woman’s got
her liberty, if she ain’t got other blessin’s.”

“’Twouldn’t have been my choice to live alone,” said Abby, meeker than
before. “I feel very thankful for my blessin’s, all the same. You’ve
always been a kind neighbor, Mis’ Bickford.”

“Why can’t you stop to tea?” asked the elder woman, with unusual
cordiality; but Miss Pendexter remembered that her hostess often
expressed a dislike for unexpected company, and promptly took her
departure after she had risen to go, glancing up at the bright flower as
she passed outside the window. It seemed to belong most to Albert, but
she had not liked to say so. The sun was low; the green fields stretched
away southward into the misty distance.


                                  II.

Mrs. Bickford’s house appeared to watch her out of sight down the road,
the next morning. She had lost all spirit for her holiday. Perhaps it
was the unusual excitement of the afternoon’s reminiscences, or it might
have been simply the bright moonlight night which had kept her broad
awake until dawn, thinking of the past, and more and more concerned
about the rose. By this time it had ceased to be merely a flower, and
had become a definite symbol and assertion of personal choice. She found
it very difficult to decide. So much of her present comfort and
well-being was due to Mr. Bickford; still, it was Mr. Wallis who had
been most unfortunate, and to whom she had done least justice. If she
owed recognition to Mr. Bickford, she certainly owed amends to Mr.
Wallis. If she gave him the rose, it would be for the sake of
affectionate apology. And then there was Albert, to whom she had no
thought of being either indebted or forgiving. But she could not escape
from the terrible feeling of indecision.

It was a beautiful morning for a drive, but Mrs. Bickford was kept
waiting some time for the chaise. Her nephew, who was to be her escort,
had found much social advantage at the blacksmith’s shop, so that it was
after ten when she finally started with the three large flat-backed
bouquets, covered with a newspaper to protect them from the sun. The
petals of the almond flowers were beginning to scatter, and now and then
little streams of water leaked out of the newspaper and trickled down
the steep slope of her best dress to the bottom of the chaise. Even yet
she had not made up her mind; she had stopped trying to deal with such
an evasive thing as decision, and leaned back and rested as best she
could.

“What an old fool I be!” she rebuked herself from time to time, in so
loud a whisper that her companion ventured a respectful “What, ma’am?”
and was astonished that she made no reply. John was a handsome young
man, but Mrs. Bickford could never cease thinking of him as a boy. He
had always been her favorite among the younger members of the family,
and now returned this affectionate feeling, being possessed of an
instinctive confidence in the sincerities of his prosaic aunt.

As they drove along, there had seemed at first to be something
unsympathetic and garish about the beauty of the summer day. After the
shade and shelter of the house, Mrs. Bickford suffered even more from a
contracted and assailed feeling out of doors. The very trees by the
roadside had a curiously fateful, trying way of standing back to watch
her, as she passed in the acute agony of indecision, and she was annoyed
and startled by a bird that flew too near the chaise in a moment of
surprise. She was conscious of a strange reluctance to the movement of
the Sunday chaise, as if she were being conveyed against her will; but
the companionship of her nephew John grew every moment to be more and
more a reliance. It was very comfortable to sit by his side, even though
he had nothing to say; he was manly and cheerful, and she began to feel
protected.

“Aunt Bickford,” he suddenly announced, “I may ’s well out with it! I’ve
got a piece o’ news to tell you, if you won’t let on to nobody. I expect
you’ll laugh, but you know I’ve set everything by Mary Lizzie Gifford
ever since I was a boy. Well, sir!”

“Well, sir!” exclaimed aunt Bickford in her turn, quickly roused into
most comfortable self-forgetfulness. “I am really pleased. She’ll make
you a good, smart wife, John. Ain’t all the folks pleased, both sides?”

“Yes, they be,” answered John soberly, with a happy, important look that
became him well.

“I guess I can make out to do something for you to help along, when the
right time comes,” said aunt Bickford impulsively, after a moment’s
reflection. “I’ve known what it is to be starting out in life with
plenty o’ hope. You ain’t calculatin’ on gettin’ married before fall,—or
be ye?”

“’Long in the fall,” said John regretfully. “I wish t’ we could set up
for ourselves right away this summer. I ain’t got much ahead, but I can
work well as anybody, an’ now I’m out o’ my time.”

“She’s a nice, modest, pretty girl. I thought she liked you, John,” said
the old aunt. “I saw her over to your mother’s, last day I was there.
Well, I expect you’ll be happy.”

“Certain,” said John, turning to look at her affectionately, surprised
by this outspokenness and lack of embarrassment between them. “Thank
you, aunt,” he said simply; “you’re a real good friend to me;” and he
looked away again hastily, and blushed a fine scarlet over his
sun-browned face. “She’s coming over to spend the day with the girls,”
he added. “Mother thought of it. You don’t get over to see us very
often.”

Mrs. Bickford smiled approvingly. John’s mother looked for her good
opinion, no doubt, but it was very proper for John to have told his
prospects himself, and in such a pretty way. There was no
shilly-shallying about the boy.

“My gracious!” said John suddenly. “I’d like to have drove right by the
burying-ground. I forgot we wanted to stop.”

Strange as it may appear, Mrs. Bickford herself had not noticed the
burying-ground, either, in her excitement and pleasure; now she felt
distressed and responsible again, and showed it in her face at once. The
young man leaped lightly to the ground, and reached for the flowers.

“Here, you just let me run up with ’em,” he said kindly. “’Tis hot in
the sun to-day, an’ you’ll mind it risin’ the hill. We’ll stop as I
fetch you back to-night, and you can go up comfortable an’ walk the yard
after sundown when it’s cool, an’ stay as long as you’re a mind to. You
seem sort of tired, aunt.”

“I don’t know but what I will let you carry ’em,” said Mrs. Bickford
slowly.

To leave the matter of the rose in the hands of fate seemed weakness and
cowardice, but there was not a moment for consideration. John was a
smiling fate, and his proposition was a great relief. She watched him go
away with a terrible inward shaking, and sinking of pride. She had held
the flowers with so firm a grasp that her hands felt weak and numb, and
as she leaned back and shut her eyes she was afraid to open them again
at first for fear of knowing the bouquets apart even at that distance,
and giving instructions which she might regret. With a sudden impulse
she called John once or twice eagerly; but her voice had a thin and
piping sound, and the meditative early crickets that chirped in the
fresh summer grass probably sounded louder in John’s ears. The bright
light on the white stones dazzled Mrs. Bickford’s eyes; and then all at
once she felt light-hearted, and the sky seemed to lift itself higher
and wider from the earth, and she gave a sigh of relief as her messenger
came back along the path. “I know who I do hope ’s got the right one,”
she said to herself. “There, what a touse I be in! I don’t see what I
had to go and pick the old rose for, anyway.”


“I declare, they did look real handsome, aunt,” said John’s hearty voice
as he approached the chaise. “I set ’em up just as you told me. This one
fell out, an’ I kept it. I don’t know ’s you’ll care. I can give it to
Lizzie.”

He faced her now with a bright, boyish look. There was something gay in
his buttonhole,—it was the red rose.

Aunt Bickford blushed like a girl. “Your choice is easy made,” she
faltered mysteriously, and then burst out laughing, there in front of
the burying-ground. “Come, get right in, dear,” she said. “Well, well! I
guess the rose was made for you; it looks very pretty in your coat,
John.”

She thought of Albert, and the next moment the tears came into her old
eyes. John was a lover, too.

“My first husband was just such a tall, straight young man as you be,”
she said as they drove along. “The flower he first give me was a rose.”




                         MISS TEMPY’S WATCHERS.


The time of year was April; the place was a small farming town in New
Hampshire, remote from any railroad. One by one the lights had been
blown out in the scattered houses near Miss Tempy Dent’s; but as her
neighbors took a last look out-of-doors, their eyes turned with
instinctive curiosity toward the old house, where a lamp burned
steadily. They gave a little sigh. “Poor Miss Tempy!” said more than one
bereft acquaintance; for the good woman lay dead in her north chamber,
and the light was a watcher’s light. The funeral was set for the next
day, at one o’clock.

The watchers were two of the oldest friends, Mrs. Crowe and Sarah Ann
Binson. They were sitting in the kitchen, because it seemed less awesome
than the unused best room, and they beguiled the long hours by steady
conversation. One would think that neither topics nor opinions would
hold out, at that rate, all through the long spring night; but there was
a certain degree of excitement just then, and the two women had risen to
an unusual level of expressiveness and confidence. Each had already told
the other more than one fact that she had determined to keep secret;
they were again and again tempted into statements that either would have
found impossible by daylight. Mrs. Crowe was knitting a blue yarn
stocking for her husband; the foot was already so long that it seemed as
if she must have forgotten to narrow it at the proper time. Mrs. Crowe
knew exactly what she was about, however; she was of a much cooler
disposition than Sister Binson, who made futile attempts at some sewing,
only to drop her work into her lap whenever the talk was most engaging.

Their faces were interesting,—of the dry, shrewd, quick-witted New
England type, with thin hair twisted neatly back out of the way. Mrs.
Crowe could look vague and benignant, and Miss Binson was, to quote her
neighbors, a little too sharp-set; but the world knew that she had need
to be, with the load she must carry of supporting an inefficient widowed
sister and six unpromising and unwilling nieces and nephews. The eldest
boy was at last placed with a good man to learn the mason’s trade. Sarah
Ann Binson, for all her sharp, anxious aspect, never defended herself,
when her sister whined and fretted. She was told every week of her life
that the poor children never would have had to lift a finger if their
father had lived, and yet she had kept her steadfast way with the little
farm, and patiently taught the young people many useful things, for
which, as everybody said, they would live to thank her. However
pleasureless her life appeared to outward view, it was brimful of
pleasure to herself.

Mrs. Crowe, on the contrary, was well to do, her husband being a rich
farmer and an easy-going man. She was a stingy woman, but for all that
she looked kindly; and when she gave away anything, or lifted a finger
to help anybody, it was thought a great piece of beneficence, and a
compliment, indeed, which the recipient accepted with twice as much
gratitude as double the gift that came from a poorer and more generous
acquaintance. Everybody liked to be on good terms with Mrs. Crowe.
Socially she stood much higher than Sarah Ann Binson. They were both old
schoolmates and friends of Temperance Dent, who had asked them, one day,
not long before she died, if they would not come together and look after
the house, and manage everything, when she was gone. She may have had
some hope that they might become closer friends in this period of
intimate partnership, and that the richer woman might better understand
the burdens of the poorer. They had not kept the house the night before;
they were too weary with the care of their old friend, whom they had not
left until all was over.

There was a brook which ran down the hillside very near the house, and
the sound of it was much louder than usual. When there was silence in
the kitchen, the busy stream had a strange insistence in its wild voice,
as if it tried to make the watchers understand something that related to
the past.

“I declare, I can’t begin to sorrow for Tempy yet. I am so glad to have
her at rest,” whispered Mrs. Crowe. “It is strange to set here without
her, but I can’t make it clear that she has gone. I feel as if she had
got easy and dropped off to sleep, and I’m more scared about waking her
up than knowing any other feeling.”

“Yes,” said Sarah Ann, “It’s just like that, ain’t it? But I tell you we
are goin’ to miss her worse than we expect. She’s helped me through with
many a trial, has Temperance. I ain’t the only one who says the same,
neither.”

These words were spoken as if there were a third person listening;
somebody beside Mrs. Crowe. The watchers could not rid their minds of
the feeling that they were being watched themselves. The spring wind
whistled in the window crack, now and then, and buffeted the little
house in a gusty way that had a sort of companionable effect. Yet, on
the whole, it was a very still night, and the watchers spoke in a
half-whisper.

“She was the freest-handed woman that ever I knew,” said Mrs. Crowe,
decidedly. “According to her means, she gave away more than anybody. I
used to tell her ’t wa’n’t right. I used really to be afraid that she
went without too much, for we have a duty to ourselves.”

Sister Binson looked up in a half-amused, unconscious way, and then
recollected herself.

Mrs. Crowe met her look with a serious face. “It ain’t so easy for me to
give as it is for some,” she said simply, but with an effort which was
made possible only by the occasion. “I should like to say, while Tempy
is laying here yet in her own house, that she has been a constant lesson
to me. Folks are too kind, and shame me with thanks for what I do. I
ain’t such a generous woman as poor Tempy was, for all she had nothin’
to do with, as one may say.”

Sarah Binson was much moved at this confession, and was even pained and
touched by the unexpected humility. “You have a good many calls on
you”—she began, and then left her kind little compliment half finished.

“Yes, yes, but I’ve got means enough. My disposition’s more of a cross
to me as I grow older, and I made up my mind this morning that Tempy’s
example should be my pattern henceforth.” She began to knit faster than
ever.

“’Tain’t no use to get morbid: that’s what Tempy used to say herself,”
said Sarah Ann, after a minute’s silence. “Ain’t it strange to say ‘used
to say’?” and her own voice choked a little. “She never did like to hear
folks git goin’ about themselves.”

“’Twas only because they’re apt to do it so as other folks will say’t
wasn’t so, an’ praise ’em up,” humbly replied Mrs. Crowe, “and that
ain’t my object. There wa’n’t a child but what Tempy set herself to work
to see what she could do to please it. One time my brother’s folks had
been stopping here in the summer, from Massachusetts. The children was
all little, and they broke up a sight of toys, and left ’em when they
were going away. Tempy come right up after they rode by, to see if she
couldn’t help me set the house to rights, and she caught me just as I
was going to fling some of the clutter into the stove. I was kind of
tired out, starting ’em off in season. ‘Oh, give me them!’ says she,
real pleading; and she wropped ’em up and took ’em home with her when
she went, and she mended ’em up and stuck ’em together, and made some
young one or other happy with every blessed one. You’d thought I’d done
her the biggest favor. ‘No thanks to me. I should ha’ burnt ’em, Tempy,’
says I.”

“Some of ’em came to our house, I know,” said Miss Binson. “She’d take a
lot o’ trouble to please a child, ’stead o’ shoving of it out o’ the
way, like the rest of us when we’re drove.”

“I can tell you the biggest thing she ever done, and I don’t know ’s
there’s anybody left but me to tell it. I don’t want it forgot,” Sarah
Binson went on, looking up at the clock to see how the night was going.
“It was that pretty-looking Trevor girl, who taught the Corners school,
and married so well afterwards, out in New York State. You remember her,
I dare say?”

“Certain,” said Mrs. Crowe, with an air of interest.

“She was a splendid scholar, folks said, and give the school a great
start; but she’d overdone herself getting her education, and working to
pay for it, and she all broke down one spring, and Tempy made her come
and stop with her a while,—you remember that? Well, she had an uncle,
her mother’s brother, out in Chicago, who was well off and friendly, and
used to write to Lizzie Trevor, and I dare say make her some presents;
but he was a lively, driving man, and didn’t take time to stop and think
about his folks. He hadn’t seen her since she was a little girl. Poor
Lizzie was so pale and weakly that she just got through the term o’
school. She looked as if she was just going straight off in a decline.
Tempy, she cosseted her up a while, and then, next thing folks knew, she
was tellin’ round how Miss Trevor had gone to see her uncle, and meant
to visit Niagary Falls on the way, and stop over night. Now I happened
to know, in ways I won’t dwell on to explain, that the poor girl was in
debt for her schoolin’ when she come here, and her last quarter’s pay
had just squared it off at last, and left her without a cent ahead,
hardly; but it had fretted her thinking of it, so she paid it all; those
might have dunned her that she owed it to. An’ I taxed Tempy about the
girl’s goin’ off on such a journey till she owned up, rather’n have
Lizzie blamed, that she’d given her sixty dollars, same’s if she was
rolling in riches, and sent her off to have a good rest and vacation.”

“Sixty dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy only had ninety dollars a
year that came in to her; rest of her livin’ she got by helpin’ about,
with what she raised off this little piece o’ ground, sand one side an’
clay the other. An’ how often I’ve heard her tell, years ago, that she’d
rather see Niagary than any other sight in the world!”

The women looked at each other in silence; the magnitude of the generous
sacrifice was almost too great for their comprehension.

“She was just poor enough to do that!” declared Mrs. Crowe at last, in
an abandonment of feeling. “Say what you may, I feel humbled to the
dust,” and her companion ventured to say nothing. She never had given
away sixty dollars at once, but it was simply because she never had it
to give. It came to her very lips to say in explanation, “Tempy was so
situated;” but she checked herself in time, for she would not betray her
own loyal guarding of a dependent household.

“Folks say a great deal of generosity, and this one’s being
public-sperited, and that one free-handed about giving,” said Mrs.
Crowe, who was a little nervous in the silence. “I suppose we can’t tell
the sorrow it would be to some folks not to give, same’s ’twould be to
me not to save. I seem kind of made for that, as if ’twas what I’d got
to do. I should feel sights better about it if I could make it evident
what I was savin’ for. If I had a child, now, Sarah Ann,” and her voice
was a little husky,—“if I had a child, I should think I was heapin’ of
it up because he was the one trained by the Lord to scatter it again for
good. But here’s Mr. Crowe and me, we can’t do anything with money, and
both of us like to keep things same ’s they’ve always been. Now
Priscilla Dance was talking away like a mill-clapper, week before last.
She’d think I would go right off and get one o’ them new-fashioned
gilt-and-white papers for the best room, and some new furniture, an’ a
marble-top table. And I looked at her, all struck up. ‘Why,’ says I,
‘Priscilla, that nice old velvet paper ain’t hurt a mite. I shouldn’t
feel ’twas my best room without it. Dan’el says ’tis the first thing he
can remember rubbin’ his little baby fingers on to it, and how splendid
he thought them red roses was.’ I maintain,” continued Mrs. Crowe
stoutly, “that folks wastes sights o’ good money doin’ just such foolish
things. Tearin’ out the insides o’ meetin’-houses, and fixin’ the pews
different; ’twas good enough as ’twas with mendin’; then times come, an’
they want to put it all back same ’s ’twas before.”

This touched upon an exciting subject to active members of that parish.
Miss Binson and Mrs. Crowe belonged to opposite parties, and had at one
time come as near hard feelings as they could, and yet escape them. Each
hastened to speak of other things and to show her untouched
friendliness.

“I do agree with you,” said Sister Binson, “that few of us know what use
to make of money, beyond every-day necessities. You’ve seen more o’ the
world than I have, and know what’s expected. When it comes to taste and
judgment about such things, I ought to defer to others;” and with this
modest avowal the critical moment passed when there might have been an
improper discussion.

In the silence that followed, the fact of their presence in a house of
death grew more clear than before. There was something disturbing in the
noise of a mouse gnawing at the dry boards of a closet wall near by.
Both the watchers looked up anxiously at the clock; it was almost the
middle of the night, and the whole world seemed to have left them alone
with their solemn duty. Only the brook was awake.

“Perhaps we might give a look upstairs now,” whispered Mrs. Crowe, as if
she hoped to hear some reason against their going just then to the
chamber of death; but Sister Binson rose, with a serious and yet
satisfied countenance, and lifted the small lamp from the table. She was
much more used to watching than Mrs. Crowe, and much less affected by
it. They opened the door into a small entry with a steep stairway; they
climbed the creaking stairs, and entered the cold upper room on tiptoe.
Mrs. Crowe’s heart began to beat very fast as the lamp was put on a high
bureau, and made long, fixed shadows about the walls. She went
hesitatingly toward the solemn shape under its white drapery, and felt a
sense of remonstrance as Sarah Ann gently, but in a business-like way,
turned back the thin sheet.

“Seems to me she looks pleasanter and pleasanter,” whispered Sarah Ann
Binson impulsively, as they gazed at the white face with its wonderful
smile. “To-morrow ’twill all have faded out. I do believe they kind of
wake up a day or two after they die, and it’s then they go.” She
replaced the light covering, and they both turned quickly away; there
was a chill in this upper room.

“’Tis a great thing for anybody to have got through, ain’t it?” said
Mrs. Crowe softly, as she began to go down the stairs on tiptoe. The
warm air from the kitchen beneath met them with a sense of welcome and
shelter.

“I don’ know why it is, but I feel as near again to Tempy down here as I
do up there,” replied Sister Binson. “I feel as if the air was full of
her, kind of. I can sense things, now and then, that she seems to say.
Now I never was one to take up with no nonsense of sperits and such, but
I declare I felt as if she told me just now to put some more wood into
the stove.”

Mrs. Crowe preserved a gloomy silence. She had suspected before this
that her companion was of a weaker and more credulous disposition than
herself. “’Tis a great thing to have got through,” she repeated,
ignoring definitely all that had last been said. “I suppose you know as
well as I that Tempy was one that always feared death. Well, it’s all
put behind her now; she knows what ’tis.” Mrs. Crowe gave a little sigh,
and Sister Binson’s quick sympathies were stirred toward this other old
friend, who also dreaded the great change.

