OLD LADY NUMBER 31
BY LOUISE FORSSLUND
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF SARAH," "THE SHIP OF DREAMS," ETC.
1909
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
I. THE TEA-TABLE
II. "GOOD-BY"
III. THE CANDIDATE
IV. ONE OF THEM
V. THE HEAD OF THE CORNER
VI. INDIAN SUMMER
VII. OLD LETTERS AND NEW
VIII. THE ANNIVERSARY
IX. A WINTER BUTTERFLY
X. THE TURN OF THE TIDE
XI. MENTAL TREATMENT
XII. "A PASSEL OF MEDDLERS"
XIII. THE PRODIGAL'S DEPARTURE
XIV. CUTTING THE APRON-STRINGS
XV. THE "HARDENING" PROCESS
XVI. "A REG'LAR HOSS"
XVII. THE DESERTER
XVIII. SAMUEL'S WELCOME
XIX. EXCHANGING THE OLIVE-BRANCH
XX. THE FATTED CALF
XXI. "OUR BELOVED BROTHER"
I
THE TEA-TABLE
Angeline's slender, wiry form and small, glossy gray head bent over the
squat brown tea-pot as she shook out the last bit of leaf from the
canister. The canister was no longer hers, neither the tea-pot, nor even
the battered old pewter spoon with which she tapped the bottom of the
tin to dislodge the last flicker of tea-leaf dust. The three had been
sold at auction that day in response to the auctioneer's inquiry, "What
am I bid for the lot?"
Nothing in the familiar old kitchen was hers, Angeline reflected, except
Abraham, her aged husband, who was taking his last gentle ride in the
old rocking-chair--the old arm-chair with painted roses blooming as
brilliantly across its back as they had bloomed when the chair was first
purchased forty years ago. Those roses had come to be a source of
perpetual wonder to the old wife, an ever present example.
Neither time nor stress could wilt them in a single leaf. When Abe took
the first mortgage on the house in order to invest in an indefinitely
located Mexican gold-mine, the melodeon dropped one of its keys, but the
roses nodded on with the same old sunny hope; when Abe had to take the
second mortgage and Tenafly Gold became a forbidden topic of
conversation, the minute-hand fell off the parlor clock, but the flowers
on the back of the old chair blossomed on none the less serenely.
The soil grew more and more barren as the years went by; but still the
roses had kept fresh and young, so why, argued Angy, should not she? If
old age and the pinch of poverty had failed to conquer their valiant
spirit, why should she listen to the croaking tale? If they bloomed on
with the same crimson flaunt of color, though the rockers beneath them
had grown warped and the body of the chair creaked and groaned every
time one ventured to sit in it, why should she not ignore the stiffness
which the years seemed to bring to her joints, the complaints which her
body threatened every now and again to utter, and fare on herself, a
hardy perennial bravely facing life's winter-time?
Even this dreaded day had not taken one fraction of a shade from the
glory of the roses, as Angeline could see in the bud at one side of
Abraham's head and the full-blown flower below his right ear; so why
should she droop because the sale of her household goods had been
somewhat disappointing? _Somewhat?_ When the childless old couple, still
sailing under the banner of a charity-forbidding pride, became
practically reduced to their last copper, just as Abe's joints were
"loosenin' up" after a five years' siege of rheumatism, and decided to
sell all their worldly possessions, apart from their patched and
threadbare wardrobes and a few meager keepsakes, they had depended upon
raising at least two hundred dollars, one half of which was to secure
Abe a berth in the Old Men's Home at Indian Village, and the other half
to make Angeline comfortable for life, if a little lonely, in the Old
Ladies' Home in their own native hamlet of Shoreville. Both institutions
had been generously endowed by the same estate, and were separated by a
distance of but five miles.
"Might as waal be five hunderd, with my rheumatiz an' yer weak heart,"
Abraham had growled when Angy first proposed the plan as the only
dignified solution to their problem of living.
"But," the little wife had rejoined, "it'll be a mite o' comfort
a-knowin' a body's so near, even ef yer can't git tew 'em."
Now, another solution must be found to the problem; for the auction was
over, and instead of two hundred dollars they had succeeded in raising
but one hundred dollars and two cents.
"That air tew cents was fer the flour-sifter," inwardly mourned Angy,
"an' it was wuth double an' tribble, fer it's been a good friend ter me
fer nigh on ter eight year."
"Tew cents on the second hunderd," said Abe for the tenth time. "I've
counted it over an' over. One hunderd dollars an' tew pesky pennies. An'
I never hear a man tell so many lies in my life as that air auctioneer.
Yew'd 'a' thought he was sellin' out the Empery o' Rooshy. Hy-guy, it
sounded splendid. Fust off I thought he'd raise us more 'n we expected.
An' mebbe he would have tew, Angy," a bit ruefully, "ef yew'd 'a' let me
advertise a leetle sooner. I don't s'pose half Shoreville knows yit that
we was gwine ter have a auction sale." He watched the color rising in
her cheeks with a curious mixture of pride in her pride and regret at
its consequences. "It's no use a-talkin', Mother, Pride an' Poverty
makes oneasy bed-fellers."
He leaned back in the old chair, creaking out a dismal echo to the
auctioneer's, "Going, going, gone!" while the flush deepened in Angy's
cheek. Again she fastened her gaze upon the indomitable red rose which
hung a pendant ear-ring on the right side of Abraham's head.
