One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
important in a country community, of a sensitive social
tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
come to ours.
She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
humdrummery of this day?
In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
such calm readiness she awaits her time.
Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
look turns with affection.
Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
Macintosh----"
By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
comfort of a good supper.
If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
not important, of course, after so many years----
But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
Harriet's question she said:
"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
know what we should do without her in this community.