a rabbit. He wanted a game of marbles before school, and feared his
father would give him some chores to do. Adoniram hastened to the door
and called after him, but he was out of sight.
“I don’t see what you let him go for, mother,” said he. “I wanted him
to help me unload that wood.”
Adoniram went to work out in the yard unloading wood from the wagon.
Sarah put away the dinner dishes, while Nanny took down her curl-papers
and changed her dress. She was going down to the store to buy some more
embroidery and thread.
When Nanny was gone, Mrs. Penn went to the door. “Father!” she called.
“Well, what is it!”
“I want to see you jest a minute, father.”
“I can’t leave this wood nohow. I’ve got to git it unloaded an’ go for
a load of gravel afore two o’clock. Sammy had ought to helped me. You
hadn’t ought to let him go to school so early.”
“I want to see you jest a minute.”
“I tell ye I can’t, nohow, mother.”
“Father, you come here.” Sarah Penn stood in the door like a queen;
she held her head as if it bore a crown; there was that patience which
makes authority royal in her voice. Adoniram went.
Mrs. Penn led the way into the kitchen, and pointed to a chair. “Sit
down, father,” said she; “I’ve got somethin’ I want to say to you.”
He sat down heavily; his face was quite stolid, but he looked at her
with restive eyes. “Well, what is it, mother?”
“I want to know what you’re buildin’ that new barn for, father?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say about it.”
“It can’t be you think you need another barn?”
“I tell ye I ain’t got nothin’ to say about it, mother; an’ I ain’t
goin’ to say nothin’.”
“Be you goin’ to buy more cows?”
Adoniram did not reply; he shut his mouth tight.
“I know you be, as well as I want to. Now, father, look here”—Sarah
Penn had not sat down; she stood before her husband in the humble
fashion of a Scripture woman—“I’m goin’ to talk real plain to you; I
never have sence I married you, but I’m goin’ to now. I ain’t never
complained, an’ I ain’t goin’ to complain now, but I’m goin’ to talk
plain. You see this room here, father; you look at it well. You see
there ain’t no carpet on the floor, an’ you see the paper is all dirty,
an’ droppin’ off the walls. We ain’t had no new paper on it for ten
year, an’ then I put it on myself, an’ it didn’t cost but ninepence a
roll. You see this room, father; it’s all the one I’ve had to work in
an’ eat in an’ sit in sence we was married. There ain’t another woman
in the whole town whose husband ain’t got half the means you have but
what’s got better. It’s all the room Nanny’s got to have her company
in; an’ there ain’t one of her mates but what’s got better, an’ their
fathers not so able as hers is. It’s all the room she’ll have to be
married in. What would you have thought, father, if we had had our
weddin’ in a room no better than this? I was married in my mother’s
parlor, with a carpet on the floor, an’ stuffed furniture, an’ a
mahogany card-table. An’ this is all the room my daughter will have to
be married in. Look here, father!”
Sarah Penn went across the room as though it were a tragic stage. She
flung open a door and disclosed a tiny bedroom, only large enough
for a bed and bureau, with a path between. “There, father,” said
she—“there’s all the room I’ve had to sleep in forty year. All my
children were born there—the two that died, an’ the two that’s livin’.
I was sick with a fever there.”
She stepped to another door and opened it. It led into the small,
ill-lighted pantry. “Here,” said she, “is all the buttery I’ve
got—every place I’ve got for my dishes, to set away my victuals in,
an’ to keep my milk-pans in. Father, I’ve been takin’ care of the milk
of six cows in this place, an’ now you’re goin’ to build a new barn,
an’ keep more cows, an’ give me more to do in it.”
She threw open another door. A narrow crooked flight of stairs wound
upward from it. “There, father,” said she, “I want you to look at the
stairs that go up to them two unfinished chambers that are all the
places our son an’ daughter have had to sleep in all their lives. There
ain’t a prettier girl in town nor a more ladylike one than Nanny, an’
that’s the place she has to sleep in. It ain’t so good as your horse’s
stall; it ain’t so warm an’ tight.”
Sarah Penn went back and stood before her husband. “Now, father,” said
she, “I want to know if you think you’re doin’ right an’ accordin’
to what you profess. Here, when we was married, forty year ago, you
promised me faithful that we should have a new house built in that
lot over in the field before the year was out. You said you had money
enough, an’ you wouldn’t ask me to live in no such place as this. It is
forty year now, an’ you’ve been makin’ more money, an’ I’ve been savin’
of it for you ever sence, an’ you ain’t built no house yet. You’ve
built sheds an’ cow-houses an’ one new barn, an’ now you’re goin’ to
build another. Father, I want to know if you think it’s right. You’re
lodgin’ your dumb beasts better than you are your own flesh an’ blood.
