"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now
Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved
tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung
festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine,
along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from
over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold
to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson
she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their
legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty."
"Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to
keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be.
Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn."
A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was
feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a
high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a
halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the
poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister
of Welby.
"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed
minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked
and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as
they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here;
but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open
the front door."
But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her
visitor had entered, the kitchen.
"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place
where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's
always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send
for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why."
The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her
rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking
meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse
of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth
that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which
were attractive like the bloom of youth.
"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was
a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin'
you to come, bein' you're so rich now."
"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks
advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out
now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm,
you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it
this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?"
"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy,
you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur
that's hangin' round here."
Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair.
"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything
but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying
her hat-crown.
"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a
stiddy, likely man."
"I don't want to get married. I ain't never thought of such a thing
since--well, you know all about it, Mis' Bemis, so I may as well say
right out--since Ephrum took up with M'lissy Whitin'."
"Ephrum Spencer was a mean scamp to serve you so," said Mrs. Bemis
hotly.
"Now, Mis' Bemus, don't you say anything against Ephrum. You and me has
always been friends, but I can't stand that, anyhow. Ephrum would have
kept his promise to me fair and square, but I saw plain enough that he
had given his heart to her. She was red-and-white-complected, and her
hair curled natural, and she'd never done anything but keep school, and
her hands was jest as soft and white, and a man's feelin's ain't like a
woman's, anyhow: if Ephrum had been hump-backed, or all scarred up
so's't he'd scare folks, like old Mr. Prouty, it wouldn't 'a' made any
difference to me, so long as he was Ephrum. The Lord made men different,
and I s'pose it's all right; but sometimes it seems kind of hard." The
large, firm mouth quivered like a child's.
"She was a reg'lar little spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't
nothin' _to_ her but temper. I'll warrant Ephrum Spencer has got his
come-uppance before this time," said the poor-mistress, with
satisfaction. "Well, I think it's real providential that you don't want
to get married, Mirandy, for as like as not you'd get somebody that
would spend all your money. I told'em I didn't believe you was goin' to
take up with that poor stick of a book-agent."
"Oh, Mis' Bemis, I s'pose I be goin' to have him!" said Miranda
dejectedly. "He thinks he's consumpted, and I thought I could doctor him
up, and 'twould be a use for the money. And he was a minister once,
though it was some queer kind of a denomination that I never heard of,
and that seemed kind of edifyin'; and his arm was cut off away off in
Philadelphy ten years ago, and yet he can feel it a-twingein'. And he's
kind of slim and retirin', and not so unhandy to have round as some men
would be. And, anyhow, I've give him my promise."
"Mirandy, I didn't think you was so foolish as that,--and him an
imposertor as like as not."
"Everything that I've tried to do since Uncle Phineas left me that money
folks have called me foolish or crazy, and I always was reckoned
sensible before, if I was homely. Abijah's folks warn me against lettin'
John's folks have it, and John's folks against Abijah's, and they say
that banks burst up and railroad stocks are risky, and I'll end by bein'
on the town. I never heard anything about my bein' in danger of comin'
on to the town before. I put my savin's in an old stockin' between my
beds, and wa'n't beholden to anybody for advice nor anything. I tell
you, Mis' Bemis, there ain't a mite of comfort in riches to them that's
got nobody but themselves to do for. Now, I've been wantin' a good black
silk for a long spell, and I've been layin' by a little here and a
little there, and 'lottin' on gettin' it before long, and I've enjoyed
thinkin' about it jest as much as if I had it; and now that comfort is
all took away. I can go and buy one right out, and I don't want it. And
only see what trouble I've got into about marryin'. I can't eat my
victuals, and I don't enjoy my meet'n' privileges, and I don't even care
much about knowin' what's goin' on. The Bible says rich folks have got
to go through the eye of a needle before they can get into the kingdom
of heaven, and it seems jest as if that was what I was a-doin'."
"I don't think that's jest the way it reads, Mirandy; but if it's a
consolin' idee to you--"
"I hain't any too much consolation, and that's a fact. But it does seem
real good to be here; and if you'll jest send one of the boys after my
things I'll stay. I locked up and left my bag on the back door-step."
