A NEIGHBORLY CALL
"With the lips meanwhile she can honor it! Oil of flattery, the
best antifriction known, subdues all irregularities
whatsoever."
A slight stiffness of limb next morning held Mrs. Doggett an unwilling
prisoner in bed, until a somewhat later hour than she arose on the day
of her visit to the seeress, and by eight o'clock, when she had gotten
her morning's work done, the snow, which had begun to fall at daybreak,
was full six inches deep.
The exigencies of the case, however, according to the seeress, permitted
no delay, and Mrs. Doggett's purpose was not to be thwarted by any sort
of weather, or sundry twinges in her joints.
She slipped on an old pair of Mr. Doggett's brown woolen socks over her
Sunday shoes, tied her head carefully in a little gray breakfast shawl,
in lieu of the clover-stitched sun-bonnet (drooping on its nail from the
exposure of the day before), and wrapped herself in an old thick, black
"dolman."
Lily Pearl seized the broom.
"Lemme sweep you a little road out to the gate, Mammy!"
"No honey, I don't want you to do that," her grandmother, who still
struggled with the hooks of the dolman, answered her. "Sweepin'll spread
your hands so's they won't look nice to play chunes on the orgin!"
The child ran to her grandmother and buried her face, quivering with
ecstatic anticipation, in her neck.
"Oh Mammy," she breathed, "_will_ I have a orgin to play on, sometime?"
Mrs. Doggett forgot her hurry, and sat down with the child clasped close
in her arms.
"Lord, yes, darlin'," she assured her, "and maybe a pieanner, too'll be
a settin' in t'other corner o' your parler. I don't never intend these
little hands shall ever tech a cow's teat, ner do nary theng that'll
rough 'em! I want 'em to be slim and delicate like them little bird
claws o' Mrs. Castle's, when you air a grown lady! You won't never thenk
hard o' Mammy when she wants you to wear your bonnet clost, and keep
your shoes on in summer, will you, honey? She don't want your feet to
never git big, and wants you to be raised white complected, agin the
time you git to wearin' silk dresses with trails on 'em ever' day!"
Lily Pearl clasped the prospective "bird claws" in a thrill of delight.
"Will I have money to buy candy fer Dock and me, when I git big, Mammy?"
she queried hopefully.
Mrs. Doggett smiled, as remembering her errand, she put the little girl
down. "Lord, yes, you'll be goin' 'round a tradin' in the stores, maybe
carryin' a roll o' bills so big a cow couldn't swaller 'em!"
After cautioning the child to watch the fire until her return, with
skirts held well aloft, Mrs. Doggett took the path that led over the
hill a quarter of a mile to the James' house.
To her infinite satisfaction, while she divested herself of her wraps
and her unconventional overshoes on Miss Nancy's kitchen hearth, where
that lady sat, with a pressing-board on her lap, and a basket of scraps
beside her, Mrs. Doggett learned that Miss Lucy had gone to town with
the marketing, and that Mr. Lindsay had ridden to the store, two miles
away, for the mail.
"You ain't been up lately, Mrs. Doggett," Miss Nancy remarked,
reluctantly drawing her three flat-irons aside, so that her visitor
might share a portion of the meagre fire with them: "ain't you been
well?"
"Me? No, I hain't been well. I been a complainin' ever sence Christmas,
from the top o' my head to the sole o' my foot. I thenk I must have bile
on the liver, I complain so much with a ketch in the back."
"Mother used to use plasters for her back, sometimes," observed Miss
Nancy.
"These here Polish plasters, I reckon," volunteered Mrs. Doggett: "I've
bought 'em too, but they never done _me_ no good. They's a new-fashioned
kind o' plasters, I fergit the name. They writ on and wanted Marshall
and Dock to be agents fer: I don't know how in the world they ever got
holt o' their names. I been aimin' to try _them_, but a heap o' them
remedies hain't nary bit o' count after you pay your money fer 'em.
"Whenever I go up to Susy's, when the bell rings, me and her always
takes down the receiver, and evedraps the tillephorm, and last time I
wuz thar, I heerd Mrs. Fetter a 'phoamin' to Miss Maud Floss about
Bottum's medicine a bein' good rheumatiz medicine, and I got a little
bottle, and tuck hit jest as prompt as I could, and hit never done nary
bit o' good. I tuck hit by the directions, too. I dunno what causes me
to have the rheumatiz so, fer I always wear red flannel underwear next
to my skin, bein's hit's so good fer the rheumatiz."
Miss Nancy was not patient with Mrs. Doggett's health history.
"I heard Jim'd been complainin'," she cited without comment.
"Yes, Jim's been broke out all over his body. It tarrified him awful fer
a while; he jest couldn't git nary minute o' rest ontel he got somethin'
from the doctor fer hit. The doctor said his blood was out o' fix.
