IN WHICH MOLLY FLIRTS
On a November morning several weeks later, when the boughs of trees
showed almost bare against the sky, Molly Merryweather walked down to
Bottom's store to buy a bottle of cough syrup for Reuben, who had a
cold. Over the counter Mrs. Bottom, as she was still called from an
hereditary respect for the house rather than for the husband, delivered
a coarse brown paper. The store, which smelt of dry-goods and ginger
snaps, was a small square room jutting abruptly out of the bar, from
which it derived both its warmth and its dignity.
"Even men folks have got the sperit of worms and will turn at last," she
remarked in her cheerful voice, which sounded as if it issued from the
feather bed she vaguely resembled.
"Let them turn--I can do without them very well," replied Molly, tossing
her head.
"Ah, you're young yet, my dear, an' thar's a long road ahead of you. But
wait till you've turned forty an' you'll find that the man you throwed
over at twenty will come handy, if for nothin' mo' than to fill a gap in
the chimney. I ain't standin' up for 'em, mind you, an' I can't remember
that I ever heard anything particular to thar credit as a sex--but po'
things as we allow 'em to be, thar don't seem but one way to git along
without 'em, an' that is to have 'em. It's sartain sure, however, that
they fill a good deal mo' of yo' thought when they ain't around than
when they are. Why, look at William, now--the first time he axed me to
marry him, I kept sayin' 'you're still slue-footed an' slack-kneed an'
addle-headed an' I'll marry you whether or no.' Twenty years may
not change a man for the better, but it does a powerful lot toward
persuadin' a woman to put up with the worst!"
"Well, best or worst, I've seen enough of marriage, Mrs. Bottom, to know
that I shouldn't like it."
"I ain't denyin' it might be improved on without hurtin' it--but a
single woman's a terrible lonesome body, Molly."
"I'm not lonely, while I have grandfather."
"He's old an' he ain't got many years ahead of him."
"If I lose him I'll go to Applegate and trim hats for a living."
"It's a shame, Molly, with the po' miller splittin' his heart over you."
"He'll mend it. They're like that, all of them."
"But Mr. Mullen? Ain't he different now, bein' a parson?"
"No, he's just the same, and besides he'd always think he'd stooped to
marry me."
"Then take Jim Halloween. With three good able-bodied lovers at yo'
beck an' call, it's a downright shame to die an old maid just from pure
contrariness. It's better arter all, to eat dough that don't rise than
to go hungry."
A step sounded on the platform outside and a lank, good-looking
countryman glanced cautiously in through the crack in the door.
Observing Molly, he spat a wad of tobacco over the hitching rail by the
steps, and stopped to smooth his straw-coloured hair with the palm of
his hand before crossing the threshold.
"Thar's Jim Halloween now jest as we were speakin' of him," whispered
Betsey Bottom, with a nudge at Molly's shoulder.
"Well, if that don't beat all," drawled the young man, in an embarrassed
rapture, as he entered. "I was gettin' my horse shod over thar at Tim
Mallory's, an' I thought to myself that I'd jest drop over an' say
'howdy' to Mrs. Bottom."
"Oh, I reckon you caught a glimpse of red through the door," chuckled
Betsey, who was possessed of the belief that it was her Christian duty
to further any match, good or bad, that came under her eye.
"I must be going, so don't hurry your visit," replied Molly, laughing.
"Mrs. Hatch has been in bed for a week and I'm on my way to see Judy."
"I'll walk a bit of the road with you if you ain't any serious
objection," remarked the lover, preparing to accompany her.
"Oh, no, none in the world," she replied demurely, "you may carry my
cough syrup."
"It ain't for yourself, I hope?" he inquired, with a look of alarm.
"No, for grandfather. He caught cold staying in the barn with the red
cow."
"Well, I'm glad 'taint for you--I don't like a weak-chested woman."
She looked up smiling as they passed the store into the sunken road
which led in the direction of Solomon Hatch's cottage.
"I did see a speck of red through the crack," he confessed after a
minute, as if he were unburdening his conscience of a crime.
"You mean you saw my cap or jacket--or maybe my gloves?"
"It was yo' cap, an' so I came in. I hope you have no particular
objection?" His face had flushed to a violent crimson and in his throat
his Adam's apple worked rapidly up and down between the high points of
his collar. "I mean," he stammered presently, "that I wouldn't have gone
in if I hadn't seen that bit of red through the do'. I suppose I had
better tell you, that I've been thinking a great deal about you in the
evening when my day's work is over."
"I'm glad I don't interfere with your farming."
"That would be a pity, wouldn't it? Do you ever think of me, I wonder,
at the same time?" he inquired sentimentally.
"I can't tell because I don't know just what that time is, you see."
"Well, along after supper generally--particularly if ma has made
buckwheat cakes an' I've eaten a hearty meal an' feel kind of cosy an'
comfortable when I set down by the fire an' there's nothin' special to
do."
"But you see I don't like buckwheat cakes, and I've always something
'special' to do at that hour."
