AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY
The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely
shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of
cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old
hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows,
their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned
to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the
evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian
summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave
on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue
of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look
dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern
landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such
tenderness to Italian scenery.
The funeral was over; the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden
of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back
again,--each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went
his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks
of Life.
The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock,
tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was
there that sense of a stillness that can be felt,--such as settles down
on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for
the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was
shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a
little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,--for except on solemn
visits, or prayer meetings, or weddings, or funerals, that room formed
no part of the daily family scenery.
The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide
stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned
splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy
whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the
"Missionary Herald" and the "Weekly Christian Mirror," before named,
formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be
forgotten,--a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah
through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly
it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that
which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and,
indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,--when a
woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was
run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage
a family of orphans,--in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest
was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large
heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver
dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have
been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to
Captain Pennel's sea-chest.
The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through the open
kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might look far out to sea,
and behold ships coming and going in every variety of shape and size.
But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present were sole occupants of
the premises, were not people of the dreamy kind, and consequently were
not gazing off to sea, but attending to very terrestrial matters that in
all cases somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and balmy, but
a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great chimney, and thrust deep
into the embers was a mongrel species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed
strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy
was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting
it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur.
Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something in long white
clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new
flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged,
constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of
her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never
thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and
mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other
disturbers of the nursery; and never was infant known so pressed with
those internal troubles which infants cry about, as not speedily to give
over and sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.
At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of black crape
strewed on two chairs about her, very busily employed in getting up a
mourning-bonnet, at which she snipped, and clipped, and worked,
zealously singing, in a high cracked voice, from time to time, certain
verses of a funeral psalm.
Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old bodies of the
feminine gender and singular number, well known in all the region of
Harpswell Neck and Middle Bay, and such was their fame that it had even
reached the town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away.
They were of that class of females who might be denominated, in the Old
Testament language, "cunning women,"--that is, gifted with an infinite
diversity of practical "faculty," which made them an essential
requisite in every family for miles and miles around. It was impossible
to say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and make shirts
and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw,
and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could
upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default
of a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be infallible
medical oracles. Many a human being had been ushered into life under
their auspices,--trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their knees, clothed
by their handiwork in garments gradually enlarging from year to year,
watched by them in the last sickness, and finally arrayed for the long
repose by their hands.
These universally useful persons receive among us the title of "aunt" by
a sort of general consent, showing the strong ties of relationship which
bind them to the whole human family. They are nobody's aunts in
particular, but aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting
their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole
community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing
as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country
factotum knows better than anybody else how absurd it would be
"To give to a part what was meant for mankind."
Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters. In that cold,
clear, severe climate of the North, the roots of human existence are
hard to strike; but, if once people do take to living, they come in time
to a place where they seem never to grow any older, but can always be
found, like last year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy,
warranted to last for any length of time.
Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall, thin,
angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair once black, but now well
streaked with gray. These ravages of time, however, were concealed by an
ample mohair frisette of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap
of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a
bristling and decisive way. In all her movements and personal habits,
even to her tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was
vigorous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was made up, and
she spoke generally as one having authority; and who should, if she
should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in all the most
awful straits and mysteries of life? How many births, and weddings, and
deaths had come and gone under her jurisdiction! And amid weeping or
rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,--consulted,
referred to by all?--was not her word law and precedent? Her younger
sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cozy, easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump
and cushiony, revolved around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy
looked on Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under her
ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white with the
same snow that had powdered that of her sister. Aunt Ruey had a face
much resembling the kind of one you may see, reader, by looking at
yourself in the convex side of a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the
experiment, this description will need no further amplification.
The two almost always went together, for the variety of talent comprised
in their stock could always find employment in the varying wants of a
family. While one nursed the sick, the other made clothes for the well;
and thus they were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a
pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless gossips, and
moralizing in that gentle jogtrot which befits serious old women. In
fact, they had talked over everything in Nature, and said everything
they could think of to each other so often, that the opinions of one
were as like those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often
happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two were in all
respects exactly alike, but because the stronger one had mesmerized the
weaker into consent.
Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the great coining
machine of a mint, came down with her own sharp, heavy stamp on every
opinion her sister put out. She was matter-of-fact, positive, and
declarative to the highest degree, while her sister was naturally
inclined to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in
sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case,
which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in
her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a
droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed
to have a sharp crystallization of truth,--frosty though it were. She
was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and
lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will; and if
we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of a cold bath, we
confess to an invigorating power in them after all.