"Yew wouldn't 'a' had folks a-comin' here ter bid jest out o' charity,
would yew?" she demanded. "An' anyhow," in a more gentle tone,--the
gently positive tone which she had acquired through forty years of
living with Abraham,--"we hain't so bad off with one hunderd dollars an'
tew cents, an'--beholden ter nobody! It's tew cents more 'n yew need ter
git yew inter the Old Men's, an' them extry tew cents'll pervide fer me
jest bewtiful." Abraham stopped rocking to stare hard at his resourceful
wife, an involuntary twinkle of amusement in his blue eyes. With
increased firmness, she repeated, "Jest bewtiful!" whereupon Abe,
scenting self-sacrifice on his wife's part, sat up straight and snapped,
"Haow so, haow so, Mother?"
"It'll buy a postage-stamp, won't it?"--she was fairly aggressive
now,--"an' thar's a envelop what wa'n't put up ter auction in the
cupboard an' a paper-bag I kin iron out,--ketch me a-gwine ter the
neighbors an' a-beggin' fer writin'-paper--an' I'll jest set daown an'
write a line ter Mis' Halsey. Her house hain't a stun's throw from the
Old Men's; an' I'll offer ter come an' take keer o' them air young 'uns
o' her'n fer my board an' keep an'--ten cents a week. I was a-gwine ter
say a quarter, but I don't want ter impose on nobody. Seein' that they
hain't over well-ter-do, I would go fer nothin', but I got ter have
somethin' ter keep up appearances on, so yew won't have no call ter feel
ashamed of me when I come a-visitin' ter the hum." Involuntarily, as she
spoke, Angy lifted her knotted old hand and smoothed back the hair from
her brow; for through all the struggling years she had kept a certain,
not unpleasing, girlish pride in her personal appearance.
Abraham had risen with creaks of his rheumatic joints, and was now
walking up and down the room, his feet lifted slowly and painfully with
every step, yet still his blue eyes flashing with the fire of indignant
protest.
"Me a-bunkin' comfortable in the Old Men's, an' yew a-takin' keer o'
them Halsey young 'uns fer ten cents a week! I wouldn't take keer o' 'em
fer ten cents a short breath. Thar be young 'uns an' young 'uns," he
elucidated, "but they be tartars! Yew'd be in yer grave afore the fust
frost; an' who's a-gwine ter bury yer--the taown?" His tone became
gentle and broken: "No, no, Angy. Yew be a good gal, an' dew jest as we
calc'lated on. Yew jine the Old Ladies'; yew've got friends over thar,
yew'll git erlong splendid. An' I'll git erlong tew. Yer know"--throwing
his shoulders back, he assumed the light, bantering tone so familiar to
his wife--"the poorhouse doors is always open. I'd jest admire ter go
thar. Thar's a rocking-chair in every room, and they say the grub is A
No. 1." He winked at her, smiling his broadest smile in his attempt to
deceive.
Both wink and smile, however, were lost upon Angy, who was busy
dividing the apple-sauce in such a way that Abe would have the larger
share without suspecting it, hoping the while that he would not notice
the absence of butter at this last home meal. She herself had never
believed in buttering bread when there was "sass" to eat with it; but
Abe's extravagant tastes had always carried him to the point of desiring
both butter and sauce as a relish to his loaf.
"Naow, fur 's I'm concerned," pursued Abe, "I hain't got nothin' agin
the poorhouse fer neither man ner woman. I'd as lief let yew go thar
'stid o' me; fer I know very well that's what yew're a-layin' out fer
ter do. Yes, yes, Mother, yew can't fool me. But think what folks would
say! Think what they would say! They 'd crow, 'Thar's Abe a-takin' his
comfort in the Old Men's Hum, an' Angeline, she's a-eatin' her heart out
in the poorhouse!'"
Angeline had, indeed, determined to be the one to go to the poorhouse;
but all her life long she had cared, perhaps to a faulty degree, for
"what folks would say." Above all, she cared now for what they had said
and what they still might say about her husband and this final ending to
his down-hill road. She rested her two hands on the table and looked
hard at the apple-sauce until it danced before her eyes. She could not
think with any degree of clearness. Vaguely she wondered if their supper
would dance out of sight before they could sit down to eat it. So many
of the good things of life had vanished ere she and Abe could touch
their lips to them. Then she felt his shaking hand upon her shoulder and
heard him mutter with husky tenderness:
"My dear, this is the fust chance since we've been married that I've had
to take the wust of it. Don't say a word agin it naow, Mother, don't
yer. I've brought yer ter this pass. Lemme bear the brunt o' it."
Ah, the greatest good of all had not vanished, and that was the love
they bore one to the other. The sunshine came flooding back into
Mother's heart. She lifted her face, beautiful, rosy, eternally young.
This was the man for whom she had gladly risked want and poverty, the
displeasure of her own people, almost half a century ago. Now at last
she could point him out to all her little world and say, "See, he gives
me the red side of the apple!" She lifted her eyes, two bright sapphires
swimming with the diamond dew of unshed, happy tears.
"I'm a-thinkin', Father," she twittered, "that naow me an' yew be
a-gwine so fur apart, we be a-gittin' closer tergether in sperit than we
've ever been afore."
Abe bent down stiffly to brush her cheek with his rough beard, and then,
awkward, as when a boy of sixteen he had first kissed her, shy, ashamed
at this approach to a return of the old-time love-making, he seated
himself at the small, bare table.
This warped, hill-and-dale table of the drop-leaves, which had been
brought from the attic only to-day after resting there for ten years,
had served as their first dining-table when the honeymoon was young. Abe
thoughtfully drummed his hand on the board, and as Angy brought the
tea-pot and sat down opposite him, he recalled:
"We had bread an' tea an' apple-sass the day we set up housekeeping dew
yew remember, Angy?"
