yer? Why, folks have told me that yew ladies--What yew hittin' my foot
fer, Mother? Folks have told me," a twinkle of amusement in his eye at
the absurdity, "that yew fight among yerselves like cats an' dogs, when,
law! I never see sech a clever lot o' women gathered tergether in all
my life. An' I believe--Mother, I hain't a-sayin' nothin'! I jest want
ter let 'em know what I think on 'em. I believe that thar must be three
hunderd hearts in this here place 'stid o' thirty. But dew yew know,
gals, folks outside even go so fur's ter say that yew throw plates at
one another!"
There was a moment's silence; then a little gasp first from one and then
from another of the group. Every one looked at Mrs. Homan, and from Mrs.
Homan to Sarah Jane. Mrs. Homan tightened her grip on the pancake
turner; Sarah Jane uneasily moved her long fingers within reach of a
sturdy little red-and-white pepper-pot. Another moment passed, in which
the air seemed filled with the promise of an electric storm. Then
Blossy spoke hurriedly--Blossy the tactician, clasping her hands
together and bringing Abe's attention to herself.
"Really! You surprise me! You don't mean to say that folks talk about us
like that!"
"Slander is a dretful long-legged critter," amended Miss Abigail,
smiling and sighing in the same breath.
"Sary Jane," inquired Mrs. Homan sweetly, "what 's the matter with that
pepper-pot? Does it need fillin'?"
And so began the reign of peace in the Old Ladies' Home.
VI
INDIAN SUMMER
Miss Abigail had not banked in vain on the "foresightedness of the
Lord." At the end of six months, instead of there being a shortage in
her accounts because of Abe's presence, she was able to show the
directors such a balance-sheet as excelled all her previous commendable
records.
"How do you explain it?" they asked her.
"We cast our bread on the waters," she answered, "an' Providence jest
kept a-handin' out the loaves." Again she said, "'T was grinnin' that
done it. Brother Abe he kept the gardener good-natured, an' the gardener
he jest grinned at the garden sass until it was ashamed not ter
flourish; an' Brother Abe kept the gals good-natured an' they wa'n't so
_niasy_ about what they eat; an' he kept the visitors a-laughin' jest
ter see him here, an' when yew make folks laugh they want ter turn
around an' dew somethin' fer yew. I tell yew, ef yew kin only keep grit
ernough ter grin, yew kin drive away a drought."
In truth, there had been no drought in the garden that summer, but
almost a double yield of corn and beans; no drought in the gifts sent to
the Home, but showers of plenty. Some of these came in the form of fresh
fish and clams left at the back door; some in luscious fruits; some in
barrels of clothing. And the barrels of clothing solved another problem;
for no longer did their contents consist solely of articles of feminine
attire. "Biled shirts" poured out of them; socks and breeches, derby
hats, coats and negligees; until Aunt Nancy with a humorous twist to her
thin lips inquired if there were thirty men in this establishment and
one woman.
"I never thought I'd come to wearin' a quilted silk basque with tossels
on it," Abe remarked one day on being urged to try on a handsome
smoking-jacket. "Dew I look like one of them sissy-boys, er jest a
dude?"
"It's dretful becoming," insisted Angy, "bewtiful! Ain't it, gals?"
Every old lady nodded her head with an air of proud proprietorship, as
if to say, "Nothing could fail to become _our_ brother." And Angy nodded
her head, too, in delighted approval of their appreciation of "our
brother" and "my husband."
Beautiful, joy-steeped, pleasure-filled days these were for the couple,
who had been cramped for life's smallest necessities so many meager
years. Angy felt that she had been made miraculously young by the birth
of this new Abraham--almost as if at last she had been given the son for
whom in her youth she had prayed with impassioned appeal. Her old-wife
love became rejuvenated into a curious mixture of proud mother-love and
young-wife leaning, as she saw Abe win every heart and become the
center of the community.
"Why, the sisters all think the sun rises an' sets in him," Angy would
whisper to herself sometimes, awed by the glorious wonder of it all.
The sisters fairly vied with one another to see how much each could do
for the one man among them. Their own preferences and prejudices were
magnanimously thrust aside. In a body they besought their guest to smoke
as freely in the house as out of doors. Miss Abigail even traded some of
her garden produce for tobacco, while Miss Ellie made the old gentleman
a tobacco-pouch of red flannel so generous in its proportions that on a
pinch it could be used as a chest-protector.
