set so much by one Another. Folks would ha' talked, an' I guess Rosy
wouldn't ha' stood that, even afore they were engaged. Rosy may not
like corn-fodder herself, any more 'n t'other dog did, but she ain't
goin' to see other noses put into't without snappin' at 'em."
"Well, it's all over," said Molly, drearily. "It 'ain't been hard for
me stayin' round as I've done, an' sewin' for my board; but it's seemed
pretty tough to think of Elvin livin' in that little shanty of Caleb's
an' doin' for himself. I never could see why he didn't board somewheres
decent."
"Wants to save his six hunderd dollars, to go out West an' start in the
furniture business," said Dilly, succinctly. "Come, Molly, what say to
walkin' over to Sudleigh Cattle-Show?"
Molly threw aside her listless mood like a garment.
"Will you?" she cried. "Oh, I'd like to! You know I'm sewin' for Mis'
Eli Pike; an' they asked me to go, but I knew she'd fill up the seat so
I should crowd 'em out of house an' home. Will you, Dilly?"
"You wait till I git suthin' or other to put over my head," said Dilly,
rising with cheerful decision. "Here, you gi' me that cake! I'll tie it
up in a nice clean piece o' table-cloth, an' then we'll take along a
few eggs, so 't we can trade 'em off for bread an' cheese. You jest
pull in my sheets, an' shet the winder, while I do it. Like as not
there'll be a shower this arternoon."
When the little gate closed behind them, Molly felt eagerly excited,
as, if she were setting forth for a year's happy wandering. Dilly knew
the ways of the road as well as the wood. She was, as usual, in light
marching order, a handkerchief tied over her smooth braids; another,
slung on a stick over her shoulder, contained their luncheon and the
eggs for barter. All her movements were buoyant and free, like those of
a healthy animal let loose in pleasant pastures. She walked so lightly
that the eggs in the handkerchief were scarcely stirred.
"See that little swampy patch!" she said, stopping when they had
rounded the curve in the road. "A week or two ago, that was all alive
with redbud flowers. I dunno the right name on 'em, an' I don't care.
Redbirds, I call 'em. I went over there, one day, an' walked along
between the hummocks, spush! spush! You won't find a nicer feelin' than
that, wherever ye go. Take off your shoes an' stockin's, an' wade into
a swamp! Warm, coarse grass atop! Then warm, black mud, an' arter that,
a layer all nice an' cold that goes down to Chiny, fur's I know! That
was the day I meant to git some thoroughwort over there, to dry, but I
looked at the redbird flowers so long I didn't have time, an' I
never've been sence."
Molly laughed out, with a pretty, free ripple in her voice.
"You're always sayin' that, Dilly! You never have time for anything but
doin' nothin'!"
A bright little sparkle came into Dilly's eyes, and she laughed, too.
"Why, that's what made me give' up nussin' two year ago," she said,
happily. "I wa'n't havin' no time at all. I couldn't live my proper
life. I al'ays knew I should come to that, so I'd raked an' scraped,
an' put into the bank, till I thought I'd got enough to buy me a mite
o' flour while I lived, an' a pine coffin arter I died; an' then I jest
set up my Ebenezer I'd be as free's a bird. Freer, I guess I be, for
they have to scratch pretty hard, come cold weather, an' I bake me a
'tater, an' then go clippin' out over the crust, lookin' at the bare
twigs. Oh, it's complete! If I could live this way, I guess a thousand
years'd be a mighty small dose for me. Look at that goldenrod, over
there by the stump! That's the kind that's got the most smell."
Molly broke one of the curving plumes.
"I don't see as it smells at all," she said, still sniffing delicately.
"Le'me take it! Why, yes, it does, too! Everything smells _some_.
Oftentimes it's so faint it's more like a feelin' than a smell. But
there! you ain't a witch, as I be!"
"I wish you wouldn't say that!" put in Molly, courageously. "You make
people think you are."
"Law, then, let 'em!" said Dilly, with a kindly indulgence. "It don't
do them no hurt, an' it gives me more fun'n the county newspaper.