"An' I burned the apple-sass," she supplemented, whereupon Abe chuckled,
and Angy went on with a thrill of genuine gladness over the fact that he
remembered the details of that long-ago honeymoon as well as she: "Yew
don't mind havin' no butter to-night, dew yer, Father?"
He recalled how he had said to her at that first simple home meal: "Yew
don't mind bein' poor with me, dew yer, Angy?" Now, with a silent shake
of his head, he stared at her, wondering how it would seem to eat at
table when her face no longer looked at him across the board, to sleep
at night when her faithful hand no longer lay within reach of his own.
She lifted her teacup, he lifted his, the two gazing at each other over
the brims, both half-distressed, half-comforted by the fact that Love
still remained their toast-master after the passing of all the years. Of
a sudden Angy exclaimed, "We fergot ter say grace." Shocked and
contrite, they covered their eyes with their trembling old hands and
murmured together, "Dear Lord, we thank Thee this day for our daily
bread."
Angy opened her eyes to find the red roses cheerfully facing her from
the back of the rocking-chair. A robin had hopped upon the window-sill
just outside the patched and rusty screen and was joyfully caroling to
her his views of life. Through the window vines in which the bird was
almost meshed the sunlight sifted softly into the stripped, bare, and
lonely room. Angy felt strangely encouraged and comforted. The roses
became symbolical to her of the "lilies of the field which toil not,
neither do they spin"; the robin was one of the "two sparrows sold for a
farthing, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your
Father"; while the sunlight seemed to call out to the little old lady
who hoped and believed and loved much: "Fear ye not therefor. Ye are of
more value than many sparrows!"
II
"GOOD-BY"
When the last look of parting had been given to the old kitchen and the
couple passed out-of-doors, hushed and trembling, they presented an
incongruously brave, gala-day appearance. Both were dressed in their
best. To be sure, Abraham's Sunday suit had long since become his only,
every-day suit as well, but he wore his Sabbath-day hat, a beaver of
ancient design, with an air that cast its reflection over all his
apparel. Angeline had on a black silk gown as shiny as the freshly
polished stove she was leaving in her kitchen--a gown which testified
from its voluminous hem to the soft yellow net at the throat that
Angeline was as neat a mender and darner as could be found in Suffolk
county.
A black silk bonnet snuggled close to her head, from under its brim
peeping a single pink rose. Every spring for ten years Angeline had
renewed the youth of this rose by treating its petals with the tender
red dye of a budding oak.
Under the pink rose, a soft pink flush bloomed on either of the old
lady's cheeks. Her eyes flashed with unconquerable pride, and her
square, firm chin she held very high; for now, indeed, she was filled
with terror of what "folks would say" to this home-leaving, and it was a
bright June afternoon, too clear for an umbrella with which to hide
one's face from prying neighbors, too late in the day for a sunshade.
Angy tucked the green-black affair which served them as both under her
arm and swung Abe's figured old carpet-bag in her hand with the manner
of one setting out on a pleasant journey. Abe, though resting heavily on
his stout, crooked cane, dragged behind him Angy's little horsehair
trunk upon a creaking, old, unusually large, toy express-wagon which he
had bought at some forgotten auction long ago.
The husband and wife passed into the garden between borders of boxwood,
beyond which nodded the heads of Angy's carefully tended, out-door
"children"--her roses, her snowballs, her sweet-smelling syringas, her
wax-like bleeding-hearts, and her shrub of bridal-wreath.
"Jest a minute," she murmured, as Abe would have hastened on to the
gate. She bent her proud head and kissed with furtive, half-ashamed
passion a fluffy white spray of the bridal-wreath. Now overtopping the
husband's silk hat, the shrub had not come so high as his knee when they
two had planted it nearly a half-century ago.
"You're mine!" Angy's heart cried out to the shrub and to every growing
thing in the garden. "You're mine. I planted you, tended you, loved you
into growing. You're all the children I ever had, and I'm leaving you."
But the old wife did not pluck a single flower, for she could never
bear to see a blossom wither in her hand, while all she said aloud was:
"I'm glad 't was Mis' Holmes that bought in the house. They say she's a
great hand ter dig in the garden."
Angy's voice faltered. Abe did not answer. Something had caused a
swimming before his eyes which he did not wish his wife to see; so he
let fall the handle of the express-wagon and, bending his slow back,
plucked a sprig of "old-man." Though he could not have expressed his
sentiments in words, the garden brought poignant recollections of the
hopes and promises which had thrown their rose color about the young
days of his marriage. His hopes had never blossomed into fulfilment.
His promises to the little wife had been choked by the weeds of his own
inefficiency. Worse than this, the bursting into bloom of seeds of
selfish recklessness in himself was what had turned the garden of their
life into an arid waste. And now, in their dry and withered old age, he
and Angy were being torn up by the roots, flung as so much rubbish by
the roadside.
"Mother, I be dretful sorry ter take yew away from your posies,"
muttered Abraham as he arose with his green sprig in his hand.
With shaking fingers, Angy sought a pin hidden beneath her basque.
"Father, shall I pin yer 'old-man' in yer buttonhole?" she quavered.
Then as he stooped for her to arrange the posy, she whispered: "I
wouldn't care, 'cept fer what folks must say. Le' 's hurry before any
one sees us. I told everybody that we wa'n't a-gwine ter break up till
ter-morrer mornin'."
Fortunately, there was a way across lots to the Old Ladies' Home, an
unfrequented by-path over a field and through a bit of woodland, which
would bring the couple almost unobserved to a side gate.
