September's round moon waned; Indian summer was over. One morning in
October Miss Beal, the dressmaker, had taken her sewing to Mr.
Jeminy's, in order to spend the day with Mrs. Grumble. There, as she
sat rocking up and down in the kitchen, the fall wind brought to her
nose the odor of grapes ripening in the sun. The corn stood gathered
in the fields, and in the yellow barley stubble the grasshopper, old
and brown, leaped full of love upon his neighbor. Mrs. Grumble, beside
a pile of Mr. Jeminy's winter clothes, sorted, mended, and darned,
while the sun fell through the window, bright and hot across her
shoulders. She kept one eye on the oven where her biscuits were
baking, counted stitches, and listened to Miss Beal, who tilted
solemnly forward in her chair when she had anything to say, and moved
solemnly back again when it was over.
"Mrs. Stove," declared Miss Beal, leaning forward and looking up at
Mrs. Grumble, "won't have a new dress this year. Well, she's right,
material is dreadful to get. As I said to her: Mrs. Stove, your old
dress will do; just let me fix it up a little. No, she says, she'll
wear it as it is."
"Look at me," said Mrs. Grumble. "Here's an old rag. But I get along."
"Indeed you do," said Miss Beal. "Still," she added, speaking for
herself, "one has to live."
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Grumble airily.
"Goodness," exclaimed the dressmaker. "Gracious, Mrs. Grumble."
"I declare," avowed Mrs. Grumble, "what with things costing what they
do, and every one so mean, I'd die as glad as not, out of spite."
"I wouldn't want to die," said Miss Beal slowly. "It's too awful. I
want to stay alive, looking around."
"You're just as curious," said Mrs. Grumble. "Well, there, I'm not.
Men are a bad lot. You can't trust a one of them. Not for long."
"Yes," sighed Miss Beal, "there's a good deal I want to see. I'd like
to see Niagara Falls, Mrs. Grumble."
"Lor'," said Mrs. Grumble, "a lot of water."
"All coming down," said the dressmaker, "crashing and falling."
"I'd rather see a circus," declared Mrs. Grumble.
"Would you now?" asked Miss Beal, and her fingers ran in and out, in
and out, faster than ever, "would you, now? Well, then . . . there's a
fair at Milford this blessed afternoon."
"Would you go along?" asked Mrs. Grumble.
"Glory," said Miss Beal.
"I was going anyhow," said Mrs. Grumble.
Then Miss Beal began to giggle. "Well, I declare," she remarked, "I
feel that young."
"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble; "to hear you talk . . ." She was in the
best of humor.
"All the young folks will be there," said Miss Beal. "I heard as how
Alec Stove was going with Susie Ploughman. And there's Thomas
Frye . . . and Anna Barly . . ."
"Yes," said Mrs. Grumble.
Miss Beal held up her thread against the light. "There's a queer
thing," she admitted. "I can't make head nor tail of it. Do you think
there's an understanding between them, Mrs. Grumble?"
"If there is," said Mrs. Grumble, "then Thomas has more sense than I
gave him credit for. Because how any one could have an understanding
with that wild thing, is more than I can see."
"How she carries on," agreed Miss Beal, "first with Noel, when he was
alive, and now with him."
"Ah," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "those are the new ideas. She has her
head full of them. Only the other day, down to the store, I heard her
say to Mr. Frye: 'It's the old who are always getting the young into
trouble.'"
"Just think of that," said Miss Beal.
"To my way of thinking," continued Mrs. Grumble, "the shoe is on the
other foot. What with the young folks growing up so wild, we must all
be as busy as thieves to keep what belongs to us."
"And what belongs to us, Mrs. Grumble?" asked the dressmaker, lifting
from her lap a dress designed for Mrs. Sneath, the butcher's wife.
"No more than what we can get," replied Mrs. Grumble, with a shake of
her head. "And that's little enough."
"Then," said Miss Beal, "what do you think Anna Barly meant by saying
'twas the old had got her into trouble?"
"Why, bless your soul," said Mrs. Grumble.
Miss Beal, from the front of her chair, regarded her friend with round
and serious eyes. "I don't rightly know, Mrs. Grumble," she said, "but
I came on her yesterday, and I declare if she hadn't been crying. Last
night I dreamed old Mrs. Tomkins died. And you know, Mrs. Grumble,
dream of the dead . . ."
"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble.
"Mind," quoth Miss Beal, "I don't mean to say there's anything as
shouldn't be. Still, nothing would surprise me."
"There's no use talking," cried Mrs. Grumble, "because I don't believe
a word of it." But she felt it her duty to add: "For all I never saw
Anna look so poorly."
"A touch of influenza," answered Miss Beal, "so Sara Barly says. Lord
save us: a big healthy girl like Anna."
"It's the healthy ones who get it," said Mrs. Grumble with a sigh.
"God moves in a mysterious way."
"His wonders to perform."
