"And they went unto Huldah the
Prophetess and communed with her"
Huldah Rumford leaned from her bedroom window as she finished plaiting
her hair.
The crowing of the white Brahma rooster had interrupted her toilet and
she craned her neck impatiently until she discovered that he had come
from the hen-yard in the rear and established himself on the
doorsteps, from which dominating position he was announcing his
message.
"That means company coming, and I hope it's true," she said to
herself, as she looked absent-mindedly in the old-fashioned looking
glass, with its picture of Washington crossing the Delaware.
Her thoughts were evidently wandering, for she took her petticoat from
a hook in the closet and pulling it over her head found, when she
searched for the buttons in the waistband, that she had it on
wrong-side out.
"I don't care!" she exclaimed, giving the unoffending garment an angry
twitch, "but it does seem as if I was possessed! I can't keep my mind
on my clothes long enough to get them on straight! I turned my
petticoat yesterday, in spite of knowing it brings bad luck, but
to-day I just won't take the chance."
The pink calico morning dress went on without adventure. Then she
carefully emptied the water from the wash-bowl into the jar, wiped it
neatly and hung the towel to dry; straightened the photograph of her
deceased father in its black-walnut frame; shook the feather bed and
tightened a sagging cord under the cornhusk mattress; took the
candlestick from the light-stand by her bedside and tripped down the
attic stairs two at a time.
Huldah was seventeen, which is a good thing; she was bewitchingly
pretty, which is a better thing; and she was in love, which is
probably the best thing of all, making due allowance, of course, for
the occasions in which it is the worst possible thing that can happen
to anybody.
Mrs. Rumford was in the kitchen frying doughnuts for breakfast. She
was a comfortable figure as she stood over the brimming "spider" with
her three-pronged fork poised in the air. She turned the yellow rings
in the hissing fat until they were nut-brown, then dropped them for a
moment into a bowl of powdered sugar, from which they issued the most
delicious conspirators against the human stomach that can be found in
the catalogue of New England cookery.
The table was neatly laid near the screen door that opened from the
kitchen into the apple-orchard. A pan of buttermilk biscuits was
sitting on the back of the stove, and half a custard pie, left from
the previous night's supper, held the position of honor in front of
Mrs. Rumford's seat. If the pie had been cereal, the doughnuts
omelette, and the saleratus biscuits leavened bread, the plot and the
course of this tale might have been different; but that is neither
here nor there.
"Did you hear the Brahma rooster crowing on the doorstep, mother?"
asked Huldah.
"No; but I ain't surprised, for I can't seem to keep my dish-cloth in
my hand this morning; if I've dropped it once I've dropped it a dozen
times: there's company coming, sure."
"That rooster was crowin' on the fence last time I seen him, and he's
up there ag'in now," said little Jimmy Rumford, with the most
offensive skepticism.
"What if he is?" asked his sister sharply. "That means fair weather,
and don't interfere with the sign of company coming; it makes it all
the more certain."
"I bet he ain't crowin' about Pitt Packard," retorted Jimmy, with a
large joy illuminating his sunburnt face. "Pitt ain't comin' home from
Moderation this week; he's gone to work on the covered bridge up
there."
Huldah's face fell.
"I'd ought to have known better than to turn my white skirt
yesterday," she sighed. "I never knew it to fail bringing bad luck. I
vow I'll never do it again."
"That's one o' the signs I haven't got so much confidence in," said
Mrs. Rumford, skimming the cream from a pan of milk into the churn and
putting the skimmed milk on the table. "It don't come true with me
more 'n three times out o' five, but there's others that never fails.
You jest hold on, Huldy; the dish-cloth and the rooster knows as much
'bout what's goin' to happen as your white petticoat does."
"Jest about as much," interpolated Jimmy, with his utterance somewhat
choked by hot doughnut.
Huldah sat down at the table and made a pretense of eating something,
but her heart was heavy within her.
"What are you churning for on Friday, mother?" she asked.
