"Why do you ask a question like that? You know that nobody _The quilt of happiness; Creeping Jenny; and other New England stories

[Frontispiece: RUFUS LIKED TO WATCH THE DIMPLE COME AND GO IN JENNY'S

CHEEK.]

THE QUILT OF HAPPINESS

CREEPING JENNY

_And Other New England Stories_

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

AUTHOR OF

REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM,

MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS, ETC.

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CREEPING JENNY

THE AUTHOR'S READING AT BIXBY CENTRE

THE QUILT OF HAPPINESS

MATT MILLIKEN'S IMPROVEMENTS

CREEPING JENNY

Jenny Lane lived in a shabby little farmhouse on the Back Nippin'

Road that led from Riverboro to Moderation Village. The house was

small and compact and as neat as wax inside, for there Jenny was

Master of her fate and Captain of her soul.

Outside, alas, things were different. There was only the shell of a

former stable; the shed was tumbling down, and, when rain descended

in anything worse than gentle showers, Jenny's "indoors" looked like

a syndicate of milk pans, the leaks were so many and the dripping of

water so continuous.

It had been that way for three years, ever since the autumn that her

mother had died; and her father, who had followed his wife in

everything, followed her to the grave a month later.

His last words to his daughter had been: "I'm sorry to leave you

alone, Jenny, but I'd feel better if only I'd left you shingled.

Your mother and me was laying up and laying up ever since we got

married. We bought the house and field, paid off the mortgage and

gave you good schooling. We are furnished up as well as most o' the

neighbors, but when your mother's health got slim and my strength

begun to fail, we couldn't seem to get any farther than meat, drink,

and clothes for the three of us. The buildings couldn't be kept up,

that was the long and short of it."

"I know, I know, Father. Haven't I seen how hard you tried?"

"Now I'm on my death-bed," said the old man. "There's money enough

in the bank to buy the shingles, but God knows whether you can afford

to hire a man to put 'em on, labor's so scarce and so high."

"Don't worry, Father! I don't want your last days troubled with

fears about me and the roof. I'm twenty-two and I can earn my living

somehow, somewhere!"

"'Tisn't so easy to earn your living and keep your buildings shingled

too!" sighed her father.

"Maybe not, but I'll do it, in course of time!" said Jenny stoutly.

"I've heard enough, all my life, about shingles; also about

clapboards and paint. There isn't a young man in the neighborhood

that I'd want to go to church with, but if one of them should ever

chance to ask me to have him, I'd say: 'Shingle the house and I'll

say yes!'"

The girl's father smiled in spite of his pain as he whispered: "Don't

be too easy when it comes to bargaining, Jenny! Stiperlate first

quality cedar shingles, him to buy 'em as well as put 'em on! You're

worth it!"

"I shall never have a chance to 'stiperlate,'" thought Jenny, as she

went to the kitchen to make gruel; and, as a matter of fact, although

Jenny was good to look upon, and had an acre of timber land that

would bring in something, fifteen years later, no lovelorn swain had

offered to take her and her leaky house for better, for worse.

Later on there were other reasons why Jenny had no opportunity to

"stiperlate." The anxious and dreary months went on relentlessly

after her father's death, when new misfortunes descended upon her--an

accident--unskillful treatment, too long delayed--finally, the loss

of a foot--a crutch--eternal lameness. No wonder, as she dragged

herself about the house and little garden before she had had time to

accustom herself to her infirmity, that Riverboro sympathetically

called her "Creeping Jenny." Her nearest neighbor, Mrs. Day, a

widow, lived within easy walking distance (it seemed longer when you

limped!), and the village itself was only a quarter of a mile away,

so she did not lack an occasional call, the offer of an errand or

message, and often a drive to church, made wretched by the difficulty

of mounting and descending the wagon, with the added mortification of

limping into a rear pew.

Still she kept things together, sewing, crocheting, knitting, sending

braided and drawn-in rugs to Boston, selling the butter from the one

cow's milk and the hay from her eight-acre field.

She got "Pollyanna" from the village library and read it faithfully,

but she was rebellious and it did her no good. She allowed to

herself grudgingly that if she had lost a hand instead of a foot she

couldn't have earned her living; but she never got to the point of

being grateful that it was a foot, not a hand; she was unregenerate

and wanted both.

It was late November now, and even at the end of the month there was

a hint of Indian summer in the air, though a soft rain had been

falling for many hours. Jenny's side-door stood open; there was a

pale flicker of sun now and then and she was in the pantry wondering

if she could venture to take away some of the milk pans that dotted

the kitchen floor, all of them a third full of drippings from the

ceiling.

She heard the swinging of the garden gate and a knock made her take

her crutch and limp to the kitchen door.

A good-looking young man, fairly well clad, with his left sleeve

hanging in a strange sort of stiffness, raised a shabby felt hat with

his right hand and asked:

"Is this Miss Jenny Lane?"

"Yes, sir."

"They told me at the station you were minus a man and might have a

few days' work for me."

"Everybody in Riverboro is minus a man, and everybody needs a little

help. There's plenty to do here, for I live alone, but I have little

money to spend on keeping up the place."

The young man glanced in at the door with a boyish sort of

informality and asked: "Do you keep a dairy farm?"

Jenny laughed outright, and kept on laughing as she answered: "No

wonder you asked, but I shouldn't set milk on the floor and it's

water in the pans. It's a water farm!"

The laughter was mutual now, and the audacious youth, moving to the

lower step and glancing upward, said: "I see you're a little shy on

shingles?"

