in a good-fer-nuthin' old man? Mebbe he'd rob yew er kill yew! When men
git ter rampagin', yew can't tell what they might dew."
Sarah Jane nodded her head knowingly, as if to exclaim:
"I told yer so!"
But Miss Abigail hurriedly explained that it was a man and wife that
they wanted. She blushed as she added that of course they would not
take a man without his wife.
"No, indeed! That'd be highly improper," smirked Ruby Lee.
Then Abe went stamping to the stairway, saying sullenly:
"All right. I'll give yew all the money yew want fer advertisin', an'
yew kin say he'll be clothed an' dressed proper, tew, an' supplied with
terbaccer an' readin'-matter besides; but jest wait till the directors
read that advertisement! They had me here sorter pertendin' ter be
unbeknownst. Come on, Angy. Let 's go up-stairs an' git our things.
Let's--"
Aunt Nancy half arose from her chair, resting her two shaking hands on
the arms of it.
"Brother Abe," she called quaveringly after the couple, "I guess yew
kin afford ter fix up any objections o' the directors."
Angy pressed her husband's arm as she joined him in the upper hall.
"Don't yer see, Abe. They don't realize that that poor old gentleman,
whoever he may be, won't be yew. They jest know that _yew_ was _yew_;
an' they want ter git another jest as near like yew as they kin."
Abe grunted, yet nevertheless went half-way down-stairs again to call
more graciously to the sisters that he would give them a reference any
time for knowing how to treat a man just right.
"That feller'll be lucky, gals," he added in tremulous tones. "I hope
he'll appreciate yew as I allers done."
Then Abe went to join Angy in the room which the sisters had given to
him that bitter day when the cry of his heart had been very like unto:
"_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani_!"
After all, what was there of his and Angy's here? Their garments they
did not need now. They would leave them behind for the other old couple
that was to come. There was nothing else but some simple gifts. He took
up a pair of red wristlets that Mrs. Homan had knit, and tucked them in
his new overcoat pocket. He also took Abigail's bottle of "Jockey Club"
which he had despised so a few days ago, and tucked that in his
watch-pocket. When he bought himself a watch, he would buy a new clock
for the dining-room down-stairs, too,--a clock with no such asthmatic
strike as the present one possessed. All his personal belongings--every
one of them gifts--he found room for in his pockets. Angy had even less
than he. Yet they had come practically with nothing--and compared with
that nothing, what they carried now seemed much. Angy hesitated over the
pillow-shams. Did they belong to them or to the new couple to come? Abe
gazed at the shams too. They had been given to him and Angy last
Christmas by all the sisters. They were white muslin with white cambric
frills, and in their centers was embroidered in turkey-red cotton,
"Mother," on one pillow, "Father," on the other. Every sister in the
Home had taken at least one stitch in the names.
Father and Mother--not Angy and Abe! Why Father and Mother? A year ago
no one could have foreseen the fortune, nor have prophesied the
possession of the room by another elderly couple.
Angy drew near to Abe, and Abe to Angy. They locked arms and stood
looking at the pillows. He saw, and she saw, the going back to the old
bedroom in the old home across the woods and over the field--the going
back. And in sharp contrast they each recalled the first time that they
had stepped beneath that roof nearly half a century ago,--the first
home-coming,--when her mother-heart and his father-heart had been filled
with the hope of children--children to bless their marriage, children to
complete their home, children to love, children to feed them with love
in return.
"Let's adopt some leetle folks," said Angy, half in a whisper. "I'm
afeard the old place'll seem lonesome without--"
"Might better adopt the sisters"; he spoke almost gruffly. "I allers did
think young 'uns would be the most comfort tew yew after they growed
up."
"A baby is dretful cunnin'," Angy persisted. "But," she added sadly, "I
don't suppose a teethin' mite would find much in common with us."
"Anyway," vowed Abe, suddenly beginning to unfasten the pillow-shams,
"these belong ter us, an' I'm a-goin' ter take 'em."
They went down-stairs silently, the shams wrapped in a newspaper
carried under his arm.
"Waal, naow,"--he tried to speak cheerfully as they rejoined the others,
and he pushed his way toward the dining-room,--"I'll go an' git my cup
an' sasser."
But Miss Abigail blocked the door, again blushing, again confused.
"That 'Tew-our-Beloved-Brother' cup," she said gently, her eyes not
meeting the wound in his, "we 'bout concluded yew'd better leave here
fer the one what answers the ad. Yew got so much naow, an' him--"
She did not finish. She could not. She felt rather than saw the blazing
of Abe's old eyes. Then the fire beneath his brows died out and a mist
obscured his sight.
"Gals," he asked humbly, "would yew ruther have a new 'beloved
brother'?"
For a space there was no answer. Aunt Nancy's head was bowed in her
hands. Lazy Daisy was openly sobbing. Miss Ellie was twisting her
fingers nervously in and out--she unwound them to clutch at Angy's arm
as if to hold her. At last Miss Abigail spoke with so unaccustomed a
sharpness that her voice seemed not her own:
"Sech a foolish question as that nobody in their sound senses would
ask."
Abe sat down in his old place at the fireside and smiled a thousand
smiles in one. He smiled and rubbed his hands before the blaze. The
blaze itself seemed scarcely more bright and warm than the light from
within which transfigured his aged face.
"Gals," he chuckled in his old familiar way, "I dunno how Sam'l Darby'll
take it; but if Mother's willin', I guess I won't buy back no more of
the old place, 'cept'n' jest my rockin'-chair with the red roses onto
it; an' all the rest o' this here plagued money I'll hand over ter the
directors, an' stay right here an' take my comfort."
Angy bent down and whispered in his ear: "I'd ruther dew it, tew,
Father. Anythin' else would seem like goin' a-visitin'. But yew don't
want ter go an' blame me," she added anxiously, "ef yew git all riled up
an' sick abed ag'in."
"Pshaw, Mother," he protested; "yew fergit I was _adopted_ then; naow I
be _adoptin_'. Thar's a big difference."
She lifted her face, relieved, and smiled into the relieved and radiant
faces of Abe's "children," and her own.