little only to wake with a start, and listen for some welcome sound
out in the cold night. Was her boy freezing to death somewhere? Other
mothers only scolded if their sons were wild, but this was killing her
and Mike, they had set their hopes so high. Mike was groaning
dreadfully in his sleep to-night--the fire was burning low, and she
did not dare to stir it. She took her worn rosary again and tried to
tell its beads. "Mother of Pity, pray for us!" she said, wearily
dropping the beads in her lap.
There was a sound in the street at last, but it was not of one man's
stumbling feet, but of many. She was stiff with cold, she had slept
long, and it was almost day. She rushed with strange apprehension to
the doorway and stood with the flaring lamp in her hand at the top of
the stairs. The voices were suddenly hushed. "Go for Father Miles!"
said somebody in a hoarse voice, and she heard the words. They were
carrying a burden, they brought it tip to the mother who waited. In
their arms lay her son stone dead; he had been stabbed in a fight, he
had struck a man down who had sprung back at him like a tiger. Dan,
little Dan, was dead, the luck of the Bogans, the end was here, and a
wail that pierced the night, and chilled the hearts that heard it, was
the first message of sorrow to the poor father in his uneasy sleep.
The group of men stood by--some of them had been drinking, but they
were all awed and shocked. You would have believed every one of them
to be on the side of law and order. Mike Bogan knew that the worst had
happened. Biddy had rushed to him and fallen across the bed; for one
minute her aggravating shrieks had stopped; he began to dress himself,
but he was shaking too much; he stepped out to the kitchen and faced
the frightened crowd.
"Is my son dead, then?" asked Mike Bogan of Bantry, with a piteous
quiver of the lip, and nobody spoke. There was something glistening
and awful about his pleasant Irish face. He tottered where he stood,
he caught at a chair to steady himself. "The luck o' the Bogans is
it?" and he smiled strangely, then a fierce hardness came across his
face and changed it utterly. "Come down, come down!" he shouted, and
snatching the key of the shop went down the stairs himself with great
sure-footed leaps. What was in Mike? was he crazy with grief? They
stood out of his way and saw him fling out bottle after bottle and
shatter them against the wall. They saw him roll one cask after
another to the doorway, and out into the street in the gray light of
morning, and break through the staves with a heavy axe. Nobody dared
to restrain his fury--there was a devil in him, they were afraid of
the man in his blinded rage The odor of whiskey and gin filled the
cold air--some of them would have stolen the wasted liquor if they
could, but no man there dared to move or speak, and it was not until
the tall figure of Father Miles came along the street, and the patient
eyes that seemed always to keep vigil, and the calm voice with its
flavor of Bantry brogue, came to Mike Bogan's help, that he let
himself be taken out of the wrecked shop and away from the spilt
liquors to the shelter of his home.
A week later he was only a shadow of his sturdy self, he was lying on
his bed dreaming of Bantry Bay and the road to Glengariff--the hedge
roses were in bloom, and he was trudging along the road to see Biddy.
He was working on the old farm at home and could not put the seed
potatoes in their trench, for little Dan kept falling in and getting
in his way. "Dan's not going to be plagued with the bad craps," he
muttered to Father Miles who sat beside the bed. "Dan will be a fine
squire in Ameriky," but the priest only stroked his hand as it
twitched and lifted on the coverlet. What was Biddy doing, crying and
putting the candles about him? Then Mike's poor brain grew steady.
"Oh, my God, if we were back in Bantry! I saw the gorse bloomin' in
the t'atch d' ye know. Oh wisha wisha the poor ould home an' the green
praties that day we come from it--with our luck smilin' us in the
face."
"Whist darlin': kape aisy darlin'!" mourned Biddy, with a great sob.
Father Miles sat straight and stem in his chair by the pillow--he had
said the prayers for the dying, and the holy oil was already shining
on Mike Bogan's forehead. The keeners were swaying themselves to and
fro, there where they waited in the next room.
FAIR DAY.
Widow Mercy Bascom came back alone into the empty kitchen and seated
herself in her favorite splint-bottomed chair by the window, with a
dreary look on her face.