"Just a trifle, but I'm long on milk pans!"

"They told me you were a first-class farmer but--er--a little

handicapped on outside work."

Jenny leaned against the door-frame and stroked her crutch with a

smile.

"Footicapped would be a better word," she said. "Are you a stranger

in Riverboro? Won't you rest a moment? Make your way through the

milk pans to the rocking chair. I do need a little help in getting

my winter wood in."

"You'll require a lot of wood unless you get a tight roof over your

head," said the stranger. "I'm a Western farmer's son, or at least I

was; but my mother and father died while I was in France and I'm

alone in the world."

"France?" echoed Jenny, with a new glance in her eye and a new tone

in her voice.

"Yes, but we'll cut that out! I landed in Boston the other day and

now I'm just kind of 'adventuring' till I get my 'peace legs' on."

"You couldn't have come to a worse place than Riverboro. There

hasn't been an adventure here in a hundred years."

"I don't know about that! I've only been in town half an hour and

I've seen a water farm and a lady that runs it to the Queen's taste!"

Jenny laughed again; the sweetest, most tuneful laugh in the world;

one that she seldom used nowadays but had kept over from her long-ago

youth. What a droll stranger! And how much more interesting he

would be in the intervals of sawing and splitting wood, than old

George Gibson.

"It is too ridiculous that you should have seen the milk pans and

noticed the shingles. I am going to have the roof fixed next spring

if I live. Father saved up money for the stock but--but, I had to

use it in a long illness."

"Yes, yes!" interrupted the stranger. "It beats all how that runs

through life! You save up money for shingles and then you can't get

enough more to put 'em on."

"I'm nearly ready for the second time," Jenny's tone was cheerful and

incisive, "but I don't think I have quite enough to pay for labor.

Besides, you couldn't, I mean you wouldn't--shingle--could you?"

"Sure I would, and could! You're strong on the subjunctive, aren't

you? You've noticed I'm handicapped (I don't have to invent a word,

it's all right for my case!). But just you wait and see what I can

do with the substitute presented me by the U.S.A.! I'm going to have

something more stylish later on, but I don't believe it will serve me

any better; you see it's only my left arm!"

Jenny stopped her ears.

"Don't tell me you've read 'Pollyanna' and are glad it isn't your

right arm!"

"Sure I'm glad! Who wouldn't be? Who's Pollyanna?"

"She's a girl in a book who's always glad that things aren't any

worse."

"All right for Polly! More power to her elbow! Now I'm by no means

dead broke and I've got back-pay coming to me from Washington, when

they get 'round to it. But I want to train myself to work at

anything that comes. If I can't make good I'll go to a vocational

school, but I want to harden myself first."

"My roof in November would be a good place for that!" said Jenny

contemplatively. "What wages do you ask?"

"Half what the other men get around here, because I'm not a skilled

worker at present. Now if you've got a ladder on the premises I can

get up and tear off the old shingles while you negotiate for the new

ones. Going to buy first quality cedars?"

Jenny grew red and then white, for her memory flashed back, and by an

odd trick she remembered her father's injunction to "stiperlate," a

word that was to be used in far more romantic circumstances.

"Can't manage first quality; seconds will have to do," she said, with

some embarrassment.

"O.K. I've had nothing but 'seconds' all my life. Sometimes I

wonder I didn't have a second wife."

"Why didn't you?" The question suddenly popped out of Jenny's mouth

without any warning.

"Because I never had a first! Ha! ha!" (He certainly was the most

unusual young man she had ever met and the most informal on the

occasion of a first call. She felt as if she'd been to high-school

and singing-school and dancing-school with him!)

The stranger rose from his chair. "I'll 'lime' the 'seconds' for you

myself to save expense. Want me to get them for you, because I know

a shingle when I see it and maybe you don't? I'll go in to the

village, get a boarding-place, and come back after lunch for a

half-day's work."

"Thank you--that will be very kind."

"I'll pick up the milk pans and empty 'em for you, first. Poor old

things! They don't know they're going out of business! Let me look

at your ladder, please. A man that works with a woman's farming

implements ought to carry a big life insurance!"

Jenny laughed again, joyously. Then, entirely forgetting decorum,

she wiped her eyes with her apron and said, "If I only knew what your

wages were going to be I'd raise them, you are so funny! The ladder

is in the shed. I think it's all right."

He looked about the shed in amazement at its cleanliness and order.

"Holy Moses!" he thought, "does that little creature sweep and scrub

this place and pile up this wood and kindling, skipping about on a

crutch? And us great husky lubbers getting 'orders of merit' for

doing our duty by the country. Wonder if Miss Jenny Lane has had any

medals handed out to her? She can have mine when I get well enough

acquainted to give it to her."

Jenny followed him out to the shed.

"Is the ladder quite safe?" she asked.

"Safe as a meeting-house."

"Then, as you go to the village, you'll see twin boys hanging over

the gate at the next house, Mrs. Day's. Ask the red-haired, freckled

one (his name is Alfinso) if he'll come up this afternoon and help

you, for five cents. He'll hold the ladder, pick up the shingles or

commit any crime if you just tell him that Jenny'll have fresh

doughnuts for you and him at supper-time. Don't ask Alfonso, the

dark-haired twin; he doesn't like work and doesn't like doughnuts."