Under ordinary circumstances, Angeline would never have taken this path;
for it exposed her carefully patched and newly polished shoes to
scratches, her fragile, worn silk skirt and stiff, white petticoat to
brambles. Moreover, the dragging of the loaded little wagon was more
difficult here for Abraham. But they both preferred the narrower,
rougher way to facing the curious eyes of all Shoreville now, the
pitying windows of the village street.
As the couple came to the edge of the woodland, they turned with one
accord and looked back for the last glimpse of the home. Blazing
gold-red against the kitchen window flamed the afternoon sunlight.
"Look a' that!" Angy cried eagerly, as one who beholds a promise in the
skies. "Jest see, Father; we couldn't 'a' made out that winder this fur
at all ef the sun hadn't struck it jest so. I declar' it seems almost as
ef we could see the rocker, tew. It's tew bad, Abe, that we had ter let
yer old rocker go. D'yew remember--?" She laid her hand on his arm, and
lifted her gaze, growing clouded and wistful, to his face. "When we
bought the chair, we thought mebbe some day I'd be rocking a leetle baby
in it. 'T was then, yew ricollec', we sorter got in the habit of callin'
each other 'father' an' 'mother.' I wonder ef the young 'uns had come--"
"Le' 's hurry," interrupted Abe almost gruffly. "Le' 's hurry."
They stumbled forward with bowed heads in silence, until of a sudden
they were startled by a surprised hail of recognition, and looked up to
find themselves confronted by a bent and gray old man, a village
character, a harmless, slightly demented public charge known as
"Ishmael" or "Captain Rover."
"Whar yew goin', Cap'n Rose?"
The old couple had drawn back at the sight of the gentle vagabond, and
Angy clutched at her husband's arm, her heart contracting at the thought
that he, too, had become a pauper.
"I'm a-takin' my wife ter jine the old ladies over thar ter the Hum,"
Abe answered, and would have passed on, shrinking from the sight of
himself as reflected in poor Ishmael.
But the "innocent" placed himself in their path.
"Yew ain't a-goin' ter jine 'em, tew?" he bantered.
Abe forced a laugh to his lips in response.
"No, no; I'm goin' over ter Yaphank ter board on the county."
Again the couple would have passed on, their faces flushed, their eyes
lowered, had not Ishmael flung out one hand to detain them while he
plunged the other hurriedly into his pocket.
"Here." He drew out a meager handful of nickels and pennies, his vacant
smile grown wistful. "Here, take it, Cap'n Rose. It's all I got. I can't
count it myself, but yew can. Don't yew think it's enough ter set yew up
in business, so yew won't have ter go ter the poorhouse? The poorhouse
is a bad place. I was there last winter. I don't like the poorhouse."
He rambled on of the poorhouse. Angy, panting for breath, one hand
against the smothering pain at her heart, was trying, with the other, to
drag "Father" along. "Father" was shaking his head at Ishmael, at the
proffered nickels and pennies--shaking his head and choking. At length
he found his voice, and was able to smile at his would-be benefactor
with even the ghost of a twinkle in his eye.
"Much obliged, Cap'n Rover; but yew keep yer money fer terbaccy. I ain't
so high-toned as yew. I'll take real comfort at the poorhouse. S' long;
thank yer. S' long."
Ishmael went on his way muttering to himself, unhappily jingling his
rejected alms; while Angy and Abe resumed their journey.
As they came to the gate of the Old Ladies' Home, Angy seized hold of
her husband's arm, and looking up into his face pleaded earnestly:
"Father, let's take the hunderd dollars fer a fambly tombstun an' go ter
the poorhouse tergether!"
He shook her off almost roughly and lifted the latch of the gate.
"Folks'd say we was crazy, Mother."
There was no one in sight as he dragged in the express-cart and laid
down the handle. Before him was a long, clean-swept path ending
apparently in a mass of shrubbery; to the left was a field of sweet corn
reaching to the hedge; to the right a strong and sturdy growth of pole
lima beans; and just within the entrance, beneath the sweeping plumes of
a weeping-willow tree, was a shabby but inviting green bench.
Abe's glance wandered from the bench to his wife's face. Angy could not
lift her eyes to him; with bowed head she was latching and unlatching
the gate through which he must pass. He looked at the sun and
thoughtfully made reckon of the time. There were still two hours before
he could take the train which--
"Lef 's go set deown a spell afore--" he faltered--"afore we say
good-by."
She made no answer. She told herself over and over that she must--simply
must--stop that "all-of-a-tremble" feeling which was going on inside of
her. She stepped from the gate to the bench blindly, with Abe's hand on
her arm, though, still blindly, with exaggerated care she placed his
carpet-bag on the grass beside her.
He laid down his cane, took off his high hat and wiped his brow. He
looked at her anxiously. Still she could not lift her blurred eyes, nor
could she check her trembling.
Seeing how she shook, he passed his arm around her shoulder. He
murmured something--what, neither he nor she knew--but the love of his
youth spoke in the murmur, and again fell the silence.
Angy's eyes cleared. She struggled to speak, aghast at the thought that
life itself might be done before ever they could have one hour together
again; but no words came. So much--so much to say! She reached out her
hand to where his rested upon his knee. Their fingers gripped, and each
felt a sense of dreary cheer to know that the touch was speaking what
the tongue could not utter.
Time passed swiftly. The silent hour sped on. The young blades of corn
gossiped gently along the field. Above, the branches of the willow
swished and swayed to the rhythm of the soft, south wind.
"How still, how still it is!" whispered the breeze.
"Rest, rest, rest!" was the lullaby swish of the willow.
The old wife nestled closer to Abraham until her head touched his
shoulder. He laid his cheek against her hair and the carefully preserved
old bonnet. Involuntarily she raised her hand, trained by the years of
pinching economy, to lift the fragile rose into a safer position. He
smiled at her action; then his arm closed about her spasmodically and he
swallowed a lump in his throat.
