THE MYRTLE BUDS IN MISS LUCY'S GARDEN
"No spring or summer's beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face."
For more than a half-hour old Milton James had limped up and down the
gravelled drive that led through the grove of poplars in front of the
lead-colored, one-and-a-half storied house that was his home,
alternately watching the fat old bay mare and three cows that pulled at
the fodder scattered in the pasture field over the fence, and the muddy
road that ran across the foot of the avenue and disappeared over the
hill beyond.
"Lucy Ann beats ever'theng a stayin'," he muttered, irritably pulling at
his sparse white beard; "jest now in sight, and hit nigh twelve
o'clock!"
The dark object at length resolved itself into an old-fashioned and much
mud-bespattered buggy, drawn by the counterpart of the bay in the
pasture, and driven by a woman in black.
"Lucy Ann, don't drive ag'in the gate-post!"
With a hand that slightly trembled, both from weakness and nervous
irritability, the tall old man, leaning on his stick, his bald head
shining in the December sun, held open the side gate of the yard, while
his daughter, measuring the space between the white-washed gate posts
with an anxious eye, drove cautiously in.
To a person of fifty years, agility is ordinarily a stranger. Miss Lucy,
carefully protecting her new black etamine dress skirt from the wheel,
climbed slowly out of the buggy, and gathered up the numerous bundles
from the floor of the vehicle. Then, while her father fumbled with the
straps of the harness, she lingered for a moment, watching him.
"Pa," she ventured in the apologetic manner of one who expects a rebuff,
"spose'n you let _me_ help take out old Maud. I'm afraid you'll hurt
your bad knee."
"Naw, I won't," answered her father testily: "you'd better jest take
them thar bundles in the house, and put on your ever' day clothes and
holp Nancy about the dinner! Nancy's been a workin' hard all the time
you've been a gaddin' about town."
When Miss Lucy came out of the front bedroom into the sitting-room
behind it, an imaginary speck of dust on a pane of glass in the door of
the tall cherry "press" filled with gay-colored dishes, caught her eye.
She rubbed the glass carefully with a corner of her apron, and catching
up the little hearth-broom, stooped to brush up a microscopic cinder
that had fallen from the grate on the green and red striped rag carpet.
Her sister greeted her with a look of reproach.
"Do you think, Lucy, I ain't done no cleanin' up while you was gone?"
she asked.
Both the Misses James were alike tall, but what was angularity in the
uncompromisingly erect figure of Miss Nancy, who had never known a sick
day, was slenderness and delicacy in her elder sister. Miss Nancy's
rugged face found no redeeming beauty in her eyes, which were gray and
cold as the foundation stones of the house, and carried in their depths
a perpetual look of rebuke to the world in general, and to her sister in
particular; but the irregularity of Miss Lucy's features seemed akin to
beauty in the light of her dark-blue eyes, shining with loving
kindness,--eyes that despite their owner's years, held a look of
singularly childlike innocence, and a sort of timidity that appeals to
the chivalry of men.
According to Mrs. Doggett, the James' nearest neighbor, for whom
spinsterhood in one she did not admire required a just reproof, but in a
friend necessitated an explanation and an apology, "Miss Nancy's never
had any notice as I ever heerd tell of, but to the best o' my belief,
Miss Lucy'd 'a' been married long ago, ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer skeer
o' them old thengs,"--the "old thengs" in question being Miss Nancy and
her father.
"How do you like Pa's overcoat, Nancy?" asked Miss Lucy, opening the
great bundle she had laid on the middle star of the sitting-room bed,
and holding up the garment. Miss Nancy looked at the neat gray beaver
with cold disapproval.
"Why'n't you git black?" she demanded: "you wanted a black one, didn't
you, Pa?"
The old man looked at the coat and then over his steel-rimmed spectacles
at his elder daughter whose hand went up to her face in a nervous,
defensive movement,--an acquired gesture that told of a life lived under
the lash of rebuke.
"I taken this one, Pa, because I got it cheap; it was a young man's
overcoat, left over from last spring. Jest see how fine quality it is,
and Pa, I wisht you'd look at the linin'!"
Mr. James fingered the soft nap of the garment, and examined its
handsome lining with reluctant eyes.