"Why, I told you I am looking for strangers. It ain't Pitt Packard
only that I expect. Yesterday mornin' I swept a black mark on the
floor; in the afternoon I found two o' the settin'-room chairs
standin' back to back, and my right hand kep' itchin' all day, so't I
knew I was goin' to shake hands with somebody."
"You told me 't was the left hand," said Jimmy.
"I never told you no such thing, Jimmy Rumford. Eat your breakfast,
and don't contradict your mother, or I'll send you to bed quick 's you
finish eatin'. Don't you tell me what I said nor what I didn't say,
for I won't have it. Do you hear me?"
"You did!" responded Jimmy obstinately, preparing to dodge under the
table in case of sudden necessity. "You said your left hand itched,
and it meant money comin', and you hoped Rube Hobson was goin' to pay
you for the turkey he bought a year ago last Thanksgivin'-time, so
there!"
"So I did," said the widow reflectively. "Come to think of it, so I
did; it must 'a' been a Wednesday my right hand kep' itchin' so."
"And comp'ny didn't come a Wednesday neither," persevered Jimmy.
"Jimmy Rumford, if you don't behave yourself and speak when you're
spoken to, and not before, you'll git a trouncin' that you'll remember
consid'able of a spell afterwards."
"I'm ready for it!" replied the youngster, darting into the shed and
peeping back into the kitchen with a malignant smile. "I dreamt o'
Baldwin apples last night.
'Dream fruit out o' season,
That's anger without reason.'
I knew when I got up you'd get mad with me the first thing this
morning, and I'm all prepared--when you ketch me!"
Both women gave a sigh of relief when the boy's flying figure
disappeared around the corner of the barn. He was morally certain to
be in mischief wherever he was, but if he was out of sight there was
one point gained at least.
"Why do you care so dreadfully whether Pitt comes or not?" asked Mrs.
Rumford, now that quiet was restored, "If he don't come to-day, then
he'll come a Sunday; and if he don't come this Sunday, then he'll come
the next one, so what's the odds? You and him didn't have a fallin'
out last time he was home, did you?"
"Yes, if you must know it, we did."
"Haven't you got any common sense, Huldy? Sakes alive! I thought when
I married Daniel Rumford, if I could stand his temper it was nobody's
business but my own. I didn't foresee that he had so much he could
keep plenty for his own use, and then have a lot left to hand down to
his children, so 't I should have to live in the house with it to the
day of my death! Seems to me if I was a girl and lived in a village
where men-folks is as scarce as they be here, I'd be turrible careful
to keep holt of a beau after I'd got him. What in the name o' goodness
did you quarrel about?"
Huldah got up from the table and carried her plate and cup to the
sink. She looked out of the window to conceal her embarrassment, and
busied herself with preparations for the dish-washing, so that she
could talk with greater freedom.
"We've had words before this, plenty of times, but they didn't amount
to anything. Pitt's good, and he's handsome, and he's smart; but he's
awful dictatorial and fault-finding, and I just ain't goin' to eat too
much humble-pie before I'm married, for fear I won't have anything
else to eat afterwards, and it ain't very fattening for a steady diet.
And if there ever was a hateful old woman in the world it's his
stepmother. I've heard of her saying mean things about our family
every once in a while, but I wouldn't tell you for fear you'd flare up
and say Pitt couldn't come to see me. She's tried to set him against
me ever since we began to keep company together. She's never quite
managed to do it, but she's succeeded well enough to keep me in
continual trouble."
"What's she got to say?" inquired Mrs. Rumford hotly. "She never had a
silk dress in the world, till Eben Packard married her, and everybody
knows her father was a horse-doctor and mine was a reg'lar one!"
"She didn't say anything about fathers, but she did tell Almira Berry
that no member of the church in good standing could believe in signs
as you did and have hope of salvation. She said I was a chip off the
old block, and had been raised like a heathen. It seems when I was
over there on Sunday I refused to stand up and have my height measured
against the wall, and I told 'em if you measured heights on Sunday
you'd like as not die before the year was out. I didn't know then she
had such a prejudice against signs, but since that time I've dragged
'em in every chance I got, just to spite her."