Then Ruby Lee, not to be outdone by anybody, produced, from no one ever
discovered where, a mother-of-pearl manicure set for the delight and
mystification of the hero; and even Lazy Daisy went so far as to cut
some red and yellow tissue-paper into squares under the delusion that
some time, somehow, she would find the energy to roll these into spills
for the lighting of Abe's pipe. And each and every sister from time to
time contributed some gift or suggestion to her "brother's" comfort.
It "plagued" the others, however, to see that none of them could get
ahead of Blossy in their noble endeavors to make Abraham feel himself a
light and welcome burden. She it was who discovered that Abe's
contentment could not be absolute without griddle-cakes for breakfast
three hundred and sixty-five times a year; she it was who first baked
him little saucer-cakes and pies because he was partial to edges; and
Blossy it was who made out a list of "Don'ts" for the sisters to follow
in their treatment of this grown-up, young-old boy.
"Don't scold him when he leaves the doors open. Don't tell him to wipe
his feet. Don't ever mention gold-mines or shiftless husbands," etc.,
etc.
All these triumphs of Blossy's intuition served naturally to spur the
others on to do even more for Brother Abe than they had already done,
until the old man began to worry for fear that he should "git sp'ilt."
When he lay down for his afternoon nap and the house was dull and quiet
without his waking presence, the ladies would gather in groups outside
his door as if in a king's antechamber, waiting for him to awaken,
saying to one another ever and again, "Sh, sh!" He professed to scoff at
the attentions he received, would grunt and growl "Humbug!" yet
nevertheless he thrived in this latter-day sunlight. His old bones took
on flesh. His aged kindly face, all seamed with care as it had been,
filled out, the wrinkles turning into twinkles. Abraham had grown young
again. With the return of his youth came the spirit of youth to the Old
Ladies' Home. Verily, verily, as Blossy had avowed from the first, they
had been in sore need of the masculine presence. The ancient coat and
hat which had hung in the hall so long had perhaps served its purpose
in keeping the burglars away, but this lifeless substitute had not
prevented the crabbed gnomes of loneliness and discontent from stealing
in. Spinster, wife, and widow, they had every one been warped by the
testy just-so-ness of the old maid.
Now, instead of fretful discussions of health and food, recriminations
and wrangling, there came to be laughter and good-humored chatter all
the day long, each sister striving with all her strength to preserve the
new-found harmony of the Home. There were musical evenings, when Miss
Abigail opened the melodeon and played "Old Hundred," and Abraham was
encouraged to pick out with one stiff forefinger "My Grandfather's
Clock." "Hymn tunes" were sung in chorus; and then, in answer to Abe's
appeal for something livelier, there came time-tried ditties and old,
old love-songs. And at last, one night, after leaving the instrument
silent, mute in the corner of the parlor for many years, Aunt Nancy
Smith dragged out her harp, and, seating herself, reached out her
knotted, trembling hands and brought forth what seemed the very echo, so
faint and faltering it was, of "Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True."
There was a long silence after she had finished, her head bowed on her
chest, her hands dropped to her sides. Abraham spoke first, clearing his
throat before he could make the words come.
"_I_ wish I could git a husband fer every one of yer," said he.
And no one was angry, and no one laughed; for they all knew that he was
only seeking to express the message conveyed by Nancy's playing--the
message of Love, Love triumphant, which cannot age, which over the years
and over Death itself always hath the victory.
VII
OLD LETTERS AND NEW
Blossy left the room without a word, and went stealing up the stairs to
the little cupboard where she now slept, and where was hung on the wall,
in a frame of yellow hollyhocks, painted by her own hand, a photograph
of Captain Samuel Darby, the man who had remained obstinately devoted to
her since her days of pinafores.
The picture betrayed that Captain Darby wore a wig designed for a larger
man, and that the visage beneath was gnarled and weather-beaten, marked
with the signs of a stubborn and unreasonable will.
Even now the aged belle could hear him saying: "Here I be, come eround
ter pop ag'in. Ready ter hitch?"
Samuel's inelegant English had always been a source of distress to
Blossy; yet still she stared long at the picture.
Six months had passed since his last visit; to-morrow would be the date
of his winter advent.
Should she give the old unvarying answer to his tireless formula?
She glanced around the tiny room. Ashamed though she was to admit it
even to herself, she missed that ample and cozy chamber which she had so
freely surrendered to Abraham and his wife. She missed it, as she felt
they must crave their very own fireside; and the thought that they
missed the old homestead made her yearn for the home that she might have
had--the home that she still might have.