The poor-mistress confided to old lady Peaseley that "there wasn't as
much satisfaction in havin' Mirandy as if she hadn't got proputty, even
if she didn't seem to feel it none: she couldn't help feelin' as if the
minister 'n' his wife had come to tea;" and she opened the best room,
with all its glories of hair-cloth furniture, preserved funeral wreaths,
and shell Bunker Hill Monument, and had the spare chamber swept and
garnished. The poor-house was certainly a good place in which to get
"chippered up." There were few happier households in the county; there
was not one where jollity reigned as it did there.
From Captain Hezekiah Butterfield, generally known as Cap'n 'Kiah, an
octogenarian who was regarded as an oracle, down to Tready Morgan, a
half-witted orphan, the inmates of the poor-house had an enjoyment of
living astonishing to behold. It had been hinted at town-meeting that
the keeper of the poor-farm was a "leetle mite too generous and
easy-going," especially as he insisted upon furnishing the paupers with
"store" tea and coffee, whereas his predecessor, Hiram Judkins, had made
them drink bayberry tea, a refreshment which old Mrs. Gerald, a pauper
whose wits were wandering, and who was familiarly known as "Marm Bony,"
because she cherished a conviction that she was the empress Josephine,
declared was "no more consolin' than meadow hay."
Seth Bemis and his wife made the farm pay: so the town voted to wink at
the store-tea. And they suited the paupers,--which was even more
difficult than to suit the town officers.
Miranda's arrival had created quite an excitement among the inmates of
the poor-house. They had all heard that she had fallen heir to almost
ten thousand dollars, and there was curiosity to see how she would
comport herself under this great accession of fortune.
Miranda stoutly resisted the charms of the best room, and sat down with
the paupers in the great kitchen after supper. For the spare chamber she
showed some weakness, for the little back chamber which she usually
occupied during her visits to the poor-farm was next to Oly Cowden's
room, and Oly had a way of rapping on her wall in the dead of the night
for somebody to bring her a roasted onion to avert a peculiarly bad
dream to which she was subject; and the next room on the other side was
occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most
unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck,
in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his
fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all,
nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's
Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock
in the morning,--nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on
the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a
serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still
living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms.
Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her
wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber.
The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old
Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon
his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was
occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a
black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at
his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with
a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright
in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin,
evidently in preparation for an unusual effort.
A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor
"Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that
Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as
Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and
wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a
few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't
jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To
which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled,
trembling old hand tenderly in hers.
Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being
modestly conscious of his social gifts.
He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he
was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought
up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level
of society to which he had sunk a cheerful philosophy and a grim humor
for which many a successful man might well have given all his
possessions.
"Rich and poor, there's a sight of human nater about us all, though
there ain't no use denyin' that some has more than others," remarked
Cap'n 'Kiah sententiously. "And whether riches or poverty brings it out
the strongest it's hard tellin'."
"I've always thought I might never have found out that I had medicle
tarlunt if I'd been rich," said Dr. Pingree meditatively. The little man
had "taken up doctorin' out of his own head," as he expressed it, after
finding that shoemaking and tin-peddling did not satisfy his ambition,
and was the inventor and sole proprietor of an infallible medicine,
known as the "Universal Pain-Exterminator." The jokers dubbed it
"Health-Exterminator," but almost all Welby took it,--they must take
something in the spring,--and the little doctor, who had a soul far
above thoughts of sordid gain, never expected to be paid for it, which
made it very popular. It couldn't kill one, being made of simplest roots
and herbs; and if one should be cured, how very pleasant it would be to
think that it was without cost!
"Sure enough, doctor, mebbe you never would," said the captain. "And I
suppose the innercent satisfaction you've got a-makin' them medicines is
as great as you could 'a' got out of riches, and without the worry and
care of riches, too."
"Not to mention the good done to my fellow-creturs," said the little
doctor.
"Jest as you say, the good done to your fellow-creturs not bein' worth
mentionin'" said Cap'n 'Kiah, with a grave simplicity that disarmed
suspicion. "There ain't no denyin' that poverty is strength'nin' to the
faculties."