"More fool you!" said her mother, beginning to move the dasher of the
churn up and down with a steady motion. "You might have waited until
she was your mother-in-law before you began to spite her. The first
thing you know you won't get any mother-in-law."
"That's the only thing that would console me for losing Pitt!"
exclaimed Huldah. "If I can't marry him I don't have to live with her,
that's one comfort! The last thing she did was to tell Aunt Hitty
Tarbox she'd as lief have Pitt bring one of the original Salem witches
into the house as one of the Daniel Rumford tribe."
"The land sakes!" ejaculated the widow, giving a desperate and
impassioned plunge to the churn-dasher. "Now I know why I dreamt of
snakes and muddy water the night before she come here to the Ladies'
Aid Club. Well, she's seventy, and she can't live forever; she can't
take Eben Packard's money into the next world with her, either, and I
guess if she could 't would melt as soon as it got there."
Huldah persevered with her confession, dropping an occasional tear in
the dishwater.
"Last time Pitt came here he said he should have three or four days'
vacation the 12th of August, and he thought we'd better get married
then, if 't was agreeable to me. I was kind of shy, and the almanac
was hanging alongside of the table, so I took it up and looked to see
what day of the week the 12th fell on. 'Oh, Pitt,' I said, 'we can't
be married on Friday; it's dreadful unlucky.' He began to scold then,
and said I didn't care anything about him if I wouldn't marry him when
it was most convenient; and I said I would if 't was any day but
Friday; and he said that was all moonshine, and nobody but foolish old
women believed in such nonsense; and I said there wasn't a girl in
town that would marry him on a Friday; and he said there was; and I
asked him to come right out and tell who he meant; and he said he
didn't mean anybody in particular; and I said he did; and he said,
well, Jennie Perkins would, on Friday or Sunday or wash-day or any
other day; and I said if I was a man I vow I wouldn't take a girl that
was so anxious as all that; and he said he'd rather take one that was
a little too anxious than one that wasn't anxious enough; and so we
had it, back and forth, till I got so mad I couldn't see the almanac.
Then, just to show him I had more good reasons than one, I said,
'Besides, if we should be married on a Friday we'd have to go away on
a Saturday, and ten to one 't would rain on our wedding-trip.'
"'Why would it rain Saturday more than any other day?' said he; and
then I mistrusted I was getting into fresh trouble, but I was too mad
to back out, and said I, 'They say it rains more Saturdays in the year
than any other day'; and he got red in the face and said, 'Where'd you
get that silly notion?' Then I said it wasn't any silly notion, it was
Gospel truth, and anybody that took notice of anything knew it was so;
and he said he never heard of it in his life; and I said there was
considerable many things that he'd never heard of that he'd be all the
better for knowing; and he said he was like Josh Billings, he'd rather
know a few things well than know so many things that wa'n't so."
"You might have told him how we compared notes about rainy days at the
Aid Club," said her mother. "You remember Hannah Sophia Palmer hadn't
noticed it, but the minute you mentioned it she remembered how, when
she was a child, she was always worryin' for fear she couldn't wear
her new hat a Sunday, and it must have been because it was threatening
weather a Saturday, and she was afraid it would keep up for Sunday.
And the widow Buzzell said she always picked up her apples for
pie-baking on Friday, it was so apt to be dull or wet on a Saturday."
"I told him all of that," continued Huldah, "and how old Mrs. Bascom
said they had a literary society over to Edgewood that used to meet
twice a month on Saturday afternoons, and it rained or snowed so often
they had to change their meetings to a Wednesday.
