frenzy for improvements, that the Evil One had selected him as a
victim. The color of the new paint on the house did not please a
single inhabitant of the village, and what was even more regrettable,
it did not suit Matthew himself. It was far too green, and the
bright yellow blinds suggested by the artist who was doing the work,
were felt by all to be a public insult. The fence, too, had to be of
the same colors, either separate or mixed, as there was plenty of
paint for the purpose, and the scenery in the vicinity, on a bright
day in late August, sank into insignificance as compared with the
Milliken premises when finished. The misguided youth had screened in
the little piazza with wire netting and put a high-power electric
bulb in the ceiling.
"He ain't intendin' to do no courtin' there, that's one thing
certain," said Maria Snow. "I guess he's goin' to read the Portland
papers out loud to Undine summer evenin's. He's planned light enough
to see the small print in the telephone directory."
He took out the beautiful Colonial front door with the fanlight over
it, always greatly admired by summer visitors, and installed one of
stained pine with a large square of glass in it adorned with inside
curtains of Nottingham lace tied back with yellow ribbons. That was
Maria Snow's idea.
"It looks dressy," she said, "and if you're goin' to keep up with the
procession, you've got to keep up, that's all; though I do think,
Matthew, you might have left your grandfather's stone steps, if only
for the sake of the old toad that's lived under 'em for fifty years
to my certain knowledge."
The stone steps were worn and chipped, however, and had settled down
on one side, while the path to the front door was not the kind
suitable for high-heeled slippered feet, so steps and walk were
changed to cement, smooth, dry, and hideously inappropriate to the
little farmhouse.
"There's folks say you're goin' to be married, Matt, with all these
improvements," said Bill one day.
"Well, mebbe I be," Matt said laconically, "and mebbe mother and me
are goin' to take boarders. The neighbors can take their choice."
Then came a day when the workmen picked up their tools and left, and
Maria Snow swept and scrubbed and cleaned up after them, and Matt
went out in the barn and filled his pipe and tilted his chair back
and took an hour to think for the first time in two months. For days
he had tried the new kitchen pump every few hours, for Bill had
declared it would never work right, since the well was ten feet lower
than the sink, and it stood to reason that water wouldn't run uphill.
This exercise was varied by the experimental turning on and off of
sixteen electric lights in barn and house, including the parlor
chandelier, which always had a hypnotic effect on him when he sat on
the haircloth sofa and gazed fixedly at it for some moments.
"I kind o' miss mother's lamp with the glass danglers and the piece
o' red flannin' in the kerosene," he thought, "but Undine'll light up
something splendid in this room, so't everybody'll see how han'some
she is!"
And then he would go out to the barn again, for there was really
nothing to do but wait. On the second of September he could stand
the strain no longer. He must see her even if he had to go to
Albany, where he had never been invited, and which seemed to him the
Antipodes. Matt was simple, there's no denying it. He trusted
anybody he loved. She had said go ahead with the improvements and it
would be all right. She had let him kiss her and hold her hand. He
was so incorrigibly high-minded and so unversed in worldly wisdom
that these facts simply clinched any arguments that seemed to point
in another direction. The Committee expected her to open the school
on the next Monday, and this was a Thursday. He knew he could not
telephone to Greenford without its being noised about in both
villages, so he took his horse and drove to Wareham to pay some
bills, make some purchases, and telephone from a drug store where he
wasn't known. He got the post-master at Greenford, who said the
Berrys had returned the night before, bringing company with them, but
they didn't answer the telephone, and he thought they must be gone
off somewhere in their new motor.
This news put Matthew in a panic. Undine would be bringing her
people over to Riverboro to see him, and he was away from home. He
was a merciful driver, but the horse had to make eleven miles in
forty minutes. Nearing his house, which was visible a long distance
away, he saw no sign of activity, no motor in evidence. The barn was
closed; Bill was not sitting on the piazza as usual. He remembered
then that he had sent Bill home for a few days. He drove up to the
hitching post, tied the horse, and went up the cement walk so as to
get used to it. As he neared the steps, he saw an envelope stuck
under the new stained door. There had never been one there before in
all his twenty-three years of life, never!