"He hadn't never been so bad off sence he quit killin' cats! He used to
love to kill cats, Miss Nancy, better'n _anytheng_! And he never had no
luck at nothin'. He tuck stomach trouble, and jest drinneled away to
nothin', and I jest made him quit killin' cats. Sence he's had this
eruptive spell, though, he's been a workin' all the time jest the same!
Seems like a body jest has to keep a goin', sick er well, ef they 'spect
to have anytheng!"
"That's what I tell Lucy," Miss Nancy commented briefly, with
considerable emphasis.
"I've got to do a big ir'nin' termorrer, fer though I wuzn't no ways
able," explained Mrs. Doggett, "I done a big washin' the first o' the
week. Ever' blessed theng wuz dirty. How many shirts you reckon I put
out?"
"I have no idy," acknowledged Miss Nancy.
"Twenty-five white shirts, besides three apiece o' their ever'days!"
"That's a mighty big washin'," observed Miss Nancy, stooping to pick up
a piece of green cashmere.
"Now hain't hit?" Mrs. Doggett went on, in genial disregard of the
unbelief in her listener's tone: "but laws, that hain't nothin' to the
big washin's I done along in the early fall at terbaccer-cuttin' time. I
like to 'a' killed myse'f then. Their shirts and overhalls wuz all over
gum offen the terbaccer, the awfulest lookin' sights that ever you seed:
and I had to bile half the thengs in Jimpson leaf tea to git the stain
out'n 'em. And when they got through housin' the terbaccer, and I had
the beds to strip, and the bed clothes to wash, my clothes line wuz a
plumb sight to see!"
Thinking her conversation on general topics had been of sufficient
length, Mrs. Doggett began adroitly to lead up to the object of her
visit, by a little judicious flattery.
"You're a lookin' well, now, Miss Nancy"; she fastened her keen black
eyes on Miss Nancy's dun-colored hair and forbidding eyes: "me and Mr.
Brock wuz a talkin' about you night afore last, and I says: 'Actually
and candidly, Miss Nancy is the best lookin' and the finest lookin' of
any that family!'"
Miss Nancy uttered no word to indicate that she heard this bare-faced
compliment, but the pleased red that crept slowly over her countenance
was sufficient encouragement for Mrs. Doggett.
"Somebody wuz a tellin' me t'other day," she continued, "I believe hit
wuz Henrietty, Jim's wife,--that Mr. West'd tuck to lookin' around
ag'in, and he'd been a sendin' word he wanted to come to see you er Miss
Lucy."
"Wantin'll be all then!" Miss Nancy gave a slight toss of her head.
"I don't blame you fer sayin' that. As little a chunk as he is, and as
low to the ground, ef him and a fine tall woman like you wuz to walk in
church together, he'd look like a reticule a hangin' onto your arm."
Mrs. Doggett measured Miss Nancy's ungainly figure with an approving
eye.
"More than that, ef looks wuz suitable," Miss Nancy spoke abruptly, "I
ain't a wantin' no widower with eight childern! When I marry, ef ever I
do, it'll be a man without a family, with a good home, and money, but I
ain't--"
"You're satisfied like you are, hain't you?" broke in Mrs. Doggett. "You
hain't one o' them kind to jump off and marry jest to have hit said
you're married! A heap marries, a thenkin' ef they jest have a husband,
they'll never have need fer nothin' else, but when they're married, they
find they need ever'theng but the husband, and they don't need him at
all! I told 'em all t'other night, _you_ wuzn't a pickin', but ef you
wuz, hit'd be somebody like Vaughn Castle, er Frank Arnold, your cousin,
Effie Esther Willises' man,--not a man like,--"
"Like who?" Miss Nancy looked up quickly.
"Well, Miss Nancy, people will talk, you know, and when a single man's a
stayin' wher' thar's two ladies that hain't married, folks will connect
their names. Of course you wouldn't give no encouragement to sech as
him--"
At Mrs. Doggett's tentative venture, the red blood came in a flood in
Miss Nancy's face, and spread from her faded brown calico collar to the
roots of the unlovely hair on her high forehead.
"And, seein' no prospect of gittin' your notice, he turned wher' his
attentions wuz more welcomer," concluded her guest.
"You're a talkin' about Lucy and Mr. Lindsay, ain't you?" jerked out
Miss Nancy, finally, when the tell-tale blush had partially faded.
"Yes, I am," admitted Mrs. Doggett: "the talk is they're a courtin'."
"I haven't saw no courtin' goin' on," insisted Miss Nancy in half
hopeful prevarication, "have you?"
This was Mrs. Doggett's opportunity, eagerly seized.
"Well, Miss Nancy," she answered, laying a propitiatory hand on Miss
Nancy's lap, "I'll tell you what little I know. As fur back as
August,--the day my pore Callie lay a corpse, Miss Lucy wuz at her
house, and Henrietty wuz thar, and Mr. Lindsay drapped in a few minutes.
