glad some o' you church folks has seen fit to come an' visit 'em.
There ain't been nobody here this long spell, an' they've aged a sight
since they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets,
Mis' Trimble, an' I relish it, I tell you. I'll shut the door after
you, if you don't object. I feel every draught o' cold air."
"I've always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa'n't
she from somewheres up Parsley way?" whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
stumbled in the half-light.
"Poor meechin' body, wherever she come from," replied Mrs. Trimble, as
she knocked at the door.
There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of
the Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a
small, low room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and
cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women
who stood there looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look
of apprehension, and the room itself was more bare and plain than was
fitting to their evident refinement of character and self-respect.
There was an uncovered small table in the middle of the floor, with
some crackers on a plate; and, for some reason or other, this added a
great deal to the general desolation.
But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.
The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she
was laughing and crying together. "Oh, sister!" she said, "if here
ain't our dear Mis' Trimble!--an' my heart o' goodness, 'tis 'Becca
Wright, too! What dear good creatur's you be! I've felt all day as if
something good was goin' to happen, an' was just sayin' to myself
'twas most sundown now, but I wouldn't let on to Mandany I'd give up
hope quite yet. You see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very
mornin' an' it's always a reliable sign. There, I've got to kiss ye
both again!"
"I don't know where we can all set," lamented sister Mandana. "There
ain't but the one chair an' the bed; t'other chair's too rickety; an'
we've been promised another these ten days; but first they've forgot
it, an' next Mis' Janes can't spare it,--one excuse an' another. I am
goin' to git a stump o' wood an' nail a board on to it, when I can git
outdoor again," said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. "There, I ain't
goin' to complain o' nothin', now you've come," she added; and the
guests sat down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.
"We've sat on the bed many's the time with you, 'Becca, an' talked
over our girl nonsense, ain't we? You know where 'twas--in the little
back bedroom we had when we was girls, an' used to peek out at our
beaux through the strings o' mornin'-glories," laughed Ann Bray
delightedly, her thin face shining more and more with joy. "I brought
some o' them mornin'-glory seeds along when we come away, we'd raised
'em so many years; an' we got 'em started all right, but the hens
found 'em out. I declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as 'twas;
but the mornin'-glories I'd counted on a sight to remind me o' home.
You see, our debts was so large, after my long sickness an' all, that
we didn't feel 'twas right to keep back anything we could help from
the auction."
It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the
sisters felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for
the first time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that
neat little village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and
this cold, unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was
an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of
Hampden could provide no better for its poor than this, and her round
face flushed with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility.
"The girls shall be well settled in the village before another winter,
if I pay their board myself," she made an inward resolution, and took
another almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed,
and the sisters' one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting
But the poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it was
so much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had
evidently been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they
had not been to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.
"Now, don't you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!" begged little old
Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon
playing that life was still all before them and all pleasure. "Don't
you go to spoilin' their visit with our complaints! They know well's
we do that changes must come, an' we'd been so wonted to our home
things that this come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I know
just as well's can be. 'Twill soon be summer again, an' 'tis real
pleasant right out in the fields here, when there ain't too hot a
spell. I've got to know a sight o' singin' birds since we come."
"Give me the folks I've always known," sighed the younger sister, who
looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. "You may have your
birds, if you want 'em. I do re'lly long to go to meetin' an' see
folks go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you
say. We need, each of us, a pair o' good stout shoes an'
rubbers,--ours are all wore out; an' we've asked an' asked, an' they
never think to bring 'em, an'"--
Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
Trimble's mind that it was not the first time one had wept and the
other had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many times
in that long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in her
mind as fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning little boy, the next one to the
baby, did you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and
going cheerfully on with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy, dear;
they'll think you're childish! He's a dear, friendly little creatur',
an' likes to stay with us a good deal, though we feel's if it 't was
too cold for him, now we are waitin' to get us more wood."
"When I think of the acres o' woodland in this town!" groaned Rebecca
Wright. "I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday, 'stead o' the
minister, an' I'll make the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' an' I've come to
believe it."
"Now, don't you, 'Becca. You've happened on a kind of a poor time with
us, but we've got more belongings than you see here, an' a good large
cluset, where we can store those things there ain't room to have
about. You an' Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you
know. Soon's I git me some stout shoes an' rubbers, as Mandy says, I
can fetch home plenty o' little dry boughs o' pine; you remember I was
always a great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a
front room, so 't we could look out on the road an' see passin', an'
was shod for meetin', I don' know's we should complain. Now we're just
goin' to give you what we've got, an' make out with a good welcome. We
make more tea 'n we want in the mornin', an' then let the fire go
down, since 't has been so mild. We've got a _good_ cluset"
(disappearing as she spoke), "an' I know this to be good tea, 'cause
it's some o' yourn, Mis' Trimble. An' here's our sprigged chiny cups
that R'becca knows by sight, if Mis' Trimble don't. We kep' out four
of 'em, an' put the even half dozen with the rest of the auction
stuff. I've often wondered who'd got 'em, but I never asked, for fear
't would be somebody that would distress us. They was mother's, you
know."