Mrs. Grumble arose and placed a kettle of water on the stove. "We'll
have some tea," she said, "and I'll cook you some fritters. Jeminy is
out. Then we'll go to the fair."
"Glory," said Miss Beal.
After lunch the two women put on their bonnets and went to take their
seats in the Milford stage. As the wagon set out, creaking and
crowded, everyone began to talk; and so, with cheeks reddened by the
wind, rolled, still talking, into Milford.
The fair grounds were in a meadow, bounded on one side by a stream,
and, beyond it, a wood already brown and blue with cold. Over the dead
grass the bright colors of the fair shone in the sun; one could hear
the music and the voices almost a mile away. On the other side of the
field rose a gentle slope covered with goldenrod and white and purple
blooms in which the bees and wasps were still busy. There, above the
crowd of men and women, the happy insects were bringing to a close
their own bazaar, begun amid the showers of early spring. Here was the
bee, with his milch-cow, the ant with her souvenir, and the mild
cricket, amused like Miss Beal by everything. Here, also, the wealthy
spider, slung upon her twig, waited in patience for the homeless fly.
And as, in comfort, she fed upon his juices, she exclaimed: "The right
to fasten my web to this twig is a serious matter. For without me the
fly would be wasted, and would not obtain a proper burial."
"I am very comfortable here," she added, "and I believe I have a right
to this place, which, but for me, would be only a twig, and of no use
to anybody."
Below, in the meadow, our two friends went arm in arm about the fair
grounds; Miss Beal bought, as her first purchase, a spool of ribbon;
and Mrs. Grumble had her fortune told. They rode on the carousel, all
the while thinking: "This is really too silly." As Mrs. Grumble
climbed down from her wooden horse, she said to herself: "I'm having as
good a time as that little girl with the pigtails, who is going around
for the fifth time."
If they turned west, their eyes were filled with the afternoon sun;
when they looked east, they saw the maples, yellow and green, against
the farther woods, the autumn sky, swept by its bright winds. All
about them men and women rejoiced in the sunshine, told each other it
was a fine day, and looked for some cause of dispute.
"The races are going to begin," said Mrs. Grumble, and taking her
friend by the arm, made her way toward the track, where she could see
the horses going gravely up and down. "There is a good one," she said;
"see how he jumps about."
The drivers wheeled into line, and sped away with a rush; the band
played and the spectators shouted.
"Oh, my," said Miss Beal, "look there." And she pointed to where Mr.
Jeminy, close to the fence, was dancing up and down, waving his hat in
the air. "Why, the old fool," said Mrs. Grumble.
"At his age," echoed Miss Beal.
But it did not amuse Mrs. Grumble to hear anyone else find fault with
Mr. Jeminy. "He's enjoying himself," she said. "I don't know as how
we've any call to make remarks."
"I only said 'at his age,'" replied Miss Beal hastily. But when she
thought it over, it occurred to her that she was right, and Mrs.
Grumble was wrong. Without courage on her own account, she was able to
defend with energy the general opinion. "I said 'at his age,'" she
repeated more firmly.
Mrs. Grumble folded her hands, and assumed a forbidding expression. "I
expect," she said, "that Mr. Jeminy is old enough to do as he pleases."
"Maybe he is," answered the dressmaker, nettled by her friend's tone,
"maybe he is. And maybe there's others old enough to know what's right
in a man of his years, Mrs. Grumble."
"At any rate," remarked Mrs. Grumble, "it's not for you to say."
"It's not alone me is saying it," replied Miss Beal. "What's more,"
she added, "for all I don't like to repeat this to you, Mrs. Grumble,
there's many think Mr. Jeminy is too old to teach school any longer.
There's some would like to see a young woman at the schoolhouse."
"Oh," said Mrs. Grumble.
Miss Beal laid her hand on her friend's arm in a gesture at once
triumphant and consoling. "Never you mind," she said; "trouble comes
to all."
Mr. Jeminy went home from the fair with a light heart. He started
early, because he liked to walk; and he carried in his hand a bit of
lace for Mrs. Grumble. As he went down the road, beneath the turning
leaves, and through the shadows cast by the descending sun, he began to
sing, out of the fullness of his heart, the following song:
The Lord of all things,
With liberalitee,
Maketh the small birds,
To sing on every tree.
The Lord of all things,
He maketh also me;
Giveth me no wings,
Giveth me no words.
When Mr. Jeminy had sung as much as he liked, he went on to say: "In
autumn the birds go south by easy stages; to-day their songs are
departed from these woods, where there is none left but the catbird, to
creak upon the bough. Soon snow will cover the earth, in which nothing
is growing. But you, happy song birds, will build your nests far away,
in green and windy trees, and your quarrels will fill distant valleys
with music."
When Mr. Jeminy was nearly home he looked behind him and saw Thomas
Frye and Anna Barly returning from the fair. He drew aside to let them
pass, and with the sun shining in his eyes, he thought to himself,
"Only the young are happy to-day."