The afternoon was waning. Gradually over the turmoil of their hearts
stole the garden's June-time spirit of drowsy repose.
They leaned even closer to each other. The gray of the old man's hair
mingled with the gray beneath Angeline's little bonnet. Slowly his eyes
closed. Then even as Angy wondered who would watch over the slumbers of
his worn old age in the poorhouse, she, too, fell asleep.
III
THE CANDIDATE
The butcher's boy brought the tidings of the auction sale in at the
kitchen door of the Old Ladies' Home even while Angy and Abe were
lingering over their posies, and the inmates of the Home were waiting to
receive the old wife with the greater sympathy and the deeper spirit of
welcome from the fact that two of the twenty-nine members had known her
from girlhood, away back in the boarding-school days.
"Yop," said the boy, with one eye upon the stout matron, who was
critically examining the meat that he had brought. "Yop, the auction's
over, an' Cap'n Rose, he--Don't that cut suit you, Miss Abigail? You
won't find a better, nicer, tenderer, and more juicier piece of shoulder
this side of New York. Take it back, did you say? All right, ma'am, all
right!" His face assumed a look of resignation: these old ladies made
his life a martyrdom. He used to tell the "fellers" that he spent one
half his time carrying orders back and forth from the Old Ladies' Home.
But now, in spite of his meekness of manner, he did not intend to take
this cut back. So with Machiavellian skill he hastened on with his
gossip.
"Yop, an' they only riz one hundred dollars an' two cents--one hundred
dollars an' a postage-stamp. I guess it's all up with the cap'n an' the
Old Men's. I don't see 'em hangin' out no 'Welcome' sign on the strength
of that."
"You're a horrid, heartless little boy!" burst forth Miss Abigail, and,
flinging the disputed meat on the table, she sank down into the chair,
completely overcome by sorrow and indignation. "You'll be old yerself
some day," she sobbed, not noticing that he was stealthily edging toward
the door, one eye on her, one on to-morrow's pot-roast. "I tell yew,
Tommy," regaining her accustomed confiding amiability, as she lifted the
corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, "Miss Ellie will feel some kind o'
bad, tew. Yer know me an' her an' Angy all went ter school tergether,
although Miss Ellie is so much younger 'n the rest o' us that we call
her the baby. Here! Where--"
But he was gone. Sighing heavily, the matron put the meat in the
ice-box, and then made her slow, lumbering way into the front hall, or
community-room, where the sisters were gathered in a body to await the
new arrival.
"Waal, say!" she supplemented, after she had finished telling her
pitiably brief story, "thar's trouble ernough ter go 'round, hain't
thar?"
Aunt Nancy Smith, who never believed in wearing her heart on her sleeve,
sniffed and thumped her cane on the floor.
"Yew young folks," she affirmed, herself having seen ninety-nine
winters, while Abigail had known but a paltry sixty-five, "yew allers go
an' cut yer pity on the skew-gee. I don't see nothin' ter bawl an'
beller erbout. I say that a'ny man what can't take kere o' himself, not
ter mention his wife, should orter go ter the poorhouse."
But the matriarch's voice quavered even more than usual, and as she
finished she hastily bent down and felt in her deep skirt-pocket for her
snuff-box.
Now the Amazonian Mrs. Homan, a widow for the third time, made sturdy
retort:
"That's jest like yew old maids--always a-blamin' the men. Yew kin jest
bet I never would have let one of my husbands go ter the poorhouse. It
would have mortified me dretful. It must be a purty poor sort of a
woman what can't take care of one man and keep a roof over his head.
Why, my second, Oliver G., used ter say--"
"Oh!" Miss Ellie wrung her hands, "can't we do somethin'?"
"I could do a-plenty," mourned Miss Abigail, "ef I only had been savin'.
Here I git a salary o' four dollars a month, an' not one penny laid
away."
"Yew fergit," spoke some one gently, "that it takes consid'able ter
dress a matron proper."
Aunt Nancy, who had been sneezing furiously at her own impotence, now
found her speech again.
"We're a nice set ter talk erbout dewin' somethin'--a passel o' poor ole
critters like us!" Her cackle of embittered laughter was interrupted by
the low, cultivated voice of the belle of the Home, "Butterfly Blossy."
"We've _got_ to do something," said Blossy firmly.
When Blossy spoke with such decision, every one of the sisters pricked
up her ears. Blossy might be "a shaller-pate"; she might arrange the
golden-white hair of her head as befitted the crowning glory of a young
girl, with puffs and rolls and little curls, and--more than one sister
suspected--with the aid of "rats"; she might gown herself elaborately in
the mended finery of the long ago, the better years; she might dress her
lovely big room--the only double bedchamber in the house, for which she
had paid a double entrance fee--in all sorts of gewgaws, little
ornaments, hand-painted plaques of her own producing, lace bedspreads,
embroidered splashers and pillow-shams; she might even permit herself a
suitor who came twice a year more punctually than the line-storms, to
ask her withered little hand in marriage--but her heart was in the right
place, and on occasion she had proved herself a master hand at "fixin'
things."
"Yes," said she, rising to her feet and flinging out her arms with an
eloquent gesture, "we've got to do something, and there's just one thing
to do, girls: take the captain right here--here"--she brought her hands
to the laces on her bosom--"to our hearts!"
At first there was silence, with the ladies staring blankly at Blossy
and then at one another. Had they heard aright? Then there came murmurs
and exclamations, with Miss Abigail's voice gasping above the others:
"What would the directors say?"
"What do they always say when we ask a favor?" demanded Blossy. "'How
much will it cost?' It won't cost a cent."