“I’d never like to forgit almost those last words Tempy spoke plain to
me,” she said gently, like the comforter she truly was. “She looked up
at me once or twice, that last afternoon after I come to set by her, and
let Mis’ Owen go home; and I says, ‘Can I do anything to ease you,
Tempy?’ and the tears come into my eyes so I couldn’t see what kind of a
nod she give me. ‘No, Sarah Ann, you can’t, dear,’ says she; and then
she got her breath again, and says she, looking at me real meanin’, ‘I’m
only a-gettin’ sleepier and sleepier; that’s all there is,’ says she,
and smiled up at me kind of wishful, and shut her eyes. I knew well
enough all she meant. She’d been lookin’ out for a chance to tell me,
and I don’ know ’s she ever said much afterwards.”

Mrs. Crowe was not knitting; she had been listening too eagerly. “Yes,
’twill be a comfort to think of that sometimes,” she said, in
acknowledgment.

“I know that old Dr. Prince said once, in evenin’ meetin’, that he’d
watched by many a dyin’ bed, as we well knew, and enough o’ his sick
folks had been scared o’ dyin’ their whole lives through; but when they
come to the last, he’d never seen one but was willin’, and most were
glad, to go. ‘’Tis as natural as bein’ born or livin’ on,’ he said. I
don’t know what had moved him to speak that night. You know he wa’n’t in
the habit of it, and ’twas the monthly concert of prayer for foreign
missions anyways,” said Sarah Ann; “but ’twas a great stay to the mind
to listen to his words of experience.”

“There never was a better man,” responded Mrs. Crowe, in a really
cheerful tone. She had recovered from her feeling of nervous dread, the
kitchen was so comfortable with lamplight and firelight; and just then
the old clock began to tell the hour of twelve with leisurely whirring
strokes.

Sister Binson laid aside her work, and rose quickly and went to the
cupboard. “We’d better take a little to eat,” she explained. “The night
will go fast after this. I want to know if you went and made some o’
your nice cupcake, while you was home to-day?” she asked, in a pleased
tone; and Mrs. Crowe acknowledged such a gratifying piece of
thoughtfulness for this humble friend who denied herself all luxuries.
Sarah Ann brewed a generous cup of tea, and the watchers drew their
chairs up to the table presently, and quelled their hunger with good
country appetites. Sister Binson put a spoon into a small, old-fashioned
glass of preserved quince, and passed it to her friend. She was most
familiar with the house, and played the part of hostess. “Spread some o’
this on your bread and butter,” she said to Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy wanted me
to use some three or four times, but I never felt to. I know she’d like
to have us comfortable now, and would urge us to make a good supper,
poor dear.”

“What excellent preserves she did make!” mourned Mrs. Crowe. “None of us
has got her light hand at doin’ things tasty. She made the most o’
everything, too. Now, she only had that one old quince-tree down in the
far corner of the piece, but she’d go out in the spring and tend to it,
and look at it so pleasant, and kind of expect the old thorny thing into
bloomin’.”

“She was just the same with folks,” said Sarah Ann. “And she’d never git
more ’n a little apernful o’ quinces, but she’d have every mite o’
goodness out o’ those, and set the glasses up onto her best-room closet
shelf, _so_ pleased. ‘T wa’n’t but a week ago to-morrow mornin’ I
fetched her a little taste o’ jelly in a teaspoon; and she says ‘Thank
ye,’ and took it, an’ the minute she tasted it she looked up at me as
worried as could be. ‘Oh, I don’t want to eat that,’ says she. ‘I always
keep that in case o’ sickness.’ ‘You’re goin’ to have the good o’ one
tumbler yourself,’ says I. ‘I’d just like to know who’s sick now, if you
ain’t!’ An’ she couldn’t help laughin’, I spoke up so smart. Oh, dear
me, how I shall miss talkin’ over things with her! She always sensed
things, and got just the p’int you meant.”

“She didn’t begin to age until two or three years ago, did she?” asked
Mrs. Crowe. “I never saw anybody keep her looks as Tempy did. She looked
young long after I begun to feel like an old woman. The doctor used to
say ’twas her young heart, and I don’t know but what he was right. How
she did do for other folks! There was one spell she wasn’t at home a day
to a fortnight. She got most of her livin’ so, and that made her own
potatoes and things last her through. None o’ the young folks could get
married without her, and all the old ones was disappointed if she wa’n’t
round when they was down with sickness and had to go. An’ cleanin’, or
tailorin’ for boys, or rug-hookin’,—there was nothin’ but what she could
do as handy as most. ‘I do love to work,’—ain’t you heard her say that
twenty times a week?”

Sarah Ann Binson nodded, and began to clear away the empty plates. “We
may want a taste o’ somethin’ more towards mornin’,” she said. “There’s
plenty in the closet here; and in case some comes from a distance to the
funeral, we’ll have a little table spread after we get back to the
house.”

“Yes, I was busy all the mornin’. I’ve cooked up a sight o’ things to
bring over,” said Mrs. Crowe. “I felt ’twas the last I could do for
her.”

They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up their work.
Sister Binson’s rocking-chair creaked as she rocked; the brook sounded
louder than ever. It was more lonely when nobody spoke, and presently
Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts of growing old.

“Yes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her if she felt as
well as common, one day, and she laughed at me good. There, when Mr.
Crowe begun to look old, I couldn’t help feeling as if somethin’ ailed
him, and like as not ’twas somethin’ he was goin’ to git right over, and
I dosed him for it stiddy, half of one summer.”

“How many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy!” exclaimed Sarah Ann
Binson, after a long pause. “I can’t make up my mind to doin’ without
her. I wish folks could come back just once, and tell us how ’tis where
they’ve gone. Seems then we could do without ’em better.”


The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now and then; the
house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the warm fire, and an
absence of any new topics for conversation made the watchers drowsy.
Sister Binson closed her eyes first, to rest them for a minute; and Mrs.
Crowe glanced at her compassionately, with a new sympathy for the
hard-worked little woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a
good rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own
knitting was dropped, and she, too, fell asleep. Overhead, the pale
shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous, loving-hearted,
simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment. Perhaps Tempy herself
stood near, and saw her own life and its surroundings with new
understanding. Perhaps she herself was the only watcher.

Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start. There was a
pale light of dawn outside the small windows. Inside the kitchen, the
lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke, too.

“I think Tempy’d be the first to say ’twas just as well we both had some
rest,” she said, not without a guilty feeling.

Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide. The fresh air
was none too cold, and the brook’s voice was not nearly so loud as it
had been in the midnight darkness. She could see the shapes of the
hills, and the great shadows that lay across the lower country. The east
was fast growing bright.

“’Twill be a beautiful day for the funeral,” she said, and turned again,
with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.




                             MARTHA’S LADY.


                                   I.

One day, many years ago, the old Judge Pyne house wore an unwonted look
of gayety and youthfulness. The high-fenced green garden was bright with
June flowers. Under the elms in the large shady front yard you might see
some chairs placed near together, as they often used to be when the
family were all at home and life was going on gayly with eager talk and
pleasure-making; when the elder judge, the grandfather, used to quote
that great author, Dr. Johnson, and say to his girls, “Be brisk, be
splendid, and be public.”

One of the chairs had a crimson silk shawl thrown carelessly over its
straight back, and a passer-by, who looked in through the latticed gate
between the tall gate-posts with their white urns, might think that this
piece of shining East Indian color was a huge red lily that had suddenly
bloomed against the syringa bush. There were certain windows thrown wide
open that were usually shut, and their curtains were blowing free in the
light wind of a summer afternoon; it looked as if a large household had
returned to the old house to fill the prim best rooms and find them full
of cheer.

It was evident to every one in town that Miss Harriet Pyne, to use the
village phrase, had company. She was the last of her family, and was by
no means old; but being the last, and wonted to live with people much
older than herself, she had formed all the habits of a serious elderly
person. Ladies of her age, something past thirty, often wore discreet
caps in those days, especially if they were married, but being single,
Miss Harriet clung to youth in this respect, making the one concession
of keeping her waving chestnut hair as smooth and stiffly arranged as
possible. She had been the dutiful companion of her father and mother in
their latest years, all her elder brothers and sisters having married
and gone, or died and gone, out of the old house. Now that she was left
alone it seemed quite the best thing frankly to accept the fact of age,
and to turn more resolutely than ever to the companionship of duty and
serious books. She was more serious and given to routine than her elders
themselves, as sometimes happened when the daughters of New England
gentlefolks were brought up wholly in the society of their elders. At
thirty-five she had more reluctance than her mother to face an
unforeseen occasion, certainly more than her grandmother, who had
preserved some cheerful inheritance of gayety and worldliness from
colonial times.

There was something about the look of the crimson silk shawl in the
front yard to make one suspect that the sober customs of the best house
in a quiet New England village were all being set at defiance, and once
when the mistress of the house came to stand in her own doorway, she
wore the pleased but somewhat apprehensive look of a guest. In these
days New England life held the necessity of much dignity and discretion
of behavior; there was the truest hospitality and good cheer in all
occasional festivities, but it was sometimes a self-conscious
hospitality, followed by an inexorable return to asceticism both of diet
and of behavior. Miss Harriet Pyne belonged to the very dullest days of
New England, those which perhaps held the most priggishness for the
learned professions, the most limited interpretation of the word
“evangelical,” and the pettiest indifference to large things. The
outbreak of a desire for larger religious freedom caused at first a most
determined reaction toward formalism, especially in small and quiet
villages like Ashford, intently busy with their own concerns. It was
high time for a little leaven to begin its work, in this moment when the
great impulses of the war for liberty had died away and those of the
coming war for patriotism and a new freedom had hardly yet begun.


The dull interior, the changed life of the old house, whose former
activities seemed to have fallen sound asleep, really typified these
larger conditions, and a little leaven had made its easily recognized
appearance in the shape of a light-hearted girl. She was Miss Harriet’s
young Boston cousin, Helena Vernon, who, half-amused and half-impatient
at the unnecessary sober-mindedness of her hostess and of Ashford in
general, had set herself to the difficult task of gayety. Cousin Harriet
looked on at a succession of ingenious and, on the whole, innocent
attempts at pleasure, as she might have looked on at the frolics of a
kitten who easily substitutes a ball of yarn for the uncertainties of a
bird or a wind-blown leaf, and who may at any moment ravel the fringe of
a sacred curtain-tassel in preference to either.

Helena, with her mischievous appealing eyes, with her enchanting old
songs and her guitar, seemed the more delightful and even reasonable
because she was so kind to everybody, and because she was a beauty. She
had the gift of most charming manners. There was all the unconscious
lovely ease and grace that had come with the good breeding of her city
home, where many pleasant people came and went; she had no fear, one had
almost said no respect, of the individual, and she did not need to think
of herself. Cousin Harriet turned cold with apprehension when she saw
the minister coming in at the front gate, and wondered in agony if
Martha were properly attired to go to the door, and would by any chance
hear the knocker; it was Helena who, delighted to have anything happen,
ran to the door to welcome the Reverend Mr. Crofton as if he were a
congenial friend of her own age. She could behave with more or less
propriety during the stately first visit, and even contrive to lighten
it with modest mirth, and to extort the confession that the guest had a
tenor voice, though sadly out of practice; but when the minister
departed a little flattered, and hoping that he had not expressed
himself too strongly for a pastor upon the poems of Emerson, and feeling
the unusual stir of gallantry in his proper heart, it was Helena who
caught the honored hat of the late Judge Pyne from its last
resting-place in the hall, and holding it securely in both hands,
mimicked the minister’s self-conscious entrance. She copied his pompous
and anxious expression in the dim parlor in such delicious fashion that
Miss Harriet, who could not always extinguish a ready spark of the
original sin of humor, laughed aloud.

“My dear!” she exclaimed severely the next moment, “I am ashamed of your
being so disrespectful!” and then laughed again, and took the affecting
old hat and carried it back to its place.

“I would not have had any one else see you for the world,” she said
sorrowfully as she returned, feeling quite self-possessed again, to the
parlor doorway; but Helena still sat in the minister’s chair, with her
small feet placed as his stiff boots had been, and a copy of his solemn
expression before they came to speaking of Emerson and of the guitar. “I
wish I had asked him if he would be so kind as to climb the
cherry-tree,” said Helena, unbending a little at the discovery that her
cousin would consent to laugh no more. “There are all those ripe
cherries on the top branches. I can climb as high as he, but I can’t
reach far enough from the last branch that will bear me. The minister is
so long and thin”—

“I don’t know what Mr. Crofton would have thought of you; he is a very
serious young man,” said cousin Harriet, still ashamed of her laughter.
“Martha will get the cherries for you, or one of the men. I should not
like to have Mr. Crofton think you were frivolous, a young lady of your
opportunities”—but Helena had escaped through the hall and out at the
garden door at the mention of Martha’s name. Miss Harriet Pyne sighed
anxiously, and then smiled, in spite of her deep convictions, as she
shut the blinds and tried to make the house look solemn again.

The front door might be shut, but the garden door at the other end of
the broad hall was wide open upon the large sunshiny garden, where the
last of the red and white peonies and the golden lilies, and the first
of the tall blue larkspurs lent their colors in generous fashion. The
straight box borders were all in fresh and shining green of their new
leaves, and there was a fragrance of the old garden’s inmost life and
soul blowing from the honeysuckle blossoms on a long trellis. It was now
late in the afternoon, and the sun was low behind great apple-trees at
the garden’s end, which threw their shadows over the short turf of the
bleaching-green. The cherry-trees stood at one side in full sunshine,
and Miss Harriet, who presently came to the garden steps to watch like a
hen at the water’s edge, saw her cousin’s pretty figure in its white
dress of India muslin hurrying across the grass. She was accompanied by
the tall, ungainly shape of Martha the new maid, who, dull and
indifferent to every one else, showed a surprising willingness and
allegiance to the young guest.

“Martha ought to be in the dining-room, already, slow as she is; it
wants but half an hour of tea-time,” said Miss Harriet, as she turned
and went into the shaded house. It was Martha’s duty to wait at table,
and there had been many trying scenes and defeated efforts toward her
education. Martha was certainly very clumsy, and she seemed the clumsier
because she had replaced her aunt, a most skillful person, who had but
lately married a thriving farm and its prosperous owner. It must be
confessed that Miss Harriet was a most bewildering instructor, and that
her pupil’s brain was easily confused and prone to blunders. The coming
of Helena had been somewhat dreaded by reason of this incompetent
service, but the guest took no notice of frowns or futile gestures at
the first tea-table, except to establish friendly relations with Martha
on her own account by a reassuring smile. They were about the same age,
and next morning, before cousin Harriet came down, Helena showed by a
word and a quick touch the right way to do something that had gone wrong
and been impossible to understand the night before. A moment later the
anxious mistress came in without suspicion, but Martha’s eyes were as
affectionate as a dog’s, and there was a new look of hopefulness on her
face; this dreaded guest was a friend after all, and not a foe come from
proud Boston to confound her ignorance and patient efforts.

The two young creatures, mistress and maid, were hurrying across the
bleaching-green.

“I can’t reach the ripest cherries,” explained Helena politely, “and I
think that Miss Pyne ought to send some to the minister. He has just
made us a call. Why, Martha, you haven’t been crying again!”

“Yes’m,” said Martha sadly. “Miss Pyne always loves to send something to
the minister,” she acknowledged with interest, as if she did not wish to
be asked to explain these latest tears.

“We’ll arrange some of the best cherries in a pretty dish. I’ll show you
how, and you shall carry them over to the parsonage after tea,” said
Helena cheerfully, and Martha accepted the embassy with pleasure. Life
was beginning to hold moments of something like delight in the last few
days.

“You’ll spoil your pretty dress, Miss Helena,” Martha gave shy warning,
and Miss Helena stood back and held up her skirts with unusual care
while the country girl, in her heavy blue checked gingham, began to
climb the cherry-tree like a boy.

Down came the scarlet fruit like bright rain into the green grass.

“Break some nice twigs with the cherries and leaves together; oh, you’re
a duck, Martha!” and Martha, flushed with delight, and looking far more
like a thin and solemn blue heron, came rustling down to earth again,
and gathered the spoils into her clean apron.

That night at tea, during her handmaiden’s temporary absence, Miss
Harriet announced, as if by way of apology, that she thought Martha was
beginning to understand something about her work. “Her aunt was a
treasure, she never had to be told anything twice; but Martha has been
as clumsy as a calf,” said the precise mistress of the house. “I have
been afraid sometimes that I never could teach her anything. I was quite
ashamed to have you come just now, and find me so unprepared to
entertain a visitor.”

“Oh, Martha will learn fast enough because she cares so much,” said the
visitor eagerly. “I think she is a dear good girl. I do hope that she
will never go away. I think she does things better every day, cousin
Harriet,” added Helena pleadingly, with all her kind young heart. The
china-closet door was open a little way, and Martha heard every word.
From that moment, she not only knew what love was like, but she knew
love’s dear ambitions. To have come from a stony hill farm and a bare
small wooden house, was like a cave-dweller’s coming to make a permanent
home in an art museum, such had seemed the elaborateness and elegance of
Miss Pyne’s fashion of life; and Martha’s simple brain was slow enough
in its processes and recognitions. But with this sympathetic ally and
defender, this exquisite Miss Helena who believed in her, all
difficulties appeared to vanish.

Later that evening, no longer homesick or hopeless, Martha returned from
her polite errand to the minister, and stood with a sort of triumph
before the two ladies, who were sitting in the front doorway, as if they
were waiting for visitors, Helena still in her white muslin and red
ribbons, and Miss Harriet in a thin black silk. Being happily
self-forgetful in the greatness of the moment, Martha’s manners were
perfect, and she looked for once almost pretty and quite as young as she
was.

“The minister came to the door himself, and returned his thanks. He said
that cherries were always his favorite fruit, and he was much obliged to
both Miss Pyne and Miss Vernon. He kept me waiting a few minutes, while
he got this book ready to send to you, Miss Helena.”

“What are you saying, Martha? I have sent him nothing!” exclaimed Miss
Pyne, much astonished. “What does she mean, Helena?”

“Only a few cherries,” explained Helena. “I thought Mr. Crofton would
like them after his afternoon of parish calls. Martha and I arranged
them before tea, and I sent them with our compliments.”

“Oh, I am very glad you did,” said Miss Harriet, wondering, but much
relieved. “I was afraid”—

“No, it was none of my mischief,” answered Helena daringly. “I did not
think that Martha would be ready to go so soon. I should have shown you
how pretty they looked among their green leaves. We put them in one of
your best white dishes with the openwork edge. Martha shall show you
to-morrow; mamma always likes to have them so.” Helena’s fingers were
busy with the hard knot of a parcel.

“See this, cousin Harriet!” she announced proudly, as Martha disappeared
round the corner of the house, beaming with the pleasures of adventure
and success. “Look! the minister has sent me a book: Sermons on _what_?
Sermons—it is so dark that I can’t quite see.”

“It must be his ‘Sermons on the Seriousness of Life;’ they are the only
ones he has printed, I believe,” said Miss Harriet, with much pleasure.
“They are considered very fine discourses. He pays you a great
compliment, my dear. I feared that he noticed your girlish levity.”

“I behaved beautifully while he stayed,” insisted Helena. “Ministers are
only men,” but she blushed with pleasure. It was certainly something to
receive a book from its author, and such a tribute made her of more
value to the whole reverent household. The minister was not only a man,
but a bachelor, and Helena was at the age that best loves conquest; it
was at any rate comfortable to be reinstated in cousin Harriet’s good
graces.

“Do ask the kind gentleman to tea! He needs a little cheering up,”
begged the siren in India muslin, as she laid the shiny black volume of
sermons on the stone doorstep with an air of approval, but as if they
had quite finished their mission.

“Perhaps I shall, if Martha improves as much as she has within the last
day or two,” Miss Harriet promised hopefully. “It is something I always
dread a little when I am all alone, but I think Mr. Crofton likes to
come. He converses so elegantly.”


                                  II.

These were the days of long visits, before affectionate friends thought
it quite worth while to take a hundred miles’ journey merely to dine or
to pass a night in one another’s houses. Helena lingered through the
pleasant weeks of early summer, and departed unwillingly at last to join
her family at the White Hills, where they had gone, like other
households of high social station, to pass the month of August out of
town. The happy-hearted young guest left many lamenting friends behind
her, and promised each that she would come back again next year. She
left the minister a rejected lover, as well as the preceptor of the
academy, but with their pride unwounded, and it may have been with wider
outlooks upon the world and a less narrow sympathy both for their own
work in life and for their neighbors’ work and hindrances. Even Miss
Harriet Pyne herself had lost some of the unnecessary provincialism and
prejudice which had begun to harden a naturally good and open mind and
affectionate heart. She was conscious of feeling younger and more free,
and not so lonely. Nobody had ever been so gay, so fascinating, or so
kind as Helena, so full of social resource, so simple and undemanding in
her friendliness. The light of her young life cast no shadow on either
young or old companions, her pretty clothes never seemed to make other
girls look dull or out of fashion. When she went away up the street in
Miss Harriet’s carriage to take the slow train toward Boston and the
gayeties of the new Profile House, where her mother waited impatiently
with a group of Southern friends, it seemed as if there would never be
any more picnics or parties in Ashford, and as if society had nothing
left to do but to grow old and get ready for winter.