They'd ruther I'd say I was a witch'n tell 'em I've got four eyes an'
eight ears where they 'ain't but two. I tell ye, there's a good deal
missed when ye stay to home makin' pies, an' a good deal ye can learn
if ye live out-door. Why, there's Tolman's cows! He dunno why they dry
up; but I do. He, sends that little Davie with 'em, that don't have no
proper playtime; an' Davie gallops 'em all the way to pastur', so't he
can have a minute to fish in the brook. An' then he gallops 'em home
ag'in, because he's stole a piece out o' the arternoon. I ketched him
down there by the brook, one day, workin' away with a bent pin, an' the
next mornin' I laid a fish-hook on the rock, an' hid in the woods to
see what he'd say. My! I 'guess Jonah wa'n't more tickled when he set
foot on dry land. Here comes the wagons! There's the Poorhouse team
fust, an' Sally Flint settin' up straighter 'n a ramrod. An' there's
Heman an' Roxy! She don't look a day older'n twenty-five. Proper nice
folks, all on 'em, but they make me kind o' homesick jest because they
_be_ folks. They do look so sort o' common in their bunnits an' veils,
an' I keep thinkin' o' little four-legged creatur's, all fur!" The
Tiverton folk saluted them, always cordially, yet each after his kind.
They liked Dilly as a product all their own, but one to be partaken of
sparingly, like some wild, intoxicating root.
They loved her better at home, too, than at Sudleigh Fair. It was like
a betrayal of their fireside secrets, to see her there in her
accustomed garb; so slight a concession to propriety would have lain in
her putting on a bonnet and shawl!
As they neared Sudleigh town, the road grew populous with carriages and
farm-wagons, "step and step," not all from Tiverton way, but gathered
in from the roads converging here. Men were walking up and down the
market street, crying their whips, their toy balloons, and a multitude
of cheaper gimcracks.
"Forty miles from home! forty miles from home!" called one, more
imaginative than the rest. "And no place to lay my head! That's why I'm
selling these little whips here to-day, a stranger in a strange land.
Buy one! buy one! and the poor pilgrim'll have a supper and a bed! Keep
your money in your pocket, and he's a wanderer on the face of the
earth!"
Dilly, the fearless in her chosen wilds, took a fold of Molly's dress,
and held it tight.
"You s'pose that's so?" she whispered. "Oh, dear! I 'ain't got a mite
o' money, on'y these six eggs. Oh, why didn't he stay to home, if he's
so possessed to sleep under cover? What does anybody leave their home
_for_, if they've got one?"
But Molly put up her head, and walked sturdily on.
"Don't you worry," she counselled, in an undertone. "It don't mean any
more 'n it does when folks say they're sellin' at a sacrifice. I guess
they expect to make enough, take it all together."
Dilly walked on, quite bewildered. She had lost her fine, joyous
carriage; her shoulders were bent, and her feet shuffled, in a
discouraged fashion, over the unlovely bricks. Molly kept the lead,
with unconscious superiority.
"Le's go into the store now," she said, "an' swap off the eggs. You'll
be joggled in this crowd, an' break 'em all to smash. Here, you le' me
have your handkerchief! I'll see to it all." She kept the handkerchief
in her hand, after their slight "tradin'" had been accomplished; and
Dilly, too dispirited to offer a word, walked meekly about after her.
The Fair was held, according to ancient custom, in the town-hall, of
which the upper story had long been given over to Sudleigh Academy.
Behind the hall lay an enormous field, roped in now, and provided with
pens and stalls, where a great assemblage of live-stock lowed, and
grunted, and patiently chewed the cud.
"Le's go in there fust," whispered Dilly. "I sha'n't feel so strange
there as I do with folks. I guess if the four-footed creatur's can
stan' it, I can. Pretty darlin'!" she added, stopping before a heifer
who had ceased eating and was looking about her with a mild and
dignified gaze. Dilly eagerly sought out a stick, and began to scratch
the delicate head. "Pretty creatur'! Smell o' her breath, Molly! See
her nose, all wet, like pastur' grass afore day! Now, if I didn't want
to live by myself, I'd like to curl me up in a stall, 'side o' her."
"'Mandy, you an' Kelup come here!" called Aunt Melissa Adams. She
loomed very prosperous, over the way, in her new poplin and her
lace-trimmed cape. "Jest look at these roosters! They've got spurs on
their legs as long's my darnin'-needle. What under the sun makes 'em
grow so! An' ain't they the nippin'est little creatur's you ever see?"
"They're fightin'-cocks," answered Caleb, tolerantly.
"Fightin'-cocks? You don't mean to tell me they're trained up for
that?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Well, I never heard o' such a thing in a Christian land! never! Whose
be they? I'll give him a piece o' my mind, if I live another minute!"
"You better let other folks alone," said Caleb, stolidly.
"'Mandy," returned Aunt Melissa, in a portentous undertone, "be you
goin' to stan' by an' see your own aunt spoke to as if she was the dirt
under your feet?"