The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed,
where Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and
joined her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted
about the room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of the
closet, as if she still had much to do; then she came and stood
opposite Mrs. Trimble. She was very short and small, and there was no
painful sense of her being obliged to stand. The four cups were not
quite full of cold tea, but there was a clean old tablecloth folded
double, and a plate with three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a
small--it must be owned, a very small--piece of hard white cheese.
Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was a little preserved
peach, the last--Miss Rebecca knew it instinctively--of the household
stores brought from their old home. It was very sugary, this bit of
peach; and as she helped her guests and sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray
said, half unconsciously, as she often had said with less reason in
the old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as usual this year; this is
beginning to candy." Both the guests protested, while Rebecca added
that the taste of it carried her back, and made her feel young again.
The Brays had always managed to keep one or two peach-trees alive in
their corner of a garden. "I've been keeping this preserve for a
treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have you eat some, 'Becca. Last
summer I often wished you was home an' could come an' see us, 'stead
o' being away off to Plainfields."
The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the
peach on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small
spoonful, after the others were helped, but she asked them first if
they would not have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the
silence a wave of tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four
elderly women. At this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain
room with light; the unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and Ann
Bray, with her gray hair and aged face, stood at the head of the table
in a kind of aureole. Mrs. Trimble's face was all aquiver as she
looked at her; she thought of the text about two or three being
gathered together, and was half afraid.
"I believe we ought to've asked Mis' Janes if she wouldn't come up,"
said Ann. "She's real good feelin', but she's had it very hard, an'
gits discouraged. I can't find that she's ever had anything real
pleasant to look back to, as we have. There, next time we'll make a
good heartenin' time for her too."
The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail, and
the cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The two
friends jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the
stiffening mud, and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said a
word until they were out of sight as well as out of sound of the Janes
house. Time must elapse before they could reach a more familiar part
of the road and resume conversation on its natural level.
"I consider myself to blame," insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. "I
haven't no words of accusation for nobody else, an' I ain't one to
take comfort in calling names to the board o' selec'_men_. I make no
reproaches, an' I take it all on my own shoulders; but I'm goin' to
stir about me, I tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They're
goin' back to their own house,--it's been standin' empty all
winter,--an' the town's goin' to give 'em the rent an' what firewood
they need; it won't come to more than the board's payin' out now. An'
you an' me'll take this same horse an' wagon, an' ride an' go afoot by
turns, an' git means enough together to buy back their furniture an'
whatever was sold at that plaguey auction; an' then we'll put it all
back, an' tell 'em they've got to move to a new place, an' just carry
'em right back again where they come from. An' don't you never tell,
R'becca, but here I be a widow woman, layin' up what I make from my
farm for nobody knows who, an' I'm goin' to do for them Bray girls
all I'm a mind to. I should be sca't to wake up in heaven, an' hear
anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don't talk to me about the
town o' Hampden, an' don't ever let me hear the name o' town poor! I'm
ashamed to go home an' see what's set out for supper. I wish I'd
brought 'em right along."
"I was goin' to ask if we couldn't git the new doctor to go up an' do
somethin' for poor Ann's arm," said Miss Rebecca. "They say he's very
smart. If she could get so's to braid straw or hook rugs again, she'd
soon be earnin' a little somethin'. An' may be he could do somethin'
for Mandy's eyes. They did use to live so neat an' ladylike. Somehow I
couldn't speak to tell 'em there that 'twas I bought them six best
cups an' saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as
everything else did, an' I thought I could save it some other way.
They shall have 'em back an' welcome. You're real whole-hearted, Mis'
Trimble. I expect Ann'll be sayin' that her father's child'n wa'n't
goin' to be left desolate, an' that all the bread he cast on the
water's comin' back through you."
"I don't care what she says, dear creatur'!" exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
"I'm full o' regrets I took time for that installation, an' set there
seepin' in a lot o' talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
bringin' us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart 't was to-morrow
mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin' for the selec'_men_."
* * * * *
A Native of Winby
I.