"Won't, eh?" snapped Aunt Nancy. "How on arth be yew goin' ter vittle
him? I hain't had a second dish o' peas this year."
"Some men eat more an' some less," remarked Sarah Jane, as ill-favored a
spinster as ever the sun shone on; "generally it means so much grub ter
so much weight."
Miss Abigail glanced up at the ceiling, while Lazy Daisy, who had
refused to tip the beam for ten years, surreptitiously hid an apple
into which she had been biting.
"Le' 's have 'em weighed," suggested a widow, Ruby Lee, with a pretty,
well-preserved little face and figure, "an' ef tergether they don't come
up to the heartiest one of us--"
Miss Abigail made hasty interruption:
"Gals, hain't yew never noticed that the more yew need the more yew git?
Before Jenny Bell went to live with her darter I didn't know what I
should dew, for the taters was gittin' pooty low. Yew know she used ter
eat twenty ter a meal an' then look hungry at the platter. An' then ef
old Square Ely didn't come a-drivin' up one mornin' with ten bushel in
the farm wagon! He'd been savin' 'em fer us all winter fer fear we
might run short in the spring. Gals, thar's one thing yew kin depend on,
the foresightedness of the Lord. I hain't afraid ter risk a-stretchin'
the board an' keep o' thirty ter pervide ample fer thirty-one. Naow,
haow many of yew is willin' ter try it?"
Every head nodded, "I am"; every eye was wet with the dew of merciful
kindness; and Mrs. Homan and Sarah Jane, who had flung plates at each
other only that morning, were observed to be holding hands.
"But haow on arth be we a-goin' ter sleep him?" proceeded the matron
uneasily. "Thar hain't a extry corner in the hull place. Puttin' tew
people in No. 30 is out of the question--it's jest erbout the size of a
Cinderella shoebox, anyhow, an' the garret leaks--"
She paused, for Blossy was pulling at her sleeve, the real Blossy,
warmhearted, generous, self-deprecating.
"I think No. 30 is just the coziest little place for one! Do let me take
it, Miss Abigail, and give the couple my great big barn of a room."
Aunt Nancy eyed her suspiciously. "Yew ain't a-gwine ter make a fool o'
yerself, an' jump over the broomstick ag'in?" For Blossy's old suitor,
Samuel Darby, had made one of his semiannual visits only that morning.
The belle burst into hysterical and self-conscious laughter, as she
found every glance bent upon her.
"Oh, no, no; not that. But I confess that I am tired to death of this
perpetual dove-party. I just simply can't live another minute without a
man in the house.
"Now, Miss Abigail," she added imperiously, "you run across lots and
fetch him home."
IV
ONE OF THEM
Ah! but Abraham slept that night as if he had been drawn to rest under
the compelling shelter of the wings of all that flock which in happier
days he had dubbed contemptuously "them air old hens." Never afterward
could the dazed old gentleman remember how he had been persuaded to come
into the house and up the stairs with Angeline. He only knew that in the
midst of that heart-breaking farewell at the gate, Miss Abigail, all out
of breath with running, red in the face, but exceedingly hearty of
manner, had suddenly appeared.
"Shoo, shoo, shoo!" this stout angel had gasped. "Naow, Cap'n Abe, yew
needn't git narvous. We 're as harmless as doves. Run right erlong. Yew
won't see anybody ter-night. Don't say a word. It's all right. Sssh!
Shoo!" And then, lo! he was not in the County Almshouse, but in a
beautiful bright bedchamber with a wreath of immortelles over the
mantel, alone with Angy.
Afterward, it all seemed the blur of a dream to him, a dream which ended
when he had found his head upon a cool, white pillow, and had felt glad,
glad--dear God, how glad!--to know that Angy was still within reach of
his outstretched hand; and so he had fallen asleep. But when he awoke in
the morning, there stood Angeline in front of the glass taking her hair
out of curl papers; and then he slowly began to realize the tremendous
change that had come into their lives, when his wife committed the
unprecedented act of taking her crimps out _before_ breakfast. He
realized' that they were to eat among strangers. He had become the guest
of thirty "women-folks." No doubt he should be called "Old Gal
Thirty-one." He got up and dressed very, very slowly. The bewildered
gratitude, the incredulous thanksgiving of last night, were as far away
as yesterday's sunset. A great seriousness settled upon Abe's lean face.
At last he burst forth:
"One to thirty! Hy-guy, I'm in fer it!" How had it happened, he
wondered. They had given him no time to think. They had swooped down
upon him when his brain was dulled with anguish. Virtually, they had
kidnapped him. Why had they brought him here to accept charity of a
women's institution? Why need they thus intensify his sense of shame at
his life's failure, and, above all, at his failure to provide for
Angeline? In the poorhouse he would have been only one more derelict;
but here he stood alone to be stared at and pitied and thrown a
sickly-satisfying crumb. With a sigh from the very cellar of his being,
he muttered:
"Aye, Mother, why didn't yew let me go on ter the County House? That
air's the place fer a worn-out old hull like me. Hy-guy!" he ejaculated,
beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, "I'd ruther lay deown an'
die th'n face them air women."
"Thar, thar!" soothingly spoke Angy, laying her hand on his arm. "Thar,
thar, Father! Jest think haow dretful I'd feel a-goin' deown without
yer."
"So you would!" strangely comforted. "So you would, my dear!" For her
sake he tried to brighten up. He joked clumsily as they stood on the
threshold of the chamber, whispering, blinking his eyes to make up for
the lack of their usually ready twinkle.
"Hol' on a minute; supposin' I fergit whether I be a man er a woman?"
