MR. AND MRS. DALTON.
“You see, ’twas this way, and it happened nigh on to eighty or a hundred
years ago. This tarvern wasn’t built then. T’other one that was burnt
stood further up the street and was kep’ by—I can’t think of his name,
but he was one of Dot’s ancestors. Beats all what a lot she has, and
what a sight she thinks of ’em. Got ’em all in a book, somewhere; the
one in the portrait who helped throw over the tea,—and the one who
pushed the carts of hemp against the garrison. I’ve turned him wrong
side up, I guess, but you know who I mean. She has him, door latch and
all,—and the one who kep’ the tarvern when Mr. Dalton,—Mark’s
great-grandfather,—brought his bride to town. She was handsome as a
picter, they say,—with yaller curls down her back and blue eyes which
looked as innocent as a baby’s. She was proud as Lucifer; wasn’t willin’
to associate with any but the high bloods; walked as if the ground
wasn’t good enough for her to step on with her little morocco shoes.
Dressed up in the mornin’ as much as some do in the afternoon. But then
she’d nothin’ to do, for she had a hired girl, Mari, who waited on her
as if she was a queen. Had a pianner,—the fust there was in town, and
folks used to go up the lane and set on the wall to hear her play Money
Musk and Irish Washwoman and Bonaparte’s March, and some new things they
didn’t like so well.
“Mr. Dalton was a first-rate man, fine looking and a perfect gentleman.
Mark must be like him, and mebby that’s where your hereditary comes in.
Everybody liked Mr. Dalton, and he had a kind word for everybody. He was
rich for them days, and had some interest in the stages that run between
Boston and Albany. The railroad wasn’t here then. ’Twas all stages,
three a day each way, and they stopped at the tarvern to change horses.
Them was lively times, and Dot’s ancestor made money hand over fist. Mr.
Dalton paternized him a good deal. He used to go off in the stages
sometimes and be gone a few days, but when he was to home he had nothin’
to do and sat on the tarvern piazza a sight talkin’ sociable with Dot’s
ancestor, smokin’ and takin’ a drink now and then and treatin’ the other
fellers. Everybody took a drink them days. W. C. T. U. wasn’t born.
Dot’s one of ’em,—true blue, too. Don’t keep it in her cupboard for
little private nips and then go a crusadin’ as some of ’em do. She hates
it like p’isen, and if Johnny had lived she’d had him sign the pledge
before he could walk. She’d no more let me sell toddy than she’d put her
head in the oven. She’s right, too. I shouldn’t of backslid the last
time if I hadn’t took some black strap and molasses for a cold. I like
the stuff, and only Dot and the thought of little Johnny keeps me from
drinkin’. But to return to my story.
“I guess you’ll think I’m goin’ ’round Robin Hood’s barn to git to it.
Mr. Dalton worshipped his wife, and she ’peared to worship him, till
there come up from Boston a dark complected man, a friend of the
Dalton’s,—St. John, they called him, and he was there half the time
talkin’ to Miss Dalton and playin’ the flute while she banged the
pianner. The rest of the time he sat on the piazza at the tavern
smokin’, takin’ drinks oftener than Mr. Dalton, but never treatin’
nobody. Mr. Dalton thought a sight of him. They was college
chums,—Harvard, I b’lieve,—and when he went off on the stage he’d ask
him to sleep in his house and see to Miss Dalton, who was timid,—the
more fool he. And he did see to Miss Dalton, and drove with her and
walked with her clear up to North Ridgefield, and didn’t get back till
after dark. Folks began to talk and the women pumped Mari, who wouldn’t
say nothin’, she was so bound up in Miss Dalton.
“After a spell another feller appeared, St. John’s vally they called
him, and he brushed his clothes and blacked his boots, and walked behind
him in the street, and went a good deal to the Dalton’s,—sparkin’ Mari,
folks said, and I guess that was so. Wall, after a spell another chap
appeared,—brother to the vally, they pretended. He didn’t go to the
Dalton’s, but sat on the piazza and smoked and drank and swore about big
bugs ridin’ over the poor, and was an ugly lookin’ cuss generally. Mr.
Dalton was real good to him,—gave him money once or twice and tried to
git him work. But he didn’t want to work. It warn’t that he’d come for.
“Wall, as I was sayin’, things went on this way with St. John and his
vally and his vally’s brother comin’ and goin’, till folks was talkin’
pretty loud and sayin’ Dalton or’to be told, and finally Dot’s
ancestor,—the one who kep’ the tavern,—up and told Mr. Dalton careful
like what folks was surmisin’, and hinted that St. John shouldn’t go
there so much. Mr. Dalton threw back his head and laughed the way Mark
has when he don’t believe a thing.
“St. John was his best friend; he’d known him since he was a boy, he
said, and his wife was a second pen—penny—something——”
“Penelope,” Craig suggested.
“I b’lieve that’s the name; sounds like it, though who she was I don’t
know,” Uncle Zacheus replied, and continued: “The next day what did Mr.
Dalton do but go to Worcester in the stage and buy her a silk gown that
would stan’ alone, and a string of gold beads. Dot’s ancestor’s wife’s
sister, or aunt, I don’t remember which, made the gown, and Miss Dalton
wore it and the beads and a new bunnet to meetin’ the next Sunday,
lockin’ arms with her husband all the way, and lookin’ up in his face
lovin’ like with her great pretty blue eyes which had something queer in
’em, rollin’ round as if watchin’ for somethin’. I’ll be dumbed if Mark
hain’t the same trick with his eyes, and that’s all the hereditary he
has from that jade. She’d heard what folks was sayin’, but was jest as
sweet and innocent as a lamb, and sent some flowers to Dot’s ancestor’s
wife, who had said the most about her.
“Wall, I don’t git on very fast, do I? but, as I was sayin’, time went
on, and it was summer again, and folks had kinder forgot. St. John
wa’n’t in town, nor hadn’t been that anybody knew, unless it was Mari,
who kep’ a close mouth. The vally wasn’t in town, nor the vally’s
brother,—no more his brother than you are. That came out on the trial.
“Wall, there was an awful thunder shower one night,—struck the Unitarian
Church and knocked the steeple into splinters, and rained till the
gutters run like a river, and you could almost go in a boat the street
was so full of water. Mr. Dalton was at the tarvern when the storm came
up, and waited for it to stop. It was dark as pitch, and they tried
their best not to have him go home. But go he would. His wife would be
anxious and not sleep a wink, he said, and about eleven o’clock, when it
had nearly stopped raining, he started with a lantern, and that was the
last he was ever seen alive.
“I’m gettin’ to the p’int, and I shall have to take a turn or two more,
for it is very affectin’ as you go on.”
He took a turn or two, and returned to his chair, saying, “I guess now I
can stan’ it to tell you the rest.”