MISS WAX AT HOME
Miss Bethia Wax was at work one afternoon, bending over her little round
table, busily plaiting a hair chain, when she heard her front door open.
She looked up in some disturbance, for Phoebe, the little maid, was
out, and there were few visitors, since Mrs. Stedman died, with whom she
was on "run-in" terms: her disturbance was not lessened when the billowy
form of Mrs. Malvina Weight appeared in the doorway.
"Good afternoon, Malvina," said Miss Wax, rather coldly. "I heard no
knock; I trust you have not been kept waiting. My domestic is out."
"Yes, I see her go past the house," said the visitor, "and I thought I'd
jest make a run-in. How are you feelin', Bethia? You're lookin' re'l
poorly. I noticed it in meetin' last Sabbath. I said to myself, 'That
woman is goin' jest the way all her fam'ly has, and she the last of 'em.
As a friend _of_ the fam'ly,' I said, 'it's my dooty to warn her'; and
so I do."
Mrs. Weight sat down, and fanned herself with a small and rather dingy
pocket-handkerchief.
"I am much obliged to you," said Miss Bethia. "I am in my usual health,
Malvina, though I am never very robust. I was always delicate, as you
may say, but yet I don't know but I have held my own with others of my
age. Flesh isn't always a sign of health," she added, not without a
touch of gentle malice.
"I expect I am aware of that!" cried Mrs. Weight. "I expect there's few
knows the frailness that comes with layin' on flesh. What I suffer
nights is beyond the power of tongue to tell. But all the more it
behoves me, as the widder of a sainted man and deacon of this parish, to
do my dooty by others; and I ask you, Bethia Wax, if you are doctorin'
any."
"I am not," said Miss Bethia, dryly.
"Well, you ought so to do," said Mrs. Weight, impressively. "It come to
me right in meetin', when I ought to have ben listenin' to the
sermon,--though the land knows I have hard work _to_ listen sometimes,
the sort o' talk Elder Bliss gives us: Gospel's well enough, but a
person wants _some_ doctrine, and it don't set good, any way, shape, or
manner, for a man of his years to be the everlastin' time tellin' them
as might be his mothers that they'd oughter do thus and so. I was
leadin' in prayer when Elder Bliss was a bottle-baby, at least he looks
it if ever I see one. But what I started in to say was, it come over me
all of a suddent that what you wanted was a bottle of my spring
med'cine, and so I brought you one."
She produced a bottle from under her shawl, and set it on the table with
a defiant air.
"I am much obliged to you, Malvina," Miss Wax began; but Mrs. Weight
went on impressively.
"Now you want to _take_ that med'cine, Bethia Wax! You want to take a
gre't spoonful with your victuals, and in between your victuals. You
take three bottles of that remedy, and you won't know yourself for the
same woman. If you're a mind to pay me fifty cents for this bottle and
sixty for the next two (that's thirty cents apiece, three spoonfuls for
a cent, less than half what you'd pay for any boughten stuff), you may,
and, if not, it's all ekal to me; the Lord will provide. He feeds the
ravens when they call, and I've never had no doubts of bein' one, far as
_I'm_ concerned."
Mrs. Weight here drew a long and deep breath, settled herself deeper in
her chair, and took a fresh start.
"So now _that's_ off my mind, and my dooty done, whether it's ordered
that you should remain, or pass away same as your folks has done. Now,
there's another thing I come to speak about. Be you goin' to march in
this procession?"
Miss Wax colored painfully. "I have not decided, Malvina," she said. "I
am considering the matter. Mr. Pindar Hollopeter has invited me to
appear as--as Minerva--"
"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Weight. "I knew it. I felt it in these bones!"
She indicated the spaces which veiled her anatomy. "I felt certing to my
inwards that this would end in pagan blasphemy, and so it has. Oh, that
I should live to see jedgment on this village, as I've lived in, and my
fathers before me, sence--"
"I do not understand you, Malvina," Miss Wax interrupted, with some
warmth. "The Mr. Hollopeters are Christian men, I believe; at least, I
know Homer is, and I've never heard anything to the contrary about
Pindar."
