called upon to play, "you give me your bunnit. Don't I see your old
sheaf o'wheat in the box? Let me pin it on for you. There, now, don't
that look more suitable?"
By the time she had laid it on, in conventional flatness, and held it
up for inspection, every trace of rebellion had apparently been
banished from Lucindy's mind.
"Here," said the victim of social rigor, "you hand me the box, and I'll
set it away."
They had a cosey, old-fashioned chat, touching upon nothing in the
least revolutionary, and Mrs. Wilson was glad to think Lucindy had
forgotten all about the side-saddle. This last incident of the bonnet,
she reflected, showed how much real influence she had over Lucindy. She
must take care to exert it kindly but seriously now that the old Judge
was gone.
"You goin' to keep your same help?" she asked, continuing the
conversation.
"Oh, yes! I wouldn't part with Ann Toby for a good deal. She's goin' to
have her younger sister come to live with us now. We shall be a passel
o' women, sha'n't we?"
"I guess it's well for you Ann Toby's what she is, or she'd cheat you
out o' your eye-teeth!"
"Well," answered Lucindy, easily, "I ain't goin' to worry about my
eye-teeth. If I be cheated out of 'em, I guess I can get a new set."
At five o'clock, they had some cookies, ostensibly for Claribel, since
Mrs. Wilson could not stay to tea; and then, when the little maid had
taken hers out to the front steps, Lucindy broached a daring plan, that
moment conceived.
"Say, Jane," she whispered, with great pretence of secrecy, "what do
you think just come into my head? Do you s'pose Mattie would be put
out, if I should give Claribel a hat?"
"Mercy sakes, no! all in the family so! But what set you out on that?
She's got a good last year's one now, an' the ribbin's all pressed out
an' turned, complete."
"I'll tell you," Said Lucindy, leaning nearer, and speaking as if she
feared the very corners might hear. "You know I never was allowed to
wear bright colors. And to this day, I see the hats the other girls
had, blue on 'em, and pink. And if I could stand by and let a little
girl pick out a hat for herself, without a word said to stop her,
'twould be real agreeable to me." Lucindy was shrewd enough to express
herself somewhat moderately. She knew by experience how plainly Jane
considered it a duty to discourage any overmastering emotion. But Jane
Wilson was, at the same instant, feeling very keenly that Lucindy,
faded and old as she was, needed to be indulged in all her riotous
fancies. She repressed the temptation, however, at its birth.
"Why, I dunno's there's anything in the way of it," she said, soberly.
"Then, if you must go, I'll walk right along now. Claribel and I'll go
down to Miss West's, and see what she's got. Nothin''s to be gained by
waitin'!"
When they walked out through the hall together, Lucindy cast a quick
and eager glance into the parlor. She almost hoped Claribel had
unhooked the glass prisms from the lamp, and left them scattered on the
floor, or that she had broken the precious shells, more than half a
century old. She wanted to put her arms round her, and say fondly,
"Never mind!" But the room was in perfect order, and little Claribel
waited for them, conscious of a propriety unstained by guilt.
"Lucindy," said Mrs. Wilson, who also had used her eyes, "where's your
father's canes? They al'ays stood right here in this corner."
Lucindy flushed.
"Jane," she whispered, "don't you tell, but I--I buried 'em! I felt
somehow as if I couldn't--do the things I wanted to, if they set there
just the same."
Jane could only look at her in silence.
"Well," she said, at length, "it takes all kinds o' people to make a
world!"
That, at least, was non-committal.
She left the shoppers at her own gate, and they walked on together.
Lucindy was the more excited of the two.
"Now, Claribel," she was saying, "you remember you can choose any hat
you see, and have it trimmed just the way you like. What color do you
set by most?"
"I don't know," said Claribel. "Blue, I guess."
"Well, there's a hat there all trimmed with it. I see it this mornin'.
Real bright, pretty blue! I believe there was some little noddin'
yellow flowers on it, too. But mind you don't take it unless you like
it."
Miss West's shop occupied the front room of her house, a small yellow
one on a side street. The upper part of the door was of glass, and it
rang a bell as it opened. Lucindy had had very few occasions for going
there, and she entered with some importance. The bell clanged; and Miss
West, a portly woman, came in from the back room, whisking off her
apron in haste.