"Ah, you don't mean it, do you--about not liking buckwheat cakes? As
for the rest, bein' a woman, I reckon you would have the washin' up to
attend to just at that time. I don't like a woman that sets around idle
after supper--an' I'm glad you're one to be brisk an' busy about the
house, though I'm sorry you ain't over partial to buckwheat. May I
inquire, if you don't object to tellin' me, what is yo' favourite food?"
"It's hard to say--I have so many--bread and jam, I believe."
"I hope you don't think I'm too pressin' on the subject, but ma has
always said that there wasn't any better bond for matrimony than the
same taste in food. Do you think she's right?"
"I shouldn't wonder. She's had experience anyway."
"Yes, that's jest what I tell her--she's had experience an' she ought
to know. Pa and she never had a word durin' the thirty years of their
marriage, an' she always said she ruled him not with the tongue, but
with the fryin' pan. I don't reckon there's a better cook than ma in
this part of the country, do you?"
"I'm quite sure there isn't. She has given up her life to it."
"To be sure she has--every minute of it, like the woman whose price
is above rubies that Mr. Mullen is so fond of preachin' about." For
a moment he considered the fact as though impressed anew by its
importance. "I'm glad you feel that way, because ma has always stuck out
that you had the makin' of a mighty fine cook in you."
"Has she? That was nice of her, wasn't it?"
"Well, she wouldn't have said so if she hadn't thought it. It ain't her
way to say pleasant things when she can help it. You must judge her by
her work not by her talk, pa used to say."
"She's the kind that doesn't mind taking trouble for you, I know that
about her," replied Molly, gravely.
"You're right about that, an' you're the same way, I am sure. I've
watched you pretty closely with your grandfather."
"Yes, I believe I am--with grandfather."
"'Twill be the same way when you marry, I was sayin' as much to ma only
yesterday. 'She'd be jest as savin' an' thrifty as you,'--I mean, of
course, if the right man got you to marry him,--but 'tis all the same
in the end." Again he paused, cleared his throat, and swallowed
convulsively, "I've sometimes felt that I might be the right man, Miss
Molly," he said.
"O Mr. Halloween!"
"Why, I thought you knew I felt so from the way you looked at me."
"But I can't help the way I look, can I?"
"Well, I've told you now, so it ain't a secret. I've thought about
askin' you for more than a year--ever since you smiled at me one Sunday
in church while Mr. Mullen was preachin'."
"Did I? I've quite forgotten it!"
"I suppose you have, seein' you smile so frequent. But that put the idea
in my head anyway an' I've cared a terrible lot about marryin' you ever
since."
"But I'm not the kind of person, at all. I'm not saving, I'm not
thrifty."
"I hope you're wrong--but even if you're not, well, I want you terrible
hard just the same. You see I can always keep an eye on the expenses,"
he hastened to add, and made a desperate clutch at her hand.
The red worsted mitten came off in his grasp, and he stood eyeing it
ruefully while he waited for her answer.
"I've determined never, never to marry," she replied.
His chest heaved. "I knew you felt that way about the other's but I
thought somehow I was different," he rejoined.
"No, it's not the man, but marriage that I don't like," she responded,
shaking her head. "It's all work an' no play wherever I've seen it."
"It's terrible for a woman to feel like that, an' goes against God an'
nature," he answered. "Have you ever tried prayin' over it?"
"No, I've never tried that, because you see, I don't really mind it very
much. Please give me my glove now, here is Judy's cottage."
"But promise me first that you'll try prayin' over your state of mind,
an' that I may go on hopin' that you will change it?"
Turning with her hand still outstretched for the glove, she glanced
roguishly from his face to the shuttered window of the Hatch cottage.
"Oh, I don't mind your hoping," she answered, composing her expression
to demureness, "if only you won't hope--very hard."
Then, leaving him overwhelmed by his emotions, she tripped up the
narrow walk, bordered by stunted rose-bushes, to the crumbling porch of
Solomon's house. At the door a bright new gig, with red wheels, caught
her eye, and before the mischievous dimples had fled from her cheek, she
ran into the arms of the Reverend Orlando Mullen.
Her confusion brought a beautiful colour into his cheeks, while, in a
chivalrous effort to shield her from further embarrassment, he turned
his eyes to the face of Judy Hatch, which was lifted at his side like
the rapt countenance of one of the wan-featured, adoring saints of a Fra
Angelico painting. No one--not even the nurse of his infancy--had ever
imputed a fault either to his character or to his deportment; for he
had come into the world endowed with an infallible instinct for the
commonplace. In any profession he would have won success as a shining
light of mediocrity, since the ruling motive of his conduct was less the
ambition to excel than the moral inability to be peculiar. His mind was
small and solemn, and he had worn three straight and unyielding wrinkles
across his forehead in his earnest endeavour to prevent people from
acting, and especially from thinking, lightly. This sedulous devotion to
the public morals kept him not only a trifle spare in figure, but lent
an habitual manner of divine authority to his most trivial utterance.