"Then the first thing I knew Pitt stood up so straight he looked more
than ten feet tall, and says he, 'If you don't marry me a Friday,
Huldah Rumford, you don't marry me at all. You're nothing but a mass
of superstition, and if you're so scared for fear it will rain on your
wedding-bonnet a Saturday, you can stay home under cover the rest of
your life, for all I care. I'll wash the top buggy, put the umbrella
under the seat, and take Jennie Perkins; she won't be afraid of a
wetting so long as she gets it in good company.'
"'You're right,' I said, 'she won't, especially if the company's a
man, for she'll be so dumfounded at getting one of 'em to sit beside
her she won't notice if it rains pitchforks, and so far as I'm
concerned she's welcome to my leavings.' Then he went out and slammed
the kitchen door after him, but not so quick that I didn't get a good
slam on the sitting-room door first."
"He'll come back," churned Mrs. Rumford philosophically. "Jennie
Perkins has got a pug nose, and a good-sized mole on one side of it. A
mole on the nose is a sure sign of bad luck in love-affairs,
particularly if it's well to one side. He'll come back."
* * * * *
But, as a matter of fact, the days went by, the maple-trees turned
red, and Pitt Packard did not come back to the Rumford farm. His
comings and his goings were all known to Huldah. She knew that he took
Jennie Perkins to the Sunday-School picnic, and escorted her home from
evening meetings. She knew that old Mrs. Packard had given her a
garnet pin, a glass handkerchief-box, and a wreath of hair flowers
made from the intertwined tresses of the Packards and the Doolittles.
If these symptoms could by any possibility be misinterpreted, there
were various other details of an alarmingly corroborative character,
culminating in the marriage of Pitt to Jennie on a certain Friday
evening at eight o'clock. He not only married her on a Friday, but he
drove her to Portland on a Saturday morning; and the Fates, who are
never above taking a little extra trouble when they are dealing out
misery, decreed that it should be one of the freshest, brightest, most
golden mornings of the early autumn.
Pitt thought Portland preferable to Biddeford or Saco as a place to
pass the brief honeymoon, if for no other reason than because the road
thither lay past the Rumford house. But the Rumfords' blinds were
tightly closed on the eventful Saturday, and an unnecessarily large
placard hung ostentatiously on the front gate, announcing to
passers-by that the family had gone to Old Orchard Beach, and would be
home at sundown. This was a bitter blow to the bridegroom, for he had
put down the back of the buggy with the intention of kissing the bride
within full view of the Rumford windows. When he found it was of no
use, he abandoned the idea, as the operation never afforded him any
especial pleasure. He asked Mrs. Pitt if she preferred to go to the
beach for her trip, but she decidedly favored the gayeties of a
metropolis.
The excitement of passing the Rumford house having faded, Jennie's
nose became so oppressive to Pitt that he finally changed places with
her, explaining that he generally drove on the left side. He was more
tranquil then, for her left profile was more pleasing, though for the
life of him he could not help remembering Huldah's sweet outlines, the
dimple in her chin, her kissable mouth, her delicate ear. Why, oh,
why, had she inherited her father's temper and her mother's gift of
prophecy, to say nothing of her grandfather's obstinacy and her
grandmother's nimble tongue! All at once it dawned upon him that he
might have jilted Huldah without marrying Jennie. It would, it is
true, have been only a half revenge; but his appetite for revenge was
so dulled by satisfaction he thought he could have been perfectly
comfortable with half the quantity, even if Huldah were not quite so
uncomfortable as he wished her to be. He dismissed these base and
disloyal sentiments, however, as bravely as he could, and kissed
Jennie twice, in a little stretch of wood road that fell in
opportunely with his mood of silent penitence.
About two o'clock clouds began to gather in the sky, and there was a
muttering of thunder. Pitt endured all the signs of a shower with such
fortitude as he could command, and did not put up the buggy-top or
unstrap the boot until the rain came down in good earnest.
"Who'd have suspicioned this kind of weather?" he growled as he got
the last strap into place and shook the water from his new straw hat.
"I was afraid of it, but I didn't like to speak out," said Jennie
primly; "they say it gen'ally does rain Saturdays."