"Oh, that you, Miss Lucindy?" she called. "I've just been fryin' some
riz doughnuts. Well, how'd the flowers suit?"
"I haven't quite made up my mind," said Lucindy, trying to speak with
the dignity befitting her quest. "I just come in with little Claribel
here. She's goin' to have a new hat, and her grandma said she might
come down with me to pick it out. You've got some all trimmed, I
believe?"
Miss West opened a drawer in an old-fashioned bureau.
"Yes," she said, "I've got two my niece trimmed for me before she went
to make her visit to Sudleigh. One's blue. I guess you've seen that.
Then there's a nice white one. The 'Weekly' says white's all the go,
this year."
She took out two little hats, and balanced them on either hand. The
blue one was strongly accented. The ribbon was very broad and very
bright, and its nodding cowslips gleamed in cheerful yellow.
"Ain't that a beauty?" whispered Lucindy close to the little girl's
ear. "But there! Don't you have it unless you'd rather. There's lots of
other colors, you know; pink, and all sorts.".
Claribel put out one little brown hand, and timidly touched the other
hat.
"This one," she said.
It was very plain, and very pretty; yet there were no flowers, and the
modest white ribbon lay smoothly about the crown. Miss Lucindy gave a
little cry, as if some one had hurt her.
"O!" she exclaimed, "O Claribel! you sure?" Claribel was sure.
"She's got real good taste," put in Miss West. "Shall I wrop it up?"
"Yes," answered Lucindy, drearily. "We'll take it. But I suppose if she
should change, her mind before she wore it--" she added, with some
slight accession of hope.
"Oh, yes, bring it right back. I'll give her another choice."
But Claribel was not likely to change her mind. On the way home, she
walked sedately, and carried her hat with the utmost care. At her
grandmother's gate, she looked up shyly, and spoke of her own accord,--
"Thank you, ever so much!"
Then she fled up the path, her bundle waving before her. That, at
least, looked like spontaneous joy, and the sight of it soothed Lucindy
into a temporary resignation; yet she was very much disappointed.
The next afternoon, Tiverton saw a strange and wondrous sight. The
Crane boy led Old Buckskin, under an ancient saddle, into Miss
Lucindy's yard, and waited there before her door. The Crane boy had
told all his mates, and they had told their fathers and mothers, so
that a wild excitement flew through the village like stubble fire,
stirring the inhabitants to futile action. "It's like the 'clipse,"
said one of the squad of children collected at the gate, "only they
ain't no smoked glass." Some of the grown people "made an errand" for
the sake of being in the street, but those who lived near-by simply
mounted guard at their doors and windows. The horse had not waited long
when Miss Lucindy appeared before the gaze of an eager world. Her face
had wakened into a keen excitement.
"Here!" she called to the Crane boy's brother, who was lingering in the
background grinding his toes on the gravel and then lifting them in
sudden agony, "you take this kitchen chair and set it down side of him,
so't I can climb up."
The chair was placed, and Miss Lucindy essayed to climb, but vainly.
"Ann!" she called, "you bring me that little cricket."
Ann Toby appeared unwillingly, the little cricket in her hand. She was
a tall, red-haired woman, who bore the reputation of being willing to
be "tore into inch pieces" for Miss Lucindy. Her freckled face burned
red with shame and anger.
"For Heaven's sake, you come back into the house!" she whispered, with
tragic meaning. "You jest give it up, an' I'll scatter them boys. Sassy
little peeps! what are they starin' round here for, I'd like to know!"
But Lucindy had mounted the cricket with much agility, and seated
herself on the horse's back. Once she slipped off; but the Crane boy
had the address to mutter, "Put your leg over the horn!" and, owing to
that timely advice, she remained. But he was to experience the
gratitude of an unfeeling world; for Ann Toby, in the irritation of one
tried beyond endurance, fell upon him and cuffed him soundly. And Mrs.
Crane, passing the gate at that moment, did not blame her.
"My! it seems a proper high place to set," remarked Lucindy, adjusting
herself. "Well, I guess I sha'n't come to no harm. I'll ride round to
your place, boys, when I get through, and leave the horse there." She
trotted out of the yard amid the silence of the crowd.
The spectacle was too awesome to be funny, even to the boys; it seemed
to Tiverton strangely like the work of madness. Only one little boy
recovered himself sufficiently to ran after her and hold up a switch he
had been peeling.