Martha came into Miss Helena’s bedroom that last morning, and it was
easy to see that she had been crying; she looked just as she did in that
first sad week of homesickness and despair. All for love’s sake she had
been learning to do many things, and to do them exactly right; her eyes
had grown quick to see the smallest chance for personal service. Nobody
could be more humble and devoted; she looked years older than Helena,
and wore already a touching air of caretaking.

“You spoil me, you dear Martha!” said Helena from the bed. “I don’t know
what they will say at home, I am so spoiled.”

Martha went on opening the blinds to let in the brightness of the summer
morning, but she did not speak.

“You are getting on splendidly, aren’t you?” continued the little
mistress. “You have tried so hard that you make me ashamed of myself. At
first you crammed all the flowers together, and now you make them look
beautiful. Last night cousin Harriet was so pleased when the table was
so charming, and I told her that you did everything yourself, every bit.
Won’t you keep the flowers fresh and pretty in the house until I come
back? It’s so much pleasanter for Miss Pyne, and you’ll feed my little
sparrows, won’t you? They’re growing so tame.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Helena!” and Martha looked almost angry for a moment,
then she burst into tears and covered her face with her apron. “I
couldn’t understand a single thing when I first came. I never had been
anywhere to see anything, and Miss Pyne frightened me when she talked.
It was you made me think I could ever learn. I wanted to keep the place,
’count of mother and the little boys; we’re dreadful hard pushed. Hepsy
has been good in the kitchen; she said she ought to have patience with
me, for she was awkward herself when she first came.”

Helena laughed; she looked so pretty under the tasseled white curtains.

“I dare say Hepsy tells the truth,” she said. “I wish you had told me
about your mother. When I come again, some day we’ll drive up country,
as you call it, to see her. Martha! I wish you would think of me
sometimes after I go away. Won’t you promise?” and the bright young face
suddenly grew grave. “I have hard times myself; I don’t always learn
things that I ought to learn, I don’t always put things straight. I wish
you wouldn’t forget me ever, and would just believe in me. I think it
does help more than anything.”

“I won’t forget,” said Martha slowly. “I shall think of you every day.”
She spoke almost with indifference, as if she had been asked to dust a
room, but she turned aside quickly and pulled the little mat under the
hot water jug quite out of its former straightness; then she hastened
away down the long white entry, weeping as she went.


                                  III.

To lose out of sight the friend whom one has loved and lived to please
is to lose joy out of life. But if love is true, there comes presently a
higher joy of pleasing the ideal, that is to say, the perfect friend.
The same old happiness is lifted to a higher level. As for Martha, the
girl who stayed behind in Ashford, nobody’s life could seem duller to
those who could not understand; she was slow of step, and her eyes were
almost always downcast as if intent upon incessant toil; but they
startled you when she looked up, with their shining light. She was
capable of the happiness of holding fast to a great sentiment, the
ineffable satisfaction of trying to please one whom she truly loved. She
never thought of trying to make other people pleased with herself; all
she lived for was to do the best she could for others, and to conform to
an ideal, which grew at last to be like a saint’s vision, a heavenly
figure painted upon the sky.


On Sunday afternoons in summer, Martha sat by the window of her chamber,
a low-storied little room, which looked into the side yard and the great
branches of an elm-tree. She never sat in the old wooden rocking-chair
except on Sundays like this; it belonged to the day of rest and to happy
meditation. She wore her plain black dress and a clean white apron, and
held in her lap a little wooden box, with a brass ring on top for a
handle. She was past sixty years of age and looked even older, but there
was the same look on her face that it had sometimes worn in girlhood.
She was the same Martha; her hands were old-looking and work-worn, but
her face still shone. It seemed like yesterday that Helena Vernon had
gone away, and it was more than forty years.

War and peace had brought their changes and great anxieties, the face of
the earth was furrowed by floods and fire, the faces of mistress and
maid were furrowed by smiles and tears, and in the shy the stars shone
on as if nothing had happened. The village of Ashford added a few pages
to its unexciting history, the minister preached, the people listened;
now and then a funeral crept along the street, and now and then the
bright face of a little child rose above the horizon of a family pew.
Miss Harriet Pyne lived on in the large white house, which gained more
and more distinction because it suffered no changes, save successive
repaintings and a new railing about its stately roof. Miss Harriet
herself had moved far beyond the uncertainties of an anxious youth. She
had long ago made all her decisions, and settled all necessary
questions; her scheme of life was as faultless as the miniature
landscape of a Japanese garden, and as easily kept in order. The only
important change she would ever be capable of making was the final
change to another and a better world; and for that nature itself would
gently provide, and her own innocent life.

Hardly any great social event had ruffled the easy current of life since
Helena Vernon’s marriage. To this Miss Pyne had gone, stately in
appearance and carrying gifts of some old family silver which bore the
Vernon crest, but not without some protest in her heart against the
uncertainties of married life. Helena was so equal to a happy
independence and even to the assistance of other lives grown strangely
dependent upon her quick sympathies and instinctive decisions, that it
was hard to let her sink her personality in the affairs of another. Yet
a brilliant English match was not without its attractions to an
old-fashioned gentlewoman like Miss Pyne, and Helena herself was
amazingly happy; one day there had come a letter to Ashford, in which
her very heart seemed to beat with love and self-forgetfulness, to tell
cousin Harriet of such new happiness and high hope. “Tell Martha all
that I say about my dear Jack,” wrote the eager girl; “please show my
letter to Martha, and tell her that I shall come home next summer and
bring the handsomest and best man in the world to Ashford. I have told
him all about the dear house and the dear garden; there never was such a
lad to reach for cherries with his six-foot-two.” Miss Pyne, wondering a
little, gave the letter to Martha, who took it deliberately and as if
she wondered too, and went away to read it slowly by herself. Martha
cried over it, and felt a strange sense of loss and pain; it hurt her
heart a little to read about the cherry-picking. Her idol seemed to be
less her own since she had become the idol of a stranger. She never had
taken such a letter in her hands before, but love at last prevailed,
since Miss Helena was happy, and she kissed the last page where her name
was written, feeling overbold, and laid the envelope on Miss Pyne’s
secretary without a word.

The most generous love cannot but long for reassurance, and Martha had
the joy of being remembered. She was not forgotten when the day of the
wedding drew near, but she never knew that Miss Helena had asked if
cousin Harriet would not bring Martha to town; she should like to have
Martha there to see her married. “She would help about the flowers,”
wrote the happy girl; “I know she will like to come, and I’ll ask mamma
to plan to have some one take her all about Boston and make her have a
pleasant time after the hurry of the great day is over.”

Cousin Harriet thought it was very kind and exactly like Helena, but
Martha would be out of her element; it was most imprudent and girlish to
have thought of such a thing. Helena’s mother would be far from wishing
for any unnecessary guest just then, in the busiest part of her
household, and it was best not to speak of the invitation. Some day
Martha should go to Boston if she did well, but not now. Helena did not
forget to ask if Martha had come, and was astonished by the indifference
of the answer. It was the first thing which reminded her that she was
not a fairy princess having everything her own way in that last day
before the wedding. She knew that Martha would have loved to be near,
for she could not help understanding in that moment of her own happiness
the love that was hidden in another heart. Next day this happy young
princess, the bride, cut a piece of a great cake and put it into a
pretty box that had held one of her wedding presents. With eager voices
calling her, and all her friends about her, and her mother’s face
growing more and more wistful at the thought of parting, she still
lingered and ran to take one or two trifles from her dressing-table, a
little mirror and some tiny scissors that Martha would remember, and one
of the pretty handkerchiefs marked with her maiden name. These she put
in the box too; it was half a girlish freak and fancy, but she could not
help trying to share her happiness, and Martha’s life was so plain and
dull. She whispered a message, and put the little package into cousin
Harriet’s hand for Martha as she said good-by. She was very fond of
cousin Harriet. She smiled with a gleam of her old fun; Martha’s puzzled
look and tall awkward figure seemed to stand suddenly before her eyes,
as she promised to come again to Ashford. Impatient voices called to
Helena, her lover was at the door, and she hurried away, leaving her old
home and her girlhood gladly. If she had only known it, as she kissed
cousin Harriet good-by, they were never going to see each other again
until they were old women. The first step that she took out of her
father’s house that day, married, and full of hope and joy, was a step
that led her away from the green elms of Boston Common and away from her
own country and those she loved best, to a brilliant, much-varied
foreign life, and to nearly all the sorrows and nearly all the joys that
the heart of one woman could hold or know.

On Sunday afternoons Martha used to sit by the window in Ashford and
hold the wooden box which a favorite young brother, who afterward died
at sea, had made for her, and she used to take out of it the pretty
little box with a gilded cover that had held the piece of wedding-cake,
and the small scissors, and the blurred bit of a mirror in its silver
case; as for the handkerchief with the narrow lace edge, once in two or
three years she sprinkled it as if it were a flower, and spread it out
in the sun on the old bleaching-green, and sat near by in the shrubbery
to watch lest some bold robin or cherry-bird should seize it and fly
away.


                                  IV.

Miss Harriet Pyne was often congratulated upon the good fortune of
having such a helper and friend as Martha. As time went on this tall,
gaunt woman, always thin, always slow, gained a dignity of behavior and
simple affectionateness of look which suited the charm and dignity of
the ancient house. She was unconsciously beautiful like a saint, like
the picturesqueness of a lonely tree which lives to shelter unnumbered
lives and to stand quietly in its place. There was such rustic
homeliness and constancy belonging to her, such beautiful powers of
apprehension, such reticence, such gentleness for those who were
troubled or sick; all these gifts and graces Martha hid in her heart.
She never joined the church because she thought she was not good enough,
but life was such a passion and happiness of service that it was
impossible not to be devout, and she was always in her humble place on
Sundays, in the back pew next the door. She had been educated by a
remembrance; Helena’s young eyes forever looked at her reassuringly from
a gay girlish face. Helena’s sweet patience in teaching her own
awkwardness could never be forgotten.

“I owe everything to Miss Helena,” said Martha, half aloud, as she sat
alone by the window; she had said it to herself a thousand times. When
she looked in the little keepsake mirror she always hoped to see some
faint reflection of Helena Vernon, but there was only her own brown old
New England face to look back at her wonderingly.

Miss Pyne went less and less often to pay visits to her friends in
Boston; there were very few friends left to come to Ashford and make
long visits in the summer, and life grew more and more monotonous. Now
and then there came news from across the sea and messages of
remembrance, letters that were closely written on thin sheets of paper,
and that spoke of lords and ladies, of great journeys, of the death of
little children and the proud successes of boys at school, of the
wedding of Helena Dysart’s only daughter; but even that had happened
years ago. These things seemed far away and vague, as if they belonged
to a story and not to life itself; the true links with the past were
quite different. There was the unvarying flock of ground-sparrows that
Helena had begun to feed; every morning Martha scattered crumbs for them
from the side doorsteps while Miss Pyne watched from the dining-room
window, and they were counted and cherished year by year.

Miss Pyne herself had many fixed habits, but little ideality or
imagination, and so at last it was Martha who took thought for her
mistress, and gave freedom to her own good taste. After a while, without
any one’s observing the change, the every-day ways of doing things in
the house came to be the stately ways that had once belonged only to the
entertainment of guests. Happily both mistress and maid seized all
possible chances for hospitality, yet Miss Harriet nearly always sat
alone at her exquisitely served table with its fresh flowers, and the
beautiful old china which Martha handled so lovingly that there was no
good excuse for keeping it hidden on closet shelves. Every year when the
old cherry-trees were in fruit, Martha carried the round white old
English dish with a fretwork edge, full of pointed green leaves and
scarlet cherries, to the minister, and his wife never quite understood
why every year he blushed and looked so conscious of the pleasure, and
thanked Martha as if he had received a very particular attention. There
was no pretty suggestion toward the pursuit of the fine art of
housekeeping in Martha’s limited acquaintance with newspapers that she
did not adopt; there was no refined old custom of the Pyne housekeeping
that she consented to let go. And every day, as she had promised, she
thought of Miss Helena,—oh, many times in every day: whether this thing
would please her, or that be likely to fall in with her fancy or ideas
of fitness. As far as was possible the rare news that reached Ashford
through an occasional letter or the talk of guests was made part of
Martha’s own life, the history of her own heart. A worn old geography
often stood open at the map of Europe on the light-stand in her room,
and a little old-fashioned gilt button, set with a bit of glass like a
ruby, that had broken and fallen from the trimming of one of Helena’s
dresses, was used to mark the city of her dwelling-place. In the changes
of a diplomatic life Martha followed her lady all about the map.
Sometimes the button was at Paris, and sometimes at Madrid; once, to her
great anxiety, it remained long at St. Petersburg. For such a slow
scholar Martha was not unlearned at last, since everything about life in
these foreign towns was of interest to her faithful heart. She satisfied
her own mind as she threw crumbs to the tame sparrows; it was all part
of the same thing and for the same affectionate reasons.


                                   V.

One Sunday afternoon in early summer Miss Harriet Pyne came hurrying
along the entry that led to Martha’s room and called two or three times
before its inhabitant could reach the door. Miss Harriet looked
unusually cheerful and excited, and she held something in her hand.
“Where are you, Martha?” she called again. “Come quick, I have something
to tell you!”

“Here I am, Miss Pyne,” said Martha, who had only stopped to put her
precious box in the drawer, and to shut the geography.

“Who do you think is coming this very night at half past six? We must
have everything as nice as we can; I must see Hannah at once. Do you
remember my cousin Helena who has lived abroad so long? Miss Helena
Vernon,—the Honorable Mrs. Dysart, she is now.”

“Yes, I remember her,” answered Martha, turning a little pale.

“I knew that she was in this country, and I had written to ask her to
come for a long visit,” continued Miss Harriet, who did not often
explain things, even to Martha, though she was always conscientious
about the kind messages that were sent back by grateful guests. “She
telegraphs that she means to anticipate her visit by a few days and come
to me at once. The heat is beginning in town, I suppose. I daresay,
having been a foreigner so long, she does not mind traveling on Sunday.
Do you think Hannah will be prepared? We must have tea a little later.”

“Yes, Miss Harriet,” said Martha. She wondered that she could speak as
usual, there was such a ringing in her ears. “I shall have time to pick
some fresh strawberries; Miss Helena is so fond of our strawberries.”

“Why, I had forgotten,” said Miss Pyne, a little puzzled by something
quite unusual in Martha’s face. “We must expect to find Mrs. Dysart a
good deal changed, Martha; it is a great many years since she was here;
I have not seen her since her wedding, and she has had a great deal of
trouble, poor girl. You had better open the parlor chamber, and make it
ready before you go down.”

“It is all ready,” said Martha. “I can carry some of those little
sweet-brier roses upstairs before she comes.”

“Yes, you are always thoughtful,” said Miss Pyne, with unwonted feeling.

Martha did not answer. She glanced at the telegram wistfully. She had
never really suspected before that Miss Pyne knew nothing of the love
that had been in her heart all these years; it was half a pain and half
a golden joy to keep such a secret; she could hardly bear this moment of
surprise.

Presently the news gave wings to her willing feet. When Hannah, the
cook, who never had known Miss Helena, went to the parlor an hour later
on some errand to her old mistress, she discovered that this stranger
guest must be a very important person. She had never seen the tea-table
look exactly as it did that night, and in the parlor itself there were
fresh blossoming boughs in the old East India jars, and lilies in the
paneled hall, and flowers everywhere, as if there were some high
festivity.

Miss Pyne sat by the window watching, in her best dress, looking stately
and calm; she seldom went out now, and it was almost time for the
carriage. Martha was just coming in from the garden with the
strawberries, and with more flowers in her apron. It was a bright cool
evening in June, the golden robins sang in the elms, and the sun was
going down behind the apple-trees at the foot of the garden. The
beautiful old house stood wide open to the long-expected guest.

“I think that I shall go down to the gate,” said Miss Pyne, looking at
Martha for approval, and Martha nodded and they went together slowly
down the broad front walk.

There was a sound of horses and wheels on the roadside turf: Martha
could not see at first; she stood back inside the gate behind the white
lilac-bushes as the carriage came. Miss Pyne was there; she was holding
out both arms and taking a tired, bent little figure in black to her
heart. “Oh, my Miss Helena is an old woman like me!” and Martha gave a
pitiful sob; she had never dreamed it would be like this; this was the
one thing she could not bear.

“Where are you, Martha?” called Miss Pyne. “Martha will bring these in;
you have not forgotten my good Martha, Helena?” Then Mrs. Dysart looked
up and smiled just as she used to smile in the old days. The young eyes
were there still in the changed face, and Miss Helena had come.


That night Martha waited in her lady’s room just as she used, humble and
silent, and went through with the old unforgotten loving services. The
long years seemed like days. At last she lingered a moment trying to
think of something else that might be done, then she was going silently
away, but Helena called her back. She suddenly knew the whole story and
could hardly speak.

“Oh, my dear Martha!” she cried, “won’t you kiss me good-night? Oh,
Martha, have you remembered like this, all these long years!”




                       THE GUESTS OF MRS. TIMMS.


                                   I.

Mrs. Persis Flagg stood in her front doorway taking leave of Miss
Cynthia Pickett, who had been making a long call. They were not intimate
friends. Miss Pickett always came formally to the front door and rang
when she paid her visits, but, the week before, they had met at the
county conference, and happened to be sent to the same house for
entertainment, and so had deepened and renewed the pleasures of
acquaintance.

It was an afternoon in early June; the syringa-bushes were tall and
green on each side of the stone doorsteps, and were covered with their
lovely white and golden flowers. Miss Pickett broke off the nearest
twig, and held it before her prim face as she talked. She had a pretty
childlike smile that came and went suddenly, but her face was not one
that bore the marks of many pleasures. Mrs. Flagg was a tall, commanding
sort of person, with an air of satisfaction and authority.

“Oh, yes, gather all you want,” she said stiffly, as Miss Pickett took
the syringa without having asked beforehand; but she had an amiable
expression, and just now her large countenance was lighted up by
pleasant anticipation.

“We can tell early what sort of a day it’s goin’ to be,” she said
eagerly. “There ain’t a cloud in the sky now. I’ll stop for you as I
come along, or if there should be anything unforeseen to detain me, I’ll
send you word. I don’t expect you’d want to go if it wa’n’t so that I
could?”

“Oh my sakes, no!” answered Miss Pickett discreetly, with a timid flush.
“You feel certain that Mis’ Timms won’t be put out? I shouldn’t feel
free to go unless I went ’long o’ you.”

“Why, nothin’ could be plainer than her words,” said Mrs. Flagg in a
tone of reproval. “You saw how she urged me, an’ had over all that talk
about how we used to see each other often when we both lived to
Longport, and told how she’d been thinkin’ of writin’, and askin’ if it
wa’n’t so I should be able to come over and stop three or four days as
soon as settled weather come, because she couldn’t make no fire in her
best chamber on account of the chimbley smokin’ if the wind wa’n’t just
right. You see how she felt toward me, kissin’ of me comin’ and goin’?
Why, she even asked me who I employed to do over my bonnet, Miss
Pickett, just as interested as if she was a sister; an’ she remarked she
should look for us any pleasant day after we all got home, an’ were
settled after the conference.”

Miss Pickett smiled, but did not speak, as if she expected more
arguments still.

“An’ she seemed just about as much gratified to meet with you again. She
seemed to desire to meet you again very particular,” continued Mrs.
Flagg. “She really urged us to come together an’ have a real good day
talkin’ over old times—there, don’t le’ ’s go all over it again! I’ve
always heard she’d made that old house of her aunt Bascoms’ where she
lives look real handsome. I once heard her best parlor carpet described
as being an elegant carpet, different from any there was round here.
Why, nobody couldn’t be more cordial, Miss Pickett; you ain’t goin’ to
give out just at the last?”

“Oh, no!” answered the visitor hastily; “no, ’m! I want to go full as
much as you do, Mis’ Flagg, but you see I never was so well acquainted
with Mis’ Cap’n Timms, an’ I always seem to dread putting myself
for’ard. She certain was very urgent, an’ she said plain enough to come
any day next week, an’ here ’tis Wednesday, though of course she
wouldn’t look for us either Monday or Tuesday. ’Twill be a real pleasant
occasion, an’ now we’ve been to the conference it don’t seem near so
much effort to start.”

“Why, I don’t think nothin’ of it,” said Mrs. Flagg proudly. “We shall
have a grand good time, goin’ together an’ all, I feel sure.”

Miss Pickett still played with her syringa flower, tapping her thin
cheek, and twirling the stem with her fingers. She looked as if she were
going to say something more, but after a moment’s hesitation she turned
away.

“Good-afternoon, Mis’ Flagg,” she said formally, looking up with a quick
little smile; “I enjoyed my call; I hope I ain’t kep’ you too late; I
don’t know but what it’s ’most tea-time. Well, I shall look for you in
the mornin’.”