He knew it had been put there by Undine, and he knew what was in it.
His was not an alert mind, and up to this moment he had not harbored
a single suspicion of the girl's treachery. He looked long and hard
at the envelope; then he unhitched the horse, watered and fed him,
put him in the stall, and closed the barn. He went into the house
through the piazza and the side entrance, turning the key in the lock
behind him, took off his hat, traveled through the kitchen and
sitting-room to the front hall, drew the letter from under the front
door, pulled down the green shades in the front windows, and sat down
to read his doom. He didn't need to be told what was in the letter.
He merely wanted to know how Undine put the case; how she apologized
for breaking a man's heart, hurting his pride, and crushing his
spirit. He tore open the envelope, and this was what he read:
AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE, RIVERBORO
Sept. 2nd, 19--
DEAR MR. MILLIKEN:
I came back to tell the School Committee that I am not going to teach
for them any more. I am sorry you happened to be away in Wareham,
for after the superintendent, I wanted you to be the first to know
that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Arthur Henderson, a bank clerk
in Albany, whom father and I met while staying at the Dupont Hotel
there. I didn't write you about it before because talking is so much
more satisfactory, and I kind of hated to write anyway, for fear you
would blame me for holding out hopes I could not satisfy. I really
tried to like you well enough to marry you and live in Riverboro
["Like!" groaned poor Matt], but a country place is not to my taste,
and somehow I could not make up my mind, perhaps because I was never
taken off my feet till I met with Mr. Henderson. It was love at
first sight on both sides in the hotel dining-room.
I hope you did not consider I had really promised anything, for you
must have seen I was never crazy about you the way a girl ought to be
when she is meaning to settle down and marry a man. Please do not
hold any hard thoughts, for I am not the one for you, nor you the one
for me. True love has developed me a great deal and I see things
more clearly than I did last summer.
I asked Bill--don't know his other name--to take me over the house,
as I thought you would wish me to see the improvements. It is not
quite so quaint and home-like as it used to be, but much more
convenient. Screening the piazza is a great help in keeping out
mosquitoes, but yours is a trifle small, and Bill thinks the wire
netting makes it look like a hen-coop. Perhaps it does, but I
believe you'll get a great deal of comfort from it.
I am kind of sorry you bricked up the sitting-room fireplace and put
in a Franklin stove, for the open fire used to look so cozy last
April, do you remember? The wallpapers are very handsome, and how
your mother will enjoy the new stove and the pump in the kitchen
sink! As for the electric lights, I can fancy how any one will
appreciate them who has filled lamps and cleaned chimneys all her
life.
I am mentioning every little thing to show you how carefully I looked
about, for I want you to feel my interest in it all, even though I am
not going to live there, as we thought possibly at one time I might.
I have told Arthur that you were the best friend I had in Riverboro,
and I should have become homesick and bored to death if it had not
been for your kind little attentions. I have said no more about you
to him, as, like all true lovers, he is inclined to be just a little
jealous! With remembrances to your mother, and with the compliments
of the season, I am your sincere friend and well-wisher,
UNDINE BERRY.
P.S. If you should ever pass through Albany, we would like to have
you drop in at the Dupont Hotel, where Arthur has taken a suite. The
wedding is to-morrow morning in Greenford, and we leave Maine the
same afternoon.
U. B.
Matthew tore the letter in bits and, putting it in the kitchen stove,
set fire to the fragments. Then he drew down all the shades so that
passers-by in the morning would think he had gone away for the day.
He did not go upstairs as usual, but went into his mother's room,
impelled by some blind, unconscious instinct of needing sympathy. He
opened her closet door and put his hand gently on the faded gingham
dresses and wrappers she had left behind her. Then, turning down her
neat white counter-pane as he had seen her do a hundred times, he
flung himself, still dressed, on her bed and, turning to her pillow
for comfort, said with a choking voice and a deep-drawn breath,
"Thank God, there's always mothers to fall back on!"