"Here!" he piped up, daringly, "you want a whip."
Lucindy smiled upon him benignly.
"I never did believe in abusin' dumb creatur's," she said, "but I'm
much obliged." She took the switch and rode on.
Now Mrs. Wilson had heard the rumor too late to admit of any
interference on her part, and she was staying indoors, suffering an
agony of shame, determined not to countenance the scandalous sight by
her presence. But as she sat "hooking-in," the window was darkened, and
involuntarily she lifted her eyes. There was the huge bulk of a horse,
and there was Lucindy. The horsewoman's cheeks were bright red with
exercise and joy. She wore a black dress and black mitts. Her little
curls were flying; and oh, most unbearable of all! they were surmounted
by a bonnet bearing no modest sheaf of wheat, but blossoming brazenly
out into lavender roses. The spectacle was too much for Mrs. Wilson.
She dropped her hook, and flew to the door.
"Well, I've known a good deal, fust an' last, but I never see the beat
o' this! Lucindy, where'd you git that long dress?"
"It's my cashmere," answered Lucindy, joyously. "I set up last night to
lengthen it down."
"Well, I should think you did! Lothrop!"
Her husband had been taking a nap in the sitting-room, and he came out,
rubbing his eyes. Mrs. Wilson could not speak for curiosity. She
watched him with angry intentness. She wondered if he would take
Lucindy's part now! But Lothrop only moved forward and felt at the
girth.
"You know you want to pull him up if he stumbles," he said; "but I
guess he won't. He was a stiddy horse, fifteen year ago."
"Lothrop," began his wife, "do you want to be made a laughin'-stock in
this town--"
"I guess if I've lived in a place over sixty year an' hil' my own, I
can yet," said Lothrop, quietly. "You don't want to ride too long,
Lucindy. You'll be lame to-morrer."
"I didn't suppose 'twould jounce so," said Lucindy; "but it's proper
nice. I don't know what 'twould be on a real high horse. Well,
good-by!" She turned the horse about, and involuntarily struck him with
her little switch. Old Buckskin broke into a really creditable trot,
and they disappeared down the village street. Lothrop sensibly took his
way down to the shop while his wife was recovering her powers of
speech; and for that, Jane herself mentally commended him.
Lucindy kept on out of the village and along the country road. The
orioles were singing in the elms, and the leaves still wore the gloss
of last night's shower. The earth smiled like a new creation, very
green and sweet, and the horse's hoofs made music in Lucindy's mind. It
seemed to her that she had lost sight both of youth and crabbed age;
the pendulum stood still in the jarring machinery of time, the hands
pointing to a moment of joy. She was quite happy, as any of us may be
who seek the fellowship of dancing leaves and strong, bright sun. She
turned into a cross-road, hardly wider than a lane, and bordered with
wild rose and fragrant raspberry. There was but one house here,--a
little, time-stained cottage, where Tom McNeil lived with his wife and
five children. Perhaps these were the happiest people in all Tiverton,
though no one but themselves had ever found it out. Tom made shoes in a
desultory fashion, and played the fiddle earnestly all winter, and in
summer, peddled essences and medicines from a pack strapped over his
shoulders. Sometimes in the warm summer weather Molly, his wife, and
all the children tramped with him, so that the house was closed for
weeks at a time,--a thing very trying to the conventional sensibilities
of Tiverton. Tom might have had a "stiddy job o' work" with some of the
farmers; Molly might have helped about the churning and ironing. But
no! they were like the birds, nesting happily in summer, and drawing
their feet under their feathers when the snow drifted in. The
children--lank, wild-eyed creatures--each went to school a few months,
and then stopped, unable to bear the cross of confinement within four
dull walls. They could not write; it was even rumored that they had
never learned to tell time. And, indeed, what good would it have done
them when the clock was run down and stood always at the hour of noon?
But they knew where thoroughwort grows, and the wholesome goldthread;
they gathered cress and peppermint, and could tell the mushroom from
its noisome kindred. Day after day, they roamed the woods for simples
to be distilled by the father, and made into potent salves and
ointments for man and the beasties he loved better.
When Lucindy came in sight of the house, she was glad to find it open.