Her love gave inspiration to her answer: "I'll lean on yer, Abe."
Just then there came the loud, imperative clanging of the
breakfast-bell; and she urged him to hurry, as "it wouldn't dew" for
them to be late the first morning of all times. But he only answered by
going back into the room to make an anxious survey of his reflection in
the glass. He shook his head reprovingly at the bearded countenance, as
if to say: "You need not pride yourself any longer on looking like
Abraham Lincoln, for you have been turned into a miserable old woman."
Picking up the hair-brush, he held it out at arm's length to Angy.
"Won't yew slick up my hair a leetle bit, Mother?" he asked, somewhat
shamefacedly. "I can't see extry well this mornin'."
"Why, Abe! It's slicked ez slick ez it kin be naow." However, the old
wife reached up as he bent his tall, angular form over her, and
smoothed again his thin, wet locks. He laughed a little, self-mockingly,
and she laughed back, then urged him into the hall, and, slipping ahead,
led the way down-stairs. At the first landing, which brought them into
full view of the lower hall, he paused, possessed with the mad desire to
run away and hide, for at the foot of the stairway stood the entire
flock of old ladies. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes were lifted to him and
Angy, twenty-nine pairs of lips were smiling at them. To the end of his
days Abraham remembered those smiles. Reassuring, unselfish, and tender,
they made the old man's heart swell, his emotions go warring together.
He wondered, was grateful, yet he grew more confused and afraid. He
stared amazed at Angeline, who seemed the embodiment of self-possession,
lifting her dainty, proud little gray head higher and higher. She turned
to Abraham with a protecting, motherly little gesture of command for him
to follow, and marched gallantly on down the stairs. Humbly, trembling
at the knees, he came with gingerly steps after the little old wife. How
unworthy he was of her now! How unworthy he had always been, yet never
realized to the full until this moment. He knew what those smiles meant,
he told himself, watching the uplifted faces; they were to soothe his
sense of shame and humiliation, to touch with rose this dull gray color
of the culmination of his failures. He passed his hand over his eyes,
fiercely praying that the tears might not come to add to his disgrace.
And all the while brave little Angy kept smiling, until with a truly
glad leap of the heart she caught sight of a blue ribbon painted in gold
shining on the breast of each one of the twenty-nine women. A pale blue
ribbon painted in gold with--yes, peering her eyes she discovered that
it was the word "WELCOME!" The forced smile vanished from Angeline's
face. Her eyes grew wet, her cheek white. Her proud figure shrank. She
turned and looked back at her husband. Not for one instant did she
appropriate the compliment to herself. "This is for _you_!" her spirit
called out to him, while a new pride dawned in her working face.
Forty years had she spent apologizing for Abraham, and now she
understood how these twenty-nine generous old hearts had raided him to
the pedestal of a hero, while she stood a heroine beside him. Angy it
was who trembled now, and Abe, gaining a manly courage from that, took
hold of her arm to steady her--they had paused on a step near the foot
of the stairs--and, looking around with his whimsical smile, he demanded
of the bedecked company in general, "Ladies, be yew 'spectin' the
President?"
Cackle went the cracked old voices of the twenty-nine in a chorus of
appreciative laughter, while the old heads bobbed at one another as if
to say, "Won't he be an acquisition?" And then, from among the group
there came forward Blossy--Blossy, who had sacrificed most that this
should come to pass; Blossy, who had sat till midnight painting the
gold-and-blue ribbons; Blossy, the pride and beauty of the Home, in a
delicate, old, yellow, real lace gown. She held her two hands gracefully
and mysteriously behind her back as she advanced to the foot of the
stairs. Looking steadily into Abraham's eyes, she kept a-smiling until
he felt as if the warmth of a belated spring had beamed upon him.
"The President!" Her mellow, well-modulated voice shook, and she laughed
with a mingling of generous joy and tender pity. "Are we expecting the
President? You dear modest man! We are welcoming--_you_!"
Abe looked to Angy as if to say, "How shall I take it?" and behold! the
miracle of his wife's bosom swelling and swelling with pride in him. He
turned back, for Blossy was making a speech. His hand to his head, he
bent his good ear to listen. In terms poetical and touching she
described the loneliness of the life at the Home as it had been with no
man under the roof of the house and only a deaf-and-dumb gardener, who
hated her sex, in the barn. Then in contrast she painted life as it must
be for the sisters now that the thirty tender vines had found a stanch
old oak for their clinging. "Me?" queried Abraham of himself and, with
another silent glance, of Angy.
But what was this? Blossy, leading all the others in a resounding call
of "Welcome!" and then Blossy drawing her two hands from behind her
back. One held a huge blue cup, the other, the saucer to match. She
placed the cup in the saucer and held it out to Abraham. He trudged down
the few steps to receive it, unashamed now of the tears that coursed
down his cheeks. With a burst of delight he perceived that it was a
mustache cup, such as the one he had always used at home until it had
been set for safe-keeping on the top pantry shelf to await the auction,
where it had brought the price of eleven cents with half a paper of
tacks thrown in.
And now as the tears cleared away he saw also, what Angy's eyes had
already noted, the inscription in warm crimson letters on the shining
blue side of the cup, "To Our Beloved Brother."
"Sisters," he mumbled, for he could do no more than mumble as he took
his gift, "ef yew'd been gittin' ready fer me six months, yew couldn't
have done no better."
V
THE HEAD OF THE CORNER
Everybody wore their company manners to the breakfast-table--the first
time in the whole history of the Home when company manners had graced
the initial meal of the day. Being pleasant at supper was easy enough,
Aunt Nancy used to say, for every one save the unreasonably
cantankerous, and being agreeable at dinner was not especially
difficult; but no one short of a saint could be expected to smile of
mornings until sufficient time had been given to discover whether one
had stepped out on the wrong or the right side of the bed.