On the teacher's desk, in the little roadside school-house, there was
a bunch of Mayflowers, beside a dented and bent brass bell, a small
Worcester's Dictionary without any cover, and a worn morocco-covered
Bible. These were placed in an orderly row, and behind them was a
small wooden box which held some broken pieces of blackboard crayon.
The teacher, whom no timid new scholar could look at boldly, wore her
accustomed air of authority and importance. She might have been
nineteen years old,--not more,--but for the time being she scorned the
frivolities of youth.
The hot May sun was shining in at the smoky small-paned windows;
sometimes an outside shutter swung to with a creak, and eclipsed the
glare. The narrow door stood wide open, to the left as you faced the
desk, and an old spotted dog lay asleep on the step, and looked wise
and old enough to have gone to school with several generations of
children. It was half past three o'clock in the afternoon, and the
primer class, settled into the apathy of after-recess fatigue,
presented a straggling front, as they stood listlessly on the floor.
As for the big boys and girls, they also were longing to be at
liberty, but the pretty teacher, Miss Marilla Hender, seemed quite as
energetic as when school was begun in the morning.
The spring breeze blew in at the open door, and even fluttered the
primer leaves, but the back of the room felt hot and close, as if it
were midsummer. The children in the class read their lessons in those
high-keyed, droning voices which older teachers learn to associate
with faint powers of perception. Only one or two of them had an
awakened human look in their eyes, such as Matthew Arnold delighted
himself in finding so often in the school-children of France. Most of
these poor little students were as inadequate, at that weary moment,
to the pursuit of letters as if they had been woolly spring lambs on a
sunny hillside. The teacher corrected and admonished with great
patience, glancing now and then toward points of danger and
insurrection, whence came a suspicious buzz of whispering from behind
a desk-lid or a pair of widespread large geographies. Now and then a
toiling child would rise and come down the aisle, with his forefinger
firm upon a puzzling word as if it were an unclassified insect. It was
a lovely beckoning day out-of-doors. The children felt like captives;
there was something that provoked rebellion in the droning voices, the
buzzing of an early wild bee against the sunlit pane, and even in the
stuffy familiar odor of the place,--the odor of apples and crumbs of
doughnuts and gingerbread in the dinner pails on the high entry nails,
and of all the little gowns and trousers that had brushed through
junipers and young pines on their way to school.
The bee left his prisoning pane at last, and came over to the
Mayflowers, which were in full bloom, although the season was very
late, and deep in the woods there were still some graybacked
snowdrifts, speckled with bits of bark and moss from the trees above.
"Come, come, Ezra!" urged the young teacher, rapping her desk sharply.
"Stop watchin' that common bee! You know well enough what those
letters spell. You won't learn to read at this rate until you are a
grown man. Mind your book, now; you ought to remember who went to this
school when he was a little boy. You've heard folks tell about the
Honorable Joseph K. Laneway? He used to be in primer just as you are
now, and 't wasn't long before he was out of it, either, and was
called the smartest boy in school. He's got to be a general and a
Senator, and one of the richest men out West. You don't seem to have
the least mite of ambition to-day, any of you!"
The exhortation, entirely personal in the beginning, had swiftly
passed to a general rebuke. Ezra looked relieved, and the other
children brightened up as they recognized a tale familiar to their
ears. Anything was better than trying to study in that dull last hour
of afternoon school.
"Yes," continued Miss Hender, pleased that she had at last roused
something like proper attention, "you all ought to be proud that you
are schoolmates of District Number Four, and can remember that the
celebrated General Laneway had the same early advantages as you, and
think what he has made of himself by perseverance and ambition."
The pupils were familiar enough with the illustrious history of their
noble predecessor. They were sure to be told, in lawless moments, that
if Mr. Laneway were to come in and see them he would be mortified to
death; and the members of the school committee always referred to him,
and said that he had been a poor boy, and was now a self-made
man,--as if every man were not self-made as to his character and
reputation!
At this point, young Johnny Spencer showed his next neighbor, in the
back of his Colburn's Arithmetic, an imaginary portrait of their
district hero, which caused them both to chuckle derisively. The
Honorable Mr. Laneway figured on the flyleaf as an extremely
cross-eyed person, with strangely crooked legs and arms and a terrific
expression. He was outlined with red and blue pencils as to coat and
trousers, and held a reddened scalp in one hand and a blue tomahawk in
the other; being closely associated in the artist's mind with the
early settlements of the far West.
There was a noise of wheels in the road near by, and, though Miss
Hender had much more to say, everybody ceased to listen to her, and
turned toward the windows, leaning far forward over their desks to see
who might be passing. They caught a glimpse of a shiny carriage; the
old dog bounded out, barking, but nothing passed the open door. The
carriage had stopped; some one was coming to the school; somebody was
going to be called out! It could not be the committee, whose pompous
and uninspiring spring visit had taken place only the week before.