"Yes," he admitted grudgingly, "hit _is_ fine quality. A blind hog will
stumble on an acorn sometimes!"
Miss Lucy helped him into the coat.
"Wall," he grumbled triumphantly, "I knowed thar'd be somethin' wrong.
Hit don't fit: I hain't a goin' to torment myse'f squez in sech tight
armholes as them is! You'll jest have to take hit back! Go to town one
day to git thengs,--go to town next day to swap 'em! I thenk next time
you start out to town, you'd better let Nancy--a person with some
jedgement, go with you to keep you from actin' like a chicken with hit's
head off!"
"Ef you'd jest go along and try a coat on, Pa, like I want you to, you
might git a better fit and be better suited too," remonstrated Miss Lucy
mildly, although her lips trembled, as she carefully folded the coat,
and laid it on a bottom shelf of the press, and smoothed the wrinkle on
the bed where the bundle had lain. "And Pa," she added, "Brother and
Sister Avery's a comin' out this evenin' to stay all night. I told 'em
you'd be awful glad,--you got so lonesome a settin' 'round since you'd
had the rheumatism so bad and the doctor told you not to work any."
"Why'n't you git some crackers, Lucy, ef you knowed comp'ny was comin'?"
asked Miss Nancy. "We won't have no time to bake no lightbread between
now and the time they git here, and we ought to have somethin' to eat
with the beef soup."
"I did," replied Miss Lucy following her sister to the big, low-ceiled
kitchen whose woodwork, cupboard shelves, biscuit board, and puncheon
floor were alike white and immaculate with much scrubbing. Miss Nancy
emptied the sugar into its jar and poured out the crackers.
"Why'n't you git square crackers?" she grumbled, as the round soda
biscuits rattled in the tin can.
"They didn't have none, Nancy, where I took the butter, no kind but the
round ones," explained Miss Lucy: "I didn't have no time to go nowhere
else then, it was so late, and I had to go around through Plumville to
get the money the colored woman owed me on the last dress I made her. I
wanted to order that safety razor for Pa for Christmas, with the money."
She lowered her voice, so the old man, partially deaf, could not hear.
"Then I wouldn't go back through town; I thought I ought to save the
mare all the pullin' I could. The apples I took made a right heavy load
goin'--"
"I don't thenk you tried to save her much," broke in her father tartly,
laying a scant armful of stovewood by the little cracked stove whose
high polish would have led even a stove-dealer to strike off ten years
from its real age: "that thar mar's mighty nigh into the thumps. I lay
you driv' her too fast!"
"Why, Pa, I walked her all the way back from town." Miss Lucy's voice
was gently deprecative.
"Wall, hit's a good theng you did, because she's got a shoe off, and her
foot's all turned up like a cheer rocker now."
"The stock seems to be enjoyin' their stalks. Who foddered for you
today, Pa?" ventured Miss Lucy, thinking to divert his thoughts.
"Whar's your mem'ry, Lucy Ann?" fretted Mr. James. "Didn't I go down to
Doggett's yistiddy and git Marshall to promise to come? He's the only
one o' the Doggetts that I can ever git to do anytheng fer me. He's been
about more'n the others, a workin' up thar in Ohawo, and he's learnt the
value of a promise. Old Man Doggett'll promise you anytheng when he
hain't got no notion he's goin' to have time to do hit,--he's so afeerd
o' bein' disagreeable, then he'll tell you he hated hit awful, but he
jest possible couldn't come!"
"It's a pity more people ain't afraid of bein' disagreeable," thought
Miss Lucy with a sigh: "if they was, this'd be a pleasenter world."
To Miss Lucy, the minister and his bride were creatures far above
ordinary clay. Months before his marriage, the young man, quite alone in
the world, had made the gentle Miss Lucy the confidant of his hopes and
fears, and the marriage of the handsome and magnetic young lover to the
pretty sweetheart, whose wealth and social position had threatened to be
unsurmountable barriers, was a romance dear to her heart. She went about
her work of preparing for the expected guests in a glow of pleasure, but
the charmed spell of her thoughts was presently broken by a call from
Miss Nancy in the kitchen.
