OLD MR. COLT.
Supper was over. The girls had laughingly resisted their hostess's
appeal, "Just one more fritter, with another on each side to keep it
warm,--though I don't know as they _are_ fit to eat!" and on her
positive refusal to let them help wash the dishes, had retired to the
back doorstep, from which they could watch the sunset. Here they were
joined by Bubble, who had found a lodging for himself, Dr. Abernethy,
and the pony, in the family of Abner Colt, the mail-carrier. He took his
place on the doorstep with the air of one who has fairly earned his
repose.
"Well, Bubble," said Hildegarde, "tell us how you have fared."
"Oh, very well!" answered the boy,--"very well, Miss Hilda! They're a
funny set over there at Mr. Colt's, but they seem very kind, and they
have given me a nice little room in the stable-loft, so 't I can see to
the Doctor any minute."
"How is the dear beast?" asked Rose. "I thought he went a little lame,
after he got that stone in his foot."
"I have bathed the foot," said Bubble, "and it'll be all right
to-morrow. Old Mr. Colt wanted to give me three different kinds of
liniment to rub on it, but hot water is all it needs. He's a queer old
fellow, old Mr. Colt!" he added meditatively. "Seems to live on medicine
chiefly."
"What do you mean?" asked the girls.
"Why," said Bubble, "he came in to supper--I hadn't seen him
before--with a big bottle under his arm, and a box of pills in his hand.
He came shuffling in in his stocking-feet, and when he saw me he gave a
kind of groan. 'Who's that?' says he. 'It's a boy come over from
Bywood,' says Mrs. Abner, as they call her. 'He's goin' to stop here
over night, Father. Ain't you glad to see him?--Father likes young folks
real well!' she says to me. The old gentleman gave a groan, and sat
down, nursing his big bottle as if it were a baby. 'D'ye ever have the
dyspepsy?' he asked, looking at me. 'No, sir!' said I. 'Never had
anything that I know of, 'cept the measles.' He groaned again, and
poured something out of the bottle into a tumbler. 'You look kinder
'pindlin',' says he, shaking his head. 'I think likely you've got it on
ye 'thout knowin' it. It's sub-tile, dyspepsy is,--dreadful sub-tile.'"
"What did he mean?--subtle?" asked Hilda, laughing.
"I suppose so!" replied the boy. "And then he took his medicine,
groaning all the time and making the worst faces you ever saw. 'I reckon
you'd better take a swallow o' this, my son!' he said. 'It's a
pre-ventitative, as well 's a cure.'"
"Bubble," cried his sister, "you are making this up. Confess, you
monkey!"
"I'm not!" said Bubble, laughing. "It's true, every word of it. I
_couldn't_ make up old Mr. Colt! 'It's a pre-ventitative!' he says, and
reaches out his hand for my tumbler. Then Abner, the young man, spoke
up, and told him he guessed I'd be better without it, and that 't wasn't
meant for young people, and so on. 'What is it, Mr. Colt?' I asked,
seeing that he looked real--I mean very much--disappointed. He
brightened up at once. 'It's Vino's Vegetable Vivifier!' he said. 'It's
the greatest thing out for dyspepsy. How many bottles have I took,
Leory?' 'I believe this is the tenth, Father!' said Mrs. Abner. 'And _I_
don't see as 't 's done you a mite o' good!' she said to herself, but so
't I could hear. 'Thar!' says the old man, nodding at me, as proud as
could be, 'd' ye hear that? Ten bottles I've took, at a dollar a bottle.
Ah! it's great stuff. Ugh!' and he groaned and took a great piece of
mince-pie on his plate. 'Oh, Father!' says the young woman, '_do_ you
think you ought to eat mince-pie, after as sick as you was yesterday?'
He was just as mad as hops! 'Ef I'm to be grutched vittles,' he says, 'I
guess it's time for me to be quittin'. I've eat mince-pie seventy year,
man an' boy, and I guess I ain't goin' to leave off now. I kin go over
to Joel's, if so be folks begrutches me my vittles here.' 'Oh, come,
Father!' says Abner; 'you know Leory didn't mean nothing like that. Ef
you've got to have the pie, why, you've _got_ to have it, that's all.'
The old man groaned, and pegged away at the pie like a good one. 'Ah!'
he said, 'I sha'n't be here long, anyway. Nobody needn't be afraid o'
_my_ eatin' up their substance. Hand me them doughnuts, Abner. Nothin'
seems to have any taste to it, somehow.'"