His head, seen from the rear, was a little flat, but this, fortunately,
did not show in the pulpit--where at the age of twenty-four his
eloquence enraptured his congregation.
"I postponed my visit to Applegate until to-morrow," he said, when
he had given her what he thought was sufficient time to recover her
composure. "If you are returning shortly, perhaps I may have the
pleasure of driving you in my gig. I have just come to inquire after
Mrs. Hatch."
"It would be kind of you, for I am a little tired," responded Molly.
"I came to speak to Judy, and then I am to stop at the mill to borrow a
pattern from Blossom Revercomb. Are you going that way, I wonder?"
"I shall make it my way," he replied gallantly, "as soon as you are
ready. Don't hurry, I beg of you. It is gratifying to me to find that
you have so soon taken my advice and devoted a portion of your days to
visiting the sick and the afflicted."
With her back discreetly turned upon Judy, she looked up at him for a
moment, and something in her eyes rendered unnecessary the words that
fell slowly and softly from her lips.
"You give such good advice, Mr. Mullen."
A boyish eagerness showed in his face, breaking through the professional
austerity of his manner.
"I hope you've advised Judy this morning," she added before he could
answer.
"To the best of my ability," he replied gravely. "And now, as I have
said before, there is no hurry, but if you are quite ready, I should
suggest our starting."
"Just a word or two with Judy," she answered, and when the words were
spoken in the doorway she laid her hand in the rector's and mounted,
with his scrupulous assistance, over the red wheel to the shining black
seat of the gig, which smelt of leather and varnish. After he had taken
his place beside her he tucked in the laprobe carefully at the corners,
rearranged the position of his overcoat at her back, and suggested that
she should put the bottle of cough syrup in the bottom of the vehicle.
Like all his attentions, this solicitude about the cough syrup had an
air that was at once amorous and ministerial, a manner of implying,
"Observe how I take possession of you always to your advantage."
"Are you quite comfortable?" he asked when they had rolled between the
stunted rose-bushes into the turnpike.
"Oh, perfectly, you are always so thoughtful, Mr. Mullen."
"I think I am right in ranking thoughtfulness--or consideration, I
should have said--among the virtues."
"Indeed you are; as soon as I found that you had not gone to Applegate
as you intended to, I said to myself that, of course, some act of
kindness had detained you."
His large, very round grey eyes grew soft as he looked at her.
"You have expressed it beautifully, as 'an act of kindness,'" he
returned, "since you yourself were the cause of my postponing my visit."
"I--oh, you can't mean it? What have I done?"
"Nothing. Don't alarm yourself--absolutely nothing. Three months ago
when I spoke to you of marriage, you entreated me to allow you a
little time in which to accustom yourself to my proposal. That time of
probation, which has been, I hope, equally trying to us both, has ended
to-day."
"But I don't think I really love you, Mr. Mullen."
"I trust your eyes rather than your words--and your eyes have told me,
all unconsciously to yourself, your secret."
"Well, I do love your sermons, but---"
"My sermons are myself. There is nothing in my life, I trust, that
belies my preaching."
"I know how good you are, but honestly and truly, I don't want to marry
anybody."
His smile hardened slowly on his face like an impression on metal that
cools into solidity. From the beginning he had conducted his courtship,
as he had conducted his sacred office, with the manner of a gentleman
and the infallibility of an apostle. Doubt of his perfect fitness for
either vocation had never entered his head. Had it done so he would
probably have dismissed it as one of the insidious suggestions of the
lower man--for the lower man was a creature who habitually disagreed
with his opinions and whom his soul abhorred.
As he sat beside her, clerical, well-groomed, with his look of small yet
solemn intelligence, she wondered seriously if he would, in spite of all
opposition, have his way with her at last and pattern her to his liking?
"I am not in the least what you think me, Mr. Mullen--I don't know just
how to say it---"
"There is but one thing you need know, dearest, and that is that you
love me. As our greatest poet has expressed it 'To know no more is
woman's happiest knowledge.'"
"But I can't feel that you really--really care for me. How can you?"
With a tender gesture, he laid his free hand on hers while he looked
into her downcast face.
"You allude, I suppose, to the sad fact of your birth," he replied
gently, "but after you have become my wife, you will, of course need no
name but mine."
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Mullen, but really I didn't mean you to think--Oh,
there's the mill and Abel looking out of the window. Please, please
don't sit so close to me, and look as if we were discussing your sick
parishioners."
He obeyed her instantly, quite as circumspect as she in his regard for
the proprieties.
"You are excited now, Molly dear, but you will not forbid my hoping that
you will accept my proposal," he remarked persuasively as the gig drew
up to the Revercombs' gate.
"Well, yes, if you'll let me get down now, you may hope, if you wish
to."
Alighting over the wheel before he could draw off his glove and assist
her, she hurried, under Abel's eyes, to the porch, where Blossom
Revercomb stood gazing happily in the direction of Jordan's Journey.