Amanda had once in her life asserted herself at a crucial moment, and
she had never seen cause to regret it. Now she "spoke out" again. She
made her slender neck very straight and stiff, and her lips set
themselves firmly over the words,--
"I guess Caleb won't do you no hurt, Aunt Melissa. He don't want you
should make yourself a laughin'-stock, nor I don't either. There's
Uncle Hiram, over lookin' at the pigs. I guess he don't see you. Caleb,
le's we move on!"
Aunt Melissa stood looking after them, a mass of quivering wrath.
"Well, I must say!" she retorted to the empty air. "If I live, I must
say!"
Dilly took her placid companion by the arm, and hurried her on. Human
jangling wore sadly upon her; under such maddening onslaught she was
not incapable of developing "nerves." They stopped before a stall where
another heifer stood, chewing her cud, and looking away into remembered
pastures.
"Oh, see!" said Molly, "'Price $500'! Do you b'lieve it?"
"Well, well!" came Mrs. Eli Pike's ruminant voice from the crowd. "I'm
glad I don't own that creatur'! I shouldn't sleep nights if I had five
hunderd dollars in cow."
"Tain't five hunderd dollars," said Hiram Cole, elbowing his way to the
front. "'Tain't p'inted right, that's all. P'int off two ciphers--"
"Five dollars!" snickered a Crane boy, diving through the crowd, and
proceeding to stand on his head in a cleared space beyond. "That's wuth
less'n Miss Lucindy's hoss!"
Hiram Cole considered again, one lean hand stroking his cheek.
"Five--fifty--" he announced. "Well, I guess _'tis_ five hunderd, arter
all! Anybody must want to invest, though, to put all their income into
perishable cow-flesh!"
"You look real tired," whispered Molly. "Le's come inside, an' perhaps
we can set down."
The old hall seemed to have donned strange carnival clothes,
for a mystic Saturnalia. It was literally swaddled in
bedquilts,--tumbler-quilts, rising-suns, Jacob's-ladders, log-cabins,
and the more modern and altogether terrible crazy-quilt. There were
square yards of tidies, on wall and table, and furlongs of home-knit
lace. Dilly looked at this product of the patient art of woman with a
dispirited gaze.
"Seems a kind of a waste of time, don't it?" she said, dreamily, "when
things are blowin' outside? I wisht I could see suthin' made once to
look as handsome as green buds an' branches. Law, dear, now jest turn
your eyes away from them walls, an' see the tables full of apples! an'
them piles o' carrots, an' cabbages an' squashes over there! Well,
'tain't so bad if you can look at things the sun's ever shone on, no
matter if they be under cover." She wandered up and down the tables,
caressing the rounded outlines of the fruit with her loving gaze. The
apples, rich and fragrant, were a glory and a joy. There were great
pound sweetings, full of the pride of mere bigness; long purple
gilly-flowers, craftily hiding their mealy joys under a sad-colored
skin; and the Hubbardston, a portly creature quite unspoiled by the
prosperity of growth, and holding its lovely scent and flavor like an
individual charm. There was the Bald'in, stand-by old and good as
bread; and there were all the rest. We know them, we who have courted
Pomona in her fair New England orchards.
Near the fancy-work table sat Mrs. Blair, of the Old Ladies' Home, on a
stool she had wrenched from an unwilling boy, who declared it belonged
up in the Academy, whence he had brought it "to stan' on" while he
drove a nail. And though he besought her to rise and let him return it,
since he alone must be responsible, the old lady continued sitting in
silence. At length she spoke,--
"Here I be, an' here I'm goin' to set till the premiums is tacked on.
Them pinballs my neighbor, Mis' Dyer, made with her own hands, an'
she's bent double o' rheumatiz. An' I said I'd bring 'em for her, an'
I'd set by an' see things done fair an' square."
"There, Mrs. Blair, don't you worry," said Mrs. Mitchell, a director of
the Home, putting a hand on the martial and belligerent shoulder,
"Don't you mind if she doesn't get a premium. I'll buy the pinballs,
and that will do almost as well."
"My! if there ain't goin' to be trouble between Mary Lamson an'
Sereno's Hattie, I'll miss my guess!" said a matron, with an
appreciative wag of her purple-bonneted head. "They've either on 'em
canned up more preserves 'n Tiverton an' Sudleigh put together, an'
Mary's got I dunno what all among 'em!--squash, an' dandelion, an'
punkin with lemon in't. That's steppin' acrost the bounds, _I_ say! If
she gits a premium for puttin' up gardin-sass, I'll warrant there'll be
a to-do. An' Hattie'll make it!"
"I guess there won't be no set-to about such small potaters," said Mrs.
Pike, with dignity. Her broad back had been unrecognized by the herald,
careless in her haste. "Hattie's ready an' willin' to divide the
premium, if't comes to her, an' I guess Mary'd be, put her in the same
place."