"Well," said the stranger, wiping his hand on a potato sack, "I

wasn't in the Salvation Army belt when they were distributing

doughnuts to the boys and my mouth is fairly watering for one. My

name's Rufus Holt, of Lawrence, Kansas." Here he held out his hand

which Jenny took, stunned by the suddenness of his action. "I'm your

hired man till this roof is fixed. You look to me like a grand

little boss. I'll be back in an hour and I hope I don't get Alfinso

and Alfonso mixed!"

"Creeping Jenny" has a method all its own of making its way upward

and onward, silently, smoothly, under and over, betwixt and between

obstacles. The slender little green vine climbs, not so much with

strength, as with swiftness and grace, and accomplishes its growth in

a miraculously short space of time. You can leave your garden rake

against the barn door some warm night, and next morning Jenny will

have crept up to the top of the handle, leaned over and flung down a

few little fragrant blossoms here and there just to give you a hint

of Nature's magic.

By a like process and another sort of magic, Jenny Lane crept into

Rufus Holt's heart, which was a big lonesome one, howling with

emptiness, at the time he began shingling her house. They came to

know more of each other as the days went by. He and she, with

Alfinso, ate luncheon together on the shed bench so that the day's

labor need not be delayed by a trip to the village for Rufus. (At

least that is what he said, and she said, and Alfinso said, and Mrs.

Day said, and nobody doubted it but the postmistress.)

Alfinso, whose pay had now been increased to ten cents a day, was the

most faithful of "gooseberries," but even he sometimes wandered away

to the wood-pile to work on a motor that he was constructing, to be

used in connection with the power of an old alarm clock.

At such times Rufus and Jenny would talk together before she gathered

up the dishes. She allowed him a pipe, and when she attempted to

rise and go to the kitchen he would say: "Take your 'nooning,' Miss

Jenny, same as the rest of us. The minute you drop your housework

you take out your needle."

"I've had to be busy to keep from thinking, these last two years,"

she said, quietly arranging the knives and forks for clearing away.

"Now I'm afraid of getting idle, for what with company at lunch, the

sound of hammer or saw all day, and the smell of paint all night, it

seems as if Boston couldn't be any gayer than my little house."

Rufus liked to watch the dimple come and go in Jenny's cheek, a

dimple that had enjoyed little use till lately; he also admired the

whiteness of the neck that rose out of the blue gingham working

dress, and the long eyelashes that too often lay on her cheek and hid

her brown eyes. He often tried to say something that would bring a

quick upward glance full of fun or understanding. As for his talk,

no words can tell what it was to the girl who had spent hundreds of

long, silent, lonely days, feeling her youth slipping by, a tragedy

without a single witness.

"Where were you last Christmas, Miss Jenny Wren?" Rufus asked between

pipe-puffs, after lunching gloriously on shoulder-of-mutton stew.

(He had always called her Miss Jenny Wren after the first week.)

"Here, of course!" she said, smiling. "I was born here, lived here

and probably shall die here. All the rooms but the kitchen had

icicles hanging from the ceilings and window-frames. The parlor

looked like that famous cave in Kentucky with the stalactites in the

roof. There had been a blizzard on the twenty-third and I couldn't

go to the church Christmas tree. It was nearly as bad the Christmas

before. I've never celebrated Christmas day, except to plant a

little hemlock twig in a flower pot and hang Mother's and Father's

pictures on it."

"Jehosaphat!" ejaculated Rufus. "It wasn't so bad as that in the

trenches where I was. Plenty of company--of one sort and another; I

declare women always have the hardest of it in this old world

somehow. Trenches and over-the-tops were exciting compared to what

you've gone through. They were _life_! A man generally has life and

adventure with his hard knocks; but women are always saving,

scrimping, doing without, suffering, nursing, burying, paying other

people's debts and bearing other people's burdens. Rotten luck,

being a woman!" and he knocked the ashes from his pipe furiously.

"I never thought of it that way," said Jenny serenely. "I have my

one burden, but it's my own, nobody else's!"

"Say, if I'm hereabouts to help, suppose you give a kind of a

housewarming this year; some sort of a make-shift Christmas and show

off the shingles! Hey?"

"Who would come?" cried Jenny. "And how could I compete with the

church Christmas? Besides you are going to Boston."

"I haven't decided about Boston yet." (Jenny's heart leaped into her

mouth and stopped her breath.) "As for the company, Mrs. Day could

come, Alfinso and Alfonso (hateful little beggar, Alfonso!), Mrs.

Strout, who boards me; and there's the station master that advised me

to come to you for a job, and the man I bought the shingles of, and

the storekeeper we owe for nails--that's quite a good crowd! You put

in a few lady friends and I believe we could frame up a party that

would make Boston look dull. What's the matter with the parson? Why

couldn't he come? You're in his parish, aren't you?"

Jenny swayed to and fro with mirth. The point of view was so fresh,

so young, so unlike Riverboro. "You don't know how funny you are!"

she exclaimed. "The minister calls twice a year, but always in

summer."

"Tell him to make it once and come Christmas Eve!" said Rufus,

imperturbably. "Tell him your leaks are stopped and you'll show him

a wounded soldier who did the shingling. 'Feature' me, don't you

know? Tell him you'll have my Medal of Honor on the marble-top

table."

"You've never shown it to me," said Jenny, softly.

"It's in Boston with my best clothes. Besides I've told you all

about it. There happened to be a lot of fellows about when I was up

against a hard job and they told on me. The boys didn't all have

that luck or the U.S.A. couldn't have turned out medals enough to go

around.... Now it's time to work again. You think about that

Christmas party before I buy my ticket to Boston. I'm going to patch

up that bad place by the chimney," and Rufus went out the shed door

and mounted the ladder.

