folks used to." And in another minute the key lay in Mercy's worn old
hand. She gave a shrewd look along the road, opened the door, which
creaked what may have been a hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear
old kitchen. She had not been in the house alone since she left it,
but now she was nobody's guest. It was like some shell-fish finding
its own old shell again and settling comfortably into the
convolutions. Even we must not follow Mother Bascom about from the
dark cellar to the hot little attic. She was not curious about the
Browns' worldly goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious of anything
but the comfort of going up and down the short flight of stairs and
looking out of her own windows with nobody to watch.
"There's the place where Tobias scratched the cupboard door with a
nail. Didn't I thrash him for it good?" she said once with a proud
remembrance of the time when she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he
dependent.
At length a creeping fear stole over her lest the family might return.
She stopped one moment to look back into the little bedroom. "How good
I did use to sleep here," she said. "I worked as stout as I could the
day through, and there wa'n't no wakin' up by two o'clock in the
morning, and smellin' for fire and harkin' for thieves like I have to
nowadays."
Mercy stepped away down the long sloping field like a young woman. It
was a long walk back to Tobias's, even if one followed the pleasant
footpaths across country. She was heavy-footed, but entirely
light-hearted when she came safely in at the gate of the Bassett
place. "I've done extra for me," she said as she put away her old
shawl and bonnet; "but I'm goin' to git the best supper Tobias's folks
have eat for a year," and so she did.
"I've be'n over to the old place to-day," she announced bravely to her
son, who had finished his work and his supper and was now tipped back
in his wooden arm-chair against the wall.
"You ain't, mother!" responded Tobias, with instant excitement. "Next
fall, then, I won't take no for an answer but what you'll go to the
fair and see what's goin'. You ain't footed it way over there?"
Mother Bascom nodded. "I have," she answered solemnly, a minute later,
as if the nod were not enough.
"T'bias, son," she added, lowering her voice, "I ain't one to give in
my rights, but I was thinkin' it all over about y'r Aunt Ruth
Parlet"--
"Now if that ain't curi's!" exclaimed Tobias, bringing his chair down
hastily upon all four legs. "I didn't know just how you'd take it,
mother, but I see Aunt Ruth to-day to the fair, and she made
everything o' me and wanted to know how you was, and she got me off
from the rest, an' says she: 'I declare I should like to see your marm
again. I wonder if she won't agree to let bygones be bygones.'"
"My sakes!" said Mercy, who was startled by this news. "'T is the hand
o' Providence! How did she look, son?"
"A sight older 'n you look, but kind of natural too. One o' her sons'
wives that she's made her home with, has led her a dance, folks say."
"Poor old creatur'! we'll have her over here, if your folks don't find
fault. I've had her in my mind"--
Tobias's folks, in the shape of his wife and little Johnny, appeared
from the outer kitchen. "I haven't had such a supper I don't know
when," repeated the younger woman for at least the fifth time. "You
must have been keepin' busy all day, Mother Bascom."
But Mother Bascom and Tobias looked at each other and laughed.
"I ain't had such a good time I don't know when, but my feet are all
of a fidget now, and I've got to git to bed. I've be'n runnin' away
since you've be'n gone, Ann!" said the pleased old soul, and then went
away, still laughing, to her own room. She was strangely excited and
satisfied, as if she had at last paid a long-standing debt. She could
trudge across pastures as well as anybody, and the old grudge was done
with. Mercy hardly noticed how her fingers trembled as she unhooked
the old gray gown. The odor of sweet fern shook out fresh and strong
as she smoothed and laid it carefully over a chair. There was a little
rent in the skirt, but she could mend it by daylight.
The great harvest moon was shining high in the sky, and she needed no
other light in the bedroom. "I've be'n a smart woman to work in my
day, and I've airnt a little pleasurin'," said Mother Bascom sleepily
to herself. "Poor Ruthy! so she looks old, does she? I'm goin' to tell
her right out, 't was I that spoke first to Tobias."
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,--'t was
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, "'T wa'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 't
wouldn'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 't was 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 't was 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 buildings; 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 calculated 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. 'T will 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 't was 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_ 't is when I git _where_ 't is. 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, 't was
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 creator's for nothin'. Is'iah's got fox blood in him, an'
p'r'haps 't is 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 't won'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
house-work. 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; 't won'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 suspicious 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
door-yard.
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.