"I'm coming in," I says.
They got up and said the different things usual. And I went and sat
down.
"You'll think in a minute," says I, "that I owe you both an apology. But
I don't."
"What for, dear?" Mrs. Bride says, and took my hand.
I'm an old woman and I felt like their mother and their grandmother.
But I felt a little frightened too.
"Is either of you sick?" I says.
Both of them says: "No, _I_ ain't." And both of them looked furtive and
quick at the other.
"Well," I says, "mebbe you don't know it. But to-day both of you has had
the symptoms of coming down with something. Something serious."
They looked at me, puzzled.
"I noticed it in Mrs. Bride this morning," I says, "when she came over
to my house. She looked white, and like all the life had gone out of
her. And she didn't sing once all day, nor do any work. Then I noticed
it in you to-night," I says to him, "when you walked looking down, and
came acrost the street lack-luster, and like nothing mattered so much as
it might have if it had mattered more. And so I done the natural thing.
I told each of you about something being the matter with the other one.
Something serious."
I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy
godmother that had something to give them--something priceless.
"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in,
it's just as sure a disease as--as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a
fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's
why I spoke out like I done."
I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful
thing I _had_ done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I
thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the
porch.
"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again.
I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again
evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat
reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes,
when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've
liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was
beginning in the world--and you were it."
All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them.
"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor,
you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded,
sharp.
It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They
both did laugh, hearty--and they looked at each other and laughed--I
noticed that. For two folks can _not_ look at each other and laugh and
stay mad same time. They can _not_ do it.
I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the
other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you
know it."
He put out his hand to her.
"I know it," he says.
"I know too," says she.
"Land!" says I, "you done that awful pretty. If I could give in that
graceful about anything I'd go round giving in whether I'd said anything
to be sorry for or not. I'd do it for a parlor trick."
"Was it hard, dear?" he says to her. And she put up her face to him just
as if I hadn't been there. I liked that. And it made me feel as much at
home as the clock.
He looked hard at me.
"Truly," he says, "didn't you mean she looked bad?"
"I meant just what I said," says I. "She did look bad. But she don't
now."
"And you made it all up," she says, "about something serious being the
matter with him--"
"Made it up!" says I. "No! But what ailed him this morning doesn't ail
him now. That's all. I s'pose you're both mad at me," I says, mournful.
He took a deep breath. "Not when I'm as thankful as this," he says.
"And me," she says. "And me."
I looked around the little garden of the Henslows' cottage, with the
moon behaving as if everything was going as smooth as glass--don't you
always notice that about the moon? What grand manners it's got? It
never lets on that anything is the matter.
He threw his arm across her shoulder in that gesture of comradeship that
is most the sweetest thing they do.
They got up and came over to me quick.
"We can't thank you--" she says.
"Shucks," I says. "I been wishing I had something to give you. I
couldn't think of anything but vegetables. Now mebbe I've give you
something after all--providing you don't go and forget it the very next
time," I says, wanting to scold them again.
They walked to the gate with me. The night was black and pale gold, like
a great soft drowsy bee.
"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much
about--that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If
people like you and me can't keep it--and be it--what hope is there for
the nations? We _are_ 'em!"
I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put
my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by
the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then
it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer
night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village.
"If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of
it--"