"I s'pose I be an old woman, an' past goin' to cattle shows an'
junketings, but folks needn't take it so for granted. I'm sure I don't
want to be on my feet all day, trapesin' fair grounds an' swallowin'
everybody's dust; not but what I'm as able as most, though I be
seventy-three year old."
She folded her hands in her lap and looked out across the deserted
yard. There was not even a hen in sight; she was left alone for the
day. "Tobias's folks," as she called the son's family with whom she
made her home--Tobias's folks had just started for a day's pleasuring
at the county fair, ten miles distant. She had not thought of going
with them, nor expected any invitation; she had even helped them off
with her famous energy; but there was an unexpected reluctance at
being left behind, a sad little feeling that would rise suddenly in
her throat as she stood in the door and saw them drive away in the
shiny, two-seated wagon. Johnny, the youngest and favorite of her
grandchildren, had shouted back in his piping voice, "I wish you was
goin', Grandma."
"The only one on 'em that thought of me," said Mercy Bascom to
herself, and then not being a meditative person by nature, she went to
work industriously and proceeded to the repairing of Tobias's work-day
coat. It was sharp weather now in the early morning, and he would soon
need the warmth of it. Tobias's placid wife never anticipated and
always lived in a state of trying to catch up with her work. It never
had been the elder woman's way, and Mercy reviewed her own active
career with no mean pride. She had been left a widow at twenty-eight,
with four children and a stony New Hampshire farm, but had bravely won
her way, paid her debts, and provided the three girls and their
brother Tobias with the best available schooling.
For a woman of such good judgment and high purpose in life,
Mrs. Bascom had made a very unwise choice in marrying Tobias Bascom
the elder. He was not even the owner of a good name, and led her a
terrible life with his drunken shiftlessness, and hindrance of all her
own better aims. Even while the children were babies, however, and
life was at its busiest and most demanding stages, the determined soul
would not be baffled by such damaging partnership. She showed the
plainer of what stuff she was made, and simply worked the harder and
went her ways more fiercely. If it were sometimes whispered that she
was unamiable, her wiser neighbors understood the power of will that
was needed to cope with circumstances that would have crushed a weaker
woman. As for her children, they were very fond of her in the
undemonstrative New England fashion. Only the two eldest could
remember their father at all, and after he was removed from this world
Tobias Bascom left but slight proofs of having ever existed at all,
except in the stern lines and premature aging of his wife's face.
The years that followed were years of hard work on the little farm,
but diligence and perseverance had their reward. When the three
daughters came to womanhood they were already skilled farmhouse
keepers, and were dispatched for their own homes well equipped with
feather-beds and homespun linen and woolen. Mercy Bascom was glad to
have them well settled, if the truth were known. She did not like to
have her own will and law questioned or opposed, and when she sat down
to supper alone with her son Tobias, after the last daughter's
wedding, she had a glorious feeling of peace and satisfaction.
"There's a sight o' work left yet in the old ma'am," she said to
Tobias, in an unwontedly affectionate tone. "I guess we shall keep
house together as comfortable as most folks." But Tobias grew very red
in the face and bent over his plate.
"I don' know's I want the girls to get ahead of me," he said
sheepishly. "I ain't meanin' to put you out with another wedding right
away, but I've been a-lookin' round, an' I guess I've found somebody
to suit _me_."
Mercy Bascom turned cold with misery and disappointment. "Why T'bias,"
she said, anxiously, "folks always said that you was cut out for an
old bachelor till I come to believe it, an' I've been lottin' on"--
"Course nobody's goin' to wrench me an' you apart," said Tobias
gallantly. "I made up my mind long ago you an' me was yoke-mates,
mother. An' I had it in my mind to fetch you somebody that would ease
you o' quite so much work now 'Liza's gone off."