She had scarcely gone so far afield for years, and the reports
concerning this strange people had reached her only by hearsay. She
felt like a discoverer. In close neighborhood to the house stood a
peculiar structure,--the half-finished dwelling McNeil had attempted,
in a brief access of ambition, to build with his own hands. The
chimney, slightly curving and very ragged at the top, stood foolishly
above the unfinished lower story. Lucindy remembered hearing how Tom
had begun the chimney first, and built the house round it. But the
fulfilment of his worldly dream never came to pass; and perhaps it was
quite as well, for thereby would the unity of his existence have been
destroyed. He might have lived up to the house; he might even have
grown into a proud man, and accumulated dollars. But the bent of birth
was too much for him. A day dawned, warm and entrancing; he left his
bricks and boards in the midst, and the whole family went joyfully off
on a tramp. To Tiverton, the unfinished house continued to serve as an
immortal joke, and Tom smiled as broadly as any. He always said he
couldn't finish it; he had mislaid the plan.
A little flower-garden bloomed between the two houses, and on the
grass, by one of its clove-pink borders, sat a woman, rocking back and
forth in an ancient chair, and doing absolutely nothing. She was young,
and seemed all brown; for her eyes were dark, and her skin had been
tanned to the deep, rich tint sweeter to some eyes than pure roses and
milk. Lucindy guided Buckskin up to the gate, and Molly McNeil looked
up and smiled without moving.
"How do?" she said, in a soft, slow voice. "Won't you come in?"
Lucindy was delighted. It was long since she had met a stranger.
"Well, I would," she answered, "but I don't know as I can get down.
This is new business to me."
"Ellen," called Mrs. McNeil, "you bring out somethin' to step on!"
A little girl appeared with a yellow kitchen chair. Mrs. McNeil rose,
carried it outside the gate, and planted it by Buckskin's side.
"There!" she said, "you put your hand on my shoulder and step down. It
won't tip. I've got my knee on it."
Lucindy alighted, with some difficulty, and drew a long breath.
"I'll hitch him," said Molly McNeil. "You go in and sit down in that
chair, and Ellen'll bring you a drink of water."
Ellen was barelegged and barefooted. Her brown hair hung over her dark
eyes in a pleasant tangle. Her even teeth were white, and her lips red.
There was no fault nor blemish in her little face; and when she had
brought the dipper full of water, and stood rubbing one foot against
its neighboring leg, Lucindy thought she had never seen anything so
absolutely bewitching. Molly had hitched the horse, in manly and
knowing fashion, and then seated herself on the kitchen chair beside
Lucindy; but the attitude seemed not to suit her, and presently she
rose and lay quietly down at full length on the grass. She did it quite
as a matter of course, and her visitor thought it looked very pleasant;
possibly she would have tried it herself if she had not been so
absorbed in another interest. She was watching the little girl, who was
running into the house with the dipper.
"Ain't she complete!" she said. "Your oldest?"
"She ain't mine at 'all." Mrs. McNeil rose on one elbow, and began
chewing a grass stem.
It was very restful to Lucindy to see some one who was too much
interested in anything, however trivial, to be interested in her. "You
know about the Italian that come round with the hand-organ last month?
He was her father. Well, he died,--fell off a mow one night,--and the
town sold the hand-organ and kept Ellen awhile on the farm. But she run
away, and my boys found her hidin' in the woods starved most to death.
So I took her in, and the overseer said I was welcome to her. She's a
nice little soul."
"She's proper good-lookin'!" Lucindy's eyes were sparkling.
"She don't look as well as common to-day, for the boys went off
plummin' without her. She was asleep, and I didn't want to call her.
She had a cryin' spell when she waked up, but I didn't know which way
they'd gone."
Ellen came wandering round the side of the house, and Lucindy crooked a
trembling finger at her.
"Come here!" she called. "You come here and see me!"
Ellen walked up to her with a steady step, and laid one little brown
hand on Lucindy's knee. But the old Judge's daughter drew the child
covetously to her lap.
"Look here," she said, "should you like to go home and spend a week
with me?"
The little maid threw back her tangle of curls, and looked Lucindy
squarely in the eyes.
"Yes," she answered.
Lucindy's grasp tightened round her.
"How should you like to live with me?"
The child touched her little breast inquiringly with one finger.
"Me?" She pointed over to Mrs. McNeil, who lay listening and stretching
her limbs in lazy comfort. "Leave _her_?" And then, gravely, "No; she's
good to me."
Lucindy's heart sank.