It was such a little room, with one window and all his mother's
humble but precious keepsakes on the bureau and dresser, that it
soothed him, as he lay there alone until he had struggled with his
first sorrow and overcome it. After all, he was but a boy of
twenty-three, and he took trouble hard, like a child.
Yes, naturally the affair was a seven days' wonder in Riverboro, but
nobody ever knew the rights of it. They thought Matt had been a
trifle reckless about his improvements, but then he was of
marriageable age and could afford them, though he seemed to be
terribly gloomy about them now they were all finished.
They also thought he might be a little mite huffy about Undine
Berry's taking up with an Albany man after "going" with him all
summer, but that was nothing but guess-work and soon passed out of
mind.
The side of the affair that Matthew turned toward his mother can best
be told by his own letter to her, which was the longest one he had
ever written in his life. He posted it on Saturday night at Wareham,
but started for Vermont twenty-four hours later to bring her home.
"You keep house for me, Maria," he said with a forlorn attempt at
gayety. "Mind you keep the improvements swept and dusted, and if the
motor folks get too fresh, write a sign and hang it on the gate.
Make it read: 'We intended this house to be green. If it looks too
bright to suit you, drive by fast!'"
RIVERBORO, Sept. 10th, 19--
To MRS. CYRUS MILLIKEN,
Warsaw, Vermont
DEAR MOTHER:
I guess you suspicioned how it was with Undine and me when you
offered to go and spend the summer with Lorenzo and his wife in
Vermont, and I didn't say nothing to keep you home. It wa'n't that I
didn't like to have you round, for I always did, and you know it, but
the way I figured it out was, I was going to make so many
improvements on the premises that you wouldn't hardly have a rest for
the sole of your foot and you would be all fussed up till I got
everything to rights.
Well, now, mother, I've got to tell you, nothing has turned out the
same as I thought it would. Undine gave me to understand that she
liked me first rate, and she knew well enough that I was fascinated
with her from the minute I set eyes on her. I could see she thought
the house and barn was kind of run down and common-looking, and I
figured it out that if I made improvements enough in the premises and
got everything fixed up fashionable, she'd marry me when the fall
term of school was over. She was young and handsome and had more
education than me, and she not being used to housework, I figured it
out that I'd make things as easy and pleasant for her as I could, and
try to keep up with the band more than you or I was used to.
Well, mother, I was fooled all round, and I guess I ain't the first
man, neither. My improvements wouldn't 'a' had any weight with her,
though I'd sweated all summer over 'em, even working 4th of July and
right through dog-days without hardly sitting down to a square meal
or stopping to change my shirt. She'd made up her mind to ship me
even before she seen the cement walk and the electric lights and the
lace curtain in the front door, which has attracted more attention
than a circus ever sence it was put in.
When we said good-bye, she told me to go ahead and it would be all
right. I took it as a sacred promise, and oh, mother, it mortifies
me to confess how clean gone I was on that girl! The way it turned
out was this: I got so upset and worried by not hearing from her by
the last of August that I couldn't stand it any longer. If she'd
stayed to home in Greenford, I could have drove over every week or
two and kept her up to her word, or else, though I was blind as a
bat, I might have seen through her; but when I wrote you all the news
in July you remember I said, "Undine Berry has gone on a visit to
Albany with her father." Well, she stayed in Albany, and she didn't
correspond with me but one note and one post-card which I answered to
general delivery, having no address. I didn't write her all the
grand things I was doing, because her being a school-teacher, I
figured it out that she'd catch me up on some mistake in spelling and
turn me down cold. Well, mother, she done that anyway all right!
I had gone to Wareham to pay bills and telephone to Greenford where
nobody could hear me asking questions about Undine. The school
committee was expecting her every train, but she hadn't written to
them for weeks. Well, mother, I was gone four hours, and when I come
home my heart sunk right down, for the house looked strange to me. I
knew something had happened to the premises and to me, and sure
enough it was so. I hitched the horse and went up the cement walk,
because Undine said once a gentleman should use the front door, and
I've done it all summer for practice. I always felt like a fool when
I went in that way, and now I've locked it on the inside.