“Good-afternoon, Miss Pickett; I’m glad I was in when you came. Call
again, won’t you?” said Mrs. Flagg. “Yes; you may expect me in good
season,” and so they parted. Miss Pickett went out at the neat clicking
gate in the white fence, and Mrs. Flagg a moment later looked out of her
sitting-room window to see if the gate were latched, and felt the least
bit disappointed to find that it was. She sometimes went out after the
departure of a guest, and fastened the gate herself with a loud,
rebuking sound. Both of these Woodville women lived alone, and were very
precise in their way of doing things.


                                  II.

The next morning dawned clear and bright, and Miss Pickett rose even
earlier than usual. She found it most difficult to decide which of her
dresses would be best to wear. Summer was still so young that the day
had all the freshness of spring, but when the two friends walked away
together along the shady street, with a chorus of golden robins singing
high overhead in the elms, Miss Pickett decided that she had made a wise
choice of her second-best black silk gown, which she had just turned
again and freshened. It was neither too warm for the season nor too
cool, nor did it look overdressed. She wore her large cameo pin, and
this, with a long watch-chain, gave an air of proper mural decoration.
She was a straight, flat little person, as if, when not in use, she kept
herself, silk dress and all, between the leaves of a book. She carried a
noticeable parasol with a fringe, and a small shawl, with a pretty
border, neatly folded over her left arm. Mrs. Flagg always dressed in
black cashmere, and looked, to hasty observers, much the same one day as
another; but her companion recognized the fact that this was the best
black cashmere of all, and for a moment quailed at the thought that Mrs.
Flagg was paying such extreme deference to their prospective hostess.
The visit turned for a moment into an unexpectedly solemn formality, and
pleasure seemed to wane before Cynthia Pickett’s eyes, yet with great
courage she never slackened a single step. Mrs. Flagg carried a somewhat
worn black leather handbag, which Miss Pickett regretted; it did not
give the visit that casual and unpremeditated air which she felt to be
more elegant.

“Sha’n’t I carry your bag for you?” she asked timidly. Mrs. Flagg was
the older and more important person.

“Oh, dear me, no,” answered Mrs. Flagg. “My pocket’s so remote, in case
I should desire to sneeze or anything, that I thought ’twould be
convenient for carrying my handkerchief and pocket-book; an’ then I just
tucked in a couple o’ glasses o’ my crabapple jelly for Mis’ Timms. She
used to be a great hand for preserves of every sort, an’ I thought
’twould be a kind of an attention, an’ give rise to conversation. I know
she used to make excellent drop-cakes when we was both residin’ to
Longport; folks used to say she never would give the right receipt, but
if I get a real good chance, I mean to ask her. Or why can’t you, if I
start talkin’ about receipts—why can’t you say, sort of innocent, that I
have always spoken frequently of her drop-cakes, an’ ask for the rule?
She would be very sensible to the compliment, and could pass it off if
she didn’t feel to indulge us. There, I do so wish you would!”

“Yes, ’m,” said Miss Pickett doubtfully; “I’ll try to make the
opportunity. I’m very partial to drop-cakes. Was they flour or rye, Mis’
Flagg?”

“They was flour, dear,” replied Mrs. Flagg approvingly; “crisp an’ light
as any you ever see.”

“I wish I had thought to carry somethin’ to make it pleasant,” said Miss
Pickett, after they had walked a little farther; “but there, I don’t
know’s ’twould look just right, this first visit, to offer anything to
such a person as Mis’ Timms. In case I ever go over to Baxter again I
won’t forget to make her some little present, as nice as I’ve got. ’Twas
certain very polite of her to urge me to come with you. I did feel very
doubtful at first. I didn’t know but she thought it behooved her,
because I was in your company at the conference, and she wanted to save
my feelin’s, and yet expected I would decline. I never was well
acquainted with her; our folks wasn’t well off when I first knew her;
’twas before uncle Cap’n Dyer passed away an’ remembered mother an’ me
in his will. We couldn’t make no han’some companies in them days, so we
didn’t go to none, an’ kep’ to ourselves; but in my grandmother’s time,
mother always said, the families was very friendly. I shouldn’t feel
like goin’ over to pass the day with Mis’ Timms if I didn’t mean to ask
her to return the visit. Some don’t think o’ these things, but mother
was very set about not bein’ done for when she couldn’t make no return.”

“‘When it rains porridge hold up your dish,’” said Mrs. Flagg; but Miss
Pickett made no response beyond a feeble “Yes, ’m,” which somehow got
caught in her pale-green bonnet-strings.

“There, ’tain’t no use to fuss too much over all them things,”
proclaimed Mrs. Flagg, walking along at a good pace with a fine sway of
her skirts, and carrying her head high. “Folks walks right by an’
forgits all about you; folks can’t always be going through with just so
much. You’d had a good deal better time, you an’ your ma, if you’d been
freer in your ways; now don’t you s’pose you would? ’Tain’t what you
give folks to eat so much as ’tis makin’ ’em feel welcome. Now, there’s
Mis’ Timms; when we was to Longport she was dreadful methodical. She
wouldn’t let Cap’n Timms fetch nobody home to dinner without lettin’ of
her know, same’s other cap’ns’ wives had to submit to. I was thinkin’,
when she was so cordial over to Danby, how she’d softened with time.
Years do learn folks somethin’! She did seem very pleasant an’ desirous.
There, I am so glad we got started; if she’d gone an’ got up a real good
dinner to-day, an’ then not had us come till to-morrow, ’twould have
been real too bad. Where anybody lives alone such a thing is very
tryin’.”

“Oh, so ’tis!” said Miss Pickett. “There, I’d like to tell you what I
went through with year before last. They come an’ asked me one Saturday
night to entertain the minister, that time we was having candidates”—

“I guess we’d better step along faster,” said Mrs. Flagg suddenly. “Why,
Miss Pickett, there’s the stage comin’ now! It’s dreadful prompt, seems
to me. Quick! there’s folks awaitin’, an’ I sha’n’t get to Baxter in no
state to visit Mis’ Cap’n Timms if I have to ride all the way there
backward!”


                                  III.

The stage was not full inside. The group before the store proved to be
made up of spectators, except one man, who climbed at once to a vacant
seat by the driver. Inside there was only one person, after two
passengers got out, and she preferred to sit with her back to the
horses, so that Mrs. Flagg and Miss Pickett settled themselves
comfortably in the coveted corners of the back seat. At first they took
no notice of their companion, and spoke to each other in low tones, but
presently something attracted the attention of all three and engaged
them in conversation.

“I never was over this road before,” said the stranger. “I s’pose you
ladies are well acquainted all along.”

“We have often traveled it in past years. We was over this part of it
last week goin’ and comin’ from the county conference,” said Mrs. Flagg
in a dignified manner.

“What persuasion?” inquired the fellow-traveler, with interest.

“Orthodox,” said Miss Pickett quickly, before Mrs. Flagg could speak.
“It was a very interestin’ occasion; this other lady an me stayed
through all the meetin’s.”

“I ain’t Orthodox,” announced the stranger, waiving any interest in
personalities. “I was brought up amongst the Freewill Baptists.”

“We’re well acquainted with several of that denomination in our place,”
said Mrs. Flagg, not without an air of patronage. “They’ve never built
’em no church; there ain’t but a scattered few.”

“They prevail where I come from,” said the traveler. “I’m goin’ now to
visit with a Freewill lady. We was to a conference together once, same
’s you an’ your friend, but ’twas a state conference. She asked me to
come some time an’ make her a good visit, and I’m on my way now. I
didn’t seem to have nothin’ to keep me to home.”

“We’re all goin’ visitin’ to-day, ain’t we?” said Mrs. Flagg sociably;
but no one carried on the conversation.

The day was growing very warm; there was dust in the sandy road, but the
fields of grass and young growing crops looked fresh and fair. There was
a light haze over the hills, and birds were thick in the air. When the
stage-horses stopped to walk, you could hear the crows caw, and the
bobolinks singing, in the meadows. All the farmers were busy in their
fields.

“It don’t seem but little ways to Baxter, does it?” said Miss Pickett,
after a while. “I felt we should pass a good deal o’ time on the road,
but we must be pretty near half-way there a’ready.”

“Why, more ’n half!” exclaimed Mrs. Flagg. “Yes; there’s Beckett’s
Corner right ahead, an the old Beckett house. I haven’t been on this
part of the road for so long that I feel kind of strange. I used to
visit over here when I was a girl. There’s a nephew’s widow owns the
place now. Old Miss Susan Beckett willed it to him, an’ he died; but she
resides there an’ carries on the farm, an unusual smart woman, everybody
says. Ain’t it pleasant here, right out among the farms!”

“Mis’ Beckett’s place, did you observe?” said the stranger, leaning
forward to listen to what her companions said. “I expect that’s where
I’m goin’—Mis’ Ezra Beckett’s?”

“That’s the one,” said Miss Pickett and Mrs. Flagg together, and they
both looked out eagerly as the coach drew up to the front door of a
large old yellow house that stood close upon the green turf of the
roadside.

The passenger looked pleased and eager, and made haste to leave the
stage with her many bundles and bags. While she stood impatiently
tapping at the brass knocker, the stage-driver landed a large trunk, and
dragged it toward the door across the grass. Just then a busy-looking
middle-aged woman made her appearance, with floury hands and a look as
if she were prepared to be somewhat on the defensive.

“Why, how do you do, Mis’ Beckett?” exclaimed the guest. “Well, here I
be at last. I didn’t know ’s you thought I was ever comin’. Why, I do
declare, I believe you don’t recognize me, Mis’ Beckett.”

“I believe I don’t,” said the self-possessed hostess. “Ain’t you made
some mistake, ma’am?”

“Why, don’t you recollect we was together that time to the state
conference, an’ you said you should be pleased to have me come an’ make
you a visit some time, an’ I said I would certain. There, I expect I
look more natural to you now.”

Mrs. Beckett appeared to be making the best possible effort, and gave a
bewildered glance, first at her unexpected visitor, and then at the
trunk. The stage-driver, who watched this encounter with evident
delight, turned away with reluctance. “I can’t wait all day to see how
they settle it,” he said, and mounted briskly to the box, and the stage
rolled on.

“He might have waited just a minute to see,” said Miss Pickett
indignantly, but Mrs. Flagg’s head and shoulders were already far out of
the stage window—the house was on her side. “She ain’t got in yet,” she
told Miss Pickett triumphantly. “I could see ’em quite a spell. With
that trunk, too! I do declare, how inconsiderate some folks is!”

“’Twas pushin’ an acquaintance most too far, wa’n’t it?” agreed Miss
Pickett. “There,’twill be somethin’ laughable to tell Mis’ Timms. I
never see anything more divertin’. I shall kind of pity that woman if we
have to stop an’ git her as we go back this afternoon.”

“Oh, don’t let’s forgit to watch for her,” exclaimed Mrs. Flagg,
beginning to brush off the dust of travel. “There, I feel an excellent
appetite, don’t you? And we ain’t got more ’n three or four miles to go,
if we have that. I wonder what Mis’ Timms is likely to give us for
dinner; she spoke of makin’ a good many chicken-pies, an’ I happened to
remark how partial I was to ’em. She felt above most of the things we
had provided for us over to the conference. I know she was always
counted the best o’ cooks when I knew her so well to Longport. Now,
don’t you forget, if there’s a suitable opportunity, to inquire about
the drop-cakes;” and Miss Pickett, a little less doubtful than before,
renewed her promise.


                                  IV.

“My gracious, won’t Mis’ Timms be pleased to see us! It’s just exactly
the day to have company. And ain’t Baxter a sweet pretty place?” said
Mrs. Flagg, as they walked up the main street. “Cynthy Pickett, now
ain’t you proper glad you come? I felt sort o’ calm about it part o’ the
time yesterday, but I ain’t felt so like a girl for a good while. I do
believe I’m goin’ to have a splendid time.”

Miss Pickett glowed with equal pleasure as she paced along. She was less
expansive and enthusiastic than her companion, but now that they were
fairly in Baxter, she lent herself generously to the occasion. The
social distinction of going away to spend a day in company with Mrs.
Flagg was by no means small. She arranged the folds of her shawl more
carefully over her arm so as to show the pretty palm-leaf border, and
then looked up with great approval to the row of great maples that
shaded the broad sidewalk. “I wonder if we can’t contrive to make time
to go an’ see old Miss Nancy Fell?” she ventured to ask Mrs. Flagg.
“There ain’t a great deal o’ time before the stage goes at four o’clock;
’twill pass quickly, but I should hate to have her feel hurt. If she was
one we had visited often at home, I shouldn’t care so much, but such
folks feel any little slight. She was a member of our church; I think a
good deal of that.”

“Well, I hardly know what to say,” faltered Mrs. Flagg coldly. “We might
just look in a minute; I shouldn’t want her to feel hurt.”

“She was one that always did her part, too,” said Miss Pickett, more
boldly. “Mr. Cronin used to say that she was more generous with her
little than many was with their much. If she hadn’t lived in a poor part
of the town, and so been occupied with a different kind of people from
us, ’twould have made a difference. They say she’s got a comfortable
little home over here, an’ keeps house for a nephew. You know she was to
our meeting one Sunday last winter, and ’peared dreadful glad to get
back; folks seemed glad to see her, too. I don’t know as you were out.”

“She always wore a friendly look,” said Mrs. Flagg indulgently. “There,
now, there’s Mis’ Timms’s residence; it’s handsome, ain’t it, with them
big spruce-trees? I expect she may be at the window now, an’ see us as
we come along. Is my bonnet on straight, an’ everything? The blinds
looks open in the room this way; I guess she’s to home fast enough.”

The friends quickened their steps, and with shining eyes and beating
hearts hastened forward. The slightest mists of uncertainty were now
cleared away; they gazed at the house with deepest pleasure; the visit
was about to begin.

They opened the front gate and went up the short walk, noticing the
pretty herringbone pattern of the bricks, and as they stood on the high
steps Cynthia Pickett wondered whether she ought not to have worn her
best dress, even though there was lace at the neck and sleeves, and she
usually kept it for the most formal of tea-parties and exceptional
parish festivals. In her heart she commended Mrs. Flagg for that
familiarity with the ways of a wider social world which had led her to
wear the very best among her black cashmeres.

“She’s a good while coming to the door,” whispered Mrs. Flagg presently.
“Either she didn’t see us, or else she’s slipped upstairs to make some
change, an’ is just goin’ to let us ring again. I’ve done it myself
sometimes. I’m glad we come right over after her urgin’ us so; it seems
more cordial than to keep her expectin’ us. I expect she’ll urge us
terribly to remain with her over night.”

“Oh, I ain’t prepared,” began Miss Pickett, but she looked pleased. At
that moment there was a slow withdrawal of the bolt inside, and a key
was turned, the front door opened, and Mrs. Timms stood before them with
a smile. Nobody stopped to think at that moment what kind of smile it
was.

“Why, if it ain’t Mis’ Flagg,” she exclaimed politely, “an’ Miss Pickett
too! I am surprised!”

The front entry behind her looked well furnished, but not exactly
hospitable; the stairs with their brass rods looked so clean and bright
that it did not seem as if anybody had ever gone up or come down. A cat
came purring out, but Mrs. Timms pushed her back with a determined foot,
and hastily closed the sitting-room door. Then Miss Pickett let Mrs.
Flagg precede her, as was becoming, and they went into a darkened
parlor, and found their way to some chairs, and seated themselves
solemnly.

“’Tis a beautiful day, ain’t it?” said Mrs. Flagg, speaking first. “I
don’t know ’s I ever enjoyed the ride more. We’ve been having a good
deal of rain since we saw you at the conference, and the country looks
beautiful.”

“Did you leave Woodville this morning? I thought I hadn’t heard you was
in town,” replied Mrs. Timms formally. She was seated just a little too
far away to make things seem exactly pleasant. The darkness of the best
room seemed to retreat somewhat, and Miss Pickett looked over by the
door, where there was a pale gleam from the sidelights in the hall, to
try to see the pattern of the carpet; but her effort failed.

“Yes, ’m,” replied Mrs. Flagg to the question. “We left Woodville about
half past eight, but it is quite a ways from where we live to where you
take the stage. The stage does come slow, but you don’t seem to mind it
such a beautiful day.”

“Why, you must have come right to see me first!” said Mrs. Timms,
warming a little as the visit went on. “I hope you’re going to make some
stop in town. I’m sure it was very polite of you to come right an’ see
me; well, it’s very pleasant, I declare. I wish you’d been in Baxter
last Sabbath; our minister did give us an elegant sermon on faith an’
works. He spoke of the conference, and gave his views on some o’ the
questions that came up, at Friday evenin’ meetin’; but I felt tired
after getting home, an’ so I wasn’t out. We feel very much favored to
have such a man amon’st us. He’s building up the parish very
considerable. I understand the pew-rents come to thirty-six dollars more
this quarter than they did last.”

“We also feel grateful in Woodville for our pastor’s efforts,” said Miss
Pickett; but Mrs. Timms turned her head away sharply, as if the speech
had been untimely, and trembling Miss Pickett had interrupted.

“They’re thinking here of raisin’ Mr. Barlow’s salary another year,” the
hostess added; “a good many of the old parishioners have died off, but
every one feels to do what they can. Is there much interest among the
young people in Woodville, Mis’ Flagg?”

“Considerable at this time, ma’am,” answered Mrs. Flagg, without
enthusiasm, and she listened with unusual silence to the subsequent
fluent remarks of Mrs. Timms.

The parlor seemed to be undergoing the slow processes of a winter dawn.
After a while the three women could begin to see one another’s faces,
which aided them somewhat in carrying on a serious and impersonal
conversation. There were a good many subjects to be touched upon, and
Mrs. Timms said everything that she should have said, except to invite
her visitors to walk upstairs and take off their bonnets. Mrs. Flagg sat
her parlor-chair as if it were a throne, and carried her banner of
self-possession as high as she knew how, but toward the end of the call
even she began to feel hurried.

“Won’t you ladies take a glass of wine an’ a piece of cake after your
ride?” inquired Mrs. Timms, with an air of hospitality that almost
concealed the fact that neither cake nor wine was anywhere to be seen;
but the ladies bowed and declined with particular elegance. Altogether
it was a visit of extreme propriety on both sides, and Mrs. Timms was
very pressing in her invitation that her guests should stay longer.

“Thank you, but we ought to be going,” answered Mrs. Flagg, with a
little show of ostentation, and looking over her shoulder to be sure
that Miss Pickett had risen too. “We’ve got some little ways to go,” she
added with dignity. “We should be pleased to have you call an’ see us in
case you have occasion to come to Woodville,” and Miss Pickett faintly
seconded the invitation. It was in her heart to add, “Come any day next
week,” but her courage did not rise so high as to make the words
audible. She looked as if she were ready to cry; her usual smile had
burnt itself out into gray ashes; there was a white, appealing look
about her mouth. As they emerged from the dim parlor and stood at the
open front door, the bright June day, the golden-green trees, almost
blinded their eyes. Mrs. Timms was more smiling and cordial than ever.

“There, I ought to have thought to offer you fans; I am afraid you was
warm after walking,” she exclaimed, as if to leave no stone of courtesy
unturned. “I have so enjoyed meeting you again, I wish it was so you
could stop longer. Why, Mis’ Flagg, we haven’t said one word about old
times when we lived to Longport. I’ve had news from there, too, since I
saw you; my brother’s daughter-in-law was here to pass the Sabbath after
I returned.”

Mrs. Flagg did not turn back to ask any questions as she stepped stiffly
away down the brick walk. Miss Pickett followed her, raising the fringed
parasol; they both made ceremonious little bows as they shut the high
white gate behind them. “Good-by,” said Mrs. Timms finally, as she stood
in the door with her set smile; and as they departed she came out and
began to fasten up a rosebush that climbed a narrow white ladder by the
steps.

“Oh, my goodness alive!” exclaimed Mrs. Flagg, after they had gone some
distance in aggrieved silence, “if I haven’t gone and forgotten my bag!
I ain’t goin’ back, whatever happens. I expect she’ll trip over it in
that dark room and break her neck!”

“I brought it; I noticed you’d forgotten it,” said Miss Pickett timidly,
as if she hated to deprive her companion of even that slight
consolation.

“There, I’ll tell you what we’d better do,” said Mrs. Flagg gallantly;
“we’ll go right over an’ see poor old Miss Nancy Fell; ’twill please her
about to death. We can say we felt like goin’ somewhere to-day, an’
’twas a good many years since either one of us had seen Baxter, so we
come just for the ride, an’ to make a few calls. She’ll like to hear all
about the conference; Miss Fell was always one that took a real interest
in religious matters.”

Miss Pickett brightened, and they quickened their step. It was nearly
twelve o’clock, they had breakfasted early, and now felt as if they had
eaten nothing since they were grown up. An awful feeling of tiredness
and uncertainty settled down upon their once buoyant spirits.

“I can forgive a person,” said Mrs. Flagg, once, as if she were speaking
to herself; “I can forgive a person, but when I’m done with ’em, I’m
done.”


                                   V.