Presently a well-dressed elderly man, with an expectant, masterful
look, stood on the doorstep, glanced in with a smile, and knocked.
Miss Marilla Hender blushed, smoothed her pretty hair anxiously with
both hands, and stepped down from her little platform to answer the
summons. There was hardly a shut mouth in the primer class.
"Would it be convenient for you to receive a visitor to the school?"
the stranger asked politely, with a fine bow of deference to Miss
Hender. He looked much pleased and a little excited, and the teacher
said,--
"Certainly; step right in, won't you, sir?" in quite another tone from
that in which she had just addressed the school.
The boys and girls were sitting straight and silent in their places,
in something like a fit of apprehension and unpreparedness at such a
great emergency. The guest represented a type of person previously
unknown in District Number Four. Everything about him spoke of wealth
and authority. The old dog returned to the doorstep, and after a
careful look at the invader approached him, with a funny doggish grin
and a desperate wag of the tail, to beg for recognition.
The teacher gave her chair on the platform to the guest, and stood
beside him with very red cheeks, smoothing her hair again once or
twice, and keeping the hard-wood ruler fast in hand, like a badge of
office. "Primer class may now retire!" she said firmly, although the
lesson was not more than half through; and the class promptly escaped
to their seats, waddling and stumbling, until they all came up behind
their desks, face foremost, and added themselves to the number of
staring young countenances. After this there was a silence, which grew
more and more embarrassing.
"Perhaps you would be pleased to hear our first class in geography,
sir?" asked the fair Marilla, recovering her presence of mind; and the
guest kindly assented.
The young teacher was by no means willing to give up a certainty for
an uncertainty. Yesterday's lesson had been well learned; she turned
back to the questions about the State of Kansota, and at the first
sentence the mysterious visitor's dignity melted into an unconscious
smile. He listened intently for a minute, and then seemed to reoccupy
himself with his own thoughts and purposes, looking eagerly about the
old school-house, and sometimes gazing steadily at the children. The
lesson went on finely, and when it was finished Miss Hender asked the
girl at the head of the class to name the States and Territories,
which she instantly did, mispronouncing nearly all the names of the
latter; then others stated boundaries and capitals, and the resources
of the New England States, passing on finally to the names of the
Presidents. Miss Hender glowed with pride; she had worked hard over
the geography class in the winter term, and it did not fail her on
this great occasion. When she turned bravely to see if the gentleman
would like to ask any questions, she found that he was apparently
lost in a deep reverie, so she repeated her own question more
distinctly.
"They have done very well,--very well indeed," he answered kindly; and
then, to every one's surprise, he rose, went up the aisle, pushed
Johnny Spencer gently along his bench, and sat down beside him. The
space was cramped, and the stranger looked huge and uncomfortable, so
that everybody laughed, except one of the big girls, who turned pale
with fright, and thought he must be crazy. When this girl gave a faint
squeak Miss Hender recovered herself, and rapped twice with the ruler
to restore order; then became entirely tranquil. There had been talk
of replacing the hacked and worn old school-desks with patent desks
and chairs; this was probably an agent connected with that business.
At once she was resolute and self-reliant, and said, "No whispering!"
in a firm tone that showed she did not mean to be trifled with. The
geography class was dismissed, but the elderly gentleman, in his
handsome overcoat, still sat there wedged in at Johnny Spencer's side.
"I presume, sir, that you are canvassing for new desks," said Miss
Hender, with dignity. "You will have to see the supervisor and the
selectmen." There did not seem to be any need of his lingering, but
she had an ardent desire to be pleasing to a person of such evident
distinction. "We always tell strangers--I thought, sir, you might be
gratified to know--that this is the school-house where the Honorable
Joseph K. Laneway first attended school. All do not know that he was
born in this town, and went West very young; it is only about a mile
from here where his folks used to live."
At this moment the visitor's eyes fell. He did not look at pretty
Marilla any more, but opened Johnny Spencer's arithmetic, and, seeing
the imaginary portrait of the great General Laneway, laughed a
little,--a very deep-down comfortable laugh it was,--while Johnny
himself turned cold with alarm, he could not have told why.
It was very still in the school-room; the bee was buzzing and bumping
at the pane again; the moment was one of intense expectation.
The stranger looked at the children right and left. "The fact is
this, young people," said he, in a tone that was half pride and half
apology, "I am Joseph K. Laneway myself."