I be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague, and
everything to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. 'T was
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 't was 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 't is 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, 't is '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 't
was 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, 'Beeca, an' talked
over our girl nonsense, ain't we? You know where 't was--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 't was;
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 't was 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. 'T will soon be summer again, an' 't is 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 't was
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
't would 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 stand-in' 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 't was 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 't was to-morrow
mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin' for the selec'_men_."
THE QUEST OF MR. TEABY.
The trees were bare on meadow and hill, and all about the country one
saw the warm brown of lately fallen leaves. There was still a cheerful
bravery of green in sheltered places,--a fine, live green that
flattered the eye with its look of permanence; the first three
quarters of the year seemed to have worked out their slow processes to
make this perfect late-autumn day. In such weather I found even the
East Wilby railroad station attractive, and waiting three hours for a
slow train became a pleasure; the delight of idleness and even
booklessness cannot be properly described.
The interior of the station was bleak and gravelly, but it would have
been possible to find fault with any interior on such an out-of-doors
day; and after the station-master had locked his ticket-office door
and tried the handle twice, with a comprehensive look at me, he went
slowly away up the road to spend some leisure time with his family. He
had ceased to take any interest in the traveling public, and answered
my questions as briefly as possible. After he had gone some distance
he turned to look back, but finding that I still sat on the baggage
truck in the sunshine, just where he left me, he smothered his natural
apprehensions, and went on.
One might spend a good half hour in watching crows as they go
southward resolutely through the clear sky, and then waver and come
straggling back as if they had forgotten something; one might think
over all one's immediate affairs, and learn to know the outward aspect
of such a place as East Wilby as if born and brought up there. But
after a while I lost interest in both past and future; there was too
much landscape before me at the moment, and a lack of figures. The
weather was not to be enjoyed merely as an end, yet there was no
temptation to explore the up-hill road on the left, or the level
fields on the right; I sat still on my baggage truck and waited for
something to happen. Sometimes one is so happy that there is nothing
left to wish for but to be happier, and just as the remembrance of
this truth illuminated my mind, I saw two persons approaching from
opposite directions. The first to arrive was a pleasant-looking
elderly countrywoman, well wrapped in a worn winter cloak with a thick
plaid shawl over it, and a white worsted cloud tied over her bonnet.
She carried a well-preserved bandbox,--the outlines were perfect under
its checked gingham cover,--and had a large bundle beside, securely
rolled in a newspaper. From her dress I felt sure that she had made a
mistake in dates, and expected winter to set in at once. Her face was
crimson with undue warmth, and what appeared in the end to have been
unnecessary haste. She did not take any notice of the elderly man who
reached the platform a minute later, until they were near enough to
take each other by the hand and exchange most cordial greetings.
"Well, this is a treat!" said the man, who was a small and
shivery-looking person. He carried a great umbrella and a thin,
enameled-cloth valise, and wore an ancient little silk hat and a
nearly new greenish linen duster, as if it were yet summer. "I was
full o' thinkin' o' you day before yisterday; strange, wa'n't it?" he
announced impressively, in a plaintive voice. "I was sayin' to myself,
if there was one livin' bein' I coveted to encounter over East Wilby
way, 't was you, Sister Pinkham."
"Warm to-day, ain't it?" responded Sister Pinkham. "How's your health,
Mr. Teaby? I guess I'd better set right down here on the aidge of the
platform; sha'n't we git more air than if we went inside the depot?
It's necessary to git my breath before I rise the hill."
"You can't seem to account for them foresights," continued Mr. Teaby,
putting down his tall, thin valise and letting the empty top of it
fold over. Then he stood his umbrella against the end of my baggage
truck, without a glance at me. I was glad that they were not finding
me in their way. "Well, if this ain't very sing'lar, I never saw
nothin' that was," repeated the little man. "Nobody can set forth to
explain why the thought of you should have been so borne in upon me
day before yisterday, your livin' countenance an' all, an' here we be
today settin' side o' one another. I've come to rely on them
foresights; they've been of consider'ble use in my business, too."
"Trade good as common this fall?" inquired Sister Pinkham languidly.
"You don't carry such a thing as a good palm-leaf fan amon'st your
stuff, I expect? It does appear to me as if I hadn't been more het up
any day this year."
"I should ha' had the observation to offer it before," said Mr. Teaby,
with pride. "Yes, Sister Pinkham, I've got an excellent fan right
here, an' you shall have it."
He reached for his bag; I heard a clink, as if there were bottles
within. Presently his companion began to fan herself with that steady
sway and lop of the palm-leaf which one sees only in country churches
in midsummer weather. Mr. Teaby edged away a little, as if he feared
such a steady trade-wind.
"We might ha' picked out a shadier spot, on your account," he
suggested. "Can't you unpin your shawl?"
"Not while I'm so het," answered Sister Pinkham coldly. "Is there
anything new recommended for rheumatic complaints?"
"They're gittin' up new compounds right straight along, and sends
sights o' printed bills urgin' of me to buy 'em. I don't beseech none
o' my customers to take them strange nostrums that I ain't able to
recommend."
"Some is new cotches made o' the good old stand-bys, I expect," said
Sister Pink-ham, and there was a comfortable silence of some minutes.
"I'm kind of surprised to meet with you to-day, when all's said an'
done; it kind of started me when I see 't was you, after dwellin' on
you so day before yisterday," insisted Mr. Teaby; and this time Sister
Pinkham took heed of the interesting coincidence.
"Thinkin' o' me, was you?" and she stopped the fan a moment, and
turned to look at him with interest.
"I was so. Well, I never see nobody that kep' her looks as you do, and
be'n a sufferer too, as one may express it."
Sister Pinkham sighed heavily, and began to ply the fan again. "You
was sayin' just now that you found them foresight notions work into
your business."
"Yes'm; I saved a valu'ble life this last spring. I was puttin' up my
vials to start out over Briggsville way, an' 't was impressed upon me
that I'd better carry a portion o' opodildack. I was loaded up heavy,
had all I could lug of spring goods; salts an' seny, and them
big-bottle spring bitters o' mine that folks counts on regular. I
couldn't git the opodildack out o' my mind noway, and I didn't want it
for nothin' nor nobody, but I had to remove a needed vial o' some kind
of essence to give it place. When I was goin' down the lane t'wards
Abel Dean's house, his women folks come flyin' out. 'Child's a-dyin'
in here,' says they; 'tumbled down the sullar stairs.' They was like
crazy creatur's; I give 'em the vial right there in the lane, an' they
run in an' I followed 'em. Last time I was there the child was
a-playin' out; looked rugged and hearty. They've never forgot it an'
never will," said Mr. Teaby impressively, with a pensive look toward
the horizon. "Want me to stop over night with 'em any time, or come
an' take the hoss, or anything. Mis' Dean, she buys four times the
essences an' stuff she wants; kind o' gratified, you see, an' didn't
want to lose the child, I expect, though she's got a number o' others.
If it hadn't be'n for its bein' so impressed on my mind, I should have
omitted that opodildack. I deem it a winter remedy, chiefly."
"Perhaps the young one would ha' come to without none; they do survive
right through everything, an' then again they seem to be taken away
right in their tracks." Sister Pinkham grew more talkative as she
cooled. "Heard any news as you come along?"
"Some," vaguely responded Mr. Teaby. "Folks ginerally relates anythin'
that's occurred since they see me before. I ain't no great hand for
news, an' never was."
"Pity 'bout _you_, Uncle Teaby! There, anybody don't like to have
deaths occur an' them things, and be unawares of 'em, an' the last to
know when folks calls in." Sister Pinkham laughed at first, but said
her say with spirit.