Again she brought her eyes back to the portrait; and now she saw, not
the characteristics which had always made it seem impossible for her and
Samuel to jog together down life's road, but the great truth that the
face was honest and wholesome, while the eyes looked back into hers with
the promise of an unswerving care and affection.
The next morning found Blossy kneeling before a plump, little,
leather-bound, time-worn trunk which she kept under the eaves of the
kitchen chamber. The trunk was packed hard with bundles of old letters.
Some her younger fingers had tied with violet ribbon; some they had
bound with pink; others she had fastened together with white silk cord;
and there were more and more bundles, both slim and stout, which Blossy
had distinguished by some special hue of ribbon in the long ago, each
tint marking a different suitor's missives.
To her still sentimental eye the colors remained unfaded, and each would
bring to her mind instantly the picture of the writer as he had been in
the golden days. But save to Blossy's eye alone there were no longer any
rainbow tints in the little, old trunk; for every ribbon and every cord
had faded into that musty, yellow brown which is dyed by the passing of
many years.
Abraham discovered her there, too engrossed in the perusal of one of
the old letters to have heeded his creaking steps upon the stairs.
"Didn't see yer, till I 'most stumbled on yer," he began apologetically.
"I come fer the apple-picker. Thar's a handful of russets in the orchard
yit, that's calc'latin' ter spend Christmas up close ter heaven;
but--Say, Blossy," he added more loudly, since she did not raise her
head, "yew seen anythin' o' that air picker?"
Blossy glanced up from her ragged-edged crackly _billet-doux_ with a
start, and dropped the envelop to the floor.
For the moment, so deep in reminiscence was she, she thought Captain
Darby himself had surprised her; then, recognizing Abe and recalling
that Samuel's winter visits were invariably paid in the afternoon, she
broke into a shamefaced laugh.
"Oh, is that you, Brother Abe? Don't tell the others what you found me
doing. These," with a wave of her delicate, blue-veined hands over the
trunk and its contents, "are all old love-letters of mine. Do you think
I'm a silly old goose to keep them cluttering around so long?"
"Wa'al,"--Abe with an equally deprecatory gesture indicated Angy's
horsehair trunk in the far corner of the loft,--"yew ain't no more
foolisher, I guess, over yer old trash 'n me an' Angy be a-keepin' that
air minin' stock of mine. One lot is wuth 'bout as much as t'other."
Recovering the envelop that she had dropped, he squinted at the
superscription. "Not meanin' ter be inquisitive or personal, Sister
Blossy," a teasing twinkle appearing in his eye, "but this looks dretful
familitary, this here handwritin' does. When I run the beach--yew've
heard me tell of the time I was on the Life-savin' Crew over ter Bleak
Hill fer a spell--my cap'n he had a fist jest like that. Useter make out
the spickest, spannest reports. Lemme see," the twinkle deepening,
"didn't the gals say yew was a 'spectin' somebody ter-day? Law, I ain't
saw Cap'n Sam'l fer ten year or more. I guess on these here poppin'
trips o' his'n he hain't wastin' time on no men-folks. But, Blossy, yew
better give me a chance ter talk to him this arternoon, an' mebbe I'll
speak a good word fer yer."
Blossy, not always keen to see a joke, and with her vanity now in the
ascendant, felt the color rise into her withered cheek.
"Oh, you needn't take the trouble to speak a good word for me. Any man
who could ever write a letter like this doesn't need to be coaxed. Just
listen:
"The man you take for a mate is the luckiest dog in the whole round
world. I'd rather be him than king of all the countries on earth. I'd
rather be him than strike a gold-mine reaching from here to China. I'd
rather be him than master of the finest vessel that ever sailed blue
water. That's what I would. Why, the man who couldn't be happy with you
would spill tears all over heaven."
Blossy's cheek was still flushed, but no longer with pique. Her voice
quavered, and broke; and finally there fell upon the faded page of the
letter two sparkling tears.
Abraham shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other; then,
muttering something about the "pesky apple-hook," went scuffing across
the floor in the direction of the chimney.
Blossy, however, called him back. "I was crying, Brother Abe, because
the man I did take for a mate once was not happy, and--and neither was
I. I was utterly wretched; so that I've always felt I never cared to
marry again. And--and Samuel's wig is always slipping down over one eye,
and I simply cannot endure that trick he has of carrying his head to one
side, as if he had a left-handed spell of the mumps. It nearly drives me
frantic.