This morning, however, no time was needed to demonstrate that everybody
in the place had gotten out on the happy side of his couch. Even the
deaf-and-dumb gardener had untwisted his surly temper, and as Abraham
entered the dining-room, looked in at the east window with a
conciliatory grin and nod which said as plainly as words:
"'T is a welcome sight indeed to see one of my own kind around this
establishment!"
"Why don't he come in?" questioned Abe, waving back a greeting as well
as he could with the treasured cup in one of his hands and the saucer in
the other; whereupon Sarah Jane, that ugly duckling, explained that the
fellow, being a confirmed woman-hater, cooked all his own meals in the
smokehouse, and insisted upon all his orders being left on a slate
outside the tool-house door. Abe sniffed disdainfully, contemplating her
homely countenance, over which this morning's mood had cast a not
unlovely, transforming glow.
"Why, the scalawag!" He frowned so at the face in the window that it
immediately disappeared. "Yew don't mean ter tell me he's sot ag'in' yew
gals? He must be crazy! Sech a handsome, clever set o' women I never did
see!"
Sarah Jane blushed to the roots of her thin, straight hair and sat down,
suddenly disarmed of every porcupine quill that she had hidden under
her wings; while there was an agreeable little stir among the sisters.
"Set deown, all hands! Set deown!" enjoined Miss Abigail, fluttering
about with the heaviness of a fat goose. "Brother Abe,--that 's what
we've all agreed to call yew, by unanimous vote,--yew set right here at
the foot of the table. Aunt Nancy always had the head an' me the foot;
but I only kept the foot, partly becuz thar wa'n't no man fer the place,
an' partly becuz I was tew sizable ter squeeze in any-whar else. Seein'
as Sister Angy is sech a leetle mite, though, I guess she kin easy make
room fer me t' other side o' her."
Abe could only bow his thanks as he put his gift down on the table and
took the prominent place assigned to him. The others seated, there was
a solemn moment of waiting with bowed heads. Aunt Nancy's trembling
voice arose,--the voice which had jealously guarded the right of saying
grace at table in the Old Ladies' Home for twenty years,--not, however,
in the customary words of thanksgiving, but in a peremptory "Brother
Abe!"
Abraham looked up. Could she possibly mean that he was to establish
himself as the head of the household by repeating grace? "Brother Abe!"
she called upon him again. "Yew've askt a blessin' fer one woman fer
many a year; supposin' neow yew ask it fer thirty!"
Amid the amazement of the other sisters, Abe mumbled, and muttered, and
murmured--no one knew what words; but all understood the overwhelming
gratitude behind his incoherency, and all joined heartily in the Amen.
Then, while Mrs. Homan, the cook of the week, went bustling out into the
kitchen, Aunt Nancy felt that it devolved upon her to explain her
action. It would never do, she thought, for her to gain a reputation for
self-effacement and sweetness of disposition at her time of life.
"Son, I want yew ter understand one thing naow at the start. Yew treat
us right, an' we'll treat yew right. That's all we ask o' yew. Miss
Ellie, pass the radishes."
"I'll do my best," Abe hastened to assure her. "Hy-guy, that coffee
smells some kind o' good, don't it? Between the smell o' the stuff an'
the looks o' my cup, it'll be so temptin' that I'll wish I had the neck
of a gi-raffe, an' could taste it all the way deown. Angy, I be afraid
we'll git the gout a-livin' so high. Look at this here cream!"
Smiling, appreciative, his lips insisting upon joking to cover the
natural feeling of embarrassment incident to this first meal among the
sisters, but with his voice breaking now and again with emotion, while
from time to time he had to steal his handkerchief to his old eyes, Abe
passed successfully through the--to him--elaborate breakfast. And Angy
sat in rapt silence, but with her face shining so that her quiet was the
stillness of eloquence. Once Abe startled them all by rising stealthily
from the table and seizing the morning's newspaper which lay upon the
buffet.
"I knowed it!" caviled Lazy Daisy _sotto voce_ to no one in particular.
"He couldn't wait for the news till he was through eatin'!" But Abe had
folded the paper into a stout weapon, and, creeping toward the window,
despatched by a quick, adroit movement a fly which had alighted upon the
screen.
"I hate the very sight o' them air pesky critters," he explained half
apologetically. "Thar, thar's another one," and slaughtered that.
"My, but yew kin git 'em, can't yew?" spoke Miss Abigail admiringly.
"Them tew be the very ones I tried ter ketch all day yiste'day; I kin
see as a fly-ketcher yew be a-goin' ter be wuth a farm ter me. Set
deown an' try some o' this here strawberry presarve."
But Abe protested that he could not eat another bite unless he should
get up and run around the house to "joggle deown" what he had already
swallowed. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed the family: on his
right, generous-hearted Blossy, who had been smiling approval and
encouragement at him all through the repast; at his left, and just
beyond Angy, Miss Abigail indulging in what remained on the dishes now
that she discovered the others to have finished; Aunt Nancy keenly
watching him from the head of the board; and all the other sisters
"betwixt an' between."
He caught Mrs. Homan's eye where she stood in the doorway leading into
the kitchen, and remarked pleasantly: "Ma'am, yew oughter set up a
pancake shop in 'York. Yew could make a fortune at it. I hain't had sech
a meal o' vittles sence I turned fifty year o' age."
A flattered smile overspread Mrs. Homan's visage, and the other sisters,
noting it, wondered how long it would be before she showed her claws in
Abraham's presence.