Oh! the terrors of that high ladder and that sloping roof to Jenny,

from the very beginning! With a white, knit cape over her shoulders

and a white scarf tied round her head, she used to limp to some

unseen point of vantage and watch Rufus with her heart in her mouth,

lest he should slip and lose his hold. Sometimes he would catch her

at her post, and looking down, think that her face looked like a

love-apple, all pinky red and creamy white. And the warm glow of

having some one down below caring a little whether he slipped--he,

Rufus Holt, a down-and-outer!

He never did make a misstep, for he was a very demon of ingenuity and

skill in using his one arm.

"Brave, clever, good, big-hearted!" sang Jenny's heart from the

ground.

"Plucky, cheery, sweet and sound!" sang the heart of Rufus from the

roof--but neither of them said anything in words.

Mrs. Day said considerable, but she liked Jenny Lane and stood up for

her when the postmistress said there was more in that shingling

business than met the eye.

"I don't see anything wrong in it," Mrs. Day maintained stoutly.

"Jenny's roof would have fallen in on her if she hadn't shingled this

fall. It looks like Providence to me."

"He's so slow at it that it looks like courting to me," observed the

postmistress while scanning the morning's postcards to see if

anything interesting was likely to happen in the neighborhood.

"Alfinso thinks the world of Mr. Holt, and he's getting ten cents a

day now. It's true Alfonso takes three of it away from him every

night. He says five is due to him because he's a twin, but he only

takes three cents because he don't do any work."

"Alfonso's goin' to make a good business man when he grows up," said

the post-mistress.

It was half-past four in the afternoon, but in the short December

days it was nearly as dark as midnight.

A cheerful fire snapped in Jenny's highly polished kitchen stove.

The yellow-painted floor with its braided rugs reflected the light of

the kerosene lamp, the cat was asleep in the rocking-chair with the

cretonne cushion, and Jenny sat by the table making out a crochet

pattern from a magazine in front of her. She had changed into her

afternoon dress of brown cashmere with pongee collar and cuffs and

apron, so that she looked more than ever like Jenny Wren, Rufus Holt

thought, as he came in from the tool-house with a lantern.

"Alfinso is splitting and piling his kindling," he said. "He wants

me to wait and go along home with him. Alfonso has told him there's

a ghost between here and the corner. Gracious! Can any parlor in

the world beat a kitchen for comfort when it's rigged out and kept

like yours! (No, puss, I wouldn't have you move for the world, even

if you offered to! I'll take a wooden chair!)"

"The cat is spoiled," said Jenny, "and you look tired. You ought not

to be doing rough work or you won't get to be yourself again."

"I'm myself, right enough; in fact I never was so much myself since I

was born. I'm not tired; the sight of you and this kitchen rests me

clean through to the bone."

Jenny changed color, but studied the crochet pattern with renewed

care.

"I don't miss my arm any more," Rufus continued, playing with her

thread. "I've learned to do without it. I never thought I should,

but I have, with a little help from a lady friend. I never was

bitter about it like some. When you come to think of it, Miss Jenny

Wren, it's wonderful how Almighty God has given us two of a kind in

most things--on the outside, anyway. As to the inside furniture, the

doctors have shown us how to get along without most of that. If we'd

been started out with one eye, one ear, one arm and one leg, where

would we have been nowadays?"

"We've only one nose and one mouth," objected Jenny.

"And how would we have looked with two?" laughed Rufus. "But that's

not to the point. The house is finished, Jenny Wren, and what would

you think of buying a few second-hand boards and letting me make the

cow-shed more comfortable for winter?"

This moment had to come. Jenny had been dreading it for days. There

was a pause, then: "I'm going to sell the cow," she stammered.

Rufus looked surprised. "Are you troubled about the price of feed,

or afraid the winter work will be too much for you? That's why I'd

like to make a better place for her and patch up the piece of shed

you have to walk through to get to her--after I leave. It's a

wonderful season but it's the eighteenth of December and snow must be

coming along soon."

There was another moment of silence, then Jenny spoke recklessly.

"You see, Mr. Holt, we've gone on from one thing to another for three

weeks, because the leaky roof ruined the house in so many ways, and

there's never been a man to help, since father died. We've patched

the flooring, put in new door-sills and weather-strips on the

windows, papered the sitting-room and plastered the kitchen

ceiling--and all the time I've known I was going too far. I paid you

fifteen dollars the first week, but it wasn't half what you earned

and you gave me back three for lunches. Then you wouldn't take the

last two weeks' wages because I was buying bricks and lumber and you

said we could settle up when the work was finished.... I can't let

it run on, Mr. Holt, I can't! I'm not in want; I've something in the

bank and my hayfield more than pays for my winter fuel; but I have to

be careful, and the house is so nice and cozy now it would be

self-indulgent to do more. I'd better sell the cow. You're as kind

and generous as you can be, but you are a stranger after all, and I

have no claim on you."

Rufus gave her a long, searching look.

"You honestly feel I'm a stranger, do you?"

"Well, I--I don't exactly _feel_ that you are, I only _know_ it. My

mind tells me so."

"It's funny!" said Rufus. "Now--I feel like a partner, not a

stranger."

Jenny clutched at the saving word. "You have been the best of

partners," she acknowledged, straightforwardly.