"Brother Abe, now tell me honestly: do you think he would make a good
husband?"
Abe cleared his throat. Blossy was in earnest. Blossy could not be
laughed at. She was his friend, and Angy's friend; and she had come to
him as to a brother for advice. He too had known Samuel as man to man,
which was more than any of the sisters could say.
Stroking his beard thoughtfully, therefore, he seated himself upon a
convenient wooden chest, while Blossy slipped her old love-letter in and
out of the envelop, with that essentially feminine manner of weighing
and considering.
"Naow," began Abe at length, "this is somep'n that requires keerful
debatin'. Fust off, haowsomever, yew must remember that wigs an' ways
never made a man yit. Ez I riccollec' Sam'l, he was pooty good ez men
go. I should say he wouldn't be any more of a risk tew yew than I was
tew Angy; mebbe less. He's got quite a leetle laid by, I understand, an'
a tidy story-an'-a-half house, an' front stoop, an', by golly, can't he
cook! He's a splendid housekeeper."
"Housewifery," remarked Blossy sagely, as she began to gather her
missives together, "is an accomplishment to be scorned in a young
husband, but not in an old one. They say there hasn't been a woman
inside Samuel's house since he built it, but it's as clean as soap and
sand can make it."
"I bet yer," agreed Abe. "Hain't never been no fly inside it, neither,
I warrant yer. Fly can't light arter Sam'l's cleanin' up nohaow; he's
got ter skate."
"He says he built that little house for me," said the old lady, as she
closed down the lid of the trunk. There was a wistful note in Blossy's
voice, which made Abraham declare with a burst of sympathy:
"'T ain't no disgrace ter git married at no time of life. Sam'l's a good
pervider; why don't yew snap him up ter-day? We'll miss yew a lot;
but--"
"Here's the apple-picker right over your head," interrupted Blossy
tartly, and Abe felt himself peremptorily dismissed.
Scarcely had he left the attic, however, than she too hastened down the
steep, narrow stairs. She spent the remaining hours before train-time in
donning her beautiful lace gown, and in making the woman within it as
young and ravishing as possible. And lovely, indeed, Blossy looked this
day, with a natural flush of excitement on her cheek, a new sparkle in
her bright, dark eyes, and with her white hair arranged in a fashion
which might have excited a young girl's envy.
The hour for the train came and went, and, lo! for the first time in the
history of twenty years Captain Darby did not appear.
Blossy pretended to be relieved, protesting that she was delighted to
find that she would now have an extra hour in which to ponder the
question. But the second train came and went, and still no Captain
Darby.
All the afternoon long Blossy wore her lace gown, thinking although
there were no more trains from the eastward that day, that Samuel would
still find his way to her. He might drive, as he usually did in June, or
he might even walk from his home at Twin Coves, she said.
At night, however, she was obliged to admit that he could not be coming;
and then, quivering with honest anxiety for her old friend, Blossy
dipped into her emergency fund, which she kept in the heart of a little
pink china pig on a shelf in her room,--a pink china pig with a lid made
of stiff black hair standing on edge in the middle of his back,--and
sent a telegram to Captain Darby, asking if he were sick.
The answer came back slowly by mail, to find Blossy on the verge of a
nervous collapse, under the care of all the women in the house.
That letter Blossy never showed to Brother Abe, nor to any one else.
Neither did she treasure it in the sentimental trunk beneath the attic
eaves. The letter ran:
DEAR BETSY ANN: I never felt better in my life. Ain't been sick a
minute. Just made up my mind I was a old fool, and was going to quit. If
you change your intentions at any time, just drop me a postal. As ever,
SAM'L DARBY, ESQ.
"This, Captain Darby, makes your rejection final," vowed Blossy to
herself, as she tore the note into fragments and drowned them in the
spirits of lavender with which the sisters had been seeking to soothe
her distracted nerves.
VIII
THE ANNIVERSARY
About this time Blossy developed a tendency to draw Brother Abraham
aside at every opportunity, convenient or inconvenient, in order to put
such questions as these to him:
"Did you say it is fully thirty-five years since you and Captain Darby
were on the beach together? Do you think he has grown much older? Had he
lost his hair then? Did he care for the opposite sex? Was he very
brave--or would you say more brave than stubborn and contrary? Isn't it
a blessing that I never married him?"