* * * * *
Meanwhile Huldah lay in the spare room at the back of the house and
sobbed quietly. Mrs. Rumford and the skeptical Jimmy had gone to Old
Orchard, and Huldah had slipped out of the front door, tacked the
obtrusive placard on the gate-post, and closed all the blinds in honor
of the buried hopes that lay like a dead weight at the bottom of her
heart.
She was a silly little thing, a vain little thing, and a spitfire to
boot, but that did not prevent her suffering an appreciable amount,
all that her nature would allow; and if it was not as much as a larger
nature would have suffered, neither had she much philosophy or
strength to bear it. The burden is fitted to the back as often as the
back to the burden.
She frequently declared to herself afterwards that she should have had
"a fit of sickness" if it had not been for the thunderstorm that came
up on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday afternoon. She had waked
that morning with a dull pain in her heart--a dull pain that had grown
keener when she looked from her attic window and saw the sun shining
clear in the sky. Not a cloud sullied the surface of that fair blue
canopy on this day of the faithless Pitt's wedding-journey. A sweet
wind blew the tail feathers of the golden cock on the squire's barn
till he stared the west directly in the eye. What a day to drive to
Portland! She would have worn tan-colored low shoes and brown openwork
stockings (what ugly feet Jennie Perkins had!), a buff challie dress
with little brown autumn leaves on it, a belt and sash of brown
watered ribbon (Jennie had a waist like a flour-barrel!), and a sailor
hat with a bunch of yellow roses on one side--or would two brown
quills, standing up coquettishly, have been more attractive? Then she
would have taken a brown cloth shoulder-cape, trimmed with rows upon
rows of cream-colored lace, and a brown parasol with an acorn of
polished wood on the handle. Oh, what was the use of living when she
could wear none of this bridal apparel, but must put on her old pink
calico and go down to meet Jimmy's brotherly sneers? Was there ever
such a cruelly sunshiny morning? A spot of flickering light danced and
quivered on her blue wallpaper until she could bear it no longer, and
pinned a towel over it. She sat down by the open window and leaned
dejectedly on the sill, the prettiest picture of spiteful, unnecessary
misery that the eye of mortal man ever rested upon, with her bright
hair tumbling over her unbleached nightgown, and her little bare feet
curled about the chair-rounds like those of a disconsolate child.
Nobody could have approved of, or even sympathized with, so trivial a
creature, but plenty of people would have been so sorry for her that
they would have taken sensible, conscientious, unattractive Jennie
Perkins out of Pitt Packard's buggy and substituted the heedless
little Huldah, just for the pleasure of seeing her smile and blush.
There was, however, no guardian imp to look after her ruined fortunes,
and she went downstairs as usual to help about the breakfast,
wondering to herself if there were any tragedies in life too terrible
to be coexistent with three meals a day and the dishes washed after
each one of them.
An infant hope stirred in her heart when she saw a red sparkle here
and there on the sooty bottom of the tea-kettle, and it grew a little
when her mother remarked that the dishwater boiled away so fast and
the cows lay down so much that she believed it would rain the next
day. When, that same afternoon, the welcome shower came with scarce
ten minutes' warning, Huldah could hardly believe her eyes and ears.
She jumped from her couch of anguish and remorse like an excited
kitten, darted out of the house unmindful of the lightning, drove the
Jersey calf under cover, chased the chickens into the coop, bolstered
up the tomatoes so that the wind and rain would not blow the fruit
from the heavily laden plants, opened the blinds and closed the
windows.
"It comes from the east," she cried, dancing up and down in a glow of
childish glee--"it comes from the east, and it's blowing in on
Jennie's side of the buggy!" She did not know that Pitt had changed
places with his bride, and that his broad shoulder was shielding her
from the "angry airt."