"I don't want nobody," said the grieved woman, and she could eat no
more supper; that festive supper for which she had cooked her very
best. Tobias was sorry for her, but he had his rights, and now simply
felt light-hearted because he had freed his mind of this unwelcome
declaration. Tobias was slow and stolid to behold, but he was a man of
sound ideas and great talent for farming. He had found it difficult to
choose between his favorites among the marriageable girls, a bright
young creature who was really too good for him, but penniless, and a
weaker damsel who was heiress to the best farm in town. The farm won
the day at last; and Mrs. Bascom felt a thrill of pride at her son's
worldly success; then she asked to know her son's plans, and was
wholly disappointed. Tobias meant to sell the old place; he had no
idea of leaving her alone as she wistfully complained; he meant to
have her make a new home at the Bassett place with him and his bride.
That she would never do: the old place which had given them a living
never should be left or sold to strangers. Tobias was not prepared for
her fierce outburst of reproach at the mere suggestion. She would live
alone and pay her way as she always had done, and so it was, for a few
years of difficulties. Tobias was never ready to plough or plant when
she needed him; his own great farm was more than he could serve
properly. It grew more and more difficult to hire workmen, and they
were seldom worth their wages. At last Tobias's wife, who was a kindly
soul, persuaded her reluctant mother-in-law to come and spend a
winter; the old woman was tired and for once disheartened; she found
herself deeply in love with her grandchildren, and so next spring she
let the little hill farm on the halves to an impecunious but
hard-working young couple.
To everybody's surprise the two women lived together harmoniously.
Tobias's wife did everything to please her mother-in-law except to be
other than a Bassett. And Mercy, for the most part, ignored this
misfortune, and rarely was provoked into calling it a fault. Now that
the necessity for hard work and anxiety was past, she appeared to have
come to an Indian summer shining-out of her natural amiability and
tolerance. She was sometimes indirectly reproachful of her daughter's
easy-going ways, and set an indignant example now and then by a famous
onslaught of unnecessary work, and always dressed and behaved herself
in plainest farm fashion, while Mrs. Tobias was given to undue
worldliness and style. But they worked well together in the main, for,
to use Mercy's own words, she "had seen enough of life not to want to
go into other folks' houses and make trouble."
As people grow older their interests are apt to become fewer, and one
of the thoughts that came oftenest to Mercy Bascom in her old age was
a time-honored quarrel with one of her husband's sisters, who had been
her neighbor many years before, and then moved to greater prosperity
at the other side of the county. It is not worth while to tell the
long story of accusations and misunderstandings, but while the two
women did not meet for almost half a lifetime the grievance was as
fresh as if it were yesterday's. Wrongs of defrauded sums of money and
contested rights in unproductive acres of land, wrongs of slighting
remarks and contempt of equal claims; the remembrance of all these was
treasured as a miser fingers his gold. Mercy Bascom freed herself from
the wearisome detail of every-day life whenever she could find a
patient listener to whom to tell the long story. She found it as
interesting as a story of the Arabian Nights, or an exciting play at
the theatre. She would have you believe that she was faultless in the
matter, and would not acknowledge that her sister-in-law Ruth Bascom,
now Mrs. Parlet, was also a hard-working woman with dependent little
children at the time of the great fray. Of late years her son had
suspected that his mother regretted the alienation, but he knew better
than to suggest a peace-making. "Let them work--let them work!" he
told his wife, when she proposed one night to bring the warring
sisters-in-law unexpectedly together. It may have been that old Mercy
began to feel a little lonely and would be glad to have somebody of
her own age with whom to talk over old times. She never had known the
people much in this Bassett region, and there were few but young folks
left at any rate.
As the pleasure-makers hastened toward the fair that bright October
morning Mercy sat by the table sewing at a sufficient patch in the old
coat. There was little else to do all day but to get herself a
luncheon at noon and have supper ready when the family came home cold
and tired at night. The two cats came purring about her chair; one
persuaded her to open the cellar door, and the other leaped to the top
of the kitchen table unrebuked, and blinked herself to sleep there in
the sun. This was a favored kitten brought from the old home, and
seemed like a link between the old days and these. Her mistress
noticed with surprise that pussy was beginning to look old, and she
could not resist a little sigh. "Land! the next world may seem
dreadful new too, and I've got to get used to that," she thought with
a grim smile of foreboding. "How do folks live that wants always to be
on the go? There was Ruth Parlet, that must be always a visitin' and
goin'--well, I won't say that there wasn't a time when I wished for
the chance." Justice always won the day in such minor questions as
this.