I want to know if you think it’s right.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”
“You can’t say nothin’ without ownin’ it ain’t right, father. An’
there’s another thing—I ain’t complained; I’ve got along forty year,
an’ I s’pose I should forty more, if it wa’n’t for that—if we don’t
have another house. Nanny she can’t live with us after she’s married.
She’ll have to go somewheres else to live away from us, an’ it don’t
seem as if I could have it so, noways, father. She wa’n’t ever strong.
She’s got considerable color, but there wa’n’t never any backbone to
her. I’ve always took the heft of everything off her, an’ she ain’t fit
to keep house an’ do everything herself. She’ll be all worn out inside
of a year. Think of her doin’ all the washin’ an’ ironin’ an’ bakin’
with them soft white hands an’ arms, an’ sweepin’! I can’t have it so,
noways, father.”
Mrs. Penn’s face was burning; her mild eyes gleamed. She had pleaded
her little cause like a Webster; she had ranged from severity to
pathos; but her opponent employed that obstinate silence which makes
eloquence futile with mocking echoes. Adoniram arose clumsily.
“Father, ain’t you got nothin’ to say?” said Mrs. Penn.
“I’ve got to go off after that load of gravel. I can’t stan’ here
talkin’ all day.”
“Father, won’t you think it over, an’ have a house built there instead
of a barn?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”
Adoniram shuffled out. Mrs. Penn went into her bedroom. When she came
out, her eyes were red. She had a roll of unbleached cotton cloth. She
spread it out on the kitchen table, and began cutting out some shirts
for her husband. The men over in the field had a team to help them this
afternoon; she could hear their halloos. She had a scanty pattern for
the shirts; she had to plan and piece the sleeves.
Nanny came home with her embroidery, and sat down with her needlework.
She had taken down her curl-papers, and there was a soft roll of fair
hair like an aureole over her forehead; her face was as delicately fine
and clear as porcelain. Suddenly she looked up, and the tender red
flamed all over her face and neck. “Mother,” said she.
“What say?”
“I’ve been thinking—I don’t see how we’re goin’ to have any—wedding
in this room. I’d be ashamed to have his folks come if we didn’t have
anybody else.”
“Mebbe we can have some new paper before then; I can put it on. I guess
you won’t have no call to be ashamed of your belongin’s.”
“We might have the wedding in the new barn,” said Nanny, with gentle
pettishness. “Why, mother, what makes you look so?”
Mrs. Penn had started, and was staring at her with a curious
expression. She turned again to her work, and spread out a pattern
carefully on the cloth. “Nothin’,” said she.
Presently Adoniram clattered out of the yard in his two-wheeled dump
cart, standing as proudly upright as a Roman charioteer. Mrs. Penn
opened the door and stood there a minute looking out; the halloos of
the men sounded louder.
It seemed to her all through the spring months that she heard nothing
but the halloos and the noises of saws and hammers. The new barn grew
fast. It was a fine edifice for this little village. Men came on
pleasant Sundays, in their meeting suits and clean shirt bosoms, and
stood around it admiringly. Mrs. Penn did not speak of it, and Adoniram
did not mention it to her, although sometimes, upon a return from
inspecting it, he bore himself with injured dignity.
“It’s a strange thing how your mother feels about the new barn,” he
said, confidentially, to Sammy one day.
Sammy only grunted after an odd fashion for a boy; he had learned it
from his father.
The barn was all completed ready for use by the third week in July.
Adoniram had planned to move his stock in on Wednesday; on Tuesday he
received a letter which changed his plans. He came in with it early
in the morning. “Sammy’s been to the post-office,” said he, “an’ I’ve
got a letter from Hiram.” Hiram was Mrs. Penn’s brother, who lived in
Vermont.
“Well,” said Mrs. Penn, “what does he say about the folks?”
“I guess they’re all right. He says he thinks if I come up country
right off there’s a chance to buy jest the kind of a horse I want.” He
stared reflectively out of the window at the new barn.
Mrs. Penn was making pies. She went on clapping the rolling-pin into
the crust, although she was very pale, and her heart beat loudly.
“I dun’ know but what I’d better go,” said Adoniram. “I hate to go off
jest now, right in the midst of hayin’, but the ten-acre lot’s cut, an’
I guess Rufus an’ the others can git along without me three or four
days. I can’t get a horse round here to suit me, nohow, an’ I’ve got
to have another for all that wood-haulin’ in the fall. I told Hiram to
watch out, an’ if he got wind of a good horse to let me know. I guess
I’d better go.”