Then she flew into the kitchen and pinned up her blown hair in front
of the cracked looking-glass, thinking with sympathetic tenderness how
pretty she looked, with her crown of chestnut tendrils tightened by
the dampness, her round young cheeks crimsoned by the wind, and her
still tearful eyes brightened by unchristian joy. She remembered with
naughty satisfaction how rain invariably straightened Jennie Perkins's
frizzes, and was glad, _glad_ that it did. Her angry passions were so
beautifying that the radiant vision in the glass almost dazzled her.
It made her very sorry for Pitt too. She hated to think that his
ill-temper and stubborn pride and obstinacy had lost him such a lovely
creature as herself, and had forced him to waste his charms on so
unappreciative and plain a person as Jennie Perkins. She remembered
that Pitt had asked her to marry him coming home from the fair in a
rainstorm. If he meant anything he said on that occasion, he must be
suffering pangs of regret to-day. Oh, how good, how sweet, how kind of
it to rain and support her in what she had prophesied of Saturday
weather!
All at once a healing thought popped into her head. "I shall not live
many years," she reflected--"not after losing Pitt, and having his
mother crow over me, and that hateful Jennie Perkins, having the
family hair wreath hanging over her sofa, and my wedding ring on her
hand; but so long as I live I will keep account of rainy Saturdays,
and find a way to send the record to Pitt every New Year's Day just to
prove that I was right. Then I shall die young, and perhaps he will
plant something on my grave, and water it with his tears; and perhaps
he will put up a marble gravestone over me, unbeknownst to Jennie, and
have an appropriate verse of Scripture carved on it, something like:
she openeth her mouth with wisdom;
and in her tongue is the law of kindness
I can see it as plain as if it was written. I hope they will make it
come out even on the edges, and that he will think to have a white
marble dove perched on the top, unless it costs too much."
* * * * *
The years went on. Huldah surprised everybody by going away from home
to get an education. She would have preferred marriage at that stage
of her development, but to her mind there was no one worth marrying in
Pleasant River save Pitt Packard, and, failing him, study would fill
up the time as well as anything else.
The education forced a good many helpful ideas into pretty Huldah's
somewhat empty pate, though it by no means cured her of all her
superstitions. She continued to keep a record of Saturday weather, and
it proved as interesting and harmless a hobby as the collecting of
china or postage-stamps.
In course of time Pitt Packard moved to Goshen, Indiana, where he made
a comfortable fortune by the invention of an estimable pump, after
which he was known by his full name of W. Pitt Fessenden Packard. In
course of time the impish and incredulous Jimmy Rumford became James,
and espoused the daughter of a wealthy Boston merchant. His social
advancement was no surprise to Huldah and her mother, for, from the
moment he had left home, they had never dreamed of him save in
conjunction with horned cattle, which is well known to signify
unexampled prosperity.
In course of time, too, old Mrs. Rumford was gathered to her fathers
after a long illness, in which Huldah nursed her dutifully and well.
Her death was not entirely unexpected, for Hannah Sophia Palmer
observed spots like iron rust on her fingers, a dog howled every night
under Almira Berry's window, and Huldah broke the kitchen
looking-glass. No invalid could hope for recovery under these sinister
circumstances, and Mrs. Rumford would have been the last woman in the
world to fly in the face of such unmistakable signs of death. It is
even rumored that when she heard the crash of glass in the kitchen she
murmured piously, "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," and
expired within the hour.
* * * * *
Nineteen summers and winters had passed since Pitt Packard drove "her
that was Jennie Perkins" to Portland on her wedding-trip. He had been
a good and loyal husband; she had been a good and faithful wife; and
never once in the nineteen years had they so much as touched the hem
of the garment of happiness.
Huldah the Prophetess lived on in the old house alone. Time would have
gone slowly and drearily enough had it not been for her ruling
passion. If the first part of the week were fair, she was hopeful that
there was greater chance of rain or snow by Saturday; if it were
rainy, she hoped there would be a long storm. She kept an elaborate
table showing the weather on every day of the year. Fair Saturdays
were printed in red ink, foul Saturdays in jet-black. The last days of
December were generally spent in preparing a succinct statement from
these daily entries. Then in the month of January a neat document,
presenting facts and figures, but no word of personal comment or
communication, was addressed at first to Mr. W. P. Packard, and of
late years to W. Pitt Fessenden Packard, and sent to Goshen, Indiana.