"Have you ever heard anything about Pindar, anyway?" cried Mrs. Weight,
her little eyes gleaming. "Do you, or doos any one in this village know,
how or where that man has ben livin' these thirty years past? He never
was one to hide his light under a booshel, if he had any to hide. Don't
tell me, Bethia Wax! For thirty years Pindar Hollopeter has ben livin'
let them know how as he serves, and never a cent, nor so much as a
breathin' word for the place that give him birth. But direckly he hears
that Mis' Tree has passed away, and left her money to Homer, and Satan's
own words and works in regards to changin' the name of this--"
Miss Bethia interrupted her again, promptly. "Malvina," she said,
firmly, "I have told you before, and I tell you again, that no word
disrespectful to Mrs. Tree shall be spoken in this house. There is no
need of bringing her into this matter at all; but I should like to know
why you call the Festival Procession pagan."
"And ain't it pagan?" cried Mrs. Weight, leaning forward, her hands on
her knees. "Ain't you jest told me with your own lips, Bethia Wax, that
he asked you, a church-member in reg'lar standin', to strut and stomp
as a heathen goddess, in heathen clo'es? Ain't that enough? Hasn't he
got all the girls in this village takin' their Mas' best sheets and
table-cloths and sewin' of 'em up to make toonics for muses and graces
and all sich pagan trollops? Ain't that enough? Do you think sheets is
fit and suitable clo'es for church-members? or table-cloths? And 'tain't
as if he hadn't ben shown a better path. 'Pindar,' I said, when he come
to see about Annie Lizzie, 'you get up an Old Folks' Concert,' I says,
'and I'll be the Goddess of Liberty for ye,' I says. I had that red,
white, and blue buntin', you know, that we hired for the Centennial.
Some of it was damaged, and the man wouldn't take it back, and it's ben
in my attic ever sence; and I thought 'twould be a good way to use it
up, and help him out at the same time. Why, Bethia, that man looked at
me--why, I believe he's ravin' distracted; he poured out a string o'
stuff that hadn't no sense or meanin' in it; and then said,
'Shakespeare,' as if that made it any better. Deacon never would have
Shakespeare's works in the house; he said they was real vulgar, and that
was enough for me. So he see I was real indignant, and he blinked his
eyes and spoke up and said I might be a Roman matron if I was a mind to.
But I says, 'No, sir!' I says. 'I am an American lady, and the widder of
a sainted man, and _I_ am not goin' travellin' and traipsin' in heathen
and publican clo'es, whatever others may do!' and so I come away, and
left him flappin' there on the door-steps. He's ravin' crazy, Pindar
Hollopeter is; he'd oughter be shut up. And I told Annie Lizzie she
shouldn't have anything to do with it in any way, shape, or manner.
She's ben bawlin' all day about it, but I tell her I didn't take her out
of the street to have her rigged out with wings. If she'd think of her
end, I tell her, and how she can aim a pair to walk the golden streets
with, it would set _her_ better. Well, I must be goin', Bethia; I only
run in jest for a minute. Now I hope you'll take that med'cine reg'lar,
and benefit by it. I couldn't answer to Deacon when I meet him in glory
if I hadn't done my dooty to them as is neighbors to me, specially when
they look as gashly as you do, Bethia; but I'm in hopes we've taken it
in time, and you may be spared. _Good_ day!"
The visitor gone, Miss Wax heaved a sigh of relief, and tried to settle
to her work again; but it would not do. Her mind had been disturbed,
and, as she often said, her profession required calm. The hand must be
steady, the nerves tranquil, or the delicate strands would twist and
knot; and now her long, slim fingers were trembling, and the silken
threads danced before her eyes. "I must give it up for to-day," said
Miss Bethia, sadly; and she put away the little table, and took out a
clean silk duster.