"Don't give me nothin' more strength'nin than riches in mine," said
Uncle Peter Henchman, who boasted great wisdom and experience, based
mysteriously on the possession of a wooden leg. "I've been in this world
up'ards of seventy years, forty-five of it a-walkin' on a wooden leg,
and I hain't never seen that poverty was anything but a curse."
"You've got a terrible mistaken p'int of view, Peter, well-meanin' as
you be," said Cap'n 'Kiah, "There's nothin' in nater, and, I was a-goin'
to say, in grace, but what you clap your eyes fust onto the contr'y
side, and then you're sure there ain't nothin' _but_ a contr'y side."
"I wish I could see something besides the contr'y side of riches; but I
hain't yet," said Miranda, with a heavy sigh.
Little Dr. Pingree cast a sidelong look at her, and then adjusted his
cravat and considered the effect of the blue roses on his vest. Was a
vision flitting before his eyes of the wagon drawn by gayly-caparisoned
steeds and bearing in gilt letters on a red ground the legend, "Dr.
Pingree's Pain-Exterminator, Humanity's Friend,"--of his own face,
beautified by art, adorning fences and walls above this proud
inscription, "The Renowned Inventor of the Universal Pain-Exterminator"?
This fame, the dream of a lifetime, might now be purchased by money. And
he had always admired Miranda.
Miranda caught his glance, and, with the suspicion which wealth had
already engendered, divined his thought. Was there going to be another
aspirant for her hand?
"The wind's a-blowin up; and what a roarin' the sea does make!" she said
hurriedly, to cover her embarrassment. "The only thing I don't like
about this house is its bein' so near the sea. It's rainin' hard; and
I'm glad of it," she added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Bemis,--"for _he_
won't be so likely to get round here to-night. Courtin' is real tryin'."
"The ocean is a dretful disconserlate-soundin' cretur," remarked Uncle
Peter lugubriously; "and when you think of the drownded folks she's got
a-rollin' round in her, 'tain't no wonder."
"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and
aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n
'Kiah.
"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in
an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book."
"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you
look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view
than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got
that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest
like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle
doos,--jest give it to us lively."
Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up
to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the
dance, when there came a knock at the door.
Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated
and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the
book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn
woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts.
"I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she
said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and
dejected aspect.
Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune,
nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire.
The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet
wrappings, but she shook her head.
"I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said.
"You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah.
"The graveyard is chock full of 'em," said Uncle Peter.
"They've kind of died out," explained Cap'n 'Kiah. "They seemed to be
the kind that dies out easy and nateral."
"His uncle Hiram isn't dead, is he?" asked the woman, with the strain of
anxiety in her voice.
"He died about a year ago."
"What's become of his money?" asked the stranger sharply.
"Well, there wa'n't so much as folks thought," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "He
frittered away a good deal on new-fangled merchines and such things that
wa'n't of any account,--had a reg'lar mania for 'em for a year or so
before he died; and then he give some money to his housekeeper and the
man that worked for him, and what was left he give to the town for a new
town-hall; but, along of quarrellin' about where 'twas to set and what
'twas to be built of, and gittin' legal advice to settle the p'ints, I
declare if 'tain't 'most squandered! But, la! if there wa'n't such
quarrellin' amongst folks, what would become of the lawyers? They'd all
be here, a-settin' us by the ears, I expect."
"And there isn't a cent for his own nephew's starving children?" said
the woman bitterly.
"Ephrum's? Oh, la, no! The old man never set by Ephrum, you know: them
two was always contr'y-minded. You don't say, now, that you're Ephrum's
wife?" Cap'n 'Kiah surveyed her with frank curiosity.
"I'm Ephrum's widow."
"You don't say so, now! Well, there's wuss ockerpations than bein' a
widow," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah consolingly.
Miranda had drawn the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb
hands and smoothing the damp locks from his forehead.
"Why, how cold your hands have grown!" the child cried. "They're colder
than mine. And how funny and white you look!"
Miranda had felt, from the moment when she first saw the forlorn little
group, that Ephraim was dead, and yet the sure knowledge came as a
shock. But this child was looking at her with Ephraim's eyes: they
warmed her heart.