Mr. Packard was a good and loyal husband, as I have said, but there
was certainly no disloyalty in the annual perusal of statistical
weather tables. That these tables, though made out by one of the
weaker sex, were accurate and authentic, he had reason to believe,
because he kept a rigid account of the weather himself, and compared
Huldah's yearly record with his own. The weather in Pleasant River did
not, it is true, agree absolutely with the weather in Goshen, but the
similarity between Maine and Indiana Saturdays was remarkable. The
first five years of Pitt's married life Huldah had the advantage, and
the perusal of her tables afforded Pitt little satisfaction, since it
proved that her superstitions had some apparent basis of reason. The
next five years his turn came, and the fair Saturdays predominated. He
was not any happier, however, on the whole, because, although he had
the pleasure of being right himself, he lost the pleasure of believing
Huldah right. So time went on until Mrs. Pitt died, and was buried
under the handsomest granite monument that could be purchased by the
sale of pumps. Not only were the funeral arrangements carried out with
the liveliest consideration for the departed, but Mr. Packard
abstained from all gay society and conducted himself with the greatest
propriety. Nevertheless, when his partner and only confidential friend
extolled Jennie's virtues as wife, housekeeper, companion, and church
member, he remarked absently: "She was all that, Jim, but somehow I
never liked her."
For two years after his bereavement Huldah omitted sending her weather
statistics to Mr. Packard, thinking, with some truth, that it might
seem too marked an attention from an attractive Maine spinster to a
"likely" Indiana widower.
* * * * *
Matters were in this state when Mr. Packard alighted at the Edgewood
station one bright day in August. He declined the offer of a drive,
and soon found himself on the well-remembered road to Pleasant River.
He had not trodden that dusty thoroughfare for many a year, and every
tree and shrub and rock had a message for him, though he was a plain,
matter-of-fact maker of pumps. There was no old home to revisit, for
his stepmother had died long ago, and Jennie had conscientiously
removed the family wreath from the glass case and woven some of the
departed lady's hair into the funereal garland. He walked with the
brisk step of a man who knew what he wanted, but there was a kind of
breathless suspense in his manner which showed that he was uncertain
of getting it. He passed the Whippoorwill Mill, the bubbling spring,
the old moss-covered watering-trough, and then cut across the widow
Buzzell's field straight to the Rumford farm. He kept rehearsing the
subject-matter of a certain speech he intended to make. He knew it by
heart, having repeated it once a day for several months, but nobody
realized better than he that he would forget every word of it the
moment he saw Huldah--at least, if the Huldah of to-day were anything
like the Huldah of the olden time.
The house came in sight. It used to be painted white; it was drab now,
and there was a bay-window in the sitting-room. There was a new pump
in the old place, and, happy omen, he discovered it was one of his own
manufacture. He made his way by sheer force of habit past the kitchen
windows to the side door. That was where they had quarreled mostly. He
had a kind of sentiment about that side door. He paused a moment to
hide his traveling-bag under the grapevine that shaded the porch, and
as he raised his hand to grasp the knocker the blood rushed to his
face and his heart leaped into his throat. Huldah stood near the
window winding the old clock. In her right hand was a "Farmer's
Almanac." How well he knew the yellow cover! and how like to the
Huldah of seventeen was the Huldah of thirty-six! It was incredible
that the pangs of disappointed love could make so little inroad on a
woman's charms. Rosy cheeks, plump figure, clear eyes, with a little
more snap in them than was necessary for connubial comfort, but not a
whit too much for beauty; brown hair curling round her ears and
temples--what an ornament to a certain house he knew in Goshen,
Indiana!