A parlor must be dusted twice in the day, according to Miss Wax's
theory: once in the morning, to remove the night's accumulation of dust,
and again toward evening, to take up such particles of the evil thing as
had settled during the day on chair or table, book or ornament. The
morning task was an anxious one, and apt to be complicated by fears of
the coffee's boiling over; but the afternoon dusting was one of the good
lady's pleasures, and she took her time over it. She loved to linger
over the glass cases, polishing them, admiring the treasures they
protected, and recalling the circumstances of their making. It was
pleasant to accompany her, as one was sometimes permitted to do, on one
of these friendly rounds.
"These pond-lilies," she would say, "were a wedding present to my cousin
Cilissa Vinton, deceased. They were admired by some; Cilissa thought
they were real, and wished to wear them in her hair. After her lamented
death (of spasms), the family returned them to me as a memento. That
spray of roses is made of feathers, the breast-feathers of the domestic
goose. I never allowed them to be plucked from the living bird, my dear!
I used to wear them in my hair; some thought the contrast pretty." And
Miss Bethia would sigh gently, and glance at the long mirror, which
reflected her tall and angular gentility.
But this afternoon the good lady's thoughts were not reminiscent. As she
stood before the rosewood "what-not," lifting each article, wiping it,
and replacing it with delicate nicety (I can see them all: the two
mandarins, the china baby in the bath-tub,--you could take him out! the
whole thing would go into a walnut-shell,--the pink-and-gold Dresden
shepherd and shepherdess, the Chinese puzzles, and all the other quaint
pleasantnesses), it was of to-day rather than yesterday that Miss Bethia
was thinking. Should she--_could_ she--walk in a public procession
attired as Minerva? She put aside with an inward shudder Mrs. Weight's
characterization of the possible performance. She, Bethia Wax, could not
"strut and stomp" if she tried. Her walk was graceful, as she was well
aware; in her youth she had been said to glide.
"As a swan o'er the water,
Quahaug's fairy daughter
In majesty maiden doth glide;
May the day Wax and wane
When the sighs of her swain
May waft her to bliss as a bride!"
Homer Hollopeter had written that in her album at a time when she and
Pindar were--oh, no! not engaged, certainly not; only very good
friends. Homer, she was aware, had regarded her as a sister, had
wished--but she never laid it up against Mary; no, indeed! Who could
wonder at any one's falling in love with Mary?
And now, after all the years, Pindar had come back; still an elegant
man, Miss Wax thought, though nervous, to be sure, sadly nervous. "But
perhaps it is his emotions," she said. "No doubt he feels it, coming
back after thirty years, and all so changed." And he had pressed her
hand, and murmured, "Ye gods!" which was almost profane, Miss Bethia
feared,--yet not quite, she hoped; and had asked her to represent
Minerva, goddess of wisdom, in the Festival Procession. He was coming
this very evening for her answer; what should it be?
Miss Bethia glanced again at the long mirror. The angular, yet not
ungraceful, figure, the long, oval face with its delicate features and
arched eyebrows, the glossy bands of hair, still jet-black,--the whole
reflection was familiar, friendly, not--Miss Wax modestly hoped--not
wholly unpleasing. She tried to imagine the figure clad in flowing
draperies; there was a rose-colored slip under the spare room spread;
sateen always draped prettily; pink was her color, and she could not
somehow feel that sheets would be quite--quite what she would wish to be
seen in. And--on her head, now! Would a helmet be necessary? There was
not such an article in the village, but she presumed with silver
paper--and yet, a wreath would be so much more becoming; the
feather-work roses, for example! She took them from under their round
glass case, and laid them against her hair, then put them back with a
sigh. The contrast certainly used to be thought becoming, but
somehow--and after all was it suitable? What would Phoebe and Vesta
Blyth--what would Mrs. Tree have said?
With the thought, a vision rose before Miss Wax's eyes: a little figure
seated in a high-backed chair, leaning on an ebony crutch-stick; black
eyes gleaming with merriment, lips curving in a shrewd yet kindly
smile--
Miss Wax glanced at the trophy of silver coffee-spoons which still
adorned the mantelpiece; sighed again, and turned away from the glass.
"After all," murmured dear Miss Bethia, and this time she smiled, though
it was a rather wan smile; "after all, Minerva was the goddess of
wisdom!"