Ruth Parlet's name started the usual thoughts, but somehow or other
Mercy could not find it in her heart to be as harsh as usual. She
remembered one thing after another about their girlhood together. They
had been great friends then, and the animosity may have had its root
in the fact that Ruth helped forward her brother's marriage. But there
were years before that of friendly foregathering and girlish alliances
and rivalries; spinning and herb gathering and quilting. It seemed, as
Mercy thought about it, that Ruth was good company after all. But what
did make her act so, and turn right round later on?
The morning grew warm, and at last Mrs. Bascom had to open the window
to let out the buzzing flies and an imprisoned wild bee. The patch was
finished and the elbow would serve Tobias as good as new. She laid the
coat over a chair and put her bent brass thimble into the paper-collar
box that served as work-basket. She used to have a queer splint basket
at the old place, but it had been broken under something heavier when
her household goods were moved. Some of the family had long been tired
of hearing that basket regretted, and another had never been found
worthy to take its place. The thimble, the smooth mill bobbin on which
was wound black linen thread, the dingy lump of beeswax, and a smart
leather needle-book, which Johnny had given her the Christmas before,
all looked ready for use, but Mrs. Bascom pushed them farther back on
the table and quickly rose to her feet. "'T ain't nine o'clock yet,"
she said, exultantly. "I'll just take a couple o' crackers in my
pocket and step over to the old place. I'll take my time and be back
soon enough to make 'em that pan o' my hot gingerbread they'll be
counting on for supper."
Half an hour later one might have seen a bent figure lock the side
door of the large farmhouse carefully, trying the latch again and
again to see if it were fast, putting the key into a safe hiding-place
by the door, and then stepping away up the road with eager
determination. "I ain't felt so like a jaunt this five year," said
Mercy to herself, "an' if Tobias was here an' Ann, they'd take all the
fun out fussin' and talkin', an' bein' afeard I'd tire myself, or
wantin' me to ride over. I do like to be my own master once in a
while."
The autumn day was glorious, with a fine flavor of fruit and ripeness
in the air. The sun was warm, there was a cool breeze from the great
hills, and far off across the wide valley the old woman could see her
little gray house on its pleasant eastern slope; she could even trace
the outline of the two small fields and large pasture. "I done well
with it, if I wasn't nothin' but a woman with four dependin' on me an'
no means," said Mercy proudly as she came in full sight of the old
place. It was a long drive from one farm to the other by roundabout
highways, but there was a footpath known to the wayfarer which took a
good piece off the distance. "Now, ain't this a sight better than them
hustlin' fairs?" Mercy asked gleefully as she felt herself free and
alone in the wide meadow-land. She had long been promising little
Johnny to take him over to Gran'ma's house, as she loved to call it
still. She could not help thinking longingly how much he would enjoy
this escapade. "Why, I'm running away just like a young-one, that's
what I be," she exclaimed, and then laughed aloud for very pleasure.
The weather-beaten farmhouse was deserted that day, as its former
owner suspected. She boldly gathered some of her valued spice-apples,
with an assuring sense of proprietorship as she crossed the last
narrow field. The Browns, man and wife and little boy and baby, had
hied them early to the fair with nearly the whole population of the
countryside. The house and yard and out-buildings never had worn such
an aspect of appealing pleasantness as when Mercy Bascom came near.
She felt as if she were going to cry for a minute, and then hurried to
get inside the gate. She saw the outgoing track of horses' feet with
delight, but went discreetly to the door and knocked, to make herself
perfectly sure that there was no one left at home. Out of breath and
tired as she was, she turned to look off at the view. Yes, there was
Tobias's place, prosperous and white-painted; she could just get a
glimpse of the upper roofs and gables. It was always a sorrow and
complaint that a low hill kept her from looking up at this farm from
any of the windows, but now that she was at the farm itself she found
herself regarding Tobias's home with a good deal of affection. She
looked sharply with an apprehension of fire, but there was no whiff of
alarming smoke against the dear sky.