"Oh, no! Not the best! I'm capable of being a heap better partner

than I have been. Now stop crocheting, listen to me, and don't speak

till I get through.... In the first place, do you like me?"

Jenny flared at this.

"Why do you ask a question like that? You know that nobody could

help liking you! You know you're as sunshiny and thoughtful as you

can be, and as for being interesting and funny and unlike anybody

else in the world, you know well enough you're that; so why do you

ask such foolish questions only to hear yourself praised?"

Rufus made a sudden movement and then subsided again into his chair.

"That's satisfactory, so far as it goes," he said calmly, "though it

doesn't go far enough to suit me. There are things I've got to say

to you, and when they're over, we need never speak of them again. I

haven't any home, nor any people but a married brother in Kansas,

whose wife and four children I've never seen. He always worked the

farm and it fell to him, as was right. I got a little money from my

father, earned more at my trade in Chicago and saved it. Then I went

across with the other boys. You don't really know anything about me

except what I tell you, but I've got a clean record to show the

neighbors, and I swear to God there's nothing wrong with me except

that I've got one arm instead of two. When I came down this road

from the station three weeks ago I took a good look at you, skimming

around with your crutch, and swinging your right foot off the ground."

"Don't!" cried Jenny, covering her eyes.

Rufus put his big hand over her little ones and wiped the tears away

with her crochet work. "I've got to show how I feel about you, and

then I'll ask what you think of me," he explained. "I said to myself

that day: 'Here's a chance to help somebody that's had to bear what I

have.' They told me at the station you needed some work done, so I

just plunged in, made good, and got the job. But I had no idea of

falling in love with you, Jenny; that's your fault, not mine. I want

to marry you, but I don't know how you feel about it."

"I don't want to be pitied and married just to be helped," said Jenny

stubbornly. "After my accident I just made up my mind I would never

marry."

"Why?" asked Rufus.

"You know why," Jenny answered.

"Then the reason you don't want to marry me shows me that I had no

right to ask you, isn't that so?"

"No, it isn't; it's different with a woman. Besides, I do want to

marry you, but I won't."

Rufus moved a little nearer. "Jenny, we've each got a minus sign

against us--there's no getting over that; but Holy Moses! you're hung

all over so thick with plus signs that your minus doesn't show up at

all! Your face, your eyes, your hair, your voice, your disposition,

your spunk, your common sense--all plus! The trouble is with me.

There would be times when a girl might blush if she had a one-armed

husband!"

"Blush? If she did she ought to be struck by lightning!"--and

Jenny's eyes flashed.

Rufus caught her hands. "Jenny, Jenny, be true with me, speak

straight out! Do I seem a little short of a full man? How do you

see me in your secret heart?"

Jenny rose to her feet under a kind of spell that made him rise to

meet her. She leaned against him and said: "I see you whole, and

strong and precious and splendid, Rufus!"

Rufus held her close, drying his secret tears on her hair.

"Oh, you little brick!" he whispered. "You darling, winsome little

brick! Would you mind kissing me?"

"Not in the least!" she answered, and was proceeding to do it with

all her heart when Alfinso entered with a huge armful of kindling,

which he dropped into the woodbox with such force that the house

shook.

"Alfinso, you dropped something. I heard you distinctly." Rufus was

cool and collected as he put Jenny back in her chair. "Now I've some

news for you. Jenny and I are going to be married on Christmas Eve

and your family is invited. Will you take care of the house while I

go to Boston and get all my papers and passports and identifications

and finger-prints and certificates and army records and honorable

discharges and pedigrees, and draw my back pay--because I am a

stranger in Riverboro and I want to get into society. Why don't you

speak? Aren't you surprised?"

"I would 'a' been," said the boy, '"cept that Alfonso and the

postmistress both said it would turn out that way; but Mother stood

up for Jenny; she said it wouldn't."

"That's what all the women will have said," laughed Rufus.

"Well, all the men will say I jumped at you, so accounts will be

square!" and Jenny smiled triumphantly back at Rufus, all blushes and

confusion, her heart beating like a wild bird in her breast. "Go,

Rufus, please," she said in a low tone, "and take Alfinso. I want to

be alone with myself and get used to--happiness."

He bent over her and kissed her cheek while Alfinso went for his

muffler and mittens.

"Good-by! I'll bring back the ring; don't forget the party. We

won't stint refreshments. I'll give the twins a dollar to bring you

little trees and evergreens for garlands and we'll make a brave

showing of the house. Isn't it lucky there'll be a full moon on the

shingles? No doubt about the minister now! He'll have to come in

the performance of his duty. Oh! my dear, my dear, God is being very

good to me!"

"Good to _us_," whispered Creeping Jenny, putting her lips softly and

shyly against his sleeve.

THE AUTHOR'S READING AT BIXBY CENTRE

[_Those readers who are familiar with "Timothy's Quest" will

remember, perhaps, that Aunt Hitty Tarbox is a village seamstress and

dressmaker who goes out by the day in Pleasant River and Edgewood,

her specialty being the making-over of boys' clothes. Perhaps they

will recall, too, that she uses her needle, her scissors, and her

tongue with equal rapidity, and that each one of them is about as

sharp as the other, although she is a member of the Orthodox church

in good and regular standing. After thirty years' life in Pleasant

River, that quiet village has proved too small for her genius, and

she has removed to the more thriving town of Bixby Centre, an

imaginary place located anywhere in the State of Maine. Mrs. Strout,

an old friend from Milliken's Mills, has come to visit Bixby for a

day or two; and it is during a call upon Aunt Hitty that she gains a

general idea of the Author's Reading which has just occurred.