"My soul an' body!" exclaimed another, trudging up and waving a large
palmleaf fan. "Well, there, Rosanna Pike! Is that you? Excuse me all,
if I don't stop to speak round the circle, I'm so put to't with Passon
True's carryin's on. You know he's been as mad as hops over Sudleigh
Cattle-Show, reg'lar as the year come round, because there's a raffle
for a quilt, or suthin'. An' now he's come an' set up a sort of a stall
over t'other side the room, an' folks thinks he's tryin' to git up a
revival. I dunno when I've seen John so stirred. He says we hadn't
ought to be made a laughin'-stock to Sudleigh, Passon or no Passon. An'
old Square Lamb says--"
But the fickle crowd waited to hear no more. With one impulse, it
surged over to the other side of the hall, where Parson True, standing
behind a table brought down from the Academy, was saying solemnly,--
"Let us engage in prayer!"
The whispering ceased; the titters of embarrassment were stilled, and
mothers tightened their grasp on little hands, to emphasize the change
of scene from light to graver hue. Some of the men looked lowering; one
or two strode out of doors. They loved Parson True, but the Cattle-Show
was all their own, and they resented even a ministerial innovation. The
parson was a slender, wiry man, with keen blue eyes, a serious mouth,
and an overtopping forehead, from which the hair was always brushed
straight back. He called upon the Lord, with passionate fervor, to
"bless this people in all their outgoings and comings-in, and to keep
their feet from paths where His blessing could not attend them."
"Is that the raffle, mother?" whispered the smallest Crane boy; and his
mother promptly administered a shake, for the correction of misplaced
curiosity.
Then Parson True opened his eyes on his somewhat shamefaced flock and
their neighbor townsmen, and began to preach. It was good to be there,
he told them, only as it was good to be anywhere else, in the spirit of
God. Judgment might overtake them there, as it might at home, in house
or field. Were they prepared? He bent forward over the table, his slim
form trembling with the intensity of gathering passion. He appealed to
each one personally with that vibratory quality of address peculiar to
him, wherein it seemed that not only his lips but his very soul
challenged the souls before him. One after another joined the outer
circle, and faces bent forward over the shoulders in front, with that
strange, arrested expression inevitably born when, on the flood of
sunny weather, we are reminded how deep the darkness is within the
grave.
"Let every man say to himself, 'Thou, God, seest me!'" reiterated the
parson. "Thou seest into the dark corners of my heart. What dost Thou
see, O God? What dost Thou see?"
Elvin and Rosa had drawn near with the others. She smiled a little, and
the hard bloom on her cheeks had not wavered. No one looked at them,
for every eye dwelt on the preacher; and though Elvin's face changed
from the healthy certainty of life and hope to a green pallor of
self-recognition, no one noticed. Consequently, the general surprise
culminated in a shock when he cried out, in a loud voice, "God be
merciful! God be merciful! I ain't fit to be with decent folks! I'd
ought to be in jail!" and pushed his way through the crowd until he
stood before the parson, facing him with bowed head, as if he found in
the little minister the vicegerent of God. He had kept Rosa's hand in a
convulsive grasp, and he drew her with him into the eye of the world.
She shrank back, whimpering feebly; but no one took note of her. The
parson knew exactly what, to do when the soul travailed and cried
aloud. He stretched forth his hands, and put them on the young man's
shoulders.
"Come, poor sinner, come!" he urged, in a voice of wonderful melting
quality. "Come! Here is the throne of grace! Bring your burden, and
cast it down."
The words roused Elvin, or possibly the restraining touch. He started
back.
"I can't!" he cried out, stridently. "I can't yet! I can't! I can't!"
Still leading Rosa, who was crying now in good earnest, he turned, and
pushed his way out of the crowd. But once outside that warm human
circuit, Rosa broke loose from him. She tried to speak for his ear
alone, but her voice strove petulantly through her sobs:
"Elvin Drew, I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself! You've made
me ridiculous before the whole town, and I never'll speak to you again
as long as I live. If I hadn't stayed with you every minute, I should
think you'd been drinking, and I believe to my soul you have!" She
buried her face in her handkerchief, and stumbled over to a table where
Laura Pettis was standing, open-eyed with amazement, and the two
clasped each other, while Rosa cried on. Elvin only looked about him,
in a bewildered fashion, when the warm hand was wrenched away; then,
realizing that he was quite alone, his head bent under a deeper
dejection. He seemed unable to move from the spot, and stood there
quite stupidly, until murmurs of "What's the matter of him?" came from
the waiting crowd, and Parson True himself advanced, with hands again
outstretched. But Dilly Joyce forestalled the parson. She, too came
forward, in her quick way, and took Elvin firmly by the arm.