"_She_ knew me, if none of the rest of you did," said the widow,
indicating Miranda by a nod of her head. "And I knew her, too, just as
soon as I set eyes on her.--Well, you needn't hold any grudge against
me, Miranda Daggett. I calculate you got the best of the bargain. Ephrum
hadn't any faculty to get along. I've struggled and slaved till I'm all
worn out; and now I haven't a roof to cover me nor my children, nor a
mouthful to eat."
Miranda sprang up, her arms around both the boys.
"_I have!_ I have plenty for you all. And I've been a-wonderin' why it
should have come to me, that didn't need it; but now I know. You come
right home with me.--Mis' Bemis, you'll let Tready harness up?"
There were some objections made on account of the rain, but Miranda
overruled them all.
She drew Mrs. Bemis aside and confided to her that she didn't want
Ephrum's boys to stay even one night in the poor-house, because "it
might stick to 'em afterwards." And she shouldn't really feel that they
were going to belong to her until she had them in her own house.
So, through the driving rain, in the open wagon which was the most
luxurious equipage that the poor-farm boasted, Miranda was driven home
with her _protégés_; while Mrs. Bemis gave way to renewed anxiety about
the fall tailorin' and Dr. Pingree heaved a sigh over his vanished
dreams,--a very gentle one, he was so used to seeing dreams vanish; and
there was consolation in having such an event to talk over.
Miranda's home was a rambling old house, and it seemed deserted and
ghostly when they entered it; but Miranda kindled a fire In the kitchen
stove and another in the great fireplace in the sitting-room, and the
boys, warmed and fed and comforted, grew hilarious, and the ghosts were
all dispersed, and it seemed to Miranda for the first time like home.
When she had seen all three cosily tucked into their beds, she went
downstairs to rake over the fire and see that all was safe for the
night. She found herself too full of a happy excitement to seek her own
slumbers. Ephraim was dead; but he had faded out of her life long
before; he had been nothing but a memory, and she had that still. He
even seemed nearer to her, being in the Far Country, than he had done
before. And his children were under her roof; hers to feed and clothe
and care for in the happy days that were coming; hers to educate. What
joy to have the means to do it with! what greater joy to work and save
and manage that there should be enough!
Miranda looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest
pictures of the future,--until suddenly she turned her head away and
covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a
blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon
itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda
remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a'
forgot! I've give him my promise."
To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood
if need were.
"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found
out what the Lord _did_ mean by sendin' that money to me! _He_ wouldn't
stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And
I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole
property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he
does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out
because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for
that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I
couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun
to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin'
him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin'
that; but now there's the boys."
The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had
crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had
turned to ashes.
She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her
troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until
daylight.
It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys,
although she was so heavy-hearted.
She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish:
Eben had been fishing the day before.
Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put
the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence,
he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss
Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him
and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he
exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally
_do_ get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his
fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in
being the first to impart important news. "He's _cleared out_, the
book-agent has,--got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em
any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for
playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this
time."
"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a
moment's thought.
"Well, he isn't very likely to, because"--here Eben turned his head
aside in embarrassment--"because he's got a wife and family over to
Olneyville."
Radiant delight overspread Miranda's countenance.
"I hope they'll just let him go," she said. "He's welcome to what money
he's got of mine,--more'n welcome." And homeward she went with a light
step.
"Women are queer," mused Eben, as he returned to his fish-cleaning.
"She's lost her beau and her money, and she's tickled to death."
"I declare, you look just as fresh and young and happy as you did
fifteen years ago!" said the widow, with a touch of envy, as they sat
down at the cheerful breakfast-table.
Miranda touched Mrs. Bemis's arm as she came out of the meeting-house
the next Sunday, Ephraim's boys, preternaturally smooth of hair and
shining of face, beside her.
"If it ain't perfane to say it. Mis' Bemis, I feel as if I'd got through
the eye of that needle clear into the kingdom of heaven."
The poor-mistress commented upon the saying in the midst of her numerous
family that night: "She's got that selfish, tempery woman saddled onto
her for life, and she'll work her fingers to the bone for them boys,
that ain't anything to her, and won't be apt to amount to much,--for
there never was one of them Spencers that did,--and she calls that the
kingdom of heaven!"
"It's jest as I always told you," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah placidly. "It's
all owin' to the p'int of view."