“I do declare, ’twas like a scene in Scriptur’ to see that poor
good-hearted Nancy Fell run down her walk to open the gate for us!” said
Mrs. Persis Flagg later that afternoon, when she and Miss Pickett were
going home in the stage. Miss Pickett nodded her head approvingly.

“I had a good sight better time with her than I should have had at the
other place,” she said with fearless honesty. “If I’d been Mis’ Cap’n
Timms, I’d made some apology or just passed us the compliment. If it
wa’n’t convenient, why couldn’t she just tell us so after all her urgin’
and sayin’ how she should expect us?”

“I thought then she’d altered from what she used to be,” said Mrs.
Flagg. “She seemed real sincere an’ open away from home. If she wa’n’t
prepared to-day, ’twas easy enough to say so; we was reasonable folks,
an’ should have gone away with none but friendly feelin’s. We did have a
grand good time with Nancy. She was as happy to see us as if we’d been
queens.”

“’Twas a real nice little dinner,” said Miss Pickett gratefully. “I
thought I was goin’ to faint away just before we got to the house, and I
didn’t know how I should hold out if she undertook to do anything extra,
and keep us awaitin’; but there, she just made us welcome,
simple-hearted, to what she had. I never tasted such dandelion greens;
an’ that nice little piece o’ pork and new biscuit, why, they was just
splendid. She must have an excellent good cellar, if ’tis such a small
house. Her potatoes was truly remarkable for this time o’ year. I myself
don’t deem it necessary to cook potatoes when I’m goin’ to have
dandelion greens. Now, didn’t it put you in mind of that verse in the
Bible that says, ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is’? An’ how
desirous she’d been to see somebody that could tell her some particulars
about the conference!”

“She’ll enjoy tellin’ folks about our comin’ over to see her. Yes, I’m
glad we went; ’twill be of advantage every way, an’ our bein’ of the
same church an’ all, to Woodville. If Mis’ Timms hears of our bein’
there, she’ll see we had reason, an’ knew of a place to go. Well, I
needn’t have brought this old bag!”

Miss Pickett gave her companion a quick resentful glance, which was
followed by one of triumph directed at the dust that was collecting on
the shoulders of the best black cashmere; then she looked at the bag on
the front seat, and suddenly felt illuminated with the suspicion that
Mrs. Flagg had secretly made preparations to pass the night in Baxter.
The bag looked plump, as if it held much more than the pocket-book and
the jelly.

Mrs. Flagg looked up with unusual humility. “I did think about that
jelly,” she said, as if Miss Pickett had openly reproached her. “I was
afraid it might look as if I was tryin’ to pay Nancy for her kindness.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Cynthia; “I guess she’d been pleased. She’d
thought you just brought her over a little present: but I don’ know as
’twould been any good to her after all; she’d thought so much of it,
comin’ from you, that she’d kep’ it till ’twas all candied.” But Mrs.
Flagg didn’t look exactly pleased by this unexpected compliment, and her
fellow-traveler colored with confusion and a sudden feeling that she had
shown undue forwardness.

Presently they remembered the Beckett house, to their great relief, and,
as they approached, Mrs. Flagg reached over and moved her handbag from
the front seat to make room for another passenger. But nobody came out
to stop the stage, and they saw the unexpected guest sitting by one of
the front windows comfortably swaying a palm-leaf fan, and rocking to
and fro in calm content. They shrank back into their corners, and tried
not to be seen. Mrs. Flagg’s face grew very red.

“She got in, didn’t she?” said Miss Pickett, snipping her words angrily,
as if her lips were scissors. Then she heard a call, and bent forward to
see Mrs. Beckett herself appear in the front doorway, very smiling and
eager to stop the stage.

The driver was only too ready to stop his horses. “Got a passenger for
me to carry back, ain’t ye?” said he facetiously. “Them ’s the kind I
like; carry both ways, make somethin’ on a double trip,” and he gave
Mrs. Flagg and Miss Pickett a friendly wink as he stepped down over the
wheel. Then he hurried toward the house, evidently in a hurry to put the
baggage on; but the expected passenger still sat rocking and fanning at
the window.

“No, sir; I ain’t got any passengers,” exclaimed Mrs. Beckett, advancing
a stop or two to meet him, and speaking very loud in her pleasant
excitement. “This lady that come this morning wants her large trunk with
her summer things that she left to the depot in Woodville. She’s very
desirous to git into it, so don’t you go an’ forgit; ain’t you got a
book or somethin’, Mr. Ma’sh? Don’t you forgit to make a note of it;
here’s her check, an’ we’ve kep’ the number in case you should mislay it
or anything. There’s things in the trunk she needs; you know how you
overlooked stoppin’ to the milliner’s for my bunnit last week.”

“Other folks disremembers things as well ’s me,” grumbled Mr. Marsh. He
turned to give the passengers another wink more familiar than the first,
but they wore an offended air, and were looking the other way. The
horses had backed a few steps, and the guest at the front window had
ceased the steady motion of her fan to make them a handsome bow, and
been puzzled at the lofty manner of their acknowledgment.

“Go ’long with your foolish jokes, John Ma’sh!” Mrs. Beckett said
cheerfully, as she turned away. She was a comfortable, hearty person,
whose appearance adjusted the beauties of hospitality. The driver
climbed to his seat, chuckling, and drove away with the dust flying
after the wheels.

“Now, she’s a friendly sort of a woman, that Mis’ Beckett,” said Mrs.
Flagg unexpectedly, after a few moments of silence, when she and her
friend had been unable to look at each other. “I really ought to call
over an’ see her some o’ these days, knowing her husband’s folks as well
as I used to, an’ visitin’ of ’em when I was a girl.” But Miss Pickett
made no answer.

“I expect it was all for the best, that woman’s comin’,” suggested Mrs.
Flagg again hopefully. “She looked like a willing person who would take
right hold. I guess Mis’ Beckett knows what she’s about, and must have
had her reasons. Perhaps she thought she’d chance it for a couple o’
weeks anyway, after the lady’d come so fur, an’ bein’ one o’ her own
denomination. Hayin’-time’ll be here before we know it. I think myself,
gen’rally speakin’, ’tis just as well to let anybody know you’re
comin’.”

“Them seemed to be Mis’ Cap’n Timms’s views,” said Miss Pickett in a low
tone; but the stage rattled a good deal, and Mrs. Flagg looked up
inquiringly, as if she had not heard.




                             THE TOWN POOR.


Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along Hampden
east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was slow. Mrs.
Trimble’s sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels were clogged by
clay mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground, although the snow was
nearly gone, except in a few places on the north side of the woods, or
where it had drifted all winter against a length of fence.

“There must be a good deal o’ snow to the nor’ard of us yet,” said
weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. “I feel it in the air; ’tis more than the
ground-damp. We ain’t goin’ to have real nice weather till the
up-country snow ’s all gone.”

“I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin’ yet, all up through
Parsley,” responded Miss Wright. “I shouldn’t like to live in them
northern places. My cousin Ellen’s husband was a Parsley man, an’ he was
obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father’s second
wife’s funeral; got back day before yesterday. ’Twas about twenty-one
miles, an’ they started on wheels; but when they’d gone nine or ten
miles, they found ’twas no sort o’ use, an’ left their wagon an’ took a
sleigh. The man that owned it charged ’em four an’ six, too. I shouldn’t
have thought he would; they told him they was goin’ to a funeral; an’
they had their own buffaloes an’ everything.”

“Well, I expect it’s a good deal harder scratchin’, up that way; they
have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
north,” suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. “’Tain’t none too rich a country
where we be but I’ve always been grateful I wa’n’t born up to Parsley.”

The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road. Sister
Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her bonnet. She
was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air; but Mrs.
Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her own affairs
herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left her a good farm,
but not much ready money, and it was often said that she was better off
in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his loss deeply, however;
it was impossible for her to speak of him, even to intimate friends,
without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that this emotion was
insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous, and in her limited
way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town of Hampden.

“Why, there’s where the Bray girls lives, ain’t it?” she exclaimed, as,
beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight of a
weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for thrift
or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the shrunken
boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and sodden.
Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.

“Yes’m,” said Miss Wright, “that’s where they live now, poor things. I
know the place, though I ain’t been up here for years. You don’t
suppose, Mis’ Trimble—I ain’t seen the girls out to meetin’ all winter.
I’ve re’lly been covetin’”—

“Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop,” answered Mrs. Trimble
heartily. “The exercises was over earlier ’n I expected, an’ you’re
goin’ to remain over night long o’ me, you know. There won’t be no tea
till we git there, so we can’t be late. I’m in the habit o’ sendin’ a
basket to the Bray girls when any o’ our folks is comin’ this way, but I
ain’t been to see ’em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a good
deal over a year ago. I know ’t was in the late winter they had to make
the move. ’Twas cruel hard, I must say, an’ if I hadn’t been down with
my pleurisy fever I’d have stirred round an’ done somethin’ about it.
There was a good deal o’ sickness at the time, an’—well, ’twas kind o’
rushed through, breakin’ of ’em up, an’ lots o’ folks blamed the
selec’_men_; but when ’twas done, ’twas done, an’ nobody took holt to
undo it. Ann an’ Mandy looked same ’s ever when they come to meetin’,
’long in the summer,—kind o’ wishful, perhaps. They’ve always sent me
word they was gittin’ on pretty comfortable.”

“That would be their way,” said Rebecca Wright. “They never was any hand
to complain, though Mandy’s less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy’d been
spared such poor eyesight, an’ Ann hadn’t got her lame wrist that wa’n’t
set right, they’d kep’ off the town fast enough. They both shed tears
when they talked to me about havin’ to break up, when I went to see ’em
before I went over to brother Asa’s. You see we was brought up
neighbors, an’ we went to school together, the Brays an’ me. ’Twas a
special Providence brought us home this road, I’ve been so covetin’ a
chance to git to see ’em. My lameness hampers me.”

“I’m glad we come this way, myself,” said Mrs. Trimble.

“I’d like to see just how they fare,” Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
“They give their consent to goin’ on the town because they knew they’d
got to be dependent, an’ so they felt ’twould come easier for all than
for a few to help ’em. They acted real dignified an’ right-minded,
contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was dreadful anxious to
see who would bid ’em off, town-meeting day; they did so hope ’twould be
somebody right in the village. I just sat down an’ cried good when I
found Abel Janes’s folks had got hold of ’em. They always had the name
of bein’ slack an’ poor-spirited, an’ they did it just for what they got
out o’ the town. The selectmen this last year ain’t what we have had. I
hope they’ve been considerate about the Bray girls.”

“I should have be’n more considerate about fetchin’ of you over,”
apologized Mrs. Trimble. “I’ve got my horse, an’ you’re lame-footed;
’tis too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy folks,
an’ I forgit a good deal I ought to remember.”

“There’s nobody more considerate than you be,” protested Miss Rebecca
Wright.

Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think it
worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
farther down the road and up a lane.

“I never had any opinion of the Bray girls’ father, leavin’ ’em as he
did,” said Mrs. Trimble.

“He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said his
early life hadn’t been up to the mark,” explained her companion. “He was
a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel Longbrother.
They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it their own way.
Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs without urging. You
know ’twas in his time the first repairs was made, when they got out the
old soundin’-board an’ them handsome square pews. It cost an awful sight
o’ money, too. They hadn’t done payin’ up that debt when they set to
alter it again an’ git the walls frescoed. My grandmother was one that
always spoke her mind right out, an’ she was dreadful opposed to
breakin’ up the square pews where she’d always set. They was countin’ up
what ’twould cost in parish meetin’, an’ she riz right up an’ said
’twouldn’t cost nothin’ to let ’em stay, an’ there wa’n’t a house
carpenter left in the parish that could do such nice work, an’ time
would come when the great-grandchildren would give their eye-teeth to
have the old meetin’-house look just as it did then. But haul the inside
to pieces they would and did.”

“There come to be a real fight over it, didn’t there?” agreed Mrs.
Trimble soothingly. “Well, ’twa’n’t good taste. I remember the old house
well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o’ mother’s, an’ Mr.
Trimble’s folks was neighbors, an’ we was drawed to each other then,
young ’s we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many’s the time,—that first
time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; ’twas one that
mother had, an’ pressed over.”

“When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
meetin’-house of all, I’m glad it’s altered over, so ’s not to remind
folks,” said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. “Them old
brimstone discourses, you know, Mis’ Trimble. Preachers is far more
reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an’ thought, last Sabbath, as I
listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an’ Deacon Bray could hear the
difference they’d crack the ground over ’em like pole beans, an’ come
right up ’long side their headstones.”

Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
by way of emphasis. “There ’s no gitting round you,” she said, much
pleased. “I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way, if
’twas so he could, an’ knew how his poor girls was farin’. A man ought
to provide for his folks he’s got to leave behind him, specially if
they’re women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we’ve seen
how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn’t means to keep it. I
s’pose he thought he’d got time enough to lay by, when he give so
generous in collections; but he didn’t lay by, an’ there they be. He
might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
creatur’s makes them their winter hoards, an’ menfolks ought to know
enough if squirrels does. ‘Be just before you are generous:’ that’s what
was always set for the B’s in the copy-books, when I was to school, and
it often runs through my mind.”

“‘As for man, his days are as grass,’—that was for A; the two go well
together,” added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. “My good gracious, ain’t
this a starved-lookin’ place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
girls has to brook it here.”

The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner of
the dooryard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two or
three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a face
appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if it were
a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side door next
this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for them,
shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more chilly
inside the house.

“Take seats,” said Mrs. Janes briefly. “You’ll have to see me just as I
be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague, and everything
to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. ’Twas inconvenient to spare
him. I should be pleased to have you lay off your things.”

Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about the cheerless kitchen, and could
not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head
in answer to the invitation. “We’ll just set a few minutes with you, to
pass the time o’ day, an’ then we must go in an’ have a word with the
Miss Brays, bein’ old acquaintance. It ain’t been so we could git to
call on ’em before. I don’t know ’s you’re acquainted with Miss R’becca
Wright. She’s been out of town a good deal.”

“I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields with her brother’s folks,”
replied Mrs. Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion, as she sat
close to the stove. “Got back some time in the fall, I believe?”

“Yes’m,” said Miss Rebecca, with an undue sense of guilt and conviction.
“We’ve been to the installation over to the East Parish, an’ thought
we’d stop in; we took this road home to see if ’twas any better. How is
the Miss Brays gettin’ on?”

“They’re well ’s common,” answered Mrs. Janes grudgingly. “I was put out
with Mr. Janes for fetchin’ of ’em here, with all I’ve got to do, an’ I
own I was kind o’ surly to ’em ’long to the first of it. He gits the
money from the town, an’ it helps him out; but he bid ’em off for five
dollars a month, an’ we can’t do much for ’em at no such price as that.
I went an’ dealt with the selec’men, an’ made ’em promise to find their
firewood an’ some other things extra. They was glad to get rid o’ the
matter the fourth time I went, an’ would ha’ promised ’most anything.
But Mr. Janes don’t keep me half the time in oven-wood, he’s off so
much, an’ we was cramped o’ room, any way. I have to store things up
garrit a good deal, an’ that keeps me trampin’ right through their room.
I do the best for ’em I can, Mis’ Trimble, but ’t ain’t so easy for me
as ’tis for you, with all your means to do with.”

The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was
evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping. Mrs. Trimble’s
heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again
gave some brief information in regard to the installation.

“You go right up them back stairs,” the hostess directed at last. “I’m
glad some o’ you church folks has seen fit to come an’ visit ’em. There
ain’t been nobody here this long spell, an’ they’ve aged a sight since
they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets, Mis’
Trimble, an’ I relish it, I tell you. I’ll shut the door after you, if
you don’t object. I feel every draught o’ cold air.”

“I’ve always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa’n’t she
from somewheres up Parsley way?” whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
stumbled in the half-light.

“Poor meechin’ body, wherever she come from,” replied Mrs. Trimble, as
she knocked at the door.

There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of the
Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a small, low
room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and cobwebs could
not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women who stood there
looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look of apprehension,
and the room itself was more bare and plain than was fitting to their
evident refinement of character and self-respect. There was an uncovered
small table in the middle of the floor, with some crackers on a plate;
and, for some reason or other, this added a great deal to the general
desolation.

But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.

The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she was
laughing and crying together. “Oh, sister!” she said, “if here ain’t our
dear Mis’ Trimble!—an’ my heart o’ goodness, ’tis ’Becca Wright, too!
What dear good creatur’s you be! I’ve felt all day as if something good
was goin’ to happen, an’ was just sayin’ to myself ’twas most sundown
now, but I wouldn’t let on to Mandany I’d give up hope quite yet. You
see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very mornin’ an’ it’s always a
reliable sign. There, I’ve got to kiss ye both again!”

“I don’t know where we can all set,” lamented sister Mandana. “There
ain’t but the one chair an’ the bed; t’ other chair’s too rickety; an’
we’ve been promised another these ten days; but first they’ve forgot it,
an’ next Mis’ Janes can’t spare it,—one excuse an’ another. I am goin’
to git a stump o’ wood an’ nail a board on to it, when I can git outdoor
again,” said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. “There, I ain’t goin’ to
complain o’ nothin’, now you’ve come,” she added; and the guests sat
down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.

“We’ve sat on the bed many’s the time with you, ’Becca, an’ talked over
our girl nonsense, ain’t we? You know where ’twas—in the little back
bedroom we had when we was girls, an’ used to peek out at our beaux
through the strings o’ mornin’-glories,” laughed Ann Bray delightedly,
her thin face shining more and more with joy. “I brought some o’ them
mornin’-glory seeds along when we come away, we’d raised ’em so many
years; an’ we got ’em started all right, but the hens found ’em out. I
declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as ’twas; but the
mornin’-glories I’d counted on a sight to remind me o’ home. You see,
our debts was so large, after my long sickness an’ all, that we didn’t
feel ’twas right to keep back anything we could help from the auction.”

It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the sisters
felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for the first
time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that neat little
village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and this cold,
unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was an unwelcome
thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of Hampden could
provide no better for its poor than this, and her round face flushed
with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility. “The girls
shall be well settled in the village before another winter, if I pay
their board myself,” she made an inward resolution, and took another
almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed, and the
sisters’ one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting. But the
poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.

Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it was so
much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had evidently
been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they had not been
to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.

“Now, don’t you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!” begged little old
Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon playing
that life was still all before them and all pleasure. “Don’t you go to
spoilin’ their visit with our complaints! They know well ’s we do that
changes must come, an’ we’d been so wonted to our home things that this
come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I know just as well’s can
be. ’Twill soon be summer again, an’ ’tis real pleasant right out in the
fields here, when there ain’t too hot a spell. I’ve got to know a sight
o’ singin’ birds since we come.”

“Give me the folks I’ve always known,” sighed the younger sister, who
looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. “You may have your
birds, if you want ’em. I do re’lly long to go to meetin’ an’ see folks
go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you say. We
need, each of us, a pair o’ good stout shoes an’ rubbers,—ours are all
wore out; an’ we’ve asked an’ asked, an’ they never think to bring ’em,
an’”—

Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
Trimble’s mind that it was not the first time one had wept and the other
had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many times in that
long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in her mind as
fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.

“You didn’t see Mis’ Janes’s cunning little boy, the next one to the
baby, did you?” asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and going
cheerfully on with the conversation. “Now, hush, Mandy, dear; they’ll
think you’re childish! He’s a dear, friendly little creatur’, an’ likes
to stay with us a good deal, though we feel ’s if it ’twas too cold for
him, now we are waitin’ to get us more wood.”

“When I think of the acres o’ woodland in this town!” groaned Rebecca
Wright. “I believe I’m goin’ to preach next Sunday, ’stead o’ the
minister, an’ I’ll make the sparks fly. I’ve always heard the saying,
‘What’s everybody’s business is nobody’s business,’ an’ I’ve come to
believe it.”

“Now, don’t you, ’Becca. You’ve happened on a kind of a poor time with
us, but we’ve got more belongings than you see here, an’ a good large
cluset, where we can store those things there ain’t room to have about.
You an’ Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you know.
Soon’s I git me some stout shoes an’ rubbers, as Mandy says, I can fetch
home plenty o’ little dry boughs o’ pine; you remember I was always a
great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a front room, so
’t we could look out on the road an’ see passin’, an’ was shod for
meetin’, I don’ know ’s we should complain. Now we’re just goin’ to give
you what we’ve got, an’ make out with a good welcome. We make more tea
’n we want in the mornin’, an’ then let the fire go down, since ’t has
been so mild. We’ve got a _good_ cluset” (disappearing as she spoke),
“an’ I know this to be good tea, ’cause it’s some o’ yourn, Mis’
Trimble. An’ here’s our sprigged chiny cups that R’becca knows by sight,
if Mis’ Trimble don’t. We kep’ out four of ’em, an’ put the even half
dozen with the rest of the auction stuff. I’ve often wondered who’d got
’em, but I never asked, for fear ’twould be somebody that would distress
us. They was mother’s, you know.”