"Here, dear," she said, caressingly, "you come along out-doors with
us!"
Elvin turned, still hanging his head, and the three (for little Molly
had come up on the other side, trying to stand very tall to show her
championship) walked out of the hall together. Dilly had ever a quick
eye for green, growing things, and she remembered a little corner of
the enclosure, where one lone elm-tree stood above a bank. Thither she
led him, with an assured step; and when they had reached the shadow,
she drew him forward, and said, still tenderly,--
"There, dear, you set right down here an' think it over. We'll stay
with ye. We'll never forsake ye, will we, Molly?"
Molly, who did not know what it was all about, had no need to know.
"Never!" she said, stanchly.
The three sat down there; and first the slow minutes, and then the
hours, went by. It had not been long before some one found out where
they were, and curious groups began to wander past, always in silence,
but eying them intently. Elvin sat with his head bent, looking fixedly
at a root of plantain; but Molly confronted the alien faces with a
haughty challenging stare, while her cheeks painted themselves ever a
deeper red. Dilly leaned happily back against the elm trunk, and dwelt
upon the fleece-hung sky; and her black eyes grew still calmer and more
content. She looked as if she had learned what things are lovely and of
good repute. When the town-clock struck noon, she brought forth their
little luncheon, and pressed it upon the others, with a nice
hospitality. Elvin shook his head, but Molly ate a trifle, for pride's
sake.
"You go an' git him a mite o' water," whispered Dilly, when they had
finished. "I would, but I dunno the ways o' this place. It'll taste
good to him."
Molly nodded, and hurried away; presently she came back, bearing a tin
cup, and Elvin drank, though he did not thank her.
In the early afternoon, Ebenezer Tolman came striding down between the
pens in ostentatious indignation. He was a tall, red-faced man, with a
large, loose mouth, and blond-gray whiskers, always parted and blowing
in the wind. He wore, with manifest pride, the reputation of being a
dangerous animal when roused. He had bought a toy whip, at little
Davie's earnest solicitation, and, lashing it suggestively against his
boot, he began speaking long before he reached the little group. The
lagging crowd of listeners paused, breathless, to lose no word.
"Look here, you! don't ye darken my doors ag'in, an' don't ye dast to
open your head to one o' my folks! We're done with ye! Do you hear?
We're done with ye! Rosy'll ride home with me to-night, an' she'll ride
with you no more!"
Elvin said nothing, though his brow contracted suddenly at Rosa's name.
Ebenezer was about to speak again; but the little parson came striding
swiftly up, his long coat flying behind him, and Tolman, who was a
church-member, in good and regular standing, moved on. But the parson
was routed, in his turn. Dilly rose, and, as some one afterwards said,
"clipped it right up to him."
"Don't you come now, dear," she advised him, in that persuasive voice
of hers. "No, don't you come now. He ain't ready. You go away, an' let
him set an' think it out." And the parson, why he knew not, turned
about, and went humbly back to his preaching in the hall.
The afternoon wore on, and it began to seem as if Elvin would never
break from his trance, and never speak. Finally, after watching him a
moment with her keen eyes, Dilly touched him lightly on the arm.
"The Tolmans have drove home," she said, quietly. "All on 'em. What if
you should git your horse, an' take Molly an' me along?"
Elvin came to his feet with a lurch. He straightened himself.
"I've got to talk to the parson," said he.
"So I thought," answered Dilly, with composure, "but 'tain't no place
here. You ask him to ride, an' let Miss Dorcas drive home alone. We
four'll stop at my house, an' then you can talk it over."
Elvin obeyed, like a child tired of his own way. When they packed
themselves into the wagon,--where Dilly insisted on sitting behind, to
make room,--the Tiverton and Sudleigh people stood about in groups, to
watch them. Hiram Cole came forward, just as Elvin took up the reins.
"Elvin," said he, in a cautious whisper, with his accustomed gesture of
scraping his cheek, "I've got suthin' to say to ye. Don't ye put no
money into Dan Forbes's hands. I've had a letter from brother 'Lisha,
out in Illinois, an' he says that business Dan wrote to you
about--well, there never was none! There ain't a stick o' furniture
made there! An' Dan's been cuttin' a dash lately with money he got
som'er's or other, an' he's gambled, an' I dunno what all, an' been
took up. An' now he's in jail. So don't you send him nothin'. I thought
I'd speak."
Elvin looked at him a moment, with a strange little smile dawning about
his mouth.
"That's all right," he said, quickly, and drove away.