Well, I hadn't taken three steps before I saw a letter poked under
the door, and I knew it was all up between me and Undine. I hadn't
been looking for it either; it just come to me in a flash. I burned
up the letter, but sometime I'll tell you what was in it, though no
other living soul shall ever hear it, but my heart kind of curled
right up inside of me and ached like it was a tooth.
She didn't give me the mitten in a lady-like way. She wrote a mean,
cruel letter, mother; the kind that helped me some, after the first
blow. She's married to an Albany bank clerk, and they are living in
something she calls a "suite," at a hotel where a lady never has to
go into the kitchen. She even had the gall to get Bill Benson to
show her all over the house, and by Jiminy, she didn't like the
improvements any better than she did me! I wish I hadn't burned the
letter now, for I kind o' think I could have laughed over it--in a
couple o' years.
This is an awful long letter, but I'm giving up all day Sunday to it
and probably shall never write another. I want you to know
everything, and I guess I couldn't never tell it by word of mouth,
I'd be so ashamed.
I ain't going to pretend I ain't downcasted, for I be! I'd fixed my
mind on being snowed in with Undine all winter and setting in front
of the new Franklin stove with our feet up on the fender and the
electric lights turned on everywheres, for it don't cost no more to
burn ten than one, as you pay by the year. I had sold all the cows
but one, thinking Undine wouldn't want me to stay in the barn too
much; parted with the hog, too, for Undine said they always smell.
Perhaps the hog does, but the ham don't, and I'll buy another if you
think best.
I think I'd ought to say that mebbe you won't take kindly to some of
the improvements yourself, and I don't want to have 'em break on you
sudden, which accounts for this letter. You'll like having water
brought indoors, and a pump in the kitchen sink, for it will save you
lots of steps. You'll be glad of the electrics, because you won't
have to fill lamps and clean chimblies every morning. But the color
of the house needs getting used to. I wanted it gay and bright for
Undine, and by Jiminy, I got it!
You see, I bought the paint wholesale, and when one side of the house
was done, folks could see it from Wareham, and I wanted to keep it a
house and not turn it into a landmark, so I tried to tone it down.
Well, mother, I bought thirty-seven dollars' worth of stuff to tone
that paint down, and there warn't no tone-down to it, so as I'd spent
so much on it, I figured it out that I'd better give up and let time
fade it out. After all, women-folks live more inside of a house than
outside, and you're always busy in the back part and don't hear the
motors stop when they pass by, and the people in them make remarks.
I cut down one of the ellums by the gate just after you left. I
don't know whether you'll miss it, but it blocked the view of the
schoolhouse and I couldn't see Undine moving about or working at the
blackboard. I wish I had it back, for I don't want no closer view of
the teacher they've hired now than I can get from a good ways off.
I've put the dictionary away on the upper shelf of the china closet
where father left it. I won't say I've given up all idea of marrying
sometime or other, but the girl's got to have a Bible name next time.
No more water-sprites for Matt Milliken!
Now, mother, without you like Vermont better'n you do Maine, and
Lorenzo and Lulu better'n you do me, take the next train for home.
When I get round to it, I shall know you're worth more'n a dozen
Undines, though I won't deny I feel awful blue, and never expected to
be turned down cold like I have been by Undine Berry, but I was
misled by her looks, and that's the gospel truth. I ain't afraid
you'll turn me down, mother, without Lorenzo and Lulu want you to
winter with 'em awful bad, but I hope they won't, for the neighbors
are bound to talk, and I need you more'n I like to write in a letter.
It looks kind of foolish, set down in plain black and white.
You can have all the improvements I made, and welcome; and I guess
the greatest improvement of the whole caboodle will be the
improvement my mother will be on Undine Berry!
Your affec. son
MATTHEW MILLIKEN
THE END