Imagine Aunt Hitty, then, in a comfortable sewing-chair, her lapboard

on her knee, workbasket within reach, tongue in excellent running

order, and one eye always on the road which goes past her window--for

she is one of the few persons who can make over boys' clothes,

conduct a fire of conversation, and miss nothing that goes on in the

outside world, all at once._]

MONOLOGUE: Mrs. Silas Tarbox, otherwise Aunt Hitty, speaking:

"Step right in, Mis' Strout. I should 'a' come over to see you

before this, but I can't stir from my chair to-day, my foot's so

lame. I'm glad you brought your fancy-work, for I'm so behindhand

with my sewin' I don't dass to lay down my needle. We've had the

busiest week of the whole summer, and Si not bein' through with his

hayin' we had to keep right along with it, entertainment or no

entertainment, so I had work inside as well as outside the house.

"Oh, yes, the Readin' was a great success, as everything is in Bixby

Centre, when we get round to it; but it made lots o' work, I can tell

you. It's kind o' queer you don't have none o' these things over to

Milliken's Mills--but there! there ain't many small places that's got

the talent we have here to the Centre, and talent allers attracts

talent, somehow. Si 'n' I lived for thirty years in Pleasant River,

and we know well enough what a dull place that was. They couldn't

even get up a funeral there, without I planned it and managed it.

"No, the entertainment wa'n't for the church; it was for the benefit

of the Winter Night Reading Club, but, of course, we had to give it

in one of the three meetin'-houses, for we ain't got any hall. Oh,

yes, I'm a member of the club, an' I was real pleased when they asked

me to join it, for though I never was a great hand at readin' to

myself I like to git into a rockin'-chair and hear other folks read

out loud.

"Is there enough people in Bixby to fill three meetings? Why, no,

there ain't; but nobody expects to see a church filled nowadays.

Money? Of course there ain't enough to support three societies, but

land! a church has something else to think about except being

supported, I guess! For that matter, there ain't always enough

Democrats to elect a President, but they go right on being Democrats

whether they git anything or not. They git the fun o' bein'

Democrats, 't any rate, if there's any fun in it, or Baptists or

Universalists, or whatever 'tis!

"When we come to decidin' which church we should have the Readin' in,

there was consid'able talk, and finally we settled it by writin' to

the author and askin' her if she had any preference, and she wrote

back and said she was a 'piscopalian, and we hadn't one of them and

couldn't get one to oblige her; and I never had no opinion of 'em

anyhow, for if they was anyways smart they wouldn't have to have

their prayers written all out for 'em. I forgot to say that some of

the club wanted a gentleman author. As we'd never hed one here

before, and might never hev one again, some of 'em thought best to

have the real article while we was about it; but the rest of us

concluded a lady author'd come cheaper, and Mis' Stevens settled it

by declarin' that she was goin' to do the entertainin' and she

wouldn't have a man under foot. Yes, of course, Mr. Stevens is

alive, but she's got him trained so't he don't stay in the house

much. They say he keeps store jest so's he can hev a place to stop

evenin's.

"After a good deal o' talk we agreed to hev the Readin' in the

Baptist meetin'-house to please Mis' Stevens. She vowed she wouldn't

entertain the author without we did, and she has the biggest house in

the village and the best spare room, and if she happens to be in a

good temper she takes three tickets besides, so we always flatter her

up and calm her down all we can when there's anything going on. You

wa'n't brought up hereabouts, so you ain't familiar with the Stover

temper; Mis' Stevens was one of the Stovers of Scarboro', and there

was temper enough in that family, if it was thinned out, to spread

over the whole o' York County. Peace was the youngest, and she lost

one likely beau by kickin' the churn out o' the door jest as he

happened to pass by one morning; then she went away on a visit to

Bangor and married Mr. Stevens. He's prospered and she's dretful

ambitious. She's bound and determined that Bixby Centre shall keep

right up with Bangor and Portland.

"They've had these Author's Readin's in the cities lately, and the

Winter Night Club's ben saving up money for one this two years, and

they was determined to do it up in style, so they wrote to the author

they'd decided on and told her they wa'n't goin' to spare expense,

and she could have five dollars and railroad fare if she'd come and

read, and she should stop with Mis' Stevens at the Upper Corner, the

one who entertained Thomas B. Reed when he was here. She sent word

right back that she was expectin' to be in Portland for a month and

she could just as well come out as not, and wouldn't trouble us to

pay the five dollars. She said it would be pleasure and profit

enough to meet the committee that had been correspondin' with her. I

didn't suspicion that writers was rich enough to refuse a five-dollar

bill, but mebbe she had money left to her by somebody, and was kind

of independent.

"'What air these Author's Readin's, anyhow?' said Si. 'Can authors

read any better'n other folks?'

"'I dunno _as_ they can, an' I dunno _but_ they can,' says I. 'I

suppose we've got to resk our twenty-five cents an' hear 'em, before

we can say.'

"When the author was writin' to the secretary of the club she put in

a newspaper piece showin' how folks paid a dollar and a half a ticket

to hear her read in Cleveland and Si said if anybody was willin' to

pay that price to hear an author, and a lady one at that, read her

own writin's it was a case of fool and his money bein' soon parted.

The secretary hed to come out real blunt and plain and say we allers

hed got the best in Bixby Centre for twenty-five cents and we

cal'lated we allers should.