"Did he eat nothing but pie and doughnuts?" asked Hilda. "I should be
afraid he would die to-night."
"Oh," said Bubble, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you all the things
he ate. Pickles and hot biscuit and cheese--and groaning all the time,
and saying nobody knowed what dyspepsy was till they'd had it. Then,
when he'd finished, he opened the pill-box, which had been close beside
his plate all the time, and took three great fat black pills. 'Have any
trouble with yer liver?' says he, turning to me again; 'there is
nothin' like these pills for yer liver. You take two of these, and
you'll feel 'em all over ye in an hour's time,--all over ye!' I thought
't was about time for me to go, so I said I must attend to the horse's
foot, and went out to the stable. It was then that he brought me the
three kinds of liniment, and wanted me to rub them all on, 'so 's if one
didn't take holt, another would.'"
"What a dreadful old ghoul!" cried Hildegarde, indignantly. "I don't
think it's safe for you to stay there, Bubble. I know he will poison you
in some way."
"You're talking about Cephas Colt, _I_ know," said the voice of Mrs.
Brett; and the good woman appeared with her knitting, and joined the
group on the doorstep. "He is a caution, Cephas is,--a caution! He's
been dosing himself for the last thirty years, and it's a living miracle
that he is alive to-day Abner and Leory have a sight o' trouble with
him; but they're real good and patient, more so 'n I should be. Did he
show you his collection of bottles?" she added, turning to Bubble.
"No," replied the boy. "He did speak of showing me something; but I was
in a hurry to get over here, so I told him I couldn't wait."
"You'll see 'em to-morrow, then!" said the widow. "It's his delight to
show 'em to strangers. Four thousand and odd bottles he has,--all physic
bottles, that have held all the stuff he and his folks have taken for
thirty years."
"Four--thousand--bottles!" cried her hearers, in dismay.
"And odd!" replied the widow, with emphasis. "He's adding new ones all
the time, and hopes to make it up to five thousand before he dies. Large
ones and small, of course, and lotions and all. He takes every new
thing that comes along, reg'lar. He has his wife's bottles all arranged
in a shape, kind o' monument-like. They do say he wanted to set them up
on her grave, but I guess that's only talk."
"How long ago did she die?" asked Rose.
"Three year ago, it is now!" said Mrs. Brett. "Dosed herself to death,
we all thought. She was just like him! Folks used to say they had pills
and catnip-tea for dinner the day they was married. You know how folks
will talk! It's a fact though"--here she lowered her voice--"and I'd
ought not to gossip about my neighbors, nor I don't among themselves
much, but strangers seem different somehow,--anyhow, it _is_ a fact that
he wanted to put a scandalous inscription on her monument in the
cemetery, and Abner wouldn't let him; the only time Abner ever stood
out against his father, as I know of."
"What was the inscription?" asked Hildegarde, trying hard to look as
grave as the subject required.
"Well,--you mustn't say I told you!" said the Widow Brett, lowering her
voice still more, and looking about with an air of mystery,--"'t was
'Phosphoria helped her for a spell;
But Death spoke up, and all is well.'
'Sh! you mustn't laugh!" she added, as the three young people broke into
peals of laughter. "There! I'd ought not to have told. He didn't _mean_
nothing improper, only to express resignation to the will o' Providence.
Well, there! the tongue's an onruly member. And so you young ladies
thought you'd like to see Bixby, did ye?" she added, for the third or
fourth time. "Well, I'm sure! Bixby'd oughter be proud. 'T _is_ a
sightly place, I've always thought. You must go over t' the cemetery
to-morrow, and see what there is to see."
"Yes, we did want to see Bixby," answered straightforward Hildegarde;
"but we came still more to see you, Mrs. Brett. Indeed, we have a very
important message for you."
And beginning at the beginning, Hildegarde unfolded the great scheme.
Mrs. Brett listened, wide-eyed, following the recital with appreciative
motions of lips and hands. When it was over, she seemed for once at a
loss for words.
"I--well, there!" she said; and she crumpled up her apron, and then
smoothed it out again. "I--why, I don't know what _to_ say. Well! I'm
completely, as you may say, struck of a heap. I don't know what
Marthy's thinking of, I'm sure. It isn't _me_ you want, surely. You
want a woman with faculty!"
"Of course we do!" cried both girls, laughing. "That is why we have come
to you."
"Sho!" said Mrs. Brett, crumpling her apron again, and trying not to
look pleased. "Why, young ladies, I couldn't do it, no way in the world.