The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed, where
Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and joined
her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted about the
room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of the closet, as if
she still had much to do; then she came and stood opposite Mrs. Trimble.
She was very short and small, and there was no painful sense of her
being obliged to stand. The four cups were not quite full of cold tea,
but there was a clean old tablecloth folded double, and a plate with
three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a small—it must be owned, a
very small—piece of hard white cheese. Then, for a treat, in a glass
dish, there was a little preserved peach, the last—Miss Rebecca knew it
instinctively—of the household stores brought from their old home. It
was very sugary, this bit of peach; and as she helped her guests and
sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray said, half unconsciously, as she often had
said with less reason in the old days, “Our preserves ain’t so good as
usual this year; this is beginning to candy.” Both the guests protested,
while Rebecca added that the taste of it carried her back, and made her
feel young again. The Brays had always managed to keep one or two
peach-trees alive in their corner of a garden. “I’ve been keeping this
preserve for a treat,” said her friend. “I’m glad to have you eat some,
’Becca. Last summer I often wished you was home an’ could come an’ see
us, ’stead o’ being away off to Plainfields.”

The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the peach
on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small spoonful,
after the others were helped, but she asked them first if they would not
have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the silence a wave of
tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four elderly women. At
this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain room with light; the
unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and Ann Bray, with her gray
hair and aged face, stood at the head of the table in a kind of aureole.
Mrs. Trimble’s face was all aquiver as she looked at her; she thought of
the text about two or three being gathered together, and was half
afraid.

“I believe we ought to ’ve asked Mis’ Janes if she wouldn’t come up,”
said Ann. “She’s real good feelin’, but she’s had it very hard, an gits
discouraged. I can’t find that she’s ever had anything real pleasant to
look back to, as we have. There, next time we’ll make a good heartenin’
time for her too.”


The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail, and the
cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The two friends
jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the stiffening mud,
and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said a word until they were
out of sight as well as out of sound of the Janes house. Time must
elapse before they could reach a more familiar part of the road and
resume conversation on its natural level.

“I consider myself to blame,” insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. “I haven’t
no words of accusation for nobody else, an’ I ain’t one to take comfort
in calling names to the board o’ selec’_men_. I make no reproaches, an’
I take it all on my own shoulders; but I’m goin’ to stir about me, I
tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They’re goin’ back to their own
house,— it’s been standin’ empty all winter,—an’ the town’s goin’ to
give ’em the rent an’ what firewood they need; it won’t come to more
than the board’s payin’ out now. An’ you an’ me’ll take this same horse
an’ wagon, an’ ride an go afoot by turns, an’ git means enough together
to buy back their furniture an’ whatever was sold at that plaguey
auction; an’ then we’ll put it all back, an’ tell ’em they’ve got to
move to a new place, an’ just carry ’em right back again where they come
from. An’ don’t you never tell, R’becca, but here I be a widow woman,
layin’ up what I make from my farm for nobody knows who, an’ I’m goin’
to do for them Bray girls all I’m a mind to. I should be sca’t to wake
up in heaven, an’ hear anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don’t
talk to me about the town o’ Hampden, an’ don’t ever let me hear the
name o’ town poor! I’m ashamed to go home an’ see what’s set out for
supper. I wish I’d brought ’em right along.”

“I was goin’ to ask if we couldn’t git the new doctor to go up an’ do
somethin’ for poor Ann’s arm,” said Miss Rebecca. “They say he’s very
smart. If she could get so ’s to braid straw or hook rugs again, she’d
soon be earnin’ a little somethin’. An’ may be he could do somethin’ for
Mandy’s eyes. They did use to live so neat an’ ladylike. Somehow I
couldn’t speak to tell ’em there that ’twas I bought them six best cups
an’ saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as everything else
did, an’ I thought I could save it some other way. They shall have ’em
back an’ welcome. You’re real whole-hearted, Mis’ Trimble. I expect
Ann’ll be sayin’ that her father’s child’n wa’n’t goin’ to be left
desolate, an’ that all the bread he cast on the water’s comin’ back
through you.”

“I don’t care what she says, dear creatur’!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
“I’m full o’ regrets I took time for that installation, an’ set there
seepin’ in a lot o’ talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
bringin’ us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart ’twas to-morrow
mornin’ a’ready, an’ I a-startin’ for the selec’_men_.”




                         THE HILTONS’ HOLIDAY.


                                   I.

There was a bright, full moon in the clear sky, and the sunset was still
shining faintly in the west. Dark woods stood all about the old Hilton
farmhouse, save down the hill, westward, where lay the shadowy fields
which John Hilton, and his father before him, had cleared and tilled
with much toil,—the small fields to which they had given the industry
and even affection of their honest lives.

John Hilton was sitting on the doorstep of his house. As he moved his
head in and out of the shadows, turning now and then to speak to his
wife, who sat just within the doorway, one could see his good face,
rough and somewhat unkempt, as if he were indeed a creature of the shady
woods and brown earth, instead of the noisy town. It was late in the
long spring evening, and he had just come from the lower field as
cheerful as a boy, proud of having finished the planting of his
potatoes.

“I had to do my last row mostly by feelin’,” he said to his wife. “I’m
proper glad I pushed through, an’ went back an’ ended off after supper.
’Twould have taken me a good part o’ to-morrow mornin’, an’ broke my
day.”

“’Tain’t no use for ye to work yourself all to pieces, John,” answered
the woman quickly. “I declare it does seem harder than ever that we
couldn’t have kep’ our boy; he’d been comin’ fourteen years old this
fall, most a grown man, and he’d work right ’longside of ye now the
whole time.”

“’Twas hard to lose him; I do seem to miss little John,” said the father
sadly. “I expect there was reasons why ’twas best. I feel able an’ smart
to work; my father was a girt strong man, an’ a monstrous worker afore
me. ’Tain’t that; but I was thinkin’ by myself to-day what a sight o’
company the boy would ha’ been. You know, small ’s he was, how I could
trust to leave him anywheres with the team, and how he’d beseech to go
with me wherever I was goin’; always right in my tracks I used to tell
’em. Poor little John, for all he was so young he had a great deal o’
judgment; he’d ha’ made a likely man.”

The mother sighed heavily as she sat within the shadow.

“But then there’s the little girls, a sight o’ help an’ company,” urged
the father eagerly, as if it were wrong to dwell upon sorrow and loss.
“Katy, she’s most as good as a boy, except that she ain’t very rugged.
She’s a real little farmer, she’s helped me a sight this spring; an’
you’ve got Susan Ellen, that makes a complete little housekeeper for ye
as far as she’s learnt. I don’t see but we’re better off than most
folks, each on us having a workmate.”

“That’s so, John,” acknowledged Mrs. Hilton wistfully, beginning to rock
steadily in her straight, splint-bottomed chair. It was always a good
sign when she rocked.

“Where be the little girls so late?” asked their father. “’Tis gettin’
long past eight o’clock. I don’t know when we’ve all set up so late, but
it’s so kind o’ summer-like an’ pleasant. Why, where be they gone?”

“I’ve told ye; only over to Becker’s folks,” answered the mother. “I
don’t see myself what keeps ’em so late; they beseeched me after supper
till I let ’em go. They’re all in a dazzle with the new teacher; she
asked ’em to come over. They say she’s unusual smart with ’rethmetic,
but she has a kind of a gorpen look to me. She’s goin’ to give Katy some
pieces for her doll, but I told Katy she ought to be ashamed wantin’
dolls’ pieces, big as she’s gettin’ to be. I don’t know ’s she ought,
though; she ain’t but nine this summer.”

“Let her take her comfort,” said the kind-hearted man. “Them things
draws her to the teacher, an’ makes them acquainted. Katy’s shy with new
folks, more so ’n Susan Ellen, who’s of the business kind. Katy’s
shy-feelin’ and wishful.”

“I don’t know but she is,” agreed the mother slowly. “Ain’t it sing’lar
how well acquainted you be with that one, an’ I with Susan Ellen? ’Twas
always so from the first. I’m doubtful sometimes our Katy ain’t one
that’ll be like to get married—anyways not about here. She lives right
with herself, but Susan Ellen ain’t nothin’ when she’s alone, she’s
always after company; all the boys is waitin’ on her a’ready. I ain’t
afraid but she’ll take her pick when the time comes. I expect to see
Susan Ellen well settled,—she feels grown up now,—but Katy don’t care
one mite ’bout none o’ them things. She wants to be rovin’ out o’ doors.
I do believe she’d stand an’ hark to a bird the whole forenoon.”

“Perhaps she’ll grow up to be a teacher,” suggested John Hilton. “She
takes to her book more ’n the other one. I should like one on ’em to be
a teacher same ’s my mother was. They’re good girls as anybody’s got.”

“So they be,” said the mother, with unusual gentleness, and the creak of
her rocking-chair was heard, regular as the ticking of a clock. The
night breeze stirred in the great woods, and the sound of a brook that
went falling down the hillside grew louder and louder. Now and then one
could hear the plaintive chirp of a bird. The moon glittered with
whiteness like a winter moon, and shone upon the low-roofed house until
its small window-panes gleamed like silver, and one could almost see the
colors of a blooming bush of lilac that grew in a sheltered angle by the
kitchen door. There was an incessant sound of frogs in the lowlands.

“Be you sound asleep, John?” asked the wife presently.

“I don’t know but what I was a’most,” said the tired man, starting a
little. “I should laugh if I was to fall sound asleep right here on the
step; ’tis the bright night, I expect, makes my eyes feel heavy, an’
’tis so peaceful. I was up an’ dressed a little past four an’ out to
work. Well, well!” and he laughed sleepily and rubbed his eyes. “Where’s
the little girls? I’d better step along an’ meet ’em.”

“I wouldn’t just yet; they’ll get home all right, but ’tis late for ’em
certain. I don’t want ’em keepin’ Mis’ Becker’s folks up neither. There,
le’ ’s wait a few minutes,” urged Mrs. Hilton.

“I’ve be’n a-thinkin’ all day I’d like to give the child’n some kind of
a treat,” said the father, wide awake now. “I hurried up my work ’cause
I had it so in mind. They don’t have the opportunities some do, an’ I
want ’em to know the world, an’ not stay right here on the farm like a
couple o’ bushes.”

“They’re a sight better off not to be so full o’ notions as some is,”
protested the mother suspiciously.

“Certain,” answered the farmer; “but they’re good, bright child’n, an’
commencin’ to take a sight o’ notice. I want ’em to have all we can give
’em. I want ’em to see how other folks does things.”

“Why, so do I,”—here the rocking-chair stopped ominously,—“but so long
’s they’re contented”—

“Contented ain’t all in this world; hopper-toads may have that quality
an’ spend all their time a-blinkin’. I don’t know ’s bein’ contented is
all there is to look for in a child. Ambition’s somethin’ to me.”

“Now you’ve got your mind on to some plot or other.” (The rocking-chair
began to move again.) “Why can’t you talk right out?”

“’Tain’t nothin’ special,” answered the good man, a little ruffled; he
was never prepared for his wife’s mysterious powers of divination. “Well
there, you do find things out the master! I only thought perhaps I’d
take ’em to-morrow, an’ go off somewhere if ’twas a good day. I’ve been
promisin’ for a good while I’d take ’em to Topham Corners; they’ve never
been there since they was very small.”

“I believe you want a good time yourself. You ain’t never got over bein’
a boy.” Mrs. Hilton seemed much amused. “There, go if you want to an’
take ’em; they’ve got their summer hats an’ new dresses. I don’t know o’
nothin’ that stands in the way. I should sense it better if there was a
circus or anythin’ to go to. Why don’t you wait an’ let the girls pick
’em some strawberries or nice ros’berries, and then they could take an’
sell ’em to the stores?”

John Hilton reflected deeply. “I should like to get me some good
yellow-turnip seed to plant late. I ain’t more ’n satisfied with what
I’ve been gettin’ o’ late years o’ Ira Speed. An’ I’m goin’ to provide
me with a good hoe; mine ’s gettin’ wore out an’ all shackly. I can’t
seem to fix it good.”

“Them’s excuses,” observed Mrs. Hilton, with friendly tolerance. “You
just cover up the hoe with somethin’, if you get it—I would. Ira Speed
’s so jealous he’ll remember it of you this twenty year, your goin’ an’
buyin’ a new hoe o’ anybody but him.”

“I’ve always thought ’twas a free country,” said John Hilton soberly. “I
don’t want to vex Ira neither; he favors us all he can in trade. ’Tis
difficult for him to spare a cent, but he’s as honest as daylight.”

At this moment there was a sudden sound of young voices, and a pair of
young figures came out from the shadow of the woods into the moonlighted
open space. An old cock crowed loudly from his perch in the shed, as if
he were a herald of royalty. The little girls were hand in hand, and a
brisk young dog capered about them as they came.

“Wa’n’t it dark gittin’ home through the woods this time o’ night?”
asked the mother hastily, and not without reproach.

“I don’t love to have you gone so late; mother an’ me was timid about
ye, and you’ve kep’ Mis’ Becker’s folks up, I expect,” said their father
regretfully. “I don’t want to have it said that my little girls ain’t
got good manners.”

“The teacher had a party,” chirped Susan Ellen, the elder of the two
children. “Goin’ home from school she asked the Grover boys, an’ Mary
an’ Sarah Speed. An’ Mis’ Becker was real pleasant to us: she passed
round some cake, an’ handed us sap sugar on one of her best plates, an’
we played games an’ sung some pieces too. Mis’ Becker thought we did
real well. I can pick out most of a tune on the cabinet organ; teacher
says she’ll give me lessons.”

“I want to know, dear!” exclaimed John Hilton.

“Yes, an’ we played Copenhagen, an’ took sides spellin’, an’ Katy beat
everybody spellin’ there was there.”

Katy had not spoken; she was not so strong as her sister, and while
Susan Ellen stood a step or two away addressing her eager little
audience, Katy had seated herself close to her father on the doorstep.
He put his arm around her shoulders, and drew her close to his side,
where she stayed.

“Ain’t you got nothin’ to tell, daughter?” he asked, looking down
fondly; and Katy gave a pleased little sigh for answer.

“Tell ’em what’s goin’ to be the last day o’ school, and about our
trimmin’ the schoolhouse,” she said; and Susan Ellen gave the programme
in most spirited fashion.

“’Twill be a great time,” said the mother, when she had finished. “I
don’t see why folks wants to go trapesin’ off to strange places when
such things is happenin’ right about ’em.” But the children did not
observe her mysterious air. “Come, you must step yourselves right to
bed!”

They all went into the dark, warm house; the bright moon shone upon it
steadily all night, and the lilac flowers were shaken by no breath of
wind until the early dawn.


                                  II.

The Hiltons always waked early. So did their neighbors, the crows and
song-sparrows and robins, the light-footed foxes and squirrels in the
woods. When John Hilton waked, before five o’clock, an hour later than
usual because he had sat up so late, he opened the house door and came
out into the yard, crossing the short green turf hurriedly as if the day
were too far spent for any loitering. The magnitude of the plan for
taking a whole day of pleasure confronted him seriously, but the weather
was fair, and his wife, whose disapproval could not have been set aside,
had accepted and even smiled upon the great project. It was inevitable
now, that he and the children should go to Topham Corners. Mrs. Hilton
had the pleasure of waking them, and telling the news.

In a few minutes they came frisking out to talk over the great plans.
The cattle were already fed, and their father was milking. The only sign
of high festivity was the wagon pulled out into the yard, with both
seats put in as if it were Sunday; but Mr. Hilton still wore his
every-day clothes, and Susan Ellen suffered instantly from
disappointment.

“Ain’t we goin’, father?” she asked complainingly; but he nodded and
smiled at her, even though the cow, impatient to get to pasture, kept
whisking her rough tail across his face. He held his head down and spoke
cheerfully, in spite of this vexation.

“Yes, sister, we’re goin’ certain’, an’ goin’ to have a great time too.”
Susan Ellen thought that he seemed like a boy at that delightful moment,
and felt new sympathy and pleasure at once. “You go an’ help mother
about breakfast an’ them things; we want to get off quick ’s we can. You
coax mother now, both on ye, an’ see if she won’t go with us.”

“She said she wouldn’t be hired to,” responded Susan Ellen. “She says
it’s goin’ to be hot, an’ she’s laid out to go over an’ see how her aunt
Tamsen Brooks is this afternoon.”

The father gave a little sigh; then he took heart again. The truth was
that his wife made light of the contemplated pleasure, and, much as he
usually valued her companionship and approval, he was sure that they
should have a better time without her. It was impossible, however, not
to feel guilty of disloyalty at the thought. Even though she might be
completely unconscious of his best ideals, he only loved her and the
ideals the more, and bent his energies to satisfying her indefinite
expectations. His wife still kept much of that youthful beauty which
Susan Ellen seemed likely to reproduce.

An hour later the best wagon was ready, and the great expedition set
forth. The little dog sat apart, and barked as if it fell entirely upon
him to voice the general excitement. Both seats were in the wagon, but
the empty place testified to Mrs. Hilton’s unyielding disposition. She
had wondered why one broad seat would not do, but John Hilton meekly
suggested that the wagon looked better with both. The little girls sat
on the back seat dressed alike in their Sunday hats of straw with blue
ribbons, and their little plaid shawls pinned neatly about their small
shoulders. They wore gray thread gloves, and sat very straight. Susan
Ellen was half a head the taller, but otherwise, from behind, they
looked much alike. As for their father, he was in his Sunday best,—a
plain black coat, and a winter hat of felt, which was heavy and
rusty-looking for that warm early summer day. He had it in mind to buy a
new straw hat at Topham, so that this with the turnip seed and the hoe
made three important reasons for going.

“Remember an’ lay off your shawls when you get there, an’ carry them
over your arms,” said the mother, clucking like an excited hen to her
chickens. “They’ll do to keep the dust off your new dresses goin’ an’
comin’. An’ when you eat your dinners don’t get spots on you, an’ don’t
point at folks as you ride by, an’ stare, or they’ll know you come from
the country. An’ John, you call into Cousin Ad’line Marlow’s an’ see how
they all be, an’ tell her I expect her over certain to stop awhile
before hayin’. It always eases her phthisic to git up here on the high
land, an’ I’ve got a new notion about doin’ over her best-room carpet
sence I see her that’ll save rippin’ one breadth. An’ don’t come home
all wore out; an’, John, don’t you go an’ buy me no kickshaws to fetch
home. I ain’t a child, an’ you ain’t got no money to waste. I expect
you’ll go, like ’s not, an’ buy you some kind of a foolish boy’s hat; do
look an’ see if it’s reasonable good straw, an’ won’t splinter all off
round the edge. An’ you mind, John”—

“Yes, yes, hold on!” cried John impatiently; then he cast a last
affectionate, reassuring look at her face, flushed with the hurry and
responsibility of starting them off in proper shape. “I wish you was
goin’ too,” he said, smiling. “I do so!” Then the old horse started, and
they went out at the bars, and began the careful long descent of the
hill. The young dog, tethered to the lilac-bush, was frantic with
piteous appeals; the little girls piped their eager good-bys again and
again, and their father turned many times to look back and wave his
hand. As for their mother, she stood alone and watched them out of
sight.

There was one place far out on the high-road where she could catch a
last glimpse of the wagon, and she waited what seemed a very long time
until it appeared and then was lost to sight again behind a low hill.
“They’re nothin’ but a pack o’ child’n together,” she said aloud; and
then felt lonelier than she expected. She even stooped and patted the
unresigned little dog as she passed him, going into the house.

The occasion was so much more important than any one had foreseen that
both the little girls were speechless. It seemed at first like going to
church in new clothes, or to a funeral; they hardly knew how to behave
at the beginning of a whole day of pleasure. They made grave bows at
such persons of their acquaintance as happened to be straying in the
road. Once or twice they stopped before a farmhouse, while their father
talked an inconsiderately long time with some one about the crops and
the weather, and even dwelt upon town business and the doings of the
selectmen, which might be talked of at any time. The explanations that
he gave of their excursion seemed quite unnecessary. It was made
entirely clear that he had a little business to do at Topham Corners,
and thought he had better give the little girls a ride; they had been
very steady at school, and he had finished planting, and could take the
day as well as not. Soon, however, they all felt as if such an excursion
were an every-day affair, and Susan Ellen began to ask eager questions,
while Katy silently sat apart enjoying herself as she never had done
before. She liked to see the strange houses, and the children who
belonged to them; it was delightful to find flowers that she knew
growing all along the road, no matter how far she went from home. Each
small homestead looked its best and pleasantest, and shared the
exquisite beauty that early summer made,—shared the luxury of greenness
and floweriness that decked the rural world. There was an early peony or
a late lilac in almost every dooryard.

It was seventeen miles to Topham. After a while they seemed very far
from home, having left the hills far behind, and descended to a great
level country with fewer tracts of woodland, and wider fields where the
crops were much more forward. The houses were all painted, and the roads
were smoother and wider. It had been so pleasant driving along that Katy
dreaded going into the strange town when she first caught sight of it,
though Susan Ellen kept asking with bold fretfulness if they were not
almost there. They counted the steeples of four churches, and their
father presently showed them the Topham Academy, where their grandmother
once went to school, and told them that perhaps some day they would go
there too. Katy’s heart gave a strange leap; it was such a tremendous
thing to think of, but instantly the suggestion was transformed for her
into one of the certainties of life. She looked with solemn awe at the
tall belfry, and the long rows of windows in the front of the academy,
there where it stood high and white among the clustering trees. She
hoped that they were going to drive by, but something forbade her taking
the responsibility of saying so.