"Of course it wa'n't what you would call 'skilled labor,' anyway.

She didn't make no pretense hardly; she read straight along, good and

clear, but she wa'n't no elocutionist, and she didn't act out

anything a mite. In one way she can't hold a candle to that

Miss--what's that black-haired girl's name that's cousin to Mis'

Tucker of the Lower Corner? Well, anyway, she graduated at a school

of oratory, and she's ben here twice an' recited 'Asleep on the

Switch' and 'The Maniac.' It comes high, for she has to be drove to

and from the deepot, have her supper and breakfast and a dollar in

money; but you can't have the same old thing all the year round;

folks get tired of it and the house won't be filled.

"Mis' Tucker says her cousin's got real talent, and I guess she has.

She's got courage, anyhow, and lungs! They say she took a gold medal

the time she graduated. The whole class stood up in a row and

recited 'The Maniac,' and she outscreeched all the rest without half

trying. Did you ever hear it, Mis' Strout? The girl in the piece is

as crazy as a loon, but she don't know it, and at the end of every

verse she says,'_I am not mad! I am not mad!_' Well, this

reciter--what _is_ her name now?--I know it as well as I do my own!

Her mother was one o' them hombly Muckfords that used to live over on

the Flag Medder road. Well, anyway, the rest o' the class jest said

'_I am not mad_' in the craziest way they could; but when it come her

turn they say she put in a screech right in the middle that you could

'a' heard all over the county, and the judges fairly leapt right out

o' their seats on the platform. There wa'n't no discussion as to who

should have the medal; she earned it and she got it. She's

splendid--Eldora Duncombe--that's her name, and I'm glad I've got it

at last--but so many of our ladies here sleeps alone in their houses

at nights that they told Mis' Tucker they couldn't go hear her cousin

any more unless she read quieter pieces; an' she said if she read

quieter pieces what would be the good of knowin' elocution?

"This author wa'n't no elocutionist and no screecher neither, but she

hed a kind of a takin' way with her after all--I must say that;

though Si thought her hair was full red to read in public with. Did

you hear how handsome the church looked? If speakers don't like the

pulpit we gen'rally move it one side and have a marble-top table with

a pitcher of water and a tumbler, and a boquet of verbenias on it;

but there was a girl from Lowell summer-boardin' at Mis' Doctor

Smith's--Hazel Perkins her name is--an' she'd ben to an Author's

Readin', an' she offered to decorate the platform jest like a parlor.

It looked handsome, but land, it was queer! I never see such a

collection of onnecessary things in my life. Si said it looked to

him as if the Old Boy'd ben havin' an auction on it! And the trouble

that Perkins girl took, borrowin' from all the neighbors that lived

within a mile o' the meetin'-house! Why, I declare, the audience

stared so at the decorations they didn't pay no kind of attention to

the reader. We ain't got so much furniture round here that we don't

know the looks of our neighbors' things pretty well, and everybody

was cranin' and gapin' and studyin' to see who'd ben asked to lend

and who hadn't. Si told Miss Perkins if she'd 'a' put on a bed and a

cook-stove the author could 'a' kep' house on the platform and ben

real comfortable.

"There was Mis' Trowbridge's banquet lamp that her children got for a

prize, sellin' Magic Soap (and there ain't much magic in it, I can

tell you that, unless you mix consid'able elbow grease with it!); I

thought it was real good in the Trowbridge children to lend that

lamp, for it's the only namable stick o' furniture they've got in the

room they call their parlor, and they set great store by it. They'd

never lighted it up 'cause they couldn't afford karosene, but anyway

Mis' Trowbridge never read a book in her life, I guess, and Dan

Trowbridge goes to bed at sundown; Salomy Trowbridge--she's the

fourteen-year-old girl--never took her eyes off the lamp the whole

evening, and once when it kind o' flared up, and she thought it was

goin' to scorch the pink shade, she went right up on the platform and

turned it down so't the author couldn't hardly see to read. Almiry

Berry's reflecting lamp was on the stage, too, and hanging from it

was an ear o' corn gilded, with a thermometer let in where some o'

the kernels was took out--it looked real kind o' cute! Widow

Buzzell's wicker chair and walnut table set in the centre, and if she

hadn't bronzed up the chair with Diamond Paint so't nobody recognized

it! Diadema Bascom's foreroom rug was on the floor, and my Batterbug

lace tidies on the pulpit chairs. My lunge stood in the back with an

African over it, and a couple of sofy-pillows stood up on end. What

the Perkins girl wanted it there for beats me, for no author that I

ever see would lay down while she was readin', and after it's over

she'd be glad to go home and go to bed, I should think. I didn't

like it a mite that Miss Perkins put the African over it, for we'd

just had it new covered with emmanuel cloth and it looked real

handsome and shiny; Si's awful fond of lungeing, and I thought I'd

buy something this time he _couldn't_ lunge out! Well, if you have a

decoratin' committee I s'pose you've got to give 'em their heads and

let 'em decorate; so I didn't say nothin' to Miss Perkins.

"On the piano was my marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, and Mis'

Emerson's pair of tall vases that Huldy Packard sent her from

Indiana. Miss Perkins had filled 'em full of goldenrod, but when

Judge Thomson come and seen 'em standin' on his wife's new upright

pianer he said he couldn't have that nohow; so when the audience was

seatin', and before the Readin' began, Miss Perkins had to empty the

water out o' the vases and stick peacock feathers in 'em; and then

when the author come her cousin was with her, and she didn't like the

peacock feathers 'cause they was unlucky; so poor Miss Perkins hove

'em out the winder and set the vases on the pianer upside down.