"Lucy Ann, I know you've done had time to change them spreads and shams,
and 'tain't no use a puttin' _all_ the ever'day thengs away! Mother used
to say, 'nobody can't put hand on nary ever'day towel when comp'ny's
around. Lucy's hid 'em all,' and hit looks like you're bent on keepin'
up your reputation. Come on here and bake them pies, ef you're a goin'
to!"
Miss Lucy sighed, and went about the task of pie making with the ready
skill of one whose fingers had fashioned pastries before they measured
the length of the bowl of the spoon with which she mixed them.
"Pa, I had a new boy to help me milk this evenin'."
This bit of information imparted by Miss Lucy, when after the early
supper, while Miss Nancy attended to the dishes, she and her father sat
around the sitting-room grate with their guests, was met by an
infectious trill of laughter from the minister's wife.
"O Glen," she gurgled, "you would have been a widower this evening if
the milk-bucket had not saved me! I went on the wrong side of Miss
Lucy's black cow and raised her ire. _She_ raised her _foot_, Miss Lucy
said, but I think it must have been her _feet_!"
"I am afraid you won't do for a chore boy," laughed her husband, "if you
begin by antagonizing the cows. Have you in view any more suitable boy,
Miss Lucy?"
The question of a small boy to be paid for his services in food and in
raiment, was a constant and unsettled one in the James family. Five
youths had been its portion in one year, and the last one had left by
the light of the moon two weeks before.
"No," Miss Lucy looked away from her father as she spoke: "Cousin Becky
Willis told me where she thought I could get one, and I tried today, but
the childern are all goin' to school--"
"Hit's hard to git a boy to stay," interrupted Mr. James, smiling
affably at the minister, "but I shan't let the girls do the work by
theirselves no way this winter. I've got the promise o' a mighty good
man."
"Who've you got, Pa,--Mr. Lindsay?" hazarded Miss Nancy as she
economically extinguished the small lamp she had just brought in from
the kitchen, and slightly lowered the flame of the large one on the
mantel.
"Yes, Lindsay," assented her father. A little pleased gasp escaped Miss
Lucy, but no one noticed it but little Mrs. Avery, sitting next her.
"Lindsay, he come by here this mornin' a goin' to my nephew, Simeon
Willises, and stopped a few minutes. He's lookin' mighty puny: said he
hain't felt well all this fall, not sence he got p'izened with Paris
green in Archie Evans' terbaccer last August. Archie, he would have him
to spray fer him, wantin' a man o' jedgement to do hit. Lindsay's been
plumb laid up fer about two weeks, he said. I told him he ort to 'a'
come here and staid while he wuz laid up, but he's been a stayin' at
Doggett's.
"He said he didn't allow to do no regular work this winter, and I put at
him to come and stay with us ontel spreng and holp the girls out. I told
him ef he'd jest come and stay, I'd give him his board, and his washin'
shouldn't cost him nary cent, and he agreed to breng his trunk and come
day after termorrer--Saturday.
"Lindsay's a mighty fine man--raised down hyonder whar I wuz, in Wayne,
though I never knowed him ontel he come to Simeon's to work. He used to
keep store down thar ontel he got burnt out, and sence then he's been a
croppin' in terbaccer part the time, and part the time travellin' around
fer his health, helpin' folks with their farm work and terbaccer when he
feels like hit."
"He's a mighty nice man," volunteered Miss Nancy: "Cousin Becky said
when he was workin' there, her stovewood box was always full, and when
she wanted to clean hit, she had to empty hit. They ain't many men
that'll do that!"
Miss Lucy said nothing, and the lights were too low for the warm color
in her face to tell any tales.
"Hit's a wonder, too," went on Miss Nancy, "he'd be so nice, bein' a
tobacco man: most them tobacco people are awful rough: they don't seem
to care for church goin' ner nothin' that way, and all their idy of
pleasure is crap shootin', and drinkin', and dancin' at them all-night
parties they have around among theirselves durin' the winter."
"Mr. Lindsay ain't no regular tobacco man, Nancy; he jest learned how to
raise hit when he was stayin' in Fayette," corrected Miss Lucy. "And
besides," she remonstrated, flushing at her own temerity, "I don't think
you ought to blame the tobacco folks so much; they don't have much
chance to learn refinement and genteel ways, but they ain't all rough.