"Now I must git me a drink o' that water first of anything," and she
hastened to the creaking well-sweep and lowered the bucket. There was
the same rusty, handleless tin dipper that she had left years before,
standing on the shelf inside the well-curb. She was proud to find that
the bucket was no heavier than ever, and was heartily thankful for the
clear water. There never was such a well as that, and it seemed as if
she had not been away a day. "What an old gal I be," said Mercy, with
plaintive merriment. "Well, they ain't made no great changes since I
was here last spring," and then she went over and held her face close
against one of the kitchen windows, and took a hungry look at the
familiar room. The bedroom door was open and a new sense of attachment
to the place filled her heart. "It seems as if I was locked out o' my
own home," she whispered as she looked in.
There were the same old spruce and pine boards that she had scrubbed
so many times and trodden thin as she hurried to and fro about her
work. It was very strange to see an unfamiliar chair or two, but the
furnishings of a farm kitchen were much the same, and there was no
great change. Even the cradle was like that cradle in which her own
children had been rocked. She gazed and gazed, poor old Mother Bascom,
and forgot the present as her early life came back in vivid memories.
At last she turned away from the window with a sigh.
The flowers that she had planted herself long ago had bloomed all
summer in the garden; there were still some ragged sailors and the
snowberries and phlox and her favorite white mallows, of which she
picked herself a posy. "I'm glad the old place is so well took care
of," she thought, gratefully. "An' they've new-silled the old barn I
do declare, and battened the cracks to keep the dumb creatures warm.
'T was a sham-built barn anyways, but 't was the best I could do when
the child'n needed something every handturn o' the day. It put me to
some expense every year, tinkering of it up where the poor lumber
warped and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope with things and
gettin' the better of my disadvantages! The ground's too rich for me
over there to Tobias's; I don't want things too easy, for my part. I
feel most as young as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play helpless,
not for nobody.
"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here by an' by a spell an' stop
with the young folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their work. I
ain't needed all the time to Tobias' s now, and they can hire help,
while these can't. I've been favoring myself till I'm as soft as an
old hoss that's right out of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without
wheezin'."
There was a sense of companionship in the very weather. The bees were
abroad as if it were summer, and a flock of little birds came
fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom as she sat on the doorstep. She
remembered the biscuits in her pocket and ate them with a hunger she
had seldom known of late, but she threw the crumbs generously to her
feathered neighbors. The soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of
the wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of relationship to her
surroundings all served to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful
state. There was only one thought that would not let her be quite
happy. She could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet out of her
mind. And strangely enough the old grudge did not present itself with
the usual power of aggravation; it was of their early friendship and
Ruth's good fellowship that memories would come.
"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to the folks, but I should like
to have a good visit with Ruth if so be that we could set aside the
past," she said, resolutely at last. "I never thought I should come to
it, but if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do nothin' to hinder
it. Not to say but what I should have to free my mind on one or two
points before we could start fair. I've waited forty year to make one
remark to Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin' to be old folks."
Mercy rebuked herself gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard
feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the culmination of a long, slow
process of reconciliation, or whether Mrs. Bascom's placid
satisfaction helped to hasten it by many stages, nobody could say. As
she sat there she thought of many things; her life spread itself out
like a picture; perhaps never before had she been able to detach
herself from her immediate occupation in this way. She never had been
aware of her own character and exploits to such a degree, and the
minutes sped by as she thought with deep interest along the course of
her own history. There was nothing she was ashamed of to an
uncomfortable degree but the long animosity between herself and the
children's aunt. How harsh she had been sometimes; she had even tried
to prejudice everybody who listened to these tales of an offender. "I
wa'n't more 'n half right, now I come to look myself full in the
face," said Mercy Bascom, "and I never owned it till this day."
The sun was already past noon, and the good woman dutifully rose and
with instant consciousness of resource glanced in at the kitchen
window to tell the time by a familiar mark on the floor. "I needn't
start just yet," she muttered. "Oh my! how I do wish I could git in
and poke round into every corner! 'T would make this day just
perfect."