“I’ll get out your clean shirt an’ collar,” said Mrs. Penn, calmly.
She laid out Adoniram’s Sunday suit and his clean clothes on the bed in
the little bedroom. She got his shaving-water and razor ready. At last
she buttoned on his collar and fastened his black cravat.
Adoniram never wore his collar and cravat except on extra occasions. He
held his head high, with a rasped dignity. When he was all ready, with
his coat and hat brushed, and a lunch of pie and cheese in a paper bag,
he hesitated on the threshold of the door. He looked at his wife, and
his manner was defiantly apologetic. “_If_ them cows come to-day, Sammy
can drive ’em into the new barn,” said he; “an’ when they bring the hay
up, they can pitch it in there.”
“Well,” replied Mrs. Penn.
Adoniram set his shaven face ahead and started. When he had cleared the
door-step, he turned and looked back with a kind of nervous solemnity.
“I shall be back by Saturday if nothin’ happens,” said he.
“Do be careful, father,” returned his wife.
She stood in the door with Nanny at her elbow and watched him out
of sight. Her eyes had a strange, doubtful expression in them; her
peaceful forehead was contracted. She went in, and about her baking
again. Nanny sat sewing. Her wedding-day was drawing nearer, and she
was getting pale and thin with her steady sewing. Her mother kept
glancing at her.
“Have you got that pain in your side this mornin’?” she asked.
“A little.”
Mrs. Penn’s face, as she worked, changed, her perplexed forehead
smoothed, her eyes were steady, her lips firmly set. She formed a
maxim for herself, although incoherently with her unlettered thoughts.
“Unsolicited opportunities are the guide-posts of the Lord to the new
roads of life,” she repeated in effect, and she made up her mind to her
course of action.
“S’posin’ I _had_ wrote to Hiram,” she muttered once, when she was
in the pantry—“s’posin’ I had wrote, an’ asked him if he knew of any
horse? But I didn’t, an’ father’s goin’ wa’n’t none of my doin’. It
looks like a providence.” Her voice rang out quite loud at the last.
“What you talkin’ about, mother?” called Nanny.
“Nothin’.”
Mrs. Penn hurried her baking; at eleven o’clock it was all done.
The load of hay from the west field came slowly down the cart
track, and drew up at the new barn. Mrs. Penn ran out. “Stop!” she
screamed—“stop!”
The men stopped and looked; Sammy upreared from the top of the load,
and stared at his mother.
“Stop!” she cried out again. “Don’t you put the hay in that barn; put
it in the old one.”
“Why, he said to put it in here,” returned one of the haymakers,
wonderingly. He was a young man, a neighbor’s son, whom Adoniram hired
by the year to help on the farm.
“Don’t you put the hay in the new barn; there’s room enough in the old
one, ain’t there?” said Mrs. Penn.
“Room enough,” returned the hired man, in his thick, rustic tones.
“Didn’t need the new barn, nohow, far as room’s concerned. Well, I
s’pose he changed his mind.” He took hold of the horses’ bridles.
Mrs. Penn went back to the house. Soon the kitchen windows were
darkened, and a fragrance like warm honey came into the room.
Nanny laid down her work. “I thought father wanted them to put the hay
into the new barn?” she said, wonderingly.
“It’s all right,” replied her mother.
Sammy slid down from the load of hay, and came in to see if dinner was
ready.
“I ain’t goin’ to get a regular dinner to-day, as long as father’s
gone,” said his mother. “I’ve let the fire go out. You can have some
bread an’ milk an’ pie. I thought we could get along.” She set out
some bowls of milk, some bread, and a pie on the kitchen table. “You’d
better eat your dinner now,” said she. “You might jest as well get
through with it. I want you to help me afterward.”
Nanny and Sammy stared at each other. There was something strange
in their mother’s manner. Mrs. Penn did not eat anything herself.
She went into the pantry, and they heard her moving dishes while
they ate. Presently she came out with a pile of plates. She got the
clothes-basket out of the shed, and packed them in it. Nanny and Sammy
watched. She brought out cups and saucers, and put them in with the
plates.
“What you goin’ to do, mother?” inquired Nanny, in a timid voice. A
sense of something unusual made her tremble, as if it were a ghost.
Sammy rolled his eyes over his pie.
“You’ll see what I’m goin’ to do,” replied Mrs. Penn. “If you’re
through, Nanny, I want you to go upstairs an’ pack up your things; an’
I want you, Sammy, to help me take down the bed in the bedroom.”
“Oh, mother, what for?” gasped Nanny.
“You’ll see.”