"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to the tea-pot,
which buried it yet deeper in the embers, "ain't it all a strange kind
o' providence that this 'ere little thing is left behind so; and then
their callin' on her by such a strange, mournful kind of name,--Mara. I
thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read the passage
from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it Maria, or I'd
put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, wouldn't sound so strange."
"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and that ought to be
enough for us."
"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there was Miss Jones down on
Mure P'int called her twins Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser,--Scriptur'
names both, but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and
Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'."
"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused her plump
proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, "'tain't much matter, after
all, _what_ they call the little thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's
goin' to live,--cried and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek
and my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that won't get
along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's a-goin' to do with it when
we is gone, I'm sure I don't know. It comes kind o' hard on old people
to be broke o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity,
as I said, it didn't go with its mother"--
"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt Roxy. "Now when
Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what she was going to do with Naomi's
clothes, I couldn't help wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for
the child."
"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey. "Nothin' was
never too much for her. I don't believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to
Bath or Portland without havin' it in his mind to bring Naomi
somethin'."
"Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on," said Miss Roxy, with
a decisive shake of the head. "Naomi was a still girl, but her faculty
was uncommon; and I tell you, Ruey, 'tain't everybody hes faculty as hes
things."
"The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, "he seemed greatly supported at the
funeral, but he's dreadful broke down since. I went into Naomi's room
this morning, and there the old man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had
a pair of her shoes in his hand,--you know what a leetle bit of a foot
she had. I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old
man did!"
"Well," said Miss Roxy, "she was a master-hand for keepin' things,
Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight; she's got all the little
presents and things they ever give her since she was a baby, in one
drawer. There's a little pair of red shoes there that she had when she
wa'n't more'n five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'em
over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' Mis' Pennel's
figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty. You 'member they cost
just five and sixpence; but, law! the Cap'n he never grudged the money
when 'twas for Naomi. And so she's got all her husband's keepsakes and
things just as nice as when he give 'em to her."
"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the while help
a-thinkin' of the Psalm,--
"'So fades the lovely blooming flower,--
Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
So quick our transient comforts fly,
And pleasure only blooms to die.'"
"Yes," said Miss Roxy; "and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin' whether or no it
wa'n't best to pack away them things, 'cause Naomi hadn't fixed no baby
drawers, and we seem to want some."
"I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning," said Ruey,
"but she can't seem to want to have 'em touched."
"Well, we may just as well come to such things first as last," said Aunt
Roxy; "'cause if the Lord takes our friends, he does take 'em; and we
can't lose 'em and have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at
first, and done with it, that they are gone, and we've got to do without
'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just as they was."
"So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel," said Miss Ruey, "but she'll come to it
by and by. I wish the baby might live, and kind o' grow up into her
mother's place."
"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I wish it might, but there'd be a sight o'
trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well with children when
they're young and spry, if they do get 'em up nights; but come to
grandchildren, it's pretty tough."
"I'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her spectacles and
rubbing her nose thoughtfully, "whether or no cow's milk ain't goin' to
be too hearty for it, it's such a pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis'
Badger she brought up a seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it
nothin' but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve
nicely,--and the seed is good for wind."
"Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said Miss Roxy, "I
don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's ordinances for bringing up
babies that's lost their mothers; it stands to reason they should
be,--and babies that can't eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but
babies can eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it
won't live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little back of the
party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound in a wholesome
conviction at the outset.
"I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black crape, and looking
through it from end to end so as to test its capabilities, "I hope the
Cap'n and Mis' Pennel'll get some support at the prayer-meetin' this
afternoon."
"It's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with decision.
"Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out tryin' to
submit; and the more she said, 'Thy will be done,' the more she didn't
seem to feel it."
"Them's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These 'ere forty years
that I've been round nussin', and layin'-out, and tendin' funerals, I've
watched people's exercises. People's sometimes supported wonderfully
just at the time, and maybe at the funeral; but the three or four weeks
after, most everybody, if they's to say what they feel, is
unreconciled."
"The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey.
"No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss Roxy; "he's one
of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep; that kind don't cry; it's a
kind o' dry, deep pain; them's the worst to get over it,--sometimes they
just says nothin', and in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em
in consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she can cry and she can
talk,--well, she'll get over it; but _he_ won't get no support unless
the Lord reaches right down and lifts him up over the world. I've seen
that happen sometimes, and I tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful
Christians."
At that moment the old pair entered the door. Zephaniah Pennel came and
stood quietly by the pillow where the little form was laid, and lifted a
corner of the blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing the
soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly a morsel of
the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard for a few moments. At last
he said, with deep humility, to the wise and mighty woman who held her,
"I'll tell you what it is, Miss Roxy, I'll give all there is in my old
chest yonder if you'll only make her--live."