Fearful of the ridicule of the sisters, Blossy was always careful to
conduct these inquiries in whispers, or at least in undertones with a
great observance of secrecy, sometimes stopping Abe on the stairs,
sometimes beckoning him to her side when she was busy about her
household tasks on the pretense of requiring his assistance. On one
occasion she even went so far as to inveigle him into holding a skein of
wool about his clumsy hands, while she wound the violet worsted into a
ball, and delicately inquired if he believed Samuel spoke the truth when
he had protested that he had never paid court to any other woman.
Alas, Blossy's frequent tete-a-tetes with the amused but sometimes
impatient Abraham started an exceedingly foolish suspicion. When, asked
the sisters of one another, did Abe ever help any one, save Blossy,
shell dried beans or pick over prunes? When had he ever been known to
hold wool for Angy's winding? Not once since wooing-time, I warrant you.
What could this continual hobnobbing and going off into corners mean,
except--flirtation?
Ruby Lee whispered it first into Aunt Nancy's good ear. Aunt Nancy
indulged in four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, sneezed an
amazing number of times, and then acridly informed Ruby Lee that she was
a "jealous cat" and always had been one.
However, Aunt Nancy could not refrain from carrying the gossip to Miss
Ellie, adding that she herself had been suspicious of Abe's behavior
from the start.
"Oh, no, no!" cried the shocked and shrinking spinster. "And Angy so
cheerful all the time? I don't believe it."
But whisper, whisper, buzz, buzz, went the gossip, until finally it
reached the pink little ears at the side of Miss Abigail's generously
proportioned head. The pink ears turned crimson, likewise the adjoining
cheeks, and Miss Abigail panted with righteous indignation.
"It all comes of this plagued old winter-time," she declared, sharply
biting her thread, for she was mending a table-cloth. "Shet the winders
on summer, an' yew ketch the tail of slander in the latch every time.
Naow, ef I hear one word about this 'tarnal foolishness comin' to
Angy's ears, or Brother Abe's, or Blossy's either, fer that matter,
we'll all have to eat off'n oil-cloth Sundays, the same as weekdays,
until I see a more Christian sperit in the house."
She gave the Sunday damask across her lap a pat which showed she was in
earnest; and the rebuked sisters glanced at one another, as if to say:
"Suppose the minister should walk in some Sabbath afternoon and find
oil-cloth on the table, and ask the reason why?"
They one and all determined to take Aunt Nancy's advice and "sew a
button on their lips."
Fortunately, too, the February thaws had already set in, and the
remainder of the winter passed without any severe strain on the
"buttonholes." And at length the welcome spring began to peep forth,
calling to the old folks, "Come out, and grow young with the young
year!"
With the bursting forth of the new springtide the winter's talk seemed
to drop as a withered and dead oak-leaf falls from its winter-bound
branches; and Abe stood once more alive to the blessings of renewed
approval.
Angy went out of doors with Miss Abigail, and puttered around among the
flowers as if they were her own, thanking God for Abe's increasing
popularity in the same breath that she gave thanks for the new buds of
the spring.
The anniversary of the Roses' entrance into the Home drew nearer, and
Blossy suggested that the best way to celebrate the event would be by
means of a "pink tea."
Neither Angy nor Abe, nor in fact half the sisters, had any clear
conception of what a tinted function might be; but they one and all
seized upon Blossy's idea as if it were a veritable inspiration, and for
the time jealousies were forgotten, misunderstandings erased.
Such preparations as were made for that tea! The deaf-and-dumb gardener
was sent with a detachment of small boys to fetch from the wayside and
meadows armfuls of wild roses for the decorations. Miss Abigail made
pink icing for the cake. Ruby Lee hung bleeding-hearts over the
dining-room door. Aunt Nancy resurrected from the bottom of her trunk a
white lace cap with a rakish-looking pink bow for an adornment, and
fastened it to her scant gray hairs in honor of the occasion. Blossy
turned her pink china pig, his lid left up-stairs, into a sugar-bowl.
Pink, pink, pink, everywhere; even in Angy's proud cheeks! Pink, and
pink, and pink! Abe used to grow dizzy, afterward, trying to recall the
various pink articles which graced that tea.
But most delightful surprise of all was his anniversary gift, which was
slyly slipped to his place after the discussion of the rose-colored
strawberry gelatin. It was a square, five-pound parcel wrapped in pink
tissue-paper, tied with pink string, and found to contain so much
Virginia tobacco, which Blossy had inveigled an old Southern admirer
into sending her for "charitable purposes."
After the presentation of this valuable gift, Abraham felt that the time
had come for him to make a speech--practically his maiden speech.