Soon the children found themselves among the crowded village houses.
Their father turned to look at them with affectionate solicitude.

“Now sit up straight and appear pretty,” he whispered to them. “We’re
among the best people now, an’ I want folks to think well of you.”

“I guess we’re as good as they be,” remarked Susan Ellen, looking at
some innocent passers-by with dark suspicion, but Katy tried indeed to
sit straight, and folded her hands prettily in her lap, and wished with
all her heart to be pleasing for her father’s sake. Just then an elderly
woman saw the wagon and the sedate party it carried, and smiled so
kindly that it seemed to Katy as if Topham Corners had welcomed and
received them. She smiled back again as if this hospitable person were
an old friend, and entirely forgot that the eyes of all Topham had been
upon her.

“There, now we’re coming to an elegant house that I want you to see;
you’ll never forget it,” said John Hilton. “It’s where Judge Masterson
lives, the great lawyer; the handsomest house in the county, everybody
says.”

“Do you know him, father?” asked Susan Ellen.

“I do,” answered John Hilton proudly. “Him and my mother went to school
together in their young days, and were always called the two best
scholars of their time. The judge called to see her once; he stopped to
our house to see her when I was a boy. An’ then, some years ago—you’ve
heard me tell how I was on the jury, an’ when he heard my name spoken he
looked at me sharp, and asked if I wa’n’t the son of Catharine Winn, an’
spoke most beautiful of your grandmother, an’ how well he remembered
their young days together.”

“I like to hear about that,” said Katy.

“She had it pretty hard, I’m afraid, up on the old farm. She was keepin’
school in our district when father married her—that’s the main reason I
backed ’em down when they wanted to tear the old schoolhouse all to
pieces,” confided John Hilton, turning eagerly. “They all say she lived
longer up here on the hill than she could anywhere, but she never had
her health. I wa’n’t but a boy when she died. Father an’ me lived alone
afterward till the time your mother come; ’twas a good while, too; I
wa’n’t married so young as some. ’Twas lonesome, I tell you; father was
plumb discouraged losin’ of his wife, an’ her long sickness an’ all set
him back, an’ we’d work all day on the land an’ never say a word. I
s’pose ’tis bein’ so lonesome early in life that makes me so pleased to
have some nice girls growin’ up round me now.”

There was a tone in her father’s voice that drew Katy’s heart toward him
with new affection. She dimly understood, but Susan Ellen was less
interested. They had often heard this story before, but to one child it
was always new and to the other old. Susan Ellen was apt to think it
tiresome to hear about her grandmother, who, being dead, was hardly
worth talking about.

“There’s Judge Masterson’s place,” said their father in an every-day
manner, as they turned a corner, and came into full view of the
beautiful old white house standing behind its green trees and terraces
and lawns. The children had never imagined anything so stately and fine,
and even Susan Ellen exclaimed with pleasure. At that moment they saw an
old gentleman, who carried himself with great dignity, coming slowly
down the wide box-bordered path toward the gate.

“There he is now, there’s the judge!” whispered John Hilton excitedly,
reining his horse quickly to the green roadside. “He’s goin’ down-town
to his office; we can wait right here an’ see him. I can’t expect him to
remember me; it’s been a good many years. Now you are goin’ to see the
great Judge Masterson!”

There was a quiver of expectation in their hearts. The judge stopped at
his gate, hesitating a moment before he lifted the latch, and glanced up
the street at the country wagon with its two prim little girls on the
back seat, and the eager man who drove. They seemed to be waiting for
something; the old horse was nibbling at the fresh roadside grass. The
judge was used to being looked at with interest, and responded now with
a smile as he came out to the sidewalk, and unexpectedly turned their
way. Then he suddenly lifted his hat with grave politeness, and came
directly toward them.

“Good-morning, Mr. Hilton,” he said. “I am very glad to see you, sir;”
and Mr. Hilton, the little girls’ own father, took off his hat with
equal courtesy, and bent forward to shake hands.

Susan Ellen cowered and wished herself away, but little Katy sat
straighter than ever, with joy in her father’s pride and pleasure
shining in her pale, flower-like little face.

“These are your daughters, I am sure,” said the old gentleman kindly,
taking Susan Ellen’s limp and reluctant hand; but when he looked at
Katy, his face brightened. “How she recalls your mother!” he said with
great feeling. “I am glad to see this dear child. You must come to see
me with your father, my dear,” he added, still looking at her. “Bring
both the little girls, and let them run about the old garden; the
cherries are just getting ripe,” said Judge Masterson hospitably.
“Perhaps you will have time to stop this afternoon as you go home?”

“I should call it a great pleasure if you would come and see us again
some time. You may be driving our way, sir,” said John Hilton.

“Not very often in these days,” answered the old judge. “I thank you for
the kind invitation. I should like to see the fine view again from your
hill westward. Can I serve you in any way while you are in town?
Good-by, my little friends!”

Then they parted, but not before Katy, the shy Katy, whose band the
judge still held unconsciously while he spoke, had reached forward as he
said good-by, and lifted her face to kiss him. She could not have told
why, except that she felt drawn to something in the serious, worn face.
For the first time in her life the child had felt the charm of manners;
perhaps she owned a kinship between that which made him what he was, and
the spark of nobleness and purity in her own simple soul. She turned
again and again to look back at him as they drove away.

“Now you have seen one of the first gentlemen in the country,” said
their father. “It was worth comin’ twice as far”—but he did not say any
more, nor turn as usual to look in the children’s faces.


In the chief business street of Topham a great many country wagons like
the Hiltons’ were fastened to the posts, and there seemed to our
holiday-makers to be a great deal of noise and excitement.

“Now I’ve got to do my errands, and we can let the horse rest and feed,”
said John Hilton. “I’ll slip his headstall right off, an’ put on his
halter. I’m goin’ to buy him a real good treat o’ oats. First we’ll go
an’ buy me my straw hat; I feel as if this one looked a little past to
wear in Topham. We’ll buy the things we want, an’ then we’ll walk all
along the street, so you can look in the windows an’ see the han’some
things, same’s your mother likes to. What was it mother told you about
your shawls?”

“To take ’em off an’ carry ’em over our arms,” piped Susan Ellen,
without comment, but in the interest of alighting and finding themselves
afoot upon the pavement the shawls were forgotten. The children stood at
the doorway of a shop while their father went inside, and they tried to
see what the Topham shapes of bonnets were like, as their mother had
advised them; but everything was exciting and confusing, and they could
arrive at no decision. When Mr. Hilton came out with a hat in his hand
to be seen in a better light, Katy whispered that she wished he would
buy a shiny one like Judge Masterson’s; but her father only smiled and
shook his head, and said that they were plain folks, he and Katy. There
were dry-goods for sale in the same shop, and a young clerk who was
measuring linen kindly pulled off some pretty labels with gilded edges
and gay pictures, and gave them to the little girls, to their exceeding
joy. He may have had small sisters at home, this friendly lad, for he
took pains to find two pretty blue boxes besides, and was rewarded by
their beaming gratitude.

It was a famous day; they even became used to seeing so many people
pass. The village was full of its morning activity, and Susan Ellen
gained a new respect for her father, and an increased sense of her own
consequence, because even in Topham several persons knew him and called
him familiarly by name. The meeting with an old man who had once been a
neighbor seemed to give Mr. Hilton the greatest pleasure. The old man
called to them from a house doorway as they were passing, and they all
went in. The children seated themselves wearily on the wooden step, but
their father shook his old friend eagerly by the hand, and declared that
he was delighted to see him so well and enjoying the fine weather.

“Oh, yes,” said the old man, in a feeble, quavering voice, “I’m
astonishin’ well for my age. I don’t complain, John, I don’t complain.”

They talked long together of people whom they had known in the past, and
Katy, being a little tired, was glad to rest, and sat still with her
hands folded, looking about the front yard. There were some kinds of
flowers that she never had seen before.

“This is the one that looks like my mother,” her father said, and
touched Katy’s shoulder to remind her to stand up and let herself be
seen. “Judge Masterson saw the resemblance; we met him at his gate this
morning.”

“Yes, she certain does look like your mother, John,” said the old man,
looking pleasantly at Katy, who found that she liked him better than at
first. “She does, certain; the best of young folks is, they remind us of
the old ones. ’Tis nateral to cling to life, folks say, but for me, I
git impatient at times. Most everybody’s gone now, an’ I want to be
goin’. ’Tis somethin’ before me, an’ I want to have it over with. I want
to be there ’long o’ the rest o’ the folks. I expect to last quite a
while though; I may see ye couple o’ times more, John.”

John Hilton responded cheerfully, and the children were urged to pick
some flowers. The old man awed them with his impatience to be gone.
There was such a townful of people about him, and he seemed as lonely as
if he were the last survivor of a former world. Until that moment they
had felt as if everything were just beginning.

“Now I want to buy somethin’ pretty for your mother,” said Mr. Hilton,
as they went soberly away down the street, the children keeping fast
hold of his hands. “By now the old horse will have eat his dinner and
had a good rest, so pretty soon we can jog along home. I’m goin’ to take
you round by the academy, and the old North Meetinghouse where Dr.
Barstow used to preach. Can’t you think o’ somethin’ that your mother ’d
want?” he asked suddenly, confronted by a man’s difficulty of choice.

“She was talkin’ about wantin’ a new pepper-box, one day; the top o’ the
old one won’t stay on,” suggested Susan Ellen, with delightful
readiness. “Can’t we have some candy, father?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said John Hilton, smiling and swinging her hand to and fro
as they walked. “I feel as if some would be good myself. What’s all
this?” They were passing a photographer’s doorway with its enticing
array of portraits. “I do declare!” he exclaimed excitedly, “I’m goin’
to have our pictures taken; ’twill please your mother more ’n a little.”

This was, perhaps, the greatest triumph of the day, except the
delightful meeting with the judge; they sat in a row, with the father in
the middle, and there was no doubt as to the excellence of the likeness.
The best hats had to be taken off because they cast a shadow, but they
were not missed, as their owners had feared. Both Susan Ellen and Katy
looked their brightest and best; their eager young faces would forever
shine there; the joy of the holiday was mirrored in the little picture.
They did not know why their father was so pleased with it; they would
not know until age had dowered them with the riches of association and
remembrance.

Just at nightfall the Hiltons reached home again, tired out and happy.
Katy had climbed over into the front seat beside her father, because
that was always her place when they went to church on Sundays. It was a
cool evening, there was a fresh sea wind that brought a light mist with
it, and the sky was fast growing cloudy. Somehow the children looked
different; it seemed to their mother as if they had grown older and
taller since they went away in the morning, and as if they belonged to
the town now as much as to the country. The greatness of their day’s
experience had left her far behind; the day had been silent and lonely
without them, and she had had their supper ready, and been watching
anxiously, ever since five o’clock. As for the children themselves they
had little to say at first—they had eaten their luncheon early on the
way to Topham. Susan Ellen was childishly cross, but Katy was pathetic
and wan. They could hardly wait to show the picture, and their mother
was as much pleased as everybody had expected.

“There, what did make you wear your shawls?” she exclaimed a moment
afterward, reproachfully. “You ain’t been an’ wore ’em all day long? I
wanted folks to see how pretty your new dresses was, if I did make ’em.
Well, well! I wish more ’n ever now I’d gone an’ seen to ye!”

“An’ here’s the pepper-box!” said Katy, in a pleased, unconscious tone.

“That really is what I call beautiful,” said Mrs. Hilton, after a long
and doubtful look. “Our other one was only tin. I never did look so high
as a chiny one with flowers, but I can get us another any time for every
day. That’s a proper hat, as good as you could have got, John. Where’s
your new hoe?” she asked as he came toward her from the barn, smiling
with satisfaction.

“I declare to Moses if I didn’t forget all about it,” meekly
acknowledged the leader of the great excursion. “That an’ my yellow
turnip seed, too; they went clean out o’ my head, there was so many
other things to think of. But ’tain’t no sort o’ matter; I can get a hoe
just as well to Ira Speed’s.”

His wife could not help laughing. “You an’ the little girls have had a
great time. They was full o’ wonder to me about everything, and I expect
they’ll talk about it for a week. I guess we was right about havin’ ’em
see somethin’ more o’ the world.”

“Yes,” answered John Hilton, with humility, “yes, we did have a
beautiful day. I didn’t expect so much. They looked as nice as anybody,
and appeared so modest an’ pretty. The little girls will remember it
perhaps by an’ by. I guess they won’t never forget this day they had
’long o’ father.”


It was evening again, the frogs were piping in the lower meadows, and in
the woods, higher up the great hill, a little owl began to hoot. The sea
air, salt and heavy, was blowing in over the country at the end of the
hot bright day. A lamp was lighted in the house, the happy children were
talking together, and supper was waiting. The father and mother lingered
for a moment outside and looked down over the shadowy fields; then they
went in, without speaking. The great day was over, and they shut the
door.




                          AUNT CYNTHY DALLETT.


                                   I.

“No,” said Mrs. Hand, speaking wistfully,—“no, we never were in the
habit of keeping Christmas at our house. Mother died when we were all
young; she would have been the one to keep up with all new ideas, but
father and grandmother were old-fashioned folks, and—well, you know how
’twas then, Miss Pendexter: nobody took much notice of the day except to
wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“They didn’t do much to make it merry, certain,” answered Miss
Pendexter. “Sometimes nowadays I hear folks complainin’ o’ bein’
overtaxed with all the Christmas work they have to do.”

“Well, others think that it makes a lovely chance for all that really
enjoys givin’; you get an opportunity to speak your kind feelin’ right
out,” answered Mrs. Hand, with a bright smile. “But there! I shall
always keep New Year’s Day, too; it won’t do no hurt to have an extra
day kept an’ made pleasant. And there’s many of the real old folks have
got pretty things to remember about New Year’s Day.”

“Aunt Cynthy Dallett’s just one of ’em,” said Miss Pendexter. “She’s
always very reproachful if I don’t get up to see her. Last year I missed
it, on account of a light fall o’ snow that seemed to make the walkin’
too bad, an’ she sent a neighbor’s boy ’way down from the mount’in to
see if I was sick. Her lameness confines her to the house altogether
now, an’ I have her on my mind a good deal. How anybody does get
thinkin’ of those that lives alone, as they get older! I waked up only
last night with a start, thinkin’ if Aunt Cynthy’s house should get
afire or anything, what she would do, ’way up there all alone. I was
half dreamin’, I s’pose, but I couldn’t seem to settle down until I got
up an’ went upstairs to the north garret window to see if I could see
any light; but the mountains was all dark an’ safe, same ’s usual. I
remember noticin’ last time I was there that her chimney needed
pointin’, and I spoke to her about it,—the bricks looked poor in some
places.”

“Can you see the house from your north gable window?” asked Mrs. Hand, a
little absently.

“Yes’m; it’s a great comfort that I can,” answered her companion. “I
have often wished we were near enough to have her make me some sort o’
signal in case she needed help. I used to plead with her to come down
and spend the winters with me, but she told me one day I might as well
try to fetch down one o’ the old hemlocks, an’ I believe ’twas true.”

“Your aunt Dallett is a very self-contained person,” observed Mrs. Hand.

“Oh, very!” exclaimed the elderly niece, with a pleased look. “Aunt
Cynthy laughs, an’ says she expects the time will come when age ’ll
compel her to have me move up an’ take care of her; and last time I was
there she looked up real funny, an’ says, ‘I do’ know, Abby; I’m most
afeard sometimes that I feel myself beginnin’ to look for’ard to it!’
’Twas a good deal, comin’ from Aunt Cynthy, an’ I so esteemed it.”

“She ought to have you there now,” said Mrs. Hand. “You’d both make a
savin’ by doin’ it; but I don’t expect she needs to save as much as
some. There! I know just how you both feel. I like to have my own home
an’ do everything just my way too.” And the friends laughed, and looked
at each other affectionately.

“There was old Mr. Nathan Dunn,—left no debts an’ no money when he
died,” said Mrs. Hand. “’Twas over to his niece’s last summer. He had a
little money in his wallet, an’ when the bill for funeral expenses come
in there was just exactly enough; some item or other made it come to so
many dollars an’ eighty-four cents, and, lo an’ behold! there was
eighty-four cents in a little separate pocket beside the neat fold o’
bills, as if the old gentleman had known beforehand. His niece couldn’t
help laughin’, to save her; she said the old gentleman died as
methodical as he lived. She didn’t expect he had any money, an’ was
prepared to pay for everything herself; she’s very well off.”

“’Twas funny, certain,” said Miss Pendexter. “I expect he felt
comfortable, knowin’ he had that money by him. ’Tis a comfort, when all
’s said and done, ‘specially to folks that ’s gettin’ old.”

A sad look shadowed her face for an instant, and then she smiled and
rose to take leave, looking expectantly at her hostess to see if there
were anything more to be said.

“I hope to come out square myself,” she said, by way of farewell
pleasantry; “but there are times when I feel doubtful.”

Mrs. Hand was evidently considering something, and waited a moment or
two before she spoke. “Suppose we both walk up to see your aunt Dallett,
New Year’s Day, if it ain’t too windy and the snow keeps off?” she
proposed. “I couldn’t rise the hill if ’twas a windy day. We could take
a hearty breakfast an’ start in good season; I’d rather walk than ride,
the road’s so rough this time o’ year.”

“Oh, what a person you are to think o’ things! I did so dread goin’ ’way
up there all alone,” said Abby Pendexter. “I’m no hand to go off alone,
an’ I had it before me, so I really got to dread it. I do so enjoy it
after I get there, seein’ Aunt Cynthy, an’ she’s always so much better
than I expect to find her.”

“Well, we’ll start early,” said Mrs. Hand cheerfully; and so they
parted. As Miss Pendexter went down the foot-path to the gate, she sent
grateful thoughts back to the little sitting-room she had just left.

“How doors are opened!” she exclaimed to herself. “Here I’ve been so
poor an’ distressed at beginnin’ the year with nothin’, as it were, that
I couldn’t think o’ even goin’ to make poor old Aunt Cynthy a friendly
call. I’ll manage to make some kind of a little pleasure too, an’
somethin’ for dear Mis’ Hand. ‘Use what you’ve got,’ mother always used
to say when every sort of an emergency come up, an’ I may only have
wishes to give, but I’ll make ’em good ones!”


                                  II.

The first day of the year was clear and bright, as if it were a New
Year’s pattern of what winter can be at its very best. The two friends
were prepared for changes of weather, and met each other well wrapped in
their winter cloaks and shawls, with sufficient brown barége veils tied
securely over their bonnets. They ignored for some time the plain truth
that each carried something under her arm; the shawls were rounded out
suspiciously, especially Miss Pendexter’s, but each respected the
other’s air of secrecy. The narrow road was frozen in deep ruts, but a
smooth-trodden little foot-path that ran along its edge was very
inviting to the wayfarers. Mrs. Hand walked first and Miss Pendexter
followed, and they were talking busily nearly all the way, so that they
had to stop for breath now and then at the tops of the little hills. It
was not a hard walk; there were a good many almost level stretches
through the woods, in spite of the fact that they should be a very great
deal higher when they reached Mrs. Dallett’s door.

“I do declare, what a nice day ’tis, an’ such pretty footin’!” said Mrs.
Hand, with satisfaction. “Seems to me as if my feet went o’ themselves;
gener’lly I have to toil so when I walk that I can’t enjoy nothin’ when
I get to a place.”

“It’s partly this beautiful bracin’ air,” said Abby Pendexter.
“Sometimes such nice air comes just before a fall of snow. Don’t it seem
to make anybody feel young again and to take all your troubles away?”

Mrs. Hand was a comfortable, well-to-do soul, who seldom worried about
anything, but something in her companion’s tone touched her heart, and
she glanced sidewise and saw a pained look in Abby Pendexter’s thin
face. It was a moment for confidence.

“Why, you speak as if something distressed your mind, Abby,” said the
elder woman kindly.

“I ain’t one that has myself on my mind as a usual thing, but it does
seem now as if I was goin’ to have it very hard,” said Abby. “Well, I’ve
been anxious before.”

“Is it anything wrong about your property?” Mrs. Hand ventured to ask.

“Only that I ain’t got any,” answered Abby, trying to speak gayly.
“’Twas all I could do to pay my last quarter’s rent, twelve dollars. I
sold my hens, all but this one that had run away at the time, an’ now
I’m carryin’ her up to Aunt Cynthy, roasted just as nice as I know how.”

“I thought you was carrying somethin’,” said Mrs. Hand, in her usual
tone. “For me, I’ve got a couple o’ my mince pies. I thought the old
lady might like ’em; one we can eat for our dinner, and one she shall
have to keep. But weren’t you unwise to sacrifice your poultry, Abby?
You always need eggs, and hens don’t cost much to keep.”