During the next few hours a feat was performed by this simple, pious
New England mother which was equal in its way to Wolfe’s storming of
the Heights of Abraham. It took no more genius and audacity of bravery
for Wolfe to cheer his wondering soldiers up those steep precipices,
under the sleeping eyes of the enemy, than for Sarah Penn, at the head
of her children, to move all their little household goods into the new
barn while her husband was away.
Nanny and Sammy followed their mother’s instructions without a murmur;
indeed, they were overawed. There is a certain uncanny and superhuman
quality about all such purely original undertakings as their mother’s
was to them. Nanny went back and forth with her light loads, and Sammy
tugged with sober energy.
At five o’clock in the afternoon the little house in which the Penns
had lived for forty years had emptied itself into the new barn.
Every builder builds somewhat for unknown purposes, and is in a measure
a prophet. The architect of Adoniram Penn’s barn, while he designed
it for the comfort of four-footed animals, had planned better than
he knew for the comfort of humans. Sarah Penn saw at a glance its
possibilities. Those great box-stalls, with quilts hung before them,
would make better bedrooms than the one she had occupied for forty
years, and there was a tight carriage-room. The harness-room, with its
chimney and shelves, would make a kitchen of her dreams. The great
middle space would make a parlor, by-and-by, fit for a palace. Upstairs
there was as much room as down. With partitions and windows, what a
house would there be! Sarah looked at the row of stanchions before the
allotted space for cows, and reflected that she would have her front
entry there.
At six o’clock the stove was up in the harness-room, the kettle was
boiling, and the table set for tea. It looked almost as home-like as
the abandoned house across the yard had ever done. The young hired man
milked, and Sarah directed him calmly to bring the milk to the new
barn. He came gaping, dropping little blots of foam from the brimming
pails on the grass. Before the next morning he had spread the story
of Adoniram Penn’s wife moving into the new barn all over the little
village. Men assembled in the store and talked it over, women with
shawls over their heads scuttled into each other’s houses before their
work was done. Any deviation from the ordinary course of life in this
quiet town was enough to stop all progress in it. Everybody paused to
look at the staid, independent figure on the side track. There was a
difference of opinion with regard to her. Some held her to be insane;
some, of a lawless and rebellious spirit.
Friday the minister went to see her. It was in the forenoon, and she
was at the barn door shelling peas for dinner. She looked up and
returned his salutation with dignity, then she went on with her work.
She did not invite him in. The saintly expression of her face remained
fixed, but there was an angry flush over it.
The minister stood awkwardly before her, and talked. She handled the
peas as if they were bullets. At last she looked up, and her eyes
showed the spirit that her meek front had covered for a lifetime.
“There ain’t no use talkin’, Mr. Hersey,” said she. “I’ve thought it
all over an’ over, an’ I believe I’m doin’ what’s right. I’ve made it
the subject of prayer, an’ it’s betwixt me an’ the Lord an’ Adoniram.
There ain’t no call for nobody else to worry about it.”
“Well, of course, if you have brought it to the Lord in prayer, and
feel satisfied that you are doing right, Mrs. Penn,” said the minister,
helplessly. His thin gray-bearded face was pathetic. He was a sickly
man; his youthful confidence had cooled; he had to scourge himself up
to some of his pastoral duties as relentlessly as a Catholic ascetic,
and then he was prostrated by the smart.
“I think it’s right jest as much as I think it was right for our
forefathers to come over from the old country ’cause they didn’t have
what belonged to ’em,” said Mrs. Penn. She arose. The barn threshold
might have been Plymouth Rock from her bearing. “I don’t doubt you mean
well, Mr. Hersey,” said she, “but there are things people hadn’t ought
to interfere with. I’ve been a member of the church for over forty
year. I’ve got my own mind an’ my own feet, an’ I’m goin’ to think my
own thoughts an’ go my own ways, an’ nobody but the Lord is goin’ to
dictate to me unless I’ve a mind to have him. Won’t you come in an’ set
down? How is Mis’ Hersey?”
“She is well, I thank you,” replied the minister. He added some more
perplexed apologetic remarks; then he retreated.
He could expound the intricacies of every character study in the
Scriptures, he was competent to grasp the Pilgrim Fathers and all
historical innovators, but Sarah Penn was beyond him. He could deal
with primal cases, but parallel ones worsted him. But, after all,
although it was aside from his province, he wondered more how Adoniram
Penn would deal with his wife than how the Lord would. Everybody shared
the wonder. When Adoniram’s four new cows arrived, Sarah ordered three
to be put in the old barn, the other in the house shed where the
cooking-stove had stood. That added to the excitement. It was whispered
that all four cows were domiciled in the house.
