It was four o'clock of a hot August afternoon. The sun had crept round
to the front piazza of the doctor's cottage. No friendly trees warded
off his burning rays, for the doctor "liked a prospect;" _i. e._ he
liked to sit at the window and count the different trains which whizzed
past in the course of the day; the number of wagons, and gigs, and
carriages, that rolled lazily up the hill; to see the village engine,
the "Cataract," drawn out on the green for its weekly ablutions, and to
count the bundles of shingles that it took to roof over Squire Ruggles'
new barn. No drooping vines, therefore, or creepers, intruded between
him and this pleasant "prospect." The doctor was an utilitarian; he
could see "no use" in such things, save to rot timber and harbor vermin.
So a wondrous glare of white paint, (carefully renewed every spring,)
blinded the traveler whose misfortune it was to pass the road by
the doctor's house. As I said, it was now four o'clock. The twelve
o'clock dinner was long since over. The Irish girl had rinsed out her
dish-towels, hung them out the back door to dry, and gone down to the
village store to buy some new ribbons advertised as selling at an
"immense sacrifice" by the disinterested village shopkeeper.
* * * * *
Let us peep into the doctor's sitting room; the air of this room is
close and stifled, for the windows must be tightly closed, lest some
audacious fly should make his mark on the old lady's immaculate walls.
A centre table stands in the middle of the floor, with a copy of "The
Religious Pilot," last year's Almanac, A Directory, and "The remarkable
Escape of Eliza Cook, who was partially scalped by the Indians." On one
side of the room hangs a piece of framed needle-work, by the virgin
fingers of the old lady, representing an unhappy female, weeping over a
very high and very perpendicular tombstone, which is hieroglyphiced over
with untranslateable characters in red worsted, while a few herbs, not
mentioned by botanists, are struggling for existence at its base. A
friendly willow-tree, of a most extraordinary shade of blue green,
droops in sympathy over the afflicted female, while a nondescript
looking bird, resembling a dropsical bull-frog, suspends his song
and one leg, in the foreground. It was principally to preserve this
chef-d'oeuvre of art, that the windows were hermetically sealed to the
entrance of vagrant flies.
The old doctor, with his spectacles awry and his hands drooping
listlessly at his side, snored from the depths of his arm-chair,
while opposite him the old lady, peering out from behind a very
stiffly-starched cap border, was "seaming," "widening," and "narrowing,"
with a precision and perseverance most painful to witness. Outside, the
bee hummed, the robin twittered, the shining leaves of the village trees
danced and whispered to the shifting clouds; the free, glad breeze swept
the tall meadow-grass, and the village children, as free and fetterless,
danced and shouted at their sports; but there sat little Katy, with her
hands crossed in her lap, as she _had_ sat for many an hour, listening
to the never-ceasing click of her grandmother's needles, and the
sonorous breathings of the doctor's rubicund nose. Sometimes she
moved uneasily in her chair, but the old lady's uplifted finger would
immediately remind her that "little girls must be seen and not heard."
It was a great thing for Katy when a mouse scratched on the wainscot,
or her grandmother's ball rolled out of her lap, giving her a chance
to stretch her little cramped limbs. And now the village bell began
to toll, with a low, booming, funereal sound, sending a cold shudder
through the child's nervous and excited frame. What if _her_ mother
should die way off in the city? What if she should _always_ live in this
terrible way at her grandmother's? with nobody to love her, or kiss
her, or pat her little head kindly, and say, "Katy, dear;" and again the
bell boomed out its mournful sound, and little Katy, unable longer to
bear the torturing thoughts it called up, sobbed aloud.
It was all in vain, that the frowning old lady held up her warning
finger; the flood-gates were opened, and Katy could not have stopped her
tears had her life depended on it.
Hark! a knock at the door! a strange footstep!
"Mother!" shrieked the child hysterically, "mother!" and flew into
Ruth's sheltering arms.
* * * * *
"What _shall_ we do, doctor?" asked the old lady, the day after Ruth's
visit. "I trusted to her not being able to get the money to come out
here, and her father, I knew, wouldn't give it to her, and now here she
has walked the whole distance, with Nettie in her arms, except a lift a
wagoner or two gave her on the road; and I verily believe she would have
done it, had it been twice the distance it is. I never shall be able to
bring up that child according to my notions, while _she_ is round. I'd
forbid her the house, (she deserves it,) only that it won't sound well
if she tells of it. And to think of that ungrateful little thing's
flying into her mother's arms as if she was in the last extremity, after
all we have done for her. I don't suppose Ruth would have left her with
us, as it is, if she had the bread to put in her mouth. She might as
well give her up, though, first as last, for she never will be able to
support her."
"She's fit for nothing but a parlor ornament," said the doctor, "never
was. No more business talent in Ruth Ellet, than there is in that chany
image of yours on the mantle-tree, Mis. Hall. That tells the whole
story."