“Why, yes, I shall miss ’em,” said Abby; “but, you see, I had to do
every way to get my rent-money. Now the shop’s shut down I haven’t got
any way of earnin’ anything, and I spent what little I’ve saved through
the summer.”

“Your aunt Cynthy ought to know it an’ ought to help you,” said Mrs.
Hand. “You’re a real foolish person, I must say. I expect you do for her
when she ought to do for you.”

“She’s old, an’ she’s all the near relation I’ve got,” said the little
woman. “I’ve always felt the time would come when she’d need me, but
it’s been her great pleasure to live alone an’ feel free. I shall get
along somehow, but I shall have it hard. Somebody may want help for a
spell this winter, but I’m afraid I shall have to give up my house.
’Tain’t as if I owned it. I don’t know just what to do, but there’ll be
a way.”

Mrs. Hand shifted her two pies to the other arm, and stepped across to
the other side of the road where the ground looked a little smoother.

“No, I wouldn’t worry if I was you, Abby,” she said. “There, I suppose
if ’twas me I should worry a good deal more! I expect I should lay awake
nights.” But Abby answered nothing, and they came to a steep place in
the road and found another subject for conversation at the top.

“Your aunt don’t know we’re coming?” asked the chief guest of the
occasion.

“Oh, no, I never send her word,” said Miss Pendexter. “She’d be so
desirous to get everything ready, just as she used to.”

“She never seemed to make any trouble o’ havin’ company; she always
appeared so easy and pleasant, and let you set with her while she made
her preparations,” said Mrs. Hand, with great approval. “Some has such a
dreadful way of making you feel inopportune, and you can’t always send
word you’re comin’. I did have a visit once that’s always been a lesson
to me; ’twas years ago; I don’t know’s I ever told you?”

“I don’t believe you ever did,” responded the listener to this somewhat
indefinite prelude.

“Well, ’twas one hot summer afternoon. I set forth an’ took a great long
walk ’way over to Mis’ Eben Fulham’s, on the crossroad between the
cranberry ma’sh and Staples’s Corner. The doctor was drivin’ that way,
an’ he give me a lift that shortened it some at the last; but I never
should have started, if I’d known ’twas so far. I had been promisin’ all
summer to go, and every time I saw Mis’ Fulham, Sundays, she’d say
somethin’ about it. We wa’n’t very well acquainted, but always friendly.
She moved here from Bedford Hill.”

“Oh, yes; I used to know her,” said Abby, with interest.

“Well, now, she did give me a beautiful welcome when I got there,”
continued Mrs. Hand. “’Twas about four o’clock in the afternoon, an’ I
told her I’d come to accept her invitation if ’twas convenient, an’ the
doctor had been called several miles beyond and expected to be detained,
but he was goin’ to pick me up as he returned about seven; ’twas very
kind of him. She took me right in, and she did appear so pleased, an’ I
must go right into the best room where ’twas cool, and then she said
she’d have tea early, and I should have to excuse her a short time. I
asked her not to make any difference, and if I couldn’t assist her; but
she said no, I must just take her as I found her; and she give me a
large fan, and off she went.

“There. I was glad to be still and rest where ’twas cool, an’ I set
there in the rockin’-chair an’ enjoyed it for a while, an’ I heard her
clacking at the oven door out beyond, an’ gittin’ out some dishes. She
was a brisk-actin’ little woman, an’ I thought I’d caution her when she
come back not to make up a great fire, only for a cup o’ tea, perhaps. I
started to go right out in the kitchen, an’ then somethin’ told me I’d
better not, we never ’d been so free together as that; I didn’t know how
she’d take it, an’ there I set an’ set. ’Twas sort of a greenish light
in the best room, an’ it begun to feel a little damp to me,—the s’rubs
outside grew close up to the windows. Oh, it did seem dreadful long! I
could hear her busy with the dishes an’ beatin’ eggs an’ stirrin’, an’ I
knew she was puttin’ herself out to get up a great supper, and I kind o’
fidgeted about a little an’ even stepped to the door, but I thought
she’d expect me to remain where I was. I saw everything in that room
forty times over, an’ I did divert myself killin’ off a brood o’ moths
that was in a worsted-work mat on the table. It all fell to pieces. I
never saw such a sight o’ moths to once. But occupation failed after
that, an’ I begun to feel sort o’ tired an’ numb. There was one o’ them
late crickets got into the room an’ begun to chirp, an’ it sounded kind
o’ fallish. I couldn’t help sayin’ to myself that Mis’ Fulham had forgot
all about my bein’ there. I thought of all the beauties of hospitality
that ever I see!”—

“Didn’t she ever come back at all, not whilst things was in the oven,
nor nothin’?” inquired Miss Pendexter, with awe.

“I never see her again till she come beamin’ to the parlor door an’
invited me to walk out to tea,” said Mrs. Hand. “’Twas ’most a quarter
past six by the clock; I thought ’twas seven. I’d thought o’ everything,
an’ I’d counted, an’ I’d trotted my foot, an’ I’d looked more ’n twenty
times to see if there was any more moth-millers.”

“I s’pose you did have a very nice tea?” suggested Abby, with interest.

“Oh, a beautiful tea! She couldn’t have done more if I’d been the
Queen,” said Mrs. Hand. “I don’t know how she could ever have done it
all in the time, I’m sure. The table was loaded down; there was
cup-custards and custard pie, an’ cream pie, an’ two kinds o’ hot
biscuits, an’ black tea as well as green, an’ elegant cake,—one kind
she’d just made new, and called it quick cake; I’ve often made it
since—an’ she’d opened her best preserves, two kinds. We set down
together, an’ I’m sure I appreciated what she’d done; but ’twa’n’t no
time for real conversation whilst we was to the table, and before we got
quite through the doctor come hurryin’ along, an’ I had to leave. He
asked us if we’d had a good talk, as we come out, an’ I couldn’t help
laughing to myself; but she said quite hearty that she’d had a nice
visit from me. She appeared well satisfied, Mis’ Fulham did; but for me,
I was disappointed; an’ early that fall she died.”

Abby Pendexter was laughing like a girl; the speaker’s tone had grown
more and more complaining. “I do call that a funny experience,” she
said. “‘Better a dinner o’ herbs.’ I guess that text must ha’ risen to
your mind in connection. You must tell that to Aunt Cynthy, if
conversation seems to fail.” And she laughed again, but Mrs. Hand still
looked solemn and reproachful.

“Here we are; there’s Aunt Cynthy’s lane right ahead, there by the great
yellow birch,” said Abby. “I must say, you’ve made the way seem very
short, Mis’ Hand.”


                                  III.

Old Aunt Cynthia Dallett sat in her high-backed rocking-chair by the
little north window, which was her favorite dwelling-place.

“New Year’s Day again,” she said, aloud,—“New Year’s Day again!” And she
folded her old bent hands, and looked out at the great woodland view and
the hills without really seeing them, she was lost in so deep a reverie.
“I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she added, after a little while.

It was perfectly still in the small gray house. Outside in the
apple-trees there were some blue-jays flitting about and calling
noisily, like schoolboys fighting at their games. The kitchen was full
of pale winter sunshine. It was more like late October than the first of
January, and the plain little room seemed to smile back into the sun’s
face. The outer door was standing open into the green dooryard, and a
fat small dog lay asleep on the step. A capacious cupboard stood behind
Mrs. Dallett’s chair and kept the wind away from her corner. Its doors
and drawers were painted a clean lead-color, and there were places round
the knobs and buttons where the touch of hands had worn deep into the
wood. Every braided rug was straight on the floor. The square clock on
its shelf between the front windows looked as if it had just had its
face washed and been wound up for a whole year to come. If Mrs. Dallett
turned her head she could look into the bedroom, where her plump feather
bed was covered with its dark blue homespun winter quilt. It was all
very peaceful and comfortable, but it was very lonely. By her side, on a
light-stand, lay the religious newspaper of her denomination, and a pair
of spectacles whose jointed silver bows looked like a funny two-legged
beetle cast helplessly upon its back.

“New Year’s Day again,” said old Cynthia Dallett. Time had left nobody
in her house to wish her a Happy New Year,—she was the last one left in
the old nest. “I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she said for the second
time; it seemed to be all there was to say.

She was keeping a careful eye on her friendly clock, but it was hardly
past the middle of the morning, and there was no excuse for moving; it
was the long hour between the end of her slow morning work and the
appointed time for beginning to get dinner. She was so stiff and lame
that this hour’s rest was usually most welcome, but to-day she sat as if
it were Sunday, and did not take up her old shallow splint basket of
braiding-rags from the side of her footstool.

“I do hope Abby Pendexter ’ll make out to git up to see me this
afternoon as usual,” she continued. “I know ’tain’t so easy for her to
get up the hill as it used to be, but I do seem to want to see some o’
my own folks. I wish ’t I’d thought to send her word I expected her when
Jabez Hooper went back after he came up here with the flour. I’d like to
have had her come prepared to stop two or three days.”

A little chickadee perched on the window-sill outside and bobbed his
head sideways to look in, and then pecked impatiently at the glass. The
old woman laughed at him with childish pleasure and felt companioned; it
was pleasant at that moment to see the life in even a bird’s bright eye.

“Sign of a stranger,” she said, as he whisked his wings and flew away in
a hurry. “I must throw out some crumbs for ’em; it’s getting to be hard
pickin’ for the stayin’-birds.” She looked past the trees of her little
orchard now with seeing eyes, and followed the long forest slopes that
led downward to the lowland country. She could see the two white
steeples of Fairfield Village, and the map of fields and pastures along
the valley beyond, and the great hills across the valley to the
westward. The scattered houses looked like toys that had been scattered
by children. She knew their lights by night, and watched the smoke of
their chimneys by day. Far to the northward were higher mountains, and
these were already white with snow. Winter was already in sight, but
to-day the wind was in the south, and the snow seemed only part of a
great picture.

“I do hope the cold ’ll keep off a while longer,” thought Mrs. Dallett.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get along after the deep snow comes.”

The little dog suddenly waked, as if he had had a bad dream, and after
giving a few anxious whines he began to bark outrageously. His mistress
tried, as usual, to appeal to his better feelings.

“’Tain’t nobody, Tiger,” she said. “Can’t you have some patience? Maybe
it’s some foolish boys that’s rangin’ about with their guns.” But Tiger
kept on, and even took the trouble to waddle in on his short legs,
barking all the way. He looked warningly at her, and then turned and ran
out again. Then she saw him go hurrying down to the bars, as if it were
an occasion of unusual interest.

“I guess somebody is comin’; he don’t act as if ’twere a vagrant kind o’
noise; must really be somebody in our lane.” And Mrs. Dallett smoothed
her apron and gave an anxious housekeeper’s glance round the kitchen.
None of her state visitors, the minister or the deacons, ever came in
the morning. Country people are usually too busy to go visiting in the
forenoons.

Presently two figures appeared where the road came out of the woods,—the
two women already known to the story, but very surprising to Mrs.
Dallett; the short, thin one was easily recognized as Abby Pendexter,
and the taller, stout one was soon discovered to be Mrs. Hand. Their old
friend’s heart was in a glow. As the guests approached they could see
her pale face with its thin white hair framed under the close black silk
handkerchief.

“There she is at her window smilin’ away!” exclaimed Mrs. Hand; but by
the time they reached the doorstep she stood waiting to meet them.

“Why, you two dear creatur’s!” she said, with a beaming smile. “I don’t
know when I’ve ever been so glad to see folks comin’. I had a kind of
left-all-alone feelin’ this mornin’, an’ I didn’t even make bold to be
certain o’ you, Abby, though it looked so pleasant. Come right in an’
set down. You’re all out o’ breath, ain’t you, Mis’ Hand?”

Mrs. Dallett led the way with eager hospitality. She was the tiniest
little bent old creature, her handkerchiefed head was quick and alert,
and her eyes were bright with excitement and feeling, but the rest of
her was much the worse for age; she could hardly move, poor soul, as if
she had only a make-believe framework of a body under a shoulder-shawl
and thick petticoats. She got back to her chair again, and the guests
took off their bonnets in the bedroom, and returned discreet and sedate
in their black woolen dresses. The lonely kitchen was blest with society
at last, to its mistress’s heart’s content. They talked as fast as
possible about the weather, and how warm it had been walking up the
mountain, and how cold it had been a year ago, that day when Abby
Pendexter had been kept at home by a snowstorm and missed her visit.
“And I ain’t seen you now, aunt, since the twenty-eighth of September,
but I’ve thought of you a great deal, and looked forward to comin’ more
’n usual,” she ended, with an affectionate glance at the pleased old
face by the window.

“I’ve been wantin’ to see you, dear, and wonderin’ how you was gettin’
on,” said Aunt Cynthy kindly. “And I take it as a great attention to
have you come to-day, Mis’ Hand,” she added, turning again towards the
more distinguished guest. “We have to put one thing against another. I
should hate dreadfully to live anywhere except on a high hill farm,
‘cordin’ as I was born an’ raised. But there ain’t the chance to
neighbor that townfolks has, an’ I do seem to have more lonely hours
than I used to when I was younger. I don’t know but I shall soon be
gittin’ too old to live alone.” And she turned to her niece with an
expectant, lovely look, and Abby smiled back.

“I often wish I could run in an’ see you every day, aunt,” she answered.
“I have been sayin’ so to Mrs. Hand.”

“There, how anybody does relish company when they don’t have but a
little of it!” exclaimed Aunt Cynthia. “I am all alone to-day; there is
going to be a shootin’-match somewhere the other side o’ the mountain,
an’ Johnny Foss, that does my chores, begged off to go when he brought
the milk unusual early this mornin’. Gener’lly he’s about here all the
fore part of the day; but he don’t go off with the boys very often, and
I like to have him have a little sport; ’twas New Year’s Day, anyway;
he’s a good, stiddy boy for my wants.”

“Why, I wish you Happy New Year, aunt!” said Abby, springing up with
unusual spirit. “Why, that’s just what we come to say, and we like to
have forgot all about it!” She kissed her aunt, and stood a minute
holding her hand with a soft, affectionate touch. Mrs. Hand rose and
kissed Mrs. Dallett too, and it was a moment of ceremony and deep
feeling.

“I always like to keep the day,” said the old hostess, as they seated
themselves and drew their splint-bottomed chairs a little nearer
together than before. “You see, I was brought up to it, and father made
a good deal of it; he said he liked to make it pleasant and give the
year a fair start. I can see him now, how he used to be standing there
by the fireplace when we came out o’ the two bedrooms early in the
morning, an’ he always made out, poor ’s he was, to give us some little
present, and he’d heap ’em up on the corner o’ the mantelpiece, an’ we’d
stand front of him in a row, and mother be bustling about gettin’
breakfast. One year he give me a beautiful copy o’ the ‘Life o’ General
Lafayette,’ in a green cover,—I’ve got it now, but we child’n ’bout read
it to pieces,—an’ one year a nice piece o’ blue ribbon, an’ Abby—that
was your mother, Abby—had a pink one. Father was real kind to his
child’n. I thought o’ them early days when I first waked up this
mornin’, and I couldn’t help lookin’ up then to the corner o’ the shelf
just as I used to look.”

“There’s nothin’ so beautiful as to have a bright childhood to look back
to,” said Mrs. Hand. “Sometimes I think child’n has too hard a time
now,—all the responsibility is put on to ’em, since they take the lead
o’ what to do an’ what they want, and get to be so toppin’ an’ knowin’.
’Twas happier in the old days, when the fathers an’ mothers done the
rulin’.”

“They say things have changed,” said Aunt Cynthy; “but staying right
here, I don’t know much of any world but my own world.”

Abby Pendexter did not join in this conversation, but sat in her
straight-backed chair with folded hands and the air of a good child. The
little old dog had followed her in, and now lay sound asleep again at
her feet. The front breadth of her black dress looked rusty and old in
the sunshine that slanted across it, and the aunt’s sharp eyes saw this
and saw the careful darns. Abby was as neat as wax, but she looked as if
the frost had struck her. “I declare, she’s gittin’ along in years,”
thought Aunt Cynthia compassionately. “She begins to look sort o’ set
and dried up, Abby does. She oughtn’t to live all alone; she’s one that
needs company.”

At this moment Abby looked up with new interest. “Now, aunt,” she said,
in her pleasant voice, “I don’t want you to forget to tell me if there
ain’t some sewin’ or mendin’ I can do whilst I’m here. I know your hands
trouble you some, an’ I may ’s well tell you we’re bent on stayin’ all
day an’ makin’ a good visit, Mis’ Hand an’ me.”

“Thank ye kindly,” said the old woman; “I do want a little sewin’ done
before long, but ’tain’t no use to spile a good holiday.” Her face took
a resolved expression. “I’m goin’ to make other arrangements,” she said.
“No, you needn’t come up here to pass New Year’s Day an’ be put right
down to sewin’. I make out to do what mendin’ I need, an’ to sew on my
hooks an’ eyes. I get Johnny Ross to thread me up a good lot o’ needles
every little while, an’ that helps me a good deal. Abby, why can’t you
step into the best room an’ bring out the rockin’-chair? I seem to want
Mis’ Hand to have it.”

“I opened the window to let the sun in awhile,” said the niece, as she
returned. “It felt cool in there an’ shut up.”

“I thought of doin’ it not long before you come,” said Mrs. Dallett,
looking gratified. Once the taking of such a liberty would have been
very provoking to her. “Why, it does seem good to have somebody think o’
things an’ take right hold like that!”

“I’m sure you would, if you were down at my house,” said Abby, blushing.
“Aunt Cynthy, I don’t suppose you could feel as if ’twould be best to
come down an’ pass the winter with me,—just durin’ the cold weather, I
mean. You’d see more folks to amuse you, an’—I do think of you so
anxious these long winter nights.”

There was a terrible silence in the room, and Miss Pendexter felt her
heart begin to beat very fast. She did not dare to look at her aunt at
first.

Presently the silence was broken. Aunt Cynthia had been gazing out of
the window, and she turned towards them a little paler and older than
before, and smiling sadly.

“Well, dear, I’ll do just as you say,” she answered. “I’m beat by age at
last, but I’ve had my own way for eighty-five years, come the month o’
March, an’ last winter I did use to lay awake an’ worry in the long
storms. I’m kind o’ humble now about livin’ alone to what I was once.”
At this moment a new light shone in her face. “I don’t expect you’d be
willin’ to come up here an’ stay till spring,—not if I had Foss’s folks
stop for you to ride to meetin’ every pleasant Sunday, an’ take you down
to the Corners plenty o’ other times besides?” she said beseechingly.
“No, Abby, I’m too old to move now; I should be homesick down to the
village. If you’ll come an’ stay with me, all I have shall be yours.
Mis’ Hand hears me say it.”

“Oh, don’t you think o’ that; you’re all I’ve got near to me in the
world, an’ I’ll come an’ welcome,” said Abby, though the thought of her
own little home gave a hard tug at her heart. “Yes, Aunt Cynthy, I’ll
come, an’ we’ll be real comfortable together. I’ve been lonesome
sometimes”—

“’Twill be best for both,” said Mrs. Hand judicially. And so the great
question was settled, and suddenly, without too much excitement, it
became a thing of the past.

“We must be thinkin’ o’ dinner,” said Aunt Cynthia gayly. “I wish I was
better prepared; but there’s nice eggs an’ pork an’ potatoes, an’ you
girls can take hold an’ help.” At this moment the roast chicken and the
best mince pies were offered and kindly accepted, and before another
hour had gone they were sitting at their New Year feast, which Mrs.
Dallett decided to be quite proper for the Queen.

Before the guests departed, when the sun was getting low, Aunt Cynthia
called her niece to her side and took hold of her hand.

“Don’t you make it too long now, Abby,” said she. “I shall be wantin’ ye
every day till you come; but you mustn’t forgit what a set old thing I
be.”

Abby had the kindest of hearts, and was always longing for somebody to
love and care for; her aunt’s very age and helplessness seemed to beg
for pity.

“This is Saturday; you may expect me the early part of the week; and
thank you, too, aunt,” said Abby.

Mrs. Hand stood by with deep sympathy. “It’s the proper thing,” she
announced calmly. “You’d both of you be a sight happier; and truth is,
Abby’s wild an’ reckless, an’ needs somebody to stand right over her,
Mis’ Dallett. I guess she’ll try an’ behave, but there—there’s no
knowin’!” And they all laughed. Then the New Year guests said farewell
and started off down the mountain road. They looked back more than once
to see Aunt Cynthia’s face at the window as she watched them out of
sight. Miss Abby Pendexter was full of excitement; she looked as happy
as a child.

“I feel as if we’d gained the battle of Waterloo,” said Mrs. Hand. “I’ve
really had a most beautiful time. You an’ your aunt mustn’t forgit to
invite me up some time again to spend another day.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


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   11 or had been chased of out its    or had been chased out of its
      own                              own

  220 but I do’ know as ’twould been   but I don’ know as ’twould been
      any good to                      any good to

 ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
 ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
 ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.





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