She closed the wooden door of the clock, and, turning, took a generous
bite from the side of a mellow August sweeting that lay on the table.
At this rather inauspicious moment her eye caught Pitt's. The sight of
her old lover drove all prudence and reserve from her mind, and she
came to the door with such an intoxicating smile and such welcoming
hands that he would have kissed her then and there, even if he had not
come to Pleasant River for that especial purpose. Of course he forgot
the speech, but his gestures were convincing, and he mumbled a
sufficient number of extracts from it to convince Huldah that he was
in a proper frame of mind--this phrase meaning to a woman the one in
which she can do anything she likes with a man.
They were too old, doubtless, to cry and laugh in each other's arms,
and ask forgiveness for past follies, and regret the wasted years, and
be thankful for present hope and life and love; but that is what they
did, old as they were.
"I wouldn't have any business to ask you to marry such a dictatorial
fool as I used to be, Huldah," said Pitt; "but I've got over
considerable of my foolishness, and do say you will. Say, too, you
won't make me wait any longer, but marry me Sunday or Monday. This is
Thursday, and I must be back in Goshen next week at this time. Will
you, Huldah?"
Huldah blushed, but shook her head. She looked lovely when she
blushed, and she hadn't lost the trick of it even at thirty-six.
"I know it's soon; but never mind getting ready. If you won't say
Monday, make it Tuesday--do."
She shook her head again.
"Wednesday, then. _Do_ say Wednesday, Huldy dear."
The same smile of gentle negation.
He dropped her hand disconsolately.
"Then I'll have to come back at Christmas-time, I s'pose. It's just my
busy season now, or I would stay right here on this doorstep till you
was ready, for it seems to me as if I'd been waiting for you ever
since I was born, and couldn't get you too soon."
"Do you really want me to marry you so much, Pitt?"
"Never wanted anything so bad in my life."
"Didn't you wonder I wasn't more surprised to see you to-day?"
"Nothing surprises me in women-folks."
"Well, it was because I've dreamed of a funeral three nights running.
Do you know what that's a sign of?"
Pitt never winked an eyelash; he had learned his lesson. With a sigh
of relief that his respected stepmother was out of hearing, he
responded easily, "I s'pose it's a sign somebody's dead or going to
die."
"No, it isn't: dreams go by contraries. It's a sign there's going to
be a wedding."
"I'm glad to know that much, but I wish while you was about it you'd
have dreamt a little more, and found out when the wedding was going to
be."
"I did; and if you weren't the stupidest man alive you could guess."
"I know I'm slow-witted," said Pitt meekly, for he was in a mood to
endure anything, "but I've asked you to have me on every day there is
except the one I'm afraid to name."
"You know I've had plenty of offers."
"Unless all the men-folks are blind, you must have had a thousand,
Huldah."
Huldah was distinctly pleased. As a matter of fact she had had only
five; but five offers in the State of Maine implies a superhuman power
of attraction not to be measured by the casual reader.
"Are you sorry you called me a mass of superstition?"
"I wish I'd been horsewhipped where I stood."
"Very well, then. The first time you wouldn't marry me at all unless
you could have me Friday, and of course I wouldn't take you Friday
under those circumstances. Now you say you're glad and willing to
marry me any day in the week, and so I'll choose Friday of my own
accord. I'll marry you to-morrow, Pitt: and"--here she darted a
roguishly sibylline glance at the clouds--"I have a water-proof; have
you an umbrella for Saturday?"
Pitt took her at her word, you may be sure, and married her the next
day, but I wish you could have seen it rain on Saturday! There never
was such a storm in Pleasant River. The road to the Edgewood station
was a raging flood; but though the bride and groom were drenched to
the skin they didn't take cold--they were too happy. Love within is a
beautiful counter-irritant.
Huldah didn't mind waiting a little matter of nineteen years, so long
as her maiden flag sank in a sea of triumph at the end; and it is but
simple justice to an erring but attractive woman to remark that she
never said "I told you so!" to her husband.