Henrietty says they looked courty _then_. I asked Henrietty: 'Did they
say anytheng lovin', Henrietty?' 'No, Ma, I can't say that they did,'
she says: '_she_ set down on the aidge o' the bed, a pinkin' up like a
bashful young girl, and _he_ crossed over the room, and stood by her a
minute er two, and they talked about the weather and sech like.'
"But Henrietty, she says they _looked_ love, to the best o' her belief,
and a body can might' nigh tell what's up by the way folks looks and
acts! And Gran'dad, _he_ says one day when him and Mr. Lindsay wuz in
town, they seed Miss Lucy a goin' in a store, and Mr. Lindsay pointed
towards her, and says: 'That's my woman, Gran'dad, ef I can git her!'"
The knee on which Mrs. Doggett's fingers lay, stiffened, and its owner's
whole frame grew rigid under the intensity of her emotions at this
verification of her suspicions.
"Maybe, they are a keepin' hit hid from you and your Pa, Miss Nancy,"
Mrs. Doggett hazarded. "Mr. Lindsay is mighty sly: he knows you all know
he's a puny man--nigh as sickly as a consumptive, and hain't got nothin'
laid by!"
"Lucy's weakly herse'f, and it'd be plumb foolish fer her to thenk about
marryin'!" Miss Nancy cried out sharply: "and ef she wuz to--to marry
old Lindsay, it'd be jest the settin' up of another poor-house, and the
County's got poor-houses a plenty now. Besides, Lucy owes it to me and
Pa to stay here!"
"Well, yes, Miss Nancy," soothed Mrs. Doggett, "but your Pa's old, and
may be tuck any time! Ef Miss Lucy wuz persuaded now to look a little
higher--Mr. Brock, he hain't rich enough fer _you_, but he wouldn't be a
bad match fer Miss Lucy, considerin'. Miss Lucy's about fifteen years
older'n you, hain't she?"
"Nine years, three months, and five days," corrected Miss Nancy.
"Now Mr. Brock, he's got money laid up. He says sometimes Mr. Castle
when he's got all his'n invested er somethin', actually borry's from
him!" equivocated Mrs. Doggett. "And Mr. Brock's jest the best man in
his fambly: Evy and Reub jest worships him. And he's sech a good
pervider, and a high standin' man in the community, too."
At that moment old Zeke barked: Miss Nancy stepped to the window.
"Hit's Lucy a comin' down the lane," she informed Mrs. Doggett who had
arisen: "Zeke's saw the buggy."
"Hain't that somebody on a hoss a ridin' 'longside the buggy?" Mrs.
Doggett peered close to the glass: "the snow is so blindin' a body can't
skeercely see."
"Hit's Mr. Lindsay," answered Miss Nancy shortly, "a comin' from the
store."
"Well, I got to go." Mrs. Doggett drew on her wraps. "Ef you're shore
you won't need 'em, I'll borry a couple your ir'ns fer termorrer."
When the rider, and the driver reached the yard, Mr. Lindsay, innocent
of the two pairs of critical eyes that watched him from the kitchen
window, turned back the top of the buggy carefully, and with a hand that
all the hard work in the world could not make other than gentle,
assisted Miss Lucy to alight.
"Jest watch him, will ye?" Mrs. Doggett inveighed: "a handlin' Miss Lucy
like she wuz aigs! Hain't he a puttin' on a good pious face, and him
what he is, now! You hain't heerd I reckon, about him a goin' to
Owensboro ever' onct in a while?" She lowered her voice to a meaning
whisper.
"No!" Miss Nancy waited expectant.
"Well, you've heerd tell o' married men with big famblies a passin' off
fer single men, hain't you, afore today, and ever' onct in a while a
sneakin' off to see their wife and childern?" With this last pointed
remark, Mrs. Doggett opened the side door of the kitchen.
"No, thank you, Miss Nancy, I can't stay nary 'nother minute," she
declared in a tone of regret: "jest tell Miss Lucy fer me I'm still a
lookin' fer her, and both of you come down real soon!" The door closed
behind her, leaving Miss Nancy in anything but an amiable state of mind.
At the buggy-house in the corner of the back yard, Mrs. Doggett
encountered Mr. Lindsay putting away the buggy, and his saddle, and
greeted him effusively.
"Eph's been a lookin' fer you down, Mr. Lindsay," she tendered him in
smiling farewell, as Mr. Lindsay courteously brushed the snow aside and
opened the gate for her, "but you're a flyin' too high fer us now, I
reckon!"