Towards sunset on Saturday, when Adoniram was expected home, there was
a knot of men in the road near the new barn. The hired man had milked,
but he still hung around the premises. Sarah Penn had supper all ready.
There were brown-bread and baked beans and a custard pie; it was the
supper that Adoniram loved on a Saturday night. She had on a clean
calico, and she bore herself imperturbably. Nanny and Sammy kept close
at her heels. Their eyes were large, and Nanny was full of nervous
tremors. Still there was to them more pleasant excitement than anything
else. An inborn confidence in their mother over their father asserted
itself.
Sammy looked out of the harness-room window. “There he is,” he
announced, in an awed whisper. He and Nanny peeped around the casing.
Mrs. Penn kept on about her work. The children watched Adoniram leave
the new horse standing in the drive while he went to the house door.
It was fastened. Then he went around to the shed. That door was seldom
locked, even when the family was away. The thought how her father would
be confronted by the cow flashed upon Nanny. There was a hysterical sob
in her throat. Adoniram emerged from the shed and stood looking about
in a dazed fashion. His lips moved; he was saying something, but they
could not hear what it was. The hired man was peeping around a corner
of the old barn, but nobody saw him.
Adoniram took the new horse by the bridle and led him across the yard
to the new barn. Nanny and Sammy slunk close to their mother. The barn
doors rolled back, and there stood Adoniram, with the long mild face of
the great Canadian farm horse looking over his shoulder.
Nanny kept behind her mother, but Sammy stepped suddenly forward, and
stood in front of her.
Adoniram stared at the group. “What on airth you all down here for?”
said he. “What’s the matter over to the house?”
“We’ve come here to live, father,” said Sammy. His shrill voice
quavered out bravely.
“What”—Adoniram sniffed—“what is it smells like cookin’?” said he. He
stepped forward and looked in the open door of the harness-room. Then
he turned to his wife. His old bristling face was pale and frightened.
“What on airth does this mean, mother?” he gasped.
“You come in here, father,” said Sarah. She led the way into the
harness-room and shut the door. “Now, father,” said she, “you needn’t
be scared. I ain’t crazy. There ain’t nothin’ to be upset over. But
we’ve come here to live, an’ we’re goin’ to live here. We’ve got jest
as good a right here as new horses an’ cows. The house wa’n’t fit for
us to live in any longer, an’ I made up my mind I wa’n’t goin’ to stay
there. I’ve done my duty by you forty year, an’ I’m goin’ to do it
now; but I’m goin’ to live here. You’ve got to put in some windows and
partitions; an’ you’ll have to buy some furniture.”
“Why, mother!” the old man gasped.
“You’d better take your coat off an’ get washed—there’s the
wash-basin—an’ then we’ll have supper.”
“Why, mother!”
Sammy went past the window, leading the new horse to the old barn. The
old man saw him, and shook his head speechlessly. He tried to take off
his coat, but his arms seemed to lack the power. His wife helped him.
She poured some water into the tin basin, and put in a piece of soap.
She got the comb and brush, and smoothed his thin gray hair after he
had washed. Then she put the beans, hot bread, and tea on the table.
Sammy came in, and the family drew up. Adoniram sat looking dazedly at
his plate, and they waited.
“Ain’t you goin’ to ask a blessin’, father?” said Sarah.
And the old man bent his head and mumbled.
All through the meal he stopped eating at intervals, and stared
furtively at his wife; but he ate well. The home food tasted good to
him, and his old frame was too sturdily healthy to be affected by his
mind. But after supper he went out, and sat down on the step of the
smaller door at the right of the barn, through which he had meant his
Jerseys to pass in stately file, but which Sarah designed for her front
house door, and he leaned his head on his hands.
After the supper dishes were cleared away and the milk-pans washed,
Sarah went out to him. The twilight was deepening. There was a clear
green glow in the sky. Before them stretched the smooth level of field;
in the distance was a cluster of hay-stacks like the huts of a village;
the air was very cool and calm and sweet. The landscape might have been
an ideal one of peace.
Sarah bent over and touched her husband on one of his thin, sinewy
shoulders. “Father!”
The old man’s shoulders heaved: he was weeping.
“Why, don’t do so, father,” said Sarah.
“I’ll—put up the—partitions, an’—everything you—want, mother.”
Sarah put her apron up to her face; she was overcome by her own triumph.
Adoniram was like a fortress whose walls had no active resistance,
and went down the instant the right besieging tools were used. “Why,
mother,” he said, hoarsely, “I hadn’t no idee you was so set on’t as
all this comes to.”
MARSE CHAN
A TALE OF OLD VIRGINIA
BY
THOMAS NELSON PAGE