"You could come over to see her," she pleaded, "and I'd come too. We'd
all go plummin' together. I should admire to! And we'd have parties,
and ask 'em all over. What say?"
The child sat straight and serious, one warm hand clinging to Lucindy's
slender palm. But her eyes still sought the face of her older friend.
Molly McNeil rose to a sitting posture. She took the straw from her
mouth, and spoke with the happy frankness of those who have no fear
because they demand nothing save earth and sky room.
"I know who you are," she said to Lucindy. "You're left well off, and I
guess you could bring up a child, give you your way. We're as poor as
poverty! You take her, if she'll go. Ellen, she's a nice lady; you
better say 'yes.'"
Lucindy was trembling all over.
"You come, dear," she urged, piteously. "You come and live with me."
Ellen thought a moment more. Then she nodded.
"I'll come," said she.
Lucindy could not wait.
"I'll send a wagon over after her to-night." She had put Ellen down, and
was rising tremblingly. "I won't stop to talk no more now, but you come
and see me, won't you? Now, if you'll help me mount up--there! My! it's
higher 'n 'twas before! Well, I'll see you again." She turned Old
Buckskin's head away from the fence; then she pulled him fiercely round
again. "Here!" she called, "what if she should jump up behind me and
come now!"
Mrs. McNeil, being the thrall only of the earth, saw no reason, why a
thing should not be done as one wanted it. She lifted; the child and
set her on the horse behind Lucindy. And so, in this strange fashion,
the two entered the high street of Tiverton.
A few weeks after this, Mrs. Wilson and Lucindy went together to the
little millinery shop. Ellen trotted between them, taking excursions
into the street, now and again, in pursuit of butterflies or
thistledown. When they entered, Miss West, who had seen their approach
from her position at the ironing-board, came forward with a gay little
hat in her hand. It was trimmed with pink, and a wreath of tiny white
flowers clung about the crown. She set it on Ellen's curls; and Ellen,
her face quite radiant, looked up at Miss Lucindy for approval. But
that lady was gazing anxiously at Mrs. Wilson.
"Now, there ain't anything unsuitable about that, is there?" she asked.
"I know, it's gay, and I want it to be gay. I can tell about _that_!
But is it all right? Is it such as you'd be willin' to have Claribel
wear?"
"It's a real beauty!" Mrs. Wilson answered, cordially; but she could
not refrain from adding, while Miss West was doing up the hat, and
Ellen surreptitiously tried on a black poke bonnet, "Now, don't you
spile her, Lucindy! She's a nice little girl as ever was, but you ain't
no more fit to bring up a child than the cat!"
Lucindy did not hear. She was smiling at Ellen, and Ellen smiled back
at her. They thought they knew.
TOLD IN THE POORHOUSE.
"Le' me see," said old Sally Flint, "was it fifty year ago, or was it
on'y forty? Some'er's betwixt 1825 an' '26 it must ha' been when they
were married, an' 'twas in '41 he died."
The other old women in the Poorhouse sitting-room gathered about her.
Old Mrs. Forbes, who dearly loved a story, unwound a length of yarn
with peculiar satisfaction, and put her worn shoe up to the fire.
Everybody knew when Sally Flint was disposed to open her unwritten book
of folk-tales for the public entertainment; and to-day, having tied on
a fresh apron and bound a new piece of red flannel about her wrist, she
was, so to speak, in fighting trim. The other members of the Poorhouse
had scanty faith in that red flannel. They were aware that Sally had
broken her wrist, some twenty years before, and that the bandage was
consequently donned on days when her "hand felt kind o' cold," or was
"burnin' like fire embers;" but there was an unspoken suspicion that it
really served as token of her inability to work whenever she felt bored
by the prescribed routine of knitting and sweeping. No one had dared
presume on that theory, however, since the day when an untactful
overseer had mentioned it, to be met by such a stream of unpleasant
reminiscence concerning his immediate ancestry that he had retreated in
dismay, and for a week after, had served extra pieces of pie to his
justly offended charge.
"They were married in June," continued Sally. "No, 'twa'n't; 'twas the
last o' May. May thirty-fust--no, May 'ain't but thirty days, has it?"
"'Thirty days hath September,'" quoted Mrs. Giles, with importance.
"That's about all I've got left o' my schoolin', Miss Flint. May's got
thirty-one days, sure enough."