Late that afternoon, when Mr. Lindsay took the milk-buckets from Miss
Lucy's hand, and went with her to the barn lot, to assist her at the
milking, as he had done each time since the beginning of his stay with
the Jameses, Miss Nancy stood looking after him with a rigid air of
offended propriety. Mrs. Doggett's whisper, suggesting vague
possibilities of evil, had been accepted with due allowance by Miss
Nancy, but for many days, a worm had found an abiding place in her
bosom, and the other information Mrs. Doggett had given her to which she
could give credence, fed this worm into a mighty thing that bit her
heart cruelly.
She angrily watched Miss Lucy and her aid, as they moved about the
barn-yard, to the serious hindering of the supper preparations. On her
second unnecessary trip to the sitting-room, she threw the door open
wide.
"Jest look!" she sneered. "Jest look, Pa! How does that look, him and
her out there a milkin' together? Ef I was you, Pa, I'd stop it!"
"Hit _hain't_ modest lookin'," agreed the old man: "Lucy'd orter know
better'n to allow that. She'd aggervate the patience o' Job with her
foolishness. I sha'n't let her milk no more while he's here!"
After that, the pleasure of the evenings spent around the sitting-room
fire was marred by the unpleasant insinuations directed at Mr. Lindsay
by Miss Nancy, and the covert stabs she inflicted on Miss Lucy. One
unusually cold evening Mr. Lindsay came in with a slight chill and
flushed cheeks.
"Bein's hit's so cold, Mr. Lindsay, and you ain't well," remarked Miss
Lucy kindly, placing a smoothing-iron on the fender, "I'll heat this
iron for you to take to bed with you. Them upstairs rooms havin' no fire
in 'em, is awful chilly these nights."
Presently Miss Nancy pushed the iron away from the fire.
"You're jest a burnin' that ir'n up, Lucy Ann!" she scolded.
Miss Lucy said nothing, but when Miss Nancy left the room a moment,
quietly put the iron nearer the fire again, and when her sister returned
and once more moved it away, she lifted it off the fender.
"I'll jest take your iron to the kitchen, Mr. Lindsay," she said in a
low tone, "and get a flannel rag to wrap hit in,--that is," she looked
at him with apologetic eyes, "ef you are about ready for hit!"
Mr. Lindsay arose and followed Miss Lucy to the kitchen.
"Miss Lucy," he said gravely, "I see I'm a causin' trouble a stayin'
here: I'm a makin' a disturbance in the family."
"Why no, Mr. Lindsay," Miss Lucy's voice shook in eager denial of his
assertion. "No, you ain't--you ain't a doin' nobody nothin' but good. We
all ain't been so happy sence Mother was taken away."
"Miss Nancy," began Mr. Lindsay, but Miss Lucy interrupted him.
"Don't you pay no 'tention to Nancy, Mr. Lindsay," she supplicated:
"Nancy, she has to work so hard, and she gits so tired and nervous:
Nancy don't mean no harm!"
"You can't fool me, Miss Lucy," Mr. Lindsay's forehead knotted itself in
a frown. "I hain't blind and I hain't deef, and I can't holp seein' the
way she does, and a hearin' her bemean _you_ about me all the time
nearly. I don't want to make no disturbance, so I'll jest leave!"
In the winter of the year before, an unusually severe winter, Miss Lucy
and Miss Nancy, without help (they could get none in the time of tobacco
stripping, and their father was not allowed to work by the doctor's
orders) had been compelled, with damp skirts, wet by the deep snows, and
fingers frosted by the cold, to feed the stock, hauling shocks of fodder
from the field. At Mr. Lindsay's words, Miss Lucy's hand went up to her
face in the familiar worried gesture, and a look of anxiety widened her
eyes. But it was not the thought of the work that brought a hoarse sob
to her throat.
"O Mr. Lindsay," she begged with dry lips, "don't leave us! We can't do
without you. Don't leave us before spreng comes noway!"
Mr. Lindsay took her cold hand and held it between his own, hot and
feverish.
"Ef you feel that away about hit, Miss Lucy," he said soothingly, "I
reckon I can make out untel then."
Miss Lucy hastily drew away her hand, stooped to wrap the iron that he
might not see the flood of joy in her face.
The hall with the stairway that led to Mr. Lindsay's room, and the
sitting-room also, opened on the back porch. When they had crossed the
porch, Miss Lucy paused with one hand on the sitting-room doorknob.
"I don't know how we can ever repay you, Mr. Lindsay, for your kindness
to us," she murmured, her face shining with something more than sweet
gratefulness. Miss Lucy did not know that her eyes held the dangerous
gift of personal speech.
Because of what he read in the translucent blue eyes, Mr. Lindsay
suddenly became very bold.
"I could tell you, Miss Lucy,"--mindful of the pair of sharp ears behind
the door, he lowered his voice--"I could tell you how you could repay me
for the little I've done for you, ef you'd listen to me!"
But Miss Lucy had fled, and had closed the door softly behind her.