Mr. Doggett's folks are as polite as anybody. And as fer goin' to
church, I reckon ef me and you was to work in the tobacco all day ever'
Saturday, we wouldn't feel much like dressin' up on Sunday. Some of 'em
ain't got suitable clothes to wear to church neither, and sometimes they
have to work on Sunday, too."
"It's hard for any one of us to put himself in a brother's place,"
remarked the minister gently. Miss Nancy said no more, and Mr. James
resumed his theme.
"Lindsay hain't no trouble to wait on nuther: he's jest as tidy as a
womern," he remarked, "and that's one reason I got him to come. I want
to spar' the girls all I can."
"You are right, Brother James," commended the bride, dimpling
seductively, "they're so good to you! You are surely to be congratulated
for having two such good daughters to care for you."
"Thar hain't no danger o' me a losin' 'em, nuther." Mr. James' tone was
confident. "I've allus been mighty good to 'em, and I've paid 'em fer
teckin' keer o' me!"
Miss Lucy looked up from the sock she was knitting,--one of a dozen
pairs she had knit to pay for her winter hat.
"Why, Pa," she protested mildly, "I've never saw any of the money you
ever give anybody for takin' care of you!"
"Money fer takin' keer o' me?" cried the old man in a tone of surprise:
"I've been a feedin' you I reckon, and a feedin' you a mighty long time
too!"
When the minister and his wife were safely upstairs in their room, her
clear, low laugh filled the little apartment.
"I don't mean to be disrespectful," she cried out softly, "but Glen, I'm
worried about the pay those two women received for their trouble in
getting up that delicious supper!"
"The pay?" The Reverend Avery's puzzled face sent his helpmeet off in
another gurgle of laughter.
"Their food, Stupid," she railed softly, "what a high estimate our
brother must put on his '_feed_!'"
"That isn't what's troubling me," responded the young man in mock
trepidation: "I'm worried lest when we are in a house of our own, I
shan't be able to come up to Miss Nancy's wood-box standard!"
Miss Lucy crept cautiously to her bedroom on the ground floor, lighted
only by the moon. In the kitchen Miss Nancy took down the papers she had
hung the day before on the wall nails on which to hang her skillets and
pans, and replaced them with fresh papers, and laid the morning's sticks
in the stove by the light of the only lamp she would permit to be
lighted beside the one in the guest-chamber. Miss Lucy pressed her face
against the window and looked serenely out in the moonlit yard.
"Them two are so happy together," she said to herself as a sound of
laughter came to her ears, "I wish--"
A shade of regret saddened her face for an instant.
"But a body has always got somethin' to be glad over," she mused:
"there's havin' _them_, such pleasant company, here tonight, and Pa and
Nancy so agreeable, and--and Mr. Lindsay a comin' to stay with us a
Saturday."
The sudden warmth that came into her heart brought a faint heat to her
cheeks. She remembered something Mr. Lindsay had said to her when he sat
beside her in her buggy on the way to Callie Brock's burial, in the last
month of the summer. On that occasion, he had no way to go and some one
had pointed out to him a vacant seat in Miss Lucy's buggy.
It was something about the loneliness of a man with no home ties, and
the look that accompanied the words was responsible, though Miss Lucy
did not realize it herself, for the various soft-hued and pretty
"remnants" she had bought and made into waists for everyday wear for
herself,--waists Miss Nancy supposed were long since sold to the negroes
in Plumville, to whose trade Miss Lucy catered. In reality they were
locked in Miss Lucy's trunk, away from chance of Miss Nancy's revilement
of their colors and rebukement of her for extravagance. Miss Nancy
herself wore prints, patched, and faded to a nondescript brown, for
everyday.
Miss Lucy went to the end window of her room and looked wistfully out on
the coal-shed with its meager pile.
"I wish," she said to herself, "considerin' we ain't got no wood hardly
on the place, Nancy and Pa'd agreed to get a little more coal, so's we
could have bigger fires when we are all a settin' around when the work's
done up, and could set up later of nights."