They're awful hombly, anyway, and they look 'bout as well empty as

full, an' standin' 'em bottomside up don't hurt the pattern any.

"The Perkins girl went out on the church steps and cried, she was so

hoppin' mad, and when I slipped out o' the back pew to see if I could

borry a piece of ice to put in the author's pitcher I see Freedom

Cobb, that's home from Dartmouth College, tryin' to comfort her. She

don't know that he courts Mis' Doctor Smith's boarders right along

summer after summer. Mis' Smith couldn't hold 'em, her meat's so

tough, if Freedom didn't kind o' keep 'em contented courtin' of 'em!

I was sorry for her; but there, it wouldn't 'a' done to spill water

down into the Thomsons' new pianer the way we done into the one we

hired from Edgecombe Falls. Mis' Thomson only let us have hern on

condition that we wouldn't ask Clarence Cummins to play on it. He's

had lessons for three years, and then, anyway, he's naturally strong

in his fingers and powerful muscled all over. You'd certainly think

he wouldn't leave a key on the instrument when he gits warmed up.

He's a great favorite with the deef, and we've got a lot o' deef

folks at Bixby Centre.

"Did you hear anything said about the minister's introduction?

That's kind o' queer; the Congregationalists was real proud of his

remarks. Of course there's most every sect represented in the Winter

Night Club, and then there's some of the members that wouldn't know a

sect if they seen one in the middle o' the road, though they do call

this a Christian country. We said if the entertainment was held in

the Baptist church our minister had ought to make the opening

remarks. We've got a real smart man in Mr. Hobson; some think he's

too old, but there! we was about wore out with young students during

them four years when we didn't have no settled pastor. Si says to

me: 'I declare I'm tired o' settin' in meetin' Sunday after Sunday

and hearin' the law laid down to me by them half-fledged boys. Let's

have a minister that's feathered out,' said he, 'even if we hev to

pay a little more!'

"Well, Mr. Hobson's makin' the introduction didn't leave anything for

the Methodist minister to do, and his wife was as mad as hops, but we

pacified her by askin' him to give the author a vote of thanks after

the Readin', and by puttin' her on the reception committee that met

the author at the deepot. The Perkins girl wanted the deepot

decorated with goldenrod, but the president of the club said we'd got

to leave something to do in case the folks that wrote 'Paradise Lost'

or 'Pilgrim's Progress' should come to Bixby to read. So we had the

winders washed and the stove blacked, put a new chimbly on the lamp

and carried the fly-paper into the telegraph office, and Si said the

deepot looked as if 'twas goin' to be married; but the author swished

right through it and never looked at the stove nor the winders, so we

had our labor for our pains.

"The weather looked a little mite lowery at noon, and Mis' Stevens

was afraid she'd have to git out her covered carry-all to go for the

author, but the sun came out and it breezed up real nice just after

three o'clock. I don't think Mis' Stevens was ever uglier or

contrarier in her life than she was that afternoon, but we excused

her, for she was most tired to death. Her hired girl is sick, and

she'd ben helpin' her cook up flour-food for the author, sellin'

tickets over to the Centre, and finishin' a worsted-work 'God Bless

Our Home' to hang over the spare-room bed. Si said he guessed the

comp'ny would find out before she left that house that God done the

only blessin' it was likely to git, and he was about right. She

didn't like it a mite because Mis' Doctor Smith shook hands with the

author first, and it was kind o' forth-puttin'. Mis' Stevens is the

president of the Baptist and Mis' Doctor Smith of the Congregational

Ladies' Aid, and most of the quarrelin' and pull-haulin' in the

churches is between them two societies. They aid the church

consid'able, I s'pose, but they do hender each other awf'ly; I'll say

that for 'em!

"Well, it turned out a beautiful night, and the meetin'-house was

packed to the doors. Everything went off as neat as a pin when we

once got the Readin' goin', but the committee had consid'able trouble

at the start. First there was the fuss I told you 'bout Mis'

Thomson's pianer, and Hazel Perkins hed to hev her cry out on Freedom

Cobb's shoulder, and then it turned out there wa'n't no ice for the

water-pitcher; and those that hed reserved seats in the choir was in

trouble. You see Miss Perkins hed put appleboughs along the front o'

the singin'-seats and on top o' the organ. There must 'a' ben

caterpillars' nests in 'em, and I s'pose the Decorating Committee hed

et their lunch up there and dropped crumbs, but 't any rate the folks

was kep' busy killin' ants an' caterpillars. One woman that was a

stranger to me said she didn't cal'late to pay extry for a seat an'

then be et up in it.

"The next thing was that Doctor Woodside couldn't be found to take

the author up the broad aisle on his arm and hand her over to the

minister. I was 'bout sick o' trottin', but I went out again and

found him settin' in the graveyard as comf'table as could be, smokin'

there on a tombstone, with the full moon shinin' on his white hair.

He's one o' the smartest men in town, but some folks call him kind o'

queer in the head. He does spend a good deal of his time in the

graveyard, but Si says it's only natural because most of his patients

is there! Then, as if that wa'n't enough, Vilruvias Bennett, that

was sellin' tickets at the door, was called home, and they wanted Si

to take his place, an' Si was huntin' after Almiry Berry's horse that

had broke away an' carried part o' the meetin'-house fence.

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