There's my chickens, you see, and my cow, let alone the house; not but
what Joel (that's my nephew) would be glad enough to take keer of 'em.
And goin' so fur away, as you may say--though 't would be pleasant to be
nigh Marthy--we was always friends, Marthy and me, since we was
girls--and preserves to make, and fall cleanin' comin' on, and help so
skurce as 'tis--why, I don't know what Marthy's thinkin' of, really I
don't. Children, too! why, I do love children, and I shouldn't never
think I had things comfortable enough for 'em; not but that's a lovely
place, pretty as ever I see. I helped Marthy clean it one spring, and
such a fancy as I took to that kitchen,--why, there! and the little room
over it; I remember of saying to Marthy, says I, a woman might live
happy in those two rooms, let alone the back yard, with all that nice
fine gravel for the chickens, I says. But there! I couldn't do it, Miss
Grahame, no way in the world. Why, I ain't got more'n half-a-dozen
aprons to my back; so now you see!"
This last seemed such a very funny reason to give, that the three young
people could not help laughing heartily.
"Martha has dozens and dozens of aprons, Mrs. Brett," said Hildegarde.
"She has a whole bureau full of them, because she is afraid her eyes may
give out some day, and then she will not be able to make any more. And
now, just think a moment!" She laid her hand on the good woman's arm,
and continued in her most persuasive tones: "Think of living in that
pleasant house, with the pretty room for your own, and the sunny
kitchen, and the laundry, all under your own management."
"Set tubs!" said Mrs. Brett, in a pathetic parenthesis. "If there's one
thing I've allers hankered after, more 'n another, it's a set tub!"
"And the dear little children playing about in the garden, and coming to
you with flowers, and looking to you as almost a second mother--"
"Little Joel,"--cried the widow, putting her apron to her eyes, and
beginning to rock gently to and fro--"I've allus felt that blessed child
would ha' lived, if he'd ha' been left with me. There! Joel's been a
good nephew, there couldn't no one have a better; but his wife and me,
we never conjingled. She took the child away, and it peaked and pined
from that day. Well, there! the ways are mysterious!"
"And you would take the chickens and the cow with you, of course," this
artful girl went on; "for the children must have milk and eggs, and I
never tasted more delicious milk than this of yours."
"I've no cause to be ashamed of the cow!" said the widow, still rocking.
"There isn't a cow equal to her round Marthy's way. I've heerd Marthy
say so. Sixteen quarts she gives, and I do 'clare it's most half cream.
Jersey! there isn't many Jerseys round Marthy's way."
"And then the comfort you would be to Martha and to dear Miss Bond!"
Rose put in. "Martha has a good deal of rheumatism in winter, you know,
and she says you are such a good nurse. She told me how you rubbed her
in her rheumatic fever. She thinks you saved her life, and I am sure you
did."
"If I rubbed Marthy Ellen Banks one foot, I rubbed her a hundred miles!"
said Mrs. Brett, with a faint gleam in her moist eyes. "'From her
tombstun back to a well woman is a good way,' Dr. Jones says to me, 'and
that way you've rubbed Marthy Ellen, Mis' Brett!' says he. Good man Dr.
Jones is,--none better! There isn't no one round Bixby can doctor my
sciatica as he did when I was stayin' to Mis' Bond's last year. Mis'
Bond, too,--well, there! she was a mother to me. Seemed like 't was more
home there than Bixby was, since little Joel died. Mysterious the ways
is! Mr. Rawlins well?" she added, after a moment's pause.
"Mr.--Oh, Jeremiah!" cried Hildegarde, after a moment of bewilderment.
"Jeremiah is very well, all except a cough; and, dear me! Mrs. Brett, I
haven't given you his message. 'Tell Mrs. Brett,' he said, almost the
last thing before we came away this morning,--'tell Mrs. Brett she'll
_have_ to come, to make me a treacle-posset for my cough. Not even
Martha can make treacle-posset like hers!' Those were Jeremiah's very
words, Mrs. Brett."
A faint color stole into the widow's thin cheeks. She sat up straight,
and began to smooth out her apron. "Miss Grahame," she said
emphatically, "I verily believe you could persuade a cat out of a
bird's-nest. If it seems I'm really needed over to Bywood--I don't
hardly know how I _can_ go--but--well, there! you've come so fur, and I
do like to 'commodate; so--well, I don't really see how I can--but--I
will!"